Saturday, November 15, 2008

Random Updates

So, what's up chez-nous? I have to stop whatever I'm doing on a regular basis because Gigio is threatening to cut out Thing 2's "Freakin' Chord" or some such thing. That turned out to be his vocal chords.

We had a little puppy love over Halloween I never wrote about. Thing 2 got it into his head that we needed to make cookies to take to a little neighbor girl. He pestered me and pestered me. he drew her the cutest picture of a jack-o-lantern. He had me help him write a message. We made the cookies. We had to drop them off on her porch and run. Enigma asked him if he liked this girl. He barely acknowledged she was speaking to him. So, later she asked Thing 1 instead, if Thing 2 liked this girl. He said, "Yeah, a lot!" But once he got the goodies delivered, he forgot all about her.

Next, I couldn't stand the darkness I live in any longer. The last straw was that "someone" broke the new fluorescent light bulb downstairs that only took like 2 years to replace. I have a pile of stuff from the office to go through in there and it gets dark before I get my kids through homework, and I can't wait till next summer to see the pile and sort it out. So I purchased a lamp set. How long do you bet this will last?
I know, not long but I was desperate. Then I realized there were no light bulbs. Off I went to get some. So, the next day Papi wore himself out putting in new light fixtures on the family room ceiling and replacing all the bulbs in the house with brighter ones. I'm glad he did that, but it would have been nice a day earlier. While I was at the store I got one of these for our cold floor. Any bets on how long this will last? (the rug, not the game!)
The next item to bet on it's demise is this: No, no, no! NOT the boy, the hearing aid on the red headband! We have a loaner for a month. The BAHA, or Bone Assisted Hearing Aid. Gigio has already knocked it off Carino's head with a football. In the car. Is it abusive to threaten to send them to a labor camp till they earn $5000 if any of them destroy it? We made a black cover for the band because he feels so self conscious. It does take a while to get used to, but he thinks it is cool to hear on that side of his head. We are trying to treat it with utmost care.

On to other things bizarre, we have a Spanish radio station on our phones now and the upstairs toilet was whining. It was creepy. At first I thought I was losing it, but it did it every time I flushed. It kinda sounded like a dying squeaky toy or a trapped ghost like moaning Myrtle. Papi fixed it by doing something to a tube. I was glad we didn't need an exorcist. The DVD player's sensor is dead so it doesn't pick up signals from the remote. Too bad we found that out after getting a universal remote and a replacement of the original. The most annoying thing about this is we can't set the clock, so it just flashes 12:00 incessantly. We also found pieces for a magnetic set of battleship in the bed one night. I tried to stick the hit and miss pieces on so we could play a game but I'm not magnetic. :( Then we found a pin in the bed too. Ever since I broke down and sewed a little around Halloween, the pins have been popping up all over the place. This is where I draw the line. Leave me a chocolate bar on my bedspread, but don't leave pins poking up from under the sheet. Same thing with all the staples. They are proliferating everywhere except in the stapler. Someone stabbed a little pocket knife into one of our van seats, too. I don't know what the fixation with sharp objects is all about, but, It is GOING TO STOP! YA HEAR?

We have seen two episodes of Exiled, right online. The kids loved them too! One of my boys (who has been doing slave labor/extra chores all week to pay for some kleptomaniac episodes) said he wanted to go live in the jungles of Panama to work like they do. Next time I asked him to do the dishes, he freaked out. I asked why it was a big deal, after all, he wanted to go do hard work in the jungle and he said he didn't want to do American work. Okey Dokey then! I don't know if we have cured his penchant for pilfering, but he did decide it was kind of fun to learn to work hard all day. He'll at least be a hard working criminal someday so that's progress, right? And in case you were wondering, it is at least as time consuming to make sure your kid doesn't get lost on the way to the bathroom he needs to clean as it is to clean it yourself.

It's that book report time of the year again and so I'm busy helping the resident dyslexics and one very off task boy follow through. Besides that, I've been reading Hiroshima while waiting between assignments at work so as to screen it before letting the 5th grader read it, as well as Number the Stars by Lois Lowry out loud to the kids for part of book report options. I think Lois Lowry rocks, people! If I ever grew up to be a writer, I would say she influenced my work. But I won't. I'm hoping one of the boys will get assigned a Sci Fi book next report so we can read the rest of my brother Ben's manuscript that we strayed from when the historical fictions came up.

It's college recruiting time for seniors, and now, in a bizarre twist of fates, my Enigmatic one has decided to go to college. She'd been encouraged to go to business school along with beauty school but stubbornly refused. Now she is very interested in going to Utah State when she gets done with all the cosmetology stuff. So she is feverishly backtracking and taking the ACT at the last minute and wishing she had taken more college prep classes. The reverse psychology stuff worked and now we have an example for the other 4 of why maybe, just in case, they might want to go ahead and do those things all along. She is looking at a few other schools too just to keep her options open. Of course, we can't afford any options and she needs to be every bit as excited about pounding the pavement for a job if she hopes to go anywhere. That's phase 2 of the operation, I guess. She also found out the army won't take her while she's on her meds. Like she cared. Now if we can just put the fear of being drafted into her maybe she'll stay on them when she's on her own!

Oh, and I decided not to wait 6 months to start doing those self breast exams. I had to go back in for a repeat mammogram because they saw something. This is what they do to people who say they're no big deal so they can smash those plates together completely from every angle known to man and teach you the real meaning of pain. But, I'm fine, that's the important thing. I have a big O shaped bruise somewhere on my upper torso, but no nasty things that don't belong in there. But in the whole 5 minutes of time I had to think about it, on the way back for the repeat test, I figured if on the off chance there was something there I would have wished I were more diligent. So, I'm wishing I'm more diligent. I mean, I'm not letting this slip by ever again! You shouldn't either!

Remember Coleman, the little boy I have fallen in love with, the brain tumor boy with the bunny foo foo? He was accepted in a program but they couldn't get a handle on the tumors so he's out of that treatment option. There is a new treatment that is supposed to basically strangle the blood supply to the tumors that he has just started. Last I heard he was throwing up :( He is so brave, it's just not fair :( :( I hope there are better cures/treatments soon. Right now Mimi is doing a project for his family. I think if you click on the 4 the kids link on the top of my sidebar, you can find out all about it! Or better yet, click on this post on Michelle's blog, where it actually is instead. I have the perfect plan for it, but I don't know if I can do it in time :(

Time, for some strange reason, just seems to be running away without letting me get anything done. Can't imagine why. I have no control over time, space, or things in it. I just have issues. I'm trying to land back on planet Earth sometime soon. Right now I feel like I'm running on ice. If that is stuck in your head now, you're welcome.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

That manuscript would fall into the fantasy category, not SF, by the way... :)

Pancake said...

WOW, busy!

Hey, isnt there some sort of insurance you can take out on the hearing aid????

4boyzmdmom said...

I have Number the Stars. I like Lois Lowry books also! Hiroshima...wow, a little heavy (subject matter) for a 5th grader! That book frightened me the first time I read it. (Maybe I was in 5th grade myself at the time.) But it's good. One of those "makes you think" books.

RAQ said...

You will write a book some day--it just won't be fiction! Your life and how you share it is very entertaining!

Karen said...

YEAH! for the hearing aid! I love that he's loving it, and hope that it doesn't get broken.

Any chance you could return the lamp set since there are now lights in the house?