Hi all! Hope you had a good week.

Sunday was fun. Aaron and I (mostly Aaron) completed digging the trench for the wall. I worked for 2 hours trying to decode a massive root puzzle before my frustration got the better of me and I went inside to hang out with my friend Liz, who was babysitting. Aaron stayed out a couple hours more. He managed to get up the last portion of the root that I think I’d mostly dug out before giving up. I went to bed at 8:30 exhausted…

and woke Monday morning missing my glasses (where did I put them in my zombie state), and with a cough. Aaron eventually found the glasses but the cough didn’t subside. At 10, I gave in and canceled my plans for the day and scheduled a doctor appointment.  When I explained to the doctor that I was flying out Saturday, he agreed that I should be tested for COVID that day, because sometimes the tests take 5 days.

Problem is that I get anxiety coughs, and felt it was more likely an anxiety cough than COVID. My throat tightens when I’m stressed, and my asthma acts up. So it seemed like overkill to get a COVID test. In the end, the cough hung in for a few days, though, accompanied by fatigue.

Tuesday was boring, as I had to cancel my plans because I was quarantined till my COVID test results came back. I tried a new app called “MeetMe” which was, in theory, an app for talking to strangers. But they all had an agenda or were creepy. One of the people was (I’m pretty sure) a pedofile who was trying to get pictures of my kids. “She” was talking about her own 13yo daughter fondling her own DD-sized breasts and how they bounced. I blocked “her.” I should have reported her, too. Didn’t think of it. I was too creeped out. I also brainstormed ways to deal with extracurricular activities.

M-8 has dropped out of Code Ninjas and from soccer. He hated the outside exercise of the first soccer practice and refused to move after the first few laps. As for Code Ninjas, he’s sometimes interested and sometimes not, depending on his mood. Its monthly fee is too expensive for that kind of apathy. We’re not gonna force him to do something we’re struggling to pay for.

Plus, if I’m going to use some of his spare time, he needs exercise! He’s been depressed lately, and exercise is good for mental health. At least I can take him to the park for now. He doesn’t like the park, but he tolerates it. I’ll have them do a lot of sledding in the winter. He sometimes tolerates that. Sometimes, he blatantly refuses to get out of the car. *sigh I often feel like he doesn’t get much enjoyment out of life. 😥 He mostly wants to be on his tablet, but when you ask him about it, he sounds like it’s just a way to stave off boredom. Every once in a while he’s excited by it. (That apathy may be more recent – now that he’s depressed again.)

D-10 has dropped swim lessons for fall because she’s afraid of the locker rooms. The district makes them go in alone, and they’re not well-lit. We’re thinking of signing her up for swim team at the YMCA. It seems a better fit for her than the swim team with the district (which isn’t even meeting this Fall, anyway) because the district focuses on competition and the Y focuses on self improvement.

Wednesday Loki’s new blankie and pillow arrived from Amazon. So much for Snuffie. Now he carries around his blankie and pillow.

Thursday I got my COVID test back, and it was negative. Just in time to run some pre-trip errands. Afterwards, I had a lovely conversation with M-8 about race and gender and why some people were treated differently than others. Mostly it was him making very perceptive statements, and me agreeing, but at one point he asked why white people were treated better than other races historically. It reminded me of “Why do white men have more cargo” from Guns, Germs, and Steel. So I started explaining the premise of that book (mainly that because of the location that white people lived, they were uniquely situated to have guns, germs, and steel. I only got so far as the guns part with M-8, who has ADHD. But we’d already discussed the germs part while discussing how aliens from outer space would die if they came here because they were unaccustomed to the germs (his idea, which I told him was the premise of a well-known book which I will not provide spoilers to on my blog). We also discussed how white people gave diseased blankets to the Native Americans in order to reduce their numbers.

Overall, it was a good week, though I accomplished less than I had hoped due to the quarantine.

I didn’t complete anything this week, but I watched some Supernatural Season 10 with Aaron, read some of Sorcerer of the North, and listed to a little Golem and the Jinni.

Hi everyone! Hope you had a good week.

Friday was busy without ever accomplishing anything, it feels. I ran errands and had appointments from 5:30am straight on through till 11:30am, when I was supposed to have an appointment with CPS about J-16. She arrived 45 minutes late, and launched right into a “my hands are tied, nothing I can do to help.” The next hour and a half was spent listening to my dad ramble in such a disconnected way that I left convinced that his dementia is getting notably worse. The meeting was a waste of 2 hours of my life.

The next 4 hours were spent running errands, and then monitoring J-16 as he worked in our yard. Aaron, J-16, and I had dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings.

Aaron started out Saturday morning renting a chainsaw to take down the previous retaining wall, which is railroad ties with spikes driven through them. The chainsaw “broke,” and he returned to get a new one. The new one “broke,” and he returned with an electrical one. That worked fine. He did an amazing job working on his own out there while I was inside watching the baby. We had pizza for dinner, and went to a comedy club in the evening.

Sunday started another day of the chainsaw “breaking,” and Aaron running to Home Depot for a fourth one. I got some pictures of him while I was watching IL-20mo on the balcony, though.

I also got some toddler seats ordered for IL-20mo while I was inside babysitting. He is able to open the top clasp on his infant seat, so I guess the time has come. I got a black one for Aaron’s car, and pink to match my car. Sadly, they claim the pink is “girl’s carseat, but 😝 to them.

In the afternoon, J-16, Aaron, and I continued to pull down the railroad ties from the old wall. Those things are heavy! Afterwards, the family went out to dinner at Outback Steakhouse.

Monday was a little disappointing. We had our first appointment with M-8’s ARFID therapist, and it doesn’t sound like he’s ready for the type of thing they want to do. We have already tried their strategy twice – he’s not receptive. However, it’s possible a window of opportunity will open in the future where he will be ready for change. We have decided to focus on getting calories into him, which the eating disorder clinic suggests for times he’s not getting active treatment.

Tuesday started out on a good note – when M-8 wouldn’t eat his Froot Loops because they “looked weird” I managed to reluctantly accept that he has an eating disorder and getting angry wouldn’t solve anything, and I gave him a glass of whole milk, instead. He actually drank it. Usually, once he’s refused breakfast, that’s the end of that. He even managed to eat 6 times Tuesday, like the clinic suggested – 3 meals and 3 snacks. He did a good job.

Aaron and I rented a Bobcat Tuesday to do some hard-core digging. We roughly dug out the area where we will build the wall, though we still have several more railroad ties to pull up. Aaron thought maybe the Bobcat would pull them out. It didn’t, but it loosened them quite a bit. I ended the day pretty exhausted after following behind the Bobcat to do a little digging and a lot of root-removal.

Tuesday night, D-10 was at their mom’s, so we watched the first couple episodes of Flash with M-8.

Wednesday was a big day of digging by hand. My friend Todd came over and helped.

Thursday, Aaron attacked the stumps behind the wall with a grinder. It wasn’t as efficient as I’d have hoped, but it got rid of the stumps that had to go. At one point, I left IL-20mo with the kids for a minute, when I came back, I found this:

No one knows where he got the apple, though obviously I must have left it sitting somewhere within IL-20mo’s growing reach. He sat on my lap and ate until I looked down to find this:

While I was doing my own thing, he’d eaten the entire core. He’s eaten apples in the past without such startling results, so it hadn’t occurred to me he might eat the seeds. I looked on the internet to find that a 70kg man would have to finely chew 500 apple seeds to get poisoned, but I called poison control just on case. They said it was unlikely he’d end up with any problems – at most, a stomach ache.

Friday was a big day for the wall. Again J-16 was here to help, and he and Aaron-with-a-chainsaw pulled out what they believed was the last of the railroad ties that composed the previous retaining wall. That was quite a sturdy wall!

It was a big day for the kids, too, as it started their first day of a week-long stay with their mom, who has been reluctant to take them for extended periods of time without her parents’ help. But she recently suggested that maybe she could take the kids more often, and I told her this coming week would be ideal.

Saturday was a busy day. My dad came over to babysit, and J-16 helped and I helped with the wall. Our main job that day was digging, though J-16 got frustrated with it really early as he felt he was getting nowhere because of the roots (which was true of all of us, only Aaron and I had the patience to sit down and dig roots out with a trowel and then saw them off at the trench’s edge. We had to buy an electric saw. Those roots were huge.) Dad wanted to go out to eat afterwards, as eating out is a huge treat to him. Aaron and I had been eating out all week because we were too tired to cook, but dad was pretty excited. At the restaurant, I was talking to one of the hosts, when dad came in and announced something in his loud, excited voice, while placing his hands on the podium. The other host jumped and snapped “don’t touch that!” Dad didn’t back off because he is 80 and deaf and not great at processing social cues right now. I finally got dad to back off by repeating the request to not touch the podium politely (I tried gently nudging him back, but he was too taken off guard by the host to pay attention to me). During the time I was trying to get dad to back off, the host took off his plastic gloves, pulled out new gloves, and shakily pulled them on. I realized that he was terrified and felt bad for him. It must be terrible being in a customer-facing job when you’re that scared of getting sick. 😦

This week I actually got some reading done – I continued on with Sorcerer of the North. I also watched some of Season 10 of Supernatural with Aaron, watched the first two episodes of Flash Season 1 with M-8 and Aaron, listened to Aaron read a chapter of Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary to the kids, and watched a few episodes of Season 1 of Once Upon a Time with D-10 and Aaron.

Aaron finished reading Grip of the Shadow Plague, and I enjoyed watching Sister Act for the first time in years.

Happy new week everyone!

Saturday I spent working through my to-do list. I had to draw a to-scale picture of our property including the new retaining wall for our permit application. That took me 3 hours. Yes. 3 hours. I felt pretty drained after that, but I think it was a pretty good to-scale picture. Aaron worked on tearing down the old retaining wall, but realized that we need to rent a chainsaw. Since he no longer had time to do that (and it was going to rain) he decided to work on our front beds. Aaron got the lining bricks laid, landscaping cloth set, and most of the rocks in one of our beds. After working through our to-do lists (at least partially), we watched an episode of Mandalorian with the kids.

Sunday, my friend Liz came over and we watched some of season 5 of Doctor Who with Aaron and the kids.

Monday was a long day. First of all, I didn’t sleep well because there was a crazy storm going on. I finally got up at 4:45, since my alarm was going off at 5. I was supposed to call my dad at 5:30 to make sure he was awake, but his phone line was down due to the storm. So I had to rush over there.

M-8 had his intake at the eating disorder clinic at 7am, where he was diagnosed with Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID), subtypes 1 and 3. That means he is an extremely picky eater and that he doesn’t feel as hungry as he should. The treatment is pretty intense, with 2 one time per week appointments (therapist and dietitian) and 1 one time a month medical checkup.

Later in the day, we had an appointment with his gastroenterologist who wanted to talk about M-8’s biopsy results after the colonoscopy. He had mild inflammation in the last portion of his small intestine, and the doctor wanted to check for inflammation in the portions of the gut that he couldn’t reach during the colonoscopy. He doesn’t think it’s Crohn’s, but he needs to check anyway.

At the end of the day, I worked till late as a PCA.

Tuesday was an excellent day. After taking mom for a haircut, I took mom and dad to our house and hung out. The kids had a stupid argument and lost a few hours of screens, so we even got some interesting conversation in! Then we had a turkey dinner (mainly because M-8 said he liked turkey). M-8 refused to eat any turkey because it was “slimy.” Apparently he doesn’t like juicy meat. Lol. Everyone else loved the meat, and I got a compliment from D-10 who said she LOVES juicy meat. I got the pleasure of telling her “you know that stuff that you were complaining smelled like cleaning solution yesterday? That was the brine. It made the turkey juicy.” Mind you, the brine smelled delicious.

D-10 made the stuffing for the meal, but she announced she didn’t like cooking it because it was boring. She likes cooking stuff that she can stop and watch TV while she’s cooking. Aaron and I told her: what she’s saying is that she doesn’t like cooking, she likes having-had-cooked-something-that-people-appreciate. I’m like that too. 🤣😂 Regardless, the stuffing was great.

Since D-10 earns $5 / hour to hang out with IL-20mo while we’re doing yardwork, she has all sorts of money lying randomly around her room. I picked it all up and put it in her wallet over last weekend, and told her that she had to either spend it or put it in a bank account. We have allowed her to buy a cell phone, and pay for the extra line with the small amount of money she earns taking care of the cats. She’s getting a Motorola G7 Power (Marine Blue) with clear case (lined with pink bumpers).

This is what I woke up to Wednesday morning. Notice IL-20mo is cuddling both his Snuffy and my 40 year old blankie.

He woke up at 2am the night before, and I couldn’t get him back to sleep. I bet this is going to become a thing with him now.

Wednesday I had an appointment each for me, IL-20mo, and dad. IL-20mo was playing in the rain (dad’s idea) with no clothes on (my idea – we were out of fresh ones, as his other set was already wet). He face-planted on the driveway and scratched up his face and forehead. It was a hard enough fall that I was at first worried that he could have gashed his forehead and ended up with a gushing wound, which would have totally stressed the kids. He was fine, albeit a little upset.

Thursday was meant to be relaxing, but ended up a bit stressful. We FINALLY received information from the school about what day the kids would be in class (Tu / F). That was the last piece of information I needed to schedule D-10 and M-8’s evenings with their mom and the evenings D-10’s girl scout bronze award team will meet. I had been assuming that, as in the past, Cub Scouts would occur on Mondays and in-person Girl Scouts would occur every second Wednesday. I had also assumed that 5th grade band was out of the picture, since the “blowing instruments” will blow spit as well as a melodic tune. As soon as I’d finished making plans and felt the satisfaction of knowing everything fit in with the new plague-year routine, I found out 1) Cub Scouts would happen EITHER on Monday or Wednesday, depending on what day the bulk of kids ended up in soccer (let’s hope M-8 is on the same team!); 2) In-person Girl Scouts would no longer occur on Wednesdays, and it was not yet decided what day it would occur; 3) Band was happening, they just didn’t know how it would look. *sigh. I have decided that instead of changing around the schedule to make everything fit in again, I’m just going to simplify by dropping activities that don’t fit in with the schedule I have drawn up.

Friday morning so far has been active. It’s 7:20am, and I’ve already gone grocery shopping and to Home Depot.

Made Progress On

Hi all! Happy new week!

Friday was good. My morning was spent with my friend as a respite worker. I left IL-19mo with D-10 and Aaron (mostly D-10 who is a fantastic babysitter). That way, I had time to make some necessary phone calls and organize my to-do list, which had fallen to the wayside during my stress. I got dad’s neuropsychology evaluation scheduled for December, and now I have confirmation from his PCP that he has a dementia diagnosis.

We found out about schooling from the district – they are going for the hybrid model, where the kids will be in class 2 days a week, and online 3 days a week. I guess it’s the best that I’d hoped for. I don’t really want to worry about online schooling, but I don’t want to worry about sending them back to school at 100% capacity, either.

Later in the day, Aaron and I enjoyed a steak (the older kids were with their mom for Friday and Saturday nights) and watched some of Season 10 of Supernatural. I dropped by Walgreens only to discover that the cost of my medicine is $1700 for a month’s supply under our new insurance. I tried using a copay coupon, but no luck. Drug companies suck. So do insurance companies. If I have to go back to my old medicine, I can kiss losing weight goodbye.

Saturday my dad watched IL-19mo while Aaron and I worked in the yard. I raked up two of the four wood chip piles that used to be trees. They didn’t leave a lot of chips behind, but enough that it would be hard to reseed the area. Aaron weeded the “garden,” which we don’t use and plan on digging up when we build our new retaining wall. He also removed the compost bin, which would have been in the way when we build the wall.

After yard work, we ate salmon and watched Season 10 of Supernatural.

IL-19mo has figured out a solution to us turning the chairs over so he can’t climb on the table. He just pulls the chair into a convenient position, and climbs onto the table anyway.

D-10 was complaining that we have no plants, and I explained that no one in the house has the ability to keep one alive. We compromised by my promising to buy a cactus, which I did on a Home Depot run on Saturday. I think I’ll name it Diogenes. If I leave the naming to D-10, it’ll be called “unicorn” or some variation thereof. Seriously. It is known.

Sunday, Aaron and I worked on some yardwork a little more, then took the kids to Buffalo Wild Wings. Monday, I took mom to get an echocardiogram and then worked my PCA job. Tuesday, I had a doctor appointment, and in the evening the family went to a hamburger joint and then watched a couple episodes of Mandalorian. Wednesday was easy. I spent half the day working as a respite worker for my friend. Thursday was another busy day with lots of appointments. My mom’s dentist says she shouldn’t be brushing her own teeth anymore. I’m not quite sure what to do about that. We’re switching to an electric brush, in hopes that it helps.

Friday was mostly good, though I did spend a couple of hours going through government rules with a fine-toothed comb. J-16 needs to get his learner’s permit for driving. In order to do that, he needs a birth certificate (which I’ve got to get his dad to sign an application for) and either a school ID (which he previously told me he didn’t have) or a SS card. Unfortunately, his SS card has the wrong name on it, because my sister thought it would be a good stab in his dad’s back to use her last name instead of his. So the name on the birth certificate doesn’t match the name on the SS card. I have no idea how she managed that. So he needs a new SS card. But an SS card application needs two of: a hospital birth record (which we don’t have), a birth certificate, and (dum dum dum) a driver’s license (which, in case you’re not following, he won’t be able to get without either a school ID or a SS card). After much going in circles, I finally asked J-16 if there was ANY possibility of getting a school ID. He said yes, he had one. 🙄

Currently making progress on: