What Happened Today

I rarely do the “this is what happened today” blog posts because it seems too easy.  Or maybe that’s not true, maybe it feels too difficult because so many things happen in a given day that I’d be here writing for more time than I’d like to dedicate to any particular post (I’m already long-winded enough.)  Or, and maybe this is more it, I don’t want a blog that’s just a diary of my days.    I try to take some thought, some idea or some event that’s happened and expand on just that.    I really try to add humor if possible, but given that humor in writing is one of my weaknesses, it doesn’t happen often.

That being said, I’m going to tell you what happened in our lives today as a family on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving…

My children got up and my daughter got her own breakfast (totally not surprising.)  My son, knowing it was the weekend, got his iPad and didn’t even think about breakfast (also not surprising.)   My husband slept in and I got up.   This is one of those alternating things with him getting up sometime and me getting up other times.  More commonly we both get up.   It really depends on who can pretend they don’t hear the children for the longest.   Or—and this is more of late—the one the children don’t bother incessantly with questions gets to sleep while the other gets up from sheer question exhaustion.

At close to nine o’clock I put the children in the car and we drove to Mimi and Gramp’s house where I dropped my son off for a play date.   My daughter had a scheduled meeting with the county school system’s childhood vision expert for an evaluation in an unfamiliar environment for consideration for her IEP (Individualized Education Plan) application.    My daughter thought she was having a play date with Jane, which for all intents and purposes it was from her perspective.  

I left them at the children’s museum for an hour and got gas in the ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) car (of the non-Tesla, minivan variety) and got one holiday gift errand run.   I met them back at the museum and had a conversation about next steps and her evaluation of my daughter’s visual situation.   She said there was no questions she qualified for assistance and that her needs were only in the one specific area of vision as she was doing very well in everything else.    She is going to try and speed up the approval process so we can hopefully have Jane join my daughter for help up to two afternoons each week at her school.   This would be fantastic, even if her vision completely resolves back to the original state.  

My daughter and I went to a “Make and Take” pizza place and picket up two uncooked pizzas for this evening’s dinner with all four grandparents.   We went back to my parent’s house and picked up my son, hearing about their adventures while we were away.   On the way home there was a lot of yelling and complaining in the car so I told them we were going to play the quiet game and anyone who was quiet the whole way home—five minutes away—would get a jelly bean.   They tried, really they did, but neither got the jelly bean.   The upside was all arguing was forgotten as they tried to be quiet.

As we arrived my in-laws were just pulling in.   We spent the next two hours catching up and getting ready for the one-hour symphony concert directed at children with music from Frozen and The Polar Express.   My daughter wore her Snow White dress that lit up and my son wore his polar bear pajamas to the event.   We met my parents there and encountered several friends and their children.

The concert was very nice, but an hour is a long time for children to sit in any seat in the dark.   My husband was the least-thrilled about the whole event because he had two boisterous children, one on each side, through the event.

My son fell asleep on the way home and my daughter disappeared to wind down with some iPad time herself when we arrived at the house.   My husband made the pizza and my parents arrived just about five o’clock.   We had a fun dinner with all four grandparents.   There was wine and whine.   Wine from the parents and whine from my son.   The pizza was eaten and dessert was had.

I escaped downstairs to write this blog post while things were a bit chaotic in the kitchen, hoping no one would notice I’d disappeared.   From the sounds I’ve been hearing as I type this, I think my mother and mother-in-law are playing a game of hide-and-seek with the children.   It’s a funny game because my son and/or daughter will from time to time give the other one away.      I’d better finish this up and go join in the fun.

The Big Boy Update:  My son wanted dessert tonight but he wasn’t going to get any until he finished his slice of pizza.   My mother saw him putting it in his napkin and she told him not to do that to which he replied, “but I’m trying to hide it from daddy.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter’s vision is very poor, but she can see some things like colors.   At the concert tonight the stage which was at the “one big blob” distance for her was lit up in LED colors.    My daughter said, “I see Mickey Mouse!”   It took me a minute to figure out she meant the colored lights, brightly lighting up the walls and changing colors as the song progressed.   We have a Mickey Mouse-shaped light that can change colors.    I asked her, “do you mean the colored lights?” and she said, “yes, Mom.”