On Death and Dying

This is all I'm going to say about the case in Florida. And I say this as a person who has lost all her grandparents, her father-in-law, and her father in ways that could never be compared to "dignified" deaths.

Let's just pretend for a moment that I, as a reasonably healthy and sane adult, decided to starve myself to death. I made this decision, informed dear ZooDad of it and had his support. If my state powers-that-be found out, they would involuntarily commit me and force me to eat.

AND...if I somehow managed to starve myself to death without the state finding out, the state would press charges against my husband for assisted manslaughter.

Now, if for some reason my darling ZooDad decided to starve me to death and I was not in a state where I could prevent this from happening (either mentally or physically), he would be charged with murder.

Interesting.


BTW, I know some will say...but it's different in cases of terminal illness.
Nope, it isn't.

The kid knows what he wants

Baby S is sick. Well at least he was. He's 20 months old and this morning he woke up with much coughing, gagging, and retching at about 5 am. He seems to have some allergy problems.
After throwing up all over the crib, he decided he (and by default, me) was up for the day. So for the next 3 hours I chased him around with a towel, a can of Lysol, and a Bissell spot cleaner. At 8 am, he decided to take a nap and slept until noon.
When I went to get him out of bed he seemed remarkable improved and he had his shoes on...and a diaper. When I put him to bed, he had pajamas, a diaper, and no shoes.

The boy loves his shoes. He can put them on by himself. He wears them all day long with socks or without. The only time you can get the shoes off of him is when it is bath time or bed time. If you bathe him too early, he'll put his shoes back on. I guess he's a Fly-kid. Shoes and diapers are the only essential items of clothing....the diaper is negotiable. When I take his shoes off, I usually place them on the dresser near his bed. I might have to break that habit since the kid can reach the shoes and put them back on.

After a late lunch of home-made pizza, (I know...it's not the BRAT diet...but the little guy seems to be fine.) the older boys headed outside to play. S decided he was going too. However, he was having a shoe problem and he didn't know how to fix it.
After a quick inspection, I discovered that he was wearing two LEFT shoes. They were the same style but one was a size larger. That's one of the drawback of saving all the kids shoes and having some many feet to shod. I have many pairs of shoes around. Lots of sizes, lots of styles...and occasionally I buy a repeat.
I searched all over, with a crying, snotty, threatening-to-throw-up-at-any-minute toddler following my every step.
I can't find either right shoe of that particular style.

So...since it is so warm today, I grabbed the "shoe box" and pulled out the next size of velcro strapped sandals.

S was intrigued. he had not seen such shoes before. He sat down and offered first one foot and then the other. He watched my every movement as I strapped them on his chunky square feet and then wiggled his plump little toes.
He stood up and walked around in a circle, looking down to see how the shoes fit.
Then he hugged me
and headed out the door to play.

I guess he's feeling back to normal after all.

Sleeping with the Enemy

Well, at the very least, getting services from them.

Today I enrolled my 6 year old at the local elementary school. Officially.
It was weird. The secretary thought I was, for a lack of a better word, dumb. She could see that I had a child almost my size and could not figure out why I was having so much trouble filling out the paperwork. I had to explain that I homeschooled and had never enrolled any of my children in a school.
Ever.
Not even Mothers Morning Out.
Not even pre-school.
Well, once for day care but J was only in day care for 10 weeks and that was 9 years ago.
She asked and was shocked, horrified, and then very cautious of me since I must obviously be close to the edge of sanity being home all day with FOUR children.

Of course, M won't actually go to school there. He's just going for speech therapy once a week for half an hour. But the school is planning for him to be there until next March. They want to hang on to my little guy and they haven't even gotten him in the room yet.

My nine year old looked around the place with some contempt and once again confirmed that he didn't "have to" go there. According to him, they have a very small library and the food smelled funny. After peeking into a few rooms he confirmed that he wasn't missing much.

Afterwards we went to the library and checked out as many books as we could carry and had an early lunch at Pizza Hut with our Book-it coupons.
Poor school can't compete with that.

It's Spring!

Which means we're way behind!!! We'll never catch up. We'll be doing school all summer.

Standardized testing is coming. Have I mentioned that I am the test coordinator for my homeschool support group? I have to place a $2000 order today. Scary.

Spring is also planting time. 10 bushes are in the ground and I don't know how many flowers to go. But my azaleas are starting to bloom. So are my irises and crabapple tree. My Lady Banks Rose and "Nanny's switch" bush are about to bloom. They take me back to her arms. I have to order sod today. We'll need 2 palettes. The left over grass will go down to the cemetery to dress up Daddy's place along with a few hardy azaleas. I would plant a Lady Banks but those things grow like wisteria and I can't get down there often enough to keep it from taking over the whole back wall.

Spring is also baseball. Baseball starts next week. Have I mentioned that I am coaching again? yep...t-ball. I can't mess up t-ball. Thankfully the game season is only 6 weeks.

On a good note, ZooDad will not go to TX for 3 weeks then Germany for 8 days. Now he'll just take 2 four day trips to DC and then to Germany for 8 days. I plan to quarantine him in the garage for at least 5 days. The boys however, are quite excited about the prospect of more German chocolate.

There's other stuff. I'll post it as I come to it in my head.

I did get a great complement.
When I was in high school and college, I always felt that my best feature was my smile. Well,poundage, 4 kids, and the stress of life has diminished my smile a bit...so I thought.
I was in Home Depot (buying plants) and asked an associate to point me towards the carpet cleaning solutions. He asked if he knew me. I admitted he looked familiar but couldn't figure out how. We played the association game. (Are you are Warren? We had basketball at Wesley? Do you work on post?) When he finally said, "I know you from someplace...I remember you smile."
I guess I still have it. I'll live off that one for the next month.

Oh, and the new buying season has begun. My HWT books are in and so is Singapore MPH science. I love it!!!!! We got home at 4pm and J has already done the first chapter including the work book and activity book. He loves it too.
I've also ruled out Singapore math...I think we'll just stick with MCP and actually do all the stuff in the teacher's manual for a change.

It's spring! Plant flowers, be happy, and don't forget to spray the weed killer before they take over the place.

Homeschool March Madness

Yes, it's that time of year again. The catalogs have started arriving. Those glossy pics filling my mind with unfulfilled educational opportunities. Lakeshore tempts me. Oh I need all that stuff! What beautiful tables and cubbies and COOL organizers!
Catalogs make me anxious to scrap everything and start anew. We need new science. We need new math. Maybe Singapore math will turn my little guys into math geniuses. What kind of bad mom am I to deny them such a powerful tool for understanding math!

Catalog guilt!
My kids don't own enough books!
My kids don't have enough math practice.
We've haven't done nearly enough Latin!
My kids don't write well enough.
And we are behind.
I need something to fix it! Maybe I'll find in in Rainbow Resource when that catalog shows up.
Maybe I should send them to school.
Frantic. That's me. Every March.


Then I stop and actually think for a minute. Maybe I could add some Singapore or maybe I should fully implement the math I have first. The kids aren't behind. They aren't compared to anything but themselves. If I compare them to the poor children locked up in our local schools...they are certainly on average with them. Calm down.

yeah...easier said than done.

I'm not dead but I feel like it.

ZooDad brought home a German super bug. It has worked it way through the Zoo, affecting each zooby in a different way. ZooDad cocooned himself in bed for 2 days and was incoherent but caused me no extra work.
Baby S developed croup with led to a trip to the ER. After a nebulizer treatment, a steroid shot and 4 hours of observation, we went home only to return to the doctor two days later for oral steroid prescription and antibiotic for the impetigo he has developed on his face. (We've taken to calling him El Snotto.) The cool mist humidifier is going 24 hours a day.
A got a high fever (104) then M joined in (105) just to keep Mommy on her sleep deprived toes. We went back to the doctor and found out that both have Strep throat. More antibiotics.
Today, J threw up a few times. He is not running a fever. I'm keeping a close eye on him. The doc has now said that if he even thinks about a sore throat, he'll start antibiotics too.

Yay me~!!!!!

Now I have a sinus headache and my nose is stuffy. I had briefly considered wearing a mask ala MJ. Now I wish I had.

I've been lysol-ing the house and scrubbing everything.
So the Zoo is closed.

I need a bablefish

My third child is a hoot, even when I don't understand him.

This morning I woke to the proclamation "I uh ites geen!"
You want ice cream?

"No! I uh Ites GEEN! GEEN! Geen?" He looks at me as if I have lost some mental faculties.

The ice is clean?

"Noooooo! I uh geen. I air uh gown." Holding his hands above his head. This is said with the air of the French Knights from Holy Grail. I can almost imagine him adding..."you zillly woman!"

By now I am just staring at him. I have no idea what he is talking about....then it dawns on me.

You a king? You wear a crown?

"Yets!"

At this point my oldest comes in to the room to inform me that A is an Ice King who wears an ice crown. Oooooooohhhhhhh. Gee, why couldn't he have told me that five minutes earlier.

Today's Treadmill Report

32 minutes, 1 incline, 2.8 MPH, 6 minutes running (I am a sad and pathetic woman)
U2's One album for entertainment

Techno geek husband

ZooDad is such a geek. He has this "reader" program installed. You highlight the text and hit "play" and the computer will read it to you in one of 10 different voices. The AT&T voices are the most realistic sounding.
So I tried it out by having it read my last post.
unfortunately there is no "Southern Belle" voice.
ZooDad has Chosen Crystal 16 as his favorite.

For some reason this bothers me a little. He likes having this computer woman read to him.
Hmmmm.

and on and even stranger note...My backspace key has stopped working. How weird is that. I didn't realize how much I used it.

Today I got my butt up!

I actually got motivated by Poppins' get-up-and-go post. I got up and went.

I got up at 7 am. Now don't laugh. I am a night owl and 7 am is disrespectfully early for me to get up and dressed. But I did this morning.
I threw on some cotton pants and a t-shirt. Put on my running shoes, popped some biscuits in the oven and set the timer. I told my oldest to come get me when the stove beeped. Then I went upstairs and climbed on the treadmill.

After a quick warm up I powered the incline up to 1 and the speed up to 2.8 MPH. I'm short. 2.8 MPH means my feet are flying. After a 10 minute walk, I tried a little running. I did two minutes as Sarah recommended, then 4 minutes of walking, then another 2 minutes of running.

Then I had to hop off and get the biscuits. I did get to squeeze in a Rocky move by running down and then back up the stairs...so that should count too.

Once I prevented breakfast from burning (Mah biscuits are burnin'!) it was back on the treadmill.

I quickly remembered why I hate being on the treadmill It's pretty boring, even with CC on the morning news.
I put on my headphones and popped in some Maroon 5.
Awesome dance music. Kind of a bluesy/funk thing to it.
I didn't meet the goals for running but I did keep my feet moving fast by dancing on the treadmill. Yes, dancing. I can only imagine what the neighbors must have thought of me this morning.

Once "Tangled" started, I was really going. Just imagine a short, overweight mom with no dance skills doing a Jamirquai imitation, except without the big, furry, pimp hat. That was me this morning.

It was fun. The time flew by.

I must say that I feel (and hope) that dancing on the treadmill is just as good of a workout as jogging on one. At the very least, it's more fun. I sure was sweating.
Oh, if you try to do this at home, make sure you keep one hand on the bar for the fancy footwork, especially on the little side turns.

Tomorrow is Violent Femmes. I'll let you know how that works out. I'll have to keep the headphones on for that one.

Shallow tales from the Zoo

ZooDad is home and he'll be leaving again tomorrow. The man needs to give me at least a week between trips. I haven't even finished the laundry from his last trip.

J has rediscovered the Etch-a-sketch. He's quite good at it too. He writes me etch-a-sketch notes. That's a talent right there. I can't ever figure out which way to turn those knobs and he's writing out eight word messages on it.
I wonder if etch-a-sketch artists are paid highly.

A cracked me up this morning. He happened to see that toe fungus commercial, the one with Digger the Dermaptophyte. He got this look of horror on his face and then yelled...."IT'S IN A TOE! IT'S IN A TOE!!!! It's not in my toe."
snort

M starts OT tomorrow. He's just barely off average and the therapist thinks he only needs about 6 months of therapy. That's a whole lot better than the years we expect A will need.

Just one more basketball game and the season is over. We had out last practice last night. I am so relieved. Now if we can just hold our own on Saturday, I'll be happy.

May your toes have no fungus.