Thursday, February 10, 2005

going for the grin

Thursday February 10th

Well, we thought the sickness was over, but no- Cadao had a relapse on Monday and again missed school; I’ve been mobile but had no energy or appetite; and Alyra got it on Monday too- luckily, in her case, it only lasted 24-ish hours. Cadao complained of his stomach hurting again before bed tonight, and I’m really really hoping it’s just because he also has had no appetite and his stomach just feels weird because it’s been empty. Ugh!

Alyra’s been smiling more, and is most likely to if we sing, in tribute to Harry Belafonte, "Alyra, Alyra, Alyra, She take me money and run Venzuela." She also likes mourning dove calls and trumpet noises. We do not question her preferences and make fools of ourselves to see the grin.

Cadao is diligently making valentines and is looking forward to adding ribbon-bracelets to the hearts he’s already cut out and decorated. His friends may find his color choices unusual, but they may not notice. He made a, let us say, less-than-attractive-in-the-conventional-sense bracelet from a pipe cleaner and orange paper to decorate a birthday present for one classmate, and when Dan saw the kid the following week at preschool, he was told, "The bracelet doesn’t fit!" Dan let him know that it was ADJUSTABLE, while silently snickering, knowing that the bracelet not FITTING was the least of its problems-

Sarah rescues the blog!

Sunday February 5th

A few months ago, Dan said, "I’m going to start a blog!" I said, "Are you sure that’s a good idea? You’ll never update it after the first month, and then no one will check it anymore; how about sending mass e-mails instead?" He said, "I’ll keep it current! It’ll be fun!"

Well, that didn’t really work out as planned apparently, so I guess I need to jump in. C and I are getting over a nasty stomach virus, and we’re hoping the rest of the family doesn’t get it. He missed school Thursday but seemed all better Friday, and we had friends over for dinner. (We’ve been trying to get together with them for 2 months or so, but illnesses have caused multiple cancellations.) 20 minutes or so after they arrived, C puked on the dining room table where we were all enjoying our meal. They left quickly. We were sad. We were even sadder when I started getting sick at 3 a.m. I spent Saturday in bed while Dan took care of the kids (though C spent several hours in bed with me reading and playing I-spy and whining and falling asleep at 6:30). Thankfully, I’m more mobile today and C seems healthy, and we’re all looking forward to preschool tomorrow.

A weighed in at 10 pounds, 5 ounces at the doctor’s last week; she’s quite tall for her age (90th percentile) at a whopping 24 inches. I pulled out some clothes in the next size up for her today when I was going through boxes in search of sunhats for our end-of-the-month trip to Florida; now she’ll be better able to stretch her legs.

C has been remarkably nice to her in the past week: trying to entertain her and make her feel better, singing songs about how much we love her, bouncing her bouncy chair After he got sick we realized it was probably fever-induced and won’t last. He has been very into numbers lately and spent quite a while today telling me, "When I’m 8, A will be 4. When A is 8, I will be… 12. When A is 10, I will be… 14." He understands the concept of 48 being made up of four tens and eight ones. Knowing nothing about early childhood education, I’m not sure how to effectively teach him more about math, and my creativity has reached new lows in the past year. I do want to take advantage of his current interest and ability so I guess I’ll be looking up teacher resources at the library.