What Emmett Would Do

At the end of a busy day, including a great time at Aunt Mary's to celebrate Mom-Mom's real 75th birthday, only Emmett was awake for story time. We read him the great Dr. Seuss book, The Cat In The Hat. Those who haven't read this book since they were a kid probably don't remember, or perhaps didn't even realize then, that the Doctor was asking some pretty deep questions of children. Essentially the story is about an intruder, The Cat, coming into the children's house uninvited while their mother is out. The children are half delighted and half scared by the sight of the cat and don't know what to do. Their pet fish is the voice of wisdown:

But our fish said, "No! No! Make that cat go away! Tell that Cat in the Hat you do not want to play. He should not be here. He should not be about. He should not be here when your mother is out!"

At the end of the story the house is a complete disaster, but the Cat comes back and, with a fantastic cleaning machine and to the children's delight, completely restores the house to pre-Cat-In-The-Hat state. Then the big question comes as Mom walks in,

"Should we tell her about it? Now, what should we do? Well... What would you do if your mother asked you?"

I asked Emmett what he would do. He said, "I'd ask my Mommy to clean up the mess."

Ducks Do Wonders

Sunday started off rainy, but later in the day the sun poked out and then started to shine bright, so we made a trip to Annapolis, making good on our promise to return to see the boats when everyone was well. Emmett was asleep when we arrived and stayed so in the stroller. Max had been looking very sleepy just prior to arriving in Annapolis. Max has never been one to jump at the chance for physical activity. Add to that being a bit sleepy, and as you can imagine, he wanted to ride in the stroller too. We tried to convince him to get out and walk, but he'd have nothing of it. Moreover he was showing little interest in taking pictures. It was still a little cool and soon Max started to complain of being cold. I told him that if he walked he'd warm up, but he didn't believe it. I piled my jacket on top of him.

Our first stop was Starbucks to get Rebekah her mocha and me a lemonade iced tea. As Bek went inside, I finally convinced Max to take a few pictures, all from the stroller, requiring contortions to get one shot, and finally, though very reluctantly, to get out of the stroller. It was sometime around this time when one of the big boats sounded its horn loudly, waking up Emmett. He looked groggy, and didn't much like the loud sound, but didn't complain. He hates loud sounds, covering his ears tightly and shaking, like it's causing him agonizing pain. He doesn't like loud sounds, that is, unless they are coming out of his mouth - those he seems to be quite fond of. He's got to be the loudest, deepest voiced pint-sized kid around. I love his growly voice, just not when it competes with the fog horns.

We headed over to the water to get closer to the boats. Max, though walking, was grumpy about taking pictures. He didn't want to, he said. Everything turned around when we got to the ducks in this picture. A man there gave Max a cracker to feed them with and he did so enthusiastically. He broke the cracker up to toss pieces in, and as the cracker got smaller he kept breaking it into smaller and smaller pieces. Eventually he had pretty much just a crumb left and he was trying to break that in two. I told him just to toss the rest in. Finally he chose to get out his camera and took pictures of the ducks and then a bunch of pictures of seagulls, catching a number of them in flight. Pretty good stuff. We haven't had time to put it all up on a web page yet.

After some more bird and boat watching and pictures we treated the boys (and me) to an icecream. While eating our cones a passing family talked about going to a playground. Max turned to me and said, as if I hadn't heard anything, "I think I heard someone talk about a playground." We made our way to the information booth which was nearby and Bek asked for directions. On the way to the playground Max turned to me and said, "Dad, you were right. Walking does warm you up!" By this point it was pretty warm anyway, but I wasn't about to point that out. We spent quite a long time at the playground. Max and Emmett really loved it, and Max (and Emmett) were doing lots of running. It was great to see Max getting some exercise. At one point Emmett had a fall that caused no injuries, but scared him a bit. I took him right back to where he had the fall and helped him get across that point. That seemed to do the trick.

Finally, around 5 PM or so, we sounded the 5 minute warning. There was some complaining, but not too much. We decided to go to the Mexican restaurant El Toro Bravo on West street for supper. This location use to have a different tex-mex place that I really liked, but it closed several years back, replaced by El Toro. I'd been meaning to try it but never got around to it. Alas, El Toro proves to be just another generic "Mexican" restaurant with the same menu, the same dishes, prepared pretty much the same as you find at any other generic "Mexican" restaurant. The old place was much better. Also, it proved a bad choice for our boys. It took a while to get our food and the boys balked at their enchilada, though eventually Max did eat some rice. Soon the boys got wild. We had to pack up pretty quickly after finishing our meals, and Rebekah rushed them outside as I paid the bill and packed up.

So ended our day in Annapolis. Except for the El Toro experience, it was a great time, and even that wasn't really that bad. Plus it was completely vomit free and that's certainly something! Max took photos, as did I. We'll get them all up on the web eventually. A certain rather insistent grandmother I know needs to be a little patient with us! :)

Max Is Determined To Win

Max is intent on winning this egg hunt. He doesn't just carry a basket any more! FYI, you can click the picture to get the full size image.

Max claims the reason he was carrying the squirt gun was so he could mark the places he'd been. Fill in your own joke here: ____________.

Falling Down

Mackenzie captured this fall from grace at Great Aunt Mary's Easter party using Max's camera. It hurt pretty bad, actually. I ended up with a bad scrape on my right elbow and minor ones on my other elbow, both hands and my left shin. Mackenzie was quite vocally proud of having taken the pictures, shouting, "Steve, I got you!" with each shot. I had mixed feelings about that.

Must remember: wear protective gear when riding scooters... and... practice out of sight of kid photographers....

Ignore The Guy In The Green Shirt

This is a cheap attempt to divert attention from the previous blog entry. A pretty good attempt too! Look at Emmett!

Not So Fast

We made a terrible miscalculation on Monday. In spite of Max's seemingly substantial recovery on Sunday, on Monday he seemed a lot more tired. I figured he had probably done a bit too much the day before, but otherwise didn't think much of it. Just thought he was worn out. Feeling the need to get out of the house, and even thinking it would do him good, we went to supper in Annapolis, once there opting to go to the Irish restaurant on Main street, the name of which is escaping me at the moment. It was a little smokey, and I was a little concerned about that, but not enough to stop us from eating there. Max looked very tired and didn't want to eat, but for some inexplicable reason we still just thought he was tired and that was it. After our meal, as we were getting up to leave, Max took one sip of his soda, the only sip he took, and immediately threw up terribly. It was really awful. We felt really, really horrible about having taken him there.

Of course he did feel better after having thrown up. The boys had really wanted to see the boats, it's what they were waiting for, and were pretty upset that we weren't going to be able to, so we made a quick drive by of the docks to get a glimpse of them, but then headed home as fast as we could. Chalk it up as one collosal parental failing, hopefully not to be duplicated. Tuesday Max seemed much better again, and so far so good, but we'll remain a bit cautious over the next several days.

The Ehrlic First Lady was there at the restaurant with us when all this transpired, along with three other important looking people. Bek suggested that perhaps she was the cause of the night's events. The thought of this happening while she was watching gave us a bit of a laugh, which we certainly needed. So thank you Kendel for being present. Are you reading this Great Aunt Mary? This is for you.

Max Weathers The Storm And Fires Back

Max didn't prove to fare too badly with the sickness. For a while he wasn't eating, and he has had diarrhea, but has not thrown up since the first time. He said many times that he was scared of spitting up and he told me that "he had to leave the room" when Emmett was sick and throwing up. I think that may have been a big part of his not eating. I thought he seemed to be looking at food with relish. He was just scared to eat it. We had spaghetti for dinner that night and he said he wished he could eat spaghetti too (it is one of his favorites.) In retrospect I feel a little bad about not having let him have some then, but we were being cautious. I'm not sure he would have eaten it anyway. In any case, Sunday, for lunch, after he first ate some cinamon toast without incident, I heated up the leftover spaghetti for him. He didn't hesitate this time. I think it's safe to say that he relished the meal. He wanted more after it was all gone.

He was very active all day. We played several rounds of Buzz Lightyear (I was Zerg for a while and later I was XR) and Max and Emmett played quite a bit with their trains. Mom-Mom - you would have been proud of the track I built in part with the blue track expansion set you gave Max. It was, I must say, a very fine achievement. I took a picture of it because, well, I had to of course. I don't have the picture here or I'd post it now.

In those Buzz Lightyear games there is a distressing amount of shooting going on, but I try to remember that I played all these shooting games when I was kid too, and look at me now. Moreover, it's hard to tell your kid to say no to guns, when, for example, you get a kick out of the shooting galleries at amusement parks. Especially the one at the incredible Knoebels Grove Amusement Park in Pennsylvania, which isn't one of those light-gun things, it's the real thing: air powered bb guns you use to shoot moving metal "ducks" and other targets. There's something really satisfying about the "PING!" of a downed metal duck. We balked, however, when in seeing that scene from our old Ocean City video when they are riding the politcally incorrect airplanes, Max said, "I didn't like guns then. Now I like guns." If we go to Knoebels, should we steer Max and Emmett away from that shooting gallery? I'll want to play it, of course. Indeed, no trip to Knoebels seems complete without it, but I'll take your suggestions.

The Bud Isn't So Easy To Nip

This morning Max said his stomach hurt and, though he tried, he didn't eat his breakfast like usual. Then he had some diarrhea and needed to lay down. He wasn't going to be able to go to gymnastics. I took Emmett to the class and on the way he said he hoped Max wasn't going to be sick. He hoped he wouldn't be so sick that he had to get a needle in his hand (an IV). He said he didn't like getting a needle in his hand because it hurts. When we arrived at gymnastics, Mrs. Chris saw Emmett without Max and said, "Is Max sick now?" Emmett had a good time in the class. When we got home, sure enough, Max was throwing up. He hasn't thrown up again so far today, but clearly he's got the stomach virus. We'd thought we had nipped this one in the bud. At least Max has more weight to him and he knows better to keep trying to drink, but he says he doesn't like gatorade. Hopefully we can convince him to drink it or pedialyte anyway. The Buzz Lightyear movie had gotten "lost" in the car, which had given Bek some respite from it, but she made an extra effort to find it now that Max is sick. We're on our second viewing today.

A Healthy Appetite

This blog entry is brought to you, possibly unwillingly, by Bek. She wrote:

Today Emmett ate lunch, a meal he generally skips altogether. I watched in amazement as he ate a big slice of heavenly ham, a half piece of butter toast, some yogurt, half box of raisins and some pretzels. Guess he's making up for lost calories.

Yes folks, Emmett is back and better than ever! Will it last? Perhaps he's starting a big growth spurt.

I had been feeling (self-applied) pressure to put up a blog entry, and couldn't think of anything to write when, low and behold, the perfect email arrived, courtesy of my wife. Hope you don't mind my coopting your anecdote, Bek.

Laser Fired Inspiration

I mentioned the DVD we rented for Emmett and Max, "Buzz Lightyear of Star Command - The Adventure Begins". We rented it so Emmett would have something to watch while he was sick. It was difficult to tell if Emmett liked the movie because he was so lethargic and unresponsive, although today, with his dramatic turn around, he did say he liked it. Max has been wildly enthusiastic throughout about the movie and wants to see it over and over again. Moreover, it has inspired him to draw. He hasn't been enthused about drawing, coloring, etc, but two nights ago he became excited about drawing a space ship in outer space. He has been adding and adding to his creation and is very proud of it. That night he took the drawing up to his room along with a crayon, so that in the morning he'd be able to add to it without having to wake Mom or Dad up. Bek thinks the movie is too violent, and she's probably right, but you just can't knock the inspiration to draw that it has created for Max.

I figured the movie was going to just be a cash-in-while-we-can spinoff of Toy Story, but much to my surprise I find that I really enjoy seeing it. Bek has been a harder sell, but I'm working on her. Would I suggest that an adult rent and see the movie? I'm not sure. I can just say that I do enjoy watching it even though I've seen it about 10 times now. Dare I even say that, at least at this point in time, I enjoy it more than either Toy Story or Toy Story 2? Of course I've seen those two movies to death and beyond, so that's a part of it. Still, "Buzz Lighyear of Star Command - The Adventure Begins" has a great sense of humor, much of which might be missed on an initial viewing, especially if you are expecting it to be dreck, and seems to get funnier with each viewing. An example is the great scene where the Little Green Men (LGMs for short) demonstrate their robotic space ranger partner, "XR". XR is shown rather dramatically, but proves to be rather pint-sized, and then the LGMs open fire on him with all kinds of weaponry and... he doesn't somehow resist this firepower, no, XR just sits there and is blown completely to bits. The LGMs then walk up to all the bits and pieces, rebuild him and proclaim, "If Zerg blows him up, we can rebuild him!" And that's their demonstration. I can't do justice to the scene, but perhaps that gives the idea. There's several more layers of humor in that scene which I haven't even tried to describe. The animation (which is not computer animated, incidentally, and that's entirely appropriate for it) is great and the voice acting is fantastic, and anyone fond of William Shatner will appreciate the surprise bonus during the closing credits. Yeah, rent it. Just have some kids around as an excuse.

Max Lightyear Flies Alone?

I drove Max to school this morning (I'm home because Emmett has been pretty awfully sick since last Thursday with a stomach virus, but the continuing sickness story is another blog entry to be written). On the way Max said to me, in not so few words as this was difficult for him to explain, that when he becomes an astronaut, he wants to fly solo in a spaceship. I said to him, "wouldn't you like to have teammates to help out?" Max said, "Well, I don't want to think about that right now. As a kid I have better things to think about, like toys and playing."

He may have gotten this idea from a DVD we rented for him and Emmett, "Buzz Lightyear of Star Command - The Adventure Begins". Or some title like that. In it Buzz (seemingly) losses a partner and then decides he will no longer have a partner because he does't want anyone else to come in harms way as long Evil Emperor Zurg is after him.