First Day of School

What kind of mom would I be if I didn't post some pictures of the kids on the first day of school? (The non-embarrassing kind, probably. And where's the fun in that?)

(Note: I took most of these with my nice camera, but I haven't had a chance yet to do any post-processing like color balancing, contrast adjustment, or cropping. When I've done that, I'll post those pics to Flickr.)

First, a nice standing pose:

Then, one that probably captures their relative feelings about the day a little more accurately:

An anecdote worth saving: At orientation last week, as Alex and I were walking down the hall together, I said, "Are you excited to meet your teacher and see your kindergarten class?" and he said, "Mommy, I've been waiting for this my whole life!"

And then one with the pseudo-stepsiblings, which I think of the six bajillion pictures the three adults were taking, may be the only one that got all four kids a) looking generally in the direction of the camera, b) not blinking, and c) not making a goofy face:

And, of course, the obligatory bus stop picture (this one via my cell phone, because the nice camera's battery died on me):

I did, in fact, get just a little choked up as the bus pulled away -- that's my youngest off to kindergarten, and my eldest starting her very last year in elementary school. It's the end of an era.

But more than nostalgic, I'm excited and happy for them. And, also, relieved to not be paying daycare tuition for a while...

Rearrange

So the kids are back to school -- I took Alex to daycare this morning, then drove back home and walked Penny to the bus stop this morning and waved at her as it drove away. And tomorrow, I expect, will be much the same. (Next year will be so much easier, because it will not involve a drive up to daycare and back. We can sleep until 7, then get up and get dressed and eat breakfast and even play a while before we all walk down to the bus stop. It'll be a lot easier on my gas bill, too.)

But that's next year. This year... runaroundrunaround. At least it's only half time, right?

And what's in store for the upcoming weekend?

Well, I spent some time last weekend emptying out the storage unit. Matt had collected all his stuff already, so the only things left in there now are the Christmas tree and my reindeer lawn decoration, neither of which will fit comfortably into my closet. I'd thought about keeping them in the storage shed under the deck, but when I went down there to check out the space, I found that not only was it fairly well spider-infested (which I'd expected), but it was also pretty damp. The last thing I need, given everyone's allergies, is to put up a mildewed Christmas tree. My attic is also out, because it's a tiny little access panel that I'm pretty sure neither the tree nor the reindeer will fit through.

So I asked my parents if they'd be willing to store them for me. They have a huge storage area over their garage -- one big open area that was originally intended as a rec-room, and two walk-in "attics". My dad said they'd be willing to store my stuff if I came over and helped him clean up the mess the workmen made when they were sealing a hole that a squirrel had gotten in through (there's insulation everywhere) and then helped him re-organize the space to make room for my things.

Sold. So after work tomorrow, I'll put on a long-sleeved shirt (whee, itchy insulation!) and find some gloves and pick up my stuff from the storage unit and head down there. Dad thinks it'll take a couple of hours; I'm guessing closer to three or four, but that's okay. Small price to pay for a dry, low-spider-count storage space. And then I'll be able to close out the account on the storage unit.

Saturday afternoon, I have a ticket to see Jesus Christ Superstar at the local playhouse. And by "local", I mean "within walking distance of my house". I hope it's good; I'd like to jump onboard for a lot more theater in the future.

No plans for Sunday yet, aside from the usual errand-running. Maybe I'll get some writing done. I have a story I'd like to write, but I can't quite get the plot to gel.

Turning Back the Clock

Dropping Penny off at school is usually the same. We stand in the lobby with a dozen or so other kids and parents until the school clock reads 8:15, and then the monitor will release the kids to class by grade. Usually she calls them in order, starting with kindergarten. Sometimes she'll send the 4th grade after 1st, just because those are the two grades whose classrooms are furthest from the lobby. Either way, when she calls for the kindergarteners, I give Penny her hugs and kisses so that when the 2nd grade is called, she can bolt down the hall without any delay. (Parting hugs and kisses, for Penny, is an involved process: five squeezes to the hug, five kisses each for her face and both hands.)

This morning, for whatever reason, the lobby was more crowded than usual. Thirty or more students crowded the line, and the monitor was having trouble keeping the kids from blocking the path to the office. The worst offenders were a clump of second graders.

So when it turned 8:15, she started calling the grades, but saved 2nd grade for last. And, in fact, refused to call them until the clumping kids finally got a clue and moved out of the way of the office path.

At 8:17, they still hadn't gotten a clue.

"I've got to go," I told Penny. She'd already had her hugs and kisses, as usual, so I said, "Have a great day! I love you!" and turned for the door. Like usual.

"Mom!" She held up her hands. "I want more!" More hugs and kisses, that means.

She hasn't done that to me in a while, but she used to do it a lot, as a stalling tactic. She always does it when I'm feeling time-crunched. She always does it as I'm leaving, not when we're standing there doing nothing. It always turns me into an angry ball of resentment.

"You need to do this when we're just standing, and not when I'm trying to get to work on time!" I hissed. I gave her the most perfunctory and un-loving hugs and kisses ever, and stormed out the door.

Stamping across the parking lot to my car (parked half a block further away than usual, thanks to a lingering bus that had caused at least ten cars to park somewhere other than their usual spots), I seethed. I hate that the school's before/after program won't take her. I miss being able to be at work at 7:30 so I can leave at 4. I resent every single little imposition on my time, even the ones that only take ten seconds.

But by the time I got to the car, I was starting to feel bad.

It's not her fault. She doesn't even know that I used to work from 7:30 to 4. And it's not like I was, actually, late to work. Or even that I've got a lot of work waiting for me today. I was just impatient with the school monitor playing headgames with the kids and feeling crowded by there being too many of them and wanting out.

By the time I'd got the car started, I felt like dirt. I wanted to get out and run back into the school and go to her classroom and pull her into my arms and tell her I was sorry. That I love her so much and that it wasn't her I was mad at.

When did extra hugs and kisses become a bad thing?

I feel like a bad parent today. I want to turn back the clock and start it over again. I don't need a lot of extra time. I just want to go back to 8:17.

Yep, I skipped yesterday. Why? Because our wimp of a school district gave us a 2-hour delay for what amounted to approximately seven snowflakes in my back yard. Their automated system called us at 5:20 to tell us about it, too, so we slept in an extra half-hour, and the rest of the morning was slightly crazy, including me having Penny with me at work.

So, yeah. I skipped. I also ate some cake at a co-worker's post-baby shower/welcome back party. I'm just a rebel, I am.

And in other news, it's finally been announced that there's going to be a Verizon iPhone! Yay! So now I know what I'm doing with my Christmas money, as soon as it's released. And yes, I am tempted to take the day off from work so I can get up early and go stand in line. Though February will not be nearly as pleasant for that as July was. So we'll see. I've waited this long; I can probably stand to wait a little longer. Also, I need to decide whether I want the 16G or 32G model. (Much as my technophile's heart wants the 32, I've only once had a problem with wanting more space on my 8G phone, so I'm not sure the extra 16G is worth the extra $200. Not when I've got my iPad.)

Little Notes

Too sleepy this morning to do more than make a bunch of little notes.

1) My publisher, Torquere Press, is celebrating its 7th anniversary this month. There are contests and prizes galore, including a scavenger hunt, discounts and specials, drawings for daily gift certificates and weekly gift baskets, and the chance to win a Nook! For more information, check out their contest website. (Contest page is safe for work. I make no promises about the scavenger hunt sites.)

2) Speaking of my publisher, I've actually seen a couple of reviews for my book, here and there. I won't spaz about it here, but I'll probably start collecting them over on the writing blog, so check over there at some point if you're curious.

3) We're up to Penny's last week of summer vacation. She's actually pretty eager for school to start, which is a nice change from last year, even if most of her enthusiasm is motivated by social rather than scholastic concerns. The Open House where kids can find their rooms and meet their teachers will be tomorrow, and at some point (probably tomorrow as well) we'll have the annual meeting to go over her medical plan and talk to the teacher about it.

4) Daycare is closed Friday for a staff day. It's possible to work from home with Penny there, but once you add Alex to the mix, not so much. So Matt and I will be splitting the day. Between the back-to-school stuff and this, I'm missing quite a lot of work this week. It might possibly be a good thing that we don't actually have that much work to do.

5) Had a checkup with the allergy office yesterday, and they declared I was ready to pull back to getting my shots every other week instead of weekly! Six months of that, and then six months at every 3 weeks, and then six months at every 4 weeks, and then I'll be done. Eighteen more months. It's the light at the end of the tunnel.

6) I really, really really want to take a nap. I wonder if anyone would notice if I just crawled under my desk for a couple of hours...

Super!

Penny's class put on a play yesterday -- well, a series of skits. They played superheroes and supervillains. The whole thing was adorable. I think my favorite characters had to be No Homework Man (surprisingly, a villain) and Bubblegum Boy, just for sheer inventiveness.

Penny was in two skits. In the first, she was a tourist in Hawai'i, calling for help when aliens invaded and threatened to eat everything. Luckily, Ice Girl arrived! In the second, Penny was the Secret Service agent protecting the President. The bad guy in that one had hypnotic powers, and put her into a trance so she'd hand the President over. But Bubblegum Boy saved the day!

Bubblegum Boy attacked with a can of silly string, and now Penny really wants her own can of the stuff. We had a chat this morning about where, exactly, silly string could be used. (Namely: outdoors.)

After the plays, there was an "Academy Awards" ceremony, at which each child was presented with an award and got to give a speech of thanks. Penny's award was for "Most Intimidating Secret Service Agent", and she thanked her family, her parents, and her teachers.

Today she's got a class party to say farewell to the student teacher who's been helping out for the last few months. Penny's being a bit maudlin about it, actually. I'm glad there's only another month of regular school left -- she's actually looking forward to daycare summer camp this year, so that won't be a struggle for us, at least.

Exoskeletons and Platypi

Penny and I were talking about the various classifications of animals in the car this morning. In her school science class, they're currently working on the five classifications of vertebrates (birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals, for those of you who haven't had biology in a while) and she really seems to have latched onto this as being worthy of her attention in a way that most of the rest of the year's science lessons haven't.

I'd say that I need to read up on my science so that I can answer her questions, but her mind is like fireworks -- a single cluster of information can explode in so many different directions that it's impossible to precisely predict where she's going to go.

This morning, over the duration of about a fifteen-minute drive, we discussed:

• Whether whales and dolphins are the only mammals that live entirely in the sea. I eventually came up with porpoises and manatees, but couldn't immediately tell her the difference between a porpoise and a dolphin.
• That sharks are fish.
• Whether snakes are slimy on their bellies (she had been misinformed by an older child, apparently).
• That worms can be slimy, but they are not snakes, but a sort of bug, since they aren't reptiles and don't have any bones.
• How bugs can stand up and walk if they don't have any bones. I got to introduce her to the word exoskeleton, which is an excellent word to know.
  
• How crabs and lobsters, despite living in the ocean, are more like bugs than like fish.
• The various obvious characteristics of reptiles (air-breathing, scales, egg-laying). She knew all this on her own -- the discussion was in how she got to present this to her class.
• The various obvious characteristics of amphibians (gills as young, lungs as adults, egg-laying, smooth skin).
• That birds have feathers, though on some birds (e.g., penguins) they're tiny and hard to see. Also, that all birds have wings, though some (e.g., penguins and ostriches) can't fly.
• The platypus, which I told her was the only mammal that lays eggs (though apparently I was mistaken, as some poking around on wikipedia reveals that echidnas are also monotremes). But since we'd reached school by this point, I pulled up a picture of a platypus for her on my iPhone while we walked up to the school so she could giggle at it.

How does one prepare for that kind of breadth of subject? You really can't, especially since a kid's level of interest can spike and then disappear to be replaced with something else entirely different. You just thank the gods for the internet and its wealth of informative sites -- and quite suddenly realize why your parents bothered shelling out for a set of encyclopedias, back in the pre-'net era.

Distracted

The kids are back to school today! Yippee! Now, if it can just not snow this weekend (they're threatening some, but it looks like it'll be mixed with rain, so it's a toss-up) and life can get back to normal. Please.

Entry's running late today because I took Alex to the ear-nose-throat doctor to get his tubes checked. Alex was not too keen on having the otoscope in his ear, but he mostly kept his cool, and the doctor gave us two thumbs up: tubes are still in place and everything looks healthy. He suggested bringing out the ear drops whenever Alex has a cold, as a preventative (which we'd pretty much been doing anyway -- actually, when his ears get stopped up, Alex will actually ask for the drops, so it makes a pretty good indicator).

Alex was so good, we let him have two stickers from the sticker box -- Winnie the Pooh and I found an ELMO! sticker hiding behind some others. He insisted on taking off his coat immediately so I could put the stickers on his shirt, and he talked about them excitedly all the way to school.

(Except for when we passed a stop sign in the parking lot and he had to stop and touch it and tell me about the Red! Oc'agon! With Letters! S! T! O! P!)

Damn, but I have a cute kid.

And now I shall drop all pretense of dignity and beg: I desperately need a babysitter for March 11! Matt and I have tickets to see They Might Be Giants -- and Jonathan Coulton -- in concert, and I really, really want to go to this show! (Yes, we bought the tickets before finding a babysitter. Not always wise, but I am determined!) Unfortunately, the combination of it being a school night (a Thursday) and the need for the babysitter to be able to give Penny her bedtime shot is kind of limiting our pool. So if you know anyone in the area who might be willing -- please, please, please let me know!!!

Seriously, please.

Snow Day? Seriously?

Schools are closed again today. Three days in a row. Though at least today, they had teachers report for the workday they missed Monday. So maybe we'll be back to normal tomorrow.

I wouldn't mind the working from home so much if it wasn't accompanied by a lot of "Moooooooommmmmm, I'm booooooorrrrrrred," whining.

I do remember doing this to my own mom when I was a kid, so it's just One Of Those Things, I expect. The way I've been handling it: I suggest three activities. If she doesn't want to do any of those, then I'm done trying to help her out and I'm also done listening to complaints. Mostly because I don't have the patience my mom had.

Add to this the administrative tangles that keep failing to be resolved at work (they're moving my spot in the org chart, but failed to take into account what happens to my subordinates when that happens; also, I still haven't been paid back for the damn holiday party, or received the back pay I'm due from when I got my promotion back in November), and I'm just not having the best of all days.

But I figured I should post something, so... there we go.

Snow Day

Well, it didn't work out quite like I'd planned. Oh, the snow held off until late Friday night, and then came down most of Saturday (it stopped late Saturday night, so I think it snowed for the better part of 24 hours straight). The kids had a blast (though we really should get Alex some boots -- his shoes kept slipping off in the snow) and I took some pictures.

But the roads weren't quite as clear this morning as I'd imagined they would be. Luckily, Penny wasn't supposed to be going to school anyway -- it was supposed to be a teacher workday -- so we'd already planned for her to stay home. I'm curious to see whether they close or delay school tomorrow, though. And then I'll be curious to see if they cancel the President's Day holiday or shorten Spring Break to make it up.

I got Alex to daycare this morning to discover they were running on a staff of 4 -- the director, the kitchen lady, and two teachers. They had the two teachers and all the kids corralled into a single room, at least until some more teachers come in, and I was a little concerned that Alex would freak out at being left in a room that he wasn't used to, without his favorite teacher present.

I always forget, though, that Alex is much more social than Penny was (or is). It didn't seem to bother him a bit. One of the teachers there was the two-year-old teacher that he already knows (they haven't officially moved him to the two-year-old class, yet, but he's been spending at least half his day in their room for weeks, now) and he ran right up to her and started telling her about the snow. And then while the other teacher (who happens to be the school-age teacher) was asking after Penny, he ran off to the far side of the classroom to investigate some toy with Elmo on it. He spotted me as I was leaving, and I wondered if he would lose his cool, but he just kind of shrugged and went back to the toys.

Whew.

The drive in to work was pretty. Most of the roads I took had been cleared (except for the ramps and merge lanes, inexplicably), so traffic wasn't too bad. And a lot of the vegetation on the sides of the roads was covered with frost and sparkled in the morning light. Very pretty. A couple of times, I wished I could stop and take pictures.

Still, I think I might take my work computer home with me tonight, just in case school is still closed tomorrow.

Restful

Well, that was fun.

The handyman service I'd hired to replace our cracked bedroom window called Tuesday to say the window was in and could they replace it Wednesday morning? They told me it would take 4-6 hours, so I arranged to work from home Wednesday, which was easy because we're pretty slow at the office this week.

Naturally, taking the old window out let a lot of very cold air in the house, so I spent most of the morning with blue fingernails. But they finished the job in closer to four hours than six, and for a little less than their original estimate, so I guess it's a win. Though it was still way more expensive than I'd originally expected, when I asked them to give me an estimate for the job. Holy crap, but windows are expensive. (Also, they screwed up the blinds when they put them back up. I need to remember to call them today and tell them to come fix it.)

Anyway, I paid the crew and then went to the gym and the grocery store, and I was just getting home and checking my emails when Matt called to tell me that Alex had thrown up at daycare. Twice. In his sleep. So he was bringing the kid home. We worried briefly over various symptoms, and decided we'd wait until Thursday morning to decide if he needed a doctor. So I sent an email to work to let them know I'd be home again on Thursday and, with the kid in tow, I'd be lucky to clock half a day's worth of work, but that I'd at least check emails during his nap so I could review the day's documents.

Alex threw up twice more Wednesday evening, but woke up bright and early and chipper on Thursday. Whatever hit him seemed to have passed. Which was good news (because I really wasn't looking forward to cleaning any more upchuck, even if it was mostly apple juice and water) and also bad news, because he was not content to just sit on the couch and watch TV and let me work, or do much of anything else.

I wound up taking him to Target around mid-morning and letting him run around for the better part of an hour, just to get him out of the house. He was pretty good -- he would pick things up, but put them back when I asked him to. Even toys, he hugged and kissed and said "bye-bye!" before handing them to me to put back on the shelf. (Note to self: seriously, go back and snag a couple of those dollar plushies to save for Valentine's Day.) I managed to lure him into the clothing section long enough to pick up a couple of clearance-rack items for me (and a new pair of gym pants, which were not on clearance, but sorely needed) but mostly we just wandered around, looking at things and playing peek-a-boo-I-see-you around support pillars. It was kind of fun, actually.

Matt came home in the afternoon, but he had more work to do than I did, so I kept being the go-to parent. Just to try to burn off a little of Alex's energy (and give Matt some peace and quiet for half an hour) I took Alex with me to pick Penny up from school. He walked the entire half-mile (ish) from our house to the school (except that I carried him across the busiest road) and somewhere between a third and a half of the distance back home, once we'd collected Penny. It didn't even take the edge off his energy, though. Silly Mommy.

Back home, I juggled the kids, reading to Alex and helping Penny proofread her very first report for school, on wolves. (Consider "report" to be in fingerquotes. It was five sentences, four of which answered very specific questions asked by the instructions. But I guess they've got to start somewhere.) Also, I made dinner and ran to the store for an ingredient that I hadn't realized we were out of. (I sat in the store parking lot in the quiet car and pondered just staying there long enough to take a little nap, if I must tell the truth.)

Since Alex was in fine form all day yesterday, he's back to school today, and I'm back in the office. Thank goodness. This is much more restful.

Rocketship Go!

As I was walking Penny up to her school this morning, one of the teachers' aides who helps at the dropoff point each morning greeted us and said, "Penny, did you tell your mom that if we were on a rocketship, you'd be the one who gets to drive?"

"No," Penny said.

"You should tell her about it while you walk up to the school!" the aide enthused.

"In math facts," Penny told me, "I got up to thirteen!"

"Wow, that's great, sweetie!" Penny's class is starting to lean heavily on basic addition right now. We had, in fact, spent most of the drive to drop Alex off at daycare playing an adding game -- entirely at Penny's prompting.

On my way out, the aide asked if Penny had told me about it, and explained a little more: the station she'd been helping with was called "Fast Facts," and the object was to answer the math problem very quickly, without recourse to counting. (When I was in elementary school, we just called it memorization, or knowing your tables, but whatever.) Anyway, a "satisfactory" score required the student to get at least five of them at the chosen speed; Penny got thirteen. And additionally, she was the only one in the class to get so many so fast -- there were a couple of kids who got as high as nine, but no one else broke ten. Thus, Penny being at the very top of the rocketship.

That's my girl.

Squeeze

My schedule today looks like a finely crafted orchestration. No, seriously, check it out:

• 11:00-12:30: Weekly meeting #1 for the Beast project. I'll have to leave it early, though, because...


• 11:45-12:30: Chiropractor appointment. Luckily, my chiropractor is usually on-time and quick, because getting back to work at 12:30 gives me half an hour to eat lunch, check email, and do any piled-up work before...


• 1:00-2:00: All-hands meeting. Nothing to worry about, a "state of the union" sort of deal. But it'll eat up every bit of that hour, and I'll have to sprint back to my desk for...


• 2:00-3:00: Division-level meeting for QA and MA personnel. I'd assume this is going to be a snoozefest conference call during which I can catch up on other things, except the division is in the midst of a lot of reorg upheaval, so I expect I'll have to actually pay attention while they tell me what the new policies and standards are going to be. After that...


• The 3-4 meeting that was on my schedule for today got moved, so I actually get an hour and a half break to do some work before...


• 4:45: Need to leave work to pick Alex up from daycare, because Matt will be taking Penny to her swim lesson. I'll get home with Alex around...


• 5:30: Get dinner started so that we can eat as soon as Matt and Penny get home, around 5:45. (Thank goodness for Leftovers Night.) We usually eat at around 6:15, but tonight is...


• 6:30: Back-to-school night for Penny's school. Matt's going to this, and he'll need to walk out the door no later than 6:15. (If the weather's good, he might decide to just walk over -- it wouldn't take much longer than driving and trying to find a parking space.) While he's gone, I might get 15 minutes to check my email and twitter, and then I'll clean dinner dishes, make lunches for tomorrow, and...


• 7:30-7:45: Put Alex in PJs, read him a book, and put him to bed. Which segues neatly into...


• 7:45-8:15: Penny's cleanup/prep for bed/storytime. I expect Matt will get home somewhere in here. Normally, I'd take a shower after this, before we tuck her into bed at 8:30, but since my schedule doesn't have a space in it big enough for me to go to the gym, and thanks to some craptacular traffic, I missed going to the gym yesterday, too...


• 8:30-10:00: Go to the gym. (45 minutes of driving, 45 minutes of working out.) When I get back...


• 10:00-11:00: Take a shower, put on my PJs, and collapse on the couch to have a soda, check emails and twitter, and finally go to bed.

I admit it's not as tightly scheduled as it could be -- I have nothing before 11, and then I actually have a space big enough to eat lunch, and another one in the afternoon to get some work done.

But I have to say, it's a pretty impressively-packed day.

Beach Day

Whoops; I never did get around to posting anything yesterday.

But my day off was really very good. Penny and I took Alex to school, then went home to eat breakfast and get ready for our day. It was a little chilly to go swimming, but when I offered to take her somewhere else instead, Penny insisted that she wanted to go to the beach.

So we did. Yorktown Beach is situated right at the point where the York River opens up into the Chesapeake Bay -- by no means is it an ocean beach, but the water is salty and it's a really pretty spot. And there was enough wind yesterday for there to be some small waves (which as far as Penny was concerned were big waves). She absolutely loved it.

We walked along the beach and let the water swirl around our ankles. Penny got hypnotized by the water and nearly lost her balance a couple of times, but eventually she got the hang of it. She picked up bits of seashell, and poked dubiously at the seaweed. She made footprints and gasped with awe when the waves washed them away, and then did it again. She dug her toes into the sand and giggled when the water pushed more sand on them. She spotted my footsteps and tried to walk in them. She threw bits of rock and shell and handfuls of sand into the waves.


As if the cool air and strong breeze hadn't been enough to dissuade me from swimming, we found three jellyfish bodies washed up on the shore in the space of about ten minutes. And I saw several in the water, though at least they were individuals and not a swarm.

Did you know that dead jellyfish can't sting you? I talked Penny into touching one of the washed-up bodies so she could see exactly why they're called jellyfish. (Though more than jelly, they feel like those gel window-clings.) Once she got over the initial ick-factor, she because entranced by them. One of the ones we found was huge -- easily eight or ten inches in diameter, and too heavy for the little waves to wash away. Penny kept coming back to it, and after about an hour was referring to it as "my jellyfish friend". When the waves began to get too close (the tide was coming in) she actually dragged it a little further away from them to "rescue" it. She picked up a smaller jellyfish and put it in a bucket to take home "so Daddy can see a jellyfish!" and found a few little broken-off pieces that she had enormous fun playing with. (They stick to stuff like those window gels, too.)


She waded in up to her knees (clinging tightly to my hand -- we both got splashed nearly up to our waists) and retreated to dryer sand for other fun. She made a sand angel (which is just like a snow angel, but not as cold) and buried her arm in the sand and marveled at how hard it was to lift it straight back out. She buried her feet and ankles, and then various of my limbs, as well.


We ate a picnic lunch and watched the boats on the river, including a trio of Coast Guard vessels (and one helicopter), and a gorgeous 3-mast ship -- the Yorktown Alliance -- practicing maneuvers for some show or other.

We were there for two, maybe two and a half hours, and if we'd been able to swim, it probably would have gone longer. Though it's possible that two hours was just long enough, since I came home with a faint burn on my chest and neck and one arm. (I spent most of the morning facing north, I guess -- the other arm doesn't even have a tan line. And my legs are still as white as paper. Stupid legs.)

After we left the beach, we dropped by my folks' place to visit with my mom (Dad wasn't home) for a while, and then we went back home. Penny watched some TV and worked on an art project while I sorted the gajillion pictures I'd taken.

All in all, it was a fantastic, relaxing day, and I'm glad I finally did it. Next summer, I'll try to remember to do it earlier, when we might actually be able to get in the water.

And then yesterday morning, her school had its Open House so students could meet their teachers and find their classrooms (which is why I didn't get to work in time to post all this yesterday). And before that, we had the annual meeting to review and renew her medical plan and to fill her teacher in on what she needs to know.

Penny was surprisingly excited about everything. She took to her new teacher right away, and was excited about all the stuff she saw in the classroom, and thrilled to recognize a few names of other students. For a kid who's been clingy in the extreme and terrified of even tiny changes to her surroundings, it's nice to see her finally showing some enthusiasm. So hopefully our first-day-of-school dropoff will go well, next week.

Our plans for the long weekend are pretty simple. Saturday we're going over to John and Sam's to celebrate birthdays (John's and Mom's and a friend of John and Sam's). And that's pretty much it for plans. I'm sure we'll get out of the house each day (Alex, like Penny before him, does better if he get a Trip every day, though he's a little calmer about it than Penny was) but probably just running errands and such.

And then Tuesday is back to school!

Yep, It's Monday

I got Penny and Alex all the way to daycare this morning before I thought to look in Penny's kit and make sure she had enough supplies for the day. Sure enough, there's only one test strip left. Sigh. At least this is a gym day -- I'll just leave a few minutes early and drop a new can of strips off before I go to the gym, just in time for lunch, and it'll only add maybe ten minutes to my lunch break. Plus it gives me an excuse to walk out of my 10:00 meeting if it runs past 11, since they really will need those test strips before lunchtime.

But still, not the smoothest possible start to the day.

It was a pretty good weekend, though. I met a couple of old high school friends for lunch on Saturday, and then that afternoon we took the kids to the park. I took the camera (of course) and despite continuing focus problems (I will figure this out eventually) managed to get a few really good shots.


(My pictures look so much darker on my computer at work than the one at home, despite them both being LCD screens... I'm trying to figure out which one is closer to "normal" so I know whether I need to adjust my edits. Is it a Mac/PC difference, maybe? Guess I won't know for sure which way to go until I get some prints done. Hmph.)

Sunday was a mostly quiet day -- I took the kids to the grocery store, Matt mowed the lawn, I went to Target to do the back-to-school shopping (twelve freaking glue sticks...), Matt did the laundry, I took a nap, Matt took Penny to the comic shop and bookstore... like that. Penny had a scary low at lunchtime (in the 30s -- but she didn't even notice!) and then made up for it by running high all afternoon and evening. Alex took advantage of any adult sitting down for more than three seconds to insist on having a book read to him.

I got tired of the unholy mess that is the kids' craft drawer in the dining room, so I sat down and threw out a year's worth of forgotten drawings and mostly used-up coloring books and never-read magazines and dried-out play-doh lumps and capless markers and and and... I segregated all the pencils and markers and crayons and stamps and stickers into plastic bags and warned Penny that the next time I clean out the drawers, anything that isn't in its bag is going to be thrown out, whether it's still usable or not. The room looked so much better just from that little bit of effort, I may start attacking the horror that is the playroom, even if I have to do it one shelf at a time.

After the kids went to bed, Matt and I watched the unaired Dollhouse episode (the season one DVD just accidentally fell into my cart while I was at Target!) and some of the making-of/behind-the-scenes specials. A good way to end the weekend, though it has me champing at the bit for the next season. (September 25!)

I didn't get much writing done, like I'd planned to do (a little Friday night, but not after that), but I did do some organizing of the Google Sites spot I created for the purpose. (No, the link does not take you to my writing spot. It's not currently public. If you want to see it, you can ask, but everything in there is still in flux. I'm hoping it works out, though, because unlike Google Documents, Google Sites is available to me from both home and work.)

But at least I have a spot, now, and eventually I will have a plan.

Sleeplessness

The carnival was great. I took pictures, but haven't pulled them off the phone yet. I escorted Penny to the bouncies and the petting zoo while Matt sat in the shade and watched Alex play with pine cones.

The petting zoo was adorable; Penny got to pet a chicken, a goat, a sheep, a donkey, a pony, a rabbit, and some ducklings. All the animals were tiny -- the biggest of them (the donkey and the pony) only came up to my hip. Penny loved it, though, and spent a lot of time cooing, "Awwww! So cute!"

After that, we headed into the gym to see what games they had, but once we were there, Penny didn't want to play the games -- she just wanted to run around the gym. It was too hot to argue the matter much, so I sat down by one wall and watched Alex watching the juggling demonstration on one side and a karate demonstration on the other while Matt played with Penny.

He took her to the cafeteria to see if she wanted to do crafts, but she was only interested in the snack table, right up until about half an hour before they were ready to shut everything down, naturally. She planted some flowers and made a card for me for Mother's Day (I haven't seen it yet; I was told to not look and then she and Matt hid it when we got home) while Alex ran around and giggled.

Of the 20 tickets we'd bought, we only ended up using four of them (I got some fruit and a juice box for Alex from the snack counter) -- but that's okay; the point was to help sponsor the PTA anyway, really. And the kids had fun. We even arrived and left all together -- Alex was in fine spirits the whole time (though ready for a nap by the time we got home).

That evening, Matt went to his monthly D&D game, so I packed the kids up and took them out to eat by myself. I was a little hesitant about it at first, but it worked out great. We went to La Tolteca, and both kids were really great. Penny wanted to sit next to me in the booth at first, but relented to sit across from me when she realized that was the seat that would let her see the TV. She even ate her chicken nuggets before starting on her fries entirely without my reminding her -- and then only ate a handful of the fries. Alex ate an entire cheese quesadilla, and was happy and flirty for the entire meal. All in all, a success!

I lowballed Penny's insulin a little for dinner, thinking that her active afternoon would still be dragging her sugars down a bit. But when I checked her at 10, she was over 300, and I had to give her another shot. I sent Matt a text message, asking him to check her again when he got home from his game. Myself, I stayed up until 11:30 or midnight playing WoW and then reading.

Matt got home at 2, and Penny'd come down some, but was still over 250. He decided not to give her another shot, because a day or so previous, she'd dropped by more than 100 overnight. I concurred (I'd woken up when he came to bed) but the fact that the 10:00 shot had done almost no good at all prodded the Mutant Worrybrain into high gear. (My coworker's wife who died a few weeks ago went from 150 to 550 in the space of eight hours, was in ICU before another eight hours had passed, and died two weeks later. Nothing short of a cure is going to pry that out of the Worrybrain's stockpile of ammunition.) I gave up and checked her again at 3 -- 240, which at least meant she was holding more or less stable, and not going up again. I think I finally got back to sleep around 4 or 4:30.

So naturally, Alex woke up at 6 instead of sleeping in until 6:30. Sigh. As I said on twitter: I could tour Europe with the bags under my eyes.

And once I'd administered a correction for her still steady-around-250 morning sugars, Penny's sugars stayed neatly below 150 for the whole day, so I have no idea why she was so high Saturday night. Maybe she ate more of those french fries than I thought.

Fair Weekend

I like having a short week.

Tomorrow, Penny's school PTA is having their annual Spring Festival, which will involve several inflatable bouncy things, a petting zoo, games, and food.

We're definitely going. The weather promises to be beautiful, and since the school is only half a mile from home, we can bring Alex's stroller, and then if he gets tired or fussy, one of us can take him home without stranding the others. I'm actually looking forward to it quite a bit. I remember going to the fair at my elementary school and having a blast -- the inflatable bouncy thing alone made it worth the trip, in my eyes.

I'm feeling positive about today. I don't know if it's the weather, or the fact that both kids had good dropoffs this morning, or what, but I'm feeling good.

Let's see how long we can make it last.

Happy Hallowe'en from our little Boo-Boy!

(That little grin is sweeter than any candy... Couldn't you just eat him up?)

I spent most of yesterday chaperoning a field trip with Penny's class. There were a lot of chaperons, so I only had to keep track of Penny and one other little girl.

We went into the pumpkin patch to pick a small pumpkin, and then we went on a "haunted" hay ride (there's only so scary a ride can be in full sunlight, though the kids had fun shrieking in pretended terror) and then into the corn maze.



After that, we went to a nearby park to eat lunch and have a scavenger hunt. It was too cold and windy to eat outside, really -- everyone was shivering and either not eating or scarfing their food down as fast as possible. It was a relief to get up and move around to look for leaves and pine cones. Penny and her friend both filled their pockets with acorns.

Then we went back to the school, and I went home and spent an hour or so relaxing and playing Warcraft. Just before Penny was due to get out of school, I changed clothes and went to the gym, and then (since the gym is about 3/4 of the way to Alex's daycare anyway) I picked Alex up so Matt wouldn't have to make the drive.

It was a nice day off, though it would have been better if it had been a Friday.

Tonight, I'll head home and fix dinner ASAP so we can get to the trick-or-treating. It's my turn to escort her around this year, and I'm quite looking forward to it, even though it's going to be pretty damn chilly.

Alex will be coming with us in his pea-pod outfit (assuming I can rig up a way to fasten him into the stroller) but probably only for a few houses -- I don't think he's going to have the patience or the aplomb to do more than that.

There will be pictures, of course. Stay tuned!

Monday?

I swear, for a Wednesday, today feels awfully like a Monday.

Alex's fourth tooth is cutting, and he had a restless night. I never had to get up to soothe him, but he woke up several times to whine a little and then go back to sleep.

I went to bed just before midnight, and Alex woke up for good at 5:30. He didn't get fussy, but he crawled around his bed and jabbered loudly until I elbowed Matt out of bed at six.

I'd forgotten to get tonight's crock-pot dinner set up last night, so I had to throw it all together this morning while letting Alex crawl around the kitchen and dining room and hoping he didn't eat something off the floor while I was chopping vegetables.

I couldn't find the blanket that we use in lieu of a coat for Alex. (I did find it after we'd gotten to daycare. It was draped over someone else's baby seat.)

We were halfway out the door when Penny realized that her folder wasn't in her backpack, so I had to go back and dig through the crap on the dining table to find it.

I couldn't remember if Penny's field trip form was due today or tomorrow, but I couldn't find it in any case. Nor had her teacher ever answered my question about who to make the check out to. (I walked her down to class this morning to talk to the teacher and get a new form. I filled it out and wrote the check on the spot.)

There was a bad accident just as we were leaving the residential area that meant I couldn't turn the way I needed to turn to take Alex to school. I wound up going the other way instead, and taking the interstate all the way around to get to his daycare.

When Penny and I got to school, someone mentioned that tomorrow was picture day -- and I have no idea where that form is, either. (I picked up a new form from the front office on my way out, but it means I really need to remember to write that check tonight.)

I was all the way to work before I realized that I'd forgotten my gym clothes. I'll have to either take an extra 15-20 minutes off to go home to get it, or do another evening workout tonight. Which option I pick probably depends on how the rest of the morning goes. But damn, do I need it.

D.O.G.S.

Today, Matt is participating in the Watch D.O.G.S. program at Penny's school.

D.O.G.S. stands for Dads Of Good Students, and it's a program by which fathers of students volunteer for a day at the school. The idea is to show the kids positive male role models, especially at the elementary school level, where there aren't many male staff members. (Penny's school has two male staff, which is up from last year's one, and both of them are teachers who rarely interact with kids outside their own classrooms.)

So Matt will be helping to direct the kids as they unload the busses this morning, and then he'll spend some time volunteering in Penny's class and in a couple of the other kindergarten classes, acting as chaperone in the cafeteria, etc.

He's volunteering twice this year; today, and again in March.

We didn't tell Penny about it in advance, so she was thrilled when I brought her into the school lobby and she saw him waiting for her. She gets to wear a special sticker that says "Good Student" on it, and the two of them will get to appear on the morning announcements together.

I'm looking forward to hearing all about it, tonight.