Get the bleach

Man we cannot get well here. I have been sick for close to a month, just going in waves never quite getting completely well, then right back down. Today I woke feeling miserable, and Katie is on her second day home from school. I gotta say, two nights ago Katie began a building up of how unwell she felt, but it came on the heels of homework she did not want to do, and some she refused to do so I wasn't exactly inclined to believe her. The next morning there was no acting about it she was sick. I almost think she was feeling a little ill, but was really just looking to get out of school not knowing what she was in for. Tonight she has volunteered to do homework and seems not only better, but happy to get out of the house tomorrow. Xander is still coughing and I just seem to be floating. Ginger has been on the cusp for weeks which is truly unusual as she is usually the much more susceptible of the two of us. Oh make it stop. Wipe down every surface and gargle with bleach.

Morning Dramas

The alarm went off at 6:30 this morning as it does every school day. I jumped up and turned it off as I usually do (I usually jump so fast that Ginger never has a chance to hear it), but then I heard Ginger say 'I'll get up and get them'. Without hesitation I crawled back under the covers and curled up. I couldn't fall back asleep though. I stayed hidden in the room, but listened to everything going on. Katie is not a morning person and just will not get moving. I heard my calls to her to get going. Once Ginger started to tell Katie how much time was left and Katie exploded at her with an 'I already heard you!' It was all I could do to keep from flying out of the bed and confronting her.
Xander; on he other hand, tends to be a morning person and is usually quite easy. Lately; however, he has become a little pill to get out of the bed, but is fine once extracted. He was sick last week and missed three days of school, being sure to put on quite a moaning performance each day before school started. He bounced around a lot after the sick call was made. Same for the weekend, bounced all over the place, to the point that it was decided he was well. Come this morning he was moping around and dragging, and looking oh so pathetic. Ginger said 'you're going to school' to which Xander replied 'I know, I'm just worried about making the other kids sick.' It is so wonderful that my child is so magnanimous and caring. If only he would have used the word 'children' instead of 'kids' I would have fallen out of the bed in hysterics.
In the end I got up because; of course, Katie missed the bus and needed a ride to school. She was told that she would be late. We were not going to hurry to get her there since she did not try to make it herself. She sat in the living room chair and just shot daggers at Ginger for twenty minutes. The ride to school was very quiet, she was not happy in the least. I just love school morning drama.

It was all so cool

I remember being a kid and just getting an idea and running with it. There was no thought about what might get destroyed, who might get hurt, how much money was going to come out of the parents pockets. It was great! We had a blast digging monster holes in the wash, during monsoon season, with the rain coming down. We put fire crackers through the little windows of our hot wheels and pretended they were the Dukes of Hazard escaping Boss Hog. We shot BB guns in our bedrooms, and painted things right on the dining table. Life was good, material things were not long for this world so we used them fast and with gusto.
I mention this because I am an adult with children now. Things do not look the same. I am now the provider of that which is destroyed. I am looking out my kitchen window right now and I see the neighborhood kids standing on top of my neighbors van with a large pole trying to beat something off my neighbors house. I am thrilled that all this is going on at my neighbor's house. Today the Odyssey group was over at the house and decided they needed to paint cardboard boxes. I cringed and grudgingly gave them paint. Of course so much more than cardboard was painted and it made my skin crawl. All the kids just run willy-nilly trough the front yard scattering gravel and kicking up dust. It is pure chaos.
Why can I not go back. I don't want to see destruction just for destruction, but that is not the same as redesigning. I think I may have some real OCD issues that plague my brain, because; as I've said, I can remember being the same and really enjoying myself too. Maybe I'm just old. ("Get off my lawn.") I hope I can overcome and I really hope the kids stay over at the neighbors.

Struggling day.

It has been a long couple of days, but today has been particularly fun. To start with I am still sick and just can't quite get over it. I also had an early shift this morning and the mid shift tonight. Xander is now sick as well and it is kicking up his asthma and developing pink eye. Katie has a birthday party to go to, but she is unsure about it because her friend is developing new friendships with girls that don't necessarily get along with Katie and they are going to be there. Ginger is also getting sick and on Saturdays she gets to crack the whip as it is chore day and it never gets done without vast amounts of asking, then pleading, then yelling, then threatening, then just ignoring and accepting. I think it's much like the the grieving process. I got home and went to crash in bed and got about an hour and a half of sleep. Nobody was in a good mood or high spirits.
We also had ticket to The Gaslight Theater, but with the all of us sounding like we were going to barf up a lung each time we started coughing we realized we couldn't do it. There was a bright spot in that I was able to sell the tickets to a co-worker, but Xander was none too happy at not going.
So, because Katie was at the birthday party, Ginger and I took Xander out to eat and he opted for Peter Piper Pizza (his first choice was Pizza Hut for the buffet because he likes the cinnamon & sugar bread sticks, but the buffet was not going on). About three bites into his pizza Xander squealed and showed me something on his napkin - on closer look I saw it for one of his teeth (this was a loose one, not a knocked out one as he is prone too). There was also blood all over his face, but it blended with the pizza sauce so now major terrors.
Hope to come up with some better material in the future I just haven't been able to think to straight lately with this stupid cold and being too tired.

Can't sleep

It is one of those rare days when I don't have to be up until noon, work doesn't start until 2:00 and Ginger has an early computer appointment so she can get the kids ready for school. So; of course, my eyes pop open at 5:15 this morning and my brain starts whirring at the speed of thought throwing non sequiturs at me in an almost hostile fashion. 'Get some exercise', 'Find a hotel in LA for Ginger's birthday', 'Check your FaceBook page, maybe something important was posted in the middle of the night'. I laid there telling my head to shut up, then lower down was the call to arise from the bed and go pee. Jeez, why won't my body and mind let me sleep, it must be some great cosmic joke that I can not be in charge of myself, but instead tortured by me. So I thought I'd get up and write something down to which my body said 'no - let's just go back to tossing and turning, it's the only exorcise you get anyway'. But I will be in charge so I am sitting here writing and falling asleep.
It is a good thing I got up though. It is raining outside and half of the kids Odyssey props (of which most is cardboard) are not under the patio. So I've been standing in the rain trying not to get wet while moving things to cover. I dumped out a bucket of water and instead of it running out to the planter it poured under the pile of cardboard.
After standing in the rain in my P.jays not really helping the situation with the deteriorating props I went to get some aspirin and tripped over a dog in the dark. I was not walking on tip toe or; indeed even, quietly at all. I guess the dog just trusts that I can see in the dark and would never intentionally stomp on him. He was highly disappointed in me, crushed that I sought him out in order to dance on his body. So now I'm not the only one who can't sleep.

Bragging on our kids

Had a great time up in Phoenix yesterday with Auntie Sarah and The Burnquist's. We had a BBQ while the kids played outside. It is amazing to think how many years we have known each other and how much has changed since those long lost days of yore. Our conversations were concerts and movies, school subjects, fashion and who was not as cool as us with our 80s New Wave hair and Buffalo Exchange clothing. We used to play cards till 3 in the morning while drinking whatever was affordable, then we'd make the run to Rally's for the fries and shakes.
Not any more, nope. Now we discuss our ailments, what prescriptions we've got (yes legal drugs now), and of course; our kids. We brag on our kids as if it was the only subject in the world. Maybe brag isn't quite the right word though. We start asking question's: "do yours ever paint the walls of their bedroom with pee? Oh thank God! I was this close to calling in the priest. " And then we move on to describing all the trouble and turmoil, and laughing like crazy. Yes laughing at that which so incredibly peeved us at the time that there was no thought that it could ever be laughed at. It almost becomes a competition to see who has more reason to sleep with one eye open, and who is more likely to need to bar the children's windows.
There is plenty of good to talk about, many proud moments to wax over, and those do come up, but that isn't quite as fun is it. It is so relieving to know that are kids are so normal and well adjusted, and so scary to think that that is what normal and well adjusted is.

Driving to Phoenix

Loaded up the family van and took off for Phoenix to spend MLK day with my sister's family and our good friends the Burnquists. We will decend upon the Burnquist household for a BBQ and much mirth. Even brought the dogs. The van seats 7 but I don't think 2 big dogs figure into that equation. They refuse to just sit in the back seat and instead must spend all their time attempting to get into the front window. Mind you these are not little yippie dogs that could fit in the front window, but about 150 pounds of dogs all together. They get very snippy when they get touched in the car, but refuse to go to a location where they won't get messed with.
The kids put Enchanted in the DVD player and put on their headphones. We didn't even know they were there until we were 10 minutes from our location (aside from the occassinal random giggle that erupted and an assumed funny scene). That's when the movie ended and the whining began: "how far now", "are we there yet", "my butt hurts". Funny little critters, the dogs too.

It's quiet here.

I got sick about a week ago and violently attacked the little bug with mass doses of vitamin C and NyQuil. It seemed I was victorious. One day of drug induced fog to wake up the next with some minor stuffiness. I felt that all in all it was a fair trade and I would not spend too much energy ruing the lost time. Yesterday in a sneak attack I was hit from all sides. The aching began, the one nostril squeal while the other drips, the chest congestion, and the swelling of sinus tissue to the point of exceeding the size of ones head. I moaned. I groaned. I took to medicine cabinet, if it was there and claimed to do something I took it. When i got up for work at 4am my tongue was swollen and dry, hanging out of my mouth from breathing through my mouth all night. I snuffled hard and just stuffed my ears while something oozed down my face. I moaned. I groaned. I got in a hot shower, put on my most pathetic face and headed out to work knowing we are very short staffed and Saturdays are busy. I moaned. I groaned. People at work were not happy see to me, and less happy to hear me. I made it to the end. I came home. I moaned. I groaned. I went to bed. I woke up feeling a little better, but what was so cool was that the kids were gone to a birthday party and it was soooo quiet. Took a hot tub and read. I still moan and groan, but the occasional attack of quiet is amazingly helpful. Poor Ginger only gets the quiet broken with my moan, groan, and disgusting nasal squeals.

You never know.

Went out with a friend last night and an old friend of his came up to him to say hi. They had a good reunion and business cards exchanged hands. There was some talk of future plans and current projects and it all sounded so grown up and professional. There was talk that concerned work in the community where many important people would need to be involved. After the fellow went his way David just smiled and was amazed because this was the guy in high school who had crazy hair and spent all day riding his skate board. He was liked, but not voted most likely to succeed. He just did his own thing.
I'm so glad I got to witness this event. My kids do their own thing. Katie especially, has such a hard time right now socially. I truly believe girls are much meaner than boys when it comes to whom they will accept into their little clicks and how they will treat each other. I also think it's much worse now with the never ending pursuit to "empower" young girls to be strong and believe they are "special". While they are all special and should feel strong I think it's pushed wrong and learned wrong and you end up with a bunch of pushy little "I'm specialler than you" girls. I just hope Katie struggles through these awkward years of attempts to mold and conform away all truly special abilities, because if they don't beat her down she will explode on the scene and be something to admire.
I don't worry for Xander so much he seems to just fit in for the most part and is even liked and looked up to when he shows individuality. I might be wrong, but it just seems easier for him at least for now.
Well, you never know how people will turn out. You might have some new wave, trench coat wearing, make-up wearing guy who just doesn't care for school end up in the sub-burbs with a mini-van, a government job, and a beautiful family. Mostly respected by society. What they don't know. Ha!

Odyssey

The kids are in Odyssey of the mind this year. And they are in two different groups. I work with Xander's group and Ginger works with Katie's. These 3rd graders are near impossible to work with. It's like herding gerbils. They are supposed to do everything by themselves and be self motivated, but they just do a lot of yelling and running around. I try to not get involved in telling them how to do things, but it really drives me crazy. The older kids self direct more easily, but they still waste quite a bit of time and there is only a few weeks left for them to bring it all together.
Xander's group has the task of performing the feats of Heracles. They must pick one of the twelve tasks in the original Greek version and come up with an original one as well. Xander is Heracles. Katie's group has only three girls in it and they are doing superstitions. I haven't looked closely at theirs but I understand they have to perform a known superstition and an original one. They also have some pretty harsh restrictions about the use of props. To bad school is going on. I think if they had long summer days to hang with each other they could really get into the swing of things.
Odyssey has the potential to be very enriching and helpful for later life, but I think there should be some sort of on hands training for the coaches in how to give direction without interfering and I feel it would be incredibly helpful for the kids to have some interviews with professionals who play write, act, direct, costume, etc... While there are a number of things the groups go through in the competition the big one is performing a fully self made skit. There are some rules; there are only certain predefined subjects to be used, there are some specifics that must be included and are judged more heavily, there is a time limit and to go over or under is cause for penalty.
I really like the whole Odyssey project, I'm not sure I like being a coach - (I'd love to be one of the kids). Maybe we should strive for an adult version (for adults, not "Adult").

Doctor Visit

Today the family got up together and went to the Doctor's together. Both kids had appointments scheduled with Dr. Los, Katie at 8:00 and Xander at 9:00. Neither one wanted the other in their appointment which is understandable, but this created problems with mom and dad getting to be there for both. Ginger went in with Katie first while I sat in the waiting room with Xander. The main point for Katie's visit was to try to get an ADD assessment and also try to find some reason for her constantly hurting stomach. Turns out Dr. Los doesn't deal with ADD at all because he feels kids are over-medicated and rather than try to look for those who do need help and helping the others find alternatives he just doesn't deal with it and said we should see Dr. Griffin. The main reason we scheduled with Dr. Los was because Dr. Griffin said he was terminating the pediatric portion of his practice. So that was a wasted part of the visit. Ginger forgot to ask him about the stomach problems. Another wasted part. He did give her a minor physical and administered two shots that were due. He also ordered a three part run of shots of Gardasil and Ginger felt it was presented as a need and very common. Well the insurance company does not feel the same at all and because of this it's not even kept at the doctor's office. You have to pay for all of it out of pocket and try to get reimbursed and then they order it in. After we ordered it and payed we had second thoughts and went back and canceled the whole thing. Another strike on the day. A total waste for Katie, but we do have an appointment with Dr. Griffin to try to make some headway in the suspected ADD issues.
Xander and I went in to talk about his headaches and eczema and to have a wart frozen off. The doctor didn't really seem to impressed with talk of headaches but said we could always schedule with a pediatric neurologist. He told Xander to keep putting lotion on his hands, he gave him a quick once over to verify no glaring problems, then he brought out the freeze gun. Xander really could not handle it. The doctor seemed to keep looking at him in surprise of how wigged out and hurt he seemed to be (that was my impression of the look - it could have been otherwise). Hopefully enough was done to get rid of the wart, but were not sure. Really a total loss to the day.
We hear all the time we should go see our doctors but I don't think there is much point in that. It seems that you just use common sense as best you can ad go to the emergency room when that fails. There was no real discussion of things that should be done. I was told to get most of the sugar out of the house though. Oh Well.
After all that Xander still had a dentist appointment to fix his broken front tooth. It was for 11 so we took the kids to breakfast at McDonald's and then took Katie back to school. She was only listed as tardy. Xander got to go home for about a half hour and then to the dentist's. He loathes the dentist and is positive the dentist has only one purpose, and that is to severely torture young children with ghastly instruments of pain. It was a simple procedure and didn't even require Novocain, but Xander jumped constantly and twitched and squealed. In the end it was accomplished with little drama and his tooth looks pretty good. What a long day.

katie Monster

Katie has a new passion; drawing monsters. It's a technique she learned from a book she got for Christmas 100 days of monsters. You start with a drop of ink, use some compressed air to blow the ink around on the page, then add onto the ink splatter with your own creative drawing ideas to create the monster. Her drawing skills are quite amazing and she is very good at duplicating a style she sees. She became enamored with the monsters and created a bunch, then she showed Xander how to do it because she wanted praise from him as well. This was a bad idea. Grandma and Grandpa came over and saw Katie's drawings and oohed and awed over them and told her how wonderful they were. Xander also wants to be praised and decided he would start working on some monsters so the grandparents would focus on him. Katie blew up - "it's my special thing!". Oh the crying and carrying on that ensued, it was as bad as a Disney lawyer after a Mickey look-a-like. I tried my best to explain to her that Xander has little interest in the whole monster thing and if she keeps quiet he will drop it shortly, I also explained how she doesn't have a monopoly on the procedure and she has no right to lose it like that. Nothing really worked, but true to form, Xander got bored at one and hasn't been back to it.
I love this monster of Katie's, the shoes crack me up. Ginger posted this one on-line with the guy who made the book and he even wrote her back and commented on it. She has real talent if she can survive all the conformists of this world.

Family Day

Worked the mid shift last night and was told that after I got up we would be going out for a surprise day planned by Katie. Got up and it was overcast and raining. We went to Swenson's for lunch and met up with the K'Deo people for a going away to Alyson/planning party. Then we took off, Katie had wanted to go golfing and had looked up prices and locations. The rain was bad enough that we ran by the bowling alley, but there was a waiting list (as I've said before, the kids don't do waiting), so we went to Funtastic's and let the kids play laser tag then we went and saw 'Bedtime Stories' at the new theater. It was a good day, but the kids could only take it for so long. Oh the fighting started as we got home, the insistent touching and screaming "he/she 's touching me". Oh well.

Thrown

Quick note. Xander and I are sitting in the car doing what we always do, waiting for the woman-folk to get out to the car so we can go. In his boredom Xander picks up a soccer ball and tosses it at me. All fun and games, I pick the ball up and toss it back to the very back of the van. He jumps out of his seat to go get it and chuck it at my head again. I put the van in reverse and do a tap on the brakes. Let me tell you, that thing jumps. Xander flew into the back and hit his knee on a plastic case and bruised up. Well the fun was over. I shouldn't of done it and yes I do feel bad. The boy is a magnet for pain.

Keep Writing

Well another day has come and gone and I really don't have anything to say. Nothing special happened today, I got less than 3 hours sleep last night and went to work this morning, went home and got about 2 hours sleep and now I'm back at work trying to stay awake.
So this is a good time to discuss Disneyland. I love going to Disneyland and wondering around and seeing all the detail that goes into the entire park. There are no rides because they are attractions. The imagineers put so much time into every aspect that you can't even catch it all as you wonder around trying to get on all the rides. This is why I get depressed every year when we go. I want to spend a lot of time looking at the park, taking pictures, letting my own imagination run wild. I also love people watching, and you get every kind of person under the sun there at Disneyland. I never feel I get to lose myself in all this, instead all the time is taken up in amusing the kids with thrill ride after thrill ride and then popcorn or some other junk food, and then more entertaining the kids with thrill ride. I seem to always get resentful and just wish for time alone. I think the solution is coming though. The kids are just about at that stage where they can be turned loose to run free and amuse themselves and meet back up at another time. I don't know for sure how well this will work, I don't know that they can be trusted to get along with each other and I don't know if they will be too intimidated by the prospect of not being with us, but it sounds like a good thing to me. To sit in New Orleans Square and people watch, to enjoy the Grand Californian hotel and just sit amungst the trees. I do love thrill rides myself, and I wouldn't want to go and not go on any of them, but I don't need it constantly. I think Disneyland works well if you just don't have any plans of your own. The kids will run you ragged and they won't have a clue as to what they are missing, but it will cut down on a lot of misery. I think the kids would really enjoy Fantasmic, but the waiting and timing just irritates them to the point that nobody has fun. They need gratification now, and I don't seem to be able to teach otherwise. Oh well. It surely will get better. It has to.