Hearing Loss

The other morning Henry came downstairs with a giant ink smudge under his nose. Michael asked him what happened with his nose, but Henry didn't hear him. Instead he said, "Who wants to smell some good smells?" and proceeded to demonstrate all the scents of his scented felt pens. So there's nothing wrong with his sense of smell, but unfortunately his hearing is currently impaired. We'd noticed this for some time, but he tends to get a little fluid in his ears when he has a cold, and it can impair his hearing for a couple of weeks, so that's what I thought it was. Plus, he's four-- sometimes he's not listening to me on purpose. But I had noticed not only that he sometimes seemed not to hear me, and was often loud, but also that he was starting to lose the habit of conversation; he'd just talk and talk without waiting for an answer, or sing or talk loudly so that no one else could talk. I got concerned that this had gone on too long, so I called the doctor.

He had his ears tested today in two ways: first the doc tested the pressure inside his ear, to see if the tympanum was vibrating properly. It wasn't; it barely moved at all. This means that there is pressure against it which is keeping it from transmitting sound. Second, they gave him a hearing test with earphones and beeps, and as the doc said, "He hardly heard anything." The doc's opinion is that his eustacean tubes have gotten sealed up and are creating a vaccuum so that the tympanum can't vibrate. We got a referral to an ENT specialist and will call them tomorrow for further diagnosis.

Poor kid! He's only had two ear infections in his life, but the doc said that wasn't related. Anyway, we will keep the blog updated. Otherwise, we are all doing well.

Playing hat guy. Our neighbor Emerson keeps a whole Playmobil world set up under another neighbor's hedge, and Agatha has happily discovered it, raided it, and messed it up. Luckily Emerson is very kind and understanding.

Nerf gun battle. Agatha loves the neighbor boys as much as Henry now ("Hi Emmy! Hi Carter!") and likes to get in the middle of their games as much as possible.

Play ball! We took the kids to an exhibition game between the Lancaster Barnstormers and F&M. Agatha watched for awhile and then said, "All done! Playground!" Luckily there is an excellent one right next to left field.

Absent-minded professor Daddy

Snapshot from today: Michael and I were cooking and eating in the kitchen after our late-ish meeting and Henry was having a pre-bedtime snack. He asked for more cheese, and Michael gave him a long rectangle, which he held up gleefully. "Daddy didn't cut it into little pieces!" he observed, starting to break up the cheese on his plate. "Because he's a nice Daddy. Although not a very remembering Daddy."

Applause

A snapshot from yesterday: we'd spent an hour just before dinner out at our garden plot; Michael planted a new bed, and I tried to keep the children entertained and out of the seedlings. By the end, everyone was hungry and getting a little cranky. We loaded up the tools, buckled the children into their seats, and then Henry said in a panic, "Where's my hat guy?" (This is Agatha's term for any small lego or playmobil figurine.) I was annoyed. Michael and I ran across the fields, looking for it, and I found it on a hill where we'd been watching some lacrosse players. As we ran back to the car, I stopped Michael to hug him, to leach out my pointless annoyance and to try to enjoy instead the fact that we were outside on a beautiful spring day, planting food and being together. As I embraced Michael I looked inside the car, and both children were clapping wildly. It was for the found hat guy, but still.

Eating Animals

A couple of weeks ago, we were leaving the Bird-in-Hand Family Restaurant after our Saturday morning breakfast, heading across the road to the milk farm and Amish health food store to stock up. I was thinking two things: that I shouldn't have eaten so much bacon; and what I was going to fix for our dinner party that night. Lamb? Just then, Michael said, "Look! New baby lambs!" There's a small field with pasture and fruit trees that we always pass, and several sheep graze there. This time, they had their new lambs with them. And in that moment, I realized that I had to stop eating meat.

Well, maybe not all meat, but all cruel meat: factory-farmed animals for sure, and even locally, humanely raised animals like lamb-- maybe it sounds crazy, but as a mother I just can't see eating that new little baby creature. No more bacon-- no more meat at all unless I know it was humanely raised. We buy ground beef from the dairy where we buy our milk; the cows are grass-fed, and when they're done milking and have had a reasonable life, then we eat them. I guess they still have a somewhat bleak life, but at least they are able to be cows and do their cow thing, and I'm just not prepared to be a vegan for now.

This sudden change of heart really took me by surprise. For years, I've been trying to eat only a small amount of humanely-raised meat at home, but I haven't worried about it when eating out. And I've never been a particularly sentimental animal lover or a food faddist. But there it is: a strong feeling that this is the right thing to do. The second surprise has been the difficulty in sticking to this resolution. Vegetarianism is pretty common in my circles and in my regular cooking, so it doesn't seem like a particularly dramatic change-- until you're in a restaurant. The first time I ate out after my new resolution, I vacillated about what to order and somehow ended up with... a steak! Wha...? I realized that to be a vegetarian in a restaurant is to be a freak; I was just not prepared for how abnormal it is, how you'll end up selecting from two or three choices or having a starter for a main course. The second time I ate out, I was more mentally prepared, but as I scanned the list of "dinner salads" on the menu, I saw that EVERY ONE had meat in it. When I ordered a caesar salad, the waitress asked, "would you like some kind of protein with that? chicken, steak...?" Yes, I have to admit it: I've become a freak. To which Michael says, "you're just realizing that now?"

Henry remains an enthusiastic meat-eater. Today, on our weekly trip out to Bird-in-Hand (where he ate his usual pile of meat and fruit), he noticed as we passed a seafood restaurant: "Mama! I just saw a sign, and they had pictures of every type of aminal that lives under the sea! Mama, do all undersea aminals have meat? And if they don't have meat, like, maybe, a water beetle, then what do they have?" We got into a discussion of endoskeletons and exoskeletons, muscle and organs, but I realized that the question was also about cultural expectations of what is edible. We eat octopus, and it's rubbery, I told Henry, but we don't eat water beetles-- or maybe, some people do... I was getting very vague. "Mama, I would like to get a whole fish, with the head and the tail on it, and eat that. Mama, I would like to eat an octopus. Mama, what about a crab? Can you cut the shell with a knife? The meat is inside, right? You've got to be careful when you eat a crab, or it might pinch you and run away."

I don't know which is more natural and which is more freakish, Henry's enthusiasm for eating animals, or my reluctance.

Mama's boy

A few weeks ago, I was making a vegetable platter to take to a party. Henry was a little put out that he was not going to this party and he really, really, wanted to eat the special party food. So I made him his own vegetable platter, and I told him that whenever he wanted it, he should ask, "Mama, may I please have some crudite?" (This was very funny to me.) Turns out, he loves crudite! He doesn't like hummus (although Agatha does), but he does like ajvar, an Eastern European puree made primarily from red bell peppers and eggplant. He calls this "salsa," and dips his carrots and crackers and garbanzo beans in it. Yum! I often send crudite in his lunch. And as a special treat, the whole family gets crudite for dinner! (Don't tell them that this is the easiest, fastest, healthiest dinner in the world...) Pictured above: crudite with bonus bowl of mac-n-green. Mwah-hah-hah-hah-hah.

Also, Henry vacuums! I have learned to declare a "team approach" to preparing for parties, which makes me much happier and less stressed. Saturday, Henry took over the vacuuming duties to prepare for our Easter party. Then he helped me wipe down the kitchen floor, on hands and knees! Did the whole job. I guess his personal expression of the "team approach" was to wear his baseball outfit and Easter hat.

Easter

Henry made his own hat, and Agatha's dress is a vintage Ruth Rauser creation...

Agatha's latest