Rite of Passage

Dear John,

There is a rite of passage that I really thought you and your sister were not going to experience.  It's not a fun rite of passage and I guess I should have been glad for you to miss it, but somehow the idea that there was this significant childhood event that the miracle of modern medicine took from your young life was a little sad to me.

I'm speaking, of course, of the chicken pox.  When I was a child, everyone got chicken pox.  It was preferential to get the chicken pox as a child and a mild case was considered a mixed blessing since it could lead to reinfection later.  Chicken pox was an itchy scratchy nuisance of an illness in children that could be life threatening to adults.  It was also troublesome to parents who had to stay home with their infected offspring for a week or more.  Being a virus, it was something that once gotten was usually over for life and was also something that could be vaccinated against like the bigger, tougher virus of measles, mumps, polo, scarlet fever and others.

So like most of your peer group, you and your sister were vaccinated and we figured chicken pox was something you would just never experience.

It certainly wasn't something we thought about a week and a half ago when you and your sister both had these strange little ant bites... hers on her back, yours on your chest.  We didn't think about it when you got three more of these little bites on your back.  We did check the beds for bed bugs.  We did check the laundry detergent to make sure we hadn't switched brands by mistake.  We even considered other random viral rashes... fifth disease, sixth disease, I googled them all.

But these "bites" lacked the size and scope of chicken pox as I remembered them.

I took you to daycare this morning and even Ms. Carie was baffled.  It didn't look like chicken pox to her, although her years of early childhood experience told her February is the prime month for it (who knew?).  But she circled your six or seven spots and said she would call if you got any more.

She called just as my students were going out to lunch and recess.

I took you to the doctor and that's where I learned the difference between what I thought of as "chicken pox" and what the doctor called "breakthrough varicella."

It's the same thing, really.... chicken pox and varicella.

But because you were vaccinated, your body is already fighting the virus even as you are symptomatic.  It's why tonight you have a grand total of 12-15 blisters instead of a couple hundred.  It's why it was so hard to tell what it was you had.  The doctor was able to find only three blisters on your entire body that looked like textbook varicella.  Once she pointed them out to me, I could see the head clearly and even see the brown pinprick scab on one of them.

I have to say, if chicken pox has to happen, if it is a rite of passage a child really needs to have, this sort of chicken pox is the way to go.

You have to really look to see the ones of your torso and right at your neck.  Your back is where the "better" blisters are.

Not exactly the disease as I remember it from my childhood, but I accept as a rite of passage nonetheless.

You have chicken pox.  I do not understand why that is satisfying to me, but it is.

That you can have it with no fever, little itching, and almost no chance of scarring is the wonder of the world you live in.

Love,
Mom

MLK Day

Dear John,

Before you were born, Mrs. Hazen and I started a tradition of hanging out on MLK Day.  It's a day that we both have off of work that neither your dad nor Mr. Hazen ever seem to have off and it makes for a nice mother and child sort of day.

Every year, it's been a bit different.  The first year, 2009, we took your sister and Peter to the Austin Zoo and while you were clearly on the horizon, Danielle wasn't even in the works, yet.

The next year, 2010, Mrs. Hazen was just off of the vent and we were finally able to communicate after two long weeks of not knowing if she was going to make it or not.

Last year, 2011, we celebrated life and motherhood again by taking you, your sister, Peter and Danielle to the Waco Zoo.

This year, we asked Mrs. Robinson and Andrew to join us in the adventure and all three mamas and all five children headed to the San Antonio Zoo.

Mrs. Robinson took you and your sister and Andrew on the train ride while we waited for the Hazens to join us.

I have this thing about MLK Day and hats and you are finally old enough to be reasoned with.  "Please wear this hat.  It's important to me.  Wear it for ten minutes, let me get some pictures and I will put it up and stop bothering you to wear a hat in 70 degree temperatures."  I'm so glad you are willing to humor your mama.

I really wanted a picture of you in this hat.  It was a gift from Uncle Jonathan.  As I understand it, a group of ladies knitted hats and sent them to Uncle Jon's ship.  This hat was clearly done with a child's pattern and I think Uncle Jon, with his narrow head, was one of the only guys on the ship who could even wear it and it still looked like a beanie on him.  Regardless, he liked it and was truly touched that the group made hats for the sailors and wore it often in Japan.  Now that he's in Virginia where it's not so cold, he gave the hat to you. Since you take after your daddy and his big head, though, I think you will outgrow it eventually and want you to get to wear it as long and as often as you can. 

You and Mrs. Hazen were buddies this visit (I think it may have had something to do with her bag of carbs).  She was also willing to pick you up and let you get a better view anytime you asked.

We had just been to the San Antonio Zoo two weekends ago, but this time I remembered to bring quarters so you could feed the fish -- an activity that all of the kids enjoyed.

After feeding fish, you and Danielle decided to eat some fish.  You guys were so cute, sharing the snacks.  You would sort them out so that Danielle's cookie fish were not touching your cheesy fish.  I'm glad she agreed with your sorting.

We also went to the children's section of the zoo this time, which we had missed last time.

You and your sister and then Andrew played Tic Tac Toe.  Everyone fished for a bit and all of you loved running around the kid sized prairie dog tunnels.

We also went to the strange porch (there is no house... it's just the porch) with the brooms and the sand.  I don't know what the designers were thinking of, but it makes me think of a habitat for stereotypical Southern grandma.  Or, in this case, a habitat for kids.  (Look, see they give them brooms so that have something to play with.)

Mrs. Robinson brought snacks and Mrs. Hazen brought lunch.  You were so happy with their carb-o-licious choices.

Before we left the zoo, though, we had to find the right Mold-O-Rama.  Andrew was set on a lion and convinced everyone else that they wanted lions, too, so that was the one we were looking for.

You got to put the money in the machine, which made you very happy.

You and Peter did get lions, but funnily enough, once Andrew saw the lion and the jaguar that was next to it, he changed his mind and then of course your sister did, too, and in the interest of having two different animals per family, Mrs. Hazen went with the jaguar for Danielle.

After getting jaguars, Andrew and Sydney really wanted to find the jaguar exhibit but settled for making their own.

 

 You were such a ham.  I put the jaguars up there and then told you look like you were looking at them.  You put out the one arm and put the other on your hip, just like that.

 Happily, we did find the real exhibit on our way out.

It was a wonderful day at the zoo.  The mamas had a great day.  You were an absolute trooper through to the very last minute.  You were upset that we had to leave the zoo, but held yourself together and enjoyed your cookies at Joseph's Storehouse

I love that we had this day to spend not only with each other but with two other wonderful mamas and their children as well.

Of course your next request was to go feed dolphins... at Sea World... with Fords.

We'll see.

Love,
Mom

Amazing

Dear John,

You. Are. Amazing.

Absolutely.  Amazing.

I know you are memorizing, not "reading" but still.  In the first video, that is our first time through the book.  You picked up the pattern and the use of picture cues that fast.  In the second video, you have heard the book three times and read it to me once before.  It's pure memorization and yet that makes it no less impressive to me.

You are beginning to read.  At. Two.

Love,
Mom

[How] Are You Sleeping (through all this racket)?

Dear John,

You have been sleeping really well lately.

I don't really understand this as your dad and I have been making a lot of noise in the evening... the sort of noise that our parents used to swear kept a person awake... the sound of legos scrapping against each other, that "krrsh, krrsh, krrsh" noise.

How did you parents, two respectable adults turn back into pre-teens staying up into the night playing with legos?  Well, you remember my Christmas gift to myself.

Diagon Alley

A few days after Christmas, your dad and I started assembling the Diagon Alley set.  It was so much fun that it made us want to build the old Hogwarts set, and then Hagrid's Hut.  Then your dad and I reminisced about the old King's Castle we both had as kids.  So your dad built that.  Pretty soon we were looking up Lego plans on-line and realizing that our sets would be so much nicer to build if we had all of the parts together and the only way to do that would be to sort through all of the legos and build those sets.  So we did.  Night after krrshing krrshing night.  And you slept through it all.

Diagon Alley was so enormous that it came in bags labeled in three groups.

It also had three separate instruction booklets (which is what enabled your dad and me to each build our own part.)

Lego directions have become a lot more direct -- see, item 1, don't build legos in the grass, use a table and item 2, don't mix the bags they so carefully separated for you.

And also, don't throw lego pieces -- even those that look like balls -- at anyone's head.

Building Gringot's

Building Olivander's

We loved all of the detail work in the set -- look a lego chandelier.

Diagon Alley - complete!

This is when I realized that the lego building was not something my husbad was doing to humor me -- all of those sets so carefully set out on the piano and I was not the one who did the detail work!

Diagon Alley -- alive and well in my living room!

Sorting through Legos to build Hogwarts -- this is when we realized it would take a lot of sorting to find all of those unique pieces. 

I found this one!

Hogwarts 4709 (released in 2001)

These small sets were some of the first Harry Potter lego sets -- there was one of Diagon Alley with Hermione, Ron with the Griffindor common room and bedchamber and Harry with Hogwarts classrooms.

The end goal for all of the sets is to have them in gallon bags with all of their pieces and their directions.

So this is what a bin of random legos looks like.

Sorted by color.

Doors and Windows -- there were also bags for wheels, steering wheels, people, weapons, horses, cups, frying pans, gem stones, boats, and greenery

The old King's Castle, circa 1984

John helping to pull brown pieces out of the gray and black bin.

Building Hagrid's Hut

Hagrid's Hut

King Leo's Castle (2000)

When rebuilding the Western set (1996), I found the original decals for the bank and general store that had never been applied, so I went ahead and did that step.

Legorado, as we like to call the cowboy set takes up an entire shelf in the playroom.

A more close up look at Legorado

The next set we did was the Adventure set (which was not the Indiana Jones set as Lego did not have rights to Indian Jones in 1998, so it was just a set with an adventuring dude in a brown hat looking for artifacts with a old man with glasses while villains with eye patches tried to stop them.  Once again, not Indiana Jones.

WWI era aircraft -- very cool -- and further proof that this is not Indiana Jones -- everyone knows that the real Indiana Jones fights Nazis!

Up close look at the Adventure set

In the midst of other Lego building, there were some sets on minor markdowns at Target.  Most weren't worth it, especially right after Christmas, but this little blacksmith shop looked neat and it seemed like a fun idea to build this new blacksmith shop and then go back and look on-line for the directions for the old blacksmith shop.

6918 Blacksmith Attack - 2011

6040 Blacksmith Shop -  1984

It was interesting seeing the two sets side by side.  The old set was certainly more basic.  It didn't even have moving parts where the new on had a "water" wheel that when turned hits the hammer which taps the knife on the anvil.  On the other hand, the old set holds such charm and nostalgia for me.  How could I pick a favorite between them?

Fairly easily, actually.  Only the new one came with a Lego chicken.  Bock!  Bock! Bock!  Did someone say "Lego chicken"  Isn't it funny what they are coming out with now?  And yes, I kept it in the bag.  Of course I did.

All the King's Horse and all the King's Men... I just had to do that

The whopping two "modern" sets I own -- I built them mostly because I was tired of running across the dozen or so light pink pieces that came with the cabana.  I remember buying that set and honestly, I bought it because at the time, the pretty female face was so rare and you could not buy it with mini-fig packs and somehow that made the set worth it to me.  I hope in retrospect that it was on clearance.

I know this may all be very strange to you.  I suppose most parents don't wait until the kids are in bed to build legos.  I also suppose that someday you will look at these sets and realize that although the 1984 sets make perfect sense to have been part of your "born in the 70's" parents' lives, if you do the math on the late 90's sets, you will quickly realize that your parents were in college at the time.  In fact, that was right around the time we met.

Everyone experiences childhood in different ways, and I guess for your dad and me, legos and gaming were two "childhood" pasttimes that we just didn't outgrow the way some people do.

So I know that to you, right now, it looks like your parents are actually being a little mean, having toys out and not letting you and your sister play as much as you want.  A few years down the road, it may look like you have the weirdest parents on the block.

But I hope some day you are able to see these holiday of lego building for what it really was for your dad and me -- a trip back to the time in college when we met and realized that we had found, in each other, a person who would not only refrain from mocking out inner child, but who we could play with for years to come.

Love,
Mom