Welcome, Summer!

Hooray! Summer is here! The kids' last day of school was Friday the 24th. We went directly to a TKD end-of-year party in the park, then jumped in the pool before bed. It was a terrific ending to the school year!
Our summer plans involve a lot of travel. In June, Ted will travel to Kansas City, Missouri for the TKD District Championships (if he wins 1st place, he will automatically be eligible for World Championships in early July). Whether he competes or not, we will travel to Little Rock, Arkansas for Worlds to cheer on our friends and to compete in the first tournament of the new tournament year.
Mae and I head to China on July 14 for 10 days - cannot WAIT!
As for camps, Mae has a week of Chinese camp at CCAI (our agency), Sam has a week of Art Camp and Ted is doing a TKD camp for a week. The rest of the time, our schedule will follow the routine that got us through last summer - so beautifully, I might add.

• wake up, breakfast, chores
• dog park/soccer field with Daddy
• Summer Work Hour (math, writing, reading, typing (for Ted)
• free time til lunch
• Lunchtime
• Creek walk with SP
• Pool Time! 
• TKD
• home for showers and bed

Hooray for summer! Here are some pics of the crazy last few events of the school year! 

Ted ran the Bolder Boulder with pal Omri.
Paul and I did our best to keep up with them. 

Cast pic after their performance of "Route 66."

We think she's pretty relaxed these days. 

Mae was herself for Immigration Day at school,
complete with Chinese passport and Adoption Decree

Sam was a "German Jewish ancestor from Berlin." Cutie. 

Our chavurah won the Chav-Olympics!
Love the kiddish cup trophy!

5th Grade Transition Ceremony.
Farewell, elementary school!

Incredible, awesome 4/5 teacher Nel. 

Buds.

A dog in a sidecar wearing a seatbelt and aviation goggles.
Gotta love Boulder. 

More Vintage Ted

I promise I'll get to Sam and Mae soon, but here is another vintage Ted. LOVE his voice.

And a younger one. Love how he entertained himself!

Ten

 From my post that day:  
Theodore Asher was born March 5, 2002 at 9:45am at Avista Adventist Hospital. He was 7 pounds, 4 ounces and had a full head of dark hair and dark eyes.

How is it that every birthday is such a surprise to me? Can it really have been ten years already?

When I think of this amazing boy, I remember the sweet baby and the mischievous toddler (I'll never forget him sitting on Sam - it was so funny!).

I also remember the challenge he was as a preschooler while somehow managing to be a wonderful big brother. He also warmly welcomed his new baby sister.

Now,  my surprisingly bright elementary school student is also a second degree black belt (recommended - he'll get the belt in April), a fantastic parkour runner, an avid reader and, while he doesn't like it, he does great in school.

My mother has always maintained that there is nothing as wonderful as a 10-year old boy. I am excited for this new year of double digits. Every year he grows up so much and becomes just a bit more of the man he will become. It is bittersweet, to be sure, but exciting.

Here's a cute 9 month video. Sweet pea!

Happy 10th birthday, Ted. I hope this year will be a fantastic one. We love you so very much.

Post Children's report

The hand thing is a result of a virus he had and it will go away, especially with help from Vaseline. Ok, and here's my $1000 check. Hmm. Not sure I agree but we will wait it out a few more weeks. With the supplements, I can imagine his immune system rising to the challenge of beating this thing, but I still wish there was something we could do to make it go away NOW. Grrr.

More soon, as I know more.

more tests - more absences

Ted is having a rough go of it. Once we started the supplements, he started randomly throwing up, every 2 days or so. So we stopped them, but it kept happening. And he started complaining about school, saying it was boring and he didn't want to go. It is NOT boring. He has a fantastic teacher. We are guessing he is under stress, perhaps from all his absences last week. Well, he was twice sent home for throwing up this week and tomorrow he has an appointment at Children's Hospital for his hands. No wonder he's feeling a lack of enthusiasm for school. I'm hoping next week he can go every day, all day!

Yesterday, after being sent home, I had a great talk with his teacher who suggested some things to alleviate anxiety (like the poetry jam tonight - he only has to come, not participate if he doesn't want to). He spent the day doing 6th grade math work and creating a PowerPoint presentation on "Pi - the most fascinating number." Neither were the homework assigned, but his teacher was ok with it. What a tough cookie our boy is.

In good news, he had a spectacular day on Saturday at TKD at a weapons seminar. And he is all registered for Spring Nationals in Vegas in March! I have opening night at the opera, so our beloved sitter, Heather, is going to take him. They are both very excited!

My conference in Chicago got cancelled, which is so disappointing. They aren't saying why, so not sure if it was lack of enrollment or if some of their presenters fell through ... Bummer. I'm glad I hadn't bought the tickets yet. Mae is sad too and I promised we'd spend enough time in Chicago to see baby Elena, G'ma & G'pa AND the American Girl Doll Store. At least we're saving money on tickets!

Dermatology Update

This morning Ted saw the dermatologist. She was lovely and knew what each issue was as soon as she looked at it. And she has a plan!

First, his bad leg eczema is Molluscum contagiosum. It's part of the pox family. She applied Cantharidin, or beetle juice (really!) to the areas and it should scab up and wake up his dormant immune system so it can fight it off.

Second, his lip (and the sides of his mouth! oops.) are a type of oral candida infection, so she has prescribed an antifungal for him to take that will clear that up.

And third, his peeling hands are a bit of a mystery to her too. She suspects it is just excessively dry skin, and has instructed us to lather on the lotion with socks duct-taped on at night (he got a big kick out of that) but she is also conferring with a pediatric dermatologist she knows at Children's as well as checking the strep test results, to be sure all forms of staph infection were cultured, just in case a simple dose of antibiotics might do the trick.

She'll see him again in a month. She says the extra zinc we are supplementing will help his body toughen up, so she's very sure we'll see quick results in the next few weeks.

I feel quite relieved and pleased at her obvious expertise, kind manner, and swift plan of action! And Ted thought she was very nice, which helps.

Now, off to make him his green smoothie for his after school snack! Ssh! Don't tell!

Results are In

• The long-wait strep test was also negative. Darn.
• Iron and Vitamin D are very low. Zinc test isn't back yet. We'll start on Iron and D drops tomorrow.
•  Next step is to see a dermatologist. Paul wants to wait 2 weeks on the "new diet" to see if his skin improves on its own. 
• I am noticing how tired he is at night - unusual. 
• I am thrilled beyond belief that I can make him a smoothie out of strawberry kefir, a banana, an apple, a few frozen strawberries, a scoop of his protein powder and SPINACH leaves, and he will suck it down enthusiastically. Twice a day. 
• This all began Wednesday January 13. What will January 27 look like? 

Iron and Zinc

I searched the Archives in vain for the same title, back in 2007, but couldn't find it. We've been down this road before. Recently Ted started having skin problems: split lips that wouldn't heal, eczema that hurt and bled, and recently, the return of blisters on his fingers. We suspected Strep again but the test came back negative. His doctor ordered a full bloodwork panel, mostly looking into iron and zinc deficiency. Iron makes sense - he is a vegetarian and extremely picky. It is doubtful that he is getting all the nutrition that he needs from his limited foods and Gummi Vitamins. A zinc deficiency apparently can cause appetite suppression, so maybe there is some hope for his appetite yet! We are eagerly looking forward to the results, but until then, back to our supplements we go!

A better multi, double fish oils, probiotics and a high protein powder are back in the meal plan, and while he isn't thrilled with the powder, he is tolerating it, so I think we are going to be OK. If the bloodwork comes back the way we think it will, we'll add iron and zinc supplements to his routine. This is the kid that learned to swallow pills at 5 years old - it was a good thing!

2011 IronKids Tri

3 months later, we finally did the video! Ted is in the 9-11 year old division now, and looks very small compared to the kids around him (in the bike leg, at least). He didn't have a very fast time this year, but he also didn't feel much pressure and had a great experience. He's in the red shirt and black swim trunks. Enjoy!

Tournament

Ted, Mae and I had a TKD adventure this weekend. We drove to Littleton Friday afternoon for some black-belt only competition, and to watch our instructors mid-term. Then we spent the night at a hotel, with the fun swimming, breakfast and TV that my children l.o.v.e.

Saturday Mae competed as a Tiny Tiger while Ted helped out by time-keeping in the rings. We got lunch around 2pm and Ted's ring finally got going around 3:30. Of course, as luck would have it, MY ring was staged while Ted's was on deck.

That was stressful, but the worst was that my ring actually got going right when Ted had won one round of sparring and was about to do another round! He eventually took 3rd place in Sparring, which, with three State Champions in his ring, was quite a feat.

I was bummed to miss his second round, but had fun competing myself. I did my form as best as I could, but didn't place. I did get 3rd in Sparring (ha!) but there were only four of us sparring (out of the seven in the ring) so it's not quite as impressive as Ted's win. I did see that none of the ladies competed in Weapons, so I might as well do that next time! Automatic first place!

All in all, a great experience. This was Mae's second tournament and she did great. Ted is completely jazzed now and wants to compete at Fall Nationals in Orlando, FL. Not sure I can pull that off, but we're going to try. There are three more regional tournaments, and the four medals link together to make the Songham Star. Very cool.

The school's (new) main instructor, Mr. O, wants Ted to start schlepping to Fort Collins on Saturdays. There are three classes he can do, with other black belts his age. He could do a Black Belt class, an XMA class, and a Sparring class. He is very excited about that, though a little nervous too.

His dear friend Pete lives in Fort Collins, so perhaps we can tie a visit with Pete into the day. We're thinking to go twice a month, although if he actually is going to get really serious (you just never know - tournaments get Ted very excited) we may go more often.

Mae's soccer season starts up next week! Saturdays are going to be divide and conquer days! Bring it!

X-Treme Challenge Bday Party

Wow. This was quite the birthday party! Invented by a former American Gladiator champion, this small space rotates crazy games that are so much fun! Obstacle course, get the cheese (left), Superman swing, knock over with human ball, the list goes on and on. This was a perfect birthday party for active boys. I suspect we'll see more parties here in the future. So much fun! Paul is going to put lots of pics up on moeltini soon (we are both completely pooped) so stay tuned!

Turns out Mae had a 102 fever so I took her to Urgent Care, where she was tested for strep and flu. She tested negative but we'll hear the results of the strep culture on Monday afternoon. Paul took the boys to chavurah this afternoon and Ted fell off a cliff. He has a ton of scrapes and cuts, but miraculously didn't break anything. At least we didn't have a repeat of the birthday emergency room visit, a la age 7.

A super fun morning, a worrisome afternoon, and a restful evening. Ahh...

9 years old

Nine. Just saying it aloud tastes funny. Nine is a big kid - not quite a 10-year-old level of bigness - but big. I've read that 9 brings with it a certain pulling away, a new desire for independence, and while I've been feeling that for a while now, knowing that it's the right thing for this age is very reassuring.

Here's a heart-warming Ted story. At school, the birthday child gets to hold the world (a giant beach ball) while a friend holds the sun (a lightbulb, or in Ted's class' case, an orange cone). As the earth circles the sun, we pass around a pic for each year and share a story from that year. Very cute. There was a snafu over who would hold his sun and I held my breath, sure he'd choose a close buddy and not the desperate boy who so badly wanted to be chosen. But he chose him. Not grudgingly, just simply, "I choose him." It was a beautiful moment.

We've had a hard year, this maturing boy and I. But through it all, I see the kindness and goodness in him. He is a much kinder person out in the world than he is at home - but aren't we all? Don't we all wish to treat our family members better? This year, this 9th year with my boy, I resolve to show him what a good person he is becoming. I will focus more on the good and less on the bad. Oh yes. Nine will be a good year, for both of us.
Happy Birthday, my sweet boy. You are so loved.

Click here for a link to the pics we used at school.

Breaking the Tape

Ted, busting it home at the Tri last week. He got in just ahead of the 1st and 2nd place winners of the girl's division. He ranked 13 out of 30 in his division (8 year old boys) (5th in the swim!). I like how they let the kids break the tape like in the IronMan. ;-)

Tri Video!

Ted's Triathlon

Video coming soon! In the meantime, here are pics of Ted's 4th triathlon.

Ted is home!

Exhausted, dirty, sunburned and full of stories, Ted is home safe and sound. He wants to go for two weeks next year and had a great time. He even offered that "all the Jewish stuff" was kind of cool. :-) Here are some pics from Shabbat day and some goofing around back in Denver after getting off the bus.

Aleph Overnight

I can't wait to hear about what went on at the overnight. They hiked someplace and camped out in a huge teepee. It must have been so fun.

More Shwayder pics!

More pics from Shwayder. Looks like a High Ropes course, some gardening and an evening Rainbow program were on the agenda. How fun!

Bunk Pics!

I know they want us to order these pictures, and I will, but until then, I can't resist looking at them and smiling, because Ted is obviously having a blast. Hooray!

Shwayder!

I sent Ted off to overnight camp yesterday! He was about to burst from excitement. Here are some pics with his friend Jack and Zach. Warren gave the boys a speech about making new friends (love Jack's expression). I sent him a care package that should arrive today or tomorrow (with a diary, pen, book & small stuffie) and we were able to send an email message this morning. Can't wait for pics! I love the moms pic - Heather looks so excited! Hee hee.