mamajoan

Phew, our weekend of performances is over. It went really well! One stage show (Ruthie in Charlotte's Web) and three circus shows down, the kids had a great time and did a great job with all their parts. They're already talking about which circus acts they want to learn next year. The Openair Circus is such a fabulous thing. And Ruthie greatly enjoyed her time with Center Stage Somerville -- I'm super impressed that they managed to pull together a whole show in just two weeks of summer camp.

I performed too! I was practicing my stilting around the circus tent before the shows, and after about a zillion people asked me whether I was going to be in the show, I decided to give it a try. I asked the woman in charge of costuming whether there might be another costume for the beginner stilting act -- they were dressed up as ghost cows (don't ask). She was like, "of course!" and within moments she had magically produced a piece of white cloth, cut out a hole for my head, produced black cloth and cut out some random blobs, which she duct-taped to the white tunic: et voila, a cow costume. So I performed in the final two shows. I was probably the only beginning stilter whose age is in double digits but what the hey, it was fun and perhaps gave some other adults some ideas. I'm excited to continue practicing and maybe even be ready to stilt-walk in a parade with Ruthie at some point.

Anyway, so altogether a super fun but super tiring weekend. It may turn out to be a relief to get back to "normal life" starting tomorrow!....

Lately I find myself doing a lot of "day in the life" type posts on Facebook, and sometimes they can get to the length of the "day in the life" LJ posts that I used to do, so I thought, maybe once in a while I'll just cross-post something. Because part of what I've always valued about my "day in the life" posts is the ability to go back months or years later and re-read, and go, "oh yeah, that," or "wow, I don't remember that at all." And you can't really do that on FB because it sucks at archiving and browsing old stuff.

So something I've posted about several times recently on FB is how Ruthie has been wearing her hair very short for a while now and often gets mistaken for a boy. It doesn't bother her, which I'm glad about. She usually just corrects the person very matter-of-factly. The short hair looks really good on her and she likes it so she isn't going to let anyone spoil that for her! Meanwhile Isaac, until recently, had gotten quite shaggy and was mistaken for a girl at least once recently. He got a haircut this past weekend so I think that will slow down the gender confusion, although his hair is still longer than a "typical" boy cut, and incidentally longer than his sister's hair too. I think it's funny that up until this last haircut the longest-haired people in our family were Isaac and my brother. Now Isaac's and mine are probably about equal, and Ruthie's is shorter than both of us.

Anyway, with all of that as prologue, here's the "day in the life" that I posted to FB tonight:

Ruthie and I stumbled upon a little festival at Whole Foods while Isaac was having baseball practice. I guess they were celebrating 5 years since that Whole Foods opened (which makes me feel old because I remember it) and they had tents with free food, pony rides, and so forth. It was fun. Ruthie got to see a pony pooping in graphic detail, which made quite an impression. ;)

Just as it was about to be Ruthie's turn, both ponies pulled loose from their handlers and trotted away across the parking lot. It turned out that they were freaked by the drums played by the live band, which had just started playing. The band stopped playing and the ponies calmed down and Ruthie got her ride.

We loaded up on free samples (I had seconds of the apple pie) and then went into the store to shop. Inside, they had more free samples, and the lady giving out tastes of bread said "Your son has very nice manners" and Ruthie said cheerily "Actually I'm a girl" and the lady was very embarrassed. Ruthie was even wearing a skirt! Although it was hard to see under her long shirt, and she was also wearing her baseball cap. I wish people wouldn't feel embarrassed for making that mistake. It's understandable and not a big deal, or at least, it shouldn't be. Then I feel bad for their embarrassment, so I try to reassure them, and I end up almost sort of apologizing for Ruthie being a girl, LOL, WTF.

Then we retrieved Isaac and came home, and Isaac wanted to watch a funny YouTube video he had seen at school, and one thing led to another, next thing you know I'm explaining what a condom is. Ruthie: "I'm never wearing one of those!! 'Cause I'm a girl!"

Yes, I know it's December. But I thought that instead of typing out a whole actual update ;) that I would just copy-paste in a selection of my Facebook posts from November. The primary purpose of this is for me to not lose all the "funny things the kids said/did/wrote" once they scroll too far down my Facebook page. Also, it's a way to preserve my "day in the life" type entries, which I'm not copying all of here, just a selection. There might even be one or two of you who might enjoy reading these....

( Our November, in Facebook status )

I also went back and did one of these for October, back-dated. It's here. Not sure how much patience I'll have for going back much further than that, but we'll see....

A few weeks ago I was nostalgically reading through some old LJ entries and had a moment of insanity or something ;) where I decided that I was going to start doing again what I call "detail-blogging," you know, like I used to do, where I post every little thing about what we did each day.

So I started writing up a description of the weekend that had, at the time, just passed...and of course it got really long, and then I had to get back to work, so I saved it without posting and said I'd finish it later. But of course I never did. So yeah, I don't think I'm going to be going back to regular detail-blogging, much though I might kinda want to.

But here is a random listing of some stuff that has been going on lately:

* Ruthie finished kindergarten (back in June) and started first grade. It's going very well. She loves school and has made some good friends. She also started taking dance lessons this fall. She's in a combo ballet/jazz dance class. She seems to like it pretty well. Of course, she's mostly just in it for the leotard and ballet shoes. ;)

* Isaac finished third grade and started fourth grade. There's a lot going on with that. In fourth grade they start swimming lessons; all 4th-graders throughout the city are taken by bus once a week to the one school that has a pool. So every Friday we have to remember to pack Isaac's bathing suit and towel in his backpack. Also in 4th grade they can start instrument lessons, and Isaac chose the violin. So one day a week he has to remember to bring the violin to school. Unfortunately, that also happens to be Friday. So our Fridays are pretty "stuff to remember"-heavy. Fortunately, I've gotten permission from my boss to work from home on Fridays, so I'm not feeling as rushed in the mornings with the pressure to get to the office by a certain time. The swimming lessons only run through the end of November, after which it'll just be the violin we have to haul in (in the snow...if we get any snow this year...oy).

* Over the summer we joined the Open Air Circus, and both kids learned how to walk on stilts. They had a great time. We tried to buy stilts for them from the circus's stock, but they didn't have any in the right sizes, so we're hoping they'll do another stilt-making workshop soon. At those, they provide the materials and instructions and help you make your own stilts. Both of my kids will want them for sure. We've recently had opportunity to stilt-walk in some parades and events with the OAC people, and the kids love the attention that they get from it. I personally was amazed at how quickly they both picked it up! Isaac by the second lesson was walking around like it was nothing. Ruthie is still a little wobbly, but she can get around. I wouldn't mind trying it myself at some point, make a fool of myself I'm sure ;) well, I'll probably have that opportunity when the circus starts up again next summer.

* I went to the dermatologist for my regular 2-year mole check, and she decided to biopsy one spot. It's a good thing we have people who are trained in this stuff, because to me it looked the same as any other freckle on my body (I have quite a few). It turned out to be benign/noncancerous, but now she wants me to come back every 1 year instead of 2. I also had a thyroid ultrasound a few months ago when I started to have some pain in my throat. The doctor decided that it was just a little bit inflamed probably from a mild virus, but she wants me to come back for a repeat ultrasound in December. (It was difficult trying to explain on the phone, when I made the appointment, what my complaint was. Me: "I have a pain in the front of my neck." Nurse: "You mean your throat?" Me: "Well, yes, but like on the outside of my neck." Nurse: "So you have a sore throat." Me: "No. I know what a sore throat is. If I had a sore throat I would just say that." *eyeroll*)

I guess it's kind of sad that I have all kinds of interesting stuff to post about the kids, but when I try to think of what I can post that's actually about me, all I come up with is my random medical stuff. When did I turn 85 and not notice it? Sheesh.

Overdue update

I never posted about Thanksgiving like I meant to. It was a bit weird this year. On Thanksgiving morning we got a call informing us that my great-aunt Lil, the wife of my grandmother's brother Joe, had passed away during the night. She was pretty old and had been frail for quite a while, so it was no enormous surprise and indeed a bit of a relief in some ways -- particularly, at least she didn't die after Joe had left to come here for Thanksgiving, right? He already felt guilty enough about leaving her behind.

Anyway, so it meant that our Thanksgiving dinner had three fewer people than expected, because of course Joe didn't come, and neither did his son and daughter-in-law. Of course, we still ended up with like a dozen people at the table, and it went pretty well overall. There was a decent amount of vegetarian food and Isaac even tasted several things he had never tried before, including the vegetarian lasagna that a cousin made, which he liked enough to ask for seconds. Have I mentioned lately that Isaac is finally coming out of picky-little-kid mode and showing more and more interest in trying new foods? I am really pleased about that. Of course, all Ruthie would eat was bread *roll eyes* but whatever....

Before the meal, while we were hanging out at mom's house, mom realized that the cousins who were now not coming, were the ones who were supposed to bring dessert. So mom whipped up some brownies and I whipped up some cookies while Isaac watched the football game, heh.

Anyway, so it wasn't the Thanksgiving we were expecting, but what can you say. As the relatives of my grandmother's generation are dying off, so are the last vestiges of the Thanksgiving traditions that I've loved for so long. It's time to start forging some new ones, then.

Speaking of new traditions, I decided to celebrate Hanukkah a little more this year than we have in the past. We have a beautiful menorah that my mom gave me a while back, so we lit the candles together every night (except the night we were at Brian's, which I'll get to in a moment), and we played a bit of dreidel, and my idea was that on each night we'd read a special story -- I had gotten a book of Hanukkah stories, with eight stories in the book (one for each night), but as it turned out the stories were a little too advanced for the kids so I gave up on that after the first couple of nights. Oh well, it was a nice idea anyway.

I also decided to give the kids one gift on the last night of Hanukkah, instead of one for each night (because we're also going to be exchanging gifts on Xmas and that would just be too much). So I gave them jointly a DVD of Billy Jonas singing his songs. We love Billy Jonas, and recently got to see him perform live, so the kids have enjoyed the CD, although some of it is hokey. Ruthie got a big pleasant surprise when we discovered that he does a cover of "Rockin' Robin" on the DVD -- she loves that song! :)

And now it's December and things are getting very busy. Last weekend we went to a Christmas caroling event in Boston with 3,000 other people (see story here) and a birthday party. This weekend we have my brother metafrantic's birthday dinner, then our chorus concert on Sunday. Next weekend we have another chorus event, and then it's Xmas! ZOMG! What happened to my year???

Ruthie is extremely excited to be participating in a program called Jumpstart this year. This is a program whereby college students are paired up with preschool students to do one-on-one tutoring and such, with various activities designed to help the kids learn and prepare them for kindergarten. Last year, space in the program was limited so they did a lottery to choose which kids would participate, and Ruthie was sad to not be picked; but this year all kids are participating and she is so excited. Her "Jumpstart Buddy" comes twice a week and they do all kinds of fun stuff. The main focus is on literacy, so they do a lot of word games and songs and so forth -- all of which Ruthie loves. She already knows that Mondays and Wednesdays are Jumpstart days, and she'll wake up first thing in the morning, "It's a Jumpstart day today!" :)

So apparently each of the "buddies" (the college students) was supposed to write a little note to the parents/family of his/her assigned child, introducing him/herself and so on. So I got a note from Ruthie's buddy, whose name is Nicole. She starts out by saying where she's from and a little bit about herself, and then: "I am so excited to be working with Ruth this year! Ruth has done nothing but impress me so far during our sessions. She is bright, considerate, and always tries her best. On the first day she already knew all the letters in her own name and most of the letters in everyone else's names."

:) Yep, that's my girl! She does know all her letters (how to write them, at least) and what sounds most of them make, and she can do some sounding-out of simple words. And she sure as heck isn't shy about letting you know what she can do. ;)

In a similar vein, the preschool teachers recently started doing a little weekly report for each child -- just a little chart where they write a few things that the child played with/worked on for each day, and then at the bottom there's a space for the teachers to write a little something about the kid's week. Last Friday, Ruthie's weekly report read as follows: "Ruth has a wonderful imagination and really inspires friends to join her play. Teachers will often play songs of Ruthie's choosing. She sings the words and is proud of her accomplishments."

That's for darn sure! "Proud of her accomplishments" is a lovely tactful way of saying that she likes to brag about what she can do. ;) And she does love to sing, is always coming home and performing for me the latest songs she learned at preschool. The other day she spent like ten minutes sitting on the toilet singing "Five little speckled frogs sat on a speckled log" at the top of her lungs. lol.

Every morning I pull the car up to Isaac's school and he hops out. Then I drive on to Ruthie's preschool to drop her off. When Isaac gets out of the car at his school, I always blow him a kiss and say "I love you, have a good day." This morning I was still on the blowing-a-kiss part, when Ruthie goes, "I love you Isaac! Have a good day!" :) ♥

Don't get me wrong, Ruthie can be a real pain in the rear end too sometimes. It's funny -- when Isaac was a baby, people told me that the "terrible twos" are a myth and that actually age 3 is a lot harder; but I've personally found 4 to be more difficult with both kids so far. And Ruthie is much more difficult than I remember Isaac ever being. But she's also so smart, funny, and sweet. It's what keeps us from wanting to strangle her. ;)

Ruthie is also an incurable chatterbox. OMG she can talk and talk and talk. The other day at pickup time she started right in chattering away about her day, and Isaac impatiently said "Mama can you make her stop talking? I'm getting annoyed!" LOL -- but of course my answer was no, I can't, and anyway I wouldn't want to, because I love to hear about her day. But still.

Last Saturday we were driving to gymnastics class and Ruthie was again chattering away nonstop. But then all of a sudden she stopped, and then she says, "mama, I have to pause this talking for a minute." I was like, "oh really, how come?" And she points at a donut shop and yells "DUNKIN' DONUTS!" And then resumes her story. ROTFL!

So that's the little update on my not-so-little girl. :) Stay tuned for the Isaac update coming soon!

The other day I had a pelvic ultrasound, for screening purposes; my risk of ovarian cancer is higher since my mom's diagnosis with it last year. I saw my doctor for a checkup a few weeks ago, and it was the first time I had seen her since mom's diagnosis, so I told her about that and she recommended the ultrasound.

I wasn't really worried, because despite my mom having had ovarian cancer, my own risk is still pretty small; I'm pre-menopausal, for example. Still, you can google the symptoms of ovarian cancer, and the problem is that they are mostly like the symptoms of a dozen other things -- and also ovarian cancer tends not to be symptomatic at all until it has progressed pretty far. So by the time the appointment came around, I had pretty much convinced myself not only that I had ovarian cancer, but that it had spread to my brain. (The brain part would explain the headaches, which I'll get to later.)

Of course, most of that wasn't for serious. It's mostly just when I lie in bed at night that I start thinking, "yep, I definitely have cancer and I'm going to die the day before Halloween and not even get to see the kids go trick-or-treating." Then I roll my eyes at myself and try thinking about the bills I have to pay instead and go to sleep. ;)

( TMI-y details of the ultrasound )

Anyway...so that was all very fun and exciting. ;) The tech had an excellent poker face, so I knew nothing when I left there. But the doctor's office called this morning to tell me that the results were all normal. All is well with my ovaries. (and if I had any doubts as to whether they are functioning properly, today's delightful bout of menstrual cramps helped me out with that. :P ) I'm still supposed to call the oncology department and schedule a consultation with a doctor over there to discuss whether or how I should be monitored.

Another thing I discussed with my doctor at my checkup recently was these headaches I've been having. I had been thinking of them as sinus headaches, but then I did some googling and discovered that most people who think they have sinus headaches actually have migraines. So I googled migraines and started to think that I might be having those. I don't get a visual aura, but I get a lot of the other classic symptoms: light sensitivity, increased pain when I move my head or eyes, and mental fuzziness/inability to focus etc. So my doctor agreed that they sounded like they could be migraines, and she recommended that I start out by treating it with ibuprofen and caffeine -- the trick is to take 2-3 ibuprofen and a large serving of caffeine as SOON as you start to sense the onset, because if you wait too long it's too late. So I've been trying that and it seems to be working (though I've probably also medicated a few times when it wasn't actually necessary). I'm not sure how concerned I should be that these things seem to be becoming more and more frequent; although I do think they are related to weather changes, so maybe this is just the season for it. I dunno.

One thing I really like about my doctor is that she takes the time to review my chart before seeing me, so she remembers basic details about my life situation and stuff. So she asked me -- completely neutrally and non-judgmentally, which is another thing I like about her -- whether I'm still nursing Ruthie. I wasn't entirely sure what to say, though. At this point Ruthie nurses for literally about 10-15 seconds each night, at bedtime, and nothing is coming out; she just does it for comfort and out of habit. Usually what happens is that I tuck her in and give her a kiss, and then she says "can I please have nursie" and I say rather half-heartedly "remember, you're not going to nursie forever," and she says in her 4-going-on-14 voice, "Until I'm five!" and then I give her nursie for the aforementioned few seconds, until it becomes uncomfortable for me, and then I make her stop and go to sleep.

I'm pretty much fine with this system, really; it's just that I tend to obsess pointlessly over whether or not I should still claim to be breast-feeding or not. There certainly isn't any actual feeding going on. ;) But it doesn't bother me, and it does seem to help her calm down, so whatever. I'm not sure I want to keep doing this until her 5th birthday...which is five months from now...but who knows?

Anyway, to sum up: I just wrote an entire LJ post about my fiddly little medical issues. I am officially a senior citizen. ;)

1. Things they say that probably do not mean anything prophetic about their future career paths ;)

The website for the kids' favorite TV show, "Word Girl" on PBS, has a section called "Heroes, Villains, and Mere Mortals," which is the part of the site that introduces all the characters on the show. The other night Isaac asked me what "mere mortals" means.

Me: Mere mortals are all the people who aren't superheroes or villains. Just regular people.
Isaac: Like us, we're mere mortals.
Me: Yep, we are.
Isaac: And superheroes aren't really real, right?
Me: Well, there's no such thing as people who have superpowers like on the show. But there are heroes who are just regular people who do good things.
Isaac: Like scientists.
Me: Sure.
Isaac: Like meteorologists.

So there you have it, folks: your local TV weatherperson, a hero in the eyes of a 7-year-old. ;) Gee, since we had just been discussing Rosa Parks earlier in the day, I kinda hoped he might go in that direction, but no such luck. ;)

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2. Things they say that are even funnier when taken out of context (but I'm giving you the context anyway)

Isaac was having hummus with pita bread for lunch the other day, and I invited Ruthie to have some too, but she declined; but then she said she wanted hummus with crackers. So I took out a bag of Stacy's brand pita chips (which if you haven't had them, you are sadly deprived, because they are great) and she said all excitedly "Yes! Those are the crackers I wanted!" Isaac corrected her that they are pita chips, and I said, "yes, you're both having the same thing, because pita chips are made from pita bread." Both kids were very surprised by this. LOL. Isaac was like, "really? are they really?" like he thought I was making a joke. LOL!! Umm hello, they both have pita in the name? heehee.

So a moment later, after pondering this deeply, Ruthie says, "I'm confused."
me: "What are you confused about?"
Ruthie: "I'm confused about pita bread."

see, I was right! -- if I had just said "Ruthie said 'I'm confused about pita bread'" it would have been funnier. :)

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Things they say that are so sweet you could die:

The other night we were getting ready for bed and randomly, out of nowhere, Ruthie says, "Mama, I love you. Don't ever go to Scotland without me."

Last week we had dinner at a restaurant with a bunch of other people, and there was an enormous fuss about who would sit where; after the dust had settled, Ruthie looked around and discovered that I was sitting next to her. In a surprised tone she said "Mama! You're sitting next to me and I love you! Always sit next to me!" ♥

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Things they say that you really shouldn't laugh at but sometimes you can't help it:

On Sunday we slept very late in the morning, having had a VERY long fun day on Saturday (about which I will perhaps get a chance to post later). We didn't get up until well past 9am, which is basically unheard-of for us. So, when it came to bedtime, Isaac wasn't very tired yet, and he had trouble getting to sleep. Having difficulty falling asleep is not a familiar experience for Isaac; normally he drops right off within moments. So he started sobbing pathetically after a few minutes. I went to ask him what was wrong and he wailed, "I'm never going to fall asleep and I'll be sooooo tiiiiired tomorrow!" LOL I mean, oh dear, you poor thing! ;) heehee...I felt bad for him, really. I let him get up and come into the living room with me to watch a bit of the Red Sox game. It only took a couple of minutes before he was drooping on the couch and I asked him if he wanted to go back to his bed, and he did. And then he fell asleep no problem.

Oh life is just so busy and I want to post here but I don't and then I fall so far behind. augh.

So much has been happening! I shall attempt some bullet points.

* Mom had her last chemo treatment two weeks ago. This weekend we're having a party to celebrate. It's great to have chemo behind us, but now we have to wait and worry and wonder whether the cancer is going to come back. I'm staying positive though. I think everything will be fine.

* I bought a new fridge!! w00t!! I am loving it. I got the kind with the freezer on the bottom, which is great. I love not having to bend over to look for stuff in there. It has only been here a couple of weeks so it's still all nice and clean and shiny-looking. That won't last. ;)

* Isaac started Little League and is loving it. I'm discovering how erratic things can be when you have an all-volunteer organization. *roll eyes* Isaac's coach is not entirely dedicated to the task, shall we say, but a few of the other parents on the team have been stepping up, so it's going okay.

* Ruthie is toilet-trained!!! I am so freaking excited. No more diapers in our house! Well, we still have pull-ups for nighttime, but that doesn't count.

* Ruthie is also starting to read! I spelled some words on the fridge with letter magnets and was very surprised at how easily she sounded them out. This sentence shall serve as a placeholder for a lengthier musing on how different are the learning paths of the first vs. second child, based on parental involvement/attention level. ;)

* Maybe you heard that we had a water emergency here in the Boston area. A pipe burst and we weren't supposed to drink (or wash hands with, or cook with) the tap water for several days. It was an adventure. It made me think deep thinky thoughts about privilege, luxuries, assumptions, all that good stuff.

* I continue to read a lot. My "read in 2010" tag on LibraryThing is up to 21 books. I just finished The Girl Who Played With Fire, the second in the Millennium series, and am on the edge of my seat waiting for the third book, which ww1614 kindly offered to send me. w00t.

* Stuff is happening at work, but I'm not talking about that right now. Oh, but I will say that I got a cost-of-living raise, which is nice. It only amounts to about 2.5% of my salary, but every little bit helps.

That's about it for now. But I'll close with ( a few funny things the kids have said lately. )