When I was a child, Christmas was magic and lights and presents.  It was music and decorations and anticipation.  As a teen, it was still music and decorations and anticipation, but mostly presents.  As an adult it was love and traditions and family.

As a parent, Christmas is a challenge.  It’s traditions to establish and treats to make.  Decorations to put up and little whirlwinds of destruction to contain.  It’s new music and lights and the work of building anticipation.  All to make the magic for little loves.  As a parent it’s about doing everything we can to make this special for others.  It’s wonderful to be able to bring magic to them; but hard, too.  I find that my spirit feels… forced.  At the very least I can feel magic from the surprises and presents I’ll be giving.  I take great joy in giving to others, so there’s some magic for me, from me.

2wks ago Ethan (and I and Victor) caught a cold that kept him from another week of school.  We figured the timing was good since it gave us a good chance of him (and us) not being sick over Thanksgiving when Gramps (FiL, Wayne) visited.  HaHA!  Though mostly not til the later days of his visit did it affect us, Ethan’s got the flu, Victor has a cough and I’m getting sick again (not that I wasn’t since I’ve had a sinus infection since that cold 2wks ago).  I hope Wayne didn’t catch whatever malaise it is we have this week.  Ethan’s sure tired of being sick, much to my sufferance.

I will say, though, that caring for a sick child opens not altogether bad doors in a Mother’s heart that are saved for these occasions.  How can they not when he tells me “Mommy, later, when I start to cry, you’ll come in and give me a hug?”  and just now when (while sitting on the couch next to him) he says “Mommy, I think I’m starting to cry.” in the most matter-of-fact voice.
I wish you and yours health.

This year my FiL, Wayne, came down to spend T-day with us.  We had a spiral ham, herbed green beans, roasted carrots, mash, rolls and pumpkin pie (made with my own pumpkin grown in my own garden).  It was awesome and the boys even ate some of it!  Both enjoyed the buns I’d baked, Ethan enjoyed some carrots and Victor chowed down on green beans (sans fork but I wasn’t about to complain).  It was a great dinner and a great day. (despite  3/5ths of us having a cold and 1/5th has a sore throat this morning)

This year I’m most thankful that Ken has a job still. *knock on wood*  His company has been going through a lot of changes and he still has a job and a good health plan and good pay.  Ethan’s doing ok in school, which I’m also grateful for, despite issues that we’re still figuring out.  He’s started actual *reading* and is really quite good at it.  He reads his Biscuit books almost completely by himself (“now” and “ready” and “could” words trip him up – the ones that don’t follow common rules of english).  i’m stunned and ecstatic about it.

I hope it’s not ungrateful to wish the real estate market could improve so that we’d be able to sell the house and move (sooner, rather than later).  We want Ethan to finish the year at his school, but we really want to move from this area; further north and closer to family.  That’s impossible if we can’t sell the house, though, so it’s a bit of a pipe dream right now.  Much depends on the next few months, during which Ken will know whether he can work under his new manager (previous experience wasn’t positive).  Come spring we’ll have a realtor come out and evaluate the house and give us some suggestions for improvement to help sell it.  It sucks, not being able to know where we’re going to be, but I’m thankful for a stable place right now and hopeful for the future.

Ken’s having his done as I type this.  We’ve both been very brave, the past few days, and completely denied any nerves about the procedure, standard and uneventful as it is, but this morning he admitted that he, too, had slept poorly last night.  He acted nervous, in his own Ken-way, and the fact that I noticed it let me know just how deep the nerves were running.

I explained to him, last night, that this bothers me so much because it’s not “normal” for me.  “Normal” in my world has all the medical procedures happening to me.  I’m the one who sees the dr’s, who gets the prescriptions, who has the problems.  I’m the one on the table.  Ken’s the one who sits and waits.  He’s the one who never sees the dr, who never takes anything that’s not over-the-counter, who never goes to the hospital save as an escort to me.  I feel guilty about it – that he’s the one having something done for our joined benefit.  All the arguments are sound that he get it done and we agree on that, but I can’t shake this guilt that it.should.be.me.

Perhaps it’s true, then, that women are built to suffer (and endure).

Ms C, Ethan’s teacher, called after lunch yesterday to let me know how things were going since it was his first day on the meds (she’s super considerate).  It seems he had about 30% improvement, roughly, which is perfect because he had half a dose and ideally we want to see a 60% improvement when all is said and done.  He’ll get two (half) doses today – one already this morning and one at school at noon and we’ll see how things go since yesterday afternoon, when the drug had worn off, he was back to his usual behaviours.  At the end of this week we’ll try him on a full dose (on Saturday, where we can observe his behaviour and any side-effects) and if he does well on the full dosage he’ll be switched to an extended release med.  So far he’s having the “uninterested in eating” side-effect, which we feared since he’s generally not that interested in eating anyways.  It’s something we’re going to have to keep a close eye on, that’s for sure.  Still it’s a promising start.

This is Louis.

Earlier this week Louis started sneezing.  Bonnie sneezes every so often but it’s a very dainty sort of sneeze; exactly what you’d expect from a cat.  Louis’ sneezes were *loud* and kinda squeaky and initially I thought it was a toy being screeched across the tile floor.  A very strange sound indeed.  As the week progressed, he started sleeping a lot more and breathing funny.  Yesterday and the day before were the worst, wherein he was noticeably wheezing and you could *hear* the boogies in his nose.  Today he’s completely back to normal and sounds just fine with no sneezing and loads of energy (to Bonnie’s dismay since he tends to want to “play” with her and she finds that annoying).  Who knew cats could get colds?  I’d never had a cat have a cold before, nor heard of it happening.  Thankfully it was mild – no fever or lethargic behaviour or dry/cracked nose.  So far the others haven’t shown any signs of getting sick but who knows?  I have no idea how he got it to begin with.

Luke, the otha’ brotha’, just gives up.

(well, not really, it’s how he frequently sleeps – he’s a weirdo)

Also, look!  Layee Bug!

Ethan started his medication this morning.  He’ll be slowly increased until we can figure out how much he can handle and what kind of effect it’ll have on him.  I worry.  I also know that, worst case scenario we’ll take him off it and just figure out how to deal with his needs.

He didn’t want to go to school today.  Whether that had anything to do with his new meds or not I don’t know.  I’m a Mom; I worry.

As I’m putting on my jacket in the garage I notice through the open garage door that there’s a car stopped at the bottom of my driveway.  As I walk toward the door they back up and pull into our drive and honk.  Perplexed, I walk forward and then notice the full grown black bear at the top of our drive, not 40 feet from me.  I stopped, and watched as it continued up, around a brush pile we have, and along the top of tree we felled this summer.  It noticed me and immediately started toward me in an aggressive manner.  I quickly backed up and ducked back into the garage, keeping an eye on where it was and preparing to get the door down before it got to me.  It stopped when I was out of sight and continued along the tree trunk.  I peeked out and the moment it saw me it stopped and turned in my direction as I ducked back.  I kept peeking, keeping an eye on where it was going, and it kept going up the hill, stopping and making sure it didn’t need to attack me.  Thankfully it kept going up and over the top of the hill, stopping to scratch/bend a smaller tree, and was gone by the time Ethan’s ride dropped him off (he’s riding in the special van now).  We got in the house quickly and shut the garage door and now I’m left, staring obsessively up the hill at any shadow or bush, waiting for it to move.

Adrenaline’s worn off and I’m in full freak-out mode.  Ken at first called it paranoia but I see it as fully justified fear.  This is one experience I could *definitely* have lived without.

I think I’ve spent all of 3 wks since the start of Sept *not* being sick.  I’m a bit tired of it, to say the least.  To that end we’ve been taking our multi vitamins religiously and added vit C and, most recently, vit D also.  They make a gummi bear version for kids so they get that, too.  I wish they made gummi bear vitamins for adults, too.

Saw the dr last night and my blood-work’s all messed up.  HbA1c at 7.3?!  WTH!  I’ll admit that, under the stress of the past few months I’ve let things slip a bit but that’s the highest I can ever remember it being.  I’m very disappointed in myself and definitely going to be keeping a closer eye on myself.  My cholesterol actually went *up*, which she said was “really strange” so we’re switching meds since the stuff I’m on “clearly isn’t working”.  My thyroid was “a bit sluggish” and she asked if I’ve been feeling off – tired, dry skin, etc.  I explained that thyroid symptoms are so vague that I always just brush them off  to other things.  I’m stressed and almost constantly sick, so yeah I’m tired.  It’s coming on to winter, so yeah, my skin’s dry.  To top off the list of “new meds” is that one of my insulins is being discontinued (kinda sad cause I’ve been on it so long it’s like an old friend) so I’ll be switching to something entirely different – something I’ve been on before, a long time ago, and something I can work with… hopefully.  The new stuff works differently, so there’s going to be an adjustment period.  I’m a bit trepidatious so Ken’s going to ask a co-worker who takes it what he went through.  If I’m not comfortable there’s another I can switch to that works almost identically to what I’m on, now, so at least I’ve got options.

While there I got the H1N1 flu shot, too.  It was considerably less painful than I was expecting and I’ve scheduled for the boys to get it tomorrow.  Ethan seems to bring everything home from school and he and I *catch* it all, so the last thing we need is to invite the flu into our house – especially with how sick he gets from simple colds.   Let’s hope I can manage both boys getting the shot at the same time.  The promise of McDonald’s helps, though.