Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Aquarium



On Monday I sent Lizzy and Caleb to Grandma's house for the day, and took Jeddy and Ada to the National Aquarium.






The steamy Amazon rainforest exhibit was a particularly nice place to spend a late winter day.








Although theoretically icky and certainly undesirable to swim with, the jellyfish were surprisingly beautiful and mesmerizing.






And sharks!




And lots of fish.








 







And gigantic jaguar-print stingrays.






These weeny little frogs were about one inch long.  So cute!


(Poisonous....but so cute!)




We got to touch these non-stinging jellyfish.




And a ginormous turtle, probably as long as I am tall.




He's friends with the jaguar stingray and this shark.














Also of special interest to the kids was the plethora of escalators in the aquarium, and the ice cream treat afterwards.  A cool field trip, indeed.



Sunday, February 14, 2016

Rehab



On Thursday I brought all my kids on a field trip with our homeschool group.  


We went to a wildlife center, where injured wild animals are rehabilitated and cared for.  The children learned to care for our environment for the sake of these wonderful creatures, some of which as majestic and special as this bald eagle:




And that's about as much as I learned, because Caleb spent the whole time trying to throw rocks at the animals.


Sigh.


We're in the midst of another bout of bad sleep with him.  He yells and cries at all hours, and I feel braindead these days.  Last night he was up making noise past 11:00, and by 5:00 this morning he was crying out again.  I blearily went in, retucked his blanket, gave him a hug, and then went back to bed to watch my clock until the alarm went off.  When I had gotten myself ready and went to get the kids ready for church, I found this angelic scene and about wanted to kill him:


Note the broad daylight.


I wish I knew what to do to get the boy to sleep at night, not only for my own sake, but so he can revert to his happy, charming, self-controlled self--instead of being the one kid who throws rocks at suffering wildlife.




Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Making closure



Jason and I were enjoying a leisurely Saturday morning with nowhere to go when we received a pair of notes slipped under our door.






Sarcastic much?


We've decided to call off the endless saga of Ada's head lumps.  Though unwilling to make an official diagnosis, the last specialist we saw (the specialist one of all) did at last give us the name of a condition--one with an entry on RareDiseases.org, no less.


Subcutaneous granuloma annulare is a rare form of a condition you've never heard of.  Other forms cause rashy skin lesions, but this form apparently causes weird lumps that make every doctor in the state scratch their head, but will cause no harm and eventually go away on their own.


So we've trekked all over the place, reviewed waiting rooms all over the region, and racked up some more pretty medical bills to learn a fifty-cent word and decide to do nothing.


To be less cynical, we also performed due diligence to be reasonably sure our second child doesn't have a malignant tumor.


Which is a good way to spend time and money, if somewhat anticlimactic at the end.






Wednesday, February 3, 2016

The slipcover and the specialist



Princess Buttercup:  "We'll never survive [the Fire Swamp]."

Wesley:  "Nonsense.  You're only saying that because no one ever has."



To those who may have doubted my ability to slipcover a rocking chair, I say:  Nonsense.  You're only saying that because I never have done anything remotely similar.


Before:


(File photo.  The point is the green chair in the background, of which I forgot to take a picture before commencing makeover.)


After:






Ooooooooooh, aaaaaah.


I love it.  Technically it's not done because I want to add ties to the seat cushion so certain small children stop taking the seat off all the time (an improvement over the original design), but I broke my last sewing machine needle when I had 2 inches of stitching left.  And it has taken me a week and a half to get new needles, because of, you know, this:














Ada finally had her latest appointment regarding the unidentified lumps on her forehead.  This is basically how this process has worked:


Me:  Ada has weird lumps.


Pediatrician:  Gee, I don't know what that is.  See a specialist.


Me:  Ada has weird lumps.


Pediatric Ophthalmologist:  Put a hot compress on it.


Me:  Ada has more weird lumps.


Pediatrician:  Gee, I don't know what that is.  See a different specialist.


Me:  Ada has weird lumps.


Plastic Surgeon:  Gee, I don't know what that is.  See a specialist.


Me:  Ada has weird lumps.


Pediatric Craniofacial Plastic Surgeon:  Gee, I don't know what that is.  See a specialist.


And that's where we are now.


And at every visit, I ask, "Might this be something dangerous?"  And each doctor says, "Umm.....probably not."


Nothing like closure to give you peace of mind.


{By now I could've been halfway through medical school, and then I could pay myself to not know what the lumps are.}






On the plus side, Ada and I got a day on the town, the day off from school, and a delicious lunch out at Olive Garden.






Although there's nothing like home cooking.







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