Randomness

It's been way too long since I've blogged, but with the holidays, work insanity (don't ask because I will tell you) and the onslaught of school-related stuff (chorus performances, holiday parties, and homework, homework, homework) I haven't been able to think straight.
So, just a couple of recent small moments:
Kyle's comment on my aunt's most delicious Thanksgiving repast: "This gravy is a work of art!" He was also quite thrilled with the crab salad appetizer and the marshmallow-topped sweet potatoes, as well as the turkey.
Jesse's happiness and NOT getting his name on the board at school for talking too much. He even gets stickers when he's particularly quiet. He's been dutifully pasting the stickers into his very own personal at-home notebook, so he can record for posterity the evidence of his self-control.
Jesse organizing the left-over Halloween candy (I brought most of it into work, but there's still a big bag hanging around the house). Every couple of days he takes the big bag out and sorts the candy by type (ie; mini-Butterfingers in one pile, mini-Peanut M & M bags in another), then places each type into its own Baggie. He is quite pleased with his organizational skills, though I'm not sure what this says about his future.
Seth getting annoyed with his teacher for some unfathomable reason: "Mom, when it's my birthday at school, Mr. R is NOT getting a cupcake!"
And, of course, endless holiday lists. Seth started his in September. Guess I better get on it.

Punkd!

With three boys and two working parents, along with activities, doctors' appointments, playdates and middle-school tours for our big guy, our family schedules are always sort of ragged.

Yesterday, Angie, our backup babysitter, was on duty with the little guys after school, while Mick took Kyle first to the doctor (yes, he's coughing, but his lungs are clear) and then to Tae Kwon Do. Our regular sitter, Juana, was in Rhode Island, overseeing the delivery of her new furniture with her fiancee.

"Did you tell Angie that Jesse has flag football this afternoon?" I asked my hub mid-morning. "And does she know exactly where it is in Central Park?"

"Don't worry. Jessie knows how to get there," Mick replied.

A little warning bell rang in my head, but I foolishly ignored it and dedicated myself to editing the article on my computer screen.

Later that afternoon, Angie called Juana in a bit of a panic. "Why didn't you tell me they had soccer? I thought it was football! Now we're going the wrong way and we're late and I'm lost!"

"Soccer? They don't have soccer. Put Jesse on the phone," Juana said.

"Jesse. You know you have football. Why did you tell Angie you have soccer?" Juana asked.

The little imp giggled. "Oh, yeah," he said. "I do have football!"

That night, he literally crowed in triumph.

Jesse punked the babysitter.

Nerf Wars

My kids must be just about the easiest targets for marketing tactics around. When they find something compelling, they REALLY find it compelling.

A few years ago, Kyle, my 10-year-old, was obsessed with the TV ads for Floam--a sticky, icky low-rent version of Play Doh that's apparently made only in colors that are not found in nature.

Every time a Floam mini-informercial came on, he'd run to the phone and dial the 800 number.

But, of course, the poor boy had no credit card with which to pay.

When we finally gave in and ordered some Floam (suckered, no doubt, by the bonus of a free, extra-large container of chartreuse), it was a colossal flop. The stuff stunk so badly of some unidentifiable chemical that Kyle and Jesse ran from the room, crying.

The Floam ended up in the garbage.

Since Floam, we've been through the Bakugan thing, the Star Wars thing, the Pokemon card thing and about a dozen other...um, interests.

Right now? For Seth, it's all about Nerf Guns. He knows every model and price, apparently, and talks with great insight about the differences between them. For those who care, the newest and most coveted Nerf is the Rapid Fire-Raider SC-35, and Seth is excited enough about this one to stop begging for the Nerf Tommy 20. (He's been talking about that one at least three or four times a day--literally--for months. It's a bit hard to take.)

Seth has taken to watching Nerf gun videos on You Tube, making his own Nerf-fascimiles out of toilet paper and paper towel tubes and drawing his own vision of a Nerf-filled future.

There are flowers, apparently, and many, many Nerf guns.

Yesterday morning, I woke up to a most peculiar noise: the sound of a soft little Nerf dart hitting a piece of paper.

I peeked into the living room to find Seth, wearing his goggles and shooting at a paper target he'd drawn and taped up on the bookshelf. Luckily, he missed hitting our wedding photo.

His latest idea is a Nerf party, where all the kids (27 of 'em) in his second-grade class will come to our New York (read: small) apartment and attempt to whack each other with Nerf darts. Seth has it all set up in his mind:

"Mom, we can turn the table on its side and some kids can hide behind the table and shoot," he told me as I rushed the boys to school this morning. "Some kids can be in our bunk beds and shoot into the living room. I'll be under Kyle's desk, blasting. We'll have goggles for everyone and bags of extra ammo!"

He hasn't brought up the idea of a Nerf birthday cake yet, but I'm thinking that's next.

Of course, next month, we'll be on to something else.

My Night in the ER, Part II

When the night-shift pediatric ER doc recognizes you, it's time to take stock of your life. Well, now Doc Eileen, who used to lived in New York City and misses it, but also enjoys a quieter life near the beach now (and I know these things because we've met previously), has met two of my boys in the middle of the night. While we've been on vacation at the shore.

You know, relaxing.

Kyle had been coughing and complaining for a few days. The first is not so usual, the latter an everyday occurrence.

But this was a sort of barky cough, which I've not heard from him before.

I tried to wait it out, treating the cough with a humidifier and lots of water, and giving him kiddie ibuprofen for a mild fever.

Then, two nights ago, while we were watching Food Network (Kyle's favorite these days), Mick and I both noticed that he was breathing rapidly and shallowly. With a sigh, I dialed our pediatrician in New York. We were in New Jersey, far from familiar doctors.

Dr. S. gave me the bad news: "You've got to take him in to the hospital. He's never had a breathing episode before and I'm just not comfortable waiting until tomorrow."

Which is how I found myself and my oldest son, at 10 pm, doing the ER tango.

By 1:00, he was in one of the little ER rooms, getting treated for constricted airways. Four of these treatments and a chest X-ray later, they decided to admit him for the night. "Just to watch him," the attending doc (not Doctor Eileen, who was apparently off eating dinner at the improbable hour of 3 am) said. "He's still breathing too fast."

"Sleeeepy," Kyle moaned. "Must sleep."

I felt a migraine coming on.

Then, Doctor Eileen returned from dinner and we reconnected: "You're the mom with the son who hit his head on the rocks last week! Wow, you brought in another one. Quite a summer you're having."

My head throbbed so that I could barely crack a semblance of a smile.

By 4 am, we were in a room, but not, to both our dismay, sleeping. Instead, the nurses had to repeat the same vitals tests they'd already done downstairs in the ER and chart Kyle--which essentially meant answering the same 20 questions we'd already answered five times that night.

Among these queries were:

"How much did Kyle weigh at birth?"

"Was he full-term?"

"What is your office address?"

Nothing urgent, to say the least.

We slept--if you consider reclining in a lumpy chair listening to your son alternately snore and cough sleeping--from about 4:30 to 7:30 am.

That's when the morning tests began: blood pressure, temperature, etc. And more treatments to open up Kyle's overly-tight airways, poor baby.

Then one of the five or six doctors who paraded through that morning put her hand on Kyle's back and frowned. "I hear some crackling in his lungs," she said.

Umm, pneumonia?

"Could be," she replied. "We have to do some more tests."

One excruciatingly painful blood test later, for which I bribed Kyle $8, and we were back in the room with the looming possibility that my child had somehow contracted a peculiar bacterial infection that causes walking pneumonia. The kind of pneumonia that doesn't respond to typically-used antibiotics.

I'm beginning to bore myself, so I'll wrap up this wretched little tale.

We were discharged at about 4 in the afternoon, with our very own portable nebulizer (which I'm hoping insurance will cover, since it's $265), and a handful of prescriptions--including one for a lesser-used antibiotic that should kill off the mycoplasma bacteria, in case my boy should be harboring it. We wouldn't know until the following day, but unlike most doctors, those at the K. Hovnanian Children's Hospital are perfectly willing to administer antibiotics without clear evidence of bacterial infection.

We dutifully visited a local pediatrician the next day, who called the hospital and told us that Kyle did indeed have pneumonia and added a prescription for Pulmicort (a steroid) to help further relieve the barky cough.

It's been quite a vacation.

Jealous?

No, Apparently, He Can't Wait Two Minutes

Kyle is hungry.

No, he's starving.

"I'mmm starving," he's moaning. "Need food. Must have it now."

The current object of his focus is a Vita Muffin--a sort of healthyish chocolate muffin top.

He can get a Vita Muffin for himself, but prefers it warmed up in the toaster oven, which in our cramped New York City apartment, is on a shelf too high for him to reach.

"Two minutes," I promise.

He waits at least ten seconds. "Now? Will you make it now?" he asks hopefully.

"No, in a minute and 50 seconds," I reply, feeling my shoulders begin to tense up.

You know how this goes, right?

Every ten to fifteen seconds, Kyle repeats his request for a warm chocolate Vita Muffin, as my shoulders continue to rise toward my ears.

Even my threat of, "Every time you ask about it, your waiting time gets longer!" fails to clamp down on the begging.

As he begs, I scurry around, making the bed, picking up towels from the bathroom floor and giving the sink a quick wipedown. Still, the broken-record that is my ten-year-old continues.

Finally, I snap. "Two minutes! That's all I ask for! Is that too long for you to wait?"

He looks at me wide-eyed. "No, Mom, that's fine," he says, suddenly speaking in a most reasonable tone. "Sheesh, you don't have to get so annoyed."

He glances at his little brother Seth. "Watch out, Mom's really cranky tonight," he said. "I don't know what that's about."

Better Left Misspoken

You know how kids sometimes get phrases wrong? And how cute that is? Here are couple from my seven-year-olds:
*Seth: "Mom, can I have more spaghetti and neatballs?"
*Jesse: "When can we go to Toys Near Us?"
*Jesse: "Is Kyle going to Twai Kon Do (Tai Kwon Do) today?"

Another Ploy Blown to Bits

Walking home tonight, Kyle said to me, "Mom, you don't really have eyes in the back of your head, do you?"
I smiled; telling me kids about my "other" eyes was a remarkably effective ploy for years, but I'd ditched it recently in favor of time-outs and other more punitive strategies (no Game Boy for a week! Or perhaps ever again!).
'What do you think?" I asked, as Kyle leaped and wiggled behind me, doing who knows what.
"Well, you can't see what I'm doing right now," my almost-10-year-old replied. "So I think...no eyes back there."
"When did you figure out that I don't have eyes in the back of my head?" I asked.
Kyle shrugged. "About four years ago," he said.
I explained that people often say Moms have eyes in the back of their heads because they always know what their kids are doing. "Like I always know what you guys are doing," I said.
My fourth-grader flashed me a sly little grin. "But you don't know what we're doing in the cafeteria at lunch," Kyle said. Teaser.
You know, I keep my kids pretty close at hand. Living in New York City, where space is almost unbearably limited, makes it easy to keep tabs on your children.
But I guess the rope is getting stretched now. Because I don't know what they're doing at lunch, what they're talking about in the playground. And the three of them have secrets now, jokes they tell only to each other, games that don't include me or their dad.
But we'll always have time-outs.

Toddler Talk

From time to time, my kids ask for another sibling. With a pack-rat husband (hi honey!) and three boys already inhabiting our too-small New York City apartment already, the likelihood of another child joining the mix is about as great as the chance that Bernie Madoff will be lauded with a parade in Palm Beach.
Lately, they've been asking for a toddler, instead of a baby. I'm not sure why, but perhaps they're thinking that a toddler will be less trouble and more fun.
So, this morning, Seth cuddles up to me and whispers in my ear, "Mommy, I hope you're adopting a toddler soon because it will be so much fun to play with."
For the record, I have no idea where he learned about adoption, or got the idea that we'd be adopting anything other than a fish.
"What's a toddler?" I asked.
"I know," said Kyle, my almost-10-year-old, with great authority. "A three or four year-old."
"No way," said Seth. "Toddlers are three."
"Toddlers are babies, silly," retorted Jesse. Except he used a more objectionable word than "silly."
My hub patiently explained that toddlers are kids who have recently learned to walk and that they need a lot of care and attention.
"He can sleep in our room," Seth said. "You'll have to get a little bed."
"And little pillows and blankets," Jesse said.
"We'll give our toddler all our old clothes," Kyle added.
Before this toddler talk went any further, I felt like I had to put the kibosh on the bigger-family fantasy.
"Umm, yeah, there's not going to be a toddler, guys," I explained. "We just don't have the room. Just not going to happen."
The boys stared at me for a moment, silent. Then Jesse shrugged. "So can we get a pet lizard?" he asked.

It's All About Legos, Except When It's Not

My kids tend to be a bit, oh, obsessive, about their interests. When Kyle, my nine-year-old, was a toddler, he immersed himself wholeheartedly in the world of Thomas the Tank engine. He knew every one of the dozens of trains, their characteristics (cheeky, naughty, fussy, brave, really useful) and gave us all train names.
Mine was Percy.
Every day, he watched Thomas tapes and built elaborate train tracks.
He slept with at least one train and more than a few of the pricey wooden creations made their way into the bathtub.
I had the preternaturally chipper and chirpy "He's a Really Useful Engine" song ringing in my head for years.
Then one day, it was over.
Hurrah! (As they say in Thomas-Land.)
Or maybe it's Huzzah!
A new obsession emerged quickly: Legos. Or, more specifically, a robot cum monster cum alien known as Bionicles.
Kyle embraced the whole complicated back story with joy (good guys, bad guys, interplanetary travel, unintelligable names and language, a wide variety of weapons, masks of power--a real boy-fest).
There followed years of Bionicle birthdays, Bionicle Halloween costumes and thousands of Bionicle pieces strewn about his room, secreted into his school backpack and carpeting his bed.
At least the Bionicles didn't sing chirpy songs.
That Kyle happened to be unusually good at building was a bonus; nothing delighted the little cutie more than a new set with a loooong instruction booklet. We loved peeping into Kyle's room to watch his little fingers hard at work, putting complicated sets together.
It was his happy place, profoundly so.
All kind of other Legos made their way into the mix as well. Even the bigger (and presumably more babyish) Duplos held magic for Kyle, and for his little brothers.
Other items held sway for a while—second grade was the year of the Pokemon—but Kyle always returned to his Legos.
Until early this school year, when it seemed like his Lego lust had finally been sated.
The Legos sat unused for months, as Kyle and his little brothers turned to video games and Bakugan, a rolling monster/card game that held the kids at school in thrall from September onward.
I suggested we donate them all, just to get the thousands and thousands of itty bitty pieces littering our home the heck out of there. (Have you ever stepped on a Lego piece? It's shockingly painful.)
My husband, AKA Pack Rat Man, refused. "What if the boys get back into them?" he asked.
And he was right. Because, for reasons unknown, Legos once again rule in our home. All three boys now beg for Lego sets, build legions Lego armies (the Star Wars Legos are particularly good for combat, they tell me) and create everything from forts to robots to animals from the little bricks.
The floor is once again covered; my feet are dimpled with Lego injuries.
And all is right with our world.

Meet our High Emotions

Emotions run high in our house much of the time, thanks to our three rather excitable boys: Kyle, Seth and Jesse. Hence the blog name. They're excitable in different ways, which I'll get to later, but all three of them seem to me to be unusually highly emotional. So my husband and I, who I dimly remember being pretty mellow BK (before kids), are pretty excitable ourselves much of the time. Except when I'm using my fake-soothing voice to try to calm everyone down. It's amazingly effective, but I can only sustain the forced sonorous tones of "Let's all relax and discuss this in a family meeting..." for a short period of time. A brief description of the trio:
Kyle, 9 years old and hyper-sensitive and hyper-aware of everything around him (sounds, smells, people), except when he's completely oblivious to what I'm saying. Which he always is when I'm asking him about homework, picking up dirty underwear and finishing his peas. On the flip side, the kid can make Lego creations that are twice his size. And he loves his mama.
Jesse, almost 7. Not a sensitive bone in his body. He'll make a great MBA someday. As our babysitter, Juana, likes to say, "I hope Jesse will be kind to the people who work for him." Clearly, she's got his number. Jess, by far the shortest one in the family--which he complains about endlessly--may not be sensitive, but he can whine with the best of them. And his whine? Think of a gnat buzzing in your ear all night. Yeah, THAT annoying. Still, he's got the gift of keeping us all laughing.
Seth, Jesse's twin, is the sweetest of them in many ways. Artistic, creative, loving...all good stuff. But should he lose a board game or stub a toe, it's weepy time. Profound waterworks. And his response to frustration of any kind, from being unable to complete a puzzle to dropping a baseball, is usually "I'm a big loser; I can't do anything right!" Sigh.
I love 'em, couldn't live without them, can't imagine what the heck they'll be like as grownups. But whew. It's a mighty big job keeping all the feelings under control. And that's what this blog is about. I think