If this is life getting back to “normal”, I think I’ll stay in holiday mode!!! I practically danced my way home from the bus stop on Monday morning as everyone got back off to school and had my most productive day in ages. I am still in a panic that something won’t get done by Nashville a month from now or that I’ll overlook some major error in a chart because I was rushed... but all you can do is try to eat that elephant one bite at a time!
I’m also very hard on myself because I feel like such a slow stitcher compared to Nick or my wonderful model stitchers... but I am accurate, which Nick in a rush sometimes isn’t, and I don’t have to pay myself!
By Monday afternoon the snow was falling heavily, far beyond the 2 cm the weatherman called for. Nick called to say the roads were horrible and the girls’ choir practice was canceled. Once Nick got home, we just stayed put.
By Tuesday morning, everything was sunny and clear again. Nick has a meeting after school at the board office to discuss the positions he intends to apply for in this first round of openings for Principalships for the 2006-2007 school year and it went very well. Now he’s polishing off his resume, updating Power point presentations etc. I stayed up really late stitching, but it was fun to see the design come to live beneath my fingertips.
By Wednesday morning, it was starting to get warm and they were calling for freezing rain or heavy rain by nightfall. My walking buddy and I finally got our schedules to match and we walked in the local mall for an hour. I came home feeling worked out but satisfied and got lots accomplished before I headed up to the bus to meet Bethany. Imagine my horror when she stepped off the bus holding one arm funny!! She’d slipped on the last part of some playground equipment right after lunch, but everyone at school assumed it was just a sprain because she could still move her fingers. No one called me or even sent a note home! I put some ice on the wrist area for a bit and waited for Erin to get home from staying after school for extra help. As soon as Nick came home, I bundled Bethany off to the hospital with me for an X-ray because she couldn’t hyperflex her “drawing hand” at all and my mommy senses were tingling. It was a long wait in the ER, but finally, the images confirmed she did have a “buckle fracture” in the radius of her right arm an inch or so below her wrist. By then, it was too late in the day to get a cast done and the wrist was still a bit too swollen, so we got a plaster splint and a note to get us fast tracked at the ER this morning. I managed to get quite a bit of model stitching done while playing 20 questions for over 4 hours to keep Bethany’s mind off how much her arm hurt.
By this morning, it was pouring rain. I drove the girls to school so that I could express my disappointment at not having received any communication from the school. Her teacher was aghast that it was broken. I certainly didn’t want anyone to get in trouble, but I did want to stress that I prefer to be called and given the option of what to do if my child is hurt during instructional time. Bethany and I went down to the hospital afterwards. She was prepped for the cast, but just before the plaster layer, the cast expert was called to the acute side of the ER for an emergency splint. We played silly puppet games with her jacket sleeve and more 20 questions until he returned. Once we were done, we headed to the bank to deposit my Hoffman cheque in the US dollar account and then to Blockbuster to rent a pile of fun DVDs to watch together (she’ll watch, I’ll stitch and listen) until the cast sets in 48 hours. She can’t really draw until then so she’s very grumpy about that... just like her mom would be.
This morning, we also found out that our new dwarf hamster, who has been with us for just over a month, is as diabetic as Nipper who passed away a year ago. Perhaps females are just more vulnerable to this disease. Erin has been heartbroken all day and cried as she played with her tonight, but I tried to turn that into a life lesson. We really never know how much time we have for anything, so each moment that we do have should be savoured and enjoyed. With special diet, she may live another few months... or even longer. We certainly won’t breed her to our male hamster of 10 months though. I think the girls were hoping for one batch of baby hamsters sometime...
What a week this has been so far!! My framer is on standby for this design as soon as I finish it. One more late night and tomorrow with Bethany should do it. Tomorrow night is date night and I can’t wait to toast the end to this crazy week with my husband and a nice glass of Merlot or a piece of chocolate!!
