Word To The Ys

We’re not even to the teen years yet and it’s already happening.  It’s a foregone conclusion that when those happy golden years of teenagedom are finally upon us, we’ll already be broke and living in someone’s basement. (Mom & Dad? Carolyn? Steve & Pat?  Who wants us?  No, wait…Mark & Angie!  Perfect!)  While Max is still pretty picky about his food and thus not generally a huge eater, and Seth is still too young to make too large a dent in our grocery bill, that little firecracker Ollie is more than making up for it. 

Let me make this clear: the child NEVER STOPS EATING.  All day long, I kid you not, he is eating something.  Here’s a typical day: cereal and juice for breakfast. Can’t I have your breakfast, Mom?  No?  I bring him some grapes instead.  He goes upstairs to rummage around in the fridge and asks for cheese, a request I oblige.  A second cup of juice, please.  Banana?  Great!  Again, fridge rummaging…this time yielding an economy-size package of turkey hot dogs that he hefts all the way downstairs to open and eat one cold and whole before I can stop him.  THIS IS BEFORE LUNCH, people.

Lunch…pasta.  Some kind of vegetable.  Less than half an hour later, he’s looking in the refrigerator again.  An apple, which he devours in its entirety.  I am strangely charmed when he later brings me a single seed, or the stem…the only byproduct of his indiscriminate appetite.  An old college friend of mine (hi, Krista!) used to eat the entire apple as well, mostly because she’s this crazy bad-ass outdoorswoman and this fits her ethics and bad-ass style.  Hey!  That apple was good…how ’bouts some more juice?  Water, then?  Fine!  Could I have some popcorn?  A fistful of cookies?  (I finally got smart enough to hide those somewhere VERY high where he’s totally unaware of them, to avoid the monkey-like climbing for cookies.)  He asks for more cheese/hot dogs/whatever and I decline his request.  Max comes home from school and some kind of afterschool snack is consumed.  Now there is only one hour until dinner, but this is torture for him to wait so long to eat once again.

I know these are growing boys, but this is insane.  Oliver either has food in his hand, in his mouth, or is thinking about what food to try to steal next from the fridge at any given moment of his waking hours.  You’d expect with this kind of eating pattern that he’d be a bit, well, rotund or something, right?  Except anyone who knows him knows this is far from the case.  He is a slim, scrappy, tall little thing.  He looks like he could bend a nine iron in half and he probably could if we’d only let him try.  This amazing phenomena is due to the fact that he never, ever stops moving as he never, ever stops eating.  He tries to eat and run laps at the same time.  He tries to eat while wrestling his brothers to the ground.  He tries to eat while going to the bathroom.  All these economical multi-taskings are (unfortunately, in his mind) halted by yours truly. 

But the thing is, he’s been like this from birth so Joe and I have had lots of time to think about this physiologically…his stomach, like the internal organ, cannot possibly be big enough to hold all the food he’s consumed.  So we’re convinced that one of his legs is hollow and it just fills up with all that produce he devours all day long.  At church on Sunday he ate no fewer than 6 treats, because I was helping with the coffee hour and Joe was finishing his recording-related duties and no one could stop him.  Then we went to an afternoon birthday bash where he tried to consume 3 large pieces of cake in the first five minutes we were there.  At least that time I could stop him.  Well, after the first one.

I can’t be sure, but Seth seems like he’s going to be just as voracious.  Lord help us.  Please send provisions akin to those you provided your whole tribe of Israelites on their desert wanderings.

And with that I must sign-off, because Mr. Hollow Leg is now asking me for something else to eat.

Posted in Ollie | 1 Comment »

Well.

It’s been an eventful couple of weeks if a series of small events and epiphanies can be considered eventful.  Any size events count toward the running total, right?

We’ve got more steppin’ (Seth), more schoolin’ (Max), and more expressin’ (Oliver).  Ollie has been developing before my very eyes.  It’s amazing how a single day can bring so many cognitive changes.  He is so bright and energetic…so as much as I can get annoyed when his high activity leads to destructive bids for attention, I still marvel at his intelligence and enthusiasm and feel grateful for my time with him.  Seth is babbling, saying “hi!” and waving.  He is such an engaging little guy and anytime I bring him anywhere he attracts attention.  Charisma in spades.  Max is still loving first grade and has added a new course of study…Aikido (a martial art).  He and Joe go together to a family class and they’re both in love with it, which makes the extra night away from the intact family worthwhile.

I have been struggling a bit as I found out (three months after interviewing) that a job I really wanted was not going to be mine.  I wish there was a short explanation for why it took so long to find out, but there’s not.  I really thought I was a shoe-in and was willing to go along with the flow all this time thinking I would get it, and I was really excited about the possibility.  It was a reporting gig.  I was so disappointed by the outcome, and realized that it’s been a long time since I’ve been “rejected” for a job like this.  Heck, it had been 5-6 years since I’d even interviewed for anything.  So I needed a couple of days to lick my wounds.  I don’t know if I’m even completely over it yet; but I think it’s more a matter of being scared that when my children are in school and I’m really ready, there won’t be anything for me to do.  It’s still such a dicey thing to take such a big chunk of time “off” (though I would argue that mentality big time) and focus on family instead of profession.  I don’t know that I want to go back to teaching.  I want to write/edit/etc. more at this point.  It just feels so suspended at this moment.  I’m hoping to snap out of it soon.  In the meantime, I’m writing and working for our church again with some desktop publishing, so it’s not like *nothing* is happening.  I’m allowing myself the space to write and work on developing a discipline there.  Joe and I are collaborating on a novel.  Yep.  I’m doing much of the writing but he’s the “big idea” guy.  It’s really fun so far and I’ll tell you all more when there’s more to tell.

Also, we’re hoping to get some new windows in the next couple months.  We are trying to take advantage of a government program for window replacement that will essentially pay for the materials (we will have to pick up the tab for labor, obviously.)  In exchange, I have to give up my dreams of a new washing machine.  It’s a small trade, and I’ll be so excited to have windows that don’t bear a strong resemblance to chewed-up wind sieves, but I’m still a tiny bit in mourning about the washer.  If you only knew how much laundry is done in this house…

So, mostly good.  But just enough pith to make me grateful for all the sweetness. 

And now…what you all really come here to see…the newest (gorgeous) family portraits taken by our good friend Brad!

Posted in Max, Mostly Me, Ollie, Seth | 3 Comments »