First: A health update! Thank you so much to everyone who had such kind words and thoughts for my sweet mother-in-law; once again, she fooled us all. She's out of the ICU and doing much better. This is good news because we love her, but excellent news because I don't think Otto could've taken it if things had gone differently. (Although I didn't mention this in the last post, while waiting on updates on my mother-in-law, we unfortunately lost two other magnificent folks---their deaths weren't unexpected, but were still way too soon. "They" say bad things come in threes, and for once I was...
Because I am in desperate need of something cheerful this evening, I give you the intersection of my son's delight and my husband's penchant for documenting everything: (It was a Most Excellent birthday, bananas and all.)
My current earworm: Because, yes, today my Monkey is (sing it with me!) 1 2 3 4 5, 6 7 8 9 10 11 12! (Remember when they only ever counted up to 12 on Sesame Street? It was like numbers higher than that just didn't matter, or even exist.) Today we have to start paying full price to take you to the movies. Today you no longer get a kids' menu. Today we'll probably start bending a bit when it comes to letting you watch PG-13 stuff, because we started softening when your sister turned 12, but the difference is that you won't care too much, and if something you watch has even the remotest iota...
Thank you all for the well-wishes for my mother-in-law. She had surgery and they were able to insert a rod into the bone to repair it, and it is around about this point in the story when Monkey puts his hands over his ears and says "YOU CAN STOP TALKING ABOUT THIS NOW" because it weirds him out to think about operations and people being fitted with rods. Because we are excellent parents, we assured him that Grammy is just fine, and we will all love her just as much now that she's a cyborg as we did before. In the meantime, my poor brother-in-law Nearly Nickless wasn't feeling so hot, and the...
Without compromising the privacy of the underlings in my household, I can tell you that the three little ones 'round here have VERY different reactions to impending travel. It's funny, really, to watch them all exhibit such different behavior. An interesting anthropological study, you might say. Because there's that whole nature/nurture thing, plus two of the three share DNA, yet they could not be more striking in the various reactions they have. And I, of course, just have to deal with it all. With a smile. When I can manage it. So, yes: The kids head off for vacation with their dad, today,...
You guys. I... I can't even. Because words fail. A couple of weeks ago someone posted this on Facebook, and I watched it with a mix of horror and delight. Because LOOK: And I made Otto watch it, too. And Otto said, "No. YOU ARE NOT WATCHING THAT WHEN IT COMES ON TV." And I argued, and he kept saying no, and then last night I was channel-surfing and it was on and he was upstairs, so I watched it. With Chickadee. Now, maybe it wasn't a great idea to watch it with her in the room, largely because what teenager wants to hear her mother alternately shrieking with laughter and choking with...
Monkey went to a birthday party this weekend. Now, on the one hand: Monkey went to a birthday party this weekend. In fact, Monkey has received no less than four birthday party invitations since beginning his time at Hippie School, and if you're a longtime reader I probably don't have to spell this out (but I will, anyway, because saying it out loud makes me marvel all over again), but four birthday party invitations is... oh... roughly FOUR MORE than he received in the previous couple of years combined. Hippie School is terribly tolerant and inclusive, and I love and cherish that so much,...
You get one day to stay home from school when you tell me you don't feel well, even if you don't necessarily have a fever. I'm willing to suspend disbelief for one day. When you refuse to go to school on the second day, I will inform you that in the absence of fever or vomiting a second day home must indicate pernicious, invisible illness which needs to be diagnosed RIGHT AWAY, and therefore I will be scheduling a visit to the doctor. What I may have forgotten to mention until shortly before said appointment is that there are now two options: Either the doctor agrees that you are quite...
I kept Monkey home from school yesterday because they were having one of their fantastic hippie field trips where they spend the entire day in the woods connecting to nature*. These field trips are great, but even when Monkey's doing okay, we have determined that I need to go with him as he pretty much requires one-on-one support for them, because if he decides to melt down in the middle of the wilderness that's kind of a pickle for the teachers there who are dealing with other kids, too. And right now, Monkey is maybe coming down with a cold. Maybe! I mean, who knows? How would we know? He...
