3.5

He's standing on his little stepstool in front of the stove, watching pasta boil. He's waiting for his turn to "help" -- his brother got to pour the uncooked noodles into the pot, so I told him he could help me make the sauce. I'm right there next to him, readying the ingredients into convenient little pinch bowls and measuring cups for him. Milk, cheese, butter, seasonings...check, check, check, and check. 

He's watching the burner glow red and talking about how the stove is hot, the pot is hot, the water inside the pot is hot. "And we never touch those hot things," I chirp robotically, even though he knows this by now. 

"The red part is very, very hot," he says seriously. "You would burn yourself." He cautiously picks up a wooden spoon to give the pasta a stir.

"Careful!" I say, just because I can't help myself. He's always careful. But still. 

I wait for him to put the spoon down and drop his arms back to his side before stepping away to put the milk back in the fridge. 

And that's when the screaming starts.

Horrible, horrible screaming and wailing -- I have no idea what's happened, a spill, a splash of boiling water, an accidental grazing of the pot? I grab him and swoop him over to the sink and turn on the cold water. 

"What happened? What happened?" I beg him. I don't know what part -- parts? -- of his body I should be soaking. I guess his right hand and blast it with water up to the elbow. He's still screaming too much to answer me.

Finally I realize it's the tip of his index finger. A white blister is forming, but the rest of his hand is okay. I wrap it up in cold, wet paper towels and run upstairs for the Neosporin and gauze. 

I try to calm him down while I dress the burn. He's screaming more sporadically now, more from being pissed off that it's STILL HURTING and that nothing I'm doing is HELPING. The medicine, the gauze, the kisses -- it's not supposed to hurt anymore, after all that. But it does. Oh, I know that it does, how it feels. And he's furious.

After examining the tip of his finger, I know something else. I know it wasn't an accident. I know he touched something, and he touched it on purpose.

"What did you touch, Ezra?" I ask.

"I touched the red part," he confesses miserably.

I fall back on the floor next to him in exasperation. He...knows! He knows better! We talk about safety in the kitchen just about every single day! He's always so sensible and careful and GOOD LORD, we'd LITERALLY just been talking about the goddamn red part of the goddamn burner and I turned away for a SECOND, like he was WAITING for the chance to touch it and...

"Oh, dude," I say, shaking my head. Because what else is there to say that I haven't said a million times already?

He's three-and-a-half years old. He just has to figure some things out for himself. 

And now, at least, he knows. 

Plague Baby

So first, Ike was all, like this:

And I was all, OMG! Look at my poor baby! He's got a rash! There's like, eight whole spots on his body and his cheeks are splotchy! Oh, for the love of WOE.

And then Ike was all, like this:

And I was all, uh, shit? 

Back in the day, when they used to give out antibiotics like Tylenol-laced Halloween candy, I had chronic ear infections (and later, tubes). So I took a LOT of antibiotics, And eventually developed allergies to just about every single one. The 'cillins, the 'miacins, the 'cyclines and the sulfas, and probably a bunch of others that I've now forgotten about, much to the frustration of EVERY DOCTOR EVER who has stared at that list and then back at me, like, "Yeah, you have a UTI, but what the fuck do you expect me to do about it? Go drink some cranberry juice, Time Bomb." 

But my allergic reactions were, you know, actual, straightforward reactions. Hives, usually cropping up after the first or second dose. I've always been pretty hive-y -- I still get them from stuff like mosquito bites, detergents, cosmetics, and from walking out of a warm building into the cold, which is apparently an Actual Thing. 

So I knew this was something different -- the rash was more like raised, pin-pointy measles than hives, and it did not appear to bother Ike in the slightest. He just looked, well, vaguely infectious. His doctor was like, oh, yeah, some kids get that after a few days on amoxicillin. It'll go away on its own, no biggie.

So then Ike was all, O RLY DOCTOR?

GAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Happy Easter, everybody! I got you a baby. He's only slightly diseased. Arms and legs, mostly. 

The photos, of course, do not even come CLOSE to capturing how insane this rash was. It was everywhere, a mixture of horrible scattered spots and large patches of bright red where the individual spots had merged to form a singular Borg Of Rash.

Ezra took one look at it on Easter morning and recoiled in disgust. "We have to get a new baby," he informed me. "Dis one is all yucky."

So I had no idea that a person could have a rash THIS VICIOUS and still not actually be 1) allergic to anything, or 2) itchy. I kept wanting to smear him up in ointment and dose him with Benadryl on principle -- to feel like I was doing SOMETHING about his poor, pockmarked body. But there was really nothing to be done but continue with the final doses of the antibiotic and ignore the side-eye from other parents at the playground, who clearly thought we'd brought a kid with measles or chicken pox along and like, hadn't noticed it, maybe? Uhh, lady? Everything okay over there? Because dat baby is all yucky. 

Hello, laaaaadies.

It's much better today, though I've developed a very weird definition of what I now consider "better." Better is not "all gone," but more like "not quite so suggestive of a flesh-eating disease." Just a few bad patches here and there, while everything else is simply fading away. Ike is only annoyed by my continued obsession with it and the fact that I keep pulling his clothes off 20 times a day for a status update. 

UNLIKE.

And we all learned an important lesson about why it doesn't matter how many babies you have, they will continue to find new and interesting ways to freak your shit out. The end.

Dee, When Your Allergies Act Up, Take Out Your Nose Ring.

Hi! I just got my nose pierced. 

Why? I dunno, actually. Because I felt like it. Because I always wanted to, but worked in offices with dress codes and am finally realizing that I might not do that again anytime soon. Because I was feeling old and bored and this was cheaper than buying a Porsche. Because I thought, "Self, you've had three needles stuck into your spine and then had three babies cut out of your abdomen, I bet getting something staped into your face won't hurt at all." Because I've been home all week with three stir-crazy kids on Spring Break and broke up approximately 5,239 fights over who touched who and who stole what toy and stepped on one too many damn Legos and went temporarily batshit. 

Definitely a combination of those five things. Plus, what's the point of being a grown-up if you don't take advantage of the fact that no one can tell you not to pierce stupid shit into your face? HERE'S MAH DRIVER'S LICENSE, BODY PIERCING PARLOR EMPLOYEE WHO IS AT LEAST A DECADE YOUNGER THAN I AM, I DON'T NEED ANYBODY'S PERMISSION TO DO THIS, YAAAY! 

Everybody say hi to Andy, by the way. (He's the same guy who also re-pierced my ears a couple years back.) His wife is due with their first baby in two weeks. I told him everything was going to awesome, and it's really not as scary as some people like to make it sound. TRUST ME, ANDY, I'M A PROFESSIONAL. 

Go, Ninja

Noah's IEP meeting went very well, by the way. (The plot points! They are dangling!) Of COURSE it went very well. I always get myself so needlessly lathered up about these meetings ahead of time -- a peril of being overly-informed about other people's horror stories, probably -- and then we show up and remember that oh. Right. These people actually give a shit. About their jobs and their students and that whole "making a difference in the life of a child" thing. 

I'd gotten a somewhat...strange phone call from the school psychologist the week before that knocked me a bit off my axis, and then a conversation with a classmate's mother at a birthday party set me even more on edge. Because this same psychologist was causing problems for them and everything about their IEP was contested and a struggle and the whole thing sounded crazy combative and stressful. Just like another mother had described their experience this year to me a few weeks before, at another party. Sternly-worded letters! Hired advocates! Parents storming out of meetings! Peace negotiations all blown to hell!

I think I need to stop attending so many birthday parties. Or find something else to talk with people about. Hey, did anybody else see The Hunger Games? 

I really do love Noah's school. And his teachers. They are doing an amazing job, and sometimes it blows my mind to stop and realize how far Noah has come. Our IEP meeting was calm, collaborative and about as low pressure as it gets. I think first grade is going to be just fine, for all of us. 

***

One of Noah's playmates learned to ride his bike without training wheels a few months ago. He's a year younger than Noah, and his new skill triggered a bit of competitive peer pressure throughout the neighborhood, and we watched training wheels disappear left and right, it seemed. But Noah, of course, did not care. Did not want. Did not even want to hear the mere suggestion of taking his training wheels off. 

So we did what we always end up doing. We bribed him. Take the training wheels off and learn to ride your bike from corner to corner by yourself, and we'll take you to the toy store and buy some Legos. 

"Ninjago Legos? Like in a big box? The kind that cost too many dollars?" 

Whatever Lego set you want, dude. 

"Okay."

I figured he'd live with this lofty goal in a strictly figurative, hypothetical sense for awhile. That we'd float the idea out there and he'd think about it some more, no pressure, until he really felt good and ready to make an attempt.

Instead, he demanded that the training wheels come off his bike that very instant. LET'S DO THIS THING.

While Jason took care of the wheels I tried to have a talk with Noah about how he would need to practice, that it might take awhile for him to figure it out, and that he would need to stick with it even if he thought it was too hard.

His perfectionistic streak can be vicious, unfortunately -- it even came up during his IEP meeting. "Noah needs to take more risks," his teachers said. "If he's not 100% confident that he'll be good at something, he refuses to try, or he starts and quits immediately."

Getting Noah on a bike in the first place was an epic struggle, and it's never really been one of his favorite activities. Even with the training wheels, he's prone to crashes and falls, or frustration over not going as fast as the other kids who fly down the hill with no fear. 

"I'm a tiny little bit scared," Noah said. "But that's okay, right?"

Definitely. And me too.

I watched for awhile. He was wobbly and positively insistent that Jason not let him go, at all, no no no no. After each run Jason needed to coax him into trying again, and again. About what I expected, honestly.

Don't Let Go from amalah on Vimeo.

I went inside and started loading the dishwasher. Maybe he'll get it by the weekend, I thought. It's spring break so we'll have plenty of time to practice, and as long as we can avoid a bad fall or something like...

Jason came in about 10 minutes later. "Well, he did it! Where are my keys?"

"SHUT UP," I said. I ran back outside. 

"I DID IT, MOM!" he hollered. 

He grudgingly agreed to a single demonstration -- dammit, woman, that toy store isn't going to stay open ALL NIGHT, you know -- but did let me get in some hugs and a couple "I'm so proud of you's" before he climbed in the car, chattering happily away about Sensei Wu and Lord Garmadon mini-figures or maybe he should pick some more Star Wars Legos? No, ninjas. Definitely ninjas. Ninjas are the coolest ever. 

Baby's First Double Ear Infection!

Awww, such a blessed milestone. 

(SOMEBODY SHOOT ME IN THE FACE.)

Ike and I were still up in Pennsylvania when he came down with it -- the whole typical song-and-dance of a bad cold, too many days of congestion and then BLAMMO, fever and cantankerousness and no sleep for ANYBODY. At least anybody with ears, infected or otherwise. 

Even though we've been through the ear infection rodeo quite a few times, Ike was thoughtful enough to make his first ear infection exciting, by spiking a fever of over 104 degrees. That's a Storch Family record!  He also went on a nursing-and-bottle strike and got himself all dehydrated to boot, because babies are just so very reasonable about everything sometimes. And so I got to chat with some nice ladies at a 24-hour nurse triage hotline about what, in the name of blessed fuck, I was supposed to do next. More medicine? Another cool bath? Emergency room? Apply the numbing drops to my own ears and hope for the best?

We did not, thankfully, end up in the emergency room. But a trip to the pediatrician the next day confirmed that both of Ike's ears were good and angry and require 10 days of amoxicillin, aka the Devil's Pink Drank. 

So most of the weekend looked just like that, with Ike strapped to us in various carriers, wearing a cold washcloth on his head, while I paced around the house and took pictures of his glazed-over misery. Because I never want to forget that I DESERVE SOME EXTRA CREDIT FOR THIS. Especially the part when he screamed from 2:30 straight on until 5:30 in the morning, until I managed to coax him to sleep semi-upright with his head on my left hip for a couple hours. My right leg has yet to fully regain circulation. 

He's feeling much better now. Poor baby. Ears are such bitches.