T-rex eating a snack watching tv
and slipping to dance with the frog.
Boo-ya!
And nothing but cheetos
on the frog’s crown
and cheetos eating themselves.
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Stick.
Stick who?
Stick again.
Thomas likes to whisper crazy things to Liz and I to text to each other. I received this as a message tonight.
In Golden Boy Swears I mentioned that Thomas and I have taken up wrestling as part of his nightly routine. I’m fairly certain that this new activity was prompted by Thomas, although I can’t be entirely sure. Regardless, it’s interesting because most of the time Thomas is a very sweet and loving boy. (Except when he’s a mama Tyrannosaurus Rex looking for food. Then he can be quite fierce.) Yet during these wrestling sessions he is a maniac. He hurls his body around as though he is trying to seriously hurt me. And he does it with complete disregard for his own well being.
He likes me to be on my knees, where I’m slower and easier to wallop. He tries to flank me and then attack from behind. When he does this, he often comes tearing across the room at tremendous speed. I do the only sensible thing and duck while trying to find a happy place. Then he crashes into my back and his momentum carries him across my body so that he’s suddenly pitching over the other side. In these moments I have to suddenly switch from protecting myself to protecting him by catching him or slowing his fall.
So I spend these wrestling matches both trying to protect him while trying not to get my teeth kicked in. It’s not easy. I have learned that a swift kick to the ribs, when unexpected, can seriously hurt, even when delivered by a five year old. I have also learned that a five year old stomping on your back can actually feel quite good. And, I have learned that my head can withstand the thumping blows of a bouncing 40 pound weight.
This is one of those situations where I wonder, is this something all little boys do with their fathers? I wrestled plenty with my brother growing up. I suppose, for me, a lot of that was something I might have done with my dad. But I think wrestling with one’s brother has other elements as well. Like proving one’s dominance by delivering nuggies. (This is probably why I started balding so early in life. Jackass.)
It’s clear Thomas is getting something from these sessions. Maybe he’s getting out pent up feelings. Maybe he’s just acting on ancient instincts. Maybe he’s got patricidal urges. Whatever it is, I have no plans on stopping it anytime soon. It is has quickly become the highlight of my day. We both end up laughing in a heap at the end of each bout. Then he usually jumps up, kicks me in the ribs and yells, “GET OUT!”
It’s such a minor thing, really. All I did was swap out one background image for another. Oh, and I tweaked a few color settings.
Caroline, in her purple pajamas, with the purple peep, is there for a reason. So it’s still there. Probably always will be.
Anyway, it was time. For me.
I suppose it’s theoretically possible that you have 1) not read Charlotte’s Web and 2) don’t want the plot spoiled, so I will warn you now, I give away the major plot elements of the book in this post. So go somewhere else. Maybe you can go buy the book.
We first tried to read Thomas chapter books when he was three. It worked for about a week before he lost interest. He was too little to handle the long chapters full of nothing but words. He spent most of the time asking questions about the various pictures that were included at the beginning of each chapter. We put the book down and didn’t pick it back up again.
Recently we decided to try again. In retrospect it’s clear we could have come back to chapter books much sooner. It might have spared us many nights of reading and rereading long tedious books about dinosaurs. But then, Thomas’ love and knowledge of dinosaurs is one of his many endearing qualities. So perhaps it was all for the best. Either way, we returned to fiction chapter books by starting with the classic Charlotte’s Web. Where else, really?
We knew we were treading into unknown territory with this book. We weren’t sure how Thomas would react to the threat of death hanging over Wilbur’s head or the ultimate demise of his best friend. We knew that he could survive. We just didn’t know how much trauma the story would inflict.
The first sign of trouble came when the suggestion that Wilbur might be eaten for Christmas dinner was first made in the book.
“But he’s not going to get eaten,” Thomas said forcefully and then looked at me for confirmation. This is generally how Thomas confronts fear. When he says “but that won’t happen,” what he’s saying is, “I don’t want that to happen, I hope that doesn’t happen, please tell me that it won’t.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “We have to read the rest of the book to see what happens.”
And so we did. Of course, Wilbur does not die because Charlotte saves his life. Instead, it is Charlotte who dies. When Charlotte started to fatigue and it was suggested that her time was coming to an end, Thomas said, “but she’s not tired because she’s old. She’s just tired from the trip from the farm to the fair. Yeah, it was a long trip.”
This denial of what was clearly happening had Liz and I slightly worried about how Thomas would react when she finally died. The night we read the chapter in which Charlotte passes, he became very agitated as the chapter progressed. He squirmed and bounced about on our bed as Charlotte declared that she was “done for.” In the book, Wilbur is frantic when he realizes Charlotte is dying and will not return to the farm with him. He is desperate to get her egg sac so that he can take it with him back to the farm. He succeeds, with the help of Templeton the rat. He then is loaded into his crate. He says a silent goodbye to his friend and leaves her at the fairgrounds.
The chapter ends with a beautiful but very sad description of her death. The final sentence is, “No one was with her when she died.” As I read those words Thomas was quiet and still. I closed the book for a moment and turned to him and said, “what happened?”
“Charlotte died,” he said. “But Wilbur took her egg sac back to the farm.”
“And how do you feel about that?”
“Well, it’s sad that Charlotte died, but it’s good that her babies won’t be born alone.”
It occurred to me, as I was writing my last post that I’ve been sharing quite a bit about my life here on this blog. Which is fine. But I think I may have left you hanging on a few occasions. So I thought I would use a post here to tie up some loose ends.
Back in November I wrote I’m Not Dying. I’m happy to report that this is still the case. My hypothyroidism is being controlled with medication. My energy levels are up. My weight is down. I have been sick only once in the past three months. If I should suddenly go silent, you can probably find out if I’m dead by visiting Childsplayx2. I’m sure he’d write a lovely, if slightly sappy, tribute to me in the event of my death.
In December I wrote Bumps in the Night, which chronicled Thomas’s sleepwalking adventures. I am happy to report that there have been no further sightings. I am hopeful that that period is behind us. The potential for repeats is there of course. If there should be a recurrence, I’ll most certainly write about it here.
Just last week I wrote Naked and Frustrated which discussed, in part, Caroline’s ill health. Well, Crazy Girl is fever and cough free and went back to daycare yesterday. She continues to take her antibiotics and steroids, and has a follow up appointment later this week. Thomas has contracted the same cold and is now suffering the same cough. He never developed any infections so is only taking the steroid for his lungs. He had an appointment today and was declared to be on the mend. No follow up is needed. He’ll keep taking the steroid until his cough stops, at which point we can discontinue. We hope to have healthy and prescription free children by the beginning of next week.
So, things here are good and getting better. My apologies if you were hoping for drama. Stay tuned. I’m bound to do something stupid very soon.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” I said to Liz standing there in nothing but my underwear.
I’m always loud. Nearly always obnoxious. But I’m not a yeller. It doesn’t happen often, me yelling uncontrollably. When I yell it’s usually because I’m stuck in a stressful situation with no hope of resolution. As the stress folds over onto itself repeatedly, it creates this extremely uncomfortable frustration That frustration leads to intense agitation. So intense that the moment someone contributes to my stress in any way, I lash out. Then, instantly, I feel like an asshole. So I apologize. With a real apology, the kind that comes with no “but you” attached.
“I’m sorry you got puked on.” She doesn’t retaliate. She knows that even though I was yelling at her, it was really the situation.
This situation is that Caroline is sick. She started coughing Sunday night. Then on Monday she was sent home from daycare with a fever. She was extremely miserable that night. So on Tuesday she went to the doctor. Unfortunately her regular doctor isn’t in the office on Tuesdays. So the doctor available on Tuesday declared that her lungs were clear, her throat was clear, and her ears were clear, “come back on Thursday if the fever comes back.” She really was better that night, but Liz kept her with her while she worked from home yesterday. Then everything went downhill.
Diarrhea. A fever spiking to 103.9 under the arm. Back to the doctor, her regular doctor, who declared that she had “two raging ear infections and very congested lungs.” Particularly the lower right lung. Which was disconcerting because either the doctor from Tuesday should not be seen again, or this thing blew up really fast. Thankfully a nebulizer treatment cleared up the lungs. By the time the crew picked me up at the train station, Caroline was very happy.
After dinner, I gave her her perscriptions. Antibiotics for the ears and a steroid for the lungs. Then upstairs to get ready for bed. While Liz was poking at a splinter in Thomas’ finger Caroline started coughing. Caroline doesn’t handle coughing very well, and this fit ended with her puking a sizable amount of her medicine on our bed. Which was gross. I don’t like gross. So I yelled for Liz and we switched kids (after I cleaned her up). Then after an hour of Caroline dozing and hacking and moaning on Liz while her fever spiked again, I took Caroline back for only a moment while Liz said good night to Thomas.
In that moment Caroline decided to vomit again. First down the front of my shirt. Then down the back, for the sake of symmetry.
Liz hearing the commotion came running with a towel and caught a significant portion while standing behind me. Then Caroline leaned back in my arms moving away from my body. So Liz stepped back in the opposite direction. Then Caroline puked twice more down my front. This is when I yelled.
“DAMMIT ELIZABETH!”
“What?”
“WHY DID YOU TAKE THE TOWEL AWAY WHILE SHE WAS BARFING ALL OVER ME?!”
Not that it made a difference. I was already basted by the time she showed up with the towel. But I was frustrated.
Frustrated that we took her to the damn doctor yesterday when she wasn’t sick enough to warrant any treatment. Frustrated that this stupid cold got so much worse today after being better yesterday. Frustrated that I had to get updates from text messages while I was at work. Frustrated that we have three thermometers that gave three vastly different readings when used at the same time. Frustrated that she puked up all of the medicine she got last night. Frustrated that all we can do while she moans and cries and hacks and pukes is sit there and listen and be hacked and puked on.
And also, I really don’t like being puked on. Not even a little bit.
It’s no secret that I hold a special place in my heart for Maddie Spohr. The current design of this website and the post I wrote on her birthday are testaments to that fact.
It’s also no secret that in Thomas, Liz and I have a very astute and observant little boy. He is truly the smartest person I know. Which means that he knows all about Maddie. In great detail. We talked about her often in April and May. He asked all of his questions, some of them many times. Eventually, as he does with everything, he was satisfied with his understanding of what happened to Maddie, and he moved on. While she is still occasionally a topic of conversation, she doesn’t come up nearly as often as she did last spring. Until last Friday.
On Friday Maddie became a big sister when her little sister Annabel Violet was born. Maddie and Annie’s parents Mike and Heather posted pictures of Annabel on Heather’s blog on Saturday. After looking at them I asked Thomas if he wanted to see pictures of Maddie’s little sister.
“Yeah!” he said, and then “Aw. So cuuute.”
Then his eyes got big and he turned to me and said, “Daddy, was she born like her sister?”
“No,” I said. “She was born healthy and on time.”
“Oh, I’m so happy to hear it.” He then danced around the room, picked up a toy dinosaur, and roared ferociously.
Congratulations Mike, Heather and Maddie. Welcome Annabel!
it’s bed time
we are in the midst of Thomas’ bed time routine
after the race to his room, his music playing
we’re wrestling, a new activity
he charges at me before veering off while taking a wild swing at me
he’s particularly ferocious tonight
he stops and looks at me with his terrible eyes
he swings his terrible claws into the air and yells
“I’M GOING TO GET YOU, YOU
…
YOU
…
YOU
….
BAD-WORD!”
he charges again, this time crashing directly into me
he pummels me
i roar my terrible roar
“GO BAD-WORD YOURSELF!”
and i eat him up
As you may have noticed, I have a hard time updating this blog on a regular basis. The problem is that I have a hard time following through on anything that I don’t have a sense of obligation to complete. It’s a definite limitation. One that I’m challenging myself to overcome. Part of my strategy for this blog is to pick important dates to write posts about. By associating the act of posting with important dates like birthdays and anniversaries I make it about others and the sense of obligation kicks in. This trick has worked so far, as you may have noticed, but it’s not perfect. I have developed a pattern of writing the posts at the last possible moment. I often complete them in the very early morning hours.
The most recent example of this was Thomas’ birthday. On that day I didn’t finish the post until almost five in the morning. Which is why I was up when I heard a familiar sound: the creaking of a hinge on Thomas’ bedroom door as it opened. Assuming Thomas was coming out of his room for some real or imagined need, I got up from the desk in our open third floor loft and headed downstairs. I stopped on the landing between the two floors, caught slightly off guard by an odd sight.
Thomas was standing in the barely open doorway of his room. He had one leg up in the air as if he was frozen in the middle of a giant step. He appeared to be in the act of stepping over one of his rainboots which had been placed in his doorway to keep it slightly ajar. I was confused by this move. Why not just open the door all the way? Why not move the boot? And why the heck was he stopped in that odd pose? So, rather than making my way down the rest of the stairs I instead took a step back out of his eye sight and waited.
After a moment he finished his slow step over the boot. He then stopped, turned around and stepped back over the boot into his room. Then he came back out. Then back in again. Then out and then in. Finally he stepped out one last time and slowly walked down the hallway towards our bedroom. The entry way to our room was out of my sightline so I was going to follow him. I didn’t get a chance, because as soon as he was gone he was back, walking towards his room. He made it to his room and carefully stepped over the boot. I expected him to repeat his odd behavior, but instead he disappeared into his room. After a moment when it was clear he wasn’t coming back out, I quickly made my way down the rest of the stairs and followed him.
I found him in his bed, under his blankets. He was breathing heavily in his near snore, lips parted slightly, and completely asleep. It had been less than twenty seconds since he had walked through the doorway.
I placed my hand on his shoulder, and said “Thomas?” He just rolled over onto his belly and squirmed a bit before going still again.
That’s when I knew. My five year old who can open the front door, the door to the garage, the refrigerator, turn on our gas fireplace, and operate every faucet in the house had been sleepwalking.
A couple days later Thomas had his five year checkup and we mentioned the incident to his doctor. She told us that it wasn’t uncommon and that “they’ll do that” and then told us all the things you’ve heard before. “Secure the doors, don’t wake him up, lead him back to bed.”
But there was no need because it remained an isolated incident. (Uh, as far as I know. Ugh. Do you see how nerve wracking this is? It’s like having a five year old ghost creeping around your house when you’re asleep.) Until yesterday at about four in the morning. This time I was awake because I had just moved from the couch where I had fallen asleep infront of an episode of Mythbusters. I made my way up to bed. Not long after getting into bed I heard the noise of the creaking door. I got up and headed out into the hallway and found Thomas standing there in the dark. He reminded me of the two girls standing in the hallway in the film version of the The Shining.
He saw me and said, “daddy.” Then he turned around and walked back into his room. His movements and voice were odd. It was not at all how he behaves normally. It was as though he was very tired. Which, I suppose he was. This time I quickly followed and watched him get back in bed. As he got under the covers he said “Jesus is ….” and then put his head on his pillow and was out, just like before.
I wanted to shout “JESUS IS WHAT?!” Instead, I walked out of the room and started working out reasonable explanations as to why this is not what I thought it was. I thought “this is only happening when I’m awake and moving around. He hears me, and gets up to investigate. He behaves oddly because he’s tired.”
“No,” another voice in my head countered, “it’s more likely that this happens more often than you think and you only see it when you’re awake because, well, you’re awake to see it. The little bugger is probably standing over you while you sleep every night.”
“He’s not standing there thinking about eating my brains, is he?”
“Not unless he’s dreaming he’s a dinosaur.”
“Oh, God.”
It just so happens that as I was writing this very post, I once again heard the sound of the creaking hinge. I’m not going to lie, I had a surge of adrenaline and the hair on my neck stood up. There’s something about this that just creeps me out. I made it into the hallway and he was standing in the doorway. Again he said, “daddy” and went back into his room. And then he woke up. He said, “um, uh … daddy,” now speaking in his normal light voice with his rambling words, “I love you.”
So, for now, my brains are safe. I just hope he stays safe.
Five years ago yesterday, a very pregnant Liz and I had just placed our order for dinner at the neighborhood IHOP. The waiter brought us our drinks. I gazed lovingly at my pregnant wife. She gazed back and said, “I think my water just broke.”
Now, things like this tend to happen during pregnancies, so it wasn’t completely unexpected. But it was thirty-two days ahead of schedule. Which is why I think it was very reasonable that my first thought was, “how do we undo this?” Instead, I said, “do you want to go the bathroom and double check?” She nodded, stood, tied a sweatshirt around her waist and hobbled off. I sat at the table and tried not to freak out.
The moment, was of course, completely ludicrous. I knew full well that Liz knew full well that her darn water had most certainly done broke. Yet, neither of us were ready to find out if we were in fact ready to become parents. Of course, biology has a much different idea of “ready” than does the modern human mind. Liz eventually came back from the bathroom and confirmed what didn’t need confirming, Golden Boy was on his way. So we made some hasty comments to the waiter who waved us out of there like the was waving a green racing flag, and we hightailed it back home.
Our hospital of choice was 30 minutes away from home and we still hadn’t packed hospital bags. So once we got back to our apartment I sprinted up three flights of stairs and immediately placed a call to the OB’s answering service. I huffed and puffed into the phone about our situation and the operator, mistaking my lack of physical conditioning for panic, told me to calm down. As distracted as I was, I forgot to tell her to bite me.
It was a little over an hour after the start of labor that we arrived at the hospital. Twelve hours after that, Thomas was born. Exactly one month early and except for a little jaundice, perfectly healthy.
And he’s been in a hurry ever since. Curious and inquisitive, he hunts down knowledge like a Tyrannosaurus rex hunts down meat. He corners some poor unsuspecting sap, usually me, and unleashes a thousand penetrating questions. It’s how he knows the difference between Memorial Day and Veteran’s day. (Because he needed to know why there was no school that day.) It’s how he knows the circumstances of the my father’s death. (Like how the brakes were bad on that truck.) It’s how he knows that Santa Claus is really just an idea and not a real person. (Because why would a strange man leave gifts in our home?)
It’s the reason why there is no magic of any kind in this house. Because magic is an unsatisfactory answer. Magic is no answer at all. Instead there is a rotating earth with an orbiting moon. Banks that hold money and give loans. And people that die and never come back.
(There are subjects I refuse to discuss, the whys of war, for example. Or slavery. And yes, those subjects do come up, when explaining Veterans Day or watching a documentary about parks that shows Martin Luther King Jr. giving his “I have a Dream” speech in front of the Lincoln memorial. “Is that a park? Who’s Abraham Lincoln? Why does he have a big statue? What is that man saying?” Bah.)
Sometimes, most of the time, I worry, that it’s too much. That I shouldn’t be answering these questions that are too big for a boy who is just five years old today. That he should be dreaming of Santa Claus and be oblivious of molecules and their states. (What is steam?) But then I look at my boy and I see the satisfaction on his face when he feels he understands something. The truth, explanations that make logical sense, they give him comfort. This is what Thomas needs to feel right with world.
Today the smartest person I know is five years old. Happy birthday Thomas. I promise to always answer your questions with the truth as long as you keep asking them.
