The Fish Pond

Lesson Learned: Reasons Not to Stay Up All Night Drinking When You Are a Parent, Besides the Obvious

So, BigDaddyFish and I have been going through - something. I don't know what. Maybe a mid-life crisis? But we're both going through it together. We've been doing a lot of talking and connecting and going out together and just generally enjoying each other's company in ways we did back when we were dating and in the earlier years of our marriage, before the kids came along. And we've rediscovered a love of good red wine. It's been a lot of fun, and the kids have been patient with us. Most of the time.

This past weekend, BDF and I polished off a bottle of wine, and then...well. We were stupid. We moved on to scotch. We didn't go to bed until 7 am Saturday morning, and then got about three hours of sleep before we had to get up with the kids and be functional. We spent the day doing things for the kids, spending time with them, taking them to a cafe next to the train tracks in a nearby town that we like to frequent because we can eat good food and watch the trains go by right there. Our homeowner's association recently replaced the playgrounds in our development (like, last week) so we took the kids over to play on the new playground (which is awesome). We just focused on them. But that can only go so far. My stomach was roiling most of the day, though I never got sick, but the thought of cooking the ham I had planned to make was unappealing at best, so we cried Uncle, or, specifically, Uncle Dave (side note - he played the 9:30 club in DC on Friday night while BDF and I were trying to recapture our youth - check out that clip of him singing Sledgehammer), and he came to take care of the kids (bonus - he totally got them to clean up the family room, too. We'd be lost without him) while BDF and I went out for hangover curing burgers and fries. And no alcohol. We came home not long after the kids went to bed, and we went to bed ourselves.

At about 3 am, Trout came into our room complaining about a headache and sore throat. She hadn't eaten any dinner at all and had gone to bed early without complaining, and we had suspected for days she was coming down with something. She had a fever of 102, so we gave her some ibuprofen and a small snack, encouraging her to drink water and eat a bit. That backfired as she threw up about 20 minutes later, so we put her in the shower and got her cleaned up and cooled down and put back to bed at about 4 or so. She usually is our early riser, getting up between 7 and 8 (how we had a morning person is a mystery) and going down to watch tv, and she keeps an eye on the littles as they get up and come down while we sleep in. She did get up and go to watch tv, but she wasn't feeling well, and wasn't paying much attention to what was going on around her. BDF and I slept in rather late, finally dragging our asses out of bed about noon when Sunny and Little Man shrieked that Nemo was poopy. We told them to send him up and we'd take care of it.

When Nemo arrived in my room, he was soaking wet up to his shoulders, which to me meant only one thing: disaster. Visions of his previous forays into playing in the toilet crossed my mind, but Little Man told us he'd been in the kitchen, which we keep gated off, though everyone but Nemo can open the gate. I sent Little Man down to survey the damage in the kitchen while I changed Nemo, worried that the cleaning product cabinet had been left unlocked, or worse. I could not have imagined what actually happened.

Nemo got in the fish tank. He decided he wanted to play with the shee-shees, so he put the following items in the fish tank with the fish: two full cans of Juicy Juice concentrate (unopened), a couple of Christmas ornaments (one plastic, one glued), a piece from a Plan Toys vegetable garden set, my brand new stainless steel pepper grinder full of peppercorns (fully submerged), at least one Fisher Price Little People animal, a hair clip, Little Man's magic wand from magic club, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some things. He had messed up the filter, and I'm thanking God almighty that the light wasn't plugged in - we unplug it every night when we go to bed, and the kids don't plug it in - otherwise he might have been electocuted.

BDF went down to deal with the carnage from that as I got Nemo cleaned up and changed, and got dressed to take Trout to Doc-in-a-Box, as she was still feeling (and looking) just awful, and BDF suspected she had strep (she didn't, I was right, "just" a virus). He dealt with fishing (ha!) things out of the tank, and then he marshalled the remaining healthy kids to clean up the family room. I was supposed to go to a rubber stamp workshop, but with a sick Trout it just wasn't possible - taking all 4 kids to Doc-in-a-Box when only one needed it is a level of crazy that even BDF and I haven't achieved. DIAB was empty, though, so we were there and back pretty quick.

Even after fishing all the stuff out of the tank the water was still pretty cloudy. BDF had done a partial water change while I was gone, but he decided he wanted to do a full change but we didn't have enough water. So I went out to buy a bunch of gallons of distilled water. Before I left, though, I made a couple of sandwiches, and as I stood there eating my sandwich I studied the tank, and noticed something that looked a little weird on the bottom of the tank.

_{Yes, I actually could see in there.}

There were a bunch of little round things, odd looking things, like some sort of durable hard cereal, mixed in among the gravel on the bottom of the tank. BDF started fishing those out, and we found this:

_{Doesn't BDF have nice hands?}

A washable crayon, hence the reason the water wasn't coming clear even after a partial change, and the better part of a pound of knock-off m&ms from the bulk section of Whole Foods.

 

A full water change was in order, so I made a speed run and we changed the water. The stress of the whole thing made one of our females go into labor, so we got to see the baby fish before the goldfish manged to find and eat them all, which is something we knew was going on but we didn't want to think about, much less explain to the kids (we'll go back to breeding them once we have a new house and space to do it again - we bred before and at one time had 17 fish tanks [and a dog!] in an apartment). Miraculously, all the fish survived and don't really seem any worse for wear, other than the premature labor. It'll be a while before the tank conditions return to normal, though; all the plants are coated with cocoa butter and some sort of waxy substance from the m&ms.

This is the tank Sunday evening - it really didn't look any different the whole day on Monday, either. We had a good long talk with the kids about how important it is for HIS OWN SAFETY for Nemo to be kept out of the kitchen, and that they must always always always shut the gate when they go through it. We don't want anyone to get hurt.

So what have we learned boys and girls? Keeping the fish tank away from the fish-loving two year old isn't as easy as it seems. And for God's sake, save your midlife crises for times when a competent adult is in charge.

Lesson learned.

Transitions

I never intended to have a family bed. To the best of my knowledge, I never, ever slept with my parents, and I fully intended that my babies would spend a short amount of time in my room in a bassinet and then transition to their own cribs in their own rooms when they outgrew the bassinet. (I also never intended to have four kids, so the own rooms thing worked well.)

Everything went according to plan until Trout was three months old, when she developed RSV. We spent three days not sleeping at all, just staying up all night staring at her to make sure she kept breathing. Once she recovered, I went back to putting her to sleep in the crib, but BigDaddyFish had a little Daddy Freakout and decided he couldn't sleep with her so far away from us, so he went and got her and brought her to our bed. I argued against it for a while, but frankly it was easier to nurse, and she was a good kid to share a bed with - she pretty much stayed put all night long, no kicking or shoving. She shared our bed until she was 16 months old and we knew her brother was on his way.

The move from our bed and room to the crib in her own room was wrenching but thankfully over in a week. The first night she screamed and cried for three hours. BDF slept on the floor beside the crib so he could soothe her periodically and she could adjust to the crib before she was alone. The second night, she cried for 45 minutes, and then sat in the crib giving us the stinkeye every time we walked by the room to check on her for about four hours. The third night she cried maybe ten minutes, then went to sleep after about an hour. Within a week, BDF was out of her room and back in our bed and Trout was sleeping by herself. She didn't stay in the crib very long, because we needed the crib for her brother and we didn't want to kick her out of the crib when he was born. We were idiots, and in hindsight we should have just bought another crib. But we moved her to a toddler bed instead.

Then we had the two hour ritual of me reading book after book and then sitting beside her bed so she could fondle her favorite comfort object as she drifted off to sleep, my hair being that comfort object. After too many nights of me dozing off and waking with a crick in my neck three hours later, I wised up and bought her a doll with hair, and she learned to fondle it instead of me. She later got another doll with hair, which she still sleeps with every night.

Little Man was easy, because he really didn't do well sleeping with us. He helicopters around, wanders all over the place, and talks in his sleep. It didn't take us long at all to discover that we all slept better with him in the crib. By the time he had outgrown the bassinet we had finally relaxed about his birth circumstances, so the transition to the crib at about four months went smoothly.

Sunny was a champion nurser, so she slept with us for years. We started trying to make the transition to her own bed when she was just shy of two and we bought her a toddler bed. We set it up in the corner of our bedroom, and went through an agonizing six month process to get her actually moved to the bed and then the bed moved from our room to the room she shares with her sister. She was still nursing at the time for a part of it, though she had weaned down to once a day. BDF and I went on a trip just before her second birthday and through that we were able to cut her off and finally wean. She still tries to come to our bed at least one night a week, but now I'm able to promise her a sticker in the morning if she stays in her bed all night and that works.

Which brings us to Nemo. I have been trying desperately to get him weaned; I want my body back, after three full years of pregnancy and more than 70 months of nursing, but he has other ideas. I also want some sleep, and I don't think that's asking too much.

Nemo has been sleeping in our bed with us since he was born. It was easier to nurse, and really, we had no place to put him. We have a three bedroom townhouse. The house itself is huge, and we have a lot of living space, and the master bedroom is a good size. But the other two bedrooms are really small. Trout and Sunny are crammed into one room, Sunny still in her toddler bed, Trout in a twin bed, but with the windows in that room we can't really make any changes in there - the windows come down to within 24 inches of the floor. Beds can't go underneath them because my kids would find it rather too easy to jump through the window. Little Man is crammed into a bedroom little bigger than your average walk-in closet, with a closet that is only 6 inches deep for most of its width. At about age 1 I set the crib up at the foot of our bed, and we tried to get Nemo to sleep in it, but he decided it was baby prison rather than a comfy, cozy place to sleep, and he would scream til he puked. Crying it out, which I certainly would have considered, wasn't really an option because sooner or later, we had to come to our own room to sleep, and he'd just start back up where he left off. So back into our bed with us. No one has been getting much sleep because Nemo will wake up in the night and need us to help him get back to sleep, either through playing or through nursing, and he wanders all over the bed and kicks and shoves and is a lot stronger than his brother. I want my bed back to just me and my husband.

Over time, I've been putting him in the crib at other times than bedtime, just to get him used to it. I'd fold laundry on my bed while he played in the crib. A couple of times Superbabysitter was able to get him to go to sleep in the crib, though he really won't reveal his secrets as to how. I'd been asking BDF to put Nemo to bed, because if the Nummies were around he asked for them, but was okay without them if they weren't an option. Slowly, over a course of months, BDF worked on getting Nemo to sleep in the crib. And in a stroke of genius that only a dad would think of, I think, one night he gave Nemo the Gameboy with a Little Einsteins game in it, a game so easy that you really only have to push one button to make it do anything and Nemo can manage to play it well enough to keep it going. He kissed Nemo goodnight, layed him down in the crib, covered him up, and let him play the Gameboy til he fell asleep. And he did.

So now, a couple of nights a week my son sleeps through the night. Yes, he's two (yeah, he had a birthday this past weekend) and should have been doing it all along, but he'd wakeup in the night and wow - Nummies! Think I'll grab a snack! and sit up and smack me in the face (literally!) shouting "Mom! Mom! Nummies!" until I rolled over and ponied up. He doesn't do that now, because they aren't right there in his face. Some nights he'll get up and yell at us until one of us brings him into bed with us, but sometimes BDF is able to get him to lay back down and go back to sleep by rubbing his back and telling him to go back to sleep. We also discovered a deep affinity for glowsticks, so sometimes we mix it up with the Gameboy and give him a glowstick. Best of all, as long as I keep the girls covered up, I can put him to bed without him asking to nurse, provided he didn't nap too late during the day.

Now, I'm getting more sleep, though thanks to my husband, still not enough. But more than I used to. It's been so nice that BDF is now thinking more seriously about what we need to do in this economy to get moved to a bigger house, where Little Man and Nemo can share a room and the hormones girls can have their own rooms, because he's liking being able to snuggle his wife with something other than his foot since there's no kid in the way. His wife's kinda liking it, too.

So Many Topics, So Little Time to Write

I have so many things I want to write about, so many posts floating around in the ether of my brain, but both of my littles have what we affectionately refer to as The Hacking Death and between wiping snot, cleaning up puke after the kids cry or cough so hard they puke, doing the ensuing laundry, driving people around all over, and just trying to get some sleep so I'm better able to handle said activities I haven't had the time to write anything. So, please forgive me, but I'm just going to throw some bullets out there so at least some of it can get out of my head and leave me more room to fit in all the information about mortgage qualifying:

• Tuesday afternoons Little Man has a sports class at our local community center. The class is only 45 minutes long, so the rest of us just sit in the car and Trout does her homework, we listen to music, and if she gets done quickly enough we watch a movie. I sometimes let Sunny and Nemo out of their carseats to stretch their legs, and this week Nemo slept while Sunny was free to move about the cabin. All of a sudden Trout starts shouting about how Sunny is coloring on the car - yes, my not-even-two-month-old van. Somehow Sunny found a random piece of crayon floating in the air somewhere (because I have not allowed any such items in the new van) and colored on the window, carseats, upholstery, speaker covers, whatever struck her fancy. I was livid. It appears that the crayon was a washable one, though, because a babywipe took care of most of the mess. I reminded her once again that she was ONLY TO COLOR ON PAPER!! and thought that was the end of it. Which it was until Little Man got in the car on Wednesday morning to go to school and found where I wasn't able to remove some of the crayon from his booster seat (which he will ride in until he gets his driver's license as he appears to have my genes). "Who colored on my seat???" he shouted, and I told him Sunny had and that I'd get it later and to buckle up. "AAAUUGHH! That..that.." he struggled with the words, and since he's been experimenting with colorful language lately I thought I knew what was coming. "She is SUCH. A. LITTLE... RASCAL!!" he said angrily as he stomped his foot. Yeah, she is.
• I am my own worst enemy, I swear. Tuesday morning I had to scramble around to get all four kids up and ready to go - the bigs to school, Sunny to her preschool, and Nemo comes with me to my therapy appointment. We got up early enough, got the bigs to school and went scrambling down to the preschool to drop Sunny off. I saw one of the moms who I know has younger kids with whom I sometimes share watching duty, where one of us watches the littles in the parking lot while the other runs in to get her big kid and then we switch, and I asked if she wanted me to watch her little one so she could run in. She said no, she'd be a while, and then asked me if I had a conference that day, to which I said no and looked at her quizzically. She told me there was no school that day, it was a conference day. Which I would have known if Sunny had gone to school on the previous Thursday and I had gotten the newsletter, but she didn't and I didn't. Doh. So there I was, with my therapy appointment, to which I have to take an almost-four year old. Yeah, I don't think so. I was able to scramble around and make arrangements for my SIL to watch her and was only 5 minutes late to my appointment.
• Saturday BigDaddyFish and I had a glorious day, just us. First we matched up the socks, then we went to an Indian restaurant and pigged out on the buffet. Then we went to the Air and Space Museum Annex - Udvar-Hazy Center and had a blast taking our own sweet time looking at exhibits and reading things with nobody going "Mooooom, this is booorring! Let's go!" or running around and trying to climb on the SR-71. They have added an F-14 since we were there last, probably my favorite among the fighter aircraft - awesome. They have a couple of flight simulators there, one that you can "fly" and one that you just ride along, and since we were unencumbered by small people I suggested we ride one. We chose for BDF to fly the plane and I would ride with him. We paid our money and got in line to go in, and they had a small tv screen showing us our "pre-flight" briefing. "This ride will be taking you upside down, so please leave all belongings in the locker provided." Say wha? Upside down? Nobody said anything about upside down. Have I mentioned I don't do flying, or heights for that matter, very well? Upside down? After eating a huge meal of Indian food? "You're going to pay for this," I said to BDF as we locked up our stuff. He was the pilot, I was the gunner, and the ride was 4.5 minutes long. Would you believe that we had so much fun? And I shot down 6 planes? And I only spent about 45 seconds with my eyes shut, and probably 45 seconds upside down? Then, as if the day wasn't great enough, we went to see Charlie Wilson's War, which was great, and THEN went out to dinner. We spent the entire day without the kids; we didn't fight or bicker at all. It was awesome. When you have small people depending on you it is so easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day details of living and forget why you got married in the first place - nurturing your marriage is as important as remembering to feed the kidlets. And men, if you take the time to go out and have fun with your wife, just the two of you, without complaining about how much it costs or whatever else you could be doing, it just might increase your chances of getting a little action. Dramatically.
• When we were doing the great clean out on Saturday and Sunday, we found several of what we believe are larvae for clothes moths. We have a lot of wool shirts, blankets, and socks that don't get used very often, and somewhere we have an infestation. I freak the heck out when worms or snakes are nearby - I HATE them. I'm weirded out by things without feet. So I screamed each time we came across one and squealed and got all squicked out and BDF squished them and put them in the trash. I was not aware that cedar is not necessarily a great repellent, and that stored items need to be checked at least once a year. So, now we are working on finding the source of the contamination and eliminating it, four or five vacuumings and multiple washings at a time, like we didn't have enough of that to do already. Ewwww.
• Friday night BDF and I got salads for dinner and he went upstairs to eat his while on the computer. Instead of taking it back down two floors to the kitchen when he was done, he just put it on a stool at the top of the stairs down to our kitchen, on the same floor as our bedrooms. Nemo woke up before us, and BDF put him on the floor to just let him run amok while we woke up fully. Sunny starts yelling about an awful smell, and we think it's Nemo's diaper or something and tell her to just be patient about it. Then she started complaining about a big mess and we decided we better get up to investigate. This is what we found:

Guess Nemo decided he didn't like the salad. Gem that he is, Uncle Orca (agincourtdb) cleaned it up for us when he arrived to babysit so BDF and I could go our for our date. Frankly, I was quite relieved that it had nothing to do with Nemo's diaper.

• Capital One are a bunch of scum-sucking bastards. Last month I either didn't receive a statement at all or I lost it in the jumble of papers on my table (most likely didn't receive because I still haven't found it). I realized it after the due date but before they sent me anything to hassle me about it, so I paid them something based on what I paid the previous month. We got that card because it had a 2.9% interest rate for the life of all balance transfers, so we transferred quite a large balance to it years ago and have been slowly paying it off; we cut the cards up and never used them. We've put that balance low on our list of things to pay off and put higher rate stuff as a higher priority in our quest to get out of debt. Well, they decided since we were late on our payment to jack the interest rate - to 27%. 27%. Pure insanity. I've been late on other cards years ago and if they raised the rates at all, which I don't remember them doing, it was only a point or two. I would have understood if they had raised it to something like 6-10% since that's what we had for purchases if we'd ever used the card, but this is highway robbery. We are lucky that we had the money for me to call up and pay them off this morning, and I'm closing the account immediately. They have lost us as a customer and we will be sure to warn everyone we know about them. If there is ever a chance you might be late with a payment (which would mean you are a normal person), don't be fooled by Capital One. Within two months we will have paid off all of our credit card debt, and all we'll have are our mortgage and one car payment. It feels fantastic.
• I am going through a major effort to simplify my life, cutting down on spending, paying off debt, not buying new stuff, decluttering, not watching much tv (American what?), cleaning, etc. It feels good and has helped my depression so very much, and has helped me not to feel so unsettled. I'm enjoying taking better care of my family, and in doing so, taking better care of myself.
• I'm thinking of going back to work some, ideally to pick up some freelance writing assignments, but haven't the first idea how to go about doing that. Anyone have any ideas they are willing to share, or willing to take on, I don't know, a jr. apprentice or helper or something? I'm willing to work cheap until I've proven myself. I used to be a technical writer/editor before I had kids, and I have an English degree, so I have a basis for this line of work; it's just the marketing/business side of things I'm clueless about.

So, how are you doing? Did I mention we're house hunting? In theory?

Brothers and Sisters

My kids fight. I know, shocker, right? It has been an interesting experience and study in psychology to watch my kids' relationships with one another develop.

Trout and Little Man are so close in age that Trout never remembered a time when he wasn't around. They fight from time to time, but mostly about how something or other is unfair; they are fiercely concerned about getting equal treatment, from me and BigDaddyFish, from their grandparents (and that is a whole 'nother post, since the grandparents don't treat them equally, to an egregious extent), from each other, from life. But they get along so well, most of the time, that Little Man, when questioned about his changing relationship with a girl in his class that he was going to "get married to" [totally their idea, I do think he should wait at least until middle school before considering that kind of commitment, but what do I know] who no longer likes him, he said "Too bad you can't get married to your sister."

"Which one?" I inquired. "Trout, sheesh, Mom." I can truly say that they are best friends, and that is awesome.

Nemo is too young, yet, to really have much of a relationship with any of his sibs, though he derives great delight at being a "big boy" on the few occasions when Little Man lets him into the forbidden land of his room, otherwise known as Legoland. The level of fighting really is only at the level of the bigger kids yelling because he has taken something that they didn't want him to have. Mostly, they just dote on him, and he revels in it.

The relationship between Sunny and Trout is more of a "little mother" kind of thing, because of the 5 year age difference between them. They share a room, and from time to time there are problems because Sunny gets into things that Trout wants kept sacred and won't listen when I tell her to pack away things that she doesn't want her sister getting into. There are fights about Trout's perception that Sunny gets away with a lot because she's little and cute (I simply remind Trout that she's little and cute and gets away with a lot, too, and ask her if she's aware of the influence that paid on her ability to sell hundreds of boxes of girl scout cookies). But mostly it's a bossy sort of thing, and easily remedied by reminding Trout that Sunny has a mother and doesn't need another and reminding Sunny to stay out of her sister's things.

Then there's Little Man and Sunny. Those two fight about EVERYTHING. They fight over toys. They fight over who gets to play with Trout. They fight over who gets to play with Nemo. They fight over what time bedtime is. They fight over something or other one of them wants to give they other and the other doesn't want. They fight over who needs to move out of who's way. They fight over...well, honestly, if you can think of anything in the life of a 3 or 6 year old, they fight over it.

Except.

For the better part of the last week, Little Man and Sunny have been getting along. Getting along so well, in fact, that he has been letting her sleep with him in his big-boy bed, since Sunny still only has a toddler bed and will until we move to a bigger house. They've slept snuggled up to each other, their heads slightly tilted toward each other, foreheads against each other, his arm slung over her body in a protective embrace. When awake, they have been playing, sharing toys. Last night we wouldn't let her sleep in his bed (he's been having a tougher time getting up for school so we're concerned with how well he's sleeping when she's there, though they haven't been staying up talking all night like we figured they'd do), so they sat on his bed with a huge book of Things that Go that he's "reading" to her, chapter by chapter, more like showing to her and narrating his own reports about each thing. That was enough to keep her from having a total meltdown about having to sleep in her own bed.

And that, my friends and readers who have one child and are expecting another and can't fathom how you can possibly love your new baby like you love your other child: that is what you get to witness. Not only will you love that new baby just like you love your older child, your love for the older one will grow, strengthen, deepen, as you watch that baby and your older child fall in love with each other. It's one of the greatest gifts ever.

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Been laying low a bit as I try to work through some heavy emotional and spiritual stuff right now. Please be patient and don't run away - I will be back stronger at the end, but it's hard when you're still in the trench.

What's in a Name

We're in Tarjay, and Sunny is clutching one of her many dolls to her chest, and I see her approach, moving slowly and smiling at my (I am biased, I know) adorable daughter, and I know what's coming.

"Hello there, little girl. That's a pretty dolly you have there. What's her name?" asks the grandmotherly woman.

"Fan-gu-la." Answers Sunny with a giggle.

The woman looks at me quizzically. "What's that, honey?"

"Sa-leee-nah." I shrug my shoulders.

"She likes to invent her own names," I venture, but the woman has already turned away, clearly wondering what's wrong with this child of mine.

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A lifetime ago, long before I had any of the kids, there was a new website launching, a website "just for women." I was having issues with my heart that hadn't been diagnosed properly, and I wanted to see what kind of medical information they had. In order to do that, I needed to sign up with a user id and password.

Well, I tried my first name, last name, my birthday, variations on that, and everything came up taken already (which I have a hugely hard time accepting, because my last name just isn't that common). So I knew I'd have to come up with something unusual, but I didn't want it to be too unusual because my brain was like a sieve even then, and I knew if it was too weird I'd never remember it. I also didn't want to give away too much about myself - I still am on the private side when it comes to what I'll reveal (Shut. Up. I am. I swear. I don't reveal as much as she does, so I'm good, right? Private. ahem.)

At that time, BigDaddyFish and I were major, major freshwater fish enthusiasts. We would still be now, if it weren't for the small people who we really don't want to drown or to tempt with all that water - imagine the mess. We lived in a fairly small 2 bedroom apartment on the third floor of a garden apartment building, and we had, at that time, 7 fish tanks.

Seven. Fish. Tanks. A couple hundred gallons of water, at least.

Filled mostly with swordtails and platties, but also some goldfish, including fancy ones, like my favorite orandas.

And we were involved in the breeding business. Ahem. Don't laugh.

I got a huge kick out of it every time our fish had babies. Swordtails and platties are live bearers, meaning they give birth just like people give birth, pushing their young out, instead of laying eggs and everything left up to chance that way. It was great fun to watch them being born, to see where the teeny fish swam off to hide from the predator big fish we didn't keep in the same tank (but, you know, fish have small brains. Especially fish smaller than my daughter's pinky toenail. So they didn't know that).

So on a goofy lark I typed in "FishyGirl" for my user id, thinking that had to be taken, too. It wasn't, and thus an online persona was born. Not as interesting as you hoped, right? But it's the truth.

But, did you know, there are more FishyGirls? Yep. Actually, there's more than one. One's an angler who lives down in Florida, and another is an artist in the UK. (at least, I think that site's devoted to their art. I might be wrong - it may just be stuff she likes, but either way - it's NOT me - I'm not into that kind of stuff). There are more, I am sure, but those are the ones that come up after me if you google FishyGirl. Several have ebay shops or cafepress shops, but none of them are me.

Anyway, I bring all of this up, because you will see a few changes coming up in the future here in The Fish Pond. I don't pretend to have any technological knowledge whatsoever, so once I can either figure out the mysteries of site hosting and related stuff myself or con my husband into it or find someone I can afford to pay to educate my lame brain, I will be making some changes on the site. I am bored with my site design and tag line, and I don't think typepad offers me the flexibility to change the site the way I want, but we'll see. I know what I want to see (I DO have design experience) I just haven't the first idea how to make it happen. I don't know a lick of HTML code. But it's time for a change.

So that's where you come in. Is there a feature that you'd like to see that would make The Fish Pond more useful for you? Easier to use? Content you'd like to see (fish pond installation? car seat tutorial? more poop stories? grammar tutorials?)? Got any bright ideas for taglines? There comes a time when we all need to grow, and I'm fast approaching this blog's second birthday, so it's time. Let me know what you think.

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Sunny will be four in less than two short months, and she has been growing in so many ways. She's discovered an interest in and talent for art, and she and Trout are taking drawing classes. At 3, I'd say I can tell what her drawings are easily without explanation a good 60% of the time, and in my experience that's amazing. She loves to sing, dance, and talk, talk, talk all day long. She never ever stops the narrative of her daily life. She also has an interest in language, both her own and others.

"Hello little girl, that's a beautiful dolly. What's her name?" asks the older lady we pass on our walk around the block.

"Mariana," she answers, with a perfect Spanish inflection complete with slightly rolled r.

"What a lovely name," responds the lady as we skip off down the sidewalk, Sunny counting her steps "Uno, dos, tres, cwatro."

Okay, she's still working on it. But she's growing up. My baby girl is no more. At least she's still Sunny. And this will still be The Fish Pond.

Because Parents are Dumber than Five Year Olds, Of Course

It appears that's what the FDA thinks of us. The FDA has decided that cold medicines are too much of a hazard for kids under 6, not just 2, and are debating whether they are safe and even effective for kids up to age 11:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/17/AR2008011700006.html?hpid=sec-health

What the heck is going on here? I understand not giving those medicines to kids under age 2, my pediatricians (who are wonderful) have told me from the beginning that cold medicines do nothing to help and to save my money, so I have. But no Dimetapp for my three year old? Potentially for none of my kids? What gives?

Does the FDA think all parents are so stupid that we can't safely give our kids medicines? Mistakes happen sometimes, yes, but honestly, I think more medication mistakes are made every single day in hospitals across the country than happen in two years with parents medicating their kids.

They say the medications aren't needed because the illnesses in questions are "self-limiting." WTF? Adults are allowed, nay encouraged, to take medicines to help us rest and feel better when we have colds, but we can't be responsible adults and make that same decision on behalf of our kids? When we adults get sick, we take cold medicines to help us feel well enough to function so we aren't evil grumpy grownups, so why can't we make the decision to help our kids not be evil, grumpy kids? I have to imagine that those who are making these decisions/recommendations haven't spent much time with more than one sick kid, haven't lost sleep as the kids stay up all night coughing and sneezing and blowing their noses and whimpering because they feel so awful and there's nothing anyone can do about it. A little bit of medicine to help them feel well enough to get a good night's sleep so their little bodies can heal can make a huge difference.

And do they honestly think that most of us don't know that the medicines don't HEAL anything, but rather treat the symptoms? I've grown up knowing that the Dimetapp that was prescription when I was a kid that my mother gave me when I got sick was to help me feel well enough to get some rest so my body could get better. Honestly, I've known that since I was 5 years old. They really think that an entire generation of parents isn't as smart as I was at five? Please.

When our kids get croup, we give them a steroid cough medicine to quiet their cough and help them rest so they can heal. When they get a fever, we give them a fever reducer to help them feel well enough to sleep without delirium, so they can get better. When they are teething or have an ear infection, we give them a pain reliever so they can eat and drink without pain, so their bodies can do the work needed for them to recover. I don't think any of us is under any delusions that it's anything other than a leg-up to their little immune systems, which are doing all the work of healing.

And with the advent of those little cups for dosing, and all the helpful syringes handed out by Target and other pharmacies, do they really think we don't know not to use a household spoon to dose our kids? Are they not aware that a few decades have happened since this was commonplace? I know NO ONE who does this, not even my father, or in-laws, not even my grandparents when they were alive. Not a single person. That's three generations, people, who DO NOT do this. Do you?

The FDA is apparently a bunch of asshats. I happen to like it when I can give my kids a little bit of medicine to help them feel better so their bodies can heal when they are sick, and I'm pretty sure I can do it safely - I haven't killed one of them yet. Dropped them on their heads, yes. Let them eat food off the floor, sometimes. But given too much medicine? Never. Who do I have to vote for to get the FDA out of my medicine cabinet? Off to go find a libertarian candidate who isn't insane...

Moving Along, Nothing Left to See Here

And as suddenly as it began, it is over. Nemo's fever is gone.

It was sooooo weird. He had his 12 month vaccinations last wednesday because he had an ear infection the two previous times we tried to do his shots. When he spiked a 104.2 fever late Saturday/early Sunday, I figured it was because of the shots and didn't think twice about it. But it was odd. The ibuprofen that usually works great began to wear off an hour before he could have more, and when it wasn't at full strength he was a cranky, clingy, twitchy, obviously suffering hot little mess, and the fever was HIGH. 104.8 was the highest it got, but it was a scary, scary thing to BigDaddyFish and me. Our kids have run high fevers before, but not many that high, only one where we had to put Trout in the tub to cool her down fast. Even then, she was laughing and acting fine instead of, well, sick, and Nemo has been looking like he was having a chat with Mr. Reaper. I took Nemo to the doctor on Monday, and he checked his ears and throat and cultured his throat for strep, but all looked good, so he said it was just a virus, and to watch for a downward trend, with the fever dropping to the 103s then lower, and if it didn't go down by today, then bring him back.

We gave him his last dose of medicine at 5 am yesterday morning, at which time his fever was 104.4. That morning he woke up and gesticulated wildly at our water bottles, and when we handed them over he drank as though he had been in the desert for a week without water. We had to go out because I had to take Sunny to school, so I kept him in the car and asked someone to watch him so I could run Sunny in. While she was in school (2.5 hours), I just drove around looking for a house (we now think we've decided on where we want to be. maybe. I think.) and then sat in the parking lot, where I watched Sunny's class for the 10 minutes they were on the playground and then read a book. At 11 I climbed back to take his temperature and give him his medicine, because up until that point he would get really lethargic and cranky as the medicine wore off. I felt his head, and it was...cool. Really. Absolutely normal. I grabbed my thermometer and took his temp - 98.8. No downward trend, just boom. Gone.

I thanked God and handed Nemo a handful of cheerios.

He's back to normal now, mostly, except because he nursed so much while sick he is still nursing too much for my liking, and he's refusing his cups of milk and even juice. He's not eating much, certainly nothing crunchy, but he is getting his molars (someday) and maybe his gums are hurting. I dunno. I just keep feeing him soft things. I just wish he would sleep. Cause I'm kinda tired. Four hours a night average for a week is NOT enough.

Coming up soon: How and why did I become FishyGirl? And a long overdue rant about ... girls and Legos.

Contest Time! Or, The Mystery of the Missing Remote

About two weeks before Christmas, we somehow lost the remote to our home theater system, which includes our DVD. Mostly this wasn't a big deal, because we could still play our DVDs, but we couldn't access any features that we had to use the menu to navigate to, because we couldn't get the cursor to move. So if, for example, Nemo pressed the buttons on the theater system, as he is wont to do, and happened to cause the movie to stop and the disc to come out, we couldn't just restart the movie where it left off, we had to go back to the beginning. It was so bad that we watched a movie in our van on Saturday, because we could. Trout got a Scene It! game for Christmas, and she couldn't play it without our remote.

So over the weekend, mostly Sunday, we turned the house inside out looking for the damned remote. We decided someone must have removed it from the house, because we looked in all the key places the kids usually hide the remote: in the storage bins we store the toys in, behind the cushions in the couch, on the stairs to the basement, inside the Pack and Play, inside all the toys it could possibly be hidden inside, under all the furniture, behind the table the TV sits on, in the back of the toilet, under their beds, in everyone's shoes. Everywhere. No remote. So, we did what any normal family would do under the circumstances: we gave up and bought a new remote.

Monday morning, I ordered it directly from the Panasonic website, who, in an extraordinary fit of superb customer service, shipped it Monday. Here's the contest part:

When and where did I find the remote, and which child put it there? Uncle Orca is not permitted to answer, nor is he allowed to give hints as to where it was. Leave your guesses in the comments. Both the most accurate and the most creative will get prizes, your choice of a $20 Amazon gift card or the remote to a Panasonic home theater system.

Have at it. Make me laugh.

Wherein I Maim My Daughter, Thereby Securing My Lock on Worst Mother of the Year Award

This morning was the Christmas party at Sunny's preschool, and in a fit of sleep-deprived madness (par for the course around here) I volunteered to be one of the two parents who come in to "do" the party - make the sign-up sheet to coerce the other parents into contributing food, treats, plates, napkins, cups, juice, and goodies so that we don't have to actually DO anything except show up and do a craft for them help the kids do a craft and sing and eat and wash their hands and go home. I think I was thinking I'd get my volunteerism over with for the year (faulty logic because I'm already the Box Tops coordinator, but whatever) by doing the first party, but I don't remember doing the sign-up at all, anyway. Fortunately, the other mother who did the party is much more on the ball than I am, so she did the sign-up sheet and volunteered to do the craft, so all I had to do was show up.

And I guess, technically, I DID show up. I got a babysitter for Nemo and I took Sunny to school and we got as far as the parking lot. Where I promptly shut the sliding door of the minivan on her wrist.

Oh, the screaming, the tears, the horror. Sunny screamed and cried, too. I jerked the door back open almost immediately, snatched her up in my arms, and collapsed onto the floor of the van, crying and saying "I'm so sorry, where did I get you? I'm so sorry, Sunny, please, show me where I hurt you." I caught her on her wrist.

We dashed into the school so that I could tell them what happened, make arrangements for the party, and get her back out to the pediatrician. The school gave me an ice pack and told me not to worry about the party, and asked me to call to tell them how she was doing. I love our school.

I called the pediatrician, and the office staff told me in no uncertain terms that they had no openings for today and I had to go to the ER. This was the first time I'd ever had this happen in 8 years with these peds, who are some of the best in the DC metro area and whose staff are usually quite accomodating and pleasant. I will have to keep an eye on this, because even if the doctors are awesome, if the staff stinks then it's time to rethink the practice.

As we drove to the local emergency center, Sunny continued to cry and snuffle in her seat, and eventually she snuffled down enough for me to understand what she was saying: "Mommy, can you call and tew dem not to start the party wifout me?" My heart broke a little bit more as I told her that wasn't possible.

We sat outside the emergency center for a while and debated going in or not. It was packed, and I knew we would end up waiting forever, and her wrist, while a bit swollen, was looking better than it had at first look, and she was able to make a fist and use it to push up her other sleeve, so I figured it was going to be okay. I told her I'd take her back to school for the party, and she argued no. So I told her I could take her into the EC and she said no, she wanted to go home. So that's where we went.

On the way home, I asked Sunny why she didn't want to go back to the party, especially when she had wanted me to call them and make them wait. Finally, after much cajoling on my part, she said, "Because you might hurt me again, Mommy." And then I died.

I explained once again that it was an accident, that Mommy hadn't meant to hurt her, and she asked, "Do you pwomise you won't do it again, Mommy?"

Oh, honey, I pwomise.

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She's fine now, all the swelling is long gone, she's using the wrist like normal (i.e., taking toys and hitting her brothers), and there's barely a mark.

I wish my heart would heal that fast.

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There were two bright spots to the day:

1. Nemo was staggering walking around the kitchen today, and he took a pot lid from the open dishwasher, lurched across the kitchen, opened the cabinet, and very carefully placed the pot lid in the cabinet on top of some other pots and pans. Then he turned around and grinned like the Cheshire cat, pleased as can be that he was being helpful. I did not teach him this.
2. I have been getting notes home from Little Man's teacher about his mouthy, disrespectful behavior lately, and we've been perplexed as to how to handle it. As I was putting him in bed tonight, I told him, "Dream dreams of good behavior," to which he responded, "Actually, Mom, I dream of giiiiirls. I looooove girls." Good to know.

Been Caught Stealing, Once, When I Was Eight

Virtually every morning, Trout has a major hissy fit about pants. You see, she is of average height, but she is skinny and her legs are long in proportion to the rest of her body. Finding pants that are both long enough and snug enough is an enormous challenge, not to mention the issues with finding pants that are appropriate for an 8 year old little girl (i.e., aren't skin tight, low slung, hip huggers, without words across the ass). For the past four days or so she has been freaking about her pants - they are either too long, too short, too loose and falling down, too tight and giving her a wedgie, too soft, too scratchy, whatever, and I finally got sick of it and last night took her out to get some new pants.

I made a number of mistakes last night. She had ballet and we didn't have time to go before class, so I should have just made plans to come another day. But I am stubborn if nothing else, and I didn't want to wait until the stores got more filled with people and the stock less, so out we went. Mistake number 2: once I discovered that she had some mild intestinal distress, instead of cutting bait and heading home I simply bought more underwear (which she needed anyway - most of her other underwear "gives me a wedgie"). Mistake number 3: when noticing that there were Webkinz EVERYWHERE and she was getting distracted by them at every turn, I should have left. No. She needed pants, I didn't want to listen to the Pants Lament anymore, so pants we did.

First at JCPenney (where I buy a good portion of the kids' clothes) we probably tried on 15 pairs of pants. She is kinda in between the 4-6X size range and the 7-16 size range, so most 6X's were too short but most 7's were too long and too wide and mostly inappropriate. But we persevered and found a couple of pairs of track pants? thin sweats? something like that, plus a pair of pink velour pants that she adores, all of which she assured me fit great and she wouldn't complain about them. But I wanted her to have something else, a nice pair of jeans or pants, more sturdy than sweats, so we headed to someplace I swore I'd never go - Limited, too. Yeah, that was mistake number 4.

I did have good reasons for heading there. The primary one is that Trout is so skinny, and the clothes at LT are cut really thin, so I figured we'd have better luck there. I HAD, on occasion, seen clothes that were acceptable there, and she already knows my rule about no words and no branding (I don't want my kid being a walking advertisement for some clothing manufacturer) so....

We tried on about 10 pairs of pants there, and we struck gold on a couple of pairs that met my requirements, fit her, and were on sale. I stood at the checkout while she wandered around a bit looking at all the crap that they have in the displays up by the front - you know, all the little crap like rhinestone pin Hello Kitty watches that the stones fall off of in two days, bracelets that turn green, little candies, tchotchke crap. I called her over a couple of times, and each time she came and asked for Webkinz, and each time I told her no. I finally got up to pay for the pants, and while the girl is ringing them up I look over and see Trout put something in her pocket.

My jaw dropped and my heart sank, and then I said, in a loud voice "What ARE you doing? You CANNOT do that. Taking things without paying is STEALING!" She looked at me, wide-eyed, startled, and at least had the decency to look a bit sheepish.

"Alriiiiight, I'll put them back," she sighed, and put one thing back on the rack.

"Empty your pockets," I demanded.

"Aaaww, okay, I'll put the other back." She slunk off to put something else on the rack.

"Now turn them inside out," I instructed. If she hadn't needed the damn pants, I would have apologized to the cashier and left. Yeah, I know, mistake number whatever. I did apologize to the cashier and finished paying for the pants. Trout told me she didn't know how to turn the pockets inside out.

I walked over where she was kinda half-hiding behind a candy display. "Let. Me. See." I ordered.

"All RIGHT Mom, I'll do it!" she shrieked as she pulled yet another candy out of her pocket. This time I just frisked her, finally satisfied that the pockets were empty, and I marched her home. As we walked through the mall she'd ask, "Mom, can I -" and I'd spit out "No!" before she could even ask whatever it was she wanted. Took the whole walk to the car before I could speak normally.

I asked her why she tried to steal those things, and she said she was standing there and "it just made me think to do it." I asked her what about the little voice in her head that tells when things are wrong and not to do them, and she said she didn't have one. I told her she'd better damn sight get one. We talked about how stealing is wrong, how it is dishonest, how if she were caught by someone other than me she'd be going to jail, and how she would feel if someone took her things. We talked about the ten commandments, because she is working on preparing for her first reconciliation (we're Catholic), and I told her that when she steals she not only makes me and BigDaddyFish and the rest of the family sad and disappointed in her, she makes God sad and disappointed in her, too. I reminded her that we'd talked about this before, but she insists she forgot. I hear that excuse at least 10 times a week for various things, and it's old now. I don't buy that.

When I was five, I stole something small from a drug store, a pack of gum or a small toy of some kind - I don't remember what at this point. My mother discovered it when we got home, and she took me right back to the store and made me confess to the manager, who was very nice about it, but still stern, and told me that they would let me off with a warning that time, but if I ever did it again they would have to call the police. I never did it again - the act of having to confess my misdeed to someone in authority was more than enough to keep me from ever being tempted again.

I wonder if I handled things right with Trout. I was loud, intentionally, because I WANTED to embarass her. I did apologize to the clerk, a young girl of probably no more than 17 herself, who looked like she couldn't care less. I guess I felt that since I was the one who caught her and I caught her in progress instead of after a crime had been committed, putting everything back and embarassing her was enough. Now I'm not so sure.

BigDaddyFish thinks that because this was her first offense and because we reacted very strongly, no other punishment is necessary. I'm not so convinced. I think a strong message needs to be sent that this is 100% unacceptable behavior. But I also worry about coming down too hard, about alienating her and pushing her away so that she refuses to learn our values. I don't know if there should be further punishment or not. I don't know if wearing the two pairs of pants I bought will remind her, every time, of the whole incident, and that will help reinforce my point. Maybe it will make her not want to wear the pants at all. Which brings us back where we started.

And wouldn't you know, when she put on one of the pairs of pants from JCPenney this morning, the ones she assured me in the store were perfect, she had a damn meltdown, because they were falling down. I pinned them and sent her on her way.

Finding the balance between pushing hard enough to send a message but not so hard you push them away is the toughest tightrope I've ever had to walk.