Way Up North Where The Air Is Cold

Ice Classic 2010

2010-03-07T08:28:00.008-09:00

So despite Connor still recovering from his nasty bout with scarlet fever the past two weeks, we decided the weather was too auspicious to not hie ourselves off to the ICe Carving Championships yesterday. Apparently we have the clearest ice in the world up here in a pond in North Pole, and people come from all over the world to participate in the ice carving championship. They also have a huge kids' park made out of ice, including mazes, slides and ice bowls. We bundled everyone up and vowed to not tire Connor out too much and let him go his own pace, which was approximately six million miles an hour once he saw the ice park. He had fun sliding down a few slides, but really loved the tall ones at the end of park. He went down twice before he was tired out, and Timmy went down twice before getting some snow in his face and deciding he needed a break in the warming house.

The ice maze...it's HUGE. Timmy and I got lost so we backtracked while daddy and Connor giggled and ran.

Slides of screaming death! Connor insisted on going alone.

Daddy and Connor went off together while Timmy and I took a 20 minute potty break - it takes a LONG time to peel all that stuff off a baby - and then we jumped on the Winter Wonderland train to go see the ice sculptures. I must say the "train" was a brilliant innovation on years past. It consisted of an ATV towing rainbow colored sled cars behind it to tour the sculptures. It was great because the park is quite large and with one still sickly kid and one tiny guy, it would have taken forever to look at ourselves and chilled the boys through. Instead they got to ride which was a thrill in itself for them, we got to see everything, and everyone stayed warm.

Connor on the ATV train.

Mommy's a goof! At least Timmy's cute!

Charlie's favorite...called "Death Grip."

Look at the detail on this octopus!

This one was titled "Competition."

"Winter Phoenix"

Seahorse

Aeolus

Connor started to flag after a little jaunt in the warming house so we went home. Both of them fell asleep in the car on the way home...cold and fun sure tires you out!

Autism Salutes: DoD Slaps Military Spouses in the Face!!!!!

2010-02-19T13:38:00.000-09:00

Autism Salutes: DoD Slaps Military Spouses in the Face!!!!!

Calling my Senator...NOW.

Timmy is diaper free!

2010-02-19T13:33:00.002-09:00

It's been eight days now since we quit wearing diapers and he's done exceptionally well...only two small accidents and he caught himself before it got too far. He is so proud of himself and excited about his big boy underwear. He picked out a package of Cars undies and some Thomas ones, and ants to go pants-less so he can show everyone his big boy pants all day long.

He's even diaperless at night! I'm so proud of him!

Oh, the gluten

2010-01-25T22:15:00.002-09:00

Well, as most of my maybe four readers know by now, our boys have celiac disease. Honestly this doesn't impact our lives all that much -- we eat very little processed food, I take daily snacks to school for Connor, and we have to be careful at other people's homes and playgroups to minimize exposure, but that's not that hard really. The only thing that is really hard is those times when you've been running frantically, working hard and the Domino's number would be JUST SO EASY. Restaurants are usually a nightmare and more stressful than just going ahead and eating at home. Some restaurants are offering gluten free items now, which is an awesome advancement -- 20 years ago, you got handed a bag of rice cakes and shunted out of the doctor's office and you were on your own. But that's only great if the restaurant can really maintain gluten free protocols.

We went out to eat this past Saturday at Boston's Pizza. They have a wide selection of gluten free pizza and we previously ate there without incident. Not this time. By 3 hours after eating, Timmy was rejecting food and crying hysterically. By 4 hours after, we had projectile vomiting. By eight hours later, we had bloody vomit. And by 12 hours after, we had exhausted parents, 15 loads of laundry, diarrhea, and a stinky exhausted dehydrated baby. The vomiting STILL hasn't stopped 48 hours later, though it's nowhere near initial levels. I turned a whale eye toward Connor -- as soon Timmy came down off the initial pain wave, Connor began and suffered from belly pain and diarrhea. He said "Aladdin's monster" was eating his tummy. :-( We ended up keeping him home today to avoid having an embarrassing and painful accident in front of the other children, not to mention the attendant behavioral issues.

While the baby snoozed between Vesuvius-like fits, I wrote a scathingly polite letter to Boston's about the issue. I was not happy as you can imagine. After two hours of broken sleep and finally stumbling through a shower to wash off various effluvients, I wrote yet another message this morning. I had called the local Boston's on Sunday and was blithely assured that the owner had been in after a "call from corporate" but Mr Schmuckatelli who answered the phone couldn't give me anything more, not even an apology. Here's what I wrote in the latest message:

I wrote to your company on Saturday night after my children were glutened in your restaurant. I just wanted to give an update on the full impact of haphazard gluten practices in your restaurant: my older son (4 years old) spent yesterday and last night on the couch with a heating pad on his stomach, alternating with long trips to the bathroom. My younger son (16 mo) was lucky enough to escape serious medical intervention this time but still required consultation with his pediatrician and didn't stop vomiting or the diarrhea attendant with a glutening for almost 24 hours. The last and only time he was glutened, Timothy required an emergency medevac to a VA pediatric hospital because he had experienced a prolapse in his bowel. We are very relieved that didn't happen this time. We had to keep my older son from preschool this morning in fear that he would have an embarrassing and distressing accident. We have eaten out a total of eight times since my children were diagnosed in May 2009, and almost all at your restaurant chain, here and in Anchorage. We had no reason not to trust that Boston's wouldn't let us down this time. I don't tell you all this to invoke pity or to threaten litigation; I say all this to let you know the full impact of what happened to us and the importance of gluten free dining protocols if you are going to advertise such a menu option. I hope that your corporation doesn't decide to limit or eliminate its menu as a result of our issues. 1 in 132 Americans, according to University of Maryland's recent study - making 2.2 million people potential gluten free customers - suffers from this sort of condition. But this isn't something to be cavalier about either. To a celiac, every bit of gluten is like arsenic -- the effect is remarkably similar on the gut and nervous system. The care taken to make sure none ends up in the food of a celiac must be the same. After all, I hardly think your kitchen staff would conclude blithely that a little bit of arsenic in the pan or sprinkled in the pizza toppings would be worth the risk to a customer.

I would appreciate some sort of response to my concerns. I contacted the restaurant upon their opening yesterday and was not entirely pleased with their response. The manager did say that the owner had been in after a "call from corporate" to discuss gluten free procedures, but no assurance of what improvements have been made/will be made was offered, nor was there any apology or amends offered for the distress and illness Connor and Timothy have suffered. I think a "call from corporate" would have gone a long way toward making me feel that Boston's heard and understood my well-founded distress.

Perhaps I am expecting too much, but I feel the distinct need to let our dissatisfaction and physical pain be registered as strongly as possible. If nothing else, please do remove these options from your menu so other parents aren't misled into trusting their children's health will be safe. Thank you for your time.

Well, I must have lit a fire at Boston's corporate office because the response WAS gratifying, and honestly should be modeled by more service-oriented corporations when a customer's complaint is registered. I was vastly impressed. I received a call from a Ms Wade in Dallas who reassured me that they were making inquiries and reviews of all their gf procedures at all their restaurants and had directly addressed the issue with the FAirbanks restaurant in particular. She offered their apologies and asked that we gave them another chance -- with a hollow laugh, I assured her we would most likely not be doing so any time soon. At least for as long as the carpet smelled this bad.

Later that afternoon I got a call from Mr Cervantes at the Fairbanks restaurant and he was hugely receptive and apologetic. During the course of a half hour conversation he reviewed their procedures, accepted two suggestions from me (dedicated cleaning supplies and server accountability) and listened patiently to my CD101 lecture. He offered to host our family for free whenever we'd like to come eat, but again...that's kind of like being offered a game of free Russian roulette (thanks Jen, that made me laugh).

I didn't address things so strongly in an attempt to bludgeon anyone with guilt, sue anyone, get "free stuff" or share the misery for the sake of doing so...though I admit, I would have happily passed the blood spewing baby off to a Boston's exec with very little compunction roundabout 4 am...I did it to be an ADVOCATE. Little known and recognized diseases like celiac disease will never gain mainstream acceptance or accommodation without calm and measured advocacy. Of course in any service oriented issue, without giving customer feedback the service in question will never improve. And when it's health related, it's no good to passively accept the situation or just shrug and say, "Well, we'll never eat there again." What good would that have done anyone besides ourselves?

Oh crap...I hear vomiting upstairs. Sigh. Oh, the gluten...

Okay, just a few more...

2010-01-16T21:45:00.002-09:00

That boy is our last hope... There is another...

Connor got a few mom and dad and Nani presents when we got home. Ignore the party detritus...three adults vs 20 kids? We didn't stand a chance. We were all exhausted and blew off all but the most immediate stuff to rest tonight. He got a cool gaming system called Zippity from Nani and Pop.

Ahhh! Daddy bought a spring loaded light up light saber! I think the light saber count in the house is up to near double digits. I'm choking on testosterone fueled geekery!

Star Wars Birthday!

2010-01-16T17:42:00.004-09:00

Connor asked for a Star Wars birthday and Charlie and I were determined to deliver, without a hefty price tag. Hmmm...tons of fun, Star Wars crazy and not a huge hit on the pocket book? It can be done.

First you need a supportive cast at home. Timmy likes to get us in the mood.

Then you spend a couple weeks frantically manufacturing Star Wars paraphernalia. I had a bunch of Charlie's old t-shirts, so I split them down the middle and mom hemmed them. I cut small belts out of brown felt, and voila - instant tiny Jedis. Charlie spent the same amount of time manufacturing light sabers out of pipe insulation, PVC and "duck" tape in bright colors. He put a small piece of PVC pipe in the handle and then did beautiful designs in tape to make them look great. They could whale on each other with impunity with a minimum of tears. I think they were the kids' favorite part of the party and we even had adults from other parties asking all sorts of questions about their construction so they could do the same thing.
Here's Connor modeling his costume and saber before guests arrive!

We held the party at the base community center. This place rocks like you read about, with slides and an infant play area. For a small fee, you can rent a party room and a bouncy castle in the main play area. This excites the kids so much, you really don't need to plan many activities. And even the considerable inconvenience of hauling lots of party stuff through the snow at 30 below sure beats having 20 bored preschoolers and toddlers in your house with every minute planned.

Timmy and daddy sliding!

Connor and his friend Haley playing light sabers in the party room.

Connor jumping with friends in the bouncy castle.

The party food was mostly snacks -- all gluten free of course, with a few completely egg and dairy free as well so Connor's good friend Owen could enjoy. He was so tickled that he had cupcakes, chex mix, popcorn and chips and dip he could eat. Mom and I made little cloth treat bags for everyone too with a few trinkets like space bouncy balls and glowing bracelets and some special birthday M&Ms mom sent. We splurged on a Darth Vader pinata filled with candy. The kids broke it open and Charlie ended up having to shake it to rain down the goodies -- you couldn't see his feet with the resulting shrieking feeding frenzy!

We opened presents shortly thereafter but cut it short once we realized everyone wanted the presents!

I made some gluten free chocolate cupcakes and some dairy, egg and gluten free cupcakes with vanilla dairy free icing and sprinkles. We decorated them with Darth Vader and storm trooper rings to decorate the cakes. We also got some sparkly black candles and let everyone blow them out to help Connor.

The kids then went off to play some more while we cleaned up. Everyone took a costume, balloons, treat bag and light saber home -- lots of laughs, very few tears and a very happy four year old!

Connor's 4 year old interview

2010-01-07T14:01:00.003-09:00

I asked Connor a series of questions for marking his transition to 4, courtesy of my friend Melissa at Chasing Cheerios. Some of the answers are awfully cute...

I feel happy when...I play with cars and trucks.

I feel sad when...I bump my head.

I like to...toys.

My daddy is...coming.

My mommy is...very happy.

I love...Timmy.

My favorite color is...black.

I like to eat...bananas.

I like to play...at the playground.

My favorite toy is...a fire truck (could have fooled me) and a storm trooper.

It makes me happy when...I play with storm troopers.

It makes me sad when...I need batteries.

I feel frustrated when...new kids are there.

The best thing I do is...playing castle.

I'm excited about...uh...trees...uh, train...uh no, that's silly.

I like to go...in the airplane.

What's your favorite song? Santa Claus is coming to town

What's your favorite school activity? Work

What's the best part about being 4 years old? a party

Decorating the House for Christmas

2009-12-01T12:19:00.002-09:00

Random Pics Monday

2009-11-02T09:33:00.005-09:00

Random picture download! And bonus dancing video...

Boys sledding together...mom just puts on Yak Trax and runs, pulling them in circles. They love it.

Connor helping Haley put on socks. Haley is his little girlfriend from the neighborhood and they run at each other to hug every time they're separated more than few days.

Connor loves to do puzzles and patterns. See his awesome train made of different shapes?

A fine attempt at Connor's name!

Alaskan Living Tidbits

2009-11-02T07:54:00.002-09:00

Want to know a few things unique to Alaskan living? Of course you do!

- It's rude to wear your shoes inside anyone's house without express permission to do so. Most people have a tiled or wood entryway or mud room that is closed off from the house or at least set aside to control snow and gravel tracking into the house. Of course an independently heated mud room like we have is really a luxury...it helps control heat loss from the house.

- Why is controlling heat loss important? Some houses here are heated with fuel oil, some with hot water piping and some with wood fires...or a combo of those. We have long heat radiators on the exterior walls of the house that continuously pipe hot water to heat the rooms. Each floor has its own temperature control and it's a fine art to get the heat set just right...I have to fiddle with them often and we leave all the doors open at night to help equalize temps. Connor's room gets atrociously cold unless we have all the doors open and ceiling fans on to help distribute heat evenly upstairs. The base has its own heat plant for water, which means I never have to worry about losing hot water for washing and baths. We could run both showers, the dishwasher and the washer at once and never feel the difference until...

- It gets COLD here. I just glanced out my window and it's about -16 F. That's not cold by December, where temps are regularly more between -20 and -40 F. The beauty of hot water heating is that it doesn't take nearly as much energy to heat but it depends a lot on houses being well insulated and the temperature being relatively static; dramatic swings leave the system panting to catch up. Which is why we can get in thumb-screws kind of trouble for opening the window below zero...the heat gets rapidly sucked out and the pipes freeze quickly, and burst. If it has a dramatic temperature swing you lose heat quickly and it's hard to get it back. Last year we had the hot water main on our street burst and boiling water was pouring down the street. They thought they would have to evacuate everyone to billeting -- after only half an hour without hot water, our house dropped to 50. Granted it was -45 outside so it was still positively balmy inside, but I was not pleased to be worried about baby popsicles. If the temp plunges dramatically, which is rare, the heat can have a hard time keeping up. You know it got cold when you go to open the shade and the condensation from the evening's sleep is frozen solid on the windows! All you can do then is close blinds to help retain heat, put everyone in a couple sweaters and crank the heat, particularly in the entryway between the garage and house.

- No one with any sense in Alaska goes anywhere without emergency kits and extra clothes. Everyone has heard a horror story about a woman veering off the road and not being found for three days, or a family forced to walk through snow drifts until they're finally found naked and partially eaten by wolves. I'm not sure how often that happens, but I had a scary experience of my own our first winter here. I slid off the road at a hairpin curve about 1/3 of a mile from our temp apartment (we had to wait til April for a house). It was about -7...cold, but not insanely so. I had no cell phone coverage. So I bundled Connor up as best as I could, put wool socks on my hands because I forgot my gloves, and started to walk to the apartment. I was four months pregnant with Timmy and had to carry Connor a good bit because the snow drifts were too much for a two year old. We were exhausted, shaky and numb with cold by the time we got home. I vowed then and there that I would never go anywhere without better supplies and we would invest in snow tires within the week. Done and done. It was a dangerous mistake.

- There are so many COOL things about this state. I love the ubiquitous coffee huts everywhere. It seems like everywhere there's a bare patch of dirt, one springs up as if coffee hut seeds had been sown. People are also extremely friendly -- once you're accepted as part of the Fairbanks milieu, you've never met a stranger. Of course the measure is usually how many winters you've spent up here. :-) There's a very neat counterculture "Just because America does it doesn't mean we do" vibe; I admire individuality and pure cussedness. I could do without Daylight Savings, because let's face it, it's useless here. Alaska could have stood a little "screw you guys!" spirit on that, but eh. I adore the fact that calling my son's school and telling them that a stuffed musk ox fell off a truck and is blocking traffic is not only a perfect valid excuse for being late, it's accepted without comment. I think the fact that my children call any large animal - cow, deer, etc -- a moose is neat, and that they know what a moose mating call sounds like is cooler still. I like that you can enter into a spirited debate about the relative merits of snow tires, boot brands, and wool vs bamboo socks with virtually anyone and each person leaves perfectly happy, convinced their conviction that Sorels beat Baffins hands down is still intact. I love that we treasure every moment of summer in a way no temperate climate could ever do, and live outdoors. I love ravens. I love red sassy squirrels. And while I may never want to settle here (did I mention the cold?) I can appreciate the amazing spirit of this place.

What the kids are doing

2009-11-01T09:10:00.002-09:00

I thought I might give you a quick snapshot of what the kids have been doing developmentally lately...big changes in the boys lately!

We think Connor has been revving up for another growth spurt. Hard to believe since the child already towers over most children his age, but he's 42 1/4 inches tall as of 45 months old. But he's been eating like a teen boy and you can't keep him filled up over the past few weeks. He just joined league bowling and LOVES it. He actually does really well and is one of the few children in his league to actually hold the ball properly. His speed is improving slightly, and he managed to bowl a 70 yesterday! He asks several times a day to go "roll balls" and whenever he sees Aunt Angela's picture, he says, "Aunt Angela take me to roll balls TODAY!" Amazing that he remembers that from a year ago. His speech is getting better and better but he's still a little confused with some syntax issues, like tenses and pronouns. When he's on the phone he likes to talk about the things he can immediately see which confuses people on the other side of the conversation! He's really into maps, puzzles, painting, and reading. I'm not sure everyone would understand him when he names his continents - Antica (Antarctica), Africaca (Africa), Nort Carica (North America)...but he knows them pat! He's going to be moving to a new school class in the morning next Monday and has his first parent teacher conference on Friday.

Timmy is evolving into a little boy overnight. He decided about nine days ago that he would walk. As simple as that. He took his first steps long ago and experimented with it a bit, but mostly decided crawling was the safe and speedy way to go. Then last week, a switch flipped and he took off. Apparently the talking switch flipped too and he's picking up signs and words at a phenomenal rate. He's now attacking my computer like a Trojan Horse, so I'll have to cut this short...sigh.

Something to think about...

2009-10-29T20:48:00.001-08:00

I stay up a lot at night worrying about various things, and I'm doing my best to stop. I uncovered an old Erma Bombeck book earlier, and the page fortuitously opened to this essay:

If I Had My Life to Live Over...

I would have talked less and listened more.

I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained and the sofa faded.

I would have eaten the popcorn in the "good" living room and worried much less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace.

I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth.

I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed.

I would have burned the pink candle sculpted like a rose before it melted in storage.

I would have sat on the lawn with my children and not worried about grass stains.

I would have cried and laughed less while watching TV - and more while watching life.

I would have shared more of the responsibility carried by my husband.

I would have gone to bed when I was sick instead of pretending the earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren't there for the day.

I would never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn't show soil or was guaranteed to last a lifetime.

Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished every moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.

When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, "Later. Now go get washed up for dinner."

There would have been more "I love yous"...more "I'm sorrys"...

But mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute...look at it and really see it...live it...and never give it back.

I hope I remember this more often.

Fall at the Freels

2009-10-26T18:45:00.003-08:00

Well, first of all, it finally snowed. Really snowed. Lots of wrecks today. But no Alaskan Halloween would be complete without snow suits, so there you go!

We carved pumpkins tonight, which really means Mom and Dad carved pumpkins. Connor has a positive aversion to stickiness and goopiness -- he will wash his hands four times in the course of a waffle and syrup breakfast -- so he provided direction and vector. Timmy limited his help to stepping in pumpking innards and shrieking gleefully as he toddled through the kitchen.

Here's daddy and Connor examining the autopsy. Connor picked a 35 lb pumpkin. Ahem. Mommy got the stink eye from dad on that choice.

Here's Timmy "helping". Daddy LOVES it. Just ask him. Wait til he stops twitching though.

And here's the finished results! TA DA!!!!!! Come on Halloween, we're ready!!!

School Halloween Carnival!

2009-10-25T09:05:00.003-08:00

We hied ourselves off to the school Halloween carnival yesterday, and had a blast! I had dropped off decorations earlier in the week, and then ended up baking like a madwoman Friday night for the silent auction and cupcake walk. When the kids have to be gluten free, you can't assume there's anything safe for them to eat! So we made some gluten free brownies and Connor chose to frost them with green buttercream and decorate with M&Ms. We also made some chocolate cupcakes that he decorated with icing and nonpareils. He could actually have a cupcake then if he won the cake walk.

Timmy dressed as the world's most adorable pumpkin, and Connor was SIR Connor as a knight. I found this awesome knight costume at the base thrift store. I volunteer there every Tues night and always snap up great deals. I snagged it for $3 and then spent another $2.50 on materials for a beautiful sparkling cape. We were a little afraid of kid fracas though so he didn't wear that yesterday.

I had volunteered to run the Spider Ring Toss for an hour and had lots of fun watching 50 or so children get so excited about winning a prize. I think I made an excellent carnival barker, and had several return visitors looking for me to draw them another spider on their game card -- I ran the spider ring toss, what else would I do but draw a spider? Of course a few fairy princesses balked and I had to come up with variations. I'm afraid the "pink pincess farry" was disappointed in my unicorn rendition, but spiders were already taxing my limited artistic abilities.

Timmy got a little sensory overloaded and had to take a break outside with dad -- I don't think Charlie was disappointed to escape the five rooms of screaming stampeding preschoolers and their hovering parents. He came back in around 530, and watched Connor play in the castle maze til it was time to go home. We were so tired by then that we stopped at Wendy's to let the boys have plain hamburgers and oranges for dinner.

We don't know if it was excitement or being overtired (Timmy hasn't been sleeping well) or being overfull but Timmy ended up projectile vomiting all over me, Charlie and the bed last night when we put him down. So we had a fairly exciting 45 minutes getting everyone bathed and the bed cleaned up. Awesome news though...Connor finally stayed in his room a full three nights and earned a trip to the toy store! Okay, so solution is run the kid into the ground! Check!

Connor getting a tattoo from Mrs Campbell. Oh, Grandma Freel, this one washes off! :D

Connor playing in the bouncy castle with his best friend Carrington.

Timmy running - yes, you read that right -- running in Wendy's. I'm tired, in case you were wondering.

Timmy at the fortune telling table. I was glad I wasn't manning that one, it was tough! What do you say? "Tomorrow your parents will take you to the store and buy you anything you want"...

You KNOW Connor needed his face painted. Spiders are our favorite lately.

Timmy's birthday

2009-10-23T20:58:00.002-08:00

Timmy turned one. I turned my back and he grew up!

It's hard to believe that a little over a year ago I was pacing the neighborhood hoping for a nice short easy labor. That's what I got, and so much more. Timmy is, in a word, a joy. I know everyone thinks that of their baby, but Timmy is a virtual magnet for smiles...he melts everyone he meets. The clerks at the grocery store wave at him, grinches grudgingly smile at him and he just loves on everyone he meets. Timmy has never met a stranger. He has the sweetest smile..he scrunches up his face and gives a beaming grin. He also has the most beautiful set of unusual dimples, and has dark golden skin -- especially next to his china doll porcelain big brother. He's so beautiful sometimes, it makes me marvel that he's mine.

That's not to say he is necessarily easy going -- he definitely has an opinion about the way life should be! Nowadays he's babbling away telling me stories and giving instructions. Really, it's my fault if I don't understand him. He took off walking this past week like he's been doing it all his life, despite steadfastly refusing to try stepping after falling badly at 9 months. He loves to play with his brother, loves to climb ladders to "help" mommy in the kitchen, and is a tornado fo energy from sun up to sun down.

Here he is opening a birthday present from mom and dad...we love this ball toy.

He got an Elmo karaoke doll. Connor had one at this age and carted it literally everywhere but it was included in the huge lead recall. Timmy couldn't care less about it, but Connor still likes it.

MMMM cake. Gluten free of course!

He got "bnnnz" (balloons) and hats for his birthday.

Connor at school!

2009-10-22T19:30:00.003-08:00

Connor started preschool at the Fairbanks Montessori Preschool in August. One of the best decisions we ever made, hands down. He LOVES school. He loves his teacher, he loves the activities, he loves the kids.

It's a school devoted solely to 3-5 year olds. Each class has a different mixture of ages, and Montessori philosophy fits in well with Connor's temperament. Montessori is, as my friend B puts it, a daily celebration of learning. Children are encouraged to ask questions, to find things they're interested in, and incorporate a love of learning into their daily lives. The activities are largely self-directed...Connor loves maps and puzzles, so often heads for those first thing when he gets in. He carefully takes a map puzzle from the shelf, places it on the table, pulls out his chair and concentrates on it to the exclusion of all else. When he's done he carefully replaces it on the shelf and moves on to another activity. The striking thing about Montessori schools is how quiet they are. The children are all calmly working and since the adults with them believe that work had inherent value regardless of the work itself, they are left in peace to learn. The teacher guides them gently to new activities, or incorporates crafts in it all. Pretty amazing. B's daughter is also in Montessori, and this incident of hers is illustrative: R asked if there were seeds in pumpkins. The director promptly hacked open a small pumpkin on her desk and asked R what she thought. R saw the seeds, was led into a discussion of growing plants, and the director proceeded to give her a bag of seeds to plant when the time was right. Montessori is always about satisfying curiosity and fostering children's innate love of learning.

I'm probably doing a poor job explaining, but the results are undeniable. Connor is reading very well, he's starting to write legible letters, he counts to 20 daily in Spanish and English, he has a fifty word Spanish vocabulary, he knows his continents, he can spell his full name and several other words besides...and most amazingly of all, he loves to do all of these things. He and I did an experiment in reversible change yesterday with ice cubes and water, and he couldn't have been happier. Did I mention he's three? I just burst with pride, and since it's my blog I can brag with impunity...muhahahahaha!

Montessori also believes in making it easy for children to function on a daily basis as part of the family, which means incorporating them into the business of the family and making it easy with kid sized tools to do so. Connor has a work display board in the book room at his level, with a boot shelf full of art supplies underneath. There's a hook to hold his apron (I sewed it for him from a "Montessori" pattern), a broom/dust pan, and a ladder to use at the counter. We have stools at every sink to allow him to get his own cup of water or wash his hands. He has a kid sized table for his work time at home -- that might be pattern work, stringing ABC beads, drawing, or working with gluten free playdough. Timmy has been included in all this too -- he too plays at the table, and loves to drink his evening water out of a little shot glass that is just his size to grasp and drink. They have some sponges cut in half to make it easy for them to clean up after themselves, and if they spill they're expected to help clean up. They both help me do laundry, they help wash dishes. That's not to say they don't make messes, but they're far less than they ever were and they're happy about helping.

We've had a few issues with Connor's diet -- mostly people not realizing how much casual contact with gluten containing items can still harm him -- but that's smoothed out a lot. I'm terribly sorry to do it, but Connor is going to be moving into the morning class in about a week. He was in the afternoon class and loves his friends and teacher, but it was eating my entire day. It takes about 35 minutes to drive there so we have to leave at 1215 to be there by 1250. I turn around and come home by 130, then Timmy naps and I run back at 315. If I move him to mornings I think he will be fresher, and Timmy and I can get errands and exercising done in the morning before picking him up. Then we can be home for lunch and rest/naps and he might actually get to play with his neighborhood friends in the afternoons.

The pictures of school are trapped on Charlie's phone so I'll have to rescue them later. Meanwhile here's a few cute pics!

Connor at the park.

Timmy playing with one of his birthday toys.

Connor and Timmy love this huge bead maze they got from Pop and Nani for Timmy's birthday. They play for hours!

Ummm, so I suck?

2009-10-22T18:06:00.002-08:00

I just realized it's been THREE months since I updated this blog.

I was trapped in the garage by a moose? I was hiking the Brooks range, gun in hand? I was cutting firewood and accidentally destroyed the DSL? What excuse will you believe?

Okay, really, it's just been insanely busy here at the Freels. Timmy turned one, Connor started preschool in Fairbanks which involves about 1.5 hours in the car a day for me and Timmy, I am the publicity editor for the spouses club, I am a La Leche League leader, not to mention the work it takes daily to clean up after and feed three strapping Alaskan men. But I promise to try to catch up on a few major events in pictures and prose, then I will resume blogging on a far more regular basis. No, really, Grandma...I promise! :D

Resurrection Bay Cruise and other sundries

2009-08-21T21:51:00.005-08:00

It's been a VERY busy couple weeks here at the Freels. Charlie came home after eight months in Iraq on August 9th -- woo hoo! -- and we settled in to being a family again. I can't possibly catch up the whole time in prose, so you'll have to be content with lots of pictures!

Timmy got a little car as an early birthday present. He fell in love with the neighbor's toy car and spent every afternoon in their yard loving on it, so we bought him one early to enjoy while the summer lasted before moving it inside. Here he's enjoying driving it, but you can see why dad got him a haircut shortly after arriving home!

We REALLY love this car. No, really.

Wait...standby for potty break.

We took a trip to Anchorage on Wednesday and supported the economy in a truly patriotic way while enjoying some much needed catch up time. Charlie lost nearly 40 lbs in Iraq and looks amazing...here's two handsome boys in downtown Anchorage.

We took a side trip to Seward and embarked on a Resurrection Bay and Gulf of Alaska cruise with the kids. Wow.

I can see why Alaska is addictive now. We had some icky weather but still...such beautiful vistas, deep blue-green waters, adorable puffins, and distant glimpses of austere blue glaciers peeking through the fjords. Poor Connor ended up with a little seasickness but happily slept on dad's lap for a couple hours, while Timmy snoozed in mommy's sling.

Here's the family gathered on the deck of the boat...

Here's a view of Bear Glacier...you don't see many on this particular cruise because it's short and focuses mostly on wildlife, but it was perfect for us because the boys' tolerance for sea motion and boredom are less than the marathon boat expeditions required to see more.

Oh, my favorite! Puffins! These guys are so cute and little -- you picture them as penguin sized, but they're actually tiny...

Timmy showing off his new haircut!

Here's a view of the Matanuska Glacier. We drove an alternate route home to enjoy the scenic Richardson Highway. Timmy mightily disagreed with this decision about an hour from home, and punished us, but the views made it worth it!

This is just one of a thousand views on Richardson!

We bought a new car...a journey in vindication

2009-08-02T22:10:00.006-08:00

Most people who know me know that I LOVE negotiating for cars. LOVE it. I am the terror of car salesmen everywhere. I come in armed with a book in which I have True Market Value comparisons, price breakdowns of options and labor costs, arguments all the way down to floor mats and wheel locks for why I should get things "free." I actually threatened to walk out of a Toyota delaership over $53 wheel locks and got them to discount for leaving their dealership's name printed on the car. I got my Honda Odyssey for below invoice; the Prius II helped dad negotiate still is the lowest priced I have ever heard of, and just now, I negotiated a Honda Civic Hybrid with Leather for below invoice. And I have a tasty story to go along with it...do you want to know? Oh, of course you do!

Charlie and I had agitated for awhile about buying a hybrid for him. We had bought a used Jeep when we got the Alaska assignment, thinking it would be a good off road car, but that's really the best that can be said for it. It had lots of problems and it ate gas like crazy. So when "Cash for Clunkers" came up, we looked seriously at buying a hybrid. We didn't think we'd get even $4500 on a trade in and while we could sell the car to someone else, that's a whole level of pain we didn't want to explore. C for C seemed like a handy way to upgrade mpg at a discount.

I went in armed with all my prior stuff on Saturday and negotiated a killer price, but didn't have the car or required government paperwork with me. We made an appt for Monday and I went on my happy way. At 3 pm, my salesman called and said that all C for C deals were done as of today and I needed to bring my paperwork in today to secure the car. Sigh. Okay, I knew that all the Alaska dealerships were jumpy but if it let me keep the great price, then it might be worth the pain. I packed the kids up and headed down in the Jeep -- after surprising myself with a dead squirrel curled up in Timmy's stroller, AHHHH! -- to turn in my paperwork. Because of a title snafu, the documentation LOOKED gapped for continuous registration though it really wasn't. Hence, no Cash for Clunkers program for me. Ironically, I was totally fine with that, and would have just walked away at that point with a shrug and a wave, off to research more and perhaps delay the actual buy until next year if big sweaty sales manager hadn't happened.

The sales manager was, in a word, an ass. He got snotty with me about the fact that he has to "sat-is-fy the fed'ral gov'mint" and I in turn bowed up on him and stormed out. I fumed and raged for a few minutes in the car and then got out to fuss at the visibly chagrined salesman. I channeled my inner bitch and told him in unequivocal terms that their business had wasted my time, that I was angry and would not darken the door of their business again without some immediate ego stroking and monetary satisfaction. He proposed looking at the car as a trade in, and they offered $4700 for the trade in (which was $500 above KBB value)! Woo hoo! But then my car sales BS meter rang and I said oh-so-sweetly that they were clearly throwing me a $200 sop to my ego and that I would like to see a little more off the price of the car to make me 100% satisfied -- after all, Bob's Big Boy there really HAD been terribly rude. They swallowed hard, and took another $150 off to take it all the way down to $100 under invoice price. I'm SURE they were still making a healthy chunk of change but it made me feel all toasty. As near as I can figure without knowing what unadvertised factory kickbacks they were getting, they made about 4.5% off the deal, within my acceptable range of 3-5%. Add in the trade in and my total price was well under $20k for a very nice eco friendly not-quite-luxury-but-close car. Not my best price, but not the worst, by far -- another family was there buying an EX edition of the same car, and was paying $2500 more than I was without the leather upgrades. Eek.

They jerked me around for a couple hours, going round about financing and warranties, until I gave them Connor's eating of a bag of bribery M&Ms as a deadline for getting to the point -- if we weren't signing papers and taking keys by the time he started whining for more, I was walking out sans hybrid. It was 545 for heaven's sake, and my kids have a two hour BS tolerance limit. Phenomenal for small children, but that deadline was rapidly approaching as they whined on about "protecting my investment." I think by now they recognized the dangerous glint in my eye, and they rushed to finish up and hand me keys -- they transferred car seats for me as well. I loaded the kids up in our snazzy new car and remembered to ask if they had checked the CD player as I couldn't remember if there was a CD in there or not. The salesman hopped in the Jeep to turn it on and check the player. And now here's the part that will keep me warm and chuckling through the night...

THE JEEP WOULD NOT START.

Yes!!! At last, all my praying to the vast powers of karma have paid off! I'm almost sorry to see that car go; how awesome is that? Dealership jerks me around, drives me to feeding my kids junk food for dinner with their warranty silliness and the Jeep strikes a blow for solidarity. I'm sure it just needs a new battery, but ha! It worked perfectly for me, functioned beautifully for their trade in assessment, but apparently has a anarchic streak (like its previous owner? Love you, honey!). I don't need a present for Christmas...Santa Claus came in the guise of obstreperous 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee this year.

I smiled again, sugar dripping from my ruby lips, and said simperingly to the salesman, "Can I just tell you how glad I am that YOUR company owns this car now?"

I drove away, silently chortling, vastly enjoying the smooth seamless ride of a new car. The kids and I stopped at McD's, where both refused to eat more than one bite of plain hamburger, and drove home to gorge on zucchini muffins and fruit instead before collapsing long after boys should have been abed.

I KNOW I sound absolutely snarktastic but really, you had to endure my day to truly understand how I could take that much joy in a non starting car and flabbergasted sales guy. Kids running all over the dealership, Timmy filthy and into everything, dead animals in my garage, interrupted baking, government hijinks, insulting fat guys, and pushy offers to take more of my money...all of it combined to let me revel unabashed in the ridiculous perfection of the moment.

Just a quick description...it's a 2009 Honda Civic Hybrid EXL. It has gorgeous leather seats (we're environmentally conscious but ironically lovers of leather), heated seats, iPod jacks, mpg monitors, nice stereo, cruise control, etc. On the way home we made 33 mpg even with all the stop and go...refreshing change from 12 mpg in the Jeep! It feel underpowered compared to the Jeep, but not hugely so, and the controls and steering wheel toggle switches are all the same as the Ody, so it will be easier to transition between driving the two. It's magnetic pearl color, a cross between dark grey and blue, and it's probably the only thing I wasn't sure of about the car...Charlie prefers lighter colors so the cars don't look dirty as fast, but I couldn't pass up the deal on the car, despite the darker and undeniably pretty color. Hope Charlie likes the car as much as I do! If he doesn't, guess we could always trade... :-)

Connor reading

2009-07-27T19:11:00.003-08:00

Connor has been a little frustrated by reading lately...he can read very simple books and words, but only if they follow his known phonics practice. Otherwise, he gets angry and says the words aren't "right" and refuses to read them. I backed off of teaching it some - after all, not many three year olds can read at all, so not a huge rush to have him reading Chaucer - but came back to it with some total word concept stuff and fun word games. He found an old baby book in a box that we were emptying for Timmy, and decided to read the words. To my surprise, he could read a few at sight after only a few lessons in total word pattern work! It's odd what trips him up...sweatshirt comes out clear as a bell after only one reading, but rabbit still gives him trouble. And goat is fine, but make it coat and it trips him up. I can tell he's not just talking about the pictures though, because you can hear him talk ABOUT the picture and he would almost surely reference something being a picture of a girl or boy, without saying the word dress or coat if that were indeed what he was picking up on. This is only the second time he read this book since plucking it out of the box, and I thought it might make a handy expose of his skills. We banished the easy books he was reading for the time being, for fear of boring him or frustrating him with repetitious and phonics based learning.

I'm grateful we did all the work on letters and phonics, because it did give him a nice basis for sounding things out, but this language pattern stuff has really gotten him out of his rut, and gotten him excited about trying to read for himself again. Most importantly, he wants me to read more, so we're getting a good 30 mins of reading stories a day, if not more, and he's starting bringing books to me on a regular basis. Despite what Freakonomics has to say on the subject, reading to children has incalculable value in MY book (bad pun, shoot me later!)

EC Odyssey

2009-07-26T21:55:00.003-08:00

I'm kind of a hippie when it comes to most of my contemporaries, I admit. I try not to fly my freak flag TOO high, but it can't be gainsaid that 9 times out of 10 my baby is slinged or Ergo'd rather than carted about via car seat or stroller, I have no issue nursing my kids til well into toddlerhood, I cram as much organic locally grown products as I can into our diets, I've outlawed almost all disposable plastic/paper products from the house and hope to do more, and cloth diaper my baby bums. No tats, no dreds, no tie dye, but I am "hippieish" at heart. One of my holdouts, however, included elimination communication.

Elimination communication is the formalized name for something that really isn't formalized at all. Some women choose not to diaper their babies from birth, and use potties and toilets instead, trusting their close and intimate knowledge of their babies to know when pottying is needed. They learn their babies' elimination signs and emphasize two way communication between parent and baby in eliminating, thereby achieving a "diaper free baby". Some people do it part time, some full time, some only occasionally -- but it did seem to result in children happily pottying at a much earlier age than most American children. Supposedly this is common in more traditional cultures, those that haven't been invaded by convenience. I scoffed when I heard people were doing this -- after all, potty training for Connor was the seventh circle of hell, I lived in the bathroom for WEEKS -- and I couldn't imagine doing that for years, and constantly toting around a ticking time bomb of baby effluvia. Oh sure, of course, my grossness tolerance level has ratcheted up to the point where I can handle still warm handfuls of poop if not with a great deal of cheerfulness, at least without a retch and grimace. But no one wants the poo rocket to ignite in a supermarket with no warning. I imagine Carrie like scenes of fountaining body fluids. I have old carpet, but not that old!

But Timmy actually convinced me to try this little bit of craziness. About three weeks ago, he got intensely interested in potty stuff. Wanting to play in the toilet, pulling paper off the roll, slapping the toilet, trying to peer intently between his older brother's legs (much to Connor's dismay -- we now squawk about needing "pivacy!"), and pulling angrily at his diaper velcro. Several times a day I'd look around for Timmy only to find a wet chinese prefold wadded in a forlorn cover, and then catch sight of a wiggly baby butt disappearing happily around the corner. All righty, that's how we're gonna play kiddo o' mine? I finally got exasperated, and plunked him on the toilet the next time I noticed him wiggling a bit and slapping the potty. I'll be damned if he didn't pee! He smiled and wiggled; I smiled and cheered. We were hooked.

We started out slow, just trying to catch the first morning pee. It was sure to come and the relief was intense for him so it made him feel good in more ways than one. It's lovely to start the day off with a cheering session. Sometimes we caught it, sometimes we didn't. No worries, no stress -- not at ALL like when we potty trained Connor. There were tears and anger on both sides by the end, after three unsuccessful tries to even achieve one pee in the pot at age 2 years 10 months. Once we consistently got the morning pee, I started leaving his diaper off more, and taking note of his reactions and usual pee times. I noticed he would not pee when held close to me without fussing and pushing to get put down. It was very easy to just put him on the pot instead of watching him pee in a diaper and then changing him. We laughed, sang, played with cool toys and got a brotherly cheering section for all his pees caught. I am matter of fact about misses. We just clean them up, say "pee goes in the pot" and go on. My rule is if I feel even a little annoyed by it or we have three misses in a row (because of distraction of his or my part) we go back in diapers for awhile til we can pay attention better. He's at such a young age that any negativity could really screw the vibe we have going here, and remarkably despite the fact that we average one miss a day, I am *almost* stress free about it all. I say almost, because hey, you people know me -- a pee splattered floor is still not my preferred state of being. As the days have gone on, it's been better and better -- he now wears a diaper for long errands and car trips, and nights, with the occasional nap diaper if I feel like he hasn't peed enough in relation to the amount of liquids he's had. As a result, I haven't had to wash a poop diaper in almost a month, and we average 2 diapers and 1 miss a day, with some long stretches of 1 diaper and no misses at all. Many times we've come back from a 3 hr errand trip to find that he's dry and eager to potty -- once we even ventured into Fred Meyer's bathroom to potty, though he did find the big industrial toilets a tad intimidating.

We had a big breakthrough today though that really excited me. Timmy was crawling around nekkid playing with construction toys, and suddenly got a little intent look on his face. I waited to see what would happen for just a moment, prepared to swoop and throw him on his potty if it had serious intent. Much to my surprise, he crawled to his little potty, slapped it twice, and then carefully stood and maneuvered his butt on to it. I straightened out his legs and helped point his willy, and he whizzed away happily, clapping for himself. WOW! At 10.5 months, he went potty by himself with little assistance! Now of course I don't expect this to reoccur on a regular basis if at all but oh the dazzling possibilities...I can actually see him being out of diapers well before 2! And after all, that's the point of EC -- teaching your child to understand their own signals, prefer cleanliness, and communicate those needs to you, all entirely possible long before 3 or 4. This way couldn't be possibly any worse than the marathon session of pottying that it took to finally reconcile Connor to the toilet in an uneasy truce. He has only in the last two months gotten truly 100% comfortable with all aspects of pottying; Timmy seems to take to it well, and he's thriving with a stressless mommy who doesn't yet hate scraping congealed fluids off diapers for washing.

The theory goes that the way we diaper kids in this country, we actually teach babies that their diaper is the appropriate place to eliminate and since most kids don't get changed the second they go, to ignore the inherent discomfort of touching their own waste. By the time they are 2, 3 or even 4, that habit is so ingrained that when we change it we're asking them to change a fundamental and personal lesson they've learned from day one. And we're asking that of them at a time where changes of any kind come as a shock to their systems. Montessori theorized that there are periods of sensitivity at which children learn certain skills more easily, and supposedly toilet learning is easiest between 12-18 months, or at approximately the time they start walking and mastering that skill. Since we are sending Connor to Montessori school in August and I am trying to incorporate some of her methods in our home life, it only makes sense to explore this as well. I'm so relieved that *I* can actually see this as a learning journey for us to take together, rather than an unpleasant race to the finish with a stubborn little toddler blocking the way to puddle free days.

The funny part is many ladies of the older generation just look a little puzzled when I talk about this -- "well, of course babies can potty train earlier! Mine were out of diapers by 18 months..." while most of my own generation look vaguely unnerved and ask if I think I'm doing psychological damage or really training myself rather than him to be tied to a potty. If they could see my happy proud little guy clapping for himself and gazing fondly at his pee filled bowl they wouldn't worry about damage. The second argument I had a hard time with myself, but really it's remarkably easy -- easier in fact than diapers. I have a Baby Bjorn little potty upstairs and a Once Upon a Potty downstairs, as he's not yet comfortable with the really big potty. He potties and we dump and wipe it out with an antibacterial wipe. Flush it away, done. I have a couple cloth diapers stashed around to mop anything untoward with some enzyme cleaner, though Timmy considerately usually waits to "miss" on tile. He has a couple of pairs of small underwear (tough to find, but Blueberry Baby in Fairbanks came to my rescue!) and he usually goes bare butt at home just for simplicity. I'm down to one small load of diapers once a week. Amazing. Simply amazing, as I expected in quiet despair to face another epic battle of wills and years of filthy diapers to wash. I do think cloth diapering helped him keep a great deal of awareness of his elimination -- they do after all feel wet and clammy next to the skin, and they are bulkier, so they slightly impede movement and frustrate an on-the-go baby. Nice incentive to switch to a nice clean potty!

I would not have believed it if I hadn't done it myself. If you're toying with the idea, please do check out The Diaper Free Baby by Peggy Loh and diaperfreebaby.org. I didn't find these til a week in to doing this, but it's filled with valuable tips that might have kept me from a few puddly problems early on! I'm so excited and happy...and even better, willing to let this take its own course and guide him as gently as I can. That's a rare feeling for me, but one that is getting easier with time. I wish I had known of this when Connor was a baby...poor guy is my experimental kid! I'll let you know how it ultimately turns out, and when my boy finally "graduates" to independent potty status!

I wash the salad, mom

2009-07-17T12:36:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I did the veggie pick up from the CSA. I proposed making a salad to Connor...here, kiddo, let's tear the lettuce, now let's wash it...and had lots of fun making the salad clean. We sang songs and tossed it in a colander.

I went up to put Timmy to bed before C's bedtime stories, and when I came back down, Connor says, "I wash da salad mommy!" and handed me some air, like they were clean salad leaves. "Oh wow, buddy, good salad washing!" And we hie ourselves off to bed.

Today I stagger downstairs to the basement with a load of wash. The lid of the washer is closed. Huh. I always leave that open when there's no wash in it. I open it up...there is a huge head of lettuce torn to shreds and welded to the inside of the washer, complete with laundry softener ball. I peer inside -- and there comes the little proud voice behind me: "I washed da salad mommy!"

I now have water lily-scented lettuce glued to the inside of the washer drum. I sat down and laughed until I cried. Then I cried until I laughed.

Oh buddy...you DID wash the salad.

Munch's "The Scream", Connor-style

2009-07-14T10:36:00.003-08:00

Connor got interested in art from watching Aunt Cara's present "The Art Show" by Classical Baby. We started looking at some of mommy's art books, and he is particularly taken with Edvard Munch (he's also a Matisse fan, but says it looks "messy"). Here he is painting some beautiful limited edition Connor surrealist works and reenacting "The Scream".

If anyone is looking for a nice series, "Classical Baby" can't be beat. When we're on long trips, the boys beg to watch one of them. Connor loves the Poetry Show too, and recites several poems from it by memory -- as a result, we've been reading a few poems with each bedtime story time. Grandma Crean sent him a book of poetry called "Flamingos on the Roof" which has proven to be a favorite; Connor says it's "silly potrie" and really, that's the best kind. Oddly enough my favorites from Shel Silverstein don't seem to capture his attention. Robert Service, Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson are real favorites though, and Christine Rossetti makes him hug himself in happiness.

Timmy loves sing songy poetry and is a huge fan of exclamation points.

Uh oh...the Connorator wants me to teach him how to nurse his space shuttle to sleep. I better go...those space shuttles can have latch problems!

Denali Trip Continued

2009-07-13T23:12:00.005-08:00

We didn't have much time for anything Friday other than dinner and an early bedtime. The dinner made me very apprehensive...it was the first time that I took both boys out to dinner since their diagnosis, but gratefully discovered that the "Salmon Bake" restaurant had a gluten free menu. Connor had elk burgers sans bun and Timmy and I shared plank grilled salmon and roasted veggies. Mmmmmmm...

The next morning we woke early and headed down the path to Denali Bluffs hotel, and then out on to the town. What a lovely walk...I can't imagine skipping it for a rackety old bus, as the cruise crowd seemed to do.

Connor loves the smell of fireweed. It's such a fleeting ephemeral moment in Alaska that these amazing wildflowers flame in all their glory. There was yarrow, primroses, wild roses, fireweed, and lovely star-like flowers I've never seen elsewhere and fade as quickly as a whisper if picked. I made Connor leave them alone despite his earnest desire to make me a "bokay" -- it would have felt like a murder to pick these delicate lacy beauties.

We drove out to the park visitor center and watched a ranger program, then headed back for lunch. That afternoon, we rested while Timmy napped and then went to the Alpenglow restaurant downstairs. It was a much nicer restaurant than the "Bake" but they too had lots of gluten free selections. Connor enjoyed some wild rice with cranberries and pesto chicken, while Timmy and I again shared some salmon. It was the first decent salmon I've had in Alaska - most is far too done for my taste - and this was truly lovely. Bright pink sockeye, done to a turn; my mouth is watering even now. Unfortunately no gluten free desserts were available; well, they did have pudding but I didn't want to risk a cross contamination issue after such a pleasant weekend, so we got some ice cream bars and went to sit on the terrace and enjoy the view as we ate our ice cream. Connor really wanted to raft, but the age limit is 12 years...sigh. Someday, Connor!

Sunday "dawned" lovely. We hustled out the door at 7, leaving our luggage for the rail pick up, and boarded a bus for the visitors' center. Once there, we watched a short film that was, in Connor's words "Awesome! Increyable!" and sat through a junior ranger program about local fauna. We skedaddled down to the bus depot and headed to the ranger station for the sled dog demo. They still use sled dogs all winter to traverse the park -- paw power rules the Alaskan winter! Connor loved the demo, but these dogs are a closer relative of wolf than I care for and we were asked to move away because Timmy was bringing out a predatory instinct in a few dogs. I like him and want to keep him, so I deemed it prudent to follow their advice.

Here's the ranger who led the sled dog demonstration...Connor has a new hero! He loved ranger Mark.

Here they are readying the dogs. Connor got to stand on the sled once it stopped -- it goes about 20 mph starting out -- and that made his day. I could not get a picture though...too many people crowding around. I was a fair bit disgruntled, but I got a pic of the dogs which is all Connor cares about.

I preferred this dog to the others. It's a tribute to "Buck" of White Fang legend and a contribution collection point.

Caught this view of the Windy Bridge as we left with the last whimper of battery power.

The trip back was harrowing. The train was delayed by a medical emergency for 2 hours, and so we boarded after 5. We were supposed to arrive at 8, so obviously we were going to be very late. We also had switch crews in Nenana and a moose blocked the tracks for several minutes...with overtired boys and much more disgruntled tourists on the train, mommy was fraying a bit around the edges. We finally got home at 11 and crawled gratefully into bed, as I shall do now.

Hope you enjoyed!

Standby for Timmy interruption

2009-07-13T22:59:00.002-08:00

Here's a quick video of some decent Timmy independent walking. He does NOT like mommy to be far away unless a fire truck is handy, so this is the best I could do. I included a quick 3 sec clip at the end of what MOST of my video capture attempts look like. Unbelievably, that's the *best* of the eleventy million I shot trying to get decent "legs working as nature intended" shots. Sigh. Poor camera.

The great train adventure!

2009-07-13T15:20:00.003-08:00

In the Interior, we occasionally get horrid heat...people are always surprised by this because it's Alaska after all! But no, indeed, we've been enduring a 2 week long heat wave with no air conditioning...the kids were aching for a change...and since this our last summer in Alaska, I thought it best to hie ourselves down to Denali this weekend.

They have a great Alaska resident discount on the railroad and combined with a military appreciation special at the Grand Denali Lodge, we lucked out like bandits. We departed early on Friday morning on a big blue and yellow Alaska train.

Here are excited happy boys to be underway on an honest to goodness train!

The views for the first few hours were for the most part uninspiring, consisting of endless marsh and taiga forest. The occasional startled moose, turning capacious rump, and fleeing into the reeds, enlivened the views a bit but the boys were not enthused until the last hour of our trip when the Nenana river came into view. The views were simply breathtaking -- because of the winding and steep nature of the track as it hugs the canyon walls, the train chugged slowly along as we drank in the vast panoramas.

Here's the view from our hotel room. We were booked at the Grand Denali, a steep 1/2 mile climb up the bluffs. But oh so worth it! We could catch shuttles from there to anywhere in town and into the park, but we chose to walk most of the time.

We have limits on pictures on here, and I've exceeded mine, as well as the baby' patience. Stand by for more!

"Don't You Miss Us Daddy?" pics

2009-07-04T20:08:00.003-08:00

Here's the boys, post gf brownie break. What a great holiday...TWO treats in one day! What better way to celebrate our country's birthday?

But one of the reasons our country is so great and has lived on to the ripe old age of 233 years is because of men and women like Daddy, protecting us in far away lands. We miss you daddy...

4th of July, Freel-style

2009-07-04T18:07:00.003-08:00

Man, what a bust of a day! First of all, would anyone believe the thermometer would say THIS 100 miles from the Arctic Circle?

We tried to go out to the North Pole parade, but it was very hot and after a few false starts to the parade, Timmy was done with a capital D. So we came home and put everyone down for a well deserved nap. Unfortunately it was too hot for us all to sleep long...so we went headed to Fairbanks for a taste of Hot Licks ice cream and shopping at Joann's. Connor has been fascinated with birds lately; we talk about their various sounds, houses, babies, etc during our morning nature walks. So when he saw a birdhouse on sale at Joann's, I gave in to the "OH I NEEEEEED ONE MOM!" ejaculations.

Here's Connor painting his house...too bad I hadn't finished his work apron yet. Oh well, check out that manly physique!

And here's the "finished" product...beautiful, eh?

We're hoping to declare independence from the heat wave. Think of us sweating at the top of the world!

Connor singing "Hey Julie"

2009-07-01T08:30:00.001-08:00

If he can't keep up he just subs in "dadadada". Hell, I know professional singers that do that!

Enjoy the awesomeness of Connor's cover of "Hey Julie" by Fountains of Wayne.

Timmy walking!

2009-06-28T15:50:00.003-08:00

It has been enormously difficult to get video of Timmy walking. Primarily because his favorite walking style is to just launch himself face first at whatever he wants and hope like hell that his feet follow. They only do maybe 50% of the time, so mommy must be ready for quick catches to avoid ER visits and many tears. And admittedly this isn't freestyle walking. He discovered an old fire engine toy of Connor's and not only does it have a handy walking handle, it has a great place to stash blocks and carry them across the room. He can ZIP this way! No more wear and tear on the knees. But apparently he thinks we should take it everywhere now so he always has his little red helper to keep his head from launching into the troposphere...

Fairbanks Midnight Sun Festival

2009-06-22T19:49:00.005-08:00

Every year Fairbanks hosts a Midnight Sun festival to celebrate the summer solstice. That is, after all, one of the most distinctive things about living at this latitude. On the longest day of the year, the sun sets at 12:48 am and promptly rises again less than two hours later at 2:44 am. That's a long day...even the darkness isn't truly dark. You can read outside with no illumination at 3 am, no problem. It's probably the most disconcerting thing about living here, and my least favorite feature of an otherwise idyllic time of year. I am ALMOST reconciled to it by the festival.

This is a big event for this area. Supposedly they expected 40,000 people to descend on the downtown this year. The event runs from noon to midnight and of course no electric lighting is required! We went quite early, coming in at about 1:30, but the crowds were pouring in by the time we escaped at 4. There's lots of booths, nothing outrageously cool as far as crafts, but many neat local clubs. For most people the entertainment and the food are more than attractive enough to bring them out in swarms. There was also a petting zoo and pony ride and kids rides to amuse the little ones. Once Connor saw the bouncy castle five seconds after our arrival, mommy got no peace until Connor got to do this:

Connor's favorite feature of any major amusement activity like this is face painting. He wanted a whole face spiderman mask but wasn't patient or still enough in the artist's opinion to get it, so he reconciled himself to a small spiderman face instead. Let me tell ya, that guy took his face art seriously.

He also vastly enjoyed the fire truck...the fireman was sweet and the perfect person to be ushering small children through the fun of sitting in the "hot seat". Thanks, Fairbanks Fire Dept, for making hundreds of little ones feel so special!

The kids got to munch on usually verboten treats. Timmy got a frozen banana sans chocolate dipping, while Connor enjoyed a kids' scoop of strawberry ice cream and cotton candy. He also snaked some of mommy's coveted cinnamon sugar pecans and declared them "tasty!"

Connor loved the pony ride. They led the children on these sweet little ponies in a slow trot around the river park.

Here's a pic of Connor admiring the view of the Chena river and the boaters below. He wants to boat badly, but mommy isn't trusting of Timmy's sense of self preservation or her own boating skill to go without daddy or grandparent. Any volunteers to take Connor out on his first canoe? (hint, hint Grandpa!)

Timmy modeling romper

2009-06-22T18:40:00.001-08:00

See isn't he cute...and he actually likes it!

Recent sewing projects

2009-06-20T10:53:00.004-08:00

I've been sewing a bit lately...there's been a great sale on at Joann's and I cannot resist cheap fabric. I got everything I needed to finish Timmy's baby quilt for under $30. Now just to find the time to sew it!

But these projects were super quick. I made a pair of pj pants for Connor and made them the size indicated on the package for his measurements but they turned out way too big. Billowing, really. So I'm going to make the next size down in Lightning MacQueen fabric to match his new shirt. He fell in love with the applique and since I had a coupon I snatched it up for him and got it for only $2...anyone who knows about licensed character fabrics and notions knows this is a steal for this size applique!

I found the most adorable romper pattern for Timmy. I made this one for him, and have some really cute flag fabric for a 4th of July outfit. I'm going to get a tee for Connor and make him a appliqued tee out of the scraps. Boy 4th of July stuff is sparse and not so cute, so this is a nice solution that is actually affordable. It has some sweet little gathers at the front, is nice and cool, and hits above his knees so it doesn't catch as he crawls and tries to walk. I can whip one together in about 45 mins now that I'm familiar with the pattern, which is nice, since that's all the boys allow me for a project.

I would really like to get my three quilt projects done. I'm hoping when Charlie comes home I can go take a few quilting classes. I really enjoy it, but know how woefully sparse my knowledge is. I take many grievous shortcuts and would love to learn to hand quilt rather than just tie or machine stitch and hope for the best!

I'll take some pics of the kids modeling my latest projects...Timmy's napping right now, but he's going to be stuffed into the romper for the farmer's market this afternoon. And he'll be the cutest kid there, with the possible exception of his older brother!

Why we never take gates down...

2009-06-20T10:47:00.002-08:00

...Timmy is a climber!

If you take a gate down, he is on it like shrink wrap! He LOVES to climb...couches, stairs, playground stuff. He keeps me on my toes for sure!

Diet changes for the Freels!

2009-06-12T21:31:00.002-08:00

Timmy is young enough that he doesn't really miss gluten things. Connor, on the other hand, was a solid mac n cheese, bread, pancake, cookie loving little guy. I didn't feed him much of the sweets at all before, but I'm afraid to say Annie's organic mac n cheese and sandwiches were a lunch staple in our house. I already fought enough for him to eat chicken and veggies and fruit for dinner...I hated fighting about lunch too. So I started incorporating some sneaky nutrition fixes where I can, and I feel like I can really relax and let them enjoy what they like without fretting too much about whether they're getting all the vitamins and minerals they need to be truly well.

Some of the things I've done are straight out of "Sneaky Chef" by Missy Lapine, some from "Deceptively Delicious" by Jessica Seinfeld and some from the "Nutrition Book" by the Sears family. Others I've concocted on my own but work well. Keep in mind some of the things in these books will need to be adapted heavily -- Lapine in particular loves her some wheat germ, which is a definite no-no for gf kids. She also depends a lot on milk, bread and pasta as kid friendly vehicles for sneaky stuff, so it's not easy to adapt some things. A few things that DID work for me though...

- I started putting 1/4 cup of pureed pumpkin, yam and carrots into their Annie's Gluten Free Mac N Cheese. Connor actually ate MORE with this in it. Miraculous. It makes it sweeter and richer tasting, as well as making it a deep orange color that is more appealing.

- Added avocado to homemade chocolate pudding. I put in a half...might cut that a bit next time because it did have a slight aftertaste.

- Added Tbsp of pureed pumpkin to grilled cheese. No kidding, smear it on the gf bread making sure to cover it with cheese, the kids will snarf it like it's going out of style.

- Made strong raspberry juice concentrate to add to cold water...a Tbsp flavors it nicely with very little sugar. You could do this with nearly any fruit...I just cook down two cups with two cups of water, boil for 10 mins and voila! Some fruits do better with a little lemon added. For kids who can tolerate milk, raspberry and blueberry juice is absolutely ideal to add to "chocolate" milk. I put in a Tbsp of juice and less than a tsp of chocolate and it tastes richer and is a deeper chocolatey color with 1/5 the sugar.

- I add pumpkin, sweet potato and carrots to everything. Waffles, pancakes, muffins, tomato sauce. Rich in vitamin A and lycopene as well as vitamin E. So important for healing children!

- I'm using purees to replace half the fat in recipes where fat is not critical to the success of the recipe...for example, you can easily replace most of the fat in brownies with pureed blueberries. I put 1/2 cup of applesauce to replace half the butter in chocolate chip cookies.

- I buy one 64 oz jar of 100% fruit juice. I usually water that down to 1 oz of juice to 8 oz of water for Timmy, and 3 oz of juice to 6 oz of water for Connor. If you consequently buy fruit juice concentrate, you can mix it up in the 64 oz container and by filling it up to the top, you have already cut the juice in half with water (concentrates are usually 32 oz -37 oz). I then add a smidge more water for Connor; he's used to seeing me add water and always requests it, and has started rejecting undiluted juice boxes as too sweet.

A few guidelines I'm trying to stay with...

- Less than 40 g of added sugar. I don't count natural fruit sugars, just sucrose and doctored fructose. My personal demon is high fructose corn syrup so none of that. It horrifies me to my very soul that there is MORE than that in a single 12 oz can of root beer. The average person eats 153 lbs of sugar a year, or more than 1/2 cup a day (according to Duke University studies). And that's just sugar...if you add high fructose corn syrup and artificial sweeteners, people eat over 300 lbs of sweet stuff. No wonder type II diabetes is rampant. Besides, in cutting sugar myself, I'm finding that I enjoy other tastes more now that sweet isn't primarily what I'm after.

- Organic wherever possible. Tough to do up here with fruits outside of the summer months, but I belong to a local organic CSA for veggies. Sure makes a big difference to health and less impact on pocketbook.

- If I buy a treat, I look for real ingredients. I'd rather the boys have full fat ice cream with four real ingredients once a week than low fat ice cream with 30 "WTFO?" ingredients every day. Otherwise, if something is going to be doctored, I'll do it so I KNOW what's in it. Honestly, who knew polysorbate 80 is a standard low fat additive? What is polysorbate 80? Bad juju, my friend. I made my own chocolate frozen yogurt the other day with sugar, cornstarch, yogurt, cocoa and avocado. Pretty tasty and very healthy. Or a chocolate banana almond loaf sweetened with honey...high fat but it's good almond fat and extremely low sugar. Who knew dessert could have the same sugar content as a bran cereal? Or should I be shocked that the bran cereal has as much sugar as dessert? Accordingly, anything with sugar content over 15 g (again, exception is fruits and 100% juices) is treated as dessert.

- Sneak nutrition in but present healthy options still. Let kids pick what kind of fruit they want for dinner. I allow all fruit and veggies they want for snacks but rarely allow crackers or granola bars; those are saved for high calorie expenditure activities like bike riding or park time. We have things we call "sometimes treats." He asks for them a lot but knows that those are only for "sometimes." Shhh, even "sometimes" foods are doctored by mom -- my chocolate chip cookies have peanut butter and flax seed for vitamin E boost, applesauce to cut the fat and sugar, and almond meal in addition to garfava and brown rice flour to add healthy fat and fiber.

- I'm also trying to teach Connor about why he can't eat certain things but immediately have a tasty option to present when he has to forego something. I hated having to tell him no when the other kids enjoyed a cinnamon bun at the Art Festival but I whipped out mom's homemade cinnamon sugar gfcf corn chips and he happily munched those down, at a cost of 110 calories and only 4 g of sugar. Wonder how much those other kids ate...

- Connor gets to pick meals for dinner and help prepare them...this has gone a long way to making him at least try things...I get out books with pictures of the different food, he picks it and then helps me throw it in the pot to cook. He'll actually eat carrots and beans when he helps. I'm really pleased with how this is going, but we also get into food ruts when he discovers a favorite and mommy has to overrule his picking ham and peas over rice pasta for the fourth night in a row.

What are you doing to boost your family's health?

And then there were two...

2009-06-12T20:27:00.002-08:00

We officially have another child with celiac disease. This is not a surprise...we were fully expecting the result we received, but were totally taken aback by the severity of Connor's celiac disease. The boys each have different genes, one each celiac and one each gluten sensitive, so Charlie and I obviously are double gened ourselves. I would never have guessed that Connor was as severe as he has proved to be, given that his symptoms were so much less dramatic than Timmy's. We took him off gluten almost a month ago, and we're not looking back.

He is HLA-DQ2 and DQ6 positive, which means that his particular brand of celiac disease is strongly associated with "brain fog", gluten ataxia, apraxia and aphasia. Since going off gluten 3.5 weeks ago, he has made more progress in his speech than in the previous year. He's using "-ing", actually using "is" and "the", possessives for people other than himself, and putting together sentences of increasing complexity. Speech has been our biggest worry with Connor -- he's been evaluated several times, and each time no one in the process could figure out why he didn't talk properly. At 30 months, he was testing at 18-20 months. At 36 months, he was testing at 20-24 months. Now he's matching markers for 36 months at almost 41 months, so he's done six months of catch up in less than a month. It's been nothing less than miraculous.

Other things that have dramatically improved...

- He's gained almost half an inch of height in a month, and one lb. Oddly enough, he's eating less though. His tests showed that he was actually absorbing less than 30% of what he was eating as opposed to 90-95% of a non celiac person. As a result, we suspect he has some nutritional deficiencies. Dr Fine and Dr Fasano estimated a full 6-12 months before his gut is fully healed and only then if he stay STRICTLY gluten free.

- Despite weight gain, he's actually had to have his pants tightened because belly swelling has gone down. I never particularly noticed he had a swollen tummy until it was gone.

- He's asking again for naps after quitting taking them for almost a year, and is sleeping at least 11 hrs at night as well. Considering that at 15 months he was getting up 8-10 times a night and kept that up until almost 3, this is damn near miraculous.

- He actually has healthy bathroom time. I won't share too much here, but he and I are both pleased with poop time! In the last few months before his diagnosis, he had been experiencing sudden unexplained uncontrolled diarrhea -- it even threatened his "Day Out with Thomas", it was so bad. We had to buy emergency underwear out on Baltimore harbor. And we took him to the Air and Space Museum in DC and had to go home because of a horrid series of accidents on the National Mall. Poor kid HATES having accidents, and he's had no episodes at all since going gluten free.

I am so glad that if the boys had to have this condition that Timmy was as dramatically sensitive as he is. He saved his brother a few years of pain, because I believe it would have taken me a much longer time to put together the puzzle from speech delay and some diarrhea. But I also believe that if I hadn't pushed so hard and been willing to depart from the military healthcare model, both children would be in much worse shape today. Celiac disease is a sneaky insidious disease that cripples people and shortens their lives; and unfortunately it is one of the most vastly underdiagnosed diseases in America today. It takes 11 years on average from onset of symptoms to find out what is wrong. That is about 11 years too long in my opinion, and all I can hope is that my sweet babies were caught in enough time to make sure that they will never feel the ill effects of unchecked CD.

I've jumped into gluten free baking and studying nutritional issues. For people interested in gluten intolerance, sensitivity, celiac disease, what have you...I strongly recommend "The Gluten Connection" by Sheri Lieberman. This book is revolutionary and ties many seemingly disconnected issues to include osteoporosis, fibromyalgia, weight gain, acid reflux, etc to gluten intolerance. You don't have to be full blown celiac like my children to really have gluten screw up your health.

I've take the kitchen completely gluten free. I bought some applications for gluten free shopping and cooking for my iPhone. I prepare and pack food for every outing. I've perfected a standard bread recipe, and found a kick ass chocolate cake recipe. I've read book after book about healing with food, and am sneaky chefing my butt off to get needed nutrients into the kids. I've got rid of the vast majority of prepared foods - not that we had many to begin with - but am hoping to take the whole family in the direction of organic fresh foods with a heavy emphasis on lean meat, vegetables, fruit and nuts with a smattering of whole grains like brown rice and quinoa. I joined a local organic community supported agriculture (CSA) and will be getting an amazing amount of fresh organic locally grown produce starting in a week or so. We are off of all artificial sweeteners and high fructose corn syrup is strictly verboten. I am strongly trying to avoid almost all food additives to include the polysorbate family and noxious food dyes. I'm seriously considering brewing my own kombucha. I bought a book about celiac disease for Connor and after an unfortunate shared cracker incident have repeatedly emphasized that he must check with mommy to find out if he's eating a "feel good" food. I've got plans in place for preschool, birthday parties, PCS, etc. I will be a gluten policeman until my kids can be responsible on their own for their own health.

I'm not saying any of this to be patted on the back, but just to show that this disease is totally manageable and practically nonexistent if it's actively pursued daily. And I am pursuing all these other health related changes because I think that the current American diet and food processing is seriously endangering our children's health -- the incidence of genetically modified foods, processing, celiac disease, diabetes, lupus, asthma, allergies and autism are all rising at roughly the same rate. That can't be entirely coincidental.

I'm going to follow up this post with some nutritional changes I'm making...we're doing a few incremental things (we're still eating too much pasta and bread IMO, but we're moving away from it...just to show what I'm trying to do. If people have any other ideas, I would love to hear them...

So...Connor has celiac disease. I gave him some extra hugs tonight, got "Wuv oo, mommy" and sigh...here we go, kiddo...let's make you well.

Quick "boy I've got a smart kid" post

2009-06-09T22:22:00.004-08:00

Today I took the boys to Fred Meyer, the local shopping mecca, to stock up on some gf things and organic fruit. Connor and I regularly play games in line while Timmy hangs out in the Ergo since it can be a bit of a wait and we need something to pass the time. He counted all the aisles, looked for letters on the magazine, talked about pictures he saw and then helped me empty the cart. He pushed the plums up on the conveyor belt and asked me for the "pum pome."

The plum poem is this...by William Carlos Williams:

This is just to say:
That I have eaten the plums
that were in the icebox
Which you were probably saving for breakfast.

Forgive me;
They were delicious.
So sweet and so cold!

It's one of his absolute favorites, along with some Shel Silverstein and others. You have to put great enthusiasm into "So sweet and so cold!" or you will be told sternly to do it again.

I recited it for him, but forgot the line "Forgive me". He said, "No, no mom! Forgib me!" and then proceeded to recite the entire poem from start to finish as two amazed shoppers looked on. The grandmotherly woman behind me tapped me on the shoulder and said, "That was incredible...have you had his IQ tested? My granddaughter could never do that at 7!" Now granted, Connor hears/recites this poem at least a couple times a week - I SAID it was a favorite! - but I sure had a proud mommy moment when strangers hear what he can do and are blown away.

Hm, I can think of a few people like this...

2009-06-07T21:56:00.003-08:00

I love this comic! HAHAHAHAHA!

More Alaska pics!

2009-06-07T20:56:00.005-08:00

Connor riding his bike last week by Moose Lake on the way to the Kobuk/North Street park.

It's hard to take pics of Timmy when he's in the Ergo baby carrier like he was in Creamer's Field...I'm too close to him to get more than a blurry photo of his ear. So here's a couple Timmy pics around the house! He LOVES this musical table that Connor got for Christmas when he was 11 months...I moved it to the living room so I had a surefire distractor to let me do a chore unimpeded for 15 minutes. He's nekkid from the waist up because he has an unreal love for raspberries at the moment and mashes them into everything when he gets a chance, so mommy makes him come shirtless to the table.

He loves playing in the basement with his brother...oooooooooh, we're having fun now!

And finally, here's the boys in mommy's new bike trailer. We get to ride all over the base after lunch to get mommy some exercise and the boys an extra dose of fresh air. I'm currently trying to figure out how to make it a tad more comfortable for Timmy; a seat pad perhaps?

Some pics and Alaska stories

2009-06-07T20:07:00.007-08:00

Here's a snapshot of breakfast time. Happy Timmy because mommy brought out more oranges! Mmmmmmm! Keep them comin' mommy!

The kids and I went off to the Fairbanks Wild Arts Walk this afternoon at Creamer's Field in Fairbanks. It was $10 for me, free for them, and really quite the wonderful event. First of all, that the place even exists...it's 1800 acres designed as a bird refuge in the middle of a metro area, at least as metro as Fairbanks gets. Beautiful land...the geese and cranes are thick on the grounds. They invite in artists and musicians to line the paths around the refuge and it was a lovely walk, with lovely people and lovely art to look at. Connor immediately headed out to do some butterfly hunting with a couple other little boys. I was hugely impressed. We got a mug and snack/drink coupons for our $10 which we regretfully could not participate in since the treats were cinnamon buns. But mommy came prepared with a picnic lunch and we enjoyed peanut butter sandwiches, raspberries, melon and homemade cinnamon sugar corn chips on the wetland lookout point. Here's Connor galloping across the open field chasing dragonflies and butterflies with two other munchkins.

That picture reminds me of one of Connor's favorite poems by Christine Rossetti...
Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you;
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I;
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.

He made friends with a boy named Caleb and I think they ran the whole refuge path twice over as they explored. Caleb actually went to the Montessori school we are previewing for Connor so I pumped his mom for information as the boys played. Under Caleb's influence, Connor took his first pee in the woods...at the expense of some big mosquito bites on his bum. Note to mommy: spray Off! on the tush before dressing when exploring the pines! Camp Habitat did face painting for donations -- they are a wonderful organization that undertakes nature education for children in the local area -- so we gave generously for Connor's requested design.

We also signed up for their preschool nature discovery hike on Tues...how much fun will that be? Both Charlie and I want the boys to love and thrive out in the woods the way we did as kids; I don't believe we ever came inside unless forced to and it seems like so many children these days immerse themselves in electronics and ignore the possibilities of a summer afternoon spent weaving grasses or watching a caterpillar. Kids miss so much when they're removed from the sky, the wind, the mud.

Beautiful duck ehh? You can't tell, but it's SPARKLY. Every person Connor encountered got treated to a sparkly duck monologue. Every artist out there was pleased to speak with Connor. I can't get over how friendly the artistic community is in this town -- I didn't meet a stranger once while out wandering the paths. And everyone praised the sparkly duck to the skies.

Connor and Caleb running past the woodworkers' tent...I fell in love with a lazy susan there, but did not love the price. I know it's art, but ouch, $125 was a little steep for a "nice to have." Oh, it was pretty though!

A view of the artist tents around the bridge at Creamer's Field. Just through those trees is a large wetland and big thickets of primroses. I got a "bokay" of "danwe-lions" and roses from my sweet little son. He and Caleb were expert flower pickers. You can see some gorgeous photos on display there on the left. Charlie and I will have to decide what our special Alaska memorabilia will be...we have a small clay pot from New Mexico, rugs from Turkey, art from Las Vegas...we need something special to commemorate our time here. Well, OTHER than our Alaska Grown baby!

Ohhhh, tired boy. I can't believe how well Connor sleeps after these excursions!

Kid stats...as long as I'm bragging

2009-06-04T20:37:00.002-08:00

Timmy's weight is 21 lbs, so at a nice 70th percentile...and his height is...wait for it...31 inches! Tall lean boy eh?

Connor is 37 lbs and 41 inches tall. He shot up half an inch in the last month alone. Gluten free does a body good!

First steps and chicken pox

2009-06-04T19:22:00.004-08:00

We got the pox.

Here's a pic of Timmy's burgeoning pox...not very clear and not many but you can definitely see them. He's itchy and Connor feels bad. Ugh.

Both of them woke up fussy yesterday morning...when we took our daily stroll with the neighbors to the park, Connor got off his bike half way home to "take a break." Weird...normally I could power a small city off his energy. He also insisted on riding in the bike trailer when we did our afternoon ride. We never go more than four miles, so it should have been strenuous but nothing too hard for him. At 3 I asked if he wanted to go to his friend Hayley's house to play in the pool and he said, "Uh no thanks, mom...want you to sit in the chair and rock me." Refused to eat dinner. Then he popped up at 5 running 102 temp. I got him some Motrin then as he was drinking it, I noticed he had a red spotty rash on his arms, legs and belly. I turned to look at Timmy and I'll be damned if his face and belly weren't covered too with a few on his legs. I checked Timmy's temp and he's at 100.

They both fussed for awhile and then I put Timmy down at 610, an hour to two hours earlier than normal. When I came down for Connor at 630 (I let him watch Cars when it became clear he needed rest and cuddling) he was asleep with his head on the floor and his body on the couch. That has happened maybe twice in his entire life. And the rash was spreading. It looks like fluid filled pimples on him, small white headed pimples on T, though neither has more than 30 pox at this point and likely won't have anymore. We confirmed with the clinic that it was indeed the pox and now we hunker down to wait it out. World's mildest cases but we still need to wait before venturing out into the neighborhood as disease vectors. And for anyone wondering...yes, Connor is vaccinated and we seem to have picked it up during our travel back to Alaska. That and Timmy breastfeeding and hence getting my immunities probably accounts for the weakness of the illness they're experiencing. Go mama's milk!

So that brings us to late afternoon today. The boys watched a heck of a lot more TV than they ever have because they were whiny and clingy and feeling just well enough to torment mommy but not anything else productive. They seemed to perk up a little in the afternoon, so we headed downstairs to play in our gucci play area. Timmy has been cruising for a few weeks now and occasionally gets brave enough to let go at the end of the couch but always wobbled and fell straight to his butt. He climbed my shoulder, let go and stood for a good 3 seconds before venturing a wavering step. Then two. Yay!!!!

He flopped and looked inordinately pleased with himself and immediately crawled back into position to do it again. One...two...three...and woop, woop, flail...and FOUR! He repeated the cycle several times, only achieving one or two steps before falling again, but he's so excited to be doing it I'm sure it's only a matter of time before he's a baby-sized blur. Life is going to get exciting, that's for sure! Mommy better invest in some extra eyes to keep him out of trouble! I'm so proud!

Well, we're here

2009-05-25T21:25:00.002-08:00

We got here after a leisurely 2 day trip back to Fairbanks. We've had a few adventures; our plumbing was a mess after four relatively inactive months, the kitchen was torn apart in a gf overhaul, and both the kids have been completely discombobulated by the light and time change.

Connor got a new "bickicycle" from Wal Mart. Oh goodness, what a sharp reminder we were back in Alaska! Because of the time and expense of shipping, bulky or heavy items get ordered a few times a year in small batches and once they're gone, they're gone. That includes bikes. Connor, being used to the amazing cornucopia of consumer goods in DC, was sure we could find a "blue one with green stripes". Uh UH. At the fourth store, we finally found a red one that was okay with him. Whew.

We've been working hard to get things done around here...we just did the lawn clean up and flower planting today. Tomorrow we're planning on walking to the park with our friends and maybe doing a family bike ride with Timmy's new tandem seat. We tried to get a bike trailer for him but again ran into that Alaska commodity issue and couldn't find one. Well he'll probably feel more secure close to mommy anyway. He also has a snazzy new helmet...not sure how he's going to feel about that!

I wish I had something deep and meaningful to say here, but I really don't. There's still a strong feeling of unreality about being back here...I love being in my own home, but the summer is so strange here I'm having a hard time adjusting to the dramatic light difference and the heat is hard as well. 80 degrees is vicious here in the Interior with no air conditioning!

Going back to Alaska...

2009-05-19T05:23:00.003-08:00

Tomorrow we leave to go back home. I am so grateful to my parents and in laws for their support during this deployment...I would have gone crazy in more ways than one without their love, company and support for the past four months. But the snow has melted, the kitchen overhaul beckons, and we need to open our house to the sun, wind and delights of an Alaskan summer. You hate to miss a single moment of irises, moose and blue berries when it only lasts a moment.

So many things have made me glad we came down here to DC. We finally discovered why my family has been ill. Connor's speech has improved greatly. Timmy had access to the best medical care possible when he desperately needed it. The boys got to really know their grandparents in the way I want them to know them -- in fact, I think they both would happily go off to Indiana or Virginia without a second thought just to be with grandma and grandpa or Nani and Pop. We got to enjoy the National Aquarium, the National Zoo, the museums, a great preschool, wonderful gymnastics, all sorts of lovely things that are hard to come by in the wild North. We got to roam all over mom and dad's land in New York. We got to explore Luray Caverns. And we took an epic and thoroughly enjoyable trip to DisneyWorld. Amazing four months of adventure and fun.

I am so grateful I have the people I do in my life who are willing to open their hearts and homes to us. We are lucky indeed. And the best part is that my boys have known unconditional love every moment of their lives from every one in their lives, to the point that they don't even know how lucky they are. But I do. And I thank those who made that possible.

But now it's time to nest as our own little military unit in our own home. We have a new dietary adventure to embark on. We have bikes to ride in the midnight sun. We have parks to visit and moose to watch. We have gardens to hoe. We have milestones to tackle. Hours of bug hunting, sand digging and swinging. And daddy to welcome home after six long months of watching and waiting. Hopefully this last two months will pass in a blur of sticky summer days, and we'll have daddy safe home before we know it.

We love you all. We'll miss being here. We'll miss you. Daddy, come home safe...we're waiting.

Andrews Air Show...what a blast!

2009-05-15T12:38:00.002-08:00

We blew off our last day of Virginia preschool and ran off to the Andrews AFB air show. It's quite the drive despite *technically* only being 54.2 miles from mom and dad's house since we have to go through three major highway changes and it's on the periphery of DC.

We got there at 11 and lo and behold! we had to ride school buses to get to the show. Yay! We got there just in time to watch the A-10/F-22 demo, and then we ran around to seven different airplanes and helos so Connor could test them all out. Then we sat and snacked on blueberries, crackers and frozen lemonade while we watched the Thunderbirds. Connor was entranced; Timmy thought it was loud.

We had a hard moment when Connor thought he had located daddy on a KC-10. He ran up and hugged the daddy doppelganger's hand. The poor guy was a little taken aback to be hugged by a vibrating preschooler, but understood and gave Connor a hug when he learned daddy was in Iraq. We watched the biplane demo from the school bus. Connor would have stayed happily for a lot longer, but the Timmy patience meter was running low and we still had a long drive home -- not to mention rus hour starts at 3.

It took us twice as long to get home as it did to go because it's Friday, it's DC, and of course Friday afternoon rush hour is an awesome time to shut down lanes to repaint lane lines. But both boys could not have been sweeter, more patient or have had more fun. Connor kept Timmy giggling all the way home doing Thunderbird demo runs with his new toy jet. You know it was a successful trip when there's a two hour monologue from the back seat about "loud jets with red tails. Look mom stars on tail! And then it went whoosh! so fast. I saw it. One, two, three, four! Four airplanes!"

I'm glad we braved the traffic!

New blog

2009-05-04T17:26:00.003-08:00

I'm contributing to a new blog. My girlfriend Sarah is making huge strides in healing her little boy's PDD-NOS with a GFCF diet and we put our heads together to post recipes that we've tested and found success. Check it out and discover GF cooking!

http://triedandtasted.blogspot.com/

So...our baby boy has celiac disease

2009-05-03T11:07:00.003-08:00

I have been holding off posting about our trials and travails with Timmy's health until we had definitive answers. Now that we have one -- celiac disease -- I can tell the story. Maybe someone else in my shoes will stumble across this and have an epiphany and maybe this will give family and friends a better understanding of what celiac disease entails.

Just short of 6 months, I decided to let Timmy experiment with food. Connor had lunged at my lentils at 5 months, 3 weeks...so why not let Timmy gnaw a teething biscuit while I fed Connor his breakfast? I got my answer a few hours later when Timmy was screaming in uncontrollable shrieking pain. He couldn't nurse; all he could do was draw his legs to his chest and suffer. It went on for HOURS. My parents and I took turns walking the floor with him. Mom and I alternated floating in a warm bath with him. The only relief he seemed to find was when mom stashed a warm heating pad under a blanket and cuddled him belly down on it. Even then, he sobbed quietly in his exhausted sleep. Finally at 930 pm after 8 hours of shrieking, I took him into the ER.

Prince William Hospital was great..they rushed him straight back and did tons of testing: CT scans, ultrasounds, blood cultures, stool testing, a full gamut. They weren't able to find much wrong, an elevated level there, a lower level there. They finally diagnosed him with a probable intussesception (bowels telescoping inside out, common in baby boys) and emergency transported him to Inova Fairfax for a pediatric surgery consult. As we walked in the building, he hiccuped and started smiling at everyone. It was eerie...like someone flipped a switch. The team was still prepped to cut into his belly but the radiologist decided to do one last ultrasound. Thank goodness he did because they didn't find the suspicious area this time. They chalked it up to a self resolving intussesception and sent us home at 7 am, weary but grateful. As we left, a doctor tossed over her shoulder that we might think about celiac. Um, what's that?

The next day he had some horrible poops. Anyone that has changed an exclusively breastfed baby knows that it really doesn't smell much. It wins the smell test hands down over a formula fed baby's waste. This smelled like a dead body rotting in the sun. It was eye watering. It was the strangest color too...white and green. Sorry if that's TMI, but it was definitely odd enough to make everyone ponder.

A couple days later, I gave Timmy a couple noodles to play with as I cooked dinner. A few hours later, we started in again on the cycle of misery and uncontrollable crying. It lasted for a shorter period...9 hours rather than 18...but still agonizing and obviously excruciating for him. Again the horrid diapers. Mom and I combed the days the incidents occurred to look for common factors and the only thing we could find was that on both occasions could isolate only gluten ingestion. I then started researching and figured that celiac disease was gluten intolerance on steroids.

We did a follow up appt with both the general physician and the military clinic to get a GI referral in the Tricare system. Our GP, Dr Buchinsky, admitted there was a good possibility that was a problem, though she noted the severity of the symptoms didn't match classic celiac disease. Most celiacs have a more sneaky pernicious onset...kids end up looking like they came out of an Ethiopian famine with a big belly and thin limbs, some diarrhea and discomfort, etc. It takes years to get diagnosed. This was not at all like that. Dr. B ran a celiac panel but warned us it would likely not be positive since he had been gluten free since the second incident and the test requires steady gluten ingestion. It was indeed negative, but I still wanted to pursue a diagnosis through a specialist.

After a HORRID experience with a GI NP at Walter Reed, I blew off all the torturous things she wanted to do instead of celiac testing. I ordered private DNA testing and the test came back two weeks later strongly positive for celiac disease. It's impossible to be more strongly celiac...with the gene combo he has, celiac is inevitable. And it apparently reared its head early. Celiac is NOT an allergy. It is not a sensitivity. It is an autoimmune disease where the body sees an otherwise innocuous piece of bread as a lump of poison and makes the body attack itself. The resulting damage to organs, GI tract and nervous system is cumulative and can lead to other AI disorders like lupus and diabetes or even cancer. You cannot outgrow it.

Luckily, there is a cure: maintain a completely gluten free diet for life. What is gluten in, you say? Oh good Lord. It's in barley, wheat, oats and rye. Guess what is in half the food on supermarket shelves? Oh yeah, barley, wheat, oats and rye and their derivatives. No pizza for Timmy! The more processed it is, the higher the likelihood is that there is gluten in it.

As I've done more reading, I am just floored by how underdiagnosed this disease is. University of Maryland has found evidence that 1 in 132 people in the US have it. It's more like 1 in 32 or 1 in 54 for certain populations like Finnish, Irish and British. That means that around 2 million people in this country have it with only 15,000 actually diagnosed. But those numbers are growing. People are finally recognizing the prevalence of it and the wide diversity of symptoms associated with it. You don't have to be a malnourished waif before you get diagnosed. Celiac disease can be anything from constipation alternating with diarrhea to extreme pain like Timmy to neurological issues like ataxia, behavioral problems, etc. This is not a problem for just babies, young kids or elderly people. In the US people go an average of 11 years before diagnosis. That's a long time to suffer damage to your system.

Now Connor is being screened. He has a 50-75% chance of also being a celiac. I'm taking the entire kitchen gluten free. Timmy is sensitive enough to have a reaction from a kiss from a parent post sandwich. It's daunting, challenging and exciting all in one to embark on gluten free baking and cooking. We're going to be focusing on simple organic recipes with alternative baked goods and focus on keeping as healthy as possible.

In a way Timmy's severe celiac symptoms have been a blessing. If they had not been so dramatic, if he had been a less smiley happy baby, if he hadn't reacted as instantly as he did when we could isolate everything he had eaten so easily, if, if, if...we could have had a child with severe malnutrition, neurological complications, and severe weight loss before drawing the dots together. Now we've had only three exposures, one accidental brother-feeding-granola-bars incident unfortunately, and hopefully we can minimize any future exposures.

I'm sure I'll be blogging about this quite a bit in the future...my mind is reeling with all the implications of this diagnosis. But for now...I'm so grateful we have an answer.

Timmy LIKES hummus

2009-04-22T17:15:00.003-08:00

Want to see proof?

Okay, so he looks a little hummus drunk. Sue me!

We found some gluten free apple and cinnamon flavored hummus, and smeared some on a sizeable chunk of apple. Timmy loves to chew on apples, and I figured it was a lovely taste and protein to boot. After a rocky start to solids, Timmy has followed eagerly in the footsteps of his big brother and tries to eat everything we eat. He loves cereal (Gorilla Munch is a big fave), apple chunks, carrots, peas, and oh good Lord, his love for steak! Unreal. Oh, and avocado! But hummus...that's another thing entirely. Not only can you eat it, you can smear it head to foot and make mothers and grandmothers shake in their boots at the sheer mess. No wonder he's grinning...

National Aquarium at Baltimore

2009-04-18T17:19:00.003-08:00

We went to NAtional Aquarium in Baltimore today. The weather was glorious...luckily we thought ahead and prepurchased tickets because apparently everyone else had the same weather appreciation we did and the lines were already built up to 2 pm and after entry times. We walked around the waterfront and looked at all the "boats" for Connor, and got in at 1130. We admired lots of animals...the ray pool is our favorite!...and then went off the dolphin show. Connor was blown away. Here's a montage I created for him. Timmy nursed during the finale so unfortunately I didn't get any of that.

Timmy loved the show too. I think he thought all the clapping was for him!

Here's Connor's excited "amazing, bee-oo-tiful!" face!

I have more pics...but no time to upload them tonight!

Easter!

2009-04-18T17:12:00.003-08:00

Mommy...umm, I mean the Easter Bunny...went a little too crazy for Easter. We always did a few toys instead of tons of candy in my family, but Connor and Timmy got quite a bit of both this time. Maybe some of it was missing daddy, and some of it was just plain forgetting all I had already gotten, but they did get some pretty neat stuff!

Connor got some Super Why paraphernalia and Disney buses, as well as a t ball set and candy. The t ball set is defective so we have to take it back to the store. But the Super Why stuff and one of the Disney bus sets was a huge hit!

Here's Connor "reading" his new Super Why book.

Timmy got a musical animal jungle toy and some new rattles -- he LOVES anything that rattles -- and he very happily observed Connor hunt eggs.

Luray Caverns Visit

2009-04-18T16:56:00.003-08:00

Okay, time to catch up on the last few weeks! Sorry it's taken me so long to update pictures, but it's been very busy lately and that's my excuse! I was working on a big project -- tearing down wallpaper and painting the dining room -- in addition to the normal kid craziness around the house. Add in my girlfriend Kellie's baby's birth, struggles with 3 year old terrorists and a teething baby, I've been lucky that I make it out of the house with pants on some days.

A couple weeks ago, we hied ourselves off to Luray Caverns. It's about 1.5 hrs from Manassas and in the middle of Shenandoah country. Charlie and I had toured the Cave of the Winds in Colorado, and the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico so I was prepared to admire but not be overwhelmed. But all I can say is...wow. Amazing rock formations, enormous caverns filled with amazing stalagtites, and neat history to it. I do wish there was better explanations of some of the history stuff, but since Connor doesn't usually suffer anyone to linger long it wasn't a huge problem.

Here's a really neat cavern with super still water below...reflects in perfect mirror image.

Here's Pop at the organ of the rocks...it's this neat musical display that strikes different rock formations to make ringing beautiful music throughout the caverns.

Connor was convinced that we were going to be surprised by dinosaurs (the caverns did look eerily like the Dinosaur ride at DisneyWorld). The only way he would slow down enough in his determination to get away from "LOUD dinosores" was to listen to the audio tour over and over.

Connor as Super WHY!

2009-04-04T13:07:00.003-08:00

Connor loves this relatively new PBS show "Super Why!" It's very cute and remarkably non annoying with 4 main characters: AlphaPig, WonderRed, Princess Presto, and Whyatt who becomes Super Why. They each have different powers, but SuperWhy has the power to read. Connor has redoubled his efforts to read everything he sees since getting hooked on this show. He had to wear his dinosaur rain boots and carry my Weight Watchers points calculator as his Super Computer in order to watch the show, because that's what Super Why wears.

Mommy and Nani had a brainstorm...and we ended up concocting a Super Why costume for Connor for less than $5! We bought some ribbon, a 1/2 yard of cotton for a cape, a $.29 piece of felt and voila! We have a creditable SuperWhy living in the house.

We might be living in our costume from now on...

Timmy learned how to clap today!

2009-03-31T17:03:00.000-08:00

And witness how tickled he is with himself!

Disney World, Day 3

2009-03-29T13:36:00.003-08:00

On Day 3, we divided and conquered. Connor and Pop went off to enjoy Magic Kingdom and Nani and I took Timmy to Epcot. While the boys went off to Pirates, Haunted Mansion, Small World, Barnstormer, etc, we had a blast wandering around the International area at Epcot.

The Garden Festival was going on, and there were amazing topiaries everywhere. Here's Nani and Timmy near the Fantasia ostriches.

Here's mommy in front of the Simba scene from Lion King.

We enjoyed a long leisurely lunch at Cafe Marrakesh with mimosas and a baklava sampler. Timmy was hungry too, so here's mommy and Timmy enjoying a Timmy apertif.

We really loved Asia the most...China and Japan were really very interesting, and we fell in love with the gardens.

We decided to rest in Mexico for a little while and let Timmy have a taste of Nani's all fruit popsicle. We LIKE pops. Mommy had to buy a new shirt though because strawberry and beet juice just do not look great smeared across my chest.

We came back to the hotel for some swimming and dinner, and then Pop and Connor headed out to fireworks while Nani and mommy stayed with comatose Timmy and enjoyed some petit fours from the concierge service upstairs. Connor had a blast at the fireworks but the first loud volley had him running across the park to get away...Pop had to convince him he was not a target on an artillery range.

Disney World , Day 2

2009-03-28T14:27:00.005-08:00

orry it's taken me so long to catch up! It's been a very busy week!

We woke up all refreshed on Monday and hied ourselves off to Animal Kingdom for the morning. We made lunch reservations for Rainforest Cafe, and so we enjoyed Dinoland in the meantime.

The place was relatively empty when we first showed so Nani and mommy took Connor on the dinosaur ride. I jumped out of my skin a couple times when the carnosaurs popped out of no where but Connor demonstrated great sangfroid...after all, they would eat the bigger people first right? His only comment was that "dinosores are LOUD."

He really enjoyed the flying dino ride and went three times before we had to go off to the cafe for lunch.

We stopped to see a few animals on the way out...

We ate lunch at the cafe, which Connor loved...he talked to all the animals on the walls...and then headed off to Epcot for the afternoon.

Connor loves trains of all sorts and we got to ride buses AND trains there. We got back at around 7 and put both kids to bed...they fell asleep near instantly. Too bad I can't always run them into the ground like that!

Disney World Adventures, Day 1

2009-03-23T17:33:00.004-08:00

The Crean/Freel clan went off on a magical Disney World vacation this Sunday...in fact, I'm writing this now from the DW Animal Kingdom Lodge as the kids slumber peacefully in their beds. It has been a real blast so far...I'll write day by day, but one or two days delayed so I can catch everyone up and not miss anything.

We got up early Sunday morning and flew out of Dulles...Connor was extremely excited about the airplane ride and told everyone within hearing distance about tails and flaps and cambered wings. We arrived before 9 am, and we were whisked off to our lodge to check in and get our tickets and info. Our rooms weren't ready yet -- we were upgraded gratis to concierge services and two adjoining deluxe rooms -- so while dad got things straightened out with all that, the kids and I roamed the hotel. The hotel is beautiful, decorated with an African theme, and has a "savannah" in the courtyard. From our balcony we can see this:

The animals roam all day in a big protected paddock and Connor is learning all kinds of new animals like amkole and ibex.

While we waited for our rooms, we decided to head over to the Magic Kingdom. It was very busy by the time we got there, but Connor did manage to get on the Flying Dumbo ride he's anticipated for weeks, and discovered the wonder of the spinning teacup ride (one of mommy's faves!). Here he is modeling his new hat (his old one didn't fit) and waiting patiently in line.

Here he is on the teacups...

If you're wondering why there hasn't been any pics of Timmy featured yet, that is because the world's mellowest baby chose to sleep through most of all this action. He finally woke when pop and Connor braved Connor's first roller coaster, the Barnstormer. Here's Pop and Connor heading up the track -- zoom!

And here's the cheering section on the ground!

The rooms were soon ready so we headed back to the hotel on the bus (Connor asks about 40 million times day to ride the bus...we probably could have bought him a $20 bus pass and he'd have been almost as happy!) and rested. We were all pretty tired from the day's travels so as soon as the kids ate, we all hit the sheets to get an early jump on the Animal Kingdom the next day. The park had early opening hours we wanted to take advantage of. Stay tuned for Animal Kingdom and Epcot adventures!

2009-03-20T20:14:00.001-08:00

Two Tims hanging out

Mom and Timmy on the Mall

Two tired boys

Pictures!

2009-03-20T17:32:00.003-08:00

Some catch up videos

2009-03-19T17:59:00.002-08:00

Connor loves to dance...this is an HBO Baby video that he loves. He dances with the tap dancers, and gets very excited about the blue screen.

Here is Connor and cousin Evie playing with Pop during a family party at mom and dad's house in Olean.

Kid Funnies

2009-03-15T03:58:00.001-08:00

My kids keep me laughing all day long. For those of my friends and family members that don't get to see them on a regular basis, I thought I'd capture a few of their doings for your reading pleasure!

Timmy is a crack up, a total ham, who delights in charming total strangers with million watt smiles. If you number among his favorite people, he will have a full body celebration when you come in the room. He waves his arms, kicks his feet, and wiggles like you are the best gift he has ever gotten. If you turn away without acknowledging his little party for you, he gives a little squeak of dismay and starts to fuss.

One of his favorite things to do is lay on your lap and reach up to your mouth as you talk to him. He cooes and gurgles and generally flirts with you. He has the brightest most expressive little eyes -- laser beam like in intensity and focus. He loves singing and actually sings to himself in his sleep.

Connor is keeping us laughing with his turns of phrase. He is a myna bird, repeating everything he can. He and Pop watch for the metro trains in the tunnel chanting, "Waaiiiit for it, waaaaiiit for it..." and that's now his go to phrase. He is in love with "Super Why!" on PBS - Elmo is for babies! - and when he's told no, no Super Why! he says, "Oh no, where is it? What happened??" like a global disaster destroyed the show archives because surely he would be allowed to watch it otherwise! He spends a lot of the day asking for new signs (as in ASL) and repeating his favorite learning stuff. Nothing more disconcerting than a naked toddler running by yelling "Big D, widdle D...ddd...donaud doo and a duck dog too!" (10 points if you guess the kid book) Connor read out his first entire proper sentence today all by himself (Wake up Bert) with no phonics help from mommy -- his reading aloud had been limited to simple lists of two to three nouns per page. He loves to sing phonics songs with mommy after school so mommy's had to brush off the pipes and render the "If you see a double e, you say EEEE!" song all its musical due. He also figured out left from right and wants to demo his knowledge every chance he gets.

He of course has also added a few less endearing phrases; I asked if he would like some yogurt and we found that we only had lemon left which prompted a high volume "EWWWWWWW!" It was funny and I laughed...and now get EWWWWW every time I turn around.

And oh dear...mommy needed some new shirts and Nani needed a swim suit so we took the kids shopping at Sears. Connor got a little bored waiting for Nani to try on clothes so he thought he'd join in the fun and promptly stripped down to his skivvies in the store. No matter what store we went to, Connor had to be naked if there was clothes trying to be done. Sigh. Wouldn't be so bad if he didn't try to model his Thomas the Tank Engine underwear and scare the 80 year old ladies with his manly physique.

My kids continually surprise me in wonderful ways (and a musing on parenting)

2009-03-12T18:24:00.004-08:00

Connor has always been...not a difficult kid...but a challenging one. He is pretty easy going til you hit a streak of stubborn, and that I tell you is like drilling granite. Read about the World War II beaches of Normandy reenactment it took to get him potty trained and you will feel my pain!

For about a six month stretch, he had no go areas where he fought for control with me. Hair washing. Teeth brushing. Hair cutting. Doctor visits. Potty training. One by one, we knocked them down with firm limits, wise punishments, a fair amount of exasperation and loads of praise and positive reinforcement when he finally gave in to the inevitable. We have all but hair cuts conquered. Imagine my apprehension then when I had to add a first dentist visit.

I knew he was due for his first cleaning soon, and when he fell while running and chipped a small piece off his tooth, I figured sooner rather later was in order. I found a great pediatric dentist here in Manassas called Dr Kakar and made an appt for today. The staff was lovely...obviously great with kids...and Dr. Kakar himself did everything possible to make Connor comfortable. I had done a little prep work: got a book about dentist visits by Mercer, talked about the dentist looking at his pretty teeth and counting them, and how I was so excited he was going to the dentist so he could earn a treat by cooperating. We did a tense preschooler negotiation (I thought he was going to call in union reps) and we settled on a milkshake as a good dentist compliance treat. Probably not what the dentist has in mind, but you gotta go with what works.

Dr. Kakar was very patient and showed him all the instruments and the gloves, counting fingers and all that. He also brilliantly let Connor watch an older boy get his teeth examined and showed him a little girl who earned stickers for completing her exam calmly. Dr. Kakar and his assistant (who had a beautiful lilting Trinidad accent) did a great job at putting him at ease. He very willingly let the dentist count his teeth, inspect them and do a quick cleaning and fluoride treatment. He earned three stickers and a tooth brush, and I made an enormous deal of how grown up and mature he was about it, trying desperately to hide my delighted surprise at how wonderful he was. We headed off to the nearest McD's playground, upping the reward to playground playtime and a Happy Meal as an "I'm so proud of you" gift. After earning a rare lollipop for a fantastic doctor visit on Tuesday, this kid is sitting pretty on the treat front and will probably try to ask for appts just to earn the elusive lollipop/milkshake combo again.

There's a lot of angst among moms about the advisability of these kind of treats for compliance. One school of thought counts this as bribes. Well, sure there's something to that. Sometimes children should do what they're told because it's the right thing to do and they know it, absolutely. But I feel like when a child is doing something new, something in which expectations are more than they have had to give before, a treat for rising to meet those expectations is in order. After all, if you go above and beyond your usual level of performance at work, you earn praise, accolades, even bonuses, right? Everyone wants a pat on the back, the "milkshake" when they reach beyond their comfort zone and do well. I think this has a flip side as well. Never ever promise a treat that you're not willing to withhold if expectations are not met. Case in point: Connor loves this little merry go round ride at the local mall. We went to take his three year pics there, and I promised that if he behaved during the pics, I would let him ride the merry go round. He acted up, refusing to behave, and generally acted like a pill. So I had Pop carry him out to the car sans ride which caused a nuclear meltdown that put Three Mile Island to shame. He HAD to understand that there were consequences to his choices and that was a bad choice. When he calmed down, I explained that he had had two choices: behave and earn the treat, or misbehave and earn disapproval and go without. Connor generally is wise enough to act the pragmatic part and realize that expectations met equal good things showering down upon him. After all, this mama didn't raise no fool! Can we hope the same method might work for a haircut?

Soon all these things will not earn treats because he's grown beyond the trepidation that once necessitated a little extra incentive, and we'll attach some new motivator to something else. When we were kids, my brother and I lived for the quarterly "I get to pick a special dinner" award for good grades. We earned a great allowance (and learned budgeting) for doing our duties around the house, and could earn extra for doing especially hard or dirty jobs. Mom and dad always had little celebrations for any milestones worthy of the name - acing exams, advancing in Scouts, earning a scholarship, getting into college - but never rewarded us for being demanding little jerks. THAT is a bribe in my book -- the "okay have the candy just so you'll shut up and stop nagging me" Snickers. We knew much better than to nag; nagging was a one way ticket to bug eyed irate mom and a guaranteed way to kiss a prized treat or outing goodbye.

Well, anyway, I have two sleeping kids that need extensive cuddles...

Kids doctor appts and stats

2009-03-10T08:53:00.002-08:00

After a long weekend in New York, we came back to go to the kids' doctor appts. Timmy needed his six month well baby appt and Connor needed to catch up on a couple of shots that were not available in Alaska. The appts went better than I could have imagined! Connor was very cooperative, balking only at getting weighed, and earned a rare treat for his lovely cooperation; lollipops are big motivators in his world!

He is just over 39 1/2 inches tall and weighs 37 lbs...nice lean tall boy. He got his shot with no fuss and earned his lollipop and congratulatory hug from mommy for such nice behavior. The pediatrician was very supportive of his speech therapy and preschool plans, and was impressed with his motor skills in riding his big boy bike so well.

Timmy's stats were 18 lbs 9 oz and 28.5 inches tall. He's in the 95th percentile for height, but only 65th for weight; he's showing a gradual but not yet alarming trend downward in weight percentiles, so we'll mention it at his pediatric gastroenterology appointment in April. He's right on target for all his milestones and is on the cusp of crawling -- he manages to get around pretty well wiggling and rolling around.

I'll post pictures from the New York trip as soon as I can. We sure had a lot of fun, but the kids were very tired and worn out after such a whirlwind trip of cooing relatives!

Funny video for your Monday

2009-03-02T13:11:00.000-09:00

Guess who I'm married to?

2009-02-11T18:01:00.000-09:00

Not only am I married to the 354 Operations Group Flight Commander of the Year, I am also the wife of the 11th Air Force Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance Field Grade Officer of the Year!!!

Yeah, I'm that wife. But damn, I'm proud!

AND...his flight won 4/5 awards submtted to 11 AF, including Flight of Year for 4th year running!

Now on to PACAF...think good thoughts for Charlie so he can kick ass at command level!

Bicki-cycle Riding

2009-02-11T17:23:00.000-09:00

Connor got a big boy bike last week as a special present from Pop. He has been extremely reluctant to ride it outside -- Connor gets sight pictures in his mind of the correct way to do something, and the only place he has seen bicycles ridden in the past six months is inside at a skate park. But lo and behold, we had some miraculous summery weather and children emerged to ride their bicycles outside this afternoon. Connor immediately wanted to do the same.

I was a little apprehensive -- Connor had never truly ridden anything other than a tricycle and because he's Andre the Giant Jr, that turned out to be more scooting than peddling as his knees knocked against his ears. Would he get frustrated that he couldn't zip around as efficiently as the grown up kids?

We had the help of an 11 yr old Cub Scout named Tyler who solemnly informed Nani that he "finds that kids learn best through demonstration." He oh so patiently instructed Connor how to push his feet so the pedals would go the correct direction to propel him forward. It was supremely funny (and 1% frustrating) for mom -- I was guiding his feet on the pedals, showing him step by step with clear short instructions how to do it as he huffed impatiently and got frustrated. Tyler pushed the back of the seat and said, "Now this foot, now this one. Now this foot. Good, now let's ride!" and Connor was off like a shot. Here's a couple of pics...

They played follow the leader and zoomed around the cul de sac many times over. Tyler's mom came out to fetch him for dinner and ended up chatting as we watched the speed racers. Tyler was wonderfully patient and sweet and I praised him to the skies to his mom for being so kind -- few older boys have much time for a younger child like that and it made a huge difference to Connor. He was so proud that he could keep up with Tyler! Eventually, Pop came home and we had pedaled all the way down the street to meet him -- and followed the car back to the house to tell Pop all about learning how to "bicki-cycle!"

The piece de resistance!

Need a laugh? Or three?

2009-02-02T13:40:00.000-09:00

Timmy and Connor have some to spare. I don't know why this bathtime hilarity and hijinks was so amusing but it was a A+ comedy routine according to the kids! You can't not smile or even giggle after watching the two of them...

Big happenings in the Freel/Crean house

2009-01-31T17:06:00.000-09:00

Connor made a deal with daddy back in the day that when he went potty like a big boy and went to school and learned how to pedal properly, he could get a big boy bike. That seemed like a long shot three months ago but he has since reminded us that he has fulfilled his promise and we had yet to pay up. (FYI, never cut a deal with this kid. He remembers EVERYTHING!)

And here is the result! Pop helped him pick out a "cool bicki-cycle".

And he looks a wee bit like (dare I say it?) "Desert Fox" Rommel in his "hemet".

Timmy in the meantime is two seconds away from smoking and running a marathon. He just learned how to sit up...he's strong enough to do it, but the balance is lacking. As a result he got to sit at the table in his sassy seat like a big boy and watch everyone eat dinner!

He didn't think it was fair everyone got to eat but him...hmmm, how does THIS taste??

Timmy Firsts

2009-01-27T16:47:00.000-09:00

We got our shipment of toys and extra clothes from Alaska today and the boys ere very excited to see their stuff again. We got Timmy's bumbo and decided to let him sit in it during a bath with his brother. He had a good time until the water got deep and he started to float -- at that point we noticed the "do not use as bath seat" warning printed in bold letters on the back. Ooops, bad mommy!

But I got pics of Timmy's 1st bath with big brother. He so wants to be three and do everything his big brother does!

Timmy also loves his jumperoo. He loves his pop. He loves kitties. When you combine all three you get a million watt smile!

My baby is a preschooler!

2009-01-26T15:24:00.000-09:00

Connor went to his first day of preschool today. Such a bittersweet moment...he's so ready to spend time with kids his own age and do some learnin', but mommy had a hard time tearing herself away.

His day had mixed reviews...he seemed to have had fun; when I showed up to collect him, he was wearing a construction hat and assembling an airplane puzzle with his new little friend Sharya, but apparently he balked mightily at going to the toilet with his teacher Miss Betty. They encourage the children to potty themselves and her thought is that perhaps he would feel more comfortable if he could do it all himself and have some privacy. We know that potty time is a big privacy thing for him...he does NOT like to be watched...so we agreed and want to get him some stretchy waist pants to wear that will be easier for him to take up and down himself. Something to encourage at home as well. They are working on the five senses for the next two weeks so we did a lot of talking about eyes yesterday. No art projects that day...just a low key day of station play and snacks with other kids. The little stinker ate all his peas at lunch...usually he acts like I'm poisoning him if I serve him anything green! Never underestimate the value and the pitfalls of peer pressure, eh? He's not gung ho about school; he asked yesterday to go "tomorrow" but mommy said no, we go on Wednesday which he accepted very easily which means it couldn't have been that big of a deal.

We are missing daddy an awful lot. He gets to talk to daddy on the computer web cam every couple days depending on whether or not Charlie or Connor need more sleep and miss the chance. He loves to talk to daddy on the computer and gets so frustrated when he can't remember all he wants to tell daddy. His language development doesn't let him tell a story the way he wants, so he usually ends up just spewing phrases and words that make very little sense to someone who didn't go through his day. "Hey man, wet's pway...airpwane...flaps...up in the air! Comcricker (computer...game...I pway k...kangawoo! Book...penen (penguin)..." and so it goes on. From that you might have trouble guessing that he played this morning and read the airplane book. Pop taught him about flaps making the wing bigger and heling the plane fly through the air. He also played his computer game and played k, making the kangaroo sing his ABCs as a reward. He also got a new penguin book from Nani that is shaping up to be a favorite. Mommy has to translate some of the Connor patois for daddy. I'll be interested to see what being around all those children does for his speech. I think daddy is sad to be missing some of these firsts, but Skype is making it a great deal easier.

So here's a first day of preschool picture...he is remarkably uncooperative when a camera comes out. But he was too proud of his new tractor shirt to not get a pic. Note the tortured ambivalence.

Here's Connor's school. I blanked out the address for safety reasons. The school is attached to a day care and the structured school day is from 8-12. Connor arrives somewhere between 8-830, has a snack and playtime then they transition into school time and predetermined activities. he eats lunch around 11-1130 then mom comes and fetches him before the other kids' nap time. There's a nice big playground too but this VA kids are wusses and only venture outside if it's above 50. Since Alaska rules -20 for kids, we laugh at 50.

And here's a gratuitous Timmy pic. He is really loving unadulterated mommy time. He has to compete a lot with big brother for mommy's attention. We took a nap together and then played on the floor with another funky little doll he loves. It too has nubbly knobs for excellent baby teethers. Here he's trying yet again to eat his own hand.

Well, I guess we liked school more than I thought considering he's asked twice more to go today...this every other day thing is right out in his book! We'll have more Connor school adventures soon!

How to Catch Up?

2009-01-24T17:28:00.000-09:00

We have had a thousand things happen in the last couple weeks. Daddy deployed...we left Alaska on a horrible plane odyssey that scrambled both kids for days...settled into Manassas living...got involved in a minor mall riot...endured an epic Connor meltdown about a 3 year old photo shoot...on and on.

I can't possibly catch up on everything in detail. And since we are not currently living in Alaska, the focus of the blog will naturally shift a bit. You'll have to read DC adventures with two kids and deployment schtuff for about six months instead. Since I'm pretty sure only my friends and family read it anyway, hopefully I won't lose my readership.

Stay tuned for Connor's first day of preschool on Monday...I'm so nervous about my baby heading off to school for the first time! It's only half a mile from the house so I can pace and run to him as soon as possible when the half day is over!

It's -20! It's -20!

2009-01-12T07:47:00.000-09:00

After WEEKS of -40 or below, we are so excited! It's -20! And it's continuing to climb. Word has it that it will be near 20...yes, kids, that's 20 above...by Thursday! Can you see the happy butt dance over here?? I'm breaking out the shorts, flip flops and sunscreen. Beach party at the Freels!

Timmy's 4 month stats and fun Timmy stuff

2009-01-09T21:26:00.001-09:00

We did Timmy's 4 month well baby check today and had it confirmed, yet again, that we make big babies. What a newsflash eh?

Anyway, he's incredibly healthy and hitting even most of his six month milestones and his stats are as follows:

Weight: 16 lbs, 8 oz (74 percentile)
Height: 26.5 in (99 percentile)
Head: 17.5 in (97 percentile)

Big headed tall boy with a tendency toward lankiness. Shocker.

Because it's my blog and I can, I want to brag a bit about Timmy too. He has got to be the sweetest tempered child in existence, fussing only rarely -- usually when he's forced to go outside, but since that makes me want to whimper too I don't blame him. He sleeps like a dream barring his recent growth spurt and mommy loves all the sleep.

He is in love with his purple octopus ball and Mary Alice from Ace of Cakes. He has a serious crush on her, waving his arms and cooing to get her attention when she's on screen. He talks all day long...definitely more "verbal" than Connor was at his age and coos non stop to try to get everyone to love on him. He loves to bat at toys and arches hard in his seat to get a hold of things out of reach. He tries to stand and can push himself up on his arms...I think he'd be crawling if he got the coordination.

With his darker skin, I dress him in lots of dark blues and creams and he is just too cute for words...how handsome is this boy!? His daddy's awfully cute too!

Connor and his beloved Starfall game

2009-01-09T19:57:00.001-09:00

It is harder than one would think to amuse a preschooler (holy crap, he's a preschooler now!) in an Alaskan winter, particularly one that has proved significantly colder than normal. We're on the 18th day of a cold snap. 'Long about 11 days ago mommy was going certifiably batty with multiple "hey man, let's pway!" requests and lots of boredom-laden boys draping themselves on mommy. Connor loves Starfall.com alphabet and phonics games...if mommy taught Connor how to use a computer mouse, I could have Connor play without direct supervision of every moment and he could go at his own pace, not impatient "seriously, how many times can we review k?" mommy pace. A couple of mouse lessons and Connor was good to go! He would play all day if I let him, so I try to break up some letter time with some more advanced phonics lessons, a few books, a few flashcards and some play time with his doll house or trucks. We also go down and play pirates or trains down stairs while Timmy plays in his Jumperoo, but Connor will always want more letter time!

This video is Connor playing the letter D. It goes through a few d words, at every interval telling you that D makes a "duh" sound, and then at the end there's a letter game. This one is matching letters to the object they start...ie, heart starts with h. Connor is good at these games, though in this one he struggled a bit with g vs q. Mommy is always in the kitchen working when Connor plays so I can aid him if necessary.

This one is longer and shows Connor's progression through the letter A, finishing up with his sorting capital As vs lower case As into apple baskets. Check out those mad mouse skills!

I was torn originally about allowing him so much computer time, but Charlie pointed out we're in a very digital age where computer skills will never be to his detriment and may even help improve his fine motor...which is great if so, since he has a hard and frustrating time trying to write his letters or draw discernible objects. And if he was playing with letter puzzles or reading to himself I would have zero issue with how his time is spent...but still, I limit to some extent how much time he gets and make sure he has active play time and even indoor park time to get him up and moving and using his imagination. As a result of an hour to 90 minutes of Starfall a day, he can read 26 words at my last count...putting his reading level at a beginning 1st grade level. Pretty snazzy for an almost three year old eh?

Timmy's new love and other sundries

2009-01-01T19:25:00.001-09:00

Timmy got a few things for Christmas, but for the most part was content to nurse and look at the lights for his Christmas treat. However, one ball Nani sent has replaced me in his affections. It's really very ugly...looks like a beach ball with tentacles...but it's his favorite thing. He sits in his bumbo and fusses if he drops it, wiggles when he sees it and chews on its freakish little arms for hours. I've been upstaged by a purple fleece octopus!

Connor made a couch fort with daddy today...he is going a little stir crazy inside. We're hoping maybe tomorrow he can go to the indoor park with daddy for a little while and run off some energy if it's not too horrid outside. It's supposed to be -50, but it actually warmed to -35 today so who knows?

And this pic I included because it's a little eerie...you can barely see Charlie's arm supporting Timmy, so it looks as if we have a supernatural infant. We can tell Timmy later he was a superhero at birth!

Want to know what cabin fever looks like?

2008-12-30T15:28:00.000-09:00

The temp is currently this:

And Connor doesn't think much of being cooped up inside. We have no clothes for children at this temp for the very good reason that no one thinks that you're crazy enough to take children outside in these temps. Well, you go a little stir crazy being cooped up for so long...ummm, right, Connor?

Cross dressing takes up a little time...

Oh no, Timmy's trying to swallow his fist out of boredom! Oh wait, that's just a regular Tuesday!

And the cabin fever spreads to the adults...

Since the forecast calls for -60 and below this weekend, we'll have many more opportunities to find out just how wacky we all can get. If you hear something about naked people running through subarctic streets waving asparagus, that was NOT US!

14 days...

2008-12-30T13:00:00.001-09:00

...until Charlie leaves for Baghdad.

'm not whining...we've done this enough, both of us, to know that a deployment isn't the end of the world. I'm just sad and sorry I guess. I always miss him when he's gone, no matter if it's for a few hours or years. And I am very sorry that he's going to miss so much with the kids. He'll miss Connor's 3rd birthday, the second he's missed in a row. He'll miss the first day of preschool and swim lessons. He'll miss Timmy sitting up, crawling and maybe even walking for the first time. And I'm going to miss my home. I love my family very much and am very grateful they're willing to let me come and disrupt them for six months. But at the same time, it's not *my* family in the sense that we are complete there...it's not my house, it's not my life...not without Charlie. We're just pushing pause where we can til daddy comes home. Yet slowly, inexorably, children grow up despite our best efforts. What a beautiful yet terrible sacrifice we make. How very lucky I am to have such wonderful people in my life to mitigate the worst of another absence from my best friend.

I wonder sometimes if anyone who hasn't been there done that can truly understand what it's like to be on this treadmill of part time fathers, husbands, mothers and wives. I hope we do the right thing in Iraq and Afghanistan, so that none of this was in vain. I think about how many of us across the nation are spending tears on absences that are not of our choice, loving those who can't love us back the way we need because they're called to higher things and have to leave us behind, and I'm torn between pride and mourning. That's all we can do really -- smile and wave goodbye as our hearts ache. I hope I have the bravery to let him go with a smile.

Cold snap, Alaska-style

2008-12-28T19:22:00.000-09:00

Alaska is a formidable place. As my girlfriend Breanne says, "People were NOT meant to live here." We've descended into a real winter wonderland nightmare this week with the temperatures plunging down to -40 and below and likely to stay there for several weeks. These kind of temps are just PAINFUL. Both literally and figuratively. Can you go out in it? Umm yeah. Should you? Ummm, no.

Especially when you've got small children. Unfortunately, small children are also the primary sufferers of cabin fever. Connor is extremely active -- during the summer we did not come indoors ever if we could help it -- and staying inside all day every day is not his idea of fun filled toddler days. No matter how nicely we kit out the basement (and it is pretty gucci if I say myself) eventually he will get bored and need some variety. But businesses and such close at these temps and even scuttling place to place takes a toll on a three month old. Sigh.

Think of us all trapped inside by a vicious toothy cold...

Christmas Extravaganza!!!

2008-12-25T07:44:00.000-09:00

Connor woke up at 630 this morning and whispered to us for the next half hour about "kissmas" and "Kanka Cause" -- he muttered about toys and "pessents" while we vainly tried to get him back to sleep for another hour. He even resorted to bribery, offering us "tuddles" and "tisses" if we'd let him get up and see "Kanka." We finally gave up at 7 and told him we could go downstairs and see if Santa Claus came and left toys for him.

And boy, did Santa (and family!) come through...here's a picture of his chair draped in Santa presents.

He got a stocking stuffed full of animal figures -- Alaska and sealife ones, primarily -- and some chocolate coins, a big M&M full of little ones, a flute, and a penguin Pez dispenser. Thanks to Nani for some of those treats!

He got a camera of his very own from Santa. How does Santa know what you really want? He is kneeling in front of mommy's old dollhouse that we got out of storage...we took out all the chokables and left big furniture pieces. His animal presents have already taken up residence -- I think it would be very startling for his playmobil people to discover polar bears in the bathroom, but that's apparently where they belong. Sigh...the "free" toy is his favorite, I think!

Connor got this bowling set from Aunt Angela...basement bowling for everyone!

Here he is trying to pry the lid off the animal tube. No time to wait when there's starfish to be played with!

Now he's munching on his egg and toast daddy made for breakfast, playing with his automated bulldozer and watching Thomas videos (another gift from Uncle Davey and Aunt Christal!). He's already got plans to crack into the playdoh ice cream shoppe from Christal and Davey, and he's got a stack of movies (Horton Hears a Who, Toy Story, on and on) to watch. Add in mommy and daddy's gift of Candyland and it's going to be a full Christmas day.

Timmy slept through all of the Christmas festivities and was much more interested in nursing and chewing on his fists than his presents. He did get into a staring contest with the bear Uncle Davey and Aunt Christal got for him -- the bear won. He loves this funky little ball Nani sent him that has little arms all over it...he can grab and chew to his heart's content and he loves to stare at the star on the side.

Christmas Cookies!

2008-12-24T09:08:00.001-09:00

We decorated cookies Monday for Santa...Connor thinks Santa is brilliant -- toys AND cookies!? This guy has got the gig! We made lots of sugar cookies with heart and star cookie cutters, and then the boys decorated them with blue, green and white icing.

Connor loves jimmies, and mommy had seven different kinds of Christmas jimmies...oh, the excitement!

When I'm making cookies or cakes or anything yummy, Connor stands on the little kitchen ladder and excitedly begs to "taste! Taste!" every few seconds. Didn't take him long to "taste!" the frosting.

Timmy slept through Christmas cookie fun, but woke up for a mass tasting and watched us all enjoy them from his bumbo. He thinks three month olds should get to gnaw on sugar cookies too, hence the woebegone expression.

We should be one of Santa's first stops since we're so close to his house in North Pole! Stand by for Christmas excitement tomorrow!

Happy Solstice!

2008-12-21T15:31:00.000-09:00

Winter solstice is pretty much a non event for most people...shortest day of the year? Bring on the party hats, right? But when you live in the subarctic regions, it means that you have FINALLY reached the point where the days can't get any shorter and the daylight pendulum will swing the other way.

I took some pictures to illustrate the subarctic "day" here. This was the view from the back porch when the sun came up at 10:59 am:

Here is 12:49 pm, which is solar noon, the time of day at which the sun reaches the highest elevation in the sky; as you can see, not much difference between dawn and noon!

And lastly, I missed sunset at 2:49 pm with an ill timed nap with the baby, so I instead took a picture of the end of civil twilight. This was taken at 3:26 pm.

And now as I write this 3:40 something, it is full dark outside. No wonder we're all hibernating up here!

What a crazy few days...

2008-12-21T10:26:00.000-09:00

It has been nothing but go, go, go at the Freel house for the past few days. Thursday morning my friend Emily called to tell me that my next door neighbor and our mutual friend Beth had gone into labor and was having an emergency c section. Besides that being bad news for anyone, Beth was only thirty weeks pregnant with twins, so lots of concern and angst spread across the base as the news got out. Emily tackled caring for Beth's little boy and then we cruised down to the hospital to check on her.

Amazingly, the babies were a very good size...well over 3 lbs and doing extremely well, considering the circumstances.

Her husband Rich and the twins were life flighted to Anchorage shortly after her c section -- no one here in the Interior has the resources to care for babies that small and early, but that left poor Beth here to recover as well as she could and fly down on Saturday.

Friday Emily and I blitzed her house and took care of laundry and baby care, then Saturday Charlie and I packed up the kids and drove to Fairbanks to pick Beth up so she could pack for her flight to Anchorage later in the day. She can only lift 7-8 lbs after a c section and was having difficulty moving around, so I stayed at the house and helped her get things together, get her some yummy lunch, pump one last time before her flight and all those various getting out of town duties. Her son was VERY happy to see her and didn't want mommy to go away again, but he was okay after some good snacks and playtime with Connor. He was going to sleep at our house last night, because Emily and Ethan had a work social last night...but then Ethan fell on the ice holding their 4 month old Jack on Sat afternoon, and they spent the day at the ER getting the baby checked, so they decided to stay in at Beth's house and watch the children there. It was probably best for Luke to be in a familiar situation with all the disruption he's had lately, though Connor was disappointed at missing out on a sleepover. Rich is coming home tomorrow to take over watching Luke while Beth stays in Anchorage with the twins...thank goodness her mom is coming to look after Beth. She needs to just focus on getting better and looking after her tiny boys.

When you add in Charlie's multiple reports and award write ups he is crunching out for the end of the year, deployment preparations, our own squadron holiday party for which a three layer red velvet cake was required, and the demands of my own house and children AND Christmas prep, I am very tired. We all agreed to stay in today and sack out watching Christmas movies and making sugar cookies for Santa. I don't think any of us are even going to get out of pjs today. I hope the rest of the week is relaxing in comparison.

Subarctic Living Questions answered

2008-12-18T07:43:00.000-09:00

I get lots of questions about living up here. So I thought I might spend a few minutes answering some of them...Alaska is a very cool place to live and explore, but it is a lot different than places many have lived, and indeed, very different from Southern California where I grew up.

1. How do you cope with the crazy cold temperatures?

I get this question a lot from fascinated relatives and friends. There's many ways we cope...for one, people up here are prepared for many feet of snow, ice, etc and the subzero temps for months out of the year. LOTS of snowplows. No slating the roads, because salt doesn't work when it's damn cold to work, so everything is gravelled. We all have several choices of coats dependent on the weather and everyone has several choices of mitten thickness, hat cover, scarves, etc. Our arctic entryway is crammed full of warm clothing, as is the trunk of the car. You time things carefully - I personally try not to take the children out below -20 and for any sustained time if it's below -5. Timmy is just too young to be outside for long periods of time no matter how bundled up.

We both have snow and all terrain tires. I also have an auto start...an electronic remote that starts the car from a good distance away and so the car warms before I have to put the kids in super cold car seats. Timmy has an extra blanket bungee corded to his seat to keep him extra warm. I always sling Timmy to my body and use the Peekaru baby vest over us both. Only his head sticks out of the vest and I can wrap my coat around and keep him pretty warm. Connor always wears a hat and parka and some of the time we add mittens to that. If he goes ice fishing or playing at the ice parks, we add long johns and snow pants to that. I also have a big pile of chemical handwarmers for everyone's pockets when we're out in the wicked cold for an extended period.

And because just a few minutes outside in the cold unprotected can have serious health implications, we have survival kits in the vehicles. Kitty litter to make traction in icy conditions, flares, matches, packaged food, water, etc. We also have mounds of subzero temp socks -- they work great for layering on extremities. It was brought home to us recently how dangerous it is...a guy in Salcha was woken up by a house fire and was able to escape with only socks on. It was -35, he was outside for only 20 minutes but there's a very good chance he's going to lose a good part of his feet to frostbite.

Like anything, you just get used to it. I regularly walk to the post office box at -10 with just a sweater and vest. It would be a rude shock to go back to Las Vegas...70 is gasping hot here!

2. What's different about living in Alaska?

Well, it's a weird hybrid of living overseas and living in the United States. It costs more (I paid $9.99 for a small watermelon! $5 for half gallon of milk! $2.50 for gas!) and shipping/shopping here is weird -- we don't have some of the stores most Americans would consider essential like Target, no Olive Garden, etc. We do have some box stores like Wal-Mart, but not many.

The attitude is a little different down here too. We refer to the "Lower 48" a lot and have a fairly condescending attitude toward those less hardy souls that don't want to live here.

No trash pick up at our houses to avoid attracting bears and wolves. NEVER thought I'd live somewhere the predators are actually animals, and not just humans with no soul or scruples, but there it is. A couple months ago, three bears broke into a guy's garage in Salcha and ate 60 lbs of frozen salmon and moose meat in his deep freezer. Break ins in Vegas were a VERY different type I tell you!

Okay I've got a toddler yelling for letter games, a baby rousing from a nap, and three more loads of laundry to do...I must h1ie myself off to fulfill motherly duties!

What fun to be Way Up North!

2008-12-15T15:18:00.000-09:00

When your day looks like this:

There's really nothing to do but build a couch fort!

And make your little brother laugh by doing weird contortions in said fort...

And have you both frustrate mommy with not allowing any pictures of you two being goofs and laughing your butts off when the camera is NOT on you.

But finally the baby cracks and gives mommy one last goofy smile before cocoa and naps all around!

Gratuitous Timmy Post

2008-12-11T19:22:00.000-09:00

Timmy got to play in Connor's old jumperoo today...he can't bounce yet, but boy, he loved hanging and staring at the beads. We have to watch Connor so he doesn't launch Timmy into the stratosphere...

And he was so cute in his sleep sack Kellie bought him I had to snap a pic...

Connor met Santa in North Pole!

2008-12-10T18:26:00.001-09:00

We decided to hie ourselves down to Christmas in Ice at Santa Claus' house in North Pole. It was a beautiful day and pretty warm (somewhere around 0 F) so we bundled up the boys to play in the ice and snow. Since the ice park is part of Santa Claus' compound, we decided to see if Santa was taking a break from making toys long enough to hear Connor's wish list for Christmas this year. He was out when we arrived at 2 pm, so we promised Connor we would come back after visiting the reindeer and playing at the ice park.

Dasher and Blitzen were out in the paddock for Connor to visit.

People carve this big smooth ice bowls...children can sit in them and dads can spin them around like chilly tops.

There were five ice slides of varying heights, but this was the screaming Castle of Doom slide. It was probably 75 feet long total, and had quite the steep incline. The first few slides, Connor had his eyes closed tight, but by the last few he was laughing in utter glee. He'd get down to the bottom and stumble around laughing, saying "WHOA!!!" I tried to take a picture of them coming down but my shutter speed is not fast enough for the whirling speed!

Santa came out of the reindeer barn just as Connor was coming back to the house to visit him. We thought Connor's eyes were going to pop out his head as Santa called out, "Ho, ho, ho!" He hopped right up on Santa's lap but was too shy to say what he wanted for Christmas, despite Santa offering a candy cane to loosen his lips. Mrs Claus oohed and ahhed over Timmy and promised him something special for Christmas too. Connor didn't want to leave, but Santa promised he would make it Christmas Eve to give Connor special toys, so we said thank you and waved bye bye!

We left just after 3 pm...which is well after sunset here this time of year. But I caught a beautiful moonrise from Santa Claus' front step. You can see why he lives here...it's awfully pretty!

Christmas Pics!

2008-12-08T17:34:00.000-09:00

Connor loved decorating the tree this year. He liked it okay last year, but this year...whew! We showed him where Santa lives in North Pole, we explained what Santa does and that we have to decorate a tree so Santa knows we are ready for him to come and deliver presents. So we dove into it enthusiastically! It's very convenient for North Pole to be just a few short miles away so he can really internalize Christmas -- there's reindeer and an ice park with elves right outside the Santa Claus House.

Timmy was less enthused but really enjoyed staring in wonderment at the lit tree.

This one really has nothing to do with Xmas but it was too painfully cute to pass up posting.

Starfall.com should win a kiddie pulitzer

2008-12-07T07:22:00.000-09:00

Connor and I stumbled on Starfall.com through this site. I was looking for some simple toddler computer games with at least a modicum of educational flavor so I could show Connor some computer basics while learning things at the same time.

Connor and I floated around several sites -- on one we discovered an EXTREMELY annoying animal sounds game that he insisted on playing six zillion times a day -- but once we found the Starfall ABCs game, we were hooked. Connor has known his ABCs forward and backward for several months and can "sing" the ABCs, can recognize his name and 12 other words, etc so I wasn't sure how much if anything he would get out of it at first. Well, I should not be hungry for awhile because I ate my words.

The "game" consists of alphabet letter blocks...click on the selected letter you want to play and it will do animated illustrations of different words as it goes along. Connor can hunt for the letter on the keyboard and press it to make the game advance and use his budding mouse skills to advance it even more. At the end of some of the letters are simple toddler games -- matching, find what doesn't belong, etc that have cool animated celebrations at the end if you win (it's hard not to win in a toddler game). Who doesn't like to have a celebration with lovely ladybugs lifting legs in a dance line? Connor's favorite is the alligator in an apple tree shouting "Awesome!" for sorting capital As and lower case as into their correct apple baskets. Whew that was exhaustingly alliterative!

Connor is learning tons from just a few 10-15 stints a day on Starfall. He's recognizing more words daily and is wanting to read even more than he did before, so he can point out words he knows, like dog and wet. We recently starting structuring it just a tiny bit and selecting one special letter every morning, playing that letter then roaming around the house to find objects that start with that letter, talking about the sound it makes, writing/drawing things on his Magnadoodle with that letter, etc. I've been trying to show him how to write some of the letters, but his motor skills are perhaps just a touch behind to do that quite yet -- our Cs turn into big swooping circles and it frustrates him, so I backed off some on that for a few weeks.

The best part? Connor thinks this all is fabulous fun. Letter games are an enormous treat in our house. We use them as bribes to use the potty correctly, to coerce good behavior while out, even taking letter time away for serious infractions like trying to paint the walls with watercolors. It's DEVASTATING when we get letter time taken away -- though mommy usually later catches us doing something good so she can give it back.

At my friend Brita's suggestion I also incorporated some daily exercise into his letter games. When I'm nursing, and he's bouncing off walls, I'll often ask him to run super fast ("hurry, hurry, big letter emergency!") into the kitchen and fetch me a specific magnetic letter or number off the fridge. I can usually get him ping ponging back and forth 6-10 times before it loses its fun. And then he gets ultra excited to put them back on the fridge because he then earns letter game time. Moms sure are sneaky making this learning stuff fun huh?

Anyway, if you have a toddler interested in computers, check out Starfall.com...you won't be sorry!

Connor's Traumatic Toilet Adventure

2008-12-05T13:02:00.001-09:00

We had to go early this morning to get the car fixed, and I told Connor that we could go play basketball at McD's if he was good and patient for me. He was absolutely stellar, sitting quietly and reading books the whole time, so I followed through and stopped at the super snazzy McD's that has a cold weather indoor park on the way home.

He was playing basketball and was kinda crossing his legs and dancing a bit...not surprising since he'd had 8 oz water and 8 oz juice, as well as a cup of chocolate milk since his last pee. We went to the bathroom, he was whining a bit about going potty there (he kept asking for "home toilet") but I told he had to, so he sat down calmly. I held my hand over the auto toilet flusher...he leaned forward to pee and started to wobble so I reached out to steady him with my free hand and must have moved my toilet hand just enough to make it flush. Loudly. Energetically. TWICE!

Connor freaked like you read about. He screamed so hard he turned blue and then purple, and passed out. It couldn't have been more than a few seconds as I was trying to help him off and stop it flushing over and over again, but he passed out as I was trying to get him off while trying not to drop Timmy from the sling. He flipped forward and I caught him an inch from smacking his head on the tile floor. I righted him and he came back to consciousness almost immediately, just in time for the demonic toilet to flush again on his bum. I started to fumble at his pants (stuck on the lip of the seat) to get him off quickly, but as he screamed in terror, he peed -- so I kept him there til he finished. I kept gently smacking him on the cheek to try to keep him from holding his breath long enough to pass out again or hyperventilating. We got him down then and cuddled...poor kid. He was terrified. At least he didn't end up having to get stitches too...I'm so relieved I caught him. He lost the enthusiasm for the basketball park then so we came home and he told daddy about the "angry toilet" when he got home. I really think he thought the thing was mad and trying to hurt him.

He's peed just fine at home since then, so I don't think it was a horrible set back -- after all he's been pee accident free since Nov 13 and I'd love it to stay that way. But I'm wondering if peeing outside the house is going to be frightfully scary for him now. I feel so bad...I was trying so hard to stop anything like that from happening and it was worse than I thought it ever would be. Damn the makers of auto toilets!!!

Thanksgiving 2008

2008-12-01T20:53:00.000-09:00

Charlie got home on Monday and Davey and Christal came winging in Tuesday night to spend Thanksgiving with us. We had a blast...Christal brought along tofurkey so she could have a traditional Thanksgiving meal -- I supplemented with vegetarian stuffing, green beans, carrots and mashed potatoes, as well as the meat lovers' turkey and traditional gravy. I made three different kinds of pie -- pumpkin, blueberry and raspberry crumble -- and a big pan of Davey's favorite fudge for a treat.

Thank goodness Christal's arms were available...Timmy was needing cuddles just at the moment mom had to get the dinner pulled together to put on the table.

Davey is looking great these days...that gym time is really paying off!

Connor hung out like a raptor waiting for the food to appear so he could pick and choose what he would eat. He also relocated everyone's silverware to his spot at the table...we're not sure why, but he loves silverware and likes a fork whether he needs one or not.

The next day we went to all see Twilight...I loved the book series and Christal and Davey are obsessed with both the movie and the books (Christal saw it seven times so far I think). My girlfriend Breanne and I shared the books so she came along and we had a great time going to a movie. It's lucky that Timmy is so lax...he slept the entire movie and only threw up on me once. Woo hoo!

Davey and Christal ventured out bravely on Saturday to enjoy some touristy stuff like the Santa Claus House and muskox paddock at the University. They must have brought some warm weather with them because it was above zero every day they were here...and they took it back with them, because it's -22 now and on its way to -35.

Poor Charlie got sick with the black plague the past couple days so we spent today sacking out and putting up Christmas decorations while he recuperated. Stand by for some cute Christmas pics in tomorrow's post.

Charlie's home! With fun videos!

2008-11-24T10:20:00.000-09:00

Charlie came home late late last night...Connor was so excited to see him he ended up having a 2 am party and had a hard time settling back to sleep. Charlie spent a few weeks down in Wyoming getting "Armyfied" -- learning how to clear rooms, shoot people, etc. Considering his enormous distaste for physical exertion and particularly dangerous exertion, he found some of the training enjoyable, like the shoot house. It's funny because there really is no conceivable reason he would ever be on a SWAT team type maneuver storming insurgent houses, but hey...you get to pretend you're a way bigger bad ass than you are in a no harm no foul situation. Well...almost. Charlie has got a couple impressive welts on his arm from the paint bullets. And the video below demonstrates the consequences of shooting unarmed civilians. No war crime tribunal, but pretty humiliating for this team that was made up of very senior enlisted people.

Kid pics

2008-11-18T15:52:00.000-09:00

Timmy in his bumbo!

Connor with his "yay, I peed in the potty" cake

Connor pooped on the potty!

2008-11-16T08:05:00.001-09:00

I think we have broken down one of the last barriers to potty training...Connor went poo on the potty!!!

Connor's long overdue potty post and other misc

2008-11-14T08:22:00.000-09:00

We decided on Sunday to just draw the line and say no more diapers for Connor. Whew. It was rough going for two days -- really, it was beaches of Normandy tough without all the fun shooting to enliven the experience -- but we seem to finally be getting it and relaxing. We've had one pee accident free day so far, and today despite some struggles, he consented to pee before he was dancing in agony and leaking. He's only initiated potty time twice so far with no prompting from mom and dad, but we're hoping that improves too. Poo is another story but I've got some ideas that might help...we're going to go to the store tomorrow and get a few books and a present that he only gets when he puts the poo in the potty. I'm really very proud of his progress, considering I was actually researching just how big diapers go on Sunday...I had a feeling he was going to be packing Huggies for college.

It's hard sometimes mothering a "challenging" child. In his case, he's just too damn smart for his own good, and when you combine that with a streak of stubborn six miles wide, mommy has some rough days as a result. I'm doing my best to see his qualities in the best light and laugh about the *occasionally* mind numbingly annoying things that go along with it.

For instance, he's extremely persistent and never forgets a damn thing. That can suck when he asks for the same thing seven million times without cessation -- at this moment he's dancing around in a circle singing about "cookies, cookies, I...want...cookies...peez!" Rather than get annoyed, I try to remember that that same spirit of persistence is what will make him a real success in life -- too many people give up at the slightest obstacle. Not my kid...if mommy says no to ice cream, well then, he'll grab a broom, wedge it in the freezer handle and then whack the interior of the freezer til ice cream falls out of it eventually. He's a magician at creative solutions and sticking with something once he's committed.

We've always been a touch worried about Connor's speech, but he's really had a verbal explosion lately and it's as I suspected -- there were always some fairly complex thoughts, feelings and emotions going on in that noggin of his. Some of it's a little scary...

When we had cake for his pee accident free day, I gave him a candle on it. He looked up at me and said, "I like fire. Where are you, fire?" I got the lighter down and he said, "Oh there you are fire, come to my party!" So he's a pyro, but he invited the fire to the party!

His favorite tee for the longest time was a ice blue polar bear one. I asked him yesterday if he wanted to wear it. "NO!!!" I was surprised, so rather than chastise him for yelling at me, I just asked why not. He thought for a bit and said, "Poop." Huh? "Bears poop. It's icky, icky!" Allllrighty. He's right, but the concept of bear turds never bothered him before. Maybe the potty training is pushed a little too hard? LOL

Connor does everything his own way. Everyone talks about the Why phase...Connor's is a "why not" phase. Mommy says no, then "why not?" until she feels like drilling a hole in her head just to see if the sensation is different.

Finally, Connor's the only kid in the history of the world that ASKS for shots. We went to the shot clinic to get Timmy's rotavirus vaccine on Wednesday and he jaunted in with me. He saw the candy jars and asked for "tandy." I said no, that candy was only for kids who got shots (we had decided to make his next week so as not to interfere with potty time and let daddy take him). He thought about it and pulled down his pants while saying, "Shot peez!" I just stared at him in disbelief, he got his shot and a lollipop and he walked out with a ten foot tall swagger. Needles are just fine in Connor's world, but don't you dare try to cut his hair!!

Wish we luck as we try to conquer the uphill poop battle!

Timmy's 2 month appt and other things

2008-11-12T14:09:00.000-09:00

We packed up for our usual Everest-style expedition to go anywhere and took ourselves off to Timmy's 2 month well-baby appointment. I suspected he was growing apace, but the pediatrician (who we LOVE) confirmed it when she said, "Mommy must be making cream because you are a BIG boy!"

His new stats:

Weight: 14 lbs, 4 oz (gained 5 lbs, 1 oz over birth weight)
Height: 24 inches (gained 2 inches over birth length)
Head: 16.5 inches (gained 1.5 inches over birth circumference)

He also is hitting half of his four month developmental markers and all of his 2-3 month markers. He giggled at her when she tickled his groin during his exam and it surprised her...she said most children don't laugh like Santa Claus and the proverbial bowlful of jelly at this age and said he just must be a happy little man.

He was very sweet and calm while getting his rotavirus vaccine administered. We surprised the ped a bit in electing to get that one. With Connor we delayed all vaccines til 2.5. The intent was to get him vaccinated at 2, but we moved just then and immediately after he became extremely ill. Charlie and I decided after a horrid experience with rotavirus that we would choose to do only that one for Timmy until he too was two years old and then we'd get him going on his shots as we've done for Connor.

Stay tuned for a Connor potty post!

"Call Nanny!"

2008-11-07T14:20:00.000-09:00

A week or so ago, for reasons I can't recall now, an exasperated Daddy told Connor that the only person who could boss Mommy was Nanny (mommy's mommy). I think he wanted chocolate milk, I said no, and he tried to appeal to daddy as a higher authority. That daddy explanation got him thinking...if Nanny is the boss of Mommy, that must mean that NANNY is the key to get what he wants!

He loves talking to Nanny anyway...every phone conversation with my mom goes something like this: "Hi mom...no, Connor, mommy's talking...no Connor...no, not 'just one second'...okay, fine, talk to Nanny!" Connor chatters about whatever he's interested in for the moment -- "cicle" for motorcycle, "bock" for box, etc. I have to wrestle him to the ground to get the phone back...after all, Nanny is a favoritest person for both of us.

NOW he brings me the phone unasked whenever I tell him no or give him a timeout and tells me, "Call Nanny! I tell!" For all the world like he's tattling on me! Didn't I outgrow this sort of thing twenty years ago? I refused to let him have a granola bar just now, and he fled for the phone and tried to dial Nanny himself when I refused. God forbid he does learn speed dial anytime soon, because my poor mom is going to get a tattling toddler calling her all the time. Got news for ya, kid...Nanny's going to back mommy up; it's the Mommy Clause of the family contract. We mothers have to stick together!

Here's a Timmy grin to brighten your day!

2008-11-06T15:28:00.000-09:00

That is all!

Why you should never trust a quiet toddler

2008-11-05T16:20:00.000-09:00

Mommy was nursing Timmy and *thought* Connor was painting at his table. He was quiet...too quiet. Usually art engenders lots of internal monologue for Connor. So as I got up to check on him, he came running helter skelter into the living room, with Chocolate smeared all over his face. Oh nooooooo! Mommy, full of trepidation, ventured into the kitchen to find this:

And here's the culprit unapologetically grinning over the crime. Sigh. Never ever trust a quiet kid!

My son, the Halloween philanthropist

2008-10-31T19:40:00.000-08:00

Connor decided about two months ago he wanted to be Elmo for Halloween. Mommy couldn't find a decent costume pattern so I bought one that was billed as super warm so he wouldn't have to wear snow pants AND a parka over it or underneath. He's been wearing it for a month as an Elmo pelt/cape...it is quite warm, so he ran around with just the arms and head on, legs streaming in the Connor generated whirlwind. He ran upstairs daily, asking to "wear Elmo!"

I prepared him for a few days with the standard Trick or Treat line..."tickohteet!" was the closest we got with an "ankh oo!" for "tandy". We talked about it for days, and he seemed really excited. We got him dressed in long undies, jeans, shirt and were about don Elmo when the first trick or treater showed up. And that was IT. Connor thought giving away candy to oddly dressed children was the most fun ever. We offered him a piece to eat; nope, he held it until the next one showed up and gave it the tiny princess in a parka who came to the door. Elmo is lying in a forlorn red fuzzy heap on the couch and Connor is hanging puma like in the window, ready to pounce as children round the corner.

He is at the door before Charlie and I can get up. After two skidding falls in the hallway, he learned that if he grabbed the wall pillar and swung his weight around it he could slingshot down the hall at even greater acceleration with no injury. He flailed wildly into the foyer, candy clutched tightly in each hand, and wrenched the door open to greet the goblins with an exuberant "Hewwo! Tickohteet! One for oo, anudder one for oo...ankh oo, bye!" Charlie and I can hardly help collapsing in giggles every time.

Our child is a freak. What other two year old turns down candy to throw it joyfully into the bags of other children? What other two year old decides that he greatest joy in life is to give things --toys, candy, clothing -- openhandedly to anyone he meets? We have waited and waited for months for the proverbial "mine!" affliction to start, but still no sign of it and meanwhile he's totally tickled to stay inside and dump his favorite candy on other people. He actually carefully picks his favorite ones to give away, as if to say, "Here, these are good, believe ME!" We're not sure if he'll be a Carthusian monk or follow mom and dad into national service or join the Peace Corps; whatever gives him the most selfless thrill I guess! Connor is a giver, no doubt...and his best gift is always joy and laughter for Charlie and me.

Oh and Timmy was adorable in his pumpkin outfit, but had zero interest in the -5 cold wafting in the door, so he cuddled inside with off duty candy parent. Check him below!

Minus 22 this morning...

2008-10-29T09:45:00.000-08:00

It is October right???