Kittyboy being "helpful" in church!

We went to church for Paraclesis last night (finally, I got to go!), and we arrived a few minutes early, the only ones. I knew at least our friends Rick and Susan were coming, but Father likes to start as soon as someone who can read shows up, which last night was me. Before I could say, "Well, I know Susan's coming, so he can sit with her," Father told Kittyboy to help Mommy chant, and carried him up and set him on the chair next to mine, with his baby doll and his cup of milk. Hahaha, okay, we can give this a try... we started the service, Kittyboy sitting there looking all attentive and solemn and chanter-y (oh for a camera!). Rick and Susan came in, and I thought "Oh good, if he gets unhappy, I can send him to them." He didn't get unhappy, but he's two, he started fidgeting, and he likes to thump his head on things. Thump - thump - thump - thump - thump on the back of the chair. I already get very giggly when nervous, which I was from having him right next to me, and that nonchalant, blank-expression thumping was just too much. It's impossible to chant while giggling. I told him, "Go sit with Baba Susan! Go on, take baby, go keep Baba Susan company!" So he walked slowly across the front of the church, looking back at me every few feet, and I'd motion for him to keep going, and he slowly went down to the pew I'd put my purse and everything down in, and I thought "Okay, that's good, he has cheerios there, he's got his milk, and Susan's just across the aisle, that's fine." He turned and looked at me, I gave him the biggest smile, thumbs up, "Good boy! Good boy!" He put down his doll and his milk and came running back up. After all, FATHER told him to help Mommy! And Father wears the robes, so of course he outranks me!
So then he was walking around the music stand, in and out of the chair, being cute and distracting, and Father came out because obviously his chanter was distracted. Father picked him up and said, "You come with me, sit in the bishop's chair!" and whisked him away behind the iconostasis! Oh my GOSH. Nooooooo...! All was perfectly normal for a bit, then when Father stopped for a second, you heard the talky-talkiness start. SOMEONE should be talking, so the toddler was filling in! So then we were ALL giggling, at the very audible babbling from about the area of St. John the Baptist. My son was happily contributing to the service! Well, I'm sure God understood him.
So then we had Father reading petitions and then pausing... and chanting and then pausing... and I'm thinking, "Oh my gosh, what on earth is my son getting into?" Then Rick smiled and waved and pointed, I leaned around the music stand, and there was a precious little face poking out around the Royal Doors. Oh my GOSH. Father paused again. Babbling relocated to St. John the Baptist. Then babbling started to include the word Mommy, and moved to behind the St. Gabriel door, the knob of which started rattling. Father paused again, babbling relocated. Frequently what would happen throughout this was that Father would pause, and then LOSE HIS PLACE, which lost MY place, because I had to hunt down where he'd jumped to in Greek. Then right before the last section of hymns, Father opened the Gabriel door for Kittyboy, who RAN out, all happy and loudly talking, about him and Father and Mommy and the fact that he was UP Mommy UP and Father UP and ME UP! And then the service was over.
And Father gave him a little icon necklace of St. Nektarios the Wonderworker, for having been such a good big boy!
I told Husband, "Hey, if Father ever needs both an acolyte AND a chanter, obviously our son is not THAT disruptive back there!" He didn't get into anything, he didn't knock anything over, Father said he mostly sat in the chair and looked around at things (of course, there's a lot to look at back there! Lots of icons, his shiny picture friends!), and said he was good! Father's talked before about taking Kittyboy back with him so I can chant, but I've always found a reason for him not to, because I imagine the boy climbing things, knocking things over, drinking holy water, starting fires, etc, and I can't imagine our stiff and elderly priest being able to move fast enough to prevent disaster.
But if Father says it went well... who am I to say it didn't?

Ideas for a 6th anniversary gift for a husband who doesn't know what he wants???

I know what I want, and have sent him several links to such (a Gadsden t-shirt) but Husband is stubbornly, irritatingly, persistently vague in terms of what HE wants. "I don't know." "I don't know." "I don't know."
Well, neither do I.
Ideas? Any and all. He likes computers - I can't afford one and know nothing about them. Would a new keyboard be considered romantic? He likes his iPhone - I call him an iBot. I would buy him a CD he likes, except he would have already bought what he wants through iTunes. I draw the line at any gift with that ridiculous affectatious "i" at the beginning. This poses a problem.
If you're reading this on my blog, suggestions are extremely welcome in the comments section. On Facebook, just send me a message. He can read my notes, but he already knows I'm stumped.

So much for the holiday season...

Halfway through the Dormition Fast, and I just realized we haven't made it to one service yet except for Sunday morning. We've been on our way to or from a hospital or doctor's appointment on top of the regular two therapy appointments each week, and now it's Saturday the eighth of August already!!
Well, we have managed to add one habit in honor of the Dormition of the Theotokos - we are listening to the daily readings every morning at breakfast, courtesy of some church in Akron OH, and my husband's iPhone (to quote the commercial of which the whole universe is thoroughly sick and tired: "Yes, there's an app for that!"). It's Kittyboy's favorite part of breakfast, known in his dialect as "Sheshuh!!!" (Jesus). It's the Sheshuh part of breakfast. They're beautiful recordings, with the Trisagion hymn in English in the background (the Slavonic arrangement, I believe), the reading about the saint or feast of the day, the Epistle and Gospel, and with an icon of Christ Pantocrator as the background on the phone. Kittyboy sits and holds the phone and doesn't touch anything, because he doesn't want to make the picture of his Jesus disappear. When it's done, he bounces in his seat saying "Sheshuh more Sheshuh!" Husband says, "How do you ask?" "Sheshuh peas." And so we play the readings of yesterday, or the day before, or a week ago, so he can hear the music and see his Jesus. He's so sweet! We will definitely keep doing this after the 15th.
The 15th, we are making it to church, regardless. "No, Kittyboy, you cannot fling yourself from the roof now, today is the Feast of the Dormition, and WE ARE GOING TO CHURCH!! You'll just have to injure yourself some other time, we don't have time for this today!" I'm upset, though, that I missed the Paraclesis this week.

"O You Apostles from far off, being gathered together in the village of Gethsemane, lay my body in burial, and You, my Son, and my God, receive now my spirit from me." - hymn from the Paraclesis

I love those hymns!!!
Icon above is from the Goarch.org site, where they have an icon gallery. We've got a copy here that I'm going to show Kittyboy and talk about next week in preparation for Saturday, assuming he does nothing dramatic in the meantime. I remember the first time I showed it to Kittyboy, actually, back in early spring when he was getting REALLY good at pointing out "his Mary" in icons, pictures, etc. We both were curious whether he was figuring it out based on her robes (pretty red and blue robes = Mary), or the fact that she held a baby, or a combination of both, and I saw the Dormition icon in the insert of an Eikona CD and thought here was our chance to find out. He'd never seen that icon before. He was a little over two years old. The icon has the Theotokos lying down on a bed, fallen asleep, and Christ upright holding the small swaddled figure of her soul. Would he point to pretty lady in robes, though out of context, infant-less, and laying down, or would he point to the figure holding a "baby"? I put him on my lap, handed him the icon, and said, "Where's Mary? Find Mary!" His finger went momentarily towards Christ (ah ha, it's the context of holding a baby! we thought) - then he stopped, moved his finger to the side, and pointed firmly to the wrapped, infant-like soul of the Theotokos. "Mehw!" he stated authoritatively. HUH? And off he went with his icon to play. As I tried to figure out by what equation he totally bypassed pretty-lady-in-robes AND person-holding-baby and instead pointed at... her soul.
Is it irreverent of me to pronounce him occasionally creepy?
The 16th, the day after Dormition, is our anniversary (six years!). I forget why it was we didn't want to get married as soon as July, but because of the fast we couldn't get married in August until the 16th. We decided on the Theotokos as our family patroness, fittingly enough, and the day before our wedding were surprised by non-Orthodox friends of ours with a BEAUTIFUL icon of the Theotokos. They didn't know about us choosing her for our family saint, they just knew we liked icons, and hey, this was a big, beautiful icon! Awesomest wedding gift ever. I'll get a picture of it to post next week.

And still dealing with the head injury

Kittyboy was fine all of yesterday, then woke from his nap crying and upset. Worse, pointing to his head and saying, "Me bonk. Me hurt." At a little more than a year old, the boy dove from my arms in a parking lot, landed on his head, and cried for maybe five minutes at the most before deciding he was FINE, so when he's still feeling something 24 hours after the incident, that's when I freak. And freak I did. Back to the ER, trying very hard to stay calm and not panic but feeling QUITE panicked inside. Being the panicky freaking-out mom is a totally new role for me.
Much better time to go to the ER, we were in a room within half an hour of checking in, and had a wonderful nurse who has a daughter the same age as Kittyboy. He said he would be a bit worried too, we could certainly schedule a CAT scan and check things out. First, though, he asked if I'd given Kittyboy any Tylenol for the headache. I said no, every nurse I've ever called because the boy bumped his head has said NO TYLENOL. Well, every nurse at the ER thought that was the silliest advice they'd ever heard. Give the poor baby Tylenol! I suppose a doctor's office, not being an ER, wants to stay on the veryveryveryvery safe side, which is why they say go straight to the ER if he has any headache, and not to give pain reliever so you know if he has one. From the perspective of the ER staff, though, the headache for which THEY would be looking cannot be eliminated with Tylenol. They're not looking for cranky, fussy, Mommy-my-head-hurts. They're looking for crying and crying and crying, which is also ALMOST always accompanied by other symptoms. Crying and projectile vomiting, crying and not walking straight, crying and pupils different sizes, crying and bleeding from ears. Of course his head hurts, he whacked it pretty hard. Give him Tylenol. If the Tylenol works, then the headache is just a headache.
Naturally, fifteen to twenty minutes after getting said pain reliever, Kittyboy reverted to his normal, happy, whirling-dervish self. The nurse came back to say that a trauma case had just arrived and it would be QUITE a wait for a scan, and I pointed at Kittyboy and said, "I really doubt we need one - I feel so silly now!" and he said not to feel silly, he's a trauma nurse and brings HIS daughter in whenever he thinks something's not normal, because when it's Your Kid, you just want to be sure.
So it turned out to be a trip to the ER for something in my own medicine cabinet. Discharge orders said to make a followup app with Dr. Hendricks, and I've got that set for tomorrow, so we're good. He's NOT NAPPING, despite having had Tylenol, but that can also just be him.
Tired of hospital trips, I posted on the SPD (sensory processing dysfunction) Yahoo group the question of how it is the boy climbs things skillfully but can bounce off a bookcase walking down the hall - or turn around and walk right into the corner of the fridge - or trip on the carpet crossing a room. Is it that when he wants something, he focuses and pays attention, but just walking around he doesn't bother? Is it that since most bumps don't bother him in the slightest, he just doesn't feel the need TO bother? Should I have his vision checked? And heard back, reassuringly, from moms whose own kids walk into instead of around things all the time, and one member of the group who grew up with SPD said that he has excellent coordination when he really, really focuses on where his body is in relation to what's around him, but bumps into stuff a lot when he's just relaxed and focusing on other things. If you have sensory processing problems, your brain isn't doing all that automatically, it takes a little more work. So it's exactly what it looks like - when Kittyboy wants something, he focuses and pays attention, but when he's just walking around the house, he's not paying as much attention, and so he trips, walks into stuff, bounces off of stuff, all that. Just like when he started crawling and crawled into chair legs, table legs, the coffee table, walls, etc.
His guardian angel works overtime.

I could drive to St. John's ER in my sleep.

So here's the full story on Kittyboy's LATEST trip to the ER.
About six-thirty last night, I was working towards bedtime (normally about seven), he brought me a videotape, and I told him no, take it back, as I headed towards his room. Shortly after, there was crying in the living room - I came in and he had bumped his head. I don't know how, and can only assume on what - the coffee table. He managed to find the one corner not covered by two afghans, is my theory. When he is paying attention, he is a mountain goat - when not, he can trip over a carpet. And there was nothing but carpet over which he could trip!!!! Gah!
While changing his diaper, I watched a lump grow on his temple, the size of my thumb and about half an inch thick. Oooh drat. That was more impressive, thickness-wise, than I'd seen before, and it was purple. Checked eyes, watched him walk, he was all symmetrical and normal and eyes tracking together and all, and talking normally. I know not to give Tylenol and to take him in if he had a headache, but wasn't sure if I should let him sleep, so I called the nurse. The nurse asked me about all the stuff I had checked, eyes, walking, speech, told me not to give Tylenol, he could go to sleep but had to be woken up every four hours. And call back if he seemed to have a headache. So I put him down for the night about seven. Half an hour later, back up crying. He wanted me in bed, so I laid down with him, he laid quietly but wasn't inclined to sleep. So after twenty minutes or so, I told him Mommy would go nightnight in her own bed, and he would go nightnight in his bed, tucked him in again and left. About quarter after 8, he was crying again, so we rocked some more. After ten minutes or so of him being perfectly content to JUST rock (no reading or anything, just sitting still and quiet which is Not Him), I called the nurse back and said there was SOMETHING upsetting him, maybe a headache that he didn't mind when he was distracted but was too much for him to sleep, and she asked if he would normally be asleep by then, and I said OH yes. Jack-in-the-box is not typical for him when he's in his own bed with his music and his Ock (dragon) or Ted Bear or someone tucked in with him and the light off and everything. Yeah, something's not right. She said go to the ER - any headache lingering after head injury should be checked out. So to the ER we went, after putting a diaper in my purse and grabbing Ted Bear and Ock and my ipod. Been here, done this, can you tell?
By the time Husband got there after work, we'd been there forty five minutes, his vitals had been taken and he was checked in, but it was going to be a looong wait for a doctor. At check-in, they'd said three hours - people were in the hallway, it LOOKED like three hours. This was not a good night for an ER trip. He had no new symptoms, other than being very, very tired. Bump was still there, but nothing was worse, he was still acting fine. He told his daddy in detail all about it - "Me bonk! Me dock-tor!" We asked the nurse who took his vitals, after explaining the situation, "Is it okay if we go home and just follow the plan of waking every four hours, or does he HAVE to be seen now because he's been checked in?" and she said from how he was acting, we SHOULD be fine waking him every four hours, but come back immediately if he did anything odd or if anything changed, and we said yes, of course, and went home. Every four hours during the night - he didn't care for being woken up, but hey, if you'd pay more attention and not trip over invisible bumps and hit your head, you wouldn't have to be woken up and made to talk and walk throughout the night. That's the lesson to learn here, kiddo.
The boy is a hassle, have you noticed? Oh, and as soon as we got out of the car in the parking garage - "Dock-tor! Dock-tor! Me dock-tor!" He knows what the parking garage of St. John's means. Oh, and he helpfully told the nurse when we were checking in, "Me bonk!" and pointed to his head. "Yup, that would be why we are here. He bonk."
My mother was saying, I have had EXPERIENCE with these things! She said in an enthused-Mommy voice, because she said I sounded like the weary, veteran mother of several - all this from one toddler! Isn't that efficient of him, to give me all this experience just by his little lonesome in the first two and a half years of life?? Dryly, sounding less than thrilled, "Yes Mother. He's very efficient." I guess it's useful being able to triage your toddler, how many first time moms do that? After multiple doctor or ER visits for head bonks, or time on the phone with nurses answering questions, I know what they look for and ask first. Pupils, same size, symmetrical, eyes tracking together, both sides of body moving symmetrically, speech normal and not hunting for words he knows. All of the above, yep - headache, yeeeah, I'd guess that, which is what sends you to the ER unfortunately in spite of all the rest, just to be safe.

Kitties like boxes.....

And so do Kittyboys! (For my Facebook friends, if there are no pictures in this post, look in the "Playhouse" album)


We got a dishwasher Tuesday (woohoo! Dishwasher!) and so now we have this HUGE box with the bottom flaps cut off, and what can you do with such a thing but make a toddler playhouse? Husband cut a door that's still attached on one side, so it opens and closes (and opens, and closes, and opens, and closes, and opens, and closes..........) and on the opposite side, he cut out two windows using the outlines of the warning labels as a guideline. It has its own furniture (a little red chair) and flooring (a carpet sample), and he loves it. He told me I had to come inside ("You 'ouse!") and upon realizing that I fit about as well as Alice in the White Rabbit's house, changed his mind ("You out! You out!"). Currently, Elmo is sitting in the chair and Kittyboy is sitting on the carpet sample, having graciously given his guest the one piece of furniture. He's a very good host.

You won't believe where I found them.

Sometime in the wee hours of this morning, I rolled over and Husband said, "You won't believe what I think I just found." He'd shoved his hand in his pillowcase and woke up holding glass and wire.
Friday night, I had been reading before bed, and then I took my glasses off but still stayed up a bit, and apparently I had put them "temporarily" between the pillows. When Husband picked up his pillow to look under it and behind the bed (because we HAD thought of the between-pillows theory, and looked thoroughly), they slid in the pillowcase!!!! They were there all along!!!
And last night I was taking apart the bedroom again, trying to figure out how you COMPLETELY LOSE something that can only be a very limited number of places!
Found! I can see!