Sleepover

Zac had his friend Austin come and spend the night last night. Thursday night he was so excited about it that (in typical Zac fashion) he said, "Mom! Austin and I are going to spend about 26 and a half hours together tomorrow." (Er, that is, from 8:10 am Friday at school to about 10:30-11 am Saturday)

Austin came home with us after school and the festivities ensued. The boys played a board game or two, hide and seek, tag and the quiet game, but things soon became rough. Seth was in the mix and the combo of three boys and active games caused sparks. Eventually, they went outside, even though it was about 35 and the wind was blowing. That worked for about 45 minutes, but then Seth came in with bruised feelings and a headache from being worked up. I made him lie down and read. We ate pizza and watched the movie "Cars" with some hot chocolate. Fortunately, everybody was pretty beat after that and went to bed with hardly a peep.

Note to all who have children or might be keeping ours in the future: the TV on Saturday mornings is your best friend, and you should take no chances that your sleep will be disturbed by children who can't figure out how to get to the right channel or might argue about it. We always pick the channel and leave it on (low volume) ALL night so we can sleep like the just (or maybe just the exhausted). So, outside of Blane crying after slipping in his socks at 6:45 am, things went pretty well, as usual. The boys inhaled a huge breakfast of eggs, waffles, cereal and juice and blissfully watched more cartoons. They're playing a board game again like angels right now. All in all, a pretty successful sleepover.

Principal's Office

Seth went to the principal's office the other day. Uh oh.

He said he was "messing" with his friend Ben's stuff, then Ben poked him in the head with a sharpened pencil. I guess the rule is that once you are in a scuffle, you both get sent. Seth said the principal talked to him about not messing with other people's stuff and told Ben that it was dangerous to poke people with sharpened pencils. Good.

I emailed the teacher to get her side of it (still waiting to hear back). We haven't punished him yet (although something will happen) because I would like to determine how much Seth was in the wrong. I'm not sure what "messing" with someone's stuff means...was he just being busy Seth or was he trying to bug him? Or somewhere in between?

Seth, Seth, Seth....

Blane's Renal Ultrasound

Blane went for his yearly renal ultrasound and urology visit today. For those of you who don't know or don't remember, the doctor discovered that his kidneys were dilated with fluid in utero. This is a condition that kids usually grow out of, but sometimes can cause trouble. So we've had him monitored since infancy.

Last year the urologist told me that if he has one more good ultrasound, he would discharge Blane. I have been expecting continued improvement so I was hopeful when we went in today to Children's Mercy. Of course, things always look big and scary on the ultrasound, and I didn't ask the technician, because they really aren't supposed to tell you. But Dr. Murphy came into the appointment very pleased and said we were done! He's still got some slight dilation of his left kidney, but it should not cause a problem.

That makes a trifecta of good medical news for the Harnden family in the last few weeks (headache, OT, kidneys)! We're always thankful for that...

My Helper

Blane LOVES to help me. The other day, Seth was sitting at the bar and Blane was "helping" me with something. I mentioned something about how helpful Blane was and it would be hard to do so many things without him.

"Actually, Mom, I think you could get a lot MORE things done without Blane around," replied Seth. "But, it's nice to have a little brother around."

Amen.

The OT Calls Back

The school OT called back yesterday about Seth. She had gone into his classroom for a while on Wednesday to observe him. She said she did not see him shake when she was there, which means that he does not have a neurological problem. Her guess was anxiety, which makes sense--I see him tremble when he is intent, excited or nervous. I think we'll see him calm down as he matures. She also said she felt like his handwriting was in the normal range for his age/grade.

She also mentioned that he is very squirmy (surprise!). She said she thought for sure he was not absorbing anything the teacher was saying, but then he was able to answer questions when they were asked. She recommended that perhaps he should sit on a bouncy ball or a squishy cushion in order to work out some of that energy. She also mentioned that they could put a gigantic rubber band around the bottom of his chair legs that he could kick at while he sits. Seth sat on a ball last year from time to time, and I told her that worked well. But I also said, any of those options would be good (if I was a first grader and saw one of my classmates sitting on a ball, I'd want one too--and that could be a bit distracting).

All in all, Seth is just Seth--active, excited, intense, high-strung...nothing new here. I'm just glad we don't have anything to worry about.

Seth and his Knees

No, nothing's wrong now with Seth's knees! I just thought I'd tell you about Seth's complete inability to keep fabric covering his knees for very long.

I thought I had gotten Seth taken care of when it came to long pants for the year--he had two or three pairs of jeans and several sets of track pants when school started. Before long, he had ripped, torn or otherwise put holes in nearly all of them, mostly around his knees. Just about every wash day I am Shouting out grass stains in the knees that are left. Holes in the knees can sometimes be a fashion statement, I realize, but not when the wind chill is 5 degrees F.

Until it got cold this last week, he's spent almost every afternoon playing football with Zac in the backyard. That doesn't help. I have gotten him to only wear bad pants out there, but most of the damage was done before we made that change. Now that he's inside the house, he loves to throw a ball in the air and dive for it by sliding on his knees. Well, I don't want to discourage classic boy behavior, but I have asked him not to slide around in his good pants.

Yesterday at church was a classic anecdote for Seth and his holey knees. I ironed his khakis Sunday morning (perfectly fine) and he put them on. We went to Bible class, then church. Right after the service started, Scott pointed to a huge gaping hole in his left knee. I asked Seth about it and he was completely unaware of it until that point in time. What are they doing in Bible class? I thought.

I don't know how he manages to rip holes in his pants during church, but if it was going to happen to anyone, it would be Seth.

Update on Seth

Seth went to the doctor on Friday afternoon to get checked out for his frequent headaches. After a pretty thorough examination, the doctor said she didn't see any warning signs for something serious (whew!) She suggested he drink more water, and if that didn't work, we might have to talk about migranes (yes, even kids his age get them!) So I bought Seth a water bottle to keep on his desk at school and told him this should help with his headaches (nothing like the placebo effect to cure things). But seriously, the water may help. We'll be keeping a diary of any future headaches to see if we can pinpoint specific causes or symptoms.

Thanks for everyone's prayers--we're glad our Sethie is okay!

On the Election

Did I scare you with the post title? Don't worry--as I said, pundrity is not the focus of this blog. My boys are. So staying true to my purpose, I will not analyze the election (no one cares to hear it anyway). But I thought you might want to see my boys through the lens of this most American of events.

We've been talking to our boys about voting and the election. We made the what and the why of our choices known to them, but strongly reminded them how important it was to be respectful of others' choices and viewpoints. After all, some political positions are moral, but many others are amoral---a matter of opinion. And, of the ones that are moral in nature, I think we can become counterproductive sometimes in the way we approach the subject with others. So, to our boys, who go to school in a section of town where the prevailing political sentiment is not ours, we commanded them to stay quiet and not make offensive comments to friends about politics, yard signs or political candidates. Until social filters and graciousness develop further, I think that will have to be our policy.

They did well. On Election Day morning, the boys and I prayed. We asked God to choose the man He had picked for the job.

The man we did not vote for won (not to be too specific or anything!) Lessons to take note of and learn: 1) You can't always win 2) Even though it's hard, it's good NOT to win every time (that's a sure way to get arrogant and lazy) 3) The man in the office of President deserves our honor and respect simply because he's our President. 4) Regardless of politics, it's pretty amazing that we have elected the first black president ever. 5) No matter what, God's still running things. Period

In the days ahead, no doubt we'll have frustrations, fears and disagreements about how our country is being run. We'll talk with our kids about it, as they are able to understand and handle it. Today and always, we will pray for our new president and congressional leaders, and wish them well.

Headaches

Just so you know, Seth has been having frequent headaches this month. He's had to go to the nurse's office a couple of times this month. Sometimes it improves with medicine, but not always. Eating sometimes seems to help too. I scheduled a doctor's appointment for Friday afternoon to get it checked out.

My gut feeling is that things aren't serious--most likely, these are migraines or tension headaches. But the fact that they started so suddenly and are happening often is concerning and needs to be checked out. I'll let everybody know what's up after the appointment. Please keep him in your prayers.

Halloween

I'm breaking with my usual rule about posting pics of the boys, because they're in costume! Do you know who Zac is this year?

Cars and Eternity

My parents were up last weekend. They had been visiting Silver Dollar City and decided to come up for a few days. It's so nice that they're retired now!

While my parents were here, Blane had several questions about death and heaven. I don't know if having visitors rekindled his interest in what happened to Grampy, but he asked me things like, "Will I die on the grass?" or made statements like: "Mom, you'll be old when you die." I answered as truthfully and comfortingly as I could.

Then one day, the conversation moved to heaven. Whether he brought up the topic of heaven on his own or asked a question, I can't remember. But when I told him that one day he'd get to live with God, he said, "No, I don't want to."

Now I perfectly remember thinking as a kid, I know I'm supposed to want to go to heaven, but it sounds really boring to sit around and sing all the time and be with God. I mean, am I going to get to do anything fun? The finer appreciation of God and living with Him came later, of course, but to a concrete thinking child, it's a tough thing to get excited about. I'm sure some version of that was bouncing around in his head. So I tried to make it more relevant for him. You'll have to take some theological license with me, but I couldn't think of a better way to express eternal joy than this:

"Blane, in heaven, you'll get your own room with lots of toys."

He looked unimpressed. "I don't like toys; I only like cars."

Of course. "Well, God made you and He knows how much you love cars. So you'll have your own room with lots and lots of cars to play with."

He seemed to digest that a bit more. Hmmm, maybe that won't be so bad. That ended the end-of-life questions from him. For now.

And God, in His Heaven, smiled down and had a little laugh, I think. I'm sure He's preparing the most glorious "car" Blane can imagine.

Seth and the Tremor

I explained in the last post that Seth has a little "tremor" when he writes. He's had this for quite a while, and in his preschool years, I chalked it up to his intensity. His kindergarten teacher called me last year to discuss it, and the OT made a weighted pencil for him to use. Now that he's doing more writing, it's more noticeable now when he writes and ties his shoe.

I observed him carefully last weekend, and notice that he trembles when he's excited, intent or nervous. When he's relaxed, I don't see it.

Mrs. Owens called me last week and told me she had talked to the OT. Apparently, the upshot is that he's not bad enough to qualify for school help. Mrs. Owens said the OT mentioned an "intentional tremor"--a fancy term for what I described above--being intense when doing something. Scott says I can talk to the OT, but he doesn't think at this point it is worth following up on. So I'll let you know when I talk to her.