For reasons that I can’t even really understand, I have been suffering from incredible writer’s block. Luckily it hasn’t gotten in the way of work. When your job requires you to write numerous things daily, a complete mental blackout is a very bad thing. However, I did find it pretty much impossible to write here for some reason. Who knows why.

I’m tired of the same old entry sitting up top here though, so I’m going to just force myself to write anyway, some sort of stream of consciousness effort. Let’s see what the past week held that I haven’t told you about.

I had a personal record last week. I got a headache on Monday and I swear it did not go away until Saturday. It wasn’t just one headache after another it was the SAME damn headache all week long. Tylenol didn’t help, all that did was dial it down a notch so I could function and then it came straight back to full force after four hours. I was starting to make jokes about brain tumors while thinking “hahaha… hmmm, maybe?” in the back of my mind, but George suggested it was weather-related. Considering it also rained all damn week and was a weird combination of humid yet damp and cold it’s entirely possible.

I do know that on Saturday George got me some Advil and two of those plus a break in the weather finally kicked my headache to the curb. Sunday was the first morning where I woke up without any pain and that was a total relief. Which is why I was so pissed off that I later smashed the side of my head into a hard, wooden chair while bending to pick something up off the floor. That was awesome. Luckily the pain went away with two more Advil.

Any more painkillers and I’ll need to check into Betty Ford.

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Hayley’s class has been studying the rainforest (hence their field trip to the Biodome) and they all had to do a research project on one animal that lives there. Hayley picked the iguana and she had to write up about two pages’ worth of information on iguanas (she ended up with three, detailing things like what they eat, who their enemies are, and so on) and then she had to make her own iguana and its habitat. Yeah, it was a lot of work for a SIX YEAR OLD in GRADE ONE, but she had fun at least.

She originally made an iguana out of clay – and she actually did most of it herself, I just kind of guided her and showed her how to make spikes down the back – but the more it dried the more it fell apart. I ended up having to glue three of the four limbs back on, as well as the head and the tail. I was worried it would completely fall apart in class, so I suggested that she make one out of cardboard too. She used a printout as a stencil, traced it onto construction paper, glued it to cardboard, and decorated it.

She also used a shoe box as the habitat and glued green construction paper, sticks, and some leaves that we bought at the dollar store to make a rainforest for her iguanas. All I really had to do was cover the outside of the box for her (since it was a neon pink Barbie shoe box!) and she took care of the rest herself. She’s really crafty and artsy. I think it came out really well!

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They should be getting their glasses sometime this week. Hayley can’t wait, she asks about them all the time. Breanna doesn’t think of it often unless someone mentions them, but Hayley is tired of squinting at the board in class. I can’t wait to see the difference it makes for both of them.

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On Friday Hayley had two milestones. One of her friends takes gymnastics and they were having a special party on Friday evening. She invited Hayley to come with her and they got to play on trampolines, do obstacle courses, and all kinds of gymnastics activities. It was the first time we had ever just had Hayley dropped off somewhere like that without one of us being there. Her friend’s parents went out for dinner and picked them up about three hours later and they had both had such a good time.

In related news, Hayley would like to sign up for gymnastics in the Fall. I totally saw that coming.

The other milestone was that Hayley had also been invited to sleep over. She’s spent the night at her grandparents’ house before, usually when George’s sister is in town, but this was the first sleepover at a friend’s house. We had told her that if she changed her mind she could come home at any time, even if it was 3 am, but she did great. They didn’t even go to sleep until 11:30 so she just slept straight through until sometime after 6 the next morning.

She was EXHAUSTED on Saturday. She actually fell asleep in the afternoon, something she normally never does unless she’s sick.

Since Hayley had been out, Breanna and I did a movie night on Friday. She loves Sleeping Beauty but had never seen the actual movie, so we got her that, popped some popcorn, and she stayed up later than usual. Then on Saturday, since Hayley was asleep and it was the first time there had been any sun in days, Breanna and I went out for a walk for awhile. She actually spent most of the hour and a half making “soup” with a puddle of rain water in a rock, stirring in all sorts of bits of nature. I think I need to get her a water table for the summer. Or even a big tupperware container.

It was a pretty decent weekend overall. And I’m just really happy to be starting this weekend off without any headaches!