Anybody smoke?

We had Andy's birthday party yesterday and it all went swimmingly except that I forgot the matches. And in this day and age, no one smokes so there were no candles lit to blow out. I think I was most disappointed.

We did it at the gymnastics place where he takes lessons. We invited the boys from his class and a few other boys he knows outside of school, making it an all sausage fest. There were 12 kids total. It's so hard trying to keep the numbers for these somewhat manageable. Between 20 kids in his class and all his (well, my friends' kids), I easily could have invited 50 kids. As it was, we kept it to just boys and then just boys aged four to six. If I'd gone any younger, they wouldn't have gotten to do all the fun stuff.

Overall it went well. They did gymnastics stuff for an hour on the trampoline, on an obstacle course and in the pit. They even let them do a little on the rings. Andy got to the the line leader for the whole party. I think that may have been just as thrilling. He actually loved it. He can get a little shy in these situations, but not this time. He was even pretty gracious, well, except where he lorded his line-leader status to the other kids. Otherwise, he was a great sport.

The whole thing lasted about and hour and a half. Pretty good. To remember for next year 1) parents always show up early to these things. Even though we got there about 10 minutes early (they had said no more than 15), two sets of parents were pulling up as we were unloading, 2) bring matches.

A cool side note, he got several sets of legos. I personally love legos. I played with them as a kid and I'm thrilled Andy's old enough for the real ones. The downside? Damnit if it doesn't take 45 minutes to put together a car what with 200 pieces, 100 of which are the size of an earring back.

Seriously?

It's barely September and the fall/winter illnesses are swirling through my house like it's Halloween and we've got the good candy. Last week, I got home from an event Thursday night feeling a little feverish and weird so I took two Benadryl and went to bed. Then in the morning my throat hurt a little, but by rotating Tylenol and Advil all day, I felt okay. By yesterday morning, my lymph nodes hurt like they did last year when I had strep. So I was smart, called my GP and had him call in a prescription for antibiotics. Let's hope that does the trick.

Andy had his first gymnastics class yesterday. There are two little girls in the class and they spent time jumping on the trampoline, jumping on the springboard, walking on the balance beam and doing a mini-Ninja Warrior course. It was all quite cute. He even got TWO hand stamps on the way out. He was rather pumped about that.

Not cute was the fever he spiked around lunch time. He simply fell asleep on the sofa around 12:30, unheard of for him to do that really. Bjorn carried him upstairs and Andy napped for a couple of hours. He woke up groggy and I think the only reason he did was he peed through his Pull-up and he was wet. All afternoon he just wasn't quite himself. Around 8ish, we negotiated how many more minutes he wanted to play. His answer "One hundred!" My answer, "Five." We settled on 10, but about two minutes in, he said he was tired so I took him up to bed. Also unheard of.

Meg has been a little warm off and on all weekend although Bjorn and I disagree on what constitutes warm and he's always telling me after the fact that he gave her a little Tylenol. I definitely think her teeth are coming in although I still don't feel anything.

Meanwhile, I'm pissed about this whole series of illnesses. I have really been trying hard -- I've been wiping toys and counters down with antibacterial wipes, toys are going in the dishwasher 100 percent more (i.e. I didn't do it at all before), I'm making a real effort to make sure I wash my hands every time I could some close to handling a bottle, food, a diaper or helping Andy in the bathroom. I'm also really working with Andy making sure he washes his hands more often. So explain to me why despite all this, everyone is still sick? I feel sort of like George Costanza - do I need to do the opposite of what I think is right and then everything will be fine? Any of you parenting veterans have any advice?

Oh, and to top off the weirdness of the weekend, we got 9 inches of rain in Fairfax yesterday as Tropical Storm Hanna blew threw the area, closing a number of the roads near us with low-lying creeks. I took some pictures of the creek near us. It was pretty cool.

Apu

Andy has trouble with Vs. Instead of saying "very," it tends to come out "wery." Naturally, it just cracks me up. "I've been a wery good boy, Mommy." It's almost as if he has a slight Indian accent the way he talks sometimes -- he says elelator with an L instead of elevator with a V. Sooner or later, his tongue will let him say exactly what he wants or else the peer pressure from his friends will make him conscious enough of the difference that he is conscious enough of it to fix it. For now, I'm just going to enjoy it.

Andy is also quite excited about the Olympics (although he pronounces it the Lym-pics). He wants to get big and run to the finish line. An admirable goal. With his excitement in sports, I also took this as a good opportunity to sign him up for gymnastics for the fall. He says he wants to learn the rings and the bars, but I have a feeling they're just going to do some tumbling. I think he's going to really love it.