Weekend

We're heading down to Maryland again. My brother has arranged a surprise 80th birthday party for my mother (whose birthday is next Thursday). I got to help with the easy stuff: the invitations, making arrangements for flowers, paying for the cake, buying disposable cameras. I've been avoiding talking to my mother for about a month now - we're down to once a week from our usual three, sometimes four, times a week. I'm too afraid that I'll let something slip.

Micah's out of school today; Thea will be paroled at noon, if I've gotten packed up and the car is loaded. We have to come back Sunday night because both of them have appointments with Dr. Andy the dentist on Monday morning at 8:30 am, and if I cancel it's months for a double slot.

Not much to write about. . .

Boring weekend. Worked Saturday AM. Wrote my charts Saturday afternoon. Laundry, laundry and more laundry. Grocery shopping. The nice part, if there can be a nice part of working this weekend, is that I wasn't on call.

Thea brought home her report card on Friday. If the last one was fantastic, she's taken it to the next level - both with her grades and with working on the areas she needed to improve on (not getting frustrated when she raises her hand and is not called upon; waiting to hear the end of the question before trying to answer.) My fear was that by third grade, I would be too inept to help her with her homework. My new fear is that this will now happen by first grade.

Meanwhile, Thea actually finished her homework today, a new development since I've been finding it the morning it's due and she's been completing it before being taken to school. Bonus.

Meanwhile I did manage to get a few things around the house, and I took all the stuff that came out of the linen closet (and didn't go back in) to Goodwill. I'd love to have it all organized and sell it at the community yard sale in June, but I like just having it gone, gone, gone.

Next Micah's closet and all the babyish toys that no one has touched for eons. I'm doing a slow crawl through the house, heading for the garage.

On the down side, while I was driving home from work I found the coolest slant-top school desk put out on Nassau Street. It's heavy, and it had the original glass inkwell in it. The chair that accompanied it to the curb wasn't in as good shape - a bit crack in the seat that might not be fixable. I want to clean it up and either paint or refinish it for Thea and Micah to use. Junk goes out, junk comes in.

Half & Half

Today was a day off from work, but with my faithful sidekick home from school the chances of acccomplishing more than doing laundry and clearing the debris field he makes were pretty slim. So I decided to just enjoy the day rather than mentally inventory all the things around the house that I should be doing.

First we took Thea to school and stayed there for about an hour. Thea's English teacher is expecting a baby in May and, thanks to knowing a quilt-making genius who took my idea for a quilt with all the students' names and expanded on it (and made it both better and easier) who made 70 or so squares of fabric that were somehow stuck onto freezer paper and had an shape traced onto them for the signatures, we are now in the process of getting all the students and all the teachers to sign a block. The mission this morning was to get the upper grades and the kindergarteners out of the way. The preschoolers and pre-Ks at the other campus did there part earlier in the week, so now we're left with getting teachers and the few part-time children finished off before next weekend. I was really surprised at how neatly most of the children wrote - and Thea had to add her own spin on hers, using her full name instead of just a first name or first name and Chinese name.

Then Micah and I went into Princeton to the jeweler's. A pair of earrings my parents gave me the year my father died has a pearl that had somehow lost its nacre, so I wanted to see how much to replace it. Unfortunately today was the jeweler's day off so I just had to leave them there. Now I feel like part of my ears are missing, those earrings are just always on (which is probably how the pearl got worn in the first place.)

At the jeweler's we had one of those "can I ask you a question?" moments, after another customer waiting had stared at Micah's head for a good five minutes or more. Not my day for feeling like the goodwill ambassador for microtia and atresia.

So the inquisitive lady got what is now becoming my standardized schtick, on fast forward. Bone conduction hearing aids. Not deaf. No ear canals. Surgery at a later date, if possible. On fast forward because Micah had emptied half of the store's candy dish into his hands and onto the floor, so it was time to beat a hasty retreat to Panera's for a snack. And since Micah selected a table near where a psychology graduate student was working, we got to go through the whole routine again.

By then our 48 minutes of parking meter time (right in front of the jewelry store and one of my best parallel parking attempts in ages, one move and in it went, I must brag) was up so we took off for Marquand Park for some playtime in the sand pit.

Once were were home from our excursions, I made lunch and got Micah down for a nap. And instead of just hanging out or joining him for the hap, I decided to take on the linen closet. This storage space hasn't been overhauled since some time prior to Thea's adoption - easily five years of steady neglect and accumulation.

Post-purge we still have towels, wash cloths and linens beyond our needs. And it will probably be another five years before I feel inspired enough to do that again. Next, either Micah's closet or the cabinets below the bathroom sinks.

So the day was half productive, half fun - and better than I'd hoped for.

Weekend Shearing, Etc.

Both my little sheep got shorn this weekend. Yesterday Thea and I stopped in to see Miss Flo at Snip-Its and Thea got a major trim (she wanted it short), and today it was Micah's turn. Fortunately we arrived at Snip-Its during a lull, so it was just Micah in the chair. I need to remember 3-4-8 - that's the numbers of the blades on the razor for his buzz cutt, 3 for the side walls, 8 for the front and 4 for the back. Now the BAHA band doesn't push Micah's hair up so that he looks like he just stuck his finger in the electrical outlet.

Then we went off to do our grocery shopping, and surprisingly it went well enough considering that I usually go alone most Sundays. Thea gets bored, Micah wants every single damn Beanie Baby that those evil supermartket people put at the end of every other aisle. He only made a major plea once - for another Austin, Two Austins, Mommy? NO. I want Austin. Sorry, people in Hell want ice water. End of discussion.

Technical difficulties with the photo CD I made last weekend, so new photos are not happening this weekend. Something to work on Wednesday. I'm working a half-day tomorrow, then the usual Tuesday-Thursday. Last week's five days, even with half-days sucked the life out of me.

Wednesday was going to be my first day with both kids in school. Until I looked at the calendar and realized that Wednesday is the 18th, and Summit School is closed for an in-service day. So I'll have Micah for company all day. At least there will be a convenient excuse for not getting anything accomplished around the house.

Thea's Career Planning

While we were at Borders today, Thea was excited to find a knight story complete with a small action figure. "I want to be a knight when I grow up," she said.

I tried to explain that employment opportunities may be somewhat limited in an age without dragons to slay (though I'd be willing to let her substitute Rush Limbaugh, he's scary and scaly enough) or damsels in distress to rescue.

Her reply to this was, "Well, then I'll be a garbage collector."

Okay. Dream big, little darling.

Why a garbage collector? Not exactly a career path that comes up on the standard astronaut, ballerina, doctor, police officer, fireman early childhood career aspirations spectrum.

"Because they drive around in cool trucks."

Of course. The Waste Management truck that comes through our neighborhood is right up there with a Porsche or a Ferrari in my book, too. Not.

We're sticking with the school bus. . .

. . . Bob the bus driver told us that the school district was signing the contract for the van on Friday, so since Micah was doing so well on the bus (despite our reservations about the harness and the noise level), we've decided to stickwith the bus.

The advantages are:

* there is the driver and an aide on every trip;
* they seem to love their work and the children they care for;
* they keep a small library of children's books on board to entertain their charges;
* Bob figured out a way to make his car seat work, so the harness is no more;
* Micah seems to like the other kids on the bus.

If we opted for the van, there would only be the driver without an aide and it would not be school district employees but a contract employee.

Meanwhile, Thea's class went to the Trenton/Mercer County Airport for a field trip today. She came home with a balsa wood airplane and a badge sticker from the fire station at the airport. And I managed to forget her car seat at school. We did make it to Village Shoes to get her a new pair of sneakers. Her shoes seem to go from mildly shabby to destroyed in the course of a day, and she's been overdue for a new pair. Unfortunately she wasn't willing to give up the destroyed Transformer shoes, so they came home with us (and just as soon as she forgets about them they are going to be hitting the road. No packratting allowed.)

I downloaded some pictures from the camera to a CD and need to load them: Micah's birthday, the first day of school, and other nonsense.

First Day of the School Bus

It's noisy. Now I know how our beagle Elbert used to go nuts and bark at the UPS truck, there is something about that little school bus engine that makes its presence known long before it appears at the end of the driveway. I was cringing, thinking of that noise getting pounded into Micah's head for an hour each way.

Then it got worse.

The driver and aide gave us a harness to put on Micah. It looks like something a parachutist or a bungee jumper might wear, just without the parachute or bungee cord, with a zipper up the back. There is a buckle that gets latched into a corresponding buckle that comes from the back of the bus seat. He looked thoroughly trussed up, disturbingly so. With no protective shell of a car seat around him. I'd like to see whatever the studies are that show this harness is safe in the event of an accident, it just doesn't convey that idea from the few moments we had to check it out.

And if Micah winds up being in to bondage later in life, I am going to sue the school district.

He didn't seem bothered much, and actually liked getting on a 'real' school bus. Steve and I stood there, wishing for a van. So much so that Steve called the district's transportation coordinator to see what other options are out there.

I emailed his teacher to see if he was ok in school today, and the note she sent back said he was as happy as ever, and he got off the bus in a great mood and loved it. According to the driver aide, he was playing peek-a-boo with one child, which made another child giggle, so then all of them were laughing, they keep a stock of picture books on their bus for the kids, so he had those too, and the aide sat next to him on the way home - as he left, she was in her own seat across the aisle and slightly back from Micah.

So now the wheels are in motion to change his transportation, though he seems fine with it. I just want us to get in our new routine.