Just Call Us the Jeffersons

Fans, we have more news.  While the bambini and Berenice were busy barfing, we bought a new house!

AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!

Fans, it's got two bathrooms, and a dishwasher.  Just call us the Jeffersons; we're movin' on up.  One of those bathrooms is on the same level on which Julie sleeps and even though she will continue to share it with the bambini, she is pretty excited about this development.  It's also got three bedrooms, instead of just two.  Big changes are in the offing, though this house is still in St. Louis Park, in a neighborhood called Minikahada Vista.  Our new house is about two blocks from Joe's kindergarten and three blocks from the KinderCare, a Starfoxes, and a Trader Joe's.  We can walk to all those places!  We Minnesota Ekkers love a walk!  We close July 1.

The bambini got right into this whole deal.  The day Clara was sick happened to be the day our realtor, Cindy was over for a chat.  The next day, on the way home from school, she asked if Cindy was going to be there when we got home.  Did you see that cat crawl out of that bag?  Our Hero did, too.  Julie said that she and Daddy had been looking for a new house, just like Ms. Sara and Mr. Derek had looked for a new house for Graham and Connor.  Fans, that was all it took.  Joe wanted to know if he would have his own room.  Once he knew that he would, he told Julie that he would like to paint the walls orange--and red and black and blue, because those are his favorite colors and there are four walls.  Julie said he could choose orange or blue, but that she and Daddy had executive veto power over the shade.  Without missing a beat--not one beat, Fans--he said that black was not a good choice because it absorbed all the light.  We can't make this stuff up.  Joe also wanted to know if our house would have an attic.  (The B. Bears have an attic, as do Grizzly Gran and Gramps.)  The new house has an attic.  Check.

For her part, Birdie wanted a big house.  White!  And she wanted a purple and pink room!  She wants to live in a castle basically.  It is not  castle, but it is bigger, and it is white.  Julie said purple or pink and again, Daddy and Mommy had executive veto power over the shade.

Julie has to go to California next week for work, and she is bringing her entourage.  (Except Berenice.  Berenice is going to camp.)  The house will be empty.  Everyone will have to do their barfing and pooping and what all someplace else.  So, we are seizing the opportunity and will try to put Raleigh House on the market this upcoming Monday or Tuesday.  Things are just a little crazy.

We have loved our little yellow Raleigh House.  Sitting on the porch watching night fall, storms roll through, and the leaves blowing in the wind; listening to the rain on the roof; having parties in the yard and dinner in the dining room. . .so many good times.  Our first home, the bambini's only home.  But it was time.  So we are so grateful that it is happening, and are excited to make a new house, a home.

Our Hero Visits His School To-Be

Joe had his kindergarten assessment this morning.  So far as Julie could tell, he did many of the things he did at the state-mandated early-childhood screening: cut a straight line; cut a wavy line; draw some shapes; identify some shapes, colors, letters, and numbers; count; read; chat; write one's name; draw one's self or a person at any rate.  Fans, Our Hero is not a artist.  Or, he is, but he offers one impressions suggesting realism, rather than realism itself.  To wit, when asked to draw himself today, Joe drew a circle on top of a square on top of a triangle.  When the teacher assessing him asked him what he'd drawn, he said, "Me!"  When prompted, he added some lines--legs and arms that for all the world, Fans, looked like chicken or bird feet.  Julie smiled when she saw it and even before the teacher told her what had gone down, Julie knew.  Oh, she knew.  Joe had done the whole thing in orange, his go to (first) favorite color.  An artist he is not, but a reader, he is: when asked to read five short sentences, Joe nailed every word except one: fast, and apparently, he knew how to start sounding it out.  He is also a strong cutter.  This we know, right, Fans?  Our Hero loves him a scissor.  Got a task requiring scissors?  He's on it.

While Joe was doing all of this, Julie was filling out a form that included questions like, "Describe your child."  One is given four lines in which to accomplish this task.  Four lines!

Pal-o, I said that you were "in your head" a lot, kind of bookish; that you were reserved, but not shy; that you liked to please people so you were sometimes more of a follower than a leader, and that this tendency sometimes got you into trouble but that you were learning to make your own choices; that you had a good heart; that you were kind.  I wish I had written that you also had such an imagination!  Just this morning, you asked me to get you down your keys--your keys that I made for you when you were itty bitty, real keys from my old dull set--and some for Clara, too, because y'all were going on a boat ride.  Y'all had dragged a bunch of this and that together with a tiny little pocket in the middle of it all for y'all--your boat--and you must have seen Daddy, at some point--at the lake house?--drive a boat?  Somehow, you knew you needed keys for some boats.  It was all so you--pretending to be in a boat--but with keys!  Four lines.  Pal-o, that's how many they give you, but you can't be contained in four lines.  You are amazing.

Vomiting: Trending High at Raleigh House

Fans, the good news is hat our Birdie has made a full recovery.  The bad news is that Our Hero has been felled by apparently the same bug that Birdie had.  Julie awoke to find him crouched next to the big bed, vomiting, at about 1am.  Reconstructive evidence suggests that he was a sort of Vomit Man Walking: he woke up feeling nauseous and, remembering that Birdie had been given a trash can, collected the bathroom trash can for himself.  But when the big moment came, he didn't make it: Our Hero's bed, blanket, Duckie and Barbar were covered in vomit (Panda had been tossed--or jumped--to safety on the floor; Neaky, Teddy, and Beary were also spared).  He then walked down the hall (vomit trail) to the kitchen where he got the collapsible stool out (self-evident) to reach the wipes to clean himself up (vomit handprints on the edge of the countertop).  Doesn't that all just squeeze your heart, Fans?  Little man tryin' to be so big!  The bed wasn't an option anymore obviously, so he made his way upstairs.  That's where he remains on another overcast and stormy morning.  He threw up two more times, both times in to the garbage can though we put a barf barrier up again.  He's still feverish, but hopefully he's largely past the worst of it.

In other, related, news, Berenice spent the night at the emergency vet on Friday evening because Friday marked the second day in a row in which she'd had diarrhea in the house and by Friday, she was vomiting as well.  She tried drinking some water Friday evening, barfed it all back up, with blood.  Thankfully, it was all nothing more serious than dehydration, but she stayed overnight hooked up to an IV and getting various diagnostic tests run to confirm that initial diagnosis.  She's back home now.  A bit perkier, but still taking it easy.  She gets to eat rice with hamburger or chicken mixed in it for a while so, you know, there's that.

So. knock wood, Julie and Ted remain healthy.  (Raleigh House smells amazing enough.)

Barfing Birdie Rides Again

Birdie, between episodes

Ah spring.  April showers, May flowers.  Stomach bugs.  Birdie came down with one last night.  When we found her, shortly after hearing high-pitched and fevered whimpering not long after midnight, she'd heaved up a puddle of vomit in the bed and two puddles of it on the floor.  It was only after Julie had helped her into fresh pajamas that she realized one difference between a little girl losing her cookies and a little boy doing the same, is that you'll probably need to give the little girl a bath because the little girl will probably have longer hair and it will have vomit all matted up in it.  It might even be in her ears.  By the time Julie had bathed Clara and Ted had sopped up all the puddles of vomit and gotten the first of the laundry to come going, Joe was awake, too.  Clara wanted Julie to hold her, so Julie curled up next to Clara on her little bed, Joe across the way; Ted went back upstairs.  It wasn't long before Joe padded out, glancing backward the whole way.  Julie thought he was going to the bathroom, but she found out not long after that he'd headed upstairs.  Clara threw up again, but into a ready trash can.  She kept saying she wanted to go upstairs and after a while, Julie decided, screw it: she did, too.  So she scooped up Baby Bird and one of the big fleece blankets to serve as a barf barrier, if you will, and up they went.  So there were five in the bed: the boys, and the girls, including Berenice.  Berenice ended up on the floor.  Ted ended up on the chaise lounge.  Julie ended up with about a foot of bed by its edge; Joe and Clara split the difference that remained.  Clara woke up to vomit some more all night long.  Some of it went into a garbage can; some of it was caught by the barf barrier.  Bless her little Birdie heart.

Everyone made it through today on well less than a full tank of gas.  Ted stayed home with Birdie after dashing to Target before seven for his computer.  Before he left, she was doing donkey kicks in defiance of her fever and the hours of off and on vomiting that had just passed.  That's when she cut her bottom lip with her own teeth and started bleeding everywhere.

Ted biked to Target with Birdie in the trailer.  She fell asleep.  Once they got home, they went for a walk with Clara on her push bike.  After lunch, Birdie disappeared.  Ted found her upstairs in the big bed under the sheet that serves as the Berenice barrier (!--we are all about a body fluids barrier here at Raleigh House even as circumstances dictate a robust tolerance for body fluids).

No one puts Birdie in a little bed.

There she stayed.  Who could resist that face and all of Birdie's charms?  She threw up during her nap, of course.  BUT, she has been barf and fever free ever since!

We think we might be on an upswing.  We're going to need to rest up for it though!

Bonus outtake: "Show us your teeth!"

You Say Shampoo. . .

Shampoo sounds an awful lot like shampoop.  Did you know that, Fans?  It's so clever and original, right?  We know you never thought of that one before, though you are wonderful in so many other ways.  Joe and Clara are planning to take their act on the road any day now.  The incessant repeating of shampoop was the start tonight of what has been a never-ending sally of some sort of another for Julie's attention.  (Ted is at a Twins game.)  Both Joe and Clara were out of bed to tell Julie, while she was showering, that the other had said a potty word.  Note, Fans, that each of them was out of bed.  Tattling.  Clara was first out of the box on this one, and humorously, kept saying, "Mommy?  Mommy?  Mommy?" as Julie said "Yes?  Yes?  Yes?" from behind the curtain.  It was like object permanence hadn't actually been achieved.  Most recently, Clara pattered up the steps to ask for Minne's bow--the one that is really meant for her that makes high pitched giggling noises and lights up.  It's perfect for bedtime!  Good times, soporific times.  When Julie carted her back to bed wordlessly, she found Joe between the fitted sheet and the mattress pad, a trick he learned from his erstwhile sidekick.  (Last night, he had his animals under there.)  The usual warning was issued in terse terms and voice.

Bucket dippers.  The both of them tonight.

You know what works well when one is trying not to lose that single marble she still has?  To go upstairs where the unseasonable 94-degree day has necessitated the sudden appearance of the (loud) air conditioner.  One can't hear the bambini's shenanigans over the din!  Now that is clever and original.

Until someone decides she needs Minnie's bow.