Category Archives for Family

My Lucky Day

Every year at this time I consider, at least briefly, whether I can handle the Pathways holiday gift drive again.  This is the 6th year I’ve decided that even though my life is perpetually crazy and some of my own family’s gifts don’t get wrapped until Christmas Eve, organizing the Pathways drive is one of my favorite parts of the holiday season.

If you’re new to my blog, Pathways is the local family shelter, and I organize a small army of family, friends, and coworkers to help make Christmas happen for the kids who live at Pathways, and those who have recently moved to permanent housing.  I get a wish list from the shelter and divvy it up between the enthusiastic volunteers, and then host a brunch at my house on drop-off day.  It’s complete chaos, but so much fun!!

Anyway, one of the things on my to-do list for Saturday was to buy 45 Christmas stockings at the Christmas Tree Shop.  On my way there I remembered that last year someone had offered me a coupon but I had already bought the stockings.  I didn’t have a coupon this year either, but figured I’d have to just bite the bullet.

Norah and I had made a full circuit around the store and I had the cart overloaded with stockings, stocking stuffers, gift wrap, etc., when one of the moms from Aliya’s soccer team came up to us and asked if I had a coupon.  I swear, I got a little misty!  I was able to save almost $50, which equates to a gift and stocking stuffers for one extra kid.  🙂

As I was driving Norah around the store in the carriage, she entertained herself and the other shoppers by singing one of her favorites, “From This Moment.”  It cracked me up because it must have been so funny to hear it coming out of a carriage of stuff.  Usually she just makes up her own words but I think she was distracted by the camera.  Here’s a short clip:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjNeqm9VV78&fs=1&hl=en_US]
 

My (Little) Man

To some of you, this may look like a random collection of letters, but if you sound some of the consonants out as the letter names (B= “be”, R = “ar”), flip over the M in the second line because it’s actually a W, squint, tip your head to the right, and concentrate, it’s actually a note of apology from Adlani to his gal-pal Madeleine (you can just hover over the note to see the translation).  Why is Adlani apologizing to Madeleine?  Well, because he hit her.  Why did he hit her?  Because she (allegedly) told him to “try it.”

Ok…so he doesn’t always use the best judgment, has more energy than a litter of golden retriever puppies, and has a very short attention span unless he’s talking about Pokemon, but he’s really a good boy.  A little naive, yes…this morning I heard him singing “Hey Soul Sister, ain’t no banana-kisser…” which he apparently learned at school (he has no clue that it’s not a literal reference to fruit).  Last week he asked me if he was half Moroccan and when I said he was, he confirmed, “So I’m half Moroccan and half Spanish.”  I could NOT convince him that he isn’t half Spanish.  I guess he’ll figure it out someday.

Then there was the report that came home from school about his fixation on pirates killing Indians.  I decided to get to the bottom of it.  Well, I tried anyway…


Weekend In Review

About a week ago, I found out that my stepfather, Keith, was planning to come for a visit this weekend.  A few days later, Josh, Rachael, and my baby niece Duende asked if they could come too.  By the time they mentioned that their friend Vanessa was visiting a friend nearby, I honestly said, “Bring her along…one more won’t have any effect on the chaos.”

Visitors are welcome here, as long as they’re willing to go with the flow and help themselves.  Those are basically the only rules.  Oh, and they’re not allowed to judge me.  I will cook for them (or order take-out), find a bed, couch, or air mattress for them to sleep on, and I’ll even scrape the top layer of grime off of everything and hide the worst of the mess, but they have to be able to handle being part of the family for the duration of their stay.

Our weekend plans included two soccer games and a chili cook-off, so we dragged some of the visitors along too.  The soccer games were very chilly, but both were wins.  Aliya’s team has actually moved to first place in their division.  There’s one more game for each team next weekend and then it’s on to ice skating season.

The chili cook-off at the Linders’ house was a lot of fun, and Luscious Lana took the Chili Cup for 1st place.  The multi-generational soccer game turned into a dance party after dark, and the s’mores were a big hit.  Everyone was tired out and even I went to bed early.  I turned the clock back before I went to bed, so I was in bed shortly after 9 and slept until around 7 a.m.!  Today it was yoga class, a few hours of hanging out with the extended family, soccer practice for Aliya, and some work.   I’m hoping to make it another early night.

Happy Halloween!

I happened again. I got stuck.  Sometimes when I get “behind” on the blog and I haven’t had time to create posts about important events in our lives, I feel like I can’t post random little stuff until I catch up on the missing stuff, because then it will be out of chronological order.  And since I’m ALWAYS overwhelmed, I never catch up and then I don’t post anything until I snap out of it.  Well screw it.  I can’t catch up so I’m just going to override the perfectionist part of my brain and continue.

This is what happened today:

I went to yoga at the Y.  I didn’t think it would be too hard, but man, I had to come home and lay down afterward.  I broke a sweat during class and by the end I felt a little sick.  I recovered with some breakfast, but my arms are sore.  I really didn’t have any trouble staying “in the moment” during class because I was trying really hard not to fall down or let any inappropriate sounds escape.

This afternoon Aliya had soccer practice and it was the annual Parents vs. Players scrimmage.  The siblings got to play too and it was general chaos with 20+ players on the field, but the kids loved it.  I don’t think I’ve posted anything about Aliya’s soccer team here yet, but I’ve taken tons of photos of almost every game and they’re on Photobucket (if you’re so inclined, you can click here and you will see the links for each game on the left.).  Here’s one of Aliya trying to score on Ben at the Parents vs. Players game:

After soccer we came home to get ready for trick-or-treating.  Adlani asked if he could go out to the car to get his costume, and the next thing I knew…our neighbor was running in the front door carrying Adlani and yelling for ice.  She had found him with his finger shut in the car door, screaming bloody hell.  She was afraid to open the door and find his finger laying there, but bless her heart, she went for it and his fingers were still attached.  I don’t do well with blood but I caught a glimpse of his finger and it had a giant dent in it.  Seriously, his pinky was squished right down to the bone.  Future-Doctor Nikki came over to check it out, we put ice on it and gave him Tylenol, and about 20 minutes later he was good as new.  Ben said it was a good thing I hadn’t been the one to find him because I would have run back for my camera.  Sorry, no photo.

We went trick-or-treating around the hood with the Pearce Crew – it was very chilly but the kids had a blast.  I have no idea how I’m going to manage with all of this candy in the house.  I’m thinking about eating as much as I possibly can in one sitting until I throw up, in hopes that I will lose the urge to eat the rest of it.  Aliya was supposed to be a vampire but the fangs weren’t comfortable with her braces, so she paid Norah $3 to borrow her witch hat.  I think Norah was still a (hatless) witch, and Adlani was some sort of action figure guy.  We got his costume as a hand-me-down during the summer, and when I asked what he wanted to be for Halloween, he excitedly reminded me about the costume waiting for him in the Halloween bin (YES!).  When we were out making the rounds Aliya sang a song she had made up for Elizabeth and I…something about a certain candy bar being made of “butts and guts and camels’ nuts”…I asked what camels’ nuts were and she didn’t know.  They caught on pretty quickly that something was up because I was hysterical about the camels’ nuts.  I’m sure they’ll be asking around on the bus tomorrow to find out.  By the time we went around the block they were begging to go home, so we made one stop to see Norah’s teacher and Aliya’s soccer coach and headed home.  It’s past my bedtime so that’s all she wrote.

Back to Reality

I have put off so many things over the last few weeks, that I’m now 10 times as overwhelmed as I usually am.  I have a ton of stuff to post on the blog but I’ve got to put out the fires first.  I guess all I can do is start with today and go forward, and fill in the stuff I missed as I have time.

So here it is.  Sometimes I can’t believe that this is my life:

 
In case you’re having trouble reading the white board, it says, “Dear Mom I’m sleping in your bed because I just noticed there was something brown and stinky on my comforter  I think its Henry’s poop.  Love Aliya”  I guess I’m supposed to check the appropriate box – whether it’s ok for her to sleep in my bed or not ok.  Based on the fact that she tosses and turns, crowds me, kicks me, and pokes me all night, AND she talks in her sleep – often in Spanish, it’s NOT OK!!! 

Henry’s the cat, by the way.  How his poop got in Aliya’s bed, I don’t know, and I don’t want to know.

If you’re here to find out how Norah’s doing rather than to read about our pet issues, Norah is doing really well.  She kept up with all of the family activities over the weekend, and she went back to school on Tuesday.  She has been a little more tired than usual, but until we get her thyroid dosage just right it’s possible that she’ll feel some symptoms of hypothyroidism.  I’m sure her body is wondering what the hell just happened. 

She started her thyroid hormone replacement on Saturday, and her thyroid levels will be tested once per month until the docs are satisfied.  She is also taking calcium and vitamin-D, and that will be monitored weekly until the levels are stable.  We are headed down to Yale to see Dr. Breuer for a post-op appointment on Monday and then we’ll be going back to Children’s for future endocrine appointments.  Hopefully Norah’s on the road to recovery!