To Zoltan as you turn 4

To my very favorite, very special son,

Four! You are such a strong, independent little man. It is such a treat to see the workings of your thought process, the things you remember from last week or last year. It is, quite frankly, less of a treat to see how often you reject the premise of my argument. ("Can I watch a show?" "No" "Can I watch two shows?")

Your vocabulary is astonishing - a product of your verbose older sister I assume. You can't imagine the joy in my heart the other day when we got to the library early, you wanted to wait til it opened rather than go do something else, and went running in the moment the light turned green. I also get all gooey inside when you still want to snuggle when I read to you. You are without doubt a mama's boy and I dread the day that your kindness, sensitivity, and loving nature get ridiculed as being "sissy". I can only hope that you continue to be big for your age and your size encourages your peers to keep their mouths shut.

We're still seeing only glimpses of the young man you will become. Like your sister, you have an occasionally paralyzing shyness - coupled with sometimes wanting to tell every stranger on the street what you will be for Halloween. I hope that, like your sister, you work your way through that as you age so that it becomes a mere hesitation at joining in on the fun.

One of "those" days

So Tuesday actually started Monday when Zoltan fell backwards off the couch onto the coffee table and gashed his head right at bedtime. We called the kids' pediatrician's office and the answering service said we'd get a call back from the on-call doc within 30 minutes or so. The bleeding seemed to have gone down significantly, but the gash looked deep. Terry held Z and the ice pack (aka the sacrificial bag of green beans) while I packed them a bag and started looking into urgent care clinics. They were all closed or closing. The doc calls, says she really can't tell over the phone but normally if you think the kids needs stitches, the kid does. She had us take a photo on the phone and text it to her, which I thought was cool, but she still couldn't tell.

She suggests we take him to the local hospital's ER (duh). So Terry and Z leave and I get Alex to bed. She was amazing, fetching whatever we needed and literally running to get out of our way when we rushed here or there. She offered him her new, favorite stuffed animal to take - but of course he only wanted BlaBla.

Already long story slightly shorter, I lay down on the couch around 11, woke to read a few texts on their status, and welcomed the boys home around midnight. Ugh.

Next morning came early. Alex slept a tiny bit past wakeup time, I had to wake Zoltan around 9am to keep his schedule from getting completely off and because he had to start getting up to go with us for Alex's doctor's appointment previously scheduled for Tuesday morning.

Doc visit was fine, we went over her cough and the possible causes and what to do in various scenarios. He gave us a prescription for Prevacid, which I am assuming is something between Zantac (what she's already taking) and Prilosec (I hear it's pretty hard core). We got Alex to school and went to fill the prescription. Pharmacy doesn't have the full supply, can give us some that night and can order more. Fine. I get Zoltan home late for lunch and nap and of course today of all days, when he really needed a good long nap.

He goes down and I try to get on the internet to look up dinner's recipe. No internet. I call Comcast and that's always a huge hassle. In the end I rebooted the router and the cable modem and then had even less internet. I also get a call from Terry that the pharmacy called him because the generic was discontinued and the name brand will cost us about $150 for the prescription.

I spend the entire 2 hours of Zoltan's nap on my cell phone because our home phone is VOIP and thus useless without internet. I call Comcast several times. I call Terry. I call our insurance company. I try to call CVS but without internet I can't look up the number so I call Terry. I call CVS. One of the times I call Comcast the CSR hung up on me within the first minute, because when she asked if something was OK (I forget what) I joked "and what will you do if I say no". Oops. At least I had offered to take the customer service survey so I got to give feedback on the customer "service".

After nap, it seemed like things were starting to look up. After school we went to the playground with some new friends. I managed to make a tasty dinner without internet. The kids were surprisingly well behaved for the excitement and sleep deprivation. Terry got the internet working again.

And then, as the kids were on their way to brush teeth and go to bed, they fight about something. Zoltan pushes Alex and she goes down. When she comes up she's holding her arm. NOOOOOOOOOO

(to be continued)

Milestone: First ER visit

Apparently they don't do stitches anymore, only staples.

Wordless Wednesday

Renovation Update

Time for a renovation update.

With the bathroom mostly wrapped up.  I have started on the 4th Bedroom/Study.  We have not decided on a name for the room because we are not entirely sure on the purpose of the room yet.  Either way it is getting somewhat of a makeover.

Before we moved in I tore open the ceiling to run data and coax cable to the living room. I wanted to rip out the old crappy paneling and put up new dry wall anyway.  So to accomplish getting cable into the living room I decide this would be the first area of the basement we undertake.  So the first order was to completely gut the room as you can see to the right.

Once the gutting was complete I ran new data cabling in the room.  Basically anywhere I open a wall I am running new cabling so there is plenty of copper around for the future.  Most places are getting 3 runs of cat 5 and one run of coax.  This should provide some growth for the future and not kill the budget.  Plus I am too cheap to run fiber.  I ran all of the runs back to an area under the stairs where I am putting in a small patch panel and the some shelves to house the networking equipment.  Eventually all the TV from the Antenna/Cable company will terminate there so I can distribute the signal throughout the house.  Eventually! 


Back before we moved in I borrowed my Dad's truck to bring down a load of things he had saved for us to use in the renovation.  Since we had the truck and I was going to need the drywall in the future I went ahead and bought the drywall then so I could get it home in the truck and save the rental fee.  That was June.  So Lynne was very excited when the drywall was finally removed from the kids' play area and hung on the walls of the BR/Study.  Drywall went up quickly.  In one evening and the following afternoon I hung all the drywall I had.  Unfortunately that left me one piece short.  The next day I went to Home Depot and with some creative cutting in the parking lot was able to get the last piece in the Subaru.  That piece is now up and all the walls are covered. Next up is the Spackle work. 

Back to Croydon Creek Nature Center

A mere week after Alex's birthday adventure at Croydon, we were back for their Croydon Creep Halloween event.  At $2/person, it was fun even a furloughed government employee could afford, and of course the government had just re-opened.

Zoltan is all Superman, all the time. Ever since his costume arrived earlier this week he's wanted to wear it, and he's been permitted to wear it other than meals or outdoor time. Alex has been dithering about what to wear for weeks. We have about 4 different costumes to choose from, and all but one had been in the running. So of course at the last minute it's the last choice that she wears. But hey - she is a remarkably adorable princess, right?

We forgot the camera :-(  but let me tell you all the fun we had. First up was the magic show. The kids were enthralled. And at the end there were little goodie bags of magic tricks. Next we went to the craft room, where one of the options was to make a trick or treat bag - great idea for those of us who hadn't brought anything. There was a "wheel of fortune" wherein my kids brought home a plastic snake and a zebra mask. The usual nature center critters were in their cages so we could watch the turtle while waiting in line, and the room with puzzles and games was open as usual. We ended the night stopping by the campfire, then taking a night hike through the woods to trick or treat with some nocturnal animals who taught us a bit about themselves before handing out a relevant item (i.e. an owl shaped eraser from the owl; plastic bugs from the bat).

The kids also got a thrill walking home in the dark through the Rockville Civic Center Park fields and checking out the huge full moon and the deer chowing down in the field. I may hate my kitchen, but I love where we live!

Turning the corner

Last night Alex stopped coughing after about 30 minutes post-bedtime. Today she slept past the "alarm" so I had to wake her for school. We've been here before. When her health starts to improve, and her attitude too (because who can be happy while coughing all the time, waking up from the coughing, sore throat, interrupted conversations and even thoughts?)

And in a few weeks we need to take this away from her, yet again, so we can try to find the real cause and help her live a life where she isn't coughing all day every day.

But for today, let's celebrate a good night's sleep, and a decent level of confidence that tonight will see more of the same.

Second CSA Haul

One of the things I love about this CSA is that if you don't like an item in your box, likely you can change it. For example, we all got either cauliflower or broccoli. If you didn't like the one you got you could rifle through other boxes and do a switcheroo. Of course, the later it got the less likely you'd be to find what you want.

Anyhoo, on to the haul!

This time we got broccoli, which is good because the family just doesn't like cauliflower. A head of red leaf lettuce looked all rotten and nasty but it turned out to only be the outer leaves. A bag of green beans that look a whole lot better than last week's bag. A 3lb Delicata squash. Green and red peppers, 6 apples and 2 zucchini. Sweet potatoes this time in the potato realm - "score" in my mind, "yuck" in the minds of the rest of the family. About 1 1/2 lb carrots have already been eaten. And lastly, a bag of beets and greens, which is awesome as a recipe I've been wanting to try calls for beets anyway.

As we put together our menu for the week we realized that even with four eaters, where at least one of us will eat each thing so nothing needs to go to waste, we will barely be able to use all the produce in a week. So, Delicata, the web says you'll store for up to 8 months. How about 8 weeks - til the CSA run is over?

Cox Family Farm

Although Terry and I met while living in D.C. (actual D.C., not MD/VA) this is the first time we've lived here with children. And it makes a difference. Take, for example, pumpkin patches. Where we each come from, these are normally fields where people can go pick their own pumpkins, in the same tradition as apple picking in the fall at a nearby orchard.

Pumpkin patches in this area are an entirely different experience.

My father was visiting last weekend and we all decided the right event for what turned out to be the most ridiculously hot October day in history was to try the mother of all local pumpkin patches, Cox Family Farms. It took us a good hour to get there, so I was already feeling a bit annoyed and skeptical when we arrived. I was soon transformed.

Because of our afternoon meetup time, we only had three hours there. It was not nearly enough  time.

There were slides and more slides. The kids are some of the tiny blobs on the slides (Zoltan on top, Alex about to get on the slide in the bottom photo)

A children's play area where my kids could hang out while the older "kids" tried the more advanced slides.

Hay for the children to play in.

Kids with their grandfather.

There were also rope swings, and a corn maze that my nephew led Alex and my dad through. I am happy to report they did get out just fine. The hay ride was surprisingly long and eventful - the kids didn't get bored or antsy.  And, my favorite part, there were boxes of apples to eat (Rome and Gala varieties) and Dixie cups in which to drink apple cider that poured freely from fake casks. Early on, my dad purchased an enormous bag of kettle corn from which we all snacked.

All in all, it makes me eager to check out the pumpkin patch in my neck of the woods - held at the orchard where we get our apples anyway.

Not a great day :-(

We put Alex back on medicine today, to get her through birthday and Halloween season. Cutting the dairy helped immensely, but not completely. We're still hoping out hope we won't have to go gluten free but I have to admit my confidence is faltering. The greatest challenge will be if we have to cut out both.