1, 2, 3, 4, the Nephew’s belly at the shore

Want to know what never, ever stops going through my head? This:

Hope that works. If it didn’t, here’s the link, so it can go through your head as well. My son is ADDICTED to this video. Addicted. He will sit and watch, and has sat and watched, for an hour or more. Bear in mind the video is only 2 and a half minutes long. This from a kid who won’t watch an entire Wiggles song from beginning to end, even though he loves it and sings and dances along, because he prefers to keep pressing all the buttons on the DVD player (much to the irritation of his sisters and the Nephew). There are dozens of YouTube videos he’s been enjoying for months. He won’t sit through most of them without wanting switch to another one, but for some reason, this 1, 2, 3, 4 thing has him hooked. “Watch one-two-fee!” he’ll shout joyfully, running to the couch where my computer is parked. If I say no, and stick to it, he’ll say “Aks Abba,” and go running to find G. I tell you, he’s obsessed. Of course, the result of this is that this song is constantly running through my head. Always, always. Last night at about 11:30 (I think I wrote this on Friday), when I couldn’t fall asleep in spite of having taken my pill an hour before, I texted G to complain, and then I texted him “1, 2, 3, 4 monsters walking ‘cross the floor!” So someone sing me a song, quick. I need a replacement.

(”Whoa oh-oh, counting to four! Whoa oh-oh, let’s count some more!”)

Have I mentioned that both of my twins need glasses? They went for their regular vision checkup last week after school ended. We were expecting R to need them, since she’s always been the one with iffy vision, even before the stroke, and she’s been complaining for a while about things being blurry. But we had no idea anything was wrong with YS’s vision. Neither did she, apparently; she never mentioned a thing. She also has regular eye doctor appointments like a kid should, and her vision was recently tested in school. So imagine our surprise when she sat there in the office and could see even less than R could. G is the one who took them (I was busy groaning, plus staying home with the Boy), and he was completely shocked, as was I when I got his text message. Then suddenly something hit me, and I texted back “Could this possibly explain the dizziness and headaches and nausea?” And lo and behold — yes, it could.

See, YS has been complaining approximately every day after school, for months, about being dizzy and nauseated and having a headache. We brought her to the doctor; nothing. Had her blood tested; nothing. Made sure she drank enough, slept enough, etc. Yet the complaints continued. She was driving the school nurse so crazy that eventually we and the teachers made a rule that she would not go to the nurse unless the teachers judged her to be genuinely sick. It wasn’t exactly that we didn’t believe her; we had just concluded, along with everyone else, that it was probably a combination of stress and attention seeking, and that she was probably exaggerating the sort of minor thing everyone gets at the end of a long day. We were nice to her, gave her Tylenol, etc., and I felt sorry for her and everything, but the complaints sort of faded into the background along with the rest of the whining (including mine, of course) that goes on in this house.

Well, color us a couple of surprised idiots! We know we didn’t do anything wrong — she has had appropriate eye care, and we did investigate the symptoms and follow up and so forth — but all this time, it was her eyes! If only we’d known! She’s so relieved — “Ima, the doctor said it should help my dizziness! Thank GOODNESS!” — and G and I feel like a couple of well-meaning fools.

The next step, of course, is to take both her and R to pick out frames. This, of course, has to be done by me, rather than by the color blind (for real), and also male, individual who lives in this house. But — wonder of wonders — we haven’t been able to go yet, what with camp, and me being sick at very inopportune moments. Thankfully, since school has been over R hasn’t complained about blurriness and YS hasn’t complained about dizziness, which makes perfect sense, but that doesn’t mean we should put it off. Bli ayin hara I’ve been feeling about 5% better in the last few days — I even called my grandmother, something I haven’t done since Pesach (bad Miriam) — so we ought to be going sooner rather than later.

I should add that I’m rather sad about this glasses business. See, both of my twins have the most beautiful, adorable, delicious faces in the world, especially their eyes. I don’t want any foreign objects on their faces. I don’t want anything blocking my hands or my view. Their faces are perfect the way they are. It’s like when the Boy puts on his new kippah. He might look cute to other people, but to me, it’s this strange obstruction that doesn’t belong. Not to mention that both of my twins, one of them in particular, are definitely going to lose their glasses at least once a day. Sigh. I figure the second they’re old enough, we’ll force them to get contacts.

On my list of stories to share, lest I forget them for all eternity, is the story that took place about a week and a half ago, in which R left the house wearing a pair of turquoise sandals that we (of course) inherited from my niece. This was the first time anyone had ever worn them; I’d just brought them down from storage that day. I believe this was last Sunday, when G and the girls went to the open house for the girls’ day camp. Anyway, when they got back, the Boy decided that these sandals belonged to him. We have no idea why; he had never seen them before, and he doesn’t own anything remotely like them. But the second he saw R, he shouted “Dat’s MY shoes!” Everyone, especially R, informed him that they were not his shoes, but he got extremely upset and howled “No, dat’s MINE!” over and over. When I got to the living room, where this was taking place, R had sat down and the Boy had grabbed hold of both of her feet and was angrily trying to pull off her sandals. R was screaming — “Boy, STOP it! They’re MINE!” and the Boy was wailing and shrieking “MY SHOES! DAT’S MY SHOES!” It was probably one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in my life.

On one of the three days between school and camp, we took the girls to see Toy Story 3. G and I were in stitches the entire time. Much of the humor, it appears, was designed for our generation. RS claims she liked it and wants to buy the DVD, but she never wants to watch it at night. R claims she loved it. YS announced that she hated it and never wants to see it again. I have to say, there was an extremely scary part that did seem somewhat over the top for a kids’ movie. I don’t really blame YS. But G and I loved it.

Of course, the second it was over, all three kids started to whine, about one thing or another, and any patience I might have had evaporated immediately. I proceeded to snap at everyone until we got home, at which point I said to G “I have to get upstairs. I can’t stop yelling at them.” I also said to him “Please tell me this is pregnancy related and will be over when the baby is born.” He said he truly hopes so. So do I.

On Friday before camp started, we did something MUCH more fun than sitting in a movie theater. Determined to have a do-over of our beach trip last year, by which I mean I was determined to go to the beach with cash so I could make up for the lack of cold water, lack of ice cream, and the meltdown (heh), I made plans — weeks in advance — to go to the beach with my kids, Baby Sissie, Baby Sissie’s kids, and (duh) Babysitter Allison. Of course, Babysitter Allison’s mother has been sick (she had surgery on Thursday and thank God the prognosis is very good, though she’s got recovery and other stuff ahead of her), so at the last minute Allison wasn’t able to go, but thank heavens JM the Awesome was available instead. So we went. The weather was beyond perfect — no clouds, mid 80’s, zero humidity.

The Boy’s first reaction upon encountering the sand on his feet was “Too hot.” However, this didn’t disturb him for long. About 30 seconds later, he was tearing across the sand at lightning speed, as if he’d been doing it his entire two years of life. Once we were all set up under the shiny new beach umbrella, he saw sand on the beach towel and said “Mess!” He then grabbed a shovel and pail and announced “I keen up.” This, of course, was very funny. My son was planning to clean up the sand at the beach. Ok then. He continued focusing on this goal as we moved closer to the water:

RS and YS spent most of their time digging gigantic pits in the sand, for which they needed to carry buckets of sand and/or water back and forth, over and over and over. Apparently they found this to be outrageously fun. Must be an age thing. R spent most of her time sprawled out in the sand, burying herself and/or making sand angels. All three of my girls plus the Niece also did plenty of swimming. Alas, I can’t show you any pictures of any of this, because they’re all, you know, wearing bathing suits, and between wanting to white that out and white their faces out, well, what’s the point? I suppose pretty soon I’ll start whiting my son’s face out as well. Sigh.

But here, I don’t have to white this out (Baby Sissie told me so):

Heeheehee. That, of course, is the Nephew (he has long hair because my non-baby brother is under the illusion that he is Hasidic), and what he is doing, if you couldn’t tell, is showing off his belly. He greatly enjoys doing this. He routinely yanks up his shirt and points out his belly, as well as his belly button, to people. Naturally this makes people extremely happy.

Here, in case you didn’t get a good enough look:

Feel free to come back and look at it as many times as you want.

Here, I can also share these. The one of them looking down is when they both discovered that the Boy’s feet were sinking into the sand. They found this very intriguing.

Anyway, it was the greatest day that ever was. I had afterglow until Saturday night, even though my sister almost killed me because we left the beach somewhat late.

So I think that just about wraps up the list of things I wanted to get down. I will add that yesterday was the Fourth of July, in case you didn’t know, and last night we had an almost precise repeat performance of this, complete with the very same friend sleeping over. I will also add that today is July 5, and we have not exactly had a repeat performance of this — for one thing, the weather is atrocious this time — but the girls have been outside swimming for quite some time with the Niece and two little girls from shul, so that’s all fun and everything. I have not been able to go outside because I cannot tolerate the heat, which is less fun. I went outside yesterday for less than five minutes, and (this is not an exaggeration) I was still overheated and panting three hours later. Heh.

I will also add that the anniversary of the stroke is coming up. Well there’s something to write about! But I think this post is already long enough.

Happy Fourth. May all our truths continue to be self-evident.

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** Afternote: I applaud the restraint everyone has shown by not asking me personally about the disease I apparently carry. However, asking my sister about it is not all that much better (it’s also rude and unfair to her). This thing is not a big deal. My doctor even rolled his eyes at it and said “Everyone is a carrier for something.” In addition to not being a big deal, it’s also none of your business. Things about my life are only your business if I say so, and if I wanted you to know what it is, I would have posted it. Sorry if mentioning it but not naming it violated some rule I don’t know about, but that doesn’t give you the right to ask, either my sister or myself. Good? Good. Glad we had this talk.

Tags: Kids, Relatives, The Boy