Green things better watch out!

I'm feeling a little smug. I'm feeling a bit like a superior parent. Not only do my kids eat their veggies, they like them, and sometimes, they LOVE them.

In our house there are few battles over eating the green stuff. For example, tonight, when I put dinner on the table, I said "Salmon and broccoli" and Little Dog enthusiastically agreed "bwo-cree!" And if you like that reaction, show the boy a brussel sprout. The very veggie that is used to illustrate the parental struggle for dietary control of their children brings unmitigated joy to this child. If he spies a net bag of sprouts in the veggie drawer he pulls them out and tries to pry them free. It isn't until his first raw bite when he realizes they aren't yet cooked that I can pry them out of his hands, and then only to hear him scream "Sprow, sprow!"

And it isn't just Little Dog. Big Dog eats his veggies too. When he was younger, while other kids were begging for chocolate bars, he would gnaw on the bags of frozen broccoli in the cart at Trader Joe's. Even now, when we go grocery shopping he excitedly explores the produce department with an enthusiasm that causes other shoppers to stop and do a double take.
On one recent trip, while he was demanding that I buy "more cauliflower and wait, more broccoli. Ooh apples, and mushrooms!" a fellow shopper commented "I wish my son would even consider eating any of that. Lucky you!"

Another time, while we were eating "gourmet" pizza with his best friend and his mother, Big Dog opted for slices of the Greek pizza, covered in red onions and spinach. "Big Dog, you're not going to like that" warned his friend.
"Sure I will," replied Big Dog, innocent to the fact that he is a culinary oddity for his age group. He then proceeded to eat two large slices, loving every bite of it.

I don't know what I did to deserve such good eaters, but I secretly chalk it up to "excellent parenting." But don't quote me on that. I'll never admit to making such conceited claims.

Where does he come up with this stuff

Mr. Dog has been reworking the plans for the house, pretty much since we started with the designs. Recently he has been bringing home modified print outs of the current idea, and leaving them laying all over the house.

Two nights ago Big Dog grabbed one of the multiple copies of the plans off the living room floor, and wadded it up in his hand. Mr. Dog saw this and said, "Hey, stop that! That's mine!"
and Big Dog replied "What's that? Your fan club?" in a voice steeped in sarcasm, and tossed the paper casually toward his dad.

I know he's only 4, but I think he has a long career ahead of him in the world of sarcasm. Good job, little man. That was a nice one.

I want the one I can't have, and it's driving me....sad.

Morrisey said it, I've just altered it slightly and it about sums up my current emotional state.
For the past year I've been harboring a secret yearning for another baby. Not right now, but maybe in about a year. When Little Dog starts Preschool and Big Dog is in Kindergarten, I think I'd like to add one final child to the mix. I'm not really sure why, but I do know it has been consuming my thoughts for some time now.

When I got married, I didn't think kids, other than dog-children, the furry kind, were in my future. Then that changed, I thought, I'd like one, but just one. Then Mr. Dog convinced me that two was a nice number and we decided that two would be our goal. Well I have my two and I still want more.

How does a woman go from wanting to be a DINK(dual income no kids) family to a DIUMEK (dual income, up to my ears in kids) family? I'm not sure. It could have to do with the fact that I have been absolutely bowled over by how much I love my kids. It could have to do with the fact that my kids amaze and amuse me on a daily basis. Or it could have to do with factors I don't really understand at all.

It turns out that I am not alone in my desire for three kids. Many of the women I know with two, or even just one child, have confided in me that the thought of a third child is something rolling around in their mind as their biological clock pounds out a tempo requiring a decision to be made soon. These are educated, working moms, people who in many cases weren't sure they wanted kids at all earlier in their lives, so it seems to be a theme.

In the past week I finally voiced my desire for the third to Mr. Dog. Let's just say, he was not amused. At this point his goals have more to do with long nights of sleep than with tiny socks and more diapers. And because in this case, it really does take two to tango, so to speak, I am left alone with dreams of babies and tiny socks that will never be filled with tiny feet. Sigh.

My own developing country

If I said I spent my time dealing with the health and financial impacts of failing infrastructure, bureaucratic delays, critical shortages of technology and a flagging morale as a result of these failings, you might think I do some sort of development work with an underprivileged nation or perhaps have my fingers in a NGO of some sort. Sadly, you'd be mistaken. At current, I use all of these terms to describe my own home.

I had not really been prepared for the day to day reality of living in a fixer upper when I made an offer on our dream home, 1906 Victorian farmhouse converted to a duplex, with a beautiful double porch, original windows, and a failing foundation (to start the long list of necessary repairs). While the house is livable in its current state, it does seem to be sprouting an ever growing list of required repairs. In addition to the work required on the structure of the house, the appliances seem to be playing a series of nasty pranks on us as they go out one by one. So far, we've replaced the dishwasher, the washer and dryer, the hot water heater for our unit and the rental unit, as well as the refrigerator for the rental unit. Now on the repair list is the oven, the heating element has spontaneously broken igniting a small fire, happily fully contained in the oven itself.

In addition to the larger, more obvious failures, we have a bevy of small stuff to sweat. Currently we have no central heat and are forced to rely on space heaters to keep our home above arctic temperatures. Fine, that's a reality that will change eventually. The frustration that comes with that situation is that the electrical system in our home is set up in such a way that tripping circuits is almost unavoidable. Lots of fun when you put some water on to boil and suddenly are plunged into darkness because you forgot that you had the heater in the living room on.

Top that off with the odd selection of light switches the previous owner installed. They are some sort of dimmer switch that is near impossible to figure out. Even frequent visitors to the house don't know how to simply switch off a light when they leave a room. Better yet, the light switch in our bedroom has decided it is even more fun to work about 60% of the time. If it decides to stop, punching the wall next to the switch, ala Fonzie, will usually solve the problem, but that is kind of an annoying workaround

My most current gripe is the state of our brand spankin' new gas fireplace. I had anticipated it would be installed on Monday, inspected Tuesday and running Tuesday night. Well I was so wrong. The gasline needs to be reconnected before it will work, and the gasline can't be reconnected until we put the house back down on the foundation. The house can't be put on the foundation until, well, until it is poured. It can't be poured until the forms are all up and we have help hired to help pour and we can't do that until we review all of the bids and select one, hopefully one more ready to work and less of a gas bag than the guy we hired to put the house up on cribbing in the first place. Oh, and we have to deal with him to get the house back down. I expect to be toasty warm by this time next year, but that may be pushing it.

Gock? What the hell is a gock?

"Gock!" Little Dog says as he points vaguely at some unknown object in the kitchen.
"Fork?" I offer
"No, no want it fook! Gock!" he replies with s lightly increased urgency.
"Frog?" I say while searching the floor for one of our many bath frogs.
"No, no want it fawg! GOCK!" he says again, and louder, as though the problem is that I am just not hearing what he is asking for.
I have no idea what Gock means. This is a new request to me, and in the kitchen, cluttered with just about every toy, eating utensil, cooking tool, piece of junk mail imaginable and any spare piece of junk that has yet to find a "home" in our cluttered house, it could be ANYTHING. I start to struggle, "Plate? How about a plate?"
"No want it pate! GOCK, GOCK!"
I start to sift through the small toys in the indicated area, but with any 20 month old, the point is wobbly, and easily indicates about half of the kitchen.
In frustration, I pick up a Playmobil man, (a game warden who drives a snazzy zebra striped Jeep with a trailer large enough to haul a rhino AND ample rhino food), and set him on the table.
A smile and a look of relief spreads across Little Dog's face. "Gock" he coos and picks up the pith helmeted figure. He admires him, then holds him out to me "Gock!"

How he earned this name is a mystery. We have tried to investigate, but no real result.
"Little Dog, why is his name Gock?" asked Mr. Dog as Little Dog played happily with his odd little pal.
"Because that's what he calls him!" explained Big Dog with a healthy dose of just-how-stupid-are-you in his voice

He really did fall, really....

When Big Dog was 4.5 months old, he was injured at daycare. Injured is kind of an understatement, his leg was broken. We don't know what happened because the daycare provider claims nothing happened. She refuses to acknowledge that he was injured in her care. She claimed that he was gassy, and cranky due to that. I believed her, after all I had been very careful in interviewing daycare providers. I opted for a family daycare in someone's home instead of a daycare center because I thought that was a more loving option. That a mother would take better care of my baby than an underpaid teenager in a larger center. I felt like I knew this woman, I spent a lot of time with her since I nursed Big Dog at drop off, I nursed him at lunch every day and talked to her while I did. He was never left there for more than 4 hours without me visiting to nurse, and that kind of constant presence in any environment makes you feel like you really "know" the people you see there.

I took him to the doctor the next morning after a very tough night and he was diagnosed with a stomach bug. I guess it is hard for even a professional pediatrician to diagnose a broken bone if they are given the wrong symptoms. After giving him tylenol and helping him with the pain, we noticed that he was not moving one of his legs. We called my brother in law, who is a pediatric cardiologist, when the advice nurse didn't call back right away, and he said it was possible that he had an infection in the joint of his leg due to the viral illness that was causing the stomach bug. He told us to take him to the ER if we were worried, and we did. The ER doc said that she thought it was a viral infection and in fact she had just diagnosed another child with a similar illness, but just to be safe, she ran some x-rays.

When the x-rays came back, it was discovered that Big Dog's femur was broken. We called his daycare provider and she said she didn't know anything about it. And that is where my life fell apart. Any significant unexplained injury to a child has to be investigated by CPS. Since there were no witnesses, and she refused to take responsibility, we were investigated as well.

I spent two months of my life deathly afraid that I was going to lose my child. I was reassured by the case worker that no one believed that I had done anything, but it had to be investigated thoroughly. Even the ER doc who found the broken bone had a letter placed in our file saying she firmly believed that we were not responsible for his injury. We spoke with social workers, police and investigators but ultimately the case we set as "inconclusive" instead of "unfounded" because there was no clear explanation of the injury from any party. Had the daycare provider simply admitted that something had happened, we could have been completely exonerated, but short of that, this was the best outcome we could hope for. Normally a case is only open for 30 days, but the case worker we were dealing with kept it open longer to try to get enough evidence to have a claim against the daycare provider. Unfortunately that never was able to happen, so she was able to continue offering childcare despite her lies that kept Big Dog from getting the correct medical care right away.

Why do I bring this up now? Well apart from the fact that I still think about this frequently and it still fills me with anger that nothing happened to her as a result of her negligence and dishonesty, Little Dog got a black eye this morning.

Nothing unusual, I know. He was running around the living room like a crazy beast and he fell and bumped the corner of his eye on the corner of a chair. A clumsy sequence of events, but nothing out of the norm.

I can't help but remember the injury that Big Dog had and how we became suspects in a child abuse investigation. I know that children get injured all of the time, and little boys, especially those with a wild side, are frequent visitors to the doctor and even the ER with various bumps and brusies, black eyes and even broken bones.

I think for the rest of my life, I will always worry that any injury will be misunderstood, that any accident will be misinterpreted, that at any moment we will be considered abusive no matter how loving and careful we are with our kids. Sadly, this is what I carry with me from our first childcare experience, and I don't think I will ever be completely rid of this constant low grade terror.

And you call those decorations???

Halloween is near and this year, since we officially have a front door, we have some space for Halloween decorations.

A couple of days ago I told NE that she and Little Dog could decorate the area near the door for Halloween. They could put up just about anything they want, but I'd prefer no spiders since even the fake ones freak me out.

The next day I came home to find a Halloween display complete with snakes, rats, skeletons and lots of spider web. It was spooky and NE said they had a great time putting it together.

This morning on my way to work, Big Dog stopped and looked at the display and waved his hand dismissively "What's all that?" he asked.
"Decorations for Halloween!" I explained.
"What the hair?" he asked, indicating the fake spider web.
"That's supposed to be spider webs," I explained
"But there are no spiders," he said finding fault with the design
"No, there are no spiders. Mommy is afraid of spiders."
He looked at me with a look in his eye somewhere between distain and pitty
"You aren't afraid of pretend spiders." he said, then headed off to the car. I guess he had said enough on that topic. I was being silly in his mind, and he had put me straight.
Bossy little man I have there.

Oh man, 4 years? So soon?

Hey Big Dog, so you've gone and turned 4, have ya? Congratulations. This has been a big year for you. In so many ways, you've shrugged off the last vestiges of toddlerhood and sprung forward into boydom. Your run has changed from a toddler waddle in fast-forward to a sleeker faster gait. Your confidence and vocabulary have blossomed, and your lust for knowledge has made it a real challenge for me to keep up with just what you know! Your relationship with your "baby brother" has changed from the tolerant (or not so tolerant) observation from afar to a fully involved older brother role, that swings from a buddy-buddy friendship, sweet hugs, and thoughtful gestures, to out and out annoyance that I imagine will go on for, well, the rest of your life.

I always want to say, "I can't believe it has already been 4 years," but that isn't quite true. I can't believe it has only been 4 years since you were a helpless little newborn being placed on my belly, fresh from my womb. How far you have come, and how different our lives are our now. In so many ways you have taught me what is really important to me, what my real priorities are, and how much joy there is in my life. As much as you study me for guidance, you are one of the most compelling teachers I have ever encountered.

It is amazing to me that my DNA is mingled with your poppa's DNA to create every aspect of your wonderful little body. And it seems to go beyond that. Your smile, your expressions, your charming little mind, seem to have links to us both in ways that constantly surprise me. You are an extension of us in so many ways, but with all the similarities, there is a uniqueness that defines you. No one can say you are a copy of anyone else, you are your own boy.

In the next year, I look forward to seeing you gain new skills, discover new things and continue to grow and change. I love you more than I ever imagined I would. You have my heart, love and support forever. Happy Birthday, Big Dog, you are my special big boy..

How to make an old punk cry

I just ordered Big Dog his first pair of Docs. I can't wait to see my little guy in his brand new gibsons. I'm getting weepy just thinking about it.