"Happy A-Birf-Dee Dawon!"
He also learned to blow by blowing bubbles in the bathtub, enough so he can actually blow out a candle. We lit my candle six times. This picture is precious, especially the detail of my left hand straitjacketing him on the sly, keeping him from reaching for the fire with both hands.
I'm just glad he's feeling better. We spent most of last week waiting out the flu.
By the time the twins woke up on Tuesday morning and started contributing, the Diaper Genie wasn't keeping up and I started piling the diapers in the laundry basket.
Wednesday night I thought Devon was finally over it. I put some plain crackers on his tray, placed a steaming plate of food before Craig, heard a noise, turned around, and--
I know you don't want details.
Craig Lysolled the floor.
I changed Devon's clothes.
We glanced much later at our dinner, frowned, and put it away.
I went to Target with the girls to buy Sprite and Pedialyte. When I got home, Devon was already in bed and Craig was sponging the carpets.
Yep, I can write a blog post like last week's about the joys of service, but I guess I haven't reached the point where I can serve my family joyfully and uncomplainingly 100% of the time. It's good for my pride to be taken down a peg. Sometimes I'm sitting in the pen as my cute, happy children giggle and climb on me. Then I get up and walk across my non-crumbly floors to check dinner in the oven and I sigh and think Take THAT, Virginia Woolf. The Angel of the House is ALIVE and living in Vero Beach!!! I forget that I will never be the mom I desperately want to be without some serious help with my melancholic streak.
This week caught me glumly reading the Imprecatory Psalms and whining O Lord, how long will you allow my wicked, microscopic flu virus foes to rise up against me???
These days tested my firmest resolutions, especially my no-tv-'till-you're-three rule. Parents that let their sick kids lay on the couch and mainline Veggietales until they feel better are getting NO judgment from me. What does one do with a sick child, especially when you have to put him down for several hours a day to clean up the mess?
Devon was wearing a shirt just minutes before I took this picture. That needs no explanation. Yes, those are his ribs. The downside to having a toddler with a six-pack is that when he gets sick his metabolism burns up all his stored energy and he goes from perfect specimen to prairie winter survivor in two hours.
No, this is not Devon watching television. Grammy provided a daily variety show of peekaboo, this-little-piggy, books, and songs over Skype. Sometimes I think her 20+ year teaching career is a dress rehearsal for her magnum opus: being the most creative, thoughtful, dedicated Grammy I could ever imagine.
Devon now thinks the laptop is called "Skype-a-Grammy."
When all else failed, he napped.
The low week came after last weekend's high of another birthday.
No wonder Devon has the song stuck in his head.
(Here is how we try to make the girls smile.)
To celebrate, we had a super-fun trip to the zoo. We've been wanting to go since a month ago, when we visited Smoky Mountain National Park and were charmed by the way that Devon responded to the stuffed animals on display.
"Come heeeeerrrrre!" He called lovingly to the raccoons, bears, and even the skunks, opening his arms to give them some love.
Since then, he's been much more attentive to the presence of animals.
We were hoping that seeing some live ones at the zoo would give Ally Kitty a break. She runs in terror from the force of Devon's love several times a day.
Devon enjoyed seeing the birds
and the grey foxes, even though they were "fweeping."
As always, the girls got a lot of attention. More than some of the animals, I think. Oops.
When Devon was sick this week, Carrie and Melina experienced some turnabout-is-fair-play, having to get by on less of Mommy's time because big brother was more needy. Thankfully, they're almost ten months old and very active. They spent time in the pen ...
and watching through the front windows for Daddy to get home from work.
I'm not the kind of mommy that needs tea and sympathy from the doctor every time one of my kids coughs, but on Thursday I broke down and took the kids to the doctor to see if Devon was getting enough fluids to avoid bigger problems. An anti-nausea chewable made Devon snap instantly out of it.
I spent nine hours disinfecting the house on my birthday, but I choose not to look at it that way. I say I gave myself the gift of a clean and germ-free house. Two days later the tips of my fingers still burn a bit when I touch my kitchen counters, and the acrid tang of bleach is just starting to leave the air.
It's now the fashion for cleaning supplies to have new interesting scents. I admit I'm not a fan. I accidentally bought a bottle of toilet bowl cleaner that smells like melons, and I can't wait to use it up and go back to the old, chalky mint stuff. I don't want my toilet to smell good enough to eat. I want it to smell like somebody just cleaned it, especially since I caught Devon pitching his bath toys into it on Friday.
While I cleaned, the kids amused each other. Our household experienced an almost audible click right before Devon got sick, the sound of something falling into place.
I need to start calling my kids "The Pack". My old nickname for them was "The Crew", ever since my two-week-post-C appointment when the doctor, used to Devon following me everywhere as he examined the twins in utero, blinked at me and asked "Where is the crew?"
My kids play together! From wake-up time to nap times they bounce around the house, girls spinning circles around Devon like electrons around a nucleus. Most of the time, they do this safely enough that I can keep an eye on them and also devote half my attention to other things that need to be done.
They go from room to room, but somehow seem to prefer the bathroom. They surround the toilet, beating on the closed lid like a bongo drum.
I'm not sure why this is more fun than the drum and instrument set they have. Trust me, it is.
I smile to myself and say "This is it!!!"
This is why we had kids close together, not to "get it over with", as we frequently hear. (Do some people really think that having small kids in the house is awful and best done quickly, like ripping off a band-aid or having your husband murder the king of Scotland so he can seize the throne and you can become queen?) My only complaint about my family is that I feel the sweet baby stage slipping away, and it hurts because sometimes I feel it's gone too fast. I find myself canceling my to-do list and resting with Melina in the late afternoons when I'd otherwise have alone time, laying her over my chest like a dressing on a wound. Something about an inert little body curling against mine and a puff of baby breath on my neck makes me forgive all the world's injustice and hardship and pause in awe of its sweetness again. So far, having kids is the best decision we ever made, especially the choice to give them the gift of siblings.
"Where are the sisters? Where did the babies go?" asks Devon every morning as I go in to get him out of his crib. If they're already up with me, they round the corner and crawl into the room towards him, gliding like speed skaters to reach him quickly and pull up on his crib.
"Babies in the pen!" "Huggin' the sissies!" "Carrie-Ina touch my head..." he starts, reciting a list of all the things he wants to do with them.
Their love is my best gift ever!
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