School's In Session

E officially started kindergarten this last Tuesday. After all the worrying and stressing over private vs. charter vs. public schools, whether to put him back in his bi-lingual daycare after kinder or keep him at the on-site after-school care, who would take him, who would pick up, and all the million other things that kept me up, it was a very anti-climactic first week.

Somehow he made it through his first few days without crying about not being with his sister or pre-school friends. Amazingly, I was able to wake up in time to get him to school before the bell rang. He made friends. He ate his lunch.

Lesson learned: I don't give him or me enough credit to transition to the next stage of his life without trauma.

And now that I've figured that out, I can return to my regularly scheduled program of worrying whether V will ever be able to quit the diapers.

Words To Live By: Oh Heavenly God

E has been learning a little bit about God (aka "the Big Guy") from a few of his church-going friends at school. Even though we are not a religious family, I think it's good for him to have some exposure to religion and to explore ideas about God and spirituality and develop his own ideas.

I have to admit that some of the things he says really tickle me and even touch me so I thought I'd share:

On Death/Going to Heaven:
"Mommy, how did Great-Grandpa go to Heaven? Did he take a rocket ship?"
"Lucy went to Heaven to keep Great-Grandpa company."
"Mommy, I wish Lucy would come home from Heaven because I miss her. Are you going to cry now?"
"V, hold my hand because we are in a parking lot and there are lots of cars and I'm small. If you don't hold my hand then a car will squish me then I'll go to Heaven and then Mommy will have only one childrens and then be really sad and cry all the time. Do you want that to happen?!"
"Mommy, do they have TV in Heaven or is it so boring?"

On God:
(upon being asked who God is) "God is the Big Guy! He's the Man."
"Mommy, I think I'm getting sick because God used his magic powers to make me cough and plugged my nose all up."
"God made all the grandmas and grandpas, but then they made us borned the regular way."
"Mommy, did you know God is so, so big but can fit into someplace really small, like someone's heart?"
"I think I drank too much orange juice and now it's all the way up to God. You know, it filled me up to here (points to his heart)."
(upon being asked how his friend knows so much about God) "I don't know. I think he makes it all up actually."
"God can be really big or really small because He's magic. And He can be any color, even white!"

Belated Birthday Wishes to My Kidlets!

The first half of the calendar year is pretty birthday-intensive for our family, with my father's birthday in January, my mother's and my birthdays in February, E's in March, and V's in May. It feels like every other week is a family dinner to celebrate someone's birthday.

And now that the kids are old enough for parties, it feels like I have to skip my birthday altogether and go straight from planning my dad's birthday dinner (I don't usually plan my mom's because we have always been lumped together - it's not like I don't love my mom. Mom, if you read this, it's not that I don't love you) to planning E's birthday party. The second the last of his little party guests leaves, then it's time to plan for V's birthday party. Having their birthdays two months apart was clearly a grave tactical error on my part.

In case you don't have kids or haven't gotten to the point when your kids have opinions about their parties, I need to disclose that birthday parties are monumental events that require top-notch project management skills. But that's a topic for another day; the point is that only now, about 3 weeks after V's birthday party, do I feel like I've recovered and gotten a chance to breathe.

So *inhale*, *exhale*... Happy Belated Birthday to my two favoritest kiddios!

Ice Cream is IN!

E completed his allergy panel last week, and while he still tested positive for a skin reaction to milk protein, he had no reaction when we tried milk in his oral challenge. I am thrilled to report that he was able to consume four large spoonfuls of plain ice cream without any kind of reaction.

Dairy was our last major food allergy to overcome, and I'm not going to lie, it was the biggest one. Of course, that's what I said when we got the OK from the doctor to give him wheat. Then eggs. But I've really been looking forward to the day when he can have dairy. It means that he can eat pizza and ice cream. It means I can go to a regular grocery store and get regular yogurt. He can go to a birthday party and not be the weird kid who doesn't have any cake and brings his own food.

Now we have a different challenge, which is untraining him from staying away from all these foods he's learned not to touch the last 4 years. I daresay he is probably the only kid who says that real ice cream is "slimy and weird". And he's literally afraid of cheese.

But I welcome this new problem. It's a lot less stressful than the days when I worried about lunch snack trades causing a trip to the hospital. And really, it's just a variation of a picky eater, albeit a really strange case where the child would prefer broccoli on rice over pepperoni pizza. Yup, it's a good problem to have.

Kindergarten: The Throwback Year

We are in the middle of Kindergarten registration season, and even though my husband and I have made the decision to put E into public school, it's still causing a lot of stress.

You may think the stress comes from knowing that the charter school we registered for is expecting to receive over 500 applicants to fill only 40 spots.

Or you might think it's due to knowing that our public school's enrollment is at near capacity and some residents may get re-districted to a sister district.

But mostly what is stressing me out is the very establishment of Kindergarten itself, which seemingly still operates on the assumption that there is always one stay-at-home parent who has no other scheduled priorities beyond his or her child's school schedule.

When our kids enter Kindergarten, we will be tethered to 4-hour school days, 8:30am - 12:30pm (or even worse, 11:00am - 3:00pm - I might as well throw my whole day away). What do we do with E the rest of the day? There's no after-school care program through the school district, so now we have to find some alternative child care in addition to making a decision about school itself (I refuse to think about what to do if he gets put in the 11:00am class, I have no idea how to work my job around those 3 hours in the morning until he would go to school).

I really don't understand why this is. E's pre-school allows me to drop him off at 8:30am and pick him up at 6:00pm. He has structured lessons in pre-school: math, reading and writing, art, and PE. He is used to this schedule, it's not too much for him. He doesn't feel abandoned by his parents. When he goes into first grade, his schedule will be 8:15am - 3:30pm. So why is there this one school year where parents are forced to scramble to figure out what to do with their kids for half the day?

Now we have to consider hiring a nanny to shuttle him to and from school and watch him for the time he's not in class. The cost of a nanny who has driving credentials: almost the cost of a private school that does offer full-day kindergarten. I'm starting to see why people thought we were crazy to go the public school route. But really, it shouldn't have to be crazy to support our public education system.

I'm sure there's some method to this madness that I can't see. Maybe someone can explain it to me. Or better yet, maybe someone can tell me how to solve the dilemma we'll be in come September.

Wearing Mom Genes

Recently, I had one of those calls with my mother. You know, the kind that starts out innocuously enough and casually takes a turn to disaster when you least expect it. Mom knows all your insecurities and exploits them willy-nilly on a whim. In this case, it began with a simple phrase that should always be accompanied by foreboding, slasher-flick music whenever my mother utters it, "Oh, I need to tell you something..."

Apparently, I have a smart mouth. And I shouldn't be dispensing advice to my cousins or siblings (or any relatives or even friends, for that matter). I guess an off-handed comment I made to a cousin caused a cataclysmic tear in the very fabric of my cousin's relationship with her parents. I didn't know I have such POWER. Neat-o.

It doesn't really matter that when I called to apologize to said cousin, she told me that my comment had nothing to do with the argument she had had with her mother and that it had already blown over. It's irrelevant that my mother blew the situation out of proportion by just a wee bit. The damage had been done, I was an emotional wreck for days. Now that's power.

It's the power of Mom, to undo someone with just a sentence or an intense glare. And it's in every mother's genes, as I discovered from E's teacher after I scolded him one day by simply telling him, "I'm really disappointed in you." E's teacher told me he was nervous and scared to do the wrong thing all day, that he didn't want to disappoint the teacher, that he hoped I wouldn't be disappointed in him anymore by the time I picked him up if he was a good boy all day. With V, if I look at her the wrong way, she spontaneously bursts into tears, not one word needed.

I'm really ambivalent about this. On the one hand, I know what it's like to be on the receiving end of a Mom-whammy, and I feel for my poor kids. On the other hand, sometimes it is the most efficient and effective way to influence their behavior. With great power comes great responsibility, but Peter Parker never had to figure out how to get his son to stop using his daughter as a battering ram. I guess there's really only one solution: save up for the kids' therapy bills when they get older.

Do you have Mom-guilt? If so, how do you cope?

Eggcelent News!

The drought is over. Let the baked goods rain down upon my son and all his little friends! We took E to the allergist for his oral challenge for eggs. And I am thrilled to say that he was able to eat an entire hard boiled egg (although it took him 2 hours to eat it under the watchful monitoring of a nurse) with only a small rash to show for it.

The allergist gave us the OK to introduce small amounts of egg into his diet. This means that cake and cookies and all the other stuff he will spend his adult life trying to resist are now open to him (might as well get a chance to enjoy them now while he can, right?). In fact, he has recommended that we feed him eggs 2-3 times a week in small amounts to build up his tolerance.

This avid baker of a mom could not be more thrilled!

So to commemorate this milestone, I'll be making some cupcakes for him to bring to his Halloween potluck at school (decorated like Spider-Man to go with his costume). The only thing is, he doesn't like frosting (I've never let him have any since I never know if it has milk in it), so while his friends will get the masked Spidey cupcakes, he'll be enjoying his unfrosted Peter Parker cupcake.

Being -Free: A Guide to Coping with Allergies

Because of E's numerous food allergies (let's review: dairy, egg, nuts, mildly allergic to wheat, used to be allergic to fish too), I've ended up being a resource to my friends whose kids subsequently also develop food allergies or sensitivities. I'm bummed to hear other people tell me their child can't have milk / soy / gluten /nuts /name your food here, and I wish in a way that I was the only one dealing with this because it's a crummy situation, let's just be honest about it.

That being said, when I thought about how things have gone with E's diet, it's not the colossal pain and source of emotional angst that it used to be. Somehow, we've adjusted to it pretty well. So I thought it might be useful for those of you who are trying to do the -free diet to read what's worked well for us.

Eating Out Is Bad
Okay, if not bad, at least a pain. Eating out is never easy because waiters don't always know if the food you order contains the offending food. Heck, even the cooks don't always know because processed foods can contain trace amounts of stuff you just wouldn't expect in that food. And it's not just going to restaurants, it's going to people's houses, amusement parks, and birthday parties, too. E always gets a big bowl of fruit salad and a small bag of gummi bears when he goes to a birthday party; he never partakes of cake, and that's just how it's always been. So if you want to eat out, make sure you're bringing something along for your child that you KNOW is safe and that he'll enjoy.

Substitute Foods Are Great
There are a lot of options out there these days: soy milk for regular milk, non-dairy margarines for butter, rice-based pasta instead of wheat. You can swap a lot of these substitute foods without really a noticeable difference in taste or texture. A few items that have passed our discriminating palettes (that being mine, not E's since he has never had the original to compare to):

• Soy Yogurt - Whole Soy is my favorite brand; it's thick and creamy and full of fruit flavor. I especially like the lemon and mango/apricot. Silk can be good, too. Its texture is like Yoplait, but I find it cloyingly sweet (E loves their blueberry soy yogurt).
• Rice-Potato-Soy Pasta - I forget the name brand, but check out your closest Whole Foods for a selection of gluten-free pastas. I've found that ones that have a combination of grains has better texture than the ones that are all one grain (quinoa, rice, etc), which tend to be mushy unless cooked perfectly. Also check out soba, made from buckwheat (which is gluten-free and wheat-free despite the name) - but beware, some soba has wheat in it, so look for the kind that's 100% buckwheat.
• Double Rainbow Blueberry Soy Ice Cream - It has such great blueberry flavor that you can't really taste the soy flavor too much.
• Sorbet - for those of you who can't deal with the soyness of soy ice cream, enjoy some sorbet or fruit juice popsicles.

Not All Substitute Foods Are Great
The worst offenders:

• Gluten-free bread - any brand, I guarantee you it will be an affront to all that is beautiful and delicious about bread. It is the gluten that imparts bread with that great chewy, light, delightfully pillow-soft texture. Forget about bread and carbo-load on something else (potatoes, rice, corn, there's lots of options).
• Gluten-free, dairy-free, and egg-free cake/cookies - I hate to break it to you, but you're generally going to pass up the bakery section of your grocery store. Leaving 1 one of those 3 things can still result in a tasty treat, even 2 out of 3 can be a winner, but not having any of those things in your baked good - you'll just have to learn to get over it. What you can get is usually not worth the calories anyway. As an alternative, try gluten-free, vegan fruit pie.
• Fake cheese - pretty self-explanatory.

Forget About Imposters
After all that talk about substitute foods, which have their place, we find that it's just much tastier not to pretend. Why eat fake yogurt for breakfast when you can have a real hash brown? Sometimes when you go on a -free diet, you spend so much time worrying about what you can't eat that you forget about the great things you still can eat. Just a reminder for you:

Breakfast foods:

• Hash browns
• Rice crispies cereal (great with some freeze-dried berries and soy milk)
• Corn flakes
• Sausage (check ingredients to make sure there's no dairy)
• Bacon
• Fruit

Snacks:

• Potato, corn, or tortilla chips
• Popcorn
• Fruit

Generally speaking, Asian meals will have the most options for gluten-, dairy-, and egg-free dishes, especially Vietnamese cuisine, which is largely rice-based.

Leading By Example
The most important aspect of a successful -free diet is your outlook. The way you react to your child's diet will become your child's reaction. Act as if your child is being deprived and he will feel like he's being deprived. Sometimes it's the hardest thing for a parent to act like being allergic to something is like having straight hair or brown eyes - it just is part of who your child is. For me, it was so hard not to feel like I've lost out on something I always imagined myself doing with my kids: baking cookies together or making pancakes together on a Sunday morning.

At the same time, it's imperative to help your kids to understand that they do have an allergy. As much as I'd like to hope that I'll always be there to keep E from the things he can't eat, it's not realistic. He needs to be able to tell his teachers, his friends, or his friends' parents what will make him sick. E now is able to tell people, "I can't have eggs", "no cows milk for me", "I can't have cake, thank you". And he doesn't feel bad about it (usually his follow-up statement is, "can I have some gummi bears instead?").

The trick is to strike the balance between being clear what foods he is allergic to and not making a big deal of it. A few lessons we've learned along the way:

• Try to have the whole family follow the same diet, at least when you are with your child. Don't groan, if your kid can't eat pizza, is it fair for you to munch away on a slice in front of him? Meet your pizza needs when you're at work, and enjoy family dinners that you can enjoy as a family. You will probably actually start eating healthier for it.
• Don't freak out if your child is putting a foreign food near his mouth (parents whose kids get anaphylactic reactions get some slack on this one). You don't want your child to fear food. Instill in your kids the habit of not eating new foods when they're not with you, and teach them why.
• Carry an epi-pen and Benadryl (children's oral suspension) with you when you go out to eat, just in case.
• Read all food labels and try not to keep dangerous foods in the house.
• Try to discourage your kids from being picky eaters (an uphill battle for some parents, I know). But the thing is, if your child can’t take in entire groups of food (dairy, gluten products, soy, etc), then it’s more difficult to ensure they have a balanced diet. Teach your kids to embrace the foods they can eat so that they get variety and balance in their diet. The best way to do this is not to be picky yourself – suck it up and be an adult about eating your green vegetables or fish or whatever you dislike eating.

I’m sure there are plenty of other tips that I’ve missed or haven’t picked up on yet. So if you have a child who has a food sensitivity and/or allergy, please share your strategies on how you cope with his/her dietary restrictions.

Holding Out Hope for Next Year

We finally got E to the allergist for his oral test for dairy, and the verdict is: still allergic. BAH!

He had one teaspoon and refused to have another one. When we tried to get him to drink two teaspoons, he spat out the milk, and where it got on his skin, little red bumps appeared. I guess pizza and real ice cream are all out for another year. The good news is he didn't have any anaphylactic reaction to the milk, so if he gets a little cross-contamination, it isn't a serious threat.

We will be scheduling an oral test for egg within the next few weeks. Hopefully he has better luck with the eggs. Wish us luck!

Fingers, Toes Crossed! The Day Has Come (I Hope)...

The day that I've been waiting for came yesterday! The allergist called to give me E's test results from his allergy panel this year. This is our yearly ritual: we take E to the allergist, he gets the skin test, he gets the blood test, and then we're told his allergies are still there, and it's another year of egg-free, dairy-free, nut-free, limited-wheat eating for my baby.

But this year, the allergist came back with different results. Even though the skin test still showed an allergy to eggs and milk, the blood test came back negative for everything. HALLELUJAH!

What does this mean? It means we get to take E back to the allergist for a dairy test drive some time in the next few weeks. We'll give him a spoonful of milk and wait to see if he has any reaction (with allergist at the ready to administer whatever meds needed in case of a bad reaction). And if that goes well, we can slowly increase the dairy intake to see if he develops any adverse reaction. Then we get to do it again with egg.

I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful for being able to shop at any old grocery store (sorry Whole Foods, you have a great selection of food-sensitive products, but you're expensive!) and not having every trip be two hours (time needed to read every single ingredient label). I'm hopeful for being able to eat out anywhere without having to bring our own food. I'm hopeful for not worrying that my baby might go to the ER because he traded his rice cracker for a friend's Cheez-its at lunch time.

Oh, lucky day, I'm hopeful you've come at last....

Words To Live By - The Four Year-Old's Edition

Sometimes E says the funniest things that I just have to capture them for posterity. I hope these put a smile on your face, as they did for me:

Scatological...
(flushing toilet) "Bye-bye, poo-poo. Good luck in the ocean!"
(sitting on toilet) "Mommy, poo-poo is private time. You can go work on your computer, I'm not done yet."
(eating veggies) "I have to eat lots of vegetables, so that my poo-poo can be long and go in a circle - woooooop."

Family Relations...
"Why did Uncle D come without Aunt R? He's not supposed to go without her."
"Um, Mommy, baby sisters are just terrible! What are we going to do about them?"
(after being told he's not allowed to scream at Grandpa) "That's Grandma's job?"

Education...
(after being asked what he did in school) "Um nothing, just learned stuff. And ate fruit."
"I don't like (swim) teacher Mike. I like girls."

Malapropisms...
(after head-butting Daddy in the groin) "Sorry, Daddy. Sorry for doing a butt-head."
(this is only funny if you know Cantonese) "I love bo-hai, it's my favorite. More bo-hai, please." Basically, he meant to say spinach (bo-cai), and instead he said sneakers (bo-hai).

Money...
(when bill arrives at a restaurant) "Daddy, you pay for it!"
"Mommy, you get on the computer so you can make money and buy things."
(at a fountain) "Mommy, you got pennies? I want to throw some money away."

My Favorite...
"Ahem, Mommy, excuse me. I love you very much."

Tales of the High Seas, or the Perils of Cruising with Small Children, Call It What You Want, Just Don't Call It Vacation

There are times when things go so inexplicably awry that there is no point in trying to assign blame or divine the underlying root cause. You just chalk it up to the universe telling you that it is your turn to - in the words of a close friend - serve as a cautionary tale to others.

So it was with our recent holiday vacation cruising in the Caribbean. Now you say, "Shut up! You're on a cruise in the Caribbean. I so do not weep for you." OK, save your tears for the end of this post.

Let us begin by reviewing that darling son E and adorable daughter V are ages three years and nineteen months, respectively. The cruise was my mother's idea, because she had already planned to cruise with my aunts and uncles and she "couldn't bear to be away from the grandchildren on Christmas." So she bought our cruise tickets back in March.

Fast forward to the week before we leave. My cousin, who lives down the street and shall remain nameless, had agreed to dog sit for us back at Thanksgiving. Lo and behold, on the Monday night before we leave, his mother calls to say he can no longer do it. Excuse me? The reason: a much better offer to go snow-boarding with his buddies. I call back and as politely as I can, light into my aunt about responsibility and giving enough notice and what are you teaching your son when you don't even make him call his own cousin back and tell her in person that you are bailing at the last minute. Thus begins the frantic search for dog-sitters. Calls are made to kennels, friends, other relatives. But let's face it, it's the week before Christmas and our friends have plans and the kennels are already booked. Then fate intervenes: a friend from our Furry Friends volunteer group offers to have the dogs stay with her. The day before we leave, we get a Christmas miracle. The dogs ended up having a wonderful time staying with their buddy Rosie.

We are duped into thinking that the dog-sitting miracle and the extremely well-behaved children on the flight out to Florida are signs that the cruise is going to be fun. I even jokingly tell my husband, "The flight out is going to be the highlight of this whole trip." Little did I know...

It would be wrong to say that the whole trip was miserable. We had some really fun moments (zip-lining in Costa Rica, hanging out with my family, shopping in Cozumel) insterspersed between:

E getting a rash over his entire body for the first week of this 12-day adventure. We never figured out what caused it, but he was itchy and grumpy. We had to restrict his diet (due to his numerous food allergies) in a vain attempt to stem the red bumps and the incessant scratching. E looked at me like I was the second coming of Hitler when I had to tell him no more Fruit Loops for breakfast or bread sticks at dinner (due to his mild wheat allergy).

In addition to the rash, E also got a yeast infection. Yes, there. Poor guy. He couldn't even walk in the Grand Cayman because it hurt so much. He strolled around in V's stroller. On Christmas Eve, I took him to the ship's doctor, who prescribed Vagisil and oral antibiotics. Total cost of visit: $100 - the most expensive tube of Vagisil I've ever bought.

E's health issues did not end there. He got food poisoning in Costa Rica (as did I and a few others), and ended up puking that night.

We tried to take E to the ship's children's program, the "Fun Factory", which had craft stations, video games, board games, a wading pool, a ball pit, slides, and a stage and costumes for pretend play. But E, being shy and adverse to trying new things, did not like it. We tried to entice him to go many times the first few days until he finally told me matter-of-factly, "Mommy, I don't like the Fun Factory. It's not fun for me, it's not my kind of fun." Well, how could I make him go back after he told me that? But don't think it wasn't the looming threat every time he acted out. One night, he was throwing a tantrum at dinner. A girl at another table also had a screaming fit, and we saw her father storm out of the dining room with the girl kicking and screaming over his shoulder. "See that? He's taking her to the Fun Factory because she's not listening to her Mommy and Daddy! Maybe we should take you, too!"

Not to be outdone by her big brother, V had issues of her own. Like screaming at the top of her lungs every night at about 3am. Sometimes for a long time. Once, she cried so long that neighboring cabins complained to Guest Services. At 4:30am I got a call from the concierge asking if we could do something about our baby. "Please pick her up or something," the lady on the other end of the phone said. Oh, picking her up? Was that the secret to making her stop? We fed her, changed her, rocked her, walked her, shushed her, sang to her, gave her her monkey buddy and turned on her music box - all we needed to do was pick her up? You can imagine how we received that feedback after dealing with her screaming for 90 minutes.

V also refused to sit in her high chair at meal times. She would take all that fancy silverware and fling it. Or scream. She's good at screaming because she gets lots of practice. My husband and I ended up having to take turns eating while the other held darling daughter, lest she throw a colossal tantrum. (The Fun Factory threat did not work on her, as they do not take kids who are not potty-trained.)

Among the things both children protested: being forced to dress up for dinner; having to eat dinner at 6:00pm, at which time they are not actually hungry; having fruit juice restricted from their diet after day 8, when we realized that the crash from a sugar high made all the aforementioned worse; having only one channel to watch on the stateroom TV (Cartoon Network - en Espanol! "Mommy, what are they saying?!"); having to wake up by a certain time to get to breakfast; and generally, having to spend all day and night with Mommy and Daddy (I heard, "Mommy, I don't love you. Go away! I want Grandma!" more times than any mother should have to hear in her life). Actually, I'm with you on that one, kids!

Where was Grandma in all of this, you may ask? The mastermind behind all of this was there, caving in to every request (candy canes and ice cream for dinner? Why not - it's Christmas time!) and winding the kids up to a frenzy so that they could be returned to us in a hyper and truculent state. She did baby sit for us, for which we were very grateful, but most of the time, she was hanging with my family (Mah Jong rules!) or going out on excursions.

Ironically, on Christmas day, my parents booked dinner at the specialty (read: fancy-pants and not suitable for kids) restaurant on-board, and we spent Christmas dinner on our own. It was a formal dinner, which the kids hated being dressed for, and I can't say that I was thrilled with dressing up either, seeing as how the clasp on V's shoes got caught on my cocktail dress and ruined it.

But I can't even blame my mom, because she really thought we would all have fun. And she paid for the tickets. I just have to look back on it and try to laugh. We laugh because if we don't, we'll cry.

So if you are thinking of going on a cruise with children under four, you may want to think twice. As for us, no more cruising until the kids are at least five. I think next time, I'd rather go stay with Rosie and the dogs. That sounds more relaxing.

Fevers and Cold Sweats

When E was five weeks old, we had to send him to the hospital due to a high fever (over 103). My poor baby spent three days in the hospital, where he was hooked up to an IV, got round-the-clock Tylenol dosage, and three spinal taps. I heard he was really good about the taps; I don't know, I could not bear to be there so hubby had to accompany him.

What we've learned since is that E just gets fevers. His little body simply runs hot whenever he gets a cold. He has adapted, as have we. He can run a fever up to 101.5, and if you never touched him, you wouldn't think he was hot. He can carry on a conversation, play, and dance while he is running hot. And if he is anything under 101, we don't even bother to call the doctor; we just wait a few days for the fever to pass.

But when he gets a persistent fever that lasts for a week or more, I get the cold sweats. I know there is a reasonable explanation. But it doesn't assuage me. I start worrying that he has lymphoma or a brain tumor or the worst possible disease I can google.

Right now, he has had a fever for a week. We went to the doctor today, and she told me to bring him back if he hasn't broken the fever in two more days. Then it's back to the battery of tests: blood test, urine culture, chest x-ray. None of those tests have ever told me anything about what causes the fevers, which is enormously frustrating. The only consolation is that they confirm he doesn't have lymphoma.

Cross your fingers for E that he breaks his fever in the next 48 hours. And if that doesn't happen, cross your fingers that the blood tests don't come back indicating lymphoma.

Yes, You Are My Performing Monkey

Over the last month, I have seen the passing of my grandfather and the marriage of my little brother, and with those two events, a swarm of relatives come through our part of town. Many of them were meeting my kids for the first time.

Of course I am going to show them off, they are so cute! This mommy is proud of her munchkins, especially since I never thought I had the stuff to be a parent in the first place. And especially when the kids are at such cute stages in their life: E, with his adorable pre-school stream-of-consciousness non-sequitors, and V, with her flirty charm and drunken-master walking.

So naturally, when the parade of aunts, uncles, and cousins came to town, I wanted them to see all the things my kids do that make me laugh, make me proud, and make me melt. Which means of course that they did NONE of the things that make me laugh or melt. Would E shake his booty? Would V blow kisses? Not a chance. At one point, I asked E to say something in Mandarin, to which he replied with an icy glare that said, "I am not your performing monkey! Leave me alone!"

Is it wrong for a mother to want to share the joy? I guess they give private performances only.

Milestones!

It's been a busy month, and hence, I have gone AWOL on the blogging front lately. But a few things happened over the last month that are worthy of acknowledgment.

First, V is finally walking. Congratulations to my little diva for finally becoming bi-pedal! Granted, she walks like she's drunk most of the time. And she's not that steady. But having tasted the freedom of walking, nothing can deter her - not tripping on her own feet, getting knocked down by the dogs (or E), or the accidental run-in with furniture (that f**ker came out of nowhere!).

Secondly, E is pooping in the potty! I had pretty much given up, but I caught him making that tell-tale face one day and whisked him onto the potty seat. After he realized that he wouldn't fall in and get sucked to the ocean (like his Lightning McQueen undies), he became more open to putting his poo-poo in the potty. And in case you're wondering, he gets 5 stickers, "potty candy" (aka, fruit leather), and a trip to the car wash for his efforts.

Both of the munchkins are very proud of their achievements, as am I! Mommy's tired arms thank V, and the planet is happy E is putting fewer diapers in the landfill.

Anywhere But There...

The trials of E's potty training continue. He has gotten fairly good at letting us know when he needs to pee. But it seems like he will poop anywhere but in the potty. Argh!

We have tried everything to sway him, from praising, singing songs on the toilet, playing games, giving him a special toy to play with on the toilet, and bribing him with food, TV priveleges, candy, toys. We've swirled more dirty underpants in the toilet (and accidentally flushed one pair away) than I can count.

I've been reading every article I can find online, borrowed countless potty training books, and even signed up for a personalized "potty training" consultant (they really do have consultants for everything, don't they!). One piece of advice we haven't tried is to let him watch while Daddy poops on the toilet. I'll give you one guess why we haven't tried this yet.

The articles say that for boys, they should watch Daddy, and girls should watch Mommy. Since Daddy was reluctant, I gave it a go myself. I realized why they recommend having your child watch the parent of the same gender; E spent the entire session asking me where did Mommy's penis go. "Is it hiding?" "Is it sleeping?" "You forgot it?" "It fell in the water?" "You flushed it like Lightning McQueen underpants?" He didn't even notice what I was doing because he was so pre-occupied with the whereabouts of my penis.

So we're going to have to convince Daddy to let E watch him take a dump. I think I am going to have to bribe him with food, TV priveleges, candy, or toys.

I Wanna Potty Like It's 2006

We started potty-training E over the Memorial Day long weekend. This is going to be a long and arduous process, fraught with many, many, many, many, many loads of laundry. This weekend alone, we ran over 13 loads of laundry (which included one t-shirt that Grandma brought back from China and promptly turned all of E's sheets into a mottled pink color).

We wanted to start the potty-training earlier, but my second pregnancy waylaid our plans. I wish we had had more fortitude at the time and just forged on when we had originally planned. At 18 months, we would have been potty-training a much less willful and stubborn creature.

The other challenge we are facing is that stand-alone potty seats are really too small for a 3 year-old, but a toilet ring on a regular toilet is still a bit intimidating. E looks either like a Lilliputian or Brobdignagian depending on which toilet he's on.

But he seems to be making some progress; today he only had accidents upon waking in the morning and after his nap. If anyone has any tips on how to get past the bed-wetting, let me know, thanks!

Surprise!

After E's birthday party, we sat down together to open presents. E received a variety of gifts, from puzzles to baseball equipment to art supplies to toy cars. I was probably even more excited than he was at the things he received that I have an interest in: paints and brushes, puzzles, and more track kits for his GeoTrax collection. I envisioned us painting together, putting together new train track configurations, and laughing and having fun conversation as we assembled the puzzles.

The baseball, basketball, and golf sets? Meh. Maybe there is a gift receipt and I could return them for something I knew E enjoyed more. After all, he has shown no interest in sports whatsoever.

So imagine my surprise when the thing he wanted to play with most was his T-ball set! And a double surprise that he was actually really good at hitting the whiffle ball. My son, a natural athlete? Who knew??? He and his daddy were having so much fun playing T-ball on the front lawn that I couldn't help but start to like baseball a little more just watching them play together.

Then E said, "I want Mommy hit the ball." Oh no, baseball is not my thing; I was Miss Picked-Last-By-Team-Captains-During-PE from kindergarten to my senior year in high school. I was enjoying being a spectator, and I really didn't want him to see his mommy striking out.

I got my third surprise of the day when I was able to hit the ball that the machine pitched to me. And after a few swings, I was hitting line drives between first and second base. Guess who is playing with E out on the front lawn these days? Daddy is happy to catch a quick nap after work while Mommy and E play T-ball.

And to think I almost returned that toy! So this is a little reminder to myself not to impose my own likes and dislikes on my kids, and also to keep an open mind about what time with them can teach me about myself as well.

Happy Birthday, E!

Today is my son E's third birthday. He was acting very "3" today, but all in all, he was well-behaved and gracious in accepting all the special exceptions he was granted in honor of his big day: opening presents; TV after dinner; ice cream (ok, soy ice cream) for dessert. He even consented to sit on the potty twice tonight in a cursory show of cooperation in our potty training efforts.

Until I got pregnant, I didn't really think that I would have kids (neither did my friends). And after I got pregnant, I wasn't sure if the whole mommy thing would take. So imagine my surprise to find that I love being a mom, and that on this day, I feel like I am the one who got the best present of all.

Happy Birthday, E!