Do they sell purple sparkly basketballs?

I did take Boo Boo to the doctor and it turns out has grew 2.5 inches and gained 3.5 lbs in the last year. He'll continue to be a smallish kid as he's always been in the 10th percentile for weight and in the 25th percentile for height, but the doctor isn't worried, so that is good.

We did talk to the doctor about his imagination. You see, for the last 18 months, Boo Boo has loved pretending he's a girl. At first it was just wearing long Tshirts (his big boy shirts) as dresses. Then he used to twirl like a ballerina. Then he had a serious conversation with me about how he loved pink but couldn't like it because the big boys at school said it was a girl color. (Aside, this drives me insane that the girl stuff and boy stuff is coming up at age 3. That's the con to a montessori classroom with older kids, I think). Now he asks us to call him Kate, Georgia, or whichever girl he's being that day, and corrects our pronouns to "she" and our references to him as "big brother" to "big sister" when we talk to Boobette about him. He still loves his trains and his basketball and Lightning McQueen and Diego, but will always pick Barbie or princess stickers at the doctor's office when offered. But he does tend to pick the purple basketball over the orange one at his YMCA games.

He'll tell you when he's being a girl. When you say, "um, Boo Boo, you know you are a boy, right?" he responds, "I know but I'm just using my imagination." And when you ask "but why don't you use your imagination to be Spiderman or Superman?" he gives you a withering look and says "because they don't wear purple sparkles." You really can't argue with that logic. He's clearly expressing a preference, understands reality, and so we are letting him. I hope he doesn't get teased for wearing a bow in his hair, but if he does, he'll decide how to handle it. Pretend play is not ususual, he has a little sister, loves his mom, and all things girl are sort of taboo at school, which makes them more intriguing at home.

The only thing that makes me a little frustrated is that society tends to think this is weird. Growing up, I was all about the girl power. I have a sister, no brothers, and we were raised knowing we could do well in math and science. Before I had a boy, I laughed when Laura Bush said boys are neglected. But girls play Little League now, and they play with trucks, and they are not judged. But boys in ballet class? Or wearing an Aerial mermaid shirt? Those boys are considered weird, and that seems unfair to me. You don't have to squash girls down to lift boys up. You can be supportive all children and their choices.

Go Mom Go

Today I ran around the house. You see, Boo Boo read his first sentence, "Go Mom Go" and I had to follow the instructions. He doesn't really "know" how to read. It's more like he's memorized that G-O is go and M-O-M is mom. But still, it was very cool. It was nice to have a moment to be proud of him, as lately, he's been giving us a really hard time eating.

We've made him sit at the table while we eat, hoping he will eat some dinner. We don't even make him eat what the adults are eating. But even with kid friendly choices like chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, corn dogs, and pizza, he's really not a big eater. Which is worrisome because Boo Boo will be 4 in September, and only weighs 27 lbs. Guess what he weighed 9 months ago at his 3 year well check? 27 lbs. I think I'm going to take him to the doctor to make sure all is well.

But back to Go Mom Go. Lately, I have felt like it's the theme of my life. Two weeks ago, I got a horrible, deep chest cough and a fever. I missed a day and a half of work to rest, and had to cancel an evening of dinner and a musical (Cabaret, which I haven't seen) with my aunts and my sister who was in town. By Saturday, I was feeling better, but R was feeling hot, itchy and thought it was weird that he was getting this rash. As it turned out, he had the chicken pox. He'd never had it as a child, and was pretty painful. The kids had fevers too, but when I took them to the pediatrician, it turned out that Boo Boo had the flu and strep throat, and Boobette just had the flu. Eeek! Monday was a long hard day with three doctors appointments and trips to the pharmacy to buy Aveeno Oatmeal Bath and the various medication. And poor Traci, the nanny who takes care of Boobette during the week came to work all week. I only worked 5 hours a day to help her, but then she got my cough. So I gave her the Zpack that had been prescribed to me to make sure I didn't get sick as she doesn't have health insurance. She did get sick though, and took Friday off. It was the longest week ever.

Putting two kids to bed at 8 pm while they are sick is hard. I am very, very luck though, they were in really good spirits and happy that they got to spend the day together and some extra time with me. Poor R. I didn't want him getting strep and I didn't want Boobette (who's too young for the varicella vaccine) getting the chicken pox, so all week the house was a giant game of keep away. He'd spend all day in the study and the guest room, and then emerge like a vampire at night when the kids were asleep and load the dishes in the dishwasher for me, go fill gas in my car and pay the bills while I collapsed on the couch.

Go Mom Go indeed.

Oh, and PS. Tamiflu apparently tastes horrible. I dipped the dropper in chocolate syrup and still had to chase Boo Boo around the house as he ran away from the yucky medicine.

Online baby book and family journal

In the last ten days or so, Boobette has hit several milestones. She's crawling everywhere, she pulls up and stands in her crib, she reaches her arms up to be picked up, and she can shake her head no-no-no when she doesn't want to eat any more food. What a way to ring in her seven month birthday last week! And yesterday, I took her to Claire's and we got her ears pierced. The little gold balls look adorable. And she cried a little, but stopped when she saw her face the mirror. She's such a little diva at times. She's also headstrong and thinks she's Boo Boo's age. She doesn't want to play with rattles, she likes to play with his trains and cars. And she takes off after him, takes his toys, and pulls his hair. I think this is what second children do. It's a survival of the fittest thing. Boo Boo has been pretty sweet with her until now, but she never used to take his stuff before. Now we hear him say, "calm down, baby," "no, that's mine, baby" and sometimes he bursts into tears when she won't give him something back. This is very amusing to us.

In other family news, I turned 33 this week. It was a lovely weekend, including a Dream Dinners session, ear piercing, watching The Hangover, receiving beautiful yellow daises in a reusable pitcher with floating lemons in it from my parents and a Willow Tree "Family" plaque from my husband, and eating Beck's Prime burgers and Rudy's breakfast tacos.

Memorial Day on the beach, or, the vacation where Doritos came out of our ears

I took two days off last week and we went to the beach. Galveston was hit by Hurricane Ike last September and it looks a lot better than it did, of course, but I'm sad to report the island is still not back 100%. We stayed at the Moody Gardens Hotel and despite their promise that all the attractions were open, some were still being repaired. We didn't get to go to Palm Beach or swim in the hotel pool, but we did see the penguins and sea lions at the Aquarium, took a boat ride around the bay, ate at the Rainforest Cafe, and had a great time at Sea Wall:

All in all, it was a good time, but we were glad to only stay for one night. The adults had to go to bed at 8 pm with the children, our toilet stopped working, and we had sand everywhere. Boo Boo ate a huge bag of Doritos on the beach and after I gave him a bath and cleaned out his ears, there was orange cheese powder on the Q-tip.

So we are back, home sweet home. The problem with going on vacation with children though is that you can't throw stuff in a carryon suitcase and head out so the packing and unpacking seemed to take longer than the trip.

OH! and PS. Our new Joovy sit and stand stroller worked fabulously:

Swine Flu

The news keeps talking about washing our hands and covering our mouths when we cough as the best preventative for swine flu. Which also good advice for avoiding the regular flu. That's great, but I was frustrated because I wanted more concrete information. The Science Guy's blog on the Houston Chronicle site does a really nice job of providing satisfying statistics and resources.

While I don't think we should over react and stock on supplies like we do for a hurricane just yet, I am a bit perplexed at the people who keep rolling their eyes and saying "uh, it's just the flu." When I mentioned the Science Guy's statistics at work today (the worst case scenario for Harris County is 140 people infected), a woman in my office thought it was ridiculous to worry because that many people get the regular flu each year. She thought people were freaking out because it was called swine flu, but wouldn't be as worried about the butterfly kitten flu. But semantics aside, here's my response that kind of thinking:

1) flu season is almost over, so a new flu now is worriesome; 2) if the WHO has declared a pandemic, I don't mind taking things seriously out of precaustion; 3) even if I don't die from it, I don't want to get it; 4) they are shutting down schools, so even if I didn't get the flu it would impact me; and 5) even if this was just the regular flu, the regular flu sucks. It knocks you out and I don't want any part of it.

I'm off to Purrell. Several of my friends are keeping their kids home tomorrow and will reassess over the weekend for next week. I'm in. Whee! A stay home day!

The T-shirt says it all ...

...tickles make little girls full of giggles.

I hate Crocs

Am I the only one who hates Crocs? They are cheap, ugly, plastic shoes that are overly wide, not very supportive, and can be dangerous. But then, I think of the tacky Jellies shoes we wore in the late 80s, and I guess this will be one of those trends. Boo Boo now owns a pair. He's been wanting them, and I got them only for the weekends in the summer. We got some of pieces of flair you can add to them too: a giraffe, a basketball, the Space Shuttle, an icecream cone, and Ramone, from the Cars movie. Officially, these tiny bits of personality are called Jibbitz. What the hell is a bit of Jib? Anyway, Boo Boo calls them shoe earrings:

Pakistan in crisis

There has been a increase in Islamic extremism in Pakistan swelling from the Swat Valley and into the major cities. The militant violence is no longer limited to the lawless frontier tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan; it is spilling into Lahore and Islamabad as well. And the Taliban are brutal. (Watch the video imbedded in the prior link to Forbes magazine if you can bear it. As a mother, as a girl, it was very difficult for me). Musharraf tried his best to squash these elements, and we in the United States thought he was too weak to do so. But at least he was trying. The new government has capitulated.

The prime minister, Asif Zardari, made a foolish "peace" deal with those extremists who wanted Sharia law in Pakistan. In exchange for allowing the Taliban/extremists/militants/fundamentalists (what is the right word here?) to implement a twisted version of ancient Islamic law in the Swat Valley, these fundamentalists were supposed to put down their arms and stay in the valley. I cannot help but think appeasing them in this way is the same way the West tried to appease Hitler before World War II finally broke out. Give them an inch, they'll take a mile and still shoot at you. I'm afraid the reality is that you cannot make peace deals with mad men. And where does this leave the civilians?

It's sad to me because my parents live in Lahore, the beautiful art and culture capital of Pakistan, a short bus ride from New Delhi in India. They are not terrorists, and they do not want the Taliban coming in, and would support someone who would squash them out. But with "squashing," my clean word for bombing and war, comes a real price that civilians pay. My grandfather, who lives with my parents has prostate cancer, and my mom wants to be able to still keep getting his cancer injections.

My friends ask me what the militants want, and I don't know. I used to think that if I could rule the world, I would be able to fix things. In my naive mind, I thought if the Palestinians could have a little homeland, and the Israelis could have a little homeland, it would eliminate a lot of terrorism. But these new extremists aren't rationale. They have no goal they are trying to accomplish that I can see, other than just bringing everyone under their twisted regime. I thought perhaps Osama bin Laden was upset the United States abandoned him after the Russians left Afghanistan, but I don't see what he wants. Death to America? Why? Maybe a logical person cannot follow it.

The saddest part about the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team is that it is the end of international cricket and sports in Pakistan. Even when the average man cannot understand politics, if you take his NASCAR/football/cricket, he wakes up, pays attention, and demands change. Cricket was supposed to bring people together, show people that even in different countries, the love of the game makes us the same at our core. When the world was pressuring South Africa to end apartheid, the International Cricket Council suspended the team and that, more than anything, brought home the message to the common man. We'll end apartheid if you'll let up keep playing. It wasn't that simple geo-politically, but I think on a basic level, it drove the point home.

Lets hope the common man gets it. Without every moderate person speaking out, I don't think we get there. There needs to be revolution within Islam, just like the Protestants broke away and reformed the Catholic church. It may be bloody, and it may change Islam forever, but I don't see another way.