One more cup of coffee

What would a bad blend be?

Random woman: "They're adopted? What are their ethnic backgrounds?"

Meredith: explains

Random woman: "Oh, those are good blends."

...

Blends?

Moments with Nathan

In the car, with Nathan and Adam in the back seat, right after I drive over a speed bump.

Nathan: "Adam doesn't like bumps." (turning to Adam to comfort him) "It's OK, Adam."

pause

Nathan, back to me: "He doesn't like bumps because he thinks they are little monsters creeping along on the road."

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Related from Meredith:

Nathan: "Mama, the whole world is shaking with joy."

ten second pause

Nathan: "Mama, when are you going to die?"

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Nathan: "I'm trying to figure out how to open this."

Me: "Open what?"

Nathan: "This" (holds up a tampon that he has found somewhere and unwrapped from its package)

Me: "Nathan, that isn't for you." (taking it away)

Nathan: "Who's it for?"

Me: "It's for Mama."

Nathan: "But what it help Mama do?"

Me: "Hmm ... you'll have to ask her."

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The other night, Meredith had left with a migraine to try to get some sleep in the other room. Then Nathan crawled into bed with Adam and me. Adam awoke at about 4 AM, and I stumbled into the bathroom to make up a bottle. As I left, Adam started to wail louder and louder.

I went back in to find Nathan having rolled over right next to Adam, with one hand up on Adam's chest, whispering to him, "It's OK, Adam. It's OK".

Nathan's eyes weren't even open. He was barely awake at all.

He's a good brother.

A good question

At pre-school, Nathan has been learning about snakes.

Showing that he is a child of Seattle, he asked me last night: "What's a Boeing Constrictor?"

I asked Dad, who used to work at Boeing, but he said he didn't know.

When coaches fail basic common sense test

Jacksonville State has just signed former LSU quarterback Ryan Perrilloux. The funny parts are in red:

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP)—Quarterback Ryan Perrilloux, kicked off LSU’s national championship team after repeated off-the-field problems, signed Wednesday with Jacksonville State.

Perrilloux will be able to transfer and start immediately for the Gamecocks. The MVP of last season’s Southeastern Conference title game won’t have to sit out a year because Jacksonville State plays in the lower Football Championship Subdivision.

Jacksonville State coach Jack Crowe said he needed an experienced quarterback after dismissing last year’s starter for disciplinary reasons. The 21-year-old Perrilloux was a sophomore last season.

“We had to have a quarterback,” Crowe said.

Right on.

Hotel livin'

We're in a hotel for a couple of days, as our kitchen remodel is now in the refinishing-the-floors phase, a phase that involves toxic chemicals. Yum.

This should be done soon, and we can't wait. For weeks we've basically been living in our master bedroom, aka TV room, aka play room, aka dining room. The entire downstairs has been off-limits. We're now eating out basically every meal.

Nathan is currently so entranced by the novelty of the hotel that he is showing exactly zero interest in going to sleep. Adam is fussy. Going to be a long night...

Not a good sign

This afternoon, I was sitting in the rocking chair in Nathan's room, reading a story to him while holding Adam asleep on my chest. Then I heard myself say the word 'elephant'. I was just barely awake enough to consider that the story I was reading didn't really involve animals.

I stopped, shook myself awake, and scanned over the entire page. Nope, no mention of an elephant. Or anything like elephant.

I need more sleep...

Girlfriend(s)

Yesterday, Nathan explained to me that he had a girlfriend. An imaginary girlfriend. Her name is Actua (pronounced like Actual, but without the L). I got to meet her this morning when Nathan invited Actua into bed with us.

Today, Meredith sent me this IM:

btw, nathan asked me today if you had a girlfriend too
when i told him that i was your girlfriend, he replied, "maybe he have two girlfriends."

Snowy days are here again ... wait, what?

Yeah, snow. I drove home through a hailstorm Friday night, and we watched it snow this morning. Last weekend it was 77 degrees, sunny, and clear. Good times.

...

Levi told me I had to watch this episode of South Park. That show continues to be pure genius. Cartman, as inner-city teacher: “Just before the last Super Bowl, Bill Belichick gathered his football players and said let’s win this one for real… Just this one time.. Let’s not cheat. You know what happened? They lost.”

...

Nathan continues to take his antibiotic, smuggled into a big cup of V-8 juice now. I tried it last night and he looked up at me and said, "this kind of taste like medicine." And then continued to drink it. After this morning's dose, he asked me point blank if it had medicine, so I told him it did. Then he got mad. But at least he's getting it into him. Tomorrow we need to track down the lab result to make sure he doesn't have some weird antibiotic-resistant form of Staph.

...

Our kitchen remodel continues. Some subcontractor was here on Friday hanging drywall. This was exciting except for the part where they didn't bother cleaning up at all, so it's been pretty fun walking through the 1/4" deep pile of drywall dust in the kitchen floor. And admiring the dust all over the piano, since they didn't bother sheeting off the area where they were working. Oh well. The contractor has been great about cleaning up at the end of the day, but he wasn't here when they were doing this.

Can check that one off the list

I got in my car this morning to hear on the radio: "I wanna know / Have you ever seen the rain?"

Yes. Yes, I have.

Staph

Meredith noticed this morning that Nathan's splinter was starting to look infected. Since our pediatrician, for reasons passing understanding, can't remove it, she called Children's Hospital as instructed. They evidently thought that this sounded as stupid as we did, but eventually set up an appointment for 6:45 PM at the after-hours clinic in Bellevue. Why after hours? Because during normal hours, your regular doctor could do this ... except that ... bah.

With three people restraining Nathan (doctor, Meredith, and me), the doctor was able to get the splinter out. It no doubt helped that she was probably a lot better at this in general than I was anyway. The splinter was somewhat longer than we'd expected. And she took a sample of the pus that came out, commenting, "looks like Staph."

Oh yay.

So we got antibiotics. Nathan reacted to getting to take that about the same way he did do the splinter removal itself. I thought I might kill him when he managed to spit a mouthful of antibiotic into my eye. Twice a day for ten days. Only nineteen doses to go.

With Adam waking up at 5:15 AM yesterday, then waking me up for feedings last night from 3-3:30, 5-5:30, then again at 7, then this evening dealing with the splinter ... it's been a long day.