Life's been good to me so far

Last night I took a lot of care to make Grant a food/drink bag to take to work. Note: this is not a standard thing, as 1.) he works from home 3/5 days each week, 2.) he likes to go out to lunch, and 3.) he does half the shopping and cooking and would be as likely as me to pack stuff if he wanted stuff packed. But he wanted some leftovers and went to bed too tired to put it together. He's gone ALL DAY when he goes in, since the commute is so intense.

Anyway, I was smiling as I packaged him up a container of chili with a tiny tupperware of shredded cheddar, a ziploc of crackers, and a tiny tupperware of cream cheese to go on them, since this is how we garnish chili around here. Then a container of kale and bean soup, with an extra side tiny tupperware of parmesan cheese. Spoon, butter knife. Found and filled up his water bottle and put it all in the bag in the fridge.

It was very satisfying this morning when he texted that he'd been forced to smile against his will at an ungodly morning hour when he saw it all, and accused me of grin-rape <3

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I started seeing a new doctor today, because the levels of disorganization at my old doctor reached new heights. They don't answer the phone or return calls (ever - I always end up just driving over after several days' efforts to reach them), they don't even return faxes from the pharmacy when I need a refill on my B-12 vials. They don't draw blood in the office and TWICE now they've told me they sent in an order for me to have blood drawn and then when I get to the lab, sign in and wait to be called, I find out they actually forgot to send the order. So I just have to leave. Worst of all, especially with reference to all these other things I'm describing, they are only open for a few hours 3 times a week since their old office had a fire a year ago. They've been sharing space with another office ever since and I was trying to hang in there for them, but man. It's a shit show. Totally representative of the whole place that the empty water cooler has had a paper sign taped on for months that says, "Please buy water!"

Anyway, this new place is (of course) half an hour up the road, but anytime I leave town for any kind of medical care, it's a revelation and I'm glad I did. When I got to this new place today, they had a personalized stack of forms waiting for me that had been printed already including all the info I gave them over the phone when I made the appointment. Can you imagine? They also drew blood right there in the office, which was generally much nicer, more spacious, and full of friendly people acting like I was a human being.

I really don't love giving new people my medical history because the shock value is too high and they always go on and on about it. However, the doctor today was a former OR nurse and actually cried and apologized on behalf of the medical establishment, for my retained surgical instrument. Simultaneously kinda ridiculous and kinda amazing.

It's good that things can be efficient. I was really clinging to the old doc being half a mile from my house (we have to get on the highway for SO MANY THINGS already) but it's clear this will actually save me time and energy, backwards as that might be.

Tangent: It was getting seriously old with the other doctor, feeling I was hassling them and getting so many suspicious looks and questions from the office staff every time I was "back about the shots again." Seriously, who the fuck has a B-12 problem? It's not exactly a controlled substance. Over and over the secretaries acted like I wanted it for weight loss, asked if it was helping me lose weight, etc, and over and over I had to explain that I have a diagnosed malabsorption condition and need it for basic functioning/survival. UGH.

Sometimes it's still wild to me that I have this chronic condition and need these shots forever, and yet I could easily just stop going to get them. Nobody's gonna make me - nobody official is keeping track of whether I do or don't. Quite the opposite; I often have to fight through red tape for them. The gastroenterologist who diagnosed me acts outraged every time I express any of this to him and offers to fax my lab results to more places, but it's not like he does continuing/follow-up care himself.

Maaaaan I really needed a weekend to hurry up and happen, so, hurray for that.

We still have all kinds of crap to do on weekends, but none of it is the most tedious or draining stuff that I do, and Grant is around double-teaming the cooking and childcare (or the two of us are off on our own).

Biggest tedious/draining weekday things, lately:

-painstakingly sounding words out with Elise, and reminding her a million times of a handful of little phonics rules; her language arts work is mainly in Kumon books of rhyming words and phrases that group things by consonant blend, right now (we sometimes also use Abeka's "handbook for reading" and Starfall's 1st grade curriculum, and supplement with BrainQuest, as well as snail's pacing our way through little leveled readers together...). It takes about an hour to get through three short Kumon pages with just a few 4-6 letter words each, because I make her actually do it - she wants to just trace and copy without knowing what she's writing, or guess that the word is what the picture seems to show and move along with the wrong assumption. Then, when Grant gets home, she spends 10 minutes trying to tell him all the words, with a little bit of coaching. At the end of which he generally stares at me aghast and thanks me for being patient :p Which is actually REALLY VALIDATING and helpful because the other kids certainly do not appreciate me being completely absorbed with her for half the afternoon (when I count in other subjects and conversations with her). I'm not sure at this point whether this is more frustrating when we sit at a table together with nothing else going on, or when it's an ongoing part of my cooking in the kitchen and she has a chair in there. THANK GOD she really loves schoolwork and WANTS to do it, and gets really excited about her own little leaps :) She did have a very noticeable "leap" this week, too, which is nice and gives me some hope. She actually told me the three things she was SO EXCITED about were her Girl Scout zoo sleepover this weekend, her birthday coming up, and learning to read. Be still my heart! Even if I am gouging my own eyes out at the end of each teaching session.

-reminding/keeping on top of Aaron about his schoolwork... Ugh. He's so sensitive, and absent minded, and easily distracted, and smart, and frustrated with himself. He, also, has had a little "leap" - he did a big amount of bedroom cleaning in about 30 minutes mainly just because he wanted to, this afternoon, and has been taking showers without me badgering him the past few weeks. And he IS actually doing a math assignment and reading a chapter/writing about what he's been reading every day, for the past 3 weeks, so. We're getting somewhere. But it's not where we need to be. It often takes all day long and way too much stress. It's reasonable and plausible to expect him to catch up when he doesn't do what he's supposed to do, this year, rather than just losing that slack time and falling behind. But he's still a little behind (in math only) because of how far behind he fell the couple of previous years. I THINK we'll be able to get him to grade level in math by the beginning of the next school year. Grade level actually starts to matter in a big way once a home schooled kid hits high school age because if you want a diploma rather than a GED you have to have transcripts that show all requirements ticked off. Up to that point, it's something most parents value that they can be doing 11th grade science, college level reading and 5th grade math if that's where they're at when they're 10 or whatever. Aaron's in 7th now. And fwiw I totally cannot tell whether the caffeine is having any real affect.

-phone calls. HOLY SHIT THE PHONE CALLS. This week I've had to call their dentist's office, Nissan 3 times about our van and rental, I've spent an hour and a half total on hold with Miami Children's Hospital about Elise's neuro eval, we have this ongoing dispute with the dept of solid waste management about a trash pile left by and collected for the previous owners of our house, Isaac's teacher, the arts charter A&A are auditioning for, the disability office at FIU, it. never. ends. While I was in Jacksonville last weekend I managed to lose my credit card and managed to spend over an hour on the phone with Capital One. I'm just so done with the fucking Responsible Adult phone time.

-Jake and his bedtime woes. I send him back/make him actually get into (rather than playing next to) his bed a million times every freaking night. He still continuously acts surprised that he's expected to ever sleep. He gets RIDICULOUSLY emotional. On Friday and Saturday night we let whoever wants to sleep in the tv room with a movie, so we don't deal with any of that. And that also takes the place of their before-bed reading, which is not really a tedious thing for me but just takes a long time.


Some good "weekend" things, this weekend:

-wine and Netflix marathon, Friday night.
-Starbucks, in a leisurely, just Grant and I way, Saturday afternoon.
-G and I went and saw the Grand Budapest Hotel last night :) With contraband Ben and Jerry's. It drug a little here and there, but I also laughed out loud a bunch of times. I wasn't huge on Moonrise Kingdom, but in general I ♥ Wes Anderson.
-wandering around the farmer's market with Elise this morning, while Annie was at a dress rehearsal. We picked Elise up from a zoo sleepover her Girl Scout troop just did and she was SO HAPPY (relief - I was afraid I'd be headed up there in the middle of the night or something when she freaked. But she had a great time. We even called Oma to tell her all about it). I'm really happy with that market, you can get a bunch of rainbow chard, some leeks and a sack of purple heirloom green beans for $9. Or, a whole fresh pizza you watch the guy make from dough in a portable brick oven, for $9. It's not too bad. There is an actual french baker with amazing stuff, and Grant is becoming addicted to the sausage. He brought me edible flowers to cook one week :) But I think we have yet to even hit $30 total spent in a trip. It's like some kind of revelation, I'd previously only been to markets like this in other states. Still not quiiiiite Silver Spring level, but I'll take it.
-being home with just Aaron (who is really REALLY chill when the house is quiet and calm) and Elise, for most of today, while Grant totes Annie to her things and hangs out with Isaac and Jake. They have a Sunday afternoon Life (board game) ritual. I took a nap. I talked to my sister on the phone for an hour and a half (<---not the terrible kind of phone call). *good sigh*


The coming week is going to be loaded with all manner of horseshit. A&A only have a week to get their audition materials ready (for TWO arts areas each), and we're a week and a half away from PATH's "Mythologically Speaking" event so that's planning, costumes, verbiage, and memorizing. Jake and Elise need a lot of help with their characters, even though we keep their bits simple. Annie also has a lot of practicing to do, if she's going to be ready for the mentoring showcase next Sunday, and that's something I have to push her to do. She's going to need a schedule of extra home practicing, or else it will all seem overwhelming and cause her to just freeze. I'm meeting with Isaac's teacher. Isaac also needs a birthday present for his best friend Andrew's birthday party. They're all going in for dental cleanings and checkups Friday afternoon. Aaron has earned a trip to the Aviary, that I am not excited about but will be pleasant for :p We also REALLY have to unload the rest of these @&#*(^$!* Girl Scout cookies. blah Blah BLAH, basically.


...I just realized I never went and got my shot last week. What the heck. I carry the injectables around in my purse and refer to them as my arc reactor, because I still can't believe I'm really back to normal - HOW could I forget that?