Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Fashion Disaster Day

It's Spirit Week at the kids' school -- a time to rally through the final days of the school year with some good ol' fashioned silliness. The kids love it. But as a parent, it drives me bonkers and here is why...

Imagine if you will that your kids have been invited on a Thursday to a costume party on Monday. Oh, and a costume party on Tuesday and on Wednesday and Thursday and Friday. You are also told on Thursday that each costume party has a theme, and the costumes must fall within the theme.

• Monday is Hawaiian Day
• Tuesday is Fashion Disaster Day
• Wednesday is Favorite Animal Day
• Thursday is Famous Person Day
• Friday is Twin Day (which means contacting a classmate's mom and trying to dress your kids in matching outfits)

Hawaiian Day is easy. Just go to a party store and buy some plastic leis. Today, however, was even easier -- one might even say "easy peasy lemon squeezy." For Fashion Disaster Day, the kids and I rummaged through their closets and drawers last night, pulling out the worst possible combinations we could find. I love a good fashion disaster.

Wednesday through Friday are the worst. They all involve trying to throw together creative, clever costumes with less than a week's notice. Take Favorite Animal Day for example. My kids want to throw on old Halloween costumes (the warm, full-bodysuit kind), but the forecast for tomorrow is 80° and humid.

Oh, and did I mention that my kids are trying to win prizes for having the best costumes? There's nothing like adding a little pressure into the already stressful mix.

[inhale, hold it for two seconds, then slow exhale]

Okay. I'm done complaining now. Sometimes I just need to hear myself whining, and it helps me to put things in perspective.

Yes, today will be crazy. Today I will balance proofreading a 60-page magazine with lunch duty at school, guitar lessons after school and taking care of the kids alone while Adrian is in Detroit. Today I will try to do all those things in addition to searching the stores for kitty cat ears in May. But that kind of stressful, crazed searching is NOTHING like what the parents in Oklahoma are doing today, following yesterday's storm.

I can't even imagine. My prayers go out to them.

Here's a picture of Oo and T dressed up for today's Fashion Disaster. They are safe, healthy and having fun. Aren't they beautiful?




Monday, May 20, 2013

Crochet

Oo has been learning to crochet in her school elective. She'll admit that she's not very good at it, but that doesn't stop her from doing it. (Usually she wants to quit when something doesn't come easy for her.) She crochets when we're in the car, when she's watching TV, and even when we're out to eat. Most of her creations are a single chain, which she'll make into a necklace. But today she made some real progress in class. Today she made a hat for her toy monkey!



Oo likes keeping her hands busy. I kind of do too. Perhaps this is a hobby that I should take up with her. I think it would be great fun to learn to crochet granny squares together. Then we can make an afghan. She's very sentimental, and I'm sure she'll treasure something we did together. 

Better yet... I think it would be fun to surprise her with granny squares made by family and friends that she can add to the afghan. If any of you out there are interested in contributing, let me know. And will someone please let me know if there is a "standard" size for a granny square? I want to make sure they'll all fit together.

What a great project for her summer vacation! (Only 8 more school days to go!!) Remember, don't mention anything to her yet. I want it to be a surprise.

Friday, March 8, 2013

First Trip to the ER

T is 6 years and nearly 2 months old and has never needed a trip to the ER... until last night. That is an achievement practically unheard of for most boys! Of course, considering T's mild and subdued nature, it's not surprising that there were no prior ER visits. It's not like he's a throw-caution-to-the-wind kid who daily tries to challenge the laws of gravity and inertia.

As a matter of fact, T's visit last night had very little to do with throwing caution to the wind, although there was wind involved.

Adrian had been away most of this week, doing business in Detroit. I had warned the kids that Daddy wouldn't be home until bedtime, and that there would be no time to play with him (or with the games on his phone) last night. When Adrian surprised us by arriving home a wee earlier than expected, the kids were thrilled, and it wasn't long before T was engrossed with Star Wars Angry Birds on Adrian's phone.

I could barely peel T away from the game to put on his PJs — he continued to launch birds after each article of clothing was removed — and he did not heed my instructions to go brush his teeth. Several minutes later, I was sitting on the floor blow-drying Oo's hair, when T walked up and stood next to me, still tapping away on the phone. Over the noise of the hair dryer, I loudly reminded T to brush his teeth. Despite the volume of my voice and his proximity to me, he did not appear to have heard a word I said. To get his attention away from the game. I blasted him with a quick shot of air from the hair dryer. Startled, he jumped away from me, his foot tripping over the hair dryer's cord. He flew head first into the bottom edge of his bedroom door.

Big tears and blood ran down simultaneously. I felt like such a jerk.

He quickly calmed down, and walked to the bathroom with Adrian for a closer look at the damage. Pushing his bloody bangs aside, we saw an inch-long, deep gash in his hair line. The blood bubbled out for a moment or two, but was easily controlled by applying a little pressure. Still, we knew that the cut was too big to try to treat at home.

A few calls to the local urgent care centers revealed that they were all about to close up for the night. There was no choice but to take him to the ER and risk a long wait and exposure to the interesting individuals that populate ERs at night. Despite having just driven 3 hours from Detroit and not having had a bite to eat since lunch, Adrian put his shoes back on and took T to the hospital. I wanted to take T myself, but I was busy fighting back the urge to either puke or pass out. Normally, I'm much cooler in an emergency. I think that if Adrian were not home to help, and I had no choice but to take charge of the situation, I would've been able to keep my emotions from taking control of me.

After they drove off, I finished drying Oo's hair and did my very best to calm her down. She was soooo worried about her little brother, she was in tears. I tucked her in and we concentrated on sending happy, relaxing thoughts to T so that he wouldn't feel scared. Oo's relaxing thoughts were those of taking a nap by the ocean and listening to the sound of the waves. She fell asleep quickly, so I hurried downstairs to wait by my phone for text updates from Adrian.

They had to wait an hour in the waiting room. As per usual, there was an array of unusual characters and high amounts of drama. Adrian distracted T with, what else? Angry Birds. Our local hospital has a special pediatric ER area. So once T was called back to an exam room, he was completely removed from all the drama. There weren't any kid-friendly shows on the TV in the room, so Adrian found a hospital channel called Serenity, which played nothing but relaxing music and video clips of peaceful scenes from nature. T described it to me as "the beautiful show."

The pediatric ER here is staffed with a Child Communicator whose primary function is to explain everything to the young patients in kid-language. Before anything was done to T, and along each step of the way, this person spoke directly to T. She told him about the special medicine that was going to "make the boo-boo go to sleep" (numbing gel) and about how the doctor would fix the boo-boo with either "stringy band-aids" (stitches) or "clicky band-aids" (staples). Adrian said that T was completely at ease with this woman and not at all afraid when the doctor put three staples in his head.

Adrian said the worst part of the ER visit was the wait for the final paperwork. After the staples, the doc told T that he was all done. Unfortunately, Adrian still had to wait an hour for the administrative person to give him a sheet of paper to sign and one sheet of follow-up instructions.

They didn't get back home until after midnight. Despite being rather sleepy, T insisted on going to school today to show off the clicky band-aids to his classmates. This was a little out of character for him — wanting to draw attention to himself — but he seemed fine, so we sent him to school with a note saying that he should sit out of gym class. We also sent an email to his teacher asking her to call us if T got too tired or cranky during the day.

He made it through the whole day without a complaint. And when I asked him if he had shown his clicky band-aids to his friends, he looked at me like I was crazy and said, "No, I did not want to have to take them out." I'm not sure what he meant by this, but I didn't ask him to explain. The little guy had been through an ordeal, handled it bravely, and was in a good mood from from having enjoyed his day at school. I marvel at his resilience.

Here's a picture Adrian sent to me from the ER. T is holding his teddy bear (Oatmeal) and some gifts from the nurses (Oreos, Scooby Doo stickers, and a Spiderman puzzle). What a trooper!




Thursday, November 1, 2012

Frankenstorm

Frankenstorm really did a number on us. The dark gray gloom and rain, rain, rain started days before the storm hit. We are now on what I think is our 7th straight day of dark daytime skies and almost constant rain. I'll be honest with you, my mood is gloomy and I don't have much energy for the kids. But I just read a dear friend's blog, and she's really inspired me to take advantage of what today is handing me and get down on the floor some serious playtime with the kids. So I'm going to make this post brief... I've got some playing to do!

Even though we don't live along the coast, we were greatly affected by the 1000-mile wide storm that was Sandy (not to mention the nor'easter and artic winds that clashed with Sandy to create the Frankenstorm). The worst part of the storm was Monday night. When the power went out at our house around 10:30 p.m. we saw what we thought was lightening. It only took a moment for us to realize that the odd green flashes we were seeing were not lightening, but the transformers in the neighborhood blowing as trees were toppling over onto them.

On Tuesday the rain and some smaller gusts continued. Most of the schools were closed because they were without power. As I reported our own power outage, the power company's website informed me that 30% of the county's customers were still without power! The storm did minimal damage to our yard. Lots of small branches and almost all of our tree's remaining leaves were now on the ground. It looked almost as if a tree had exploded into a million tiny pieces. Wet leaves were also stuck all over our house, giving it a polka-dotted effect.

(Ugh, I'm getting wordy like I usually do, so I'm going to really pick up the pace here.)

Today is Thursday and we are living at Adrian's mom's house, with about half of our fridge's contents shoved into her extra fridge. Our power has not been restored yet, and we've been told that our neighborhood is a low priority and we should expect to be without power for several days. Even though we have a gas stove and could potentially tough it out at home, the house is WAY too cold (the outside temp is in the low 40s). Trick-or-treating for most of the area has been postponed until Sunday, but the kids were able to go to school yesterday where they enjoyed dressing in costume, a school-wide Halloween parade (indoors b/c it was still raining), and classroom parties. For our Halloween evening, Oo entertained all of us by reading aloud from several Halloween story and poetry books.

Unfortunately, the school roof sustained some damage from the storm, and the principal had to cancel school today b/c the conditions inside the building were "not safe" for the students and staff. The "not safe" part of her email has me concerned. Is she talking about a lot of slippery puddles, or has the old building's asbestos been exposed?

I could worry about the school's roof. I could also worry that we still won't have a porch light to turn on this Sunday. I could worry about how Adrian's going to miss trick-or-treating b/c he's scheduled to work a school fundraiser on Sunday. I could worry that our pumpkins will be rotting by Sunday, especially the one that Adrian spent over an hour carving to look like Luke Skywalker. I could worry about all of the food we had to throw away and need to replace.

I could worry, but I won't. Things could be much worse. So many people lost their homes and all of their possessions in this storm. Some even lost loved ones. We're mildy inconvenienced. That's all, no more. We're staying in a warm house with loving family. The kids have no school today, and, other than a load of laundry, I have no chores. You know what that means? Time to play!

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Cul De Sac

There's a comic strip in the newspaper here that my mother-in-law and I have really taken an interest in reading. The strip is called Cul De Sac, by Richard Thompson. The reason we like it is because the main character, a girl named Alice, closely resembles our own little Miss Oo. Here are a few particularly Oo-like strips:







The following strips from last week's paper depict what it's like to run errands with Oo.




That's my Oo, always sparkling full of ideas. Take today, for example. As I write, she is busy drawing pictures that she plans to sell from a table in our front yard. Despite the fact that she's able to complete each drawing in 60 seconds or less, she's priced them at $10.20 a piece. What's motivating her to make some extra cash today? The house three doors down from us is for sale, and she wants to buy it. She doesn't like living with our rules, so she wants to live on her own. She said that if she buys that house, she'll be close enough that I can see her every day and won't miss her, plus I can still make all her meals and drive her to school.

Wouldn't it be nice to be 7 years old again? To truly believe that once you own a house you are no longer subject to rules? Kids feel angst and stress just like grown-ups, but the simple solutions they come up with are so full of promise and bliss. As a parent I'm often torn between teaching the kids about reality vs. just letting them have their dreams.

Friday, August 17, 2012

Through the Eyes of a 5-year-old Boy

I bought a new dress for a wedding we're going to this weekend. (Actually, Adrian bought it for me last night. He took me dress shopping on HIS birthday. If that doesn't qualify him for Husband of the Year, I don't know what would!)

The dress is black with ivory polka dots; it has a thin ribbon around the waist and a bit of poof to the skirt — very girly. When Oo saw the dress this morning, she loved it so much she gave it a kiss. T took a long look at it, then said, "It looks like it has bird poop spots all over it."

Hmmm... I wonder if I'll feel pretty wearing the dress, or if I'll be too busy trying to contain random bursts of the giggles.

Monday, July 23, 2012

Vacation!! (day 8)

We are home safe and sound now. We arrived at midnight on Saturday, after a grueling 14-hour drive for a 12-hour trip (there was a lot of vacation traffic and an accident in a West Virginia tunnel that held us up for almost an hour). Adrian went back to work this morning, the laundry room is full of sandy clothes, and every room in the house is cluttered with all of the kids' toys that they missed (they somehow managed to play with everything yesterday).

Here is the last post from our vacation:

Day Eight

Today is our last day here. Good timing too, because T is officially done with vacation. Adrian, Oo, and I want to enjoy our last day to the fullest, but it took a lot of convincing and the companionship of a toy T. Rex to get T to leave the condo this morning.

Not much of a hot-weather person, T was refusing to outside. He no longer wanted anything to do with the beach or the pool, but it was too nice of a day for us to take turns staying indoors with him. With a little creative thinking, I got him to go outside to take pictures of his plastic T. Rex splashing in the pool and stomping on the beach. T thought this was great fun, and we were able to keep him outside for most of the day.


In the evening we all got dressed up and went out to dinner at the Salt Water Cafe. Adrian and I ate there when we first vacationed in Garden City (before Oo was born). Adrian, Oo and I started with sushi as an appetizer — Oo likes California roll. The kids and I then had simple salads with honey-lime dressing, and Adrian had the She Crab soup (we had it 8 years ago and it was as good as we remembered). For our entrees, the kids ate grilled salmon and rice, I had the lump meat crab cakes, and Adrian had the mahi mahi.

Here we are in a courtyard outside of the restaurant.


The kids had plenty of popsicles and sorbet during the day, so we skipped dessert and headed home, but not without first stopping for a picture in front of a fun souvenir shop.


Back at the condo, it was baths and bedtime for the kids. Adrian and I stayed up later to clean some of the condo and do some initial packing. Tomorrow, we'll rise early, throw everything in bags, run the vacuum and head for home. It's been a wonderful vacation. The weather was great, and I loved how close we were to the beach. But my favorite part... my favorite part was spending so much time with the three loves of my life.