The Pillowfight Fairy is quite pleased to know that we finished her second grade year today. She has some very unrealistic ideas about doing whatever she pleases for the foreseeable future. What she doesn't realize is that her Mommy is at least as excited as she is. No more prep. work. No more being the bad guy by making her get back to her studies. It is a well deserved break.
Unfortunately, I tend to look ahead and know that the break isn't really all that long. A mere month and a half. But, I have nearly completed next year's lesson plans for both girls, so I can spend that free time doing other things. I think my general priorities are getting financial information in order again (it's amazing how fast I get behind on that when my attention is elsewhere), cleaning, organizing, discarding, and one craft project promised to be done in August. All that cleaning, organizing, and discarding is my normal personality but it tends to go into overdrive when I'm pregnant. You could say that I have a perpetual nesting instinct.
So, now that school is over again, I can look back on the year with satisfaction. The day to day schoolwork didn't always go smoothly, but it went anyway and with fewer bumps than in the previous year. I think that I am getting better at the teaching side of things. I also think that the Fairy is appreciating her schoolwork more (even though she still complains). I will probably be spending a fair amount of my free thinking time to mull over the best ways to work with the Adrenaline Junkie. I need to cover the same material as I did with her sister, but now I need to present it differently to a very different girl. I have noticed signs that the Junkie is making a mental transition that comes between preschool and grade school. That gives me hope that she'll be a little bit more able to learn academic subjects. The trick will be how to incorporate ideas that she relates to in order to retain her attention.
I also don't know how far along the Happy Boy will be in the next year. He will still be a preschooler of course. But, he is beginning to be able to draw semi-recognizable things and likes to have people write words for him. I suspect that I will be encouraging him to do lots of drawing this year. He will probably want to participate when I'm reviewing phonics with the Junkie. I would not be surprised if he ends up being another early reader. He will probably stop having afternoon naps this year too. So, I'll probably need to break out the playdough and paints again (much to everyone's joy).
I don't know if you have noticed, but I talk a lot about what I see or plan for the future. I like to think about it. I think it just helps me prepare myself for the real thing if I can visualize it in my head first. Then I end up writing it in this blog. That gives me a chance to put it outside of myself and look at it from a different angle. Sometimes I'm simply planning what I need to do tomorrow. Sometimes, I'm wondering how the next year's schooling will progress. Other times, I'm trying to glimpse a distant time yet ahead (like when I no longer have to change diapers or potty train). I have learned that my looking ahead can be both good and bad. I have been known to plan something too far in advance and had to redo all of my work to get it right. But, when I plan ahead, I do accomplish so much more than if I didn't.
Besides school, there have been a few other things going on. I've finally been making jelly from last year's pomegranate harvest that has been taking up way too much room in my freezer. I bought myself a new food dehydrator to prepare for this year's fruit harvest. I've been making plans for summer camps, swim lessons and road trips. I've been potty training the Happy Boy for about a month now (with mixed results).
I'm now into my second trimester. My visit to my health provider last week was uneventful. It was mainly checking the heart beat of the baby (in the 140-150 range for those who follow such things) and scheduling my next blood test to look for abnormalities. The blood test I took care of today. I won't have the results back right away. I'll probably have them by my next appointment in June. I will also have my ultrasound in June. We are looking forward to it because we are curious about whether we are having a boy or girl. But, we are also dreading it, because we have already had bad news from ultrasounds twice in previous pregnancies. I am forcing myself to assume the best until told otherwise.
We also took a cat in for surgery today. One of our three cats has had a nasty growth or abscess on her tail for a while. After several vet visits, we finally had to have them remove most of her tail. I'm not sure what the recovery time is on tail amputations, but we'll have to be keeping an extra close eye on her for a while. So far she seems to be doing well, but she is a bit wobbly from the medication she is on.
That's all of my news for now.
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3 comments:
Whoa. That's a lot of news. I think part of why you plan into the future, visualize all these things and then end up posting them on your blog commits you publicaly. Not a bad thing either. I'd also like to add you're doing a great job, too. I'd like to add my two cents for Baby Power. I'm thinking boy. I'm thinking Baby Boy Power. I'm also thinking "poor Misha." Will they check for cancer or is that not necessary to know?
Best of all, I'm thinking you'll be down here soon. Have either you or Tim discussed particular things you'd like to do? I'm excited to see all of you.
Regarding "poor Misha": although I was curious too about whether there was cancer, I decided not to have them test for it. At this point, we don't know what such a test would accomplish. I mean, if it did indicate cancer, what then?
We know that Misha isn't in the best of shape anyway. Her kidneys are in the beginning stages of the degeneration that affects many older cats, and an ultrasound we did of her indicated that she's probably developed inflammatory bowel disease as well. She was already losing weight rapidly until a month ago, when we changed her diet and put her on prednisolone.
I don't mean to sound excessively morbid here. But we are talking about a 16-year-old cat. We've decided that heroic efforts to prolong her life are uncalled for at this point. Instead we've decided to do whatever simple treatments can maintain her health and comfort for as long as possible--like dietary changes, occasional pain medication, and the like. Beyond that, we're thinking that anything more invasive likely wouldn't extend her lifespan much at this point, and likely wouldn't improve the quality of the time she has remaining anyway.
If it makes any difference, I think Misha had the correct care. I didn't think you'd investigate all the little cells in her tail etc. It's a very expensive task and wouldn't make much difference. I know I'll remember her as the cat who wanted to jump to the family room ceiling fan from the loft...! She'll gain some weight on prednisolone. Maybe be
perkier.
One more thing. I know I misspelled publicly on my earlier comment and it really bothers me...Sorry!
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