Moving Onward and Upward

To get the whole hospital visit thing out of our system, my sister and I took the boys to the Moody Gardens aquarium on Galveston Island today. it's so wonderful having my sister here. When I was living my single life back in Boston, we saw each other every weekend, which was great.

The last time we went to the aquarium in July or so, B. and G. seemed completely unaware of where we were. This time they loved it. G. (who has a slight penguin obsession) stood with his face squashed up against the glass, staring at the penguins. Some of them swam right up to where he was to check him out. B. went into his happy dance, clapping his hands and doing his fancy footwork the whole time that he watched the penguins. J. enjoyed it, too, although he was torn between the penguins and the seals and had to keep running back and forth. He especially liked a glass tunnel in which you could see sharks swimming overhead.

We had a picnic lunch and then walked down to look at the water. We happened upon a great playground, and spent a while there until all three boys started to hit the fatigue wall and get cranky. This time it was J. who got into the fire ants, but we got them off before they bit him. He wanted to play with the giant chess set which was near the playground, so we gave it a try. He's starting to be very interested in playing games, although chess for him right now consists of hugging the knights and ignoring all the other pieces. I can't wait until we can really play board games.

This afternoon I felt as if B and G were trying to prove the doctor wrong about the MR thing (which at this point is pretty meaningless to me, anyway). B has been saying "up", and a few other things. G. was trying to do the motions to "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes". When J. and I were playing hide-and-seek, both the boys tried to chime in whenever I counted to ten.

Playing hide and seek with J. is funny, because first of all, he usually hides in plain sight. Then when I try to ham it up, and look all over, saying "Where could J. be?", he can't help yelling out, "Here I am!" Today the twins got very excited whenever I counted, and ran around the house when I got to ten. It was nice because we were all playing together, even though they weren't actually looking for J., as far as I could tell. Although, I can certainly see how the point of the game isn't clear to them, given the way we play it!

My short term goal right now is to replace some of G's lost wooden penguins. He started with three, and right now we are down to one, which has been chewed on quite a bit by the dog. I actually called the toy store in Massachusetts where my friend bought them, but they were out. I'll try the internet. I know he'll deal with it if the last one gets lost, but he's so cute when he plays with it. It jumps around, goes for a ride on a kiddy bike, kisses other little animals, etc.

Ants in our Pants

Lately B. has taken to plopping down in the grass and gently touching the white clover blossoms which are everywhere right now. That sounds so lovely, and looks pretty sweet, too. The thing is, his interest in objects usual progresses through three stages:

- lightly touching with the fingertips (a couple of days)
- putting object gingerly up to his lips (one day)
- consuming whatever the object is as quickly as possible (indefinitely)

Well, we are only in stage two with the clover at this point, but there is a certain drawback which comes along with the whole exciting Texan lifestyle: Fire Ants.

Due to a very brief clover appreciation session today, both B. and I have fire ant bites on various body parts. He is doing much better than I am at ignoring them. I am a big baby about fire ant bites. I alternate between looking at them, scratching them, asking my husband to look at them, and so on. After one dose of Benadryl, B. doesn't seem to notice them at all.

I am ready to start a campaign to bring in some very tough breed of aardvark, but of course this might throw off the whole delicate armadillo/fire ant/flying cockroach ecosystem that we enjoy here in southeast Texas. I really do try to hide it, but sometimes my ambivalence about the Lone Star State comes sneaking out.

But seriously, I'm wondering if a social story about fire ants would help. My three-year-old recognizes their ant hills and steers clear, but B. and G. still see them as an inviting pile of sand. So far I just yell out "Ants, bites, boo-boo" and things like that, and sometimes that does startle them into changing direction.