Proof that they're really listening!

I am an overly talkative mother. Since I am talkative, I can certainly go on and on about this and my many other failings as a mother, but anyway this is a big one. Nevertheless, today, for the first time, I discovered that when I'm consistent about something, even though they keep testing, they actually notice if the testing fails to produce the desired result (doesn't keep 'em from trying)! The great proof:

Naomi, being horrible and whiny and spitting and pushing like a wild animal...

Mom: Naomi, go downstairs and stay in your room until you can come up and act like a normal person.

Naomi: If you make me do that, I'll be even worse!

Ezra: Nay-ohhhh-mi, that doesn't work! I always try that, and it never works! (notices my mouth-dropped-open stare, smiles sheepishly, but it was too late. I gotcha, little guy! Shouldn't have given away your hand.... :-) 

Pity the poor child, and bless him

I'm reluctant to post much about this, lashon hara being forbidden by the Torah and common decency, but I've been having a truly hard time with Ezra, with the furious brow-furrowing, evil eye-narrowing, sassiness, disgusted horse-like spitting, I SAID, blah blah. I need x NOW! don't TALK to me! WhatEVER! It's all YOUR fault! You're a mean-iac mom! the uncontrolled hitting and shoving of sisters, crazy laughter, the pull-out-all-the-stops defiance. When I ask him about all this in a calm moment, he tells me, earnestly, that he doesn't know why he gets that way, implying that this isn't really him, and he doesn't actually want to be angry. Oh, and the extreme version of this behavior is reserved exclusively for me... go ahead, think what you will.

It was a beautiful summer night last night, and I walked through the woods to the QFC and ended up randomly opening an admittedly silly book (the snob in me recoils at thought of admitting it) A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, LOL and sacrilege to the great Master. He talks about the "pain-body," and how kids inherit their parents' troubles, known and unknown, unconsciously,  and take on our pain-bodies: Our bodies absorb all our own negative emotions (which is basically what the pain-body seems to be) and it all seeps into the kids, and translates into kids having moods, tantrums, etc. He says, parents wonder where these sudden negative emotions come from in their kids, and I have wondered that, and can testify that it's not always simply a result of thwarted ego. You must of course invent your own lingo or you are not a guru. That aside, I'm glad Hashem caused me to open to that part. It reassured me... that and the concept of greatness and badness being just flip sides of the same coin. Ezra seems to have a strong drive for life, a strength and tenacity, but when he's bad, he's really quite horrid, which, I suppose, is good (though we will work hard on it, and pray).

The poor child has had a hard week, starting this past Friday with an accidental ingestion of another hazelnut-containing Israeli chocolate bar!!!! It was the fault of the young and innocent camp counselors (at Camp Shevet Achim, now) who knew about nuts but not chocolate. He got Benadryl, I met him at the pediatrician's, we zapped him with the Epipen, they watched him for 2 grueling hours, and we went home to an especially crazy Erev Shabbos. No anaphylactic reaction--hooray! But more adventures followed, as he woke up looking greyish-yellow on Monday, with his chest heaving up and down visibly, complaining of having trouble breathing! We called the doc, who told us to call 911, the paramedics came with sirens blaring and hooked him up to some oxygen (the kid was giddy with excitement and glee, of course), and placed upon his breast a Mercer Island Fire Dept. Junior Firefighter sticker. We've spent all week treating what appears to be his first (I pray, last?) case of asthma. He got a cold over Shabbos and apparently sometimes kids who are prone to asthma will get it when they get colds. I've been scared, disorganized, and frantic all week, dealing with his doctor's visits and the rest of the kids' colds, Naomi's extremely dramatic middle-of-the-night accident (think, deep circles of hell), and my own insomnia and now illness. Waaaaaaaaaah! There! No more complaints. 

Up and down boys

Saul can go up and down the stairs, and it's so cute, it's like he's a toy robot with two settings: up and down! And he loves to go down, stop midway on the stairs, go back up, peek out at me, and then race back down (perhaps a robot on "random"). He is so fast and unpredictable in his explorations that I am constantly losing him, and the house now seems to be a castle with an infinite number of rooms, and no time to close all their doors before a Saulchik slips inside. Yasha, good man, can go up, but with Saul being so mobile, Yash often ends up missing out on all the action if it's below him, and whimpers till mama carries him down. He's too scared still to let me teach him to do it himself. He has turned into such a sweet character, hugging legs not only when he's sad or lonely, but just from a full heart. And we call him Yasha leg-hugger, not that it's an interesting nickname, but it's notable that he does it often enough that it's his main characteristic at the moment! He smiles and laughs with his big eyes and high forehead and anti-gravity hair.... and clings! 

Saulie is quite a crazy dancer--he bounces up and down and left and right and hams it up--and a musician, too (don't laugh); he has become an expert harmonica player. I never know if it is Saulie playing or Ezra, because Saul is good and tenacious, too. He reminds me of Ez, not just because he looks most like Ez, but because his curiosity is written on his face and body at all times, as it was with Ezra at this age. 

It's sort of okay being blue-house-bound, really. I have to remember how much I'll miss it, and how sadly vaguely (um, double adverb??) it will all be imprinted on my memory. I wish I could take a magic memory pill to bring all my good memories to the fore, and make them bright and flashy and vivid... but there's magic enough in this life and the next, so I won't worry. 

Anudder fly-bee

A real fly-bee (ick!)

Dis iz a fly-beeeee. It izzzzzz. Daddy found one. He found it.