10) Other health-impairment means having limited strength, vitality or alertness, including a heightened alertness to environmental stimuli, that results in limited alertness with respect to the educational environment, that is due to chronic or acute health problems, including but not limited to a heart condition, tuberculosis, rheumatic fever, nephritis, asthma, sickle cell anemia, hemophilia, epilepsy, lead poisoning, leukemia, diabetes, attention deficit disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or Tourette syndrome, which adversely affects a student's educational performance.
including but not limited to. Five words that are at the heart of a big issue.
When we moved into this new school district back in May, Kiddo had an IEP in place which classified her as a student with a disability, Other Health Impaired. The paragraph at the beginning of this post, taken from the state IEP guidelines, is the one that describes how a child can be classified as "other health impaired" and therefore receive services through an IEP.
(Side note, because I'm angry and bitter right now: I cannot begin to tell you how many people, including several people that work for this school district, have told us how lucky we are to be in this school district and how grateful we should be for being able to partake of this wondrous, super-awesome school district. I can't italicize enough to convey the tone with which I type this, but suffice it to say I am not feeling particularly lucky or grateful right now.)
Kiddo's old school district classified her as "Other Health Impaired" for her SPD because there is no specific category for SPD as a classifying disability. (Things like autism, deafness, emotional disturbance, learning disability, visual impairment and so on all count as their own qualifier. OHI is meant to catch the rest of the disabilities that do not have their own qualifying category.) The old school district read that paragraph that stipulates what counts as OHI and chose to include SPD because of those five words "including but not limited to" and all was well. Kiddo was granted the services she needed to succeed in the classroom, most importantly the aide to provide her sensory diet. (Yes, yes, getting the old school district to follow through and be in compliance with the IEP was a major battle, but at least we had the plan written and signed.)
The new school district? The one that is so awesome and the one that we are so damn lucky to be in now and for which we should be so grateful? They are choosing to ignore those five words. To disregard them completely. They have stated in no uncertain terms their intention to declassify Kiddo and therefore discontinue her services and IEP at the next CSE meeting on December 3rd. They say that SPD doesn't "count" as a qualifying disability, because it doesn't appear in that list. Furthermore, SPD isn't yet included in the DSM, so they say that means they don't have to count it.
But, but, but........ they really do. They do because of those five words. "including but not limited to" means that they can't limit what counts. That's our position, anyhow, and we plan to fight. Kiddo's SPD is a chronic health impairment. It does result in a heightened alertness to environmental stimuli. It does impact her ability to function and succeed in the classroom.
There are alternatives to the IEP. Implementing a 504 plan has been suggested. Not just suggested, but hailed as the shining beacon of perfection that will be the savior of all this mess. Except... a 504 plan doesn't give a child an aide. Aides (or "paraprofessionals" as this district calls them) are only available through an IEP.
Like that? Like how they're telling us we can have the plan that doesn't guarantee the services she needs, but that she doesn't qualify for the plan that does guarantee the services she needs, and yet they acknowledge that those are, in fact, the services she needs all at the same time? Kiddo is smart. She's extremely capable of learning in a general education classroom setting and has consistently worked at and usually above grade level. She's a happy kid, well adjusted and with good self esteem and lots of self confidence. She has many friends. She is well liked by her peers. She enjoys school greatly.
If the CSE pulls her services and removes her aide and her sensory diet, that will all change. Kiddo will not be able to succeed in the classroom. She won't be able to focus adequately if her sensory system is disregulated, which it will be if she doesn't have the support in place. She will fail. She will suffer. She will lose friends, self confidence and self esteem. (We've seen it happen before, at the first preschool Kiddo attended. It took time to get her back to normal, to have an unstressed, happy kid, and that was preschool. These are much bigger stakes now that she's older.) We've been told that if (or really, when) that comes to pass and Kiddo fails, we could then go back to the CSE and say "See? She's failing!" and then maybe they'd be more amenable to giving her an IEP and reinstating the services they took away. Hubby and I do not intend to let it get to that point. I think I need to go bang my head against my old friend the brick wall.
The CSE team wants us to agree to declassify Kiddo and to pursue the 504 plan. They're promising to give their best effort to arrange for services as best they can through the resources available at the school. (In other words: no guaranteed aide who has been trained in how to meet Kiddo's needs and supply the necessary sensory support as demanded at any given time.) We have said that this is not good enough. Not acceptable. We say Kiddo needs an aide. (They don't disagree, you'll recall.) They say that to have an aide requires an IEP, which they say Kiddo doesn't qualify for - unless, of course, we can come up with another diagnosis for her that would automatically qualify, like ADHD, in the next two weeks and show sufficient documentation to support that other diagnosis.
Oh yeah, you can bet we're going to fight this. Tooth and nail. We've already contacted a special education advocacy agency and are going to be strategizing like mad. We're also considering our route of due process in terms of appeals, mediation, hearings. We will fight this, because Kiddo needs the aide for her sensory diet. The thing that kills me is that no one, not a single person on the CSE, says otherwise. They all seem to be in complete agreement that she needs the aide, they just say she doesn't qualify.
We've got five words that say otherwise. I just hope we win.
Kiddo lost her first top tooth yesterday. Well, it wasn't so much lost as finally gave up its struggle and allowed itself to be wrested from her gums. The tooth in question had been sorta loose for a long time, then really loose for a few weeks, and by a week or so ago had moved into ridonkulously loose and yet still hanging on by one stubborn, jagged bit and was giving Kiddo the appearance of some sort of hillbilly yokel of possibly British descent. It stuck out between her lips when her lips were closed, y'all. It was nasty. Sadly, Kiddo has teeth as stubborn as she is - none of the five which've left her head thus far have come out easily. There is adult assistance required each and every time. Two of her teeth came out at school, so I was not the adult providing assistance for them. That was delightful. The other three, sadly, have been home removals, requiring my help. (Hubby utterly refuses to lend a hand in this realm. Seems like a "dad" thing to do, but he won't. Humph.)
I was more concerned about this upper tooth than I'd been for any of the lower, because "hillbilly yokel of possible British descent" is not the look I was hoping for in this year's edition of class photos, which are being taken today. So yesterday, when Kiddo came downstairs after sitting at the breakfast table and wiggling her tooth instead of eating and said "Mom, I think it is ready to come out" I snatched up a Puffs Plus, wrapped it around the tooth and prepared to yank for all I was worth. Seeing that gaping hole in her gumline where Cletus the Slack-Toothed Yokel had been dangling was totally worth any screams, I tell you. (Okay, fine, all screaming was done by me - I'm not a fan of doing anything that draws blood out of my child. Most of the time.)
With her newly remodeled upper jaw, I scrubbed, brushed, dressed and fixed Kiddo up for school today. New dress, new tights, non-sneaker type shoes and new hair accessory to match the outfit, she was ready to go.
The bad news is, today is actually "make up" picture day. The original class picture day was the day Kiddo had her eye surgery. So, we've got one shot at her picture this year. In previous years, we've been lucky. Kiddo's photos have come out well. I think this is because I never had anything less than a wonky, terrible school picture myself in my school picture career, so School Picture Karma therefore dictates that Kiddo should only have phenomenal pictures for her entire school picture career. Right?
When it is actual class picture day, the teachers do their best to keep the kids calm, quiet and clean. Not so much for make up day. Children are rounded up and taken to the auditorium at any point between 10am and 1pm according to the flyer that came home about make up pictures earlier this week. If her picture is at 10am, we should be okay. If it is closer to 1pm, all the karma in the world isn't going to help. With P.E., lunch and outdoor recess on the agenda, I'm pretty much guaranteed to get back a hideous picture this year, especially since we don't have a chance to retake them because this is the retake day.
So we have this tree in our front yard that I've nicknamed the Leafy Bastard. It's a silver maple and it is huge.
The plus side of having a huge silver maple in the front yard is that we have some lovely shade in the summer months, something we never had at our old, virtually shadeless house. The downsides of having a huge silver maple in the front yard include the helicopter seeds that come down in massive quantities for weeks and weeks in the spring, followed by a summer's worth of bird crap all over the driveway (and anything thereupon) and what has happened over the past month. The shedding of the leaves.
Now, having a virtually shadeless yard up until this point in our homeowning lives, we never had to deal with leaf collection and removal. The two ornamental pear trees and one tiny maple at our old house only shed a minimal amount of leaves that were easily mulched in with the lawnmower. Not so the Leafy Bastard.
A few weeks ago, I attempted to rake the seventy-six squillion leaves that LB had dropped all over the front yard.
My next door neighbor kindly lent me her gas-powered leaf blower, and I had a fair amount of fun blowing the leaves towards the front of the yard before raking them to the curb. The residual effect of not being able to feel my arms from the elbow down after leafblowing with such enthusiasm for over an hour was a small price to pay. "Hey, leaf removal isn't so bad!" I thought to myself. Kiddo definitely thinks it is a grand, old time.
So, happy with the leaf containment I had achieved, I congratulated myself heartily on a job well done. Then I woke up and looked out the window the next day. Leafy Bastard had decided to mock my earnest efforts by dumping another seventy-six squillion leaves on the front yard. I'd have thought I dreamed the entire leaf-removing experience except that my ginormous pile was still there at the curb and the blisters were still all over my hands. (Yes, I wore gloves. I shudder to think what my hands would've looked like if I hadn't.)
It wound up taking four full leaf blowing/raking events over a three week period to get the majority of the leaves to the curb. Leafy Bastard. If you think I am being unduly harsh to ole LB, let me tell you this. It turns out that leaves are a serious allergen for my poor,beleaguered eyeballs. All that leaf work culminated in my eyelids swelling to the size of golf balls and my eyes feeling as though they were being stabbed by red hot pokers, along with my vision degrading to the point that I felt like I was seeing the world through heavily Vaselined lenses. I would've taken a picture to show you, but my eyes were getting really sensitive to the light too and I didn't want to kill them with the flash.
After a few days of worsening eye problems, I took myself over to the eye doctor to get 'em checked out. Sure enough, the icky eye disease I dealt with two years ago, GPC, had reoccured, and I also have some SPK going on, and the combination of the two has made a hot mess of corneal badness. (Google the abbreviations if you must, but do so at your own risk because they're both really icky.) For the record, things you don't want to hear while at the eye doctor include "Wow, it looks like someone took sandpaper to your corneas!" and a general sucking in of breath in horror as he gazes in the other side of the machine you're holding your eyes up to for examination. Now I'm back on eye steroid and antibiotic drops and off of my contacts while my corneas heal.
At least this gets me off of leaf-removal duty for the rest of the year. Did I mention we have another huge, leafy silver maple in our back yard?
Our crazy cat has a drinking problem. Her problem, specifically, is that she won't drink just any old water. She prefers to drink from a running source. Now, this was kind of cute at first, the way the tiny kitten would jump into the bowl of the sink when the water was on, but we still tried encouraging her to drink out of a plain, old water bowl just like every other housecat in the world since practically the beginning of time. She clung fast to her peculiarity, stubborn as she is, to the point of constipating and dehydrating herself. Seriously. Following the vet visit during which we learned that no, apparently she wouldn't just drink from her bowl when she got good and thirsty enough, we trotted ourselves over to the pet store and acquired one of those fancy-shmancy, "water fountain" style water bowl gizmos, complete with carbon filter for the purest possible water. The whole set up, plus the ongoing cost of the replacement filters, was not cheap. Hubby grumbled a good deal about it, but we didn't want Crazy Cat getting sick from lack of water.
Well, Crazy Cat didn't like it any more than the non-fountain variety bowl. Nope, apparently *running* water wasn't enough for her, it has to be running water from a tap somewhere in the house. In our old house, we left the sink in the vanity area of the master bedroom on a slow drip. (Sorry, environment and yes, it did affect the water bill, but we didn't want the cat to dehydrate and get sick.) In the new house, I'm happy to say, we've worked out a slightly different system. We don't leave any faucet running 24-7 like we did in the old house. (Yay environment and yay lower water bills!) Instead, when the cat wants a drink of water, she asks for one and we turn on the tap. Her favorite tap in the new house is the laundry room's utility sink.
She'll hop up onto the edge of the sink or the washing machine and meow quite dramatically until one of us responds and turns the tap on for her.
You can't just turn it on, mind you, it has to be done to just the right amount of water pressure. It is a delicate art.
Crazy Cat now will come and get me wherever I may be in the house and lead me down to the laundry room to turn the water on so she can drink, meowing with great purpose the entire time.
Yeah, she's got us right where she wants us. Let's hope she doesn't develop a taste for Evian or mineral water...............
So, my parents came up to visit for the big Halloween weekend festivities. Mom arrived with her year old standard poodle on Thursday, Dad arrived Friday afternoon. Of course, the Halloween festivities had actually started prior to their arrival, with the Halloween party at Hubby's office on Wednesday afternoon:
On Friday, inclement weather forced the school's Halloween parade indoors. All the various parents, grandparents and siblings crammed into the auditorium and the classes paraded through. I sat on the aisle, camera at the ready, and caught this shot:
You'll notice that this particular leopard *does* in fact change her spots. I never did the same spotting pattern twice for all the various costume-requiring activities. Artistic license, yo!
So, I mentioned that my mom brought up her poodle. Well it turns out that the poodle, ginormous as she may be, is scared - petrified, even! - of Kiddo's goldfish, Swimmy. The dog would slink up to the tank and then when the fish would swim over (because to Swimmy, any movement in the vicinity of the tank could bring manna from Heaven in the form of fish flakes, so Swimmy gets verrrrry excited to see things moving about in any close proximity) the dog would jump back and cower, tail between her legs. Heh.
The Halloween festivities continued on into the weekend, with Kiddo attending a friend's costume birthday party Saturday afternoon and then Trick or Treating in our neighborhood Saturday evening. Alas, a little bit later Saturday night, we went from leopard spots to swine flu. Kiddo spiked a fever of 104 and by midday Sunday, I was chilled, feverish and coughing too. Phone calls with the pediatrician's office have concluded that we both have H1N1 (which is running rampant through the school - over 20% of the kids were absent last Wednesday) so now I'm supposed to be monitoring Kiddo for worsening or new symptoms that might indicate a secondary infection and keep her resting comfortably and pushing fluids in the meanwhile. Sadly, without that great pacifier of TV, Kiddo is proving to be a most cranky and recalcitrant patient, which I do not particularly enjoy given that all I want to do is crawl into bed and let Nyquil take me away. Stupid Swine Flu. Hopefully for Hubby's birthday (yes, today marks the beginning of that glorious period where, for exactly six weeks, Hubby and I are the same age. Then I go back to being a year older, sob sob...) we will NOT give him our germs. He's threatening to fly off to Vegas after work, Dad left for work early this morning and my mother and her scaredy-fish poodle have departed for their apparently equally germy homeland of New Jersey (both of my nieces and one of my nephews down in Jersey have H1N1 symptoms as well) so right now the house is merely occupied by Cranky, Achy, Sneezy, Chilly, Fevery, Whiny and Coughy. Trust me, that's plenty of company for the time being.
(Apparently the above is available for sale as a t-shirt - don't know to whom the credit goes but it's not my original design and props to whomever did create it!!)
I was supposed to go to the Zumba class at my local YMCA branch tomorrow morning with a friend of mine. A friend whom I've been wheedling, pleading, begging and otherwise generally nagging into joining me so she can see how fun it is and then want to immediately join the Y so I don't have to go work out alone. (Yes, Hubby belongs to the same Y, and yes, we do sometimes work out at the same time. It is SO not the same thing, though. You see, Hubby likes to *work out* when he's working out, all running at crazy fast speeds on the treadmill and pumping the iron and such. Me, I'm more of a "chit chat while walking at a moderate clip on the elliptical machine" type of worker outer. Hubby doesn't even watch the same things on his little TV that I'm watching, so I can't even make a joke about The View or Regis or Who Wants to be a Millionaire. So, not really the kind of working out at the YMCA companion I'm looking for, my beloved Hubby, and this is why I'm desperately trying to get a friend to do the Y workout thing with me.)
I thought this would be the week. The week that she'd finally go to Zumba with me. I've been working on her for ages now, but one thing or another (her dentist appointment, my kid's eye surgery...) kept getting in the way. This was going to be it. I was so sure of it that I bought myself a cinnamon streusel friedcake donut from Wegmans earlier tonight. I went to Wegmans to buy every hair-related product I could find with tea tree oil extract in it because I hear lice don't like tea tree oil and today for the second time in a month, we got a letter from the nurse that head lice has been confirmed on at least one kid's head in Kiddo's class (though Kiddo's head was checked and is clean *KNOCKING WOOD SO LOUDLY YOU PROBABLY CAN HEAR IT ALL THE WAY AT YOUR HOUSE, WHEREVER IN THE WORLD YOU ARE RIGHT NOW*) but of course, getting to the Nature's Marketplace groovy organic section means walking straight past the bakery. Did I ignore the siren call of the cinnamon streusel friedcake donuts? Of course I didn't, because I am GOING TO ZUMBA tomorrow. At least that's what I told myself, Kiddo and the random lady standing next to us at the donut display as I was reaching for the bakery bag, although out of the three of us, I think only Kiddo actually believed me. But I *WAS* going to be going, because my friend was going to be going too, so I couldn't POSSIBLY slack off, stay home in my jammies, reading one of the SEVEN, count them, SEVEN books I brought home from the library today, eating donuts and NOT going to Zumba.This was how I would overcome my PMS and sore neck and shoulders from spending eleventy million hours hanging clothes on racks two feet above my head in the past two days doing volunteer slave labor at the PTSA SuperSale set up and my warm jammies and snuggly fleecy blanket and cinnamon streusel donut who will all, no doubt, conspire against my showering before 6:30am, wrestling my way into a sports bra, cramming my bloated midsection into exercise appropriate clothing (deepest, darkest confession: a few weeks ago I went in a pair of pajama bottoms because I couldn't find a clean pair of yoga pants and because most of my yoga pants are more often worn for pajama purposes, not actual yoga anyhow.
Really - this is me that particular day. I photographed myself when I got home from Zumba class:
That was me setting the timer and approximating a Zumba maneuver - action shot!) See, now all of those things, conspire as they may (will?) tomorrow, would not vanquish me because I had a friend going with me, forcing me to be good and go no matter how much I don't want to in the morning. A FRIEND. Meeting me there.
Until she emailed me just now and said she can't, because she has a sick kid of the barfing variety in her house.
Le sigh.
I started to write back to her, to explain all of this, all the conspirators ganging up on my flimsy, flabby resolve, how she was the *one thing* that allowed me to get that donut (which, seriously, is probably enough calories to undo any good an hour of me sweating my rear off at Zumba might do) and how she was the *one thing* that was going to ensure my attendance at tomorrow's class.
But then, I realized it wasn't fair to my dear, sweet friend to hold her responsible for my health, well being and food - even donut - choices would make a better blog post, so I deleted that email and here I am blogging away now.
I've been meaning to post about Zumba for ages now. Have you heard of Zumba? I hadn't until I first walked past a class at our old Y before we moved last spring. I've since done extensive research a quick googling and discovered Zumba is, in fact, some sort of worldwide exercise craze. There are tons of clips of people Zumbaing available on Youtube, for example..
Look - it is a worldwide phenomenon, this video even says so:
Okay, I admit it - I didn't realize it was an actual revolution until I saw that last video clip. I mean, the only revolting going on that I've been aware of is the revolution of spandex and lycra and elastic in my clothes against the body they're attempting to contain and/or cover. And the class I take doesn't remotely resemble either of those clips, except for some of the moves and music. Let's just say that the demographics are a little bit different in my neck of the suburbs.
For example, the average age of the participant at my Wednesday morning class is a lot closer to 70 than 20. Hardly any midriff-baring tops are worn (except by one dogged old dame who seems to think that you're only as young as you dress, and dagnabit, she's going to wear the rolled-down-waistband pants and sports-bra-baring, cropped tops like she is still a lithe 16 year old) and hardly anyone has been able to master the moves. Did you catch that arm maneuver in the first video with the two hottish chicks who look NOTHING like anyone in my Zumba class (except perhaps the instructor)? The one where the arm is raised, does a circle-y, whippy thing down and then up again? We have done that move in my class. And by "we" I mean "everyone other than Heather" because in my case, by "done" I mean "flailed around wildly like an alien imitating an arthritic New Yorker trying to hail a cab in vain" 'cause my arms just don't do that.
I just don't - or can't - do a lotmost any of the Zumba moves. All the step-ball-changes and jazz squares and whatnot that utterly eluded me back in my high school musical-participating days as well as cardio classes going back to the very first Jane Fonda aerobics tapes we did for gym in high school through the step aerobics craze of the early 90s and on to today......... still elude me. Age may have brought me wisdom (and a slower-than-a-turtle metabolism plus a generous sprinkling of wiry, silver "highlights") but it hasn't brought me any better a grasp on basic dance steps. Alas.
Not that this stops me, mind you. I may not look like a hot, young thing shaking my booty for all I'm worth (which, by the way, is one Wegmans bakery cinnamon streusel donut. Just sayin'...) but neither are any of the other class participants! They're all, at best, only slightly better than me. Some of the older broads don't even attempt the Zumba moves. They just sort of gently sway and shuffle and occasionally lift an arm into the air. Some of them don't even do that - they just come, stand there, chat, move once in a while, then go have a swig from their sports bottles and towel off. So even in my worst Zumba mess-ups (like, say, when we're supposed to be doing some sort of convoluted turning maneuver with arm motions and feet motions and hip motions, and during which I invariably, consistently manage to wind up out of sync with the rest of the class and thereby facing them all since they at least can manage to, you know, turn in the right direction to the beat) I'm not that bad. I find them funny, usually, and wind up cracking myself up regularly. I also seem to be highly entertaining to the various patrons of the Y who pause in the doorway with regularity to watch for a while. They get a good view of me as I always position myself at the back of the room, closest to the door which is also closest to the giant fans mounted halfway up the wall. Thankfully, our class meets in the gymnasium, which means no walls of mirrors to reflect my sweaty, panting redfacedness over and over to everyone.
So, why do I love Zumba so much, if it kicks my behind and I can't possibly do the moves properly? I do enjoy all the moves I can't do and they are a refreshing change of pace from any other cardio-aerobic type class I've ever taken. Zumba involves a lot of different genres in the moves - everything from samba and tango to hip hop and belly dancing. Even if I can't do the moves, they're still fun to attempt. One of the biggest reasons, though, is the music. The Zumba music is really fun. Our instructor (who is fantastic, by the way!) mixes the music and the routines up each week, and the songs range from crazy, Latin remixed mashups of 80s classics like Walk Like an Egyptian to mixes of songs that are apparently popular these days. (Not that I'd necessarily know them, mind you, as my knowledge of current music is limited to the occasional five minutes of VH1 and MTV viewing in the mornings. I mean, come on, I referenced the freaking Spice Girls in my post title, for crying out loud. Current is not my middle name.) Just the other day, we were all huffing and puffing and swaying away to a song when I actually began listening to the lyrics and realized that the singer was exhorting all the shawties to go burn up the dance floor. This had me doubled over in a paroxysm of mirth (which undoubtedly could have been mistaken for the onset of a major myocardial infarction) as there was no one in this room besides perhaps the teacher that would ever, ever be addressed as "Shawty" although it was true that the chafing action my thighs were producing in my pajama bottoms posing as exercise wear definitely would qualify as burning up...
So, anyhow, that's the story of Heather and Zumba. It nearly kills me each week, but I do enjoy the class enough to keep going back. Although it would be so much better to go with a friend, I must say. You know who you are....... But don't worry, I'll try to overcome those conspirators of comfort and laziness and get myself there, all alone, again, tomorrow. Wonder if Hubby could be persuaded to do Zumba with me...?
If you're Kiddo's godmother (and my BFF), you give her these. As a "feel better soon" kind of present, mind you.
Yep, those are gumballs in the shape of bloody eyeballs.
Kiddo thinks they're hilarious.
(That's Kiddo, her godmother, the bloody eyeball gumballs, one of the books her godmother brought her and Merlin the Halloween cat, who is apparently related to Jack, the Halloween cat Kiddo got from her godmother a couple Halloweens ago.)
So, our first full day of movement-restricted, post-surgical convalescence is now 14 minutes from over. Okay, technically it ended for Kiddo about 4 hours ago, but still. She is doing remarkably well overall, I think, given that just yesterday she was under general anesthesia and having surgery and all.
She did *not* sleep in and in fact was up by 6:10 when Hubby was heading out the door for work. I had been pulling for a "sleep in until at least 9 or 10" kind of morning, mostly because I was tired enough to sleep in until at least 9 or 10 myself, but no such luck. Flipping on the TV in my room and trying to roll over and go back to sleep while she watched Disney channel didn't buy me many more Zs either. Nope, Kiddo was all about getting herself set up on the couch in the family room so she could watch DVDs. (With the movement restrictions mandated by her doctor, Kiddo's usual strict limitations on "screen time" have temporarily been lifted and she is watching as much TV as she wants, so long as she's doing so while chilling out quietly on the couch.) Well, she mostly wanted to watch one DVD in particular.
This one:
I had picked this up almost as an afterthought when I was frantically scanning the shelves at Blockbuster looking for movies that (a) Kiddo hasn't seen, (b) were longer than 22 minutes, (c) were not objectionable in any way according to my admittedly puritanical judgment scale. I saw Garfield grinning up at me from a box on the lower shelf and grabbed it because Kiddo has developed quite a love for Garfield in comic book form ever since she discovered a few of my Garfield cartoon collection books sometime last year. She thoroughly enjoyed the Garfield Christmas special when I DVRed it in December, so I figured she might get a kick out of the DVD and added it to my pile.
She has now watched this DVD enough in the past 24 hours to have the dialogue, scene order and likely the closing credits memorized. And yet, she wants to watch it again. And again. And again.
Now, I've been a Garfield fan myself since I was a kid. (Side note: Garfield debuted back in 1978.) I mean, those are *my* Garfield books that Kiddo has appropriated, after all. I have watched pieces of the DVD (hard to avoid it when it's playing nonstop on our largest TV) and will confess to chuckling aloud a few times. But, still. This is not the height of comedy, folks. It's a talking cat. How many times can one human being watch the same talking cat cartoon over and over before one goes a little bit nuts? Four is the number, if you're asking about one's mother.
When the repeated viewings of Garfield and Co had hit the upper limits of my sanity threshold, I suggested a different means of entertainment, namely, playing princesses with me on the family room floor. Kiddo got a castle and all the Disney princess figurines to go with it for her birthday two years ago, except for Snow White. Well, as a "hey, I feel lousy that you have to go through all this" kind of a post-surgery present, I picked up the Snow White (who, by the by, is much more Snow Tan than Snow White) that matched the rest of the set and Kiddo was over the moon with Snow's arrival (even better that she came accompanied by bonus Dopey and Grumpy figures) when I showed her the set the night before her surgery. So, Kiddo was content to play princesses, with one teeny-tiny problem:
Those are Snow White's shoes, as held by Kiddo's not-abnormally-large, 6 year old hand. They're raisin sized and skinny and a total PITA to put on to the princesses' feet. Moreover, they're impossible to put on if you are experiencing double vision from recent eye surgery. That meant it fell to me, Man Hands Mommy, to repeatedly jam teeny-tiny princess piggies into teeny-tiny high heels. I don't even jam my own piggies into great, big heels, for Pete's sake. Haven't these girls heard of Birkenstocks? Perhaps a nice, sensible clog? After the assorted princesses had made like Cinderella one too many times and lost yet another shoe, I convinced Kiddo to let them just go barefoot since they were in the family room which has lovely, new carpeting after all.
Garfield and ridiculously minuscule footwear aside, Kiddo had some ups and downs today. Downs include the persisting double vision, eye pain and headaches (though, true to her general good spirited nature, she was joking on the phone to my mother about how she could see "all four of her feet" and how she was so happy to have "two cats" instead of one.) The two biggest downs include the having to stay still, calm and quiet (which, seriously, could someone please order me to lounge on the couch in my jammies, tucked under a fleece blanket with total dominion over the TV and someone to fetch me snacks and ginger ale? Please?) which is especially hard for my SPD kid, and the eyedrops. The steroid/antibiotic eyedrops that must be administered by me four times a day in each eye.
You wouldn't think that something as small as this:
could produce so much misery. Misery on both our parts, mind you. Kiddo gets her full-fledged freakout going on as soon as my hand approaches the airspace above her head with the bottle poised for action. Misery on my part because DANG, that bottle is small. (I photographed it with an ordinary sized pen and paper clip for reference. Note that is my tres cool, official Nanny Goats in Panties pen, courtesy of the ever-fantabulous Margaret.) The bottle is so small that it is virtually impossible to carefully squeeze out one drop into the squirming, blinking, bloody eyeball of the squirming, blinking, screaming bloody murder kid. I certainly don't want to miss, either, because those eyedrops are apparently made out of fairy wings, pixie dust and hens' eyeteeth. Or possibly gold, diamonds and George Clooney's cell phone number. Whatever they're made of, they're danged expensive and I'm not willing to waste them by spritzing them willy-nilly into the general direction of Kiddo's head in the hopes that a veritable rain shower of medicine might inadvertently make its way into her eyes in something akin to the proper dosage.
So, yeah, that? Not the fun part. Even less fun is how her tears are blood right now. Okay, fine, technically they're just bloody, not actual straight blood, but the effect is still quite disconcerting despite all the advance warning from helpful surgical staff. Also staining - Kiddo's pillowcase has some icky spots on it now, as does the shirt I was wearing yesterday.
Now then, let's talk about the ups. Kiddo has had several phone calls and emails from folks wanting to check up on her, and has felt well enough to take some of the calls in person. Kiddo loves to talk on the phone anytime for any reason, so having calls *specifically for her* is a huge thrill. She also spoke with her surgeon last night when he called to follow up on her. I don't think he speaks to many of his actual patients when he makes such calls, being a pediatric eye doctor and all, but Kiddo heard me say hello to him and requested a word. She gave him several, specifically "You know, I did NOT like what you did to my eyes, because now they're bloody and they hurt and I do not EVER want you to do that to them EVER again." Heh.
Kiddo also has had some visitors. Her in-town grandma came over yesterday and today her aide from school came over, bringing a lovely, large card that Kiddo's classmates made her. Kiddo also had a visit from one of her Daisy troop friends who lives a few blocks from us and with whom Kiddo plays during recess just about every day. She walked over with her mom and younger sister, and they came bearing get-well gifts to boot. (Who doesn't love presents? My kid sure does!) They baked us some delicious apple bread (which Kiddo and I both enjoyed during her dinner), lent Kiddo some books with tapes so she can listen while she's reading (though she was getting frustrated with the difficulty her vision was giving her with reading earlier today) and brought us the most beautiful bouquet of flowers. I had far greater appreciation for the flowers than Kiddo did, but I guess that's to be expected when one of us is six and more into endless viewings of Garfield and Odie and the other of us is closing in on 38 and has had more experience in the realm of bouquets. One can never have too many flowers, I don't think... at least I never have!
I'll leave you with a shot of the patient, listening to Howard Jones on her iPod (yes, along with appropriating my comic books from the 80s, she's also appropriated my 80s music) as she ate her orzo in chicken broth and a slice of apple bread for dinner, sitting at the table with the flowers:
Here's a close up of the flowers, because they're beautiful enough to warrant their own close up. Despite being meant for Kiddo, they really brightened up my afternoon!
At least they'll be something to look forward to when Kiddo invariably wakes up too, too early again tomorrow and wants me to get up, too... or maybe I could just put the Garfield DVD in now and let it run so that it's playing when she gets up...
We're home! The surgeon said it went very well. Kiddo is really, *really* miserable now. Her eyes hurt, her throat hurts from the intubation, she's vomiting... She's groggy but not so groggy that she is out of it and unaware of what's going on, so in true Stubborn Kid form, she's refusing to just go to bed and sleep it off. Instead, she's on the couch in the family room, tucked in with a contingent of her Stuffed Animal Entourage, a cool washcloth over her eyes, "watching" a DVD.
I'm so glad it is over and really hoping the healing goes well and completely and this surgery worked. She poked herself in the eye(lid) in the recovery room with the straw as she was leaning forward to sip some water, so now my overactive and extremely overtired imagination is envisioning complications from that. I am in dire need of sleep and food, having had neither of both since yesterday. Need to make sure she's okay first though.
The doctors, nurses and OR staff were all talking amongst themselves about how awesome a patient Kiddo was - cheerful, cooperative and extremely polite. She even used her manners when she was coming out of the anesthesia, demanding quite politely that they take the IV out and get her mom and dad using lots of "please"s. Heh. We also had a surprise visit from one of the other nurses there, who is the mom of one of Kiddo's friends from preschool. She came in to say hi and chat before the surgery and stopped by in the recovery room as well.
Thank you to everyone around the globe who said a prayer and thought good thoughts for us. It was very much appreciated!
In nine and a half hours, we'll be leaving our house to take Kiddo for her eye surgery. I have been a bit of a total nervous wreck about this for a few days now. It got to the point where I couldn't even respond to an email, Facebook comment or tweet about it without tearing up if not actually breaking down into sobs.
Fortunately, around midday today, I found these:
And then I cowboyed up...
and I managed to otherwise pull myself together so that by the time Kiddo came home from school, not only was I able to hold up my end of pleasant but mindless chitchat with our neighbors as Kiddo went around our street selling Girl Scout Cookies, but I was able to explain to her about where she's going tomorrow instead of school (for School Picture day *and* Domino's Pizza Day, nonetheless) and what's going to transpire. Whew.
Still, despite my big girl panties and my cowboying up, I'm still going to be extremely glad when it is this time tomorrow and the surgery is behind us. Sigh. I've got a pile of books, DVDs and books on CD ready and waiting, as well as a list of folks who've offered to come by to visit the patient once she's up to it and a few new toys and arts and crafts things for when her vision is improved enough that she can play. I want to get to that point of the recovery and be beyond the dreading and the counting down and the waiting.
So, in all seriousness, please, if you are a praying sort of person, would you say a prayer for us tomorrow morning around 8:30am? I won't detail the nightmares I had last night or the even worse thoughts that ran through my head as I lay awake in between them, but suffice it to say my ridiculously overactive imagination is running haywire with the thoughts of scalpels and eyeballs and anesthesia and the bad things that can happen... So, please, say a prayer or send out good thoughts or whatever it is you might be able to do, because we'll need it.
Updates to come post-surgery... Also, if you want to buy some Girl Scout cookies, I know a kid who is about to be very brave and strong who is selling some...
This is Teddy. Teddy is an 18 month old Cocker Spaniel. Kiddo's honorary grandparents adopted him about a month ago. Kiddo's grandpa had to go to the hospital unexpectedly earlier this week for emergency spinal surgery. (He's doing very well and is expected to go home this weekend.) So, Teddy came to stay with us on Tuesday night for a few days.
Teddy loves his squeaky alligator toy. Kiddo picked it out for him as a present and gave it to him that first weekend he came home from the animal shelter.
Did I mention the alligator squeaks? It has two different squeakers inside. One is loud and sustained, the other louder and sustained-er.
He also loves his toy Kong. It doesn't squeak, but it is irregularly shaped (kinda like me) and heavy (ditto) and bounces unpredictably when it lands (ditto again), so not the best toy for playing Fetch in the house.
He loves to play Fetch. Especially with the squeaky alligator.
Kiddo loves Teddy and thinks dogsitting is a fantabulous thing. Hubby loves the dog and has taken him running in the evenings after dinner. I love him because he makes me get out of the house and exercise, and because I look less crazy when I'm walking around and talking aloud since when he's there, I'm not talking to myself, I'm talking to the dog.
The crazy cat is the one member of the family who is not so fond of the dog. She's decided that avoidance is the best policy, along with sitting just out of reach and glaring a lot, plus major hissing whenever he gets too close. She's not peeing on anything other than her kitty litter yet, though, so that seems to be a good sign. (*knock wood*)
Teddy is not crazy. He's mellow, well behaved, doesn't bite or chew on things, doesn't bark much (except at the cat), doesn't seem to shed and is crate trained. He loves to just be where the people are. Even, it turns out, when where the people are is in the shower. * Being as near-sighted as I am, at first I thought I'd missed a spot while shaving near my ankles. Whew, close one.
I haven't been to the gym much this week, but I have been going for 2 or 3 long walks each day, along with lots of hurry up and pee so we can go back inside because it's dark and cold and drizzling and I'm freezing, shorter walks.
When we get a dog of our own (and that seems a foregone conclusion), it will be *after* we fence the back yard in so that doggy business can be conducted without the need for hurry up and pee so we can go back inside because it's dark and cold and drizzling and I'm freezing walks in the early mornings or later evenings. Also so Kiddo can play Fetch outdoors with the dog without worry of him spotting a squirrel and taking off for Parts Unknown.
Speaking of Fetch - gotta get back to it. For more Phriday Photo Phiesta Phun, be sure to drop by Candid Carrie's!
* About the shower: yes, I know it is hideous and horrible. The pink tile - ugh. The grey and pink tile floor - double ugh. The stained, grotty grout - quintuple ugh. Kindly just notice the cute dog and not the rest of it, mmmkay? Thanks.
Seventeen years ago today, I went on my last, first date.
We went to dinner and then to see this movie, which was opening that week.
This is us back when we'd been dating about six months. (Can't find any earlier pictures of us already scanned in and ready, and not awake enough to try to figure out how to use our brand-spankin' new scanner...)
...and us on our most recent vacation, one month ago. Times have changed in the past seventeen years, but I'm still really, really glad I went on that last, first date!
Will it ever stop tugging at my heartstrings to see my kid taking her leave of me?
Don't get me wrong - I am perfectly happy to let her go. Thrilled, most mornings. I couldn't wait for her to leave this morning, as she was cranky and copping a major attitude. I can confidently assure you of my heartfelt wish that the bus arrive NOW after an hour and a half of the eye rolling, selective hearing (seriously: she was looking right at me as I clearly and crisply enunciated the words "Please clear your plate right now" and all she did was continue to look at me, utterly blankly, as though my mouth had not just opened and her native language poured forth) and "Whatevering" that was tossed my way, not to mention the hands on the hips, dramatically heaved sighs coupled with mutterings under her breath and the occasional "Mo-ooom!" for that final, finishing touch to completely stomp all over my very. last. nerve. Hoo boy, was I ready for her to head off to school and leave me in the relative peace and quiet of the house.
And yet... watching those skinny, little legs poking out from under the ginormous, Princess backpack disappear up the steps and onto the bus, and then seeing the tiny, tiny hand waving goodbye and flashing the "I Love You" sign out the window, even as her face turned away and she began merrily chatting with her seatmate.... tug, tug, tug on the heartstrings once again. Gets me every time.
So, she's in first grade now. I'll be totally over the tugging at the heartstrings by middle school, right? High school? College? *sniff* I'm the tiniest bit afraid I won't be, and also the tiniest bit afraid that I will.
As a SAH mom, I consider it both my job and my privilege to be able to volunteer my time with Kiddo-related things. Thursday morning, I returned home from my first PTSA meeting at the new school, calendar bursting with dates of various things I'd volunteered to do or help with over the coming months. I had a voicemail from the woman who is the Girl Scouts coordinator for the school. You see, Kiddo really wanted to do Girl Scouts last year, but the Daisy troop for her kindergarten met much too late in the evening for her to be able to participate, so she couldn't do it. After we moved this summer, we inquired about Daisy troops at her new school and learned there was one (and it meets right after school!), so we signed Kiddo up.
Well. The woman was calling me to explain that there are too many girls for the existing troop and that there are enough girls to form a second troop for the first grade. The only thing is....
she didn't have any parent willing to step up and be the leader for this new troop. She had a few different moms who were willing to "help out" but no one who'd say "I will be the leader." Without a leader, there could be no new troop.
Now, I was in Girl Scouts for several years myself. I started as a Brownie (we didn't have Daisies back in the olden days when I was a kid) and made it up through Cadet before other extracurricular activities took up too much of my time and I gave up Scouting. (Never fear; I still was involved in my church youth group *and* the 4-H sheep club, so I retained my Nerd Credentials all the way through high school.) I loved Scouting, despite being horribly unpopular among my fellow troopmates (well, I was horribly unpopular in general, I just mean that it wasn't like the other girls in my troop and I were BFFs because we did Girl Scouts together). I liked earning badges and learning all the new things that went with them. I liked the camping each summer. I even liked selling the cookies (which were *way* cheaper back in those days, holy heck). I am pretty sure Kiddo would enjoy Girl Scouts, and she was really sad when the girls in her class last year would talk about their troop - it seemed at times that there was a clique (yes, a clique in kindergarten, ugh) made of the girls who were in the Daisy troop, and knowing that Kiddo was excluded and wanted to be included made me kinda sad. Kiddo would be at times wistful, upset or plain mad that there was fun stuff going on in the Daisies and she couldn't participate.
So, I did it. I said "Sure, I'll lead the new troop!" I've got an organizational meeting this morning and a training meeting Monday night. Kiddo is very excited that I'm going to be the Daisy Troop leader. I just need to be able to hand the troop over to someone else in a few years, when camping enters the picture............
Anyone out there a Daisy Scout Troop leader? If so, I'd welcome any resources or links you find useful that you could share! I've already picked my aunt's brain; she's been involved in Scouting for a long time and is quite high up in the leadership ranks for her region (sadly, she's down in NJ so about six hours away...) I've also asked the mom who is the leader of the current troop for any assistance she can lend me in getting this new troop up and running. Hopefully, it will be fun for the girls and for me!
Oh, and apparently the Daisies can sell cookies, so if you have a hankering for some delicious and not-at-all overpriced Girl Scout cookies later this fall, you know where to come for all your Thin Mint needs!
I've been married to my best friend for almost 15 years, and have been a SAH mom for the past 6 and a half. Kiddo became a part of our family the same way I became part of my family - through domestic, independent adoption. We live in upstate NY, though I'm originally a Jersey Girl. I grew up on a working farm (as NJ is the Garden State, after all). We share our home with a crazy cat and Kiddo's gigantic, carny goldfish. In my pre-SAHM life, I worked for a nonprofit agency in vocational rehabilitation for people with disabilities. For the past six years, I've worked at mastering the art of Play-Doh sculpture, relearning the names of all the dinosaurs and getting reacquainted with Dr. Seuss and the Disney canon. I also read 3 or 4 (non-picture) books a week, watch too much TV, don't get out to see nearly enough movies as I did in the pre-Kiddo days and spend a lot of time hanging out on the internet. I haven't quite figured out what it is that I want to do next now that Kiddo is in school full days - that's my present dilemma. I wonder if George Clooney needs a personal assistant...?
Posts
http://www.getthebean.com/
