Headlights in the Fog

Fun Fair

Yesterday we attended the yearly Fun Fair put on by Jack's school. It had been postponed three times due to weather. Luckily, yesterday was a beautiful day... simply amazing. The fair has a very 'let's-put-on-a-show' feel to it... homemade carny games, homemade treats, pizza bought at our local pizzeria. It was lovely. Except for the overly loud music blaring out of huge loudspeakers and the fact that all of the kids seem to need to yell at the top of their lungs to communicate with each other. They had a blow-up moon bounce and slide. Kitty was at first apprehensive about going on the slide, so we enlisted Jack to go with her. Well, all it took was one go and then Kitty wanted to go on it again and again and again. It took a few tries, but I finally got the above picture of her mid-slide. Isn't she just exuding joy?  Towards the end of our time there, Jack said, "MOM! I JUST LOST A TOOTH!" He handed me the tooth and then gave me a grin... it was startling and very bloody... he looked like he had just lost a fight. Below is a picture of the new arrangement of his teeth:

Today we are off to swim lessons and are pondering putting a wall in the base of our grass in the front yard. Everytime it rains a huge mud pit forms on part of our sidewalk and Kitty and I have both slipped and fallen down as a result of it. We've talked about putting a wall in for years. Having an actual safety related reason to do it does make one motivated.

It may seem from my photos on the blog that Isaac only hangs out with Kitty, but the below picture is evidence to the contrary.

Keep on Keeping on

In rather startling news, Lulu has started letting Kitty pet her. Kitty has been around for 4+ years now and I don't think once in all of that time did Lulu let her withing a radius of 10 feet from her body. Seriously. This is yet another indicator that Valium is agreeing with Lulu.

Kitty started school last week and has been LOVING it. Her enthusiasm for school takes me by surprise because I'm so used to the way Jack reacts to school. He sees it as an inconvience to his lego playing schedule. He always was hesitant in each of his classes... this year (knock on wood) seems to be the first in which he'll walk in to school and forget to say goodbye to me. I'm not offended, I'm glad he is feeling so much at ease with the whole situation. Last year at this time he was crying and asking me not to go while clinging to me when I dropped him off. One day I walked him in to his classroom and his teacher had to literally pry him off of me and hold him back so I could leave. Luckily, that behavior only lasted for a week. I think two reasons why Jack is like school so much are recess and lunch. He has both of those with his best friend Louis. Jack told us recently that he was tested for reading level and that he was a 'Level 9.' We asked him what this meant and he had no idea. I know he is reading well, so I assume that 'Level 9' is a good thing, but with nothing to base it one... who knows?

Kitty really just adores school. One of her close friends for going on 3 years now, Keeley, is in her class. Every morning it is a joyous reunion between the two of them. This morning they hugged each other so hard that another parent said, "Wooo! Boy, are they glad to see each other!" Recently Kitty was class leader for morning meeting. She was allowed to pick a co-leader and she chose Keeley. Miss Kate, Kitty's head teacher, has been raving to me about how amazing Kitty is. One day when she was putting Kitty in the car at pick-up she said, "Kitty is a born teacher!" I liked the sound of that but didn't really know what that meant until Kitty told me a few hours later that she was teaching Keeley how to write the letter 'K.'

At night time, Thom feeds the cats their super-yummy wet food. It is also the time that he slips Lulu's valium and blood pressure medication in to food. The cats really enjoy getting their food and readily congregate in the kitchen after the kids go to bed and Thom comes downstairs. Thom has been trying to get a decent picture of all three cats together... problem is, when Thom gets down to their level on the floor with the camera, they all start walking toward him. Every shot we have of all three together is an action shot. I also have to say that Isaac has really brought our tribe of cats together... no, wait a minute... maybe it's the wet food that brings them all together! No, Isaac is part of it as well. Today Solomon was giving Isaac a bath. Made me remember Gus giving Lulu a bath. At her first vet visit the Vet said, "I have never seen a cleaner or well groomed kitten!" That was all Gus's doing.

Everything (eventually) comes up roses

Kitty starts school tomorrow. She's been going with me to various appointments: yesterday she watched me get my haircut, today she went with me to the chiropractor where she picked out a pair of funny glasses from the bin of toys they give to kids. It's been nice having it be just the two of us, but I am looking forward to some time by myself.

I took Jack to the Dr on Monday as he had a bad cough that had gone on for a few days and didn't seem to be getting better. It was so bad one night that he threw up from a particularly violent coughing fit. The Dr spent some time listening to his lungs and then pronounced that Jack had Walking Pneumonia.

I fought back the tears because it sounded serious and I was wishing I had gotten him to the Dr sooner. The Dr said that we caught it super early, that only one lung was effected, and that he'd be feeling like himself again after 2 days on the medication. The medication includes a rather strong antibiotic and a medication inhaled through a nebulizer. Luckily, the nebulizer is not scary and actually looks a little science fiction-y. This was a plus in Jack's opinion of the whole thing. A day later, he was starting to feel better. I think he's struggling a bit, though, because he missed so much school the first week and doesen't feel like he belongs quite yet in his new first grade classroom. He also has had to take it easy with physical activities like running. One of his best friends happens to have recess at the same time Jack does and he has been helping Jack come up with things to play while sitting on the bench. What an awesome friend! 

Sunday we traveled down to MD to visit with Thom's best friend, Nathan, his wife Cia, their family and also another friend of Thom's from high school: Jimmy. It was so much fun! I laughed and laughed and laughed. The kids really enjoyed each other. Jack did get tired after running... this was before we had the diagnosis, so it makes sense to me now why he became slug-like and not wanting to do anything but go home. Meanwhile, Kitty was being treated like a queen by Nathan and Cia's three girls: Hannah, Peri and Tyche.

 

Hannah read to everyone for quite a long time. Kitty was so amazed that Hannah let her pick out the books to read! She mentioned this quite a few times after we left on Sunday and then in to Monday. All in all, it was a wonderful get together.

I've had 3 sessions with my new swimming group. I am loving it even though I feel a little self-concious to obviously be the slowest swimmer. Today we spent some time having a 'stroke clinic.' In it you go over particular strokes and how to do them better, how to improve your technique. Today's stroke was freestyle/crawl.' The coach would talk about a particular part of the stroke and then have everyone swim a lap concentrating on it. He went over about 10 things having to do with freestyle. I really had a hard time keeping it all in my head and trying to remember what my elbow, arm, hand, head and legs were supposed to be doing. Everytime we would swim, I would be the last one to complete the lap. As I would swim up to the wall, I'd see 15 or so paris of legs just standing, waiting for me to be done so we could go over the next thing.  The day I started the coach told me to not be hard on myself and take my time and I keep saying that to myself as a mantra when I start to feel self-concious. I'm fine with my progress, it's just swimming with 15 other people with rippling muscles that makes me a little queasy.

You noticed!

Today when I was getting ready, I decided to wear earrings and a necklace. This is a big deal because I've pretty much given up on personal adornment since Jack was born. I went from jewelry-wearing-make up-toting independent Betsy to earthy-no-make up-no-no-no nothing worn that could cause me pain if ripped off by a Baby/one year old/two year old. Kitty asks many questions about my jewelry which partly hangs in the master bath for all to see (even Isaac with his bat bat batting paws.)

So when I was getting ready to take the kids to swim lessons, I thought to myself, "You know, Kitty would love to see me wear jewelry." So I picked out earrings and a necklace Thom had given me, polished them up and put them on. We hustled from then until they  both were in the pool. Afterwards, while getting changed Kitty said, "I like how you look today Mommy." No mention of specifics, which surprised me a little. Driving home we were all quiet admist the noises of traffic and the car. From the back seat Kitty said, "Mommy?" and I said, "Yes Sweetie?" to which she replied, "You're beautiful."

Lots of Movement

Yes, Kitty has started dance class! She loved it. She loved it until 8:30pm last night when she decided she didn't like it one bit. I asked her why and she said, "I don't like that BOY!" It is a class of 9 swirly skirt wearing girls and 1 boy. I think Kitty doesn't like him because when they were doing the go-around-the-circle-and-get-to-know-you portion of the class, Wesley (the boy) said he had gone to the beach. Kitty's reply to this question a few people later was, "The beach!" Wesley stood up and said, "I didn't see her there!" This got quite a laugh and I am thinking that Kitty somehow thought that Wesley was making fun of her in some way, which he wasn't, but nonetheless the whole class was laughing and it had been Kitty's turn. I don't want this to be the end of her dance career... we'll work it out, I feel sure.

In other news, I started my Masters Swimming program this morning. It is three days a week from 5:30 to 6:30am. I was quite intimidated starting... the woman who signed me up said that they had all levels of fitness who swim... up to triathletes. I must say, everyone looked pretty buff to me. I felt sort of like the team mascot... okay, not really. I think I am the first person to join since the program started a year ago. When you get to the pool, you are handed a kick board that has a piece of paper stuck to it with water. I made the mistake of using that kick board and mangling the piece of paper... my lane mate reconstructed the paper... it was the workout for the day. OOOPS! The workout is notated with 8 million abbreviations which are not readily understood. When I got out of the water to get my own kick board, I asked the coach if there was a glossary of the terms so I could study up. He said no, and that I'm doing fine for the first day and I should ask him any questions of terms I don't know. Well, I understand about 1/3 of the workout. But, he's right... I will take it easy as it was my first lap swimming in 7 years.

Today is 9/11 remembrance day at Jack's school. All the kids were asked to wear red, white and blue. When I was walking Jack to school I explained to him the significance of the day. I told him that it happened the year daddy and I got married. I then explained to him in the briefest way I could what had happened, how horrific it was, and how important it is to remember what had happened and honor the dead. Luckily, we reached the door just then and Jack ran in with a "Love you Mom!" because I was starting to cry. I wish we lived in a world where I didn't have explain to my 6 year old the utter horror of what was done that day and horror that lives on in all of those effected by it. I'd love to keep him an innocent boy just a little longer.

What Good News! What Bad News!

Jack's first day of first grade was yesterday. He was beyond excited. We walked him up to the door and when I asked if he wanted us to go in with him to find his classroom he said, "No, I know where it is."

The bad news is that the school nurse called Thom at 2pm telling him Jack had a fever of 103 and needed to be picked up. I called the nurse today to find out why she didn't call me and she said that Jack had told them his mother was sick. Which I certainly was. I was pretty much bed/sofa ridden the past 3 days... aches, pains, coughing, interrupted sleep, headaches. I was using ice packs so frequently that Kitty started using them in her animal hospital... thus creating quite a demand in both places. I'm feeling human again today. Hopefully Jack will be able to go to school tomorrow... but if not, we'll have another slow, tacked on to summer day.

Recently Thom was talking to Kitty about  the Disney Princesses.

T: Kitty, who is your favorite princess?

K: Ariel.

T: Why is Ariel your favorite?

K: Because I love her breasts.

T: (stammering) Her Breasts?

K: Yes, I love them because they are purple.

Check them out here

It looks like it is two purple seashells that have caught Kitty's eye.

She does love everything purple, this is certainly true!

Princess-o-rama

Today was Kitty's birthday party for her friends. There were two guests, Keely and Annabelle, and that was just the right number of 4 year old girls. I made the above princess cake. It felt like an Olympic sport. Kitty decided she wanted a princess cake after watching this video. In fact, Jack, Kitty and myself have watched that video so often that when it came to do this cake Jack said, "I want to do the crumb coat!" The girls had a great time doing crafts, watching a ballet video and eating pizza and cake.

 

It is always good to have a few spare princess dresses around for when your fellow princess friends stop by for a party. It was really fun... Kitty was a wonderful hostess, assuring that both of her guests were having a good time. After the birthday song was sung, princess Barbie removed from the cake and many plates of cake doled out... well, the cake wasn't so enchanted looking anymore:

 

You can see in this picture that the cake was a bundt cake on top and a round cake on the bottom. Everyone was pleased with how the cake tasted. We have enough left over cake to feed us through the winter.

In other news: we recently purchased a trail-a-bike. Now all four of us can ride together with Kitty attached to either Thom or myself. We've had a few outings on it and it is great fun. Here is a picture of Jack and Kitty right before we went out for a ride:

Little People are back!!!

Yes, they were dusty on the toy shelf for some time... but now, due to popular demand... Little People are back! Thom, Jack and Kitty all play with them and come up with different scenarios. It's good to see them again after a long absence... they've been missed!

 

Isaac is still cute, still loving, still energetic. Solomon discovered a new place to nap yesterday and this morning I found Issac there: in my bin of small fabric pieces on my work table.

Thom took some interesting pictures of the kids:

 

What entry would be complete without a picture of Kitty holding Isaac?

Well... here it is! Enjoy!