A boy and his dinner

Last night we had corndogs and tater tots for dinner. Yes, the foods of the gods.

Declan, as hard as he tried, could not keep from calling them teeter totters. And boy, did he love those teeters. He also reminded me of the fact that I'm surrounded by boys when he absentmindedly (while listening to Logan talk about something) held his corndog horizontally and quietly made the sounds of cocking and shooting a gun. I mean, he was fairly enthralled in whatever Logan was telling him, but he still managed to hold the little part of his subconscious open that makes corndogs weapons.

The Mommy Dot

When we moved to Utah, my friend Char had two kids that were about 4 and 1 at the time. She's since doubled her brood and is contemplating insanity by adding #5, but that's neither here nor there.

Char taught me a little trick way back when that I thought was a stroke of parenting genius (geniouse) and has been filed away in my mind for the stage of parenting I'm in now. That is, dealing with young folks who break lamps and then lie about it to avoid trouble. When Char's kid would lie about something and Char knew (or had a significant hunch) that she was being sold a houseboat in the Sahara, she said she could see the Mommy Dot. The Mommy Dot itself shows up on an unsuspecting, lying child's forehead. It's angry red in color, revealing the indignation and frustration of a parent being lied to. (OK, I may have self-projected there.) It's supposed to be seen only by parents but Logan has sworn up and down that he can see it on Dex. Technically that would mean a dot should be appearing on Logan's forehead as well, but I'm pretty sure the deal is that he and Dex get into trouble together and Logan knows the whole story so I let it slide.

Anyway, by telling a particular child that the Mommy Dot is showing and it's showing because Mommy knows the kid is lying, an amazing thing comes out: the truth. The kid, believing he is caught in a lie all of a sudden wants to come clean and reveal all. Seriously, this is parenting *magic*.

My kids believe in the Mommy Dot as desperately as they believe in Santa. The best part is they give themselves away, sometimes when I'm not even suspecting a lie. I've had conversations with them about mysterious events around the house that have a question and answer session ending in, "Can you see my dot?" Declan has been known to clap his hand to his forehead while talking to me about whether or not he drank milk in the living room. Once when I asked him if it was true that he hit Logan, he said no and immediately sighed heavily, slouched his shoulders and said, "You can see my dot, can't you?"

It's a miracle, folks.

Our latest foray in to the world of dots came the other night when Ed realized the boys had done something to his TV though he'd asked him repeatedly not to touch it. The two of them adamantly promised that they did nothing to it! No way would they touch the TV after Daddy had told them not to! How could we even think such a thing?!

After Ed left the room, each boy asked me quietly if I could see dots on either of them. Clearly, they were both involved. Together. Helping each other. Tag team mischief in action. And the story came out.

Now - if Char could get to work and please invent some parenting magic that will make kids think twice before getting into trouble, that would be awesome.

A pretty good sum-up of parenting these boys

I was searching through my email for something, and I came across a conversation between Ed and I that occured a few months back. Here it is, in its entirety:

Ed: Did Declan cut himself shaving?
Me: Yes, on Saturday.

(No explanation asked. None needed.)

Heroism

This morning, as I was getting out of bed, my foot got caught in the sheets (quiet, you) and I yelped. Declan, hearing my cry, yelled from the living room, "I'll save you, Mommy!" We heard his little feet coming running at Declan speed and in a second, he appeared in our room, climbed up on the bed, and tackled Chris who was still laying there. At that point, he did his best to wrestle Chris down for hurting me while Chris laughed and protested that he hadn't done a thing to me. (Of course, Chris did give me the what-for because I was singing the Planet of the Apes musical (from the Simpsons) in bed which he didn't appreciate. Frankly, I consider that tackle-and-wrestle worthy.)

In other news, Logan calls his *ahem* region coconuts. We got in Chris's car yesterday and as we drove off, Logan quite pleasantly exclaimed, "Ooh! This car is vibrating my coconuts!"

Also, Declan calls lasagna masanga, and that's amusing in its own right.

What's that noise?

Last night, as Chris was walking to bed past Logan's room, Logan stopped him and asked him what that noise was. Chris, confused because he hadn't heard any odd noises, asked what noise Logan was talking about. Logan's response: "Like an apple screaming."

Logan also decided tonight that when Aldin (the "bad kid" at school) grows up, he's going to be a car salesman because car salesmen are liars. (Ed? Was that you?)

Haircuts and things

We've had some craziness around the house for the past couple weeks, and I've gotten out of my routine. The posting has obviously been scarce. That may not change immediately, either.

On a more amusing note, Logan, Chris, and I were watching "Return of the Jedi" the other night after Declan was in bed. At the end, after the Emporer was destroyed by Vader (sorry if I'm giving away the ending) and Luke and Vader were having their final chat, Logan looked up at me and said, "Did Darth Vader go back to the bright side?"

We did haircuts for the boys yesterday. Chris has been harrassing me for Declan's hippiness. The boy's hair has gotten long and unruly and I've been resistant to cutting it because of the curls. But I think I got it out of my system and we'll keep his hair short and under control until he's old enough to take care of it himself. Here's a picture of him before it was cut (well, the curls in the back while he was looking for "circle cheese" in the fridge). [Crappy photo, but you get the idea, right?]


And here's one of the boys together after getting buzzed down. They were quite excited about life at the moment.

See ya in hell, tonsils

A few months back, during our visit to the family doctor, we decided that given Logan's age and consistent struggle with the s and z sounds, it was probably time to see a speech therapist. The speech therapist said that for those specific sounds Logan was jamming all the air through his nose, but for the rest of his speech, not enough air was getting through. She recommended we take him to see an ENT. Good thing we already had an appointment made, because the doctor who recommended the speech therapist had gasped something that sounded strangely similar to "For crying out loud!" and, "Look at the size of those bastards!" when Logan said "aaah" and showed him his tonsils. He'd also suggested the ENT.

Enter Dr. Peterson, the guy who put tubes in Logan's ears last March. Even way back then, he was impressed at the sheer girth of the tonsils in Logan but figured he was going to be going through enough with the tubes in his ears and the biopsy on the lump in his neck and decided we'd come back another time for the rest. Last month after checking Logan out and talking to me about Logan's sleeping habits (snoring like a chainsaw, tossing and turning all night, beast to wake up in the morning), he figured the tonsils and adenoids were prime for removal. They were obviously causing speech problems and it was very likely they were causing sleep apnea as well, forcing Logan to wake himself up and roll over so he could breathe.

So the -ectomies were scheduled. Chris stayed home to keep Declan fat and happy while Logan and I met Ed and Amy at the surgical center. Logan was clearly nervous, and I had him call Grandpa on the drive. They chit chatted about the things those two mischievous boys chit chat about and Logan's mind was beautifully distracted. Once there, the nurse got Logan changed into his hospital gown and explained everything he could expect. We all watched Monsters, Inc. while we waited for his turn and he seemed to relax a little - until the anesthesiologist came to take him one direction while Mom, Dad and Amy went another. He started crying and Ed did his best to reassure him things would be fine but there wasn't much we could do other than let him go.

While we waited, Ed, Amy and I learned about making pilgrims out of urine hats (seriously) and talked about Amy's childhood experiment with biking + roller skating. It was only about a half hour before the doctor came to tell us the tonsils were out, and Logan was fine and starting to wake up. He said he was amazed at the size of the tonsils and adenoids - they were in the top 5 largest he'd ever seen and they were bringing in doctors and nurses from around the area to gawk and awe at them. Ed said he felt like he won some sort of contest.

Logan had a rough time coming out of the anesthesia. He fell asleep mid-cry a few times, which completely broke my heart. The three of us parents did our best to comfort him and encourage him to drink juice or eat an ice pop so we could go home. Logan was desperate to get the IV out (they put it in his foot so he wouldn't be pawing at it) and that turned out to be his popsicle-eating motivation. Once the popsicle and medicine were down, the IV was removed and we were cleared to go.

I expected him to sleep all day and put up a fight about eating anything, given his reluctance at the hospital. But once we got here, he went to town eating several popsicles, a bowl of ice cream, a bowl of jello, some grapple juice, and even mashed potatoes for dinner. He asked Chris to order him a pizza (denied!) and kept wanting to get up and play.

Now that it's over, Logan sounds younger and doesn't have the hot potato quality to his voice anymore. Once he heals up, we'll get him into speech therapy regularly to help him learn to make the s's and z's properly. But for the moment, he's doing great. Another childhood milestone completed.