News

Saturday

Saturday I spent a good chunk of the day sleeping off my not-strep. I watched some X-files with D13 and Aaron in the evening.

Sunday

Sunday I felt pretty much normal by the end of the day, which was nice. I got some reading done and took IL4 to an appointment. M10 went to baseball. D13 watched a movie. Calm day. Great news, though! My wedding ring fits again!

Monday

Monday was a rushed day. I drove M10 to student council, then took D13 to 3 appointments. While at one appointment, the daycare called and said IL4 was “screaming in excruciating pain, grabbing his leg and sometimes his bottom.” I thought perhaps this was an exaggeration. I imagined he was just wothholding poop and was about to pooplode. I was right. I sent Aaron to get him, since I couldn’t.

After all that, we had a parent-teacher conference for M10’s math class. Apparently he’s doing well, but has started missing assignments, which is exactly what’s happening in other classes. Then M10 had a patrol meeting for Cub scouts. Busy day!

Tuesday

Tuesday was a mess. IL4 had diarrhea 4 times overnight, so we kept him at home, where he had diarrhea 10 times that day. Then, I went to pick up M10 from school, where I was told he’d gotten into a fight. I won’t go into detail, but he deserved the punch he got – he asked for it, in fact. Then, D13 was doubled over in pain, so I was left trying to figure out whether to take her to Urgent Care or talk to her doctor in the morning. I waited

Wednesday

Wednesday went much better. IL4 had a doctor appointment followed by an X-ray. Because he was so brave, I took him to the store to get Cheetos. There, he performed a miracle – he told me needed to go potty, and held it in while I ran the cart to the bathroom! This happened twice, so he got two extra rewards. In the evening we had the first family dinner that we’ve had since we moved the table for the Christmas tree. It had gotten a lot of stuff piled on it.

Thursday

Thursday was fun. I took M10 to play laser tag at the Mall of America. Afterwards, he, my dad and I ate at Rainforest Cafe, and then bought LEGOs at LEGOLand. That evening, we had 3 parent teacher conferences.

Friday

Friday was good. After speech therapy, I took IL4 to the library. He picked out another book for me to read, despite my having not finished “Dead Wake” yet. The book is “Three Rings,” by Daniel Mendelsohn. Apparently he thinks I read quite the variety.

Reading to IL4

• The Gruffalo, by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler
• The Bad Seed, by Jory John and Pete Oswald
• Why Do We Poop?, By Harriet Blackford & Mike Henson
• Little Good Wolf, by Janet Stevens and Susan Stevens Crummel
• The Frog Prince Continued, by Jon Scieszka & Steve Johnson
• Poo-Dunit? A Forest Floor Mystery, by Katelyn Aronson & Stephanie Laberis
• Ganesha’s Sweet Tooth, by Sanjay Patel & Emily Haynes
• Pete the Cat I Love My White Shoes, by Eric Litwin and James Dean
• Llama Unleashes the Alpacalypse, by Jonathan Stutzman & Heather Fox
• Pete the Cat and his Four Groovy Buttons, by Eric Litwin & James Dean
• Dog on a Frog, by Kes Gray, Clare Gray, & Jim Field
• The Legend of Spookley, the Square Pympkin, by Joe Troiano & Susan Banta
• Dona Esmeralda, Who Ate Everything!, By Melissa de la Cruz & Primo Gallanosa
• The Surprise, by Zadie Smith & Nick Laird
• Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, by mo willems
• Grumpy Bird, by Jeremy Tankard
• School of Monsters Pete’s Big Feet, by Sally Rippin
• Pete the Cat Rocking i my School Shoes
• Grumpy Monkey Oh No Christmas, by Suzanne Lang & Max Lang
• Llama Destroys the World, by Jonathan Stutzman & Heather Fox

M10 reading

• To Be a King, by Kathryn Lasky

D13 reading

• Prisoner of Ice and Snow, by Ruth Lauren

Wrote

• 1 letter Pennsylvania Department of Corrections
• 1 letter Virginia Department of Corrections
• 1 letter Maine Department of Corrections
• 1 letter Michigan Department of Corrections
• 1 letter California Department of Corrections
• 1 letter Belgium

Week’s Photos

Media Partaken In

Posts

• Two-Headed Chicken, by Tom Angleberger
• Little Good Wolf, by Janet Stevens & Susan Stevens Crummel
• The Frog Prince Continued, by Jon Scieszka & Steve Johnson
• Grumpy Bird, by Jeremy Tankard

When Bird woke up, he was grumpy. But his friends helped him have a better day. He has a lot of friends.

This is a nice book to encourage kids to live in the moment. If you feel grumpy, go ahead. But as soon as you don’t, roll with that, too. This was my 4yo’s favorite book when he was 3. He’s graduated on past board books now, but I still read it to him sometimes.

The “happily ever after” part of The Frog Prince story comes into question when the prince and princess forget how much they live each other. Luckily, misadventures then occur.

Cute, amusing, fun. My 4yo loves the pictures enjoys the story.

This is a unique picture book about the Big Bad Wolf’s son, who just likes to be good. He’s sent to bad school, and everything goes wrong. I thought the story was engaging and sweet, and the pictures are nice for kids to look at. Very colorful and interesting.

In this colorful and wacky children’s graphic novel, you are in a universe where you are one head of a two-headed chicken. A giant green moose is chasing you through various universes to fry you up. I read it to my 4 year old, who was moderately amused. I thought it was cute and funny, but it’s not something I would have read for myself. Overall, a reasonably good book, though.

News

Ok, now that I have had time to process, I’m ready to say what is going on with my friend in the ICU. On Monday evening, I Ubered him to the ER for psychiatric problems. He voluntarily entered, but they put a hold on him, and kept him in the ER till Wednesday morning.

At that point, he became unruly and they sedated him with something that required him to be intubated. They wake him every morning, and if he’s pissed when he wakes up, then they sedate him again. Of course, he’s pissed at what they’re doing to him, so this may go on for a bit.

I feel that they are doing this out of convenience because they view him as a friendless addict. Couldn’t they transport him somewhere safe while intubated? Or physically restrain him while he’s unconscious and transport him to a psychiatric ward that way?

I am concerned this will last longer than 2 weeks – and he shouldn’t be intubated beyond that. I’m concerned he will get PTSD from this experience (intubation can give PTSD, and he already suffers from PTSD.) I am concerned about damage to his lungs from the intubation.

I have contacted some lawyers, but I’m pretty sure they won’t do anything until Todd has actually been injured or suffered from PTSD.

Saturday

Saturday was a good day. I went to Olive Garden with my friend Liz to discuss our mini-bookclub book Akata Witch. We both enjoyed it. Our next pick is Sixteen Scandals.

Afterwards, we watched an episode of Doctor Who with Aaron and M10. Then Aaron went to a puzzle competition and Liz, M10, and I watched Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. Maybe too much for a 10yo, but we all enjoyed it. After Liz left, we watched Clue.

IL4 had a hard day, though. He ran around all day holding his butt saying “ow ow ow.” Later, he voided on the floor. I suspect he’s been withholding stool for at least 3 weeks, as this is the third time this has happened. I sent a message to his doctor about it.

Sunday

On Sunday I ran errands and checked things off my to-do list.

Monday

Monday was a good day. There were a couple of appointments, I ate lunch with Aaron, then visited Todd in the ICU. He’s awake! Had another unfinished project fiasco – this time with D13. She insisted that she wasn’t going to do an assigned project, and got pretty upset when I lay on her the same consequences I gave M10 last Thursday when he refused to do his homework.

Tuesday

Tuesday I spent a couple hours trying to read a book (Defensive Baking) that D13 wanted me to read in order to help her with her book report. Then she did the book report on her own. Lol.

I picked up M10 early because he wasn’t feeling well, but we got to go through his school-year-long reading assignment. He’s supposed to read 4 books a month (including graphic novels), but he has to read at least one of each genre. He had forgotten this assignment by mid October, but luckily I have been mentioning the kids’ books in my blog since December. So we had December and January filled in yesterday, and I sat down with him and gave him some choices for the upcoming genres.

I also visited Todd in the hospital. In another jerk mood by the hospital, the doctors decided to let him stay as long as he was willing (in this case 2 days after waking up) and then slap a 72 hour hold on him the moment he asked if he could leave. Not that it’ll do them any good, they’ll not find a psychiatric ward by Friday, and need a court order for an extended hold. The mental health system sucks so much.

Wednesday

Wednesday I visited Todd in the hospital and rested.

Thursday

So…on Wednesday evening, I started getting a minor sore throat. I wore a mask at work, thinking I probably had a cold. That night, I had a sore throat which tied with mono as the worst sore throat of my life. I figured maybe I had strep, since I’d had contact with someone whose daughter had it.

On Thursday, I went to urgent care. The doctor looked in my mouth and decided I had strep. She was certain. She wrote me a prescription and told me to start it immediately, before the results came back. The results came back negative, but I decided to treat it like strep anyway.

Friday

Friday I decided I definitely did not have strep. I started coming down with a massive head cold. I cancelled two appointments for IL4, and switched his doctor appointment to virtual. Even that much was exhausting. I called in sick to work, and got some relaxing done.

Reading to IL4

• Llama Destroys the World, by Johnathan Stutzman & Heather Fox
• Dona Esmeralda, Who Ate Everything, by Melissa de la Cruz & Primo Gallanosa
• Where Does My Poo Go, by Joe Lindley
• Jake and the Biggest Yawn Ever, by Chris Hardy & Wally_LL
• Everything I Know About Poop, by Jaume Copons & Merce Gali
• Little Good Wolf, by Janet Stevens & Susan Stevens Crummel
• Magnolia Flower, by Zora Neale Hurston & Ibram X Kendi & Lois Wise
• Little big Nate Draws a Blank, by Lincoln Peirce
• Hide-and-Seek, by Shasha Lv
• The Frog Prince Continued, by Jon Scieszka & Steve Johnson
• Didi Dodo Future Spy Recipe for Disaster, by Tom Angleberger & Jared Chapman
• You Wouldn’t Want to Live without Poop, by Alex Woolf & David Antram
• Grumpy Monkey Oh No! Christmas, by Suzanne Lang & Max Lang
• Two-Headed Chicken, by Tom Angleberger

M10 reading

• To Be A King, by Kathryn Lasky

D13 reading

• The Princess Plot, by Kirsten Boie

Wrote

• 1 letter Virginia Department of Corrections
• 1 letter Pennsylvania Department of Corrections
• 1 letter Michigan Department of Corrections
• 1 letter Maine Department of Corrections

Media Partaken In

Posts

• Escape the Underdark Episodes 2-3
• Llama Unleashes the Alpacalypse, by Jonathan Stutzman and Heather Fox
• Inspector Flytrap series, by Tom Angleberger and Cece Bell
• Akata Witch, by Nnedi Okorafor

Sunny, a 12-year-old Nigerian girl, is an outcast. As an albino, she doesn’t fit in with her schoolmates or family. When she learns he is a leopard person, she starts studying juju (magic) with a few other students who are outcasts like her.

This book was excellently written, with round characters and well thought-out magic. I would have liked more action, but it was otherwise a fantastic story. I already own the second book in the series. 😊

Inspector Flytrap investigates BIG DEAL mysteries while being pushed around on his skateboard by his goat friend Nina. This case takes place in a museum filled with BIG DEAL art.

In this book, the president erects a giant statue of himself, which leads to disaster.

In this book, Inspector Flytrap and Nina investigate a missing valuable pickle paperweight.

My 4yo loved this series and was so sad to return it to the library. He laughed at the pictures, and wanted me to read each book in one sitting. I also enjoyed them. They were cute and funny.

In this installment of Llama’s misadventures, he unleashes a hundreds of alpacas into his city, where they wreak havoc by cleaning vigorously.

OMG! This book is hilarious. I don’t even know what to say about this gem. Every kid should read the Llama books.

Ode to Bouncy Inferno

Bouncy Inferno … with each bounce you burn through my soul

You are a lover and fighter of fire

Your coals burn softly when content

Your coals burn bright and red when passionate

I look forward to our friendship

After exploring the entryway to the cavern with glowing crystals, our group followed a path, eventually discovering two figures sitting comfortably by a fire. After some verbal sparring and a thrown axe, we decide they’re a good bunch, and join with them in their travels to the Drow city of Vlyn’darastyl. The names of our new friends are Bonkers, the mountain dwarf, and Haga, the human sorcerer. Neither seemed to be my soulmate.

In our path to the city, we fought quite a few thorny, four-legged creatures that I heard later were thorny vegepygmies. After they were vanquished, we discovered one had a vampire rose tucked in its neck.

At this point, we reached a series of broken bridges and rotten ropes which crossed over a deep chasm. We used these and our own ropes to cross the treacherous abyss. Haga almost floated off in a river on her surfboard of ice, but we used my quasit familiar Kopqix to give her Spider Climb. She leapt to a wall and climbed to safety. Then, we almost lost Haga and Zepher to the chasm, but were able to pull them from their perch on the rock-cliff.

We met a sneaky, but charming half-orc named Geovanni. He carried us across one chasm with what appeared to be Spider Climb. But he wanted 40% of our profit in order to guide us the rest of the way to the city! I had really loved him at first – I thought that surely this was a soul-mate. But he was so stubborn and unyielding! So we basically told him to go away.

Finally, we reached the door to the city – the dragon statue guarding the door asked each of us if we intended the city any harm. None of us intended harm, and the doors opened wide. But as we entered, Giovani snuck past us on the ceiling, mocking us as he entered. Clearly, he meant the city harm.

Giovanni – you lying snake of a charmer

How dare you act so dashing?

Liar! Thief of my heart.

Die.