So my poison ivy is spreading and I’m turning into one big itch-ball. I think I even have some spots in my arm pit. The spot between my fingers is particularly annoying. I think I will be less cavalier next time going into the pit of our backyard to do a little “cleaning up”.
We spent today putting in Jeremy’s birthday garbage disposal. It took us only like 6 hours and 2 trips to Home Depot, but we managed.
Jeremy turned 44 today. Happy birthday sweetie. I hope you like your new garbage disposal!
We have enough people and dogs in the house to give each person their own Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs nickname. I would like to be Grumpy. Isn’t that a good nickname for me? Grumpy Doris.
When I get grumpy, Jeremy (who is Doc), hauls us all out for a walk around the block.
It usually is pretty successful in getting me less grumpy – although not enough to change my name from Grumpy. OK, maybe I could go from Grumpy to Sleepy.
I have been doing some gardening in the back yard and have gotten a little bit of poison ivy. This also makes me grumpy.
But Maxi could also be grumpy because it appears that Boba, the blink cockapoo, is alpha in the house. Maxi spends a bunch of time looking longingly at the doggie bone that Boba has in his mouth. Maxi thinks, “Hey, that used to be my bone. And now it’s not. I’m not sure I like this new situation.”
I often think that our family has our own version of the first law of thermodynamics. The first law talks about the how the amount of energy in a closed system cannot be created or destroyed – basically if something gets more energy, than something else in the system must be losing energy.
For example, I have run three miles almost every day this summer. In exchange for this awesome triumphant achievement, Jeremy has lost all ability to walk up and down stairs. If Jeremy is really thrilled about something, it is inevitable that I will be down in the dumps.
In exchange for me giving Vince the awesome-est home haircut ever (not too shabby huh?),
we have sucked out all the good haircut karma out of the house and given Edda the worst haircut ever:
In a good mood, I can call it very French. In a bad mood, it is a little, as my little brother says, like a Romulan.
The haircut is fine – it’ll grow out, hair always does. But now that her hair is totally out of her eyes, I can see that when she is crying for hours, her eyes seem fixed and dilated and she seems more far away than she used to be. Now I can’t remember if her eyes have always been dilated and I’m just imagining these things. When we traveled that last week of August and Edda cried every night in other people’s houses, many of our hosts (who we have not seen in over a year) mentioned that either Edda seemed the same to them, or even better and more interactive which is totally not how I feel at all these days and I wonder if I myself am going crazy. We still haven’t been able to get a fix on her unhappiness which is making everyone stressed out (although as I write this, we are on the 2nd night in a row where I don’t hear any crying, maybe we’ve come out of this 3-month-long episode, keeping my fingers crossed).
We’ve finally got an appointment with her neurologist in mid-October – he recently switched jobs so he’s not taking appointments for 6 weeks while he settles into his new role at Children’s Hospital. I don’t want to see him, I don’t know if this is Edda’s brain just going crazy or what – I’m not sure he will know what to do, I think neurology is often just a shot in the dark with crazy-strong meds.
I have let go of so many “normal” things for Edda and I think that I am at peace with much of it, but the one thing I have held on to is that I knew that she was not suffering and generally a happy, carefree girl. Isn’t that what we all want for our children? I knew that this was not always the case with Rett girls, so I was grateful that we had a happy Edda, so the last three months, I feel like that last little remnant that I hold on to to keep my sanity is slipping away.
I’m quicker to be jealous of friends who can just drop kids off at pools, friends houses, etc and not worry about changing facilities, accessibility or uncontrollable crying. I know I’m lucky in many ways, and usually I can focus on the many things that I do have.
Vince has never played in organized sports. We are not a “sporty” type of family. No one watches sports on TV, no one went to a college with football, no one understands the “off sides” rules of soccer. Jeremy mentioned to me this summer that he though that Vince should get involved with a team sport – to which I groaned because we live in an area which all the kids start all their sports when they are 4 years old and there is no way that Vince would be able to catch up in any sport such as soccer/football/baseball/basketball/tennis/lacrosse/wrestling. I actually proposed fencing or ping pong (sorry, table tennis) as a possible sport for Vince because I think those sports are a little underrepresented and maybe Vince would have a fighting chance to not be humiliated on the first day. Anyways Vince (and Jeremy) scoffed at my fencing/ping pong idea and Vince said that he wanted to play soccer and I signed him up for the local rec-league soccer and we showed up to the field – knew no one, it was hot and he was outplayed and it all ended in tears and frustration.
I scrambled around and backed out from the local rec-league and found a co-ed league run by the city and we went today and Vince had a great time. Still knew no one, but it was in the shade and Vince’s level of play was fine, got lots of ball action and I felt like the coach was better than the more competitive team I had first signed him up for. I like that the team is co-ed and the best player by far was a girl.
Goooooooooaaaaalllll!
Happy labor day to all you hard-working folks out there. I do love labor day as it not only pays homage to my union/socialist tendencies, but it also means the end of summer (my least favorite season) and the beginning of fall (my favorite season). It has been chock-a-block of regular-life craziness in the house, I’m trying to ride the tide and take care of things one at a time and not go too crazy. I think if I did enjoy drinking, that I would be imbibing in a glass of wine two-three times a day.
I didn’t think life was too crazy last weekend when I agreed to foster Boba – a 6-year-old blind cockapoo (special needs!). Super cute. Boba is a dog from the ‘hood – his family is going through a rough patch and the neighborhood decided to band together to take care of Boba for a few months. But Boba is mainly at our house because I’m the one working at home all the time – so here he is in all his glory.
Two days after agreeing to take in Boba, Ruby slipped on the hardwood floors and came up lame on her back right foot. Wouldn’t put weight on it – this resulted in us carrying her up and down the stairs (thank goodness she’s weighs the same as Edda – so we’ve been practicing, but one does have to start lower to the ground which places one’s back at greater risk). We tried to figure out how to rejigger the stairlift to accommodate Ruby, but in the end, we are confining her to the first floor and she has to wear traction booties, which she hates, but are cheaper than the vet’s suggestions of carpeting the whole house. The vet seemed to think it’s just a pulled ligament, which seems to be right as Ruby is doing better all the time, but still hates her booties.
And right after Ruby came up lame, then Jeremy came up lame. Jeremy’s been battling some Achilles tendon problems for the past year or so, and this week, it has decided to flare up so much so that he’s limping around the house. He’s taken to using the stairlift to get up and down the stairs. I told him that at least I get to divide the cost of the stairlift by two, which makes it much more economical per person. And if we figure out how to get Ruby on the stairlift, then I can divide it by three! Even more savings 😉
My two loves who can’t do stairs, sharing a ride together.
Loving this K-pop video (even though I have no idea what they are saying):