Bad Backs and Good Grades Cancel Each Other Out

Well, it was my turn. As Jack’s back starts to get better, mine is starting to bother me, so much so it’s been hard to pick up Baby B. But she’s remarkably intuitive. She said the other day at Sibley when I was struggling to get her boots on, “Mommy’s back is owie.” I told her that yes, Mommy’s back was very owie. Then she said, “But Daddy’s back is not owie now.” I told her she was right. It could be that we grumble about it all the time, or moan and groan and walk like old folks needing canes and walkers. But she’s very quick to pick up on things. She is also quick to pick up knowning her left from her right, which Patricia has been helping her with. She'll have a leg up when she's in Miss Nancy's class in the fall.


She’s also been a bit of a goofball lately, making funny faces and noises, sticking her tongue out in a goofy way – class clownish behavior. It cracks us up, but it also cracks her up, too. And, as is the case with most toddlers, she has transformed herself from an adorable child into a sniffing, barking dog. She crawls around growling, sniffing and licking things. I can’t get it in her head that she’s not supposed to do the licking part, that it’s yucky. She’ll want to lick me – my face, my arm, my hand. Doesn’t matter. When she’s a dog, she’s a licking dog. Even the thread of getting carpet fuzz and dog hair on her tongue from the carpet hasn’t dissuaded her from her canine behavior. I don’t remember Margaret being a dog; she was a horse or a dinosaur for a long time. Patricia was often a cat. So, we’ll have to contend with having two dogs in the house for now.


Our true-born canine, Tessa, is still not faring well on the digestive front. Poor baby, she’s had continual problems. We’re not sure what else to do for now, so are feeding her rice and boiled chicken. Any time we add dog food, even the more expensive stuff, she gets loose again. She’s such a good dog – a real winner. I just hope we can figure out what the problem is. Aside from the fact that we have to keep her sequestered because we don’t know if she’ll be sick in the house, she can’t be enjoying this all that much.

I don’t know if I blogged about the girls’ (Margaret and Patricia) scholastic success with their most recent report card, but it’s hard to improve on perfection. We told both of them that this straight-A-Plus thing has to stop. We have nothing to pick on, unless they’re slacking off in the extra-credit category. Margaret’s been concerned about some projects in her classes that are group-managed. I hate group projects because you always have a handful of slackers on whom the entire grade is based. I wish they’d just allow you to do your work and earn your merits (or demerits) on your own accord. With group dynamics, someone (usually someone like Margaret) ends up doing the lion’s share of the work to stave off a poor grade because the slackers couldn’t care less.


We did try to reward them, both by taking them to dinner (our usual celebration) and by doing something special during winter break. It wasn’t a good break for them; with Jack’s back out, he couldn’t do much with them. Then Brigid got sick so they had a couple days of baby duty as well. So for the last night of vacation, we went to Burlington for an overnight at a TownPlace Suites (a Marriott property) with two bedrooms and a kitchen. We did some shopping, played in the pool, watched some cable TV. It was nice, although Brigid was a maniac when it came bedtime. I think it might have been a combination of being in a strange place and some caffeinated tea she drank earlier, but we didn’t sleep very well. The girls said it was a nice way to end their vacation. The photos are from Church Street in Burlington, Vt., the requisite photos on one of the Church Street rocks.

No Rest or Day Care for the Weary

Brigid has been running low-grade temperature the last few days, although once she's been dosed with Advil, you'd never know anything was wrong at all. She was barred from returning to school this morning. They said she had to be fever-free for 24 hours. She'd been fever-free for 22 hours. That's a little ridiculous if you ask me. I don't "dose and dump," but there's no fighting Sibley Hall. There you go.

Jack has had a back episode for the last week, and although he's on the mend, it's meant that the girls have had a pretty dismal week of winter break because he hasn't been able to do much with them when he's been home, and then Brigid was home yesterday and today, so they've been on baby duty for a while. Margaret has been getting a lot of writing done one her book, which is good. Both girls have been able to get homework done. It's just not been a vacation filled with outside pursuits. As a result, I may take them to Burlington for the day tomorrow. That's always a lot of fun, even if we have to bring Brigid with us.

Last night, when I was sitting with Brigid before she got into bed, she asked me to tell her a story, but I turned it around and asked her to tell me a story instead. She compiled, and what followed was a very detailed and long -- very long -- monologue that started, "Once ubon (sic) a time, there was a pretty princess named Brigid..." it included references to the three bears and Goldilocks, a dragon, a pretty princess castle and other assorted fairy tale features. It was somewhat repetitive, but charming nonetheless. I wished like anything that I had a recorder with me because she was very serious and thoughtful as she spoke. It's a marker of her development, not just because of the vocabulary but also because it showed her formulating action in her mind before telling me. She was pretending and creating. It was wonderful to witness.

She woke up late today but was in a great mood. More evidence that she's feeling better. We'll see how she does later in the afternoon. But for a brief moment today, she was charming and bubbly and happy. I hope we can all follow her example.

Crankiness, Independence and the Human Condition

Where do I begin? The last week and a half we’ve seen the bright side and quite dark side of our fair lady, Baby B. She has been a joy – singing, laughing, joking – and a tyrant – ordering us around, screaming at us at any given moment, telling us, “You don’t say ----,” (fill in the blank). Granted, for the last week she’s been battling a cold, so much so that she on Thursday last week I took her to the doctor’s, who pronounced her A-okay and able to go to school, a low-grade (99) fever was not a stay-home situation. But she’s been coughing and sneezing and blowing bloody boogers and generally miserable at other times.

The middle-of-the-night wakings have been particularly difficulty, though. A few late nights this week she’s gotten up about 4 a.m. crying, inconsolable, thrashing and irritated, angry at my attempts to soothe her yet equally angry when I’ve left her alone like she’s asked me to. Last night, she said her tongue hurt her. I dosed her with Advil and rocked her back to sleep. She woke up late, tired and grumpy but was fine when I dropped her off at Sibley. Yesterday, when I picked her up at school, she was all joyful and a bundle of boundless energy. She is a dichotomy wrapped in a puzzle surrounded by an enigma. But then again, she’s almost 3, so there you go.

Meanwhile, I had a great weekend away scrapping with my sister-in-law, Connie, in Syracuse while Jack maintained some sense of routine on the home front. I got nearly 20 pages done, had a lot of great conversation, OD’ed on cable TV and the TLC channel (because Connie and I both do not have cable), drank wine and enjoyed the company of a like-minded adult woman. We’ve vowed to make it a twice-a-year venture (if we can afford it and if our spouses allow it LOL). As expected, Daddy had difficult nights with Brigid lying awake in our “big bed” until well past midnight both nights, but she wasn’t upset. She was just awake. He must have told her the Goldilocks story a few hundred times by the end of the weekend.

Patricia’s all-county chorus concert went well. It was nice that they sang first, so the hoards of people could thin out. Jack said it was packed, so with the band concerts to follow, it’s just as well they didn’t have to stay for the whole thing. The photo included was taken by Jack from the audience. Patricia is on the riser second from the top, far left. Margaret was a trooper and watched the baby at home so Dad could enjoy his daughter’s performance.


Margaret has been writing a novel. That’s right, our 13-year-old may be the next Chris Paolina (you know, the teen who wrote the “Eragon” series). This is from the girl who not that long ago complained that she didn’t like to write. She’s been working furiously on it (with help from her buds, Maggie and Josh) and it’s actually very, very good. It’s not my cup of tea; it’s fantasy and science fiction, but it’s well-written and has very good dialog. Who knows? Maybe she’ll find a publisher before I do for my novel. Although I told her last night when she asked, “Do you think my novel will be published?” that she has to finish the thing first.

Tessa overcame her bout of intestinal distress only to succumb once again this past week. We don’t know what it is. We’ve tried different dog foods on her and have for the last couple of days been feeding her rice and boiled chicken mixed together. She loves it, and, quite frankly, it’s a heck of a lot cheaper to make rice and chicken than pay $20 a bag for expensive dog food. The vet said it’s a bland diet that will make her tummy feel better, so maybe that’s what we’ll be doing for a while. She is a good girl, though, and seems to feel bad when she’s feeling bad.


I’ve included a few photos today that were taken over the last couple of weeks. But I also found a long-lost Christmas photo – from Brigid’s first Christmas – that originally came up as a bad file on the camera. So, although it is from Christmas 2006, I share it with you today for your enjoyment.

The pajamas the two older girls are wearing are from Michelle. Brigid found Patricia's goggles in her swim bag and wanted them on. I call it, "Scuba Girl." The couple photos of Brigid in outer gear show what I call “Gaiter Girl.” I fashioned gaiters, I may have explained before, for her arms from anklet socks so the snow doesn’t go down her wrists. She insists on having real gaiters on her feet to keep snow out of her boots, although her new snow pants do a fine job. She looks ready for the tundra. The other photo of her sitting on the floor was to demonstrate her independent nature of late. She insists on doing as many things by herself that she can, including putting on her shoes. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but isn’t that just human nature? Enjoy.

He Doesn't Have Boobs, and That's to His Advantage

Brigid has become quite the chatterbox, although she would tell you, as she told me in church yesterday, “I not a chatterbox!” She just bubbles when she’s talking, as though her mind is trying to keep up with her mouth. She enjoys telling you things, and the things she has been saying lately is more than just parroting what you’ve said, although there is still some of that. She’ll elaborate more, however. When you ask her if she had a good day at school, she’ll say, “Had a good day at school (or shule, as it sounds from her)” but then she’ll say something else, like they went outside or played in the snow or visited the class next door. It’s interesting to see her think about things that are not in front of her – you can see her visualizing it in order to talk about it.

We had a good weekend. I got Brigid a new (new to us) pair of snow pants off Ebay and she got to play out in the snow with Daddy on Friday and Saturday. We have a good-size pile in the back thanks to our zealous snowplow guy and the snow we had a few days ago. When I can, I’ll post photos I took of Brigid in her new snow pants, gaiters and the hand gaiters I made her out of an old pair of socks. She insists on wearing both sets even though the snow pants make the ankle gaiters a little overkill. They do keep snow out of her boots, so that’s a plus. The hand gaiters help keep snow out and keep mittens on and I’d recommend them to anyone wanting to know how to do both. I just cut a tip off an old pair of anklet socks – the kind that only go up to the ankle bone. They slip over her mittens and up to and past her elbows. She doesn’t mind – she seems to know they’ll help her in the long run.

We did not have such a good week with Tessa. Poor girl, she came down with some kind of stomach ailment that caused her to be sick out of both ends for several days in a row. A $145 visit to the vet ended up with us giving her special food and anti-nausea medication. She’s on the mend, and worked up an appetite during her days of no food. We have forgotten how expensive dogs can be.

Patricia is looking forward to this weekend’s All-County Choral and Band Concert. She’ll be at rehearsals all day on Friday in anticipation of Saturday’s concert (which I’ll have to miss since I’ll be out of town on a scrapbook get-away with Connie). She had to audition to be invited to perform in the choral concert, something we’re all very proud of.

My scrapbook weekend was planned in advance of my knowing the choral concert was the same weekend. But I figure there will be many, many more since Patricia loves to perform and is very good at it. I’ll leave Friday morning after dropping Brigid off at school (shule) and head to Syracuse. Connie and her friend, Kim, will meet me at a Residence Inn and we’ll have a girls’ weekend of cropping and visiting. I’ll not be going to my big scrapbook weekend this year – just can’t afford it – so this was a good compromise and a good idea (on Connie’s part). This will leave Jack with the burden of getting an unboobed Brigid to bed Friday and Saturday, but it may be a venue into weaning that we can continue. I think he’ll do fine, and it’s only two nights. He’ll have the girls on hand to help him out during the day, too. And who knows? Maybe he’ll get her to go into her pretty princess bed on her own – something I have yet to do.