I think I can I think I can

Hopefully we are all seeing the “Beautiful Wahloooo”as we call Lady the dog here at the Duckpond.  I am trying to learn a new thing every once in awhile and I have (I hope) managed to upload the dog picture.  Most of the new things I set out for myself to do are knitting related, but this one was tech related.  Since I am trying to not be quite SO woefully behind the children, I finally succumbed to a digital camera.  Hopefully there will occasionally be more beautiful pictures to put up here.  Since I HATE LOADING NEW SOFTWARE, DOWNLOADING ANY DAMN THING AND READING MANUALS OF ANY KIND the fact that I have figured out any of this is a wee little milestone here.

We have two other lovely mutts round the place, but this was a decent pic of herself on a reasonable background.  And I love this dog the mostest.  She is the best dog.  About 5 years old now and her only close-to-being-faults are the licking of any part of her people she can get close to and the incredible Gas-Grille-ness.  Silent – usually.  Deadly – ALWAYS.  Be glad there is no smell-o-vision through the pages of the blog.  Flatulence thy name is Dog.  This is on days when dog treats and forays into unknown nibbling areas haven’t happened.  Imagine days when she has had pizza crust, dog treats, a Greenie or two. Ack.

In other update land, I am still coughing periodically after a Christmas bout of the crud, but it seems to have settled into the winter asthma cough.  The ducklings and the drake are currently well (this turns on a dime around here, so we’re going with it) and we had a day off from school today due to a piddlin’ little bit of ice.  The day half the metro area skidded into one another on the way home we were not even released early.

 I will see if something delightful can make it on to the blog next time since it tends to be a rant of some kind about the woes of middle age, health or dogs most of the time!

Better living through chemistry?

I went back to my doctor today.  He is an allergy/asthma specialist board certified in allergy and immunology.  I like him and I actually think he knows what he’s doing (they don’t all graduate at the top of their class).  Today he decided to say the ‘v’ word to me…viral.  Now I know this is probably viral, but that word has a specific meaning to me.  It is doctorspeak for “I don’t know what it is”  sometimes coinciding with “I do know what it’s NOT”.  I respect this guy (he has had the whole crowd here at the duck pond for about nine years and all the stuff that goes with that).  I managed not to roll my eyes at the ”v” word.  Computer techs use the ”v” word when they don’t know why your server crashed, your blog won’t show pictures, your keyboard is only typing 666 despite what you have your fingers on or any number of other techno-maladies they cannot explain.  Sigh.  So Sudafed and an Rx nasal spray have been added to the arsenal of alleged remedies for the coughing.  I am already taking two inhalers, nebulized inhalable steroids, an antihistamine, an asthma inhibitor, an expectorating cough suppressant, aspirin, vitamins, and calcium daily…do I hear two turtle doves?  Eight ladies dancing?  Sigh.

 On better notes of the knitterly and other varieties I finished a scarf, a baby blanket and have some decent progress going on some things for Christmas.  The duckling drove drake jr. to school today and no blood was shed or hair was ripped on the way.  She and the car made it home in one piece yet again.  I’m still not freaked out about her driving….of course it’s day three and nothing horrible has happened.  But I’m getting a little freaked out that I’m not, you know, freaked out.  Shouldn’t I be on pins and needles every moment she’s gone?  Shouldn’t I be wondering minute by minute if she has driven up a tree, run over a nun or gone screeching through a red light with the cops in hot pursuit?   I’m just not.  Hmmmmmm……

They finally got me…

About two weeks ago I thought I was just having my little autumn asthma cough.  I had attended one evening football game (duckling is in marching band color guard) and one 125-135lb weight class football game of the local recreational league (drake jr. spent this fall pounding on other people). Outside in the finally cool fall air, slightly windy, tree mold abounding, etc. etc.  No big deal.  By the second game of the weekend said young drake played the next day (third game total) I was sure it was GERM RELATED.  Sore throat. Of course the 30+ temperatures a day I take would have nothing to do with that at all.  Close to germs.  Sigh.  To keep from boring us all silly, I will be as brief as I can (stop that…brief for me is NOT brief for other people.  We all know it.  Spitting your beverage out will only short out your keyboard)  I went to the doctor tagged on to a routine visit we had for the duckling…I was coughing so hard she drove.  She turns to me in the car when we are just about there, as I have been bronchospasming to beat all hell all the way over there and says to me as calm as you please, “so if lungs actually come out and splatter all over the windshield, should I pull over?”  As we were in lung-spitting distance to the hospital, I told her the ER bay might be a better choice.  After one doc visit, another doc phone call and several rounds of Predisone, nebulized Xopenex, Mucinex, 5 days of Azithromycin, oral asthma meds, antihistamines, honey/whiskey concoctions and all of the allergy and asthma inhalers I take daily anyway and new ones added besides…I am still coughing.  Still.  I have had really and truly enough of it so ANY and all suggestions will be welcome.  Prayer, witch doctors, voodoo, lit candles, icons of any kind, jars of the recipe, goosefat and brown paper…I am sick of being sick.  It is really getting old, tired, nasty and sorry.  I have the utmost respect for Beanns of the Bookshelf because this ain’t nothing compared to her personal fun and I have had enough of it.  I would be the most hateful chemo patient in the world, because I am certain the one thing I would have left after it all is this…just enough energy to bitch.  “A little crabby” is my daily setting with nothing adverse going on in my world.  So just imagine…16 days of almost constant coughing.  (I am also sick of my medication and the side effects, but I do know it could be worse)

 My side bar story is this…the duckling has a live driver’s license now.  As of Friday, she is permitted by the Commonwealth to operate large equipment with no adult in the car any more.  She took herself to and from school twice on Friday with nary a scratch or Bambi sighting.  We are happy.  She is a good little driver, actually, and I worry not about her (just other people and deer on the road).  Her father….may need some valium…prozac….some candles of his own.

The Trippage Continues

I am a firm believer in the full moon affecting all kinds of behavior and upping the birth rate in hospitals.  At school, we get the weirdness we expect in large volume during the days surrounding and including a full moon.  Over the last year or so I have noticed that we get weird weirdness during the NEW moons.  As if we needed any more help dealing with the snot of America’s entitled youth.
One of my kindergarteners started up bright and squirrelly on Monday am giving me direction on how I was to handle him in my room.  Went over about as you would expect with me…not at all. 

Every year I give my own children a speech about behavior at school/in the world right before school starts.  They did it verbatim for my dad about 3 years ago (which made us both laugh our asses off, but they know it is serious, that I mean it, and that their father backs me up in this)

“If Mommy or Daddy get a phone call from the principal, the teacher, the guidance counselor, the secretary, the nurse, the lunch ladies, somebody in the building who knows us from around, about our behavior ever, wish for GOD to take us before Mommy gets there because she will vaporize us from across the room with her eyes”

At this stage (ages 13 and 16) I say “August speech” and they respond with “Behavior – vaporize us with your eyes”.  And despite Igor the terrible’s (my son) daily ranting at home, it has apparently taken.  I get “pleasure to have in class” along with his good grades on the report cards.  I don’t know this kid, but apparently he is mine.  Mr. Hyde gets back off of the school bus every day, but oddly enough in the TEENAGE years, we are seeing some improvements.  His older sister is tired of his nonsense and has finally after years of letting him get away with bloody murder, has begun to speak up.  So I am having to put a lid on “the easier one”. 

I just want to know when we gave up our rights as adults and started to let these tiny people with NO education, NO vote, NO income, NO car keys and NO respect talk to us like we are the help?  I am SO OVER IT!!!  I never did it, but I have to suffer through behavior of people’s children who did.  The sense of entitlement that these little people (and many of their 30something year old parents) have is unreal.  I am not that much older than their parents (in some cases I am NOT older than their parents) so I fail to see the generation gap.

Sigh.  I am going back to relaxing over the weekend now.  The little darlings will be back on Monday morning and so will I.

The Cos is right…all children have brain damage

Ok, so I am sitting in my little school clinic this week thinking “the full moon is over, so the squirrels will go back to their nests and settle down now”.  Not so much.  Yesterday we have gone from squirrelly to punk-ass-trippin’ as we refer to it at the duck pond.  Small children (I mean people who are five or have just turned six) are in MY “classroom” telling me 1.  NO 2. I don’t want to and in case 3 “Let me tell you what’s NOT going to happen right now”.  Seriously, the state of who is in charge of this dog and pony show is no longer in question in many of these households….people under three feet tall and under ten years old.  Punk Ass Trippage. 

NO – because she needed to move her HAIR out of her eyes so I could see if she had bruised or bumped herself when she hit her head on the asphalt at recess.   Children of my own feel the wrath of God, Mama, the Supreme Court etc. when “no” is spoken by them.  They are still-alive-teenaged ducklings, so they don’t do it anymore.  It doesn’t go over much better with other people’s children pulling it.

I don’t want to – because I needed her to take her hand off of her eye so I could assess whether or not she had pink eye (teacher says child actually stuck her tongue out at HER the day before).  And this was AFTER she refused to come into the room.  Not afraid, just really full of herself this kiddo.

“Let me tell you what’s NOT going to happen right now” – when I wanted to take her temperature (now be advised that no one at school is doing any rectals, so I fail to see the problem with an oral temp or a forehead scan…but then I AM A FAIRLY REASONABLE GROWNUP!!!!!!!!!!)

All this after having to do multiple assessments of a five year old friend who is so developmentally impaired he does not register on the toddler scales for all assessments any of us have done.

It is only October 3, friends.  I need some prayer.  I need some candles lit, some chants done, some trees danced around and probably a fifth of something a day if it’s going to go like this all year.  There are 1049 of them, their parents, their teachers and only one of me.

(“Let me tell you what’s not going to happen…..” ?????????) Punk Ass Trippin’

Sick of my own hair

So it got more entertaining still with the lovely haircut.  Yesterday I went to purchase more hairbrushes since my hair now needs a BIGGER round hairbrush to not make me frizz and poodle out by the end of the day (it’s just one of those oxymorons of life….bigger brush, shorter hair).  Left the store with two, having an ususual spacially challenged moment (usually I estimate size very well…sigh)  Thought the smaller of the two might not be but a snippet bigger than the one I have and bought the one the size of my upper arm too.  Of course the little one was twice the size of the one I have. Ack.

So today I went in to school and my hair was a little more tolerable by my standards.  Saw another third of the building staff that I haven’t seen and more kids.  The PRICELESS award goes to a little dude named Nathan.  It was picture day so all of the little darlings were looking especially buffed, fluffed and shiny as new pins.  I am in the office when three little first graders come through the hallway door.  They come in except Nathan, in his argyle patterned sweater vest and little dark pants and pressed little shirt.  He stops dead in his tracks in the doorway, looks at me from 30 feet away, and said (loudly) “What happened to you?”  All adults present immediately went into convulsive laughing.  I saw him Friday and apparently this much change was JUST TOO MUCH FOR HIM in four days.  I really do want someone to invent Tivo for my glasses.  I just watch my life through them and push record for anything that is that hysterical so I can keep it.

 The haircut is cute by so many people’s standards, and there is kindness in their noticing.  I just hate short hair on me.  It’s not a bad cut.  And I’m doing my level best to remember why I cut it in the first place…because there are little girls and boys out there feeling ill, and many not going to get better, that would be just delighted to have my old hair to cover their heads so they can go to school and be told their new hair is cute too.

I can grow more.

Childhood dreams…as asked by a friend on another blog

A friend on a community blog that I visit all too infrequently posted a link with regard to ABC’s person of the week.  A lovely talented youngish professor who is dying. He was asked to deliver his ’last lecture’ and spoke for the majority of the time about the dreams he had as a child.  I think from the sound of him, and the look of his children who were pictured in the story, he did rather well.  She then asked us all about what our dreams were as children and this is what I came up with as an answer:

Childhood dreams…well, still wanting to know when childhood really ends…?

My own were to be a pediatrician (a whole lot more schooling than I really wanted as I got to be an older child) and then to be an English teacher (a whole lot less money than I wanted to make when I became a grownup)
Therefore I am a school nurse in an elementary school??? And I proofread and correct (as I have done through several short careers) the written work of people with post-graduate degrees and beyond??? Who all make more money than I, by the way. I guess I’m doing the works I set out to do in an odd sort of combined and happenstance way. Caused by the fact that I had some children and wanted a more child-friendly schedule of work (summers “off” and snow days). The book that we ALL here intended to write as children will be a humorous book about the children I have tended over the years.  I have a title for it given to me by a young man who is now in the seventh grade.    He knows what it will be and when and if I ever write it and publish it, I will find him somehow and send him a copy.  He still makes me smile.

My dreams have become for the future of my children rather than myself, so I guess that child thing still applies in a way.  I used to teach pre-school in one of my many many former jobs a lifetime ago, and I can say that I have learned this about children - they are pretty funny little lifeforms (PARTICULARLY when they are not your own).  There is never a boring moment in your life when you are surrounded by kids…even the too many we have in my building. 

Today is an example of how funny they are – I got my hair cut.  This was an event amonst the teachers and amongst the kiddos I saw as well.  It was for me, but then 7+ inches of my hair left.  I am donating it to Locks of Love, though it is a little shy of their 10″ requirement.  6+ inches they sell and it helps defray their costs.  I have for many many many months worn my long hair pulled up in a ponytail and clipped, in a lobster claw, etc, with only the bangs blown dry.  Today the hair is about 6″ long from stem to stern.  I feel very much like a shorn sheep or something that belongs on the front of the Dutch Boy paint can (it’s cute…it’s just a little too short for me and I actually have to take time to DO something to it in the mornings…but I digress)  The teachers loved it…gushed.  Some of the parents as well.  I found this just a bit embarrassing, but it did go on all day.  And unfortunately I haven’t seen everyone yet (this takes at least a week in a staff that size) 

The kids were not gushing…they just noticed that it was cut.  All of them (except two of the new kids who have never seen me before) Two little girls said they liked it, the other 45 kids I saw today just took note.  They said things like “where is all your hair?”  and “you got a haircut!!!” but though all commented, it was mostly just a statement. Hmmm. You would think that no one on planet Earth had ever had a trim with the level of commentary I received (or else this school has got to find more interesting things to discuss)

This tells me that it does indeed look like the front of a Dutch Boy paint can.  Though they refrained, each child, from saying “what happened to your hair????!!!”

Still blog challenged

Well, my friends, I am still blog challenged since it is almost a year since my last entry.  I am thunderstruck to know that I actually remember my username and password so that must mean I’m supposed to be BACK!  I promise nothing of regularity since we know I would be not truthful if I said that.

Last year’s September blog entry has me whining about the number of kids we have in the building.  Well, I’m still whining since they opened another elementary school in our little district of the world and two of the three other school sitting down here in the south 40 got NO RELIEF WHATSOEVER.  Not kid one was rezoned.  So this year the count is currently around 1048.  And I remind you that we are K-5 only with NO special programs at all (no ESL, no gifted, no pre-school at risk kids…we send them to the other schools)  Sigh. They’re all mine, and about 75 of mine get sent out for part of a day or only one whole day to other schools, so I have to be a liasion to the other ladies in their clinics as to what their issues are.

 It is three weeks into the school year and I’m worn out already. 

 The very large highlight of my month or two has been getting to see the Yarn Harlot speak in person at a Borders bookstore about 30 miles from my house.  This was just Thursday, so I am still really happy about this.  I am a knitter.  There.  I put it out there in print for the book friends to see.  I suspect there are a few others out there amongst the bookshelf.  We knit, we read books, we go to movies (I prefer comedies).  Stephanie Pearl-McPhee is the Yarn Harlot.  She knits, she reads and she is wicked funny.  I have read her books, and seen her in a very snippet sized appearance on “Knitty Gritty”.  I knew she was funny.  SO much better in person.  I kid you not.  And, contrary to what I thought from TV, she is short like me!!!! YAAAY!   I left sick teenager home and other teenager with game that day to the tender mercies of their FATHER and went.  After school.  In my school clothes.  Took my knitting.  And I FOUND MY PEOPLE OUTSIDE OF A YARN STORE.   Other knitters in public.  The Borders guys didn’t know what to make of it…about 200 people most of us with pointy sticks and string (there were some friends and relatives of knitters that came.  It was cool)  They had a light case of Bambi-in-the-headlights face, but recovered in time to be nice, help with the book tickets for the signing, and stayed and listened to the speaker.  I caught them laughing.  And I’m pretty sure they don’t knit. 

Stephanie refers to herself as a “niche author” with her being the only one in  it (knitting humor…it is pretty specific)  I don’t think anyone would do as well trying to come behind her anyway.  There are some markets where there only needs to be one to do what needs to be done.

 Ducky – still here in VA with DH (21 years now) and those dogs and two TEENAGERS!

Little kids, Little kids, everywhere I look I can see them

Well, school is back in session with a vengance.  We have about 980 kiddos K-5 this year and I’m seeing about 50 a day already.  I can hardly wait for flu season.  I am a Duck so I expect the bird flu will find me.  I have certain children eating other people’s lunches that shouldn’t, other people not eating enough of their own lunch and all manner of odd things food related.  I do so love being our resident food Nazi.

The dogs are currently healthy, the children at MY HOUSE are currently healthy, the drake is currently healthy and my tendonitis is back. Concrete floors with tile in huge buildings will do that.  I have discovered rather belatedly that Crocs were put on this world for my duck feet.  YAY!  My knee is killing me but for the first time in years my feet are not swollen or screaming when I get home from 8 hours of little kids every day. 

I am also somewhat thunderstruck with the number of kindergartners we have this year that I actually knew when they were on the “inside”  I swear 2/3 of the 190 of them are little brothers and sisters of kids we have had at some point in the last 5 years!

At any rate, working with little kids you can get away with goofy shoes like crocs at work and the little jibbitz charms that fit in the holes!

I read almost all of Dan Brown’s books this summer (as did the Drake) and am hoping I might get to read something again soon that does not entail anything student or medical in nature.

Dogs reducks

Ok, I still love them but this hemorraging money has to stop.  Two weeks ago the two older (and larger ones) started having gastric trouble.  We feed them VERY excellent dogfood because they just are not able to eat the dog food equivalent of McDonalds (Eukanuba, Science Diet, anything by Purina…they can't deal) Both of them started acting very warm….one panting with his head over the air vent the other one laying in the dining room with her head on the kitchen tile.  Not normal…of course normal for them is on a sliding scale.  Shiloh drank the water bowl completely dry and then promptly threw it up all over the floor. Very nice.  So to the vet they went the next afternoon after some crate cleaning (you don't want to know ) with my also feeling not too well husband.  He was home early after having taken himself to the vet, er, doc.  He finally succumbed to the bug we got in Alabama.  The vets kept both dogs overnight to rehydrate and yet again they had overgrowths of clostridium difficile.  Sigh.  $1100 later we brought them home.  Two days later Lady, the yeller dawg, started not moving too much and acting like she was in pain.  Back to the vet.  She also has Lyme's (why they did not also check for that when she was in the first time, I did not ask.  Too exhausted) So she is about midway through a 30 day course of daily antibiotics.  After about 2 weeks even dogs will look at you with the "No, no….I couldn't possibly…." when offered squirty cheese with doxycycline in it.  We are about to switch to peanut butter for a change to keep her on the mend.  The little new dog (FROM HARRISONBURG) is a garbage mouth and succumbed to nothing.  I suspect he has a much higher tolerance for crud than these other two.  What REALLY gets me is that they are all mutts!!!  Nobody is a pampered little pedigree. Ack.

And husband is on round two of crud (gone from the lungs, now in the sinuses) and the teenager has an ear infection and another round of poison ivy.  This is quite entertaining since she does not  roll around in the woods or stuff.  The DOG gets it on his fur when her FATHER walks him in the woods.  Then said dog sleeps with her.  Her FATHER is one of those lucky 25% that do not get poison anything.  I have long since stopped wishing the usual wifely pox on him (that he could be female for one year, preferably a pregnant one) and now wish that he would get a very nasty case of poison ivy or oak.  On unmentionable parts of him.  Because we have gone through this with this kiddo for 5 years and every other year it is so bad she has to take oral steroids to reduce the inflammation.

 And the trees have leafed out and are blocking the dish reception. 

This is truly a bitch-o-blog today.  EEEK.