Nate Nate

Two Sweet Boys

And now there's an ear infection too.  Not Jonah's week.  Supernanny Obdulia recognized the signs and brought him in, so I attended by phone from work.  "Well," said our doctor, "he's as cute as a button, I'll tell you that."  He suggested that instead of rushing to antibiotics, I might want to wait a day and then see how he's feeling.  "The problem with that," I explained, "is that he's always smiley and cheerful and happy-go-lucky, even when he feels terrible."  "I see," agreed our doctor, noting that Jonah was beaming and playing happily.  "It's a beautiful day!" said my feverish, eye-infected, ear-infected, asthmatic 3 year old.  "Can we go to the park?"

So we'll be going with Plan B: a recheck of his ears tomorrow at the doctor's office.  Since Jonah himself is not a very accurate reporter of his own condition.  Boy, if he isn't exactly like every story I've ever heard about his daddy.

Sweet boy number two: "Nate," I said this morning, "we need to do your math-a-thon book tonight."  "I don't want to," he mumbled.  "Why not??" I asked.  "You love math!"  "Well," said Nate, "I don't want to win anything."  "You don't win stuff," I explained.  "You raise money to help kids who are really sick and in the hospital."  "Oh!" he exclaimed.  "We'd better do it, then!  Let's do it tonight!"

Saving the world, one math problem at a time.

Supercat!

Poor Jonah.  He just can't shake the sickies.  Now it's a 104 fever and what the doctor described as "really gross" pinkeye.  Fortunately, the fever came right down with a single dose of Motrin, although not before Mommy came close to a nervous breakdown herself (fever is like turbulence: I know it's going to be ok, but I need it to be over RIGHT NOW so I can finally exhale).

Still, the poor little dude is now in the middle of medicine mania.  Two puffs of Albuterol, one puff of Flo-Vent, a teaspoon of Zyrtec, a teaspoon.25 of Motrin, and the dreaded eye drops in each eye -- and that's just the pre-bed dose.  Ugh.  Fortunately, because he's Jonah, he's fabulously cooperative and good natured about it. (Me, rushing in the door: "Jonah!  Jonah!  How are you feeling??" Jonah (still with fever of 102 and eyes running like Niagara Falls): "I feel great!"  And then, after I gave him his eye drops, which he hates, he said, and I am not making this up, "Thanks, Mommy.")

In an effort to assuage my ... well, guilt isn't exactly the right word, because it's not actually my fault that he got sick, but my ... bad feelings, I told him that I saw these beautiful, super cool superhero capes in a store this week, and that if he is a good boy all week and takes his medicine, we can go get one on Friday.  "You can pick one with a star on it, or a lightning bolt, or a rocket ship!" I said.  "Well," said Jonah, "I want one with a kitty cat on it."

That's right.  He wants to be Supercat.  If anyone knows where I can find such an item, please let me know.

Nate was the Best Supporting Brother in all this.  He was very understanding and sweet, right up until it was time for the numbers inhaler, at which point he tends to get a little nutty about will you PLEASE take the medicine RIGHT NOW so I can SEE THE NUMBER CHANGE??  He's also always happy to help read someone's numbers off their thermometer.  That's my boy.

Am I Not Enough?

Jonah, upon seeing his girlfriend Kate upset and crying about something:  "Kate, I love you.  So you don't cry!"

Is That All I'm Good For?

One of the concepts we use a lot from Nate's frienship group is the idea of a friend file.  It means that you think about your friend, and what you know about your friend, in order to be a good friend.  So, for example, when we're out looking for a birthday party gift, I ask Nate to think about his friend file on the birthday kid so he can think of a good present that that guy will like (instead of just picking something that Nate himself would like).

Today, when the word "math" came up, Jonah said solemnly, "I know that Nate loves math."  I know an opportunity when I see one, so I gushed about what a great job Jonah was doing using his friend file to think about Nate, and then turned the tables.  "Nate," I asked, "can you think of something that Jonah loves?"  "ABC's!" shouted Nate (very true). 

"Great!" I enthused.  "And what about me?  What do I like to do?"

"You like to play the piano!" (sort of true, although I only know one song).

"Super!" I praised.  "How about Daddy?  What does Daddy like to do?"

Without missing a beat, Nate cried, "Daddy likes to give consequences!"

I Think it Worked

Last night at about 1:00, when the rain was falling particularly hard and the wind was blowing particularly loudly, Jonah had enough.  "Go away," he shouted.  "Monsters ... go away!" 

And just like that, no monsters.  Though the rain and the wind kept coming. 

<i>Posted by Daddy</i>

They Like What They Like

Nate likes numbers.  If you've read more than 3 posts on this blog, chances are that you know that Nate likes numbers, like, a lot.  And even though we've known this for a long time, it's still fun to see just how much he loves numbers.  Case in point: one of the inhalers Jonah now takes nightly has a counter on the back so you can tell how many doses are left (very clever, that).  The other night, I pointed it out to Nate.  "Look," I said, "see right there, where it says 108?  After we do Jonah's medicine, it's going to say 107!"  Nate froze, his eyes wide as saucers.  He watched with bated breath while we did Jonah's dose, and the six second count we wait while holding the inhaler in place almost drove him insane.  And boy, was he excited to see the change in number.  And every night since, as soon as I say, "Jonah, time for your medicine!" we immediately hear the scamper of Nate running as fast as he possibly can, to check the number.  The agonized look of anticipation on his face is roughly that of a person who has just learned that he has the first 6 numbers of Powerball and is waiting for the final number.  It's pretty entertaining.

Second case in point: Yesterday Jonah broke a glass, and there were shards everywhere.  In the middle of cleaning it up, I sat back and said, "Boy, Jonah, you really did a number on that glass!"  Nate's head shot up.  "What number?????" he demanded.

Jonah also likes what he likes, or in this case, loves.  I have posted here before about Jonah's girlfriends.  For the past few months, it's been all about Kate, or as we call her, Kitty Kate.  The two of them were beyond adorable at tot shabbat the other night, holding hands, dancing, and crawling on the floor in kittymania.  Yesterday, Jonah had another girl friend over for a playdate, the adorable Lucy.  And the two of them played very nicely together for a few hours, sharing well, taking turns, having fun.  But there was none of the hugging, kissing, or handholding that we see with Kate, which made me realize that he really does think of her as his girlfriend.  It really just kills me; it's the cutest thing ever.

And speaking of guys having a good time, this was one of the best weekends in recent memory as far as Nate and playdates goes.  Yesterday afternoon we went over to his friend Gracie's, and I have just never seen him play with another kid so well.  As soon as we got to her house, he was off like a shot, running around with Gracie, talking, and playing.  It probably would have looked like a normal kindergarten playdate to a casual observer off the street, but since we've spent the last 4 years doing everything we can to help Nate develop his social skills and support him in playing with other kids,it felt like a miracle to me.  And today, at an all-class birthday party that turned into ten kids running noisily amok through the birthday boy's house, Nate held his own, running crazy and bouncing off the walls with the rest of his class.  It was all I could do not to weep right there by the Pin the Glasses on the Bookworm game. 

Pictures, Old and New

I -- Daddy -- am falling down on my job of taking pictures, so as I clean out the camera, here are a few from the last few months. 

Nate wearing the afghan Grandma Nan made for him on Christmas morning:

Nate and Jonah under the new dining room table they helped me make: 

Jonah at the Golden Gate Bridge on a rare non-rainy day (seriously, our back yard is a swamp right now) while Nate was at Sunday School: 

Jonah and me at the Golden Gate Bridge:

I'm Not Going To Entitle This Post "Rain Man," Because That Would Be Wrong

So they're doing estimation in Nate's kindergarten class.  The homework assignment was to look at these pictures containing lots of objects, circle a group of ten, estimate how many were in the picture, and then count the items to see how close your estimate was.  Nate didn't bother with circling a group of ten, and his estimates were awfully darned close to the answers, such that it was clear to me that he didn't understand that he was supposed to estimate.  "Look," I said to Steve, "his estimate was 43 bugs, and there were 43.  His estimate was 36 beach balls, and there were 34.  Looks to me like someone just counted twice." 

Enter Nate, stage left.  "Mommy, look!  I estimated that there were 43 bugs, and there were 43 bugs!!  My estimate was right!"

"What does it mean to estimate, Nate?" I asked.

"It means you don't count!  And then you count and see if you were right!"

Dude.  He did estimate, and on each of the 4 examples, his estimates were either exactly right or within 2.  Do you see how it's hard not to call him Rain Man, even though that would be horribly, horribly wrong?

Jonah had a great day of learning as well.  He went to his first Meet the Animals class with his bff and fiance, Kate, where they met a guinea pig.  Jonah came home with a guinea pig stamp on each hand, a sock guinea pig that he'd made, and a guinea pig song on the brain.  He could not, however, quite remember the name of the animal friend he'd met.  "Well," he said thoughtfully, brow furrowed, "well, it was a piggy, but it was not really a piggy.  Hmm."  "Was it ... a guinea piggy?" I asked knowingly.  "YES!!!" he shouted.  "A guinea piggy!"  I can see how that would be confusing.

Update

Oh, sorry.  Just realized I left the peeps hanging on the whole asthma thing.  So the short version is that Jonah is fine and is perfectly happy to take his meds at night for the post-meds treat (final count: 3 puffs on two different inhalers, a teaspoon of gross Zyrtec, and one M&M; I feel like I'm getting the better end of this deal, frankly).  The longer version is that we don't know if he has asthma or not, but they're treating it as though he does for the time being.  It depends on who you ask: the policy of our doctor's office is to not diagnose it unless it recurs several times (asthma being, by definition, a chronic illness), but the nice people at the hospital's asthma clinic were pretty adamant that our guy, who has allergies, a chronic cough, and an uncle who had severe childhood asthma, belongs on Team Asthma.  So we're doing the meds but hoping that we never see it again.

While in the ER, we also picked up a totally gross stomach flu, which everyone in the family then had (except, luckily, for Nate; score one for 19 months of breastfeeding).  Fortunately, a failure to keep anything down for 2 days fit in perfectly with my ongoing attempt to shed the last few "baby" pounds, so it wasn't all bad.

Just Another Day In The Life

Ah, life with a curious preschooler.  The four of us are strolling through the city streets on a beautiful afternoon, all holding hands together on a trip to the bookstore, the picture of family cuteness, when Jonah suddenly drops my hand, bends over, and announces, "Hey, guys, I found something!"  Since he's only 3.5 feet tall, Daddy and I had less than a nanosecond to yank him back up and scream, "NO!!!! DON'T TOUCH THAT!!!" before he got to the chunk of broken glass.  It's hard to remember a time when a jagged shard of beer bottle held such appeal, but I guess if you haven't seen it, it's new to you, right?

Later that afternoon, the guys and I were packing up from a lively game of Bingo, when I saw Jonah bend his head over the box to let a chip fall from his face.  "Jonah!" I scolded.  "You know you're not supposed to put those in your mouth!" "I didn't!" Jonah retorted indignantly.  "I just put it in my eye!"

Also: Not sure if I've blogged this already, but he has this new thing that is like kryptonite to my resolve.  "Mommy, can I just have one more book?" "No, Jonah, it's getting really late."  "Please can I just have one more book??" "No, sorry, but we can read one when you wake up tomorrow."  "Please can I just have one more book ... may?"  How can anyone resist that?  So far, he's used it about 25 times, and I have caved every single time.  I mean, what could be more polite than "please can I may?"

Nate has been coming out with his own amusing statements as well.  While munching on a pancake the other day, he mused aloud, "Yesterday's lunch is now in my large intestine."  We are so loving his unit on the human body!

Nate has also taken so enthusiastically to Daddy's project of creating quizzes for him for the chapter books they read at bedtime that he has started making quizzes for Jonah.  Nate's quizzes are utterly hilarious.  He began with Flat Stanley: Flat Again!, which we read the other night.  Nate sat down in the kitchen, book in hand, and quickly skimmed chapters 1-3 to come up with a list of questions.  "When did Mrs. Lambchop go to sleep?"  (From the book: "Soon, everyone was asleep."  Answer to Nate's quiz: "Soon.")  "How did they sail on a sailboat?" "Why was Arthur not saying anything?"  And, my personal favorite, "When did George come?" In reading the chapter, I discovered that that was a question that genuinely had Nate perplexed.  The whole Lambchop family is together in the boys' bedroom, and Mrs. Lambchop says (to her husband), "Oh, George."  From Nate's perspective, who the heck is George?  When did he come?  Nate is not a guy who always tells us what he's thinking or where he's coming from, so getting these little clues into the workings of his mind is extremely rewarding.

And an OT update: Years ago, when we discovered that our 3 year old refused to go on the swings and the OT convinced us that this was actually a big deal, not a charming quirk, she told me that the goal was to get him to the point where someday, he would just run and jump on the swing and swing away on his own.  That day was Saturday, as I watched Nate, for the first time, jump on a swing, start himself off with his feet, and pump his legs sufficiently to get himself as high as our backyard swing goes, without any help from me whatsoever.  It was thrilling.  And then, after watching Jonah hit pitches for a pitching-arm-achingly long time (side note: Jonah the Freakishly Strong can actually hit a line drive all the way to the lemon tree at the end of our backyard), Nate suddenly announced that he wanted to try it himself.  I don't think he's ever hit a pitched ball before, but there he was, swinging away, trying over and over even while he missed, until he eventually connected a few times.  He even managed to hit me with one.  And he was excited to try it again today.  Hooray!!

Oh, and since it's been forever since I last blogged, I need to record this moment, brought to you by Siblings Without Rivalry.  The guys were playing the bowling game that Nate made up (Nate draws 10 pins on a piece of paper, and then you roll a ball at it, and Nate tells you how many points you got; a very poor man's bowling toy indeed), when suddenly there was loud fighting.  I, parenting book in hand, stepped in and said, "I'm hearing that Nate wants to play in the living room, but Jonah wants to play in the hall.  I'm sure you guys can work this out.  If you can't, though, I'm going to have to take the bowling game away, and no one will get to play."  "Jonah," Nate said immediately, "why don't we play 5 frames in the living room, and then 5 frames in the hall?" "Ok!" chirped Jonah agreeably.  And off they went without another word.  And ten minutes later, I heard, "Ok, Jonah, time for frame 6!  Let's go to the hall!"  And just like that, the book paid for itself.