And he did it ALL himself (except for cutting out the rat and the foam core).

T'is adorable.

Today has been exhausting in an unparalleled fashion.  To begin with, both Brian and I are in total grading frenzy mode, which means we've not been sleeping enough, and when we do sleep (or at least, when I sleep) it's pretty poor quality.  The chamomile tea is helping. 

*sigh* 

I gave my last final (probably ever) today.  It was bittersweet.  I already miss teaching a bit.  I doubt I'll ever teach at the college level again; even if I hated every second of it, it would still be a bit disconcerting. 

We had Alex's annual case conference review today, which went... well... tensely?  They're pushing for more interventions, and we're pushing back, but only limitedly.  They are concerned, fairly, about Alex's ability to succeed without more one-on-one attention and time out of the chaotic classroom.  We, on the other hand, are worried about Alex's ability to learn to cope with conditions he doesn't want to be in, and his ability to work on his own.  I don't understand how he will ever learn to be focused and self-directed if he's given excessive one-on-one attention because he can't right now.  Are we giving up on his ever being able to do such things?  I mean, if we wanted to take this to its logical conclusion, we could just pull him out of school entirely, homeschool him in a quiet, non-overwhelming environment replete with near continuous one-on-one attention.  I'm sure he would succeed delightfully at his academics in such a situation--anyone would.  But how is that going to help him cope with non-custom-tailored-to-Alex's-needs situations?  How will that help him become self-directed?  Focused?  Coping with chaotic, loud, overwhelming environments?  I guess we could engineer such things--that seems a bit psycho to me. 

*sigh again* 

I guess I'm just tired, and confused, and exhausted, and tired, and I need to grade and cook and make a schedule for tomorrow's Terre Foods activities, and on and on and on... 

*sigh*

My asparagus finally arrived today!  I'm sure this is a sign of the apocalypse.  Of course, my body is currently beyond thrashed from the day's events, so I'll just be dealing with that tomorrow.

Today was long, but fun.  I biked with Ian to work out, and then over to the community garden.  I've got two 10' x 10' plots, one of which will be potatoes (yes, yes, I know, very late--I like new potatoes), and the other is for the kids' Halloween pumpkins (and a couple sugar pumpkins, too).  The ground though... oh dear.  Let's just say that I didn't get one of the prime spots.  There's the "really great!" plots, then the "well, they're okay" plots, then the "marginal" plots, and then there's the "we think this used to be a driveway" section.  Guess where I am?  Anyway, 3 wheelbarrow loads of compost later, and I managed to turn a 5' x 10' section of brick into reasonably workable ground.  Boy, did that take it out of me, though.

Then, there was the Kindergarten picnic.  Oh my.  It was fun, oh yes.  Much munching was done, and the kids ran and played like mad on the park playground (inventing new ways to not slide properly), then back to the pavillion for games, cake & ice cream, and then... the water balloon game.  Each set of two people (usually a parent and kid) has a water balloon which they toss to each other, each time taking a step back until, well, until you can't toss the balloon any more.  I'm sure you can see where this one is going.  The first wave of balloon-toss was fine.  The second was perhaps a bit more loose and enthusiastic than planned; and the third was a complete balloon free-for-all, culminating in the teachers getting bombarded.  Much fun was had.

Tomorrow I am Not Going Anywhere during the day, DAMNIT.  I am going to stay home, plant asparagus, pick strawberries, make mozzarella, maybe make bread, read some magazines, play with my new yarn, and let my body recuperate.  Grandparents descend to steal our children tomorrow afternoon, and then bliss may begin.  Friday morning it's the gym, and then out to the community garden again to see if I can't wrest control of the other half of one plot.

And my favorite thing to do is to authorize $600 in repairs on our car.  It makes me feel powerful.  Ah well, even though our car is only worth about $1000 anymore, and that's in top condition, it's worth it to us to keep this clunker going.  It gets good gas mileage, it actually doesn't have ghastly high miles on it, and so on.  And right now, we've got the money--it's even in the "Home & Car Maintenance" budget, how's that for foresight?!

I ordered our grain mill today.  *squeeeee*  We got the Family Mill with grain and flaker attachment, hand crank and KitchenAid adapter (thanks otterkin!).  I just put an order in for some wheat berries, too.  The folks around here are trying to decide when to make our annual big, ginormic scary huge Wheat Montana order.  Maybe this year I'll actually buy a whole lot of wheat berries!  There's not a lot of point to buying a year's supply of pre-ground whole wheat, unless you've got a freezer to keep it all in, cause it'll just go rancid.  But not whole berries!  Yes!  I'm thinking about even planting a cover crop of hard winter wheat in my garden this fall.  We'll see.

Alex also had his very first Boy Scouts event yesterday.  Okay, technically, it was Tiger Cubs, but still he had a lot of fun fishing with his dad and stuff.  He's signed up for the other two events this summer, and we'll see how things go from there.  I'm still a little conflicted on this whole Boy Scouts thing, given their sketchy history with religious tolerance and homosexuality (they actually revoked the UU merit badge when the UUA came out in favor of homosexual marriage--so now we just make our own, ha!).  But this was such an important part of Brian's life growing up, and it really does teach important skills that will likely be increasingly valuable as things unravel in our country.  And on the whole, I'm more in favor of exposing my children to views with which we disagree, while being clear on our own feelings and decisions, and let them decide for themselves.  They might be exposed to some questionable attitudes towards religion and homosexuality in the Boy Scouts (depending on what troup they're in), but they're gonna be exposed to it sooner or later, might as well get it over with.  But I'm a little sad that my oldest son is even old enough for Tiger Cubs--I can't wait to see him in his little uniform, gah!

And thanks to the well-wishers who hoped, given our scone bonanza, that I was feeling better.  I am, but I'm not out of the woods yet.  I put myself at about 80-85%.  I've still got snot-bomb problems, and the associated headaches and such.  But I'm getting there. 

Oh yeah, and we finally broke below 500kWh usage last month!  That has been our eternal "floor" for what seems like ages, but finally we got under it--493kWh's!  Yeeees!  And I've got more plans for how to go lower, just you wait....

Zee child, he is ab-suuuurdly happy. 

Alex just came up behind me, tapped me on the shoulder, and put a toy Tyrannosaurus Rex right in my face and asked, "Is this chartreuse?"

I choked hard on my cookie.

EDIT:  well, yeah, it's kinda chartreuse in a few places... =)

Six years ago today, I heard the sound of my baby boy for the first time, crying his anger at being removed from his womb. 

Hrm... not much has changed!  =)

Happy birthday, little boy. 

Today, I am beginning a hardcore round of decongestants.  Last night, I was kept awake for hours due to the need to clear my throat.  That's never happened to me before.  Did you know that when you need to clear your throat, you can't just ignore it?  It's like trying not to yawn--once you know you need to, you can't not do it.  Anyway, so I took a decongestant, and by lordy, it actually helped!  And then I remembered what one of my wiser doctors told me once.  She was prescribing a decongestant for my headcold, and I told her I didn't like to take things like that because they don't really cure anything, they just mask symptoms, and I worry about feeling healthier than I am and actually making myself worse.  She nodded and said that that is a reasonable position, however "Your head is currently a petri dish.  If you don't clear some of that gunk out, you're going to stay sick for a long time."  This, too, is a good point.  Also, we already have a pack of decongestants that's going to expire in a month anyway, so might as well use them now if I need them.  If this doesn't work, I am totally getting some Ester-C or Emergen-C or Happy-C, or Middle-C, or whatever.  I don't care, just make it stop!

Speaking of middle-C, Alex has his second ever piano lesson today.  I think I'll take pictures to send along to his grandparents, who are financing this venture.

Yay for my son!  B & I just got back from our first parent-teacher conference, and Alex is doing quite well!  Yippee!

Some folks who read this might not know, but at the end of last year Alex was in a special needs preschool, and the district was recommending we label him autistic.  We declined the label for a lot of reasons, but remained open to the need for one.  It was a very hard decision, and we were definitely not convinced we were making the right choice.  Happily, though, Alex is doing quite well adjusting to school.  Academically, he is at or above expected levels, which we pretty much already knew.  It's not the academic we're worried about, it's the social.  And there, Alex is definitely making progress.  He is slowly learning the socially appropriate ways to deal with various situations, which is very good.  He interacts with other kids fairly well, especially in a free-play setting.  He is still not willing to engage in organized games or activities, but he is not disruptive, and he still demonstrates that he is learning what he needs to from the activities, even when he sits out of them.  It may be that in a few years the autism issue will be revisited, once it is clearer one way or the other which way Alex is heading, but he's just so young right now, and such a borderline case that on balance we're glad we decided to hold off.  Probably the most reassuring thing the teacher told me was that Alex's speech therapist said that she does see a few of the characteristics of autism in Alex, but really what she mostly sees is a child who is socially immature.  And as long as he is making progress, happy, responding well to the regular classroom setting and rules, and not being disruptive to others, we're all happy.

So Ian wakes up at 11pm puking all over himself.  Ho-boy, it's gonna be one of those nights, eh?  Get him, bed, pillow et al. cleaned up, get him back to bed.  1:30am, Alex wakes up screaming, trying and failing to vomit, boiling hot, shaking, and wheezing.  Five-year-old crouched on bathroom floor not breathing well = me panicking.  After consulting several books and finally the on-call doctor, we are advised to take him to the emergency room.  We are admitted remarkably quickly, with me taking Alex to the exam room and Brian filling out paperwork with Ian.  They diagnose Alex with croup (!)--our handy-dandy medical book said that croup only occurs up to 3 years of age!  WTF?  Anyway, Alex is doing very well with the hospital routine (there's been a promise of a popsicle in the offing), and I'm wondering where Brian is.  Could he still be filling out paperwork?  Poke my head out of exam room and find out that, no, Ian is puking again.  Great.  Well, at least we're already at the hospital.  Ian proceeds to vomit through most of the visit (they even give him a little emergency-room disposable barf-bag), while Alex is putting up a fair fight against the respiratory tech trying to use a nebulizer on him.  Finally administer most of a dose of steroid to Alex via nebulizer (and I'm pretty sure I got a good dose of it myself), get informal diagnosis of flu for Ian from the nurse, get popsicle, get scripts & discharge papers, go home. 
The children have been more-or-less totally fine ever since.  But then, croup is supposed to get bad at night.  Hopefully the steroid prescription will prevent breathing problems tonight.

But I can honestly say I don't remember the last time I was so terrified as seeing my child lying on the bathroom floor wheezing for breath.  My heart was thudding, it felt like it had shot up to my throat.  :: shudder ::