Keva blocks are a constant favorite item in our house. Tonight, while I was reading _Heidi_ to the kids, Walter built "the wolf" above. This was just one of many fabulous representative and architectural wonders that I saw. Our reading has been slower than usual lately. Walter, Ollie, and I just finished reading _The Sacrifice_, a book about the Salem witch trials, and all four of us have been reading _Heidi_, a very slow book, and _Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing_. The boys and I also are working on _Carry On, Mr. Bowditch_, a book that didn't really take off with them when we started it a few weeks ago, but that I'd like to finish. Before that we read _Huckleberry Finn_ and _Misty of Chincoteague_. Next on my docket is _A Wizard of Earthsea_, which I'll admit is outside of my favored genres and outside those of my children. Perhaps I will be pleasantly surprised.


When I'm not reading, I really feel like the worst parent in the world.

I am seriously beginning to question my most basic parenting abilities. I was mentioning to someone this week that I still feel like I'm faking it. That I'm not really a mother of these people, but that I'm just someone bumbling her way through a role and not convincing anyone, least of all herself. "Legitimacy" is the word that came to my mind--I just don't feel legitimate. The deeper I get into trying to figure out if Walter has a growth issue of some kind, the more guilty I feel. I am a veritable cesspool of guilt. I feel like me, the mother-faker, have either zoned out so severely that I've starved my child into some nutritional stunting out of sheer inattention or divided attention or something like that OR that I've somehow failed to notice warning signs of something over the years.

Today we got back the results of his bone age hand and wrist scan that he had done yesterday, and it wasn't surprising that his "bone age" is considered significantly delayed. I have been reading around about what the possibilities are. Obviously one of them is a growth hormone deficiency. In this case, often the child has a face that looks young for his chronological age, but they tend to carry more weight and appear cherubic. Walter doesn't fit that particular morphographic or whatever you'd call it. Another option is what is referred to as "constitutional short stature," which would leave a child with a delayed bone age, but they will catch up to their expected adult height in a longer amount of time than the typical child. They tend to reach puberty later than their peers, and they tend to grow for a few years beyond the time their peers stop growing, but they eventually get there. They primarily need emotional support as they may be teased, self-conscious, or treated differently because they do not physically mature in the range of others their age. Then there seem to be a couple of conditions that we can rule out right away because some bloodwork has been done in the past few years or because he truly doesn't fit the profile at all. And then there's a very outer edge possibility that it's malnutrition.

I think I feel so guilty about his nutrition because I don't micromanage his intake. I know he doesn't always finish what's on his plate, and I haven't made a big fat hairy deal out of it. I don't always pay attention at lunchtime because we are often out and about and busy. He may not get a full and varied lunch with a variety of high calorie foods if I leave him to fend for himself in the kitchen. My others can be relied upon to make themselves a sandwich, microwave a corndog, or toast a bagel with cream cheese, but Walter currently can't eat those kinds of foods, at least not as easily as gluten-eaters do (gf bagels are really only a "bagel" because they are round and have a hole in the middle...). My calorie counts have been going fairly well--about 2000-3700 per day, depending on whether he encounters a calorie bonanza (did you know that a Cold Stone chocolate fudge shake, the small size, is 980 calories!). Still, I wonder, are there days when he hasn't had enough? And I feel awful that I've let him have some candy some days. I get lazy. A Snickers is something that we can buy when we're out somewhere that doesn't have much that is safe for him. It's not all that often, but there have been times, the type where the other kids might be eating doughnuts or cake at a party, when that's been the most readily available near-equivalent. I could just about kick myself to death for letting him have something with no nutritional value and all kinds of bad things. I am so very bad at bringing along fruit or even keeping a constant stock of GF bars, which tend to come in packs of 4 or 5, cost 4 or 5 dollars, and are gone in less than 4 or 5 bites. No sooner do we buy some of these than we have none left. Meanwhile, I can buy a pack of 48 or 64 chewy granola bars at Costco for less than $9. This same amount would be close to $60 in GF bars! I'm not stingy, and we must eat, but that's the cost of GF convenience!

At any rate, we will see an endocrinologist on Tuesday who will hopefully put our minds at rest. I am still waiting to get clapped right into prison for neglect. Benign neglect, but neglect.

We have lots of other things going on:

* camping this weekend--first Boy Scout outing

* I'm attending Director of Business Training in Northern Virginia for Classical Conversations

* We had to pay a *lot* of taxes this year, for the first time. Ouch.

* The aquarium remains. And note to self: prepare for oddity when you put something on Craigslist. I'm analyzing what the aquarium represents to me that I am holding on to. But I think the God's honest truth is that what I'm holding onto is something that no one has come to my house to take away.

* Frances started playing on a softball team this week. Didn't see that one coming. I should feel more terrible about not saying no, but she's having such a good time that it's hard to be too hard on myself.

* Tennis is in full swing, ha ha. I have a win and two losses so far. Kind of to be expected, since I'm still playing way above where I should be. I was proud of my 6-8 close lose yesterday, since I played fairly well and it was a good, competitive match.

* Kerry seems to not be going to India for six to nine months. Guilty, guilty, guilty. I feel so guilty about this. I have likely ruined his career. But I still feel like I would absolutely not have the support resources in place to handle something like this. I'd prefer to be a true single parent than to have this kind of upheaval. It highlights so much how I am in a severe friend deficit. I literally could not think of a single person I could even call to stay with my kids if I had to go to the E.R. in the middle of the night. It's hard to think of how they could pay him enough for that kind of a sacrifice.

* Swim and Dive team registrations this weekend. I think that Rutledge might be ready for swim team. He certainly would be adequate for most other clubs' swim teams, since he can swim a full lap without holding the lane lines. But our team might have higher standards. And it might require too much supervision to get him to practice. Still thinking about this one. We are already at the max family cost, so he would be free.

* Square foot garden is in and looking awesome. I could make myself a very sweet and small salad already. Of course I primarily have cold weather vegetables like lettuce. But lettuce is a wonderful thing. Frances wanted us to also plant a number of flowers, so we have a much more varied garden than I typically do. I wish I had planted some root vegetables, but it's probably too late. Nonetheless, I'm pleased with the new 4x8 bed that I built a few weeks ago, and the Mel's mix that I put in should last quite a while. I'm super excited about all the plans I have for the next few weeks. We also did a little bit of landscaping in the front, and I planted a bunch of bulbs, annuals, and cleared out the unkempt looking bed in front of our dining room where I lopped out two entire bushes last fall.

* I am reading a book about improving marriage that has given me mind-blowing insights. Things that should have been so obvious but that I had never had words for before. Now don't get me wrong--I haven't the faintest clue what I'm to do with this information or how I'm supposed to act upon it, or even whether it means that there is hope, but I will say that I felt a total identification with what these authors are saying, and that I understand a large source of my own frustration and about what is wrong about me and how I have contributed to and created the strain in my relationship. I try to avoid self-help books as much as possible, so I don't know if this is just how people always feel when they read a book on this type of topic ("Wow, they really nailed it!"), or if I was perhaps led to this particular book by some higher power. But it is giving me a big wad to chew on.

* I am newly committed to walking Bilbo and eventually running with him. I will train him. I will not fail at housebreaking.

* Finally, it appears that we will get new carpet. I'm so excited I could bust out of my skin. Or invite people over for a party. I have been so terribly embarrassed by our disgusting, worn out carpet upstairs (and on the stairs) that I cannot have anyone over. If this home improvement project ruins us financially, I will still feel that it is some of the best money we have spent. Every time I look at our carpet I feel like I am a wretched housekeeper, a boundary-less parent who has out of control children, and just generally a person with low standards. New carpet may not make all of life into a bowl of cherries, but it certainly will be a glorious change.