The Helmets Have Arrived

The boys are obsessed with sports and astronauts and really anything involving helmets. I wrote this last week about some of the ways they’ve tried to create football and hockey helmets with household odds and ends.

My mother in law knows of their obsession and their love of tackling each other and playing football. It’s all they do at her house. She bought some little football helmets and matching jerseys for the boys for their birthday (in April). After the obliteration of their Halloween costume paper mache helmets, things were getting pretty desperate around here, since they “have a football game” every day. I know that their sports interests tend to follow whatever sport is in season, and since football season is now over and baseball starting up, and Gammy had mentioned being eager to give them the helmets, I suggested giving them the helmets early while they’re still really into football.

So one night last week she came over and presented the boys with the helmets and jerseys. They were immediately smitten, of course, and wanted to sleep in them that night, after wearing them for the last hour before bed and talking incessantly about them. They settled for setting the helmets out with the jerseys for their big game the next morning.

The next day we took the helmets for their outside debut. They were a huge hit. Photo story below. 

That's right. I'm this cool.

I like your helmet...

Gammy is the greatest!

As if they weren't tackling hard enough before...
now in helmets they really go at it.

Clark took this picture himself after they set out their uniforms
 for the morning.

Cal just had to check to see if plastic wrap would make the new helmet
into an acceptable hockey helmet as well. Yes. 

The jerseys are big enough to wear over their winter coats!
They are actually muscles and pads, not coats, they told me.
Also, we couldn't find the football to play football with...

Going to the park! Getting a lot of smiles from other walkers and drivers...

Off to the races...

ROARRR!

Now let's give our helmets swing rides!

And push each other....

...while our helmets safely rest in the mulch.

The Way It Is

Last Sunday I had another seizure. It’s the second one I’ve had while pregnant this time. I fell straight down on my abdomen from a standing position. I fell partially on Calvin, and my coffee splattered all over the carpet. Fortunately, Brian was right there since it was Sunday. He called his mom to watch the boys while we went to the emergency room to have the baby checked out.

I couldn’t believe it. I’ve averaged one seizure per year for the past four years or so, and I just had one three months ago. I honestly didn’t think I’d have another one until next fall. Silly to think I could predict my own unpredictable neurological misfires.

I discovered, on returning back home from the hospital (Peapod was fine- moving all over like crazy on the sonogram), that I had forgotten my medicine the night before. That was a huge relief. I thought I’d remembered it. I can’t tell you how many times in my seizure-medicine-taking life I’ve forgotten my meds and been fine. But the only two times I’ve forgotten them while being pregnant this time, I’ve had a seizure within 10 hours of missing the dose.

Now our minds are spinning—I think especially Brian’s because he watched the seizure. What will we do with a newborn? The boys will not be able to pry me off a baby if I fall on it. They can’t turn off a pan with scorching pancakes on the stove or pick up a baby out of a bath. They can call for help on their phone, but that’s about it at this point. Fortunately we've been blessed as a family to get through this far with no horrible accident surrounding my seizures. But if something did happen we could never forgive ourselves. We feel that we need to make better arrangements. And now we are trying to figure out what in the world to do.

My seizures always have occurred within the first hour and a half to two hours of waking up. Basically I just need an alive, awake adult in my house every weekday morning for two hours. Let me tell you how this makes me feel: utterly useless. I hate that I need it, but I’m trying to swallow my pride and do what I need to do to take care of my family. There are other options we’re also looking into, but the least life-changing one would be to simply have someone come babysit me- a 32 year-old adult- every weekday morning; keep me from hurting my own children, should I have a seizure. It's grim and it makes me sad. But that's the way it is. I know it could be much worse.    

Any and all other ideas for how to face this are certainly welcome. 

Vinegar and Baby Powder

The other day I discovered that our dining room had been overtaken by brazen, ravenous ants. It’s no wonder that they were attracted to a certain area in the house—where the boys consume food with their formative eating skills and fledgling hand-eye coordination. It was easy work for lazy ants.

I did the thing where you see some ants together and then you look farther and see more and then farther and more, and it makes your stomach sink because you have been invaded and you didn’t even know it. I had three kids in the house. How was I supposed to keep them out of the ants, while still feeding them, and try to figure out how to get rid of the ants? The vacuum is the easiest band-aid. I did that a few times, but clearly was only vacuuming the tip of the proverbial iceberg. 

Stupid ants

A friend and her twins were over in the morning shortly after I discovered the ants, and I had her run out and buy me some ant traps and ant gel, which I had never used. First of all— I’m blessed to have friends who will drop what they’re doing and buy me ant repellent.  Secondly—it didn’t work. I waited for 8 or 9 hours and they were still swarming the baseboards and clinging to anything resembling food, except for the ant traps. And the gel wasn’t safe to use since the area was accessible to children.

Later, when everyone had gone to bed and the house was silent (This may or may not be the best part of my day), the ants still scampered like the invading scoundrels that they are. I got online and looked up ideas for getting rid of ants. Fascinating. Not really, but the result I got was.

After washing down the baseboards and walls around where the ants were with half vinegar/half water rinse, and dowsing the baseboards and nearby carpet with baby powder, I woke up in the morning to a completely ant-free dining room! They haven't been back and it's been two days now. 

Don’t spend money on (insert popular brand of ant repellent here)! Get out your vinegar and baby powder and draw the battle lines.

Ant enders

A Amerchancy

Woooo Woooo!

A few weeks ago we went to Friend Philip’s birthday party at a fire station. The firefighters themselves decorated the room with firemen birthday decorations and set up the tables, complete with firemen-themed goodie bags and plastic firefighter helmets for everyone. Impressive! The firefighters gave the guests a tour of the fire station but beforehand they asked if anyone knew what an emergency was. I don’t think I’d ever mentioned the word to the boys, but we’ve talked a lot about mommy having a seizure and what they should do. 

The presentation at the fire station made me think even more that we need to have a specific and simple plan in place for the boys. Up until recently there wasn’t much we could have them do if I had a seizure. Here’s what happened last time I had a seizure with all three kids in the house with me.

I wonder if Clark enjoyed the red fire engine cake?

Brian and I had been trying to figure out how we could start training them to call for help. Chances are, the next situation will not go as ideally and smoothly as that time did. My cell phone is hard for them to use, and we’ve never had a land line at our house. We found out it was another $25 a month to add a land line and so Brian did a little research and we ended up buying an Ooma, which is an internet-based phone line. He found a phone accessory from Sharper Image that is designed for elderly people. It’s got gigantic buttons with places on each button for a picture. So we got that hooked up a few days ago and mounted it on the wall in our living room at the boys’ height. 

We’ve been having the boys make some practice calls over the past few days, and collecting pictures for the buttons. They like it, and it has been so funny to see them mimic our phone call behaviors as they lean against the wall and chat with Grandma. So far they have not picked it up without asking, but have waiting until we've told them they could practice to use it. A few times they've flippantly pushed faces without us looking, but during a practice session, like calling Brian when he was at work, but other than that, no misplaced calls. Now we're all set for a amerchancy, as the boys call it.

If you have toddlers, this might be something to think about doing. Specifically if there is a slightly elevated risk of an emergency in your house, like there is in ours.

The perfect spot

We are not programming the taxi, hospital, or fire numbers, just don't have the other pictures.

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.