What There's Time For

A Whimsical Investment

Our beloved lion has made it through yet another move. I've always thought of him as a silly splurge, but reflecting on it today (as we checked him over and patted him hello as he came off the truck) I realized he deserves more respect than that.

For five years now, he's faithfully provided smiles and fond reminders of our past adventures, asking only the occasional dusting in return. We love him dearly and he was not a silly splurge at all.

Homeward Bound

We are almost home after quite the week of travel and weather!

I missed the earthquake since I was driving on the highway at the time; it took me hours to remember that I'd felt like I might be getting a flat tire for a minute or so.

We had a great trip and enjoyed my cousin's lovely wedding, backdropped by a stunning Maine lake near sunset. The children loved the lake and I loved that none of them drowned, though several of them tried pretty hard.

Our trek home has been smooth, although we delayed our start a half day to wait out most of the hurricane's rain. We still had some moments, with gusting winds and small debris all over the roads, when I worried I'd been under-cautious. And then, once we finally stumbled into a hotel near midnight, both kids were howling like offended monkeys instead of laying their exhausted heads down and snoozing.

I got sucked into a wrestling match with Mr. Pants, which only made him howl even louder (what was I thinking??) and Shmoogie woke me and MarMar three times as we finally dozed off, but whatever.

We're almost home, unaccompanied by stolen towels. ;)

Belated Blogiversary!

Friends, Saturday marked a happy and surprising two years since my first blog post! Mr. Right and I celebrated with a glass of wine after a day of moving boxes.

I will be both initially unpacking and taking another potentially ill-advised mammoth road trip with the kids this week, so posts from me will be of the short, infrequent variety.

Help me and your fellow readers fill the void by leaving a comment here with something interesting!

I absolutely love hearing from you and the blogiversary is the one time a year I feel I can beg for comments. :) So, though I have no prize to offer, I'd love to know where you're coming from, or why you've stopped by What There's Time For today (even if it's the first time!). You'll especially cheer me if you mention your favorite post(s) of the year! And feel free to link to fun/edifying external stuff or your own blog so we can share something new in these last days of the summer doldrums. :)

(The picture is apropos of nothing, just a happy find at the Goodwill this morning. I figured it's about time I get on the thrifting bandwagon and went "just to look." Couldn't pass up this lovely little platter and the matching bowl, though. I am a sucker for blue on white...)

Blocking

I'm wondering how many days this will take to dry. But then I can measure for the front zipper. And then I can put in the zipper. And then I can wear it! Maybe even next weekend?

There's a Good Reason We Had Pancakes for Dinner, Again

As we were walking towards the emergency room door, Mr. Pants was quite chatty, "Do you think hospitals are fun?" he asked, then answered his own question, "I think the hospital is going to be fun for me and for you, but not very fun for Shmoogie."

He figured out pretty quickly that hospitals are not much fun for anyone, even though he was — my gratitude knows no bounds! — rescued from the predicament by a brand new neighbor pretty quickly.

Mr. Pants thought the hospital was fun when:

• we first arrived — "This is a really BIG building!"
• he was allowed to play "hide and seek" behind the room door
• he got to "help" take the x-rays (because that kept him behind the lead wall)
• a therapy dog happened to stop by our room
• he got to go home with his friends

Mr. Pants thought the hospital was not fun when:

• he was required to stay within sight of his mother while waiting to be called into triage
• he was not allowed to play with all of his matchbox cars right in front of the entrance to the triage area
• he was forced to share crayons with his injured sister
• he was not allowed to play with the many fascinating things in the many fascinating drawers of medical supplies lining the room
• he was forced to leave his matchbox cars for his sister to play with upon his departure

Shmoogie thought the hospital was not fun when:

• I had to take off her clothes
• I tried to put on her gown
• I tried to put a blanket over her, after she refused the gown
• she had her vital signs taken
• she got an x-ray
• she was not allowed to eat
• her brother left with a gang of friends and she did not

Shmoogie thought the hospital was fun when:

• hallway passers-by smiled at her when she chirped, "Hi!  Hi!  Hi!" at them
• she got to play "hide and seek" behind the room door with her brother
• she realized she had unlimited access to the bag of matchbox cars her brother had been compelled to leave behind
• she got to play with Mommy's keys
• she got to draw a picture
• she got a cookie on the way out

Mommy thought the hospital was fun when:

• just kidding.  I've got nothing.  I mean, it was kind of ok when I got to eat gravied meatloaf and mac and cheese for lunch (while trying to keep Shmoogie from noticing).  And it was kind of nice that the nurse stayed with her for a minute while I visited the restroom.  And I thought I might cry of relief when the friend I just barely met showed up to take Mr. Pants away.  But "fun"... none of those things really rose to the level of "fun".

***

Shmoogie is, according to everything these things are judged by, fine.  Fine enough that they didn't even do any kind of head scan (the x-ray was for the leg she was slightly limping on), which I really kind of figured they would after I explained how she'd been buckled into the childseat of the grocery cart when her brother decided to climb up the side of the grocery cart, which tipped the grocery cart SMACK over on the floor, which slammed the side of Shmoogie's head* SMACK into the floor.

It was a scene.  Shmoogie cried forever.  The grocery store people fell over themselves trying to help.  I felt like a nuisance.  They continued to fall over themselves trying to help.  I felt like they probably wanted to get the screaming baby out of their store.  They followed me out of the store and continued offering cookies, cold water, lollipops, frozen peas...  I assured them we would still shop there for groceries but that we were probably going to go see the doctor first.  The nice lady said, "Before you go, I'm just gonna go get my manager..." and then I thought, Ah!  I forgot!  In America, you can sue people!  I don't feel so bad about the ruined peas now!

The manager was also very nice.  I'm not going to sue (although I will say that Mr. Pants frequently stands on the sides of carts at other establishments with no problems).  But I am going to take the backpack to the store from now on.

*Really, it was the side of her face — the cheekbone and that raised bit on the side of the forehead — and the doctor tells me that trauma to that part of the head is least likely to cause concussions.

By Jigger! It's… Chiggers?

Last Tuesday, Mr. Pants saw the doctor for his pre-school checkup.  He had three shots, including Chicken Pox, and we went on our merry way (his way got much merrier when he was promised a treat at the grocery store).

Wednesday night, he started scratching his elbows and complaining that he itched.  All I could see were some perplexing little white dots.  Thinking it would at least be a useful placebo, I put the anti-itch stuff on them and he eventually went to sleep.

Thursday, he was scratching.

By Friday night, he was scratching and complaining miserably and the few little white dots had become a patch of countless tiny red bumps all over his elbows and knees, and a few trailing down to his wrists.

On Saturday, we went back to the doctor.

"I know it's too early for it to be from the Chicken Pox vaccine," I said (the nurse had said a rash was rare, but might turn up two weeks after the shot), "But that's the only thing I can think of, except for maybe chiggers?"  (We'd heard there are chiggers here, but I have no personal experience with them.)

As far as a reaction to the vaccine, the doctor said it would be "unusual" but "there are no certainties in medicine," or something like that.

As far as chiggers, he shook his head, dismissing the idea entirely, "Not chiggers; they would go for the underwear line.  And there's too many of them."  Meaning the bumps.  Too many bumps to be chiggers.

Doctor declared it was most likely a strange presentation of Hand Foot and Mouth disease (strange presentation because it shouldn't be itchy and the rash should be… on the hands, feet, and mouth), and for the itch prescribed either Benadryl or Zyrtec because, "The downside of Benadryl is it can make him sleepy."

I looked at the doctor consideringly and said cautiously, "Sleepy sounds… good."

(Thankfully, we've never tried Benadryl for plane trips because while it "may cause drowsiness" it also "may cause excitability, especially in children".  Guess which one we got?  But he has to have the Benadryl to sleep at all, because the itch is so bad.  I had to wash the sheets yesterday because they were all spotty with blood.  Basically, we give him the Benadryl and then he flails around and generally drives us crazy for an hour or so, until he conks out upside down in the bed or wherever he happened to end up.)

So, for about 24 hours, we waited and hoped this would be a mild case of Hand Foot Mouth and that no one else would get it (I hear it's pretty miserable for adults).  

Sunday evening, Mr. Pants was in a mood and ran out the door while I was making the sandwich he'd asked for for dinner.

He came back in quickly enough, as soon as I set the sandwich on the table and yelled for him, but as he started working to kick his shoes off (who wants to bend down to deal with shoes when you can spend twice as long doing it the hard way?) he suddenly said, "What's that stuff on my legs?"

I glanced over.  It looked like his legs were covered in dirt.  Like fine mud splatters.  But there's no mud anywhere near the house.

So I looked closer.  The dots, hundreds of tiny dots, were moving.  Fast.

I looked even closer.  The tiny little dots had tiny little legs.  Tiny little legs moving very very fast.

I ordered him into the bathroom, stripped him down and dumped him in the tub for a good soapy scrub (this would probably be the instinctive response, but I actually had read up on chiggers a few weeks ago, as soon as they were mentioned, and a soapy scrub is the highly recommended solution immediately after exposure).

When I was finally convinced no tiny legged creature remained on his delectably soft skin, I got him out of the tub and picked up his clothes to toss them in the laundry.

Now, normally, I hate white tile bathroom floors because they are never clean enough to look clean, no matter what you do.  But — score one for white tile floors! — on any other surface, I would never have seen the hidden swarm of minute creatures that lay in wait under that heap of clothes.

Mr. Pants was told not to move, Schmoogie was repeatedly barred from entering the bathroom (this angered her), the clothes went directly into the washing machine, and I set about scrubbing the infernal little nasties off the floor.  Vigorously scrubbing.  Scrubbing fueled by the psychosomatic crawly itchy feeling I could no longer repress.

I'm still not absolutely positive they were chiggers (though they looked quite like the picture on the Internet, just not noticeably red) or that that's what the original rash was, but it's a damn good hypothesis.  Especially since he'd run outside and "hidden" in exactly the same spot (next to the air-conditioning unit; chiggers like it hot) the day of the mysterious first rash.

So there you go, the day I met chiggers.  And, let me tell you, I hates me some chiggers.

 

Something I'd Forgotten We'd Been Missing

Watching thunderstorms from the porch.  Maybe I do love summer, after all.

This One

In the middle of a move, the part where we don't actually have a permanent residence, I tend to feel like time isn't passing, like the time that's passing somehow doesn't "count".

But this one keeps growing (another shoe size!) and collecting new words (eetsa! = pizza) and generally manifesting herself as a person.

Just this morning, playing around after I'd gotten her out of the Pack 'N Play, she sat on my stomach and grabbed my hand.

She studied it intently, turning it front to back, babbling at me and pointing at my fingers.  Then she slid herself to the floor and marched off to the living room (also serving as the master bedroom) and marched right back with a handful of treasures.

"Her," she said ("here") and held out my wedding ring.

I put it on.

"Her," she said and held out my engagement ring.

I put it on.

"Her," she said and held out my watch.

I put it on.

And then we could finally get on with the day in proper style, I suppose.

The Budding Philosopher

When you think something, it's not real.

And when you become something, it is real.

— Mr. ThinkyPants

 

 

Whoah, kid just blew my mind.

Four Minutes

I was thinking I wasn't even going to post at all today, but then I read Peter's post at Male Pattern Boldness, which so perfectly articulates how I felt about the one episode of Mad Men that I ever watched that it made me think about how I still haven't put a list of links in my sidebar, and then I thought, "That's what I'll do for the blog today!"

But then Mr. Pants started kicking his sister so the TV got turned off and then had to be unplugged because guess who knows all the ways to turn the TV on?  And then there was rage and crying and then he hit me, so now there is a timeout on the porch (Shmoogie is way too involved in his time outs otherwise) and timeouts last four minutes, so that's exactly how much time I have to tell you that I liked Peter's post and if you wonder about why I didn't like Mad Men (not that you should care) or maybe wonder what it is YOU don't really like about it (unless, of course, you did, which I can totally understand), maybe give it a read.

And I will apparently be spending the rest of my evening explaining why I can't just "try" to make macaroni and cheese "without the ingredients."  Hope you have your own exciting plans.  :)

***

In the end, this post took slightly more than 4 minutes, btw.