Rosie's 4-Year Checkup

At Rosie's 4-year checkup, she weighed in at 38 pounds and is 40.5 inches tall. She was on the scale by herself, which is pretty normal, but since we were at the doctor's office, she made it traumatic by reaching for me and crying.

The doctor was impressed by her vocabulary and her balancing skills and was able to take her blood pressure (94 over 58) and tested her vision (20/30). She started the hearing test, but halfway through was done with the whole appointment and we didn't get a good reading.

She likes yoga and gymnastics at school, and I'm planning to get her into a dance class as soon as possible!

Xmas Joi de Vivre!

Despite having an ear infection, throat infection and possible RSV, Dash was awfully perky over our holiday weekend. Before bedtime on Friday, his temp was 103.5, so I got him in to see his doctor first thing on Saturday. We met one of his classmates, Lizzy (see the cutie in #11), in the waiting room with _*surprise*_ RSV symptoms, too! We visited Lisa, my sis-in-law, that morning, but cancelled our plans with friends that afternoon, to keep from infecting their kids with the dreaded RSV. Auntie M.came over that evening to bake gingerbread cookies with Rosie while Dash napped (after throwing blocks across the house and climbing on the furniture) and gave me a chance to do dishes, sweep, and pick up our crazy house. Whew! I also baked oatmeal craisin cookies that turned out darned well, I must say!

Christmas was at my parents' house, as usual. I think the day went perfectly! We left for "gromma's" after Dash's nap, opened gifts (woo!) and had some lovely roast! The standout Xmas gift was from my mom--she bought Rosie another American Girl doll; this time it was "Jess", a doll with a Japanese-American heritage. She even has a Japanese middle name, just like Rosie! My mom bought the doll's "hair care kit" so we could curl Jess' hair so we could make her look more like Rosie. Auntie M. painstakingly did just that! Bless her heart. She loves her niece. Dash was just happy to run around, throw balls and terrorize Groucho, my parents' cockatiel.

After wine and pie, AJS had a long nap. And I let him sleep. Merry Christmas, baby!

Ian's First Birthday Party!

We had a fabulous time at Ian's birthday party! The company was excellent, the spread was super-tasty, and Kristin and Nathan have a beautiful home. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of Ian, since we didn't bring our camera, but my dear friend Chuck took some wonderful photos of Rosie and Dash!

Dash found a balloon that was meant for Ian and didn't let go of it all afternoon:

Then Rosie ate some delicious cake (with a little help from me):

And Chuck took some super-fun photos of Dash and Rosie playing in my lap!

Actually, what makes me happiest is this photo, because it's of me and Rosie! I have so many, many photos of me holding Dash that you'd wonder if I had a daughter...

Happy Holidays!

A Dash update!

Hi baby boy!

You're almost 18 months old now and you just had your ear tube surgery two weeks ago. You communicate with us so well that we didn't really notice that you haven't been talking much. Hopefully now you will be adding to your vocabulary. So far, you say mama, dada, ball, olive (lali), cracker (cak), duck, woof-woof (for dogs & cats), more (mo), moo (for cow), and balloon (baaal). You know several hand-signs, especially for milk, more, head, want, banana, broccoli and apple. Your favorite foods are beans (all types), broccoli, chicken, olives, graham crackers (especially chocolate), cheddar, most fruits (especially banana and melon). Lately, you've been climbing on the furniture! You heave yourself up on the couch or ottoman, then move to a table and march around, happy as can be! We of course get you down immediately, but you pop back up as soon as our attention is diverted.

Love,
Mom

Weirdness at the office

Okay, this one isn't about the kids. Yesterday, I was almost the only one in the office and picked up a phone call in a co-worker's cubicle. While I was talking (to the cube's inhabitor), I glanced up and saw a pin stuck in the carpeted wall with a lion's head on it that looked familiar. I pulled it out and saw that it was a logo design that I created ELEVEN YEARS ago!!! The FBI is still using my artwork after eleven years? I'm keeping the pin; I don't think I had saved anything from that project, because I never felt that it was portfolio-worthy work. Anyway, here is my art that I found online, that the pin was based on:

Heh. 1995, staring at me.

James Kim. I'm incredibly saddened and uplifted at once.

I 've been overwhelmed by this story all morning as soon as AJS brought to my attention that the James Kim that's been all over the news as missing in the Oregon wilderness was not just some no-name-hapless-joe but was the host of a techno-gadgets show we used to watch! He was the smart, funny, on-the-cutting-edge, sweet young guy who would somehow manage to put photos of his daughter into his gadget reviews. He was only one year younger than me! And our children are practically the same ages! How could I not get all wrapped up in it? The story is fascinating and gut-wrenching. TV mini-series on the way....?

So here's my redux at what happened. 35-year-old James and 30-year-old Kati and their two daughters (4 years and 7 months) set off in their car from a Thanksgiving holiday on the Oregon coast, headed home to San Francisco. They were driving for hours and missed an exit, instead continuing onto a mountainous side road that wound far in the wrong direction from their destination and any inhabited area. They hit a snow drift, ran out of gas and were snowbound for 5 days before they became desperate enough for James to consider other options. They were running out of food and had no idea when they might be rescued, so James left his young family at their car and left to seek help. Here's an aerial photo of what this area looks like:



He was only wearing jeans, sneakers and a mid-weight coat, not adequate for wet, freezing weather. He had a lighter and an Oregon map, some extra clothes and supplies. According to the clues that searchers uncovered, James walked EIGHT miles in this wilderness and made it back to within a mile from his family when a SHEER CLIFF separated him from their location and he succumbed to the elements and died after being alone for four days. How horrific.

He left Kati with a pretty good setup, like a campground. They were able to heat themselves with the car's heater, then burned the tires when the heater gave out. Kati nursed both girls (YAY FOR BREASTFEEDING!!!) to keep their strength up. Kati and girls were rescued after nine days. Kati was seen by a helicopter pilot, waving an umbrella from her car. James' body was found two days later. God, I can't even imagine.

Dash's ear tubes -- done!

Hey, it's been a week since he had his tubes surgery, but I haven't had any spare time to post. Dash was a real trooper for the whole ordeal. We had to get up super-extra early on a foggy, dreary November morning and Dash didn't have any food at all since Midnight (about 8 hours total). He really didn't complain about it, though! He slept through the 45-minute drive to the surgical center (we had to be there at 6:30 a.m.) and while we waited in the lobby, he was well-distracted by the large fish tank, full of exotic fish.

They brought us to a consult area around 7 a.m., where Dash had to change into an awful, awful, get-it-off-me-now bright-yellow hospital gown and he continued to yank on it until he was taken into surgery. I had to put on a full bodysuit made of some kind of synthetic FedEx-bag-style fabric, plus a hair cover and a face mask. After a brief consult with the anesthesiologist and Dash's surgeon (including more papers to sign), they then took us to a secondary waiting area just for children, with a play area and lots of toys. All the other kids in the playroom got stuffed bears from their doctors, but I guess we didn't get one because Dash already had a bear from home? Whatever.

Dash was called for his surgery around 7:45 a.m. and I carried him in, put him down on the hospital bed. The nurses asked what name they should call him when the anesthesia wore off, so he would hear something familiar, maybe comforting. They asked me to hold his arms out of the way and try to comfort him while the anesthesia took effect (through a face mask), and then announced, "he's asleep!" which was, apparently, my signal to leave. So after a confusing couple of seconds, a nurse offered to guide me back to a consult room. I waited for about ten minutes while furiously typing text messages to family and friends to keep my mind off the surgery, when another nurse came to get me because Dash was done!

When he and I reached the post-op room, he was very disoriented and screaming, with eyes closed. But he quickly came out of it and let me know that he wasn't interested in sitting around. I carried him around the room while he stoically watched the other children scream. I was pretty proud of him for being the first child to settle down! One of the nurses offered Dash a drink, which he refused. Instead, he had noticed the refrigerator behind the nurses' station and pointed. And pointed again. I walked him over there and asked the nurses if we could come back there so I could figure out what he wanted. A nurse looked at him sweetly and asked, "honey, would you like some crackers?" She reached into a cabinet and grabbed a two-pack of saltines. With his treasure in hand, we went back to our seat and he stuffed entire crackers into his head as quickly as possible. I tried the water again, nothing doing. He made the :more: sign at me and pointed directly at the sad, empty, plastic Saltines wrapper. Verrrry clear, this one is! He ate about ten more Saltines (I swear!) then had some water.

Meanwhile, I was given an instruction sheet on how to care for his tubes, we were discharged and on our way. He slept on the drive home and as a treat, I stopped by Krispy Kreme to get us some donut holes (and coffee for me); I hadn't eaten either, thinking that it would only taunt Dash. I had brought some work home, with the mistaken impression that the surgery would leave Dash weak and sleepy. NOPE!!! As soon as we were home, he was practically bouncing off the walls, climbing on the furniture, and pulling books off of shelves. He ate a donut hole or two with me and I barely kept up with my little ball of sunshine-energy before AJS came to relieve me around lunchtime. Dash was amazingly happy and alert!

I do think that his hearing was affected by the repeated ear infections. Just in the past week, he seems to be responding a little better to verbal cues and is imitating us a little more. Yay! Here's hoping that he'll have a few more words soon. The sign language has been a great help, but of course, we'd like him to be speaking more. His latest new word is "duck"!

AJS got on "Best of Craigslist"!!

The Five Stages of Living in the DC Area:
Date: 2006-12-05, 5:38PM EST

Stage 1: Living downtown is the greatest! It’s so wonderful living in such a vibrant, diverse community. I love being able to walk to hipster bars, overpriced tapas restaurants, and leather furniture stores where the cheapest couch costs 6-months rent.

Stage 2: DC is a squalid cesspool, a third-rate wannabe capitol like Dakar or Isengard, full of hipster losers and youth violence gangs of rogue Uruk-hai.

Stage 3: Thank god I live in the suburbs! It’s so clean, the schools are great, and I don’t have to worry about being raped on the way back from Bed Bath and Beyond or having pennies thrown at my head.

Stage 4: Borf was right! The suburbs are a boring, sprawling wasteland of stripmalls, $tarbucKKK$s, and cookie-cutter McMan$$ion$. I read it in the Cliffs Notes to Foucault’s Madness and Civilization. $ma$h the $tate!

Stage 5: Go to Stage 1.

Here's the link to Best of Craigslist.

Ms. Focused and Mr. Speedy!

Sunday, we had a family birthday party for Rosie at my parents' house. It was mostly for Auntie M., who won't be coming to our double-scoop of a joint party this weekend for Rosie AND Liam. Auntie M. must be super-in-tune with Rosie, because once Rosie opened Auntie M.'s gift, she wouldn't look at anything else, or eat, or do anything but play with it for maybe three hours straight. My mom bought her some fairly pricey American Girl twin toddler toys, and she showed no interest in them whatsoever, until later, anyway.

The really FUN part of the evening was when I came to pick them up a few hours later, after they had been eating naught but chocolate ice cream and cupcakes. My little Dash saw me and ran at me with speeds previously unknown, powered by sugar and sleep deprivation. BOY LOVE CUPCAKE!! (And Grandaddy can't resist the puppy-dog eyes and the darling way he signs for :more:) He dashed, he shrieked, he giggled maniacally! And then he crashed on the car ride home, only to wake up just as he hit the mattress in his bedroom and then screamed bloody murder for the next hour. Until dinner, that is. Food calms the boy.

Rosie slept with her twins, who are now named "Rosie" and "Dash." She is enamored, and I will let her grandma know. We left the unicorn-land-of-many-chokables at her grandparents' house...

[RANT ALERT] sometimes it's the little things...

This is just me ranting, but I was just on the phone with my pediatrician's office to schedule a pre-op appointment for Dash's ear tubes (yes, he's getting tubes). When the call connected, I briefly heard the air in the reception desk area, was immediately put on hold without a greeting, then after less than a minute, disconnected. I called them right back and explained how I was disconnected to the receptionist and just got "[sigh] what were you calling about?" When I replied, "Okay! Someone hung up on me and I don't get an apology?" I got DEAD AIR.

Since I wasn't getting anywhere, I went ahead with scheduling the appointment, but brought the issue up again at the end of the conversation, because I was still upset about the poor treatment. The receptionist told me, "well, I don't know who you were talking to," and still refused to apologize.

My point here IS (and there is one) that this small rudeness reflects on the ENTIRE PRACTICE! not just whomever screwed up with the phone system. It doesn't matter WHO screwed up, it could have been anyone (even you) and sucking it up to YOUR CUSTOMER who is GIVING YOU $$$$ should be standard. WTF. How hard is it to say "I'm sorry for your inconvenience"?Seriously?

Voting makes me think of Douglas Adams

Take me to your lizard…

(Context: Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect are discussing the huge robot that just landed in downtown London, killing people, doing billions of dollars of damage—and announced ‘I come in peace, take me to your lizard’)

"…It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see…," said Ford.
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?" asked Arthur.
"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said Ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don’t people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn’t occur to them," said Ford. "They’ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?" "What?"
"I said," said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, "have you got any gin?"
"I’ll look. Tell me about the lizards."
Ford shrugged again.
"Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happened to them," he said. "They’re completely and utterly wrong, but someone’s got to say it."
"But that’s terrible," said Arthur.
"Listen, bud," said Ford, "If I had one Altarian dollar for every time I heard one bit of the Universe look at another bit of the Universe and say ‘That’s terrible’ I wouldn’t be sitting here like a lemon looking for a gin. But I haven’t and I am."

Douglas Adams, So Long And Thanks For All The Fish

AJS's surprise birthday party!

AJS's birthday is Nov. 5th; we made plans on the 4th to go duckpin bowling with the kids and Kelly's family at some lanes in College Park. What I didn't tell him was that I invited all his other friends and made it a birthday party! It was great fun, and he was really surprised.

I was amazed that most of the folks that we invited joined us, which made it an especially nice party.














The shocker for me was that Dash is an extremely enthusiastic bowler.

Here's Dash and me getting ready to bowl:


















Then bowling (he did knock a few pins down!):












And this is me, clapping at his bowl, while he is off, already getting another ball:

The family at Rock n Romp Halloween

The family at Rock n Romp Halloween
Originally uploaded by nylonthread.

We all went to Rock n Romp's Halloween bash in Silver Spring last weekend. It took us about an hour to drive there, due to traffic and general distance and Rosie slept most of the way. Rosie had been very excited about the party, because she could wear her pretty "snow princess" costume and, because we are well aware of her aversion to masks (screaming uncontrollably), we tried to prepare her for the hard fact that people would probably also be wearing costumes. Kellygo took photos for me, so thankfully, I have all the costumes documented! THANKS Kelly! Thea is trying to cheer Rosie up by giving her an attractive spider ring! Notice that Rosie is NOT reaching for it...

Well she did just fine until she saw what was apparently the most scary costume at the party—A TACO. For the next 30 minutes until we left, she spent most of our time crying and screaming, renewed every time the Taco was in her line of sight.

The rest of us were having blast! Our friends were there, we were enjoying all the costumes, the music and the fun crowd. Dash (in the Dash Parr costume), really had fun! He was dancing and clapping with the music (esp. The Antiques' cover of "Ghostbusters").

We were pretty sad to have to leave, but Rosie was just freaking out towards the end. Dash was trying to comfort her, in this photo. On top of the Taco, she was also terrified of a little girl wearing a Superman mask. So after driving an hour, we spent 1/2 an hour at the party (planned to spend 2 to 3 hours) then drove for another hour home. :-(

storing a profile photo

storing a profile photo
Originally uploaded by nylonthread.

how can I get this on my blog profile? IE won't let me, but I'm trying, darn it.

OKAY!! I figured it out (with kellygo's help)! Hopefully it'll stay put now.

By the way...

I did not go pumpkin picking this Saturday. We stayed in until 11:30 a.m., then I returned clothes at stores (took over an hour of driving, parking, strollering to store, returning clothes, back to car, etc). I dropped the kiddiewinkies directly at their grandfamily's house (what Rosie calls my folks' place) and zipped back home to whirlwind-clean our place for what amounted to a dinner-party-book-group. It's really never anything less when AJS is cooking.

I had so much fun! All our friends who came over brought stuff, had a great time in the backyard with the nice weather and ate the yummy food.

I want to ride SOMETHING!

rosiendashonnahorsie
Originally uploaded by nylonthread.

Rosie likes to be non-specific when she makes requests. For example, if she wants Daddy to let her eat chocolates, she'll say, "I want somebody to give me something brown to eat!" So, when she told me "I want to ride something!" when we were out for a walk, I really didn't have a good reference for what she meant. This photo is what she meant.

Dashiell and his overalls

These overalls that Dash is wearing deserve a post. He received them as a gift for his first birthday from some long-time friends of ours, who knew about AJS's long-time obsession with monkeys; they also bought a Hawaiian shirt for Dash, which is another AJS trademark, so I was tickled by the fact that they remembered these facts about Dash's daddy and was satisfied with the nice gifts.

However, just last week, I was up-close and personal with these overalls while Dash was wearing them and noticed that the little embroidered monkeys had little embroidered bongos that had tiny little embroidered NAMES on them! The names are about 1/8" high, but they are there. They say "NICK" and "NORA". Nick and Nora are a reference to a married couple from a series of stories/movies called "The Thin Man". The original movie starred Robert Powell and Myrna Loy and was filmed in the 1940s, I think.

Anyway, to tie up this anecdote, here's the kicker: the original book entitled "The Thin Man" was written by Dashiell Hammett, a crime-fiction author whom Dash is named after. So, not only does this pair of overalls have his daddy's favorite monkeys on it, but it has a reference to his daddy's fave author as well!!!

This Saturday Looms...

I am suddenly a little leery of all that we have planned for this Saturday, which is creeping up on us. Not enough to cancel anything (yet) but circumspect. First, I'm taking the two wee ones to a farm destination to pick pumpkins around 10 a.m. I'm intimidated by this checklist on the Cox Farms website. It seems to assume that I am trying to lose my children? Next, several friends and their children will be coming over for our monthly book group meeting around 4. I'm hoping that AJS will have the food cooked and our place will be reasonably clean by then... And then! I asked a co-worker of mine to come by to hold down the fort in the evening, because we are planning to go to a party about 2 miles away that starts at 9 p.m. The kids usually are asleep by 8, so she should be just able to watch tv in a quiet house, right?

Man, wish me luck. I'm tired already just thinking about it.

photos from our end-of-summer beach trip

I took the kids to Rehoboth at the end of September along with my sister and dad. My dad was THRILLED to be introducing his adored (and only) grandson to the Atlantic, one of his great childhood loves. You can really feel the elation in this image of them both. However, Dash was a little circumspect about the crashing waves; he was a good sport, but it was hard to be sure whether he was enjoying himself.

Here's a photo that Auntie M. took of me and Dash, playing it cool.

And I can't leave without posting Auntie M. with Rosie and her freshly created unicorn, Vella (most creatively named by Rosie, herself). Vella was "born" at at Rehoboth store (most certainly a chain) called "Wacky Bear Factory". Woo.