Poet laureate

A poem O composed today on the swing, which we call "Untitled":

I want to go high, Mommy.
I want to go higher than the trees.
I want to fly away like the bumblebees
and the birds
and the crows.
Owen go 'tweet, tweet' and fly away like the birds.

Abstract artist

Sometimes our boys do something that totally surprises me with its creativity and/or required comprehension. Z and O have a game that has a bunch of geometric shapes that you place into slots in a puzzle to help form trains, animals, etc. There is no car shape in that puzzle, which makes the following a bit more impressive to me.

A nose for trouble

On Thursday, Meh got a call from Z’s camp. They were doing arts and crafts with little beads, and Z had apparently decided to try to smell them, ending up with two inhaled up his nose. They were able to tweezer out one, but couldn’t get the other. Meh took him to the doctor, where they couldn’t find it but noticed some mild swelling. We were told to monitor for “copious yellow or green mucous”. Yum. All in all he did okay, but kept talking about “did you put a bead in your nose?” Afterwards, he seemed right as rain, and all weekend, he was happy and high energy.

Yesterday morning, Z’s nose started running a bit. It was clearish, but as he seemed to be getting more congested as the day went on, so after camp, mima kept an eye on O while I took Z to the Children’s Hospital’s excellent urgent care center. He recognized the surroundings from several cast-related appointments earlier in the year, and did great job waiting our turn, heading into the exam room, weighing himself, and even listening while the doctor talked to him and myself. He got a bit upset when she tried to shine the light up his nose, and she couldn’t find anything from the exam. So we were referred onward to the Children’s Hospital Emergency Department across the bridge in Seattle.

After parking, we walked into the ED – which was right past a landing pad for Childrens’ very own med-evac helicopter. Z was pleased to see it and was a happily wild man in the lobby, playing with their toys and the motion sensor doors at the entrance (indeed, the staff seemed to love having such a happy and clearly not uncomfortable/outwardly sick kid giggling his way around the lobby). Excitement of excitements, the chopper took off a few minutes later; you know it’s a children’s hospital because they had one staff member whose sole job it was to temporarily disable the front door’s motion sensor and stand in front of it, lest some overeager kid make a dash outside to go check out the helicopter.

Once we were called back into triage things were a bit more challenging for Mr. Z. Several doctors (and what seemed like an unending contingent of observing interns) came through and tried to get Z to let them look up his nose; still no obvious obstruction, and eventually they determined that the runny nose was likely just a cold unless the color and/or odor (ew again) change. (Sure enough, my own nose is running a bit this morning.) A very nice doctor told us that most of the time these kinds of things either fall or are sneezed out, or are just ingested. In between various exams, they brought us crayons and paper, and then the big winner, a pair of toy cars! At the end of a long evening at the doctor’s, Z and I thankfully headed home with vehicles in hand and comments about the doctors fixing his nose.

Walking on Water

This weekend is the Urban Craft Uprising at Seattle Center, full of arts, crafts, and yes, even some tasty snacks (Cupcake Royale was on hand with free samples; O was of course a fan). We headed into the city bright and early, exploring the newly fancified food court (no, not particularly, just new vendors) and then luxuriating for a bit in front of the fountain on an actual sunny and warm day (summer at last!) before Meh, mima, and Z headed into the event. O was far more interested in running around like a wild man. He (well, and I too) found it hugely entertaining when the water that flows over part of the sidewalk as some kind of artistic feature turned on at 10 in the morning and all of the folks queued up to get into the event had to dodge out of the way. Once the queue had dissipated, he had his own nice stomp: The event itself didn't disappoint; mima got a new coat, Meh perused some very cute librarian-themed art, and both boys got some extra tasty lollipops (whose wrappers are brilliantly graphically designed by our own friend J!) - O: "It tastes like birthday cake. With sprinkles!" (Yes, the lollipop had actual sprinkles in it.) Then kaiten sushi and home again for a nap. A lovely family outing!

Send in the clowns

Happy Independence Day! In true Seattle tradition, the “summer” switch has been flipped just in time, meaning today was a beautifully sunny day. While 10 pm fireworks are still probably way past our kids’ bedtime, we did take them to our city’s crazily large parade. Well, to be clear, we made a picnic on a hill in a park overlooking one of the staging areas where lots of cars and trucks and things that go were queuing up. Mima, papa, and a number of friends joined us as well, and everyone brought quite the spread, including very yummy baguette sandwiches for us (and cute star-shaped ones for the boys) and some amazing chocolate chip cookies from Meh that O managed to double fist at one point.

The boys had a fabulous time; I even walked Z down to the parade route proper, where in addition to classic and contemporary cars, vintage military jeeps, police vehicles, and a submarine, there was a large brass band playing, which he enjoyed listening to for a bit. The one rough spot of the day was for Mr. O; he and I took several very successful trips to the port-a-potty (often even after waiting through a not insignificant queue), and on one occasion, we emerged to face a man dressed in a clown outfit. O got a bit scared, and spent much of the rest of the time at our picnic (and indeed throughout the rest of the day) asking “Where’d the clown go? I don’t want to see the clown.” Poor little coulrophobic man!

The parade ended up outlasting the boys, and we left several hours later, walking along the parade route where the boys were confronted by parade team after team that apparently had instructions to seek out kids and give them candy; the boys had a horde of lollipops by the time we retrieved the car.

At the tone, the time will be...

4:26 am.

That is the precise time (with remarkable consistency) that O has been getting up for the past few weeks. On rare occasions, he'll sleep until 5, though just as occasionally he'll be up before 4. Ugh. We attempted to counter this by going to bed earlier ourselves, but even 9:30 or 10 pm puts you into a pretty substantial hole. (It doesn't help that Z sometimes wakes up between midnight and 2 am, though he at least goes back to bed and sleep fairly quickly with a mommy or daddy escort.)

So over the past two nights, we've queued him up with the idea that it's too early to get up and that he needs to go back to sleep. Once he accepted a cup of water from me, another time he had to go potty and then wanted a song, and both times he's melted down when I leave the room, but he does seem to eventually fall back asleep, and we've been able to graduate to getting up at 5:30 or so. Hey, it's a start -- we'll see how things progress in the next few days and if we can head back towards 6 am.

I'm also still pondering getting him one of those color-indicator clocks like Zachary has to see if that might help him check the time and know what to do himself. Only time (groan) will tell.