Ahhh, latkes....

Happy First Night of Chanukah!  Ben's big present tonight was a V-Tech Inno Tab, which beat out the competition (the LeapPad) for three reasons:  (a) It has better drawing resolution.  (b) We don't need the camera, because Ben already has one.  (c) It was available.

Here are his exact words after he opened it:  "Well, I would rather have a cheese board."

[There's a backstory on that one, but I'll spare you the details this time.]

Anyway, once he realized that he could watch ABBA videos on it, he was much more enthusiastic, as you can see here:

Of Germs and Grinches

Well, we're a household full of germs this week.  Ben has pink-eye and a cough.  I have strep.  Neil has stayed healthy so far, which puts him in the role of General Caretaker.

Here are two quick Bennyisms:
1.  Ben, cuddling in my lap:  "Mom, you are my wife.  Someday we will get married."
2.  After enjoying the book for a couple of years, Ben finally got a chance to watch the animated version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.  Towards the end, after his miraculous heart expansion, it is claimed that the Grinch suddenly acquires the strength of 10 Grinches plus 2.  Ben:  "That makes 12 Grinches!"

I'll never get caught up!

I'm so far behind on reading friends' blogs -- all those titles on the sidebar look soooo tempting, and I just haven't had time, folks, I swear.

Well, I got my fall semester grades turned in last night, so things should begin to loosen up a little.  I'm down to about 500 things left on the old to-do list, so hopefully by Monday I can devote a few good hours to some Serious Blog Action, both give and take.

Here's one Ben tidbit to tide us over:  I have this longish grey cardigan that Ben likes to wear -- it drags on the floor and gives him a bit of a wizard look.  So the other night after his bath, he was parading around wearing the sweater and absolutely nothing else, singing, "Monostatos is my name, catching people is my game!"

Okay, so there's a backstory (you were afraid of that).  Ben has an English-language version of Mozart's The Magic Flute on DVD (gift from Neil's parents), which he loves.  Monostatos is an evil guy from the opera who wears this weird bat-like costume and he's always raising his wings and flashing his rather unattractive beer belly at people, and he's constantly trying to recapture the heroine Pamina.  Meanwhile, Papageno is this bird catcher character who sings, "Papageno is my name, catching birds is my game."  So as soon as Ben saw in the mirror that he could achieve a similar effect by raising his arms and revealing his little all, he naturally thought of Monostatos and adapted the lyric.

When the backstory is longer than the tidbit, that's clear evidence that my narrative style leaves much to be desired.  You'll just have to believe me that it was pretty funny at the time.

Bennyisms and Pics

This afternoon, Ben was pretending to roast a "marshmallow" (large plastic bead) on a stick (drumstick) over a "fire" (red plastic jar lid).  He carefully blew on it to cool it, then pretended to take a bite.  He looked thoughtful and said, "Hmmmm.  That's pretty good, but it's not my favorite kind."  I asked, "What's your favorite kind?"  "Real."

This evening Ben was having a cookie for dessert.  Neil:  "You know what goes really well with a cookie?  Milk!"  [pushes the milk cup suggestively toward him]  Ben:  "You know what goes really well with a cookie?  Another cookie!"

The marigold that ate western New York -- Ben grew it from a seed.

Ben's first portrait of us.  I think it's quite flattering.



There used to be a family room under there.




Jam session -- Neil on electric guitar, Ben on drums.  Clifford is the groupie.



October Photo Gallery



On a hayride



A Clifford birthday



Electric guitar -- thanks to Aunt Kathy!



New scooter



More Clifford



A party guest wearing a homemade Clifford hat



Ben writes a new book; Neil takes dictation.



Still going strong at the piano



Grading some calculus quizzes



The cutest sponge on the block



Didja miss me?

It's been a long time since I've posted.  October was one crazy month, all right.  Scratch that -- October was about three crazy months rolled into one.  Thirty pounds of crazy in a ten pound bag.  Here's a super quick update and a promise that I'll check in more often.  (I'm also woefully behind on reading other people's blogs!)

The Big Event was of course Ben's fourth birthday, which was on a Wednesday this year.  My mother and Neil's parents were here for the week.  Everything went very well and much fun was had by all, but it was a totally exhausting week -- I was sick and completely lost my voice, but we still had two birthday parties to prepare for, plus Neil gave a public lecture as part of a research award he'd won, and, oh yeah, my day job.  On Monday I cancelled my classes, but for the rest of the week I just had to keep squeaking at my students, and then go home and squeak at everyone there.

Then there was Halloween.  Ben had been on a costume strike the last two years, so this year I managed to extract a promise from him that he would wear a costume and go trick-or-treating.  (There was a small element of bribery involved.)  Ben complied, in a minimal sort of way.  He wore most of the cheap Spongebob costume that he'd reluctantly picked out (although he refused to wear the leggings), and he resignedly marched up to exactly five houses, carefully avoiding any which he suspected might contain dogs, and dutifully extracted some candy.  He was much more enthusiastic about carving a pumpkin.  Of course, we got his pumpkin too early, and shortly before Halloween we discovered that it had rotted out (and all over our kitchen rug -- yech).  Turns out it's remarkably hard to get another carving pumpkin the day before Halloween, so we ended up with a largish pie pumpkin instead.  We managed to carve a pretty good jack-o-lantern, whom Ben named Cleo (he named all his various pumpkins, real and plastic, after characters from the Clifford books), and a couple of days later Ben eagerly watched me dissect Cleo into pieces and bake her in the oven.  I thought this might be a traumatic experience, but Ben was delighted with the spectacle.  We baked about a third of Cleo into a pie yesterday (delicious!!!), and the other two thirds went into the freezer.  We'll be offering up more Cleo at Thanksgiving....

That's pretty long for a super-quick update.  I'll put some pictures up later when I have access to Photoshop.

Red Brown Green

Anyone who knows me even a little knows that I am a music addict.  It's how I was brought up, immersed in music 24/7.  I spent much of my pregnancy with Ben agonizing over whether it was better to start with violin lessons or piano.  It wasn't a question of if, or even when (by age 3 at the latest, I figured), but which.

So then I went and had a deaf kid.  I don't know what else to write in this paragraph; you can probably guess what goes here.

When Ben was maybe a month old -- I don't remember exactly, but it was after his hearing loss had been confirmed -- some friends came over to visit and meet him for the first time.  Two of them are professional musicians, and the other two are fellow music addicts.  Much of our conversation typically revolved around music.  We hadn't yet told them.  About the deafness.  So finally, after all the oohing and aahing and jokes about our sleep deprivation had subsided, we told them.  Everyone immediately slipped into support and sympathy mode, but I could see the dark shock in their eyes.  Or maybe I was projecting onto them what I was feeling.

What I was feeling at the time was grief.  Grieving the loss of a certain vision of parenting.  Grieving the loss of music in my child's life.  Wondering what a life without music feels like -- it still seems so alien to me.  Violin vs. piano?  Suddenly seemed a foolish, naive self-indulgence of pregnancy.

Fast forward almost four years.  I'm not sure what to put in this paragraph either, except that, well, duh, we figured a few things out in the meantime.

Yesterday Ben had his first piano lesson.  Okay, he's closer to four than three, but technically I got it in under the deadline, with exactly two weeks to spare!  He plopped down in front of Janis' piano and proceeded to play "Hot Cross Buns".  We'd been working on it at home for a few weeks now.  We call it "Red Brown Green," because we color-coded the piano keys at home.

It was a good lesson.  He's definitely not the most naturally compliant kid around (his middle name should be Pushback), so it'll take a little doing to figure out how to keep him engaged and committed over the long haul, but I'm determined to do everything I can.

I just can't quite get over it.  Yesterday he had his first piano lesson.  Even if he never has another one (and I can guarantee you that he'll have plenty), it feels like we broke the tape after a marathon, and we've just been handed a gigantic shiny trophy.

Now, ask me in a couple of years when I'm pulling my hair out trying to get him to practice whether it's still so shiny.  I'm guessing it will be, although I might not be prepared to admit it.

Oh, and Janis, the piano teacher, was one of those four friends who visited that day when Ben was a baby.  It's kind've a nice bookend feeling.  She was there at the beginning of that phase of the journey, and she's here at the beginning of this one.