Year: 2012

So Vince has what Edda had a few days ago – upset tummy and just feeling crappy. We are still deciding if he is going to go to school today. Sometimes these stomach things can be gone in less than 24 hours.  Here he is pre-sick.

I took the day off yesterday to spend time with my youngest friend, Bert. Bert is very good looking, but he is also gassy, fussy, hungry and sleepy. All things that make his mother slightly exhausted. I remember those days very well, so I showed up and made lunch and held the baby when crying and tried to be helpful. It’s exhausting even with 2 grown people with years of experience. But I had a great time and I’m hoping to do it a few more times before the holidays are here.

Baby technology moves forward, so I got to try on the fancy new baby carriers and now babies have apps on the iPad too! I forget the iPad was not yet invented when my kids were little. Bert’s favorite app is called the “Baby Shusher!” Which just goes Shhhhhh, Shhhhh, Shhhhh forever. Of course – when the baby was fussy, I was holding him and bouncing him and saying “shhhhhh” and my pal Vickey exclaimed, there is an app for that! So surprised. Anyways, Bert is a beauty.

I didn’t get home until 5:30 or so and picked up Vince from a friend’s house down the street – they warned me that Vince might be sick, andI totally apologized for bringing a sick kid into their midst. I didn’t realize that he was really sick and just parked on the toilet. Poor kid. I asked him why he didn’t come home during the day and he said that he knew I wasn’t home and the nurse said that he didn’t have a fever and could just rough out the day.

I’ve already had a great run this morning – if nothing else gets done today, at least I ran!

We did send Edda to school yesterday, she slept well and no puking and seem to be happy and enthusiastic in the morning. But she was sleepy most of the day and slept a lot at school. SeHyun was debating whether she should take Edda to OT based on Edda’s day at school, but they went and it was OK which was good.  I do get sad if Edda has to miss OT for any reason, Deb and Edda have a nice interaction together that is an important part of Edda’s week.

I got Vince’s student violin repaired yesterday – it is not a very old violin, so with the weather change, the violin warped a little bit, bringing the E string within half a millimeter of the fingerboard. I have to admit that I though Vince had tossed the violin a little too violently (oops, I mean enthusiastically) and broke something. But no, it’s totally the violin’s fault. I loved the violin shop, totally a mess, unstrung instruments everywhere, the proprietor a funny Chinese man who is kind and goofy at the same time – showing me violins he’s making which he’s selling for $38,000 which in the violin world is pretty apparently a pretty reasonable price!

Vince is suppose to upgrade to a full size violin next year and the kind gentleman at the repair shop was trying to tell me that Vince is going to practice more on a better sounding violin. I’m a little skeptical about that hypothesis, I don’t think owning a Strad will make Vince practice all day – I’m not sure Vince is yet out-performing his student mass-made violin.

Before all the puking, there was Christmas prep!

Yesterday at 4 am, Edda and I were already on our 2nd round of clean sheets and pajamas for the night when I heard the sounds of the 3rd round of impending puke. I thought this time I would be clever and guide her in our sleepy stupor to the toilet in the next room and then we wouldn’t have to clean anything. After a few minutes of complaining and no puke coming out of Edda, I decided that he had already puked out her guts in the last 2 vomiting sessions and we should just head to bed. Two steps into her bedroom, 2 steps from the easily cleanable, easily wipe-able tile floor of the bathroom, Edda lets loose the last third of her dinner last night onto the white carpeting. What is it about white carpeting that attracts all sorts of crazy ass stains. At least the sheets were still clean. So it has been a long night. But at least we saw Santa this weekend!

So I prepared for two tests yesterday – the lab test (which is remembering the names of about 100-150 muscles in the body) and the lecture test which is the physiology of how muscles contract and how neurons send signals throughout the body. A tremendous amount of information for my sieve-like brain. I walked into class a little early and asked a few of my classmates – so wasn’t that like the most information you had to learn ever at one time? Then a super on-top-of-it-all classmate mentioned that the prof put a little note on the class web page that mentioned that there would be no lecture test! Less than 24 hours before the test was to be given! Argh! Kill me slowly with a dull knife.

Whatever. It is all fine. This morning, I’ve already given a pretty good haircut to Edda – I’m pleased with her slow progression from Romulan to Dora.

Up early to study muscles. Wishing I had one more day to nail it all down, but I’m doing what I can.

This is Maxi’s best friend in the ‘hood – Toby. Toby is French – a Bouvier des Fandres and is always up for romping!

I’m working hard and studying for my anatomy test tomorrow – all about muscle groups – been looking at a lot of cadaver youtube videos (which always makes me want to throw up into my mouth a little). I realized a few weeks ago that I could start nursing school in the fall of 2013 which is sooner than I thought possible, so I’m trying to pull together my application in the next month which on top of working/the holidays/and the ever growing pile of laundry, seems a little like doing magic tricks.

Of course, I have been procrastinating and yearning to go to this magic show in NYC:

I am still listening non-stop to Christmas music during the day. Are my spirits lifted? I think so. I’m almost enjoying gift shopping and it’s even nicer that I can shop while sitting in my house and therefore procrastinate on the 10,000 other things I should be doing like working, cleaning or studying.

I have declared unilateral command of the gift purchasing this year. As Jeremy doesn’t like to buy gifts until the 22nd, so I decided that I was going to buy all the gifts this year early (like this week) and not even bring Jeremy into it all until later. Of course, it ends up that I bought Vince something that Jeremy already owns. But whatever, that’s what Vince is getting. So there.

There is no true Thanksgiving without a marital argument. Jeremy and I always partake of this annual tradition by getting mad at each other on Thanksgiving morning, mere hours before folks descended to our house. Of course, the argument was over cranberry sauce, and as we are having this argument we are kind of laughing at each other saying that this is the start of our annual holiday argument. It has resolved by now, thank goodness.

Other than our little tiff, Thanksgiving was wonderful. Reinforced our impression that it is Edda’s favorite holiday. I’ve never seen her so happy eating so much food and she went to bed with the largest smile I’ve seen in a while. We are so lucky she eats so well and grows so well, really a huge blessing.

Donald introduced all of us to his girlfriend Annie and with Annie came her sister, Judy and Judy’s funny and kind boyfriend, Yancy. Oh yes, and their Rhodesian ridge back puppy!