A low-key week

I'm liking this routine of Sunday night blogging, but almost forgot to do it tonight. Thus this will need to be a quick post, since it's after 11 pm. I don't have much to report on this week, anyway. I taught my class (including being observed one of the days) and worked at my other job (though not enough). I attended the kids' parent-teacher conferences, took Kid A to the orthodontist and Kid B to a birthday party, went to my book group. Etc. We had an unexpected dump of snow -- not sure exactly how much. Maybe 8 inches? The photo shows a little sculpture the kids made in the front yard out of icicles. I watched through the window as they carried a plastic garbage can around the outside of the house, carefully climbing on it and knocking down some icicles, then getting down and moving it to the next spot. And then they built this interesting thing.

I did very little in the way of political stuff, just a few emails to stupid Cory Gardner. Not a single postcard. There was one day -- and now I can't remember which day it was -- when I had to shut down my computer rather than read some of the news articles more closely. I enjoy the little things, like the military folks who have refused to serve in Trump's cabinet. They seem a lot more honorable than the big business types. But there's not much to enjoy in the news these days.

One success this week was finally figuring out what's going on with our health insurance. At least I think so. My best estimate of the truth is that we had no insurance in the month of January, but that will not matter because we did not go to the doctor and you don't get fined until you are without insurance for 90 days (I hope that's really true). In the month of February we have been on Medicaid, and that is very weird, but we have not used it, so no worries. I think. On March 1st I will attempt to contact the Medicaid people and tell them we have no more need of them, because that day my regular insurance will kick back in. And then I won't need to think about this again until June. Big sigh.

Our big challenge this week was dealing with the further evidence that Kid A has dyslexia. I don't even want to write much about it, except to say that it's good to know what's going on and it makes me sad to know what's going on. Our challenge now will be to help him deal with this challenge. You don't cure dyslexia, but you can learn to work with it, at least that's the sense I'm getting. His literacy specialist agrees with us that this is his problem and she has completely changed her approach to working with him. They focus on the difference between b, d, and p, or m and n. It's all much more simple. I am also trying to be a lot more patient with him, not say things like "You know this!" or "You should know this!" I just accept that he doesn't know this, and we go on from there. I try to think of easy ways for him to learn things, and then I don't get mad when it doesn't work. I am glad to have more reasons not to yell at him. I wish I hadn't yelled at him about a thousand other times.

Rocket Boy and I watched two movies, the rather awful "Experiment Perilous" from 1944 and the rather bizarre "Solaris" from 2002. I had given him a list of three films to choose from and he asked the clerk at the Video Station for a recommendation. "Depends on your mood," was the diplomatic answer, so we watched Solaris. I'd like to read the 1961 book it was based on, perhaps will look for it at the library.

Speaking of the library, the kids and I have been having more fun with it recently. Instead of me choosing the week's theme, I've been letting them do it. This past week was "moose and squirrel" chosen by Kid B and the photo shows all the books I got. A lot of them were good, but our favorites were Hanukkah in Alaska and Walk on the Wild Side. The Hanukkah book did an especially good job of placing you right into the experience of the little girl living in a place where moose come into your backyard in the winter and eat your trees. The Wild Side book was just wonderful, and we are going to try to read all of author Nick Oldland's other books about the same characters (I believe there are four).

This weekend it was Kid A's turn to choose a theme and he chose "bomb," excitedly hoping for a lot of books about things blowing up. Sadly, we learned that kids' books tend to treat bombs as no fun, if they mention them at all. We had to expand the theme to include "blow up" and "erupt" and "explode" and "boom," to be able to get any books at all. It makes me want to write a kids' book about things exploding.

For my own reading, I finished the book club book, Our Souls at Night (liked it), and also read another Barbara Pym book, Excellent Women, plus Fifteen by Beverly Cleary, which I bought for $1 at the library bookstore. It was a modern edition, so did not have the original illustrations, and I missed them -- I kept expecting certain pictures to show up. Since February is almost over, I probably will not read another Pym book right now. I have a stack of other books to read, so will not be lacking for material. The book group is going to read one of my favorite books next month, The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald, so I do not need to read that, but I am afraid that they will not like it at all, and will in fact be annoyed at me for suggesting it. It's one of those books that people seem to either love or hate. Too late to do anything about it now.

In the week ahead I will have to teach, be observed one more time, work hard at my other job, attend a school board meeting at which people will speak about dyslexia, find some time to work on our taxes, make dinner, do laundry, and plan the kids' birthday parties. I have decided we are having two small parties this year, rather than one big one. The boys have entirely different friends and interests, so one big party feels wrong, not to mention expensive. I hope I'm making the right decision there. I hate planning their birthday parties. Not sure why. It taps into some major insecurities with me somehow.

I also want to do something about our internet service provider, which seems to be flaking out entirely, even though we paid for a static IP address. I simply cannot send email to my sisters anymore. Tonight I tried three times to send a message. Finally it went through to one sister but not the other. I also am quite sure that I'm not GETTING a lot of my email. Very frustrating. Makes me feel isolated and weird.

Oh, and then there's the diabetic cat. Poor Pie Bear has been vomiting and not wanting to eat. Took him to the vet on Saturday and they found that his blood sugar was high, he had white blood cells in his urine (a possible UTI?), and one liver enzyme is extremely elevated, so they want to do an ultrasound on Monday to look at his liver and pancreas. Can people who are on Medicaid get ultrasounds for their cats? I mean, is it ethical? I explained to the vet that the last time Pie Bear got sick, it cost us thousands of dollars and we COULD NOT do that again. She understood. But the ultrasound will be over $300, I believe. Do we get it and maybe find out what's wrong? Or do we watch Pie vomit himself out of existence? Always hard choices.

I'm sorry I can't be very funny tonight! I am getting a headache and it is PAST my bedtime, so I will finish up and head in that direction. Maybe I'll be more cheerful next week.