Happy Halloweenie

Our Little Emo Boy

It was a traumatic week. I didn't think we'd survive the stitches removal, and that was with three adults in the room! All of our normal activities were suspended, lest the facial stitchery be disturbed -- like I told you, it was a traumatic week!

In the end, the scar is nice and pink and, if we're careful and watch out for sunburns (have to cancel that Caribbean vacation we've been planning), he should have little to no scar. We, however, are scarred for life!

Funniest line from the whole event took place on the way to a kids party last weekend.

Chris: Hey Alex, are you going to show everyone your scar?

Alex: No, I'm wearing pants.

Good stuff.

With all of the attention going to Alex, the girls needed some extra TLC. What better than introducing them to the mutual shampoo?

Orange peels -- always fascinating.

Alex: All Drama, All the Time

So Chris had the kids out on an adventure at Coyote Point on Saturday.
From what I have been told, it all started out so innocently.
The kids were playing happily.

Engaged in their own special way, figuring out how the world around them works.

Enjoying spending time with each other, with their dad.

And BOOM. Someone ends up in the hospital.

(What I love about this picture is that while Alex waits for anesthesia, he has his legs crossed on the hospital bed - and this is before the drugs!)

Apparently Mr. All Boy All the Time, while looking over his shoulder at the otter exhibit, tripped over a rock and fell into a recently-trimmed tree trunk with one branch still protruding from its side that, of course, met Alex's lower lip area with full force. All the way through.

Chris, ever-amazing in traumatic events, ushered all three kiddos up to guest services for directions to the nearest hospital while one of the museum-folk (knowledgeable in all things first aid) cleaned up Alex. According to Chris, after the gauze and band-aids were applied, Alex calmed down. We will forever refer to this as "The Band-Aid Syndrome". Despite the fact that he had a gash in his face nearly the size of a nickel, he was calm because of a damn Band-Aid (time to start investing in that company, folks). Anyway. Chris made it to the hospital, luckily nearby, to an empty ER, (thanks to the universe for making that happen), and into a room where Alex proceeded to sit comfortably awaiting treatment, the girls spun around the room chasing blown-up latex gloves, and Mom received a phone call while she was sipping coffee and grading papers that she needed to book it down to San Mateo Hospital (an hour away) before her son went under anesthesia for a gash in his face. Ahhh, the wonders of parenthood.

I arrived just before he came out of the anesthesia, and what a sorry state he was in. All puffy-eyed, swollen, and generally pretty miserable. He kept telling us he wanted "to go", but then slumped over every time he tried to sit up. It was sad. I left with the girls who had been very good up to that point -- let them sleep in the car since nap was oh so long ago -- and Chris stayed with the little man while he came to.

The end result: stitches outside, stitches inside, splinters removed (ouch!), a big fat lip, and what will most likely be a scar of some sort.

He did really well, but learned very quickly that with an injury of any sort, especially breaking in his parents' first bout with stitches, he can pretty much get what he wants.

Unfortunately, right now that means all things liquid -- nothing solid. You want ice cream, ok! Soup: ok! Do you want me to puree some hot dogs? (ewwwww)

And then he slept.

Now on Monday, he's fine. He wore his badge of carnage to preschool today and moved up the social ranking. The teachers told me, "He's so young to have stitches" to which I replied, "I think it's only the beginning." Sigh. Stitches out on Friday, so we'll post an update then.

Now that I'm not so totally sleep-deprived, I can think a little bit about this experience of Alex's, and the first thing that comes to my mind is this: will he remember it? Sure, he'll remember it for a month, maybe two, maybe more, but for the long-term -- could this be one of his earliest memories?

I have profound memories of being at CSU in an English class that changed the direction of my thinking called "Literature and Social Sensitivity." Taught by Gilbert Findlay, I'll never forget it. One of his assignments was called "First Memory", and he challenged us to recall just that: our first memory. A memory that was ours alone, not a story that had been passed down to us but a memory that we could recall. I'll tell you: it's not an easy thing trying to go through the archives of your mind to find your first memory -- when you find it, I'm convinced that you learn something about yourself. I did. When I taught a writing class to high school seniors (some of you are readers of this blog, I know!), one of my favorite assignments was the first memory assignment.

As a parent now of two four-year-olds, I become increasingly aware of memories that might be starting to form... Alex experienced a trauma. Will he remember it twenty years from now?

Alex turns 4...

...and Mom and Dad take to drinking heavily. HA! On one hand, we cannot believe that our kids are as big as they are and on the other, we see them as little adults all vying for control of our household. Alex is no different. We celebrated as all four-year-olds should: with friends, Spiderman cake, and presents.

(And a note about the cake, which you'll see in the video clip: his favorite color is orange, and yes, the cake is lop-sided. I could pawn that off on any number of events that were happening while I was baking... let's just say he's lucky that there was a cake at all!)

Video clip o' the day: Happy Birthday Alex!

Alex: A birthday in two parts

For Taya, we headed to San Jose to the Children's Discovery Museum; for Sara, to Oakland Zoo. For Alex: the Pier 39 Aquarium by the Bay!

Didn't get a chance to snap too many photos, but I did manage a few good ones. The trio lucked into touching (and even picking up) a starfish...

...petting a ray...

...smelling, watching, and listening to the noisy sea lion population off the pier...
... lucking into a practice session of the Blue Angels (preceding Fleet Week the next day)...

...and totally burning out about four hours after we arrived! A good way to celebrate four years in the world, methinks...

A dinosaur sandwich.

We are obsessed with the new PBS kids show Dinosaur Train in this house. Obsessed. I can tell you all about pteranodons, brachiasauruses, herbivores, and carnivores. The kids can give a lecture on a stegosaurus' plates and how a corythosaurus communicates through its crest. Frightening.

So, given such a climate, I thought a dinosaur sandwich would be wildly exciting.You'd be impressed, right? Come on -- it's cute!

The verdict: Taya, stoic as ever, looked at that dinosaur sandwich that I thought she was sure to love, glanced back at me and, as if to prove that a dinosaur sandwich was the most unexciting thing in the world and that I was going to have to do a whole lot more to impress her, grabbed a cheese crunchie and took a bite.

Clearly I have some work to do.

Celebrate Good Times, Come On!

(doo doo doo doo do do do do -- duh duh duh duh)

That's right: a little fiesta for all three kiddos. It ended up being a very small group of friends, some with kids, some without. One jumpy with a slide for five kids -- I thought they might pass out at first. Of course, they had to share it with the adults... why not? The jumpy was big enough! Jumpy + slide: I'll do that from here on out. There were no major injuries, no head or body slamming in the jumphouse -- the kids were totally fascinated by the slide. Good times, good times.
A video of said good times!

Hot dogs, Pirate's Booty, strawberries, and cupcakes later, a party was born and thrived with a handful of adults, five kids, and nothing but celebration! Happy Birthday Alex, Taya, and Sara!

Note: There are many folks who will wonder why we didn't invite more people. Honestly, we debated, and in the end decided that while the kids were still small, we could get away with a party that was small. There will be times when we can invite all the kids Taya has come to know and befriend, all the kids Alex enjoys playing with, and all the kids Sara talks about nearly every day. Today was not one of those times. We kept it small for our sanity :) No offense.