It seems some wanker (clever British slang that means something bad but might not offend my American readers and thus further exacerbate my profane rating with the Blog Raters of America censors board) at Coca Cola marketing decided it would be CLEVER to throw in cans of Coke Zero “Vanilla” in my otherwise normally marked 12 pack of Coke Zero. The cans are even marked the same unless you happen to really be paying attention, which, let's face it, I wasn’t.
So here I am, with fracking shingles and all the pain associated therein, two whiny boys, and it's 90 fracking degrees outside, and I sit down to pop open a cold Coke zero.
`cept it ain't Coke Zero
It's like Coke Zero mixed with cake batter, WHICH IS FRACKING DISGUSTING.
And, yes, I did say I have shingles. (We’re working on an educated assumption and the second hand diagnosis of a friendly nurse here because after seven days there’s nothing a doctor could do for me at this point no matter what I have.) Cool huh? There’s nothing quite so grand as breaking out in a weird-arse rash that itches worse than poison ivy (I assume, having never had poison ivy) that doesn’t respond to any of the one billion creams marketed for allergic rashes and that after 7 days is still there, still itches, and occasionally burns like the fire of a thousand suns. Apparently this would also explain the spasm-inducing back and chest pain. Oh Good, because chicken-pox virus cells lying dormant in my spinal fluid suddenly reawakening to cause me pain is so much less terrifying than the heart attack I was worried about!
Too bad shingles themselves aren’t contagious or I’d spend a moment considering infecting Coca Cola packaging guys with them. However, we’ll just have to wait about two weeks to see if I managed to give Ian a full blown case of the chicken pox.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
A Mountain Day
Yesterday we piled in the car and took a day trip to Skyline Drive and the Shenandoah National Park. Once we got there we stopped to eat at the Skyland Lodge restaurant before heading to the Limberlost Trail head. This trail is handicap accessible which means it is also perfect for out-of-shape city folk with strollers. We enjoyed a leisurely hike in the cool mountain air. Ethan explored rocks, streams, thistles, and wildflowers. He collected a few acorns and helped me look for deer. Ironically, the first time we saw deer wasn’t until we were in the car headed home!
Click on the picture above to be redirected to Flikr and many more pictures of our grand day.
Click on the picture above to be redirected to Flikr and many more pictures of our grand day.
Friday, September 14, 2007
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Tuesday, September 11, 2007
16 down, 1200 to go
Ian is 16 months old today. I am torn about referring to his age this way. I know that in some ways it is important at this developmental stage to still use the “months” unit of time. A 16 month old is more advanced than a child who has just turned a year old, but not quite at the stage of an 18 month old, or “one and a half year old”. However, there are times when I feel like Ian should just be referred to as “a very small, non-walking, teenager.”
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He still has very definite ideas of what passes for edible. Like many teenagers his diet consists mostly of processed snacks and protein. Specifically, he likes “vegetable crunchers”, which are cheese curl looking snacks with very little vegetable content at all, and chicken nuggets. He will occasionally tolerate tri-color rotini or fish sticks. On rare occasions he will swallow small bits of apples or peaches. Forget getting any sort of vegetable, cooked or raw, down his throat. Since we are still banned from all milk or peanut based products, I can’t try any of the usual toddler staples of cheese, yogurt, bread and butter, peanut butter crackers, etc.
Emotionally he is very much a teenager. He’s full of giggles and smiles one minute and the next he’s flying into violent, self-injuring, rages. His favorite tactic is to start whimpering, push his lower lip out, then fling himself face first on the floor and sob piteously. If he is particularly pissed he’ll scream and smack his forehead on the hardwood floor while kicking his feet. It would be funny if it wasn’t so damn annoying, and constant. He pitched just such a tantrum today because I refused to let him play with the electrical cords on my computer. The horror! SO unfair!
Ian still doesn’t walk. He will take a few steps if you hold his fingers, but then he gets tired or bored and tries to sit down. He can stand on his own without pulling himself up on furniture, but, contrary little bugger that he is, he only does this while standing on the middle of the table while trying to reach the chandelier. Ethan didn’t walk until he was 14 months, and Ian definitely has the leg strength and coordination to climb and walk, so I’m trying not to fret too much over his lack of upright mobility. It is getting to be a pain when I take him to the playground, though.
Verbally, Ian now very clearly says “Mamma, Da-da, dog (sounds like dawg because he is a Virginian!), and Buba. I know some people have worries over our letting Ian call Ethan “Buba”. Frankly, I don’t care. He called Mark “de-da” for 3 months. He’ll outgrow this. It is less certain, however, that I’ll outgrow calling Ian a “sniggett”. That silly made up word, conjured from sleep-deprived frustration, has permanently attached itself to my tongue. Mark points out that “sniggett” is much more palatable than his toddler nickname of “Damn-it Mark”.
Happy 16 months Sniggett. Please stop chewing on the router cables now.
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He still has very definite ideas of what passes for edible. Like many teenagers his diet consists mostly of processed snacks and protein. Specifically, he likes “vegetable crunchers”, which are cheese curl looking snacks with very little vegetable content at all, and chicken nuggets. He will occasionally tolerate tri-color rotini or fish sticks. On rare occasions he will swallow small bits of apples or peaches. Forget getting any sort of vegetable, cooked or raw, down his throat. Since we are still banned from all milk or peanut based products, I can’t try any of the usual toddler staples of cheese, yogurt, bread and butter, peanut butter crackers, etc.
Emotionally he is very much a teenager. He’s full of giggles and smiles one minute and the next he’s flying into violent, self-injuring, rages. His favorite tactic is to start whimpering, push his lower lip out, then fling himself face first on the floor and sob piteously. If he is particularly pissed he’ll scream and smack his forehead on the hardwood floor while kicking his feet. It would be funny if it wasn’t so damn annoying, and constant. He pitched just such a tantrum today because I refused to let him play with the electrical cords on my computer. The horror! SO unfair!
Ian still doesn’t walk. He will take a few steps if you hold his fingers, but then he gets tired or bored and tries to sit down. He can stand on his own without pulling himself up on furniture, but, contrary little bugger that he is, he only does this while standing on the middle of the table while trying to reach the chandelier. Ethan didn’t walk until he was 14 months, and Ian definitely has the leg strength and coordination to climb and walk, so I’m trying not to fret too much over his lack of upright mobility. It is getting to be a pain when I take him to the playground, though.
Verbally, Ian now very clearly says “Mamma, Da-da, dog (sounds like dawg because he is a Virginian!), and Buba. I know some people have worries over our letting Ian call Ethan “Buba”. Frankly, I don’t care. He called Mark “de-da” for 3 months. He’ll outgrow this. It is less certain, however, that I’ll outgrow calling Ian a “sniggett”. That silly made up word, conjured from sleep-deprived frustration, has permanently attached itself to my tongue. Mark points out that “sniggett” is much more palatable than his toddler nickname of “Damn-it Mark”.
Happy 16 months Sniggett. Please stop chewing on the router cables now.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
The First Day of Pre-School
Today Ethan started at Prince of Peace Lutheran School. This pre-school and kindergarten program came highly recommended by all the neighborhood moms, and we can already see why. We have been warmly welcomed to the program, all of our questions and concerns have been answered promptly and completely, and, most importantly, Ethan loves it! He met his teacher during a brief open house on Tuesday. Since then he has begged, almost hourly, to go back .
Today he woke me up early, begging to have lunch right away so he could go to school. He bounced around the house like a jumping jack while I was trying to get him dressed. He stomped up and down the hall to show off the lights on his new shoes. (They'll never lose the child during a power outage, trust me)
At the door of the school Ethan waited impatiently, and somewhat worried that they weren't ever going to let him in, for the doors to open. When they let us into the classroom he immediately grabbed his teacher's hand and went to find his name tag. He barely paused to hug me goodbye.
When I picked him up he was tired, sweaty, and quiet. When I asked him what he did today he shrugged and said "Stuff". Ah, and so it begins!
After some juice and a cookie he opened up. He told me about playing with the water-table, doing "very hard puzzles" and how the little girl next to him at snack time didn't know the words to Jesus Loves Me. "She didn't eat her food either. I think she's shy. I think she's shy of me, because I'm a big boy now."
Yes, so big I have to stop and hug him every five minutes to keep him from growing up too fast.
Pictures available here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/redamy/1337517835/
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
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