mathmom's blog

Luke is helping me to decorate for Halloween. He painted some old plastic bottles and tupperware black (with ink from the dot-a-dot marker) and buried them partway in the garden. I think I appreciate it, but I'm not sure yet...

It is all in the presentation. Luke is perfectly capable of getting dressed by himself. He is perfectly capable of finding clothes to wear in his dresser---not always appropriate clothes, but that's ok with me. Unfortunately, lately he's been complaining that he needs help and could I come help him? Pleeeeeaasseeeeee mommy? The other day I was doing too many things getting ready to go, and this was one thing too many. In exasperation, I said, "Luke, your clothes are playing hide and seek in your dresser drawer. Can you go find them? First, close your eyes and count to 10." I really didn't expect much, but he stopped right where he was, put his head down and counted to 10. "Now say, 'Ready or not, here I come!'" He yelled, "Ready or not here I come!" and raced up the stairs. A few minutes later he came running down the stairs. "Mommy, mommy, I found my clothes! I found where they were hiding!" I wonder how long I...

Luke woke up this morning very unhappy. First he was sad because Alex (?) had given him his dinosaur jammies and he didn't like them. Then he was sad because people kept telling him that he was going to be a daddy when he was grown up, but you change into a daddy as you are growing up. Then he was upset because the melty -bead circle he had made and left on the floor had lost a bead. Then he wanted to wear "firework pants" that don't actually exist. I looked at Michael. "I think he's sick." So I asked him if his throat hurt. He thought it did. Michael felt his lymph nodes. They were swollen. I gave him a motrin , and he's now playing happily and not complaining so much. I think there is another prescription for antibiotics in our future...

Luke is in general a very friendly boy. He'll tell anyone who will listen about the time he and Anakin killed Darth Vader (he doesn't have a full grip on the Star Wars story) or about the house he is building in New York City. He loves kids his own age, older kids, adults, grandparents, dogs, cats, fish... you name it. There is only one group right now that he is not friendly to, and that is babies. Perhaps we warned him to be careful of babies too often (don't let the baby grab your fork!) or perhaps he doesn't like how they get all the attention. I think he has also been the victim of some aggressive babies in the child care center at the gym who were trying to take his toys, or who hit him, or who the adults favored over him. Regardless, if you've got someone from newborn to about 3 years (pretty much anyone visibly younger than him is a baby) he's a bit wary. This comes up in strange ways as we look forward to the visit of his 18 month old cousin, A. ...

Last night I heard Luke crying, and I went in to see him. I was a bit slower than usual, having been pretty deeply asleep, and I got into his room just as he was stopping crying and getting back into bed. He looked up and told me, "It's alright. I don't need you anymore." I was a bit taken aback, but I tucked him in and he started whimpering again. I asked if he had had a bad dream and he told me it was a "SO bad dream. Actually it was a good dream. I dreamed I lost all my friends. But then I found Ribbity and Froggie on the floor," (and here he pointed to the floor) "and I found Hopper over here, so it was a good dream." I think that what happened was that he lost his friends, woke up when he couldn't find them in his sleep, and started crying. But being the problem solving boy that he is, he got up, found his friends, and got back into bed just as I arrived. Luke then complained that he was cold. I got his quilt and snuggled a littl...

Today, Luke decided that the lettuce was ready to be harvested. He found a bowl, let himself through the fence into the garden, removed every single leaf from one lettuce plant, and proudly brought the lettuce back to the house for lunch.

Today, Luke decided that the trash can in his room was too full. Entirely on his own initiative, he tied a double knot in the bag, removed it from the trash can, carried it outside, climbed on the pile of boxes in the recycling bin next to the (tall) wheelie trash bin, disposed of the full trash bag, found a new trash bag in the closet, and re-lined his trash can. (Wait until we tell his girlfriends about this!) Also on his own initiative, he decided to make crinkle cookies. He found a bowl, "remembered" that a cup of water was required ( all of Luke's recipes start with a cup of water), measured it and added it to the bowl, remembered (correctly, this time) that 4 half-cups of sugar were required, got the sugar out of the cupboard above the counter, and added the 4 half-cups of sugar (all we had left!) to the water. So close! And yet, not quite close enough. Off to the store to buy more sugar...

This afternoon, Luke got hungry. So without any help from anyone else, he got out Michael's birthday pie (strawberry, of course). He then got out the pie server from the drawer, got out Amanda's can of soy whipped cream, added "just a little bit" as he says, and ate the last piece of pie. It's hard to know what to do with this type of initiative. On the one hand, he was hungry and he solved the problem, quite elegantly and completely, with no help from anyone. He paid careful attention to the correct way to eat pie, down to the server and the whipped soy stuff, which he put back in the fridge when he was done. He cleared his dish when he was done. On the other hand, I do kind of wish he would ask before doing things of this sort... I guess you can't win. Strawberry Glace pie, from Better Homes and Gardens cookbook Baked pie shell 8 cups berries 2/3 c water 2/3 c sugar 2 Tbsp corn starch Wash and hull strawberries. Take out 1 cup berries, set the rest as...

Froggie went missing for a few days last week---actually only 3 days. We cleaned up the house completely, looked in all the unlikely places we'd found Froggie before (in the tablecloth/napkin basket in the dining room, in the sleeping bag stored in our closet, underneath all the sinks, behind and under the couches...) We finally found him in Luke's room, under the pillow of the seat of his rocking chair. Fortunately, I hadn't yet purchased the one I found on ebay for a ridiculous price. The most difficult thing about the whole episode (aside from cleaning the house, including the drawers in the bathrooms, the closets, etc.) was how much Luke missed and needed Froggie. He spent much more time sitting on my lap. He refused to say that Froggie was lost, but just"on vacation." At the beach. He told me every day that we needed to go to the beach. One day, as he was sitting on my lap, he told me "Froggie is on vacation. He's trying and trying and tryin...

One of the hazards of going to a liturgical church where the pastors wear long white robes (are they albs?) is that my kids seem to get the pastors confused with Jesus. I can see what the problem is---the pictures of the kids have seen of Jesus show him wearing quite similar garments. I think I've already explained about Amanda's confusion, but she seems to have gotten over it. Now it's Luke's turn. I spent some time explaining to Luke how the outfits show the pastor's job in the church, but that the pastors aren't Jesus, and the rest of the time they wear other outfits. Luke responded, "They have other outfits to wear on other days at church!" "Really? What are they like?" I asked. "Like a unicorn outfit! Or maybe a shark outfit!" What do you think? It would certainly make Monday morning more exciting at the church =) It makes me smile every time I think of it.

I found Luke grinding salt into a bowl. "What are you doing?" I asked. "Making winter," was the answer. He brought the bowl of salt into the kitchen. "Now we have to microwave it. The salt will puff up and turn into snow!" Now he's asking to add sugar, and that is how you make winter. Or maybe you put the salt outside and freeze it... Hmmm.

Luke just turned 4, and we had a family birthday party for him. There were presents and a cake with candles. He has apparently gotten over the worst of his fear of fire, since his eyes were glowing happily when we lit the candles, and he didn't protest when we moved the cake closer to him so that he could actually blow out the candles instead of blowing across the table. I think he doesn't remember previous birthdays, since he keeps saying "This is my first birthday party!" We do correct him, but it doesn't seem to make a difference. He does love to help me bake, and he was very clear about what kind of cake he wanted. "Blueberry chocolate chip," he told me on the playground earlier today. I'm not surprised, since he's fascinated by blueberries, although his sisters both don't like them. So this afternoon I went to my favorite search engine and looked for vegan blueberry cake. (I realize I should have planned ahead. In my defense, I ...

Luke, bringing a box of kleenex: "Could you please wipe the tears out of my eyes so that I can talk not baby talk? ... Thank you, now I can talk not baby talk!"

The other day I had to give Luke a bath by himself---Amanda was still eating, I think. He got in the bath, looked around and sighed. "I need some friends," he said. We call toys our friends sometimes, so I got him a few toys. He appreciated the toys, but repeated his request for friends. I was getting a little exasperated, so I asked him, "What kind of friends do you want?" "Sister friends! I need some sisters in the bath with me!" It is funny that he doesn't want to take a bath alone, which I think stems from the fact that since he was 9 months old I figured it was more efficient to wash two kids at a time than one. But also it is very sweet that he calls his sisters his friends. Hopefully that will remain for a long, long time.

Yesterday, as I rushed down the stairs from the office on my way home from work, my phone rang. It was from home. I answered, ready to say, "Yes, I'm on my way home now" but I heard a muffled voice, barely rising above screaming in the background, say, "Luke cut his head badly and he's bleeding a lot. mmrmph ummmph rrr ..." Ella doesn't do so well with telephones; she sometimes forgets to hold the microphone near her mouth. Apparently Kim had asked her to call me while she took care of Luke. Probably the incomprehensible bit at the end was something like "We are getting into the car to go to the hospital" but I had to ask for her to repeat herself a few times. It was half a minute before I realized that I was talking to Kim, not Ella. I never knew before that Ella's voice is like Kim's! She was telling me that she couldn't tell whether he cut himself badly enough that we should take him in to let a professional take a look. Mean...

I used to think poorly of parents who kept their 3 year olds in cribs. What's the point, I would think, they can climb in and out. Why not just get them a bed and be done with it! Are you afraid they'll fall out of bed or something? I now repent. Luke, who will be 4 in February, is still sleeping in a crib. It has more to do with inertia than anything else. When his sisters were 3, there was another baby who needed the crib, so they were in beds, no problem. I'm not opposed to putting Luke in a bed, but to do that we'd need to figure out the whole bed situation which seemed extremely complicated... We finally decided to get two low loft beds for the girls. We did not get the castle curtains that are supposed to go around them ( hmmm , Christmas presents?). Then we'll give Luke the bed we got for him when he was born---a bookshelf bed with a trundle that matches the dresser in his room, which Ella has been using until we decided what kind of bed to get for ...

Luke has gotten out all of our train cars and made a long train and track. Then he got out the meat tenderizer hammer and crushed two graham crackers. He mixed up some "muffins" with the crumbs, spices, food coloring, cous cous , applesauce and honey. He got out the blender, plugged it in, put another graham cracker in and asked, "Now I push start?" with his finger on the button (makes me glad we don't have a blendtech ). It is now 8:40. I said, "mama needs a break!" and he allowed that we could have a break while I ate breakfast. p.s. we just got a laminator . I warned Michael not to show Luke how to use it (having seen how he reacted to being shown how to work the 3-hole punch and the comb binder). He snuck up and watched anyway. I'll let you know what gets laminated.

I was in the car today, driving Ella to pick up Amanda from school, and I realized that it was awfully quiet. Luke is almost always talking. I looked back and didn't see Luke in the car. "Luke! Luke! are you here!" I yelled. Ella looked up from her book, and said in a worried voice, "No, he's not in the car!" As you can imagine, my thoughts immediately went back to the house where I must have left him---I had a million things to remember today (we went from string lessons to social group to dinner to Taekwondo ), and I have always worried that I would end up forgetting a person. I did once forget Amanda in a waiting room for 3 minutes when I went in to Ella's gym class, although she was 3 months old at the time... "Poor Luke! He must be so worried! He was probably bawling and terrified! He'll never trust me again!" I worried silently. I needed to get off the highway right then, call Michael to pick up Amanda, call the string teac...

Last weekend we went up to a camp in the mountains for a family "retreat". My good friend Julie had been a counselor up there in the (now distant =) past, so she knew the trails. While Ella and Amanda and Michael went on the intermediate ropes course (Ella's favorite part of the trip), I wanted to go on a hike. There were two options: a short (15 minute for a grownup) hike over mostly flat ground, or a longer (1 mile) hike up to the top of the mountain. I had gotten enough sleep that night, or was feeling ambitious, and Julie told me that it would be alright, so we opted for the latter. As with so many things in life (getting married, having children, getting your PhD, etc.) if I had known before I started what was entailed, I wouldn't have done it. Having done it, I'm glad we went. The first part of the hike was over a leaf covered trail, through the forest. As we got higher up, there were more and more rocks to climb over. I pulled Luke up the first part ...

We have been taking Luke to speech therapy, where he gets to play all sorts of fun games while learning to speak more clearly---he doesn't even seem to notice that he is learning something. The therapist has a small plastic tote filled to the brim with wind-up toys: airplanes, cars, flipping ladybugs... The other day Luke was playing with the toys and he started winding one up and watching the wheels on the bottom turn. The toy (a submarine driven by a fox) would go forward and then turn suddenly. Luke explained to me how it changed direction and then he asked the therapist, "Open it, please!" She was confused (part of the reason Luke is hard to understand sometimes is that he says such unexpected things) but he finally made her understand that what he really wanted was to look inside and see how the whole thing was put together. He actually tried to get it apart, before she distracted him with something else. Better hide our screwdrivers, I think. =)