What My One Year Old Does for the BabySitter

With cousins Wolfe and Hawke!

Don't send a lame eCard. Try JibJab Sendables!

Yay for Swimming!

post swimming lesson this morning:

Momma: "Lucy, do you like swimming?."

Lucy: "No."

my face clouds with despair

Lucy: "I WUV swimming!"


Hooray! Hooray!

Spring Break...down

How am I supposed to get anything done if my son is home for two weeks straight and we have no spring break family vacations planned. Do people really take spring breaks? I mean after college?

Spring break was timed near Easter this year (which is the first time Easter has been this early since the 1800s, and won't be this early again for something like 230 more years) but nowhere near Pesach which isn't until April.

I am exhausted just thinking about this week. I am still having a little trouble getting Jake's aide to be timely. I don't know that she realizes that while I can't "write her up", I can look for a new aide. She is good with Jake, but waiting for help to arrive is really not helpful. She has spring break right now too, and I cannot quite understand why someone who needs to earn extra money wouldn't be jumping at the chance to work full-time for a week either. I mean it is not always an easy thing to care for Jake, but when I was younger I jumped at any chance I had to pay off my student loans, buy a round of beer or a new skirt from Gap. Just a different mind-set I suppose. If she can be on time for the next two weeks we will be okay, but I am now trying to figure out if she is the right person to be Jake's aide this summer. I hate looking for the right aide for Jake, for our family...

One summer we had Miss Emily help with Jake. She has a brother with special needs, so she just wasn't afraid of Jake, at all. I bought season passes to Great America, and after going with the two of them a few times I realized that she was perfectly capable of taking him by herself. They even went to the water park (she was a certified lifeguard too). I would love it if Miss Emily could come back, but alas, she is a little smarty pants and has taken her little Valedictorian self off to college, and spends the summer doing things like going to Morocco as an exchange student.

Jake was littler then. And he is only going to get bigger, and bigger. I am going to try to go to the Y after Descartes gets home from work this week. My back is wrenched again. Something down near my sacrum... in fact after a little research just now it looks like it is more like an inflammation of my sacroilic joint . Fanfkngtastic!

Shite I am falling apart. I keep asking my mom, Gloria.."At what age, precisely, did you begin to fall apart?" and she always tells me that we are different people blah blah.. but now I am guessing it was 36 years, 2 months. Descartes says my warranty must have just run out and that's why everything keeps breaking, 'cause isn't that how it always works in our life?

In other news we were in Tahoe for Easter, where Demanda and Jaster made yummy quiche and my sistow made home made cinnamon rolls that she let rise three times. She also made Easter baskets and made sure her little boys had matching outfits and precious white lace up shoes... so pretty much she is amazing. The church was packed this morning too, and there were a lot of new faces, which is always a good thing. Lots of babies and young families.

OH... and at the last minute, our younger brother Albert showed up with his new girlfriend. Three out of the four of us kids ended up together for a weekend... doesn't happen very often. They were both very sweet with all seventeen thousand kids (are there really only four of them?), and they showed us their very cool shoes...Fluevogs... which is apparently what I might have thought about purchasing if I was young and had disposable income. Albert's shoes are very cool, but I can't imagine Descartes ever wearing them.. and I also can't imagine them ever being made in a size 16! Al's girlfriend bought these .

I would buy these for me and these for Descartes just in case the Easter Bunny is still making deliveries this evening.



Christos anesti.

Big Foot

Pretend that my little Lucy is not wearing a USC sweatshirt (unless you are the grandparents that sent it.. then you should cheer and say "Fight On!" beamingly to eachother!) Aside from the cardinal and gold (I think blue should always be served with gold myself gobears!) I think she looks rather precious.. and she also looks like she has very big-ass feet for such a little person .

Hands, Feet and Mouths..lots of Screaming Ones

So my sistow is going to leave early because her boys now have hand foot and mouth too. Jaster didn't like the idea of his boys being so far away from him, sad and sick, so he hopped in his car this morning to come get his family. A bit irrational perhaps, since Demanda and I were going to come up on Thursday night, but a parent's love is kooky like that. I've never been apart from my kids when they were sick, so I can imagine I would be doing the same thing. Of course this week is sort of a big one in his job, since he's a pastor and all, so I'm thinking he weighed one kind of stress against the other and decided that an extra round trip to the Bay Area was worth it to not worry about his kids.
We had a hard week last week. Descartes had a board meeting at the office which always seems to make his office a bit crazy, and consequently makes him a little less available physically and mentally, Jake had early day every single day for parent teacher conferences, SEPTAR had a summer resources meeting which I arranged via a gajillion emails with strangers, then I went to the meeting of course, Jake's aide canceled for no reason and then a good reason for three of five days, I had a doctor's appointment where I had to decide whether I was going to take a medication to take care of myself and finally get Lucy all the way weaned (yes she is still nursing, and at this rate will probably do so until she is thirteen!), and on another morning I had to be up at 3:30am to wait in line to sign up Jake for summer camp. Then Lucy got sick. and then I made brunch on Sunday for Descartes' parents and Papa's sister visiting from Canada, and Cookie's sister visiting from New York. So for Demanda, I am guessing it was not a fun place to visit. This week is pretty much easy, and Lucy is better and childcare is available (I am hoping) and now I can help Demanda with her kids a bit more.. and she's leaving. It is mostly to do with Jaster wanting his boys, but I can't help but feel like I have disappointed just one more person.

Tie Me Up

I was telling my friend Pollyanna the other day that I just sort of felt like nothing was tied down in my life right now. Not that things are unraveling per se, just that, well I am used to having most things, even things that are hard or confusing or long term issues, I am used to having things at least tacked down enough so I can go about 40 on the freeway if I had to.

And lately? Lately it feel like it is all going to slide off..everything. I feel like I am behind, and yet going so fast I'm not paying attention, and I am busy accomplishing nothing. I am not getting to phone calls, not getting back to emails. My laundry, while all clean is PILED next to my bed.
Lucy was actually pretty sick this weekend with Hand Foot and Mouth...lovely childhood illness. She had 104 fever and threw up in my lap on Friday evening. She gradually got better and has now been fever-free for over 30 hours, so she perhaps she will sleep tonight and Decartes and I can get a full night's sleep.

I am sitting in my car in the dark with Lucy finally sleeping in the back seat. It is nearly time for me to get up and start my day. Luckily(?) I am nearly done with my triple shot latte...purchased well before 6am at the drive thru coffee hut. Lucy woke up "in the twos" this morning.

I can handle waking "in the fives", but anything before that? aaack.

Lucy starts swimming lessons this morning...look at me doing "normal mommy" things! Except We are paying more (or rather,Grandma and Grandpa are) so that I am not actually in the water. I decided that we should make the assumption that at any point in time I will need to throw Lucy in the car and race to attend to Jake. I would prefer to remain basically dressed while Jake is in school. Silly I know, but we will take some group lessons when I will get wet too...anywhoo wish us luck with Little Miss No Sleep at her first lesson.

Webkinz

are something I knew very little about because I have a special needs kid who has never asked for one.

We are watching some weeish ones who are not technically ours (though we love them like our own) Ages Newly-7 and 4 they are precious and inquisitive and being on their best behavior so they can get a new webkins ...oh I have just been corrected by the newly seven year old ... "It's WebkinZZZZS with a z!"


oh joy.. we are off to pizza or Mexican or Chinese or Indian or something not cooked in my kitchen!

Duh.

This week has been very very hard with Jake. He has been so "bad" after school, throwing himself around, unable to sit at dinner, screaming, crying, loose-limbed and non-compliant. Jake was so tormented and sad and throwing himself this morning that he:

• cried real tears.
• scared Lucy (not on purpose, but he was so loud).
  
• reduced me to tears during the sock and shoe phase of the morning.
• made Descartes yelp in pain from wriggling away whilst Descartes was still holding onto Jake (Descartes' back twisted a wrong way).
• made me so worried that I decided not to leave the kids alone to shower (Descartes had an early meeting).

Then I decided to try the (DUH!) migraine medecine. 18 mintes later he was calmly riding in the car to school. He was fine all day at school, mellow, (almost like a person who had had a mild seizure?). When he got home I gave him another Maxalt since last time it seemed to wear off around 4pm. He has been the happiest he has been in days.

Duh. duh DUH! One pill and he felt better. One pill. My poor boy.

I do not even have enough room in my heart for the guilt of having not thought of it sooner.