Cheerios, strep and big boys...

Five of us are on amoxicillin for strep.  Last night two of my boys were really whiny and one said it hurt to swallow.  Chris and Rand had strep a couple weeks ago, so I was suspicious.  I hate taking them to the doctor for sick visits.  I worry that they won't really be sick but will just catch something there.  I also hate to risk letting it go when we're about to travel.  They woke up saying they felt fine.  I took them in.  The nurse took each of their temperatures - nothing.  I'm starting to feel "les incompetents."*  Then Bryan said, "I'm not even feeling like sick,"  and I start feeling like worse.  Then the test results come back and the nurse says, "They're all positive for strep."  A wiser woman would have felt sorry for her children or upset that the next few days might be rough.  I, however, felt like singing the hallelujah chorus.  YES - trip to the doctor justified.  Now I feel redeemed for the time I took Jacob in because I thought he had staff infection on his leg - there were black flecks around a bug bite.  The doctor said, "Hmmm, let's see what happens when I dab it."  It turns out that it was just dirt.  That's kind of okay to do when you have only one VERY young child.  As a mother of four, it was really humiliating.  The doctor was very gracious, but I know she was laughing at me on the inside.  

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This is why youngest children live in their parents' basements when they're forty.  He started feeding himself Cheerios.  Then his brothers thought it was cute, and a bit of an adrenaline rush to feed him (he has two teeth).  Now he just whines until someone walks by his highchair and feeds him a Cheerio.  I know I should shut it down, but it's just so cute - which is another reason...

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Bryan has the really annoying habit of pouring out the last few drops of a drink onto the table.  I'm mostly okay with purposeful messes (forts, pretend stores, etc), but random and senseless acts of destruction DRIVE ME INSANE.  Bryan poured out a few drops of a drink.  Because I'm his mother, I know that Bryan is vulnerable in the area of being considered little.  So as he is on his way to timeout, I said, "Oh, I thought you were big, Bryan, but you must be little."  Bryan responds in his speaker of truth tone, "I am big Mommy, just sometimes I act wittle."  Then I laughed and hugged  him because except on my very worst days, I'm only mean in snippets.

*From Home Alone - "You're what the French call 'les incompetents.'"

Love in the time of Pollyanna...

A few months ago I read Love in the Time of Cholera and was reminded why Chris and I are MFEO.*  I hated the book.  The hero is a starving artist desperately in love - so in love that he drinks his beloved's perfume and eats flowers that smell like her.  He also follows her around and writes a lot of poetry.  My deep in the soul response was ANNOYANCE and NAUSEA.  Get a job, a dog, a hobby, something.  I rediscovered what I've always known - I prefer a man who makes me laugh.**

So Saturday we watched Pollyanna with the boys.  Pollyanna plays the Glad Game where she tries to find the good in any situation, no matter how bleak.  The game originated when she ordered a doll from a charity and got crutches instead.  SPOILER ALERT.  At the end of the movie, Pollyanna falls and her legs are paralyzed.  Her aunt and friends try to pull her out of despondency by suggesting she find some reason to be glad that she's paralyzed.  The boys are tearing up - very worried, and Chris whispers to me, "I know - she can be glad she can finally use those crutches."  Ba ha ha ha ha.***

* MFEO - made for each other, Sleepless in Seattle

** Chris, when you read this, I love you, you make me laugh, but this does not release you from flowers, chocolate or haikus.

*** I really don't mean to make light of what it is to be handicapped.  I think it's okay to mock a movie that presents "The Glad Game" as a prerequisite for successful surgery to cure paralyzed legs.****

**** I still like Pollyanna even if it's dumb.

The Histories...

I feel like I need some kind of degree for having finished this book.  It took me about four months.  Here are a few thoughts and favorite excerpts...

It sucked to be a woman in ancient times.

1.196  Herodotus describes an auction of all the marriageable Babylonian girls.  The girls are sorted by attractiveness.  Each of the pretty girls goes to the highest bidder, and the money is pooled and used to bribe men to marry the ugly girls.  There is a reverse auction for the ugly girls.  The ugliest stands up first and is married off to the man who will marry her for the least amount of money.  This continues for the rest of the ugly girls.

1.199  "The most disgraceful Babylonian custom is that at some point in her life every woman of the land is required to sit in a sanctuary of Aphrodite and have sex with a strange man...A woman sitting in the sanctuary is not allowed to return home until one of the strangers has thrown money into her lap and had sex with her...It can be any amount of money:  by religious law she is not allowed to refuse it...Women who are attractive and tall get to go home quickly, while the ugly ones wait for a long time without being able to do their duty.  In fact, some of them wait three or four years."

People do horrible things to one another (also see excerpts above).

Old Testament law was revolutionary.  It seems so obvious because our law is based on Judeo-Christian law, but for the ancient world, it was revolutionary.

Pagan religion is just another version of working out your own salvation.

7.114 (Speaking of Xerxes' entourage)  "When they learnt that the name of the place was Nine Ways, they buried alive nine local boys and girls in the ground there."

Xerxes was a psycho.  Reading the book Esther, I never understood why Esther was so scared to speak with Xerxes without being summoned.  It seemed melodramatic and suspect.  Now, I ABSOLUTELY believe in the reasonableness of Esther's misgivings.  Xerxes was a freaking PSYCHO!!!

7.35  The newly completed bridge across the Hellespont was destroyed in a violent storm.  "This news made Xerxes furious.  he ordered his men to give the Hellespont three hundred lashes and to sink a pair of shackles into the sea...So the sea was punished at his orders, and he had the supervisors of the bridging of the Hellespont beheaded."

7.38  When Xerxes' friend, Pythia, asked that the eldest of his five sons be allowed to stay back from war, Xerxes had the young man cut in two.  The Persian army marched in between the two halves of his body.

What it means to be free...

5.78  "Now the advantages of everyone having a voice in the political procedure are not restricted just to single instances, but are plain to see wherever one looks.  For instance, while the Athenians were ruled by tyrants, they were no better at warfare than any of their neighbours, but once they had got rid of the tyrants, they became vastly superior.  This goes to show that while they were under an oppressive regime they fought below their best because they were working for a master, whereas  as free men each individual wanted to achieve something for himself."

The problem with tyranny...

3.80  "How can monarchy be an orderly affair, when a monarch has the licence to do whatever he wants, without being accountable to anyone?  Make a man a monarch, and even if he is the most moral person in the world, he well leave his customary ways of thinking."

5.92  [Periander, tyrant of Corinth]  "He sent an agent to Thrasybulus to ask what was the safest kind of government for him to establish, which would allow him to manage the state best...Every time he [Thrasybulus] saw an ear of grain standing higher than the rest, he broke it off and threw it away, and he went on doing this until he had destroyed the choicest, tallest stems in the crop...[Periander] He realized that he [Thrasybulus] had been advising him to kill outstanding citizens, and from then on he treated his people with unremitting brutality."

Crucifixion was a big deal.

3.125  "Once he had killed him - in a way which does not bear mentioning - Oroertes crucified the corpse."

Many fantasy writers get inspiration from the ancients.  

I see shades of the Lacedaemonians (Spartans, but since I finished this gargantuan book, I want to use the hoity-toity name) in Robert Jordan's Aiel and the Seanchan remind me of the Persians.

And a big hit in my house...

2.162  "When Apries found out what was going on, he sent as a herald to Amasis an eminent Egyptian who was loyal to him, whose name was Patarbemis, with instructions to escort Amasis back to him alive.  Patarbemis approached Amasis and issued the king's command, but Amasis, who happened to be on horseback at the time, lifted himself up in the saddle, farted, and told him to take that back to Apries."

* Here's a link to the translation I used.  All of the above quotes are from this version.

The lonely dragon...

The Lonely Dragon

Theresa Heine

A dragon is sad

Because everyone thinks

A dragon is fierce and brave,

And roars out flames,

And eats everybody,

Whoever comes near his cave.

But a dragon likes people,

A dragon needs friends,

A dragon is lonely and sad,

If anyone knows 

Of a friend for a dragon,

A dragon would be very glad.

This poem makes me think of one of my boys.  He's a rough and tumble guy.  He needs a bow and arrow and a slingshot, but you just can't do that in the burbs.  He's also more sensitive than he seems.  A few months ago he got in a lot of trouble for hurting one of his brothers.  At the time he gave no outward sign of emotion or contrition.  His apparent lack of remorse really concerned me.  Had I been in his position, I would have worked HARD to restore myself to everyone's good graces.  A few months later, the subject of "worst day ever" came up.  He unequivocally stated that this day he had hurt his brother was his worst ever.  I had no idea it had even gotten to him.

After I read the poem to David and Jacob...

Jacob:   If I saw that dragon I would DEFINITELY go help him and be his friend.

David:  (Wearing cowboy hat, ninja mask, pipe gun and Batman suit - see picture above)  If I was a real guy with all this stuff, I would be on the dragon's team.  And then if he tricked me and breathed fire on me, I would shoot him.

That is so representative of their personalities.  One greets the world as if it is full of people who love him and can't wait to be friends.  The other would love to be friends, but he's going to pack heat just in case.

It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day...

• I went to the doctor, and they forgot about me.  I had to wait an hour and a half.
• Rand was with me and he lasts a maximum of 45 minutes in this situation.  It was ugly.
• I had to feed the kids gas station food in the car on the way to VBS.  I chose poorly, and now my van is a crumbly blueberry muffin mess.
• When we got to VBS, I realized that Jacob was only wearing boxer briefs - WITH NO PANTS.  *&%$  

Why I'm not moving to Australia yet...

• I hit the sweet spot on the disorganization curve.  Had I been less disorganized, I would have been stuck with a child with no pants and no mildewed swimsuit on hand to put on him.  Had I been less disorganized I would have wasted valuable time searching at home for the boys' water bottles.  As it turned out, they left them at VBS yesterday, so I could just refill and use them today.  On the other hand, had I been more disorganized, I would have left one of the children at the gas station.
• Bryan saw a port-a-potty on the back of a truck on the way home.  It completely cracked him up.  He laughed that laugh of his that I love, and it brought me back.

Baffling...

 Jacob and my niece, Maggie, both 5 years old, had their faces painted at day camp.  That evening I scrubbed Jacob's face to get everything off.  After bath time, my sister-in-law, Amy, and I sat on the couch with the kids.  I noticed that Maggie's face was clean, too.

Me:  I had a hard time getting all that paint off Jacob's face.  Did you really have to scrub Maggie?
Amy:  Oh, Maggie did you wash your face paint off?
Maggie:  When I got out of the shower, it was still on my face, so I got some more soap and washed it off.
Me:  (Pause.  Quizzical look.)  This is a phenomenon I have never experienced.

My boys' philosophy is that if it doesn't come off when the water sprays you, it was meant to stay.

Nastiness pureed and regurgitated...

Two years ago I made brussel sprouts for dinner.  They were disgusting.  Really.  They were soggy little balls of nastiness.  The wastefulness of edible, thrown-out food, especially if I had to prepare it, really irritates me. I just couldn't hold the usual "Clean your plate before you get any more food" line this time.  They were so gross.  We all threw them away.  Fast forward two years.  The boys saw brussel sprouts in the produce aisle, and the little green balls captured their imaginations.  How can you tell your kids "No, we can't get brussel sprouts.  They're gross."  I think that gets you some kind of mommy demerit.  Plus last time they were frozen.  Maybe fresh brussel sprouts are completely different.

So we bought them.  I took the first bite.  Initially it tasted like cabbage with a little pop of salt and pepper.  I had just enough time to briefly meditate on what an awesome mom I am for raising kids who will eat brussel sprouts and mentally draw up a plan for buying brussel sprouts every other week for my extremely healthy family.  Then the aftertaste got me like a dog who walks by nonchalantly and then turns and bites you on the ankle for no reason, and I realized that brussel sprouts are always, always gross.

The cheapskate in me decided to puree them and foist them off on the defenseless baby, and now I know that there is something grosser than brussel sprouts - pureed brussel sprouts.  (He loved them - flapped his little arms and legs begging for more.)  Thirty minutes later I discovered that it gets grosser still - pureed brussel sprout spit-up.