Punchlines

A while back, Jon told me about a friend's proposed trip to Niagara Falls where the friend was going to see a performance of Hamlet. I thought that sounded like a fascinating performance..."To Be or Not To Be-eeeeeeeeeeee!" or "Alas, Poor Yor----iccckkkkkkk!!!" or my personal favorite..."Horatio -- get me out of this stupid bar--relllllllllllll!!! Wha-Hoo=Hoo-Hoo" Jon said my sense of humor might be why our friends didn't invite us to join them on their trip.


According to my blog dates, I haven't been posting anything since February...but while so much has actually happened...somehow it has still "felt" like a fairly quiet time period -- but don't ask me why that is.

In April, we had to take Josh back in to Dr. Ron's to get his official prescription glasses...the first eye exam of the month was a god-awful disaster. Something spooked Josh...no...it would be more accurate to say that he was wild-eyed with absolute terror. It took four people to hold him down on my lap...and of course, that just added to his fear. Dr. Ron suggested we try again the following week, and yes, I had to put more stinging drops in his eyes. This time, though, Jon and I tried something different. After each eye drop, we gave Josh a sip of root beer. It was early morning, we never give him pop...but one sip after each sting, and he would catch his breath and nod his head, and even with tears streaming down his cheeks, he was cheerful and giggly. So we tried our next trick, which was to have Josh's best buddy in the whole world, Uncle Harry, show up at the doc's office. Josh was fine until we made our way back to the tiny, darkened examination room...and then the terror started again. It was Dr. Ron who showed us the last trick...Josh wasn't afraid of the doc, only of the room and perhaps the machines in it, and the doc lead all of us back into the waiting room, where he turned off the lights and lowered the blinds and, with Josh snuggled into Harry's arms, the doc proceeded with the suddenly very calm, very relaxed exam. At the end, Josh was batting his eyes at Dr. Ron, and Ron gave Josh a candy bar, which cemented him as a "good guy" in Josh's book. It turns out that Josh doesn't need as strong a magnification as we had thought...and that his left eye was substantially weaker than his right. We left with a grinning, laughing Roo and the day ended happier than it had begun.

* * * * *

One of the side-effects of my cabin fever is that Josh has picked up on it too. While the urge to be out and social (or to just hear other people's voices) has lessened substantially since the weather changed, many's the time I would bounce on Jon the moment he walked into the house and ask if we could go out for a drive or a quick bite. Squirrel Boy see, Squirrel Boy do...and Josh has learned to ask his daddy to go out to dinner too. After one particularly eloquent (for a two year old) and extremely passionate request was made -- complete with "Pwitty Peas wid cherreee on top" -- My husband, with some rather pointed looks and a few eye rolls in my direction, caved like an old mine and took us out to a local pizza place . Josh for all of his anxious pleading only ate a few bites of pizza and a few bites of cottage cheese, and then he spent the rest of our dinner (was it really only thirty minutes?!) trying to escape the booth. When he tried to go over the top, I stopped him and held him firmly with my right arm while I calmly ate my dinner with my left...later, as Josh's impatience surged, he tried to climb out behind his father's back...Jon merely shifted a bit, and Josh's face then grinned up at me from the nine o'clock position, while his feet stuck out and kicked at the 3:15 position, and Josh remained wedged between Daddy and Wall (still grinning madly) until Jon finished eating his dinner. and we went home.

* * * * *

Still having too much drama trying to get Josh to bed -- And we still can't get him in his own . Took it upon myself to send him to our room early, at least -- but he shrieks in pure terror if one of us isn't there with him. -- seems the age old fear of dark places has finally set in. At a loss, I went to the refrigerator and pulled out an old bottle of Healing Garden Pure Water cologne and made a grand show of spritzing it in front of Josh. Jon had meandered in by that time, and I was there, but I think the Make the Night Better Spray will be playing a crucial part in our nighttime routines from now on...Josh was visibly calmer...and in a way, it's quite lovely, as I couldn't adore the scent more...I just can't adore it on me. Part of Jon's routine is to have Josh watch Daddy growl at our storage room -- which I admit, can be kind of scary in the dark as it has no door, and just looks like a much darker hole in the wall. Jon makes a point of telling Josh that nothing in the house is bigger or scarier than Daddy is and that Daddy will personally thump on any monsters that think differently. Josh nods and grins and gets settled into bed, and seems less distraught when we leave the room. We've had four nights (non-consecutive) without Josh in our room. It's a start, and it made a big difference. I swear, though, if we don't get him in his room soon, you may find me curled up in his toddler bed, because sleeping with him anymore is like going eight rounds with Tyson...or a really ticked off Chuck Norris. I kid you not, the other day, in his sleep, Josh grabbed me by the ears and knee-kicked my nose. I woke up in blinding pain, with his hands still on my ears, and his knee rapidly approaching again. This time, I dodged...barely.

One night, our schedule was all over the place...Josh napped late, we had gone out...nothing was really as it should be, and to top it all off, when eleven rolled around, Josh had managed to keep himself wide awake, in spite of all of our very determined attempts to the contrary. We sighed, knowing we were too tired to wait him out at this point, so we just crawled in next to him. Jon put in one of the cds we'd made for Josh, and the song Hallelujah (R. Wainwright's version) came on. No, it's not cute and fluffy, but we simply love the song. In the dark, snuggled between us, Josh did everything he could to pull off the melody...straining at the notes with a determined earnestness, singing from his pillow...mostly, all he sang was "Ah-eh-oooyah"...and Jon and I joined in, three voices, not quite in tune, singing what wasn't quite a lullabye...but by the time we hit the last chorus, Josh had finally begun his much delayed fade out. He perked enough to "sing" the next song (Nat King Cole, "When I Fall in Love") with us, and then, and only then was he out.

* * * * *

I am constantly amazed by how Josh's cognitive skills improve on a daily basis. He's now able to hold short conversations, he can follow basic directions. If he needs a time out and we tell him to go sit in the chair in his room, he goes in (with much whining and fussing of course) and sits in the chair in his room until we let him up. He's trying so hard to be helpful and it's so adorable and so frustrating at the same time. The other day he was "helping" Harry check the blackberry bushes (and I swear, if Harry gets all the berries this year, there will be some serious thumping going on -- Love him like a saint, but where berries are concerned, he's as bad as the crows) and Josh fell into a patch of the nasty thorns. "Ouch." he would say. "Berries bite." Though the scratches have healed quickly, he still holds up his wrist to show me where his war wounds used to reside.

It was inevitable that I would learn the lesson my mother and so many mothers before me have learned, namely that quiet isn't exactly a good thing. One of Josh's favorite games is to whip up an imaginary soup. Sometimes he puts in carrots...or shoelaces...the other day, he was charging around with his little cooking pot and a big plastic spoon, happy as can be...and I started beating a path through some emails...Josh went into our room, played around softly for a few minutes, and came out yelling, "Soup! Soup! Mommy, Eat Soup!" and gleefully pushed his spoon towards my face...Litter Box Bisque was on the menu. Oh, Yummy.

One of the great mysteries of my life right now is the amazing,unfathomable migration of poo. How did it get inside his sock and only around his toes, and nowhere else on his leg or foot (or thankfully anywhere else, like the floor)? Really, what the hell? Surely, it defies some kind of natural law or logic...(by that token, what about Josh hasn't seemed to defy logic???).



Speaking of defying logic, Jon has been straining his optic muscles with all of the eye-rolling in my direction lately. Josh had begun coloring on one of the doors in the house, and we let it slide...the door wasn't finished, and besides, that is the door we are using for Josh's growth chart...when you shut the door, you can't really see the lines...and to be fair, you can't really see Josh's artwork either. Since I had long decided that the door will come with us should we ever move elsewhere, I decided that I would just trace Josh's hands and feet and put them on the door too, as trying to get him to hold still to outline them on paper just doesn't seem to fly. Give him a wall, and he's only too happy to help. I colored in the phantom limbs and marked the date on them. It's really colorful, and it makes me smile...but Jon was teasing me for days afterward...because my Warhol moment can be seen from space, whereas, you have to be right on top of the door to see Josh's artistic output. I just wonder if I should do green or purple the next time around, but Jon refuses to give me a straight answer on that.

* * * * *

We've had enough drama in the last few weeks, though. Last week, while pondering a computer upgrade (as our old, much-maligned laptop has been spitting single quote-marks all over the place and making any kind of communication or searching difficult) and new cell-phones (as our equally abused ones have been coming to the surface for the third and final time), we were T-Boned at an intersection by a Ford F-100 truck when his wheels spun out. He managed to turn so that he didn't hit my door full on, but we'll still need to replace most of the passenger side of our little Honda. Our first thought, as one, was "Thank God Josh wasn't in the car!" I had a pulled muscle and a pinched nerve, nothing a hot bath and three-double doses of Advil couldn't handle-- but apparently, the sharks were circling heavily after they heard I was ouched in the accident...we've received half a dozen intro letters from lawyers who want to sue the other guy (supposedly on my behalf, out of the goodness of their mercenary little hearts) and a couple of chiropractors were jumping on the ball, too. The guy was cited for failure to control, he had insurance and the car will be repaired on his dime, and Jon's even going to be reimbursed for his deductible...and, AND the other insurance will pay for our rental car for two weeks while the repairs are underway. We're just glad we didn't have to buy another car right now...

Jon's also happier that we are getting a new couch...actually, I may be happier about that than he is, as ours has become the La Brea Tarpits with springs...especially since Josh has learned the joy of jumping on the cushions (and careening into our heads...Yes, you could try telling a two year old not to bounce on cushion, but you try it, and let me know how that works out :P ) Of course, with the good, there comes the bad...two days before our couch arrives, we have discovered that our refrigerator is fritzing badly...The freezer more or less fine (ish)...but the fridge is having a nervous breakdown. *Sigh*


Thanks to the help Jon and my bro, Jay, we rigged up our respective webcams and got Mom into her first video chat last night. She read Josh his bedtime story and was all giggly and gushy and teary-eyed. Since my goal in life is to make my mother cry when I give her presents (it's the only way she'll keep them)...I feel I can safely say, Mission Accomplished.