26 posts tagged “nablopomo”

Today is the last day of NaBloPoMo, a.k.a. National Blog Posting month.  I tried my best, but I think I missed a couple of days.  Posting every day is a hard thing to do.  To tell you the truth, I'll be glad to have a break! 

Truly, I love the holiday season.  I love the feeling of joy in the air, the smell of real Christmas trees, and the expectation of the New Year at hand.  And I love to shop for that Perfect Gift for my loved ones and closest friends. 

Except for the Guv.  Shopping for him is most unpleasant.  Why?  Read on.

First, he asked for a Garmin Nuvi, which he bought for himself on Black Friday because it was on sale.  Then, he said he'd like this golf game.  When it arrived in the mail today -- I hadn't ordered it -- I expected him to walk in and say "hey, my Christmas present arrived!" at which point I'd whisk it away and wrap it up for Christmas morning.  Surprise!  And then I went to put Dash to bed, and, when I came downstairs, there was the game, all set up on my den floor.  Now, he says he wants a 100 Grand bar from me and a Snickers from the kids, and that's all. 

I'm torn on this one.  Perhaps that's all I should give him, as he's pretty much seen to his own "needs."  Yet, I know that "Jesus is the reason for the season" and all, but, darnit, I want to buy the Guv some presents that he knows nothing about -- and, more than that, I want them to be things that truly surprise him and that he loves getting.  I want him to get into the spirit of the thing.  He could even make a long wish list on Amazon from which I could select items... but going out and buying himself all of the good stuff he wants?  That's just not cool.

So now, I'm thinking of doing the holidays the Guv's way.  I'm going shopping tomorrow to buy my own gifts.  When he reads this, he may require medical attention, because this year he's buying me this and this.  SURPRISE!

The Guv's office party is coming up, and the woman organizing the party is collecting baby photos so that they can all play "guess who"... and this is the photo that the Guv submitted:

Baby guv

No, that's not Dash; it's the Guv at the same age Dash is right now. 

Just yesterday, a friend and I were wondering who Dash resembled, because he doesn't look much like Petunia except for the eyes -- and she looks exactly like the Guv.   But now, I know.  I will never have a child whom resembles me save my cleft chin -- but alas, that's okay, because I like the way the Guv looks.  Though I must say that his "bahookie" is much bigger than Dash's will ever be.

Our 'burbs border the countryside, so we are fortunate to have a local John Deere store.  The store is as full of toys as tractors. When the Guv and I walked in on Black Friday, tears sprang to my eyes -- seriously -- when I spotted Dash's gift from Santa.  I love surprises, but this one's killing me -- I've never been so excited to give a gift in all of my life, as I'm pretty sure that this one is going to make our little man very, very, very happy.

John Deere pedal-powered loader with trailer

That's right: it's a TRACTOR with a LOADER and a DUMPER attachment.  BOY HEAVEN.  Yippee!

I took Dash to the doc when she opened this morning.  The #1 reason to live in a small town and go to a small medical practice is that you can call in the morning and say, "I'd like to bring my son in before he vomits one more time," and, since they know I'm not crazy, they say "come right in."  Every time.  Dash has not had a fever, and the vomiting more or less subsided in the middle of the night -- but since Petunia recently battled strep throat, I wanted to make sure that wasn't the reason for Dash's vomiting. 

He does not have strep throat.  Rather, the kid has two seriously bad ear infections.  In one ear, every part of the ear is inflamed.  In the other ear, it's only the part that would probably make him dizzy and nauseous.  Parents reading this will know that when kids have ear infections, they usually are super-crabby and tugging at their ears, even as little babies.  Dash has not touched his ears at all, perhaps because he's too busy picking his nose and eating it.  But anyway, the other thing that almost always accompanies ear infections is a fever, which Dash has not had.  So how the heck was I supposed to know that he had ear infections, which he's probably had for a loooonng time since he first became stuffy around November 8?  The doc's response: "Sometimes, really, only a doctor can tell you." 

So Dash gets to take his very favorite medicine, Omnicef -- the only one he voluntarily takes and keeps down -- for ten days.  He calls it his FiFi medi, and he'd like to drink the whole bottle at once; thank God for childproof medicine caps!  At least he'll feel much, much better even later today, and I stand a good chance of him sleeping well, thus sleeping well myself, at long last.

My mom e-mailed me this morning, sure that something was wrong because I didn't post to my blog yesterday.  Oh, but she was right.  Petunia is fine -- all traces of sickness gone -- but now Dash is sick, and he doesn't just get a little sick, he gets up-all-night-coughing-and-vomiting-and-screaming sick.  He's been sick since around November 8, kicking a cold, but now he must have something new.  He can't stop coughing, and even the super-strong medicine that the doc has prescribed him in the past isn't working (and isn't staying down for long).  We're trying the nebulizer, but it's not that kind of cough (and boy, do I know them all).  The odd thing is that he doesn't really have a fever -- he's just coughing a lot, and that's making him boot.  And boot some more. 

This is nothing new.  While we learned definitively in January that he no longer has reflux, this kid vomits more easily than the frat brothers in college who made a habit of doing so in order to make room for more drink.  We're used to sleeping on top of beach towels so that instead of swapping all of our sheets in the middle of the night, we can just change the towel -- onto which he's been trained to focus his puking.  He does it so often that he knows the drill: as soon as he's done on the towel, he stands by the door with the trashcan while I switch the towel, quickly switch his clothes, and wipe his face.  I can do this in the dark with my eyes closed, which, when I've been woken up for the fifth time, is pretty much how it's done.

I'll take him to the doc tomorrow, by which point he'll certainly have an ear infection, since when a kid pukes so much there's no way for it not to back up into the ear canals.  But I'll spend another two nights at least seeing EVERY hour on the clock.  And I'm pretty upset about that.  No matter how much help I can hire, no matter how many doctors I consult, the fact is that this boy is going to be in my bed for a long time yet.  I'm tired of sleeping next to him.  I'm tired of getting no sleep.  Perhaps more than anything, I'm really tired of being judged by everyone -- even the Guv, at times -- for giving Dash the care he demands.  I didn't ask for a High Maintenance Child, but I got one.  And there are times he makes me downright miserable, which is not a great thing for a mom to say.  Of course, he brings us all infinitely more joy than misery, but knowing that doesn't help on days like today, when he's at his worst because he doesn't feel well.

And I'm at my worst, because the Guv and I were having a fantastic time at a party last night when we came home to put the kids to bed, and it was clear that Dash was getting worse.  I stayed at home (not because the Guv trumped me somehow, but, rather, because Dash needed and wanted mom, which I accepted) -- and the Guv went back and had a blast, capping off the night with some rowdy 1 am soccer playing.  So I'm complaining, because if I'm going to be up at 1 am, it should be for some drunken soccer playing or other such fun -- not for cleaning up round 2 of Dash's vomit, right?

(P.S. While writing this post, I had convinced Dash to nibble on some crackers.  I didn't even have to stop typing as I held the cracker bowl under his face while the threw it back up.  The Patriots, they should hire me: I can catch anything, blind.)

Until yesterday, I was freaking out that I was going to have to cook a turkey with bones in it.  A few times in my life, I have been a vegetarian for a stint, and I find that I really can't stand food that looks like an animal: e.g., a turkey.  Cutting into bloody steak is also a huge problem for me, and my husband usually browns ground meat for me for much the same bloody reason.  But alas, I was saved: Whole Foods had a big enough (4+ pounds) boneless breast of turkey, all tied up in a net bag so that it'll require minimal handling/preparation.  Truth be told, no one in my family even likes turkey much, so we're doing this mostly for my mother-in-law, aunt-in-law, and cousin-in-law, as well as for our Austrian au pair's first American Thanksgiving.  I feel compelled to nod to tradition, regardless, but I'd so much rather be at my mom's house right now, not even having to think about this!  (We were welcome there but chose -- wisely, based on the weather delays happening already -- not to travel.)

If I do this again next year, I'm going to either buy the meal -- or at least the bird -- fully cooked, or perhaps I'll even start a new tradition.  Turkey chili, anyone?  Turkey meatloaf?   Tofurky?  Gluten-free pancakes with turkey sausage? 

Since I'm doing NaBloPoMo, I'll post tomorrow, but let me leave you with this little Thanksgiving song I found in cyberspace:

Do you know who put me in the Christmas spirit this year?  A 12 year old boy named Yusef.  I took his name off of the "angel tree" at church so that I could purchase his desired Christmas gifts.  Unlike most of the kids his age who request Game Stop gift cards or NBA hats, Yusef asked for puzzles, both boxed and book form.  I have had a blast shopping for him, and he's the only person for whom I've shopped so far.

I'll probably never meet Yusef, but I'll remember him for many Christmases to come.  I imagine him as a bright and quiet seventh grader who is working hard in school to make a better life for himself.  The kids whose names are on this tree, some of them don't have families, and those that do are often in really sketchy situations.  My Christmas wish this year, and I'm happy to only get one, is that Yusef makes it in this crazy life to a better place than where he is now. 

The Guv and I had a day alone on Saturday, in part to tour the private school I mentioned in my last post, and in part just to enjoy each other after the Guv's week-long absence.  Here's a snippet of our conversation after an encounter with an interesting individual:

Rox: There was something that bothered me about that woman... she was so, I don't know, overdone.  Fake, like.

The Guv chuckles.

Rox: What?

The Guv: You know, women like you, they marry academic types, with little round glasses and always working on a book.  Guys like me, they marry women who frost their hair and get work done.  We're an unlikely pair, you and me.

(My response deleted so that the content of this site remains family-friendly.)

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I can't stop giggling to myself over this conversation on a number of levels.  For starters, I'm all for self-improvement -- of my BRAIN, not my boobs.  Second of all, the Guv would have no patience at all for a ditz who cared more about shopping than about the fate of the dollar -- and he also would lack the stomach for the fate of HIS dollar faced with her credit card bills.  I have the self-confidence to know that he wasn't dogging me; he'd never trade down, because he has it too good.  He married someone who doesn't love to shop for herself but, instead, will spend days agonizing over the right gift for his mother.   But the funniest thing is that when I fell in love with the Guv, many moons ago, HE was going to be an academic, not Private Equity Guy.  While he is a jock and quite handsome, I married him because he's the smartest man I've ever met, and he married me because he felt we'd always have things to talk about. 

He is right, though: the guy that I dated before him is a professional poet.  And some of his friends, they are married to bimbos.  And they'll remarry bimbos.  We broke the mold, perhaps, and I think we're both happier for it.  As to whether or not we fit into main line Philly life, if we chose to make that move, well, I do highlight my hair.  I guess that's a start.  ; )

We are wrestling with some difficult decisions in our household, and chief among them is best way to educate our children.  We have not been unhappy with Petunia's local public grammar school.  In fact, I have loved the teachers.  Their morale is dropping, though, as they haven't had a contract for over two years; and, since it's against the law in Jersey for teachers to strike, they have no recourse except to find another job.  As well, budget constraints are cutting programs, such as the "primary strings" program (weekly mandatory violin lessons in grades 1-3), which were among the reasons we chose our current town.  Petunia's school is "good enough" -- but there's a marked difference between "good enough" and "excellent."  She is an exceptionally talented child, especially verbally, so it is even more challenging for a teacher/school to challenge her.  And, we learned from the psychologist who performed a battery of giftedness tests on her, Petunia very much needs the challenge, for, when it is absent, she checks out.

In response to this quest for excellence, the Guv and I toured a private school in Pennsylvania yesterday.  It far exceeded my expectations, as the school truly practices what it preaches with regard to caring for the whole child.  The school is much more than academics, which, by the way, are top-notch.  For example, the school employs a Director of Character Education.  Among her tasks is teaching a weekly friendship class.  The kids talk of "being their best selves."  Oh, I'm sure that there are occasional issues between friends (or non-friends) as there are in any school -- but at that school, they have a specific forum for dealing with it.  I went into the school asking if it could meet Petunia's academic needs.  I left knowing that it could.  For example, when she's far ahead in language arts, she'll be pulled out by a teacher who will offer her additional challenges.  Imagine that: "special education" for both advanced kids and kids who require additional help.  (Yes, I know that pubic schools have gifted programs -- the Guv and I were both in them -- but they aren't always/often academic.)  Beyond academics, though, I walked out of the school feeling that Petunia would come out a better person than she went in -- which is saying a lot, as she is already an especially socially aware, kind child.  Heck, I left wanting to be a better person myself.

Sometimes, to be our best selves as parents, we end up doing things we never thought we'd do.  I really believe in public education.  I believe that removing bright children like Petunia from public schools is detrimental to the learning of others.  I also believe that leaving Petunia in the public system will not meet her needs.  The Guv, who was against private school mostly because of the cost, indicated that his only concern leaving the private school yesterday was whether or not they'd have space for our daughter.  And that, that's really saying something.

In the end, we want Petunia to reach, not bend.  She'll spend a day there soon, and hopefully she'll come away with the same great vibe... and an offer of admission.