conversations with invisible pigs and sheep

by reading him Goodnight Gorilla. You can see the little gears going inside his head. He opened up the book when we we done, and kept asking what different items were in the pictures. He took the book to bed with him, and didn’t ask for another story.

This is the best part for me. He has just started liking having books read, and he has four in the bedtime rotation. But he wants ALL FOUR read to him. And he wants to point at things and name them. It’s a fight to get him to agree on what the first story will be, and then to stop after two. And then he doesn’t want to be sung to either.

I let Jim sleep in, although the text message I got about school being closed woke me at 5.30 and I couldn’t get back to sleep.

With rain in the forecast, we got out early. The boys played in the grass while I finished the shoveling.

It’s been movies and snacks all morning. I just finished up some valentines for Jim to make for his classmates (if you can’t find Pokemon Valentines, you make them!)

Jim complained of a toothache this morning where he was getting out of bed, and we discovered that one of his teeth is loose!

I picked up some kind of stomach bug on Monday. Just boom, after lunch I was down and out for the rest of the day. Then Dad came home sick Tuesday. My belly was better by then, but I was still tired. Took until yesterday to get back to normal.

The short week is messing me up. Not enough days in the week to get stuff done. Jim has got a BUNCH of homework to do this afternoon and karate after that. Don’t know what his teacher was thinking assigning a craft project this week. They had PTA last night too, athough we missed it because Jim had therapy.

Luckily, last night was the last Wednesday night of therapy. We got a new slot at 4pm on Thursdays. It will make Thursdays hard — no time for homework, and we’ll most likely have to eat out between therapy and karate. We’re at a location that is nearer to us, although the time to get there is the same. But karate is in between here and there, so it works. We’ll just have to finish up his weekly phonics project on Wednesdays, instead.

I’ve been trying to limit our errand days to one a week. A cleaning emergency sent Colin and I out right after putting Jim on the bus. But we got all the errands done and were home again by ten-thirty. Now I’m trying to get caught up on organizing the kitchen and figure out what we’re going to eat the rest of the week.

With being out three nights a week and Dad at school two nights a week, I have that I’m back to slacking on dinners. I’m trying to be better organized, and the best way to organize dinner to to plan it out for the week. So here it is:

Monday: Pork Chops and rice pilaf (JoC*), mixed veggies.
Tuesday: Pasta Fagiole and Bread Machine Rolls.
Wednesday: Ravioli and leftover rolls.
Thursday: Mac n Cheese and turkey dogs.
Friday: Chicken cutlets, mashed potatoes.
Saturday: Homemade pizza.
Sunday: Tacos, enchiladas, and Spanish Rice.

*Joy of Cooking recipe

My other attempt at organization is to finish setting up a mini-office in the dining room. I added the leaves to the table and pushed it against the window. The printer is hooked up, along with a power supply for the laptop. Now I’ve got file folders for dealing with the mail, and notebooks for bill paying and web work.

Year Zero:

Year Two:

Year Three:

make a note of “garveyconnelly dot com” — in case this site becomes unavailable in the next two weeks, go there instead.

Yesterday Jim came home with seven “tests” from school for me to sign. This is normal, the teacher keeps them for her files. They were all 100’s, both reading and math. He says they were all from this week, so maybe vacation did him some good.

We found out last night that we didn’t get the better slot for OT. So we’ll continue to slog through being out of the house three night a week. At least the two late night are when Don has school, so he won’t be missing them that much. But last night he was home early enough so that Colin could stay home with him, and I was reminded how nice it was. I got to sit for an hour in relative quiet. And I didn’t have to worry about him falling asleep in the car. But it is what it is, and we’ll get by.

It took until yesterday to get back to a nearly even keel. Colin is back to sleeping through the night, after torturing me all through the holidays by waking up screaming in the middle of the night. He even ended up sleeping with us a few nights, and one night we both slept on the couch. That was probably the best night sleep we both got.

Jim was adequately prepared to go back to school today, and handled it well. Although he didn’t want to eat breakfast. But I got him to get dressed before going downstairs, and that is a huge timesaver.

We’re dreading the extra-curriculars this week. Jim’s got an hour and a half of occupational therapy to make up for missing last week’s, and the half hour we have to make up from the night of his Christmas play. Karate starts back up again, and then there’s the regular OT session Wednesday night. Not to mention getting both cars serviced this week.

We were seriously considering dropping karate, or (my preference) trying to get a private Friday session instead, because of the toll of being out of the house three night a week. Unfortunately, the alternate Saturday time that karate offers is the same time as Jim’s social skills class. But the OT called me to schedule what ended up being today’s session, and said that there’s a huge chance that we’ll get a 4:00 Tuesday slot in the location that is closer to us. It would end a half-hour before karate, which is plenty of time to get there and get changed. It would make Tuesday harder in regards to getting homework done, but give us another night home.

Colin is having a blast running around playing with toys with Jim’s interference. And enough of the dirty clothes pile that was threatened to take over my room has been washed so that I can see the floor again.

I’m trying something new, and now I have a mini office set up in the dining room. The table is pushed against the window, leaving room for the trampoline (Colin thinks it’s a good seat). This all came about because my inkjet printer upstairs died, which I used as a remote printer for the laptop. I was using the one in Dad’s office, but annoying him and Jim by stealing the cable and not re-connecting it. (Because of old Mac v. Windows problems, I couldn’t print through the network). Then I brought up the spare inkjet, but it had no place in the kitchen to go. So this is working, and will help because I’ve volunteered to re-do the website for Jim’s school (yikes!).