How much wood would a woodchuck chuck

Today we got our annual delivery of firewood for the winter. Although we ordered and paid for half a cord, it looks like we got at least half again that much based on the fact that it stacked into a pile over 13 feet long and over 4 feet high. Why am I blogging about this? Because today Samantha helped us move and stack a 13 foot long by 4 foot high pile of wood, and if you've never had the pleasure, that's a hell of a lot of wood.

See, the delivery guy comes and dumps the wood in the driveway. From there we have to lift it up over the retaining wall on the side of the driveway, carry it up the side yard of the house so it's next to (but beneath) the porch off the living room, throw it blind up over the side of the house and through the large opening in the porch wall where I've removed the screens for the day (hoping not to hit anything important like the glass storm door that leads out onto the porch), then go out onto the porch and stack it all on the firewood rack.

In the years when I've done the whole thing myself it's been an all-day event. (One of the most obvious things I noticed after losing 80 pounds was how much easier it was to spend a day throwing firewood around. I could do it and not feel like death warmed over afterward. But I digress ...)

Today with three of us working on it the job took about 2 and a half hours, and Samantha certainly pulled her weight, so to speak. Actually, she pulled a lot of wood. Amy was stacking it on top of the driveway retaining wall, when Samantha loaded it (2 to 6 pieces at a time) onto her plastic sled and dragged it up the yard to the staging area for throwing it onto the porch. A couple of times she also dragged Joshua up and down the yard, giving him rides on the sled.

I helped in moving the wood from the driveway up into the yard, and I did all of the throwing over the wall as this requires a degree of tallness that disqualifies both Samantha and Amy. But each time I'd thrown what seemed like a reasonable amount of wood over the wall, Samantha came out on the porch with me to stack it up. She was an incredibly good and hard-working helper.

After stacking the wood Sam and I went to the Y to swim together while Amy tried to get Joshua down for a nap. Then we all went to out to dinner, where poor Samantha was so tired from her busy day that she fell asleep with her head on my lap in the middle of the meal. We just got home a few minutes ago. I carried her upstairs, woke her up just enough to take her naproxen, got her changed into pajamas and tucked into bed, and now she's sleeping like a baby.

I'm going to go unload the car, light a fire in the fireplace, and call my brother.

Tomorrow it's time to put up the gate around the fireplace again to keep Joshua from getting too close to it.

Life is just so unfair when you're five

This will be a quick entry, but I wanted to record this story before I forget to blog it.

The other morning I made Samantha breakfast. (An aside: She's in an "oatmeal with sugary dinosaur eggs that melt and reveal dinosaurs" phase, and wants to eat that every morning. Since it's mostly oatmeal, which is healthy stuff, and the level of added sugar while appalling is less appalling than in many other packaged foods, and it's the only thing other than cream of wheat that she'll reliably eat more than 3 bites of in the morning, we grit our teeth and say okay. Now back to our regularly scheduled story, already in progress...)

So Sam's sitting at the dining room table when I come out of the kitchen with my own breakfast, and she's got a spoon in one hand and a book in the other, and she's reading aloud (quietly) to herself, going right through words I had no idea she could read, and sounding out the unfamiliar ones. Over the past two weeks her reading abilities seem to have blossomed explosively. I have no idea what just clicked in her brain to make this happen, but it's very cool to see.

After a few minutes Samantha pushes her bowl away to indicate that she's done eating, so I said "Samantha, I think you need to go upstairs and change out of your pj's and into your clothes, because it's almost time to leave for school."

Samantha puts down her book, rolls her eyes, gives me her best "put upon" look, and says in her most disgruntled the-universe-is-just-so-unfair tone of voice: Oh man, I never have time to just read books.

It was all I could do to avoid either laughing out loud or saying "Welcome to the club, sweetheart" :-)

The Brown Identity

Okay, so today started out amazing. It is a warm September day, clear blue sky but for a touch of white mimsy just to make the blue more blue. The word, 'pristine,' comes to mind. But no more. I took Joshua outside with me to play with the haycorns while I watered the tomatoes. I watched him ever so carefully near the pebbles of the dog park. He did not go near any brown spots. I got complacent and watered the moss, cleaning off the mulch from the ledge. He went behind me to go towards the upper corner of the sidewalk, where it is *usually* clean. I smell something and see Joshua right behind me. I don't see anything on his pants, so I am confused. I put the hose away and see the dog brown stuff on the flagstones (you do remember Matt banned the word, 'poop,' right?) Without going into further detail, a bath and a full change of clothes for both of us finished off the morning. 'Pristine' is no longer the word for the day.

On a separate note, Samantha went to the dentist, and she did beautifully. No worries at all, and I even was able to leave her with the hygienist while I took Joshua away from those enticing hoses and off to some more proper toddler toys. She is really a brave, confident little girl.

Smarty pants

I was singing 'itsy bitsy spider' in the car today to amuse Josh. I noticed in the mirror that Josh was trying to do the hand motions along with me. I had no idea he knew the song, much less the hand motions! Marie takes him to a sing along in Winchester on Thursday mornings, so he must have picked it up there. She really spoils him. After she has had him for a while, he thinks I am going to carry him everywhere too.

Depth perceptions is interesting. Josh was in the zero entry pool at the Y today. He went up on the side of the pool where there is an edge. When he came back in, he thought the water was hard and slid in face first. This did not make him happy. The next time he went in the pool on the side, he went in the same way he goes over any other edge, feet first. He only had to do it once to learn the right way to do it. Lets hope he stays a quick learner.

Joshua loves slides. He especially loves going down a slide on his sister's lap - also Samantha's favorite way to go down a slide. The mat room at the Y just isn't as much fun without Sissy there to spice things up. Samantha tells Joshua her name is "Sissy."

More things one year olds eat

Baked beans. Roasted sweet potatoes with maple syrup. Blueberry blintzes. Noodle kugel. Ice cream. Corn on the cob. Filet mignon. Flan.

A tale of two doctors

Yesterday we took Samantha in for back-to-back appointments with her orthopedist and her neurologist.

The orthopedist appointment never happened. We sat in the waiting area at the hospital for an hour past our scheduled appointment time before they took us into an exam room., and then we sat there for another 45 minutes during which no one showed up. No doctor, no member of the staff to tell us the doctor was tied up somewhere and would be late, no nothing. After an hour and 45 minutes we just left, since we had to get Samantha something for lunch before her next appointment. I was livid.

We actually saw her doctor walking down the hall on the way out, in scrubs. So maybe he got delayed by an emergency, or a surgical procedure that ran long. Fine, these things happen. But you still don't leave a 5 year old patient sitting around for almost two hours with no indication that there's going to be a delay, no clue when the doctor is going to arrive, etc. If they'd just sent someone in to tell us we could have rescheduled, or gone to lunch and come back, or any number of things. Instead we just wasted an entire morning and never did get to see the orthopedist. This is the kind of thing that gives a practice a bad name, and makes it really hard to consider going back.

The second appointment, with the neurologist, went much better. In her opinion Samantha is doing fine on the naproxen, and as long as there are no evident side effects or breakthrough events where she's in pain in spite of the medication, the doctor's advice is "Keep doing what you're doing, don't put her through any more testing right now unless one of the serological tests for autoimmune issues comes back positive, and check back in after 6 months to a year."

Samantha might outgrow the dose of naproxen she's on before then, so if there's a change in pain level or other symptoms we'll need to deal with it, but otherwise it looks like she's done with doctors for a while. In another 6 to 12 months we'll repeat all of the imaging studies and maybe add some new ones to see if anything has changed, but in the meantime naproxen is allowing her to lead a normal active life again.

I think Samantha will miss going to Dr. LeBel's office just because of all of the office toys she has there for kids to rummage through. Whatever will we do without the fake can of taffy that has a spring loaded shark inside? You'd think the old "shark in a can" routine would get old, even for a 5 year old, but somehow it never does.

Eeeeeeeek! Shark in a can!

Out of the mouths of babes

I have to preface this story by saying that Samantha gets embarrassed or annoyed when she thinks I'm going to tell it, so if you read the blog and happen to see Samantha later, please don't mention it.

The other day we were all in the car going somewhere or other, and I was telling Amy about a minor medical thing that had happened to me earlier in the day that I couldn't really explain. Since it happened after being awake a lot of the night with Joshua, followed by swimming for an hour and then drinking a large cup of coffee, I thought it might be related to the combination of exhaustion, exertion, and caffeine. Samantha had her own opinion.

Samantha: You know what I think it is, dad?
Me: No, Sam, what do you think it is?
Samantha: I think you're just getting really, really old.

Uhm ... gee ... thanks dear.

Imperial walkers have entered the base ... Imperial walkers have entered the base ...

It's been quite a week so far.

Samantha seems to be taking well to kindergarten. This morning she got dressed, ate breakfast, and got everything ready to go to school well before we had to leave, without a single argument or complaint. She loves buying her lunch at school, probably because it makes her feel very grown up and independent, which are her driving motivations in most things right now.

When Amy and I picked her up after school today she came out of the building, saw us standing there, and yelled Daddy! I got a super sparkler for being really good in school today! A super sparkler is some sort of recognition (a little certificate), though I confess I have no idea how the kids earn them. Sam implies that you collect them and they're worth something at some point in the future. I should ask her teacher about this.

I think Amy was a little miffed that Samantha ran to me and told me about her award, and didn't really say hello to Amy until afterward. Sorry Amy :-( I'm sure it's just an age thing, and the fact that she sees me less than she sees her mom.

After school Sam had her first dance class; she's learning ballet and tap dance at a local well-regarded dance school. She says she likes the class and wants to continue doing it, though she didn't say much in detail about what they actually did today. She's the same way about school -- she says it was great, but isn't interested in sharing any of the details.

Now as to the title of this post (which comes from "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back"), it's reference to the fact that Samantha and Marie both report that Joshua took his first couple of unsupported steps yesterday. I haven't seen him do it yet, but they both insist that he's officially started walking. He's definitely become more interested in the whole standing upright thing, and why not? He can reach so many more things and get into so much more mischief that way.

The other big development is that Joshua fed himself with a spoon for the first time tonight. This is a big deal in a couple of different ways. For the past couple of months or more he wouldn't even eat anything that required a spoon; if he couldn'tpick it up in his hands he wasn't interested in it at all. Now he not only ate something that required utensils (my fire-roasted maple flavored sweet potatoes, which are also a favorite of Samantha's), but he fed himself. I've got a few seconds of video, which I'll post here at some point when I have more time.

L'shanah tovah.

And happy birthday, dad. Eighty two years is a hell of a thing.

Another day, another doctor

Last week we took Samantha to see Dr. Miller, a highly recommended (by a friend of a friend) pediatric rheumatologist. The theory was that Sam's discomfort might be related to an intra-articular osteoid osteoma, and a rheumatologist like Dr. Miller might be adept at identifying such a thing.

It was a long visit with the doctor -- two doctors, actually, since she had a colleague there. The doctor agreed that (a) Samantha's case is certainly something of a mystery, and (b) we've all been through a lot over the past few months.

Samantha has already had an extremely thorough workup and the doctors thought that an osteoma, even of the hard to diagnose intra-articular variety, that's sufficient to cause the level of pain Samantha has experienced would probably have shown up on the imaging studies already done. In spite of that it's worth going ahead with a couple of additional studies including a pinpoint aperture bone scan and a CT scan, because they're tools that we have at our disposal and they might reveal something new. They'd also like to do another round of blood tests to recheck things and to look for some additional more subtle markers, though they didn't say exactly for what.

Dr. Miller reminded us that in view of the things they deal with there every day, all things considered, the lack of a diagnosis isn't the worst possible outcome. Some kids do experience pain whose cause is never identified, but that's probably a lot better than pain whose cause is identified and turns out to be something horrible or life-threatening.

Samantha turns out to be seriously hyperflexible in both her knees and her hips. Where most people's knees lock when their legs are at about 180 degrees (straight out), Samantha's knees flex 20 degrees or more backwards. She has similar flexibility from side to side in her knees, and her hips flex 40 or more degrees further than most people. Dr. Miller said you see this kind of flexibility in great dancers, skaters, or skiiers. But it can be accompanied by micro-tears and trauma in the joints, and this may be the cause of Sam's pain. Interestingly, that's the same speculation her pediatrician made in the beginning.

The one reassuring thing they did say is that there's absolutely no reason, in their opinion, to be concerned about Samantha taking naproxen, even for a long time. They said they have kids who take it for years then "graduate" out to an adult medical program at 18 and take it for even more years, that it's well tolerated and as long as it's effective, don't lose a second's sleep over having her on it for as long as it takes.

In fact, they suggested that rather than trying to titrate down the dosage or periodically stop giving it to her to see if her pain has resolved itself, we just let nature do the work. As she gets bigger and puts on weight her dosage in mg/kg will naturally go down and we'll see whether or not she starts to experience recurrent pain in her knee. This process may take a long time unless she grows very quickly, but Dr. Miller's advice was that after what we've all been through this year we give ourselves "a good long time" with Samantha being pain-free, and give everyone a chance to recover a bit from what's already happened.

Oh, they also did another series of X-rays of her knees and hips while we were there. All completely normal except for a slight bit of inflammation, which may be as much a symptom of her pain as a cause, and which the doctors seemed to feel was no cause for concern at this point.

I'm sure there will be more to come, and we'll keep you posted on her progress, gentle reader.

RSS Feed Now Available

For those readers who forget to visit the blog from time to time, or who would like to be notified automatically when a new posting is available and have it delivered either to your mailbox or your web browser, I've enabled RSS feeds from this blog.

In the words of the all-knowing Wikipedia:

RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. An RSS document, which is called a "feed", "web feed", or "channel", contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with their favorite web sites in an automated manner that's easier than checking them manually.

RSS content can be read using software called a "feed reader" or an "aggregator." The user subscribes to a feed by entering the feed's link into the reader or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser that initiates the subscription process. The reader checks the user's subscribed feeds regularly for new content, downloading any updates that it finds.

If you use Firefox or a recent version of Internet Explorer or Safari as your web browser you are already able to read RSS feeds. When you visit this blog Firefox puts a little orange symbol on the right hand side of the location bar. Safari puts a little "RSS" indicator there, and Internet Explorer uses the same orange symbol as Firefox, although I think in IE it appears in the tool bar. In any of these browsers you can click on the RSS indicator and subscribe to the feed, and from then on your browser will go out and periodically check for new content. Check your browser's online help (try searching for RSS) for more information.

If you use Thunderbird to read email it's also RSS-enabled and will deliver new content right to your mailbox. Instructions are here. If you use Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express there are RSS plugins available from a variety of sources, both free and commercial.

By the way, there are literally thousands of sites on the web with RSS feeds -- most major news and sports sites, many weblogs, etc. They all work the same way.

Leave a comment on this post and let me know if you get the RSS feed to work, and if you find it useful.

First day of school

A friend wrote and asked how we did this morning. This is what I wrote:


It's sweet of you to think of us. Sam was great. Took off and didn't look back. She practically flew there she was so excited. I, on the other hand, am feeling rather sad. I'm not worried about her. I miss her. Everybody keeps telling me, "she'll be fine." Yes, I know *she* will. How am *I* going to be? The funny thing is, having Josh isn't making me feel better about missing Sam. Yes, he is nice to snuggle, and maybe I held him longer than he truly needed after he fell asleep for his nap, but it isn't helping the ache I feel without Sam. I was incredibly embarrassed when I cried in front of all the other parents this morning. I just don't *do* that. I am not talking wet eyes, I am talking really crying, and crying all the way back to the car, and off and on all morning. I think I will go spend some money on some clothes for her. Maybe that will make me feel better.

I'm sure seeing Sam happy at the end of school will help me. I am just having a rough day.

Welcome (Almost) to Kindergarten

This entry is technically out of order relative to the last one since the Sam's introduction to kindergarten happened before Joshua's one year checkup. Sue me.

Last Thursday Samantha had her kindergarten orientation in the morning. Her teacher seems very nice and good with the kids. We weren't there long enough for me to get a feel for any of the other parents, but I'm sure we'll all get to know each other over the coming year one way or another. Samantha did well her during the orientation. I was proud of her for raising her hand to get the teacher's attention rather than just calling out when she wanted to say something; I know how hard that is for her. She didn't really have enough time to talk to any of her classmates for more than a minute or two.

There was one kid in the class who sat down to read a book and was reading way beyond the level I'd associated with a kindergarten student. I found myself hoping that Samantha wouldn't feel bad if she wasn't the best reader in the class, being just a wee bit competitive. (See post below on the MassBike Pie Race!) I needn't have worried. It turns out that somewhere along the way Samantha has been teaching herself to read much more advanced words than I'd even realized she knew. I learned this at lunch one day when she started reading words off a kid's menu that I had no idea she could read. So I wrote down a few things for her to try that I'd expected to be way too advanced for her, and much to my amazement she read all of them. Later in the weekend she had another one of those kid's menus, and on it there was an "unscramble the letters of these words" puzzle. Sam took one look at something like "lwofre" and immediately -- and I mean immediately -- said "Oh, flower". She then asked me how to spell flower, even though she'd been able to look at the letters and (I am guessing) work out the sounds associated with the letters, then rearrange them into a word in her head. I'd love to understand the mental processes that go on when she does that.

In the afternoon, after kindergarten and lunch, we went to see a new doctor about her knee, a pediatric rheumatologist. But that's a topic for another blog entry since it's almost 1 am, and I have to be up very early for Samantha's first full day of school.

Upcoming topics will include the results of this medical visit and our weekend at Storyland. Stay tuned...

Let them eat cake

First the news about Joshua:

His birthday was last week, so he's officially a one year old now. While he doesn't care much for parties yet, we used the excuse to invite a few friends of ours and a few friends of Samantha's over for cake. It was a fun afternoon. You can see that Joshua approves of birthday cake!

Things that one year olds eat other than birthday cake: tomatoes; broccoli; baby corn; cooked baby carrots; almost any kind of fruit but especially strawberries, peaches, plums, pears, blueberries, watermelon, and sometimes apples or mangoes or bananas but not so much with the cherries; cheerios (duh!), cream of wheat, grilled cheese sandwiches, and French fries. But his very favorite thing right now appears to be a cheese omelet. American, Havarti, or mild cheddar, if you please. He's not real big on smoked Gouda yet but give him some time.

Samantha was a tremendous help with the party. She's really devoted to her little brother, which is wonderful to see.

Joshua also had his one year checkup on Friday. He weighs 19lbs 11oz, is 29.5 inches long, and has a 17.5 inch head circumference. This puts him on the very small side for his age group: 9th percentile in weight, 6th percentile in head size. Or maybe it was vice versa. But that's higher than he used to be on both measures, and the pediatrician says he's healthy as an ox and perfectly proportioned. He just doesn't have any of those rolls of fat all over the arms and legs that most babies do; he's a lot of lean muscle mass. Would that the same could be said about his pater familias. Alas...

Amy's convinced me that Joshua actually does say "dada" with intent when looking at me. I just never hear it because he says it when I leave the room and he wants me to come back, or when he hears my voice down in the basement when I get home from work, before I've come up the stairs. But today, twice, he reached out toward me when Amy was holding him and said "dada", indicating that I was supposed to take him. So I guess he has his first word.

And his first 5 teeth, with at least two more and possibly as many as four more coming in. No wonder he's cranky as hell at night lately. Thus sayeth the pediatrician: "Give him more Motrin so he can sleep, and you can too. Pay no attention to what's written on the bottle: here's the correct dosage for a teething baby of his weight." So let it be written, so let it be done.

Finally, he's beginning to get the idea of this whole "walking" thing. He's walking now while holding onto my fingers, or holding onto furniture, and no longer trying to sit down and crawl as often. Of course if there's nothing to hang onto it's hands and knees on the floor and he's so fast and mobile that way, why not? But I think it won't be long before he's a true biped.

And that absurdly curly blond hair is just wild.

Sons

My sister just sent pictures of her son at college. My son just had his first birthday. Samantha has kindergarten in a week. Time marches on, right over me. I remember Justin, my nephew, as this sweet little baby who was such a delight. He still is a wonder to me, just different now that he is older. Joshua is growing so big. Something happened for him today, some leap. He had a very busy day with his guests at his party this afternoon. After the party he and some other young friends played in the backyard with the water mister. I think being around children just a little older really affects his mental development. He was tired tonight, but refused to sleep. he wanted to play with his Jack in the Box over and over, pushing the lid down and watching it pop up. I clicked the lid shut for him and turned the crank so it would pop up again. Then he went to his pop up toy that he can pop up himself by pressing a button. He did that for long time. He really likes a touch and feel alphabet book that his cousins Abbie and Justin got him, so he played with that too. Nothing seemed to settle him. He only fell asleep after crying for a while, then letting me comfort him. He could have just been way overtired, but it did also feel like he was working something out in his head.

He really likes the bouncy zebra. I love the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles.

Sam was a hoot about the party. She picked out a pin the tail on the donkey game and set it up mostly on her own. She told me that the guests could have the first turn because she lived here and she wanted to be nice to her guests. Marie and her very sweet girls were first to arrive, so they got the first turn. They are teenagers, but they were really nice about going along with Samantha. She was very impressed that they put the tail on right even with the blindfold on. She made sure that all the children knew about the party hats and had one to wear. She really is an amazing hostess, very thoughtful.