A Foot of Change

Change is afoot. Or a leg. Or maybe just an enflamed left ankle. Right now as I prop my legs and ankles up under ice packs it seems like change blankets all of my lower extremities. Three weeks ago I started running again after not running much at all since before that horribly cold day in 2002 when I broke a bunch of bones in a car accident. The doctors thought I probably wouldn’t be able to run again on my left ankle—that the bones would probably have to be fused. I would be able to walk passably, but not run, they told me. That all made sense, considering I had at that point a freshly inserted titanium rod from my right knee to my ankle, several screws in my left ankle, and screws and plates in my wrist. (No, I don’t run with my wrist like a monkey, I threw that other hardware factoid in for effect) Well, the doctors were wrong. I didn’t need any bones in my ankle fused. I didn’t even need the bone graft they thought I would need in that ankle. They saved the bone grafting for my leg and wrist with bones from my hips. I strongly urge you to never need a bone graft. 

Back then, just being pushed on a walk wore me out.

But I hated running with a burning passion of a thousand suns, didn’t care for running, and because it’s been painful to run the past ten years I haven’t pushed it. I didn’t need any encouragement not to run. I’ll do workout DVDs while the boys nap and go to the little gym at our condo clubhouse—spend some time on the elliptical machine or with the weights.  I’ve belonged to other gyms over the past years and kept myself in passable shape until I got pregnant. It’s kind of been a blur since then. My workouts were reduced to carrying growing infants up three flights of stairs and squatting to wipe up various body fluids. I’ve tried to work out and I’ve kept from becoming a fat lard done a decent enough job, but nothing like what I should be doing. For some reason a few weeks ago Brian and I both decided to start running again. It’s just so easy. I mean, no machines, no gym, no gear, just you and the ground. And wherever you are you can find ground. So I’ve been running mostly outside on a route I really like, but a few times on a treadmill at our gym. I’m honestly shocked. I’m enjoying it. And the titanium inside me is not falling out or breaking like I always imagined it might. The first time on the treadmill was one of the first times I ran and I was SLOW. But tonight I picked up my speed and ran three miles, and only partially because I was watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and I wanted to keep watching it. I also felt good. So that’s one change: I’m running. And oddly, I like it.

Change number two: The boys are in bunk beds. That’s right. We bunked ‘em up. So far no one has fallen off with the exception of stuffed animals and books. It’s a little like crib on the top because they haven’t figured out how to climb down. The top-bunker is trapped. If only the bottom-bunker could be too. The problem is that Cal is on the top bunk and he loves to shout orders to Clark. So Clark runs around the room, picking up certain books, pulling the CD player over, shooting basketballs, playing with the night light turtle, putting weird things in his mouth, all things that Cal tells him to do and then laughs at. They haven’t come close to falling asleep on their bunk beds for nap time; we still have to separate them, one on our bed, one on the top bunk bed. It’s obnoxious. But at bedtime they fall asleep fine. There’s something about the darkness I guess. No toys crying at you to be played with.

The bunkers

Change number three: I traded the small lamp in the living room with the big lamp on our nightstand. Lighting has slightly improved.

Grand finale of changes: My next post will be my 100^th post on this blog, and to celebrate I am going to be introducing some big and super cool changes to the layout. I know that all you devoted Whispers and Shouts fans will be waiting with bated breath until I post next and the awesomeness spills forth. On my 100^th post I plan to make it a love fest to you— my dear readers— and at the same time unveil the new look that is being custom-made for me by an awesome artist.

Change is afoot! And now I can't feel my foot from all the ice packs.

Mom and Dad: At Our House and In Our Car

There’s nothing quite like my mom and my dad in my house. A mom and a dad bustling around in my kitchen, dressing the boys, playing with the boys, reading to the boys, fixing, cleaning, watching baseball, you name it. What a nice two weeks we had with my parents! Now that my dad retired my parents can stay longer when they come to visit so this was their first two week trip and it was a smashing success. We took two weekend trips, one to my in-laws’ lake house and the second one to a beach house in Ocean City, New Jersey to connect with my Dad’s sisters and their families. Other than those weekend trips we spent quality time pushing the stroller around (okay, mostly Dad pushed the stroller) our neighborhood and laughing a lot. We even got away without Mom and Dad renting a car, thanks to Aaron and Brian swapping cars for road trips and Mom and Dad’s courageous agility on the metro and bus system.

The boys get some quality Papa time.

I’m not sure if there’s an age where this stops happening, but I kind of feel like I just revert to Young Dawn when I’m around my parents. The first few days I had meals all planned out. I made them with little help. They were good. The floor was clean. The bathroom was clean. I had a handle on the laundry. And then it all kind of blurred. We figured it out as we went, and everything turned out fine, but I felt more like Young Dawn—content to let things happen around me and not be involved. Not that I’m complaining—it was fantastic. There are places clean in my kitchen now that I didn’t even know existed thanks to Mom’s dexterous scrubbing moves. And man, was it ever nice not to have to push those growing, squirming boys all over in the stroller. I’m so much lighter when I’m not pushing 60 pounds of boy, 10 pounds of stroller, and several pounds of groceries or snacks or wipes! Astounding! Such a nice break. The day before Mom and Dad left I woke up after 8am to find the boys fully dressed, their beds made, and breakfast started. 

Grandma and Clark at the lake

A few of the days Mom and Dad spent in DC in an apartment that my aunt and uncle have, because they were out of town. They did some touristy things in the city and spent a little time sleeping NOT on our couch. Granted, those of you who know our luxurious couch know that it is actually a privilege and honor to sleep on it, however, since there are no private walls around our couch, it is therein that the occasional inconveniences might occur for those people accustomed to privacy in their sleeping quarters. My parents were troopers. I suppose after having four kids in a small house they aren't used to much privacy either.

And now about those two long road trips with two year-olds that we took for two consecutive weekends. They were long. The one to southern Virginia was on smaller roads with more traffic lights and thus a longer trip overall. The one north to New Jersey was all on big highways (read $47 in tolls) and seemed easier in part because we left at bedtime on a Friday night and drove home at naptime on Sunday. Clark and Cal did a good job of not going crazy in their carseats. Sometimes I try to imagine what it must be like to have to be in a kids’ carseat all strapped to the plastic and heavy fabric and not exactly understanding why and it makes me almost claustrophobic and I have to claw for air. I know. I have such a talented imagination. I get that a lot. 

The lake trip was nice and we made it a long weekend, driving down Friday morning and coming back Monday evening. But the New Jersey one was insanely short and left us all sleep deprived. We got there at about 11:30pm to Ocean City and were greeted by dearly loved relatives, some of whom we hadn’t seen for a long time. The boys had only met a couple of them, so they were a little frightened, plus it was late at night and they had just woken up, plus it was a new house. They screamed like little shrews (do shrews scream?) for the first five minutes they were there. In order to calm them down, my well-meaning aunts and cousins offered them ice cream (refer back to time of night) and cookies, which of course the little pajama-ed screamers greedily accepted. Soon they were in Great Aunt Jane and Great Uncle Jeff’s arms looking for ceiling fans, but settling for turning on and off some unusual light fixtures. Finally around 2am we settled down in a room with two bunk beds and a trundle bed. Cal must not have eaten as much sugar as Clark did because it was clear pretty quickly that he was ready to sleep. Not Clark. He was SO EXCITED to be sleeping sitting on the bottom bunk! He was in that mood where he was cheery about everything and on top of that he wanted to repeat everything I said. I explained to him that everyone else in the house wanted to sleep. Everyone was so tired! It was not nice to be loud and keep other people awake when they wanted to sleep! In fact, it was mean. These types of things I whisper-spit to him in my hot, exhausted rage, from the bottom of the other bunk bed as he sat up and lay down and called his Scratchy Cat his little sister and told me he had eaten ice cream with chocolate (no, really?) and that he liked the blue lights and that we were at the beach and that tomorrow it would be light and we would see the ocean. Then I would whisper-yell at him. “Clark! You are being mean! Everyone here wants to sleep and you are talking loudly. You need to lie down! You need to go to sleep. Calvin wants to sleep and I want to sleep too, but you are being too loud!” To that he would cheerily and loudly respond, “I am being mean! Everyone here wants to sleep and I’m talking loudly. I need to sleep! Calvin wants to sleep but I’m being too loud.”

Finally sometime around 3am he stopped talking and my boiling rage died down enough to fall asleep as well…until 8am when the ocean sun poked in the blinds and somehow Clark was up in a flash to see the cool light fixtures, oh, and the beach.

Since I forgot buckets and shovels the boys played with cups and spoons...

...until the cup blew away and Uncle A was called on to sprint to the rescue.

And Uncle A did not disappoint.

Despite the ocean part of our trip being so short, it went (with the exception of the early-morning whisper-spitting match)well and it was nice to see our relatives. The boys enjoyed the beach, specifically the salt water taffy and sand, and a specific jewelry store they found on the boardwalk. The jewelry store had all the expected jewelry store paraphernalia: jewelry, glass display cases, and middle-aged women covered in makeup and jewelry. What the bejeweled women had that they didn’t realize the value of, however, was their ceiling fans. They were unusual—without lights—and their blades looked like palm leaves. Cal did not want to leave. He went in and started talking to Lois about her fans. She was in love with him immediately and called over Nancy and Brenda and Wilma in their various shades of bright lipstick and dangling bracelets and popping chewing gum to fawn over Cal as he fawned over the fans. Eventually I mentioned to Cal that we needed to keep going and find his brother, which is when Nancy swooned that he had a twin brother and so some of us combined to herd Clark into the jewelry store and we all stayed there for quite some time. We had to promise to visit the women on the way back down the boardwalk and say goodbye and about an hour later we did, much to their relief. They were afraid we had forgotten. The boys yelled out, “Goodbye Fans!” as they left the store. The women were lined up in front madly waving back. Yep, they were fans. 

Finally leaving the jewelry store...Ocean City boardwalk at dusk

After our beach trip we got back home soon enough to celebrate Brian's birthday at his parents' house complete with a lot of important, post-carseat, pre-bedtime backyard playing. 

So, overall it’s been a successful and fun past two weeks. My parents are now gone, which means I have to do annoying grown-up things like make meals and change diapers again, but the trip was a great break in many ways and a wonderful chance for the boys to spend time with their grandparents whom they normally only get to interact with via Skype. We had fun with them at our house and in our car and everywhere in between. I'm currently trying to decide what next to look forward to in my life. I think it might be to the Halloween costumes I'm making for the boys. 

The Bed Stories: A Juxtaposition of Fairytale and Mystery

Once upon a time the boys left their cribs for beds. I was nervous. I had visions of being up all night flattening them to their beds while at the same time prying toys from their sweaty, tired fists. In those visions there was always a soundtrack of deafening heavy metal and fingernails on chalkboards and cat fights. They also looked cartoonish, more like an angry Dobby the House Elf (R.I.P.) than little boys.  Needless to say, it was with great trepidation that I said farewell to the cribs that have served us so well the past 27 months. Brian was much more confident than I was.

I remember putting these up...long, long ago in a land far away

Cal was a little sentimental as Brian took his crib apart, but as soon as he could bounce on the new mattresses he was sold. We bought one top bunk mattress, which is basically a futon mattress (no bounces!), and a regular mattress. We are using them on the floor for now, but as soon as we decide the boys are ready for bunk beds we will be all set to plop them in place. They picked out their sheets and pillows with Daddy. Sports for Clark and transportation for Cal. (wheels go ‘round and ‘round like ceiling fans!)

This is bouncier than the crib mattress!

I was sure they’d have trouble getting up and running around, possibly climbing large pieces of furniture and playing trains or something, but about an hour after we put them to bed the first night we peeked in on them and they were like little angels—still under the covers we put on them. They hadn’t moved at all! Honestly, I was shocked and exceedingly happy. (insert montage with previous vision) It has been that way every night since. In the mornings they now wake up about an hour before they used to and when we go into their bedroom they are usually sharing a mattress and reading stories, or over by the bookshelf picking out more stories.

A whole new world unfolds

Or, like this morning, thumping their feet loudly on the wall so that I catapulted out of bed to hopefully save the neighbor below us from waking up early to loud foot booms above her. No word yet, so I’m hoping her sleep was spared. Anyway, they are clearly rockin’ the new bedtime. It’s a fairytale.

Nap time, on the other hand, is a different story—more like a mystery or horror than a fairytale. They start off great—all snuggled in their chosen blankies with their stuffed comfort objects and a stack of books by each of their heads. Before I can even begin to load the dishwasher I hear them up, playing with the doorstop they’ve been fond of since they started crawling, choo-chooing the trains, and occasionally attacking and conquering the other boy’s bed, followed by the loud whoops of victory and the horrific wailing of defeat. 

The mysterious sleepers

So I separate them. I hate to give up our bedroom to a sleeping boy, but I would hate even more to give up nap time completely. At first it was nerve-racking listening to the silence in our bedroom after I put Clark in there by himself. I was hoping he wasn’t surfing the web or climbing the blinds or flinging laundry from our drawers all over the room. Here I go again with the visions… in my mind Clark looked like that ETrade baby from the commercials, working on his stock portfolio at a computer. I don’t know what it will take for them to finally take naps in the same room. It’s a mystery.  

Born to Fly: On the Death of the Cribs

The inevitable happened. The boys flew the coop. Well, to be accurate, Cal flew his coop, and Clark became curious about flying his own coop. I was advised by several wise people to not take the boys out of their cribs into big boy beds until they started climbing out. The other day I heard laughing, jumping, the typical pre-nap squeals, and then a loud BAM! followed by screams. I went into their bedroom to find Cal in the middle of the room in a heap, probably a good four feet from his bed. I’m glad I wasn't there to see the acrobatics that must have taken place for him to have catapulted himself so far across the room. After comforting the sobbing, shaking gymnast for a few minutes I placed him back in his crib with a warning to both boys of future crib-jumping that could result in similar pain. I left the room with a brief sweeping sense of sadness that my boys are growing up, and texted Brian that we need to figure out the bunkbed situation soon. Some friends bestowed on us some old bunkbeds from when their boys were younger and they have been stored at Brian’s parents’ house for a few months.

Cal cheers Clark on in his climbing practice

It has been around a week since the jumping-out, and we are sneaking by on the fear that the experience apparently elicited in both boys. No one has flown the coop since then. I do not look forward to them being able to walk around the room and even out of the room during naptime and bedtime. I can’t imagine them ever falling asleep that way. They also started to enjoy climbing up the sides of the cribs from the outside. They discovered that the same day, and wouldn't stop giggling about it. Really the only exciting part about this is that I get to figure out new bedding and perhaps a new general theme of the room. So far I've got nothing and the only bedding I like is super expensive and and I don't love it, I only like it. I want to love it.

Speaking of escaping, Clark has also recently learned how to unlock the deadbolt on our front door and open it. So that’s great. We tried a sticky strap-y thing from Home Depot, but it didn’t work well. Because of the rounded corners on our door frame and the fact that the door is metal, Brian couldn't find any little latches that looked like they would work so he rigged something up with a dowel that is doing the trick for now. I put it up if I am in the back of the house and they are in the front. We also are using a dowel on the sliding glass door. Hopefully soon the boogers will not leave the house simply because they know they are not supposed to. 

The dowel that keeps the boys from flying down the stairs and outside

So as we are trying to get the bed situation figured out we are also coming to grips with not having cages to put the boys in anymore. The cribs have served us well as little cool-off stations during tantrums in addition to sleeping traps. I always knew this would happen. They are finding their wings. Next thing I know they will be driving and growing beards, I suppose.