Annoyance

The universe abounds with people who desperately need two tight slaps about the head and shoulders to snap them out of their own stupidity. Topping my list at the moment is our service coordinator at the country Early Intervention Program.

In September when we met with her for Micah's six-month review and renewal of services, we discussed a second BAHA for Micah to help him localize sound. She said that the application could go in one calendar year after the first BAHA was approved.

What the silly wench did not tell me, until I emailed her two weeks ago and then re-emailed her when that email wasn't answered, was that all the paperwork submitted last year would need to be re-submitted, including:

- a copy of our insurance card (whch is unchanged from last years and which she already has)
- a note on an Rx form from an ENT that Micah is medically cleared to wear a hearing aid (figure that one out since he's been wearing one for the last year)
- a letter detailing why he needs a second BAHA (which the six-month review written by his teacher from Summit that was submitted to her weeks ago), this time from an ENT
- a cost estimate from the audiologist at JFK (since we're fortunately allowed to use the same hearing aid vendor and don't have to get multiple estimates.)

I am livid. I spent what few minutes I had free this afternoon not working on my chart notes or stripping the paper charts for scanning that are sitting in an ever-mounting pile on my desk, but calling Dr. Choe's office and Dr. Toth's office to get things rolling. Then tonight after writing chart notes for two hours, I emailed Dr. Choe with more information than I originally gave in the phone message.

Our EIP service coordinator was one of the good guys; she has helped us enormously. Up until September. This is a screw up of monumental proportions and is right up there with her telling the school district that she wanted to get the ball rolling for Micah's transition "because the parents want an out of district placement." I don't know if she's overworked, distracted or just has had a new onset of utter brainlessness. If he ages out of the system without the second hearing aid coming through, I will beat her to death with her own Manolos.

A Slice of Life

Tonight the kids and I were going to be on our own for dinner, and since Kraft Macaroni & Cheese (aka Kiddie Crack) two nights in a row would not be a culinary high point, I decided that we would make chicken vegetable soup tonight.

We went to the store and picked up some chicken, a bag of egg noodles and a few vegetables, to be supplemented with stuff already at home. It was going to be a group project.

Until Thea got bored with being on the sidelines because chopping celery and carrots is a Mommy job. So I thought, she's been cooking at the stove (with supervision) for more than a year, how about some simple chopping? She was interested in stepping up to the big leagues and we made it through more than half dozen carrots (the baby peeled variety) before the knife met the finger and bloodshed ensued.

She was pretty calm about it, we rinsed it, elevated, wrapped it up in a couple of bandaids and she gamely went on to cut a few more before deciding to hang her knife up and move on to sauteeing the chicken.

We changed the bandaid after we got done cooking, and it was still actively bleeding and I could see it was a small flap-type cut. So I started wondering if we should go to the Fast Track at the ER to get a little Dermabond or whatever type of skin glue that is used on kids. At the mention of the ER/hospital, Thea completely lost her composure, so I really bandaged it up well in the hopes that we could at least make it through dinner. The back of my brain was still thinking we're going to need to go to the ER, wailing or no wailing.

Needless to say, Thea didn't eat much of her soup, and resumed wailing once I again mentioned that if she was still actively bleeding through the bandage, we're going.

Fortune smiled on her and it looked pretty good. Even after peeling off three bandaids it wasn't even oozing, so we all got a reprieve. And thanks to all the emotional trauma she was falling asleep on the sofa at around 7:30, but revived after the move upstairs to our bed where she managed to watch Word Girl and Cyberchase before going to bed. Since Thea still likes one of us to stay with her until she falls asleep, Micah was left on our bed, singing himself to sleep.

Meanwhile, earlier in the day, I stopped at FedEx/Kinkos to copy the form to begin Micah's evaluation by the Child Study Team at Orchard Elementary, then handdelivered the form to the school. Ela suggested registered mail, but since we were coming home from Summit School and going right down Route 206, why give the business to the USPS? The clock starts ticking, the CTS has 90 days to schedule all of his evaluations.

Weekend Update

I'm typing with a bandaid on my right ring finger. Last night I was in the powder room, picking up some of the debris left behind by one of the kids and as I bent down to pick up the item on the floor, my finger ran down the edge of a wooden crate in the corner and got what looked like a large splinter rammed under the nail. Major, major ouchie.

After cutting the nail down and trying to root around for an end of a splinter to grab, I finally went back to the crate to investigate and I think the splinter didn't actually lodge under the nail after all. Doesn't mean it hurts any less - I went through two ZipLoc bags of ice last night, and it's now got the padding of two Bandaids on it which is making me feel like I'm typing with my elbows.

Tomorrow typing on a laptop keyboard is going to be a real joy. . .but fortunately (for my sanity) or unfortunately (for our finances) I'm only working two days this week.

We had a parent-teacher conference at Thea's school on Friday. She's doing beyond wonderful in Kindergarten, both in Mandarin and in English. Only one area needing improvement: not getting upset or impatient that she doesn't get called on as much in the English portion of her day - where pretty much all of the children are on equal footing, language-wise.

Thea worked on Thank You notes for her birthday presents on Sunday morning, and I took them to the Post Office this morning (no extra postage required for either size or weight). She put in a picture of herself at Red Green and Blue after finishing her canoe creation. I'm proud that she was pretty diligent about it, even when I kept updating the number of cards needed (eight was the final total).

After Saturday's heinous community meeting I went to Crate and Barrel Outlet. I bought two picture frames and used them for pictures of Micah and Thea, each at about eighteen months, with Steve's computer glasses upside down on their faces. Because they're 4"x4" pictures you really have to look closely to tell who is who in the photos, though Thea's pink outfit sort of makes it a give away. A small slice of Mommy guilt is erased now that there is at least one photo of Micah on the walls.

I'm closing in on the 100th post on this blog. . .something I never imagined back in June 2007.

How to Make a Molotov Cocktail? Anyone?

Because that's about the only type of cocktail I'd like to share with a good number of our neighbors. This morning there was a community meeting at the local library to re-open discussion of our homeowners' association's (rather selfish and boneheaded) decision to ban the township school buses from the association's roads, so that parents and children now must walk out to a very heavily traveled upon, much speeded upon road to wait for the buses.

It was NOT a good morning to forget to take my blood pressure medication, that's for damn sure.

There are a lot of evil, child-hating people in our neighborhood, and particularly those that want to ban the buses because of the diesel fumes wafting into their houses just floor me. May we also ban the garbage trucks? The recycling trucks? The USPS trucks? FedEx and UPS? Oh just stuff your spurious arguments right back into the most convenient useless orifice, which may not be your mouth.

I particualarly dislke one member of the board, not just for his ressemblence to a shrivveled up little evil gnome, but because back in the days when Thea was a toddler, he approached me in the neighborhood park and asked if I was interested in being on whatever subgroup of the association that is concerned with the parks (pass, I avoid meetings at all costs), and as we were talking he asked my child's name, so I told him. And this little prune of a gas-bag says "Oh there's another little girl in the neighborhood with the same name. . ." Do you think that with the same name, and a relatively uncommon one at that, it JUST MIGHT BE the same child? Anyway, nothing ever came of his question, I did give him my phone number and said that the person heading that committee could call me (I wanted to voice my opinion on the crappy chopped up tire stuff that was put down in place of wood chips at the playground before telling him or her I'd rather have my eyelids pulled over my head until they touched my butt before getting involved in committee work.) I think once the evil gnome realized who my husband is he wasn't as interested in my participation.

Evil gnome and husband have locked horns in the past, and even though it was long before my time, I fully support my spouse in his dislike of this total waste of protoplasm who used his position on the board to circulate a flyer stating that allowing the buses to return may result in an increased assessment for keeping the roads clear for snowfall under two inches (over two inches, the association contracts for plowing). Impeach him, I say, but there may be worse out there from what I saw at this meeting.

Anyway, the homeowners vote was 36 for reopening the roads, 52 against - though in my opinion the proxy votes against are tainted because of that flyer mentioned above. And husband cringes when I call our townhouse community the Nazi-hood, but today it was living up to that monniker.

We survived Round One of Transition, etc.

It was sort of uneventful, other than introducing Ela to the group. That part was sort of like bringing in the scruffy, wrong-side-of-the-tracks boyfriend to meet the upper-crusty familiy. Nothing overt was said, but the members of the Child Study Team sort of had fake, frozen pleasant expressions on their face. I was told that I could bring any material along that would help the CST understand Micah's issues. So what if the 'material' was a person?

Ela drilled them as to whether they had a Teacher of the Deaf consulting with the district on its deaf and hearing impaired students. (No, but we could get one. A non-answer, IMHO.) Ela emphasized that all the evaluations on Micah thus far have shown no cognitive or motor delays, his sole issue is the hearing impairment and its impact on his language development. (Read: don't stick Micah in a room with behavioral or physical disabilities and expect this child to emerge with a life-long love of learning.)

The same social worker, who at the end of our in-home meeting said, "Oh, he has ATRESIA, too?", was again stating that they are familiar with Micah's conductive hearing loss. That was about the time I pulled out my fake, frozen smile and just screwed it on. Yes, you deluded twits are experts based on your N=1 sample of children with atresia/microtia, and you need to know nothing about the auditory/oral program he's been in for the past year because you know it all.

Oh, just bite me or kiss my cellulitic pink tushie and we'll be done with it.

The next step will be to have the child study team evaluations done, once I sign the permission - then the school has 15 days to get the evaluations scheduled and ninety days to actually complete them.

The CST, of course, wants these done as close to his third birthday as possible, even though research supposedly shows that it doesn't make that much of a difference overall.

Considering Micah hadn't napped on the drive from the sitter's to Orchard Elementary School, he deserves points for not having a meltdown, and at the least I deserve chocholate or a pedicure with blue nail polish for maintaining the facade of cooperation - which will remain in place until we're presented with the IEP (if the IEP doesn't offer us Summit School).

Addendum: The FDA ban on importing the BAHA processors (from Sweden) has been lifted. A post yesterday on the BAHA Yahoo group passed that very, very good piece of information along. Of course I haven't heard from our Early Intervention service coordinator who I emailed a couple of days ago about Micah's second BAHA.

Addendum #2: I forgot to add that Thea survived her first visit to Dr. Andy the dentist for a filling today, which he was described to her as 'cleaning' the tooth. She's only had visits for cleaning so far, and with any luck this will be the only filling for awhile. It wasn't an actual cavity, per the dentist, but a softer area that could develop into one. Daddy did dentist duty, which Thebes will tell you is alliteration.

Addendum #3: This is a rare week because I worked a half day this week and 2/3 of Friday in addition to the usual Tuesday/Thursday. I hope the office hires a new full-time provider, NP, PA or whatever, soon. Since we're in the home stretch of Early Intervention, I am not feeling kindly toward anything interfering with Micah's services.

Fingers-crossed. . .

. . .or whatever offering of positive thoughts you would like to send my way tomorrow. It's the day Micah and I meet with the local elementary school's Child Study Team to begin the transition from Early Intervention into an IEP, if he's deemed eligible. I just hope I can be as eloquent as possible about his hearing to begin convincing them that the local preschool/disabled program is not the right fit and that the district should cough up the $55K to send him to Summit. And if that fails, say an incantation that I don't beat them smartly about the head and shoulders with the two-inch thick binder I have of Micah's reports, audiograms, hearing aid information, atresia/microtia information. I am going for that illusion that I am very well-prepared, and thankfully I'll be coming from work so I won't have on the usual schlubby-mommy clothes that I'm usually in on Wednesdays.

I am hoping that Micah will be sufficiently comatose from a shorter nap than usual so that he won't be displaying his 27+ month language ability. Tonight in the car he said "I think the horsies are sleeping. . ." If he pops a series of that sort of sentences out, we're screwed.

2 pm Wednesday. Don't be late for holding a good thought for the two for us.

Micah's School

Summit Speech School was featured on its local cable TV station. The school's web site has put a link to the six minute-long piece: http://www.summitspeech.com/. Look in the upper right sight for a little black and white square with the link. Somehow our version of RealPlayer at home only got me the audio portion. This is where we're hoping Micah might go to preschool.

Thea's Birthday, Part 2

Today Thea and I met our former (and much missed) neighbors, Emily and Lauren at Red Green and Blue in Princeton for a craft shop birthday play date. Thea was excited because it was a girls' day out, no Micah; Emily was excited because it was a birthday celebration with a guest list of one.

They settled on projects to do - by virtue of RG&B being out of 5"x7" picture frames, both girls decided to paint and decorate little canoe (complete with little paddles). What RG&B does for you is get the kids into smocks, set up the paints, brushes and paper place mats, and then lets them have at it. The woman who was there Wednesday on my scoping-it-out visit was much more interactive; today the teen to twenty-something staff was more hands-off, way off.

Both of them painted and created, side by side. I got to have actual adult conversation with Lauren, which was nice. After all the painting was done, the staff reappeared to blow-dry the canoes, and then Thea and Emily selected mosaic squares to adorn their creations.

After the last tile was glued on, we left the canoes there to dry and went to Panera's for lunch, and then to Halo Pub for ice cream- and then back to Red, Green & Blue to reclaim their masterpieces. Then we walked over to see Emily's new house. Very cool third floor playroom, the two of them fell back into playing as if it hadn't been back in July when they last played together. (I'd had a moment of mild panic - what if Kindergarten, new schools, new friends and whatnot had changed them so much that the play date birthday bombed. One of those times when it's nice to feel silly for thinking such a thing.)

Thea and I walked back to the parking garage, stopping by the Princeton Library to look at the really neat tile wall. We also stopped in the restroom since we were passing by. As I was washing my hands, Thea was looking around and spotted a quarter stuck in the sanitary products vending machine. She looked at the label above the knob and asked, "Mommy, what does that say?"

So, like a dope who reads too many mommies magazines, I decided not to blow her off and answer, so I said it spells tampon. "What's a tampon, Mommy?"

Rethinking the strategy, I decided to go for deflection, "It's nothing you have to worry about for about....you're five...for another six or seven years or so." And of course moments like this are never unwitnessed or un-listened in upon, the other woman at the sink would have peed her pants had she not just come from relieving herself.

Considering she had no memory of our discussion about uteruses and babies from several months ago, I am hoping that this will fade to some obscure corner of her subconscious.

Note to WonderTime, Cookie, Parent and any other mommy magazine, there is NO good way to explain feminine hygiene products to a five-year old. End of story.

A Day at the New Hope & Ivyland Railroad

Today was one of the best Saturdays, ever. Both Thea and Micah slept until about 9 am, which borders on miraculous. Since we had no particular agenda we could spend time hanging out with them in our pjs, being lazy and watching what Micah calls "Blue, Blue Puppy Dog" (Blues Clues for the uninitiated.)

Since Steve wanted time at work, and Micah has been either begging for a horse ride or a train ride (or better still, riding a horse while on a train), I checked out the New Hope & Ivyland Railroad website last night. It's close, it many not be quite as train-filled as going to Strasburg, PA, but it would save a bundle in gas alone.

Trains leave on the hour for the nine-mile trip to Lahaska, so we timed it just right by arriving 15 minutes prior to departure. Time for the 3-Ps, parking, potty and purchasing tickets, not necessarily in that order.

The train pulled in to the station, detached from the passenger cars and went to the water tower. Later during the trip, the conductor said that the fireman has to shovel 1/2 ton of coal for the round trip (it's uphill to Lahaska). Amazing, especially since the guy didn't look like he was particularly muscular.

As we waited on the platform to board the train, there was this group of people, one of whom had a large video camera and tripod, another in the group with a nice still camera - it seemed odd, but some people are insanely in love with their technology, so I didn't really pay much attention. Micah was thrilled; Thea's been on trains at the Strasburg Railroad, so she wasn't quite as impressed, but once the train started moving both were reallly having fun. So much so that the three of us were sitting on the same seat and the two of them weren't trying to kill each other, squeeze the other out of space or otherwise trying to provoke me.

The conductor on this trip was great - he definitely had a patter of facts and figures, but he delivered it without it coming out like a pre-programmed schtick, and he was nice enough to sit with the children and have his picture taken.

And all the while that group with the cameras is filming, hanging out of the windows.

In Lahaska the train paused so the engine could uncouple and come around to the end to pull the train back to New Hope. Also another NH&I train, the fall foliage train, passed us by - all of which was just thrilling to Micah, who was waving and shouting and just otherwise acting like this was the fulfillment of a major dream.

Once we were back in motion, I flipped the seat in front of us so we had a little seating group. Thea spent the return trip singing to herself in Chinese and looking at the leaves (it helps that she thinks the leaves change color just because of her birthday), Micah continued his waving. The whole trip took about 45 minutes, but it didn't really seem that long since we were having so much fun.

Back in New Hope we got off the train and were walking down the platform to stroll into town and find somewhere for a bite to eat. As I was walking down the stairs to the lower portion of the platform, holding hands with the kids, holding Bunny Bear, juggling my purse, the brochures Thea no longer wanted to carry, a guy got a little in front of me, stopped and said, "Excuse me..."

He was part of the group with the cameras, but since he wasn't toting any equipment, he didn't register on my radar. The group was putting together a travel piece on eastern Pennsylvania for broadcast in Asia (what a cliche, pick on the chick with the two Chinese kids), and could they ask us a few questions? And can you sign this release? Yikes.

They said they noticed the kids on the train, and how much fun Micah was having (at the top of his lungs), so that's why they stopped us.

It was three questions: Was this our first trip on the train in New Hope? (Yes). What did we like about it? (45 minutes of not having to actively entertain my children, what's not to like? The real answer was more appropriate.) And something else along those lines.

Pretend the camera isn't there. Let me clip the microphone to your sweater (fortunately those years working in prison, I'm not that fussy about personal space.) One retake because the fall foliage train pulled out and drowned me out.

Then it was Thea's turn, with a little persuasion from me - and usually I'd be the first one to say, if she doesn't want to do it, so be it. But I think her initial balking was more due to me going first.
The woman miked her up, the camera man asks her to do a sound check by counting from one to five, and she volunteers to do it in English and in Chinese. The interviewer was really nice, he got down on her level and they started talking - Thea was much more at ease and natural than I was. Brainless Mommy should have had her camera out, but I also had Micah in my arms to keep him from playing with the equipment or running back onto the train. Meanwhile the camerman is standing there filming and saying how wonderful Thea's doing. . . .

Once our five minutes in the spotlight was over, we followed the next train out as it departed the station, and went walking around New Hope. We had lunch at an Italian restaurant with a patio area where we could see a bit of the train tracks and watch the train arrive and depart one more time.

So three years after her debut on the pages of the Quest Diagnostics 2004 Annual Report, Thea once again gets to be famous, at least in her own mind (and mine.)

Bean Counting

OK, I patted myself heartily on the back about two weeks for installing a counter on the blog. Now it's driving me nuts. It tells me how many people have viewed the blog, but not WHO. From the comments I've gotten here and there, I know a few of the people who have stopped by on occasion, but I'm wondering about who has kept on reading beyond the time we returned from China with Micah and every day life took over.

I'm amazed that 35 or so times (as of today) someone has stopped by for a few seconds. Compared to some of the blogs I read, that's hardly a blip, but it's about 34 more than I expected. Marriage and motherhood have scaled down my expectations, obviously.

Drop a comment now and then, it's free and it gives me a cheap thrill.

My Baby is 5

This was my first birthday on a school day; last year her birthday conveniently fell on a Saturday. Thanks to Leap Year, we missed having a second weekend birthday.

Monday mornings are Ela, so after dropping Thea off at school Micah and I made a quick run to McCaffrey's for CakeMate icing. Damn cupcake icing, I forgot to put sprinkles on while they could adhere, so Plan B involved writing HAPPY BIRTHDAY THEA on them. Except that I had nothing to do that with, so time to do a drive by to the closest grocery store.

So while Ela was talking with Micah and playing with the farmer, animals and tractor, I was finding that my ultra-neat printing does not translate well when I am writing with frosting.

The best news of the day is the Ela is going to come with me to the initial meeting with the school district about Micah's transition to pre-school. Ela rocks, she truly does. It will be great having a teacher of the deaf give her perspective as to Micah's needs in a classroom. And this is the only meeting I can invite someone to attend with me, not that the school district told me that. They seem to want me alone and as unprepared as they can get me.

After waving good-bye to Ela, Micah and I loaded up the cupcakes, did a quick diaper change (made quick because I found once of the purple kitty diapers so there was no arguments; we are now fussy as to which Blues Clues character is gracing our privates), and zipped off to school. Steve, Micah and I got there as the kids were eating lunch and after everyone was finished, Thea got serenaded with Happy Birthday, first round in English, second in Chinese. Then we had cupcakes and juice pouches before they went to recess. The party bags waited until the end of the day. All in all, an easy birthday.

Tonight Thea picked roast chicken for her dinner, so she kept me company while I was finishing dinner. Oma called to wish her a happy birthday, and when they were done talking I heard Thea say to her, "Would you like to talk to your DAUGH-ter?" Five is a riot, so far.

Same day, 48 cupcakes later. . . .

Thea and I baked four dozen cupcakes this afternoon, after making the two trips to the bank and going grocery shopping. Half vanilla, half chocolate.

Fortunately, Micah slept through part of it and then Steve took him to the neighborhood Harvest Fest, which just across the street from us. I wasn't interested this year: too much to do, and I found out that our neighborhood association voted not to let the township school buses drive on the association's streets, thus explaining why I see the children waiting out on the road that runs through the development. A road that most people routinely exceed the posted 35 mph speed limit. Insert language not suitable for children if you really want to know what I think of those people. I actually like the sound of the school bus coming through our street, it gave me a sense of what time of day it was without having to look at the clock.

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, Thea helped me make hamburgers for dinner and also helped cut green beans. We were frosting the cupcakes until 8:30, which was the time for Thea to go upstairs for a quick bath. Other than icing (white or vanilla, what the difference is is mostly in color, Thea says they taste about the same) the cupcakes are not yet decorated. Sprinkles to be applied tomorrow.

The party favors are semi-packed up, the cupcakes need to have the sprinkles put on and I need to find the "5" candle that Oma bought for her. A nice tradition that my mother has been doing since her second birthday. A nice tradition, if I find that candle.

Tomorrow, Micah has his session with Ela from 10 am until noon, then we have to transport all the stuff to Thea's school, where I am sure the teachers will be cursing me in Mandarin for giving 20 children a nice sugar buzz.

Thea's Piggy Bank

Thea received her first (rather large) ceramic piggy bank as a gift from my co-worker, Jenny, on October 9, 2004. It was the day of her baby shower, and she was one of the lucky few who actually attended her own shower live and in person versus live and in utero.

I started putting my pocket change into the bank, a little here and a little there, for four years. Until the piggy was full, very, very full. So today, armed with birthday checks from Oma and Aunt Mary and a rather large sack o' coins, Thea and I trotted off to Commerce Bank which has a coin counting machine that doesn't charge a fee, and is open on Sundays.

And promptly returned home because Commerce Bank requires persons opening an account to produce a Social Security card.

And at home, a frantic search ensued. I have my Social Security card, old and new (I applied for a new one during one of my many forays to the Trenton SSA office to get cards for Thea and Micah), Micah's card, but nothing for Thea. Finally a second pass through her ream of documents I found a copy of her SSN card, and that was acceptable.

So we trotted back to the bank, lugging the 24.5 pound sack o'coins, went through the process of opening passbook savings accounts for both Thea and Micah. Once all the paperwork was in place, we lugged the sack o'coins one last time to the coin counting machine and spent ten minutes or so shoving coins down into the sorter. CoinStar is much more user friendly, though the fee seems a little exorbitant.

Guess how much was in the pig?

Wait for it. . . .

Wait for it. . . .



Thea's guess was $99 (the machine allows kids to enter a guess and gives a prize if the guess is within $1.99 of the actual figure).

Steve's guess was $40.

Insert drum roll, please. . . . .



The actual amount was $289.04 in coins, $5 in $1 bills, two Chinese coins, one Canadian penny and one Mexican coin.

As Charlotte wrote in her web, SOME PIG, huh?

The surprising thing was that Thea's understanding of the bank account did not really include leaving the money at the bank. And she now also considers herself independently wealthy, which in today's economy is somewhat true.

Micah ditches Mommy

Micah comes back to my office with me after daycare on Tuesdays and Thursdays, mostly because I still have notes to type into the EMR, phone calls to return and files to strip for scanning into the EMR - and most of this just isn't possible during the day with seeing patients, so it waits until I'm done with appointments. It's boring, I know, but I try to have boxes or a balloon or something to entertain him, and there's usually snacks around. But I know it's a long wait until Steve and Thea pick him up.

Thursday my NP colleague was leaving for home, which is just down the street from the office and Micah went to follow her, stuck his hand in hers and without so much as a backward glance to me, his now not quite so adoring mother, trotted off. Karen had said she could take him home - and Micah has been to her house already back in July and she has a car seat in her car for her grandson Nate who is around Micah's age. Micah has seen her both around the office and as one of his health care providers. But still and all it just stunned me more than just a bit that he was just so OK with it. I felt like he was trading up for a better model or something.

Steve and Thea picked him up and then they were off to meet family for dinner, and I got to kill off the impressive stack of charts waiting to be stripped so the medical records people could scan them. Done, done, done - and all my charts. Of course since I'd let the pile grow to an almost unmanageable level, it took me until 10 pm to get through it all.

Generic Update

Last weekend we were in the DC area to visit Oma and for cousin Elise's 2nd birthday party, and to try and hook up with another cousin's kid who was coming to DC from Texas for a People to People Leadership Program.

Day 1 was a logistical nightmare:
- my mother left at 6:30 am for a Chesapeake Bay lighthouse cruise, departing from the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomon's;

- meanwhile, back at her ranch, my aunt was visiting overnight and was being picked up at 9:30 am by her friend who was driving up from the Richmond area and they were going to the Golden Tech-ite Reunion (a McKinley Tech reunion for anyone who graduated 51 years or more ago);

- and we were across Route 301 at the Sleep Inn, having gotten in late, and finally gotten Micah to sleep well after midnight;

- and Fred, the guy who details my mother's car, and on occasion my car, was coming at 9 am to do his thing (original plan was that he was coming at the much more civilized hour of 1 pm);

- I had a 10:45 am appointment with Lindsey to get my hair colored and cut;

- Steve had to be at my mother's house, with the kids, in time for me to take his car to go to the hair appointment, and then had to keep the kids from tearing up Oma's house;

- my aunt was returning from the reunion luncheon around 4 pm or so, and then my cousin and his son-in-law were coming after golfing somewhere in southern MD to pick her up and take her to Virginia, so someone had to be back at my mother's to be the doorman;

- and my mother was returning sometime after 6 pm from her jaunt.

Surprisingly, it all worked out

- despite my finding a note from my mother stating "LG, Clean out my car. Mom" after Fred had already arrived; this is not as easy as it sounds, because my mother's car is a rolling clutter magnet; it is not a task for the faint of heart or one that can be completed in a few minutes;

- despite being told the money for Fred was on the dresser, and me panicking when I perused both pieces of furniture in my mother's room that could be a dresser, and all the detritus thereupon, and found nothing;

- and despite calling my mother's friend Dorothy's cell phone number (which my mother left for me) and having it go right into voice mail (she had turned it off AND left it home, big help there) to see if she could ask my mother where the envelope was (found on the kitchen counter once I'd gotten to the "oh I'll just go to the ATM stage" of my panic;

- and despite being Lindsey's last client of the day; she was going to an afternoon wedding; it's not a confidence building exercise to know that the person wielding chemicals and scissors around your head is under time pressure to be somewhere else.

Anyway, everyone appeared and disappeared at the appropriate intervals, no one was locked out, cars got cleaned, gray was covered, no maritime accidents occurred, and all was well.

Sunday our only mission was to be at Belle Haven Park at 12 noon for Elise's party, and we made it, if a few minutes late. And we remembered her present and Mom's handicapped parking placard.

The party area was near the riverbank, and Micah managed not to fall in. Bonus. No one melted down, and everyone had a good time at The Very Hungry Caterpiller-themed party. Steve left for home from there, so the rest of us made a stop at the cousins' house where the little cousins got to play with each other, and in a two-for-two record, Elise managed to end her birthday clad only in a diaper and her smile. This is adorable at age 2, but it might get a little worrisome if it persists.

Thea got her first 5th birthday present from her cousins, officially opening our house's birthday season.

Monday, after checking out of Sleep Inn solo, we hung out at my mother's and then drove to the Hilton in Alexandria to hook up with Gregor. Unfortunately for him, he was being held hostage at Dulles Airport until all of the participants in his program arrived - and since we called him at around 3:30 pm, he'd already been here two hours or so and hadn't even left Dulles. We got to the hotel in advance of Gregor, so Micah and I scoped things out, Thea slept in her car seat with Mom staying with her. Once both kids were out of the car we picked a prime stalking spot in the lobby and parked on the sofas. I bought the children's cooperation with a $3.29 individual serving of Haagen-Daz ice cream for Thea and a bag of chips and bottle of water for Micah. May the hotel roast in Hades for its extortionish prices.

To burn off some energy, Thea, Micah and I went for an escalator ride, and one of the adults greeting the arriving People-to-People participants suggested a walk around the little lake, so we set out. Only to find that the path ended about one-third of the way around, and as we schlogged through the grass, and enormous tour bus turned into the hotel driveway. Thea was great about getting her run on, but Micah plopped on the grass demanding to be carried.

We made it into the hotel and back up the escalator in time, and yelled out "GREY-gor!" just as he got into our part of the lobby. Poor thing, 12 years old, cars, planes, buses and just when he's getting his bearings, he gets clobbered by a band of distantly related stalkers. He took it rather well, all in all - and since he was near the end of the group checking in, it gave us a bit of time to chat with him before he got swept into his first meeting.

This little adventure, and taking Mom along and having to get her back to her house before hitting the road put us on the road late. The children were in their pajamas, after eating dinner at Oma's, so it made getting them into bed at home easier.

11 Days Until The Big 5

Thea's birthday is eleven days away. Her party will be at school during lunch time, I'm taking the easy way out.

Her accomplishments even before hitting the ripe old age of five:

- starting to read in January 2008, pretty much on her own

- mastering simple addition and subtraction (thanks to Wu Laoshi, her after school program teacher in Pre-K)

- blowing up a balloon on her own

- learning how to whistle, though it still needs some practice

- sleepng in her own bed in her own room, finally

- beating me at Tic-Tac-Toe on more than a few occasions

- starting to learn Kung Fu in Kindergarten, she promises only to use her power on bad guys

- reading Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar in Chinese

- solving for 'a', as in if a + b = 10, and b = 5, then what is 'a', Daddy?

- pretty much making her mother feel like I must've been a complete turnip by comparison at that age

October 2, 2008

On this date, Micah is five months away from his third birthday and so five months from today, Early Intervention services will end. Bye-bye Ela, bye-bye Estra, bye-bye group.

In Monday's meeting, the social worker from the township schools seemed to want me to wait a bit before sending out letter requesting the Child Study Team to evaluate Micah's eligibility for preschool; more time to pass, the greater chance for Micah to improve - but all packaged in a veneer of waiting would be better in terms of scheduling around holidays and whatnot.

Screw that completely self-serving idea.

The letter goes out tomorrow. To both the social worker - who encouraged me to send it to her so she could get things moving rather than the Director of Pupil Services AND the Director of Pupil Services. Why light a firecracker when carpet bombing would accomplish so much more?

The school district has 20 business days to respond, and then 90 days to get all the evaluations scheduled. And our district prefers to do its own evaluations rather than accept any that have been done by Summit School or Micah's speech therapist.

I'm smarter than I look....maybe

Because I managed to find and install a counter on the blog, so now I will be able to tell if I'm just in this for my own amusement. (Reminder to self: Insert audio of sound of my own hand patting myself on the back.)

Today was our (Micah's and my) usual Wednesday: drop Thea off at YingHua and zip up to Summit School (with the minor pit stop at D-n-D for the large coffee), then homewards. Lately Micah sacks out in the car on the way home even before we get to the on-ramp for I-78, but today he kept me company until just below Bridgwater Commons Mall. He's now wakes even before transferring, so there's no hope of extending the nap beyond the actual time in the car. Therefore a trip to the Village Farm in Lawrenceville would extend his nap a little bit beyond the 45 minutes - but the little twerp woke up as we were getting off of Route 206 to take the back roads to Lawrenceville.

In addition to the tomatoes I was hoping for, I picked out a gigantic pot of mums and Micah chose a pumpkin, so decorating for fall has begun. Since we also killed off 30 minutes playing at the train table in the school's lobby, it was nearly time for the speech therapist to come. (She rescheduled her usual Friday morning.) Today we worked on saying mitt and meow-meow: mitt was just a new word and part of the cutting with scissors activity she brought, meow is to try and reform Micah's use of niao-niao for cat. And much to my surprise the BMW-driving therapist is a Phillies fan and listens to baseball on the radio whilst tooling around to her appointments. Not quite what I imagined. Of course listening to any sport on the radio is just below submitting myself for a pre-frontal lobotomy on the list of things I would even remotely enjoy doing.

Today at Thea's school, she started telling me The Very Hungry Caterpillar, in Mandarin - but she sort of lost the thread because her pal, Kalani, came over and was listening. The surprising thing was if I truly listened, I could pick out the numbers and some of the fruits. Thanks to the Learn with Jade DVDs. She promised to do it tonight, using her English copy of the book to help her remember how many of each fruit. This impressed her friend Lucas's mother; he's another kid in school whose parents are English-speaking so zero reinforcement of the Chinese-immersion on the homefront - one more reason I love Lucas.