Game Night is Back on Track!

Friday Game Night has been a little hit-and-miss of late; too many people had school or work or other real-life things interfering fairly regularly, and now we're down to one or two of our nine players who have conflicts. And also many of our FNG-ers prefer Mage to GURPS (those of us who don't - like me - don't care what we play so long as we play).

So we're rebooting in Old World of Darkness, in Detroyt. We have our usual eclectic mix of characters, which is what makes Mage so much fun. Mine is a Hollow One - a Mage without any specific Traditional framework in which to work - a college student who is usually a very quiet and subtle Mage. The one time she's overt about her magic, she gets caught by the Technocracy... and because she is not part of a Tradition, she has no advocates on her behalf. She's been tossed into the local asylum, as have most of the rest of the characters. And that's where this particular story starts.

Should be fun. We'll see how it goes.

In the Swim

Usually my mom takes Abby to her swimming lesson, and I stay home with Lizzy. Lizzy's a runner and can't be trusted near water unless she is one-on-one with an adult's full attention on her (as opposed to - say - watching her big sister's swimming lesson). We use Safe-n-Sound Swimming, which has a location in downtown Seattle and here in our school district as well.

They are great. Abby has a history of being a little timid in new physical situations (she's not at all timid in social ones however). Water was a big one - she would barely go deeper than her waist even walking, and putting her face in the water would have been unthinkable. After a year or so of weekly lessons with SnS, she's what I would call an "intermediate" swimmer; she's able to do three or four different strokes, a couple of different floats, stand on her hands in the water, and do water somersaults.

I hadn't realized when posting yesterday how much of my unease regarding her Brownie Scout retreat wasn't about her allergies at all; it was my lack of faith in her swimming ability. Well, now I see that lack of faith was unjustified. Abby's hard work, SnS's teaching, and assorted family members' support, I feel much more comfortable about her going with her troop to this water park resort this Saturday.

The new dolphin-shaped hot-pink swim goggles are a hoot too.

Random Post of Randomness #2

No particular topic, so this is going to be a fairly random post.

I am seriously tired today. Not really sure why, unless it is the wonder that is Spring (and tree pollen) in Seattle. It is in fact spring today. It hasn't been much here lately. Lots of rain, which usually has let up somewhat by May, romantic comedy movies notwithstanding.

I'm also a bit worried today. Abby is going with her Brownie troop to an end-of-year retreat at a water park / resort. This is a Big Deal, and I would never spoil it for her. But it's the first time she'll be further away from me than about five miles (overnight), except with family. Every-other-weekend at her dad's or overnights at nana's or my mom's don't worry me like this. Abby's a strong swimmer, is suspicious of any food offered her (a required skill for the severely-allergic), and groks Stranger Danger. It's not that I don't trust the chaperones implicitly either; they know how to use the epi-pen, have my contact info, all that. I trust them with her. But they are not me. I suspect that this is a mommy-thing and therefore logic does not come into it. Gosh dang it to heck.

She also earned a fair bit of Girl Scout Stuff and "Cookie Dough" (good toward purchases of Girl Scout Stuff) from the cookie sales pictured above. A plush kangaroo, Girl Power bandana and book-bag, and assorted patches. Then with the Cookie Dough we ordered her a I Heart Brownies t-shirt and a Girl Scout charm for her MedicAlert bracelet. Fun.

Lizzy's arm is clearly feeling better. She only frets about it when we have to bend it far enough to change her shirt for instance, or getting her into and out of the car seat straps.

Because hubby has class tonight after work, we girls are taking advantage of his absence and having a fairly carbariffic supper. Cheeseburgers, oven fries, and corn.

There you have it folks. The no-energy, no-topic Post of the Day. Come back tomorrow - maybe I'll have something more interesting for you!

For Crying Out Loud

The road to hell is paved... yeah, that kind of morning so far. The tree pollen count in Seattleish is moderate-to-high this week. Therefore, allergic-to-alder-and-ash Jenn took Benadryl last night.

And slept through the alarm and woke up at ten past eight.

Abby has to be at school no later than 8:35. We usually leave the house at 8:15. We had not eaten, showered (in my case) dressed, or brushed hair and teeth. So we dressed quickly (except Lizzy who was being at her obstructive-dawdling-preschooler best, so I just stuck shoes on her), brushed & brushed, and left the house at 8:20, with the intention of driving through McDonald's for an Egg McMuffin. Except that I had forgotten that I was very low on gas... so low that we might not have made it up the hill to school. Instead of McDonald's we stopped at the gas station.

Do you know how hard it is to find acceptable breakfast food for a anaphylactically-nut-allergic and somewhat picky 8yo at a gas station? We ended up with chocolate milk and a cream cheese Danish, which aside from the lack of produce isn't as bad as it could have been, I guess. I made Abby promise to get lots of food from the five-a-day salad bar at her school at lunchtime.

We're on our way up the hill to school and we're behind a school bus and then behind a garbage truck and I'm muttering to myself in the front seat, when Abby says, "Mom? What does 'for crying out loud' mean, anyway?" Hmm... I thought for a minute, and then said, "Okay, you know about the Bible, right?" (we're not churchgoers; we're what my Jewish brother-in-law and I agreed is "culturally Christian" in that we celebrate Christian (Protestant) holidays, but fairly secularly). She said,"Yeah, it's the book that talks about God and Jesus and the guys from the Prince of Egypt and Noah and all them, right?" Uh, indeed. "Well, one of the rules that Moses - the guy from the Prince of Egypt - brought to the Hebrews..." (Aside from Abby - "is that Hebrew like my name?" - yes it is, now hush) "... one of those rules is "not taking the name of the Lord in vain". That means you're supposed to say, "Gosh darn it" instead of, "God damn it" and you're supposed to say, "for crying out loud" instead of, "for Christ's sake". It's politer when you're talking about God".

She accepted this, got out of the car at the school (at 8:32, thank goodness), and went in. Lizzy and I drove home, discovering along the way via phone that a check I wrote to my mom for babysitting had bounced (gosh darn it!) because of another check (for crying out loud!) from wayyyyyy back that had cleared out of turn. (why can't people cash them when they get them? Checks from five months ago - I wrote this other one just after the first of the year - should not be clearing now... for crying out loud. And what's with the arbitrary decisions the credit unions make as to which overdrawn checks they will honor and which they won't? Mom will forgive me and I'll make it good and that's great, but there's no guilt like bouncing a check to your mother. But I digress.)

We got home. I went to get Lizzy out of the car. And discovered that in the confusion, Abby had left her school backpack in the back seat.

Oh, for crying out loud. Gosh dang it to heck.

Stay-at-Home Plan of Attack

Today after dropping Abby at school we took Lizzy to the pediatrician for her arm injury follow-up, to the drugstore for the Awesome Power of Children's Ibuprofen (doc said to make a Big Huge Deal of said Awesome Power to encourage her to use her arm, because it's 30% pain and 70% fear) and some melt-away diphenhydramine to pack in Abby's bag for her Brownie Scout trip this weekend, and home for lunch and job-hunting.

I got the good news while we were out that I have an interview scheduled - at a place I'm really interested in working - for Wednesday the 25th, and that a LinkedIn connection has referred me for three jobs at another place I'm interested in. So in spite of last week's slow-moving job listings, I'm feeling pretty up about things here and back in the life-organizing mood. The weekly Rx-strength Vitamin D probably didn't hurt any either - I take them on Mondays.

The house is a little bit of a wreck, due to job-hunting blues and the apparent inability of every adult in the house (including me) to Get Things Done when Lizzy does not nap during the day. At least more than the usual round of dishes and tidying. It's been one of those things where we were maintaining at "basically-tidy", but the mere thought of trying to actually organize more than the kids' room (which we've been keeping up pretty well since they got their new bed) makes everyone want to cry. And, being us, when it's time for people to come over (like for Friday Night Games, for instance), we clean the living spaces and close the door on the master bedroom.

My mom (Lizzy's sitter) is out of town and my husband (the Other Adult in our house) is in class after work for two weeks. So I'm playing Single Parent, which I have done before (with only one kid, but for two years) and can do again (phht - two weeks is nothing).

So the master bedroom has a few things that Do No Belong. Most notably flung tags from new clothing, used dryer sheets, and eight empty Girl Scout Cookie cases (yeah, those in the picture. Still on my bedroom floor). Few of my books are actually where they belong - they're on the shelves, but in no particular order. I hate that. And that's not even counting the other half of my books, in our storage unit, which I have not seen for a year and a half or so. It's making me crazy. So I got organized and this post is serving as my list to myself - it's the best way for me to Get Things Done - to make and maintain a bulleted list or two.

Bedroom:

• Sort the clean laundry into (three) separate baskets for folding
• Fold the laundry (one, two, three)
• Remove the Girl Scout Cookie Boxes
• Ditch the trash
• Organize the books
• Dust
• Vacuum

Other rooms:

• Usual maintenance stuff - cooking, dishes, tidying, dusting, garbage. Recruit older kids (my own plus Kiki) to help in exchange for Treasure Chest Picks
• Laundry (Lizzy can help for Treasure Chest Picks and color-sorting practice)
• Usual job-hunting stuff
• Using the freaking Wii Fit as more than just a scale!

When Mom is home from her vacation (assuming it ever stops raining):

• Go through storage and divide into groups of keep, sell/donate, ditch
• Rotate books and toys between storage and house
• Organize Lizzy's stuff (impossible to do with her here; she immediately wants to play with whatever I'm organizing)

The job I'm interviewing for on the 25th does not start until mid-June. If I get it, there will be three weeks of Gramma-home-but-Jenn-not-working to get some of this accomplished. Wish me luck.

Injuries as Drama

I think Miz Liz still has an achy elbow. She's using it although she is favoring it, and I saw the x-rays myself, so I know it's not still out of joint. But it still "huhts a little and I'm afwaid it will huht a lot". Tylenol and ice are our friends, and since we aren't going anywhere today I went ahead and left her in her jammies so we don't have to deal with taking off the pajama top. But oh the drama of it all. Abby's friend Kiki came over with another girl, and Lizzy felt she needed to explain the whole thing, to each of them, separately. "I huhted my ahm because I wan into the stweet and Leanna gwabbed me so I don't get hit by a cah and that huhted my ahm but Mama says it's bettah than getting hit by a cah."

Indeed it is.

At the moment, Lizzy is sitting cuddled up to me, with her left arm wrapped in a Blue Ice pack I got from my chiropractor a couple years ago (she had to be convinced that it was "weally ice", because it's not hard). We're watching the Backyardigans. If she weren't hurting she'd be jumping around like a maniac, trying to keep herself awake. But as I said above, the joint itself is no longer injured. I suspect several muscles or ligaments got pulled in the process of either dislocating it or reducing the dislocation. I have a call in to the consulting nurse at the hospital to see if lingering pain is normal. If it is, no worries. If not, I'll ask the nurse whether we need to go back to the E.R, or if going in to her pediatrician tomorrow is appropriate. Lizzy is not enjoying this booboo.

She is definitely enjoying the cachet of having had an injury however. This was not only bad enough to require ice, it necessitated a trip to the doctor, where they took pictures of the inside of her arm with "an x-way" and told her she was a brave girl and gave her a popsicle. She even got to talk to the ambulance dwivahs - "they dwive sick people who don't have mommies to dwive them to the hospital, you know".

I just hope the overall experience is enough to make her think twice about running into the road in future.

ETA: The consulting nurse agrees that this issue is many-fold - Lizzy is older than the last time this happened so she is not as "loose" and may be sore, and she recognizes the attention an injury gets her - and suggested fashioning a sling. This gives Lizzy a) physical support of the sore limb, and b) a visible "bandage" to satisfy her band-aids-as-body-art-three-year-old-ness. And we should switch from acetaminophen to ibuprofen, as the latter is an anti-inflammatory. Nurse said if Lizzy refuses to use it tomorrow or starts crying in pain (as opposed to whining with irritation as she has been all day) we should take her in to her pediatrician.

Now, what to do about the crick in my neck due to her glomming onto me all day...