Merry Christmas, Frohe Weihnachten, Glad Jul, Joyeux Noel, Feliz Navidad

The first one to wake me up was Thea, she's congested and has a mild sore throat.  The second was Oma.  Micah, who was wired until close to 11 pm last night, is still asleep.  The rule of Christmas morning is they can dive into their stockings but not the presents until everyone is awake.

I remembered to recharge the battery for the camera, so there might be pictures later.  Merry Christmas.

Oh what to do. . .

. . .when all the presents are wrapped?  My usual modus operandi is to have everything sitting in bags until Christmas Eve and then engage in a wrapping frenzy.  It's getting old.  So today I decided that I would hang out and just get it done.  No computer, no other distractions, just me, the tape, the scissors and the gift wrap taking on the bags of stuff.

And it worked.  It's done, other than the stocking stuffers.  Oh, happy day. 

Now I just need to remember to charge the camera battery and work on the side dish menu for Christmas dinner.

This will be our second Christmas staying at home, so we still haven't gotten down our Christmas schtick, yet.

'Twas Three Days Before Christmas. . .

Time to take down the Hanukkah decorations . . . .and get out the glue gun to secure the bolts (candle holders) onto the paint stirrer that is the newest addition to our menorah collection.

The stockings finally got hung up on the bannister today; the tree was decorated last weekend after standing in the living room for a week with only four ornaments on it.  Tomorrow I may get around to hanging a wreath, which is the sum total of my outdoor decorations.  All those who put up light displays that can be seen from the International Space Station are just putting money into PSE&G's pockets.  And in our neighborhood, it is always those who have the ugliest combinations of lights who put them up the earliest and leave them up the longest.

I have seen enough sappy made-for-the-Hallmark-channel Christmas movies to last me for the remainder of my life and they have served to eradicate what little Christmas spirit I was able to muster.  I'm not usually overjoyed by the holidays, but this year's holiday malaise is worse than usual due to Retail America starting to put up Christmas displays before  Halloween had arrived.  Thank you, Target et al.

The kids are excited about being off from school until January 2, 2013, particularly no Chinese language school until January 6, 2013 though no let up in the homework from Wang LaoShi.  She's a wonderful teacher, but the amount of homework given on the last day before break puts her up there in the stratosphere range as far as buzzkills go.   At regular school, each of their classes each held holiday parties and made gingerbread (read: graham crackers masquerading as gingerbread) houses.  Both kids are relatively clueless as to the events in Newtown, Connecticut.

Fortunately most of the holiday shopping was done on-line, so I have not had to set foot in a shopping mall since sometime in early November.  All the stuff is waiting in bags in the family room waiting for divine inspiration or time finally running out before I get out the wrapping paper, tape and scissors.

Meanwhile back in every day life, both of Micah's BAHAs are out of commission.  One has a nasty case of feedback, the other died while Micah was at school.  Micah and I went back to Audiology at JFK Hospital in Edison, where Micah was first evaluated and fitted with the BAHAs, but if we sent the BAHA back to Cochlear via Audiology the repair cost would be over $800.  So it's been sent off to Centennial, Colorado and the cost will be around $400 per BAHA.

The experience was a lesson as to how spoiled we were while Micah was at Summit Speech School.  When one of the BAHAs needed repair several years ago, the school's pediatric audiologist sent it off and it came back within a week good as new. No muss, no fuss and very little in the way of effort on my part.  Just how I like it.  As Forrest Gump said so eloquently, "One less thing."

And instead of helping with ordering a newer model BAHA, the audiologist at JFK, who is the same one who saw Micah in 2007 to 2009, was all over the options map:  should we have Micah seen by an ENT surgeon who would implant the titanium post so Micah would not need to wear the softband, or since air conduction is always better than bone conduction so maybe since over the ear hearing aids are so small and lightweight some sort of loop could be made to fit over Micah's ear cartilage if Micah's ENT would allow for placement in the canals of an ear mold?  or we could just get the new BAHA3 and continue on as we have been doing.  Personally, I think a nice hit of Ritalin on a regular basis would help her achieve some focus and lessen the stream of consciousness-type chatter that drives me nuts.

I'm in favor of continuing on with the softband.  The BAHAis anchored with a safety tether to the band in case it falls off. -with the over-the-ear hearing aids, if one fell off, it would be near impossible to find it due to it's small size.  No surgery (for now), and if there would be any surgery, I am not going to some new specialist at the recommendation of the audiologist, I am going to Micah's current ENT surgeon, period. 

Grinching

Last night was the first Saturday of the month, and that means it's time for The Sew Must Go On at Olde City Quilts.  One of the things I live for.  Except last night it was also the Burlington City Christmas parade, so its route, right down High Street where OCQ is located.  Much traffic aggravation, alternate routes, doubling back.

And noise.  Christmas music.  Flashing lights from all the fire trucks (not a good night for a house fire in Burlington. . . .)  It really brought out my inner Grinch.  I get annoyed when Hallowe'een immediately slides into Christmas and Thanksgiving is not given it's proper respect.  Thanksgiving is overlooked in the time after Hallowe'en, and when it does arrive, it's just a springboard for Black Friday.  It's just sad.  Thanksgiving was one of the best holidays when I was little.  Big meal, family, lots of food.  The day after Thanksgiving we would go downtown to see Santa Claus at Garfinkel's and look at the Christmas display windows.

And adding to my Grinch-y attitude, I forget my Saturday Sampler box, so I didn't have what I needed to work on the most.  But I did get Thea's purse fixed and I ripped out all the log cabin squares I had screwed up last month, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.

But it was good to see my quilting ladies.

Now I just need to finish those Saturday Sampler squares before next weekend. . . . 

Post-Hurricane Recovery

 OK, so I am not a meteorological genius (referencing my previous post.)

Our power went out at 8:23 pm Monday night, so it lasted 23 minutes longer than my prediction of darkness descending at 8 pm.  It spent  ten minutes or so flickering and toying with us before the final outage.   It had been raining all day on Monday, but it wasn't until after dark that the wind really started raging.  Fortunately I had finished both squares of my Saturday Sampler homework at 8:00 pm.

Monday night wasn't much for sleeping, at least for me. Too much noise.  The trains running on the Northeast Corridor tracks behind our house had stopped, but the wind sounded like a continuous train running through the backyard.

Tuesday was spent occupying the kids so they did not run down the batteries on their Nintendos and iPods since we were told it could possibly be a week without power.

School was cancelled for Wednesday, and Princeton University also decided to close for a third day.  (And the watch for signs that Hell was going to freeze over began.)

Dinner was leftovers heated on the stove.  Pizza, believe it or not, can be reheated without an oven by inverting a vegetable steamer over boiling water, and it helps that the pizza was a little stale.  Micah ate four pieces of it.  This Little House on Krebs Road approach to cooking was getting a bit old, though.

Wednesday morning I got up and went to work, where there was power, so I had every device I own that has a battery - minus a power strip, which would have come in handy.  It's Hallowe'en and I originally wanted to be home for trick-or-treating so I asked for a half-day, and this was an act of genius, because right as I was finishing my last patients of the morning. . . .

. . . the power went o-u-t at work.  Seriously.  Sense of irony and sense of humor were wearing fairly thin.

Lovely, just bleeping lovely because with no power, the server for the EHR system goes down so I can't even write my chart notes from home.  Though I was a bit of genius for requesting that afternoon off (for the now cancelled Hallowe'en); no patients needing rescheduling for me.

Route 1 had most of the traffic lights out still, long lines at the gas stations that were open.  The Dunkin' Donuts was not open. (Hell must really be ready to freeze over.)

West Windsor-Plainsboro schools were out the entire week.  By Sunday night eight out of ten schools had power, but  the district offices had no power or phones, and one upper elementary school and one middle school were still without electricity so the district arranged accommodation for those schools at two large churches.

Soccer on Saturday went on as usual, and Sunday's GoalFest/GhoulFest which had been rescheduled also took place.  Neither kid came home with a trophy this year, which was probably a good learning experience for them.  They had great teams, but there weren't enough 4th and 5th graders for individual teams, so the league made a Girls 4-6 level for GoalFest.  Which meant my delicate little 4th grader had to go up against 6th grade Amazons riding a wave of premenstrual fury.  It was just not right that nine-year olds had to go up against adolescents with attitude wearing orange tutus (those damn tutus hid quite a bit of hip checking.).

Steve is getting a generator as his Hanukkah/Christmas present, and I am going to by a few dozen "D" cell batteries.   I will be better than prepared for the next one.

Once upon a hurricane. . .

Hurricane Sandy.  I'm not a believer yet.  I don't think the impact is going to be significant this far inland.

The impact on the weekend was significant:

On Saturday we found out that the GoalFest 3v3 Tournament schedule for Sunday was cancelled due to the weather.

What weather?  It was grey all day and a little chillier than usual.

And there have been no "D" cell batteries at Target since Thursday.

Sunday Micah's Tiger Cub Pack was scheduled to go on the 3:00 pm tour of Rockingham, George Washington's headquarters in NJ.

But all the state parks in New Jersey closed at noon today.  Because of the weather.

Seriously?  Not a raindrop has fallen at this point, and the wind was barely above a breeze.

So once home from our failed Rockingham adventure  I felt compelled to check out the West Windsor-Plainsboro school district web site and found all schools would be closed on Monday AND Tuesday.

And then, Steve called to say that he got a auto-dial message from Princeton University telling him that it would be closed tomorrow.  The university that almost never, ever closes, that has made him drive to work in heavy snow and ice. 

What the hell?  Is the world coming to an end?  Really?

To ice the cake, there was an email from my office telling us that it would also be closed on Monday AND Tuesday.

And still rather than feeling a sense of impending doom, I am still not fully convinced that it will amount to anything signficant around here.  The patio chairs and grill are in the garage, the trash can is inside.  We have enough food for a few days that doesn't require significant preparation if we lose power.

I'll amend this tomorrow, in my mind at least, if  and when the power goes out. 

Let it the rain come, let the wind blow.  My panties remain un-bunched.

Surviving the Birthday Weekend

It was a weekend dominated by the calendar telling me where I should be.

Friday:  Cancelled a class, "Fundamentals of Musculoskeletal Imaging" because being in Parsippany by 7:30 am and staying there until 4 pm would put me at odds with being back in Plainsboro in time for Girl Scouts at 3:15 pm.  There was also the question of where during the day would I have time to make samples of the crafts for the Girl Scouts' Crafting for the Community event so the girls could pick which three they wanted to do.  This year is our troop's first as Juniors, meaning they will be teaching the crafts to the Daisies and the Brownies.  So my morning involved hot-gluing popsicle sticks into triangles and then the triangles into Stars of David.  The first degree burns on my third finger are healing nicely.

All the while I am thinking, I did not get to Pennington Quilt Works for the Saturday Sampler on Thursday night as I had planned. A patient's appointment ran later than what was allotted in the schedule, and it was important that I not rush things along.  And there were plenty of Saturday Sampler slots on Friday and Saturday.  No problem.

The Girl Scouts meeting was fun - we're lucky, we have really nice girls who seem to approach all of the things we're doing with enthusiasm.

After Girl Scouts, Thea had to put on her shin guards, socks, shorts and cleats and head to soccer practice.

Saturday's schedule included soccer at 9 am, with both children playing on opposite sides of town.  The photo day for the soccer league was held at Thea's school, with both teams times (fortunately) within fifteen minutes of each other.  So all of us connected at the photo event so I could get Micah and Steve could go to see his mother.   Meanwhile Steve talked with Micah's friend Jeff's father and planned a play date - and it's now Saturday, and I still haven't been to PQW to collect the quilt fabric for my next square.

So after the team photos were done, talking with Jeff's father to finalize the time for the play date, I hauled Thea and Micah with me to PQW for the noon session.  Fortunately they were heavily armed with their electronic devices (Nintendos, iPods and my iPad), so sitting in the car for 20 minutes would not be torture.

And meanwhile, Saturday is Thea's 9th birthday - and the only thing I had really done to prepare is send out emails to the parents of four of her friends inviting them to join us for dinner on Friday and purchase the new versions of Pokemon Black and White.  No party bags, no cake, nothing.

At 2 pm we dropped Micah off at Jeff's and went on a mission to pick out a cake, buy stuff for the party bags and get ready.

Thea chose four boys that she has known since second grade to come along with us for dinner at the Olive Garden: Adam, Tommy, Amol and Jeffrey.  Her preference would have been to have two tables, one for parents and annoying sibling and one for herself and her boy posse.  But the Olive Garden gave us a long table in a semi-private area, which was worth the 45 minute wait.

After dinner we came home and the boys and Thea adjourned to the living room to play games on the Wii.  Tidbits overhead include:  "We can have cake after we kill off Thea," and  "You won't always be able to fight like a boy. . . ."

What I learned from this was, we could've skipped dinner, thrown a few snacks at them and let them play Wii for five hours and they would've been just as happy.  But they did seem to like the party favors - Pokemon cards, yo-yos and a super ball.

Sunday was Mandarin school for Thea and a playdate with Leland for Micah.  I got to sew a little bit, but eventually I had two little boys who wanted to sew.  So, I made a pattern and cut out four pieces that could be sewn into a person-ish shape. I then got out the fabric pens and they drew on faces.  And fangs.  And blood dripping off of the fangs.  Not quite how I envisioned the little project turning out.

Then we had to get Micah dressed up in his Tiger Cubs uniform for his first den meeting.  We made a scrapbooks and learned a few things about being a scout.  I had put a chicken in the oven so dinner was done by the time we got home.

Kick-Offs

Today soccer started.  Nothing like walking across an enormous field to the farthest DT (double tiny) where the kindergarteners and first-graders play to make my knees even more balky than they usually are.  Micah's team is the Red Bulls and the team is very lucky to have a coach; a few of the fourth grade girls teams are being coached by a different parent each week, including Thea's team, the Tigers.  Steve's taking the second week's practice and game next Friday.  Smart planning on his part:  the weather is still warm and expectations are still low since it's still early in the season.

Fourth grade soccer was a bit of a shock to the system because the girls are no longer practicing immediately before games, they have a week-day practice so it's one more thing to put on the calendar and they play for 55 minutes straight with a referee instead of coach-referees.  The Tigers' game ended in a tie score today; first-graders don't keep score.

And most of our games are at 9:00 am Saturdays, so we're kissing sleeping in for the next ten weeks, if one counts sleeping until 8:30 to 9 as sleeping in.

Girl Scouts got going last Sunday, as did Ying Hua Language School.  Still to come:  Boy Scouts/Tiger Cubs, and Back-to-School nights for both first- and fourth-grades and the fourth-grade music program orientation.  Thea has chosen the viola.  We shall see how this goes as she has deviated from my plan of her taking chorus for fourth grade and then starting flute or clarinet and we'll have one more thing to add lists of things she will need to be nagged about.

Sheepish

Today Micah, Thea and I went to the Sheep and Fiber Festival at the Hunterdon County Fairgrounds.  As I sit writing, I am wondering if the smell of sheep, alpacas and llamas is stuck in my nostrils or if it's actually clinging to my clothes, or if I'm just imagining it.

We wandered around looking at the animals in their pens, the vendors.  There is an alpaca farm near my office and the owner had a booth so we stopped by to say hello:  Micah picked out a toy alpaca, Thea selected a pair of gorgeous fingerless gloves and we bought a knitted teddy bear for a gift. 

We went to the sheep shearing demonstration.  Sheep are amazing, get them on their back and they are like blobs of woolly Silly Putty.  The gentleman conducting the demonstration actually wrestled a feisty ewe onto her back propped something behind her neck or shoulder and walked away and the ewe just surrendered, lay on its back and made no effort whatsoever to escape.  Micah tried his hand at shearing, which was rather cool and both kids went up to feel the lanolin on the skin after the shearing.

For lunch we went to Panera's and while waiting for our food, we ran into the father of two of Thea's Mandarin school classmates.  (Mandarin school starts tomorrow.)  He was coming in for coffee and was next door at Chuck E. Cheese with his wife and their boys.  So after eating we went to say 'hello'.  I give both parents credit, they can actually read books while sitting at a table in the middle of background noise that almost defies description.  I am not that sort of person, I invested in the minimum amount of tokens that my sanity could tolerate.

Tomorrow is the first meeting of Thea's Junior troop, then Mandarin school - she still has a few pages of the summer homework to do.  Sigh.  At least this summer she didn't give much grief over doing the 20+ pages she completed.

School started Thursday, so after two days it's too early to tell, but so far so good. 

Religious school starts Tuesday for Thea; Micah doesn't start until next year.  Soccer is gearing up - Thea's team will be the Tigers, so she is thrilled.  The team doesn't have a coach, so the parents will need to take turns with practice and games, so I am NOT thrilled.

Last Friday

A week ago Micah had an appointment with Dr. Choe to check his ears and clean out the debris of summer from Micah's ear canal to get him ready for school.  He is an old pro at this, I just sit in the chair and watch the bits of stuff accumulate on the 4" x 4" gauze while Micah chats with Dr. Choe.  It's pretty much like going to the dentist - other than we do this about three times per year.  Micah's ear canals are looking good, everything is where it should be.

  The office staff recognize Micah the minute he comes out of the elevator and are always charmed by him.  All in all, totally worth getting up at the near crack of dawn to make it up to Englewood for an 8:10 am appointment.  We're so lucky to be this close to Dr. Choe's office, I can't image living far away from our atresia surgeon.

September 6, 2004

Once upon a time, eight years ago when my knees felt much younger, a bus loaded with thirteen families left the Holiday Inn in ChongQing and drove across the Yangtze River to a rather unimpressive office building with an elevator about the size of a large phone booth; it took multiple trips for our entire group and the two facilitators to arrive at our destination.  The adoption office was much swankier than the building or its elevator.  This is the email that I wrote on September 6, 2004, back in the days before I was a sometimes blogger and a full-time Mom:

Dear Everyone,

I started a nice, long email to all of you, which was just eaten by Juno or the

hotel's internet connection.  And I'm not even going ballastic.

Greetings from the Holiday Inn-Yangtze in Chongqing ("chun ching", if you

happen to care about pronounciation).

We survived the two long flights from Newark to San Francisco, and then on to

Beijing.  Our 24 hours in Beijing went by very fast: one Peking duck restaurant on

arrival, Tianmen Square, the Forbidden City and the Great Wall on Sunday, then by

5 pm we were on our way to the airport for Chongqing.  Our travel group and the 

facilitators are phenomenal.

Today was Gotcha Day, the day we've prepared, overpacked and angst-ed over for

months. It went so, so well.  We all met in the hotel's restaurant at 9:30 to do

the paperwork, which was spirited away by the facilitators, after lunch the bus 

came at 1:20 pm to take us to the local adoption office.  We arrived at a rather

non-descript corner, somewhere in CQ, went into a rather decrepit looking building

and arrived on the fourth floor to a rather new looking office with more than the

13 babies our group was there to claim.  Rolling scooters with babies (including 

one that was rocketing from one corner of the room to another), sofas with babies,

orphanage staff with babies, all in various states of happiness, apprehension, or

outright crying.

Steve and I failed to pick out Thea from the multitudes, but no sooner did we

really start focusing, someone called out "Liang Zhen" and a squalling Thea was 

placed in Steve's arms.  She calmed down pretty quickly and just stared at us

trying to figure things out; she like the toy we brought and seem to focus on 

faces.  For our paperwork we were photographed as a family (one hellacious picture

of me, don't expect to see it), then we met with the orphanage director and staff 

that accompanied the babies to ask any questions.  The LiangPing babies seemed 

very well cared for.  We managed to take a picture with them for Thea's scrapbook.

I have never said Xie Xie (shay shay: thank you) so many times on this whole trip

as I did today.

Thea had her first bottle (eats like a champ, liked whatever bottle she was given,

prefers silicon nipples) and diaper change at the adoption office.  That's what, 

I think, won her over:  we might be funny looking and unfamiliar, but we cater and

keep butts dry.

She fell asleep on the ride back to the hotel, so Steve did a diaper run to a local

department store.  I watched the nap and then played stacking cups with Thea.  We

had dinner with the group and the new additions, and then the doctor came to the

hotel room to check over the babies.  She's now 8.6 kg and passed her physical. 

The 9-12 month clothes with feet are a little tight, twelves are a little hefty in

the torso - we'll manage.

Chongqing had rain last night - the sky crying tears for the babies that we're

taking away, and still today it was a little damp.  It's foggy and smoggy - we're

on the 19th floor of the hotel and can barely see the other side of the Yangtze

for a few hours during the day.  There are beautiful lights along the river at

night.

Anyway, between the first effort and getting this email off, I've left Steve for

an hour and a half.  Thea's probably flayed the flesh off his arms with those nails of

hers, and he's so smitten, he's probably letting her.

Next update, if possible, either later in the week or after the 12th when we're in

Guangzhou

Hope all is well with you.  Thank you for all the good thoughts - they have

obviously worked.  Thea is fantastic, beyond our wildest hopes and dreams and we

can't wait to bring her home.


Lydia

And eight years later,  that little baby is still beyond my wildest dreams, the best daughter in the whole world and my fabulous girl.

Friday at Home

Some days with nothing on the schedule turn out to be the best days of all.

Beds made.

Laundry put away.

Laundry room floor swept up.

A little tidying up and dusting upstairs.

Finished an on-line survey that will eventually result in a check in the mailbox.

Much pondering of what to sew next - something from the modern quilt book or a paper-piece pattern ordered from an etsy.com vendor.

A Greek salad made with Jersey tomatoes and seedless cucumber and a heap of feta cheese.

Happy stuff.

Unfortunately, the back to school to-do list is lurking around somewhere:

Haircuts for both kids at Snip-Its with Ms. Flo

New shoes for school

New cleats for soccer

Check-ups for both kids

School supplies lists, including mass quantities of Dixon Ticonderoga #2 pencils

Going through two closets to pull the clothes the kids have outgrown.

Fall and back-to-school is looming large on the horizon.  Ugh.

Wishful Summer Thinking

 A post begun over a week ago. . . .

After two weeks in the WW-P Community Education summer programs, the kids are back to Princeton Friends School Camp next week.  They had a good time, but it seemed like quite a few of the program that we signed up for were cancelled and substitutions made.  Next year I think I want to take more time off during the summer so they can be home, hang out, go on day-trips and what not.

Fall seems like it's coming up quickly: Thea and Micah are registered for soccer, Thea is looking forward to the WWPSA's 3-on-3 tournament; I've got to register her for YingHua for the fall, check the school district's web site for school supply lists.

And even before this was posted, the week at Friends Camp finished and the kids are back to Community Education for one last week before returning once more to PFS for two final weeks.  Time is flying, I'm finding things other than keeping up with blogging to keep me busy.

It's almost August, time to start thinking about haircuts, finishing the remainder of the school supplies lists, starting to stalk the school district web site for teacher assignments, getting an appointment for Micah to get his ears flossed out, school physicals for both kids, and so on, and so on.

Maybe I've spent too much time at the quilt shops, where fall and Christmas fabrics are in abundance and everyone seems to be working on holiday table runners and tree skirts.  Not my thing, though some of the Hallowe'en fabrics are cute.

Meanwhile I haven't seen the Atlantic Ocean this year, I'm already planning for  Summer 2013 and taking more time off during the summer to enjoy it with the kids.

Two months. . .

until school starts. 

Thea volunteered that information today while we were out shopping.  To Thea, it seems like school is going  to be starting soon.  To me, it seems like there is still a lot of summer ahead of us.

Somehow there are people in the world who think that summer is somehow easier.  And it might be in terms of not having homework to deal with, but logistically, it may be more difficult.  It takes looking at my iPad to know where they will be each week for camp, learning the camps' schedules for snacks and lunches and whatnot.  With school, they have cafeteria accounts set up, and most days, I don't make lunches.  For camp, they need a lunch that will survive the heat (and yes, I do use re-usable freezer blocks.)

And in our lives, there is still is homework because we have the 35 page green workbook from Ying Hua Language School that must be finished and turned in on the first Sunday.

When the school year finally does get underway, it will be the first year that Micah stays put in one school for the entire day, and it will be Thea's first year at Millstone Upper Elementary School, which will be a much bigger school.  Wicoff School is the smallest of the district's lower elementary schools, which is nice because the staff and principal seem to know every student in the school but it will make the transition more interesting.

Ears. . . . .

Micah and I were in the family room, on the 4th of July, I think because I was sewing and he was finishing dinner, which is more of a process than a meal since he's a dining dawdler.

And while he was contemplating his dinner, he looked up and me and asked, "Mommy, will my ears always be this way?"

Oh, holy hell, really?  Today this comes up?  And what I want from him in the way of details as to why this is on his mind aren't forthcoming.

We've talked about this with him before, around the time he was having the atresia surgeries.  Micah was told that the atresia surgeries were not negotiable because we wanted him to have the best hearing possible.  But the microtia repair surgeries are up to him, and at that time he said, "No more surgeries, I don't want big ears."  He was four at the time.

(And then his father decided that it was finally time to have him circumcised, which will definitely give him something to talk to his future therapist about.  But that's a different story about parents who break promises.)

The issue of microtia has pretty much been way, way off the conversational radar since September 2010, which was when Micah had his last atresia surgery.

So I slapped on my parental verbal tap shoes and offered him a quick recap of the past, and told him that going to the doctor to talk about surgery to create bigger ears is entirely his choice. (I try to avoid the words "normal ears", we talk about big ears and little ears.)

He then asked if the surgery to have ears made that look like Thea's ears could be done in Dr. Choe's office instead of the hospital.  And when he was told that it would be at a hospital and it would also not be Dr. Choe performing the surgery, he would need to see a special doctor called a plastic surgeon.

Micah then said that if it couldn't be done by Dr. Choe in his office, he does not want big ears.

Issue closed, for now.

Countdown to Summer

Countdown to the last day of school:  4.5 days. This week Thea has a trip to the upper elementary school she will be attending in the fall on Monday and the rescheduled Third Grade Carnival on Tuesday, Micah has Sliding into First Grade on Wednesday and his AM Kindergarten class party on Thurday.  So by my estimation, 'school' was over last week and this week is for festivities and celebrating.

And it's the one week that I am working Monday through Friday, and Saturday is my day to work.  I am rather pouty about it, especially since I am usually of Fridays and would be there to pick the kids up from their last day of school.

Since Memorial Day weekend, quilting has gone by the wayside, so I was happy to drag out my bags of stuff and go off to OCQ for Super Sew on Friday.  Instead of working on projects, I once again worked on Thea's Junior vest by sewing on all the event patches that had been removed from her Brownie vest.  This is their final resting place, I am not ripping out all those stitches if she moves up to Cadets.

Then I worked on making scrappy strips for the Foursquare Farmhouse.  I like having a quilt back that has a little interest to it, and it's a great way to not wind up with a bunch of scraps that are too nice to throw away but will likely not find themselves used in a project any time soon.  I think I'm keeping this one.

Friday night I didn't even take all the quilting supplies out of the car since Saturday night was The Sew Must Go On.  Unfortunately, the path to The Sew went through a trip to Parsippany to attend the Practicing Clinician Series 2012 Symposia.  9.25 free CEUs.  To good to pass up, even it means driving an hour at 7 am on a Saturday morning, and then spending 90 minutes on I-78 and the NJ Turnpike to get to OCQ.

I got there a little later than I usually would (9.25 free CEUs), but quickly got up and running  I made a second strip, and then a third scrap strip for the back of the quilt, bought a very wide piece of a light batik and put it all together, then bought the batting and left it there to be quilted.  Estimated time for getting it back is about six weeks.

Meanwhile Steve has gotten memberships for us at the West Windsor community pool.  Not much in the way of grass is growing on the patch of backyard where the pool used to be, but the old pool is not missed.  The kids and Steve went for the first time yesterday., and may go back today. 

Memorial Day Mind Fog

Tuesday morning back at work, and already the weekend has blurred into a foggy blob of what did I really accomplish this weekend?  Not much in the way of cleaning the house or working on the garage.  Too bad.

Thursday was the end of the Third Grade Inquiry project, with the 132 students who stuck it out to the end (or who did enough work so as not be asked to drop out) showing off their work in the cafeteria at Town Center School.  Thea did well, worked without note cards answering questions about what she learned about genes and DNA; we were proud of her and her presentation looked liked she did it.  There were two others who also worked on similar projects - one with a slick Power Point presentation on a laptop (which to me smacked of too much parental involvement).  Thea hasn't gotten the paper back that her reviewer used to evaluate her presentation, but it will be interesting to see.  Particularly since the glue was still drying on the the tri-fold poster board as we were walking in. 

Friday, the car and I went to Honda for a much overdue oil change.  Nice of them to tell me on paper that my tires need replacing, it would've been nice to hear it in person rather than finding it out when I flipped the receipt over one day later.  The rest of the day was devoted to sewing: the two Saturday Sampler squares for PQW, which I usually finish within a day or so of bringing them home, Thea's Brownie and Junior vests and the start of a Four Square Farmhouse quilt top.  I forgot the pinwheel lap quilt top that I was working on so I couldn't put on the trim on the bottom edge - got to dig that out before it becomes a UFO (which translates an unfinished object).

 Saturday while Micah was at his friend Leland's birthday party, Thea and I went to the EMS store to pick up two dunk bags for the Brownies camping trip next weekend.  I remember dunk bags from my own Girl Scouts camping experiences, but instead of plastic, I think it was made of metal.  Then we went to Target to pick up sleeping bags and print up pictures for the troop leader to put in the scrapbook.  Once all that was finished, I could get back to sewing.

Which continued into Sunday, and once I had twenty squares for a lap quilt, making ten more for a twin-sized didn't seem so unreasonable.

But on Monday the two shops I frequent were both closed for Memorial Day so the five light / five dark batiks had to come from my stash and not from fat quarters.  So with a True Blood marathon on HBO and the kids at the Princeton pool with Steve, I made ten more squares.

Which leads me to wish there was an app for the iPad to put in pictures of quilt squares to crop and shuffle into the most pleasing pattern.  Doing this by laying them out on the bed is both time consuming and annoying and makes it a chore similar to working through a GRE question where you have five red books, four yellow books, two green and six red books, the red can't touch the yellow, the the blue can't touch the green, so where does the black book go? Tedium exemplified.

Meanwhile in the backyard, the chemical- and money-sucking cesspit that was the above ground swimming pool is GONE.  Two Thursdays ago Steve mentioned that Thea didn't really care if we had the backyard pool so maybe we should get rid of it.  Somehow I mentioned this in passing to Mike who was at the office to repair the hole in the wall made by one of my patient's who passed out, and he has a neighbor who wanted an above-ground backyard pool.  Reduce, reuse, recycle.  Gone, gone, gone as of Friday when I came back from Honda to pick up my quilting supplies to find two trucks in the driveway and heard the sounds of men doing manly disassembling things coming from the backyard.  I grabbed my stuff and trotted back to the car.

.Now I have my mother telling me that I should use it to plant an herb and vegetable garden.  Like that's ever going to happen.  I am just not the tilling the soil sort of woman; quilting, yes, gardening, big fat NO.  This is not Little House on the Prairie here.

No sewing this weekend:  Brownie's overnight camping trip to a Girl Scout camp in Somerset County and Ying Hua, the last class followed by the end-of-year ceremony.

Spring Cleaning

. . . for Micah's ears.  Yesterday we made another trip up the Turnpike to Englewood to see Dr. Choe.  I must have had a complete mental lapse when I called for the appointment because I took an 8:00 am slot, which is just murder from the get-go:  to get Micah up, fed and dressed on a school day in time to catch the school bus at 8:25 am is a minor feat.  To have him in the same state 90 minutes earlier would require prayer, a lot of talking in a loud voice, some gratuitous tickling and patience in quantities greater than I have at that hour of the morning.

Thankfully the Turnpike cooperated.  The GPS set our arrival at 7:58 am, and we were putting in the parking lot right at that time, and there was parking spots on the open, sunny first level so we didn't need to park in the dark, creepy bowels of the building level.  The appointment was 15 minutes: five minutes of chit-chat, five minutes per ear of Dr. Choe picking out the waxy debris that accumulates in the canals and we were back out at the reception area where Micah could schmooze with the staff.  He is especially proud that he can now see over the reception desk on his own.

Then we made the trip back home, with a small reward trip to Target thrown in, and he signed in at school, got a late pass and trotted off to Mrs. Miller's room by 10:00 am.

Later that day I had to go back to Wicoff to be the helping mom at the Brownie meeting, which was mostly taking pictures and bringing Capri Sun juice pouches since a troop of Juniors came to share their wisdom regarding camping, building fires and how to dress for a camping trip.  The Juniors brought the snack, which was various pretzels and snack cereal so that the Brownies could build a miniature camp fire on their plates and then eat it.  The mother-daughter camping trip is coming up the first weekend in June.  By the mercy of whatever higher power, it will be at the main house of the campground, so we'll have beds and indoor plumbing.  Thea is nervous about the camping trip for whatever reason.  At the meeting yesterday the girls had to put down who they would like to bunk with, putting down three names and with the guarantee that they will room with at least one; I was shocked to see how many put Thea's name down (which is sweet, but they have no idea that she sometimes snores like a water buffalo and talks in her sleep.)

After the Brownies award ceremony (i.e. more patches to sew on), we went to pick up Micah from EDP and then went right back to Wicoff for the End-of-the-Year Celebration.  Multiple bouncy houses and slides, a balloon person, DJ, pizza and ice cream truck.  (Thankfully no evil pony ride lady from the Fall celebration.)  Thea was allowed to run around with her friends, Micah hung out with his friends Charlie and Jeff, running, jumping and balloon sword fighting (after we stood in line for 45 minutes for the balloon lady).

We left as it was getting dark and much cooler and went to KFC for dinner.  Micah fell asleep in the car but revived once he remembered that he had a new Bey Blade waiting for him from the morning trip to Target, and I had picked one out for Thea, so they spent awhile having battles and then watching Phineas & Ferb and Penguins of Madagascar before crashing for the night.

Once upon a time. . .

. . . which was only about three weeks ago, we were on vacation.  Meals were as easy as just showing up, buffets meant that there was no whining about not liking what was being served.

 No beds to make.

 No homework to check up on.

 Sandals or bare feet all the time

Coatis and iguanas clambering around.

 A half dozen swimming pools meant that "I'm bored" was not uttered during that entire week.

A lazy river inner tube ride.

Using the children as my cover, I got to swim with dolphins (which they happened to enjoy as well) and I bought amazing pictures of my children with dolphins, snorkeling, holding macaws, iguanas and parrots.

I watched Thea climb on a rope line over water, twice, and got to snorkel with her and see that she loves it as much as I do.

And yes, there were a few not so magical moments: waiting on a bridge to take pictures of my family.  Waiting, waiting, waiting.  Until I figured they had taken another route back so I hiked around Xel-Ha to the floating bridge, which was bouncing away (? high tide) and only had hand-railings on every other section.  Visions of me and the camera getting bounced into the Caribbean danced in my head, and the humiliation cake was iced by the Xel-Ha lifeguard coming out onto the bridge asking if a) I had too many rum and Cokes and b) did I need any help?  (To which I answered a) No. (I hate rum and Cokes) and b) No, thank you.  Although my interior monologue, was telling him to be gone before I push him off of the bouncing bridge. Then after making it back to the main area, finding no family at any of the meeting places (not to worry, I had the key to the locker, so I had dry clothes and the cash), they come walking up, Steve with a huge smile on his face that I wanted to wipe off with towel that had cleaned the bottom of the seal tank.

The biggest feat of the vacation was going without internet access from Tuesday through Friday because in-room Wi-Fi was $100 per week.  (Seriously?  Internet access is de rigeur in this day and age.)  Wi-Fi at the Iberostar Paraiso Maya was found in a 20' x 6' area in the lobby, the closer to the window the better, which counts as one of the hotel's few faults.

All in all, a good week, until it was over 

Happy Easter & Passover

Easter weekend at our house has been pretty laid back.  Saturday night Steve, Thea and Micah went to the seder at Temple Micah; I went to The Sew Must Go On at Olde City Quilts.  It's usually 4 pm until 1 am, but I got there a little late, and most everyone was packing up and ready to head out at midnight.  I finished 32 more pinwheels, whose fate I am still contemplating - and since on a good evening at home, finishing 12 is an accomplishment, it was a good night.

The kids' Easter baskets were thrown together in haste at around 1:30 this morning.  Oma provided a good bit of the chocolate, a patient gave me a pink bunny and a yellow duck stuffed animal and chocolate bunnies for them, so I did next to nothing other than throw a few quarters in the plastic eggs (also supplied by Oma.)

Easter breakfast was the usual three-way split: Thea with her steamed eggs, Micah with cereal and pancakes for Steve, sausages and pineapple for all.

Then the kids and I got going on making food for Steve to take with him when he goes to visit Grandma.  Micah made matzoh balls with me, and Thea was in charge of the potato latkes and was fearlessly flipping them despite getting hit with a few pot shots of hot oil.  She also took on cooking the chicken for the soup without much in the way of supervision from me.  This was one of the first times that boredom didn't get the best of  either one of them mid-project; they stuck with me until the last latke came out of the pan and the matzoh balls were transferred into the soup pot.

Now it's just a question of airing out the house to get rid of the fried latke smell and getting back to trying to get a little bit organized.

Voiceless

From February 24, 2012. 

A cold virus began to take hold of the insides of my head last weekend, rattling through my throat, sinuses and nose.  A container of cranberry-raspberry juice kept it at bay while we were visiting my mother last Sunday through Tuesday, but the ickiness came back once I was back at work.

Leaving me today with an annoying rasp of a voice today.  So I spent my day off by myself, trying to not talk.

I sewed a decorative ribbon and a Brazilian flag onto small white totes I purchased at Michael's.  This weekend is the Girl Scouts' Thinking Day celebration and Thea's troop is representing Brazil.  Fortunately for us, the costumes are samba skirts for half the group and gauchos for the other half.  In case you need to have all the dots connected, I barely got Thea to wear the Maori skirt last year, so I was not looking forward to convincing her to wear a ruffly skirt.

Souper Sew

From March 23, 2012 aka Our Tenth Anniversary or the 2nd Anniversary for Micah's Left Ear Canal

Another Friday spent at Olde City Quilts at a Souper Sew.  The crab quilt got a blue border on it and I started putting together pieces of the fabrics that made up the crab quilt into a back for it.  Sewing has turned into my therapist, and it probably costs as much as conventional therapy.  I got to try out yet another Bernina, an Artista 730.  It had a touch screen and chirped much to much for my liking - and amongst all the buttons and icons on the screen I couldn't find the 'mute' button, so I found myself saying "Oh, shut up, will you?" with every beep.

Bugged Stomach

Yesterday I worked in the morning, picked up Thea at school at 3:15 and we went to the library so she could work on her Third Grade Inquiry paper and pick up Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  We spent a couple hours there and then went to fetch Micah from Kindergarten EDP and made dinner.  Thea managed to finish her homework at the library, so they were free to play before and after dinner.

We started the getting ready for bed process at 8 pm, which counts for ahead of schedule compared with most days.  Since Thea finished getting ready, she wanted to read. Whatever Thea does, Micah also wants to do, so he grabbed his Harriet Tubman book and his Alligators & Crocodile book, and also hopped on our bed.  Just before sending them off to bed, I looked at the page number of the Harry Potter book and she was on page 446.  In a book I thought she had just picked up that afternoon.

After everyone was asleep, I went downstairs to sew.  Something did not feel right in my stomach, but I put it off on the way I sit while sewing: on the edge of the love seat, hunched over the sewing machine that sits on the coffee table.  It's a bit of an ergonomic disaster, but it usually causes discomfort in my butt and legs from sitting on the edge, rather than in the stomach.

I finished the twelve pinwheels I was working on, with the brain trying to remember if we had any Pepto-Bismal in the house.  And then all hell broke loose, and lunch, dinner and everything else that was in my stomach decided to relocate.  I question my choice of having the powder room painted green, not very soothing for those who are queasy.

Once upon a time I debated which I would dislike more, having cold symptoms for two weeks or so or one to days of a stomach virus - and at that time, the vote went to the stomach virus.  As of last night, I have reconsidered and changed my mind, I'll take head congestion and coughing anytime, anywhere.

And if projectile vomiting and dry heaves were not indignity enough, horrible chills came right on its heels and made me shiver and shake.   The normal two quilts, down comfort with duvet and fleece blanket could not make a dent in how cold I felt.  It took Steve coming home and putting three more blankets over me and warming up two rice / buckwheat pillows to finally over come the worst of it so I could fall asleep at 3:30 am.  And three Cokes with crushed ice to overcome the taste in my mouth that was telling me that my tongue had kissed road kill.

And for being out sick today, I really did just stay in bed and sleep.  No TV, no computer, no reading.   A whole day where I could have been at the sewing machine, and I just could not do it.  My first accomplishment for the day was sorting and putting away one basket of laundry and making the bed, which didn't happen until after 2 pm.  Second accomplishment was getting to Thea's school to pick her up and take her to religious school by way of Forest Jewelers to get a new watch battery for Steve's wristwatch and Wawa to get Thea a snack.

Fortunately, no one else in the house has come down this with this - so I'm blaming the lunch food at work yesterday.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday, my Micah Moo.  It's hard to believe that you're six years old.  I'm looking forward to seeing what the next year will bring as you continue to amaze us.

Bits and Jots

Once upon a time, I wrote a blog, not well and definitely not often, but I tried to maintain a chronicle of what was going on in our lives.  Having kids who have school and social lives, plus working full-time, has just about drained my batteries for blogging - and life has just been sort of normal:  no surgeries, relatively few doctors' appointments, no traveling.

But every now and then there is a pang of guilt and today was one of those days.

I now have most Fridays off, which I am loving, loving, loving.  Not that I am actually accomplishing much, but sometimes it's not about how much I get done.

I've gone to a Friday Souper Sew and a The Sew Must Go On at Olde City Quilts, so I am still trying to sew and quilt.  I am also starting a Saturday Sampler at Pennington Quilt Works.  It's $30 for the starting package and then if the month's square is finished by the next Saturday Sampler meeting, the next square is free.  If it's not finished, the next square costs $6.

This morning I went to Ying Hua International School, Thea's alma mater for Pre-K through grade 1, to talk to the preschool class about nursing.  Though it wasn't much of a talk, it was more of a hands-on, let's try out the stethoscope and bandage up the classroom's stuffed animals.  The class was just so cute: there was the jump-right-in-with-boundless-enthusiasm kid, the shy-guy who has to warm up to what's going on, but once he does, he figures out how to disassemble the oto-ophthalmoscope, the little girl who has some mad bandaging skills and does it perfectly the first time.  I don't think they learned all that much about nursing, but I think they had fun.

Meanwhile, the kids are taking skating classes on Saturday mornings.  Thea's taking another trip through Alpha 2 during the next session; Micah is going back on the ice mostly to hang out with his friend, Benjamin.

Thea is in her second year of  Brownies, accumulating a few more patches and badges for me to sew on, selling cookies - it's her one chance to hang out with girls her own age.  We've been having friends from school over: Tommy, Jeffrey, Adam, for Wii dates.  We're lucky because Adam comes conveniently packaged with Veronica, who is in Kindergarten with Micah - and they live right up Krebs Road from us.  How lucky is that?  Thea just finished up her stint on Rainbow Patrol, which is her school's version of safety patrol, keeping kindergarteners from running in the halls.  The Third Grade Chorus is getting ready for the Spring Concert, chorus day is one day we have not problem getting Thea off to school; she already singing most of the spring program.

Micah is a chatterbox, much too much at times. Still needs a lot of working on patience, waiting and taking turns in conversation.  He's starting to read, which is a skill that also seems to require more patience than he is capable of.  Micah has a "I just want to do it, dammit" attitude, which just mesh with patiently trying to put the sounds that letters make into words.  After ice skating, it will be time to decide whether it's Spring Soccer or something else for him.

The 100th day of school has come and gone.  I've got to look up how this tradition came into being, it was not on the school calendar at Lewisdale Elementary School in the mid- to late 1960s.  There was an assembly at school, which Thea found to be too loud.  If the school year is about 180 days long, why would the 100th day be more of a cause for celebration than the 90th day or wherever the half way point falls?

Time to cut and sew. . . .

Back to the Winter Routine. . . .

Thea is off at skating lessons - she is in Alpha 2 and is happy as a clam that her friend Jeffrey will also be in the class.  Jeffrey was one class ahead of Thea but he didn't pass Alpha 2.  Micah went along to the rink (he's no fool, he wants the hot cocoa and the french fries without having to do the ice time to earn them).

The decorations and lights came off the Christmas tree, so this afternoon we'll see if the tree bag helps contain the mess or whether needles will be vacuumed up for the next six months or so.  It was a great tree, so the job of tree selection is Thea's.

Yesterday Thea's Brownie troop had an awards ceremony to give the girls the Try-Its and patches they'd earned over the past four months.  Thea had nine, so rather than hand-stitch them, I broke out the sewing machine and sewed them on. (Yes, I do know the badges are allegedly iron-on, but it doesn't last, and why buy 'Patch Attach' adhesive when I have a sewing machine.)  I have one thing to say to those who design the patches to commemorate the events: squares, triangles, and rectangles.  Sewing my way around a little reindeer was a complete pain in the butt.

Micah and I made the trip up the Turnpike to Englewood to see Dr. Choe.  Micah sat patiently while the debris was plucked from his ear canals, went off with Courtney the audiologist to the booth and back in to see Dr. Choe.  The audiogram is about the best result that a person who has had bilateral atresia repair can get: mild conductive hearing loss, meaning Micah is within 10dB of someone with normal hearing.  For his 'pain and suffering', we made a trip to Target.  (There is neither pain nor suffering, I no longer even help hold his head still; he giggles and says it tickles.)

Closing Out 2011

It's Hanukkah already?  Micah's first year lighting candles on his own.  We live for danger, and the fire extinguisher is just ten feet away.

And so it begins. . . .

Seriously, Mom?  A puppy hat?

Christmas Day, after starting to cook dinner but before we remembered the stockings.

Dinner, with stuffing recipes courtesy of Mom and Mina

Creamed Spinach, Mom's recipe again, two thumbs up from Thea and it only took one call to Florida

The stunned look of people who realized that Mom cooked an entire holiday dinner and it's actually edible.

Photo by Emad Al Junaidi:  Dinner stop at Annapolis Mall on the way home from dropping off Oma.  Front row: Micah, Nadia and Thea, back row: Norah, Janet and me

11:59:59 pm New Year's Eve, Rocking in 2012 with a gang who knows how to party

Thea's contribution to the Third Grade Heritage Festival on December 23, 2011, German cookies

Second Night of Hanukkah

Christmas Eve, after the children were snug in their bed

The 2011 Christmas Card Photo

Our last day of 2011 included a trip to the Apple store at Freehold Mall to sort out an issue with an iTunes card.  It affirmed all the reasons why I prefer shopping online.  Noise, chaos both in the mall and particularly in the Apple store, and no parking.  Fortunately the geek girl helped me sort out the issue and by the time we were home, the email with the resolution to the problem was in my in-box.

The holidays were good, it was the first Christmas spent in New Jersey for us.  We're usually in Maryland with my mother - and I have been with my mother for every Christmas, ever.  And this year was no different because after opening presents, making Christmas dinner, I flew to Tampa to fly home the next day with my mother who was visiting her cousin.  Sauerkraut, red cabbage, lentil soup and roast pork - a second, near midnight Christmas dinner.   Sauerkraut and lentil soup for breakfast.  Heaven.

Oma spent another night with us on her way home to Maryland, which the kids loved - though out six hour drive in the rain down I-95 back to LaPlata no one loved.  On our way back home to New Jersey we met up with our friends at the Cheesecake Factory, and the kids got to torture Uncle Emad while I got to catch up with Aunt Janet.

Good-bye to 2011, you were a decent year, for me at least.  The kids are doing well, are happy and healthy.  Micah is in a 'regular' kindergarten, Thea is in third grade at Wicoff Elementary. This is the last year they will be in the same school until Thea's last year of high school and Micah's first.