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We bought “Lilo and Stitch” for Maddie.  And she loves it.  It’s great to see her so entranced in a Movie like that.  (OK, sometimes it’s disconcerting to see her so entranced in front of the TV like that…)  Anyway, Stitch is this little cuddly sentient alien weapon.  We didn’t know exactly how much Maddie loved watching Lilo and Stitch until during one dinner, when she started chewing, or rather ravishing her food just like Stitch would.  She’s scoop an impossibly large amount of food on her spoon, and say, “Yaaummm!”  Then she’d get as much into her mouth as she could in one go, and chew ferociously with her mouth open, spilling crumbs everywhere, “Yum Um Um Um Um Um!”  And then, giggle maniacally, of course.

My parents came for the weekend a couple of weeks ago.  They volunteered to watch the kids for a couple of hours while we take in a movie or something.  It’s been a long time since they’ve changed a little baby like Aaron, so we re-acquainted them with his changing table and accessories.  Lillian was driving, and the rest of us were gathered around, watching.  She didn’t have his wiener covered with a cloth, and when I pointed that out, she said, “It’s OK,  he just peed two minutes ago.”  That was fine by me, I thought.  The kid’s empty.  And as long as my parents knew where the cloth was, all’s well.  Of course not.  In less than 30 seconds, Aaron fired off a pee stream straight onto his onesy.  We should have known.

So, one day last week, I come home from work and enter the kitchen.  Lillian’s cooking.  Aaron’s in his bouncer.  Maddie’s playing with whatever’s at hand.  The phone rings and I get it.  “Hello?”  And I hear just a little background noise, so I know it’s not a computer.  But no one replies, and the caller isn’t hanging up.  I figure it’s a telemarketer, but wonder what’s taking him so long, because I can hear the background noise.  I give him another “Hello?”  Then I hear what sounds like gentle breathing.  Like a kid.  So I figure it’s one of Maddie’s cousins, and I tell Lillian, “I think there’s a kid on the other link.”  So I ask, “Who is this?”  And just then, I see that Maddie’s playing with the cell phone.  “Maddie?  Maddie is this you?”  And I watch her say “Uh huh,” as I hear her voice through the phone.

She’d just happened to hit the right buttons to turn the cell phone on, and redial the last number called.  It was Maddie’s first unassisted call!  And she called me!

We recently saw “White Oleander” which I greatly feared would truly suck, especially because of the girly cover.  It didn’t suck.  Michelle Pfeiffer’s role was meaty, and must have been quite fun to play.  One of our favorite lines describes toddlers as, “always clinging to you like spiders.”

There are some things we simply can’t control.  But that’s not comforting, and so we pretend to somehow be in control, or at least that we’re responsible for the situation around us. 

Most cultures have their own angle on this.  For example, Chinese tradition says that shaving your baby’s head leads to fuller hair for the baby later in life.  Or that if you drink cold water or have wet hair for too long, you increase the risk of arthritis later in life.  There’s more, too.  Some of it may be true, but some of it probably isn’t.

Aaron’s a colicy baby.  (At this point, you should think, Poor Aaron.  Then think, Poor parents!)  A few days ago, Lillian described Aaron as “sour,” and blamed it on the fact that her pregnancy with Aaron was tougher than her pregnancy with Maddie.  Now, her pregnancy with him was tougher, but that’s just silly.  We don’t know why he’s that way, but it could be for so many reasons.  Perhaps he’s over-stimulated by being around his crazy two-year old sister.  Perhaps his stomach simply isn’t mature enough to comfortably digest his food.  Perhaps he wants more loving attention.  Likely, it’s all of the above in one measure or another.

But to think Lillian set the wheels in motion for a sour baby simply because it was rough being pregnant and having a two-year-old clinging to her all the time like a spider, is just too fatalistic.  I could have told her all this, and we could have gotten into it.  (Is it more comforting to think that something bad is your fault, or that you simply don’t have control over some aspects of your life?)  But when you do have a colicy baby, sometimes you just don’t have the energy to debate.

Our beautiful, darling, photogenic little baby girl now has a kick-ass booboo above her right eye.  The other kids in the playground don’t mess with her anymore.

On days when she doesn’t take a nap, loopy time becomes ever more dangerous.

One day two weeks ago, Maddie didn’t take a nap.  We were finishing dinner, and loopy time was beginning.  She was yelling and playing at the dinner table, and I wisely decided to engage her in a monitored activity.  Dancing around the coffee table with me.  We’d done this countless times before.  We put on a little Psyche Funky Jazzadelic (her favorite album), and start waving our arms and bounding around the living room.  Around the solid glass coffee table.  (See this coming a mile away, doncha?)

Crash! (pause) Waah!!

She’d tripped over the rug or her own feet, and her face met squarely with the coffee table.  She was dancing right behind me, so I didn’t see it happen.  The table didn’t break, and Maddie was standing up from the fall.  I snatch her up, hoping that this wasn’t going to be a big deal.

Lillian comes over, and notices the blood pouring onto my shoulder from her face.  Note to prospective parents: 

Faces bleed a lot more than you’d think they would.

 Lillian’s a nurse, and had the presence of mind to clean and bandage the wound right away.  The cut was pretty deep, so we decided to take her to the Emergency Room.  My parents were in town, so they volunteered to watch Aaron while we rush Maddie to the ER.  We get there, it’s full, and we wait a few minutes for the triage nurse.  She doles out this little tidbit of information as she looks at Maddie: “This is the fullest I’ve ever seen the ER be.”  Great.

While we wait in line I sit on floor, holding Maddie.  My shirt is soaked in blood, Maddie’s shirt and bandage are soaked in blood and tears, and one of the other prospective patients goes up to the triage nurse, looks at us and says, “Umm, we can come back tomorrow.  We don’t want to be in line ahead of those who really need it.”  If I weren’t so happy to see him leave, I would have told him it was the nurse’s job to make sure Maddie’s head trauma gets seen before his little ache.

Luckily, the Minor Injury Clinic does stitches, so it’s only a three hour wait before Maddie gets seen.  (There’s another story about how Lillian has to leave us, go get Aaron, and return to the ER, because my parents have to leave for LA the next morning.)

You get to know certain people in the ER.  And it’s fun guessing what everybody else has.  The lady next to me was sure this one girl was in for kidney stones.  She just had “that look.”  To me, she just looked like she had generic excruciating pain.  We were the only ones covered in blood in the whole ER.  Kind of disappointing.

By the time they saw Maddie, she had had it.  It was late.  She was tired.  (No nap.)  She was in pain.  The wound was scabbing over, and strangers were approaching Maddie while pointing needles and tweezers at her eye.  The one that already hurt!  This was craziness!  Enough was enough!

Maddie screamed and squirmed with everything she had.  Luckily, the nurse in the clinic knew a way to wrap Maddie up in a papoose (more like a straitjacket) such that it only took three adults to hold her down tightly enough for her to get her stitches.  Maddie would plead, “All done!  All done!  All done!”  Meaning, “Please be all done.  Let that be it.  Can I go now?”

It was heart-wrenching.  But it’s over.  And Lillian and I are no longer suffering visions of Maddie’s eye taking damage.  We’re not talking about removing the coffee table anymore, either.  (But I did pad its edges the very next day.)

Aside from her wound, Maddie’s back to normal.  She’s even dancing again.

Lillian needed to pick up some items at the grocery store today while I was at work.  She took the kids with her, and put Aaron (in his carseat) in the grocery cart and let Maddie walk along beside her.

Maddie had other ideas.  She likes playing hide-and-seek at home.  But we’re all getting used to the usual hiding spots.  The grocery store, on the other hand, had lots of places to run and hide.

So off she goes.  Running away from Lillian.  Lillian calls for her, but to no avail.  Maddie loves it, it’s just one big game.  This happened a couple of times, and one time Maddie got far enough away, Lillian had to leave Aaron in the grocery cart and run after Maddie.

Evidence: Maddie’s crime

At the check-out stand, as Lillian starts putting the groceries on the little conveyer belt, Maddie seizes another opportunity.  She turns to the candy rack, grabs a Hershey’s bar, and bites directly into it.  Chomp!  Lillian catches this just in time to see Maddie swallow the paper wrapper, foil wrapper, and chocolaty goodness all in one big go.  Gulp!  There was nothing Lillian could do.  The damage was done, everybody saw.  So, she bought the Hershey’s bar with a 2-year-old’s bite in it.

Extra rolo missing

Lillian needed to buy some items at the drug store right next to the grocery store.  This should be a little easier.  She gets her stuff, goes to the check-out counter, and quick-as-lightning, there goes Maddie.  Grab!  Chomp!  Chew, chew, chew– Drat!  Foiled!  She couldn’t get this one down.  It was a Rolo.  Lillian was able to get the wrappers and candy out of Maddie’s mouth this time.  But, from Lillian’s perspective, the damage was done.  Everybody saw.  Again.  She bought the Rolo went to the car, buckled the kids in and went home with more candy than she intended to buy.

That’s why I’ve got a Hershey’s and a Rolo with bites taken out of them sitting on my kitchen counter, and one exasperated wife in the family room.

A few weeks after Maddie was born, Maddie sneezed while being changed, and shot poo in a nifty little arch six feet onto the furniture in her buttwardly directly.  She did this more than once.  It prompted us to build a splatter guard to protect the furniture and stuff “south” of her.  We never forgot the experience, and before Aaron was even born, we put a splatter guard on his changing table.

Now, Aaron’s splatter guard (item “A” in the picture above) has already saved our furniture a little.  But not from the same thing.  It turns out that Boys have more than one way of ruining furniture from the changing table.  Aaron hasn’t yet sneezed while we’re holding his legs up for a changing (and aiming his butt at a 15 degree angle).  But he has peed.  A lot.  In all sorts of directions.  And while the splatter guard does help in one general direction, you also need an absorbent cloth to cover the little dude’s hose.

So anybody out there having a little boy would do well to take note:  In addition to the splatter guard you need for either gender,  (And you do need it.)  (Ours is made from cardboard, aluminum foil, and a cotton t-shirt outer layer.) you need item “B” in the picture above, something to cover the boy’s weapon, because it can fire at any time.

At least we had the splatter guard in place when Aaron arrived.  We learned our lesson from our experience with Maddie.

Everyone, this is Aaron Marcus 耀 恩 Blume. His middle
name is Mark, in honor of his great great grandfather Marcus
Sauerberg who helped establish Lone Wolf, Oklahoma.

Aaron was born at 6:13am on Sunday, January 5th, 2003.  He weighs in at a healthy 8 lbs 9 oz, and a little over 20 inches long.  Mommy and baby are doing great.

Maddie came to the hospital to visit her new brother, and she thought the baby was plenty fun.  Wait until we bring him home, and she eventually tires of him, and she learns that he’s here for keeps.

“Mon! Mon!”  I have no idea how many days Maddie’s been saying, ‘”Mon,” as in “C’mon” to beckon us further.  It took us a while to figure that out.  “Shum!” is another one that caught us by surprise.  She chants that whenever she wants some of whatever we’re eating.

We’ve moved Maddie into her new big-girl’s room.  And she loves it.  At least she loves the freedom of sneaking out of her bed whenever she likes. 

Putting her to bed has become something of a four step process.

1. Change her into her jammies, brush her teeth, read one to three books, tuck her in, say good night, and turn off the light.
2. Wait two minutes for her to sneak out with a book in hand, expecting to be read to again.  Put her back in bed.
3. Wait for her to sneak out again, hiding in the corners of the rooms, evading our detection.  Put her back in bed.
4. Wait for her to come downstairs with a wet-wipe ready, telling us that she’s poo-pooed.  She knows I won’t get mad at that, since it’s a valid reason for getting out of bed.  Change her and put her to bed again.  (Of course, we’re beginning to suspect that Maddie holds it in until after I put her to bed, so she’ll have that excuse to get up.)

Finally, Maddie sneaks in to our bedroom in the morning now.  She’s learned that if she cries from her bedroom, I’ll go to her bedroom, and keep her company for a few minutes until she falls asleep again.  That’s not what she wants.  So she doesn’t cry anymore.  She waits until we’re asleep, then gets up and crawls into our bed.  That’s what she wants.

For posterity, and to embarrass Maddie in later childhood: These are the things (in no particular order) that Maddie could say around age two.  She’s learning words every day, so I’m sure there are words she knows that are not on this list.

And these are the things that she understands, but doesn’t like to say:

With a new baby on the way, we have to make room.  And this meant moving Maddie into her own big-girl’s room. And the big-girl’s room was going to need furniture.  I had my mother’s old chest of drawers out in the garage holding some stuff that we’d never need. It was time to see if I could refurbish it and use it in Maddie’s new room.

Originally, the dresser had a fine faux dark natural wood finish.  But it’s over 35 years old, and that finish was showing its age.  Actually, I didn’t even know the “grain” was fake until I sanded it off.  I got under the fake grain and found some decent panelling.  But this dresser was going into a bland room, and we wanted something that would add some color.

It took some thought, but we decided on light green.  I mocked up a doodle of the dresser in Paint Shop Pro, added some flowers, and we decided that that’s the way it should look.

 

The refurbishing of the dresser took me a month with only one session per week during that month, so that’s about 4 sessions.  Basically, it was sanding, priming, painting, and painting a second coat.  The dresser is a little rickety due to its old age, but we hope it’ll last us a few more years.

According to Chinese tradition, once a baby reaches one month of age, that baby and mother have recovered from the birthing process enough to be presented to the world.  A party is held in honor of the baby, a Red Egg and Ginger party.  I have an invitation to a Red Egg and Ginger party that describes it as follows

In China of old, it was customary for mother and child to be homebound for a full month.  This is the time for both to gain strength and health.  After this critical period is over, the occasion of this blessed event can then be celebrated.

The red egg symbolizes good luck and the ginger (yang) serves a dual purpose (to ward off evil spirits and to equalize the cold (yin) of the new mother).

The traditional diet of the new mother is chicken whiskey soup and pickled pigs feet.  Both dishes are nutritious and have medicinal value because they provide a source of protein and calcium, act as a purifier and blood thinner, and also rid the body of cold air in the system.

My wife’s mother honors this tradition, and kicks it up a notch.  After Lillian gave birth to Maddie, Lillian was indeed homebound for a month.  Lillian’s mother stayed with us off and on to help out with the new baby, and to ensure tradition was followed.

She made sure to combat the cold yin with everything she had.  Lillian wasn’t allowed to have any cold liquids.  Any water she drank had to have been boiled and had to still be hot.  (Lillian’s mom asked me to bring some boiled water directly to her in the hospital right after Maddie was born.)  Cold water wasn’t allowed near Lillian, for that matter.  Lillian wasn’t allowed to bathe or to wash her hair.  (Wet hair gets cold before it dries completely.)  Imagine giving birth, and not being allowed to bathe for a month.

Then Lillian’s mom made sure that Lillian ate enough of the chicken whiskey soup.  (Which we call, “Alcohol Soup” because Lillian’s mom doesn’t cook away much of the whiskey.)  To complement the chicken whiskey soup, Lillian also had to drink vinegar soup, which was mostly vinegar and eggs, and maybe some meat.

Lillian had to have a couple of bowls of soup every day.  She wasn’t allowed to have any fruit.  Maybe there’s something yinny about fruit too, I don’t know.  She was allowed to have some vegetables, but just a minimum.  I actually don’t remember Lillian having to have much pickled pigs feet.  Which is fine by me.