Below the Mason-Dixon Line

Thea, Micah and I drove down to Oma's Wednesday night.  The roads were clear, one or both of the children took naps and I listened to 102.7 FM out of Baltimore and time-traveled back to the music of college.  We had take-out KFC for dinner, and by 11 pm the kids were packed off to bed and I could open the laptop and finish up a few charts.

In my monocular focus to get from point A to point B, I didn't even notice there is no snow  on the ground here.  No piles of snow in the parking lot.

We're going to the German Deli over in Virginia today.  Must replenish the Kinderschokolade supply.

Another Snow Day

. . . .or rather an ice day, courtesy of the West Windsor-Plainsboro School District.  1 am, no news of the closing, 4:30 am no posting on the web site (a large snow slide from the roof crashed onto the back patio and the motion-sensor light went off and it woke me up).  Finally, when the alarm went off, before going downstairs to make breakfast and pack lunches, I stopped at the computer and school was canceled. 

It was also strangely quiet, trains between New York and Philadelphia were not running early in the morning, and it is strange how I've gotten accustomed to hearing the sounds of the NJ Transit and Amtrak trains.

Surprisingly, the inmates got along with each other today, only one small skirmish.  So it wasn't a bad day, especially since the ice on the driveway that Thea and I slid around on last night was gone by midday.  So we went out to Target for supplies (milk, broccoli, limeade) and minor bribes for continued good behavior - one Lego Ninjago each, and Thea used her own allowance money with the addition of 70 cents from me.

If that stupid ground hog is wrong, the kids are going to be going to school until late June, at the rate the school district is closing schools. . . .

Out Damn Virus

Written January 11, 2011

I've been down with a cold since around Christmas, and I'm just about the limit of my patience for the tiny little gnome I am imagining lives in my sinuses who is ladling gunk down the back of my throat.  I thought I was done with NyQuil and Advil LiquiGels last week, but  tonight I caved in and opened one of those allegedly child-proof blister packets.  Thea's down with a cough, but no other real symptoms so she's just taking PediaCare Cough Syrup or Mucinex, and Micah's beginning to fake a bit of a dry cough because he thinks he's been left out.

If this is the immune system at age 50, it sucks.  I have drowned myself in several gallons of orange juice or Simply Limeade.  I have been taking my vitamins.  I have been washing my hands or using hand sanitizer gel to the point where the backs of my hands verge on reptilian.  All that is left to do is just wallow in misery and self-pity.

I finally unearthed the humidifier this afternoon because the master bedroom is drier than dry (and now we know why, the casing for the humidifier unit on the furnace is EMPTY.  Thank you to the seller who I specifically remember asking what's that thing on the furnace and being told it was the humidifier and that the second thermostat-like thing on the wall was for the humidifier.  A second thank you very sparsely to the home inspector who could have noted it on his inspection even though it was not really part of the structural and safety issues.  If I didn't have reason to hate the sellers for there completely questionable taste in decor and their total inability to notice dust (on the mini-blinds, which could likely have been measured in millimeters and above the door jambs of every room in the house), I really wish a blistering case of herpes on them now.

Micah's 5th birthday is less than two months away, and we've finally got a place to hold the party.  He expressed a desire to have everyone over to our house for a birthday party play date, but that is just not going to happen.  He attends two preschools, each with about a dozen children in the class, plus a few extras including a friend for Thea and it starts to more like an invasion than event.

So Thea and I in the midst of Saturday's snow and with only vague directions set out to check on Pump It Up in Hamilton.  We've been to three birthday parties at BounceU and one at Build-A-Bear  in the past couple of months, which were all great, but since it's the same group of children another venue seemed to be a good idea.  It is typical of those children's party venues, squirreled away at the back of an office/industrial park, but the interior was much more interesting and colorful than the red and purple of BounceU.

The moms who recommended Pump It Up said that the staff was high energy and really focused on getting the guests into the various activities.  The guy who gave us the five minute tour lived up to that, I was beginning to wonder how much Red Bull or Five Hour Energy must one consume to be that peppy, and walk backwards while talking and showing us around.  (Simple answer:  I don't want to know.)

So we've locked in March 5, 1:30 to 3:25 as the date.  Now I've got to pray that fewer than 24 cherubs RSVP that they will be coming.

One more item checked off the to-do list . . .

Snow Day, Part 3

You know it is truly a snow day when Princeton University, which usually holds itself above forces of nature, declares that non-essential personnel are allowed to stay home.

This is a good thing because the non-essential Princeton employee in our household was crucial to getting our driveway cleared.  It took a solid four hours of work, part of it with both of us shoveling, to dig out.  And we were lucky enough to have our two-doors down neighbor and his snow blower do the sidewalk.

Then the phone just rang moments ago, and the news is that the idiot school district that could not make a decision about closing until this morning has already declared a 90 minute late start for Friday.

And thanks to all of this, the Advil is doing double duty, for swollen glands and a sore lower back.

52 days until spring, if I live that long.

Snow Day, Part 2

If the weather forecast was event close to what was predicted, I was wagering that schools would be closed today.  The unfortunate thing is that I woke up at 2:30 am, checked the school district's web page and nothing had been posted, and then at 4:30 am still nothing.  Then at 7:00 am the phone rang and it was one of the parent's from Beth Chaim letting us know the synagogue's preschool is closed as are the West Windsor-Plainsboro school.

Good thing.  Thea was up at around 10 pm last night and lost her supper.  I bundled her off with a clean garbage basket and a towel to sleep with me.  Steve's on the pull-out trundle bed in Micah's room, without his BiPAP machine so his snoring is shaking the walls.

Tuesday at work I felt a little like I was coming down with something, but it was the first Tuesday of working later hours with Sarah, so I figured just keep moving forward and eventually the day would be done.

But then I asked Robin to take my temperature.  102.9 degrees on a tympanic membrane thermometer, which I've always thought of as slightly under-reporting the temperature.  Wow. I don't think I've ever had a temperature like that, or at least not since the early 1960s when I still had tonsils.

I was home Wednesday, feeling a little better at least until the Advil wore off.  Chills and cold feet that could not be remedied despite crawling under piles of blankets and wool socks.

A least I managed to get out and clear the driveway.  I have never been one for shoveling, definitely something on the to be avoided list, but shoveling with fever was actually not bad.  Didn't even need gloves and I got about 90% of it done.

I also managed to complete a survey that awards a $50 Amazon gift card for about 30 minutes of picking around in my brain about diabetes care.  Between that survey and one that will credit $85 to my ePocrates Visa and getting close to racking up another 80 Q-points on QuantiaMD for another $100 Amazon credit, I may have about $477 socked away in gift cards and cybercash - or half of an iPad or other tablet computer.

Other than that stuff, I was a guest of slug-puppy city for most of the day.

Frozen Solid

This morning driving the kids to their schools, the dashboard thermometer in my car registered 11 degrees.  I have never seen it that low and I am NOT liking it.  Old, creaky bones and cold do not get along, especially when forced to walk on ice because some twit with a privileged attitude has taken up the ramp that leads from the parking lot to Thea's school and cannot move until the cones are removed after all the buses have off-loaded and driven away.

Dear Fellow Wicoff Parent with the Air of Entitlement: I am happy that your privileged little darling did not need to walk far in this bitter cold, but if I slip and fall because you are taking up all the non-icy space with your extra large suburban assault vehicle, I am going to punch your headlights out, literally and figuratively.  Be forewarned. Love and kisses, Me.

Micah's seeming a little under the weather this afternoon - just as Thea and I are finally pulling out from whatever had us down for several weeks, and more snow is in the forecast.  Lovely.

More Snow Photos and Rollerskating

 

Just chilling, literally.  Friday, February 26, 2010

  

Micah, about to put a hunk of snow back onto the driveway.

  Proof some of us can amuse ourselves

wherever life takes us: Micah having fun under the

hand-dryer at the roller rink.

 

Eight wheels or two: his driving still needs a lot of work.

Pizza Faces at Emily's Birthday Party

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Thea on skates, Micah peeved that he's not,

but even with two of us, we probably couldn't take on two kids

on wheels at the same time.

  

First she straps on wheels, then she rolls away.

The Cure for the Common Snow

. . . would be a Saturday afternoon/evening with families from our first China travel group.  The snow kept a couple of families away, but five families got together.  Lucas, the oldest baby from our 2004 trip, is now seven years old and he was a good pal for Micah to hang out with - especially since the boys were greatly outnumbered by a pack of very strong-minded six-year old.

Tomorrow, rollerskating!  Thea and Micah have been invited to a birthday party that will be at a roller rink in Kendall Park.  Let's hope that we all come home with no sprained ankles or bruised egos. . . .

Snow, Yet Again

If you are sick of reading about it, trust me, I am sick of writing about it.

For Snow, Round 2 Micah's teacher called Thursday night at 9 pm, Thea's English teacher called at 6:30 am to let us know schools were closed on Friday.  Last night I didn't even bother to look outside, I could hear the wind howling and I did not feel like taking an advance look at what I would be shoveling the next morning.

After breakfast (three different breakfasts, mind you) and a little bit of down time, I got the kids suited up for outside which sort of falls into the category of herding cats while trying to play dress up with them, minus the scratches and hissing.

Micah, once unleashed upon the snow, had an unfailing instinct for being exactly in the path of whoever was shoveling nearest to him.  And that was when he wasn't trying to put snow BACK ONTO the freshly cleared driveway.  I was ready to just dig a hole in a snow pile and shove him in.

Meanwhile, we have now accumulated enough plastic track for Micah's mechanized Thomas the Tank Engine trains to make life interesting.  Once upon a time, my younger brother had a set of grey plastic tracks - I can't even remember what the trains looked like - but I loved creating track layouts for him.  Now I get to revive my talents for Micah's benefit. . . . . 

 

Mom's still the trackmaster after all these years.

I think I used all of the track pieces except two. 

I'm fabulously impressed with myself, can't you tell?

  

Bill (the yellow engine) has the best battery life these days, so he needs to pull almost all of the freight cards,

otherwise he rides up all the other engines' butts and pushes them off the track (which Micah loves.)

The opportunities for crashing seem to have the most appeal for Micah.

Snow, Again

Micah's teacher called at 6:30 am to let us know school would be dismissed early, at 12:45 pm today.  And while checking email in between making breakfast and packing lunches, I found a message from Thea's school with the possibility it may close early, at 1 pm.

Then when Micah's driver arrived to pick him up this morning, the driver told Steve that our school district says that Micah needs to be picked up at noon, not 12:45 pm (and I guess the district somehow trumps the school since it pays the tuition that keeps Micah in the school.)  Part of me says why even bother, but it's Miss Danielle's last session with Micah before she starts her maternity leave, so we put Micah on the van and off he went.

Winter had just better damn well get over itself and make it snappy.  The first day of spring is 23 days away.

Weather Update

The phone rings tonight shortly after dinner:  my office is opening two hours or so later than usual.  During that call, another call beeps in so I quickly hang up with Nikki to allow the other call to come through: it's Miss Jennifer, Thea's English teacher, school is closed tomorrow (and Miss Jennifer and family are without power over in Pennsylvania, making any whining about no TV on Facebook seem obnoxious).  Then not more than ten seconds after I put the phone back on the cradle from that call, it's Miss Margie from Micah's school, which is also throwing in the towel for Thursday.

Not exactly earth-shattering news, though if we're getting plowed out as off the beaten path as we are, the roads that lead to our area must also be getting clearer.

The big news is that the snowplow came through the neighborhood, leaving us with a three to four foot high icy hump at the end of the driveway.  This was always the dreaded consequence of getting our street plowed when we lived outside of Chicago.  The driveway and sidewalk would finally be shoveled and the damn plow would come through dumping a foot or more of icy, lumpy sludge at the bottom of the driveway, effectively blocking the cars in.

At around 9 pm, I went into the bedroom at the front of the house and heard the sound of something like a snowblower; it was a Bobcat clearing out the neighbor's driveway.  Steve was quickly re-purposed from reading Micah a bedtime story to person ready to recruit that Bobcat by whatever means necessary to clear the bottom of our driveway.  But emptying the contents of his wallet didn't even come into play, the Bobcat was part of the community's snow clearing efforts.

Not that I take back any of my numerous gripes about our townhouse community and those in charge of it, but I do have a slightly warmer and fuzzier feeling toward them for a few brief seconds - or perhaps it's just the management company for the community.  The Bobcat;s help clearing the driveways of the walls of snow created by the plow was a first, at least in the nine years I've lived here.

The Wednesday Blizzard

 

And this is BEFORE it really started to snow hard. . . . .

 Micah eating snow while riding his toboggan

The kids with our neighbor, JoAnn

Hmmm, I don't know if the saucer is faster than the toboggan 

  

Bellyflop

Shelter from the Storm

  

And this is 15 minutes after everyone came inside. . . . .

Snow White

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

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

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

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

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

I just heard the sound of tires crunching on snow.

Snowy Weekend

 

Saturday Morning

 

Sunday Morning

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

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

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

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

Nice.

 

 The Web as a Work-in-Progress

  

 The Finished Version of the Web

What wild, poisonous spiders do when their web is finished

 

 

Midnight Faceplant

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

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

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

==========================================

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

===========================================

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

Countdown to Christmas

After Saturday's monster snowstorm, I drove down to Maryland to my mother's.  Aside from a ten-mile stretch of I-295 just above the Delaware Memorial Bridge that had an almost un-plowed look to it, the roads were excellent, and almost no one was out and about.

Executive Decision:  The holiday cards got sent today.  No letter enclosed.  It was just time for it to be over and done with.  If I feel like it, I might work on it and send it out in early 2010.  Or not.

Present's got hauled to Oma's on Sunday, and wrapped or bagged today.  (Oma had promised she had wrapping paper, but not in the quantity needed.  A trip to Bed, Bath & Beyond solved that.)

Purchased what I hope will be the last two gifts today, stuffed the children's stockings - also left at Oma's waiting for Christmas morning.

Meanwhile Mom had her second chemotherapy session and afterwards we went to Fran's Nu Image and bought accessories to make her feel and look life her old self.  (We've named the wig "Robespierre" after one of our guinea pigs who looked like a wig on paws.)

Today she had an appointment with the retina specialist who injects my mother's left eye to treat her macular degeneration. Though I love most procedures, I just hung out in the waiting room with my laptop.  Needles and eyeballs meeting just isn't something I want to witness.  I'm a wimp.

10:30 pm back in Princeton, roads clear, but HUGE back up on the Delaware Memorial Bridge so it was the Wilmington/Philadelphia option - and fortunately the gas tank held out until I was back to the Land of No-Self-Service Gas Stations.

Stuck at Home

Sometime around 6:30 am Liu Laoshi from Thea's school called to say no school due to the snowstorm, then around 7:30 am Ela called letting us know Summit was also closed and Group was cancelled. What happened to getting up around 8 am and confirming at NJ 101.5's web site the schools were not opening?

On the other hand, Princeton University is business as usual. You'd think that a major university could do the humane thing and give its employees some extra time to chisel and scrape their cars clear of the ice. (I'm on a major rant about that because I was stuck last week behind one of our across-the-street neighbors who was driving his or her white SUV in front of us down River Road at a crawl because he or she had just scraped a small opening in the ice and was hoping the defroster would do the rest. Moron, moron, moron. Thank you for thinking yourself so much more important than the rest of us. I don't give a fig if you endanger yourself, but do it when I'm not sharing the road with you and you are slowing me down.)

It is not that much snow, complete over-reaction. If I was still living in Illinois it would be business as usual. I remember the first major snowstorm after we moved to Bolingbrook, it was deep enough and had enough drifting for my brother to construct tunnels in the backyard. After school, because the buses ran and we went to school as usual. Reason #1 to want to move back to the East Coast in the mind of a 14 year old. (Not that anyone cares what any of the other reasons are, but #2 would be the combo platter of Long John Silver and Red Lobster are not authentic seafood restaurants and no crab cakes to be found until you drive about 750 miles to the east. #3 would be flat, flat, flat and more flat, like living on a topographical ironing board. The only good thing was that I learned to drive in snow and ice during the time we lived there.)

So now I am stuck with the brat who spent 10 minutes yelling, "I WANT MY BREAKFAST NOW!" a few hundred times despite being told she had to maintain a civil tone of voice and add a please to the end of that sentence to guarantee my immediate departure from the warm covers, and her brother who is walking around in a t-shirt and diaper proclaiming, "MI-cah's nay-KEE!"

So the plan to throw him in a snowdrift when he gets on my nerves and dig him out in the spring thaw isn't going to work on two counts: the snow is turning into freezing rain or sleet, and I don't think it would much bother him being out in the elements without proper clothing.

Another Snow Day, Etc.

Monday Thea was off from school for the MLK holiday. Since her best friend Emily goes to a different school they rarely get together to play. We (Thea and I) called Sunday and left a message to see if Emily wanted to come over for a playdate - and luckily, she did.

We had snow again, so Ela called to cancel Micah's session - and it would've been a whole day of entertaining my children and refereeing their squabbles. The solution was occupying one child with a friend. And fortunately this friend has a younger brother around Micah's age, so she's tolerant of having someone small want to shamelessly adore her and constantly try to horn in on their fun.
The girls shut themselves in Thea's room to make a mailbox decorating project. I had hit the sale bins at Michael's so I had notebooks for them, one with a "T" and one with an "E", stuff for them to decorate mailboxes for their Valentines, and Post-Its in the shapes of the letters "T" and "E". That stuff plus a round or two of Candyland kept them busy until lunch time.
Then Micah went upstairs for his nap and they occupied themselves emptying all the wooden play kitchen foods into various baskets and containers. We've had that stuff since Thea was little, and I don't know what possessed me to buy it. It was just so darn cute - all organized into colorful containers and cannisters. Until there are a thousand little pieces all over the floor and then I question my reasons for thinking the little tins of wooden potato chips, beef stew, champignons, and green beans were somehow a necessity. When it's all back together again, I do love the wooden kitchen and all the accoutrements so much better than the plastic ones. When they've outgrown it, I am going to store it all away for Thea's or Micah's children, so they will have all the fun of sorting it all out some day.
Since we had fresh snow, two toboggans and one saucer, going out to play in the snow was almost guaranteed - and 90 minutes into Micah's nap, the girls were itching to get their snow pants and coats on so by 3:30 pm I was encouraging Micah to wake up a little. Then it was all the fun of getting three children into snow pants, jackets, gloves, hats and scarves and dragging the toboggans and saucer up the hill.
It was a powdery snow that didn't have the nice icy crust that made the toboggans really fly last weekend, but they seemed to have fun. I even took the saucer for a ride down the hill. The girls made snow angels, Micah got to ride on the back of his toboggan with Emily steering, and everyone had fun trying to pound the one person who didn't have snowpants and much else in the way of insulation with snowballs.
We also went to our neighborhood park, after the toboggans started to get a little old, and surprisingly, snow is not a deterrent to getting on the swings, going down the slides and climbing on the monkey bars. Which is what Emily's dad found them doing when he walked over to the park.
Poor Emily, her face just fell, and instead of 'Hi Daddy', Adam got hit with "But I haven't even had a chance to have hot chocolate yet!" So Micah and I trudged home to get him out of his snowsuit and start the hot chocolate.
And that's what I was doing when the telephone rang with Steve calling to say he'd gone to the ER to get the chest pains and tingling in his arms checked out. I took Emily's cue and told him that we were in the middle of a playdate and I had two cold wet girls coming back to the house.
We followed Adam and Emily home (after the hot chocolate, and each girl drank two cups to warm up) and the children stayed there for dinner so I could go to see what was up in the ER. This was my first trip back to the ER ER, Micah's little mishaps have landed us in the Fast Track. Steve was bored enough to request his reading glasses and a SuDoKu book from home (sorry, I was not up for driving the icy, slippery backroads; I did go to the Gift Shop to get him something to read.) He was on a low-risk cardiac protocol so he had to wait for a second set of enzymes to be drawn six hours after the first set (which were drawn while I was there and was more than 90 minutes after he arrived). This meant he wasn't going to be getting released until after midnight, and he'd left his car at the office.
So I made another trip back to our former neighbors' home and Adam went with me to retrieve Steve's car and put it in the hospital parking lot, then back to fetch the children - who were annoyed that the second phase of their playdate was being interrupted.
Segue to Tuesday night, after returning from a long day at work capped off by conscripting two of the front desk staff to hold Micah down to remove his stitches (helped out by my putting his coat on backwards with his arms at his sides), after the children have gone to bed and I'm back at the computer working on my charts, there is still charts to be done. There are also a few of tropical Tootsie Pops sitting on the counter. Perfect! One lime one helped me think so well that I had a second, which led to trying a lemon one - and all three helped me finish 20+ chart notes, 10+ lab/radiology letters and other tasks in the EMR.
Then I went upstairs to brush my teeth and go to bed. In the course of puckering my mouth to brush me teeth I notice these two enormous swollen blobs on the inside of my upper lip. It was freakish - and my tongue was fine, the lower lip was unchanged. If this was some sort of allergic reaction to some dye or ingredient in the Tootsie Pop, it was a bizarre one. I popped a dose from a leftover Medrol Dose Pak and hoped for overnight improvement. No more lollipops for me.
And whatever weird karmic cloud I'm under, I wish it would blow away.