H1N-riffic

Okay, so I don't know that this is H1N1, but B is sick. Tomorrow he goes to the doctor who no doubt will tell him it's a virus.

B: Gosh, it's been a while since I ruined something by getting sick.
D: Yep, not since our vacation.
B: Really?
D: You were on a rampage.
B: But that's not physically sick.

Although I seem to recall that he was physically sick...

I'm having a day of Extreme Demoralization, brought on by my schmComp class. The semester ends next week, and I have failed in teaching them that most basic of basic tasks: reading the damned syllabus.

(Two days ago I said, "Darn it," in front of Ziv, and he yelled at me that this was inappropriate. But I'm still waiting for the day that he drops a fuck and a Goddamn (see, I'm blasphemous, but I still capitalize) at daycare.)

Also, I made the vital mistake of asking our favorite babysitter whether Nadav is behind in terms of speaking, and she paused to choose her words carefully. Clearly, grunting and shrieking is working out for him, but still... B isn't worried, but I need something to distract me from my failed schmComp class: I gave them a grammar test, open book, open notes, and the most of them scored in the C and D range.

Student 1: I completely forgot that it was open notes!

And this even though people were flipping through notes right next to her, not that the notes seemed to help them.

Okay, but just one more week after this one. I can make it. I know I can.

Also, Susan schmStamberg recorded my story today. Hopefully she's now thinking to herself, "How can I shower D with money, seeing how schmNPR has too much cash on its hands?"

Which reminds me of a different schmComp class, or maybe it was a writing placement test, where someone wrote, "Abortion is the cash cow of Planned Parenthood." The more you know...

No news is bleh news

A tough weekend on the home front, which probably accounts for the sparse blogging. Even now, I'm not sure what to report except that everyone's sleeping and I'm procrastinating. Bleh, I say. Bleh!

This evening, Ziv spent what felt like a couple of hours pretending that he is a Scary Lion. B's job was to yell, "Go away, Scary Lion!" at which point Ziv would retreat into his box. Other times, the Scary Lion would get hungry and come out to eat grass and chastise Baby Scary Lion for not cooperating. For his part, Baby Scary Lion begged for graham crackers on and off all day. And by begged, I mean screeched at the top of his lungs.

Yesterday, Ziv and I went over to what he calls the Piano Playground. On the way back, he decided he had to poop and COULD NOT WAIT. Just then, I saw my dad's colleague and his wife come out of their house. "Um," I said, "can Ziv use your bathroom?" They were trying to make kick-off, but they paused and let us in to their house, which would've been fine, except that then their dog ran out into the street and refused to come back in. Which is all to say that I don't know if they missed kick-off or not.

D: Okay, Ziv, are you done pooping?
Z: It's going to take me a really, really long time.

So that's pretty much the story of our lives at this point in time...

Video post, and also Nadav

First, just the observation that although Nadav still prefers to communicate through grunts and shrieks, he's clearly understanding a lot more than we realize. For example, I can tell him, "Go show Daddy," and he does. When Z hauls laundry to the washer in his wheelbarrow and then loads the washer, Nadav likes to hand him clothes, and when I was putting bottles in the recycling machine thing at Kroger, he handed me bottles, or at least meant to, except that once he tasted the dregs in B's Mountain Dew bottle, he preferred sucking on it. B, when I reported this to him, was like, "Ew."

But all this is neither here nor there. I promised videos, so here they are.

Z the doctor:



Z the lawyer:

End kind of in sight

The end, my friends, is kind of in sight. For example, I can almost calculate how many assignments I have to grade before I go on the very brief reprieve that's built into my schedule right before final papers are due.

But none of that matters given that it's spirit week in the Duck Room. We fell down on the job for crazy hair day, so at drop-off B gave the Duck teachers permission to use markers on Nadav. The markers failed, so they resorted to using paint:



Hopefully it's edible paint, because Nadav likes to conclude every meal by rubbing food into his hair.

Speaking of hair, tonight B tried his mad shaving skillz on Z. Here is the before picture, in which Ziv is being cooperative:



Wait, I mean this next one is the picture where he's being cooperative:



Here he is being cooperative post haircut:





Yeah. He's thrilled. B would be posting, except he's hiding under his desk from Ziv's evil eye.

Also, we are breaking down and getting cable. At least rumor has it. Stupid digital transition means that unless the clouds are aligned just right, we can't get our frigging local channels, by which I mean "watch David Caruso in peace." And life's just not worth living with a proper dose of pretentiousness.

Incidentally, students continue to show up to conferences without their papers. If/when I get tenure, I'm telling you, I'll be kicking them right out. In the meantime, I'll continue living in mortal fear of their evaluations.

Building, building, building

Yeah, I know, it's supposedly also MY blog, but I rarely actually post in it. I'm in more of a ...management role. You know. Cajoling. Encouraging. That sort of thing.

But given that D is working so hard that she has precious little time to devote to blogging, all of which she should be spending sleeping, I'm going talk about a few things we've been adding to our list of outlandish plastic possessions.

But first...

Random Crap Ziv has said of late

• "This is a magic key. What? No, it only opens one door. But I put it in, and it turns itself."
• "This is my brother. I have two brothers. The monkey is my brother. My other brother is named Nadav."
• "What if one house had all the phones and no one else had a phone at all 'cause the one house had all the phones???"
• [In the middle of dinner] "You know? I like to lick things."
  

It's been a bit of a shitty week, what with both boys being sick and repeated trips to the doctor failing to find something easily treated. Nadav is back to just having a cold, which I imagine he'll get over sometime in April. Z has, as D already suggested, a very wishy-washy diagnosis of Swine Flu and is, much like David Crosby who almost cut his hair, not feeling up to par (New lyric: "It must be because I had the flu for Chanukah").

We've been unable to go out much, what with some lingering guilt about potentially spreading the swine flu, so Z at least has been mostly confined to home. This is making everyone a little stir-crazy, and we're just desperately hoping that he gets well in time to go back to school, or at least Target, sometime soon.

But now on to the big Goings On here at the BDDB household.

Slimming down

We finally bought a treadmill. It was delivered to the garage, from which I had to haul it into the house and back to the office where it stands, majestic and almost completely unused, at this very moment. I have Big Plans, but my cold is in the way of my big plans and, in fact, has reduced my current Little Plan to one of "blog and then sleep."

But speaking of Big...you may remember the size of the box...



Can we zoom in on that text?



That's right, kids. 260lbs of internet-ordered goodness. I'm not at all positive I understand how I got it up the step from the garage into the house. I've gotten two great workouts from this machine so far: hauling it into the house, and putting it together with the much-needed help of our friend Marc and an ever-present sweaty-fat-man-towel. And Ziv,who managed to ...well, not get seriously injured while "helping," which is really a fair bit more than I was even hoping for.

There were some problems, the most serious of which is that I forgot to light the coals in time and dinner was late enough that the three kids present were all cranky. But the food was good, and eventually some adjustments made the treadmill come together nicely.



You'll note there aren't any clothes hanging on it yet...

Sitting up

The other mail-order purchase came a few days ago -- some lovely desk chairs.



Z actually helped me put this one together -- meaning, he actually helped. As in, "OK, Ziv, take all these bolts, and for each one, first put on a little washer, and then a big washer." And he did. It helped that he was home sick and hence only at about 80% of his normal energy level, but it was still a good bonding experience for us.

I always get flustered when I have to do something vaguely mechanical. My Dad and, to a slightly-lesser extent, my brother, are both very much so what people would call "handy." Me...I'm pretty good with computers and such. I know which way to spin a screwdriver and I know how to operate a stud-finder (it's simple: hold in front of sternum, turn on until it beeps, and giggle like a 7th-grader), but after that I'm pretty much a fish in free-fall. Luckily, Ikea has forced other manufacturers to up their putting-together-instructions game, and it's usually pretty easy these days.

I mention this, of course, because I put the chair's arms on upside-down initially. Z liked it that way better, for some reason, but I fixed them anyway.

Afterward, he mostly wanted me to spin him (and, occasionally, his brother) around in it at breakneck (literally) speeds. And, of course, to play with the box.



It soon became a vehicle (usually a car):



You can see in this shot (where Z is clearly using an illegal choke-hold) that D thoughtfully drew headlights on the front of the box. Yes, they're square headlights. No, I don't know, either.

A couple hours ago, Z turned the "car" on its side. "Ahaahaha!!!" he cried. "Look! I turned it into a box!" Doug Henning, watch your long-dead back. Z is closing fast.

Riding Tall

And finally, we finally used the money my folks sent Z for his birthday to get this:



To say the boys love it doesn't do it justice. Z once again helped me to put it together, mostly by taking my hammer and beating the living shit out of some cardboard in the driveway. They took turns sitting forward, and backward, and after a while Nadav decided he'd rather walk and/or be carried on D's shoulders.

[note the forshadowing...]

Well, then came The Incident With The Broken Sidewalk. D lost her footing, and down she and Nadav went. N was falling from a Great Height, but D managed to mitigate most of the fall and he settled gracefully and gently to the sidewalk. On his head.



D didn't fare as well.



But hey, they'll both heal for free, and it taught us an important lesson about...err...ok. We didn't actually learn anything. But it was still a great (60 degrees plus) day for walking around the block with our new wagon and our two kids and almost killing one of them. It's not a bad life.

Just now:

D: Are you writing about the spectacular fall as well?
B: Yep. What else was I supposed to write about?
D: The box. How much you love me...

So, let's get this down for all the world to see.

How much do I love D?

I love D with all of my heart. I love her so much that it aches that we've been having to tag-team parent, and I miss her desperately because she's always working and we're always dealing with the kids. I love her laugh, and her touch, and I'm incredibly happy to know I'm going to spend the rest of my life with her.

In other words, about a 7.5.

Swine flu turns you into swine

Today's wake-up happened at 5 a.m., if you ignore the 1 a.m. wake-up. I took both kids to the doctor, and N got the all clear for daycare. "Unless he's wiped out," said the doctor. Then she glanced at Ziv, who was manically bucking up and down on the exam table for the fun of it, and added, "or if you need to do it for your sanity." N was wiped out, but oh my God. Ziv. Oh my God.

Today's doctor thinks it's the H1N1. Obviously, it's a mild case if we ignore the psychosis aspect of it all, at least if the kids I saw passed out in the waiting room were any indication.

"Is the mania from the flu or from being three?" I ventured to ask.

"Oh," she said, "my five year old is like this too when he's sick."

We dropped N at daycare, came home, watched some construction on a nearby street corner. And then it started.

Z: If you put me in bed, I'll just get up.

Unlike other days, where there was some escalation before we reached all out warfare, today Ziv cut to the chase. First he sat on the chair in his room and banged it into the wall. I removed the chair. He threw a stool at me. I removed the stool. He threw these three-inch magnet rods at me, and they kind of hurt. At this point, I left the room and stood on the other side of the door, maturely holding the door knob so that he wouldn't get out. He threw the magnet rods at the door. I removed them. He started banging the lamp against the wall. I removed the light bulb. He started throwing books at the door. I didn't know what to do about this, since his bookshelf is in there, and I didn't think I could remove all the books before he ran off to wherever it is that psychopath children run off to. So I took him to the bathroom, where he entertained himself by punching me. Hard. So I held him, and the whole, "Owie! Owie! You're hurting me!" CPS cries began. Then, finally, a good 45 minutes after it started, it was over, and Ziv was like, "I'm ready to go to bed. Let me go to bed." Then, once in bed, he was like, "I want milk. Get me milk." And then he was out.

Okay, now--non-rhetorically. How should I have handled this? And is this an indication that on some level we're communicating to Ziv that violence is okay? Would he be acting this way if we were good, happy parents, or is he picking up and responding to our various dissatisfactions? Is this the thing that happens to daycare children that we've been warned about over and over? Bleh.

Catch-up post: Many photos, some of which are TMI

A couple months late, we finally got Nadav his official birthday present from the MNFolks:



This is mere seconds before the two of them ran over my toe. They didn't break it, but they could have. But don't let the picture above deceive you. Usually things go like this at our house:



Part of Ziv's newfound rebellion against us is his refusal to allow us to take decent pictures of him. Instead of shutting him out so that he'll, you know, learn his lesson, we got him a wheelbarrow so he wouldn't feel left out:



However, after Nadav fell out it four times, we wised up and now he just uses it to carry laundry to and from the washing machine.

*

One magical night this past week, Nadav fell asleep in the car and did not wake up when I took him inside.



At first Ziv tried to get into the action from the periphery:



But then he demanded some strategic repositioning on my part:



*

We got the treadmill, which B promises he will post about. There are no clothes on it yet, but there is a sippy cup in the cup holder, and B has used it once. I have yet to use it. At any rate, the treadmill came in a giant box:



For the next few days, da boyz hid under it and decorated it:



Then Ziv went to work on it with his tools, and since the box contains staples, that was that. Or maybe it wasn't, and I was just using the staples as a pretext to get that monster out of the house and into a landfill.

But fear not. B finally got himself a real office chair, and so today there was another box for Z to play with:



Nadav was more ambivalent about this.



Ziv's been so difficult, though, that B was like, "Get the tape!" When asked where he'd like to be mailed, Ziv was all for being sent to the MNFolks. But believe me, MNFolks, while he may look innocent...



... he isn't. In fact, I believe we had to bribe him to look up at us, although I don't remember with what. Probably M&Ms.

*

Last night the kids got a little manic:



In fact, Z just seems to be a little manic nearly all the time these days. And then, in the evenings, when we're ready to breathe a sigh of relief and send him back to daycare, he spikes a fever of 101 and we have to keep him home again the next day.

Last night the mania was so awful that B had to shut himself and Ziv in the bathroom, where he gently restrained Ziv while Ziv screamed, "You're hurting me! You're hurting me!" Because someone has apparently clued him in on the power of this statement, and now he uses it constantly in hopes that CPS will come and save him.




Yeah, whatever, Mr. Lovey.

*

Two days ago I emerged from the office to find this:



(B and I have split the days into childcare shifts now that both of them are sick.)

Once Ziv got wind of what was going on, he joined in:



But he wasn't happy about it:



Gah. It's hard being an unappreciated older child. Look at Nadav trying to squirm away:



If only Ziv were soft and furry, like Curious George:



*

Before all the illness--or perhaps during it--Ziv attended a birthday party. I didn't go because I had to grade. Anyway, upon his return from the party, B bemoaned the fact that Ziv is so much worse at playing catch than the other boys. "I know I should practice with him, but it never occurs to me," he said. Then, turning over a new leaf (for one day, perhaps the same day that the treadmill's leaf was turned), B took Ziv outside for some Yackle-Ball practice:



Unlike Ziv, Nadav is all about balls, and his new thing is to try putting all our balls through our basketball hoop:





In contrast, and not pictured, Ziv's favorite thing to do with the hoop is adjust its height.

*

Tonight I had just gotten off the phone from scheduling a doctor's appt for Ziv for tomorrow morning, when B noted this post-bath development:



That chunky thigh belongs to N, who apparently made it all day without going over 99. It took me a good half hour on hold to get through to the doctor again. And we took the pics because I know--I just know--that this rash will be gone tomorrow morning only to return tomorrow night. Because there's something about the nighttime at our house, I guess. Bleh. (And yes, he had the rash last night too, and it disappeared this morning.)

I know none of this is the swine flu, but geez, I hope we get a little break before it strikes our house. Please.

The blog posts, they are aslowing

However, dear readers, please don't leave us. We just need to get through this week. And next week. And Ziv's horrid, horrid three-year-oldness which involves waking for the day at 3 a.m. and then threatening to kick people--for example, the doctor, who we had to see b/c along with this moodiness has come some kind of virus, but not, apparently, the swine flu. That's still in our future, now that it's reached the J.

Anyway, feeling a little discouraged. I don't think I can miss anymore classes, so tomorrow B is going to be stuck at home all day with a baby and (potentially) a little person out to make his life a living hell. Because Nadav is sick too, and drooling up a storm, and sporting a highly unattractive pacifier rash that we just can't bear to do anything about right now because there's already enough crying in our household, although I've been smearing vaseline on it. Is this a mistake?

But anyway, we have many updates and many pictures to post, and just no time. In fact, right now I should be grading frantically in hopes of getting a couple of hours of sleep in before the inevitable middle-of-the-night waking. What is with that boy??

In other news, I was asked to write a Hanukkah story for schmNPR, and today, after some extensive revising on my part, the producer guy was like, "Nice job. I'm passing it on to Susan schmStamberg." And I'm all like, "Flutter, flutter. Susan schmStamberg," and have actually wasted time looking at photos of her. Love me, Susan schmStamberg. Love me.

Of course, last time I was asked to do anything schmNPR, the producer's mother passed and nothing ever came of it (this was an interview about the book conducted by a woman who could not have cared less about me or the book), and so along with sending psychic messages to Susan schmStamberg, I'm also wishing everyone at schmNPR a tragedy-free holiday season. Because I'm caring like that.

Have I jinxed myself now? Will my holiday be filled with tragedy? Bleh. I keep worrying that one of the kids will somehow end up with pneumonia and die, and how will we bear it? And still, at the same time, I just want them to go back to daycare already. Please. Go back. I'm talking to you, Ziv.

More on hygiene, because there can never be too much

It's Thursday, and although normally I'm not supposed to come in on Fridays, I do have to come in tomorrow, which means no working from home (read: shopping at Target) for me, plus, darn it, having to work tonight. And so the interminable stretch that is M-Thursday at our house continues for one more interminable day, and really, all I want to do is sleep, sleep, sleep. B/c, damn it, certain people at our house keep waking in tears, at 12:30 a.m., at 5 a.m., etc. Sometimes they're different people, but sometimes they're the same, which, let me tell you, makes for a very cheerful evening the next day.

(Also, the interminability poses a real problem next week, when there will be not one, not two, but three CSI crossovers on TV. You know you have too much work when you can't even watch CSI...)

Ziv's language skills are something to behold these days, and even the simplest tasks now require hours and hours of debate.

Z: I didn't touch anything, so I don't have to wash my hands.
(Which is a bald-faced lie, b/c while he pees, he likes to rub his face into the underside of the toilet seat, which frankly: ew.)
D: Yes, you did.
Z: When?

First thing in the morning, when it really has been me touching things like dirty diapers, I resort to technicalities:

D: Well, you've been picking your nose all night.
Z: No I haven't.
D: I saw you!

Yes, there is no low we won't stoop to in the name of questionable hygiene.

B: Ziv, put on your shoes.
Z: No.
B: Ziv.
Z: You do it.

Except for that, Nadav's hair has grown out far enough that you can tell exactly what a terrible job we did on him. B suggested that he just shave N's head every weekend, and eventually he'll get at all those stray long hairs. Thoughts?

And except for that, tomorrow we're taking Ziv to his first show at Hill Auditorium, where some guy is going to play music on his body. I am taking bets on how long we'll last there.

Z: Is it Gemini?
D: No, it's some other man who plays music.
Z: But I want to see Gemini.

Today B sent veggie chicken nuggets in Z's lunch. Do you think he will have eaten them?

So many pressing questions. I know.

Also, just found out that some fellow schmIU folks are pregnant, and I'm unreasonably jealous. Maybe because I'm sure that neither of them will ever pound his or her head against the wall in front of two teachers at the JCC while those teachers laugh and point and think said parent is just joking. Oh no, my friends, it's no joke at all. How can so many of us be parents and parenting still be so secretive and lonely?

What if?

Now that Ziv no longer asks why, he likes to ask "What if?" As in, "What if there was a tiger in our house?" Today there was a series of questions about his good friend Sylvie. "What if Marc went out to dinner?" he wanted to know. "What if Marc and Sylvie's mommy went out to dinner?" "What if Sylvie got out of her bed?" "What if a tiger went into a cave and found another tiger?" "What if I rubbed my snot on you?" And so on.

I asked B whether he preferred this phase over the "Why" phase, but if he answered, I don't remember.

I'm in the seventh inning stretch of the semester, if that's an apt metaphor. I know nothing about baseball. Even though there's only a month left, one week of which is actually Thanksgiving, I feel like I'm not going to make it. So much grading. So little rest.

This morning, Ziv woke up sobbing at 5:30 a.m. Or rather, he sobbed in his sleep long enough to awaken Nadav, and then sobbed a while longer to make sure Nadav was up. "What happened?" I asked him at dinner. "I had a bad dream," Ziv said. "About what?" "Nothing."

"Ah," said B. "The inevitable void we all face..." Or something like that. I'm too tired to remember exact wording.

Meanwhile, Nadav shoved bread with jelly (which B calls jelly bread) into his ears.

Finally, we're on our one-hundredth time through the story of Little Babaji, in which Little Babaji walks through the jungle and encounters tiger after tiger who takes away his Fine Clothes. Really, you'd think that after his encounter with tiger #2, Little Babaji would have been like, "Huh. Maybe I should go back home."

"What if tigers wanted our clothes?" Z wanted to know. "What if two tigers started fighting?"

B: No more questions, Ziv.
Ziv: But--
B: No more questions.