Healthy (more or less) Lizzy

Lizzy's five-year-old well child check today.

Man, is she squirrelly when she's uncomfortable. And even worse than shots (jabs for my overseas readers - vaccines) is the Dreaded Otoscope. God forbid an adult should look in Lizzy's ear or her nose. She did surprisingly well on the vision test (her dad's vision is dreadful, and mine was before LASIK) with a score of 20/25 in both eyes. The doctor is pleased with her diet (Miz Liz will eat meatballs on her spaghetti, chicken with ranch dip, and bacon; other than that she is - in her own words - "kind of like half a vegetawian").

Now, we had this appointment at the neighborhood branch of our own clinic; our family doctor works at one further away and is not open on Saturdays. Turns out today was one of the two days a year our family doc works at the one nearest us and is open on Saturdays, , but we didn't know that until we got there; we saw a different doctor. Lizzy says she "sounds like Miss Dhunitha at my school - I'm in Montessowi pweschool you know". She's right; their accents are very similar. But Lizzy is generally healthy, has decent vision, and was pretty brave about her shots.

Of which she got four (flu, varicella, polio, and hepB), but now she's up to date and won't get anything but flu shots until she's ten. She was brave enough - especially considering how awful she was about the Dreaded Otoscope (I just noticed that I'm writing that the same way I write "F&^king Algebra, of which tis is my second-to-last week) - that she got one princess sticker for each shot, and one pick from the treasure chest for each shot. I suspect that even Lizzy is pretty done in as far as candy goes since Halloween, because she only chose one sweet; the rest are toys of the same sort we keep in our own treasure box.

So now she's lying on the couch watching the flu shot episode of Sid the Science Kid, and then I imagine she'll want to watch Blue Visits the Doctor. Looks like a tea-and-preschool-TV kind of day.

The Ghoul Wore Galoshes

Abby was a Zombie this year, but she wore hot pink leopard print rain boots. Apparently "bits of zombie fall off" if they get too wet. Good to know.

Undead Abby,
The Annoying Orange, and
Mona Lizzy the Vampire

Mona in her original incarnation

Greg's character costume

Lizzy went as Mona the Vampire. I have to say that I am ridiculously proud of the quick-release bow tie I made her. Standard ones from costume shops wrap around her little neck too many times and I could just see her strangling herself, so I made her one out of a red satin headband and a black velvet bow... it worked pretty well - just like the quick-release collar Tiger has.


We had most of the usual suspects and a couple new ones, in all different types. The Hubs is trained as a teacher, so he assigned them buddies as well as going with them, so Katniss Kiki and Wolfman Tris (the oldest two) kept an eye on Mona Lizzy and Captain Conner America (the youngest). The three medium sized kids (Abby the Undead, Greg the Annoying Orange and Trish the Princess) watched out for each other. Add three adults (the Hubs, the Orange's dad, and Wolfy & Cap's mom; my mom just had knee surgery so I stayed with her and answered the door to trick-or-treaters) and a good time was had by all.

Thursday Was... Difficult

My phone went kablooey (something wrong with either the battery or the charging port). I have new parts coming as it's under warranty, and a cheapo GoPhone in the meantime. I thought I'd give the GoPhone to Abby when I'm done with it, but I had forgotten that her father and I had discussed it and decided that she was too young, even for the "starter phone". Bad call on my part, and not very respectful of the other adult involved in the equation either; I didn't even consult him.

She's not all that careful with electronics. although she's better now than she used to be. We  replaced the DS Lite her dad got her (with the extended warranty he also bought, good idea, Dad) about a year and a half ago, although that was an issue with - you guessed it - the charging port.

Maybe we have a mini-USB problem.

Anyway, her dad and I will have another talk about the idea of a cell phone for her, and since this GoPhone is also completely cheap and doesn't have any of the cool features any self-respecting tween would want (like a camera, or a texting keyboard) and also no parental controls (because it's a prepaid), I think we'll keep it in the house as an emergency phone, the sort of thing we can keep always in the same place in case we need to dial 911.

God forbid.

And then - ANNND THEN - I had to take Lil' Lizzy in for a filling. At five years old. With a half-dozen more to do, because apparently drinking juice right before bed is the same thing as drinking juice in bed; it's seriously bad for the teeth. Lizzy - being Lizzy - is a fidgeter. And a... well, it was somewhere between screaming and whimpering. And then Lizzy - being Lizzy - was absolutely fine and maybe even a little more jumpy than usual (do they put epinephrine in novocaine for babies?) the second she was out of the chair. Apparently her rewards of a blue toothbrush and a Halloween pencil made it all worthwhile.

They want to send her to a pediatric dentist who can knock her out and do the other six all at once. Scary for Mama.

Anyway, not a bad day. Just difficult.

Almost Done

The school I'm in has gotten some bad press lately, because they're closing several on-the-ground campuses, although the only way this should affect online students such as myself is in losing live tutoring services. I feel bad for those who will have to either go online when they're used to on-the-ground, or commute to a further campus. But times are hard for for-profit schools too, and not everyone learns well online. We all have our learning quirks.

But I just got off the phone with my academic counselor, and I feel great. As soon as my current class is over (three more weeks!) I am Done With F&^king Algebra Forever, and back to classes that mean something to me, both in the academic and affectionate senses.

Next up is Communication Variety: the Spice of Life. I'm back to two classes (since F&^king Algebra will be done) and the other is Information Strategies: Putting 2 and 2 Together (and no, it's not math, and even if it was, arithmetic I can handle).

After those and two more, I will have an Associate of Arts in Communications.

And then I start on a Bachelor of Science in Cultural Communications.

Now I was able to transfer 15 credits from the Long Ago toward my AA. I have 33 credits from back then to transfer toward my BS. That's a lot of credits. And it covers all my electives, which is lovely except that any other classes I want to take I will have to take separately. I wouldn't mind a creative writing class for instance, but  it won't be part of this degree; I used up all my electives in the late 1980s with things like Spanish and Signing Exact English and other classes that count as Humanities.

Assuming no breaks in schooling, I will receive a Bachelor of Science for my 46th birthday.

Wow.

Weird Little Phrases



The woman from whom
these are learned.

 I'm not talking about the potentially offensive ones here, but those pithy little phrases one hears from people in the generation up from one's own.

Today I was reminded of this because I just received an email from my mother - who is watching my kids in spite of having had knee surgery four days ago, go Mom! - and she said Lizzy was "covered in sand from ass to appetite".

I want to know exactly how far that is. What's the etymology? Does it mean literally from the child's backside to her mouth (or did it start out that way and has evolved)?

I wonder whether I have any phrases that my kids think are really strange.

It's similar to another one I've heard her use - "raining like a cow pissing on a flat rock". Now that's evocative (if yucky) of a mental picture - the splashy kind of rain.

Certainly more so than "raining cats and dogs".

I'm at work and I can't go searching for stuff like that from here; even if I had the time to do more than bang out a blog post on a break, I shudder to imagine the kinds of search results I would get with words like ass and pissing in my search terms. From work.

The last time I did that, it was at Atari (or maybe it was Infogrames at the time), searching for one of our own Duke Nuk'em games by subtitle. Yeah, "Land of the Babes"... not a great search term from work.

Besides, I try to keep this blog basically PG-rated.

Thursdays

I find Thursdays to be a bit trying. I think that it's because Wednesday I go in for my math tutoring session, and my brain is fried from twisting into unnatural (for me) configurations (this is where I want proper smileys in Blogger). Not to mention the driving-all-over-town part of it.

And this Thursday is especially so. My mom is having knee surgery. Now, she hurt her knee um... 29 years ago? Something like that, and she had surgery at the time and I remember one point when all three of us - me, Mom, and Sis - were on crutches at the same time that spring. Mom had torn stuff skiing, I had pulled a bunch of ligaments and tendons ditto, and Sis had broken her leg on a wet playground slide.

But I digress.

Anyway, mom's having surgery today - one of her BFFs (my Fairy Godmother, aka "Auntie S" in this blog) took her in, and it's not even at the hospital; it's an outpatient thing. No real reason to fret, right?

But there's no news yet. And it's making me crazy.

And Lil' Lizzy is at the dentist with her dad, which also makes me crazy, because even though I know he's perfectly capable (if not exactly eager) to take her in, he's not me. If she does in fact have a cavity - and it sure looks like it to me and my mom and Miss Abby - she will want her mommy, no matter how cool Daddy is or how much SCIENCE he does with her.

Yeah, so this post is kind of rambling, but hey, that's what it's for, right? To "write things out".

Edited (3:30PM) to add: Heard from Mom, who texted me from the car (her friend is driving of course) to let me know she's fine and they're on their way home. Have not yet heard from The Hubs about Lizzy's Teeth of Doom.

Edited (3:50PM) to add: Poor baby has a number of cavities (seven, all on surfaces where it's a flossing issue), apparently. She's too young to just pull baby teeth. Our juice bill will go down though, I guess.