House of Aches and Pains

Posted on January 11, 2009 by Sherry

Yesterday morning I woke up and felt fine, if a little tired. At lunch time I took the dog for a walk and realized I had a bit of a headache. That’s not much of an observation for me. I have a headache pretty much every day, I just ignore them because they aren’t all that bad. I think it’s hereditary because my grandmother on my dad’s side was the same way.

It was a beautiful day with clear blue skies in that shade of blue that you only see in winter, and the temperatures weren’t awful. When I came back, the girls and George were just finishing lunch so I told them that I would give Breanna a nap and then we would go outside to play in the snow.

It never happened. By the time Breanna went to sleep my head hurt so badly that I felt like the back of my skull was going to shoot straight off my head. I tried to sleep with her but I could only close my eyes – there was actually too much pain for sleeping. After she got up, I went back to bed until I finally picked up the phone and used the intercom to call George in the living room – because I couldn’t even will myself out of bed – to ask him if he could please go get some Advil at the store since I had taken the last two a few days earlier (for carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms – getting older totally rocks).

He did and I took two of them, then passed out for a couple of hours. Miraculously, the pain had dwindled down and thank GOD for that because I honestly started to wonder if there was something wrong what with the amount of pain. Have you ever had a headache that is so bad that you start to wonder what it might be like if it just never goes away, and how long you could last before you’d throw yourself in front of a bus? That was me on Saturday afternoon.

I took another dose every four hours until bedtime and managed to feel much better by evening. I took the dog out after supper and was shocked by the brilliant full moon in a cloudless sky. I actually felt well enough that I ran back upstairs to grab my camera, the monster lens (70-300mm), and my tripod. I’m pretty thrilled with the results.

Since I was already outside anyway, I walked down to the corner and played with long exposures to capture light trails.

And I had some fun with the traffic light, making it an impossible light altogether.

After the kids went to bed, I managed to stay up to watch “Ghost Town” with George. I had never even heard of it before but what a great feel-good movie! I highly recommend it.

*******

Tonight I am grateful to not have a headache because in between writing this up, I’m also watching the Golden Globe Awards, which is cool because I really enjoy awards shows but it’s also for work so I can feel like I have a good reason to be watching celebrities.

Having to stay up though to watch this and manipulate images to put up on PittWatch with a headache like yesterday would have been impossible.

*******

Last Monday, the last day we had before Hayley went back to school, I made a joke with George about how we had all been healthy for two weeks, but once she went back to “that petri dish of germs” someone would be sick within a week.

Ha. Ha ha ha.

Hayley spent most of today on the couch, lying down and moaning because her stomach hurt her terribly. A couple of times she even spiked a low fever. She ate a bagel for breakfast, but almost nothing after that until a bowl of applesauce before bedtime.

She was so worried about having to go to school sick tomorrow. I put her to bed and said not to even think about it. I will call the school before bed and leave a message to say she won’t be in because she’s sick and I’ll let her sleep in a bit so she can feel better. At least we got her homework completed today so she won’t have too much to catch up on.

Poor kid though. Seriously, what the hell do you have to do to keep your kids from getting sick at school all the time? It’s insane. We’ve all been sick since she started in September, one after the other, over and over with only the two-week holiday for a reprieve. I’m going to start sending her to school with a can of Lysol and instruct her to spray it around herself every five minutes.

And on that note, it’s time for me to make some tea and dig out the ridiculously delicious maple cookies we have in the cupboard – I hope your weekend didn’t involve headaches or tummy aches!

A little struggle to wake up

Posted on January 6, 2009 by Sherry

This morning was the first day back into the full-on routine. I stupidly stayed up until midnight, so when my alarm started blaring at 6:15 I was a little confused. I had just been dreaming that I was having lunch with Wil Wheaton and his wife Anne (clearly I am being influenced by Wil’s presence on Twitter) so I wasn’t even sure where I was, especially since 6:15 is still just a tiny bit lighter than pitch black outside.

I hit snooze and dozed for the next nine minutes (and never got back to my dream so I have no idea if the chicken I had ordered was any good or not), then turned the alarm off and dragged my ass out of bed. I debated going out in my pajamas and coat, but decided that flannel is warm but not quite thick enough so I managed to dress myself and get Pearl. Pearl, meanwhile, has also gotten used to late nights and late mornings. Having been walked sometime after midnight when George got home, she was not quite ready to get up and go outside at 6:30.

Then when we came back I found that Breanna was mildly hysterical because she had woken up and not found me in my normal place. She calmed down once I got in and she realized that I had not actually disappeared into thin air.

Hayley was not keen to get up either and it took a few minutes of prodding and also of interpreting the mumbles which were her breakfast request. She only wanted applesauce which isn’t very filling but I decided that for the first morning it would be easier to let that one go and give her what she wanted since it was at least healthy and they do have a fairly early morning snack at school.

Miraculously, the rest of the hour went smoothly and she was out the door on time and relatively cheerful if not ecstatic. She was tired when she got home but she wasn’t too cranky so I guess she survived the day fairly well – and as a bonus she fell asleep very easily and quickly tonight.

Other changes in the household were that Breanna finally had a nap again, and that was nice. It kept her crankiness to a minimum. I also worked differently, doing more in chunks as opposed to the “post here and there when I can get five seconds of peace” method I had used over the holidays.

As for Pearl, I got a glimpse into the future. I know now how she’ll be when she’s a little older and not in the crazy puppy phase anymore. Being thrown into a whole new schedule again put her out of whack and she spent most of the day lazing around. Even at supper time, she laid in the hall outside the kitchen and looked at me pitifully as though she were saying, “I’d be sniffing for crumbs but I just can’t get up.” In fact, right now she’s passed out on the couch and snoring.

Really, doesn’t her face sum up everyone’s first day back at school/work after getting to sleep in for two weeks?

Let’s see if tomorrow is less sleepy for all of us.

Over and done

Posted on January 5, 2009 by Sherry

Today was back to work and school for most people, but with the ped day it was one extra day for Hayley to stay home. I got her up at 8 am this morning, letting her sleep a half hour longer than I had meant to just because she was up until about 11:30 last night, refusing to fall asleep. I was tempted to get her up at 7:30 anyway but an overtired kid is a cranky kid, so I passed.

I also wore her out a bit by taking them outside to play in the snow. We didn’t have the best weather for being outside this holiday. At the beginning we had a lot of freezing rain so everything was icy and dangerous and no place for a kid to play. Then we got some snow which was good, but it turned so cold with ridiculous wind chill factors that I could barely walk the dog for 15-20 minutes, let alone have the kids play outside in that weather.

It sucked because obviously kids need an energy release and if they can’t get it outside it means they release it by jumping on the couch, racing up and down the hall, and generally acting like crazy people.

Today was not what one would call WARM but the wind wasn’t cutting straight through layers of clothing and it was bearable so we went out for an hour. Breanna usually turns her nose up at snow and winter play, asking to come back in after ten minutes (woo!) but even she had a blast out there today. She was even harder to herd back inside than Hayley was.

Tomorrow is a 6:30 morning and Hayley still couldn’t fall asleep until almost 10 pm so it should be interesting to drag her body out of bed. I should write a note that says, “GOOD LUCK!” and send it in to her teacher. We’ll see how it goes.

In fitness news, I did the second day of the SparkPeople boot camp, except what I really did was just repeat the first day’s video. Today’s required a stability ball and I don’t have one or anything that could really stand in. Oh well, the kickboxing was just as fun today as yesterday, and I got to add walking the dog and playing with the kids in the snow as well. That’s two days down. Nineteen more until it allegedly becomes a habit!

Time for normal again

Posted on January 3, 2009 by Sherry

I can’t decide how I feel about the holidays coming to an end. On the one hand, I am really looking forward to getting back to a routine of some sort. I’ll be taking down the decorations soon, up earlier in the morning, and it will be so nice to have the kids falling asleep earlier (Breanna was awake until 9 pm and Hayley didn’t crash until almost 11!).

On the other hand, I don’t look forward to getting up at 6:20 every weekday morning again to take the dog out before dragging a surly six-year-old from her blankets to get her ready for school. Although the sleeping in has been the primary cause of the later bedtimes, it has been very nice to not be woken up until 9 am or later these past two weeks (with the exception of Christmas day of course). Even Pearl has gotten used to the later mornings since she’s been taken out later at night herself.

At least I don’t have to worry until Tuesday. The teachers took one of the floating ped days on Monday so that they can have a day to come in without the kids and get organized for the new year. Still, I’ll have to get Hayley up no later than 8 am, possibly even 7:30 am, just to make sure that she’ll fall asleep at a reasonable-ish hour on Monday night.

It’s going to hurt.

But I think Breanna will be happy with the return to routines as well. Because of the later bedtimes, she’s been sleeping in. Because of the sleeping in, she hasn’t needed her usual noon-time hour-long nap. She’s been occasionally cranky without the naps but not too often. However, on Friday it finally got the best of her. On Thursday night, George camped out in the living room with the two girls. It was Breanna’s first time doing it and we didn’t think it would really work. She finally fell asleep at about 11:05 pm, right at the end of Horton Hears a Who so I whispered good night and went to bed.

At 4 am George brought her in because she wanted to make sure I was still here. She then informed me “I want to go camp again” and left. She didn’t fall back to sleep but laid out there very quietly until 6 am. Again, she came to find me, stayed with me for about five minutes, then ran back to the living room and fell asleep for another two or three hours. We were pretty proud of her.

But the late night, plus the two hours of being awake in the middle of the night AND the lack of nap? Too much. At about 5 pm the kids were watching a movie (I think it was Horton again, he’s pretty popular around here) and she got cranky, laid on the couch, asked for her favorite blanket, and next thing I knew she was asleep.

Day 2: When the holidays get to be too much

Alas, I had to wake her after 20 minutes or she would have been up until all hours.

Yes, it’s definitely time to get back to normal. Whatever that is!

The magic of Santa

Posted on December 22, 2008 by Sherry

I love Santa Claus. As a parent I’ve been occasionally miffed that sometimes Santa gets the glory of the really good gifts, but overall, Santa is magical and I can’t hold the gift thing against him (especially because THIS year, Santa will bring the kids the things they asked for BUT the really awesome surprise gifts are from us, so nyah to you Santa!).

I believed in Santa for a remarkably long time, all things considered. I was about 11 when I finally accepted the truth; I had started to falter by 10, but I wanted to believe so badly that I hung in there for one more year. When I was with my mother one day in Toys R Us, she saw something my sister wanted from Santa and it was on sale for that day only. She looked at me, looked at the toy, and asked me, “do you still believe in Santa?” I looked at the toy I knew my sister had written to Santa about and I knew why she was asking, and I said, “no, but it was a lot of fun to believe!”

I was never crushed, since I had suspected as much for a year or so anyway. And I was never angry with my mother and father for “lying” to me, because I didn’t see it as lying. It was pretending, it was make believe. My mother routinely played Barbies with me, pretending the dolls were real and that they were living exciting lives. My father played Hot Wheels cars with me almost every night after supper and we pretended they tiny cars had tiny people who drove them around in their tiny, busy little lives. They were not lying to me when they played, they were taking part in the magical world of play. And when it came to Santa, they weren’t lying, they were taking part in the magical world of elves and reindeer who fly and giant toy shops in the middle of a land of ice and cold.

I was sad to no longer believe but I had a good long run. I don’t know how no one ever ruined it for me prior to that because kids are notoriously mean to each other. When Hayley started school I feared someone, especially an older kid, would tell her the truth earlier than I’d like her to know. So far her belief seems intact, and if it’s shaken then I don’t know about it yet. I want her to believe as long as she possibly can, and Breanna too. It will be of the utmost importance that she does not spoil it for Breanna when the day of truth comes. I will remind her of how much fun it was to write a letter to Santa and get one back, how much she enjoyed setting out milk and cookies for Santa on the 24th, and how giddy she got when she would visit Santa at the mall, and I will ask her to let her sister have that too.

So far, though? So good. On Friday we went to one of the malls that usually has reindeer in a petting zoo. To our enormous disappointment, they didn’t have them this year but there was no line-up for Santa yet, being before 3 pm on the last day of pre-vacation school, so we let them go see Santa, talk to him, and get some free hugs.

They were so happy and it made my heart sing. This Santa gave them “magic” washcloths – they’re tiny little blocks but when you put them in the water they pop open to full sized cloths with Santa decorations on them. They were thrilled.

Then on Saturday, I actually dressed them for the purpose of getting photos taken and we went to a smaller mall to see another Santa. Again, they stood and blushed and chattered at him, and then they took a picture. I could not get Breanna to look at the camera because she was so bashful in that “oh my god, a celebrity!” way but it’s so cute I don’t care. This Santa gave Hayley a stuffed frog and Breanna a stuffed dragon and both girls have slept with their special Santa gifts each night since.

I love the magic of Christmas. I hate shopping but for my kids I will do anything and everything to give them a happy and wonderful 25th – and the magical belief in a man in a red suit with flying reindeer is all part of the tradition. I hope they believe for a long time.

One of those moments

Posted on December 21, 2008 by Sherry

When you have a six year old child, things can be challenging. To say the least. There are days that are so incredibly frustrating that I find myself wondering what it might have been like to just have a goldfish instead of kids. But overall, kids are a good thing, and in particular there are times when that same child who had you pulling your hair out suddenly sweeps in and does something so cute and sweet that you are overwhelmed with how cute and sweet they are with their cute and sweet ways (okay, sorry).

We’ve been watching a lot of Christmas stuff around here, of course. Rudolph, Frosty, Shrek the Halls, Caillou’s Holiday Movie, so on and so forth. The other night we were watching Rudolph and when they arrived at the Island of Misfit Toys I told Hayley I didn’t understand why some of the toys were unwanted. In particular, as a child I was always smitten with the little elephant, the white one with pink polka dots. I always wanted one for myself but it was only a movie and back then they didn’t make eight billion dolls and action figures based on movie characters.

Shortly after the movie ended, Hayley disappeared. She emerged eventually with a drawing she had done.

She told me that she couldn’t get me the real elephant but she drew one for me instead.

Funny, but I couldn’t remember any of the things that had frustrated me that day after she handed me that drawing. That’s one that will go in my folder forever.

Running through my brain

Posted on December 18, 2008 by Sherry

I sat here for almost five minutes, staring blankly at my screen and wondering what to write about. Part of it comes from being so tired. Breanna’s sleep hasn’t improved much the last few days so I’m still on the zombie side of things. Hopefully tonight will be a good night; if not, I refuse to get out of bed until at least 9 am on Saturday.

Part of it is because being tired made it hard to work today. Randi mentioned how hard it is to work when you’re a writer and you’re tired, and I told her that not everyone gets that. Sure, I get to do all this stuff that I love (and I do indeed love it!) and on top of that I get to do it from home. I get to be with my kids, and that can be a juggling act and a half, but it works and I like it.

That being said, it’s not always easy. Trying to come up with something to write about every day is hard. I have the bonus of writing about celebrities who usually have something going on in their lives, but when there’s no news I still have to work. I love writing because it’s this great creative outlet, but when I’m especially tired, being creative can be difficult to achieve.

When I worked in tech support or answering phones, being tired sucked too, but at least I could usually go into auto-pilot mode. When most of the tech support calls are about the same problem with the same five or six possible solutions you can just breeze through it without thinking about it (that’s how I originally learned web design – I got so bored on the phone I had to teach myself something and I would design entire sites while helping someone configure their email or figure out what was wrong with their modem).

You can’t auto-pilot your writing. Well, I can HERE, but when I’m writing for a blog network that pays me to do a good job, auto-pilot doesn’t cut it.

Luckily I managed to find the stories I needed easily today (having two separate celebrities with birthdays today helped a lot!) and I was able to dig down into that tiny reserve we all have somewhere and I got it done. It’s a lot more fun when it just flows out, but I guess it can’t be like that every day.

Mostly I’m just happy at times like this that I’m not a surgeon. Imagine someone really tired working on the last half of a double shift and being responsible for fixing your heart or your brain while you’re knocked out? Yeah, no thanks!

*******
Tomorrow is Hayley’s last day of this year. She had a concert today – no parents, just the classes performing for each other – and tomorrow she has a class party. She’s taking in cookies and can’t wait. We also assembled her gifts for her teachers. She has two teachers that she sees daily plus two teacher’s aides. There are other teachers as well (health class, computers, gym, etc) but my budget can only stretch enough for the daily people right now. We turned four little plant buckets into reindeer (tracing Hayley’s hands on construction paper for antlers, and gluing on eyes and a big red nose), then filled each one with coffee, fancy hot chocolate, a dark chocolate bar, a snowflake candle, and a candy cane.

She’s so excited to be taking in gifts and cookies and having concerts and parties… Can I be six again, just for a little while?

*******
My beer and a bag of chips are calling me. It would be rude not to respond.

A hard brick wall

Posted on December 16, 2008 by Sherry

On Sunday night, Breanna was restless and woke up many times during the night, which of course woke me up as well. As a result, I was tired on Monday. I actually had a migraine and George had to take over getting Hayley ready for school because the pain in my head was incapacitating until later in the morning. I did my work on auto-pilot all day long and then crashed into bed, two advils in my system to prevent a repeat performance of tap dancers in my skull, and I went to sleep.

Unfortunately, I only got to sleep for half an hour, and Breanna woke up again. She then repeated waking up, I swear to God, every half hour – EVERY HALF HOUR from midnight until the alarm went off at 6:15. Luckily I didn’t have a headache and I was able to get Hayley through her sluggish morning routine, but I felt like the walking dead. I felt so much like a zombie from the lack of sleep that I would have started screaming “braaaains” and chasing people, but I didn’t have enough energy. I’m a zombie that ran straight into a wall.

Auto-pilot kicked in again, and as I glance at my work to-do list, I see that everything I absolutely had to do has been checked off, but I’m not entirely sure how that happened. Maybe I should check everything tomorrow to make sure I wasn’t just typing “lasdkjfaldskjfalf” on everything.

Speaking of work and all, I’m giving away a $50 eco-friendly scarf over on PittWatch, you can go enter to win it here.

I’m heading to bed in less than ten minutes, before 11 pm which is practically unheard of for me. I just can’t stay up late and I am crossing every finger and toe that Breanna will sleep tonight. She has a cold and molars bugging her all at the same time so I know it’s not her fault – it’s not like she woke up and just decided to be contrary, but at 3 am, it’s hard to keep from hissing at your child to go.to.sleep.right.flippin’.NOW.

I just need the sleep more than usual because tomorrow George and I are going to Toys R Us to get the kids all their Christmas presents. Yes, Toys R Us. Pray for me.

But we can get all their main gifts there at the best price compared to the other stores, so it’s hard to resist. We’re getting this for both of them (it comes with one of the Barbies, we’ll get the other one separately). Then they’re both getting one of these in different colors from the guy in the red suit because that’s all they’ve asked for.

Breanna is getting this or one like it because that kid wants to take pictures so badly it’s not even funny. She asks to use my point and shoot more than Hayley ever did, I think it’s genetic.

Speaking of genetic, being that Hayley wants to be musically inclined like George, we’re going to get her something like this which should make her very happy.

I’m not sure what they’re going to give each other, though I think Hayley may get a Wall-E doll from Breanna and maybe Breanna can get a doll from the Mickey Mouse group (she has Mickey but she also likes Donald and Goofy). We’ll see what inspires us when we get there.

I’m hoping to go fairly early in the morning while most people are still at work so that we can avoid too many crowds.

Wish me luck because God knows that as much as I love to GIVE presents, I truly hate to actually SHOP for them!

(With all those links, it’s a shame that Toys R Us doesn’t have an affiliate program!)

The littlest dog trainer

Posted on December 15, 2008 by Sherry

Hayley has a bit of trouble training Pearl or getting her to do things when she wants, such as getting her to let go of something or to get down. Mostly it’s because Hayley either talks with too much of a playful lilt, which makes Pearl not take her seriously, or she gets hysterical and starts shrieking which doesn’t work at all.

Surprisingly, even though Breanna is the smallest one here, she does very well with it. She uses a no-nonsense but calm tone when she speaks to the dog and it’s hilarious. There have been times when Hayley has tried unsuccessfully to retrieve one of her stuffed animals from Pearl’s jaws and she’ll ask Breanna to do it for her – and it works.

Here’s a quick clip I shot of Breanna teaching Pearl to sit and stay before returning to give her a treat and some praise for her efforts.

I love her dramatic, “stay. Staaaaay.”

But it works!

Writing letters to Santa

Posted on December 14, 2008 by Sherry

Today would have been a decent day to go outside and play in the snow since it wasn’t brutally cold, but Hayley was still under the weather. She was much better than yesterday, but I didn’t want to overdo it for her – this coming week is her last one before the two weeks of vacation, so I don’t want to have her miss any days (plus tomorrow is the used toy sale and she really wants to go to that).

Still, she was able to laugh today, something that was rare yesterday, and she played Barbies with Breanna for quite a long time. What had me smiling was the fact that she was playing with a much-too-small dollhouse and saying that she wished she had a Barbie house. Little does she know that their big joint gift this year is the Barbie Diamond Castle. They love the movie and play out the parts, so I know they’ll both love having the actual castle and the dolls to go with it.

After supper, I cleared the table and put on one of those all-Christmas radio stations on iTunes to set the mood, and we got out some pens and paper to do our letters to Santa. If I get them out tomorrow, there should be plenty of time to get the reply back before Christmas. I wrote Breanna’s out for her, of course, but she added to it by drawing a picture as well. Then Hayley wrote out her own, I’m so proud of her.

Both of them asked Santa for a Fur Real kitten, and I’m sure Santa will have no problem bringing those for them.

It’s getting very exciting around here with the countdown to Christmas. Hayley can barely stand it at this point. I swear, the only thing better than being a kid at Christmas is being a parent and watching your kids completely freak out about it.

I didn’t bother writing a letter to Santa; the things I want are an external flash for my camera, a Nintendo Wii (with Wii Fit!), or a new pair of glasses and contact lenses. I don’t think he’ll be able to bring any of those, alas, so I’ll just wait to see what the kids find under the tree instead!

Chaos Theory

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