Animals

Ahhh!

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Dinosaur Valley

Avritt and Lego Ship

Drive-Thru Safari

Whoa

So much for posting every day of my week alone. Now that I can look back on the week, I guess my perspective is better. So I pretty much worked all week, due to a decision that a colleague at the college and I made to move a project up a week (math placement testing). Here are some things I managed to sneak in:
-Made grilled salmon with a ravigote sauce over couscous for some friends for lunch on Sunday
-Sat around a fire pit and shot the breeze with friends
-Went out to dinner with a friend from work and saw a movie (21 - it was pretty good)
-Spent an hour and a half walking around a bog with two little girls of some friends
-Had lunch at a friend's house (Tuna sauteed with a rice vinegar and soy sauce glaze served over a bed of julienned carrots and brocolli with some Asian seasoning and with a little rice vinegar, orange zest and peanuts splashed on top)
-Stayed at work until 10:30 pm working on the aforementioned project
-Stayed up until midnight that night grading and prepping for my classes
-Ate a lot of food grabbed from Panera
-Ran a review session and testing session for the math placement test
-Started physical therapy and found out my right foot had only 50% range of motion
-Spent three hours tutoring students one afternoon
-Held a review session with my stats students the day before their exam
-Attended an all-day conference at work on teaching large classes (over 40 students)
-Graded papers in a coffee house
-Had coffee with a friend at the coffee house

Whew...no wonder I was exhausted.

Day One

Well, at the end of the first day, I'm starting to think that this may not be too bad. Today I was able to catch a cat nap in the morning (in the window seat with both cats), go out to lunch with friends, plan meals for the week, go grocery shopping, sweep and mop the entryway, clean up the kitchen, clean up my bedroom, inventory a big pile of clothes to go to Goodwill, and clean the bathroom (including scrubbing the tub, which was horrible). I had a bunch of work, financial, and remodeling things on my to-do list, but I was unable to concentrate with the house not being in order. So now that I have that out of my system, I will move on. The grocery shopping is the thing that I was dreading the most because it makes my foot really hurt to walk around that much. I am looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow (if the cats don't meow too loudly from the basement where they are safely shut for the night).

A Strange Seven Days

Mike and the kids left for Texas today. They will be returning next Saturday evening. I have mixed feelings about the week. I am glad to have a break from the crazy-busyness of my life of kids and two jobs. The only thing I have this week is the college job, which is in the afternoon, so other than the cats, nobody will wake me up in the morning. I have a list of things to get done, so I'm not going to just lay around all week. I think the weirdest thing will be dinner. I may go over to friends' houses, or invite people here. We'll see. I've started to wonder if I could go all week without going over to anyone's house or having anyone here...and part of me welcomes the solitude, but part of me dreads it.

One Health Issue to Celebrate

Perhaps because of the on-going struggle with my foot, receiving good news about my low cholesterol levels today from recent bloodwork done as part of a routine physcial was encouraging. Something is going right with my health. Here are the numbers:

Total cholesterol: 163 (under 200 rated desirable by the AHA)
HDL: 56 (50 to 60 is rated average)
LDL: 96 (less than 100 is rated optimal)
Triglycerides: 53 (anything under 150 is rated normal)

Here is a link that describes what the numbers mean.
http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=183

Ginger, the Mom Posing for a Picture for Emily's El Libro de Mi for Spanish Class

Tootie's Kill

I came home one day to find Tootie laying next to this toy snake. She looked pretty smug. (I may have "helped" her pose slightly - OK, OK.)

Emily, the Mischievous

News from the Pond

It's been 99 days since I tripped on those concrete steps and injured my foot. For the first 4 weeks, I saw improvement. Once I went back to teaching at the college in mid-January (and teaching a night class 4 hours one night a week), it got worse. Then I started wearing the air-cast, and then it improved again for about 3-4 weeks. Unfortunately the progress slowed and then stalled. I have not seen things improve for several weeks now. I was referred to a foot specialist last week, who ordered an MRI to help determine what exactly the injury is. The MRI is this Sunday morning at 7:45. It will take 45 minutes for my ankle and 45 minutes for my foot.

Unfortunately, we now know that Avritt is also allergic to cashews. He ate a peanut (which he isn't allergic to) from a Trail mix that had cashews in it. He had a reaction within minutes, which basically was one side of his mouth swelled, and he threw up. I gave him benedryl, which is a first course of action, and waited to see if I would need to administer the Epi-pen. Thankfully, his symptoms did not worsen. I will definitely need to be very careful about screening his food. No nuts other than peanuts from here on out - and then just peanuts that aren't in a mix, like peanut butter or a jar of honey roasted peanuts.

Isaac and I went to Book Bingo at his school tonight. Everybody brought a book, and then we put them all together in a pot. When someone got Bingo, they picked a book from the pot. It was a lot of fun and Isaac came home with five books.

Four more days until Spring Break (at least for one of my jobs).

Spring Break (1/2 time)

I am on spring break from my college job this week. Unfortunately, I still have to teach in the mornings at the high school, but I am enjoying the lighter schedule. I have one more batch of papers that I am going to grade today from my college stats class, and then a little planning ahead for next Monday, but then I will put that job to rest for the week. The half-time spring break will happen again in April when the high school has a break, but the college doesn't. I think Mike is going to take the kids down to Texas that week, so I will be by myself at home, with only an afternoon job. It will be a very strange week, as I don't think that I have ever been home by myself for that length of time. Ever. In my whole life.

I haven't been sleeping very well for several days. I keep waking up in the middle of the night with very intense dreams. Usually the first time is between 3:30 and 4:30 am. Then I wake up every 30 to 45 minutes after that until my alarm goes off at 6:08. Grrrr! I have been trying to go to bed at 10:00 to get more sleep, but then I just have more time to dream. I must have some unresolved issue that I'm trying to work out in my sleep, or I'm stressed. Not much has changed in my life in the last few weeks, so I'm stumped as to why now. Last night I tried earplugs, because I have been wondering whether the cats are making noise and waking me up. I don't hear them after I wake up, but I am a light sleeper and maybe I'm hearing them make a noise, which wakes me up. They have been given free roam again at night because they have stopped scratching on our door at 5:00 am. However, the earplugs didn't prevent me from waking up last night, which I did at 3:38am. The earplugs are hard to get used to - they hurt my ears for a few weeks until I acclimate to them. So they came out. I don't think it's something external, but something internal. Strange dreams last night, too. Very strange.

Isaac had his first concert at school last night. He was not happy about dressing up. He hated all the shirts (oxfords) because he said they felt like they were choking his neck. He hated the pattern of the plaid shirt (he said it was too square-ey). He didn't want to wear the sweater because it was boring. He hated the belt because he can't unbuckle it himself. He was having a moody day (lack of sleep, I think, from the time change). He didn't want me to video-tape the performance because he said that the songs were boring and stupid, and singing them made his palms sweat (which he said he knew because it happened during the dress rehearsal earlier that day at school). Wow. That's Isaac at his grumpiest. It was almost so over-the-top that Emily and I were trying not to chuckle. Emily was helping me convince Isaac that plaid is a very common thing for boys to wear (he thought it looked too girl-ley in addition to being too square-ey).

All that after helping Isaac practice addition and subtraction facts (and teach him some multiplication, which he wants to know because Avritt does), help Avritt split a square into eighths 4 different ways for his homework, making sure the boys read 20 and 30 minutes, respectively (it's March, which is reading month), trying to convince Emily she shouldn't have unrestricted access to the new Guitar Hero III game Avritt bought with his own money last week, going through Avritt's piano lesson material with him for his lessons today, shooing the cat off the counter 4 times, cooking breakfast burritos for dinner, and convincing Emily and Avritt that they need to attend a first and second grade concert to support their brother, who didn't want to go, either.

No wonder I'm having bad dreams.

Winter Activities

Since the snow and cold doesn't seem to be going away, Mike and the boys have decided to embrace the weather and go skiing and snowboarding at a local place. Avritt took 3 snowboarding lessons and is now carving up the slopes (or down, I guess). Isaac took a skiing lesson and figured it out pretty quickly. They have both been very excited about going with Mike on weekends, although the picture doesn't capture that (I made them pose in front of the ski place, which they didn't like). We need to get Emily out there, too. She has never been skiing. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to go because of the lingering foot injury. Next winter.

Snow, Cold, Snow, Cold, Snow....

Enough already!

Play-Doh Day

A day home from school Play-doh chefs does make.

Food Allergies

We discovered through some reactions (throwing up after eating shrimp, or anything that was cooked with shrimp, and a swollen lip after eating walnuts) and then blood tests that Avritt is allergic to pecans (and probably other tree nuts), sesame seeds, crab, lobster, shrimp, and walnuts. He didn't react against peanuts, almonds, coconut, codfish, or tuna (which means that he's probably OK with most fish). He was prescribed the EpiPen to keep at school, home, and the cars. As we are familiar with allergies because of Mike, all the information I received wasn't totally new and overwhelming. We need to brush up how to use the EpiPen, which we will have to use if there are any symptoms that include tightness in his chest or difficutly breathing, or a reaction around his mouth like hives or swelling. I'll be teaching him how to read food labels and to ask before eating. The sesame seed may turn out to be the most troublesome because I think it's more common. I asked a genetics prof. in college about food allergies, and she told me that a child is more likely to have food allergies if one or both parents have them, but the allergy is not necessarily the same as the parent, which is true in our case. Some things overlap for Avritt and Mike, like walnuts.

Avritt doesn't seem phased by it at all. He told me that he was relieved that he wouldn't ever have to eat shrimp again (we had a "have to try everything even if you don't like it" policy that will no longer be in effect for him). He had a "yucky" feeling every time that he had to try a bite of shrimp in the past. The last two times resulted in vomiting (the last time more severely) within 10 to 15 minutes, which caused me to have him tested. His body was sending signals which were hard to intrepret when he was younger. I have seen the reaction increase in strength the last two times he ate shrimp (which were during flu season, so there initially was doubt about the cause of the vomiting), and the reaction will probably worsen each time he is exposed. If he is like Mike, he will develop a sixth sense about food that contains the allergens.

I'm not really worried about him eating shrimp or lobster at school or a friend's house (the parties at school don't rise above cupcakes), but the pecans, sesame seeds, and walnuts will be the bigger challenge for him. We'll definitely be on the watch from now on.

Two More...

Spring Fling Pics

Spring Fling

Emily and a friend attended a dance at school tonight. It's title refers to a season that is sadly still far in the future for us. The theme was "Winter Fantasy." Mmmm.....

I'll post more pics of Emily once I get them developed.

Snow Fort

On Tuesday, all the schools around here were cancelled because of snow and cold temperatures. Mike's office was also closed, so he spent the afternoon in the yard with all three kids (and a couple of neighbor kids) building this snow fort. It is large enough inside for all of them. The roof is a piece of plywood (we've got plenty of that around from the remodel) covered with snow and supported by a pole. The sticks around the pole are the "fireplace" and ski poles and snowboards form a temporary "door" to keep out the "bears" in our neighborhood. I hear they are ferocious this time of the year. ;)

Avritt's Swim Season

The first picture above shows Avritt sitting on the pool deck waiting to take part in a relay race. The bottom picture shows him on the diving board waiting to jump in. His season is going well. He has participated in four meets so far, and swims in about 4 events each. His events are 50 m backstroke (his best event), 50 m freestyle, and two relays (4 by 50 m) in which he swims either breaststroke, backstroke, or freestyle, depending on the relay.

Visit with Friends

I am enjoying time spent with Jason and Shelly and their new baby, Myla. She is really cute! It has been a relaxing visit so far. I have cooked some good food and had some good conversations. My kids' ages and stage of life are such a contrast to the constant care that is needed by a newborn. A lot of memories have come rushing back to me over the last few days. Things like the squeaking noises and stretching of a baby awaking out of a restful sleep, the desire to sooth a crying baby, nursing, and the rule of all new mothers: sleep when the baby sleeps.

This weekend has reminded me of how far my own children have come and how much they have learned and matured over the years. It has been almost seven and a half years since I had a newborn. Each day since my children's birth has passed to the next and as they have blended together and continued on, they have brought us to this day where I think about my daughter's high school graduation.

Amazing.