being brave

Elan, Botanical Gardens, January 2012

I have to say, my little guy has really been handling the lead-up to his tonsillectomy tomorrow better than I expected.

When we first told him, he railed against it. ("No, no, no, I am NOT going to get my tonsils out! You know when I'm going to do it? NEVER!")

But within a few hours, he was making peace with the news.

This morning, as soon as he was verbal (after the usual morning groaning/fussing session), he told me he was excited about his Goodbye Tonsils cake at school. This afternoon, we had back-to-back prep errands: going to visit the Child Life Specialist at the hospital outpatient facility, and a trip to the store (shopping list: popsicles, ice cream, pudding, jello).

By the end, my emotional state was as mushy as the food. Emry had been fussing (probably something related to the giant load in his diaper deposited at the beginning of our shopping expedition that I didn't realize was in there until the end). Elan was seriously hyped up, but I was trying to cut him a lot of slack and be ultra-patient. I was negotiating the 5 p.m. rush at Berkeley Bowl, a notoriously crowded market. People were kind - the woman behind me in the check-out line helped me put my groceries on the conveyor belt - but I was exhausted and just trying to get through it. We got to the car and I realized Emry had taken off and dropped one of his socks. There was no way I was going back for that. I reached into the diaper bag for my keys. Elan was asking for a popsicle, Emry was crying, and I couldn't find the car keys. Standing there in the dark parking lot, I nearly burst into tears. The rush of emotion surprised me, but it shouldn't have. The same thing happened yesterday, while I was nursing Emry after he woke up early from his nap and interrupted the yoga I was doing to try to center myself. Sudden onset crying - it seems to be way my anticipation anxiety is showing through. This time, though, I swallowed it down. Didn't want to freak Elan out.

He's really being very BRAVE. He's saying that he's scared, and of course he is. ("Mama, I'm scared because how can they take something out of my body?"). I keep telling him it's okay to be a scared, and I'm so proud of how brave he's being. Because in order to show courage, you have to feel fear, a definition that I have always found inspiring, not being the fearless sort myself.

Watching him trying to figure this new thing that's been thrown at him, taking very seriously the list of yes and no foods I typed up for him, I'm so touched by how he's growing into a little kid. A pretty awesome one at that.

countdown to T&A

Serenity on the Washington coast, September 2011

This Thursday is Elan's tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy (T&A).

Just writing that gives me butterflies in the stomach.

What a strange start to the new year it's been so far. Coming home from a wonderful two weeks away has been jarring. I'm actually happy to be home, I love our little house and the amazing community around us, and the weather has been eerily sunny for January. But everyone's had an edge of cranky and tired since we got home, which wasn't helped by a sudden all-night stomach pain and vomiting attack that Mikhail suffered Saturday night after we celebrated my birthday with a movie out and a late-night Indian food feast at home after we got the kids to bed. At least it happened after the celebrations were over, and he's feeling okay now.

Elan doesn't know about his surgery yet. We're telling him tomorrow morning, before his pre-op doctor appointment. Then on Wednesday, we're going to the hospital outpatient center to meet with a "Child Life Specialist" who will supposedly make us all feel more comfortable with the surgery to come. That would be good. I need to feel more comfortable. Elan is such a barometer of my emotional state - I'm worried that he's going to see straight through any nonchalant front I manage to muster and see my own anxiety about the surgery, the recovery, and whether it's going to work and we might all once again know what it is to sleep through the night.

The problem is that I have no idea how to explain this surgery to him. I don't want to make it sound like it's his fault: you're a bad sleeper, so you have to have surgery. (Even though that's kind of the truth.) I don't want to sugar-coat it: you're going to go to the doctor, go to sleep, and when you wake up, eat lots of popsicles. But I don't want to make it sound too scary either: you might be out of school for 10 days or two weeks because your throat will hurt so much. Clearly there's a balance of how much information he needs to have in order to feel that he's been prepared for something, and not scaring the dickens out of him.

I feel like this is a complicated undertaking at this age. At 5, he's become very aware of his own will. (Favorite new phrase: "I decide for me.") How do we prepare him for this surgery so that he won't feel terrified or like we lied to him, without him feeling totally out of control and like he has no say in what happens to his own body, even though this is a decision Mikhail and I have made on his behalf and he doesn't have a say in it? I guess if I knew the answer to that one, I could make a lot of money as a child-whisperer.

Which, given the fit my child threw this morning in the car when I told him he was going to get to play with his friends at the after-school program for an hour and a half after preschool, I am clearly not.

gifts

Elan actually wrote a wish list for Hanukkah/Christmas this year.

In translation:

angry birds

pigs

snow hat

soccer shirt

money

This list is hilarious because a) it showcases his obsession with angry birds which seems to be a fairly universal obsession for any 5-6 year olds who have been exposed to it, b) my child hates wearing hats, proven by the fact that he doesn't want to wear his "snow hat" even though it's a yellow angry bird hat, and c) he asked for "money" so that he could lend money to people on kiva.org (we received a gift certificate for kiva from our neighbors when Emry was born). This last one made my heart sing. It made me feel like I must be doing something right as a parent, despite the angry birds obsession.

Between his birthday at the end of November, Hanukkah, and Christmas gifts that we were waiting for him upon our arrival home, that child has received a gift more days than not over the past month plus.

So it makes sense that the subject of my birthday gift might come up.

When Elan asked what present I wanted for my birthday, I said, "This is what I got for my birthday." I held up my new hot pink-clad iPhone, my first-ever smart phone and Number One Drool-worthy Item Currently Coveted by the Baby in the House. You should see how Emry's crawling picks up steam if he spots my phone in an accessible location.

Elan looked concerned.

"You can still get me a present, though," I said. "Talk to Dada about it."

"Okay," he said. Then my football-obsessed son brightened. "We'll put our heads together and make a huddle, just like in football!"

message in the sand

I love coming across other peoples' art on the beach.

We are having holiday hangover after two weeks in San Diego with my family. After two weeks of fabulous sunshine, football with the guys, and rolling around in a big kid/dog pile on the ground with my sister's two-year-old, her two Bernese mountain dogs, and my parents' dog, Elan is waking up in the dark, trying to get back to sleep and failing, and telling me he misses his cousin Judah.

Here's what holiday hangover looks like in my house:

My house was clean when we arrived home, at 10:30 p.m. Monday night. My kids took care of that by 8 a.m. Tuesday morning.

Still-packed bags litter the living room floor. I am slowly tackling them. I wish a genie would come and put everything away. The genie could clean out my closet while she's at it. And cook dinner.

I think the toys were procreating while we were gone.

I'm glad to be home, and I'm looking forward to getting back into a routine, I just don't remember exactly how to do it.

I have a head cold and I'm turning 36 tomorrow. Tomorrow! This year, my birthday feels like it's coming at the tail end of celebration. Like, do we really have to celebrate one more thing? What an awful way to feel about your birthday! Can you tell I am not feeling particularly inspired about turning 36?

And Elan's tonsillectomy is in one week and one day. I'm just a wee bit anxious about that.

At least we have the memory of sand castles.

And sand in the pockets of every pair of little-boy pants, to prove we were there, not too long ago.

completion

Driftwood burl, Washington, August 2011

My friend Andrea posted a cool free downloadable worksheet that's about completing 2011 and looking forward to 2012. I think it will be a perfect way to ease into what Mikhail and I have done around new year's these last few years: picking our word (or two, or three) for the year to come.

Looking back and looking forward, that's so much what this last week of the year is for me.

the 5-year-old unicorn

One month ago, Elan turned 5.

We made a sign. He wrote his name but insisted I write "Birthday Party." And those are balloons decorating the sign, in case you're not sure. Balloons being an absolute must for the celebration.

I love little kid writing. Adults can imitate it, but they can't ever quite get the adorable haphazard quality of randomly placed backwards letters and the way the whole line drifts and tilts.

After much debate, I decided to have Elan's birthday party at the Y Kindergym this year. Basically it's a big padded room, with things to climb on, jump on, and throw - and it's all cushioned. Perfect for 5-year-olds to go crazy. And let me tell you, after 4 members of my household spent hours 48-24 before the party throwing up, I was very VERY happy that the party was not at my house.

Also, after said stomach bug hit my house like a whirlwind, it was clear that I was not going to be doing the baking. So my mother-in-law and sister-in-law stepped in and delegated that task to Safeway. (Thank goodness my sister-in-law, a fabulous baker, did not decide to bake the cake, as Vicious Stomach Bug took her down the night before the party.) Elan loved his cake. It had real race cars on it. He was in little boy heaven.

I'm pretty sure that my child is actually a unicorn. Evidence: check out that horn.

And look at those eyes. Here, you can see them better in this picture.

October 2010

Humans don't have eyes that gigantic. Don't know where it came from in the gene pool, but definitely part unicorn.

There was a pinata. After the kids had made a good go at it, Mikhail slit it up with an exacto knife, but the thing was so strong that I finally just had to rip it apart. The kids ignored this little birthday party faux pas. There was candy to be had.

Even Emry got in on the action.

Now that Elan is officially 5, I realized two things:

One: That I've been thinking of him as 5 for a long time, which is weird because I'm generally such a nostalgic, stop-that-growing-up-so-fast kind of mama. He and I agreed that 5 is like a big little kid, whereas 4 is still a little little kid (and some number I can't yet imagine is a big big kid).

And two: That I've been a mother for a half-decade now. He's getting faster than me.

merry.go.round

Elan, Tilden Park, Berkeley, December 2011

We are working on creating family traditions, now that we're 5 years into this whole kids thing. One is going to the holiday carousel at Tilden Park, in the hills above Berkeley.

Mama, what's with all the pictures of me with funny expressions posted on your blog lately?

Of course, this necessitates me thinking about when we did this or that last year. Which has me think about how little Emry was at this time last year, when he went on the merry-go-round snug in the Ergo, without ever knowing that he was spinning through space.

This year, Emry picked up on Elan's excitement at the novelty of going for a ride in the dark, up windy streets lined with lit-up houses, through the blackness of the park. He was asleep when we came upon the carousel, surrounded by decorations and a 50-foot-tall tree strung with lights. But when we got out of the car, he woke up, and both boys were entranced.

Sweet Solstice. May the longest night bring you its own kind of light.