Griffin’s journal

Griffin: Is Curious George real?

Me: Well, Curious George is a character in a story, but he isn’t a real monkey.

Griffin: Is Mickey Mouse real?

Me:  No, Mickey Mouse is a cartoon character.

Griffin:  But Mom!  I saw Mickey Mouse!  At Disneyland!

Me: Oh, that’s right.  Well, the Mickey Mouse you saw was real.

Griffin.  You’re so silly!

Me:  Yes, I’m silly.

Griffin:  And wrong.

Sarah and Griffin

Sarah took care of Griffin in the mornings for a year after I first went back to work.  She is awesome.  We still try to get them together as often as possible.  One of the many awesome things about Sarah is that she’s a musician, and she plays in two different bands around Madison.  Twice now we’ve all been able to see her play at Mother Fool’s.  Griffin thinks it’s the best thing ever, and why wouldn’t he?  His babysitter?  Is playing in the band!  He grins and dances and sometimes she grabs him and has him play the drums.  She has a fiancee from Chile who is equally cool,  Griffin has been able to find Chile on any world map since he was two.  I realized I didn’t have many pictures of the two of them together, so I took this one last week.

I was talking to Julian about a work situation and didn’t realize that Griffin was intently listening.  Then this happened:

Me:  Blah, blah, complain.

Griffin: That isn’t very nice.  If he says that again you should tell him “Don’t say that!”

Me (surprised):  Wow, thanks Griffin!

Griffin:  Do you want me to pat your back?

Me (really surprised): Ok?

Then he then came over and patted me on the back.  And then I did feel so much better.

Well, I’m not.  But, Julian and Griffin are waiting to board a plane to SoCal right now.  Next week is a preschool vacation so Julian had already planned to take a week of vacation to hang out with Griffin.  Then he realized it would be a great time for the two of them to visit friends and family in Southern California.  So, off they go for five days, this will be by far the longest I’ve been away from Griffin.  They’ll be going to Disneyland and having all sorts of fun adventures possibly involving dolphins and rockets.  We recently got video calls working with Julian’s dad so I’m glad I’ll be able to see them once or twice while they’re gone.

Every parent I’ve told this to has asked the same question, with the same inflection.  “What are you going to do?”  I’m going to miss them like crazy, call Julian’s cell phone every few hours, and also I’m going to get so much done.  Landscaping, house organizing, exercising.  Maybe I’ll take a bath and read a book!  Julian saw my todo list and cracked up at the optimism, he threw in a request for me to rent a bulldozer and regrade the back yard while I’m at it. 

I’m a few weeks late with this post, but Griffin is four!  It’s amazing how quickly he’s grown up.  At two he was just vaguely aware the party was for him.  This year Griffin planned everything, he picked the venue, decided what decorations and flavors he wanted for the cake, and he counted the days until his birthday for months in advance.  One time he got mad at Julian and told him “You’re not invited to my birthday party!”  and I sounded exactly like a mom when I told him “If it weren’t for your dad, you wouldn’t even have a birthday!”

Birthday 2008

In other news, he’s officially outgrown the dairy allergy!  We had the food challenge test at the allergist this morning.  We gave up on waiting for the test a few weeks ago and had already been giving him dairy foods, but it’s nice to have it officially confirmed.

Fitchburg days was this past weekend.  Griffin had seen the carnival being set up earlier in the week when we stopped at the dream park after school.  Friday I asked him if he wanted to fly kites and he quickly agreed and then insisted we fly kites at the dream park so we could inspect the progress of the carnival.

When we arrived the first thing we saw was a group of men all wearing jumpsuits and someone who appeared to be a warden in a big hat.  Apparently they were using prison labor to set up the tents, it was like reality shifted and we were suddenly in a Southern prison movie.  Griffin looked at the warden and loudly announced “That’s a funny cowboy!”

Then we started flying our kites on the field behind the dream park.  After a while a little person drove up on a small moped and offered to help get the kites into the air.    At some point the person’s cell phone rang and his ring tone was circus music.  So reality shifted again and now we’re in Carnivale.  After a while the little person announced that flying kites is the “best vice for the price”, got on his moped, and drove off.  Griffin said “Whoa! He has a motorcycle.”

Then we stopped flying kites and walked around the carnival grounds so Griffin could inspect all the rides, guess how they worked, and figure out which ones he’d be tall enough to ride on.  The carnival workers were really friendly and seemed to appreciate having an enthusiastic kid around saying “Cool!” and “Whoa!” every few steps. 

We went home for a nap and then the whole family returned for a night of riding the rides, eating unhealthy food, and watching the fireworks.  Griffin got a glow stick and beamed about it for at least an hour.  It really doesn’t get better than that.

One of the things that surprised me when reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma (and also Plenty, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle) was how much food varies.  We tend to think an egg is an egg is an egg, to the point where the only thing the supermarket advertises is price.  As if all eggs are the same, with no difference in quality or nutritional value.  I was really surprised to learn that chickens lay more eggs in the spring, less eggs in the winter, and that the eggs actually change throughout the year.   Some older recipes would even specify “spring eggs” or “fall eggs”.  A lot depends on what the chickens eat; the nutritional value of free range eggs is much better than conventional eggs.

This year we signed up for eggs from Dreamfarm along with our CSA share.  This morning I boiled a few of them and when I cut one open I was surprised to find a double-yolk.  This is like finding a four-leaf-clover, I’ve only ever seen it once before.  Of course Griffin wanted his egg to have a double-yolk, too,  but we knew the odds of that were very small.  Except, we gave him a different egg and it had a double-yolk, too!  It was just like winning the lottery.

We met up with some of Griffin’s cousins last night for a Dan Zanes concert/pajama party.  They cleared out several rows of seats so the kids could dance, it was so much fun.

Griffin and Eve eating ice cream before the show

Uncle Dan, Aunt Carrie, and Elise

Aunts, uncles, and cousins before the show.

Landon dancing before the show

“Look at all the people at McDonalds!  I think they don’t want to eat healthy food.  Mom, I think they don’t know the rules!  They go to McDonalds all day and all night!  I think they might get sick.”

Fast Food Nation, the four-year-old version.

I’ve been avoiding writing about this because I didn’t want to jinx it, but there’s a pretty good chance Griffin has outgrown his dairy allergy.  We had an appointment last week with the allergist and he didn’t react to dairy in the skin test so they ordered a RAST blood test.  We got the results of that back on Tuesday and he doesn’t have anti-bodies to dairy in his blood.  The doctor said there is a 95% chance he is no longer allergic to dairy.  We won’t know for sure until we do a food challenge test, though, and the next available appointment for one is on June 10th. 

We’d been going along not expecting him to grow out of this because he was so allergic as a baby.  We made all the modifications to our diets years ago.  We’re used to reading labels, bringing our own food to parties, interrogating waiters about whey in bread.  We were fine, we were in it for the long haul, we never even thought about it.  Now we’re going nuts, how are we supposed to wait six more weeks to find out?

Speaking of nuts, he is still allergic to tree nuts, that one probably won’t go away.  No problem, they’re a lot easier to avoid than dairy.