Busy Two Weeks

I haven't had time to post about anything the past week and a half. Super Hero had shoulder surgery on May 21st and I've barely had time to do anything except take care of him (drive him around), cook, clean and do school with Holland. The last post was about our jet boat ride on the Willamette and that was the day after (I post about the important things) his surgery. We totally needed a break and he just slept all day anyway. I realized how much I depended on him when he couldn't help out. Getting the kids dinner; getting them to bed; cleaning up at night. I'm totally exhausted and he's still pretty much out of commission. He has to have physical therapy every day for three weeks to make sure his shoulder doesn't freeze up again. And a few days I had to drive him (and bring everyone else in the process) because he was taking Percocet. You know what they say "do not operate heavy machinery". Crud. That means cars. So we'd pile in the car and drive dad to his appointment.

He went back to work on Thursday (which I thought was too early). He's still very sore, but he's itching to get going on some projects at work and felt he needed to get back. The day he had his post-op appointment, Holland had an appointment with a neurologist; Egypt had an eye doctor appointment and he also had a physical therapy appointment. That was one crazy day. We found out that Holland is getting migraines. We're supposed to try getting him more aerobic type exercise. I told the dr. he's really 'busy' but she said he needs more "sweat" activity. We did walk around a park only one day this week. But at least it was once. It's just too hard with Egypt in a jogger stroller. She wants to walk/run/play and Holland is complaining he's bored. He also might be getting the migraines from stress. Did you even know kids could get migraines from stress? I'll be sure to eliminate all that stress for him. Right after I do that for me. I had a migraine that lasted 16 hours one day. I literally felt I couldn't drive to pick up Romania from the bus stop. But who's gonna do it? So, you just suck it up and do what you gotta do.

So if you noticed that Egypt had an eye appointment the same day as Super Hero and Holland, you probably figured out I was a driver short for that. I had to get my mom to take her for her 3 month check up. This appointment takes a little longer because they dilate her eyes and look more closely for the infection that can result from the JRA. She's fine - just nearsighted which he said not to worry about until she's school-age.

So I am really tired from all this activity. All I want to do is sew. I have people that have asked me to sew them ruffle pants or make a head scarf - and I haven't had time to do it. I'm assuming people with jobs outside the home totally ignore their kids. How else would they do everything? As a tribute to trying to do it all (or just the laundry at least), I turned one of my good white T-shirts pink today. I save a whole load of red laundry to do together and forgot to pull out a white shirt that I wore under a red sweatshirt. See? One person just cannot do it all. But now I have a nice pink T-shirt to wear. I really didn't want a pink T-shirt.

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The ER Queen

There is no shortage of fun and excitement around here and last night proved that.  Five minutes after arriving home from getting Romania at the bus stop, I was on the phone with my pediatrician wondering if I should take Egypt to the ER.  Holland and Egypt were playing outside and within minutes she was in the house screaming and blood dripping out of her mouth.  That's one thing you never want to see when your child is injured.  Holland helped piece together what happened:  the kids were playing with squirt guns and Egypt thought she was being chased.  She was pretending to be an elephant and was running with a plastic sword in her mouth.  She tripped and the sword jammed in her throat.  

So I told the boys to stay with the neighbor and then off we went to the ER.  I was just there a month ago with Romania for the dog bite incident.  The first doctor to see her said "I don't see anything" while looking in her mouth without a light.  Okay, even I know I wouldn't see anything like that.  Then a male nurse came in and said "looks okay to me".  Luckily, there was an ENT right next door at his office that they called over.  He looked her over very carefully and explained that although she hadn't punctured anything, the blunt trauma could be damaging.

She has pretty good bruising on both sides going down her throat.  He said she scraped it pretty good (hence the blood).  But there was something called Horner's Syndrome that could take up to three days to show up.  It is a nerve injury and I was given a whole list of things to watch for (drooping or sagging on one side of her face; one pupil constricted; clumsiness....)  I even had to wake her up last night to check her out.   She couldn't even eat last night.  She barely drank milk and even this morning was complaining that it hurt.  

Life is never dull.....

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The Cat in the Hat

Or should I say backpack. I always debate about whether to go out. I really need a break but it's a gamble for what I'm going to come home to. There was a women's retreat this last Friday and Saturday at my church. They decided they would attract more women if we didn't have to pack up and go somewhere. On Friday night I had made everyone dinner and was trying to get dressed and put my face on. All of a sudden I hear screaming. I come running downstairs and here's Romania crying with a bright red mark on his face. I don't have the whole story, but apparently he and Egypt we outside on the patio and he was playing basketball. Egypt was picking up and tossing these chunks of Christmas tree trunk (that's another story: my big plan was to turn them into rustic-looking candle holders). She hit him pretty hard, but I can't see how she could have that good an aim. She clobbered him in the cheek - nice red mark and a scratch that was bleeding.

So I have to put getting ready on hold and attend to the victim. Egypt was so upset she even went upstairs and got him a bandaid for his cheek. I told Super-Hero there was no way he could take the three of them for a walk in the woods (right behind our house) because there was no way to tell if they would ambush each other. That statement caused a chain-reaction: now Holland is crying hysterically because he had big plans for taking backpacks and having this hiking expedition. Romania is crying from being hurt and disliking his sister and Egypt is crying because her brother's hurt. And I'm supposed to leave like 10 minutes ago.

They were all asleep when I got home so I didn't even care what happened while I was gone. But I was planning on staying only half the day on Saturday. Holland was still planning on his explorer hike. I got a message on my pager from Super-Hero a couple hours after I left. Apparently Holland decided to pack LuLu, one of the cats, in his backpack to trek along with them. And if you know that Super-Hero is deaf, this becomes so much more comical. Now any normal hearing person would have nixxed this right away. But because he can't hear anything, he had no clue that a cat was being transported in a backpack. I just can imagine all the meowing and cries coming from that backpack. It wasn't until he started walking behind the kids, that he saw the cat poke her head out of the pack. They immediately turned around and came home.

Super-Hero had all these plans for the rest of the day: he was hoping to get gravel from someone giving it away off of Craigslist; he wanted to install these landscaping light fixtures; he wanted to go to the zoo. He didn't get the gravel (what a surprise with three kids), he didn't install the light fixtures (big surprise with three kids) but he did go to the zoo (big surprise with three kids). I really thought he was nuts to do this. Especially after the cat-in-a-backpack incident. What if one of them decided to stow-away a cat to the zoo? I'm not sure about all the happened, but I did get a report that Holland retrieved some money from one of those wishing ponds. I am now picturing what that looked like and wondering what Super-Hero saw (or chose to ignore, more likely).

I left just before the last meeting and came home to a quiet house. Which I immediately felt the need to clean. I should have taken a before and after picture. It's quite amazing how fast a place gets messed up. The other day I commented that it looked like a tornado came through. Egypt looked at me and said "a tornado is a big wind!". That's exactly right - a big wind blew through the family room.

We've Got Software!

I can hardly believe we finally have the writing support software. I think it was about three months ago that I approached the school about getting some kind of software for Holland. We've had lost order forms, canceled meetings, second software introduced, canceled meetings, avoiding giving me the software because someone else might need it (they really just wanted Holland's charter school to pay for it, not the school district). Then finally after 3 months of this, I get an email about two weeks ago from the OT who said she just might have the software that would work. Ok. I don't understand that. You had it all along? Yup. And she even had had training on it last year.

I think it was actually worth the wait. Hopefully I get to actually keep it on my computer and this isn't just a tease and I'll have to uninstall it. I wouldn't be surprised by that based on all that's happened. But anyway - it's a great program and there's free support materials online. Many teachers that have used it, have submitted their own forms that you can use right online. The software allows the student to use pictures, sound, words, video and animation to write. The program will read the words or sentences just like the other software. But this one is different because you can create your own writings from documents on your own computer, or from any website. Here's their website: it's called Clicker 5.

First Haircut

Well, not really. I cut some baby hair for Egypt's scrapbook. But this was a real haircut. I gave her bangs. She was growing them out but I was so sick of seeing them fall in her face. Even when we pulled them back, they always fell out of the rubber band. And I also trimmed about an inch and a half off the back.