Update August 14, 2020

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