Well Ain't That Just Typical

Murphy's Law? Yeah...change that to Shannon's Law.

On Thursday I was hosting a birthday dinner for myself and my aunt. I had done most of the prep work and housecleaning prior to the event, and only had a few things left to do. In the morning, I had an appointment at the school, to observe Phoenix in the classroom. That was kind of fun...I'll get to that later. When I got home, I got the cleaning of the bathrooms over with and started the dough brewing for the bread in the machine. Then I fed Ty, hoping he would sleep long enough for me to get the appetizers done. No such luck. So, I gave the boys lunch, put Keegs down for his nap, topped up Ty, and whew! He fell asleep. So I ran to do the appetizers. These were basically a cream cheese mixture rolled in phyllo pastry.

Anyone who has worked with phyllo before knows that you need to work with some speed so that the pastry doesn't dry out. So with all ingredients to hand, including a bowl of melted butter, I began. I got three rolls into it before Ty woke up screaming his lungs out. So I had to pack up everything and put it away before I could go get him or everything would be ruined. In my haste, I knocked over the bloody bowl of melted butter all over the effing kitchen table and floor (which I had just washed the day before!) Kripes! So, as Ty was now hysterical and into the type of sobbing cry that makes you want to burst into tears yourself, I said to myself "Screw it!" and left it all to deal with him. 45 minutes later, he was again asleep, and I dragged myself back to the kitchen, to clean up the freaking mess, and finish the rolls. Long story short, I did manage to get it all done, clean the table and floor, and rise the bread and put it in the oven. Before I knew it, the bread was baked and cooling, Keegan was up, and it was time to go back to school to get Phoenix. Where did the freaking day go?

La, la, la. Anyway, aside from the fact that my Aunt Helen couldn't make it to the party due to driving conditions in her neck of the woods (we missed you Helen!) the dinner went off without a hitch and all was well. Got some great presents too...two sets of bedding for my eight-mile high mattress, a gift certificate for my hairdresser, a basket of assorted coffees, Billy Joel's Greatest Hits, Vol. 1-3 and three great books, including the Narnia Chronicles...but I digress. So I got Ty off to bed, and settled in for my long winter's nap. And to be honest, it wasn't bad. Kids didn't wake up until 7:00, which is quite the sleep-in around here, seriously.

But when I awoke, my first thought was, "What the hell is that smell?" So I checked various children for diaper emergencies, and nothing. Then Phoenix says to me, "I threw up in my bed." Yeah, that's what you want to hear first thing. Turns out, that around 1:30 am, he not only threw up in his bed, but then crawled into bed with Mark (I had fallen asleep on the couch downstairs) and puked in there too. And then decided maybe the toilet would be a better option. So, with eye granola still clouding my vision, I am stripping the bedding from two rooms and hosing down a child.

No sooner was that all taken care of then he informs me that he things he's going to be sick again. And oh yeah, was he ever! Needless to say, the rest of my day today was spent washing linens and making beds and administering toast and gingerale to Couch-Boy. Man, I need a vacation!

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To get back to the school observation, I should first give a bit of medical background on Phoenix. The day after he was born, Phoenix had a stroke. I won't go into the harrowing emotional details or medical ones or I would be typing all night, but in the end, he was pronounced fine after a year of occupational therapy. We were told that if we would notice any affects from the stroke, it would be when he began to speak (no problems there, the kid has a larger vocabulary than me, and he's 5!), or when he began school, where there would either be problems with math or written language comprehension. Knowing this, I had asked Phoenix's teacher to keep an eye on him in these areas to see if there were any emerging problems. Turns out, there is. She told me that upon classroom testing, he can only name 4 out of the seven letters in his name, and not too many others in the alphabet, and only a few of the numbers from 1-20. If he does not get a handle on this by the end of the year, then grade one will be a certain hell for him, academically speaking. Grade one moves at a much quicker pace, with a lot more writing and seat work. It isn't that he CAN'T do the work, he just takes much longer to do it, and it frustrates him to be last, when everyone else is moving on to play activities. Sigh. So Mark and I are trying to work out a learning programme at home to incorporate these areas of learning in a fun way. I played GO FISH with him today to work on his number recognition and he had fun doing that, so I hope things will work out. We have a follow-up interview in January to see how he is progressing and if he will need outside assistance.

So, a bit of a stressful few days, on top of which, I had heard that in the space of a few days, my godfather/uncle has had two heart attacks! Okay God, a little help in that corner would be awesome right about now. And if you could spare a few seconds to get Phoenix on track, that would be great too...

On a more fun note, to end this post, tomorrow we are going to a Santa party. It is hosted by the company I used to work for. My kids still get to go, because my father also worked there, and grandkids of retirees are eligible. So, hopefully, Phoenix is better tomorrow and we can go. Will update with Santa pictures tomorrow if we make it. Time to crash.