Martinez Family Journal

Last week was a good week, we were entertaining John's mother and stepfather from Phoenix who were visiting for Easter. Drew was needing some quality time with Jeanne while she was at the moment more drawn to the food prep. This continued for a while and he unfortunately had to wait for her to be done doing something liek going to the store, for he was growing tired of waiting. it is such a special time when having relatives visit for their visits are so brief and they all live out of town. he is so hot to play Scrabble with her to try to beat her, for heknows she is hands down the champion in this family and the whole west coast I am sure! After being told many times taht he needs to wait a bit longer for Grandma to be ready, he walked into the kitchen and wanting to be careful of his behavior at the same time, blurted out "I am getting really close o complaining!"

wow. What a humorous statement to hear! I think if I recall well, all in earshot burst out laughing. And he did get his game of Scrabble soon! :-)

Last night I took over Drew's spot in his bed while he took my spot in my bed, for Matt had been sick again, vomiting in the afternoon. I wanted to go to bed knowing that if Matt needed me during the night I would be there for him, so when the kids are sick I sleep in their room. So this morning I dragged myself out of bed and helped Drew get ready for school and make his lunch when I arrived in the kitchen. Matt was desperately hungry, having vomited the night before and not having been allowed to eat after that, according to this nurse's instructions. So I found Matt in the kitchen freely eating cranberries. He was SUPPOSED to be on a strict diet of clear liquids for 24 hours! After that - to be on a bland diet for another 24 hours, then 'normal' food after tht. So i took the berries away as gently and kindly as I could, explaining to him. Wow, he was SO MAD he yelled at me "GO BACK TO BED!!" I was so shocked for we never see Matt so belligerent. I think I laughed right out loud. Fortunately he did not get sick from having had his diet advanced prematurely. Poor kid; he was so hungry. he didn't want any of the broth and apple juice I could offer, jsut the forbidden fruit.

mary

Drew's school had their annual walkathon to raise money for the school Friday at Arroyo del Oso park nearby here. It was a super fun day for all out in the abundant sunshine. Terribly I forgot to send him with sunscreen and sure neough he got a bit of a burn. just a bit. Saturday he told me that one of his classmates, a very pretty girl names Brianna continued to come up to him and want hugs. Well today she came up to him while they were walking and told him something like this 'this is really hard for me to say but I have to tell you - I am in love withyou.' She also told him she wanted to kis shim. Wow, I guess I wasn't expecting this sort of thing quite so early - in the third grade. Drew has been very kind to her as she came into class during the year as a new student. he knew what that was like - for being new to 2 different school last year. so I think he made a p;oint of giving her some neat sutff from his lunch box and jsut generally being kind. I dropped him off at 8:10 a few mornings ago and there she was wanting a hug from him and I encouraged him to giver her one but he is relaly not into it for the boys give him heck if he does. There is one boy, a very macho boy named Jacob who told him he did the 'right thing' by not hugging her one day!

The other day I came upon Drew's nice linen pants in the drawer, and I explained to him about hanging up and putting them into drawers. He said he did not want to wear them. I rarely hear this from him unless something looks a bit too girly for him, in his eyes. So I was pretty surprised to hear this. He tried to articulate that they look raggish, since they have that nubby texture. I asked if he felt he were wearing something ragged and he said he did feel that way. I was amused. I was so excited when I found them at such a decent price, I bought them right away and he can wear them to school and get lots of use out of them. So I carefully explained to him that that is the way the fabric is made, and that it is natural and that it is actually considered a most special material. But once he heard that, and believed he was not being told to wear 'rags', he said it would be fine to wear them. Now there was a conversation I will always smile about ;-)

John incidentally had a most interesting conversation with Matty, now 3 and a half, as of yesterday. He was playing with Matty one evening. They had trains out and Matty was doling out the trains as he saw fit. He took Jupiter, the nice shiny battery-operated train for himself and gave John a more ordinary train engine, Percy, a small green engine.

John: "What if I want to play with Jupiter?"

Matty: "You don't want Jupiter." (Very matter-of-fact - as though he was pointing out something John overlooked.)

John: "But I do want Jupiter."

Matty: "You'll like Percy." (He sounded just liked a used car salesman - very confident and smooth delivery.)

John: "But I want Jupiter" He didn't care what train he got, he just wanted to see where Matty was going with this conversation.

Matty: "I can't give you Jupiter." (Still very calm about this!)

John: "Why?"

Matty: "I don't know." (And that was all he would say about it - he wanted to change the subject by this time!)

John was pretty amused when he told me this, for it showed some level of sophistication to carefully try to give away the lesser engine without actually saying "I want it. You can't have it." Interesting…