Bathtime: as Heard from My Bed

Elena: “Oh, Mom!”
Riddick: “Mim!”
Em: “What?”
Riddick: “Mim!”
Elena: “Oh, Mom!”
Em: “What honey!”
Elena: “Oh, I fordot to pee adin!”
Em: “Well, that’s okay…”
Riddick: “Mim!”
Em: “It looks like your brother did too…”
Riddick: “O’no!”
Elena: “OOOOO!”
Em: “Don’t worry about it”
Riddick: “Mim!”
Em: “What?”
Riddick: “I’ha!”
Elena: “Mom!”
Em: “What’s hot?”
Riddick: “I’ha!”
Em: “Yes, the water’s hot…”
Elena: “Mom!”
Em: “What honey?!”
Elena: “His butt!”
Riddick: “Mim!”
Em: “What?”
Riddick: “Poop tum out?”
Em: “Yes, that’s where your poop comes out but you don’t want to touch it, you just need to wash it.”
Riddick: “Poop tum out!”
Em: “Get your finger out of your butt!”
Elena: “Mom!”
Em: “Here…”
Elena: “Mom!”
Em: “What? Hey! Leave your pee-pee alone!”
Elena: “OOOOOO! He peed!”
Em: “He did not pee!”
Elena: “OOOOOO!”
Em: “He peed when he got in like you did!”
Riddick: “Boohoohoohoo!”
Em: “Hang on! You’re almost done!”
Elena: “Mom.”
Riddick: “BWAAAAAH!”
Em: “What?”
Elena: “Look!”
Em: “Uh, huh.”
Elena: “I did it myself!”
Em: “Mmm-hmm.”
Riddick: “Mim!!!”
Em: “What, honey?”
Riddick: “No-nut!”
Em: “Yes, that’s a donut.”
Riddick: “No-nut!”
Em: “Alright, you’re done. Come on, let’s go see your dad…Elena, please stop!”
Elena: “Am I all clean?”
Em: “No, you still have to wash your hair.”
Riddick:”H-d-d-d-d-d…”
Em: “Here….here’s your Dad.”
Riddick: “Dahdeee!”
Me: “Hi, Riddick!”
Riddick: “Aaahhssheeewwww!”
Me: “Thanks for sneezing on me Riddick.”
Riddick: “Dahdeeee!”
Me: “What Riddick?”
Riddick: “Dah boo boo?”
Me: “No, that’s my belly button.”
Elena: “Mom!”
Em: “What Elena?”
Elena: “I’m washing my pony’s hair.”
Riddick: “Dah boo boo?”
Me: “No honey, that’s my belly button.”
Riddick: “Oh. Dah baby?”
Me: “Ah, no.”
Riddick: “Dah baby!”
Me: “Ah, yes…that my booby.”
Elena: “Mom! I dot a red butt!”
Em: “No, you’re fine.”
Riddick: “Wobwobwobwobwob” (with a toy cup placed to his mouth)
Em: “Alright, that’s it”
Elena: “NOOOO!”
Riddick: “Wobwobwobwobwob”
Em: “Come on”
Elena: “NOOOO! I forgot to wash her hair!”
Em: “It’ll be fine.”
Elena: “No it won’t be fine!”
Em: “Come on.”
Elena: “No it won’t be fine!”
Em: “Do we yell like that?”
Elena: “AAAA!”
Em: “Come on.”
Elena: “AAAAA!”
Em: “Let’s go.”
Elena: “Mom.”
Em: “What?”
Elena: “I dot duh wahder in my mouth and I spit it out!”
Em: “Well, we don’t spit water on the floor.”
Elena: “But dat’s duh spit take!”
Em: “Well, we don’t do that.”
Elena: “But I, Tarly does it!”
Em: “Well, we don’t. Now let’s go to bed.”
Elena: “Rot an Roll!!!”

JOURNAL ENTRY 04/28/09 - Thirty-Five and Going to School

Sometimes I write things on my laptop when on occasion I don't have my journal with me. I just came across this tonight, as I was cleaning up some directories. It's pretty recent and meaningful to me personally, so I thought I'd go ahead and post it here.

I was at the point of utter exhaustion. I had not slept the night before and had only three hours from the night before that. My limbs did not feel as though they were my own. As I sat down just minutes before, a feeling of extreme sadness came over me. I thought, “I have been to this library dozens of times, but now it is ruined because I brought my children here just once. For now as I sit here alone, I realize that I do not hear my children’s laughter. In such a state I reluctantly opened my backpack to retrieve two binders that were returned to me about half an hour before by my instructor. One was my resource file, and the other was my book summaries. I slowly opened my resource file first, looking for a foreign article of paper that would show my grade to me. It was red, and on it was written the letter A. This came as a pleasant surprise. At least it would in some way counter the dismal grade I would receive for my book summaries. I then very carefully opened the second binder. Taped to the inside cover was the page with the genre matrix. On it was written the letter A in red ink in a red cloud. I missed two out of one hundred and sixty, which calculated to ninety-nine percent. My instructor wrote, “Well organized! You have created a great resource for your classroom! Your well written summaries & varied activities will make this a priceless tool in your class! =)” Attached was a red certificate with a squirrel smiling beside an apple which read, “The BIG RED APPLE DIPLOMA is presented to Derek Cook”, dated and signed. I began to shake with sobs starting to gestate deep within me. I covered my mouth to suppress any sound that might try to be birthed. I controlled myself and looked through the window on my left and out at the exterior window in the lobby, covered in millions of droplets of rain. It was such a wet day, and I was exhausted. I really missed my babies.

Riddick Has Shed the Penguin!

Today was a much better day for Riddick, praise the Lord! He is not on oxygen anymore and is doing very well for a two-year-old that has basically laid in the same position for over 36 hours. He ate a little more today than he did yesterday, but that really isn't saying much considering how little he ate. However, Emily is not worried about it, so I trust her judgement. Really, the only problem he had all day, or so it seemed during my watches, was that he constantly crimped his IV by accident. This would set off a beeping alarm that had to be reset by staff. This got old after a while, but other than the slight annoyance, it did him no harm. Finally, when Emily arrived this evening she redid the way it ran up his arm and fixed the problem. Elena got to spend the morning with him before we went to her pre-K to kindergarten celebration, and then she along with Allie and Rohan got to watch a movie with him this evening before we left. We didn't make a big deal out of goodbyes and just quietly left the room. I talked to Emily this evening, and she said that she had given him a bath, and he was happily playing with toys. She wanted to spend the night with him again, and I know that at the end of the day, it's the mommy that matters most. We're really optimistic that he will be able to come home tomorrow, and I can't wait to see him run around the house again.

I do want to thank everyone for all of the prayers, the visits, the well wishes, and gifts for Riddick. They have meant a lot to us, and you've made his stay away from home much more comfortable than you'll ever know. We love all of you, and God bless!

Riddick in the Hospital

I hated leaving Riddick tonight. Emily is with him, but he is still too young to understand why he has to stay there, and why his Daddy, brother and sisters left him. He hates having his oxygen mask on, so that is the real reason why he worked himself up into a crying fit. Then we had to leave, because I needed to get the other kids home to do homework and go to bed. That's when he started calling my name and reaching for me. I picked him up, and I guess he thought he was going to go with us, because he started to tug at his IV. Emily took him and sat back down on the bed. Then he started calling for Allie and Rohan. He was just screaming. It was heart-wrenching to leave. I hate it. It'll be my turn to stay tomorrow night if he has to stay another night. I pray that he doesn't and that he gets to come home. At least they have officially diagnosed this as an asthma attack, so he can start being treated. For the last year he has had these attacks almost every five to six weeks, and they either say that it's seasonal allergies or pneumonia. Now he'll begin to use a steroid inhaler to hopefully stave off these episodes. I just pray that he gets some sleep tonight and that his O2 levels return to normal.

The Storm

Things are finally getting back to normal around our house after dealing with the storm that was oddly tagged an inland hurricane, or derecho storm, depending on which side of the proverbial storm fence you're sitting on. There were gusts of wind with speeds of over 100 mph recorded, and the wind was sustained for well over half an hour. It's hard to find official reports, but those figures are conservatively based on what I've been reading online through blogs and local news agencies. In other words, a lot of wind for a long amount of time causing a lot of damage.

When the storm hit, Emily was at JALC, Rohan and Allie were at school, and I was home with Elena and Riddick. When the first part of the system came through, the storm sirens went off a couple of times, but like most storms that pass through, it's kind of like the boy who cried wolf. I think a lot of us that remember the tornado from '82 almost feel rather indifferent to storms in general, like we've been there and done that. So, after listening to some reports on W3D, and after the sirens ceased, I decided to put Riddick down for a nap. I also crashed for a short nap while Elena watched a movie. I awoke a short time later to the sounds of wind moreso than any sirens. Come to think of it, I have no recollection of any more sirens. All I could hear was wind. The door to our sleeper porch was open, and I could see the tops of all of the trees just flapping violently about like you see in hurricane video clips. Then I saw a very large branch fly through the air in perfect horizontal plane. That's when I new that things were definitely much worse than I had presumed. I quickly put on my sandals, and shouted for Elena to go the basement. She didn't really like the idea, because it was dark. I don't think it had registered with me yet that there was no power. I was still just aware of the sound of wind everywhere. Now mind you, I had no idea that this was a constant wave of wind. Around here the worst case scenario is a tornado, so that is what I thought was happening. I grabbed Riddick from his bed (which shocked the poor guy, because he was in a deep sleep), ran downstairs, and rushed the two kids down to the basement. I quickly opened up some lawn chairs for the kids to sit in and told them to sit tight while I ran back upstairs to get some stuff.

I knew that if things got really bad, as in our house being hit by a tornado, I wanted to be in pants and work boots and not shorts and sandals. For all I knew, I might have had to tear through wreckage to get my children out alive. I ran upstairs and stopped in the kitchen to look out of our breakfast nook windows just to see if I could see anything. I noticed that our neighbor's trellis had blown over across our sidewalk near our garage. I was just thinking about how that was a shame when our white vinyl fence panel exploded and disappeared. I didn't realize that I had just witnessed our neighbor Dale's tree coming down. I was certain that that was it --a tornado was upon us. I sprinted up the stairs, grabbed some jeans and my boots, and bolted back to the basement. I dropped the clothes to the floor, picked up my kids, sat down with them on my lap, and started praying out loud. I'm not for sure how much time passed before I decided to go check things out...probably about fifteen or twenty minutes, at least. Once again, I sat the kids in their chairs and then went upstairs to observe what might be seen. It wasn't long before I discovered that Dale's tree had fallen parallel with our house, blocking our back door. I also found that that our tree to the east had fallen against our neighbor Steve's house. I then ran up to my room to get a bird's eye view of what had happened, and like every idiot out there, I grabbed my camera. I filmed a very short video clip in which you can tell that my emotions were somewhat frazzled. Viewing it now, it seems a little cheesy, but at the time I wasn't much worried about how I sounded. I still didn't know what had just hit us, but I knew that we were still still alive, praise God. After my quick filming, I ran back to the basement and brought the kids up to the living room as things outside seemed to be settling down.

I guess pretty soon thereafter, since the windows were open I was aware that all of the neighbors had started to come out of their houses. I had been trying to call Emily and my parents, but the netword was dead. I went out front and got a good look at some of the damage down the street. There were trees down in almost every yard. Soon, Emily arrived with Allie and told me that I would have to walk to Washington School to get Rohan because there were trees and power lines down, preventing auto traffic from getting to the school. After I brought Rohan home I walked around outside for a bit taking pictures for insurance sake, not really knowing what would be needed. I found that that when Dale's tree came down, it blew through the vinyl fence, punched a hole in our roof above the sleeper porch, smashed some guttering, tore down our power service, smashed our vinyl patio fence, put some hurt on our gas grill, and busted through some lattice underneath our breakfast nook. Other than that, a window in Elena and Riddick's room broke, and some soffit and guttering came down. It all could have been much, much worse. After we got the kids settled down, I really wanted to get a way to the back door cleared, so with the cell network back up and running, I called my dad and asked him to bring over his chainsaw. While I waited for him to run the labyrinth of downed trees and closed streets, I was recruited to board up a second storey window of a neighbor who was out of town. After that job was finished, my dad had already gotten to our house, so I started in on the tree. Emily's dad showed up with a chainsaw as well and joined me in work. A little bit later, our neighbors, the Johnsons, came over and helped remove the refuse as we were cutting. Soon, we had the tree cut down to the main trunk which was across our sidewalk. What really saddens me is that it was a beautiful tulip tree, and we'll sorely miss it.

After the storm we were without power for six evenings. It was a test of mild inovations, but a healthy exercise in modern day domestic survival to be sure. Looking back, I'm rather ashamed at all of the modern conveniences that we find ourselves dependent upon, even if we're talking about hot water. For our part, we were fortunate that the gas grill was still operable, as the hood was just dented and cracked from the downed tree. We used it to cook all of our meals and to boil water on the side burner for baths. We used oil lanterns and candles for lighting at night. In the beginning, we iced most of our food down in a cooler, and also had some bags of ice thrown in the fridge and freezer for damage control. Later, after Dale's power came back on, we ran an extension cord from his house to the fridge. All in all, we lost about half of our food, so again it could have been a lot worse. Also, I had interent access through my cell phone. Our days and evenings with the kids were spent either cleaning the yard, or reading and playing board games. On that note, I will say that Rohan is the luckiest person I have ever played Monopoly against. For the record: It wasn't that much fun. I almost felt like B.B. Thorton playing the Kid in a game of checkers in Bad Santa. Also, the children lamented having to hand wash dishes, and course we felt no sympathy toward their plight. It was one of those character building moments that we parents are so fond of orchestrating. I'll admit that our patience was wearing thin by the time we finally had our power restored. We were one of the last in our neighborhood, because the rigid conduit had actually been ripped from the meter base. The power company had our line reconnected to the house the day after the storm, but it was several more days before the electrician could repair the damage on our end. Then we had to wait for the power company to come back and make the connection. I think it was the most annoying when we were still using oil lamps while the neighbors across the alley were throwing a party with loud music.

It's been a lot of work, but we were very blessed that our house was spared any major damage. I went down to New Orleans with a group from our church to help a family rebuild their home after Katrina, so I've witnessed catastrophic storm damage, and ours didn't even come close. Yet, there are some in southern Illinois that did lose their homes. My dad told me a story tonight of driving past the remains of a house trailer, seeing a guy sitting in a chair in what remained of his living room, surrounded by his possessions, just staring at the floor. So yeah, we were very blessed and fortunate. I took cold showers, ate a lot of hot dogs, burgers, and brats, suffered through pummelings from Rohan the Monopoly tycoon, got a wretched sore back from hauling tree refuse to the street, and got a ton of sleep. It wasn't much different than camping. Very, very, very fortunate indeed.

Our pwr bills would be a lot less if we went dark ages more often. Food can hold in the fridge 4 48 hrs; evry othr day hit the main beaker & pwr bill cut n hlf.

I was in the kitchen digging around for ice in the cooler when Elena joined me and said, "We can't see the ice cubes because of the darkness, right daddy?"

The rain is definitely coming down hard outside. We have our door open to the sleeper porch which makes it all the more enjoyable. I love weather like this at night. However, our tropical rain forest out back doesn't need any more encouragement. It's already going to be a nightmare trying to mow it.

On another note, my last final exam was today. It was just early world civ, so it was all short essay stuff about the roll of religion in early empires as means of control of society and its impact on cultural diffusion. I also finished tweaking my el ed gateway portfolio on LiveText tonight. I'm not really for sure about term deadlines for the artifacts, but I thought I might as well spruce it up before the week was out.

I'm just thrilled that I have the next four weeks off to get our house back in order. Who knows? Maybe I'll be able to get as far as paint the breakfast nook and touch up battle scars around the rest of the house where mayhem has left its mark. We've also got soffit falling down in a couple of areas and birds have alread moved in. I'm going to have to do some evicting.

Speak of which --Joe's uncle, who is in charge of Joe's grandmother's house, had sent word via Joe's mom that we had to move our stuff out of the basement. No good reason really. There was a pending sale that fell though, due to failed home inspection, so Joe thinks that he is just venting his frustrations out on us. Thus ends our run at possibly the nicest rehearsal space that we've been privey to. We knew it would only be a matter of time, but it couldn't have come at a more inconvenient time. I had cancelled all practices for the last several weeks, since the end of the semester proved to be quite heavy in its work load, so we were looking forward to getting some quality session time in during this four week intersession. And now we're dead in the water. It's just one of those things that will eventually work itself out. A solution always presents itself --it's just that last time it took almost four years.

Wow it's really raining hard outside.

I'm going to go to bed.

Elena, Baby Slimers, and Sliders

So I was walking through the kitchen to the breakfast nook with some freshly nuked White Castle burgers. I know that sounds extremely healthy and appetizing, but they're the first I've bought at the super market in almost two years --guilty pleasure, and since I know how nasty they are for my consitution and overall well-being, I'm very much aware when I bought them last. Anyway, Elena came walking along with Rohan's "The Big Book of Reptiles" with the dust jacket dragging, as I swear the book is almost as big as she is.

She said, "Daddy, there are some baby ones in here and they are soooo cute!"

"Baby what?" I asked.

"These lizaaaards in heeeere! Duh?!" she replied as she rolled her eyes at me.

I picked up the book as I sat my White Castles on the table. I looked at the picture and it looked like an earthworm with a little head and two small appendages protruding from the neck area...that is, if it had a neck area.

"This thing?" I asked. "That's disgusting!"

"No it's not! It's just a baby and it's super cute!"

I looked at her and wondered what type of "-ologist" worked with amphibians, because they needed to petition my four-year-old to join their ranks. Imagine the grant money they could procure with her charm?

She pulled the book away from me and held it sideways, like a navy crewman admiring a new pin-up during The Big One, and squealed, "You are so, so cute!!!" Then she gave me a sidelong look, glanced over at my three-hundred calorie gut bombs and said, "We need that one thing that Rohan likes on t.v. to make sliders."

"The what?" I asked, because even though I do my best to decipher everything that comes out of my children's mouths, I am sometimes outmatched by their superior cultural lexicon.

"The sliders, Dad!"

"You mean this sandwich?"

"No! The pan!"

"Oh. Oh yeaaah! The thing that makes, umm...sliders. Sure, I get it. Yeah. I mean, no. No, we don't need that."

Elena rolled her eyes again, shook her head, smiled once more at the mini-God Emperor of Dune, and walked out of the room. I sat for a second in her wake, then whistled for Max. His promptness was rewarded with White Castles. Then I ate some Yoplait --Blackberry Pomegranate to be exact.

Rather insignificant day.

Went to my niece's birthday party. It was nice to see some of Em's family and some friends, since we really don't get out much. Someone blew up a lot of balloons for the kids to beat each other with. That got kind of loud. VH1 Classic was playing a one hit wonders show. Midnight Oil a one hit wonder? I didn't really agree with that one.

Riddick's allergies are getting the best of him. His eyes are always so swollen, and he coughs incessantly. I'm amazed he didn't lurch all over the place during dinner tonight.

Grocery shopped, so I'm stocked up on yogurt once again. I was starting to run low, so panic was soon to set in. :0

Allie made the jr. high pom-pon squad. She found out on Thursday night. She's still on cloud 9 and has been stretching and dancing around to music in her head ever since. We're so happy for her. I don't know how she would have dealt with another rejection.

I can hear Emily watching L&O: CI.

Working on some shows for the late summer and early fall. Even some acoustic ones coming up. We need to get the rehearsal space situation squared away, so we can start working again.

Finals week is here. Once they're out of the way, and hopefully if it dries up (someday) I'm going to get back to skating. It's been several weeks. The workload at the end of this semester has been grueling. I think I did three all-nighters, and a great many nights where I only got a couple of hours of sleep. I'm really not built for that at 35.

Darn that VH1. I can't get "Come on Eileen" out of my head.

I'm going to start transferring my MySpace blogs from the past couple of years just for the hey of it. Dinner is almost ready, the kids are going crazy with the dogs, so I'm not getting much work done anyway.

I haven't blogged in years, but I thought I'd start it back up. I actually keep a journal, mainly because I think there is still something to be said about a person's handwriting. So within the binding of my journals will always be words that only my children will read someday after I'm gone. For the rest of the world there is this.

So tonight, or rather last night, as it is now after one in the morning. Elena is spending the night with her cousin Sydney. It is the first time she has ever been away from Riddick, and he was not very happy about. The poor little guy was still asking about "Nonni" when he went to bed, as they sleep in bunk beds together. Like most every night, he'll come into our room around three, so I guess I need to get to bed so I get some sleep without little feet kicking me.