Nose and Notes

I have a cold in my nose and 33 pages in my script.

Zooooommmmm!

As the Germ Turns

Partner has pneumonia. Sunday and Monday he looked like death warmed over. A chest x-ray from Monday afternoon shows that it was just *barely* pneumonia (is that like being a “little pregnant” I wonder?) and he felt fine though coughy and returned to work Tuesday.

Sonar X5 started to droop Tuesday night. We thought initially that it was also going the way of an upper-respiratory virus, but alas, took a turn toward multi-textured and -sourced digestive efflux during the night last night. Nothing like a shivering sobbing child in the tub in the middle of the night followed by nasty midnight laundry. After some dry-heaves this morning, this bug has settled back to mild cough, mild fever.

Sonar X3 started to droop last night, but has thankfully acquiesced to a naptime with actual sleeping. But first we had to do the daily banana rules.

Background first. Every day before what we have ceased to call naptime and now call quiet time (what with the general lack of actual napping), I chat or read quietly with each preschool Sonar for a few minutes. Each Sonar has developed a unique settling routine that invariably involves a personal script of silliness that is recited each day.

For Sonar X3 this includes a list of things to remember during quiet time, a.k.a. The Banana Rules, wherein we take regular things to remember and add the word banana.

1. Be quiet becomes Be quiet, banana
2. Get some rest becomes Get some rest, banana
3. I love you becomes I love you banana
4. Stay in your bed unless you need to use the toilet becomes Stay in your banana unless you need to use the toilet, or Stay in your bed unless you need to use the banana, which is giggling corrected by the Sonar to Stay in you bed unless you need to use the toilet, BANANA!
5. Don’t put your feet on the wall (he’s a wall-kicker) becomes Don’t put your feet on the Bananas, which is gigglingly corrected to Don’t put your BANANAS on the wall, in a surprisingly funny twist on preschool humor.

Funny kid.

Sonar X7 is healthy and competing in his school science fair today. Making the world a better place for toothpaste and hard-boiled eggs.

I am feeling a bit weary, so I’ll complain. Scriptfrenzy begins April first, but the detailed plan I had planned to make is so far nonexistent. I haven’t had a chance to Run in more than two weeks. These facts are combining to make me grouchy. In addition, Family—a sane, sensitive, thankfully unfastidious contingent—arrives for a four-day visit April fourth. I am looking forward to this visit, but, you know, there are things to get ready, and I want everyone to have a nice time. And these are good relationships, but they are relationships in repair after long-term damage, a some time source of anxiety.

On the bright side, there is an abundance of salad greens waiting to be picked in the back yard. The preschool Sonars and I harvested baby broccoli and cauliflower this morning to make some soup. And there is the most amazing bushy cluster of blooms and buds on our tiny avocado tree.

Now, if only I can keep myself from getting sick.

Stupid Mango Tricks, or Things to Entertain and Amaze Your Kids

Half a ripe mango, scored inside and then turned inside out

Sonar X4: “It looks like hair!”
Sonar X7: “Can I put it on my head?”
Sonar X3: “It’s Mango Hair!”

Later, to facilitate the fair-sharing of a pint of Ben and Jerry’s “Fossil Fuel”, I cut the ice cream, carton and all, into four pieces with a big knife. That was also met with delight by all three Sonars.

Teaching them to scoop small bites, suck the ice cream off the fudge dinosaurs, and spit them into their hands for species identification: Probably not such a good idea.

Vector Analysis

The Knickers will have to wait. I’ve been sick for a few days and I’m feeling a little rambly(manic).

Now, I’m not the world’s best housekeeper. I like to think of our aesthetic as comfortable and lived in, but not necessarily *dirty.* Some would decry the decided rarity of bleach application in my house (my mother would be one of these, but even before she was institutionalized, I found her attitude toward dirt and germs a bit extreme). I find that we can keep things clean and sanitary in other ways, and prefer to save the bleach for extreme circumstances.

There *are* times when various forces conspire to let our “comfortable” aesthetic slide into something else altogether. In the past few weeks we’ve all weathered one cold, then an allergy onslaught. Sonar X7 was home sick on Friday, then again for a President’s Day holiday on Monday, further throwing our routines out of whack.

Sonar X7 has asthma and is allergic to everything that blows on the South Texas winds. Administering his puffers this morning, I noticed that there was some powdery build-up on one and realized that I hadn’t washed them out for a while. And that led me to notice that I also hadn’t washed his peak-flow meter (the little thingy that helps us measure his breath capacity). The puffers get a little filmy from sucking in the medicine, but he blows *into* the meter, which was coated inside with a fine green film of concretized mucus. Ick.

I put the apparati in some warm soapy water to soak and shuffled to the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea and sit. While I stood there waiting for my hot water, having to shove aside a pile of dishes to make a spot for my teacup, I listened to the rattle of legos from the Pre-school Sonars and started to wonder what other little bits had fallen under my radar this past couple of weeks. What other sneaky vectors of reinfection were lurking under my nose.

Yeah, the dishes were obvious, and don’t get me started on the Legos and the K’Nex. But there are several things that I normally think of as more or less clean that were decidedly not. My teacup, for instance. I normally drink a cup and then rinse it and set it in the dish drainer. The build-up happens so slowly as to not be noticeable, but today there is an oily tea-film that I could scratch a lovely landscape picture into. (Now Scrubbed) For that matter, the measuring cup that I use only for boiling water in the microwave. That should be clean, right? Um. Yeah, all except the field of spatters on the underside of the spout where tea and coffee splashes up against it during pouring. (Now Washed)

I started to feel sort of creeped out, and though I am still sick, I just couldn’t help myself.

I emerged from the kitchen nearly an hour later. Dishwasher was running, dish-drainer piled high with clean pans, sponges were all cooling from a sterilizing stint in the microwave, cutting board sprinkled liberally with baking soda, and counters scrubbed (including the icky residue of last night’s blueberry scone adventure -> the Sonars helped make dinner). My tea was cold, but in a clean cup, and I felt wrung out like a slimy rag. I didn’t have the energy for the floor, but I hope we’ve all outgrown our floor-licking stage.

[Side-note: Anyone who would still consider visiting my house after this little confessional who might need a toilet while here should really try their luck with the convenience store down the street.]

In other news, I’m trying to get some knitting done. I feel a bit knit-rich right now (go ahead, reread that last phrase. No, see, it didn’t say what you thought it said the first time). I’m not a big-stash kind of knitter. I prefer generally to only gather yarn that I’m ready to knit into something. And I usually try to finish one thing before I start another. This doesn’t always work out. I’m working on (finished now) some Easter surprises for the Sonars, and some socks for the Partner. Those of you who know my tendency to procrastinate and knit myself into aching, twisted, gnarled hands the night before holidays might be surprised at my advanced planning here. Frankly I am too. I’m not sure where it came from.

On other needles is a knitted rocking chair seat that has been languishing for nearly two years (three?!). Then there are the pieces of the pink alpaca sweater that are completely knit, but have been waiting many many months to be sewn together. I have a bag of bamboo yarn from Christmas that is still waiting for a deployment plan (summer sweater? moebius wrap?). And another Christmas present, Charmed Knits is calling to me to make something. AND. I’m awaiting a box of sock (for Sonars probably) and sweater (for Partner) yarn, and Sister hinted that she tucked in another knitting book for me in a box of books she’s sending the Sonars.

Phew. I wonder if I could knit and run at the same time? Maybe not. For now, I’ll just go collapse into a wheezy heap.