The Prince

I had a spontaneous sleep over with my sisters tonight. The boys are away on a labor day fishing trip, so we took advantage of a little time to talk, tease and (of course) brush up on our waltz skills. My little soon-to-be Cinderella sister was rehearsing lines for her upcoming high school musical debut. I played the part of the Prince--and the evil step mother and the awkward step sisters. I have always had a dark desire to play the part of a villain. It's probably extremely fun to pretend to be evil.

But, tonight I was the dashing prince. My sister and I had a splendid time at the ball, singing "my head started reeling, you gave me the feeling, the room had no ceiling or floor" to each other, and concentrating on the most appropriate way to approach the real prince about the kiss. You see, neither Cinderella nor the prince have ever kissed anyone before. May I repeat myself: if you would like to witness my little sister's first kiss (although, of course it doesn't "count"), be sure to get tickets to the show. Also, if you have any first kiss tips that are better than mine--which I'm sure they are--do feel obliged to share them. My "just ask him which way he wants to lean" advice wasn't cutting it, according to Allerina.

I simply can't wait for opening night. It will be a ball.

Baby You're a Firework

My baby sister Allerina came to visit for a couple of days. Having her around is like spreading out a big quilt on a summer’s night and watching fireworks dance in the sky. She makes me laugh. She loves playing with my kids. She even does my dishes. And then she sits by me and giggles as we watch “So You Think You Can Dance.” I love not being alone at night. I fell asleep beside her on the couch tonight with a smile on my face. She is such a good girl. I love it when she pops in to light up my life.

Aging

Yesterday Allerina came to spend the night at our home. I love that little girl. But she really isn’t so little any more. And, every time I get to have her over, I start feeling older.

She was wearing a jacket that said ’15 on the sleeve. It took me a moment to realize that those numbers stood for the year she is going to graduate. Then it took me a long time to admit that ’15 is 13 years after ’02.

She said she wanted to watch a scary movie because she’s “so into them lately.” So, I pulled out an old “What Lies Beneath” VHS I got from the DI. She had never even heard of the thriller that made the husband sleep in his parents’ room when he was a teenager. Thankfully she did know what a VHS tape was.

While here she watched me fumble in circular frustration after misplacing my phone, my key card and my keys. I’m glad it didn’t all happen at once, and that they were all soon recovered, but the recurrent episodes of forgetfulness are beginning to scare me. Plus, I sound so much like my mom whenever I get flustered (not that that means that I’m old).

Finally, I couldn’t get enough of her “teenage drama queen” mode. It’s rather easy to access. All you have to do is say something slightly inflammatory about boys, or friends or PMS and her beautiful brown eyes start rolling. If you want her to become especially peeved, tease her about being boring.

My diva of a little sister is anything but boring; however this seems to be her worst fear. I was giving her a hard time about how she and her friend threw the fish (I gave her for her birthday) off of the deck after taking turns with the poor little thing flopping around in their mouths. And this is what she said, “Ok, maybe that was sorta stupid, but at least I wasn’t sitting around alone playing board games.” Instant laughter jumped right out of my mouth, and I hugged her. “You’re such a good girl,” I said. “In your mind, the worst possible thing you could be doing is not drinking, or drugs, or even noncommittal make out sessions with stupid adolescent boys. It’s playing board games.”

…Which brings me back to confess that I am getting old, and probably quite boring, because I would love to just sit around some night with the husband playing board games. But at least my cool little teenage sister still wants to hang out with me. Maybe I’m not that old and boring after all.

Teen Mom

Today I promoted teen abstinence—not that Allerina needed a reminder to stay away from boys. She's never kissed anyone and I’m proud of her for her refrain. Not that I would know, but kissing boys in middle school is definitely not worth it. Big sister Bambie would know. She would agree with me.

Allerina accompanied me to Atrain’s quarterly audiology appointment. Why would I take my little sister out of school and drive her three hours away from her home for my son’s doctor’s appointment? It really doesn’t have anything to do with abstinence. It has much more to do with the fact that I’m not abstinent and now have two kids. One of them has to spend three hours listening to beeping noises every four months (and needs my full attention to help him). He hates that. The other son has to eat every two to three hours, and he won’t eat without me. He hates that. I can’t do it without help. I hate that.

My mom couldn’t help; she’s getting ready to go to Canada tomorrow. My sister who lives near the audiologist couldn’t help; she had class. I’m too proud to ask my mother in law; no matter the inconvenience she would drop everything and come. So, when Allerina offered excitedly to be my on-site babysitter at the audiologist, I couldn’t pass it up. Even though she didn’t know what she was in for.

I picked her up yesterday after she cleared the absence with her teachers and picked up her homework. She was happy to miss math class, and I was happy to tutor her. Atrain was happy to see her. Jodg howled the whole way home. Allerina made dinner while I fed Jdog, then she bounced Jdog while I spent the rest of the evening at a work meeting. Then when I returned we did her homework before heading to bed at one am.

The next morning we began prepping for our long adventure to the audiologist. I told Atrain the bad news when he awoke: that we were headed to the cochlear doctor today. He cried, but perked up when I reminded him about the listening games we’ve been practicing and the chocolate egg rewards. I skipped my run and revolved everything around getting the boys ready and keeping them happy. We played games, I gave in to more of his chocolate requests than usual, I didn’t make him take a bath, Allerina took him to the playground, I worked hard keeping Jdog awake until we loaded into the car. It was a success. We drove the 90 minutes to the audiologist with both boys happily snoozing in the back.

When we got to the appointment Allerina took over Jdog duties while I convinced a frantic Atrain to let our audiologist hook his cochlears up to the computer. Poor kid. I don’t really even know what I’m talking about when I tell him that it’s not going to be bad. I don’t know what he hears when we hook him up to the computer. I know that sometimes we have to turn the sound off, which makes him understandably upset. But the kid is tough. I know he can do it—even if I can’t completely understand what he has to go through.

The audiologist and I quickly got to work, and to my surprise, Atrain quickly became cooperative and even happy. He was doing it. He was listening for the beeps and consistently pressing the button when he heard them. It was the first time in his life he was giving us feedback about how his cochlears hear. The chocolate egg incentive helped and our practice was paying off. He was even having fun. Whenever he heard the beep (it’s something that only he hears…and we have to discern whether or not he really heard it or he’s just pretending to hear it so he can push the button) he got to switch the pictures of cars characters on the computer screen. He was laughing at their expressions, talking about what they were doing, and asking me the names of the ones he didn’t know. Even though he couldn’t hear me respond he would read my lips and repeat what he thought I was saying. I try to teach him to read lips while he takes baths, but he’s never tried to repeat the words I mouth to him. He’s actually quite good at it.

All the while we’re in the sound booth making the most of Atrain’s productive appointment, I’m wondering how Allerina is holding up with Jdog in the foyer. I can feel that he’s getting hungry. After an hour and a half the audiologist, Aaron and I take a break so that both boys can eat. Then we get back to work. To all of our astonishment, Atrain keeps at the task for another ninety minutes. Amazing. We’re gathering so much data about my kid’s listening skills that we have to schedule another appointment for next week so that we can finish testing. He’s really growing up.

We finished the appointment an hour over schedule and Allerina and Jdog were relieved to see us enter the waiting room. Baby J looked angry. Allerina looked exhausted: my superhero sister, saving the day, swallowing the kryptonite so that Atrain’s appointment could be a success. She was amazing. She missed school, missed her friends, missed her young women’s activity so that she could save me. And now she was clearly ready to go home. So was I. The kids, on the other hand, had other plans. I had to pull Atrain away from the toys in the waiting room. That was a first. Jdog arched his back when I put him in his car seat and started to cry. It was a long ride. My poor baby cried on and off most of the way home. For a few moments I flashed back to the days when I was Allerina’s age, babysitting while my parents were out for the night, bouncing my colicky newborn sister to sleep for hours next to the dryer in the laundry room. She always liked the sound of the dryer.

Allerina went to sleep for most of the ride home, despite my howling baby. It was probably better that way. Toward the end of the ride she woke up and in a dazed state her true feelings about her day surfaced when she asked, “What’s his problem?” Jdog just kept crying. I kept apologizing for making her day so miserable, then thanking her for being the person who I know loves me enough to put up with the misery, then apologizing again. “I bet you would take math class over this,” I said. She said no, but avoided eye contact. “Do you ever want kids after today?” She snorted and replied, “not at least for another ten years. Good. Glad I could be of service.