Steve did the double this year... Father's Day and his birthday, all in one! (They usually come close together, but this was something special...)
At Emilyn's checkup yesterday, her doctor detected a heart murmur.
The patient and I knew something was up, because Dr. Garriga was spending way too much time with the stethoscope phase of her exam. Listen left, listen right. Listen sitting, listen standing. Listen lying down.
A while later, the doctor took off the stethoscope and announced the heart murmur. Emilyn burst into tears. But Dr. Garriga was quick to assure her that she wouldn't even talk about it in front of a little girl unless it was nothing to worry about. "Do you hear me, sweetie?" she said. "It's nothing to worry about."
That's what she was doing with all that listening: Determining that it was not the kind of heart murmur that's serious in children. That kind gets louder when the child is standing. Emilyn's is almost impossible to hear when she's standing, Dr. Garriga said.
She said she heard a "whish-BUMP, whish-BUMP." It could be stress (Emilyn was worried about the visit) or just a sign of a very strong heart. Maybe it's both!
I mentioned that I thought Daddy had had a heart murmur, too, and it turns out that's true. It wasn't even enough to get him disqualified for a pilots license.
So, we wrapped up the visit with a chickenpox booster shot (which didn't hurt much at all, Emilyn reports). Then she and I headed to the movies, to see "Kung Fu Panda." The patient had Milk Duds and a white cherry Icee for her trouble. I know Dr. Garriga wouldn't mind. Dr. Dunagan, our dentist...? Well, that'd be another story!
Allen is, lately, very into exploring his feelings. Today, I was treated to this little nugget:
"I have to have some cereal. I feel like I have to."
About a week after school let out, we headed down to City Museum. Emilyn was dying to go, and Daddy and Allen needed to experience it, too.
I guess you could say my life revolves around my 2-year-old...
I've fallen out of my exercise routine, once again. Taking a walk for an hour, or even riding the bike downstairs and watching an hour of TV, just seems like an inconvenience too much of the time. So, now, when I can, I take Allen outside in the front yard and walk around the Asilomar circle, while he plays on the island.
It's the best I can do, for now. And since I've long since stopped caring what other people think, I don't mind at all how silly I must look to the neighbors, huffing and puffing around the island. I'm just orbiting my son.
My smart, imaginative, yet somewhat disturbing children have a new hobby... They camp out on my bed and pretend to deliver Grammy Shark's babies.
This all stems from Emilyn watching "Deliver Me" on the Discovery Health channel. Now she knows all there is to know about obstetrics, apparently. She and Allen swathe Grammy Shark in blankets, then reach in and pull out her litter of Webkins, one by one. (Yes, on any given day, this shark gives birth to an elephant, a kitty, two puppies and a pig.)
Each baby is "de-gooed," usually by Allen, who uses my pajamas to wipe off the "Mommy goo." Then they evaluate the offspring's health. Does it need oxygen? (Allen says "oxeee-gen.") Does it need to go to the NICU? Does it need to go in the "moni-box" (monitor box)? If all is well, Dr. Allen deems the baby "perfect!"
Summer is off to a great start, I'd say... Daddy got two extra days off for a great audit at work (attaboy!). He and Emilyn cleaned up her room super-good, with two garbage cans full of stuff thrown away! While I went to see "Indiana Jones" yesterday, Daddy and the kids went to the train museum and got caught in a bit of a downpour.
And we've been playing this great game that Emilyn got a couple birthdays ago, Whoonu.
It's neat! One player is the Whoozit. The other players get cards with items on them (for example: mayonnaise, nail polish, museums, scary movies, pineapple). The players are supposed to pick the cards with the items they think the Whoozit likes best. They put them in the Whoozit's secret envelope. Then, the Whoozit opens the envelope and, not knowing which cards came from which player, puts them in order, least favorite to most favorite. For example, in one group of four cards, Emilyn ranked "mayonnaise" as her most favorite. Because I was the one who put that card in her secret envelope, I was rewarded with four points!
The three of us know each other well, of course, and we've been blowing through the cards in this game for two days now. There's 300 cards, and we're almost done.
Once we get all the way through, we're going to play again, this time putting in the cards we think the other will hate the most. That's when "pineapple" and "coconut" become great for Daddy!
Holy cow, is our girl getting big. She's officially crossing the hall into fourth grade! Waaaaaay to go!
But first, there's the little matter of saying goodbye to third grade! (By the by, Mrs. Stasen really loved her DVD. She said it captured all her favorite memories of the year!) Friday was the last day of school, complete with the spring academic rally.
Emilyn won four awards this time around, including the Intermediate Academic Achievement Award, for receiving all A's on her report card. Hooooray! So, more trips through the balloon arch. And more boogie-ing by the Sorrento teachers!
To see all the photos and videos, click here.
Watch Emilyn's triumphal anchor leg of the grueling third-grade obstacle course! You won't get these kind of thrills from the Beijing Olympics, I'll tell you that much! (And my commentary, of course, is better than Bob Costas!)
Today we met Amy and the boys at Central Park in Chesterfield. Yes, it's really called that! We had fun playing, and it was a beautiful day. Lots of great photos! Click here to see them all.
MUSH-ine! (When we sing that, Allen always laughs. Unless he doesn't want to say that.)
Weather is pretty bad here for our usual Mother's Day-type activities... I always like to get outside, but it's 50 and drizzle and howling wind. So, we went bowling instead! At Brunswick Zone Lakeside.
We all did pretty well! Emilyn bowled an 80 (plus a 61 in a game she finished for Allen) and a whopping 121!! I bowled a 113, 148 and 129. (My elbow gave out somewhere around the beginning of the third game.) Daddy bowled a 115 and a 162. He was really in the zone there that last one.
Allen got to roll the ball down the ramp a couple times before he tired of the whole experience. Buying him some popcorn and a slushie brought him around, and he enjoyed watching his sister knock down the pins.
Dinner later, but I'm not sure where. We expect every place to be crawling with moms.
We watch a lot of Discovery Health, Emilyn and I. Today we were watching stories of moms pregnant with twins who had twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome. It's a disease in which the placenta has abnormal blood vessels that are shared, unevenly, between identical twins. One twin grows, while the other lags behind. The twin that gets more circulation is actually in danger, too, because the extra blood volume can stress the developing heart. The amazing thing, though, is that they're developing fetal surgery techniques that can stop or ease the problem, allowing both twins to develop more normally. Wow! Operating on babies in the womb! It's a miracle of modern medicine, and it makes you thankful every day for your healthy babies.
Anyhoo, that's not the funny part. We watched several women afflicted with this problem have their C-sections when the babies reached viable gestation (they have to deliver the babies as soon as possible for the best chance at survival)... Allen was watching, too.
Allen: "What's that baby covered in?"
Mommy: "He's covered in goo."
Allen: "Where's the goo come from?"
Mommy: "It comes from the mommy's tummy."
**pause**
Emilyn: "Do you believe that you were in Mommy's tummy?"
Allen: (thinks for a second) "I'm not covered in goo now!"
Happy Mother's Day, to all our favorite moms.
Allen is doing a great job singing the "Thomas" theme song, and, to my great shock, he readily did it for the camera! Take a listen!
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Emilyn and her troop have "flown up" from Brownies to Junior Girl Scouts. Today's event in the school library was rich in ceremony, pomp and pageantry (OK, but lots of giggling). And cake. And punch. Yum!
Yesterday, the third grade fired up the buses and headed out to the Weldon Spring cleanup and prairie reclamation site. Basically, it's a giant rock mound covering up decades of toxic waste left behind by a munitions plant. Great place for a field trip!
No, it really was fun. And not at all toxic. At least, I don't think so. And educational! We learned about prairie plants and animals, then made a butterfly feeder. Then, we learned all about rocks and minerals, and studied some up close. After lunch, we ran like mad outside the interpretive center for an orienteering challenge. And then it was time for a trip up the slag pile... The top is the highest publicly accessible point in St. Charles County! Plus, it feels like you're on the moon! Good exercise, too. Lots of wind, though.
Allen has reached that 2-year-old culinary milestone... He always wants something else to eat. Something else, as in, anything other than what you just gave him. I guess you could call it "meal ADD."
Breakfast is now, at least, a three-bowl affair. You give him what he asked for, usually cereal, in a bowl. He takes two bites and tells you he didn't want milk on it. That's the end of that bowl. So, then you give him some of another kind of cereal, this time dry. Then he comes up with the third thing that he wanted all along... a Pop-Tart.
So, I've adopted the "tapas" principle for Allen's meals. I give him three bites of something. That's about all that will hold his attention anyway. Sometimes I'll give him three different things, three bites each. And it's best not to let him decide. I just tell him that it's time for breakfast and put him in front of his tiny selections for the day.
He must like breakfast, because he wants it all day. Whenever he's hungry, he'll stroll into the kitchen and announce, "I want some breakfast, please." Luckily, we're like Denny's and will serve it all day.
Allen is getting very picky about a lot of things. Here are some current gems from his lexicon...
All aboard! Every good boyhood needs at least one stop at the Museum of Transportation, where Allen got the chance yesterday to see some big trains!
We rode on a trolley, rode on a small train and climbed into the biggest steam locomotive ever. Emilyn and Grandma scavenged for things beginning with each letter of the alphabet, and Daddy heard the siren song of the car building. To see it all, click here.
Yes, we felt it.
We had a magnitude 5.2 earthquake this morning at 4:37, centered in eastern Illinois, near the Indiana border. We had a pretty hefty aftershock at 10:15, with a magnitude of 4.6.
Here's what the big quake looked like on the Evansville, Ind., morning newscast:
I woke up when I heard everything on the dresser shaking, plus the windows... I thought it was thunder, or maybe a big truck, but of course it lasted a lot longer than either of those would have. In the morning, Emilyn asked: "Did you hear the thunder last night?" I didn't know for sure yet that we'd had an earthquake, and I didn't want to worry her... (She now knows we had a couple of small quakes.)
A few hours later, Allen and I were in the living room for the big aftershock... The fireplace grate started rattling, and I went into the kitchen to note the time. (The little guy didn't notice a thing.) I panicked for a second, because I had Allen to worry about, but it was over quickly. I knew the newscast at 11 would tell me if it was a real aftershock, and it was... a pretty big one, they said. They said the aftershocks would come at decreasing intensity for as many as three weeks!
All of this came not on the famous New Madrid fault, but its lesser cousin, the Wabash fault. In eastern Illinois, there was damage to some buildings, and some old brick homes here had cracks. But the roads and bridges all checked out OK.
OK, usually I don't get excited about things like this... But I think upping my exercise to five days a week, vs. three, is really working this time. Thanks to my New Balance shoes!
Plus, I'd also like to thank South Beach Diet 100 Calorie Snack Bars. These things are packed with fiber and protein and really keep me from feeling hungry after work. And, they're peanut butter-chocolate chip, so, there you go.
My breakfast solution is Fiber One Caramel Crunch. I used to skip breakfast to cut calories. Then, of course, by lunch I was starving. I started buying this cereal while we were at the beach, and it's really yummy.
So, fiber, protein and more exercise. These are my recommendations. We'll see how I do in two weeks, when I have Weigh Day again.
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I don't talk a lot about work here... It's pretty much unethical, and I sure don't want any trouble. But, spreading the love for the paper and STLtoday.com, our website, is A-OK, I think.
The Weatherbird is the Post-Dispatch's page one cartoon. He's been on the front page of the paper for over 100 years. One of the singular duties of the copy desk is to come up with the "birdline," the bird's comment on the headlines of the day. It's a fun, free-association, bad-pun session that keeps our minds sharp.
Anyway, a lot of people at work are spreading the word about our online products, and coming up with some cool new toys in the process. My friend Erica is leading the way on Facebook, and she came up with this cool "widget" (that's what they call a Web tool that you can paste into your website or blog) that features the Weatherbird from days past, plus the birdline. I've posted it here on The Crabbe Trap, in the left-hand column about halfway down. If you click on the birdline, it'll take you to that day's Weatherbird on STLtoday.com.
Just gives you another chance to see what it is that I do all night.
Spring has a fleeting quality in St. Louis. Last year, we had two springs, about six weeks apart. But I think this one will be it. (Of course, it's snowing right now in Kansas, so maybe I speak too soon.) Anyway, I wanted to capture it while it's here. Enjoy the slideshow.
A breakthrough in the last week or so... Allen is using his "I's"! Now, he uses "I" almost more than he does "you." We're pretty proud of the little guy! Of course, his little toddler pleadings seemed cuter when they started out "You want a..."
He's sick right now. Bad fever last night and this morning. But he's feeling better this afternoon. Even playing and talking and running almost like normal. This morning when I picked him up out of the crib, he felt fresh out of the oven. And he has one red ear. Just the outside rim. It's red and hot. Well, it was red and hot. Now it's pink and warm. We're keeping an eye on it.
I've added two days of walking a week to my three days of biking. Trying to get somewhere, anywhere with this last 10 pounds I'm trying to lose!
So, my old sneakers were pretty much shot, and walking three miles in the pouring rain pretty much was the end of them. So, I did my standard thing: Picked up another $10 pair at Wal-Mart. 8 1/2 wide. The size I always buy.
Then, Steve heads to the New Balance store (as he does every few years) and buys his $125 fancy sneakers. Because he has some oddly shaped feet. No big deal. He needs 'em.
So, on my second walking day, it's raining. Again. I head out in my new $10 tennies. Well, I stayed dry... But my feet slid and wiggled and jammed and pulled and you name it in those shoes. It was a three-mile, soaking wet nightmare.
Now, I start to think: I could use some fancy New Balance walking shoes. Fit by a professional. And, because I paid a pretty disposable price for the poorly fitting Wal-Mart shoes, I figured I wasn't being extravagant buying another pair just 5 days later.
So, Michael at Brown's New Balance in Creve Coeur measures my foot. 7 1/2. D width. Are you kidding me!? I can't remember the last time I bought a shoe smaller than an 8. I even have 9's in my closet! (He made a funny remark about most women who come in there insisting their feet are smaller than he says. And there I am insisting mine are bigger.)
So, I strap on the $99 New Balance shoe, size 7 1/2 D. It feels pretty snug, but pretty good! When I'm walking, all I want is a shoe that fits, something my foot doesn't move around in. I figure I've been buying big shoes all this time just to get the width I need. Makes sense, I guess. And a dress shoe doesn't need to fit like a walking shoe. You aren't going to put any stress on it.
Anyway, I'm a 7 1/2 D. And I can't wait until my next walking day!
A while back, Daddy decreed that Allen could no longer play with his tiny box of precision screwdrivers. And a young boy's world was shattered.
Then Mommy remembered they had packs of tiny screwdrivers just like that one at the dollar store. Well, never has $1.07 made someone so happy. (And he actually has more screwdrivers in his pack than Daddy does!)
Which leads to more wisdom from Allen: He was dawdling over his breakfast yesterday, and playing with his new prize. "You gonna eat that Pop-Tart?" I asked. He replied: "No. You'll get your screwdrivers all sticky."
(Please remember, the boy still doesn't totally understand pronouns.)
Allen is busy scribbling two big blobs with his purple marker. "Look at these things you drew!" he says.
"What are you drawing, buddy?" Mommy asks.
"You're drawing these things!"
"Yes, but what are those things?" Mommy asks.
"They're things that you drew!"
Ahhhh. OK.
Spring is, well, rather aggressive this year. This bulb came right up through a leaf!
My friend Norma and her family just got back from vacation in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Anyway, this cool critter was a resident of their resort... An albino peacock! Click on the picture to read Norma's blog and see more about her trip to Mexico. (Dolphins, pirates and... shark urinals?)
One story I forgot to share... Emilyn had her last baby tooth pulled on Tuesday.
Well, "pulled" is a strong term. It was more like "plucked," actually. It was one of those cases where her big tooth had come in behind the baby one, and the baby one just kept riding up and up and up on her gum. It was down to almost nothing, but it never got loose enough to fall out on its own.
So, we went to see Dr. Dunagan, and she gave us two options, depending on the level of cooperation that Emilyn was prepared to put forth: Have an oral surgeon put her out and take it out. Or have a little sweet air in the nose and have Dr. Dunagan take it out.
Seemed simple enough to get it taken care of right then and there. Well, Emilyn was very nervous, and wasn't too keen on the feelings she was feeling, and she yanked the "strawberry air" nozzle off her nose once. When she got relaxed a bit, Dr. Dunagan numbed up her gum with novacaine. Then, Emilyn sort of twisted a bit in the chair... I thought she was convulsing, but Dr. Dunagan said it was normal for kids to get a bit jerky while on the gas. Emilyn got very still, and Dr. Dunagan reached in and plucked the tooth out. The actual extraction took the time it would take you to pick lint off your jacket. Seemed to Mommy like a lot of chemicals for the trouble, but what do I know?
The best part is the tales Emilyn told once the oxygen started flowing into her nose, and she came back to us. (Again, it's important to remember that she was still for about 20 seconds.) She got very chattery, as you do sometimes coming off anesthesia. "Was I asleep? Man! I fell asleep! I was dreaming! I dreamed I was on a ferris wheel and went up and down and up and down, and then I dreamed I was a baby, and somebody was trying to put me in a food dish..." And on and on.
I guess she handles her chemicals about as well as Mommy does. But finds the experience as fascinating as Daddy does. A deadly combination!
(Here's a great link on pediatric nitrous oxide... Emilyn had the strawberry one!)
Tonight's the night for the much-delayed Daddy Daughter Dance, for all the Sorrento Springs Girl Scouts. This year's theme is "sock hop." It's normally a Valentine's type thing, but it got snowed out last month.
Look how cute they are! (I'll get a review of the festivities later.) To see more, click here.
Mom and Dad's house has sold. Really. Bill got the check. Really. It's real. We've got our money. And it took just under two years. Whew.
Ashley and Tyler discover that Easter at Grandma Laurie's is always fun! (Though I'm not sure she had egg salad...)
The bunny got snowed on here this morning. March 23. Give me a break!
After waffles, we got right down to business coloring Easter eggs... Daddy is the master!
Emilyn, Steve and Allen bring you this report from deep inside the Meramec flood zone.
Emilyn has gotten her ears pierced! Daddy and Allen took her to Claire's and did the deed this evening. They did them both at once and it didn't hurt too much, she says. Little gold balls, she says. Daddy says I have to buy some crappy Q-tips to clean her ears 3 times a day for the next 6 weeks. (Check out the Claire's link above. They have copious amounts of data on caring for your piercings.) Photos to come!
If you want to know how we're handling the flooding, take a look at this photo, which ran on the cover of the paper this morning, taken by J.B. Forbes from a rented helicopter (we spare no expense!):
The road running from left to right is Interstate 44. The flooded road running from top to bottom is state Highway 141. The parking lot you see at the bottom left is a Bob Evans, which is right next to Emilyn's favorite, Ruby Tuesday. Click on the picture if you'd like to read our latest flood story on STLtoday.com.
So, for us, the flood is making it very hard to get around. When we go to La Plaza today, we'll have to head north and east, then back south and west, instead of going south straight through this mess. For that, we'd need a johnboat.
The water is supposed to go down in a couple of days. Today, with the crest at hand, they were fearing they'd have to close Interstate 44 entirely.
Boy, it's been raining with a capital R here in St. Louis for the past 3 days. Bad flooding everywhere. We didn't have nearly this much weather trouble at the beach! Lots of great pictures and stories and video to share... Here's the best story:
On the beach in Alabama, we met a woman from Missouri. That wasn't so weird.
Turns out she's from St. Louis. That wasn't so weird.
Turns out she's from West County. That wasn't so weird.
Turns out she's from Manchester, about 2 miles from our house. That wasn't so weird.
Turns out her daughter is Emilyn's art teacher. That was pretty weird!
For more, check out the posts that will pop in below this one, with the dates from our trip. Enjoy!
Ahhh, Missouri. It's amazing how cheap $3.04 looks when you've been traveling around in the land of $3.25.
We rolled into MO Tuesday morning, and made it to Lambert's for an early lunch. That place is just amazing. So cheap, cash only, and they give you so much food! I passed a lady eating a salad as big as a steering wheel! Daddy got heaps of fried okra. And, of course, the throwed rolls. Nothing like it.
Just outside of Memphis is Southaven, Mississippi. It's a pretty big suburb-type town. Think Paramus.
Anyway, after a few tries, we found a nice hotel, the Comfort Suites, where they offer fancy snacks and free beer from 5:30 to 6:30! That's nice for the Crabbes after a weary day of driving.
