Classes Galore

Things have been in full swing around here lately - now that everyone's recovered from everything.  I'm four weeks into school and I think it's going fairly well.  My writing class is not at all challenging for me, but I did need a bit of work to remind myself how to properly format a paper.  My math class is going much better than I expected.  I'm remembering things from before and it's all making sense so far.  I do have to take an on-campus midterm in about two weeks and I'm a little nervous about that.  But as long as I remember that I can take the full two hours and not rush, hopefully I'll be able to keep from panicking.

Nathan started his dance class last week.  I would share pictures with you, but he literally just stood in one spot for the entire class and didn't move.  He did smile occasionally but still insists that he didn't like the class.  I will keep taking him though because he's turning into a homebody who doesn't want to interact with anyone new.  I know Nathan is a different child from Aiden, but he really needs to get out and do something.

Aiden begins his four week karate course today.  He's been asking for a while now and we're hoping that this basic class through the parks department will give him an idea as to whether or not it's something he wants to explore further.  He's also expressed interest in mat wrestling (yes, they have wrestling for 6 year olds - I imagine it looks pretty silly), soccer, and Little League.  Personally, I think karate would be best for him in terms of teaching self-discipline, but we'll see what he thinks at the end of four weeks.

John isn't in any classes right now (thank goodness!!), but he is looking into joining some sort of casual sports league.  I think we could handle him being out for a little while one night per week and it would be good for him too.  He says he's a little apprehensive about the social aspect of it, but he seems to do fine once he gets to know people.

So I guess we're all working on branching out in some way, be it intellectual or physical exercise.  We're making some good changes within our family and I'm excited to share our process with you as soon as I can figure out how to put it into words.  Until then, look for an update on Aiden's karate class, Nathan's dance class, and Nathan's four year check up with our pediatrician after tomorrow.  At Nathan's last check up, he was growing a bit on the slow side, so we are interested to see if he's caught up to the pediatrician's satisfaction.

Bad Mommy

I get a Bad Mommy award today.  It started at 11:30 this morning when I headed to the bus stop to meet Aiden's bus.  They've been training a lot of new drivers lately and using the kindergarten bus route to do it, so when the drop off time came and went, I wasn't all that surprised.  But 25 minutes later, I was getting frustrated. Then my cell phone rang.  "Hi, this is Becky from Brookwood.  I've got Aiden here in the office.....it was early release today."  Oh. My. Gosh.  I completely forgot.  That means my child saw that his mommy was not at the bus stop as usual and had to be driven away not knowing where I was or what was going to happen.

I ran back to the house, hopped in the car, and drove over to the school.  I walked into the school office to see Aiden sitting there, eyes puffy and red, his face soaking wet with tears.  I cried.  The amount of guilt in that moment - even though Aiden will probably grow to be a well-rounded adult despite me forgetting about early release - is more than any parent wants to feel.  The secretary tried to assure me that a parent forgets about Wednesday early release nearly every other week and that she's done it herself multiple times.  Good to know I'm not the only one, I guess.  But it didn't really get rid of how massively bad I felt about the whole thing.

Aiden cried a little more once we were in the car and I was apologizing profusely, but he said he understood that I hadn't forgotten about HIM - just about the fact that the bus stop time was different for that day.  After we were finished with Nathan's dance class (which we were almost late to because of the whole screw up), I took him to the store to pick out a new toy and get some cookies.  Then we went to the park for a little while and he got to pick out a movie to watch when we got home.  I was planning on spending the afternoon catching up on laundry and homework, but making up my mistake to my child was way more important.

In the grand scheme of things, I know we'll look back on it as "Hey, remember that time I forgot about early release and they took you back to school?  Ha, what a silly mommy thing to do!", but for today it was pretty traumatic.  I guess I still need to work on being at peace with the fact that I am human and I will make mistakes, and sometimes my kids will be on the receiving end of those mistakes.  As long as it's not happening all the time, I'll try to keep from beating myself up about it too much.  Now let's all hope I don't forget again next week.

Buster Knows

I'm a firm believer in animals knowing when someone in their family is sick.  Nathan is on day 3 of a fever and what has felt the best to him over the past few days is curling up in front of the fireplace.  Today, Buster decided Nathan needed love/protection/snuggles as he lay in front of the fire.

 Now, before you jump to any conclusions, I continually offer Nathan a blanket and pillow and he keeps refusing them.  I don't know why this is the most comfortable thing for him, but I'll go with it.

After a little while, Nathan scooted closer to the fire and Buster moved around so he could see him.

And then finally, Nathan fell fast asleep on the hard hearth.  Strange.  Buster got up, sniffed Nathan, figured out that he was asleep, and then Buster moved to the couch.  I guess he just wanted to make sure Nathan was going to get some rest.

In the half hour since these pictures were taken, Buster has gone over to Nathan a few more times.  He checks him out, then sits protectively by Nathan's head for a few minutes before going back to the couch.  It's really quite adorable to watch him take care of Nathan in his own doggy way.

Choo-Choo

AH-choo is more like it.  Life was back to normal and I was feeling great (and off the painkillers) for a full 24 hours before we were all hit by the cough, congestion, fever, and sore throat train.  And I'm comparing it to a train because it seriously came speeding into our lives like a JR500 (and if you don't know that is, then you have not spoken to Aiden).  We all went to bed feeling fine and we all woke up the next morning feeling AWFUL.

Aiden has missed two days of school, Nathan had to miss his first dance class, and I'm just ticked off that I'm laid up in bed again after being in bed for 5 days to recover from oral surgery.  I really should be happy that I didn't come down with this while I was recovering, because that could have caused some problems.  As it is, my healing has backtracked a little bit because my body is responding to this nasty cold, so I'm dealing with some gum swelling again but in general it's not affecting it too badly.  And thank goodness my classes are all online this term.  Nothing like spending the first two weeks of the term in pajamas.

While he's still congested, I think Aiden can go to school tomorrow since he no longer has a fever and the croupy cough at night is gone.  Nathan is still running a fever at night, but acts fine during the day.  John seems to have mostly missed it so far except for feeling extra tired and coming home at noon yesterday with a bad headache (but that may have been from the dental work he had that morning).  I seem to have it the worst (like last time), but could deal with it a whole lot better if this virus didn't include insomnia from 3-7am each morning.

All in all, this is only the 2nd time we've been sick this cold and flu season which is SO much better than last year's every 3 weeks junk.  I read an article this morning that said flu season is getting a very slow start this year, so it's not just us.  What remains to be seen is if the flu shots really nailed things this year or the worst is yet to come.  Now excuse me while I go curl my feverish self up in front of the fire.