On the brink

Ben has a big transition ahead of him. Tomorrow he goes to child care but reports to the Jungle (preschool) room! He's graduating from Heffalump-hood, and I don't think he's at all regretful, but Glenn and I have grown to deeply appreciate the Heffalump room and its marvelous teachers. So I feel more than a little sadness.

Which I'm trying not to show him.

He's been visiting the Jungle room quite a lot in the last month, and we've seen some interesting new behavior. Some of it is charming. He's actually inviting kids to play with him, instead of always talking to their parents, for example. But some of it is going to be challenging. He's being exposed to a lot of older kids, many of whom don't have Ben's naturally sunny disposition.

This should be interesting. Stay tuned.

Equal time

Wow, I've been neglecting Rex here. And not because he's been uninteresting. On the contrary, Rex is now walking up a storm, learning new words daily and being generally charming to all. However, after weeks of wellness after this winter's dismal eight ear infections, he came down with a fever Thursday and made us all nervous. A Friday visit to the pediatrician gave us a diagnosis: hand, foot and mouth disease. Apparently very, very common in pre-verbal kids. Ben came to the doctor with us and she looked him over too. I figured he's the one bringing most viruses home because he's in child care three days a week, but he got a clean bill of health. The doctor said he's old enough that he's either had it already or has a sufficiently healthy immune system to skip it altogether.

Rex is nearly back to normal now, despite the discomfort of mouth sores. He and Ben have been playing together lately, which makes me very happy. Firstly because it bodes well for their future friendship. But also because it's less work for me to find ways to simultaneously entertain two kids!

Uncle Mike, your birthday crocodile couldn't have arrived at a better time. Rex is making a furious racket, hauling that loud thing all over the house. Here's proof. Also, I'm including a photo of Rex's curly hair. I rarely go more than a day or two without a stranger telling me how much they like his hair!

Another theater geek?

Glenn and I both did high school theater, although I'll freely confess that his roles were a lot more impressive than mine. Hell, he was Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady, and I had only one speaking role, Essie in You Can't Take It With You. Most of my involvement in plays was as a dancer, and I was probably only cast because Essie was a ballet dancer. A really bad one, too. Which was fun, I must say. I got to lurch around in pointe shoes looking as dorky as possible.

Anyway, we both love theater. Seattle has a much beloved children's theater which we know through Glenn's cousin Stephie, who did their summer theater camps for several years. It was always a thrill for us to get to see her perform, but she's moved onto bigger things (like making a full-length feature film last year! In high school!).

But today I took Ben to see a musical called Busytown based on Richard Scarry's series of children's books. It was utterly charming, with ingenious staging and great performances. I had a marvelous time and here's a photo I took surreptitiously with my phone to show you how Ben liked it. In the background you'll see his friend Flynn. I'm so grateful to his mother Tasha for suggesting we go.

Back to the farmers' market

One of my recurring jokes with Ben is "Should we go to the farmers' market today and buy a farmer?" He, having nearly four years of life experience, fixes me with a withering stare and says "You don't get farmers at a farmers' market!" But then he cracks up. Every time.

Which is one of the reasons I love having kids.

Anyway, it's tricky to do the market with kids, but Glenn and I have been trying to get more one-on-one time with each of the kids lately, so I've decided to make it semi-official that Ben
and I go to the market on Saturday mornings. Last week I decided to give him a small canvas bag and had him do some of the financial transactions. Some foods are too fragile or expensive for him to deal with, but he hates being left out. Last week he had a brainstorm: he pulled one spear out of the bunch of asparagus I had just bought and carefully placed it in his own bag. Brilliant!

This week I saw an ad for those wheelie carts that elderly folks use to cart groceries home and decided to try it with Ben. I was a bit concerned that he'd spend the whole market kneecapping people, but with a little preemptive speech about being careful, he handled it like a master. With his moose rain slicker and red boots, he made quite a picture and we got a lot of friendly smiles from folks at the market. Success!

P.S. It's worth noting that although Ben appears to hate protein in most forms (no meats, except bacon, pass his lips, no peanut butter, tofu, etc.), he will eat some pretty adventurous things. Two weeks in a row we bought fiddlehead ferns at the market and he ate them greedily. And he'll gladly eat the little florets from chive blossoms. His current favorite treat is a cup of tea made from lemon balm growing in our garden. Weird, but charming!