December 1, 2020
Problem-solving
I see evidence of JB attempting to solve problems in very five year old kinds of ways. If one stool helps you reach up high, surely two stools stacked on top of each other is better? Until a resounding crash ensues, where they call out: I’M OK! JUST A LITTLE BLOOD BUT I AM TOUGH!
I see a variation on this theme later when they offered to fetch things from my closet and those things include a sweater hung on the top closet rod: a different stool stacked atop the previous base seems to have worked.
“I cleaned up the crumbs!” they shout from the other room. I’m not sure what that means until I come out and find the small dustpan filled with crumbs set near the garbage bin. They couldn’t empty it into the bin without making a mess.
Instead of “good morning”, JB says…
“Wake up sleepies, the early cats get the fish!”
“Mommy, if you die, baby dies.”
“Do you remember your dreams? MY best dream was …”
Kindergarten is …
Their 13 year old playmate asked: how’s kindergarten, what do you like?
JB: Kindergarten is boring. We just learn one letter a day. I already know my letters! My favorite part are the videos.
It’s sad but true. They like kindergarten because it’s easy and fun and they can sort of socialize in the sense that they see other people. But academic learning? Nah. That’s really not happening.
They are picking up a slew of DELIGHTFUL habits from the teacher though: complaining every flerken day about being tired and how hard things are and how much they wish they could be back in the classroom. šš
I can’t stand their teacher. (more…)
October 19, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1,816.35; Rural libraries, $346.69.
Surprise! Chores!
I’m pleased with the occasional initiative JB continues to show. They got up early one morning and while I still lay abed, they set up the dogs’ breakfast without being asked AND remembered the whole rigamarole of the kibble, and the supplements, and the medications, and the everything. Seamus’s dietary needs are many.
They can also be responsible for most of the laundry now. They load the washer and start it after an adult has poured in the detergent. They check and spin it again if it hasn’t spun enough water out. They can transfer to the dryer and then they hang up and put away the clean clothes. I generally do the sorting first just to make it more efficient (and I like sorting). I also do most of the folding but they’re good at folding the dish towels.
The initiative is still very sporadic though.
Education
I will leave this space free of my rant about the state of education for the moment but commenting on JB’s education: we spent the entire summer cobbling together a consistent education stream for them.
We were very lucky to have the help of a trained teacher to do the actual teaching and I added occasional supplemental classes through Outschool to give them some variety. They’re exploring all kinds of fun educational experiences as and when I can fit them into our schedule: “visiting” the cultures of other countries, dance, literature and math.
I was oh so grateful we had that solid foundation when they started kindergarten. JB is well accustomed to regular remote learning if done well (that part remains to be seen) and the regularity of a five day school week. Whether I feel like that formal education structure is best for them is not relevant right now, it’s what we have.
Different generations
Breakfast when I was growing up: small bowl of rice porridge, maybe soy sauce.
When PiC was growing up: bowl of cereal.
JB: Bowl of raisin bran, scrambled eggs, bacon, fresh mango and strawberries.
We ALL eat the same meals now (except for the parts I can’t eat), so it’s not like I’m blaming them for the choices we make. It’s just a huge contrast!
Pupdate
Seamus is losing senior dog friends left and right, as his cohort ages, and it’s so sad. They were all getting on in years and it was time for each of time, but it’s still heartbreaking. I’m glad he has Sera to keep him a bit engaged, even if he doesn’t necessarily appreciate her. They have a bit of a bond though, they check on each other every so often and she functions a little bit like his remora fish, cleaning up after him after their morning treats.
I keep tracking the number of Happiness Rolls he does every day. Once he stops having Happiness Rolls, loses mobility, or stops eating or drinking, we’re going to know it’s time. It’s very important to me that we do our best to get that right. We want him to squeeze out every good day and bit of joy he can but not hold him in misery because we’re too selfish to let him go. We know people who have been holding their suffering pets hostage to their emotions and it’s absolutely awful. When your pet hasn’t been able to get up or walk to tend their basic needs in months and has seizures almost regularly, it’s not a secret that they are suffering.
I think it’s been three years since we brought Sera home and for the first two and a half years, I was pretty sure she didn’t even like us. She was happy to eat our food and wanted to show submission but she was only bonded to Seamus, she didn’t want much to do with us humans.
We’ve spent loads of time on her training, even though it was frustrating to feel like we were pouring in gallons of energy into a bottomless pit. She’s still very reactive and therefore cannot be trusted off leash or on leash with JB. Not that she’d ever deliberately hurt JB, she’s simply still not capable of paying attention to the human on the other end of the leash and would absolutely drag JB face first on the ground to go after a dog she thought was menacing her. Well, she previously couldn’t. She’s finally making some progress. She looks at us when she sees another dog, anxiously and ever so briefly, but she does break that intent gaze voluntarily sometimes and that’s a world of difference from her earlier levels of hypervigilence. She’s also very much into the treats I’ve been getting her and she’s learned what heel means, though she won’t STAY heeling so that’s the next step of training. Her sit game is weak but she’s recently learned down!
What I find absolutely fascinating is that she listens to JB. (Seamus categorically will not obey JB unless there is obvious bribery. He considers himself above them, and he’s been a mature adult longer than JB has been alive so his judgement has been trustworthy much longer. But that’s diminishing now in his 15th or 16th year. It’s funny to hear JB adopt my low deep training tones to try and exude authority over him because it does not work.) Sera, though, will obey JB when we’re home. She’s obeyed commands to go to bed, sit, and lay down. She’s obeyed the sit and stay when JB is feeding them, and she’s sort of obeyed, about as well as she ever does for anyone, the “walk” command which is her release to go eat. JB scruffs her as best they can to “help” her slow down which is also hilarious because a five year old cannot possibly hold back a 60 lb pibble dashing for her food bowl. But they try.
Random questions
How do we make chips?
How do bears get their sounds?
What does ‘dire’ mean?
***
Things I didn’t expect my five year old to know about: Baba Yaga (thanks to Itty Bitty Hellboy which is a great read)
***
Amelia Bedelia moment
In one of their lessons, JB learned to make fish decorated with tissue paper. On a day they needed something to keep them busy, I asked JB to make me a school of fish for my office.
They taped together a few sheets of paper to draw a large building with a sign at the top: “Fish school.”
***
Believe me, I know you.
JB: Can you ask if mom can come on our walk?
Me: they just want me to come so I can walk Seamus and they can go fast with you and Sera.
JB: NO!! I JUST WANT YOU TO WALK WITH US. *Offended face*
Outside two minutes later…
JB: ok! Mom can take Seamus, you (PiC) ‘n’ me can go first.
Me: AH HA! J’accuse!
:: What were your favorite kinder-level books? What was your favorite childhood breakfast?
September 21, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1,797.23; Rural libraries, $321.62.
Responsibilities
JB has daily chores to do now. The process of getting a habit formed has been painful. The whining, the complaining, the moaning and flopping about! They were easier to train as a 3 year old! But they are perfectly capable of performing the tasks assigned and so we stick to it.
One chore is setting the table. On a day I wasn’t feeling well, they took the initiative. Without any reminders, they set the table with all the usual, then filled a water bottle and brought it to the table to serve as a refill pitcher. I’m not sure where their idea came from but it made me laugh. A water pitcher for the dinner table has been on my wish list for a while but I had never mentioned it!
They were originally motivated by filling out a weekly chore chart for earning a prize but with my fatigue and the fires and smoke, and Seamus’s condition, we’ve had to skip a couple weeks. However the baseline of their having daily chores to do, on a rotating basis depending on the things needing to be done, has finally stuck.
They do want their chore chart back though, and I’ve promised to get that up again.
JB’s reads
They are absolutely loving the Catstronauts (Amazon, Indiebound), Baltazar’s Itty Bitty Hellboy (Amazon, Indiebound) and Superman Family Adventures (Amazon, Indiebound) comics. They’re also starting to get into the Judy Moody series. I saw Judy Moody at Comic Con last year but didn’t realize it was age appropriate already.
More parenting!
Some quick math: Seamus + JB who is definitely not a baby any longer + Sera + one baking baby makes four.
Just in case we had failed to add properly, JB likes to tell us we will have FOUR kids to take care of.
Yes. Yes we know.
They’re pretty excited about the new sibling. Seamus may care when the new arrival actually arrives but he’s too old to worry about helping me like he used to. I’m trying to train Sera to come help me when I get beached but she’s still too twitchy. She gets scared when I try to lean on her a bit to get up. She’s into babies, though, and is going to have trouble resisting bestowing dog kisses. We know where that mouth has been, no dog kisses thank you.
Pupdate
It’s been a while since I did a separate pupdate and I have decided *grand gesture* that we’ll combine them with kid updates. Why not. They’re all my dependents.
Seamus is aging more rapidly than we can bear. We adore him and it’s hard to see this. He’s got moderate to severe arthritis which we’re treating with All the Things to help keep him comfortable. He’s been developing neurological issues, like knuckling when he stands and walks, or misjudging distances and overcompensating or falling. He always gets back up but I dread the progression of this aging. We baby him as much as we can, he’s earned every bit of it and more, and I have pangs of regret wondering if there’s anything else I should and could have done for him. I know I’ve been doing everything that I actually can but it’s hard. He’s been prone to UTIs this year and he had a rough several months with them. We thought it was in our rear view but yet another nasty infection cropped up this month.
The funny thing about his getting older though, he’s finally less saintly with his patience. Where he once regularly let Sera share his water bowl, they would drink at the exact same time which is a hilarious sight, or even taken a step back and let her have the bowl first, he now just takes first turn at the bowl as his due. He always should have, he’s twice her age! But even as recently as last year he’d defer to her politely.
While she doesn’t understand most dogs, any kind of signal from him is respected. He only had to knock her head out of the water bowl once when she started to crowd him. She’s never again tried to shove her way in to share like she has done for the past two years. Since then, she just behind him to wait her turn. Some days, she won’t even drink if he’s outside until he’s back in and has had his drink first! She gets very little direction from him but whatever she gets, she takes very seriously.
We were working with a dog walker before COVID to give her some extra exercise once a week but that wasn’t very long before we all had to shelter in place. Since then we have had a lovely friend share some reactive dog training tips and information which has helped us recalibrate our expectations and our approach to her training. We’d hit a plateau in April and I was despairing. But we came to understand her fear a little better thanks to the dog training advice of @themariadawn and we’ve been seeing small but real improvements. I’ve noticed her looking at other dogs that would normally put her on high alert but then look up at us for a treat instead of lunging for the other dog. Previously, even dogs a block away would set her on alert. She’d stay alerted and tense until they were long out of sight. Now she might bounce with a bit of anxiety but she’ll stare at dogs across the street intensely, and then allow herself to be redirected. Lots of treats, lots of positive tones, and lots of forward motion all help us stay safely on our side of the walk. I hope she’s not reactive forever but it certainly felt that way for a while. We’re making some progress.
Precious Moments
Mindreading
JB: Mom, what’s that thing we eat?
Me: The what?
JB: That thing!
Me: … what color is it?
JB: Pink.
Me: What shape is it?
JB: Round.
Me: When did we eat it?
JB: That time with T!
Me: ….. cotton candy?
JB: YES!
When Avatar: The Last Airbender and reality collide
JB: Why are there SO MANY FIRES.
Me: Well for some of them, people are making bad choices and making sparks in dry areas where they can catch fire. That’s not all of them but the ones we know about are because people are being careless.
JB: What if it’s actually the FIRE NATION?
Me: Well, the Fire Nation isn’t real, that’s from a story.
JB: BUT WHAT IF.
:: Do you remember having wild flights of fancy as a kid? (Or do you now?) Also it occurs to me that the titles of these monthly updates should change to plural now.
August 17, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1,713.62; Rural libraries, $321.62.
Life lessons
We’ve been having a lot of hard conversations with JB about the harsh realities of life. Namely racism: what it is, how it hurts people, how it’s wrong and how we fight against it. Their daycare hasn’t been nearly diverse enough for my taste but their elementary school will be much better and I want them to have a solid understanding of accepting people for who they are based on their actions, not their appearance.
This is nothing new. We’ve been reading “I am Rosa Parks” (Amazon, Indiebound, Bookshop.org), The Youngest Marcher which has been extra hard for me to get through this year (Amazon, Indiebound, Bookshop.org), and Sulwe (Amazon, Indiebound, Bookshop.org) for a while. With all the protests, they have been asking to read The Youngest Marcher every night.
Different bodies
We were picking up takeout when JB said: “There’s something wrong with his eye!” It wasn’t very loud but it was clearly out loud.
I was startled because I hadn’t noticed what they had, but I realized that the fellow bringing us our bags had a drooping eyelid. I told JB: “There may be something different about his body but should we talk about how people look?”
JB: “No.”
Me: “Ok, let’s not do that, please.”
They said said ok, though they still stared for a bit, and then we had a conversation in the car about how treating people with respect means that if they have something different about their bodies, it’s fine to notice but we don’t comment on them. We all have differences (or flaws if we consider them as such), and it’s unkind to point them out and stare. We wouldn’t like it if we had a scar or an injury or something different about us and people were staring, or pointing, or commenting on us.
I’m not sure if I handled it right in the moment. I feel terrible that he may have heard them and felt that we didn’t treat him and the moment respectfully.
Pupdate
Our buddy Seamus has chronic eye problems this year and we had to rush him to the veterinary opthalmologist for an exam when his latest bout with a corneal ulcer was going the wrong way. He’d been on medications for weeks and the darn thing wouldn’t budge. Typically they clear up in 7-10 days. By the 20th day both his regular vet and I were very concerned and it was off to the specialist for us.
That exam showed that it wasn’t quite as bad as we had feared so we still had a chance to head off a surgical treatment. Huge sigh of relief there. We went on an aggressively frequent eye ointment regimen, nine applications a day!
New Skills
JB is currently obsessed with wanting to “be a real dog owner” and wanting to walk the dogs alone. They can walk Seamus who is well mannered and cooperative 98% of the time but takes sudden turns once in a while that they have to watch out for. If Seamus was forceful as he once was about his course corrections I’d never allow it but he’s slow and gentle enough in his old age that he’s safe for JB to walk on a slow ramble. Sera, however, is strong, headstrong, and very reactive. So that’s a hard no to JB wanting to walk Sera. They will have to earn the “real dog owner” cred the hard way: slowly and steadily.
Precious Moments
I don’t know why either of us thought it’d be for a good reason.
JB: I’m always going to remember this day.
PiC: oh yeah? *hopeful*
JB: Yeah cuz you guys are gonna die before me.
PiC: Oh.
JB: I’m not gonna die before you! Oh, but kids can actually die.
PiC: Uh.
JB: Yeah cuz kids can get very sick when they’re young!
This makes me feel like a transport bus.
JB: I wish I could go to Italy! In person, not in Mommy’s belly. Because in Mommy’s belly, it’s very different.
:: If you had a visible injury or disability, how would you want a parent to address it with their kid while they were still in front of you or within earshot?
July 20, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1589.82; Rural libraries, $321.62.
Siblings, the abyss, something something
JB squatted in front of Sera, staring intently. I wondered and then: Mom!! I don’t like Sera looking at me!
Me: …. Weren’t you staring at her?
JB: Yes! I wanted to look at her. But I didn’t want her to look at me.
Me: That makes absolutely no sense! If you sat right in front of her face and stared at her, she absolutely has the right to look back at you.
JB: No, I don’t like it!
š¤¦š»āāļø Why. Are. Kids. So. Weird.
Punishments, consequences, and effective parenting
I don’t choose to issue punishments because as a rule, I know they come from a less than great part of me as a parent. I want to punish JB when they have gone way over the line because I’m mad at them. And generally when I’m mad and assigning punishments, it’s about hurting them back and not about what’s appropriate (like throwing away toys they love). But that’s entirely the wrong motivation. That does work if we were always authoritarian and they’re not allowed to speak their minds or think for themselves – then punishment is suitable to that kind of parenting.
But that’s not what we’re trying to do here – we are trying to teach them that making poor choices is a bad thing and that they should choose to make better choices. Like not doubling down when you’ve said something mean and hateful, and saying MORE mean and hateful things.
I struggled with that a lot during the week that JB was just stomping on my last nerve and then some. They were being rude, then pulled faces and rolled their eyes at me warning them that their words were rude and hurtful, then shouted even meaner things at me when sent to timeout as a result of doubling down. I was so angry that I was harsh and took away toys when they kept shouting at me and being ruder – that was a reaction to their behavior but not a good reaction. The first time this all blew up, I walked away and ignored them until they were done tantruming and returned to say so, and then we had a long talk about the fact that they would have a real and appropriate consequence later that wasn’t just taking away toys, I had to think of something that was related to the problem. The next time that happened, though, I realized that a better way to put it for us would be this:
For every minute of nastiness and negativity, they have to do two minutes of good things. So that half an hour screaming tantrum of rudeness = 1 hour of being helpful around the house and doing good things to balance the negativity. I didn’t want to assign chores after the first round because I didn’t want to associate chores and punishment. But this way, their doing chores as their helpful thing can redeem them as a positive contribution instead.
New levels of autonomy
It’s still a little hit or miss but I can assign chores to JB with a time frame and they will do it! It’s more likely to happen if I say “in the next 20-30 minutes, the dishes have to be put away” than if I give them a wider time frame like “between breakfast and lunch” though.
Precious Moments
Who’s the Boss?
Me: When you’re done with cleaning up that pile, you can go through the other bag.
JB: You got it, master!
Me: …
JB: I called you master because you’re the boss of me.
Me: That’s true.
JB: And I’m the boss of babies.
Me: … what babies ….
JB: And Older Cousin is the boss of me, and I’m the boss of Younger Cousin!
Me: Uh that’s not how that works.
Taking sides
Me mocking PiC: your dad is silly, JB
JB: Yeah! He’s so silly!
PiC: hey! I thought you were on my side!
JB: I am on your side. Actually I’m on both your sides.
PiC: good. That’s how it should be..
JB, whispering: but mostly on daddy’s side.
Me: I KNOW. YOU ALWAYS HAVE BEEN.
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
JB: Daddy, this was an EXCELLENT lunch!
PiC: Thank you!
JB: What does excellent mean?
Creepy or cool?
I woke up to JB in my bathroom whispering: Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, preparing to die!
Ratings, levels, we got em all.
JB: The Rock has guns in it!
PiC: what?
JB: The movie! The Rock! It has GUNS and FIGHTING and it’s a higher level than I am right now, I’m not ready for it yet.
JB: can I walk both dogs?
Me: no, Sera’s too strong for you right now.
JB: but I want to be a real dog owner!
Perseverance and perspective
JB’s muttering sullenly as the glass noodles slip off their chopsticks: this is too HARD! I’m never going to get it!
Me: Not like that you’re not. You’re not fast enough. Be the predator. Scoop up your prey and POUNCE.
JB, clumsily imitating the pounce: nomf! I caught it!
Me: Yup. Noodles are prey. Be the predator.
Pop culture can get it wrong, sometimes.
JB’s been singing and dancing to The Cure’s “Boys don’t cry”. They keep correcting the lyric with “that’s not right, boys DO cry when they’re sad!” or “boyyyys don’t cry, boyyyyys DO cry”!
Wait, what?
Me: How should you be sitting? (Correct answer: on your butt)
JB: Criss cross applesauce, pepperoni pizza, hands in your fish bowl, bubbles in your mouth!
Me: Uh…..ok….
:: When did you first watch The Princess Bride? What was the first music you remember listening to? How are your chopsticks skills?
June 15, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1,570.70; Rural libraries, $321.62.
More of a Lawful Good, then
JB was so sad we couldn’t go to the park to play. We’ve got an empty field thing nearby and they’ve been enjoying it a few days a week, staying 20 feet away from anyone who might be there.
I explained that it looked like maybe the ordinances weren’t allowing us to play and we’d get in trouble for violating them. I suggested that, well, since no one was really there, maybe we could go anyway and just be very cautious with masks and touching nothing and bothering no one.
JB: NO! We’re not allowed!! We’ll get in trouble!
Preparing for kindergarten
I’ve submitted all our kindergarten application forms, even though we all have no freaking idea what’s going to happen this fall, and followed up to make sure JB’s preschool teacher has submitted their part. I’ve submitted our lottery entry for the after care program even though that wait list was last reported to be 200 applicants long and I honestly doubt we’ll get in. I’m doing all the “right” things because I’d rather have done them than not if the state of the world starts to come back together in time for some version of fall schooling.
It still feels incredibly unlikely at the moment but we don’t know. We need some semblance of organized childcare and education again but PiC and I both feel very strongly that we’re not comfortable with sending JB back out in this without more and better widespread testing, and some kind of effective treatment for COVID. Waiting for a vaccine is too far out, that’s 1-2 years out at least, but if we have ways to treat it, and contact tracing and testing, that would be a reasonable start.
We got an update from the afterschool program that EVERYONE is now on the waitlist for the foreseeable future.
Kindness Jar
I’ve been looking for ways to repurpose all our medication bottles, I hate tossing them out (recycling but it feels like the same thing) if we don’t have to. JB snagged one of my reserved-with-hope bottles and PiC helped them decorate it for a Kindness Jar. Every time someone does a kind thing, you get a marble for the KJ.
JB has been … Overly Enthusiastic about counting kindnesses.
Mommy cooked breakfast, that was a kindness!
I thanked Mommy for cooking breakfast, that was a kindness!
I petted Seamus, that was a kindness!
We’ve got a real fan of sheep here
It started back in April.
Now, everyone gets compared to a sheep.
JB: Your computer has such a good memory! Like a sheep!
JB: I have a good memory, like a sheep!
Precious Moments
Someday this kid will be able to identify us correctly.
They came running out in the morning: dad??
I called through the bathroom door: he’s outside with the dog.
JB: Oh. Are you Daddy or Mommy?
Me: ….. What??
I still don’t know if they were serious.
Who’s the boss?
JB: I hope I don’t get thrown in the ocean when I die.
Me: ?
JB: I mean, in my case. I don’t want to get through in the ocean in my case. Because there are sharks.
Me: After you die?
JB: Yes!
Me: Do you mean coffin?
JB: yes!
It’s not as fun as you think, y’know?
JB: Why don’t you have to wear glasses?
PiC: I had eye surgery, so I don’t wear glasses anymore.
JB: I wish I could have eye surgery!
Oh because I’m the only klutz around here
JB, holding up the bit of plastic that covers the end of new tape rolls: Mama, you have to take this off, or you cannot use that tape. Just so you know how it works, because I would not want you to get another ouchy.
May 18, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1551.58; Rural libraries, $321.62.
“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.” G.K. Chesterton
Unless you’re JB. In which case, every story with a villain is an infomercial for that villain and their scariness. Every morning and evening, I hear a shriek:
Mommy, I’m scared, (evil villain) is going to get me!
I always intended to put JB in self defense classes but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. And now, of course, it’s not possible to start for a while.
The fear bothered me because I realized JB is a freeze on fear kid. As far back as I can remember, I have been a fight on fear kid, which may or may not have been trained into me by a mean older sibling, but this served me well.
I was bullied at every single school I attended. I always had to put some bully in their place when they tried me and things were much better when I was able to do so quickly and decisively. I only ever had to deal with each bully once, they weren’t used to being shut down effectively and violently.
We have now implemented Monster Training. After reading age appropriate books about kids fighting monsters, I proposed that we take turns scaring each other and learning to fight back. The whole goal for me is to teach them to get scared and then act, not just freezing.
(more…)