Same day, 48 cupcakes later. . . .

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

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

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

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

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

Thea's Piggy Bank

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

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

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

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

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

Guess how much was in the pig?

Wait for it. . . .

Wait for it. . . .



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

Steve's guess was $40.

Insert drum roll, please. . . . .



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

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

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

Micah ditches Mommy

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

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

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

Generic Update

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Surprisingly, it all worked out

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

11 Days Until The Big 5

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

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

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

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

- blowing up a balloon on her own

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

October 2, 2008

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

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

Screw that completely self-serving idea.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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