Randomness

Haven’t blogged in a while. Haven’t felt any “bloggable” moments in life, I guess. It’s been busy here with sickness. It sounds like a TB ward, like the kids are communicating with each other in the language of cough. As a mom, you know, you worry. It’s a big part of the job. I’ve got that going on, plus the other day I had an epiphany about Edison. Over the last year he’s gotten these really bad headaches that make him vomit. Manfrengensen and I, being the dolts we are, have thought it was strange how he always got these headaches with a stomach virus. And then with this last one, which happened Sunday night, I saw the light. You would think that as a migraineur, I would easily recognize the symptoms in others. But you just don’t think an eight-year-old would suffer from migraines. I’m pretty sure he does though. As beautiful as he is, he’s tightly wound. He stresses about things he shouldn’t.

Like the other night, we took a walk after dinner to get ice cream. We were down at the beach, and there were some college kids playing some kind of game on their lawn, tossing coins into these little square wooden boxes. (What’s that game called?) Edison wanted to tell them that they shouldn’t play it on the lawn. Why not? I asked him. “They’re going to lose their coins,” he said. What’s he caring about their coins? Know what I’m saying? And that’s just the tip of his iceberg. In terms of Edison’s siblings, Manfrengensen and I often joke that he’s like a third parent. He worries. He sees the world in black and white. He’s an octogenarian in an eight-year-old body.

Speaking of the beach, we went to the boardwalk on Saturday, and to get there, we had to go through a toll booth. The toll taker was this skinny old man with tattoos down his arms and a long white beard. As Manfrengensen handed the man our dollar, Clooney called out from the back seat in his most Eddie Haskell tone: “Hey, Santa Claus!” Then yesterday, he reminded me of that moment and said, “Yeah he looked just like Santa. Even his tattoos were green. You know, like Christmas colors?”

I have been reading a lot, currently finishing up The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and I am also rereading Positive Discipline for Preschoolers, which has helped me a lot over the years. The Princess has been more of a challenge than the others, I think. Don’t know why that is. But as a parent, I have trouble with this age. I think that’s because, first of all, I have the blood of scores of Sicilian ancestors coursing through my veins, so I tend toward hot-tempered. But also, being a motherless mother, I have trouble identifying age-appropriate behavior in kids. (Perhaps that’s not exclusive to motherless mothers however. I just like to think that’s why I do it.) Positive Discipline helps me a lot with that. I highly recommend it if you’ve got a little one and feel challenged.

Anyway, last night was tough. I finally got Clooney and The Princess to the doctor yesterday. The doctors never want to see them until they’ve been coughing for more than a week or had fever for more than three days. I can’t blame them. Nine times out of ten these things are caused by viruses and there’s nothing they can do. But yesterday, enough already. Clooney had had a low-grade fever for a few days, and The Princess was running 101-102.5, so I took them. Got them both hooked up with antibiotics and a steroid for the cough. Clooney is prone to respiratory illnesses for some reason. I was a little worried about the steroid, as he’s also prone to bouncing off the walls, but he didn’t. His fever actually spiked in the afternoon, so he was kind of listless, just on the couch watching Ni Hao, Kai Lan all day.

The Princess had a coughing fit at bedtime that kept her awake and then made her vomit. So at ten o’clock we had her in the shower and taking a steam. The joys of parenting…

The funny thing was that this morning, I had planned to keep Clooney home, but he popped out of bed and begged me to let him to go to school. I don’t know if that is a testament to what a great school he goes to or how nerdy our kids can be.

On Another Note Entirely

As I mentioned months ago, I was kind of looking forward to Terminator Salvation, thinking we could sneak away this weekend to see it while my parents watched the kids. But according to Rotten Tomatoes today, the reviews are running positively at only 35%. I mentioned my disappointment to Manfrengensen last night, to which he gave me a one word response: “McG.”

Yes, what was I thinking? McG. I think Manfrengensen said it best when he reminded me that McG is like the poor man’s Michael Bay, and hey, that’s not a good thing for anyone.