Catching up

I've been pretty absent from this space over the summer, but seeings as how I am trapped in the Boise, ID airport for the foreseeable future due to broken planes and delayed flights I thought I might catch up a little.

We raised tadpoles this year, and they pretty much all made it to frogs, which was much better than two years ago when we tried and got almost no frogs.  We were on a good path to release the frogs into their home pond until there was a terrible accident with the tadpole/frog container resulting in water, rocks, wet leaves, broken glass, tadpoles and frogs all over the kitchen floor.  We did the best we could with all that and then decided we'd done enough for the frog population for the year.  It was fun while it lasted.

We celebrated Liam's 6th birthday.  Six!  He received, among other things, a national geographic documentary about cougars and a stuffed tiger with leash, collar, and feeding dishes, and he and my mother continued the tradition of making the same face in all the pictures.   Liam was (and remains) very interested in big cats.

We picked the first strawberry on June 8 and ate strawberries almost continuously for the rest of June.

We went for a hike from trees and hot sun to snow, something Liam had never done before and almost couldn't believe was possible it was so fun.  GoGo was our guide and he and Liam made a snow duck to celebrate.  Liam learned to use a compass.

 

We went camping with Auntie Chris at the ocean where Liam swam in the waves and flew kites on the beach and we were all almost consumed whole by mosquitoes.  Blech.

And, finally, but maybe the most exciting: Liam learned to ride a bike.  He now takes great delight at biking on the protected bike paths and explaining to all who will listen that soon he will be biking to the grocery store for me and biking all around the neighborhood at all hours of day and night with the neighboring Liam.  Here's hoping!

It's not about the apricots

A few weeks ago I returned from a work trip east of the mountains with two boxes of apricots.  We dried a bunch.  Made this jam with a few.  And we put a few in jars.  I asked Liam if he wanted to be in charge of packing the jars this year and he said "by myself?" and I said, "well, sure, I'll be here if you want help; I'll make the sugar syrup."  So he got out his little knife, washed his hands really well, and started to pit the apricots and drop them in.  A little instruction along the lines of make sure you get the bottom of the jar really full, we want to pack them in tight, and he was off.  He packed four jars.  He didn't cut himself, he didn't lose interest.

The thing is, the thing that is so easy to forget is, it's not so much about exactly how safely he can use the knife or whether he will actually finish packing the jars.  He has practice enough to be safe enough with the knife* and apricots are pretty low risk.   Besides, I'm right there, I'm watching.  It's about him understanding that I believe in him; have confidence in his skills and ability to contribute something of value in the house.  

He had a great day today; a four-hour play date with no fits or yelling, all disagreements worked out amicably; lunch in the chicken fort.  So many of the things I see as behavior challenges on my good days and character flaws on my bad are undoubtedly something else entirely. Tiredness.  Hunger.  Too many instructions.  Too little undivided attention.  My own moods.  He needs to understand beyond all doubt that I know for sure he is not just the fits and the whining and the spilled and broken stuff.  He's also the kid who will jump up and pack four jars of apricots. 

*That band-aid is from some other insult, not this adventure.  See his bent fingers in the first picture?  I taught him that.  He knows how to keep his fingers out of the way of the knife.

sometimes

Sometimes even when it has been a long, long day at work filled with big drives through pouring rain to hard meetings, sometimes your child will not fuss when you pick him up in the evening.  He'll be ready to go and the transition will land lightly on him.  He will endure the errands on the way home happily and participate in the birthday present buying without fuss.  He will take with good grace the information that you are only buying things for other people tonight.

When the package on the front step is a book for you instead of a toy for him he will cheerfully say "look, a book for you" and hand it over.  He will have self directed play, and then he will eat dinner without complaining and without running around.  Sometimes you and he will make up a song about salmon, and then get out all his salmon books to look at them.  Sometimes you will not mind drawing the outlines of salmon for him to color in.  He will go to bed without chasing around the house and fall straight to sleep.

Maybe he will sleep all night.  Maybe he won't.  Maybe tomorrow will be the same; probably it won't.  But, maybe.  Sometimes you will see, just a little, that the things you are trying to teach him are sticking, at least a little.  And you'll watch him make them better; his own.

It's a little bit of an upside down week for us.  Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday, but, of course now it also is the anniversary of Will's death.  So, you know.

Happy halloween

Five sure is a sweet age for holidays.  Liam has been decorating the house and singing his Halloween songs for a week.

He carved the pumpkin all by himself, thankyouverymuch.   And he was so, so proud.  When I watch him work on things like this I see a lot of Will in him.  He has great concentration for these types of tasks, and a pretty clear vision of what he wants and an ever growing ability to execute. 

This year's goldfish costume required some explanation on front porches.  "Goldfish." Liam would say firmly.  "No, not Nemo."  But Liam likes it and it was easy as anything to sew.   In an act of good fortune he lost his first front tooth earlier today, so he had a jack-o-lantern face to go with his fish costume.

Thanks to my mother for handing out candy at the house.  And thanks to Grandpa and GoGo for walking the neighborhood with us, including all the way the 8 or so blocks or so to Liam's school, where his teacher had hot cider and pumpkin pie waiting and a yard full of magic pumpkin fairy houses, all lit up.

Boys' Brunch

A few weeks ago Liam and I thought up the idea of having brunch for all the boys at his new school and a few of the boys he really misses from school last year.  Liam still needs pretty quick drop offs at school to make the transition easily, and I'm usually rushing to get to work in the morning anyway, like most of the other parents.  Pick up is more relaxed, but I do this only about once a week.  I wanted a chance to meet some of the other parents, and to spend a little time with these boys.  Liam just loves the idea of a party at his house. . .any party for any reason. We invited 8 boys and 6 showed up, along with some older and younger siblings and parents. 

I think brunch is the perfect party meal for little kids.  It ensures that boys show up already having eaten once, but it's not too late in the day where tired may have set in, and it lets you serve food guaranteed to please.  We served whole wheat waffles with butter and maple syrup, scrambled eggs, and fruit.  We offered "green juice" (kale smoothie) or water to drink.  I have learned that it is key to not try to do too much or have too many choices at these kinds of things.  A surprising number of  boys wanted green juice and pretty much all the parents did.  

Thank goodness that brunch went off with out a hitch, due in large part to significant advance prep work and the fact that my mother showed up at 9:00 am with the fruit plate, hung out in the kitchen pouring coffee for the parents, and then put the waffles in the oven to reheat and scrambled the eggs right on time.   It helps tremendously to have a mother who will cheerfully stop at the store for you the morning of the brunch to buy eggs when you realize you have run almost out, and then just as cheerfully stand in the kitchen and cook them for six 4-5 year old boys, and their siblings and parents.  Thanks mom!

While she was doing all that, I was outside encouraging the nature treasure hunt to go off, and watching bemused as there was both yelling of the "Don't follow me!" variety and crying of the "I just want to play with you!" variety.  So much for boys growing in friendship and community, as advertised -- by me! -- on the invitations.  Although the boys did get over it, and after they ate their weight in waffles happily ran around the yard and played "house fire" all together, including rescuing Oliver from an upstairs bedroom (by tramping through the house, I did not let them get the rope ladder out).  So much for nature treasure hunts, I guess.

I had a neighbor write me after the brunch and ask how these parties come together, and it really is just those three things: keep the options simple and limited, do absolutely every possible thing in advance that you can, and make sure you have help day of because once people get there you will be dealing with them and you will not easily be able to stand in the kitchen and scramble eggs, you just won't.  I've promised Liam we can do this three or four times during the school year.  I think the next bunch will be in January.

What a 5 year old really wants

The vegan was working at a house this week where they were off loading cast away kid gear so when he came to dinner on Monday he brought Liam: a motocross helmet, a life jacket, some kind of walky-talky radio type thing that you wear on your arm and which Liam calls a watch, and a baseball glove.  He proceeded to immediately help Liam put them all on at once.  What could be better?  Liam declared them his penguin handling clothes "Because the penguins, you know, the penguins you know, they peck; they really do."  This was cause for great fun.

The vegan came to dinner on Monday because we called him on Sunday to ask him to please come over and check out the bee situation at our house.  We think we might have a bee nest up at the very tiptop of the house, right before the roof.  Of course, it's never someplace easy.  Liam and I thought we saw bees going in and out on Sunday, but by dinner time on Monday no one could see any bees.  Maybe they were sleeping.

Or, maybe some of Liam's bee elimination tactics worked. These he explained in great detail and with great seriousness to the vegan over the phone on Sunday and included:  hammering on the side of the house (at least 40 feet away from the nest if-it-is-a-nest) with his plastic hammer to send a sound signal to the bees to tell them to leave; putting the plastic hammer in the end of a 8 foot plastic pipe so he could hammer closer to the bees; and, using the bicycle pump to "shoot air at them. . .which I really thought would work, but it did not work."

The vegan is very careful during these conversations and, except for a small cough-type noise at the bicycle pump idea, did. not. laugh.  Instead he said something like "Oh my, well, you know I think we'll need to look at it together, we maybe need to get a little bit up closer to the bees so we can figure out what is going on."   It was a very sweet conversation to witness, and it was almost just as sweet on Monday when Liam wanted to explain it all again: "Well, I know, I know I told you on the phone but I want to tell you again how I tried my best, everything I could think of, but I couldn't get rid of the bees.  I tried. . .."

A little trim and a little lie

Tuesday I came home to scissors on the kitchen table and a lock of hair on the kitchen floor.  I didn't notice it right away.  Liam was overtired and having a fit over something when I got home, he wanted extra TV (I am so temped to just get rid of TV entirely) and he wanted a snack "Not dinner!" and who all knows what else.

When I finally got the dreaded dinner on the table and things calmed down a little, I noticed.  I looked at Liam.  He still looked like he had a lot of hair.  I looked at the lock of hair on the floor more closely and hoped it hadn't come from the neighbor boy who had been over for a play date.  It didn't look blond enough.  I decided to say something, and Liam and I had the following conversation.

Me: Liam, I see some hair on the kitchen floor, do you want a shorter hair cut?

Liam: It's not hair; I mean, I didn't; I mean. Oh mommy, I just wanted to see what it was like.

Me: I'm so glad you told me the truth!  So you cut your hair.  What was it like?

Liam: Oh, you know, no big deal.

Me: Yeah, pretty boring.  You know, Lynette is the one who cuts our hair, if you want a hair cut, we go to Lynette.  Got it?  No more cutting it on your own, you could hurt your ears or the skin on your head and it makes a mess.  Plus, you'll never have a pony tail if you cut your hair.

Liam: Okay.

To me this is very interesting.  You read about little kids and lying (Well, I mean, if you're me and you obsessively read studies on little kid behavior.) and how experimenting with lying is normal, the way questions are asked is really important, and it's important most of all for them to understand that lying doesn't work to get what they want or avoid consequences.  I thought I did pretty well with my initial question; but, still the reflex was to deny, and it took a few seconds for the truth to kick in. 

Saying "thank you"

I've never, so far up to now, had myself sufficiently organized to start to build a habit of thank you notes with Liam.  If I'm being honest, my own track record for written thank you notes, which 7-8 years ago was pretty reliable and natural, has fallen by the wayside more than I would like.  Same with my ability to remember most birthdays and other memorable days with sufficient clarity or advance warning to do much about it.  Another change. 

A digression: both these things fell away when Will first started getting really sick.  There were all these appointments and treatment so get through, and trying to understand it all so I could be a helpful and responsible advocate took so much bandwidth, really it took all I had left after work.  And for pity's sake that was just me.  I wasn't sick, or facing painful and unpleasant treatments, or confronted so baldly with the uncertainty of my life span and future. I shudder whenever I think about what it must have taken from Will, and remain amazed at how resilient he was.

So Liam is working on thank you notes these days.  I outline the letters and he colors them in.  This note is for his lovely school teacher who gifted him a piece of rose quartz.  On the inside he tends to draw a picture. These days trees are popular.

On the back he writes his name and I usually write a short note.  We've made 3 or 4 so far and I hope to continue.

RIP Reddie the Fish

 

Liam's little beta fish Red, "Reddie for short, Mommy" died yesterday.   We made the unfortunate discovery, unfortunately, very near bedtime, resulting in a rather late evening.

Once we were sure (by shaking the tank) that Reddie was gone we brought his tank into the kitchen and made him a burial box out of a cardboard berry pint.  We put Reddie's body in the bottom with some of his rocks, and then a layer of cotton, and then his fish tank plants.  Another layer of cotton.  Liam chose a spot in the yard next to some Japanese anemones and we dug Reddie a small grave.

Liam and I held hands and we said a few words about Reddie.  Then we covered the box and that was it.  Liam sobbed and sobbed, but seems to be recovering.   Reddie was, of course, Liam's "replacement pet" recommended by the counselor when we had to re-home Mollie the dog.  I guess nothing stays.  This transition seems to be made easier by the fact that sudden fish death is a pretty common occurrence among the 4, 5, and 6 year old set.  Liam described to me two other children at his tiny school who have had fish die on them, plus the neighbor-girl, who was just here the other day looking at Reddie and explaining how her beta fish had died.

Still, it was sad.  He wanted to color a picture of Reddie in his tank "So we can remember him always, Mommy" and so I drew the outlines and he colored, and we taped it up near where Reddie and his tank used to be.  And today after school he painted some flat rocks to mark Reddie's little grave.

A few things I want to remember

Our kitchen windowsill.  From left to right: jar of sea glass; plastic platypus the vegan brought Liam from a garage sale; tomatoes; star mirror which lives there to boost something based on feng shui principles, but I can't remember what; parsley waiting to be eaten; Liam's back up plastic fish; playmobil milk cow set milk hauler; water for Liam's primary fish (a beta fish), it needs treated room temperature water; a rock; beta fish water treatment. 

For some reason I've just been too tired of thinking at the end of the day to get things together in this space.  But there have been a few things lately I really want to remember.

First, Liam has had no crying at school drop off, at all.  He was nervous before the first day but we talked it through and he has been fine ever since.  Better than fine, during the first week he asked if he could go to school 5 days instead of 4, because he didn't want to miss Fridays.  So, he's a 5-day a week kid now.  (Half days, but still!) 

Second, the babysitter is now able to pick Liam up at school when needed.   She has the extra booster seat, and he just gets in her car and they drive the 6 blocks home and here they are.  Liam is totally fine with it.  (This is despite the fact that as late as August he was swearing and crying that he would never, ever get in her car.)

These two things are in such contrast to last year, when he cried every day at drop off for the first month and at least once a week for pretty much the entire year, that I still sometimes can't believe it is my life. 

Liam has had play dates after school at least one day each week.  These are so far mostly initiated and organized by him.  It is great. 

And, finally, today one of the neighbor girls stopped by after dinner to say thank you for the leftover birthday cake we sent their way last week, and she and Liam got to talking about legos, and she said, well, I have a bunch of legos I never play with want to come see them?  And Liam said "Yes! Right now please!"  So he came and found me and said "Mommy, can I go over to (neighbor girl's) house with (neighbor girl) to see the legos?"  And I said, "Sure."  And then, "(Neighbor girl) please hold his hand when you cross the street; Liam, you have to cross only with (neighbor girl)."  And then I went out on the porch and waived to her father across the street and watched them cross.  And off he went, happy as could be, without a backwards look. 

Faces of the 5-year old

When we were in Washington DC a few weeks ago, I caught three of Liam's most common faces when he was looking at the moon rock at the air and space museum . In order I call them: (1) the tough yelling face, I think he was saying "moon rock!" in this one; (2) the sweet petting face, he also uses this one when he wants me to think he's being nice to the cat; and (3) the "Oh dear, what did she just say?" face.  Missing is the one where he is sticking out his tongue and making a rude noise.  Also missing, stubborn face, sleepy face, and silly face.  So far five is a very expressive age.

He is doing so well at school this week.  We've had virtually no crying at drop off time and today he told me that he might like to go to school on Fridays too.  So proud of his effort on this!

In which Liam and my mother make the same face

We took a lot of pictures at Liam's birthday at the end of June.  Lots.  And GG was kind enough to volunteer to come to Liam's kid party and take pictures there, so we have lots of those too.  I've finally started to go through them all, and my favorites so far by far are these funny shots of Liam and my mother making the same face, not once, not twice, but basically in every single picture. 

So funny. We also took photos with his other grandparents, GG, GoGo, Grandpa.  He is so blessed and lucky to have these people love him so very much.

I am reminded that a month and a half ago when these pictures were taken Liam was going through a very grating "I must wear PJs all the time" phase AND insisting that they be fleece, footed PJs even though it was trying to be summer.   He seems to have pretty much graduated from that now, or as he likes to say "Mommy, I've retired from that."  Although, really, he does still love to wear PJs, I just put all the footed, fleece ones away in the top of the closet until fall.  Chose your battles.

In other news, we took the last of the pea plants out just in time to plant more in hopes of a batch for the fall.  I have officially declared myself serious about getting rid of the slugs and garden snails after they ate two of the five broccoli transplants down to the stems and one of the brussels sprouts.  Except for my remaining hopes of tomatoes, and a few cucumbers coming on, we seem to be moving directly from the spring garden to the fall.  The slugs and sails also ate all three plantings of green beans and most of the zucchini flowers so...you know.

Thank you for all your kind thoughts and intentions for Lisa.  She died that Monday, going on two weeks ago now.  Her memory will be a blessing always.  Later that week I found out the spouse of a dear friend of mine at work was dx with surprise stage 4 lung cancer and is not responding to chemotherapy.  (She got bronchitis last year but got better; she is in amazingly good shape but how strange she started to get out of breath hiking; she got -- finally -- a chest xray; there you have it.)  He is a scientist and a biologist, like me.  (Sort of, at least, I was when I went to school and I'm still wired pretty much that way.)  He said: she's probably going to die soon.  You can see straight through his eyes into his heart when he says it; watch as everything starts to go upside down.

So, so fragile.

Sending much love to dear Kate today (and always, but today especially).   Thinking about Will's birthday coming up on Monday.  Always to correspond with the Perseid meteor showers.

Collecting creatures

"Hi Liam & Mom.

The crabs had a good sleepover in their habitat. All five went right into the water this morning. 

Love Grandma"

Liam has become obsessed with collecting creatures.  This is completely and totally annoying to me, but I try to roll with it.  The main difficulty, besides the annoyance, is the fact that very few of the creatures survive collection or captivity, and I'm not comfortable with the message that seems to send.  Some version of: "Sure, scoop up these bugs/moths/worms/snails/whatever and squish them into jars/tupperware/ziplock bags/your pocket/whatever, it doesn't matter if they live or not."

So, we've been working on some values (not okay to kill things) and some procedures (you can have two jars for bugs and one jar at the ready in case you catch a butterfly. . .one kind of bug in each jar. . . .you can keep the bugs overnight but you have to release them the next day. . ..)  We've had some limited success with this.  Mostly I just hope the phase passes soon.

On the 4th of July he ventured a trip to the beach and collected some little beach crabs which he put in a bucket with some rocks, shells, and salt water.  My mother returned them to the Sound the next morning.

Did I mention that one of his obsessions is he wants to take pictures of all the creatures he collects?  "Mommy I just love them so much. . .please can we take a picture." Really ready for this to be over.

Mommy, what are we going to do with all these leaves?

Well, small one, we're not going to do anything with the leaves, but the stems, we're going to cook with sugar and lime juice and then we're going to add rosewater. 

That's right, we made rhubarb and rosewater syrup recently.  It tastes great and is really beautiful; sorry I didn't think to take a picture during daylight.  I mix it with sparkling water.  Except now it has turned cold and rainy again so I'm thinking of mixing it with hot chamomile tea.  Seriously. 

This rhubarb plant is an amazing thing.  Someone gifted it to me about 3 years ago, all of two and a half small leaves and completely wilted.  It was an 80 degree day in August.  Not transplanting weather.  But, into the ground it went with a bag of compost and a bucket of water and now, well, it has taken over the front corner of the yard.  It is sending up flower stalks for the second year in a row and they are at least six feet high.  Another thing that should be photographed in daylight.

Liam has a cold.  A cough that I hoped was on the way out this morning seems to be, instead, settling in.   Poor small thing, he was asleep by 7:00 tonight.  He desperately wants one of his school friends to come over and play tomorrow afternoon and "stay for dinner, please, mommy, please, please call her mommy and ask" and it would be fine with me except I'm not sure he is going to be up to it.  I'm trying to steer this energy towards Pizza Friday in hopes he'll be rested and better by then.

We suffered the death of one wooly-bear caterpillar this weekend and are now trying hard to take better care of the second one.  Pets that live in jars are so not my thing.

At the end of a long day

After an unexpected school cancellation for Liam on the first of Three Very Long Days in a row for me,  I feel so lucky to have returned home to the following note from Liam's lovely babysitter.

Things we did today:

• Got ice cream, "I got to eat an ice cream cone today!"
• Saw ducks in the lake
• Saw little fish in the Sound
• Climbed the tree
• Sawed a branch up
• Played with legos
• Got to pet 2 friendly dogs
• Road bikes around the block

Reading between the lines, this means they took the $5 I left them this morning and walked half a mile downtown across the bridge to the ice cream store, then across the street to the lake to run around in the big open space, and were outside most of the day.  An adventure.  Perfect.

They also replaced all the batteries in all the flashlights (some small person tends to leave them on and I thought it might be nice for him to be involved in repairing them), fed and watered the chickens, and picked up sticks and random debris from the yard to put in the green bin.  She is firm with him but positive and kind and they do well together.  She remembers sunscreen and snacks and Liam reports she "never talks on her phone." 

Welcome back to my parents today who are here for the summer and were nice enough to treat Liam and me to dinner.  I may survive this week after all.

Beading, birthday presents, and mothers day

Liam made a necklace as a gift for the birthday girl this weekend.  He worked so hard on it, selected all the beads himself from the big bucket of random beads I have left from college.  (Yes, I went to a hippie school.)  He did all the stringing, I helped with the jump bead and the clasp only.  Then he had the idea to make a little bag to hold the necklace and so we did.   He really, really likes this little girl; her parents are the teachers for Liam's little school, and he is fascinated by all that.  All good.

Birthday girl loved it I think.  She put it right on.  I wish I had taken better pictures.

Liam did pretty good at the party.  He was very, very anxious that I might leave, and tearful at the prospect more than once.  So I stayed.  It's hard to not feel embarrassed when he acts this way, but I'm trying to just get over it.  He is how he is, and I didn't know one way or the other if it was a drop off or a stay and play until we got there, so I hadn't prepared him for the idea that I might leave.  He really rallied after the lunch and participated in the activities including the pinata (which he loved).  I'm sure he would have been fine if I had left.

As we walked across the street to the car after the party he volunteered:  "Mommy, thank you for staying with me even though the other mommies didn't have to stay."   Happy mothers day all.

Playmobil Kitty Names

Liam has recently been introduced to playmobil and has really been loving it.  I've been buying him pieces of the farm set and they're pretty reasonable, only about $10 each for the small sets and they get lots and lots of play.  Today he has a birthday party to go to, so when I got the present earlier this week I picked up the playmobil cat play set for him; as if he needs more toys.

But, he really, really loves playing with them.  I think tomorrow I'm going to swap out some of the toys that don't get played with so much any more, and a big stack of books, to make room for the new and to just pare down a little overall.

In the meantime, Liam has named the six cats that came with the playmobil set:

Mollie
Salad
Foxic
Japanese
Rose
Cushie

Reminds me of how he used to name all the areas in his paintings.

Pizza Friday was a success last night until Liam and the neighbor-boy just couldn't keep from bugging each other to death (including some hitting and pushing and name-calling that was really over the top).  Went from fun to not fun pretty fast.  Today we have the birthday party for one of Liam's school friends and then a mother's day tea at GG's church.  And then we clean the chicken coop.