To my firstborn who is 10

Dear Greyson,

You are now a decade old or, as you told Grandma Phillips the other night on the phone, double-digits. I know we're always saying that we can't believe how old/tall/smart/etc. you are, but 10 years is definitely a milestone that requires me to say, "I can't believe it's been 10 years since you were born!" Moms have to do that, you know. Besides the fact that your birth was the first one we experienced as parents, it was also quite eventful and, I think, says a lot about who you are. After a very uneventful pregnancy, you arrived six weeks early - very tiny (4 lbs 11 oz), quite calm, and perfectly healthy. You're still definitely on the small size for your age, still quite calm in personality, and you have not had any medical issues since being a little jaundiced after you were born. You also like to be first.

Once we brought you home, you quickly let us know that you were HUNGRY and needed more food to catch up in size, and that has not changed over time. Not only do you have a healthy appetite, you are one of the least picky eaters I know. You are willing to try nearly anything and like all kinds of foods that other children your age do not. Because of that, and the fact that you were a pretty easy child once you got past the colicky phase, we gained a lot of confidence in our parenting skills. It turns out our influence probably only accounts for 25% of your amazingness (your brother showed us how little control we really have over our children), but we appreciate that you let us think it was us for nearly five years.

Because I grew up with only brothers, and most of the women in my family had a girl first, I was pretty convinced that you would be a girl. After I got over the surprise that you weren't, I was amazed at how instantaneously and fiercely I fell in love with you. Maybe it was the hormones, but when the nurse brought you to me so I could see you before they whisked you to the NICU, I immediately felt like you were mine and I KNEW you, and I would have done anything for you right then. It was incredibly hard to be away from you while the medical people checked you out. (Your dad must have felt the same way, because he defied the nurse's orders and followed you to the NICU - leaving me in recovery to stare at the walls!) And from that day forward, you and I have had a special bond that got us through your dad's deployments and makes me still want to spend time just with you. And you showed me how great it is to be a mom of a boy - sons love their mothers quite fiercely, and I've been the happy recipient of countless hugs and kisses and "I need Mom"s. I know there will be big changes in our relationship over the next 10 years, but I hope the foundation of the first 10 helps to make it less traumatic for both of us.

So, who is this 10 year old Greyson? You are usually very kind to your brother, playing with him and letting him do things first or instead of you. Until you've had enough and the self-preservation kicks in, which is understandable. You are a good friend and get along with pretty much everyone you meet. Your teachers always tell us what a joy you are to have in the classroom, and that makes your dad and me happier than any good grade you might bring home. You are lucky that being easy-going and considerate comes naturally to you. You also are very responsible and tend to be cautious, and you rarely do anything on purpose that will get you into trouble. You like sports but don't really enjoy playing them competitively, reading, math and logic problems, playing board games and video games, wrestling, doing pretty much anything with your cousins, and building things from Legos that can be used to fight.

Your biggest issue is not focusing/listening, especially to your parents, mostly because you are distracted by a book or a video game. And you have a bizarre aversion to closing your dresser drawers. On any given day, I can walk into your room and find at least three hanging open, sometimes to the point that they are about to fall out of the dresser. But that is nothing compared to the whining. I think hearing you whine about something inconsequential (which is 90% of the cause of your whining), causes nerves in my brain to crash into each other and then explode, and I just cannot deal with it rationally. Which doesn't help you to stop whining, of course. We'll both have to work on that this coming year.

As much as I miss the little Greyson who has been my buddy and shadow, I am truly looking forward to watching you continue to grow and mature, because I think you will be amazing at every age.

Love,
Mom

A tribute to Earth Day

Whoever planned the first Earth Day was right on in picking a mid-spring date, because at least around here everyone is enjoying the earth (and sun) to its fullest after being cooped up for 5 months. Coincidentally, all the factors aligned perfectly for me to bike to (and from - that's kind of necessary) work on Wednesday. Those factors include: no rain in the forecast, not too cold or hot, and no reason that I have to be anywhere at a certain time or look my best. I do carry a change of clothes, but there's no place to take a shower except the gym across campus, and if I'm going there for a shower, I might as well take advantage of the facilities and not bother with the bike ride. As you can imagine, I only end up doing this a handful of times in a year.

One of the reasons biking works for me is that it's mostly downhill on the way there, so I get excited for the trip and fell exhilarated after it, and then I'm stuck there and am forced to do the reverse route in order to get home. If it were the other way around, I'm not sure I'd ever get up the gumption to start the process. Just so you know what I'm talking about, here are the elevations of my almost 6 mile route thanks to gmaps pedometer:

I couldn't get it all in one picture, but you get the idea. That's a 320ft difference in elevation, which is only slightly shorter than a football field stood on its end. And that first hill really is a doozy. If I make it up that without having to stop or nearly passing out, then I know I'll be OK the rest of the way home.

-------------------------------------------------------------

I turned on the TV Wednesday evening hoping to find something entertaining to watch while folding clothes and ended up catching the documentary, Food, Inc., on PBS and being alternately mesmerized and horrified.  I think I need to watch it every time I get ready to go to the grocery store or a restaurant. I've already seen Super Size Me and now limit myself and the kids to very few fast food items on the infrequent visits we make to those restaurants. We also have been paying much better attention to the corn syrup-related ingredients in processed foods along with the trans fats issue, and we had already switched to mostly grass-fed meat products. However, thanks to watching Food, Inc., I've decided we're going cold turkey (so to speak) and switching totally to free-range, grass-fed, local, etc. meats. Luckily, we live somewhere where it is relatively easy to do this, even if it's more expensive. And I expect a positive result to be that we end up eating less meat anyway because it will cost more and be a little harder to obtain. We'll see how this all goes, and I'll try to post occasionally about our progress. I am seriously thinking of posting recipes/menus that are successes at our house, just so that I can have a good reference for the healthy meals the kids also enjoy, so maybe I'll tie those in together. And post pictures.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Greyson's 10th birthday is Monday, which means that 10 years ago today I was just coming up on 34 weeks of an uneventful pregnancy and 10 years ago tomorrow evening everything went a little crazy and changed my life pretty thoroughly. I'll post about all that and with current pictures next week.

A guide for beyond the toddler years

Is there a "What to Expect, The Preteen Years"? Because I'd like to know if the signs I'm seeing in Greyson are age-appropriate, and what I should be ready for next, and how to deal with them all. The first big sign was that we had "the talk" with him recently. Well, actually Dan had the talk and I answered follow-up questions. And got books out of the library. And answered more questions. Now we're talking about what those 4-letter words that he knows but isn't supposed to say really refer to and why they're "bad" words, which has actually made things a little easier. Greyson is generally good about following the rules if he understands why they exist.
But that's not what started me thinking about this topic. It's the teen lingo that's starting to enter his vocabulary that made me realize we're not in pure child-land anymore. We were playing the Wii this weekend, and whenever Greyson got a strike in bowling he said, "Booyah!" I actually like that word, but I was surprised to hear him say it. The other thing he said to me, when I was explaining something to him, was "Whatevs." I think he expected me to react, and when I didn't, he repeated it and then moved on. But it's getting harder and harder for me to not react, so it would really be nice to have some kind of guide to prep me for these small milestones, and I really thing the What to Expect people should jump right on this.

On a completely unrelated note, the DQ Blizzard is celebrating 25 years in existence, and I realized that I remember clearly when they first came out because I was 15 and a good friend of mine worked at DQ and gave us extra-large portions. But what shocked me was the realization that I was already a teenager 25 years ago. Gah.

And on another completely unrelated note, here's a photo of the Turner males putting together the Little Tikes basketball hoop we got to replace the one that had been mounted on the old garage. Their color coordination is a complete coincidence, although it's not that unlikely since all males' clothing seems to be the same basic colors and styles no matter what their age.

The latest obsession

One member of our family has a borderline unhealthy infatuation with all things Star Wars. Care to guess which one? Here's a visual clue for you:All Reece's previous drawings of people have involved family members, so I assumed this picture depicted each of us holding a light saber. However, he quickly informed me that it represents the major fighters, both good and evil, from Star Wars. Quite a happy bunch, aren't they? Except for the one in the middle, who Reece says is a beheaded Darth Vader. And just in case you can't tell (or aren't up on the minutia of all things Star Wars), the three with heads on the left are Darth Maul (with the red double light saber), Mace Windu (purple) and Obi-Wan Kenobi (the young version). The green one is Luke, but I can't remember who the other evil one is - maybe Count Dukoo or that Palpatine guy who becomes the emperor. I'm really pretty clueless. Which I keep reiterating to Reece whenever he asks me some obscure question from one of the movies. I've only seen 4 of the 6, and I'm not known for my attention to detail in the first place. We have let him see A New Beginning (the first one we all saw in the 70's, now known as #4) and Return of the Jedi, but he's not seeing anymore until he's at least a few years older. And by then, maybe he'll be beyond the fanaticism anyway. Please??

I'm expecting the locusts any day now

It's been a little crazy around here since my last post. Specifically, for about a week it felt like we were working our way through a health (or disease) version of the biblical plagues. I don't know what we did to make Yahweh mad, and I really don't think we're keeping any peoples in exile, but the fact that this coincided with Passover was quite suggestive.

Very late that Thursday (or very early that Friday - I don't know, suffice it to say that it was sometime during the very deep sleep portion of the night), we were all awakened to the sound of Reece being sick. In Greyson's bed. And all along the way from there to the doorway where I met him, picked him up, and carried him to stand in front of the toilet. I'll spare you the gory details, but Dan and I spent the next hour cleaning up, including changing the sheets and covers on Greyson's bed.We knew Reece wouldn't be going to school Friday, and that's Dan's half-day anyway, so we planned that I would go in to work in the morning and get home in time for Dan to leave about 12:30. However, I woke up feeling sick and ended up spending the rest of the day in bed while a chipper Reece bopped from computer to Wii to watching TV. Dan picked up Greyson and handled the kids the rest of the evening, because we knew I had to be mobile for Saturday when we had Greyson's birthday party. (For those of you who know when Greyson was born and are now confused, we had the party a month early because there was a special Star Wars weekend at a local laser tag place, and half of the proceeds went to the Make-a-Wish foundation.)
I didn't eat much on Saturday but did feel well enough to handle the party, and we transported three of Greyson's friends and met two others and his cousins at laser tag at 1pm. Everyone, including Dan and Nat but not Reece and me (he wasn't old enough, so someone had to stay with him), played laser tag with the Star Wars characters for 20 minutes, they had a 20 minute break, then then played for 20 more minutes and came back to our party room for cake and playing video games in the adjacent arcade. We got everyone home around 3:30, settled down at our house, and about 2 hours later Greyson said he didn't feel well and proceeded to get sick. He definitely had it the worst and was still feeling bad when he went to bed.

So now we're at Sunday, Greyson stayed home from Sunday school but felt much better, and we did a ton of laundry. Monday, I woke up with a tickle in my throat and a few of those sneezes that you know indicate impending doom. Tuesday I knew I had a cold, and by Wednesday I was in the thick of it. Wednesday evening, Greyson had another type of intestinal illness hit him, and so I had to stay home from work on Thursday to be with him. I didn't really come out of the cold until Sunday and still have residual coughing fits. Since I had just returned home from a conference when the first plague hit us, I probably managed to get the equivalent of two whole days of work completed in two weeks.

We are all much better now (I'm knocking on something wooden), and the weather has been amazing, so I think we might have done something to redeem ourselves before the other 7 plagues were sent to us. For Greyson's sake, I am going to smear a little lamb's blood on the door just to be sure.