Snow White

The first message I read this morning when I signed into the EMR was that the office was closing pre-emptively on Wednesday due to the snowstorm heading this way.  That was 8:45 am.

By early afternoon, Steve called the office to let me know that Micah's school was also planning on closing tomorrow.

And finally at around 9 pm tonight an email came from Thea's school with the same message.

I haven't even checked to see if there is any snow even falling, yet.

Princeton University hasn't joined in the snow closures; the university thinks itself above snow and is willing to let its employees risk driving in bad weather conditions or take leave.

I just heard the sound of tires crunching on snow.

Snowy Weekend

 

Saturday Morning

 

Sunday Morning

Thea: Mommy, we're making a spider web.

 Me: Oh, are you going to be like Charlotte in Charlotte's Web?

Thea: No, we're wild, poisonous spiders.

Micah: And we're going to drink your blood!

Nice.

 

 The Web as a Work-in-Progress

  

 The Finished Version of the Web

What wild, poisonous spiders do when their web is finished

 

 

Lunar New Year, Round 1 - Photos

YingHua International School's

Lunar New Year Performance

Princeton Senior Center - February 5, 2010

Waiting to Perform:  Michelle, Jonathan and Thea

 

Upper Grades and PreKs/Ks

 

Thea with Kalani and Shubhan

Midnight Faceplant

Last night shortly after 12 I woke to the sound of Micah crying from a location not on the bed.  He must have woken, started looking for Bunny Bear, found BB on the floor and then reached to grab him and fallen out of bed and onto his face.  Hugs, kisses, Bunny Bear placed in his arms, back in bed.

I didn't know the extent of the damage until I went off to the bathroom turned on the light and saw my t-shirt covered in blood.  Back in the bedroom, now with the light on, Micah looked like a baby vampire after a late night snack and it was a little bit of a challenge to find where the blood was coming from - I was worried about a through-and-through bite on the lip or something that would mean our 2010 trip to the ER was underway.  It was a bloody nose, and had stopped bleeding already.  He was incensed that I wanted to wash his face and examine his mouth, teeth and nose, but fell back to sleep pretty quickly.

The nights I try to got to bed early and get at good night's sleep just never seem to work out.

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Still semi-fervently praying for snow in quantities large enough to close the office on Saturday, and starting after I get to the grocery store (with all the other snow-panicked hordes) to pick up milk and a few other things.

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The little madame is dressed for her performance.  She's chosen last year's golden dragon costume and will be holding her new blue costume in reserve for the fundraiser next week.  Smart kid.  Unfortunately she wants to wear the blue silk shoes that go with the new outfit with today's ensemble.  I will resist cringing.  We're off to the Princeton Senior Center for the first dress rehearsal of YingHua's LNY show. . . .

Snow

I heard today that the weather forecast calls for snow Saturday.  Supposedly, a lot of snow.  And writing about it will probably curse it into not happening, but I am scheduled to work again this Saturday and if the roads are bad, I am not going to venture out.  With age comes wisdom, and fear of other drivers who are foolish enough to go out when the roads aren't cleared. 

I hope it snows.  A ton.  I'll even help shovel and clear off the cars.  I am praying for snow, in great fluffy heaps on our driveway, on our street.

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Meanwhile the kids had their swimming lesson today, which usually means they are exhausted and crabby by the time dinner is on the table.  Getting Thea through her homework on those nights is a tiny slice of hell.

Tonight they came in tired by happy, I had gotten home twenty minutes before they arrived and banged out a quick dinner, which they ate with virtually no complaints and with Micah's butt only coming off his chair about three times before he finished eating (and he was actually sneaking pieces of chicken off of my plate after he had finished his.)  Thea finished her homework and played Pokemon with her little brother (which somehow involved Micah using the strap from the diaper bag to harness himself to the little plastic trike in order to pull Thea around the kitchen and living room.)  And they were in bed by 8:40 pm.

Except while I was breaking my arm patting myself on the back, Micah wanted some milk, and then Thea came in and crawled into the bed because she was having a bad dream (wrong, one must be ASLEEP in order to dream).  But within minutes of her crawling in, Micah stopped thrashing around and went to sleep, and by the time I was back from brushing my teeth, Thea was out and it was only 9:05 pm.

I Can Be Replaced

Yesterday I was expecting to drive to Maryland to my mother's to accompany her to her fourth chemotherapy appointment today.

It was snowing in the Washington, DC area, according to my mother, and she didn't want me to drive in bad weather.  (Thank you to all the local TV stations who televised footage of traffic accidents and cars that had driven off the road.)   Supposedly the thought of me on the road would wind her up even more tightly than she is usually wound up (and she's pretty tightly wound to start with).

Snow didn't stop me in December, though I told her I would stay home and then started out anyway and made it there in one piece no worse for the wear.

This time she played the emotional blackmail card:  If you come down, I won't go to chemotherapy.

Well, heck.

I felt like playing the Mom card right back at her:  If you do that, you'll only be hurting yourself.  (I heard that somewhere before, like maybe she said it to me at some point in the last 40+ years.)

But I didn't.  I stayed home, so much for listening to classic rock and cleaning out my mental sock drawer.

 Mom said that her friend Jane would drive her, Jane having a four-wheel drive vehicle and no fear of snow.

I was mildly annoyed, especially since her oncologist wasn't going to be there.

Mom called this evening.  There was an NP covering for the oncologist, who herself is a cancer survivor.  She took more time with her than the oncologist usually does, taking her blood pressure and actually doing more of a physical exam than on any of the previous appointments.  She and Jane went to the Olive Garden for lunch and she picked up cranberry juice on sale on the way home.  Mom was absolutely chipper.

It was annoying that I am so easily replaced.

Meanwhile, instead of taking the day and kicking back, I went to work from 9 am until 1 pm and then came home to pick up Micah and Thea.

Thea finished her homework before dinner, the three of us went for a twilight bike (Micah) and scooter (Thea) ride around the neighborhood and it was a relatively pleasant evening with no meltdowns or spats.

The only bummer is that I'm on call again tonight after being on for the whole weekend.

Whine w/o Cheese

Friday I saw 24 patients in approximately seven hours:

two pre-operative clearances (one for cataract surgery, one for arthroscopic surgery on the right knee);
one international adoption physical;
five fasting check-ups;
one hospital follow-up (for COPD exacerbation);
more sore throats, sinusitis symptoms and bronchitis than I care to count;
a few gastroenteritis/Norovirus-type illnesses;
one thrombosed internal hemorrhoid(s);
one ear lavage;
one suture removal (antitragus/concha of a left ear, conked by 12 year old daughter while playing basketball);
one superficial laceration to the dorsum of the right hand who walked in without ant appointment  and whose wound was cleansed and steri-stripped on the fly;

and no partridge, no pear tree and ten minutes to inhale lunch while talking to a pharmaceutical rep who I actually like because he doesn't do the robo-detailing schtick.

At 5:04 pm I flew out of the office, having done as many of the tasks in my electronic in-box as I could, 26 minutes before the start of our parent-teacher conference at Thea's school which doesn't cut it for travel between Columbus and Princeton while obeying local speed limits;

and I'm working tomorrow and on-call all weekend;

and it's a full moon.

The upside of all this is that for working tomorrow, I don't work and don't have to be on-call on February 13, the day of Thea's school's Lunar New Year fund-raising event.

Meanwhile will someone please call the producers of 'Clean House' and have them swoop in, clean, redesign and organize my world?   Because that's the only way it's going to happen, at least for the time being.  Why does 'Clean House' only perform those miracles in the greater Los Angeles area unless they're going after the messiest home in America?