The Braille Challenge

Today was the regional Braille Challenge.   Visually impaired students from elementary through high school competed in reading comprehension, spelling, accuracy and speed of braille typing.   My husband entered my daughter into the event because she’s quite good at all of the above.   We’d also heard it was a nice way to meet other visually impaired students and their families.

My daughter was initially apprehensive about being entered into the challenge.   It’s a test for one and a competitive test at that.   Her retired braillest told her the first year you go, it’s just for fun and that it doesn’t matter what you do on the braille side of things.   Mrs. Aagaard has a way of saying things in such a way that it makes my daughter relaxed and interested in things.   After their talk, she was interested in going.

When we arrived this morning I quickly realized my daughter was the youngest participant there as a first grader.   I would guess the next youngest students were in third grade and most were older still in middle school or high school.  Here’s a picture of all the participants:



My daughter is in the pink sweat pants in the front row.

After opening ceremonies and pictures the participants went off to their testing rooms and the adults went to a meeting room where we had speakers through the morning’s testing time.   After about twenty minutes one of the proctors in my daughter’s room came and found me, saying my daughter was having a hard time.

I went in to find her in tears and looking like she felt she’d failed everything.   I knelt down and she told me, “there are so many contractions.  I don’t know what it says.”  I went to the proctor and asked her what she’d given my daughter because she was signed up for uncontracted braille.   The proctor, who was super nice, had been asked to volunteer by her husband last minute and didn’t even know what the words, “contracted” and “uncontracted” meant and knew zero about braille.

My daughter had been given something impossible for her to do.   It’s like being given a calculus test when you’re only in second semester algebra.  The other proctor didn’t realize what had happened and when she did they found the correct reading comprehension packet in uncontracted braille (which has all words completely spelled out without any shortcut braille symbols).   We got it to my daughter and she started reading and I could tell she was trying to go quickly.

About that time they announced there were twelve minutes left for that section.   My daughter quietly wailed, “oh no, I’ll never finish in time.”  I could hear the despair in her voice.  I went up to the proctors and asked if she could be given adequate time to complete the section since she had only now gotten the proper test assignment.   They agreed she could have time and apologized again for the mistake.

I went back and told my daughter that this year was for fun, not to compete and that she wasn’t being scored against anyone anyways and to not worry about it, to do what she felt like doing.   She was busy reading at that point so I left the room quietly.

I came back a while later to find the room empty with everyone taking a break—except for my daughter, who was solemnly typing answers on her braille writer.   I didn’t return for the rest of the testing period because they had found the other two test sections in uncontracted format and would be sure to get my daughter the versions of the tests she was suppose to have.

We all met in the large meeting room for lunch after the tests were over and I came upstairs where I saw my daughter happily sitting with a group of students, eating her lunch.   She wasn’t clingy when I came to say hello, she told me she had made some new friends.

The rest of the day went very well, with my daughter enjoying the drum circle the entire time and being excited she won a raffle prize.   As we drove home I told her I had had a good time today.   She said, “I didn’t have a good time.”  I said, “you didn’t?”   She replied, “I had a great time.”

The Big Boy Update:  My son had another good day at school with the Adderall.  My mother picked him up and got him an adult’s meal at Chick-Fil-A, which he completely ate.   He was much more regulated when he got home, unlike yesterday, which was exceptionally challenging for both him and me.   He also had eaten his large lunch.   It looks like he might not be affected by the lack of appetite some children have when taking Adderall.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  When I think about what my daughter did today: going into a room with no one she knew, taking a standardized test that was also a competition and being given the wrong version—which she couldn’t read—I’m very proud of her.   She was upset, but she handled it and recovered well.   She told me later she thought she did very well on the spelling part because she’s very good at spelling (which she is).

You Are My Sunshine

When I was a little girl my mother would put me to bed every night.   She would get me all situated with the covers just so and my nightgown just right and then she’d sing to me, “You Are My Sunshine”.  It’s interesting that as a child I have no memory of that song ever growing old.   I looked forward to her singing it to me each and every night.  

When I had my children and they were very little I could sing to them anything I wanted because they were too small to have an opinion.   Sometimes I’d sing and sometimes I’d just tuck them in and walk out, glad that they fell asleep so quickly.   But I did try to sing to them some, and one of the songs I would sing would be You Are My Sunshine.  

Interestingly enough, my daughter wanted to have nothing to do with the song.   It could have been my lack of ability to sing, but for some reason that particular song she would tell me to stop, that she didn’t want to hear that song.

Just this week though she’s been asking Alexa to play the song and she’s been singing along.   I don’t know where she heard it from, but she likes the song now and even likes it when I sing it.   Maybe Mimi can sing it to her one night when she’s watching the children while we’re out.   My daughter knows Mimi sang the song to me when I was little.   I bet my daughter would really like to hear Mimi sing it.

The Big Boy Update:  Still gathering information on the medication for ADHD for my son, but as of right now, we have a medication that’s working while he’s at school but when he gets home and it’s worn off, he has a lot of trouble staying regulated.   He’s crazy bad disregulated.   His teacher is happy with the results.   To give you an idea of how big a change it is: my son told me tonight his favorite thing is school—because he’s, "learning some really interesting stuff right now”.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter asked me if we could make cinnamon rolls for breakfast one morning.   I told her I’d get some at the store (the kind in the pop-out cardboard tube) and we could make them this weekend.  

Spaying

The dog was spayed today.   I was glad she weighed over twenty pounds (she was 22.3 pounds this morning) so they could do the surgery laparoscopically, giving her a more easy and quicker recovery time.  Matisse is going through some teenager hormonal changes of late, with obstinance and forgetting all training topping the list of changes.  

I had to almost drag her into the office this morning, which isn’t typical because the vet’s office is where she goes for dog training classes, which she likes.   Although on Monday night I had to nearly drag her into class and then she decided to ignore all food and drag at the leash, trying to smell the other dogs near her for the majority of the hour.   When I talked to the trainer about it she asked how old she was and when I said she was just under six months and she was about to be spayed, the trainer said, “well, that explains it.”

I had to pick her up after getting my son from school.   Aunt Margaret was with us in the car and helped us get her in the house and in her cage with the cone on her head.   Matisse isn’t happy about the cone, but not overly so.   She’s mostly resting now and low energy.   The vet said because of how they were able to do the surgery she’s not worried about her tearing anything or internal bleeds, even if she jumps up, although to try and keep her calm for a day or two.

My children were both interested in how she was feeling.   My son wanted to see the incisions but decided they weren’t that interesting once he had a look.   I don’t like that she’s uncomfortable, but it needed to be done.   Hopefully she’ll be back to her bouncy self in a few days.

The Big Boy Update:  My son said he was glad Matisse had had the surgery because he didn’t want to have any more, “dates” with her and wanted to play with her like they used to.   (“dates” = mounting behavior)

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter wanted to understand what I meant by a cone on the dog’s head and why she needed it.   I took off the cone and let her feel the flat, semi-circle of plastic.   I asked if she could find the two velcro sections.   Then I coiled the cone up and had her see how it was velcroed together.   I explained how Matisse wouldn’t be able to get to her incisions with the cone on and this was to protect her from hurting herself without realizing what she was doing because dogs sometimes licked wounds or bit at stitches.   Then I put the cone back on the dog and let her feel her head inside it.   She wanted to know if Matisse got to have popsicles after waking up from surgery like she did.

Grown-up Hot Dog Soup

When I was young my father, or was it my mother, made something called Hot Dog Soup.   I loved it.  It had potatoes and little slices of hot dogs in it and it was creamy and I always loved it when they made it.  

When I got older and moved into my own place I remember my mother made me some recipe cards of things I could make that would be easy for someone in college who was out on their own for the first time.   One of the recipes was for Hot Dog Soup.   It was easy: a can of Campbell’s potato soup, some cream and hot dogs.   Add all three into a pot, heat and you were set.

I made it a lot when I was younger but it’s been a long time since I’ve made it at this point.   My mother has been cooking for us as a welcome home present of late.   When I got back from Cancun she said she was making Zuppa Toscana soup and did I want some?   This is a recipe that matches the soup offered by Olive Garden.   It’s my favorite soup there and my mother’s version is just is good and possibly better.   "Of course I’d take some," I told her.

Tonight at nine-thirty when I’d gotten the children in bed and finally had time to eat dinner I warmed up a bowl of her soup.   As I sat there eating this creamy potato soup with mild sausage I realized it had a taste not unlike hot dog soup—only more grown up in flavors.

The Big Boy Update:  My mother watched the children tonight while I took the dog to dog training class.   When I got home my mother told me my son had asked her, “how much does my mom pay you to watch us?”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter got home close to five o’clock but she was still ready for music lesson with Chelsea.   She ran over next door to find Madison and then asked Chelsea if Madison could join in the music lesson.   I heard Madison say as the three of them went upstairs, “I just love music."

The Candy Stash

My husband left to go skiing for a week this morning.  He arrived and has talked to the children and they’re now both in bed.   Lunches are made, the house is clean and I’m here writing this blog post.   My daughter and I had a nice day today, working on some braille in the bonus room for a while before friends on the street came over to play outside—which was quite something to behold after five days of straight rain here.   The sun came out and the children were sent outside by all the parents on the street.   Since my children haven’t had a chance to play with any of their friends in close to two weeks due to the flu, they were very glad to see their friends again.

I continued to stay up in the bonus room, working through the huge pile of braille work my daughter had completed from school back even into December.   I read through all the work she does at school as a point of review and practice for my braille study.   I can use the work, it’s getting easier and faster to read braille, but it’s still a lot of dots on the page a good portion of the time until I get back into reading after a break.

My son came in at one point this afternoon to tell me had I heard about my daughter’s, “candy stash” in their room?  I had heard about it but hadn’t really looked into it.   Mostly it’s fueled by her friends when they come over I think.   They take candy out of the candy bowl I keep on a high shelf in the mud room and they were putting it somewhere.   My son had found that somewhere and told me I should check it out.

Tonight he reminded me about it and he was right, it was a pretty impressive collection of candy and wrappers in one of the drawers in their bathroom.   I removed some of it but left some.   My daughter likes candy but doesn’t eat too much typically, forgetting about candy even after going to the candy store usually the next day.

I was impressed with the collection though.  I think if I had a candy stash like that in my room as a child I wouldn’t have been able to control myself and it wouldn’t have remained a candy stash for long at all.

The Big Boy Update:  My son didn’t want to go outside and play initially and said there was nothing to do, so I suggested some different things.   Unexpectedly, he wanted to work with the colored corn starch packing pellets to make some art.   I’ve typically made things with them in a two-dimensional fashion but I came in after ten minutes and was surprised to see him building things in three dimensions.   He made more than one page, the one pictured below is an island theme with a snake (suggested by Aunt Margaret when he asked, “what else can I make that’s green?”). The other sheet had a house, picnic table with benches and a man holding a dog on a leash.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  As I was drying my daughter’s hair tonight she was playing with the dog and asked me, “are dogs ticklish?”  I told her I didn’t know so she did the obvious next thing to do if you’re seven-years-old and live in today’s era: she asked Alexa.   Alexa told us scientists don’t really know if dogs are ticklish but they do have something called the, “scratch reflex” that gets triggered when we’re scratching them and they suddenly lift their leg and start to scratch along with you.

I’m Not Ready Yet

I’m home.   It’s cold.  It’s wet.   Okay, it’s really wet.   Today is the fifth straight day of rain here.   The weather hasn’t the common curtest to deliver some of the precipitation as snow, which all children and a good portion of adults here would love.   So we’re soggy and sodden here in a not-quite-cold-enough-for-snow weather pattern that is threatening to go on for even more days.

My daughter was happy to see me, my son was fair-to-middlin’ on welcoming me, saying, “don’t touch me, you’ll get sick” but relented when I told him I was hugging and kissing him weather he liked it or not.   The dog was ecstatic.   Ecstatic for the longest time, bowling me over again and again in exuberant pounces of happiness because I’d returned home.

The dog has to have a bath once a week because everything likes to affix to her soft-coated Wheaten Terrier fur.   It’s luxuriant fur, but it comes with a high-maintenance price.   My husband had been keeping her inside, only taking her out to use the bushes when needed, because leaving her out in the rain would only make her dirtier faster.

But I was home and I didn’t mind giving her a bath so I took her outside and after two minutes of her putzing around in the rain, sniffing this and that, I asked her if she wanted to come inside?   Of course she didn’t, so I hooked her up to the path light, set a six minute timer on my watch and went inside.   I checked on her again and again over the next hour, changing her to the runner stake after a half-hour, and the answer was always the same: I’m not ready to come inside yet.

How do I know this?  Because every time I walked out the door I would ask her if she wanted to come in and she’d run the opposite direction as fast as she could.   And this did not bother me in the slightest.  The sticks and mulch and leaves that were affixed to her legs in her wet and bedraggled state was just fine by me, because I was walking her straight into the bathroom to and plunking her down in the bath tub when she did, eventually, want to come inside.

It took about an hour of cold, wet rain on her to dampen her enthusiasm for the outdoors, and even then, it was only at my insistence that she did come in.   When I put her in the already running tub she drank from the faucet while dirt streamed down her legs and into the bath.   I turned on the hand attachment and washed her down with fluffy, pink dog shampoo of good smellingness while she stood patiently, getting warmed with the water.

She rather likes baths at this point, particularly when she’s come in from a cold rain.   I dried her off with two towels and then she bounded onto the bed and tried to wedge herself between our pillows to get warm (and get all our bedding wet).   I pulled her out, placed a blanket over our pillows and wrapped her up, nestled between the pillows where she slept for an hour.

She’s now almost dry and has been brushed extensively by me, which she also seems to like.   She’s two shades less dirt colored and seven times as fluffy.   She also smells great.   And she’s happy.

The Big Boy Update:  My son seems to be recovered from whatever it was that caused him to throw up on Thursday night.   We tried a medication today for ADHD but we don’t think it’s going to work as it may have made him more hyper and more prone to being angry and sad.   Tomorrow we’re going to try again with a different dosage.   I need to write the whole thing up at some point and I will when we know more.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter made me some notes today.   She’s good at folding a piece of paper into a “secret message” format, sealing it with a single piece of tape.   She writes a little message (which is hard to read because she can’t see what she’s writing) and then folds it up and puts your name on the front.   I told her I’d make her a message back.   She asked me if I could do it in braille for her, which was rather poignant because she can’t see anything at all.   I brought her a black t-shirt home from Cancun with solid, bright letters in yellow, orange and green on it and she couldn’t see even that the shirt was black.

Last Day Of Sun

It’s been sunny and beautiful weather here in Cancun.   I heard it’s rained all but a few hours since we left at home.   I’m looking forward to getting home though; I miss my children, my husband and the dog.

When I return I’ll have a half-day before my husband leaves to go skiing with my best friend’s family (the same best friend I’m with here in Cancun).   My husband loves to ski and I’m glad he’s getting a chance to go without children for almost a week to get away and have a break from family life.   It’s been nice having a break here.

We leave very early in the morning to catch a flight so I’m packing up now.   I’d like to say I spent a lot of time in the sun, down at the pool, drinking margaritas, but I can’t.   I did have two margaritas and regretted it an hour later.  I’ve spent more time in the room than anywhere else, surprisingly, sleeping a lot.   I think it’s taken me longer to get over the final parts of the flu than I had anticipated.

The Big Boy Update:  My son missed a big field trip today because he was vomiting last night.   I think he’s sad to have missed the trip, but he wasn’t feeling well, sleeping in late and being low energy from what my husband told me.   He seems fine this afternoon though.  I don’t know what he had, but I hope he’s recovered.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter’s driver has had her route changed.   She’s not picking my daughter up until twenty minutes after school has let out and she won’t get home until five o’clock.   We’re looking into how long this route change will be; it’s a long day for my daughter and a long ride home.

I Knew I Forgot Something

We had a nice day today starting out with sleeping late and then a leisurely breakfast at the buffet at the hotel.   Linda and Eleanor were spending time at the pool and invited us to join them but Jen and I decided to go back to our rooms to have a nap—what with eating breakfast such a tiring event.   They decided to do water aerobics while Jen and I had a mid-day nap.   I do so love a mid-day nap.

We joined them for happy hour in the afternoon at the swim up bar and then I nodded off in a lounge chair in the sun.   We all went out to a very nice dinner and then came back to go to sleep early.   It was just now, as I was about to nod off to sleep, that I realized I’d forgotten to write a blog post.  So I’m sitting in the dark on the sofa, writing this before getting back in the bed to go to sleep for the third time today.   I am really enjoying this vacation.   I don’t know if I’m extra lazy or if I’m still recovering from having the flu, but either way, all the relaxing and resting has been nice.

The Big Boy Update:  My son has a big field trip tomorrow but tonight he threw up at dinner.   My husband isn’t sure if he’s actually sick or if he got motion sick or something else.   He doesn’t want to send him on the field trip if he’s sick but he doesn’t want him to miss the trip either.   We can’t send him if he’s not well thought.  It wouldn’t be fair to him or his teachers to do so.   They’re going to decide in the morning before six o’clock if he’ll go or not.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter stayed with my parents at dinner tonight after my son threw up.   She probably very much liked the time alone with her grandparents, even though her brother wasn’t feeling well.

Girlfriends

I’m with three of my girlfriends in Cancun this week.   We all got in yesterday and are staying at a timeshare Jen has that her husband and children weren’t interested in using with her this week.   She has a conference she’s attending as well, but for a three days we’ve got time together as four ladies, catching up on each other and our families lives.

We haven’t worked too hard yet today.   We got up late, went down to the pool, ate at the breakfast buffet and then went for a massage.   We lounged around in the spa area for a while until we got hungry and then went back out to the pool to eat.  

I’m in the room catching up on emails now and maybe taking a nap—because I’m tired from all the relaxation.

The Big Boy Update:  My son had a good day at school today.   He and my husband called me on the way home from school.   I was happy to talk to him because we had left on a bad note yesterday morning when I dropped him off at school.  He was quite happy and talked to me all about his day.   He said he’d help dad make his lunch for tomorrow since I wouldn’t be there to make it like I normally did.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Today is Cultures of Kindness at my daughter’s school.   She, her brother and father, are going back this evening for the food trucks and activities in the classrooms.   She’s excited about it—and so is her brother, although he might just be excited about the food trucks.

On the Floor, Before the Flight

I’m sitting on the floor with my laptop on my lap because I’m packed and ready to go but I wanted to get this post written before I leave so floor writing it is today.

I had to go get pajamas.   I was packing last night and realized I don’t really have any pajamas at all.  I’m fond of old, ratty t-shirts and sweat pants and other old, castoffs for sleeping when I’m at home.   On this trip with my girlfriends we’ll have four of us in two rooms, two to a bed and from past overnights I’ve noticed these ladies actually have sleepwear they put on at night.

Committee meeting finished this morning and I rushed over to the mall to the sleepwear area of the department store I frequent.   I was looking for something with short sleeves and shorts and figured it would be an easy hunt.   But mid-winter found mostly long-sleeved, fuzzy pants and warm gowns in their collections.

But I found two options, bought them without even trying them on and ran home for my next conference call.   After the call I tried them on and thankfully they fit.   So now I’ll look a little more presentable when I sleep.  Closing the suitcase now and leaving in thirty minutes.  Nothing like just in time shopping.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My husband called me into the foyer this morning as my daughter was leaving for school.   He said to hug goodbye.   I had forgotten I was leaving today and almost didn’t say goodbye!

The Big Boy Update:  My son was carrying in brownies and strawberry ice cream to school this morning.   I was helping him get it all in his arms when he said in an exasperated tone, “ugh, you’re so annoying!”  I was a little surprised and told him it hurt my feelings, I was just trying to help.   He grumbled, “bye, see you on Saturday” and then got out of the car.   I didn’t get to say goodbye to my son happily, and I felt bad.   I tried to tell him I’d miss him with the window down as he walked off, but he wasn’t listening.   I’ll have to call once I get in and talk to him about his day and how the brownies and ice cream went over.

Caught Up…Barely

I leave for vacation mid-day tomorrow.   Prior to leaving I have conference calls, committee meetings and appointments with almost no time before leaving for the airport.   Which means I had to get completely caught up today from being sick: paperwork, e-work, house work, phone calls, etc.   I had to cram it all in.   And I had to pack and get anything I needed to do prior to departing, done tonight.

I wasn’t sure I could get it done, and there are a few things I’m going to try and wedge in while I’m on a conference call tomorrow, but I think I’m ready.   I recovered from the flu not one day too soon, and almost one day too late.  

I’m tired though.   I have text messages I haven’t responded to that will have to wait for the morning because I’m going to sleep.

The Big Boy Update:  We had my son’s parent teacher conference today.   We had a lovely conversation with his two teachers.   Yes, we have some challenges in the inattentive and hyperactive areas, but we’re looking at options and his teachers are looking forward to seeing how that may help. But academically, my son is capable of doing very well—is doing very well, considering.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Out of the blue the other day we got a very low (well, not low, normal) pressure reading for my daughter’s eye.   This hasn’t happened.  It’s always high, no matter what we’ve done.   Could it have been the flu and the Tamiflu?   We hadn’t taken readings for over a week. We’re going to see if the pressure stays down now that my daughter is well again.

Almost Back To Normal

I think we’re all almost well at this point.   There are some coughs and some chest congestion and my daughter is still waking up very early and falling asleep just as early, but on the whole I think everyone is going to school this week.

I’m taking a vacation with some girlfriends on Tuesday, so I’d better be well.   I hear some of them also have been sick, so at least we won’t get each other more sick if we’ve all had the same thing.  I don’t know if tropical weather will help or not, but some sun will at least make me feel happier than the cold, dreary rain we’re having now.

The Big Boy Update:  My son and I were watching a show about Chinese cooking again tonight.   I asked him if he recognized what the man was digging out of the ground that dad cooked with? I thought he might know what it was.   He said, “yes, it reminds me of a root.”  I laughed and said, it was a root called ginger.   He said it just looked like a root to him.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter gets cold every time she eats ice cream or popsicles—and yet she insists on eating them.   She had to stop mid-way through her bowl of ice cream tonight to head for the bath because she was too cold to keep eating.

Nothing But Mud

I’m better today.   The majority of my symptoms are gone and I was able to venture out into the house beyond the bedroom to see how it and everyone had been faring.   I was able to get dressed, take the dog out and then begin the process of putting everything back into place.  

There’s a place for everything in my house.  When we’re sick or overly busy, things don’t get put back in their spots.   Dishes don’t get put away, laundry doesn’t get folded, art projects don’t get cleaned up, medicines are left out on counters and dog toys are everywhere.   Now that I was feeling better, things had to be put back in their spots.   Containers and bags from items purchased needed to be recycled, leftovers from last week n the refrigerator had to be put out and children’s things that always seem to spread, even in times of sickness, had to go back to the closet, cabinet or drawer they came from.

While I was doing this I let the dog out in the back yard on the stake and line I’d put out there recently.   She has one of these in the front yard and loves to spend time out there.   She likes to get into the mulch and has done some digging though and I didn’t want to deal with a dirty dog today.   It was raining, which Matisse loves, so I thought keeping her outside where there was a lot of grass was a better idea.

I left her for fifteen minutes while I got a few things done.   When I came back I found her wrapped around the edge of the deck right at the edge of the covered porch under a bush.   I called to her and she came bounding out…covered in black mud.  

She was drenched.  He paws had gone from honey colored to coffee-colored mud.  Her face had been in whatever it was she was digging and was now dripping in the same colored substance.   I found a ball and threw it for her to chase, set a timer for twenty more minutes on my watch and returned inside to clean up some more and then get the shower ready for when I carried her inside.

She doesn’t really mind getting washed.  She likes the brushing afterwards too.   But it wasn’t on my planned things to do on the first day I felt better list.   She super fluffy and soft now too.  And she smells good.

The Big Boy Update:  My son got up this morning and started watching the Chinese cuisine documentary series without me!  He told me I had to wait for him to watch it myself.   I wasn’t mad, I was glad he was interested enough to watch some more when he woke up.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   My daughter has a bad cough, but other than that she’s mostly well.   Except she keeps falling asleep very early.   I’m wondering if she’s gotten her sleep schedule off somehow.   She’s also waking up early.  

She Wants A Date

I’ve got an appointment to get the dog spayed in two weeks.  I’ve noticed her mounting once or twice in a minimal way recently and figured the appointment was going to be just in time.   Tonight, on our bed my son was piled under a blanket, playing a game with Matisse and she decided that this time she was serious.   She really wanted to have a date with my son.

I told my son what was happening and that we were going to have an operation on her soon and that the behavior would stop.   He didn’t really understand so I explained in more detail.   We don’t use euphemisms, there’s no reason to.   It’s just a natural thing.   I told him when a dog becomes mature, she will go into “heat” which means her body is ready to get pregnant from a boy dog.   She doesn’t know what that means, she’s just acting on instinct with the mounting behavior.   She has no idea what being pregnant is and wouldn’t even realize she was pregnant possibly until she actually gave birth.

I explained that since we had no plans on having any little baby Matisses, we were going to spay her.   What was that?   It was an operation where they removed the uterus from her body, which is the place where babies grow.   That I have a uterus he and his sister grew in inside me.

I told him the operation was done on humans too, all the time.   Sometimes when a mother didn’t want to have more children or when they were having other issues that would have a surgery that removed the uterus called a hysterectomy.   And guess who does those surgeries?   His best buddy and my best friend’s husband, Matt (or "G-Money” as he likes to call him).   And Matt had even done the surgery to moms in our neighborhood and some of our friends.

I had a similar discussion with my daughter the other day.   She was more interested in how the surgery was performed, how they would put Matisse to sleep, who would be with her and how Matisse would feel afterwards.   I told her she would be sore for a while and we’d have to keep her in her cage more than normal so she could heal where the stitches would be.

Both children were interested in the whole thing sort of in the same way they were interested with her baby teeth coming out.   They don’t really understand the topic as “sex” at this age.   It’s just a part of a dog’s life and care they’re interested in understanding.

I think my daughter is going to be super motherly after the surgery, taking care of her every need.   It’s so my daughter.

Sickness Update:  I feel awful, my husband is still recovering, my children’s ear infections aren’t bothering them much now that they’re on antibiotics, my daughter is tired all the time from the flu and possibly the Tamiflu.   I’m okay if I’m lying down most of the day but I get light headed if I stand up for too long.   And while that sounds all kinds of bad, I think we’re on an upswing overall.

The Big Boy Update:  My son loves documentaries.   He and I watched ten short segments on Chaoshan cuisine with the Netflix series Flavorful Origins.  He and I both kept saying, “I’d eat that.” My son wants to go to the Chinese Provence and try the foods directly.   His idea was for us to boat our way there from St. Thomas on our ten-day trip this summer.   We had to get Google Earth out and show him just how far away it was.   He still wants to go.   Most recent plans are for him and me to go while my husband and daughter go and do something they want to do—unless they want to join us.   Only mature tongues and taste buds allowed, though.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter asks for new apps from time to time.   I go out to the App Store, download a collection of free apps, try them out and then delete two-thirds of them because of popup ads she won’t know how to close, small buttons or confusing layout, or other reason that would cause the app to not work for her with her vision impairment.   Today’s request?  Painting apps and popcorn machine apps.   I found some of both.

Toilet Paper

The dog has been interested in tissues lately.  My daughter is doing a lot of blowing of her nose and if we’re not careful, she puts the tissues somewhere where the dog can get to them—and tear them to shreds.   They don’t have to be used tissues either, we lost a good portion of a new box of tissues my daughter had put on the floor.   The dog was pulling large chunks out of the box, shaking and tearing them up.

But the cutest one was today as I laid on the bed.   I noticed the dog going into the bathroom and then into the toilet area.   I watched and listened because at some point relatively soon she’s going to figure out there’s water in the toilets and try to drink it.   She’s not quite tall enough yet, but it’s only a matter of time.

But instead I saw her walking out of the room with the end of the tissue roll in her mouth, unrolling the roll as she walked.   I had to stop her and tell her it wasn’t allowed, cute as it was.   Later today she tried again, this time getting all the way into the bedroom with her head held high, holding onto the tissue.

I’m still sick.   I’ve been able to keep the fever below 102 for most of the day. but I feel awful.   My husband has been managing the children while I’ve dome little more than lie in bed because I get light-headed if I stand up for too long.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son and I were on the bed with the dog this morning.   I said, “I’m so glad we decided to get a dog.”   He said, “some dogs are failures, but ours is not.”   I couldn’t help but laugh and agree with him.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   My daughter made a pot today using the potters wheel she got for Christmas.   I haven’t seen it yet but she’s excited to show it to me when it dries.

Crap

That’s how I feel.   Actually, I feel worse than that word, but I’m going to restrain,   I can’t type.  My fever is topping out just below 103 and I’m unstable.   I went to the pharmacy this morning to get two prescriptions we’ve been trying to get approved since the beginning of the year—and it finally worked,   Lawrence, the PA I’m working with at rhe spine clinic said her was on it.   

Between Lawrence, his staff and me making phone calls and sending in information, today was to be the lucky day when I could get the prescription filled.  One was ready but the second one they had to order and it wouldn’t be in until Friday.   After looking around, there was stock at another pharmacy five miles away.   

I paid for the one prescription but I had to keep sitting down.  On the floor.    I was fine, but I got light headed suddenly and I needed to drop.   Robert came around form the back, didn’t touch me because he knew I was sick with my hand sanitizer and mask on.   He said he was going to walk me to the car. 

I wasn’t worried about what had happened.   It was a drop in blood pressure and I needed to get my head lower in relation to my body to get more blood to it.   Everything else went well with both difficult prescriptions finally approved.   I came home and got in bed.   I can’t fall asleep because maybe the pain is too high, but I’m not sure on that.  

After I send this post I’m going to go hydrate and see if I can sleep.

The Bog Boy Update:  My son has been so tired with getting over the flu and tiger the ear infection.  He just stops, lies down and goes to sleep with a blanket all over the house.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I don’t know who’s more sick, my son or daughter.   She’s been in her chair in the living room for hours, rousing to ask for more water.

It’s About Time

I have a fever of 100.5 right now that’s developed in the last hour or two.   About damn time if you ask me.   I wasn’t getting out of this sickness unscathed and the longer it took for me to come down with it, the close it will be to leaving on vacation with my girlfriends to Cancun.   And I don’t want to be sick for that.   I don’t want to infect them either.  Making a call to stay or go would be a tough on, but with a week to go, hopefully I’ll be okay by then.   Hopefully.

I called and left a message for my best friend, asking if she could call in Tamiflu for me or was she unable to given how she was my OB and I hadn’t had a need to be seen in her office for over seven years.   She messaged me back, saying she’d never heard anyone so excited about getting sick before and that yes, she’d call it in now.   Hopefully I’ll be okay by the trip…hopefully.

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Time To Go To the Doctor Update:   My daughter had a 103 degree fever again today and my son was hovering at just over one hundred, but due to the full week this has gone on, he decided to call their pediatrician and ask if he should bring them in.   He’s there with the two of them and they’re having an in-office test to identify what they have.

The doctor said there was a possibility they could have two things at once such as strep throat or pnumonia and the flu.   Neither child has a sore throat aside from that one short, “it feels like a booger in my throat” hour for my son.   His cough is much better.   She has a mild cough but it’s pretty dry and she doesn’t sound like she has congestion in her lungs.    But we’ll see.   I’ll report back tomorrow when I drag myself out of bed to write a post.  And if I’m going to feel like my husband did when he was sick, it’ll be some serious dragging.

So We All Went In Sick

My son had a doctor’s appointment today.   We had been wanting to get scheduled for a new patient intake with this doctor and I knew it was hard to get in quickly with him so I was pleased when I called and got in on a recent cancellation.   When I made the appointment they took my credit card and told me that there was a twenty-four hour cancellation policy and if we didn’t cancel within that window, the full visit charge of $400 would be charged to my credit card.

I didn’t have a problem with the policy because we were keeping the appointment.  We needed the appointment and had no need to cancel.  Then everyone got what we think in Influenza B from what my husband has looked up online.   Although it could be Influenza A because we have some doctors as parents at our school and when they got sick they made sure they knew what it was.

My son got it first but recovered.   We didn’t even think it was the flu (and I’m still not sure it is, truthfully).   We were going to send him to school on Friday because he was fine but there’s a “fever free” policy you have to adhere to, keeping a child home even if they may be okay, to protect other students and teachers from catching what they had.  Because of that, we kept him home.

But he was fine for that Monday appointment; there was no need to cancel, all was well.  Then things went south this weekend.   My son’s fever came back, my husband was miserable and exhausted and my daughter’s fever came back.   My son got a bad cough we could barely control with cough medicine and my daughter’s nose was in need of blowing constantly.   Then my husband got congestion in his lower chest.   And everyone had a fever.

Fever’s ranged from 102 down, coming and going in an unpredictable pattern.   This morning I checked the children’s temperatures again.  My son was back to 102.3 and my daughter was 100.7.   Ad eight o’clock I called the doctor’s office and explained about the family having the flu and we didn’t feel it was good to come in and could they waive the cancellation fee.

Well, no, they couldn’t, said the person at the front desk because it was policy.   She transferred me to someone in billing.  I explained our situation and the lady told me that since I’d explained it, they wouldn’t charge my credit card, but that it would be due before we made another appointment.   I said I didn’t mind paying in advance for the rescheduled appointment (I was going to pay it at time of service, but because we’d cancelled, I understood why they would want to do so.).  She said fine.   Then I said, “so can we go ahead and reschedule now?”

She said, well yes, but you’ll have to pay the cancellation fee first.   She explained (and I’ll summarize here) that if we ever wanted to see this doctor (this was an intake appointment) that we would have to pay the $400 cancellation penalty before they would schedule for him again.

I said, “are you telling me the only choices I have are to bring my entire sick family in today—because I will have to bring my daughter who is sick and out of school too—to have my son evaluated when he is sick with a fever, or I have to pay $400 to reschedule?   She said yes.   I said that in that case I would bring everyone in, sick, to their office, with an aggressive and contagious virus.

I had paperwork I needed to email to the office.  I scanned it in, sent an email and explained that we would all be in at 2:40, sick with the flu, because we were left with little choice given the zero tolerance cancellation policy they had.   I would medicate my son to try and control his cough and reduce his fever so he could be evaluated.

I was mad.   I don’t usually get mad like this.   And let me say that I completely agree with charging for cancellations.   I hate wasting people’s time and I don’t like my time wasted either.   But this didn’t seem to be a wise choice for their office to make.

I told my son we had to go.  He was upset.   He said, “I’m sick.  I’m suppose to be resting.  I’m going to tell that doctor he should be fired!”  I told him (I was still mad at this point), “go right ahead”.   He complained and said I should cancel.   I told him we couldn’t because it was going to cost $400 if we did and I was sorry, but we were all going.

Later I calmed down and talked to my son, telling him I knew he was upset, but it was important for him to go in and answer the doctor’s questions as best he could, that it was important and the doctor wanted to help us and him and we wanted to do the best we could so he could make good recommendations.   My son understood, but he was still upset.  He was in a ball on the floor in the living room under a blanket.   He’d gone back to bed this morning after breakfast because he felt so bad, and he doesn’t do that.

We medicated everyone for fever and cough before leaving and then went to the appointment.   I told my husband I wasn’t going to say anything until the end of the appointment, because we really did want help and it wasn’t their fault we were sick.   The doctor came out and I said I wasn’t going to shake hands because we were sick.   I said we had to bring his sister because she was out of school sick as well.   And Dr. Snow didn’t mind.

We had a nice appointment.  My daughter being there almost helped things because my son and she got involved with something on her iPad and he didn’t pay attention while we talked about him and answered questions.  Dr. Snow had some recommendations we could start now as opposed to waiting several weeks when we would have been able to get back on his schedule.

I mentioned at the end rather casually about sorry for coming in sick, but when faced with the cancellation policy we decided to all come in and to please sanitize everything we’d touched because I didn’t want him to get what we had.   He said he had heard about what happened and he was going to have a talk with his staff.   That that should not have happened and he would not have charged us the cancellation fee.

In the end, I’m glad we went in.   And I do really hope they don’t get sick.   I tried to touch as little as possible, although my children were bouncing around his office in the way sick children do after being given a dose of ibuprofen and their fevers abate for a few hours.   We’re back home now and they’re both on the floor again, lying with blankets over them, watching (or listening) to something on their iPads.

The Big Boy Update:  My son’s throat was hurting two nights ago.   He was making these coughing, retching noises trying to get it out.   I was afraid he had strep throat from the way he was going on.   He described it by saying, “there’s a booger in my throat.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter’s vision is always questionable.   Sometimes we think she’s almost completely blind.  But then sometimes she’ll say or do something that shows what she can see.   Last week with her iPad she held it up and said, “why can’t I see the screen?”   I thought, “oh no, it’s gotten even worse” but my fears abated when she followed up the next moment with the words, “oh, never mind, I can” as she found what she was looking for and tapped the screen.

The Longer Job

Let me start this post out by saying there is still a lot of sickness going on in this house.   How I haven’t come down with it yet is a bit of a mystery.   I’m not taking measures to avoid contact with my children or their bodily fluids because it would be futile.

There are the tissues my daughter blows her nose with that the dog finds and after she’s put them down by her pillow and fallen asleep end up shredded on the floor.   The cough drop my son decides he doesn’t prefer and hands to me directly, sticky from his mouth, lest he put it down on the sofa because he’s too tired to get up and throw it away.   There was the coughing spell my son had last night that caused him to gag repeatedly and throw up on his bedding and their hot little sweaty bodies that need help getting changed into clean pajamas.

We’re not sending either of them to school tomorrow.   They have symptoms go away but new ones crop up or old ones come back.   My husband has spent close to three days now in a reclining chair in the basement, sleeping through the night.   He has a cough too and has had a fever that got up high enough last night that he took a cold shower he felt so badly.

It’s coming, I’m sure of it.   There’s no way I’m getting out of this unscathed.   I’d love to say I have some super repellant immune system but for the last forty-nine years evidence has shown I’m just as likely to be the first to get something as the last with those I’m surrounded by.   But for now, I’m glad I’m managing to hold it off, because someone had to do things around here.

We were woefully low on food in the house.   We had been putting off going to the grocery store and then everyone got sick.   Appetites were low so we put it off for longer but after dinner last night I had to do something so once I got the children to bed I put the long list of needed consumables in order on my phone and headed to the store.

Grocery shopping I don’t mind doing.   My husband and I do the shopping equally, deciding who will go based on schedule and availability.  While my the rest of my family was asleep, I went to the store and filled the cart so full I was doing some balancing of items in the end, trying to keep it all in the cart.

When I got home the unpacking and putting up had to be done.   And this is the part that always gets me: it takes longer to put everything up than it does to shop for it in the first place.   Or so it does in my house.  I unpack everything, putting the packaging in the appropriate recycling or trash bins.   Cereals go into cereal containers, snacks are emptied into airtight pop-off lid containers, granola bars, apple sauce and fruit cups are stacked in a caddy.   Yogurts are put in rows in the refrigerator based on flavor and all other non-perishables are sorted and organized in the pantry.

When it’s done, you can go in and get what you’re looking for quickly and without the need to open or get rid of packaging.  It’s more space-efficient in that the amount of space it would take to fit one bag of Fritos fits three bags and there’s no need for a chip clip and things don’t go stale.   It’s a lot of work when the groceries first come home, but I like having things organized, easily accessible and in containers that prevent things from going stale.

This morning I didn’t even need to say anything to my children because they found the food and got their own breakfasts.   Tonight out of a need to just get out of the house for something, anything, a change of scenery, my husband went to the store.   I told him to get something for breakfast the children could manage on their own and I didn’t care if it wasn’t very healthy.   He came back with mini powdered donuts and mini chocolate donuts.   I’d say he nailed that one.   I’m hoping to sleep in until at least eight tomorrow with that much sugar sitting on the counter for the children for breakfast.

The Big Boy Update:  My son watched a lot of television today.  He has a bad cough but normally would want to play video games but his energy has been low.   At seven-fifteen tonight he suddenly said, “turn it off” to no one in particular.   He’d had enough of the television and barely protested when I told him I was going to help him get ready for bed.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter wanted to play, “bath time” today with me, which turned out to be one of her imagination verbal games.   I talked her into an actual bath and let her use some of my bath salts.  She got some tub toys and was playing with them when I came in at one point.   She said, “mom, can you see how I’ve sorted the toys?”   She had put half on one side of her and half on the other.   They were: aligator car, frog, duck, octopus on one side and whistle, watering can, plane and cup on the other side.   She told me, “these are things that live in water and these other things you use in water."

Pajama Day

I’m still in my pajamas.   It’s almost seven at night now.   I think I’m the only one in the house that doesn’t have this funk going around.   My daughter got it first and was tired and slept a lot for two days.   She had a big appetite though—almost more so than normal.

Then my son got it.  His fever lasted for longer and he had no appetite, eating almost nothing for one day entirely.   He fell asleep on the floor in different places, including near the dining room table on the hard wood floor.   He wanted to sleep for a while in the middle of the traffic area in our bedroom at one point, unable or unwilling to move even when I told him I was going to wash the dog and she might jump all over him in wet puppy happiness after she was out.

Both children got better, although my daughter has a mild cough and has been blowing her nose.   She went back to school on Friday while my son stayed home with the tail end of his fever.   Then my husband got it—and he’s not happy about it.   That bit where men are worse than women when they’re sick, that they fall apart and can’t function at all—I don’t know if it’s really true for him because he works through most things without a complaint at all.   But this is rough on him.

He’s been sleeping during the day and part of the night on his reclining chair in the basement.   He has no energy, although his fever has stayed at barely over one hundred.   He feels awful.   He came upstairs a while ago and said, “I just want this over.”   Then he went downstairs to go back to sleep.

Am I incubating?  I thought I was at the start of it when I got a bad migraine headache last night.   My husband has had a sustained headache and a cough that’s not dry or wet sounding, sort of somewhere in-between.   This morning my headache had abated and I didn’t feel more achy and painful than I usually do in the morning from my spine and back issues.   Or at least that’s what I assumed.   Mornings vary for me from okay to manageable to hard to get out of bed.   But once I was moving I did okay.

The dog isn’t sick.   She’s her happy puppy self.   Happy and wanting to go outside and spend hours in the yard chewing on sticks and mulch, watching cars and people go by, smelling and hearing all the sounds of the outdoors she can.   She’s so happy outside.

I went in and out of the house with the dog probably twenty times today to take her out or check on her and see if she wanted to come in (if she runs away from you that means no).   And I did it all in my Christmas pajamas, sporting a big moose on my red and black pajama top.

My neighbor was out with his dog.   I asked him if he thought I was well-dressed in my pajamas, rain boots and fuzzy white jacket.   He said with fashions these days I could probably go out to a nice restaurant and no one would even notice.

My husband is back asleep in the basement.  I’m getting the children anything we have left in the house for dinner, which isn’t a lot choice-wise because we’re about a week behind on grocery shopping.   Shortly I’ll get them in their pajamas and send them off to bed too.   My daughter isn’t recovering as quickly as my son, she keeps falling asleep on the couch after I put a show on the television for her to listen to.

Tomorrow hopefully everyone will be feeling better.  Hopefully we’re all on the mend.   And hopefully I don’t come down with it, last in my family to fall.   We have a birthday dinner tomorrow I hate to have to reschedule.  But if we need to, we will, we don’t want my parents to catch this.   It’s no fun.

The Big Boy Update:  My son was pretty unhappy we didn’t have much in the way of food for dinner here.   He settled on a dinner of three corn dogs after saying no to the soup and pasta options I had.   It was a good thing he agreed on the corn dogs, I didn’t have any other options to suggest.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter asked out of the blue if she could do Talking Typer this afternoon.  It’s an app on her iPad they use at school to teach touch typing.   She has to get 90% or higher on accuracy three times before she can move to the next lesson.   She’s a fast typer, but she’s only working on the home key row (ASDF) so far.   She got over 90% every time.

The I Want To Go Outside Again Dog:
Matisse loves being outside.  She has ringing the bell down now.   She rings it all the time.   Sometimes she wants to go back out right after coming inside.   She would spend most of the day out there if we didn’t bring her in from time to time.   Here she is, waiting patiently to be let out again.

Wheaten Play Date

My daughter went back to school today but my son stayed home as he wasn’t fever-free yesterday and still wasn’t feeling well.   My husband has this bug now and has been asleep in his chair in the basement a lot of the day.   I’ve got a monster headache, which is what happened to my husband initially, so I might be on the way to being sick too.  But this morning we were all having fun.

Our friend brought Theo, her Wheaten Terrier, over for a play date with Matisse.   The two had met before but it was the first week we had Matisse home as a puppy and while Theo was ready to play, Matisse wasn’t quite ready yet.

We had hoped the two dogs would get along and boy did they ever.   It was like they got each other.   They played and romped and chased each other in the front yard for a long time.   We took them to the back yard and they played some more.   We got them some water and they ran back out to play more.   When they looked overheated and just wanted to cool off, we brought them inside.   They ate some ice and then played some more.   They were tired, but they didn’t want to stop.

Theo was more dominant, but that suited Matisse just fine as she’s very submissive.   Here’s a video of them at the very end when they were so tired but didn’t want to stop playing,

After they cooled down we went on a two mile walk in the park and met several people who knew they were Wheaten Terriers or had had the breed themselves.

We’re getting the dogs together again for a play date soon.

The Big Boy Update:  My son was home today.   He wasn’t really sick anymore but he couldn’t go back to school because he’d had a fever yesterday.   With his father being sick and my busy with dog play dates and other things, he got to spend a lot of time on his Nintendo Switch.   Too much time, I’m sure.  He knows today was an exception though and that being sick doesn’t mean free screen time all day long.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter had a substitute driver today.   When she didn’t get home at the normal time today my husband checked and her GPS said she was still at school.   Something had happened but no one knew what so my huband said he’d come get her.   We’ve had good experiences with our drivers and are looking forward to Ms. Williams, our regular driver, to be back on Monday.

St. Thomas at Seven

My daughter’s longest break in the school year is over winter.   She has two weeks off for the holidays in December and then does’t go back until the end of January for her “track” in the year-round school she attends.

Last week her class wrote about what they did over the holidays and this week the completed work came home with her.   It’s been a while since we were in St. Thomas over Christmas and New Year’s holidays but when I read my daughter’s recounting of our vacation it was so cute I had to post it.  

Her memory on what happened for each day is quite accurate.   It does make it look like she spends a lot of spare time on the iPad.   We made a bit of a mistake and didn’t bring much in the way of toys on the trip.   She doesn’t like spending time on her iPad for the most part, but she got a good bit of show watching in while we were in St. Thomas as the adults talked spent time together.

The Big Boy Update:  My son is still sick today.   My daughter is better, so hopefully he’ll be over the fever by tomorrow.   He’s had almost no appetite, which has been in stark contrast to his sister, who ate more than normal while she was febrile.   He spent several hours asleep on the hardwood floor today.   Even though he’s feeling poorly, he’s been enjoying watching some television and resting on the couch.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has been obsessed with the time in Norway lately.   She’s doing Norway conversion time, letting us know that if it’s twelve-thirty here, it’s six-thirty in Norway right now.   This is because my husband is playing Fortnite with some friends he met online.   One of the friends is a lady named Maya, who is a teacher.   Maya says she doesn’t like playing on European servers because as soon as guys figure out she’s a female, they get “creepy” on her, hitting on her and making it not fun to play the game.   She says American men are much nicer and treat her as another player, not just a woman.   This afternoon my husband was taking a break and jumped into a Fortnite game.   My daughter heard a woman’s voice on the headset so my husband put the headset on her head and she got to say hello to his teammates, but in particular, Maya.

Sleeping Household

My household was largely asleep for the day today.   My son came downstairs in the middle of the night with a fever.   I got him some ibuprofen and asked him if he wanted me to walk him back up to bed or did he want to stay in bed with me?   It wasn’t deep into the, “middle of the night” meaning my husband was still downstairs watching something on the television, giving plenty of room for my son to stay in bed with me if he wanted to.

He decided that he didn’t want to stay with me because he had a better idea: he was going to go lie on the leather couch in the living room because it would be cool.   He took off his shirt and did just that. A hour or so later I got up and put a blanket on him.

My daughter woke up and still had a fever, wanting to lie in a ball at the foot of the bed by my feet.   She loves to take the dog out in the morning but had no interest in anything other than lying still.  I got up, got ready, took the dog out and then headed to the chiropractor because the thing that had happened where I had a hard time moving without a lot of pain in my lower back was back.  Not as extreme as the first time, but still significant.  

I took orders for McDonald’s breakfast from those that were awake and said I’d be back shortly.  When I got home my son’s second dose of ibuprofen had kicked in so he’d turned on YouTube videos of Fortnite Fails and ate his breakfast watching from the table.   My daughter didn’t want to get up, and stayed asleep on the chair in the living room.

My husband was in bed doing a capital job of snoring inbetween helping the children when they needed water, another blanket, watermelon or anything else.   I had a dental cleaning mid-morning and when I left my daughter was asleep on the floor in the bedroom, sprawled across the carpet.   She asked for her iPad so she could play music.   Before she fell asleep she sang the songs out loud that we couldn’t hear playing on her iPad.   My husband slept on.

After getting my teeth cleaned I called my husband to find out if I should bring something home for lunch.   He told me my daughter had just woken up and had been eating the breakfast I’d brought her and my son was asleep.

My son was asleep on the floor of our bedroom in almost the same spot his sister had been in a few hours before.   He said he was hot so he didn’t want a shirt when I offered one, but he did want to be covered up by a blanket.   There had been a dog digging issue while I was out so the dog got a bath while my son slept. When I let the dog outside thirty minutes later I found my daughter asleep again on the chair.

For several hours the house was very quiet with both children sleeping in different spots.  My son had relocated to the floor of the bonus room, still without a shirt.   Neighbor children came to ring the doorbell but we sent them away.

I’m heading off to dog training class shortly.  My son is still asleep.   My daughter is awake, but not budging from the chair she’s spent most of her time in for the past two days.   She’s listening to audio books she checked out from the library for the blind.

It’s not like my children to be so lethargic.   They’re both pleasant, kindly asking for help when they need it.  It’s not a painful or uncomfortable sickness, just a tiring one it would seem.   Rayan, one of the neighbor children, came over earlier.   He said hello to our now-clean dog and told me his sister had the same thing last week for three days.  Hopefully both children will be feeling better by tomorrow based on that information.

The Big Boy Update:  My son loves watching YouTube Fortnite videos.   He laughs out loud and comments on what’s happening.   He likes it when someone’s discovered a glitch in the game that makes something unexpected happen.   He also loves watching when people die from mistakes they make, usually falling to their death.  It’s kind of fun to watch; I got stuck for ten minutes watching before I realized I’d even sat down.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has been wanting to do a grocery store trip with me for two days now.   Just to do some shopping for things we have on the list.   We’ve had to put the trip on hold until she gets better though.  Hopefully we’ll be able to go tomorrow.

Sixteen Candles

I feel a little like the main character in Sixteen Candles today.   Only before we go any further, in a good way, not in a bad way at all.  

This morning my husband and I were trying to sleep.   Our children and dog were most definitely not trying to sleep, they were, instead, playing games with the dog on our bed.   Squealing was followed by one or two children trying to get under the covers while a happy dog tried to get to them, lick them, sit on them and play with them.   My husband is pretty talented at sleeping through the most intensely loud situations.  You can tell, because it doesn’t even interrupt his snoring.   But this morning was too much and we had to get up.

My daughter wasn’t going to school today because of a fever she developed yesterday.  Fever and malaise but otherwise she was fine.   The morning was busy though because I had a doctor’s appointment and my husband had a dental cleaning.  What to do with the sick child?   Bring her with one of us.   She said she’d like to see dad get his teeth cleaned and my appointment was mostly talking anyways and that was boring.

My husband made breakfast, the children got dressed, I got in a hot tub and worked on getting moving.  At eight my son and I went to his school and then I started the long morning of working with the doctor and pharmacy on what our next plans were to deal with my new insurance company declining multiple medications I’m prescribed—including the alternative medicine they wanted me to take instead.  

Coordination with the pharmacy and the doctors office took two more trips, then to the Chiropractor at almost noon on the dot when I got a text from my son’s Integrative Therapist about us still being on for our noon conference call?   I told her I’d call in ten minutes and she said that worked for her.

An hour call there followed by a second hour call about the new endowment fund we’ve created in honor of our retiring head of school, followed by a second call on the same subject because one of the attendees had a conflict and couldn’t make the first time slot.

About to hang up from three hours of phone calls and my best friend messaged me saying she thought I was coming over an hour-and-a-half ago and was everything okay?   Damn.   She and I had messaged about that last night but I got pulled away from the phone right in the middle and didn’t confirm with her (on my side).   Drat.   She and I got to catch up for ten minutes though as she drove to school to pick up some of her children.

When they got in the car I mentioned that my family had completely forgotten my birthday so far today.   Ellie said, “oh, just like in Sixteen Candles!”  I laughed and said, “you’re so right.”   But, I told them, I wasn’t sixteen, I was now forty-nine.  

By the time you get to almost half a century in age, birthdays seems much less important to celebrate.   Or perhaps they’re grow in importance to some people.   In our family it’s never been much of a thing unless you’re a child and want cake, ice cream, presents and a party.   We’ve never done much in the way of celebrating birthdays other than a dinner and a birthday call.   My mother had sent me a birthday email, complete with one of her famous Word documents sporting clip art depicting characteristics or interests of yours.

We’ll celebrate tonight with dinner my husband makes for the children.  And we’ll sing the birthday song.   That’s about all it takes to make me happy though.   I don’t mind at all that they’ve forgotten my birthday.   What would be nice though would be to be sixteen again…

The Big Boy Update:  My son has taken a small dose of Benadryl for the past several days before he goes to school.   It was an idea I had to calm him just a bit so he could hopefully drop his energy level down, making it easier to do his work.   He says it’s helping.  It’s not a long-term solution, but it’s something to try.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter still has a fever.   One of the children near us had the same thing and it took a few days to pass.   She’s sleeping on the chair in the living room now, listening to Ninjago on the television.

Yearly Playlists

Back in the day there were records.   They were round and flat and scratched.  But they played music.   My first recollection of music on demand were the forty-fives I played on my little record player.   My parents recorded me on audit tapes when I was young.   I have two of them still in the attic today, although the quality of the recording has degraded with the magnet strip tape after all these years.

Then there were CDs.   I remember my first CD player and first CD.   I thought I was buying a lot of CDs, but when I look at the totality of the music I collected after high school, college and beyond, it’s really not that much music when compared to music collections today.

For a while there was iTunes or Napster once music was more easily stored and played electronically.     Enter the era of the MP3.   I collected music during that time, some of it was my own music but a huge portion of the music I had was from other people or sources on the Internet.   My collection got larger and larger.   There was so much it was hard finding what I liked, what was okay and what was not at all to my tastes but had somehow gotten into my library.   It was an organizational mess.

But it was my collection.   Once I started storing things in iTunes, which was fickle to say the least, I was able to categorize most things.   I was still collecting, but by then there was so much available to collect it was overwhelming and almost not worth the bother.   If I really wanted a song or album I could find it pretty quickly.

But I did keep a playlist of the songs I liked the most.   These were mostly big hits or albums where I liked most of the songs.   That playlist, named, “All New” so it would sort alphabetically at the top, would get bigger over time.   Hits would become old hits in my mind.   Each year at the beginning of the year I’d make a copy of the All New playlist and rename it to the year just past.   Now I had a playlist from, 2012 or 2013 or 2014, etc.   Then I’d clean out All New and start fresh for the new year.

Only we don’t really have music collections any more today.   Music is all streaming-based and on demand.  You can play a station of top hits or alternative hits or Lindsay Stirling songs.  You can even do it by just asking Alexa to play something for you.   If you like a song you can have it played over and over and over again (not that my children would ever play the ‘Poop’ song repeatedly, no sir, not my children).

Collections are gone.   I don’t even know where my music library is that I worked so long and hard to collect and coordinate is.   Somewhere on my computer, but why bother looking for it, because I can just ask for, “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes by Paul Simon” and have it play three seconds later.  

On demand streaming is nice, I just don’t know what is “my music” versus everyone’s music anymore.

The Big Boy Update:  My son came home with his work plan today with two things crossed off.   He explained, quite vehemently, that he didn’t agree to do those work things (giving reasons why that netted out to him not wanting to do them).   We had a conversation with him about how it was his teacher’s responsibility to be sure each student gets a complete education and that sometimes he would have to do things he didn’t want to do or didn’t agree with them.   Tomorrow he has a chance to make up the lack of work today by completing his full work plan as well as the two items he didn’t want to do today.   Why did he not want to do them?   There were sentences to write that he didn’t want to do because he didn’t want to waste paper to save the trees.   He didn’t want to do the word problems because they were “so easy”.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter came home with a fever today.   She’s on the bed now, listening to a show on her iPad.   She always wants the dog to be with her but Matisse rarely wants to lie up against her—except now she does.   She won’t leave my daughter alone, trying to get as close to her as possible and chew on a bone at the same time.

Taller?

My parents live in the same house today that they did when they brought me home from the hospital as a newborn.   Well, they live there during the winter months.  Fortunately for me, that house is only about five miles away.   They’re available to watch the children during these months, which is a wonderful thing.

I go over there from time to time for different things.  My children love to come over to spend time with Mimi and Gramps.   Today I went over to work with my mother on a few things on her phone and computer and something struck me—I was tall.

Or rather I felt tall.   This was the house I grew up in and I suppose a good portion of the time I lived in the house I was less than my fully grown height.  I’m effectively forty-nine at this point so there have been decades I’ve been at my current height, but for some reason, today I felt taller as I walked through their house,

Maybe it’s because we have ten foot ceilings in our main floor in our house here and their ceilings are eight feet.   That could have played a factor I suppose, but regardless, today I felt more “grown up” in their house than I have in a long time.

The Big Boy Update:  My son just got sent to his room for the rest of the day.   We had a long family conversation about what things were non-negotiable in our family.   Threatening people is never, ever allowed.   In short, we had an hour-and-a-half conference called by my son’s teachers.   The conference involved the head of school as well.   My son came to school mad (due to poor planning in the morning on his part) and he threatened to kill me upon arrival and said, “she’ll regret it”.   They were concerned.   There were other things in the conference, but that precipitated it.   Things that are never allowed in our house are any threats to harm anyone.   My son wanted to play with the girls just now but didn’t do so in a positive manner, more of a bullying way, and as a result of that and his past interactions with them, the girls didn’t want him to join them so they went to another house.   My son said after they left that he wanted to kill them.   So he’s now, “in jail” for the rest of the night and won’t have dinner.   He says, vehemently, that he didn’t mean it.   I explained that an adult could, in a fit of anger, hurt someone and say they didn’t mean it.  And that person would still go to jail.  He’s very upset.   I’m glad he is.   I wanted to help him with the girls and told him to come talk to me and I’d help him, that I was on his side and thought he should be included.   But instead he tried to bully his way into the room with the girls and, well, you see what happened.   He fought and fought and fought us on about fifteen different fronts, threatening, pleading, demanding, avoiding blame, etc.   We didn’t give in on any of them and suddenly he’s normalized again.   I brought the dog up to the room and he’s happily playing with her now.   Children, will I ever figure them out?

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter played a game of Battleship with her father over the past two days.   The game can be played fairly quickly, but when you’re new at it and you have to find every peg with your hands instead of your eyes, the game takes a little longer.   They started last night and broke before bed.   When I came home this afternoon from helping Mimi I heard they’d just finished a very close game, with her father winning right at the end.   Was she a good sport? I asked her.   Her friends, who had been watching the end of the game, said she was.   She’s been working on her sportsmanship.   Losing isn’t fun, but she knows it’s not fun to play with a bad sport.

Locked Up

Something happened to my back late yesterday afternoon.   Sometimes my back does this.   I don’t know what causes it, but things can just go haywire.   I was resting and when I got out of the bed I cried out because a deep almost sharp pain happened in my lower back.  But we had an escape room to escape from and then dinner following (should we manage to escape) so there wasn’t much I could do about my back at the time.

As the night went on it got worse.  I was having to hold myself a certain way in the booth seat at the restaurant and by the time we were left dinner just getting into the car took a good deal strategy to not fall down in pain.

When I got home there was very little to do in the way of cleaning because my mother had been watching the children and unlike a sitter, the house was in better shape when we returned than when we left.  And this was a wonderful thing because I couldn’t really bend down to pick up the eleventy-twelve children’s toys that typically litter the floor after a good night with a sitter.  By then, bending down took planning and sitting was a careful endeavor.   I ended the night with a hot bath and a muscle relaxant and got in bed…carefully.

I had written two blog posts the prior day, dating the second one ahead to post last night so I didn’t have to do more then get in bed and turn out the light.  But sleeping was going to be a challenge.   Changing positions (which I do during the night) jarred me awake.  When I woke up this morning I had to slide off the bed, turn around and brace myself to stand up because things had gotten worse overnight.

I texted my chiropractor asking if he was free today and did he perhaps want to have that playdate with our dogs because I could bring mine to his house if so?  Oh, and I had wrecked my back.   He said come on over as long as the dog wasn’t going to go to the bathroom in his house.   I promised him I could make no promises on that front and that I’d be over shortly.

When I got there I went to the side yard gate to let my dog into their back yard before going in their house.  Just at the gate, Matisse pulled on the leash.  I wasn’t expecting it and wasn’t ready to brace myself for the pain.   I crumpled down, fortunately not dropping my purse with my laptop in it, but I did spill my coffee and lost hold on the dog’s leash.  I said something aloud like, “what a pathetic human being you are right now” while I lunged forward to step on the leash and stop the dog.  I think I got to her in only six swear words time.

Dog deposited in the back yard, I went inside.   I knew something was up with my back and I knew it was alignment-related with my spine.  It was the worse situation I can remember ever happening like that.   One of those things where someone says, “I bent over and then couldn’t stand back up.”   That type of thing.   And yet I wasn’t concerned.   If I didn’t have the long experience I do with chiropractic; if I didn’t know this could be fixed; and if I didn’t know what was happening to me, it would have been scary.   But I wasn’t worried.   I knew it would settle out quickly after being adjusted—and it did just that.

My left SI joint, T12 vertebra, T12 rib and L5 were all out of alignment—which is a lot.   The distance between T12 and the SI joint is a pretty big span.   Things had sort of locked in place and when I moved it was putting pressure on the nerves.  My muscles were in spasm and there was a lot of inflammation.  

Ten minutes after arriving, my chiropractor had adjusted my spine, putting the bones back on the proper track and things began to calm down.   An hour later and I was in a much, much better state.   I’m sore now from the muscles spasming and inflamed, but it’s better.   So much better.

While this was going on, my dog and their larger dog, Izzy, were playing in the back yard—and Matisse was loving it.   They played for a good while until Matisse figured out she could wedge through their gate, thus ending the unsupervised outside play.  Inside, Matisse investigated all of Izzy’s things, including her cage, food and water bowls and toys.  Izzy was respectful to her, never being territorial.  She was almost motherly.   The dogs kept getting on Izzy’s bed together, although by the time we got the picture Matisse had fallen off the back.

My back is no longer locked up from the unknown insult that happened for no apparent reason yesterday and my dog is tired, sleeping in her cage.   It’s a good Saturday afternoon here.

Best Girlfriends:  My dog loves the girls.   There are several other children that come over to play at our house.  The ladies like to take Matisse into their bedroom and play all sorts of things along the lines of “family” with the dog included.   They’ll bring up all her toys, make a bed for her with a towel or blanked, get her water in a dish from the kitchen play toys and even bring her treats and food (which we’ve said isn’t allowed in the bedroom but they somehow keep forgetting, so they say).  Initially the dog wasn’t so sure about being shut into their bedroom but now she expects to be part of the group—getting upset and incensed (whining) if she’s not included.  We put her in the cage a bit ago because they wanted to play a different game and I have never heard so much prolonged whining from her.   Usually she’ll give up after less than a minute and go to sleep, but not this time.  To give you any indication of how much she loves playing with the girls, she abandoned a game of fetch—outside—to go inside to be with them.   This dog never wants to go inside.

The Big Boy Update:  I had been out for a while the other day.   It wasn’t that long, but my son had missed seeing me at bedtime because the meeting I had went long.   My son was so kind the next morning as he greeted me saying, “Mom, you must have gained some weight since I’ve last seen you."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My parents had a special day planned for my daughter today.   They were going to take her on a train ride to a nearby city, have lunch there and then return.   My mother had prepared for the trip well, going to the train station to find out everything they needed to know including parking and what might be close to eat near the destination station that would work for the one hour window they had before the return train departed.   Only things didn’t go as planned.  My parents picked up my daughter at 8:45am to get to the station in plenty of time for the ten o’clock departure but something was happening downtown.   They think it was road work although it seemed like an accident at first.   They tried to get to the train station from as many alternate routes as they could for an hour but had to abandon the trip when they realized they wouldn’t it in time.  My daughter is disappointed, but she got to play at Mimi and Gramp’s house instead, which she always enjoys.

Death Cream

My children are very good sleepers.   They don’t expect or even want to sleep with us, but sometimes things happen in the middle of the night and a child comes downstairs to our room.   For a period of time it was my daughter saying she’d wet the bed.  Good news in that with the low dose antibiotic that specifically targets her kidneys and bladder, she hasn’t had any incidents at night.

Sometimes my son would come down and have a hand that was, “tickly hand”.  He’d fallen asleep on his arm and needed help to work through the waking up and pain of a limb coming back into feeling. This also happened in a while though.   That leaves nightmares.

Both children have them sometimes.   They’ll come down and wake my husband or me up.   We tell the child to get into bed and ask if they want to talk about the dream?   Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. Then, after a few minutes have passed, we walk them back upstairs or they go on their own.  They want to go back to their beds, they’re the most comfortable there.

Last night my daughter had a nightmare that she did want to talk about.   Usually she’s the one that just needs to feel safe but doesn’t have a need to talk it through.   This nightmare scared her a lot though.   She said her brother had a cream he was trying to rub on her that would kill her.   She said she kept wiping it off but he kept putting more on.   I told her that definitely sounded like a scary dream.

And then I must have fallen back asleep almost immediately because the next thing I knew it was hours later and she was gone.   She’d gone back upstairs all by herself.   I like when one of them gets into bed much.   It’s a very sweet time in the middle of the night, giving them a hug and making sure they feel safe and loved.

The Big Boy Update:   At the pediatrician’s annual wellness check she asked my son if he was feeling okay and if he had any concerns.   He said, “I’m okay, I have 900 hearts.”   We laughed and told him there were no respawns in life though.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Mimi was explaining double negatives to my daughter the other day.   She asked her, “what would it mean if I said, ‘I don’t want to not go?’”  My daughter thought about it and then said, “it means you want to go."