Soccer, Worms, Reading and No TV

The spring soccer is mixed teams divided up on the day of the practice, with boys and girls playing together.  One of the boys on Thea's team took a direct hit from a well-kicked soccer ball right to the privates.  All the other boys erupted in laughter and Thea just looked at them and said, "I know why you think that's funny..."  I was proud of her because she walked right on to the field and started talking to the coach and told him right away, "I like playing defense better."

Right before soccer was the OLSAT test.  Poor little first-graders had to endure testing from 9:00 am to noon. The second- and third-graders just had to suffer through an hour.  Other than going to China, Egypt or Oman, I've not spent much time being a minority, but at the drop off for the test I think I saw maybe four other Caucasian parents.  Thea was pretty unperturbed by the test.  As all the other kids were being herded up the sidewalk to the school, she was stopping to pick up earthworms that were on the sidewalk from the rainstorm the previous night.  So not to be outdone by my sensitive child, I had to pick up some of the worms too to save them from being trampled.

Thea is reading the Young Reader's edition of Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson, one of my all time favor books.  She has been incentivized by the promise of a reward when she's done. The good thing is seems to like the story and it's leading to good vocabulary additions:  meningitis, epilepsy, baptism, seizure, though it's a brain strain for me to get the concept of epilepsy into an explanation to fit a seven year old's frame of reference.

Thea and I are doing the Television Turn-Off week that started last Friday and goes through Thursday.  Today is the halfway mark and neither of us has touched the TV remote or our Nintendos.  After getting our passport photos done on Saturday, I let her have a look at Game Stop and she asked them to hold Pokemon Revolution (for the Wii) for her and we picked it up yesterday (she paid), and she didn't even waver about putting it in the box to be held until the reign of terror is over.

TV-Free for 7 Days. . .

. . . .thanks to a flyer from Thea's school.  Thea said she wanted to participate yesterday, and did well this morning before school, but the facade cracked a bit during the after-school / pre-dinner hours as actual withdrawal set in.

But she held firm, and we got back into the final chapters of The Penderwicks on Gardam Street, which we've been working on since before the move to Plainsboro.  Micah got two Llama Llama books read to him, one by me and one by Thea.

All in all this TV-free, electronic-game free thing is not so bad.

Just don't touch my laptop.

Gripes

I purchased the book, 'Home in the Morning' by Mary Glickman for my Kindle and it is the first book I think I may delete from the device.  It was a good story, or at least it held my attention.  Right up until the storyline moved to 1965 and the main characters were in Washington, DC and one of them got out of the hospital AND TOOK THE SUBWAY HOME. 

I lived in the Washington, DC area from 1960 to 1974, and I remember the construction of the Metro system which started around 1969.  I also remember riding the Red Line with my grandfather and brother in 1976 when we had come back to visit for the Bicentennial.

At the end of the book I went to read the end notes to see if the author would make any explanation for this glaring error.  Nothing.  Not that I would be totally forgiving, but at least if she said she was exercising a bit of artistic license, I could dial down the annoyance.

This ranks right up there with Kevin Costner running on the towpath along the C&O canal in Georgetown and then zipping into the Georgetown Metro stop and then hopping on a train that is clearly part of the Baltimore subway system in 1987's No Way Out.   I don't remember much from the plot, but those little moments of movie magic live on.

Amazon owes me for recommending 'Home in the Morning' to me.

Movie Night

 From Saturday, September 22, 2010

Soccer Update:  Ravens 3, Falcons 1.  Thea scored the first goal in the game.

The principal of Thea's Sunday Chinese language school was looking for family's to take students from China attending Rider University to see the movie, Mao's Last Dancer at the local cinema.  She sent an email yesterday saying a few families had volunteered to go to the late afternoon show, but no one had gotten back to her for the 7:15 show and there were three students wanting to go.

Why not?  The movie trailer looked interesting.

All I would need to do is show up in the parking lot of the building at Rider University where Thea's class is at 6:30, pick up three students and go to the movies.

Two of the three showed up, Grace and Zoe.  Good thing I cleared the car seats out of the back seat, because both chose to sit there.  Which, thanks to reading Peter Hessler's Country Driving, I sort of expected.

The evening was an interesting look at the other end of the spectrum of China's one-child only policy.  These were two women who are both only children, studying half a world away from Guandong and Shanghai.  Both liked being an only child. Neither experienced any of the hardships of the era depicted as they were born long after.

We stopped at the Shop Rite after the film, and one bought $39 worth of sodas, bottled ice teas and Starbucks frappucinos and paid for it with her American Express Gold Card.

Both were curious as to Thea and Micah being born in China and adopted, and despite their English being excellent, it was both hard to explain international adoption, microtia/atresia, etc. in the course of a 15 minute ride back to the university.

The movie was great, by the way.

Once Upon a Good Deed. . . .

Back in December, when we were in Maryland for the Christmas holiday, the four of us went to National Harbor to hang out for an afternoon.  We parked in the St. George garage, mostly because that's where I parked when I went to the Gaylord for NCNP conference.  Steve tucked our minivan into a corner spot, and when they got out of the car, Steve and Thea found a cell phone on the ground.  I put the phone in my purse and we walked over to the ICE show, which was sold out for that day (even though the web site showed tickets available for a couple of time slots).  As we were walking around, the cell phone rang, and it was the sister-in-law of the cell phone owner, who was actually nice enough to not hang up when I told her that I was just some random person whose daughter had found the phone in a parking garage.

As Steve and Thea got our lunches at Potbelly's, the cell phone owner's SIL and I had a couple of chats on the phone - she gave me names of her SIL's family to see if they were listed in the address book or recent calls, we would hang up and I'd go looking.  No such luck, so we started working on how to figure out how to connect to hand off the phone since she lived a few exits north of National Harbor.  She and her husband volunteered to drive down, and I'd meet them. (The cell phone owner was visiting the area from South Carolina and was to be seeing her brother and sister-in-law before leaving the DC area.)

Meanwhile, Steve, Thea and Micah went off on a water taxi ride to Alexandria and back.  I got to wander around for 15 minutes doing some window shopping.  (Who would have ever thought that there could or would be a store almost entirely devoted to selling Little Peeps?  Just amazing.)  With a couple more calls to get connected, the hand-off took place in front of Ketchup (a restaurant, very unappealing name, IMHO, let's see if it's still there on our next trip there) and took less than 30 seconds.  They were happy, I was happy - and I had some time to wander around and see the water taxi coming back and heading for the dock at the Gaylord, so I could call Steve so they could disembark there and I'd walk down to meet them and we could check out the Christmas lights at the hotel.

Later that same night, I was going through my purse and found the plastic battery compartment cover to the cell phone.  Damn, damn and double damn.  What a half-baked good deed, the cell phone returned but not all of it.

Fortunately in the course of exchanging information with the SIL, I had her name and address written on a scrap of paper.  So when we got home to New Jersey, I wrapped the cover up in a bit of padding mailed it there figuring that if the SIL was nice enough to come and pick up the cell phone, she could be counted on to mail the cover back.  And then I pretty much forgot about it.  Not even pretty much.  I completely forgot about it.

Today the mail came and there was an envelope - very creatively decorated - with a return address from South Carolina.  Still didn't ring any bells.  Inside was a custom-made thank you card from the lady who got her cell phone back, and then who got her cell phone's battery cover back, too.   Really, really thoughtful.  Nice to see that thank you cards and snail mail aren't completely lost arts. The half dozen or so foil stars that came falling out when the card was opened, those I could have done without.  Whoever thought of putting confetti, however large, in cards is either a sadist or a vacuum cleaner salesperson.

Anyway, that's about all the excitement around here, other than watching bits of "Mama Mia!" while charting and catching White Collar's latest episode.

Shameless Advertising:  Stones into Schools by Greg Mortenson.  Just finished it yesterday.  Three Cups of Tea was one of the best Christmas gifts I've gotten.  Ever.  One of my top five favorite non-fiction books (Half the Sky, The Unheard, China Ghosts, Love in the Driest Season and There Is No Me Without You rounding out the list in case anyone wants to know, and those are just the ones I can come up with off the top of my head.)  The sequel is equally wonderful.  A must read, in hard copy, on Kindle or Nook, or whatever.  Though I still favor a 'real' book because there is just something about turning the pages and smelling the paper that just cannot be duplicated by an e-reader.

Books, Books, Books and Aggravation

I'm completely into Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Played with Fire.  I want to go back to Stockholm.  In the summer, not into those long, dark days.

Waiting in the wings is Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn's Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide - one of their previous books, China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power, was one of the best books I've read in the past few years.

Meanwhile I am off tomorrow, and so ready for it, even if it means another trip to Englewood for Micah to see Dr. Choe.  No charts, no notes, no one coughing in my face.

To add to the aggravations of the past couple of weeks, getting into our school routines and whatnot, the van service that drives Micah to school appears to have lost his nap blanket.  That his Oma bought for him, with the trains on it, and that conveniently has a pillow attached and a nice Velcro strap to roll it all up and hold it.  I am NOT amused.

The chain of custody, on Friday, has the school saying that it gave the nap blanket to the van aide, the van driver and aide saying that they gave it to Tesh, and Tesh and Micah arriving with Micah's clothes changed due to an accident (usually due to not putting a pull-up on for nap time) but no blanket.  It's not in Tesh's car, it's not in my car or in the office (being sort of hard to miss due to size and colorful fabric). So my finger points to the driver.  Especially when she responded to Tesh asking about it today by, pointing to the house and saying, "...it's probably in there somewhere."  Not bleeping likely since Micah does not go into the house, he and his belongings go straight into Tesh's car for the ride to the office.

And being furious doesn't solve the problem.  I need to find a blanket to send - not one of his good nap quilts from Eleanor, because obviously someone between school and the van cannot be entrusted with something that I don't want to see lost.

Reading List

Charlaine Harris's Dead and Gone arrived on the bookshelves at Barnes & Noble, the latest installment of her Southern vampire series. Since I had already destroyed vast quantities of brain cells reading the previous eight books, it was almost a matter of medical necessity that I read this one as well.

I ripped through it in the course of a weekend and was left with the feeling you get when you eat an entire bag of potato chips (with or without dip), (mentally) bloated and with the feeling of why did I do it? And if there is a tenth novel underway, I'll do it all over again.

Now I'm back to Jonathan Franzen's The Discomfort Zone, so I hope that fewer of my limited quantity of remaining brain cells will be annihilated.

Literary Potato Chips

I've been looking for a book to read. I've been wanting to read Steve Lopez's The Soloist for awhile, but unwilling to pay full price, or even near full price on http://www.half.com/. It's taken a bit of patience, but finally I found a used copy at a decent price, but I now must wait for media mail, which is the postal equivalent of strapping the book to the shell of a snail and sending it forth.

Meanwhile, I took a step off the beaten path for me by getting into Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire Serices (aka the Sookie Stackhouse series) which the HBO show 'True Blood' is based upon. The first book come from being between books, at Target, and possessed by a desire to see how the original book differed from the series (i.e. I wanted to rip it apart), but then it became like potato chips, one after another after another, until now the wait is on for the ninth book in the series, due out in May 2009. They're a hoot, both funny and weird, and strangely addictive. And it takes the mental wherewithal of a sea slug to follow the plots.

So in the span of about one per day, I went through:

1. Dead Until Dark
2. Living Dead in Dallas
3. Club Dead
4. Dead to the World
5. Dead as a Doornail
6. Definitely Dead
7. All Together Dead
8. From Dead to Worse

And I can't wait until The Soloist arrives and I'm back to reading something that isn't going to damage my three remaining brain cells, meanwhile I'm into Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford, thanks to a blurb on the cover by Lisa See, another of my favorite authors (who should get back to writing books instead of promotional blurbs, IMHO.)

Bonus: I just scoped out Amazon.com and Lisa See has a new novel coming out in May, Shanghai Girls (hint: would make an EXCELLENT Mother's Day present), and Pat Conroy will have a new novel, South of Broad, coming out in September 2009. And another the next vampire potato chip, Dead and Gone, will also be out in May, just in case one of those three brain cells is getting ornery and needs to be bumped off.

Election Day

It's the dawn of a new era, life is good, all is well with my world.

Given the date, you would probably think that I am talking about the election, but no, this is blog is not about politics. There are far more witty, engaging and pithy pundits who blog out there, and you can read them if you like.

No, the source of my good vibe is not the predictions of the election results, but the new Dunkin Donuts at Princeton Shopping Center finally opening for business. Be still my caffeinated little heart, bliss just got that much closer to home. No more driving up Route 206 to Hillsborough (though the drive-thru there is sweet) or out to Route 1. Caffeine and concentrated carbohydrates are a two-minute drive and two traffic lights away from my driveway. Truly the heavens are smiling on me. Unfortunately the shop was quieter than a mortuary and the teenaged counter help doesn't know how to measure one teaspoon of sugar to save his pimply-faced little life. If that's how it stays, I give it six months because it occupies a large chunk of pricey retail space.

This discovery brought to you because Micah and I went to Radio Shack to buy an odd-size 23A battery for our doorbell and Radio Shack is in the same shopping center. I'd completely forgotten about it because the 'coming soon' sign had been in the window for what seemed like months.

Even though it's Tuesday, I'm not working today; I worked yesterday, the first Monday in ages. If I were in the office it would be too hard to concentrate, plus worrying that I'd be finished in time to get home, get dinner done and get to the polls.

Today we had Ela at the house in the AM and then Micah went down for a nap. I think it's a sign that he's not completely adjusted to the time change yet since he went down for his nap by 12:15 with nary a protest. He just chugged his bottle, watched Sesame Street for a few minutes and was out. Elmo has that effect on me, too.

Instead of charging downstairs to check in with MSNBC, CNN and NPR, I made a salad and just sat and watched "House" for 20 minutes. Somehow, despite washing my hands so many times in the day, to the point they feel like sandpaper, I have managed to pick up a head cold so I feel like road kill. I stopped in at MSNBC while the other channel was on a commercial and there was an aerial shot of long lines at the polls in New Jersey. Fortunately, I think our district is relatively small and I've never had much of a wait and am hoping that today will be no different.

I'm glad that it will be all over tomorrow. . . .no more auto-dialed phone calls, no more reams of political mailings clogging the mailbox.

Thea got to 'vote' twice today, once with her father on the way to school, and once after school. And she was elected Kindergarten class leader of the day in what her teacher described as a unanimous vote. The leader of the free five-year old world then proceeded to order her brother in a somewhat intimidating tone of voice to put the cars and trucks away so we could go to the polls. There is no such thing as a secret ballot with Thea in the booth; this time instead of just pressing the CAST VOTE button, I let her push the individual candidates buttons, with her saying, "Daddy, didn't hit that button. . . ." most of the time. I was too busy trying to make sure that Micah didn't smack the brightly like CAST VOTE button prematurely.

Then we left the building and walked down to the Millstone River bank behind the polling place and threw rocks and sticks in the water.

Thea and I calculated that the first presidential election she'll be able to vote in will be in 2024, the same year as Micah turns 18 and will also be eligible to vote. I won't tell you how old I'll be; the thought that I'll be over 50 the next time I vote in a presidential election was a chilling enough thought.

Addendum:

Thea and I have started our first chapter book, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo (she wrote Because of Winn Dixie, in case anyone is interested). We're four chapters into it, Thebes fell asleep during chapter five.

And I'm on call tonight. Fortunately, most everyone is either in line at their polling place (until 8 pm when the polls close in NJ) or watching the returns on TV instead of ruminating over their own miseries, aches and pains. Only one call so far, a mother of a kid whose prescription for an antifungal cream was sent electronically to the pharmacy at 4:53 pm (much as I detest the EMR software being on our home computer, it's good for somethings and time stamping records is one of those things) and at 5:47 pm the answering service was calling because the prescription wasn't at the pharmacy. I want to do my part to save the world from dermatophytes, a fungus is NOT a medical emergency.

What was probably not made clear to the patient is that it takes an hour or more for an electronic prescription to transit cyberspace and land in the hand's of the pharmacist. I was a little annoyed when I checked out the details in the EMR and found that it was not quite 60 minutes from the time it was sent. I phoned the pharmacy and repeated the Rx on the voice mail and then wrote up the note on the computer and sent it to the patient's doctor, which beats the heck out of the little pink call slips we once used.

The Eyes Have It. . . .

Today was ophthalmologist appointment day for the kids. This was on the To-Do list from Micah's ENT, but was a lower priority than the audiograms, the renal ultrasound, EIP evaluation, etc. Thea's got included in the field trip because Steve thought she was having a problem with distance vision because she couldn't (wouldn't?) read a speed limit sign while out on a walk on Thanksgiving. So on Monday, while driving home from Summit Speech School, I called South Jersey Eye Physicians - and got appointments for today. Sort of amazing. . .

And. . . .both of them check out just fine. Thea did well on all parts of the exam, except the second eye drop - the first one didn't thrill her, and she was not pleased about having the process repeated. But Dr. Wexler seems to have a particular talent for prying open small eyelids and getting the job done - and then the whole process was repeated on Micah, except he had to have two drops because of his age. Not quite the meltdown of the ER visit, but he was not pleased at being placed in his second headlock of the week. Then we got to go out to the waiting room to leave another trail of mayhem and destruction while the eye drops worked their magic.

Anyway, Micah's exam was normal and Thea has 20/20 vision and does not need glasses - and she did the "big girl" test with the letters and not the shapes, so she's quite proud of herself.

One more thing crossed off the list, leaving just bloodwork left for Micah. (The ENT also recommended genetic counseling, but I don't really see the point if all his other exams are normal and he's developmentally on track. It wouldn't change what we're doing or plan to do, so why bother just for the privilege of paying another co-pay and seeing another specialist.)

Next week on December 5th we have yet another audiogram at JFK, the second one with the BAHA, then I probably should make another appointment with the ENT to check in with him.

Monday night I went back to Summit School for the reading and book signing. Josh Swiller is even better in person than on the NPR interview. I got my copy of his book signed for Micah. I highly, highly recommend his book The Unheard.

More later.

Brother Tiger stays home, Micah goes to school

This weekend we had an adventure with Thea's two stuffed white tigers, Regular Tiger and Brother Tiger. These guys have been with her since December 2004 or so, and we took (and returned with) both of them from our trip to China this summer. Thousands of miles, at least a half dozen airport security check points, bus and taxi rides, these guys were in the thick of it. Friday night all of us were going to Maryland to see my mother. My mother graduated from high school 60 years ago and I was escorting her to the reunion luncheon. Past 50 years after graduation, they lump all the alumni together into one large "Golden Techite" group. At this particular lunch classes from 1927 (yes, this is not a typographical error) through 1957 were represented. The group gathers at a luncheon each year, and approximately 600 to 700 people attend.

So we pack the car and head down to La Plata. The only time Thea's car door was open was at the rest stop on Route 301 on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. We arrive after 11:30 pm or so at the hotel - my aunt had the guest room at Mom's booked because she was also coming to the high school reunion luncheon. And the car is unloaded and no Brother Tiger. Anywhere. Regular Tiger made the trip in my suitcase, so I knew we had at least one of them. But one tiger and not two is a disaster of monumental proportions.

Fortunately all parties remained calm. The good thing is that we stopped there around 10 pm or so, so not much time had gone by. And through the auspices of Provigil, I drove back to the rest area to see if there was a tiger in the parking lot, inside (through the kindness of some stranger), on the picnic tables or in the trash cans (if someone decided to be a complete jerk). I got back to the hotel at around 3:30 am empty handed.

Thea passed the weekend in good spirits, not saying too much about Brother Tiger. While I was off at the reunion with Mom, Micah and Thea went to Oma's Special Park with Steve, and thanks to the late night on Friday, both of them took naps. Having had almost three hours retracing our footsteps and deconstructing the evenings events, my guess was that Brother Tiger was sitting at home, having never made it to the car because Thea was too busy minding everyone else's beeswax except her own.

Sunday we went to our cousin Elise's first birthday, and left for home just in time to contend with all the traffic from FedEx Field. Fortunately the back roads weren't too bad and we didn't lose much time. By the time we were about half way back to New Jersey, Thea finally asked, "But was if Brother Tiger isn't at home when we get back?"

But he was, much to everyone's relief. He spent the weekend sitting on the back of the sofa. And I felt like a dolt for driving almost 150 miles to/from the rest area.

Today was Micah's first day in the Parent-Infant Program at Summit Speech School. It's an hour's drive north of Princeton, and after a weekend of going to Maryland to visit Oma he was probably not thrilled at being strapped in his car seat yet again. I was hoping that because it was Columbus Day, the school would be closed. No such luck.

The program has about 30 minutes of playtime, then the children stay in the classroom and the parents (all moms today) went off to a conference room for group. The children rotate through various therapists and volunteers. At 11:40 am we got to go back in to the classroom. Micah did ok, but he did seem relieved to see me. Most of the children have cochlear implants or hearing aids. There is one baby with Down's and hearing impairment. Micah is the only child with atresia/microtia.

Book of the Week: The Unheard by Joshua Swiller. Thank you Janet for the link to his interview on NPR, and thank you half.com for the book for $1 plus media mail shipping.

Rant of the Week: I had to get a prescription for hearing aids for Micah, and got one from his ENT and one from his PCP due to my firm belief in overkill. The county's early intervention program also requires a note from the ENT stating that Micah is "medically cleared" for hearing aids. WHY WOULD HE BE GIVEN A PRESCRIPTION FOR HEARING AIDS IF HE WEREN'T MEDICALLY CLEARED? This is a perfect blend of stupidity and redundancy that has people like me taking medication to control blood pressure.

Previous Rant's Postscript: It is now almost a month since I applied for Micah's Social Security card. Nothing. I see another trip to Trenton in the offing. Ugh. Speaking of stupidity.

"Daddy, I want a pony" to "Daddy, I want a Cessna"

Thea is only in school Wednesday and Thursday this week, so in an effort to provide constructive and stimulating activities to occupy our time, we went on the weekly tour of Princeton Airport. Thea was very excited about this, and woke with "Today is our tour of the airport." And then she asked if there was going to be moving sidewalks. The moving sidewalks at the Newark, Beijing and Hong Kong airports were a bit hit with her, so I had to help her scale back her idea of the tour to the size of a small airport.
We got to see a lot of small planes taking off and landing, and two helicopters that also flew in as well. The highlight of the morning was getting to climb into the cockpit of a two-seater Cessna and work the controls.
Micah was just along for the stroller ride, but he was on good behavior thanks to a tiny beach ball given out by a representative of the Princeton Health and Fitness Center.

After lunch and Micah's nap, we remembered that it was the release date of the new Backyardigans book, Super Spies. Backyardigans are very big deal to Thea - a child who doesn't like dolls, isn't 'into' Disney - princesses or otherwise, and who has a passing interest in Dora and Diego. So I got tasked to calling Borders and Barnes & Noble to see if the book was in stock. B&N won, so we set off on our adventure to Princeton Marketfair. After we picked up the book, we went to the ice cream stand in the food court, Thea got her usual, vanilla with rainbow sprinkles. Micah is not a big fan of ultra-cold stuff, no interest in vanilla or the German chocolate cake ice cream that I got. Thea was "still hungry" after that and wanted sushi. Huh? Where this came from, I don't know; I do know that the raw stuff isn't going into my kid. So I got a shrimp and scallion roll - and then had to remove the seaweed wrapper and the scallions before she'd eat it.

By late afternoon Micah was in whacking mode and Thea was getting cranky, so we decided to do a mini backwards day: baths before dinner and pancakes, fruit and o.j. for dinner. Thea was really into the idea, so it was sort of fun.