Monthly Archives: May 2010

It should be that we have more songs for the summer holidays. I don’t remember song lyrics without singing them 9 millions times. Christmas carols are lodged in my brain, mostly. Memorial Day is such a good day, a good holiday. But thinking about what it means for veterans, for Americans, for families – it is harder to remember the purpose and not just thinking 3 day weekend! Woohoo! Oh, look, they have a sale on summer gear. Let’s go! Shiny.

Everyone had a whiny day here. It probably would have been better if we had woken up early, gone to a parade, visited a cemetery.  All of our beloved dead are not buried anywhere around here. And maybe it would be just as meaningful to pay homage in the abstract to the honored dead who made our casual freedom boring and soft. Isn’t that we all want, the boring freedom, when you worry about jobs and grocery sales and good schools?  When I read a book about the start of a war, I hate the idea of losing that carefree freedom. The horror of war sound, well, horrible, but having to narrow life’s focus to merely surviving.  Keeping your children safe, quiet, fed, dry. The agonies. The incredible agonies.

This long view should make our day of whining and crying and grumpiness more bearable? Less possible? Who am I fooling? I do hope today was a blip and not a view of summer boredom. I filled out the calendar, trying to sketch in all of the places we’ve agreed to be for the next 3 months. First, I have to say Rob knows how to fill in Saturday after Saturday. Second of all, we’ve made the children the Disney deal – if we walk the 1228 miles it takes to go Orlando (over the next 2 years) we can fly there. And the only way we’ll get there in the 2 mile increments the children walk is if we don’t just walk on Sundays. I should take the kids nearly every day. And the bright and outrageous early summer we had complete with 90 degree weather makes me not want to. I spent all winter truly lamenting living in the frozen tundra. I don’t like it that cold. And this warm spell makes me say I don’t like it this hot.  Seeking tepid mild temperatures. I suppose then I’d miss fall or some darn fool thing.

Soon it will be June. June is pretty jam-packed. July is pretty full with the options to make it more full. August is blank slate.  A week of swimming for Miranda. A week in Door County for all of us. And that’s it. No t-ball, no summer classes. We’ll have to break out the museums and zoos.  And visit the local pool.

Henry came home from school today and the first thing he said was, I cut my pants at school. I was cutting and my pants got cut. I didn’t know that could happen.

The shorts (the weather is finally nice enough for shorts!) have a small cut about 8 inches from the waistband. Lucky he didn’t catch any skin, I guess.

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Bella continues with the flop on the floor and kick and scream temper tantrums. She even follows you from chair to chair or room to room when you try the sensible course of ignoring it. I think they frustrate her nearly as much as they frustrate me. I hope she learns to talk soon.

She flopped face first in the sand yesterday. She came up with a mouth full of sand, indignation and confusion.

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Miranda did a perfect dive in her swimming lesson tonight. She came home floating on a cloud. After spending so much time consoling her when she isn’t happy with her swimming and reminding her that swimming is going to get harder before it gets easier, it is hard for me to remember to just be happy when she’s happy. I have to work on that. And she’ll be happier to try the next dive.

I hope you’ve found your way here. I moved the blog again. Why do I do this? I used to change the homepage that had the link to the blog. And now I haven’t. But I do update the blog (sometimes). And someone told me that I can make a static front page for the blog, so that might happen. Or not.

Right now the old blog address has an oops link, which isn’t correct. But WordPress often doesn’t want to do what Iwant it to do, in the way I expect it to do it.

In other news…

T-Ball begins tomorrow. Henry is excited. Don’t remind him that he only king of liked t-ball last year.

Miranda has been having headaches. So often and so loudly that I have considered they are, well, in her head. But the pediatrician suggests we look at TMJ. So we’ll try that route.

Arabella wants to give up her nap. Her mid-morning or afternoon nap, she was already down to one. She thinks if she eats, she doesn’t need to sleep. But she’s awfully grumpy. Until she lies down, then she finds a rainbow and it pulls her out of bed with a giant smile on her face. 20 months. Oh my.

In happy news, Daria comes out of video (DVD? digital format in 1 easy package? What do we call things anymore? Do musicians make albums? records?) tomorrow. I love Daria. I think it was the first show that I watched on MTV, and I was old (for MTV) when that happened. I considered naming Miranda and Henry and Arabella “Daria.” Rob’s birthday is coming up. I wonder if he’d like the set?

Happy Cinco De Mayo! I think it is a loss, not the Mexican revolution? Holidays in other countries make so little sense in the context of the American story.

A note to people developing products that they will advertise by email – or a note to Build-a-Bear workshop: Velvet Teddies sets off spam filters. And smut filters.

This is Media Awareness Week at the kids’ school. Be aware of the TV/video game/computers you watch/play/use. Try to do less.  The message resonates loudly in kindergarten. Henry rushed home from school today and immediately put a yellow piece of caution (Cuidad – they are studying Mexico this week. It seems like brilliant synergy) on the living room TV. As soon as the tape was in place, he went into the family room and turned on the TV.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

I have largely recovered from the horrible terrible allergy attack on Sunday. Oak or maybe box elder is to blame, I guess. I should keep track of this. I decided to ask the allergist about immunotherapy today. And soon I will start 2 shots a week. And maybe a year from now, I’ll know if it works.

May Day! How did it get to be May? Where are the communist parades? I read one of the Mrs. Pollifax mysteries and its Cold War details were charming and historical.  I suppose that happens all the time – the huge thing that seems so huge, it just vanishes or fades away and calling someone comrade isn’t even a meaningful insult any longer.

I am mostly amused these days. Except about the pollen. Damn pollen. Spring allergies are here. Boo! And with it, I feel like I am going to die before I ever recover. I wonder if in addition to the histamine reaction and the leukotrienes being modified if the serotonin levels in my brain dip? In the last few years I have really noticed how hopeless I feel when I am sick.  I can usually tell the gloom is descending, and it lifts when the snot stops.

Bella, poor Bella. She is suffering from whatever tree is blooming right now. We are in sync. I don’t think I’ll hema nd haw as I did with the odler kids about an allergist visit. Henry is much better on the Singulair – his head is not clogged. But his allergic symptoms without an acute allergic reaction has always made me a bit suspicious. Bella, she has the dripping nose and she’s rubbing her eyes and she is not eating well. All in the last 18 hours. Same as my timing, which makes me doubt we’re sharing a cold. Those seems to cascade around here  rather than hit with brute force at one time.

Bella is perfecting the temper tantrum. The lay down on the floor and kick. The follow me from room to room until one of us gets distracted sufficiently. I think she is frustrated that she can’t talk. This is such a  novel problem I am speechless. Miranda didn’t speak until later and when she did speak it was very hard to understand what she meant. But she was rarely frustrated. I learned to say she was frustrated to get speech therapy services (because I was frustrated and she probably was, even if she didn’t show it). Henry didn’t talk and didn’t care about talking and then one day, he did care. And he started talking.  Bella grunts expressively. She points. She touches things and then other things and convinces you she really wants that cookie -not not that one, that one! ! !

I have mostly convinced myself that I am going to wait her out. We’ve watched her ears more closely than Miranda, she she is hearing us. But I feel so bad for her, unable to make the words come out. C’mon language explosion. We’d liek to see you. Stat! ! !

When Bella isn’t adding drama to our living room…which she does by throwing tantrums and then making the same noise when she is stuck on a chair. So the first time, you hear wah wah wah! She is yelling. And we are taking the ignore the tantrum approach.  Calm calm calm. Pat her back. Then she wonders away happily. Eats something. And then another tantrum. Really, Bella, again? And this time, she’s on a dining room chair and she wants to go down. She isn’t even yelling Moooommmm! My favorite is when Mom is pronounced to rhyme with come and means Mom! Come!

In other news, I was using voice recognition software to type in a pages and pages of a work-related project.  And even after 17 times, when the computer thinks you said cheeses instead of Jesus, I laugh. And my dad could hear me talking. Maybe the occasional giggle. He asks my mom what I’m doing. She explains. At lunch he says something about those darn computer systems and I should just talk to a person. Huh? I said. It seems obvious to him that I was trying to talk to a computer and it would be better to just call a person and not a computer. Huh? I said. Computers taking peoples jobs. Huh? I said. I am typing…well, I am trying to get out of typing so I am talking. I did agree I could hire a typist, but she would probably make more than I do. It could be argued that I am the typist, but let’s just say typist will never appear on my resume as it is not one of my top Skills. He was still unsure who I was talking to.  And I was still unsure how to explain what I was doing. Other than not subcontracting this project.

Miranda thought that the voice recognition was hilarious. It is. She quickly produced nearly a full page of mostly nonsensical text. And she has her own email account now, so watch out world.