Long post. Again.
Man, this week has been crazy. Monday and Tues were the worst, but - well, we'll just say that I didn't manage to get MiniPlu to TKD at all, and I only managed to go once. I also only got more than 6 hours of sleep on one night, and I had nights where it was only 5.5 hours.
I volunteered with the middle school marching band this week, Mon-Fri, 7:30-9:30am. (This actually turned out to be quite fun - even if one of the 6th-grade flutes is impossibly clueless.) Two had TKD camp 9a-4p Mon-Fri. Because I was at band camp, Will had to go into work a little late every day, so he could drop her off on his way in. I picked her up.
Monday After leaving band camp at 9:30am, I ran several errands, then I had PT 11am-noon; orchestra camp got out at 11:45a so I had another orchestra parent pick up MiniPlu and keep her with them until I could get there around 12:15pm. We went straight to a friend's house to pick up their dog, part lab. See, the local pool has a dog-swim the day after it closes for the season, and our dogs have shown themselves to hate water. The girls have been dying to have a dog who DOES like water, so we'd arranged to borrow our friend's dog. Picked up Two at 4pm and went straight to the pool from there. Alas, this dog, while more willing to get her paws wet, still does not want to actually swim. Took the dog back home afterwards. Managed to get myself to TKD, but not MiniPlu, as her class was too early and I still had to make dinner.
Tuesday was worse. I had to get up at 5am (an hour early) in order to fit in my 4-mile run and PT before camp. MiniPlu had a doctor's appointment to look at her back and her leg joints (mild scoliosis at annual physical, persistent but not daily ankle and knee pain) at 9:30a, so we left band camp early to get there in time. It was pouring down rain, so while MiniPlu missed orchestra, she didn't miss marching. The doctor ran nearly an hour late, so by the time we finally got out of there, it was, like, 11:30am. I had to make a stop on the way home. Can't remember what we did with the early afternoon. Picked up Two at 4pm, took MiniPlu to her clarinet lesson at 4:30pm, where I dropped her off and went back across town the other way to get Two to the orthodontist by 5pm as her retainer needed tweaking. Will picked up MiniPlu from clarinet and kept her at his office (which is 5 mins from clarinet teacher) until he was ready to leave. This saved me from having to go back and fetch her after the orthodontist. Grabbed Little Caesar's pizza for everyone-but-me, whereupon Two had less than 10 mins to eat before we had to leave for her biofeedback appointment at 6:15pm.
Thankfully, it got better after that. On Wed after band camp I went to the grocery store and tried to tidy the house a little. After picking up MiniPlu - I'd packed her lunch - we went to the mall to browse Claire's without Two going out of her skull with boredom, and then went to pick peaches at a pick-your-own orchard. There was only one evening activity: mandatory music meeting for parents at the middle school.
Thursday and Fri there isn't any orchestra, so MiniPlu just came home with me after band camp ended. I had my PREP co-teacher here from 10a-11:30a to plan for the coming year (hence why we'd tidied the house). MiniPlu and I had an early lunch, then browsed Barnes & Noble and picked out materials for her Halloween/RenFaire costume - I think this year we will FINALLY manage to take the girls to RenFaire. Now I just need to find the time to sew. :-P Picked up Two at 4pm, and she had an eye checkup at 5:30pm. No need for glasses, phew.
Today, I again got up at 5am to run (was supposed to do it on Thurs but was up until nearly midnight on Wed dealing with finances, so I bailed) cooked for three hours midday (vegetable tangine, peach pie, spaghetti sauce and muffins), tried and failed to take a nap due to interruptions, took the girls out for frozen yogurt and a little shopping after TKD camp ended and had a PTO meeting tonight. The exterminator either didn't come during their scheduled window of 2-4pm or cut it so close that they arrived in the last 5 mins, after I'd had to leave to pick up Two from camp. Will had to take MiniPlu to therapy so I could get to PTO. Meeting ran so long, Two fell asleep on the PTO president's sofa. :P
I'm skimming my flist but owe a lot of comments, I think. We won't go into the number of times we've had super-easy things for dinner because I didn't have time to make something proper.
Finished reading Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld. LOVED IT. Even if I did have to look up the word perspicacious. :P Ok, so I wasn't as interested in the Turkish revolution, but it was still good. Did Mr. Sharp ever get back her captured (alive) teammates? Seems like they were just written off as lost, with no attempt to get them back. Am more than halfway through Goliath now. Squeezing in reading wherever there's the slightest chance I might be sitting around waiting for something.
Other random miscellaneous bits from this week:
Two's teacher assignment came yesterday; she has MiniPlu's 4th-grade homeroom teacher. We liked him. As long as he doesn't call Two by MiniPlu's name, this should be good. Her best friend is in her class, but also a girl she doesn't like. MiniPlu's schedule STILL has not come in. We should be able to log in through the district website and get her info ahead of the mail, but it's been down more often than it's been up. I managed to get her homeroom teacher, but that's all. And it doesn't tell me anything, since I don't know any of the teachers there.
For the middle school band, you get credit toward your child's expenses in exchange for volunteering. However, I learned - the hard way - this week that they are strict about crediting only for the time you spend doing active WORK. As in, if you end up standing around for most of the last 15 mins of your shift, you are obligated to sign out at the point where you stopped working, not when you left. Which, ok. But it does seem kind of chintzy. And, I have to say, the band parent president doesn't strike me as a particularly warm person, at least when it comes to imparting information to somebody new. Grump.
And speaking of volunteering - between being co-treasurer for the elementary PTO board, handling various projects just by being part of the PTO in general, and helping out periodically for the middle school band, I may go crazy this school year. Plus volunteering in my beloved school library. Hopefully I can handle all of this. And sew MiniPlu's costume, too.
MiniPlu's orthopedist appointment showed that her scoliosis is mild enough that they're just monitoring it for now. (I was highly amused to see that they measured the curvature of her spine with a level - like the sort you'd use for carpentry, but with a little semicircle carved out to curve over her spine.) However, they determined that her right leg is mysteriously significantly weaker than her left, probably causing the joint pain, so she's being sent to PT to work on that. I foresee a lot of whining about how boring PT is. :P
We also just learned that our eldest niece - who turns 20 in a couple of months - is 2 months pregnant. She had complained to her doctor that the Pill didn't seem to be working for her, because her cycle wasn't regular. (She had previously been on the Depo-Provera shots but the side effects were too severe.) Doctor blew her off. Now she's pregnant. *bangs head* She and her bf are keeping the baby, despite the obvious challenges of their youth and the interruption to her already-previously-interrupted education. We're all wishing they lived closer so we could help out more. And as excited as we all are for a new member of the family - despite our worries over the circumstances - I pointed out to Will that it just doesn't seem fair sometimes. So many families CAN'T get pregnant, including yours truly, and here my niece got pregnant while on the Pill. Anyway, niece, her younger sister and the bf are staying at R&K's house for a few days for a previously-planned visit. We'll spend part of the weekend over there, too; haven't seen our nieces in ages.
Time to fall into bed. I wish I dared take my book to read upstairs, but I know if I do, it'll be, like, 2am before I turn out the light. :P
I volunteered with the middle school marching band this week, Mon-Fri, 7:30-9:30am. (This actually turned out to be quite fun - even if one of the 6th-grade flutes is impossibly clueless.) Two had TKD camp 9a-4p Mon-Fri. Because I was at band camp, Will had to go into work a little late every day, so he could drop her off on his way in. I picked her up.
Monday After leaving band camp at 9:30am, I ran several errands, then I had PT 11am-noon; orchestra camp got out at 11:45a so I had another orchestra parent pick up MiniPlu and keep her with them until I could get there around 12:15pm. We went straight to a friend's house to pick up their dog, part lab. See, the local pool has a dog-swim the day after it closes for the season, and our dogs have shown themselves to hate water. The girls have been dying to have a dog who DOES like water, so we'd arranged to borrow our friend's dog. Picked up Two at 4pm and went straight to the pool from there. Alas, this dog, while more willing to get her paws wet, still does not want to actually swim. Took the dog back home afterwards. Managed to get myself to TKD, but not MiniPlu, as her class was too early and I still had to make dinner.
Tuesday was worse. I had to get up at 5am (an hour early) in order to fit in my 4-mile run and PT before camp. MiniPlu had a doctor's appointment to look at her back and her leg joints (mild scoliosis at annual physical, persistent but not daily ankle and knee pain) at 9:30a, so we left band camp early to get there in time. It was pouring down rain, so while MiniPlu missed orchestra, she didn't miss marching. The doctor ran nearly an hour late, so by the time we finally got out of there, it was, like, 11:30am. I had to make a stop on the way home. Can't remember what we did with the early afternoon. Picked up Two at 4pm, took MiniPlu to her clarinet lesson at 4:30pm, where I dropped her off and went back across town the other way to get Two to the orthodontist by 5pm as her retainer needed tweaking. Will picked up MiniPlu from clarinet and kept her at his office (which is 5 mins from clarinet teacher) until he was ready to leave. This saved me from having to go back and fetch her after the orthodontist. Grabbed Little Caesar's pizza for everyone-but-me, whereupon Two had less than 10 mins to eat before we had to leave for her biofeedback appointment at 6:15pm.
Thankfully, it got better after that. On Wed after band camp I went to the grocery store and tried to tidy the house a little. After picking up MiniPlu - I'd packed her lunch - we went to the mall to browse Claire's without Two going out of her skull with boredom, and then went to pick peaches at a pick-your-own orchard. There was only one evening activity: mandatory music meeting for parents at the middle school.
Thursday and Fri there isn't any orchestra, so MiniPlu just came home with me after band camp ended. I had my PREP co-teacher here from 10a-11:30a to plan for the coming year (hence why we'd tidied the house). MiniPlu and I had an early lunch, then browsed Barnes & Noble and picked out materials for her Halloween/RenFaire costume - I think this year we will FINALLY manage to take the girls to RenFaire. Now I just need to find the time to sew. :-P Picked up Two at 4pm, and she had an eye checkup at 5:30pm. No need for glasses, phew.
Today, I again got up at 5am to run (was supposed to do it on Thurs but was up until nearly midnight on Wed dealing with finances, so I bailed) cooked for three hours midday (vegetable tangine, peach pie, spaghetti sauce and muffins), tried and failed to take a nap due to interruptions, took the girls out for frozen yogurt and a little shopping after TKD camp ended and had a PTO meeting tonight. The exterminator either didn't come during their scheduled window of 2-4pm or cut it so close that they arrived in the last 5 mins, after I'd had to leave to pick up Two from camp. Will had to take MiniPlu to therapy so I could get to PTO. Meeting ran so long, Two fell asleep on the PTO president's sofa. :P
I'm skimming my flist but owe a lot of comments, I think. We won't go into the number of times we've had super-easy things for dinner because I didn't have time to make something proper.
Finished reading Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld. LOVED IT. Even if I did have to look up the word perspicacious. :P Ok, so I wasn't as interested in the Turkish revolution, but it was still good. Did Mr. Sharp ever get back her captured (alive) teammates? Seems like they were just written off as lost, with no attempt to get them back. Am more than halfway through Goliath now. Squeezing in reading wherever there's the slightest chance I might be sitting around waiting for something.
Other random miscellaneous bits from this week:
Two's teacher assignment came yesterday; she has MiniPlu's 4th-grade homeroom teacher. We liked him. As long as he doesn't call Two by MiniPlu's name, this should be good. Her best friend is in her class, but also a girl she doesn't like. MiniPlu's schedule STILL has not come in. We should be able to log in through the district website and get her info ahead of the mail, but it's been down more often than it's been up. I managed to get her homeroom teacher, but that's all. And it doesn't tell me anything, since I don't know any of the teachers there.
For the middle school band, you get credit toward your child's expenses in exchange for volunteering. However, I learned - the hard way - this week that they are strict about crediting only for the time you spend doing active WORK. As in, if you end up standing around for most of the last 15 mins of your shift, you are obligated to sign out at the point where you stopped working, not when you left. Which, ok. But it does seem kind of chintzy. And, I have to say, the band parent president doesn't strike me as a particularly warm person, at least when it comes to imparting information to somebody new. Grump.
And speaking of volunteering - between being co-treasurer for the elementary PTO board, handling various projects just by being part of the PTO in general, and helping out periodically for the middle school band, I may go crazy this school year. Plus volunteering in my beloved school library. Hopefully I can handle all of this. And sew MiniPlu's costume, too.
MiniPlu's orthopedist appointment showed that her scoliosis is mild enough that they're just monitoring it for now. (I was highly amused to see that they measured the curvature of her spine with a level - like the sort you'd use for carpentry, but with a little semicircle carved out to curve over her spine.) However, they determined that her right leg is mysteriously significantly weaker than her left, probably causing the joint pain, so she's being sent to PT to work on that. I foresee a lot of whining about how boring PT is. :P
We also just learned that our eldest niece - who turns 20 in a couple of months - is 2 months pregnant. She had complained to her doctor that the Pill didn't seem to be working for her, because her cycle wasn't regular. (She had previously been on the Depo-Provera shots but the side effects were too severe.) Doctor blew her off. Now she's pregnant. *bangs head* She and her bf are keeping the baby, despite the obvious challenges of their youth and the interruption to her already-previously-interrupted education. We're all wishing they lived closer so we could help out more. And as excited as we all are for a new member of the family - despite our worries over the circumstances - I pointed out to Will that it just doesn't seem fair sometimes. So many families CAN'T get pregnant, including yours truly, and here my niece got pregnant while on the Pill. Anyway, niece, her younger sister and the bf are staying at R&K's house for a few days for a previously-planned visit. We'll spend part of the weekend over there, too; haven't seen our nieces in ages.
Time to fall into bed. I wish I dared take my book to read upstairs, but I know if I do, it'll be, like, 2am before I turn out the light. :P