Holpineville

Going to Buy Canned Goods, Water, and Soap

Apparently, that really stupid movieI went to see last month is wrong.  The world doesn’t end this October—it’s next week, or maybe the week after. 

Evidence: The economy’s crashing and taking my bank account with it, it does nothing but rain and flood here, Carl routinely forgets to flush, and oh, yeah: we’re suddenly in swine flu annex!  Two neighborhood schools are closed already with suspected cases.  My kids' school can’t be far behind. My friends who work in essential-function jobs (healthcare) are calling to set up back-up childcare plans.  Unfortunately, the two-day meeting I don’t want to attend this weekend is still on, but I'm guessing the whole city will be in lock-down mode by next week.

What really irks me is that I have been making big plans, people, and I want them to work out.  First, we just shelled out to join a new pool for the summer, and I am guessing it’s the sort of recreation that’ll get ixnayed once people start getting sick.  Second, I have my sort-of-annual Mommy is Going Away Trip in two weeks.  I’m going to San Antonio with a friend or two for a spa day, and the art museum, and the sleeping late and the book reading and margarita drinking, with a stop at the outlet mall on the way home.  Third, I’m going to see my sisters and my favorite uncle in June, plus (fourth) we’re taking a tiny family weekend at some waterpark later that month (bet that’s a good virus-transmission environment!).  Fifth, in July, there’s a big, hugely exciting family reunion for which I just bought plane tickets.  Sixth, I have an idea for a little vaycay in August, too.

Tantrum over.  Here is a status update by family member:

Rod: Goes to work in his fireproof coveralls most days, so there must be some serious engineering going on.  Got some more prizes for filing patents (new foodprocessor, yay!) He’s also working on some household fixing-up and cranking hard on his Daddy role.  Lately, he’s earned bonus points for letting me sleep a little late and getting the kids ready for school most mornings—I got some muscle relaxants to experiment with for the back/hip pain and they make me really woozy in the mornings.  I think I won't be refilling that prescription.

Me:  Some days, it seems like my whole life revolves around shopping, laundry, cooking, and child-chauffeuring.  But then I also go to many meetings for a couple of school-related committees, and I go to the doctor: I’m going to get weight loss surgery in the fall, and although I don’t think my insurance will ultimately pay, I’m doing my best to persuade them, and my, there’s a long list of stupid things they requre before they will even entertain the petition, plus I try to schedule all my non-urgent medical care during the school year (dentist, endodontist, dermatologist, scoliosis guy, routine physical etc.).  Feeling cash-poor, I sold some of my kids’ excess stuff on eBay, which involves trips to the post office.

Ruby:  Seems to be in a better mood lately.  She finishes a month of swimming lessons tonight.  Next week will be rough; she has her “gifted and talented” project due, and her dance class has rehearsals every night and a big-deal sold-out performance at a real theater on Thursday.   (Assuming no swine-flu shelter-in-place order, mind you.)  Her G&T project is supposed to be about wild and domestic cats and what would happen if you take a domestic cat and put it in the wild or vice versa.  Somehow, it has morphed into a really funny poster Ruby drew of a cat giving birth, plus a “gym class” she wants to lead consisting of cat-like motions, and maybe a video of our cats doing something.  Rod and I try to help or advise and she gets mad.  I know there are no grades, but I really don’t know what realistic expectations are for this sort of thing. 

Carl: He has been saving his $3-a-week allowance, along with any gift money, any change he finds, and any incentive bribes (I gave him a bonus one week for behaving for the babysitter).  He has about $35 saved, I think.  What he is saving for changes from one Lego set to another several times a week.  Last weekend, he did buy one small set for about $7, which surprised me because he didn’t waiver at all on the Lego aisle about what he was getting and how much money he had. Carl is making huge progress in swimming lessons, too.  He’s such a cute, smart kid, and lots of fun.  Except lately he’s been getting disproportionately upset over minor things, like me telling him “no,” or having an accidental collision with someone at school and crying because he thinks he’s in trouble for it.  I can’t wait for this phase to pass, because it takes sooooo loooong to calm him down and get him to express himself in words, not shrieking and tears and pounding fists.

So, there you have it.  Normal life.  Plus a hint of impending doom.  How are things with you?

 

Waiting Around

We are supposed to be going to a birthday party about now but 1) it looks like it is about to rain and I do not see how the hordes will fit in my friend’s house if it does, and 2) Rod, as usual, has not come home yet.  I am not quite so needy about him coming home at night as I used to be, but I still get tediously annoyed as 6:30 approaches and he has yet to darken our doorstep, or even phone in.

My apologies for not writing lately, but I have been busy and a bit depressed and writer’s-blocky. 

You probably figured that Ruby finally recovered, so maybe that pediatrician wasn’t quite as stupid as I thought.  Or maybe she made a lucky guess.  Carl even seems to be getting past the cold.

I filed our taxes, not as early as I’d planned, but by the deadline.   I had the MRI for my back; an endurable test, but less pleasant than I remembered it being.  Rod’s business trip got canceled. He and I had an actual fight, which is a very rare thing since we are soulmates fully attuned to each other’s unspoken needs and wants, and in complete agreement on virtually every topic, except of course when he acts like a butthead jerk and is wrong.  Or, as in the case of this particular fight, I do.  Well, maybe I was only 80% of the problem; Rod did get a bit bossy, I recall.  Anyway, things are all patched up and kissy-kissy now, but the drama didn’t help my mood for a day there.

We hosted one of Ruby’s friends for a sleepover last weekend, and will probably host a different one tomorrow.  {It’s not because I love children.  It’s for the karma, people.  I will get it all back in babysitting favors or something, someday.}  The kids are making huge progress at swimming lessons, and Ruby’s dance class is gearing up for a big deal show in a few weeks.  I had to buy tickets so that I can see it, but you can bet I’ll be there. Ruby and I are also working on her costume (anything blue and yellow, but she has Ideas, see).  Carl is all about the Legos, all the time.  Ruby was trying to teach him to read the other day, which was very cute. 

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Okay, now we're leaving.  More later.

The Day in Review

Ruby still has the 102 fever.  We saw a substitute pediatrician this morning who I swear was confused about properly using the otoscope and tongue depressor, and therefore inspired absolutely no confidence at all, but she thinks it's viral, so Ruby just has to be sick a while longer.  I still vote for the sinus infection.  Ruby spent the rest of the day draping herself over furniture and moaning, reading a new book, filling in her fun new Easter math workbook (we are dorks), and watching Tinkerbell (it frightened her). 

Ruby also went with Rod to his doctor appointment, where they learned Rod does not in fact have an ear infection, just a bad cold plus impacted wax.  How glamorous. 

Carl was extremely unhappy to have to go to school today and claims he's deathly ill, too.  He does have the sort of cold that generally lands him on antibiotics, but he's not that bad off yet.

I went to Ruby's doctor appointment, the library, the pharmacy, and my own doctor appointment, where I got x-rayed, and two doctors and I agreed that I have an approximately 50 degree curve that shouldn't be there, plus several other quirky little features in my spine (congenital fusion, the old herniations, stenosis, arthritis).  This explains why I can't do a few of those yoga poses, people. I gathered that whether we do anything about any of that will depend on further testing, the alignment of the planets, insurance, my pain tolerance, etc.  I doubt anything will come of it ever, but at least I'll know exactly what's giving me grief in there, and there will be better baseline records in case things get really ugly and twisty later in life.

So my taxes aren't done yet. Tomorrow, while Ruby lounges and moans some more, I promise I will wind it up. 

A closing aside: my kids dress themselves now. Both of them!  Sure, sometimes I give Carl a hand with the pajamas, but this is nothing compared to the years of doing it for them (and especially him)-- negotiating, making up "put your underpants on" games, wrestling, wrestling, wrestling.  In fact, now Carl has reached that four-year-old stage of changing clothes three times a day, which is amusing except for the extra laundry.  He doesn't really mind wearing things inside out or backwards, occasionally he goes for layers, and he color coordinates according to his own whims, so some days he looks pretty funky.  But he does it himself! There is a tiny upside to my cute little babies growing up.

 

Fever and Headache, Resurrected

Ruby is sick.  Fever of 102ish, headache, boogers, sore throat with minor gunk on her tonsils.   I think it’s a sinus infection, but the Google School of Medicine says it can’t be one, yet, so perhaps it's merely a virus?  Or is it just the sinus infection she had last month, rejuvenated?

Anyway, it made her sleep badly last night.  It used to be that when my kids woke up at night, they would just howl from their beds until someone, usually me, got up to see what the bloody problem was.  Now, they creep mostly silently into my room, and stand at my side of the bed, eventually moving on to leaning on me and poking me if I don’t wake up right away.  I guess this is better, but it scares the bejeezus out of me sometimes, and it means I don’t have those moments of stumbling to the kid’s room to wake up before I have to talk to the child in distress.  Also, it’s more likely now that Rod will sleep through the whole thing, and if I’m going to get up and deal with a kid in the middle of the night, he darn well needs to take notice and give me big gold stars the next day.

So last night I was telling stories about the Easter Bunny to two very alert children at three a.m.  (Carl apparently awoke in solidarity).  And then I couldn’t go back to sleep because of my various aches and pains, although I needed to, because Rod and I had been up late, impersonating the Easter Bunny and cooking our contributions for Easter brunch.

Selfish grump that I am, I am mostly upset that Ruby is sick because I have a lot to do tomorrow, including an appointment with the local scoliosis genius doctor that took me a long time to get.  But we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

The Easter Bunny continued with the household tradition of guiding the kids to their Easter baskets with yarn strung all over the house—and this year, into the backyard and garage.  Rod really outdid himself this time.  In an effort to not give so much candy, the Easter Bunny gives stuff instead; Legos for Carl, books, nightgown and Bella S@ra cards for Ruby.  The kids are very happy today. 

We had planned to go to an Easter egg hunt and brunch for the secular humanists/Jews/Buddhists/agnostics/atheists/church-skippers at the home of friends.  Before it was clear to me how high Ruby’s temperature was, I medicated her, and she still wanted to go, so we did, and I will feel bad if she managed to share any noxious germs.  There was a huge thunderstorm right in the middle of the egg hunt, and the dessert I made didn’t turn out how I wanted, but otherwise we had a fine time.  Thank goodness for friends.

Milestone, unfortunate:

Yesterday, I found myself moving the fine print away from my face to read it, rather than closer, which always worked before. 

My only consolation will be the right to own some truly garish reading glasses.

Off to the Recharging Station

Another minor milestone for the record:  Ruby lost two more teeth this week, on consecutive days.  She was very excited, and the tooth fairy managed to remember to do her duty both times.

I’m basking in that mild glow of accomplishment you get from making it through a busy few days.  The end of last week I spent helping in Carl’s classroom.  I have been underestimating my child, because it was really cool and slightly surprising how well Carl was doing. He was focused, finished a lot of pieces of work, resisted the urge to clown around with his pals, and did exactly what he was supposed to when the teacher called the class to attention at the end of work time and during the lining-up-to-go-outside time.  Carl also showed me some addition work he’s been doing, which was unexpected, considering that I’m not sure he can really identify all his numbers yet.  We spent Friday afternoon at the newly-expanded Children’s Museum.  Carl thinks he should just move in there:  there’s a whole Lego/rocket/junk building shop area, a huge new climbing thing, those electronic dance machines, a huge water playground, ice cream sandwiches at the snack bar, and much, much, more.

 Last weekend was very full, and this week has been hard for me.  Monday I ran errands in preparation for Tuesday and Wednesday, endured the weekly kids’ dance class/dinner/homework fest.  I dashed off an “I’m sure I’m worried about nothing, but what do you think?” e-mail to Ruby’s teacher outlining some of the issues in my last post, and got back the unwelcome “oh, yeah, I’d been meaning to ask you if we could talk about that” answer. 

Tuesday, I went to the zoo with Carl’s class.  This time, my charges were Carl and two little girls.  They behaved very well; the only discord was when they argued over where each animals’ habitat is, what they eat, etc.  But, oh, those little kids run everywhere.  Keeping up with them and keeping them together was not easy, and I was hoarse afterwards from yelling at one or another to wait up.

Then I went to school for the meeting with Ruby’s teacher.  We talked about the Stanford test and the way it’s been re-done and renormed for this year and what the test is used for and blah blah blah.  She gave me some ideas about how to help Ruby with memorizing her addition.  The teacher says she thinks Ruby is doing just fine in math, and in the long term she’ll be adding as fast as anyone else. But, there’s a timed drill they do in class once a week that Ruby hasn’t been progressing on as fast as her friends, and the teacher thinks Ruby’s getting stressed out by this.  She, teacher, says that Ruby like to think very deeply and analyze every problem slowly, and she’s very concerned with neat writing, and therefore she’s just not fast enough under timed conditions. 

The real issue for discussion was What the Heck is Up with Ruby’s Mood.  And neither of us know.  The teacher says that some days Ruby is fine, happy, normal, productive, sunny.   And other days, she’s slow, mopey, and sad, and they never know which Ruby will be coming to class each day. The teacher says Ruby talks to her about her feelings on the sad days, and usually brings up some aspect of the classroom that’s bugging her, like “it’s too noisy,” or someone not following the rules.  The teacher says those are valid concerns, but she wants Ruby to learn to “find her peace” even when things around her aren’t going just exactly according to plan, which sounds quite like what I tell her at home.  (“Deal with it, sweetie, things aren’t always perfect.”) When they go out to recess, on sad days, Ruby wants to hang out with the teachers, and sometimes the teacher lets her and sometimes she doesn’t.  The teacher doesn’t think Ruby’s academic work is suffering in the least because of this, and she says that while the other kids notice she’s in a mood, they don’t seem to let it bring them down or to hold it against Ruby generally.  

I asked if the teacher thought perhaps I should find Ruby a therapist or some pharmaceutical help, and got the usual “well, that’s beyond the scope of my training and expertise” answer, but she also said she’d seen kids who had done so and benefitted from it, so it wasn’t like she ruled it out.   I think the frustrating things for both of us are that 1) Ruby’s very vague about what she’s feeling  (“bad,” “sad,” and “not comfortable” don’t really explain much) and why she might be feeling that way,  2) no one, including Ruby, has figured out just what works reliably to snap her out of it when she gets in that groove, and 3) it’s not predictable.  If she were down all the time, I’d be in the psychologist’s office already.  If I thought it was tied to being overtired or fed too much sugar or something else, I’d deal with it.  Instead I am puzzled and slightly concerned.  But, Ruby’s been pretty cheerful this week, and I am taking some time to mull things over and talk to her more before I do anything.

We talked about what Ruby likes at school (reading buddies, handwriting (!), art, science, music, and research and special projects), about how marvelously Ruby and the other first graders are reading (most of them are in the “gifted” classification, and it shows in that area), and about the special projects that Ruby and the other gifted/talented kids are required to do this year.  Ruby is pretty excited about this.  It’s a research project, but it’s supposed to be more creative or more investigative—instead of just finding information, kids are supposed to try to solve a problem or answer a question without a clear or immediately researchable answer.  In May, there’s a big expo for everyone in the school district to show these off.

And then Tuesday night the kids started swimming lessons, which meant I had to dig out all the swimming gear and find suits that still fit them and that they would wear, and feed them dinner early, and pack reading material and the right goggles and the happy towels and all that.

Wednesday was consumed by the teacher appreciation party we threw at our house in the afternoon/evening.  It was also kind of a strategizing session, because the school will be getting a new principal next year and there’s all sorts of drama about that.  Rod took the day off, out of solidarity and the need to use up vacation time, which was a huge help.  He had the brilliant idea that we could use our empty rental house next door as the Children’s Party Palace.  He supervised all the kids and set up the house with one room for Legos, one room for art, one room for dressing up, and a kitchen full of snacks. The teachers and parents seemed to have a good time, I learned a few more interesting tidbits, and got myself signed up for another committee job for next year.  Carl’s teacher spent some time telling me more about his work, and it sounds like he’s really doing very well; she says he keeps asking for new lessons, routinely behaves well, and gets his work done.  He was the only one in the class to finish the whole world map project this year, which is impressive.  She says he’s very strong willed, but she usually can get him to discuss things and negotiate, too. 

Then, this morning, I got up in the deep early darkness to get a little medical procedure done (long dull story, maybe I’ll tell you sometime).  To my relief, I survived general anesthesia once more and the whole thing is checked off my to-do list.

So now I’m catching up on this, and then there’s piano and swimming lessons later.  The kids are out of school tomorrow and to my relief there’s nothing major on our dance card.  We will have some Easter festivity and I will work on taxes.  Hope you all get chocolate bunnies!

She's been holding out on us

Today Ruby brought home a report card and the results of her latest standardized test, the Stanford 10.  The latter is always a bit interesting at her school, because bubble-in tests that have the audacity to compare one child to another are so anti-Montessori that the teachers just about vomit when they have to administer them. 

So.  Ruby's report card is excellent, but for one comment by the teacher that Ruby seems to be having trouble memorizing her addition facts.  I didn't know she was memorizing addition facts at all, frankly, and I'm not sure if this is supposed to be an alert and action item for me, or just a point of information. 

The Stanford is weirder.  Ruby's math scores are a lot lower than I expected-- in line with first and second grade, but she seems so good at math to me, and from what I can tell from watching her in the classroom she's ahead of a lot of the first graders, so this is surprising.  There's a split in the reading and language skills, too.  One set is at the first/edge of second grade level, and then the reading and comprehension parts are over the fifth grade level.  I hadn't noticed before, but the report comes with a "lexile" score that is supposed to be useful in choosing appropriate reading material.  I plugged it into the database, and on the list that came back are Wuthering Heights, a couple of Steinbeck novels, those Sue Grafton "A is for blah blah" books, some Terry Pratchett, and a lot of other adult material.  Sure, there are kid books, too, ones that look more like something I'd pick out for her, but I have to say I hadn't thought about handing her The Catcher in the Rye.

Anyway.  I was already thinking of talking to Ruby's teacher about Ruby's general grumbling about school the past couple of weeks, and the depressing notes she keeps writing at school and giving to me in theafternoons ("I fele sad. I want to go home. I am not happe.  I have done 2 pesis of work."), so now I can ask about confusing test scores, too.

Boring Post About the Dentist

We are in the middle of a long stretch of busy.  I seem to have booked 11 evenings out of 14, which is a little much, even for a social butterfly like for me.  Most of it is horrible meetings, or worse, meetings-to-prepare-for-meetings, but some of it is fun stuff.  Last night, Ruby and I went to dinner and a play with one of her friends and his mom, while Rod and Carl had Guy’s Night In (I am told they ate chips and queso shirtless and watched a Scooby Doo movie, which sounds perilously close to what happened on my last date night, come to think of it).

Today I took the kids to the dentist.  Carl finally seems to have given up on fighting and screaming there, and behaved absolutely perfectly, earning that fancy astronaut toothbrush I bought him at the end.   He had his first dental x-rays, and can I brag, my son is going to have some fine permanent teeth:  huge, nicely shaped and looking to come in really straight starting in a few months.  The dentist says given the extra space in Carl’s mouth now and the odds that he’ll get a good-sized head to go with his big body, he may not need much in the way of orthodontics at all.

Which is excellent, because Ruby is likely to need her share of orthodontic treatment….starting in, oh, say two years (!).  [Apparently by starting orthodontics early, the orthodontist can afford buy a much nicer boat, the kid might need less treatment overall because she’s still growing, and she might get to live part of her vain adolescent years without a full grill.]  This is all Rod’s fault, of course, because Ruby’s teeth look just like his—grooved, jagged, crammed in sideways in places.  Sure, I could have used major jaw surgery and some related braces for my tragic underbite, but my teeth are naturally nice and straight and smooth and evenly lined up, thanks, Mom and Dad.

Ruby goes back in a couple of weeks for that wonder of wonders, dental sealants!   Imagine the time, pain, and money I could have saved if such a thing had existed when I was wee tyke.  It’s routine now to seal permanent molars as soon as they come in, making cavities on the chewing surfaces really rare.  Sadly, Ruby also has a couple of molars with poorly formed enamel, so those get a different coating, and we watch them like hawks for signs of impending doom.

I had a bit more trivia to share, but school lets out early on Wednesdays, so it'll have to wait.  Remember to floss, everyone!