An Unexpected Errand

This morning the kids and I were getting ready to head out for our usual round of Saturday morning errands -- today's scheduled stops included the grocery store, the car wash, and the gas station. But as I was walking around to the driver's side of the car after helping Ben with his seat belt, I noticed a baby turtle in our driveway. Now, we have seen many little snakes and lizards in the driveway since our move to Charlotte, but this was the first time we'd had a turtle pay us a visit. Since it was so little and Ulysses was eyeing it hungrily, I decided we needed to add another stop to our list of errands. I put the turtle in a bucket and gave it to Ben to hold and on our way out of the development we drove over to the lake (the lake I didn't know we had until a couple months ago). Ben released the turtle in the grass by the lake, and Becca waved and called "Bye baby! Bye turtle!"

Purging

Yesterday I decided it was about time to "purge" some of the kids' old toys and random junk. I try to do this about once a year. I go through all their toy boxes and make a pile of toys to donate to charity and a pile of toys to throw away -- happy meal toys, things that are broken, missing pieces, etc. I ended up with one full trash bag of toys to donate, and two full trash bags of stuff to throw away. In the process, I organized some of the toys in Ben's room -- put all the matchbox cars in one container, all the action figures in another, etc.

When I do things like this I usually have bad luck and about 10 minutes after Ben walks in he starts looking for a toy he hasn't played with in three years that just happens to have been "purged". But this time -- so far -- I have been lucky. Ben walked into his bedroom, looked around, and said "Why is my room so clean?" Then he noticed the box of action figures, some of which he hadn't seen in so long he'd forgotten he had them. "AWESOME!" he yelled. "Mom! Look what I found!"

So I Won't Get Called a Slacker

There's not much going on but I'll blog anyway because if I don't, Kathleen will call me a slacker! (Yes, I saw your comment the other day Kathleen... Where's YOUR blog, huh?)

Anyway, the rest of our weekend was pretty quiet. Joel had to work all weekend, but his parents took Becca for most of the day Saturday so Ben and I got to see a movie -- Ice Age 3 -- and made a blueberry peach cobbler. After Joel and Becca returned home we took said cobbler across the street to a 4th of July barbecue that our neighbors were kind enough to host (along with their 1 year old triplets! If that were me, I'd have a ready excuse not to ever host a party, for at least the first four years. It'd go something like "Me? Host the barbecue? I have triplets!")

Not to excuse the lack of blogging, but work has been really busy so far this week. I think everyone returned to work on Monday and decided to pile on me every project that they procrastinated over starting last week because it was a holiday. One of the bad things about working from home is not being able to get away from the work! I worked until 11:30 last night, and all day today, and since my "office" is in my bedroom, I have spent probably 90% of the last 36 hours in one room. I made an exaggerated point of watching television in the livingroom tonight instead of the bedroom, just to get away for a while... even if it was only 30 feet away ;)

Finally, all of us here at Bringing Up Ben and Becca would like to wish the folks over there at Lessons from Charlie, most notably Abby, a speedy swine-flu recovery... we hope that you're on the mend and that we will hear no more stories of bodily fluids, trips to the ER, and fainting in nail salons.

Dancing Girl

Here is a little video of Rebecca dancing before the fireworks started last night.

A Full Day

Yesterday was a very full day, as we got a jump on the 4th of July festivities a day early. The kids were both off from camp/day care, and Joel was off from work. We spent about three and a half hours at the pool, then came home and put Becca down for a late nap. Then Ben's friend called and invited him to come over to play, so I took him to his friend's house for two hours.

We had plans to go out to dinner and watch the fireworks at Providence Country club with another couple who are members there. Dinner was great because they have two kids who are older than Ben, and Ben was quite happy to play video games with them during dinner and entirely ignore all the adults. Becca was quite happy to bop to the music that was playing in the restaurant all during dinner, so we were able to take our time, which was good because the fireworks weren't starting until 9.

After dinner we made our way to the country club and set up a blanket and some chairs. Ben immediately took off his sandals and took off running around the edge of the golf course, around the lake, in the sand trap, etc, with the other kids. Becca, having been given a glow stick, and of course with more music to entertain her, happily danced and played with her glow stick for about an hour. It was great.

And then the fireworks started. They sent up a couple little ones earlier in the evening, to test I guess, and neither of the kids were bothered by them. They both were quite delighted actually. But when the real fireworks started, they both tried to leap into my arms at once. Becca made it to me first. She didn't cry, she just jumped into my lap and proceeded to quietly watch all the fireworks with her head against my chest and her neck awkwardly craned backwards so she could see what was going on. Every once in a while I would ask her if she wanted to turn around so she could see, and she would very calmly say, "No."

Ben on the other hand, totally freaked when the fireworks started. "I WANT TO GO HOME!" he screamed between sobs. Joel quickly led him away inside the clubhouse, where he couldn't even be enticed to watch the fireworks from the window. He spent the whole time in the men's room. I was a little disappointed for him that he was too afraid of the fireworks to watch them, because he had been looking forward to it for days. But, Ben's meltdown aside, it was a great evening!

One More

Just one more shot of my future basketball star!

Nothing Wrong With Those Lungs!

Ben had his 5 year-old well exam this morning. He is 47 1/2 inches tall, and 43.8 pounds. The doctor commented that he has had quite a growth spurt this year -- his height is even further off the chart than it used to be. She showed me the growth chart where she plots his height every year... the dots are always floating above the top line... this one was floating way above the line, so lonely out there in space.. According to this height predictor, Ben's adult height will be 6 '3 (and there's no way to enter 1/2 inch so I rounded down to 3 '11 instead of up to 4 feet). ("How is that possible??" will be Joel's exact words when he reads this).

I brought up my concerns about his weight, which I do every year, and she blows me off every year, saying his weight has always been around 70-75th percentile, and his BMI is fine, so I have no reason to be concerned about the fact that I CAN SEE EVERY SINGLE BONE IN HIS BODY.

Since he's entering kindergarten, Ben needed quite the round of shots at this appointment -- five separate sticks! I mean, my God, that would have made ME cry! I tried to prep him for it while we were waiting... thought I was doing a good job as a parent... I told him the story of how when I got my shots at my 5 year old appointment I didn't understand what "shot" meant and thought I was going to get shot, like with a gun (not true but it sounds good when you tell it that way and it made him laugh). I told him how I hid under the table and kicked the doctor. That part is, unfortunately, true.

I also broke out the story of how when his Grandpa (my dad) was a little boy he had polio, and how he woke up one morning and couldn't move his arm. I used this story to explain why he needed to get the shots, to keep kids from getting sick like Grandpa did. He was quite interested in this, and asked me to tell the story twice.

Of course, none of this seemed to make the shots any better. I held him, he SCREAMED BLOODLY MURDER from the first stick to the last, and after the third one when she switched to the other arm to do two more (TWO MORE! THOSE BARBARIANS!) he was kicking and screaming and I had to pin his legs in mine.

When it was all done, and he had five bandaids and a cherry ice popsicle, he looked at me with big brown tear-stained puppy dog eyes and said softly, "Ouch."

I felt terrible, of course, by that time beginning to think that polio might be preferable to subjecting him to such torture. But I reminded him that he doesn't need a single shot now until he's eleven. "By that time," I told him, "you'll be taller than me, at the rate you're growing!" That made him smile, a lttle.