Monthly Archives: November 2022

Black Friday in the ER

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I spent several hours in the ER on Black Friday. I coughed so hard that something in my back popped. And then it hurt. It hurt so, so much. So we went to the ER for some x-rays which revealed that I did not break any ribs. Instead, thanks to EDS, I stretched my connective tissue too far.

On the plus side, I know how to deal with those sort of injuries. On the minus side, I also know that it’ll be 6-12 months before the pain is completely gone. For now I’m taking pain medicine and listening to my body telling me it’s time to rest so I will get better.

A Note From Anthony

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I’ve been sick for several weeks and on Thanksgiving Anthony gave me this note. He said it says “Not feeling good.” I’m not sure if he meant it to be a get well card for me or something for me to hold up to tell people I’m not feeling good. Either way I thought it was super cute and it now lives in the front pocket of my book sleeve.

Helping With Thanksgiving Dinner

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I’ve been sick for several weeks with a respiratory thing. After prepping some things for Thanksgiving Wednesday night I woke up quite a it worse on Thanksgiving. Luckily we had already arranged for Cameron to come help cook Thursday morning.

Zeke jumped in and helped for a while, too. He worked hard on the green bean casserole. He loves helping in the kitchen (he also loves flashing that peace sign in pictures which totally cracks me up).

One of the things Cameron helped make was the stuffing. Chopping the onions for it of course made his eyes tear so I told him putting your head in the freezer can help stop the tears so he did it. Opened up the freezer and stuck his head right in (as it turns out it didn’t help much).

The best part of the picture I took with Cameron’s head in the freezer, though, was my mom. She got quite the kick out of him doing that. The only thing better than having much needed help with cooking Thanksgiving dinner is having fun while you do it!

The Playroom Under the Stairs

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About a year and a half ago we got the idea to open up the wall in our living room and convert the area under the stairs there into a little playroom for the kids.

It ended up so beautiful. The kids absolutely love it. It’s not very big, but it’s perfect for a few kids to watch TV or to sit and read or built with Perfect Blocks.

There’s a black light in there and a projector (the kids are utterly fascinated by their shows playing right on the wall). There are even colored LED lights around the ceiling perfect for a dance party.

One wall has a gorgeous mural of space my dad picked out for the kids because some of them are very into space right now. Zeke liked it so much he even hugged it when they first went in the room.

The most amazing part might be the floor. Jamie added pigments that match the mural to epoxy and then swirled it all over the floor so it is just gorgeous. Add to that some of the pigments glow in the dark and it just makes their little playroom under the stairs totally cool.

Such a long year…

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The saga of just how long this year can end up being continues. This time it was about the book Mayci wanted to check out from the school library.

Zeke has been bringing home Dog Man books and Mayci has enjoyed looking at them. So at one of their library days she chose a Dog Man book.

But her teacher didn’t want to approve her to check it out.

She told her it’s for 2nd to 5th graders, not first graders. Now, we do not police library books. If it’s too simple, that’s no big deal. Mayci has checked out plenty of Piggy Elephant books this year and they are WAY below her reading level. If it’s just right, great. They’ll enjoy reading it with no help. If they are too hard, that’s no big deal either. They’ll either get help with what they don’t understand, work hard to figure it out on their own, or someone older will read it to them. Policing library books is a great way to kill a budding love of reading.

Ultimately she let Mayci check it out. And Mayci read it in two days. She needed occasional help with words, but mostly read it on her own and enjoyed it very much. Especially when pictures included characters in their underwear or references to farts. Heaven help us.