Moses vs. The Croup

One night a few weeks ago Moses went to bed without eating dinner, then woke up at around 2 AM with a high fever, barking like a seal in between labored gasps for air. Every time he breathed in, his chest became alarmingly concave in. I had never experienced anything like this with the twins, and was honestly pretty scared. It didn't help that I had been up sick for much of the night with a case of food poisoning. Joe and I wondered if we should take him to the ER, but since we're the kind of people who go to the hospital only as a very last resort (especially at 2 AM in the middle of winter), we just held Moses, prayed like we've never prayed before, and coaxed him to take a few licks of a popsicle before he drifted back to sleep.

In the morning Joe called and left a message with our doctor, who later called back, and upon hearing my explanation of Moses' symptoms, determined that he had croup. He first suggested we try a homeopathic phosphorus treatment, but when I described the way Moses had been listlessly laying on the couch all morning with no interest in playing or even watching TV, the doctor urged us to go ahead and take him to urgent care. Moses actually perked up a little on the way to urgent care, because apparently cold air is good for the croup. Once we arrived, Moses was given a nebulizer treatment. At first he resisted and cried, but upon realizing that the nebulizer made him feel better, he relinquished his fight and decided to cooperate. After we'd been at urgent care all afternoon, the doctor decided that we should play it safe and continue on to the hospital for the night.

So we drove home, packed our bags in anticipation of an overnight stay, and dropped the twins off at Mimi and Papa's house. By this point it was about 5 PM and big fat flakes of snow had been showering down steadily all afternoon. Naturally, traffic was a nightmare, and we had to go all the way to Fairfax Hospital since Alexandria doesn't have a pediatric unit. When we finally arrived, Moses settled into his room and enjoyed watching Madagascar from his bed while doctors and nurses gave him steroids, Tylenol, Motrin, another nebulizer treatment, and a popsicle. We were so thankful when they told us we were free to go home that evening at around 9 o'clock. Moses slept soundly that night, and when he woke up the next morning, he ate an entire slice of toast slathered with peanut butter and jam. He normally doesn't even like peanut butter, but his brothers had left this behind at breakfast and I guess Moses was so hungry that he was willing to eat the first thing he could get his hands on. I was so happy to see him eating again that I just sat there and savored watching him savor every bite.

Before this ordeal, I had been totally unfamiliar with croup, thinking it sounded like one of those old-fashioned ailments from the days of yore, but apparently it's quite common among children under age 5. We found out from Granny that both Joe and Uncle Patrick suffered from frequent bouts with the croup when they were little, and the diagnosis paperwork from the urgent care office informed us that croup is an ailment that tends to run in the family. So between this brush with the croup and Moses' episode with the hydrocele when he was a newborn, I guess it's safe to say that Moses did inherit some of his genetic material from his Daddy's side of the family after all! ;-)

Daddy, why did God make your hair fall out?

Overheard in the Wolf household in the past month or so...

Moses, watching me wrap Christmas gifts: "Who's that present for?"
Joe: "It's probably for someone whom Mommy loves very much."
Moses: "Is it for Jesus?"

"Oh my gosh, guys, Caleb probably needs to burp." -Caleb

Joshua, asking about Mr. Popper's Penguins: "Does this movie have people in it?"
Joe: "Yeah."
Joshua: "Then I don't think I will like it. I only like movies that have animals."
Joe: "But this movie has penguins in it."
Joshua: "Are the penguins in Antarctica?"
Joe: "No, I think they're in New York City."
Joshua: "I only like movies about penguins that are in Antarctica."

Joshua: "When I grow up, I will become a man and then I will find a woman to be my wife. Maybe Hana will be my wife. Then Hana will have a baby in her belly and I will be his Daddy and you will be his Mimi and Daddy will be his Babo."

Me: "What did your teachers talk about at school today?"
Caleb: "We talked about Martin Luther King!"
Me: "Oh, wow! Who was Martin Luther King?"
Caleb: "He was brown. I colored his face brown."
Me: "Ok, and what did he do?"
Caleb: "I don't know."
Joshua: "He had really short hair."

Joshua: "I ate lunch with Jory and Keira today."
Caleb: "Jory? I think she looks kind of Korean."
Me: "Yeah, I guess she might be Korean.
Caleb: "Like Mimi and Yoojin and Yejin."
Me: "That's right. You boys are a quarter Korean, you know?"
Joshua: "Does Korean mean our skin is just a little yellow and brown?"

Joe, talking to the twins: "I'll give the iPhone to the first boy who can tell me what 3 plus 3 equals."
Moses: "six!"
Joe: "I guess Moses gets the iPhone."

Me: "Would you want to have another brother?"
Moses: "Yes. I want a baby sister and a baby brother. And then there will be five brothers."
To give you some context, Joe and I had just been talking about large families, and how people we know who come from large families seem to enjoy having many siblings despite the sacrifices their families had to make to accommodate them. So, we asked the boys their opinion on the matter, and this is what Moses said. By "brothers" we are sure that he meant "siblings", a word he is not yet familiar with. Anyway, we are pretty impressed with his quick mental math skills.

Joshua: "Daddy, when did your hair fall out?
Joe: "It started to fall out in college."
Joshua: "But why did God make your hair fall out?"
Joe: "I don't know."
Joshua: "Maybe so that Mommy would think that you looked nice and good."
Joe: "Yeah, it did work, didn't it?"

The Snowman Wus Shivrring

I have quite a backlog of quotes from the past month:

"Samson ate lots of healthy food and became really strong". -Joshua

"No thank you Caleb, I don't wanna get fat". -Moses, politely declining a snack.

"No, Owen, Santa Claus is just a character. He's not real". -Moses, correcting his big brothers' friend's claim that Santa would come down his chimney. I quickly intervened and assured Owen that Moses was mistaken.

"Look, I drew a bat and a ice cream cone for my parents. Look, Mom, your son drew this for you." -Moses, showing me his artwork.

"Oh, praise God, Joshua! You drew a very nice snowman. That's a very good job!" -Caleb

"Ding ding ding! I made my snowman". -Joshua

"This place is very impressive!" -Joshua, upon arriving at the Christmas Tree farm.

"I had a bad dream about a peanut butter pizza that turned into an animal and started chasing me." -Joshua, in a state of consternation just after waking up.

"Is this soup?" - Joshua, referring to his Thanksgiving school lunch of turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes smothered in gravy.

"I want a baby sister. I have too many brothers." -Moses, wishfully thinking.

"And a very, very, very metal tree." -Caleb and Joshua's interpretation of "And a partridge in a pear tree."

"See the green Christmas trees, growing up the pine. See the green Christmas trees, this one will be mine." -Joshua's seasonally appropriate version of a song they learned in school: "See the yellow pumpkins, growing on the vine. See the yellow pumpkins, this one will be mine."

Of course, this is just a tiny sampling of the billions of things the boys say each day. Moses talks so much when it's just me and him at home during the day that I sometimes want to just tell him to be quiet! Since the twins had language delays and were relatively reticent 2-year-olds, I am not accustomed to all of this talking, and it honestly wears on my introverted self. I've even resorted to begging him to watch movies just so that I can hear myself think.

Upon noticing a dearth of quotes from Caleb in my collection, I initially felt kind of bad for not recording more things he's said. but I actually think it's a reflection of the fact that he generally spends less time gabbing away than his brothers do. Caleb is probably the most introverted one of the bunch, and spends much more time drawing than the other two do. He continues to mass-produce drawings on a daily basis, his current obsessions being gingerbread men being chased by foxes, as well as snowmen assuming different occupational roles, such as a cowboy snowman or a policeman snowman.

Moses has followed Caleb's lead and has actually shown himself to be a pretty decent artist. He has drawn things like faces, horses, and skull-and-crossbones that are surprisingly recognizable, considering they were created by a two-year-old. Moses is also eager to emulate his big brothers' writing skills and has even written the word "MIMI" although I don't think he knew what he was writing. His favorite letters to write are "H", "I", "M", "O" and "E". He doesn't seem interested in writing his name, but I guess I can't blame him since those "S"s are pretty daunting. He also insists that his name is spelled "M-O-E-S". Moses has a stubborn streak and trying to convince him that he's wrong is usually a futile effort.

Unfortunately, Moses also seems to think it's his job to correct his friends and tell them they're doing everything the wrong way. After living in the shadows of two older brothers for his entire life, I guess he's realized that preschool is his long-awaited opportunity to be the boss, even though he's actually one of the youngest kids in his class. Even though I have been horrified to witness this behavior on more than one occasion at school and at play dates, the other children thankfully don't seem to mind Moses' bossy nature, and he is never at a loss for friends who want to play with him.

Unlike his bossy little brother, Joshua is most focused on discussing the virtues of kindness and striving to be a "model student." We've been amused to witness the inclusion of phrases such as "that was so kind of you" and "I am very impressed" into his everyday speech. And Joshua not only talks the talk, but he also (usually) walks the walk. It is no wonder that his classmate Hanna told him today that she is going to marry him! Joshua is also becoming a more confident reader and writer. The other day when I was volunteering in his classroom, he wrote the following narrative: "The snowman wus shivrring. He wus so so cod." Translation: "The snowman was shivering. He was so, so cold." It's cute to see that Joshua writes the same way he talks. I was also pleased to see that he finished his assignment early and had plenty of time for free play afterwards. During the first couple months of school, when the children's task had been to write a letter of the alphabet several dozen times and then color, cut, and glue a worksheet pertaining to that letter, Joshua would drag it out and barely finish the assignment in time to head to lunch. Clearly, he is much more motivated to do creative work, and understandably so.

The boys are very excited about the impending arrival of Christmas in a few days. Ever since we put up our Christmas tree the weekend after Thanksgiving, Joshua has regularly proclaimed, "this will be the best Christmas ever!" Even though we've reminded the boys over and over again that Santa Claus is just a character, they still seem to partially believe that he really will come down our chimney and bring them presents. This doesn't bother me, it's actually kind of endearing, and at least they'll never be able to claim that we lied to them. Trying to keep Christ in Christmas has been more of a challenge this year than in years past, since the twins' public school Kindergarten curriculum would lead one to believe that gingerbread houses and gingerbread men are the centerpiece of what should be a celebration of our Savior's birth. I suppose it could be worse; at least the boys have come home with Christmas tree crafts and a lesson about the Dutch tradition of leaving shoes out for Saint Nicholas to fill. And this past weekend, all three boys bravely stood in front of the congregation and sang about Baby Jesus in our church's newly-formed children's choir: "What did the donkey at the manger say, to Baby Jesus in the hay? Hee haw, hee haw, Baby Jesus we love you."

Happy 6th Birthday, Caleb and Joshua!

The twins are 6! On their birthday, they took Rice Krispies treats to school to share with their classmates, then that evening we had spaghetti and cake at Mimi and Papa's house, and the boys (including Moses) each got a rifle gun that they'd had their eyes on since they first noticed them at the Mount Vernon gift shop this past summer. Then on Saturday we threw the boys a pirate party with a dozen of their friends. Joe even dressed up like a pirate: he grew out his beard, wore a pirate wig that we found at the Variety Store, and stuck a toy machete in a colorful sash that he tied around his waist. Several of the boys' moms, including our friend Leah who has known Joe for several years now, thought that we had hired a "real" pirate! All of the boys had a blast digging for "treasure" in the turtle sandbox, "walking the plank", jumping on the trampoline, eating pizza, and play fighting with the boys' toy guns and swords.

Now that the boys are 6 years old, they are making progress along the road to self-sufficiency. They are finally wiping their own butts, although they still refuse to go #2 at school. In fact, a few weeks ago I got a call from the school nurse because Joshua was in the clinic, doubled over in stomach pain, refusing to use the bathroom. Before I could get to the school, the nurse called back to say that he finally went to the bathroom and was feeling better. Joshua, however, maintains that he never did poop at school, but that his tummy felt better because Jesus healed him.

In other areas of self-sufficiency, the boys can climb up on the counter, get a glass from the cupboard, and pour themselves a glass of milk or water. Heck, even 2-year-old Moses has started doing this. Caleb will often pour me a tall glass of water and bring it to me, unprompted, while I'm sitting at the computer or folding laundry. He is very sweet. He also likes to draw pictures and give them to us as gifts. Joshua is a sweet boy, too. He's always showing us affection and telling us things like, "I just love giving you hugs and kisses!"

I met with the twins' teachers for their first elementary school parent-teacher conferences last week, too. Both boys did very well on their first standardized test that is issued to all Kindergarteners in the state of Virginia. They both passed the Spring benchmark, which means that they already have all the skills and knowledge that they're expected to have before they finish Kindergarten. Granted, they attend one of the more competitive schools in one of the best public school systems in the nation, so I'm sure that most of their classmates did just as well if not better, and the teachers have accelerated the curriculum accordingly. If I remember correctly, Joshua scored a 182, Caleb scored a 178, and the Spring benchmark is 177.

Caleb actually could have scored higher, but he didn't give a single correct answer in the rhyming section. I could have sworn that he's known how to rhyme for a while now, so when I got home from the conference, I asked him to tell me something that rhymes, and of course he immediately rattled off a long list rhyming words. I suspect that Caleb simply did not understand what was being asked of him during this particular section of the test. After all, one of the items that was originally on his IEP was difficulty with "receptive language," or understanding what is being spoken to you. I will need to follow up with his teacher and make sure that she is aware of this. I really think that he has a very good teacher, but in a class full of 25 energetic kids, I can see how it would be very easy for a detail like that to slip through the cracks. Joshua's class is smaller with only 20 kids, and they have the added benefit of having a special ed teacher in the classroom for much of the day. So in addition to having fewer classroom distractions, Joshua gets a lot more one-on-one time than Caleb does. I am confident that Caleb will thrive nevertheless. His teacher said he is such a sweet, good boy and that he is trying very hard. Joshua's teacher told me that he is very sweet and kind, and his special ed teacher said that she thinks he's actually very smart. As a mom, you can't ask for better reports than those!

And now for a few quotes:

Joshua: "I guess I am the onliest boy who is listening and putting on my shoes!"

Moses: "Daddy! Mommy is not paying attention to me!"

Me: "Caleb, get your backpack!"
(Caleb completely ignores me and keeps walking while Moses puts on Caleb's backpack.)
Me: "Moses, thank you for bringing Caleb's backpack inside."
Moses: "Yes, because Caleb is not paying attention."

Moses, observing 2 egg yolks in a mixing bowl: "It's like a butt!"

McMoses' Healthy Halloween

Moses has developed a strange habit of substituting the first syllable of certain words with "Mc". For example, he consistently makes the following adjustments:

McPuter = Computer
McTar = Guitar
McBrella = Umbrella

I'm pretty sure that he knows the correct pronunciations, but he still insists on saying things this way. Maybe it's his Irish heritage manifesting itself... and the only apparent manifestation of it, at that!

In other news, the boys are very excited about Halloween and going trick-or-treating tonight. The twins have been learning a lot of Halloween songs in music class at school, which they in turn teach to Moses. The other day I heard Moses singing his own rendition of a classic. I think I like his version better:

"Trick or treat, trick or treat, give me something good for me."

That's my boy!

Imaginative Moses

Moses has quite an active imagination, and it has blossomed all the more now that his big brothers are away at school all day. Whereas he previously relied heavily on his brothers for entertainment, he is now content to play with animal figurines, blocks, cars, and Legos all by himself for extended periods of time, quietly creating dialogues and singing to himself as he plays. Since the twins always had each other to play with, I suppose they were never required to plumb the depths of their imaginations to the same degree that Moses has. That's not to say they were completely unimaginative, it's just that they almost always collaborated with each other, such as when they used to pretend to be a mother monkey and a baby monkey. Moses also enjoys pretending to be different animals, such as the other day when he walked into the kitchen wearing gloves on his feet, and when I asked him why, he told me, "I am an ostrich and I have ostrich feet."

One way that Moses' imagination is manifesting itself is through telling lies, and convincing ones, at that. A couple weeks ago as we were getting ready to sit down to eat dinner, I noticed that Moses had taken off his jacket, so I asked him why. He replied, "Daddy told me to take my jacket off so that I won't spill macaroni on it." While it seemed like a somewhat reasonable explanation, I was mildly perturbed to hear that Joe had told him to remove layers considering how cold it was inside the house. And besides, macaroni and cheese wasn't much of a stain threat to his navy blue jacket. Baffled by Joe's logic, I asked him if he'd indeed told Moses to take his jacket off so that he wouldn't spill macaroni and cheese on it. And what do you know, he hadn't.

Moses also claims to have vivid dreams every night about horses racing. He tells us that he dreams about thoroughbreds, Asian wild horses, the white horse of the sea, and fallabellas. Speaking of dreaming, the other day while Moses and I were surveying the pumpkins on our front steps, he provided me with the following analysis. Pointing to the three large pumpkins, he said, "That's the mommy pumpkin, and the daddy pumpkin is a little bigger. And here's Moses. He's a big boy pumpkin." Then, pointing to a couple of the smaller pumpkins, he said, "And here's his brothers. They are babies." So much for being the humblest man on the face of the Earth!

Prolific Caleb

Caleb has blossomed into a prolific artist. The first thing he does when he wakes up in the morning is make a beeline to the dining room table, not to eat breakfast, but to commence a drawing of whatever happens to be his subject of choice for the week. Likewise, the first thing he does when he comes home from school on most days is situate himself at the table with a piece of paper and a bucket of markers. You would think he'd be tired of sitting and drawing after being at school all day, but apparently not. Joshua, on the other hand, wants nothing to do with sitting and drawing during after-school hours. He would rather run around the house for a while before settling into the couch with his latest library book.

I first noticed Caleb's trend toward the end of the summer when he became obsessed with drawing David and Goliath: pages upon pages of pictures of David with his sling facing off with Goliath with his sword. Some time later, he started drawing cars: lots of cars, complete with details such as headlights and spirals of exhaust spewing out the back. From there, he progressed on to pumpkins: jack-o-lanterns with varying shaped eyes, noses, and mouths. Next came pirate ships, influenced by our voyage on a pirate ship in Baltimore. And Caleb's most recent subject matter has been the owl, his school's mascot. Specifically, he draws an owl slightly hovering above the branch of a tree, almost always slightly tilting to the left, with a crescent moon in the upper right corner and a black night sky in the background.

It's fascinating how consistent Caleb is, with only slight variations in each piece from each series, not much unlike how a real artist operates. Indeed, of the many printmaking works I created in college, there are quite a few series of a common image with only slight variations among the members of each set. Caleb demonstrates the perfectionist tendencies of an artist, too. If he accidentally colors outside one of the lines he draws, he launches into a fit of consternation, dramatically discarding the ruined piece aside and starting over on a clean slate.

A few quotes:

"Caleb, it's not good to talk to your friends like that. Only Mommy can talk like that." - Joshua

"Oh, come on Caleb, don't be sad. Let's get busy. I like to play trains with you." - Joshua

"He is really evil and not a good student and is absolutely bad." -Joshua, commenting on someone's scary Halloween decoration.

Woman, talking to the twins: "How old are you?"
Caleb and Joshua: *no response*
Moses: "They are 5 and I am 2."

"I love green, and brown is my favorite color, too, because I am brown." - Moses

"Those two squirrels are friends, like me and Desmond." -Moses, while watching two squirrels chase and play with each other

"Look, mom, it's a silent color." -Moses, while applying very light pressure to the crayon while drawing.