It's been a hard week for Elias. He's had roseola, and so has been feeling rotten. He had a fever all weekend– not scorching, but in the 102-103 department. (When Isaac had roseola, he topped 104.) And then on Saturday he was stung by a yellowjacket. He was sitting on the kitchen floor while I was doing the dishes, and apparently picked the yellowjacket up– it stung his little plump thumb. So sad! But I was grateful that at least he hadn't gotten it all the way to his mouth (which surely was the plan), and that he didn't turn out to be allergic.
On Tuesday he woke up with the rash that comes at the end of roseola, and looked horrible. My question was whether it was Fifth Disease (which we've had plenty of chances to get familiar with in recent years), or roseola, and so I called the nurse. They wanted to see him to make sure it wasn't something more sinister (measles?) and wanted to see him. So I brought both boys up to Cleveland and made a day of it! What fun.
As you may know Isaac had pretty bad anemia as a youngster, and lead exposure apparently from our collection of lead soaked antique chairs. (I'm glad to report they are out of the house now and so pose no threat to our current teething/crawling one.) We needed to get his blood drawn while we were there, in order to make sure that he's still on the right track. I told him that after his blood draw he could have a toy– we were planning to do it even before Elias got sick– and so Isaac had been going around saying, "I want to get my blood drawn now!" (the lure of the toy being so great). And while we were at it, Elias was due for his blood to be drawn to check for anemia and lead also.
Isaac was very calm and chipper about the whole thing until we got into the little room with the needle lady, at which point he went hysterical. He sat on my lap, I wrapped my legs around his little blur of kicking feet. I pinned one of his arms, one nurse held the other arm in place, and a second nurse (phlebotomist, more likely) did the sticking. Somehow I also held the baby, but I can't recall how. Anyway, Isaac was a complete screaming, fighting mess through it. And even afterwards, with lollipops and stickers, sat on the table and sobbed as we repeated the ordeal with Elias. (The needle lady clucked over both boys' striking good looks– "What are you gonna DO?" she asked me. "You're in for TROUBLE… Those eyes… cleft chins… oh boy!")
After that it was toy time! We went to a nicer, high end sort of toy store and I was ready to buy something a little nicer than usual. But toy stores are usually dreadful places to bring a child, and I feared that we would be in there for two excruciating hours as Isaac tried to make the faithful choice. However, he more of less walked in, chose his toy and walked out.
The toy in question was a little electronic megaphone type thing, that purported to change one's voice into "robot" voice, high, low, loud, etc., with all these different settings. I was looking for something that would be okay to do inside on one of these endless rainy days, and although I knew it would be hard on the ears, I accepted it. As we paid for it, the man behind the counter ominously mentioned that it needed 9 volt batteries and he didn't have any. What ensued was more complicated and exhausting that you would ever imagine.
1) we walked to a nearby grocery store… they had batteries, but only behind the customer service counter, which was completely swamped in people buying lottery tickets, doing money orders, and such like. We waited in line for a while, but with both boys it was too hard and eventually we walked out empty handed.
2) We went and had lunch, regrouped, and tried again at a nearby drug store. (Note to Clevelanders.. this was in shaker square). There they had the 9V batteries easily accessible! So nice. While paying I asked the check-out lady to do me favor: could she cut open the blister pack the toy was in? It was one of those sorts of packages that you could run over with a mack truck, and the toy inside would be crushed, but the package would still be in tact. She went off to find a scissors, very kindly, and left me and several other people waiting behind me. I apologized to these two nice old guys standing behind me, explaining that we had a long drive and Isaac wanted to play with it on the way home. The lady brought the package back and we left– package opened, battery in hand, home free!
3) But no. Within a moment I had figured out another catch. The battery compartment was held tightly shut with tiny screws set in deep holes. We needed a screwdriver! I went back in, walked the entire store, found only one totally unworkable screwdriver, and decided to buy a glasses repair kit with a tiny screwdriver in it. But after I bought it, it proved to be TOO tiny and wouldn't work either. At that point I gave up. I broke the news to Isaac: we'll just have to wait till we get home. And braced for a category five tantrum.
But amazingly, Isaac took this very well! He just shrugged and said okay! I realized that he had been just amazingly calm and patient throughout the process, cheerful and optimistic. He exuded and unshakable confidence: he lives in a just world. He had endured the blood draw and so would be fairly compensated, and his voice changer would soon be in his hands, working beautifully. He also displayed a touching trust in my ability to surmount any barrier that came between us and our goal. And so it seemed rather sad that all our efforts had led to naught, and we would have to drive home with the toy still nonfunctional.
We walked back to the car dejectedly. Then at the last moment we came upon a camera store– surely they would have a screwdriver. Inside the window, too, they had a train set– presumably soaked in lead (et tu, Thomas?)– and so seemed to welcome children. The kind and non-busy woman behind the counter had the perfect screwdriver, got the job done. I installed the batteries, and in no time Isaac was jarring everyone's nerves with a staticy and feedback-intensive din. Hurrah!
In retrospect, I shouldn't have even attempted to do this before we got home… (A comment by George Will comes to mind. He said that the most chilling phrase to parents is "some assembly required." He pointed out, "The Golden Gate Bridge had 'some assembly required.'") I should know by now that getting a toy up and running is usually no light task!
Elias is still out of sorts, although definitely on the tail end of it. He's been sleeping badly by night and moody by day. I've been stumbling-level exhausted much of the time. It's been either pouring rain or suffocatingly sticky and hot. Unpacking is proceeding at a glacial pace… Ben is working all the time, and between the kids and the most rock-bottom basic (food, dishes, laundry) housework, I can count on one hand my unpacking hours per week. This week, I've had none whatsoever, because Elias has been in need of constant holding and TLC. We're all getting tired of boxes everywhere.
I talked to a guy at Ben's Quaker Meeting the other day, who had moved with his family to Bath also. It had been six months since he moved. I said, "Oh, six months, so are you box-free?" He said, "We'll never be box-free! But at least they're in the basement…" Maybe in six months, we'll be able to say the same.