Bedtime snack

First, some background.

With it being summer and holidays here, before Christmas Dave bought a little pup tent for Marcus. It's too small for Dave, and almost too small for me, but Marcus loves it. However, we don't really have any flat ground in our backyard (and I'm not having Marcus sleeping in a tent pitched on the fence-less front yard).

So we found a compromise.

Yes, Marcus has a tent (or more accurately, the tent lining) in his bedroom. Not only does he think it is one of the coolest things ever, so does his friend who came over the other day.

Tonight, Marcus came out and asked for a bedtime drink. His instructions were very specific. I was to provide:

• One cup of milk for drinking
• One cup of milk for dunking gingernuts
• Gingernuts
• An imaginary plate of mice for his stuffed toy snake to eat

Being a good mother, I provided the snack as required and everyone was happy.

All right, so in the end I wasn't happy as one of the glasses of milk got spilt. But he was so delighted I guess it was worth it. Hooray for Friend for Carpets.

(Tonight's post was brought to you by blatant product placement.)

Wow, a post!

I’ve actually added some comments (I definitely wouldn’t go so far as to call them reviews) on Goodreads lately. As always, length varies depending on what I had to say. These are generally comments made shortly after I finished reading and I can’t promise as to the quality of their grammar (and sometimes also spelling), although I do try to be coherent. I’m trying to get into the habit to type something when I fill in the finish date and rating on any book, which means at least I have some recollection later of what I thought of the book.

I’ll post them here (mostly to make it look like I’m keeping up with this blog, great big fat lie though that is) shortly.

I’m currently sitting cross legged on the bed while Marcus sits beside me watching The Pink Panther on Cartoon Network. Yes, it’s 11.20am on a Tuesday and my darling son is home from school sick. He’s now rapidly improving, but wants his Mum close, so here I am. Hooray for laptops!

He gave us quite a fright yesterday though. I picked him up from school and he promptly collapsed in my lap, telling me he’d “had a bad day”. Talking with the teacher, we both agreed he was a bit under the weather and a day off was probably in order. I remember I did put a hand to his forehead then, to see if he had a temperature, but he felt quite normal.

Half an hour later he was curled up in our bed with a temperature of 41C (that’s 105F) and very listless. I managed to get some paracetamol into him and took him to the doctor. He diagnosed flu and a mild ear infection and sent us home with ibuprofen and antibiotics (for if we thought it had got bad enough to need them). Happily, the diarrhoea didn’t develop until after we got back from the doctors!

But that’s all it’s been. No vomiting or other symptoms (thank goodness). We needed to get up several times in the night, but only had to change the bedclothes once (happily around 10pm rather than something like 2am, which would have seemed much harder I’m sure). This morning his temp is pretty much back to normal, the trips to the bathroom are less frequent and he’s got some spirit back. I’m sure he’ll keep on improving as the day goes on, although I’m not going to make any decisions about school tomorrow just yet. Right now, I’m inclined to keep him home at least another day to be sure.

He’s like this pretty much every time he gets sick. He throws up this really high temperature really fast and panics us. Stays hot and sick until the fever breaks and then recovers pretty quickly. But it’s that fast developing high fever that always freaks us out. And we always rush him off to the doctor just in case this is the time it’s not going to come right on its own.

But he’s munching rice crackers and getting demanding at the moment, so he’s on the road to recovery. And hey, I’m actually updating my blog.

Where the Wild Things Are

My mother just sent me this. It’s Marcus (in the middle) with my cousin’s two sons. They were playing at Lollipops in Palmerston North at a birthday party for the other boys’ cousin (ie my other cousin’s daughter). The relationships are all a little bit complicated as you can see, so to simplify things we just call all the kids cousins.

Anyway, I thought it was just too cute not to share.

I’m starting to worry

Marcus has his birthday party this coming Saturday (he turns six on Friday). Dave and I have been planning it since December. That’s not because we’re that obsessive, but because it was easier to invite his school friends on the last day of school rather than track down phone numbers and/or addresses for all of them to send out the invitations.

(Why did the kid have to be so impatient as to be born in the last week of the school holidays? I was happily planning for April; he’s the one who decided to arrive in January.)

So, way back around the 10th December, we decided to invite his friends around to our place for a pool party and barbeque. When I asked him who he wanted to come, he listed over half the class. And the list changed each time. So in the end I just invited all 21 of them. With that many, spreading them around our yard, the pool, the sandpit and the trainset seemed the best possible solution. There’s also going to be another birthday surprise (Marcus shouldn’t be reading my blog, but he could now, so I’m not going to risk spelling it out), but that is also an outdoor one.

At this point I have 13 confirmed attendees, several of whom are bringing their parents and siblings. And the long range weather forecast on the news tonight was for heavy rain on Saturday. My planned activities are all outdoor ones. What am I going to do with all these people if it’s pouring with rain?

My health is totally crap right now. I’m struggling to think straight – my thought patterns are certainly extremely linear and if I don’t have a list, I’ll just forget things. My body doesn’t feel sleepy, but it’s just done and keeps trying to tell me to lie down and close my eyes. And I have muscle aches all over and eyes that hurt just from being open. CFS is not kind to mothers looking after hyperactive nearly-six year olds for six weeks in a row. (I’ve had wonderful help from Dave, but there’s still I lot I just have to do myself, especially when he’s at work.) My resources are very, very thin at this point.

Which is a long winded way of saying that I simply don’t have the focus, brainpower and energy to start planning indoor games at this point. My mind goes blank if I just start to think about it.

I’m hoping and praying for good weather, and failing that, some other kind of miracle.

I foresee troubled sleep and/or nightmares in my future for the next couple of days.

Marcus the Reader

I am such a proud and sappy mother.

Now that Marcus has officially started reading chapter books on his own (rather than me reading them to him), I’ve given him his own booklist over on Lists and Such and even set up a Goodreads account for him so that he can have a “books read” widget in my sidebar as well.

With the book we bought today and started reading at bedtime tonight, he’s been telling me what he likes about the book and I’ve been saving it in a text file. When we’re finished I’ll post a review for him of what he thinks about the book. Whether this will last or we will both get bored with it remains to be seen. Watch this space.

I succumbed

After I finished The Knife of Never Letting Go last night, I quickly realised that I really didn’t want to wait however long it was going to take to get from #12 on the library waiting list for the sequel to the top of the queue.

Today, because I am such a good mother, I took Marcus down to the nearby children’s bookshop, Next Page Please because he’s moving from picture books to beginning chapter books and I thought we’d get some expert suggestions on what he might like to read. It is, of course, a total coincidence that I was able to pick up a copy of The Ask and the Answer while we were there.

While we’ve borrowed a few from the library, Marcus is now the proud owner of his first chapter book, that looks to be a rip-roaring pirate adventure called Captain Clawbeak and the Red Herring. He was so excited he was reading it before we even left the store.

One of my hopes when Marcus was born was that we would raise a reader. What can I say? My job here is done. Can I retire now?

Out of the mouths of babes…

Marcus is having a bath.

It didn’t start well. I ran the bath and then he decided he wanted a shower. So he sat in the bath and had a little cry. I could hear these pathetic whinging sounds floating down the hall.

However, he’s playing now, so all is well.

Anyway, he just asked me a question, which went something like this…

In the olden days, were there no taps, and if people lived near a river, did they go there and get water and put it a jug and carry it back to their house on their heads and pour it into something else?

That’s a pretty complex thought for a five year old. I am both amused and impressed.

And speaking of Marcus gems, this one came last week.

I picked up Claire from school one day and dropped her home. On the way, she and Marcus were telling each other “jokes”. They do this quite often and their jokes are really more riddles, with answers that make perfect sense to them but no-one else. This is one of their favourites.

Why did the cow jump over the moon?
Because it had springs in its knees!

This is generally followed by gales of laughter.

This particular day, Claire had a new one.

Why did the cow jump over the moon?
Because the farmer was called Hans.

It took me a moment before I realised she must have overhead some adults and, not understanding the joke, misunderstood what they said.

I tried to explain, even knowing they wouldn’t get the details, that the farmer was supposed to have cold hands, but they weren’t having a bar of it. They had a new joke and they thought it was hilarious.

So that’s the current favourite. And if I laugh each time I hear it, it certainly isn’t for the same reason they both laugh.

How our pasts shape us…

I had the most fascinating interaction with Marcus yesterday.

It was raining cats and dogs, so I picked up not only Marcus from school, but his best friend, Claire, as well. She has a brand new baby brother (about a month old) and naturally, her mother didn’t want to take him and his two-year-old brother out in the rain if she could avoid it.

Since we were there, we let Claire and Marcus play for a while. Perhaps inspired by the baby, they had a wonderful game of “mummies and daddies” with one of Claire’s dolls as the baby.

Later, when we got home, Marcus decided he needed to “have a baby”. It couldn’t be one of his stuffed animals, it had to be a “person”, so his Spider-Man toy ended up stuffed under his shirt, ready to be “born” (and at five, I’m grateful to confirm he remains oblivious to the actual details thereof).

Suddenly, he announces to me, “Oh, I have to go and get the incubator!”

“Does he need an incubator?” I asked.

“Yes,” Marcus said. “He’s coming when he isn’t supposed to.”

“Is he coming early, like you did?” I asked.

“Yes,” Marcus told me and went off to find something to be an incubator.

(You’ll be pleased to know Spider-Man was born safely, even if it was a breech birth, and was soon climbing out of the incubator.)

We’ve never hidden his prematurity from Marcus and he’s seen pictures of himself in the incubator. But all the same, I was surprised by this sudden appearance of how that history has obviously shaped the way he sees thing. I shouldn’t expect that most five year olds playing “babies” would ever think about needing an incubator, if they even know what an incubator is. To Marcus, it’s a part of how babies come into the world.

Nothing amazing or earth-shattering, but a very interesting moment all the same.

How to spend a rainy school holidays day

Marcus and I decided that, since it is raining on and off and he’s pretty tired, the best way to spend the first “real” day of the school holidays is to have a snuggly day at home. He’s tucked up in a chair with a blanket and cushion and seems very happy just to lie there. Since he’s usually such a bundle of energy, if he wants to rest, I’m going to let him do so.

Trip Down Memory Lane

On Friday, Marcus brought this book home from school for weekend reading. I’m pretty sure I remember reading books like this when I was at school and learning to read.

I checked the copyright date and it was 1968. I started school in 1974, so that would be about right.

While I’m not sure that I remember this particular book, I was reading the titles on the back cover and I definitely remember reading The Hungry Lambs and I think The Stars in the Sky. They were big, fat hardcover books with a whole lot of stories in them and I can almost see them in my mind’s eye all these years later. The other titles sound familiar too.

At least they were new when I read them. Not so much now. But the stories were still perfectly fine for reading practise. I did have to explain what “Primers” were (first year at school now has the original title of “Year 1”) and also what a penny was as we don’t even have one cent coins any more (our smallest coin here in NZ is 10 cents), but everything else was fine. Okay, so the pictures were a little dated, but that’s okay.

Does this count as recycling?

Emotional level vs. Academic level

For some reason, I decided it was time I set my mind to writing a blog post. But this isn’t the one I was going to write. Instead, it’s what came to me after following my way around some links.

I’ve just read a fascinating article called “All in the Timing” that suggests that children reading ahead of their age level isn’t always a good thing. Not that it’s bad children are advanced readers, but that by pushing their reading level, they miss out on enjoying books that they are deemed to have “gone past” or read books before they are emotionally ready for them. It’s a very interesting article that I recommend reading, and one with which I mostly agree.

It got me thinking about Marcus. Sure, he’s only five now and still learning to read, but the days are coming when Dave and I, as his parents, are going to need to start helping him read appropriate books, read with him and monitor his reading to some degree.

I can’t help but be proud that he’s in the highest reading group in his class, even if his reading material is still Honey for Baby Bear or Naughty Max Monkey. As a reader (who currently isn’t managing to read, which is the blog post I was originally planning to write) I want Marcus to know the joy of books.

But by that I don’t mean reading at as high a level as possible to show off how smart he is. I mean that absolute joy of getting caught up in a story and having it speak to your heart. I can do that with adult books, YA books and even children’s book and I’m not ashamed of reading any of them. Why should it be different for a child? (Although obviously in concept rather than with regard to the same books.)

And while I wouldn’t consider Marcus to be an immature five year old, he’s certainly still a little kid and I think it’s very important to cater to his emotional level as well as his reading level. Finding books that do both those things may well turn out to be a challenge. I guess it’s time to start making a catalogue of useful links and resources.

On Good Reads

One of my reading groups has moved over to Good Reads so I’ve finally got myself set up over there with the username of – you guessed it – rocalisa.

I had tried to import my Library Thing content into Good Reads a while back but it didn’t work to my satisfaction, so I have just deleted 400-odd books (manually, one by one) to get the catalogue the way I wanted it. Now it just contains my 2009 reading, by current books and TBR and each book I’ve read has at the very least a rating, tags and a finish date.

Yes, I know, it’s all kind of OCD having to make it just the way I wanted, but it would have totally bugged me every time I went over there otherwise.

Life carries on as normal here.

We went out and bought Marcus winter school shoes today. For some reason all the one with velcro straps were very girly-looking and the “boy” ones all had laces. Marcus totally isn’t ready for laces (we have enough trouble convincing him he can get dressed by himself – which he can, he just prefers to have Mummy or Daddy help) so it took a bit of hunting around before we found some suitable ones, but we did in the end.

I’m into my second week on a half dose of anti-depressants and it remains a case of so-far, so-good. I still get moments of light headedness and there are certainly moments when I feel more “down” or in a state of mind of think of as “not-care-y” where I’m rather lacking in motivation, but nothing has been really bad. I go back and see the doctor again on Tuesday, so we’ll decide then what step to take next.

Update

Well, so far, so good. I was feeling very dry eyed and light headed this morning. It’s still there tonight, but a little less I think. I’ve found that if I take things quietly it’s much better, but if I do lots and move around a lot, it gets worse. That seems to me to be a good excuse for going easy.

Another Marcus story…

We went to the doctor on Tuesday for me to talk about a bunch of things. One of these was to get a prescription for a course of B12 injections which should help my energy levels (and I think they have as I’m not as totally trashed as I could be). Once I’d done all that, I needed to get the nurse to give me the injection. So Marcus was playing with the toys in the waiting room again while I waited for my turn. She came to get me and I said something to Marcus like, “I’ll be back soon,” and went with the nurse, leaving him to play.

A little later I’m sitting in the nurses’ room (partially undressed so she can reach my upper arm) when the door opens and there is the receptionist with Marcus. He can’t have heard what I said and thought I’d gone without him.

I spoke to the receptionist later and she said he’s come up to her and said very seriously, “Excuse me, can I tell you something?”

“Of course,” she agreed.

“My name is Marcus,” he confided, “And I can’t find my mummy.”

She said he was so polite and serious about it, all when he thought he’d lost his mother.

Sometimes, my son is just so adorable.

Out of the mouths…

Classic Marcus moment.

Since we’re getting ready to pack for our Easter holiday, I told Marcus he needed to think about what toys, books and movies he wants to take with him.

“Okay,” he told me. “I just have to change my normal brain for my toys-books-movies brain.” A moment’s pause. “Super Bear [his imaginary friend] helps me do it.”

“Oh,” I said. “Is Super Bear a brain surgeon?”

“Super Bear’s dog is a brain surgeon,” he told me seriously.

I almost collapsed laughing.

A big day today

Today was a special day. Marcus brought home his first reading book from school.

 

The children have been (and still are) learning all their sounds and Marcus has become very adept at sounding out shorter words (excepting, of course, all the many, many words in English that break the rules). Up until today he’s come home with sound sheets and word lists, so getting a real book was very exciting. It certainly was for Mummy anyway, and Marcus did seem very happy that he could read it, although I’m pretty sure he used the pictures to figure out words like kitchen and rubbish.

All the same, it was a proud mother and a proud son that read it through this afternoon.

I knew this would happen

Marcus has been at school for four days.

Today, his teacher asked me if I had any summary reports from his daycare. When I said no, she said that she’s concerned about his distractibility. When they had an assembly he couldn’t stay still and she has trouble getting him to focus. She also said not to worry, that at the moment she’s essentially gathering data to develop a plan to work on the problem.

I’m very sad to hear it, but I’m not in the least surprised.

Marcus does have real trouble focussing and he is very easily distracted. Dave and I knew it could be a problem at school. We made a choice not to tell the school about it or that he’s an ex-premature baby because we didn’t want to set up any preconceived ideas, but we were ready to add that information into the mix if there were issues about it.

I expected there to be. But I did expect it to take longer than four days.

One of the things the developmental psychologist told us when he had his four year old checkup, was that we weren’t to let teachers try to tell as he had ADHD as if he had those sorts of problems, they would be from his prematurity instead. But that clearly implied that he was likely to have some of the same symptoms. We’d been hoping he was about the same as other kids, but if the teacher has noticed it already, I guess that hope hasn’t been realised.

Marcus is such a bright, intelligent kid that it breaks my heart to think he might not be able to reach his great potential because of prematurity issues. (The teacher did add that he knew lots about letters and numbers and not to worry about those – I knew that too.)

So I’m feeling a little sad this evening. I hope we can work on this and develop strategies for him so that he can overcome this, but it still makes me sad.

Zzzzzzz

Well, after having to write my review for A Thousand Words for Stranger twice after I accidently overwrote my saved draft with another blog post, I think it’s time for me to go to bed. It’s relatively early – almost 9.30pm – but we had a night-time adventure last night and Dave and I both need to catch up on sleep.

I didn’t actually hear him, but about 3am Dave woke me to say Marcus was calling for me. I staggered out of bed, expecting the usual demand for a drink or a biscuit (or maybe just some attention) and was horrified to find him making horrible, rasping breathing sounds and barking a nasty, hacking cough. Dave came in to check on us both and we made a mutual decision to take him to the doctor.

To make what turned out to be a very long story (we got home again about about 6am) short, it turned out he had croup. The doctor at the emergency medical centre gave him some steroids to start relieving the swelling in this throat, but wanted us to take him to Starship (the children’s hospital) to be on the safe side. We got there (with a side trip included because on our usual route the road was closed – fortunately Dave found an alternative where I would have been totally screwed because I didn’t have a clue where to go next) and after being seen first by a triage nurse and then a registrar, they agreed the steroids had done the trick and he could go home again.

But we were assured we had done the right thing because if the swelling is serious enough and isn’t treated, the child can suffocate.

I don’t know how he managed it, but Marcus has been awake from 3am until he finally went to sleep about 9pm. Dave managed to get in about an extra hour’s sleep in the morning and I got maybe 2 or 3 over the course of the day, but we both need to do some catch up.

Sadly, since it’s a viral thing, Marcus’ excursion with his best friend (who he now doesn’t see as much because he’s at school and she’s still at daycare) has to be cancelled tomorrow, but so far he’s taking it very well and agreeing that we will plan something again once neither of them is sick (she’s been a bit under the weather too, so having two sick children with different sicknesses together seems like a bad idea).

So it’s off to bed with me now – after I check on Marcus – and hopefully Dave will follow me shortly. Even more hopefully, we won’t have a recurrence of it all tonight. We were told it was possible, but I’m hoping the odds will be on our side and we’ll all get to sleep through until tomorrow morning.

First Day at School

Today was Marcus’ first day at school. It’s taken a bit of work to pry any details out of him, but we know he went swimming (he could touch the bottom, which he thought was very cool – our pool is about three or four inches too deep for him), and the teacher read a story and he drew some pictures. The kids get their stationery tomorrow and since Friday is a holiday I suspect learning starts seriously next week. Here’s the new schoolboy in his school uniform (and one photo from his birthday party on Saturday since I haven’t posted any pics from that).

Marcus is FIVE today

Wow. I can’t quite believe it, but Marcus is five today. He had a lovely birthday, with presents, a cake at daycare and both his grannies here visiting. His auntie (my sister) arrived this evening and his grandad comes tomorrow for his party on Saturday.

It’s amazing to look back over five years and see how wonderfully far he’s come.  When he was born, his great-grandmother sent him a little teddy bear. It’s a tiny, cute little thing, about 7 inches long from the top of its ears to the end of its paws (and that’s with its legs stretched out). One day, we went into the hospital to find the nurses had him cuddling with it to help him lie in a comfortable shape.  He was barely bigger than the bear. From that day, I started taking photos of Marcus with the little blue bear. I took one at three months, at six, nine and a year. Since then I’ve taken one on his birthday each year. Here’s Marcus today, with the Great Nana Rose’s teddy bear.

 

 

And to compare and contrast, here’s that first photo, taken when he was 18 days old and on CPAP in an incubator.

Hasn’t be come a long way? We have been so unbelievably lucky and blessed that he has grown so strong and healthy. Many babies born at his gestation (27 weeks) have all sorts of continuing problems, but Marcus seems to have outgrown most, if not all, of the issues he had.

Thank you Lord, for our beautiful, healthy son. Thank you also to everyone who has helped and supported us, from both near and afar, over the years. It was always been greatly appreciated, even if sometimes we forgot to tell you.

An oldie by a cutie

I’ve had this picture in my “too be scrapped” folder for ages and never quite got around to it. But now that we finally have a printer that will let me print my layouts I’m going to slowly build up an album. That means getting my earlier photos scrapped so I can fill an album from the front and not have to reorganise it too many times later.

 

Credits~

Background paper from “Verse” by Tracy Ann Robinson; kite and flower from “The Beautiful Day” by Jofia Devoe; Button from “Doodled Buttons” by Kate Hadfield; red alpha from “Crazy Little Thing” by Dani Mogstad; other alphas from “Hand Stitched Alpha” by Dani Mogstad; font is Eight Fifteen.