Panic Attack!

I had my first allergy related heart attack today. My visiting teacher, who has a son just about Matthew's age, was here. We were chatting and all of a sudden I looked over and Matthew had her son's bottle in his mouth. I don't think I have ever moved that fast in all my life. I took the bottle away before he even had a chance to tip it back. Thank goodness. I would really hate it if I had to call the pharmacy to order a refill of his EpiPen less than an hour after I picked up the first one. That would definitely take me out of the running for the Best Mom of the Year award. Of course, the fact that I hardly ever comb my kids' hair (one of the benefits of having only boys) will probably keep me from Perfect Mom status anyway. But who wants to be perfect? I would much rather be entertaining!

Speaking of entertaining, Daniel brought home the proofs of his spring pictures today. I had an excellent mom moment because I did not laugh. At least I did not laugh until later when Kev was home and Daniel was in the shower so he couldn't hear us.

Please Don't Pass the Lactoglobulin

Matthew is a picky eater. Really picky. Not only is he incredibly resistant to trying new foods, but if we give him something he likes and it is not the exact thing that he wants at that exact moment, he acts like we are hitting him with a big stick. This would not be nearly such a big problem if he could just tell us that he wants peaches instead of applesauce today. However, he is just a little guy and his vocabulary consists of Mom, Dad, yes, several undescribable things that we think are Daniel and Nathan, and an amazing assortment of loud shrieks and cries of discontent. So meal time is pretty much guess work at our house.

Today we discovered that Matthew has a darn good reason for being such a picky eater. He is allergic to milk (which we knew, but we didn't know how severe it is), eggs, and peanuts. It is a triple whammy. So when he spits out the scrambled eggs or rolls with an egg white glaze, it is probably because they make his mouth uncomfortable and he can't tell us yet. After a few times of having some crazy food make my tongue itch, I would probably get picky too. In fact, we are probably very lucky that he didn't actually swallow some of the things we've tried to feed him.

Now the hard part begins. I have to figure out what to feed my child. And that is not as simple as it sounds. Just avoid milk, eggs, and peanut butter, right? Wrong. There is an entirely separate vocabulary that the food industry people use, probably just to mess with the minds of the moms who are trying to keep their kids from going into anaphylactic shock. For instance, a label can say a food contains milk or butter, but it is more likely that it will say lactoglobulin, casein, or lactulose. Eggs show up as globulin, ovomucoid, and other nearly unpronounceable things. Peanuts can appear as hydrolyzed plant protein. Why don't they just print a big label that says, "Hey, come and get some super tasty gobbledy gook glazed in a nice freakin' what the heck sauce"? And things show up in the craziest places. Did you know that some spaghetti sauces contain peanuts or peanut butter? Hotdogs and sausages can contain milk. And the infamous "natural flavor" can include just about anything. I'm going to need an encyclopedia (and maybe an emotional support system) just to go grocery shopping. So if you see me hyperventilating in the frozen foods aisle of the Walmart, be kind and push me in the direction of my car.

10 Things I Love About Daniel

Recently Daniel's teacher sent home an assignment for the parents. I was bummed to have homework. But at least it was first grade homework and not college homework. Anyway, she asked us to write down ten interesting things about our child, cut the paper into strips, and send them back. She will then draw a slip of paper with an interesting thing on it, read it to the class, and they have to guess who the person is. In the middle of this, I realized that Daniel's interesting things are many of the things I love about him. Whether they are just his preferences or reminders of experiences we have had with him, they are all things that make him who he is.

1. He has a scar around his belly button that is shaped like a backwards question mark. When Daniel was born he had a urachal remnant. Basically, that means that the connection between his bladder and the umbilical cord didn't close like it usually does. When he was four months old, he had surgery to repair it. He was sleeping in Kevin's arms when the nurse came to get him. He woke up just in time to realize he was being taken away. He didn't trust anyone besides Kev and I and Kev's parents (who we were living with at the time) for a very long time.
2. He got to ride in an ambulance when he was two. This was our first super big asthma experience. He screamed and screamed because he did not want them to put the oxygen mask on him, but once he realized he could actually breathe again, he wouldn't let them take it away. Because he was oxygen dependent for a while there, they sent him from the instacare to Primary Children's Hospital in an ambulance.
3. He prefers to read nonfiction. He had no interest in reading fiction at all until he discovered the Magic School Bus books: they are fiction but teach about all kinds of interesting science stuff!
4. His favorite t.v. channels are the Science Channel, the Discovery Channel, and the History Channel. I'm not kidding. Give him a choice between cartoons and How It's Made and he will choose to learn how they made cd's or neon lights any day.
5. His favorite color is yellow.
6. When he grows up, he wants to be an astronaut or a scientist. He has space on the brain. Today in school they did an art project with a bunny. The had to use the bunny, but they could decorate it any way they wanted. If you look closely, you will see that Daniel's astronaut bunny is ready to blast off in the rocket that is in the background.
7. He loves airplanes and can identify more different kinds than I knew existed.
8. Sometimes I actually have to tell him to stop reading and go play for awhile. I am certainly not complaining about this. In fact, sometimes I have to tell myself the same thing!
9. He watched the recent lunar eclipse online (the video came from Minneapolis) because it was too cloudy to see it here.
10. He loves Lego. I cannot think of a more amazing and open ended toy!

There are lots of other things that make Daniel unique, but I could spend all day making an enormous list of all his quirks. I'll stop at ten and simply say that Daniel is definitely his own person!

Please Pass the Ketchup

Today has been one of those days where multi-tasking has not worked to my advantage. I usually get a lot done by multi-tasking. I start one thing, make a mental note of when I need to return to it, complete several other tasks, and come back just in time to finish up the first one. But today the process did not run as smoothly. I returned home after running a few errands and put some green beans on the stove to cook. Matthew doesn't do so well with things like lettuce, so I keep an assortment of tender cooked veggies in the freezer for the times when we eat what he can't chew yet. That is why I was cooking green beans at 10:30 in the morning. Anyway, I brought them to a boil, turned the stove down, and then walked away, promptly forgetting all about them. Are you seeing the breakdown in my normal process? I continued to the next task, and the next, until all of a sudden I began to smell an absolutely appalling stench. Now you're thinking that this is the point when I'll remember about the beans. Nope. I proceeded to walk around the house trying to figure out where the stink was coming from. I walked through every room, spotting nothing suspicious. I even wandered through the kitchen, looked at the pot ("Oh, yeah. I'm cooking beans.") and continued on my rounds because there was no smoke coming from it. Finally I decided to head outside and see if it was odiferous out there as well. I glanced at the pot and (here is where I finally clue in) wondered if by any chance I had burned my beans. I lifted the lid and whaalaa! Super stink!

After the discovery came the clean up. I dumped the beans, took out the garbage to get the source of the smell out of the house, started de-stinkifying the air with vinegar, cloves, air freshener, etc. As I stood at the sink pondering the possible demise of my most conveniently sized pot, I suddenly remembered that my mother in law uses ketchup to clean the copper bottoms of her pots. I had never personally tried it, but I figured it couldn't hurt. So I scrubbed the crud off the inside of the pot (you can only see a faint outline of where each bean was lying), dried it off and slathered on the ketchup. I let it sit for a few minutes (not as long as I would have if I hadn't just had a very sad experience with multi-tasking) and wiped it off. I was completely astounded. Here is the before and after for those of you who doubt.


I did have to use an SOS pad on the one edge that was completely black (even that was significantly softened), but the rest was all ketchup, no elbow grease required. So for any of you who are considering crispy frying your RevereWare, you might want to keep the ketchup handy.

Random Facts About Me

All of my sisters called this Life Images, but I have to be a rebel somehow. So here they are, some random facts about me presented in picture format:

Age On My Next Birthday:



A Place I'd Like to Travel:



A Favorite Place:



One Of My Favorite Things:



One Of My Favorite Foods:



My Favorite Flower:



My Favorite Color:


The City I Live In:



Name Of A Past Pet:



A Nickname I've Had:


College Major:



First Job:



A Hope For 2008:



So there it is. Some are pretty self explanatory, others not so much. Hope it at least made you say, "Hmmm."

May the Force Be With You

I was at a friend's house last night and she was telling me how cute Matthew is, which face it, I love to hear. She went on to admire his big brown eyes and chubby cheeks, all of which remind her of a cute fuzzy ewok. I can see her point. There is a similarity in face shape and

coloring (although Matthew is not as hairy). And he is definitely mischievous, as most one year olds (and ewoks) are. For instance, he really likes shoes. He will wait until no one is looking and then scamper on over to the shoe rack to play. I cannot seem to prevent his from pulling the insoles out of my shoes, but at least he doesn't try to gnaw on them anymore. Apparently Dr. Scholl's insoles are gellin' on the gums as well as the feet. He also has a love for books, especially the ones that aren't his. He pulls them off the shelf, puts them back, and pulls them down again. At least he is fairly careful. He only pulled a couple of pages out of Gone With the Wind, and they were hanging by a thread anyway. He loves music, as evidenced by his inability to leave the CD's on the shelf. And he makes the big boys crazy by wreaking havoc on whatever they are working on. All he needs to do is learn to climb trees and fight the Alliance and we'll be all set.

But then again, perhaps he more closely resembles Darth Vader. Hmmm. I wonder how long it would take him to learn that whole mouth breathing thing.

Simple Pleasures

As an amendment to my earlier comments on being a grown up, this was Matthew's favorite part about getting new furniture:

I Didn't Even Try Not To Laugh

I was just reading a friend's blog (thanks Tiff!) and a comment about Beauty and the Beast shorts gave me a flashback to the first time I saw that movie. It was on the night of one of the serious school dances in the fall of 1991, my senior year in high school. I don't remember what dance it was, but since I didn't get asked to go, I opted for alternative entertainment.Two of my best friends, the kind you meet when you are five and who stick with you through your seriously awkward junior high years, were date-less as well. The three of us decided we would go see Beauty and the Beast. It seemed a very girly flick, best enjoyed without boys, so who needed them! At least that is what we told ourselves. But we were definitely not the only girls thinking that direction since we ran into other friends from school at the movie. But more on them later.

We saw the movie at the Mann Theater (now the Showcase Cinema) on Redwood Road and 5400 S. We spent the entire movie laughing our heads off as we compared people we knew to the most colorful characters in the movie. BFF #1 (I don't want to use her name because some of you reading this probably know her and she would be embarrassed to death.) was driving. She had a tiny two door car, the kind that scrapes on the ground if you drive through a dip. We were still laughing as we prepared to go home and since there was no longer a car in the space in front of us, BFF #1 decided to pull forward instead of backing out. Unfortunately for her, she forgot that there was one of those big cement parking bumpers in between the spaces. She only remembered after the front wheels hit it, but by then it was too late. The momentum of the car kept it moving right on over the barrier and we were immediately high centered. BFF #1 immediately began panicking, but BFF #2 and I couldn't help ourselves. We laughed. Alot. We laughed as we got out of the car to try and push it off the barrier. We laughed as we found that the two of us were not even remotely strong enough to move the car. We laughed as we recruited the assistance of our other friends. And we laughed as the four (or five) of us finally managed to rock the car enough for the tires to grab asphalt. In fact, we laughed all the way home. Poor BFF #1. I'm not even sure if she can laugh about it now, but knowing her, I suspect the years have mellowed the stress of the moment enough for her to see the humor!

Am I Actually a Grown Up?

Every year Kev and I use a portion of our tax return to buy something fun. The majority goes into savings and other such financially responsible places, but we like to enjoy a little as well. Over the years we have gotten a couch, a refrigerator, a washer and dryer, a nice sized chest freezer, and last year we payed hospital and doctor bills associated with Matthew's birth. Some of these purchases were necessities (the refrigerator, Matthew). Some were practical (the washer and dryer, the freezer). And some were just really nice (the couch). This year's purchase falls into the very nice category. We purchased a bedroom set and I am very excited to have grown up furniture. Our bedroom is no longer decorated in Impoverished American Eclectic. Everything actually matches. I know it is a little bit pathetic that what makes me feel like an adult is not the fact that I am a married college graduate with three children, but the fact that I have matching furniture. It is just a really big step up from the mentally that furnishes college apartments: "It's where? On the curb? And the sign says it's free? Cool!"

While we were getting everything set up, I had a flashback to my youth. My parents inherited a rickety old queen-sized spindle bed when my Grandma Barney moved into a retirement home. It was just about the best bed I had ever seen in my life. My siblings and I had a ton of fun with that bed. We would stand on the top of the headboard, recite some kind of chant (Originally I thought it was London Bridge because it makes sense with the "falling down" and all that. However, I'm now having a vague memory that has to do with the Statue of Liberty.), and then let ourselves fall, face first, keeping our bodies as straight as possible, onto the bed. We would bounce like crazy and once we came to a stop, we would scoot out of the way to avoid being pommeled when the next person came down. It was enormously fun . . . and enormously off limits as far as Mom was concerned. This is, of course, one of those stories I won't tell my children until they are capable of purchasing their own furniture and paying their own hospital bills when they crack their heads open playing on it. Sigh. That was a very "boring grown up" thing to say. So maybe I am an adult after all.

Amendment: Patti tells me that it was definitely something to do with the Statue of Liberty. As I think more about it, I seem to recall something like this: "The Statue of Liberty stands so tall. The Statue of Liberty starts to fall." Pretty lame, huh? I wonder who thought that one up.

The Reason I Hate Shopping

I bought a cute new pair of shoes today. They weren't available in a wide width, so I had to go up half a size. That happens to me all the time. I have these short, fat little feet that are hard to fit into cute skinny shoes. Now these shoes are very springy-meaning they remind me of warm weather, lighter spring clothing, and an imminent release from the need for socks. I really like them. I would really like to have something new and cute to wear them with. Easy enough, you say. Just go shopping. But that's the part I hate.

You see, I am not any easy size to fit. I am just under 5'3", which makes me a petite. And yes. There are tons of cute clothes for petites out there. However, I am also very curvy. And almost every petite-sized piece of clothing I have every seen is designed for super-skinny-with-no-curves-and-short rather than for womanly-curves-and-just-happens-to-be-short-also. It is extremely frustrating. When I shop, I see all these adorable things and rush to try them on. But if I am shopping in the women's department, everything is too long, sagging in my torso area so I look even chubbier than I am. If I am shopping in the petites' department, nothing will close over my womanly chest. I spend my life trying not to trip on pants that are too long, continually pushing up my sleeves that are too long, and trying to keep my waistband from hanging on my actual waist because then the crotch of my pants is down between my knees. It is very discouraging.

At least I know how to sew. Now if only I could find patterns for the super cute clothes (rather than the matronly and figure killing tunics) in the size I need!

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream For Ice Cream

Today I taught my seven year old how ice cream can mend a broken heart.

Three weeks ago Daniel came home from school with the note about the science fair. He told me he had to do the science fair. Not want to. Had to. Kev and I initially tried to discourage him because he had no idea what he was getting in to. And because he's only seven. But he was determined. He worked really hard, with minimal help from us, and learned quite a bit about his topic.

Today was the actual day, so I sent him off to school with all his stuff, hoping he wouldn't be too crushed if he didn't win. Which he didn't. And he was crushed. Nothing I or Grandpa Estes could say seemed to help. Now, I'm not one of those moms who wants to shelter her child from all heartache and disappointment. I would hate to rob him of all that can and must be learned from these things. However, he is barely seven and it was still hard to see him try to deal with the disappointment. So as he sat in the back of the car, tears in his eyes, I suggested Coldstone. When Nathan asked why (Daniel was still too sad to care), I told him that sometimes ice cream just helps us feel better when we are really sad. I know that every emotional eating expert in the world would scorn that statement, but it is still a fact of life.

About halfway through his scoop of chocolate with Reese's Pieces, Daniel's smile came back. By the time we got home he had decided that he was going to do the science fair every year and that next year he will start his project in the summer. After all, he does want to be an astronaut or a scientist when he grows up so he has to do the science fair.

Responsible by New Balance

Right now the Discovery Gateway (the Children's Museum for those who haven't been there) has a special traveling exhibit called Sesame Street Presents The Body. It is funded by New Balance. There have been t.v. commercials for it every day just before or after Sesame Street. Nathan has been asking for weeks when we were going to go see Sesame Street the Body Responsible by New Balance. Apparently their advertising works.

So yesterday Nathan, Matthew and I got on Trax and rode downtown to see "The Elmo Special." Nathan was so concerned that we would miss it that he kept asking what time it closed and sighing because the train ride was taking so long. But after an eternity (if you are four), we finally arrived. We bought our tickets and went straight upstairs to where the special exhibits are. This particular exhibit did a fabulous job of catering to the pre-readers. Everything was hands on and very interactive. We got to make a heart beat, lungs breathe, and a mouth chew. We got to feel a brain, be on a quiz show with Guy Smiley, and run a race. I must say though that this is definitely the first time I have ever seen a museum exhibit where the word poo was a main attraction. Barf was also present as well as borborygmus, which is the sound your intestines make as stuff moves through them.

Nathan had a wonderful time of course, but I was surprised at how much Matthew enjoyed himself. He definitely wanted to be right in the middle of everything, playing along. Unfortunately, he has a bit of a stature problem. Unlike Daniel and Nathan, who are both between the 70th and 90th percentile on the growth charts, Matthew is hovering just below the 5th. Our doctor teases that I'm diluting the gene pool. Anyway, even standing on the top step of the little stools they have at the museum, Matthew could only reach the stuff on the very fronts of the displays. So I spent the entire morning squatting (I haven't done that many squats since I took weight training in high school. My legs are killing me today.) with Matthew standing on my knees so he could reach. He was absolutely overjoyed when we went back downstairs and hit the spot designed for kids under the age of three. At last! He could reach things on his own!

When we were done at the museum, we met Kev for lunch. This was another first for us since Kev has never had a job that allowed us to meet for lunch. He has either been too far away or had a job that didn't actually give him lunch breaks. Not only did we have a lot of fun, but Nathan got to do something that Daniel has never done. That is great for his poor four-year-old-middle- child moral.

In closing, I leave you with a very serious question: Do you know how much of your brain is made of water?

Pack Rat

This morning I went to Bath and Body Works to take advantage of another one of their free tote bag with any purchase promotions. This was not the first time this promotion has come up, but every time I see it, I find myself running over there to buy a $3 lip balm so I can get a free tote bag. Some women have a thing for purses, cute little numbers that they can match to any outfit. I prefer tote bags. You see, I am fundamentally a pack rat. I hoard stuff. And as any good pack rat knows, not only do you need somewhere to put all your piles of stuff, you need a way to carry portions of it around. And if that mode of transport happens to be cute, so much the better. That is why my purse weighs about twenty pounds. I simply cannot part with the stuff inside because I might need it later. Don't get me wrong, I definitely throw away gum wrappers, used kleenexes, and other such stuff like that, but I almost always have a handful of tickets stubs from movies, plays, etc. hanging out in my wallet. And I can't throw them out because I might regret it later. I know it doesn't make any sense. To be honest, I don't really understand it either. But in spite for my love of tote bags, my pack rat tendencies have definitely diminished as I've gotten older. Don't believe me? I can prove it.

Last summer my parents had a small flood in their basement. It wasn't anything too major. It only really affected one room and at no point were hip waders required. However, that one room happened to be the one where my siblings and I have been storing the detritus of our childhood. so the Saturday after the indoor rain, we were all called home to clean up the mess. As I started digging through my treasures of youth, I was actually appalled at all the trash that I had collected. There were sheets of stickers that had no stickers left on them. There were scraps of very soggy paper left over from when I had cut things out. There were keys that unlocked nothing and pens that no longer worked. There were random paper clips and teeny tiny pompoms stored in itty bitty boxes that were stuffed into minuscule drawers. In short, there was an enormous amount of garbage very carefully packed in boxes. I filled bag after bag to go to the dump. The back of my Dad's pickup was piled high with my junk alone. It was an eye opening experience. When I was finished, I had whittled down my belongings by about three quarters.

So having a love affair with tote bags is nothing compared to where I began. Seriously, I improve all the time. I threw a bunch of stuff away just yesterday. Unfortunately, it seems that I have passed down the pack rat gene to my children.