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.

Christmas Photos

It takes a snow day to finally update the blog,

and thanks to today's snow day if it takes a village

  to raise a child, and I am in the market for a village or two

willing to take my two

for awhile.

In no particular order. . .

Micah on New Year's Eve, plastic champagne flute with ginger ale.

He made it to midnight, his sister gave up at 11:20 pm or so.

 We made a gingerbread house at Omas's.

 We got chilled to the bone at the ICE! show.

The little Whos in Whoville.

 The roast beast.

 You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch.

 Breakfast with The Grinch at the Gaylord.

Steve, Micah and Max, The Grinch's dog, who looked more gherkin green than brown.

 Two Grinches.

Now this is The Grinch I know and love.

I adore that devious expression on his face.

Ringing Out/Wringing Out 2010

 Last day of the year, one that I think was a good one for all of us, despite the quantity of whining found here.

(My) Mom finished her chemotherapy on March 15, 2010, and has grown back her hair which has turned more silver and curly.  Now if she's just take the wig and wig stand off of her dresser;  it looks like an aging Peruvian guinea pig.  She is back to being feisty enough to resent the follow up appointments with her oncologist, and one day she may realize that wrestling with unruly hair is better than wrestling with the after effects of chemo (though I give her major props for making chemo look easy.)

We moved to our new house on July 9, 2010, and most of the worst traces of the former owners' horrible decorating choices were eliminated by last week.  (Good-bye ugly brown powder room; old, dated borders around the top of most of the rooms upstairs; the dark,depressing royal blue bedroom with the blood red closet; the ugly green focus wall in the master bathroom, none of you will be missed.)  Thank you to Mike who offered good advice on colors, but also did not question some of my more quirky, Crayola choices.  I should have taken pictures of all the ugliness to regale you with the before and after of the transitions.

The kids had a good summer at their various camps; Micah is still talking about Princeton Friends Camp six months later and is anticipating going back.  Steve learned about the caring for the above-ground swimming pool at the new house, and the cost of the pool chemicals responsible for getting the pool to go from slimy green to blue did not bankrupt us.

We had a good week at Bethany Beach with Oma - our third trip back to a house that Thea and I first stayed at with Oma and Aunt Shannon in 2005 and we re-visited in 2007 just after returning from China with Micah.  This year we were joined by cousins for a night, which was wonderful.  Even if no one remembers the name of the hooker who rented a room from my great aunt (a room she called 'My Blue Heaven' according to my mother.)  The kids discovered boogie boarding and we learned that schlepping all the beach gear is so much easier with the little red wagon the children got from their aunt and uncle for Christmas last year.

Thea is involved with Girl Scouts, recreational soccer and ice skating, and for all that I might complain about missing her Mandarin-immersion school and the fury of the 2010 opening of the Mandarin charter school being thwarted, going to public school has made her more at ease in new social situations.

Micah had his second atresia surgery to construct his left ear canal on March 23, 2010, and a revision of his first surgery on September 28, 2010. We're probably the only parents to schedule surgeries around swimming lessons and pool/beach season, so that keeping him out of water didn't spoil his summer.  Micah's speech and language is on par with his normal hearing peers.  He loves his friends at his two preschools and is the social butterfly of the family.

We have a bottle of Sparkling White Grape Juice chilling in the refrigerator, Chinese take-out, chips and salsa and popcorn waiting.  Thea wants to stay up for the New Year.  Last year she fell asleep at 11:45 pm, this year she just might be awake for the arrival of 2011.

Happy (and healthy) New Year to all.  Thanks to all who have stopped by, and double thanks to those who have left comments along the way.

TBTB (Too busy to blog)

Too busy or so I think. It's just been more of the usual stuff on weekends, birthday parties for the kids' friends, ice skating lessons, the end of soccer, a few weeks were I worked all five days instead of having Mondays and Fridays off, and so on and on with the mundane details of everyday life.

Micah had both of his parent-teacher conferences and is a normal four-year old in terms of his speech and hearing, so this has us feeling confident enough to allow him to try the Mandarin-immersion charter school's kindergarten in the Fall.  He's still wearing one BAHA on school days, but on weekends at home, the BAHA is off more than it's on and it doesn't seem to make that much of a difference.  The post about his latest evaluation by the audiologist and Dr. Choe beat this one onto the blog

Thea's soccer and Girl Scouts have finished up for now; Brownies will start back up in January 2011.  Her only extra-curricular right now is the Mandarin language school on Sunday afternoons.

Our Christmas tree is up, we picked it up at a local farm.  The guy helping us was good at picking a nice full tree (I told him I have a lot of ornaments and we used to be able to have a 10+ foot tree at the old house.)  Decorating took until about 2 am after we got it in the stand, and it's a nice hodgepodge of about 80% of the ornaments that I've collected or been given.  We (read: I) decorate on the inside, I'm not into outdoor lights.  Why make PSE&G's holiday merry and bright?  Our neighborhood is a mix of Griswolds and Grinches, so there is no shame in not putting lights up.

Meanwhile the kids are looking forward to Winter Break and going to Maryland to see Oma.  I'm looking forward to a few days where I don't need to pack lunch boxes and make dinner - or look at a garage full of boxes.

Micah's Atresia Surgery Follow-Up

Note to self:  No more 9:00am appointments in Englewood, the NJ Turnpike traffic just sucks at around Exit 13/Exit 14.  I have become a lazy suburban slug, and do not cope will with ill-mannered, opportunistic weasels who do not believe in the use of the turn signals.  I hope they all get coal in their stockings.

The first part of the appointment was with the audiologist, Courtney.  Micah likes her, and she gives stickers, so his cooperation was no problem.  Then we had to park in the inside waiting area for his appointment with Dr. Choe.  Since I had two Matchbox cars in the back of the car waiting for the next trip to Englewood, Micah made bridges and garages out of brochures while another patient's spouse grilled me about Micah's ears.  This fairly observant guy noticed Micah's ear canals are behind his ear cartilage instead of in front of them.  Even without benefit of caffeine, I played the part of spokesperson for microtia/atresia because at the end of the story I could say that Micah is a normal four-year old in terms of speech and language and then resume playing Matchbox cars with him.

When Dr. Choe called Micah's name, he shot out of the waiting area and gave the doctor a running knee-level hug.  The report from the audiologist is that Micah still has a mild conductive hearing loss.  Dr. Choe took out the debris from the ear canals.  The right tympanic membrane has healed well and right where it should be.  The hearing loss is likely due to fluid behind the tympanic membrane, and since we're giving him Sudafed, Claritin and Nasonex there isn't much else to be done other than teaching him how to blow his nose.

The twice per week Ciprodex ear drops are finished, other than after going swimming.  Only swimming in chlorinated pools, no ocean or fresh water.  So good thing the pool at the hotel were staying at while in Maryland over the holiday is very, very well chlorinated if our past stays are any indication.

After the visit, Micah picked out a plastic camel from the toy basket (despite other more appealing choices), and we went out to the desk to make the follow up appointment in FOUR months.  We've never gone that long between appointments since just prior to the first surgery in August 2009.  Very good news since it will be April before we need to make the trip again.  Which almost counts as a Christmas present for me.

Went to Target for Micah's reward, standard operating procedure.  Picked up two more birthday party gifts for Micah's friends, Cameron and Max, had pizza with him and then dropped him off at Dutch Neck and made it to work by 1:15 pm.

Photo (Album) Op

Finally.  One advantage to waking up before everyone else on a Sunday morning: taking all those little red and white photo envelopes from Target and putting the pictures in an album, in a somewhat chronological order.  If I were really going for the extra credit points, I would have labeled them, but for now, I'm just happy they're in an album and I can still tell the difference between the photos of Micah's March 2010 surgery from his September 2010 surgery (different prints on the fabric of the hospital gowns.)

The motivation came from Micah finding the 2008/2009 photo album.  He had a blast going through it:  "Look at this!  Look at me!"  He isn't at the age where he is able to realize that I took most of the photos, or even why aren't there very many photos of me in the album (which is how I like it.)  Now he has two albums to amuse himself.

Somewhere around his is a third photo album that I bought before the one I just filled, but it got sucked into vortex of the move and has not been regurgitated, yet.  My wish for 2011 is that re-emerges before I start accumulating more photos.

Now I just need to make my grocery list and figure out where the Christmas tree is going to go and commit to the idea of buying new lights for the tree because unraveling the old ones is just not on my agenda.  I'm about hanging the ornaments, putting the lights on is just one of those little bits of miseries that must be endured to get the final effect.