Whatever it is that's making the rounds (is it the flu? is it a cold? it is something else? everyone here seems to want to call it "a flu-like illness) has landed here. Quite firmly.
On Saturday morning, Mr. Personality woke up with a fever. His fevers are not for the faint of heart, and while they're normal for him, I've been known to use the number for the shock factor when I'm feeling that the pediatrician isn't taking me seriously enough. The poor guy missed his best friend's birthday part on Sunday. There was a moon bounce. He was devastated.
He stayed home from school on Monday, but it was very clear that he was on the mend. The first clue: he tried to negotiate with me about working on his social studies report. I turned the TV off until it was done. The TV never went back on.
Monday night, 'ParkleGirl woke up at about 3:30 and announced that she needed to sleep in my bed, and oh, by the way she needed a drink too. I felt her forehead, and didn't bother to get the thermometer. I knew she'd be home with me on Tuesday.
I've had the pleasure of her company yesterday and today, and will again tomorrow. She's been mostly cooperative about letting me work and not so sick that I couldn't run the really vital errands (groceries anyone?), but it's hard to get too much writing done when I've got her help.
I'm ready for the sick season to end, and it's only October. I think it's going to be a long year.
On the plus side this week, I have..... qivuit.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Rhinebeck, No
For the last several years (3 or 4 now I think), I've been trying to make it to Rhinebeck. Every year something comes up that absolutely prevents me from going. One year it was an LSH business trip and bad weather on the way back that delayed him overnight, another year it was me recovering from surgery. It's always something. I don't have this trouble with Maryland Sheep and Wool -- that I've made it to for 6 or 7 years running now.
Things were really up in the air until about 2 weeks before the festival. Then everything finally came together, and it seemed like it would really happen. I didn't take on a writing assignment that would have had me working over the weekend so as to be able to go, and I was all set.
Then it started to unravel. LSH needed to go deal with a family emergency. Not the drop everything and run because the world is ending kind of emergency, but the kind you need to go take care of without delay. I put him on a plane and figured that Rhinebeck was history. He didn't like that answer, and was, I think, more committed to me going to Rhinebeck than I was.
He thought he'd come home Thursday. Nope. He made a flight reservation for Friday, giving himself enough time to take care of the last few things and still make it home in time. Sometime Friday morning, it came undone. The flight came and went without him on it, and there went my plans for Rhinebeck. I was very, very disappointed.
I have to say though, that I got a lot of things done over the weekend. I dragged out my sewing machine for the first time since.... well, I'm not sure when, but the well pump went out in July and I didn't realize that I had no water for my iron until I went to use it to sew (no, I don't iron much), so it's clearly been a while. I made 'Parkle Girl the very 'parkly skirt that I had promised her for the beginning of school. I finished up a couple of muslin sandwhich bags for Universe Man. I even cut the pieces for a winter dress for 'Parkle Girl. I managed to get LSH to replace a light fixture -- only one to go, and it's only been waiting since August. The kids had fun. It was, all things considered, a pretty good weekend.
Just not at Rhinebeck. I think the universe doesn't want me to go to Rhinebeck. I wonder why.
Things were really up in the air until about 2 weeks before the festival. Then everything finally came together, and it seemed like it would really happen. I didn't take on a writing assignment that would have had me working over the weekend so as to be able to go, and I was all set.
Then it started to unravel. LSH needed to go deal with a family emergency. Not the drop everything and run because the world is ending kind of emergency, but the kind you need to go take care of without delay. I put him on a plane and figured that Rhinebeck was history. He didn't like that answer, and was, I think, more committed to me going to Rhinebeck than I was.
He thought he'd come home Thursday. Nope. He made a flight reservation for Friday, giving himself enough time to take care of the last few things and still make it home in time. Sometime Friday morning, it came undone. The flight came and went without him on it, and there went my plans for Rhinebeck. I was very, very disappointed.
I have to say though, that I got a lot of things done over the weekend. I dragged out my sewing machine for the first time since.... well, I'm not sure when, but the well pump went out in July and I didn't realize that I had no water for my iron until I went to use it to sew (no, I don't iron much), so it's clearly been a while. I made 'Parkle Girl the very 'parkly skirt that I had promised her for the beginning of school. I finished up a couple of muslin sandwhich bags for Universe Man. I even cut the pieces for a winter dress for 'Parkle Girl. I managed to get LSH to replace a light fixture -- only one to go, and it's only been waiting since August. The kids had fun. It was, all things considered, a pretty good weekend.
Just not at Rhinebeck. I think the universe doesn't want me to go to Rhinebeck. I wonder why.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Shoe Dropped
The shoe dropped this week. I'm not sure if it's the first shoe or the other one. I hope it's the other one.
When we decided to move Universe Man back to the same school as his siblings this year, we didn't expect it to be smooth sailing. I think the phrase was "bumpy transition." He attended Wonderful School for kindergarten, and to call it a disaster might not be much of an overstatement. He didn't go back, though Mr. Personality had done really well in the preschool, so we left him there.
Eventually, after some exciting (in the not good way) times the beginning of the next year, we found Fabulous School, a very, very alternative and very, very fantastic school that was just what Universe Man needed. It was a fantastic home for him for four years, but we knew that he would eventually need to become comfortable in a more traditional school setting, and after some long conversations with the administration at Wonderful School and some school visits, he decided he was ready to give it a whirl. After five years and two kids with us, the school had a better understanding of SuperM Kids than they did that first year, and we all felt that we could make it work.
School doesn't start until after Labor Day here, and with the way the holidays fell this year, in a certain sense the school year is just now getting underway. I've run into a couple of Universe Man's teachers at school and checked in with them informally, and things seemed to be going quite well, although I knew that he was really unhappy in Other Class. The teacher is new to the school, so I figured that I'd give her some time to get her feet under her before I said anything.
All that's sort of the backstory.
Turns out I didn't get to say anything. Or maybe that's need to say anything.
Apparently Monday was a really bad day in Other Class and Universe Man used his fingernail to scratch a disrespectful sentence about his teacher into his desk. Wonderful School thought he'd used a pair of scissors to do it, and of course, it turns out that he had no idea a fingernail could do any damage at all. Fingernails of steel.
When he was asked Tuesday morning if he'd done it, he answered honestly. Universe Man is very honest, so much so that when I get different stories from the boys I almost always believe Universe Man no matter how outrageous his story is. It's usually the truth.
So I got a call. I'd been waiting for the call, and am still pretty shocked that we made it over a month without one.
I heard what had happened, and we talked about what to do. We decided that community service in the school would be appropriate, because we didn't want the consequences to be punitivie. And I told the principal that Universe Man had been telling me about his difficulties in Other Class and that I had been hoping that the situation would improve.
Evidently they knew that there were some difficulties too, but no one knew quite how bad it was. I can't imagine how frustrated I would be trying to pay attention and learn in a class taught almost entirely in a language I didn't speak. The school was aware that Universe Man's language skills were way behind grade level for Wonderful School, and he seems to be doing fine in the language class itself, but he hasn't been able to understand enough of what was going on in Other Class to even tell me what they were studying.
Within hours, the school had reached a decision. Universe Man isn't attending Other Class anymore. Instead, during Other Class he's doing community service and independent study with his favorite teacher for some as-yet-undetermined period of time that could be the rest of the year I suppose.
Did I mention that this is a Wonderful School?
When we decided to move Universe Man back to the same school as his siblings this year, we didn't expect it to be smooth sailing. I think the phrase was "bumpy transition." He attended Wonderful School for kindergarten, and to call it a disaster might not be much of an overstatement. He didn't go back, though Mr. Personality had done really well in the preschool, so we left him there.
Eventually, after some exciting (in the not good way) times the beginning of the next year, we found Fabulous School, a very, very alternative and very, very fantastic school that was just what Universe Man needed. It was a fantastic home for him for four years, but we knew that he would eventually need to become comfortable in a more traditional school setting, and after some long conversations with the administration at Wonderful School and some school visits, he decided he was ready to give it a whirl. After five years and two kids with us, the school had a better understanding of SuperM Kids than they did that first year, and we all felt that we could make it work.
School doesn't start until after Labor Day here, and with the way the holidays fell this year, in a certain sense the school year is just now getting underway. I've run into a couple of Universe Man's teachers at school and checked in with them informally, and things seemed to be going quite well, although I knew that he was really unhappy in Other Class. The teacher is new to the school, so I figured that I'd give her some time to get her feet under her before I said anything.
All that's sort of the backstory.
Turns out I didn't get to say anything. Or maybe that's need to say anything.
Apparently Monday was a really bad day in Other Class and Universe Man used his fingernail to scratch a disrespectful sentence about his teacher into his desk. Wonderful School thought he'd used a pair of scissors to do it, and of course, it turns out that he had no idea a fingernail could do any damage at all. Fingernails of steel.
When he was asked Tuesday morning if he'd done it, he answered honestly. Universe Man is very honest, so much so that when I get different stories from the boys I almost always believe Universe Man no matter how outrageous his story is. It's usually the truth.
So I got a call. I'd been waiting for the call, and am still pretty shocked that we made it over a month without one.
I heard what had happened, and we talked about what to do. We decided that community service in the school would be appropriate, because we didn't want the consequences to be punitivie. And I told the principal that Universe Man had been telling me about his difficulties in Other Class and that I had been hoping that the situation would improve.
Evidently they knew that there were some difficulties too, but no one knew quite how bad it was. I can't imagine how frustrated I would be trying to pay attention and learn in a class taught almost entirely in a language I didn't speak. The school was aware that Universe Man's language skills were way behind grade level for Wonderful School, and he seems to be doing fine in the language class itself, but he hasn't been able to understand enough of what was going on in Other Class to even tell me what they were studying.
Within hours, the school had reached a decision. Universe Man isn't attending Other Class anymore. Instead, during Other Class he's doing community service and independent study with his favorite teacher for some as-yet-undetermined period of time that could be the rest of the year I suppose.
Did I mention that this is a Wonderful School?
Monday, October 12, 2009
Breathe
AKA what happened to the summer?
I'm really not sure where the summer went. (The fact that it is now October has not escaped me, so it seems I've missed the beginning of fall too.)
I know where summer didn't go. It didn't go to the dyeing experiments I had planned, except for one teeny tiny one with 'Parkle Girl. It didn't go to sewing any of the projects I had planned, with or without that 'Parkley helper. It didn't go to weekend trips to our favorite outdoor and hiking spots. It didn't go to working on the landscape, or to organizing the house, or to cleaning out the basement so there would be room for a freezer.
Instead, it seems like the summer went to a school year that extended almost into July. Really. It went to getting Universe Man ready for overnight camp (and the less said about that, the better). It went to ferrying all 3 of the kids all over the place. It went to camp and piano lessons and speech therapy, and most of all, it seems, to work.
When I started this gig, the idea was that I would have more time to parent more effectively. And to keep the house more organized, but that was the fringe benefit. I have no opinion right now about parenting more effectively (though I suspect that at least two of my children might have very firm opinions about that), but I certainly don't seem to have more time to parent. As far as I can tell, I seem to have less. I seem to be spending more evenings and nights working, which means less time with the kids. I'm not entirely sure how that happened, but it's something that I've got to change.
Starting next week. I've got too much work this week.
I'm really not sure where the summer went. (The fact that it is now October has not escaped me, so it seems I've missed the beginning of fall too.)
I know where summer didn't go. It didn't go to the dyeing experiments I had planned, except for one teeny tiny one with 'Parkle Girl. It didn't go to sewing any of the projects I had planned, with or without that 'Parkley helper. It didn't go to weekend trips to our favorite outdoor and hiking spots. It didn't go to working on the landscape, or to organizing the house, or to cleaning out the basement so there would be room for a freezer.
Instead, it seems like the summer went to a school year that extended almost into July. Really. It went to getting Universe Man ready for overnight camp (and the less said about that, the better). It went to ferrying all 3 of the kids all over the place. It went to camp and piano lessons and speech therapy, and most of all, it seems, to work.
When I started this gig, the idea was that I would have more time to parent more effectively. And to keep the house more organized, but that was the fringe benefit. I have no opinion right now about parenting more effectively (though I suspect that at least two of my children might have very firm opinions about that), but I certainly don't seem to have more time to parent. As far as I can tell, I seem to have less. I seem to be spending more evenings and nights working, which means less time with the kids. I'm not entirely sure how that happened, but it's something that I've got to change.
Starting next week. I've got too much work this week.
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