Ok, I have a lot to write about today, so, to make it easier for my avid readers, I will organize my writing by letter. A. will be about regular family stuff, B. will be about school (or The Experiment, for those of you in the know), C. will be about pregnancy (insider information, not for the week of constitution), and D. will be about my Thursday night TV. So, feel free to scroll down to only what you want to read and ignore the rest, you uncultured, self-centered baboons! (Kidding!) (Kind Of)
A. Family Stuff, AKA What's Up With Us
Let's see, well, Joshua got strep throat from his grandfather, so we had to go to the doctor's office on Wednesday. Actually, it was pretty cool. I discovered his fever at around 1:20, I called the office, and by 3:00 we had gone, been seen and diagnosed, had gone to the pharmacy to get his meds, and were back home. I was pretty pleased by the quick and helpful service, I must say. So, he has now been on medicine for three days and is no longer considered contagious. Phew! Hopefully he'll be the only child to get it! You have to feel bad for poor Joshie, though. Somehow, he is always the one who gets stuff. When the rest of us get a cold, he gets pneumonia. When we get a cough, he gets the kind of cough that lasts the entire season and warrants a trip to a chest specialist. He has actually asked me once why God gave him such a worse immune system than his brother, to which I said we all have our struggles and this is one of his. I'm sure that made him feel tons better.
So, Joshua got the day off from school on Thursday (sick day! Yay!). In true State-Of-Insanity style, however, said sick day actually turned into a trip to the zoo. That's right, while most of you would snuggle your sick child into bed with tea and books, I took mine on a field trip. Ok, to be fair, he felt much better than he had the day before and he no longer had a fever. He wasn't even really contagious anymore, thanks to the extra strong medicine the doctor gave him (he's allergic to the regular stuff. Yeah, that's right. Nothing can be simple for him.) So don't judge me!
Anyway, Julia, Joshie, and I went to the Rosamond Gifford Zoo first thing in the morning, when it was peaceful and quiet and mostly empty, and it was wonderful. Julia is at this lovely age when she just stops and looks at things for a long time. Fish, for example, are enthralling to her. She stood next to the glass and stared and stared, pointing every once in a while at a particularly interesting one and making her "blub blub blub" sound for fish. Really, if it weren't for the fact that we had a much less interested eight year old with us, we probably could have spent an hour just in the fish area.
It was also amazing to see her stand face to face with a full grown lion. The lion, who, I must point out, is actually named Joshua, much to my son's delight, was sitting in this patch of sunlight right next to the glass, and Julia just walked right up to the glass and stared into his eyes. I was struck by how truly shocking it is to think of how close my sweet daughter was to such a huge, dangerous beast. That lion could eat her in one gulp. And there she was, face to face with it, looking at him looking at her. Her sound for lion, by the way, is a low growling noise, which she also enjoys making whenever she chases her father around the house. Now, I think, it will have a much larger meaning for her.
Joshua was a joy as well, reading the map and leading the way to this exhibit and that. He walked on top of the penguin tracks to find the penguin exhibit, and played along with his silly mom when I pretended to search for the tiger I had "heard was spotted in the area." He's still my buddy, even though he's getting so big. It was a really nice way to spend the day, and I am very thankful that he suggested it.
B. School
Jacob has his first big public school math test today. It should be interesting. The math they teach these kids is really freaking weird, if you ask me. They seem to spend more time teaching them about how to kind of get the answers than they do about how to actually get them. His first unit was all about estimating, like, Here are three vases of flowers- estimate how many there are. Then, count them to see how close you came. Huh? What the heck is the point of that? Oh well. At least it isn't overwhelmingly difficult for him.
He also had his first science test last week, which we got back this week. He got 100%!!! See, I told them science was his best subject! Take that, you anti-homeschool establishment! Maybe his writing isn't fabulous and his spelling leaves much to be desired, but in his area of interest, he ROCKS!
Joshua took a class field trip to the zoo yesterday (Refer back to section A. if you're interested in hearing more on this). Though his class consists of himself and a one-and-a-half year old, it was still a stimulating experience chock full of learning opportunities. Like, "The lion has the same name as you, Joshua!" and "Look at the size of that elephant poop!" Plus, it was fun! Oh yeah, homeschool is da bomb!
C. Pregnancy
Really, if you're not pregnant, you probably don't want to read this. It's about, um, less than pleasant side effects of pregnancy.
Ok, so I love being pregnant, don't get me wrong, but really there are some parts I could do without. Currently, my greatest annoyance is with incontinence. Here I am, enjoying nine months of no period, and I find myself having to wear a pad anyway everyday to protect from little "accidents." Every single time I sneeze, or cough, or laugh too hard, I lose a little control, and it's freaking annoying. And yes, before you suggest it, I am in fact doing Kegel exercises every day. It just doesn't seem to help at all. This is my fourth one, so maybe it's just worse with each subsequent pregnancy as things are so stretched out or whatever. Either way, I wish it would stop. And, to top that off, my bladder is now so squished that I have to get up and go at least once in the middle of the night. Last night I slept so soundly that I didn't get up for my scheduled potty break, and I almost wet the bed! Seriously, I woke up just in the nick of time, as I started peeing, and was saved only by my own fast reflexes and proximity to the bathroom. I now hold the world's record for fastest woman in the 3-yard-dash-to-a-bathroom.
I could also do without the heartburn, although my patented ice cream heartburn medication makes it much easier to cope with. And even enjoy.
D. Thursday Night TV
As we all know, Thursday night is my favorite night of television (call me during this night and you may risk your puny existence on this planet), due to Survivor, Grey's Anatomy, and CSI. If you haven't watched these from last night, do not read on until you do.
In Survivor last night, another team showed a complete lack of common sense when they voted off the Christian radio personality. This bothers me not just because she is a sister, and extremely nice, but also because they had absolutely no good reason for doing so. They had a good reason to vote of the teeny tiny little blond girl, since she not only lost them a challenge but also lacks the energy to do much of anything useful around camp. I did not want them to vote her off, but at least I would have understood if they had done so. They should have voted off Jean Robert, since he's a completely useless, annoying, bumbling idiot who they will never be able to trust after a merge and whose very presence makes their camp a worse place.
But the Christian lady? There was no reason to vote her off. She's not terribly weak, she's not terribly annoying, she does her best to help around camp, and she would be kind and loyal to a fault. They are idiots, people. This season is the season of idiots.
On to CSI. There's not much to say outside of the fact that I think the Grissom/Sarah romance is really really sweet and I hope they don't mess with it or write her out now that she's moving to swing shift. I did find the "mystery" of the night way too predictable, though. I mean, if you didn't see that coming, you're either blind, or desperately seeking a more interesting alternative to the obvious, which, I suppose, you are to be somewhat congratulated for. Would that the writers had done as much.
Which leads me to my favorite show, Grey's Anatomy. Ok, I am quickly growing weary of the dumbing down of the writing. And the fact that they think Izzy would be just fine and dandy with having an affair with George is just destroying her image as a nice girl that she has spent several seasons building up. Any girl worthy of the love of Denny would not be acting like this now! Can they not let one person be remotely respectable? George and Izzy were the two people we actually smiled about, the ones who we could count on to try to do the right thing, even if it didn't always turn out right. Now they're supposed to be having an affair?!? The entire universe would not stop working if they just allowed these two to be good people. Stop messing with them, you sick, sadistic writers!
I am also perplexed about what they're doing with Mer and Derick. Are we supposed to be rooting for Derrick to break up with her because she is too messed up for him? I'm sorry, but I just don't think that way. If he truly loves her, he should support her and try to help her. Not leave her because she is too high maintenance. She clearly knows that she has a problem, which means she can now start working on it. But she will need help, and, if he loves her, he needs to be there for her. She certainly put up with enough from him in earlier seasons, didn't she?
Ok, well, that's quite enough writing for today. I think I'll go find some housework to do until my sweet baboo wakes up. TTFN!
