Dadblog

playdates

Many of our kids' friends have a single sibling. If both Friend and Friend's brother come over to play, it's usually Elizabeth who is left unmatched. And man, does this get her mad. With no memory for her own playmates who came yesterday, or even this morning, she rages against the unfairness of the current regime.

The second thing she does (after sobbing to her parents) is storm into Andrew or Alex's perfectly good game and demand that it include her. And as every older sibling knows, there's not much you can do with a petulant kid sister who is determined to be miserable. She cries. Alex stomps downstairs and implores us, in the very-fast-speaking-tone-of-extreme-impatience, that drop what we are doing and remove this obstacle to her happiness. I pretend to have forgotten how to speak English and wish I was on an errand at the hardware store.

Sometimes we can pacify Elizabeth with what we call "screen time", either in front of a video or playing games on the computer, but it often seems like she'd rather just fuss.

Naturally, when she does have a playdate and Andrew doesn't, her favorite game is to chase him and accuse him of stinking. This makes him - predictably - furious.

We need to make more friends with three-child families.

big week for Alex

Last Tuesday, Alex took the stage for her fifth grade play. I was just stunned to see my sometimes shy kid stomp around on stage, boss around the other characters and sing a solo, hitting all her notes. Many parents came up to me and Rachel after the performance to comment on how well Alex did, and what was the deal with her hiding the light under the bushel all this time? Alex accepted the compliments with as much grace as she could muster, looking at her feet most of the time.

Here's a clip of Alex singing. My mother apologizes if the YouTube link doesn't work so well, as she may have worn it out.

Rachel gets a lot of credit for pushing Alex to practice her lines. Even now that the show is over, Alex still likes to rattle them off. She did invest a lot of time and effort into acquiring them.

On Friday, Rachel and the kids put Alex on the 5:08 train from Overbrook for a solo ride downtown. She had her mother's cell phone in her hand, a $20 bill in her backpack, another $10 in her jeans, her name and address rammed into two separate pockets and instructions to fuss loudly if anyone gave her a hard time. Alex was hoping to use her pirate curses in this eventuality.

I claimed Alex at track one, section A in Suburban Station 15 minutes later, and we rode the subway together to the Phillies game. The preseason game itself was not of consequence, but the barbecued ribs were delicious and I was very proud of my daughter for taking another big step towards independence.

overdue

The happy news is that a tiny dose of Topamax, which is often given as an anti-seizure medication, has greatly reduced Andrew's noises. When he's excited, he still coughs, snorts and sniffs, but the baseline is much lower than it used to be, and it has greatly reduced our household stress.

The doctor perked up when I mentioned that the recent explosion of tics happened after Andrew came down with strep throat; he said there is a correlation between strep and tics, and that we should have Andrew treated aggressively the next time he comes down with a sore throat. We had the opportunity to do that a few weeks later, when the school nurse called to say "get him out of here, he has a white patch at the back of his gullet." Rachel got him into the pediatrician's office, where she learned that not everyone in the medical community subscribes to this strep-tic link. Apparently, it's something that crazy parents like to obsess about on Internet forums. She declined, in the presence of her wide-eyed med student, to prescribe antibiotics for a little white patch probably caused by good bacteria.

Okay, that's a fight for someone else. We are just fine with how things are going.

tick tock

Andrew saw the psychiatrist the first week in March. On the drive there, he tried to engage me in a discussion of next October's Halloween costume. He won the "scariest" prize at our community's annual parade, and considers it important to defend his title. Unfortunately, he was hoping I would tell him what to wear, and I wasn't cooperating. "No Andrew, I can't decide that for you. But what do YOU want to be?" "I don't know - what do YOU think I should be?" Both of us repeated our positions for the short drive.

At the doctor's home office, Andrew sat cheerfully on the couch, and I left for the waiting area and a stack of architecture/antiques magazines. After 45 minutes, I was summoned into the office where the doctor told me what a great kid Andrew is. Andrew beamed. We scheduled a follow-up visit for me and Rachel, and then we left.

"Did you know I have a secret weapon?" asked Andrew in the car.

"What is it?"

"snorrrrrrrk [sound of cough]. I can use it whenever I want."

So this is what he was doing in there, I thought. Andrew seemed very upbeat about the meeting, although he didn't want to discuss it, preferring to return to the costume obsession.

Andrew employed his secret weapon with gusto all week long, snorking constantly through dinner a few nights. Rachel and I were feeling pretty grave about our son's ability to fit into normal life with this tic - marrying outside the deaf community was looking pretty unrealistic at this level - but Andrew himself seemed okay.

Last week, when we met with the doctor, he asked us if Andrew had said anything about his appointment. I mentioned the secret weapon. "Yes, he told me about that too," said the doctor. "Frankly, I found it surprising."

Rachel and I looked at each other in astonishment. We both assumed he had suggested it to Andrew.

"Andrew said that he can use his tics to make other kids back off," the doctor continued.

To Be Continued...

noisy

Andrew got really ticcy over the Presidents' Day weekend. His new noise sounds like he's trying to expel every last bit of air from his lungs, or like he was just punched in the belly. Sometimes he makes these noises when he's in a distracted state, like listening to a story or watching TV, but lately he's been wheezing while he's talking.

Alex was able to get him to arrest it in the car ride home by having him breathe in, hold, and breathe out. I called it ten-year-old yoga. But the rest of the time it was very disruptive.

Since Andrew also seemed more anxious and volatile than usual, I e-mailed his teacher to ask how he was doing in the classroom. The teacher called me that afternoon to say "I'm glad you wrote. I was going to give you a call..." He said that Andrew was making lots of noise during the day, which was new, and that he didn't seem to be mixing with the other kids in the class, which surprised us. Nobody is giving him a hard time, but he seems to only want to talk and play games with the teacher.

Andrew does not like discussing the matter with us, as it makes him so embarrassed, but he did say he'd like to talk about it with a doctor. We've lined up a child psychiatrist someone recommended to us, and Andrew will spend a very expensive hour with him later this month.

feel the love

Rachel and I gave both Andrew and Alex some assistance with classroom valentines this week. Andrew made an origami fortune-teller, sometimes called a cootie-catcher, and we reproduced the original on our printer 21 times. He then customized each one. I cut out a cardboard valentine heart for Elizabeth to use as a stencil, and then she traced it 18 times on paper folded four times into a greeting card shape. She wrote a classmate's name atop each one and inside she wrote 'Liz'. She only wants to be called Elizabeth, but that's a lot of letters to write by hand.

Alex professed not to be interested. Rachel wondered if she would regret this, but I counseled staying out of her business.

Yesterday, Rachel took Elizabeth up the hill to the big kids' school, and they saw fifth graders running all over the place, making valentines deliveries. She called me to ask if I thought Alex would feel bad. I suggested that if Alex has a romantic life, and she wanted us to know about it, then she would tell us.

Today was the last day of school before the long weekend. Sure enough, Alex stayed up late cooking up a batch of valentines to bring into school today. Something she saw yesterday motivated her. I bet we need a new $40 color cartridge in the printer real soon.

Rachel reported that she is fed up with yet another holiday and its associated crap and cheap trinkets. No less than five children in her classroom gave her lollipops, and she got even more junk like pink plastic heart-shaped slinkies that don't even slink properly. "Are you fed up with flowers too?" I asked. "No, I don't get enough flowers," she replied. "It's just the wasteful junk I hate. And on that note," she continued, "I suppose I have to approve your using recycled [printed on one side] office paper for Elizabeth's valentines. I mean since they are only going to end up in the recycling anyway."

Needed

There had been a breakdown in the orderly flow of kids-out-of-school lately. Rachel and Elizabeth had been meeting Andrew and Alex at the school at 3:30, but when the weather turned cold, they stopped going out to the playground and just walked home instead. The first disruptive element was that Alex always takes ten minutes longer to show up in the lobby than her brother does. Andrew tends to go berserk, running around tagging kids in a not-appropriate-for-indoors way, so Rachel directs him to wait by the wall. This is where Elizabeth touches him. It might be a hug, it might be a poke, but both kind of touches make Andrew scream. This interrupts whatever conversation Rachel might have been having with other parents and generally brings shame upon all family members.

In better weather, Andrew could be sent outdoors to the playground just as soon as he reaches the lobby. But we've had ice, snow and mud outside for weeks now.

After a particularly unpleasant after-school pickup, Rachel declared that Andrew and Alex would start walking home by themselves, effectively immediately, until playground time could resume again. It's a very easy and safe walk.

Yesterday when I got home from work, Rachel gripped me by the lapels and told me through clenched teeth that Elizabeth needs a hobby. Both our knees were being five-year-old-hugged while she told me this. It seems the daily trip up the hill was an important break from being stuck at home.

A few days ago, I went to Elizabeth's parent-teacher conference at the preschool. It was very pleasant to hear so many nice things said about my child, but I was surprised to hear the teacher tell me that sometimes when she is standing in the middle of the classroom, she will feel an arm snaking up the small of her back. She will look down and see Elizabeth sidled up next to her, with her thumb in her mouth. Elizabeth does this at home all the time, but we didn't know that she plugged in at school as well.

most unwanted

On Friday, when I spoke with Rachel during the day, I mentioned a survey-driven composition called "The Most Unwanted Song". Its creators tried to identify all the elements that people least wanted to hear in music. The answers (covering instrumentation, style and theme ) included accordians and harp; opera and rap; kids and holidays.)

The resulting song features an operatic soprano rapping about cowboys, intermixed with children singing  about Labor Day. And it's 21 minutes long, as people don't tend to like overly long songs. It also boasts grating, surprise volume changes.

Rachel thought this was a very funny idea so I brought it home on CD. We played it in the car many, many times this weekend because everyone liked it. The kids thought it was just funny ("Labor Day - do all your shopping at Wal-Mart!!") but Rachel started to have an odd reaction. "I LIKE western music," she said when we heard the cowboy's horse clomping. "I LIKE warbly sopranos. I LIKE pipe organs. I LIKE oompa tubas." Etc.

On Saturday night, Uncle Bill cooked a lasagna dinner for us in his apartment in the city. After we ate, while I washed up the dishes, Bill got out the Rock Band equipment for his X-box. Andrew and Elizabeth were just blown away. We played five songs, and Andrew really didn't want to leave, but it was 9:00 o'clock.

At home the next day, I loaded up some of the songs that we had played on RockBand on iTunes and played them in the kitchen. "Come Out and Play", "Alex Chilton" and  "Lump" all feature some driving, up-tempo rock guitar. I noticed Rachel's shoulders stiffening up....

Now I know what happens

Last night as dinner was winding down, Elizabeth let out an extra-loud belch. She is the burpiest kid I have ever met. And she takes great delight in each one.

I asked if this happens at school too, or just at home. Rachel looked skyward and nodded. Elizabeth beamed.

Then she said, "today at school, Fiona's mom bwought in cupcakes for snack. And Aiden took his cupcake whapper and stuck it in his mout like dis, and then he went, 'BUUUUUUUURRRRRRRPPPP!!!' and put it on his pwate. It was sooooo hiwarious!! The whole class was waffing!"

It brought a tear to my eye. Alex and Andrew have NEVER told me so much detail about what happens in school as Elizabeth does.

still bleary-eyed after all these years

After coming back from our holiday vacation, it became clear that our family had a bedtime problem. The sleepovers I wrote about in December were getting worse. Every night of the week, long after the Junior Varsity was supposed to be asleep, Rachel and I were going upstairs to demand that Andrew and Elizabeth stop fighting and go to sleep.

The solution was to officially promote Andrew to the top bunk, with a rule that he is not to come down to the bottom bed once lights are out. Both kids were nervous about sleeping apart, but they accepted the change and now they are falling asleep about 45 minutes earlier than they had been before. Part of the compensation for losing a warm bed partner is they go to bed with hot water bottles.

Falling asleep is great, but now Elizabeth is getting up twice a night again. It feels like living with an exceptionally verbal baby. Recently, Rachel and I have woken up to the following notifications:

• I fell out of bed.
• I need to go to the bathroom.
• My hot water bottle isn't hot anymore.
• I had a bad dream.
• My arm hurts.

My response to the first item in the list was "so get back in it." My response to the second item was "so go, already." Now Elizabeth has started walking around to the other side of the bed to petition Rachel.

I haven't had to get out of bed, or even open both eyes since this alarming new habit began, but it has affected how rested I feel when I wake up. Yesterday I was so tired I didn't leave enough time to shave before running for the trolley.