Eve has somehow managed to lose her jacket, snowpants, and winter boots! Probably hat and gloves as well. She had them in school Tuesday, was home sick on Wednesday, and couldn’t find them this morning. How to do kids lose stuff so easily?! Sheesh! I posted on FB about it and a generous friend offered me her daughter’s hand-me-downs, which is awesome! I told her she is my Santa!
With everything going on this morning I forgot to mention my sore throat and partially numb tongue. Haha. I’m falling apart!
Eve stayed home today with Alan and ended up throwing up 12 times! She is in bed now, complaining that her stomach hurts, so I suspect we are not done. She is VERY sad that she has to miss her class holiday party tomorrow. Poor girl.
Lex, on the other hand, surprised the heck out of me this morning with his bravery! He did not want to go to the dentist, but he went on his own accord, every step of the way, with no tears and no arguing or fussing. He made it all the way there and into the chair with a positive attitude and sense of humor. The dentist decided to try just using nitrous oxide and novocain, not the sedation we had planned. I agreed, with the sedation as a backup plan. I LOVE our new dentist! He bought the practice we’ve been going to all along and he is making great changes. I love how he handles Lex in such a calm, patient, understanding way. After the meds took affect he started, smartly!, with a sealant instead of going right for the pulling. Lex needed four sealants, three teeth pulled, and one preventative filling. The dentist started with the sealant, which is the least painful, but immediately ran into Lex’s gag reflex and strong sense of taste. Lex could not handle it. The dentist stopped quickly, yay!, and we decided to go with the sedation. It was excellent! :) He started with the lowest dose possible, which was perfect. Lex was calm, but could still communicate. The dentist talked to him the whole way through, checked for pain at each step, and managed to do two sealants, three extractions, and the filling. Definitely more than we were expecting to get done!! Afterwards the sedation wore off quickly, Lex was feeling good, and we headed home.
I dropped Lex off with Alan, gave him the speediest possible “after care” update, and headed off to school. I only had one class and recess duty today, so when I was done I checked in with Alan, checked in with my boss, then headed home again where I snuggled up with Miss Eve and we both took a nap.
Oh, I forgot the best part of the dentist visit. He has a new therapy dog!! It is the sweetest, softest dog ever!! He is a seven month old Goldendoodle and he feels and looks like a teddy bear. Lex spent some time with him in the waiting room, then the dentist brought him back to visit while the sedation medicine was taking effect. Lex LOVED it!
Tomorrow is our last day before Christmas vacation, or, as Lex puts it, the last day we have to go to school in 2016! Lex has a party at the ice skating rink with treats and a Yankee Swap. I have a “Ugly Sweater” day with treats and a Secret Elf thing. Eve has to be home in bed, hopefully not vomiting. Alan has to be home with her, but Alan gets to go to work on Friday. :)
I have a pinch in my neck that has been there for two days now and a pain in my foot that started yesterday, I don’t know why, but I can’t put full weight on it and I’m limping slightly. I have my period and a yeast infection (yup, keeping it real here!). I have a dry nose that bleeds easily and often, post nasal drip that just won’t quit, and I just took my final prednisone from surgery two weeks ago. The dog has hookworm, and chewed up a glass ornament and a ceramic decoration last night. The girl woke me up at 5:30am to say she had just thrown up on the living room floor, and the boy is scheduled to have four teeth pulled this morning. All of this on five hours of sleep because I was up too late wrapping Christmas presents last night. This is motherhood. I will vent here then smile on for the family. 😊
On the bright side, my darling husband, who is still recovering from pneumonia, has a very flexible job and can stay home with Miss Eve (who is back in bed, sleeping now) while I bring Lex to the dentist. We will juggle the afternoon as necessary. “Play it by ear,” an expression I taught the kids recently and we use often.
Two more days until vacation! Just keep swimming. (Right, Joyce?!)
If you’re looking for some last minute gift ideas, Eve decided to make a Christmas lost instead of cleaning her room this evening.
This year we managed to double our holiday party invitations (received!), going from two to four! For the past many years we’ve needed a babysitter just twice a year, both times in December. Once for Alan’s company party and once for Elizabeth’s Christmas party. It’s hard to keep babysitters when you only use them twice a year! :)
This year we also got invited to my school staff party and the town staff party! So fun! :) Unfortunately, due to weather and illness, we only made it to two parties. Sigh.
The school party was last weekend when Alan was still wiped out from pneumonia and I was resting my voice after surgery. I was disappointed to miss the first one, but it had to be done. Last night we went to Alan’s company party. It was nice enough. It’s a cocktail party, which isn’t my favorite style, but everyone is nice and we had fun. Tonight was Elizabeth’s party, but she cancelled it because the roads were AWFUL! I took the kids to a birthday party at 1pm and the roads were barely plowed with snowbanks everywhere! We made it to the party, but it took awhile! I was sad that she canceled her party this evening, but also glad that she didn’t leave it up to the guests to decide whether or not to risk her long, hilly dirt road. So I cancelled the babysitter and told Alan when he came home from karate. He immediately said, “Get the babysitter back! I have a backup party!” Haha.. Ok! I had forgotten that the town staff party was that day and Select Board members were invited. The party was right in town and easy enough to get to on the bad roads (and the snow had stopped by then, which helped!) so we went to the backup party and it was TONS of fun! It was great to finally put faces to all the names he talks about from meetings and names I see in the paper. They had an excellent buffet, hosted the party in a renovated space down town, and cleared the tables at the end for dancing!! I haven’t been to a party with dancing in ages! We’re all a bunch of old folks so the party ended at nine, but it was a great time and I’m so glad that Alan had a backup party ready to go. :)
Happy Holidays!
We had Eve’s holiday concert last night. Alan was sick and didn’t attend. 😢 The kids and I showed up early to help sell raffle tickets. The kids had a great time walking through the crowds, hawking tickets. Then Eve took her place and the show began.
Select Chorus singing “Mele Kalikimaka,” a Hawaiian Christmas tune.
Eve had a speaking part this year. Her and a classmate introduced the best song of the night, “Candle light”
We had a MUCH needed snow day today. Hallelujah! While I mostly wanted to cuddle on the couch and read the paper all day, it ended up being a neighbor-riffic day and that was ok too because I love my neighborhood. Today a kind neighbor had my driveway shovelled so I wouldn’t have to do the heavy lifting while still healing; another neighbor made me fresh baked bread; the kids had friends over all day and we baked cookies, sang songs, and danced for hours; the girls delivered cookies to the neighbors up and down the street; Arlo found a sunny place to nap in front of the window on top of his crate!, and when I went outside in the dark and cold to walk him tonight I was greeted by a dazzling array of holiday lights. My neighborhood is beautiful and generous and kind. Life is good and the proof is in the photos! (because we don’t take photos of the headachy obnoxious parts of life! :) )
Very carefully decorating sugar cookies with beautiful sprinkles and edible glitter.
Beautiful and delicious!
Boy were we surprised to walk into the living room and find Arlo sitting ON TOP of his crate! He seemed quite content and by the time I came back with my camera he had settled in for a rest. He had direct sunlight and a great view of the world… well, the street anyway. :)
The girls made sugar cookies while the boys played on the Xbox, then the boys made Peanut Butter Blossoms while the girls delivered cookies and took their turn on the Xbox. I spent the entire day in the kitchen supervising the efforts!
Tired boys. Arlo was so calm and let Lex lay on him for awhile. Very unusual!
I can’t decide which picture I like better, so you get to see them both! :)
Got cookies?! We do!
We had our First Lego League robotics competition today. It was a big day full of lots of emotion. We had a young team this year with few repeats. Only a few knew anything about the programming when we coaches had a hard time engaging and motivating the group as a whole. Lex carried a lot of the weight on his shoulders as the only returning member with tech skills. We got off to a rough start with early morning wake ups. No one was happy to wake up earlier on a Sunday than we do on school days!
A few rounds of Uno to get the day started!
The opening ceremony
The 2016 FLL team!
Thanks to the Hartford Area Career and Technology Center for their sponsorship!!
We started with the robot design presentation, then the project presentation, then the Core Values meeting with the judges. Unfortunately we didn’t have a real cohesive team this year, but they surprised us all with their presentations.
Presenting their robot to the judges.
First run on the board!
Here’s where the day got interesting. One of the missions they tried, and usually succeeded at in practices, didn’t work as expected. The team talked to the refs afterward and discovered that the refs hadn’t set up the table correctly! The ref decided to give them the full number of points they could have potentially scored on that mission, although we as a team knew we never would have scored that high! That started us off with 115 points, day more than we ever expected! The kids were thrilled and started asking what the grand prize trophy looked like.
A bit later we had a chance to run a practice mission on the competion table and we got our first feel for what the robot really could do. Sadly, not much. That run wasn’t for points, but it left the team a little shaken.
Time for some last minute tweaks and practice runs!
And sometimes you just need to be silly. 😁
After scoring only 10 points on the second mission (an hour later), a judge came over and told us that they needed to change the excess points awarded because they deemed it (fairly, IMHO) excessive. They told us they were going to scrap our first run and we would get another turn. The kids we’re expecting to be going into their final (3rd) round with a score of 125 points, but suddenly they were heading to their second round and only had 10 points. Spirits were low. 😕
In the next round they were rushing too fast, pieces dropped and broke, missions didn’t work, and they were really discouraged. Then we had about 10 minutes to regroup before the now final run.
They slowed down, made better moves, but still the missions didn’t work. Ones that had worked reliably on our practice mat didn’t work at the competition. The kids felt disappointed and somewhat robbed.
It was sad as a parent to watch. There were many tears from the kids (mine and others), and their disappointment was heavy. However, as a coach I had pulled my hair out trying to get them to focus and pay attention and even TRY to learn the robotics, so i, and the other coaches, were not at all surprised at the results and I watched as one by one the kids came to the realization that maybe they should have put in a little more effort up front. Sad, but true.
We decided to have a wrap-up meeting/celebration and try to end the season on a somewhat higher note. Hopefully most will be willing to come back and give it another, more focused!, try next year.
I was sad to see Lex truly unhappy in this area that he loves so much. I remember when he started two years ago as the youngest on an experienced team and I felt that he had finally found his tribe. This year’s team was not his tribe. I hope we can make it better for him, and all of them, (and us coaches!) next year.
Keeping busy waiting for the show to start. Alan was wandering around and didn’t make it into the selfie.
We went to see A Christmas Carol at the theater today. I was so excited! Eve saw the show last week as a class field trip and she loved it. She came home and told us all about it!! Spoilers and all. 😁
Today we finally got to go and it was excellent! A little scary in places (like the very beginning!) and a little intense and so funny and creative and beautiful. We also knew three people in the cast, so it was cool to see them. After Eve’s show they got to hair down with the cast and ask questions, so we had some cool inside knowledge from her. I loved it!
I’ve been thinking lately that in want to go to the theater more often. I missed two shows this fall that I really wanted to see, for no reason other than I didn’t prioritize getting there. I’m kicking myself in hindsight and really wish I had gone to them. Maybe that can be a New Year’s Resolution. We have so much culture in our little piece of the world. Life is good.
Arlo is wondering who are these Christmas Elves hiding in his crate?!