Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Last day of school

I sent Jupiter to school for three extra weeks. I wanted to send her all summer just to keep her in that mode, but it didn't happen. She does start sensory camp the week after next, so that will be something. But her heart is sad because she's going to miss her friends. And tomorrow she is going to make up a song to sing them on Friday when it's her last day.

The transition is a little tough. She's also extra tired, so seeing more of the spitting and hitting than I've seen in months, between the tiredness and school ending. I'm intrepreting it as a temporary regression and concentrating on getting us through it and to the other side.

CDS has scheduled Jupiter's IEP meeting for next week. On June 30th. Which is the very last day they could schedule it, because as of July 1st the new school year starts and Jupiter will be officially under the public school umbrella instead of early intervention. I understand this was partially because the neuropsych report was not complete until yesterday. (diagnoses..ADHD combined type and Anxiety disorder-not specified) Dr. P the neuropsych asked if there was going to be a school representative present at the meeting. The school representative who is legally supposed to be present, but the slight problem that school is now closed for the summer may cause logistical issues.

Tomorrow I have to leave Caseworker M a message (because heaven forbid your caseworker should actually TAKE a phone call) to see if she's invited anyone from the school to be present. Since the official notification I got from her did not include anybody from the school, I'm guessing she didn't. So I have four days to get SOMEBODY from the school to be there.

Grr.

After the IEP meeting Jupiter and Mimi and I are going to the OT's to meet the OT and see the room before Sensory group starts. I told the OT if Jupiter didn't meet her ahead of time, Jupiter was not going to be willing to participate in the group. And for $225 out of pocket, I would really enjoy it if she were to participate in the group.

Hopefully going strawberry picking this weekend.....have to find an organic field because Jupiter eats every berry she picks.

weather blog

sorry I haven't posted lately. If I had, it would look something like this.

Friday June something. It's raining. Again.

Saturday the day after. It's not raining. But apparently I have having some odd reaction to this antibiotic that makes me sensitive to sunlight because I have to keep going indoors. On the day it's not raining. How is that fair?

Monday after that..it's raining.


Tuesday. the extended forecast on the National Weather Service website says clouds, showers, and drizzle for the next four days. No joke. You've got to be kidding me.

Saturday. We're going to a parade. It's supposed to rain. It doesn't rain. Instead we get sunburned because it didn't rain and i was planning on rain.

Sunday. Rain's back.

Monday. Still raining.

Tuesday. make it stop!! make it stop!! make it stop!!!

Wednesday. They say the sun will come out tomorrow afternoon.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

what to do???

It's not a life question in this context, really.

Jupiter had to get up early this morning for the first time since Saturday. This afternoon after lunch she went to the lake with Mimi and B. I would have gone to meet them at the lake, but apparently I haven't figured out all the intracacies of the cell phone I've had since February. I didn't get the call until 3:30, when I got to the house to pick her up and the car was gone. They were already leaving the lake at that point, so I went home to wait for them and to mow as much lawn as possible in 20 minutes before the rain and drizzle come back tomorrow.

Jupiter ate some strawberries while she was waiting for her fish sticks. She ate half her fish sticks. Then we looked for her missing tooth. She found the missing tooth in about two minutes. She ran to put the no longer missing tooth under her pillow so the tooth fairy can come again. Then at 5:02, she said she was ready for bed.

She brushed her teeth. I offered to read her a story. She said tomorrow. She got into bed and turned her music on and said good night.

By 5:30 she was asleep.

Now it's 6:31. I'm not quite sure what to do with myself now.

Monday, June 15, 2009

After the Neuropsych

So last Friday, after the neuropsych appt, we went to do some errands since we were already in Portland. I needed to go to the library to return a book (somebody else has dibs on The Out of Sync Child has Fun , so I couldn't renew it.) and to get a new library card issued. We had the option of going to the small, very busy branch near the neuropsych's office, or the Children's Library branch on the other side of town. Since it's Portland, and normally it's possible to get to the other side of town in ten minutes, we decided to go to the Children's branch because we just like it better.

Just before the highway entrance, I decided not to take the highway and changed lanes. Just past the highway entrance, we went around a curve. From which I could see the freight train blocking the intersection. It's a one way street, so we sat and watch the train.

We had a conversation about how trains better for the environment than cars. (unless, possibly, the entire city is bisected by a train and there are 5000 idling cars by the railroad tracks.)

I read her a sign labeled "Diabetes Center." We had a conversation about diabetes, sugar, and insulin.

The train moved on. We drove past the park and for some reason went up the hill to Monument Square. Guess I forgot about the short way. At Monument Square we got stuck in construction traffic from the remodeling of the main library branch.

We had a conversation about the monument in the square. We talked about slavery and Abraham Lincoln.

We drove back down the hill by Whole Foods. We had a conversation about Jupiter's birthmother and why she couldn't keep Jupiter when she was a baby.

We went back up the hill on the East End. We got out of the car and walked into the library.

The power had just gone out. (which, if I had just taken the highway to begin with, woudln't have mattered, because we would already have been done at the library and on our way out.)
The librarians were checking people out by hand and writing down the info. But since I didn't have my card and needed a new one, that wasn't going to work for us.

We hung out for awhile and read a few books. Then I decided we should cut our losses and head back to the other branch library. So we got back in the car and got on the highway this time to head back accross town.

The other library is on a street with about 8 schools. At 3pm, the entire street is a school zone. So I took the highway an extra exit and backtracked towards the library.

We got stuck in some utility work construction the intersection before the library. We sat. And sat.

I love how, some days, God decides I need to practice patience.

Anyway, we made it to the busy branch library and they gave me a new library card. We picked out some new books. We were going to go to Target after, but I changed my mind because it was 4pm and we'd taken two hours to go to the library. But hey, we got ONE errand done. Who needs to go to Target and the bank, right?

Jupiter fell asleep in the car on the way home. I managed to stay awake.

Tooth Fairy Toofer


It's been an eventful day here in Rain. (I'm calling my state that until the sun manages to come out for more than 12 minutes. Totally unrelated to blog topic. Just venting.)


This afternoon I was Wiibowling and Jupiter was getting ready to play with her new Bratz dolls and Barbie horse. She asked me to put the bridle on the horse so while I was doing that, all of a sudden Jupiter was in tears. I hadn't heard her do anything and couldn't tell what had happened..then her mouth opened and there was a big old gap there. Her TWO bottom front teeth were gone. TWO!!! (The tooth fairy, btw, is SO not prepared for a lost tooth this week. To say nothing of TWO teeth. What's the going rate for that?) I couldn't figure out what she had done to lose the two teeth. I mean, I was RIGHT THERE. She didn't bang her head on anything..it was like she was just sitting there and the two teeth were gone.


She was pretty upset at first. There was a fair amount of blood and it was a little scary so she cried a little bit while we got the bleeding almost stopped and I gave her a freeze pop to finish it off. Now she's all over that and SO EXCITED that she lost TWO teeth. She can't wait to tell EVERYBODY.


(I'm excited too. I was actually HERE when she lost her first tooth. I DIDN'T MISS IT!!!!)


So far we've only managed to find one tooth. The other one is somewhere in the vicinity of the couch. The one she found was on the opposite end of the couch than what we had expected, so I don't know where the other one will turn up. The one we found is safely enclosed in a gladware container, since she was anxious to put it under her pillow and I couldn't deal with loosing it again. And I've been way too good at loosing things this month for comfort.


Her two top teeth were the ones that were actually wiggly. I hope we get a little time before those come out...I'm not ready yet. After we got the bleeding stopped, she wanted to go out and practice riding her two wheeler. But it started to rain again....which I was happy about at that moment. I could just see her losing her balance and knocking out the other two teeth and the tooth fairy would have to go get a payday loan (just kidding).


It turns out she was sitting on the couch and had one end of her stylish scarf in her mouth (let's say it together...IF IT'S NOT FOOD, IT DOESN'T GO IN YOUR MOUTH. I keep trying.) and moved too quickly so the other end of the scarf got caught on something and when she moved, out came the teeth.


Oh, now she's trying to get the cat interested in her lost teeth. the cat doesn't seem interested.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

spider bites

Early Saturday afternoon, I noticed an odd shaped series of small painful bumps along my abdomen, where the top of my pants are. There were five of them, in a square shape, one in each corner and one approximately in the middle. I assumed they were spider bites. Remember how my dryer broke and I strung up the clothesline in back of my house? Well, I felt so environmental and virtuous that even after the dryer got fixed, I kept on using the clothesline. (at least until the weather pattern brought in low clouds, fog, and drizzle for days at a time.) Apparently a spider found its way into my jeans and didn't like it when I also found my way into my jeans.

The area around the bites was a little red, but I kind of expected that with five bites and didn't pay much attention. On Monday I started feeling weird. Kind of off balance and just weird. On Tuesday, back at my class, I still felt that way, and on the way home I got a chill. After Jupiter went to sleep I borrowed the farm animal thermometer and checked my temperature. Yup. A fever. And the red rash was definitely bigger. So Wednesday, two hours after I got to work, I called the doctor. Three hours after I got to work, I left to take myself to the doctor. 20 minutes of while I was at work I spent trying to print out a temporary copy of my health insurance card since I don't have new ones yet (see previous post..or following depending on how they actually post). The health insurance CSR's, btw, don't have access to a copy of my health insurance card. How's that??? Keep in mind, I'd been out of work all day Tuesday at a class, today I'm leaving early to take my bug bites to the doctor, and on Thursday I'm leaving at noon to take Jupiter to her Neuropsych appt. (and on Monday I have the day off for kindergarten screening and on Tuesday I have my class again. good thing I have eleven years of service and lots and lots of paid time off.)

I had explained everything to the triage nurse when I called them. Then when I got in the exam room, I got to explain it again to the intake nurse. Who, when I showed her the rash, went "GOOD LORD!" Dear intake nurse, sucking in your breath and saying "GOOD LORD" is not reassuring to a patient who is convinced she may be dying from spider venom. (just so you know.) She left and the doctor came in. Yup, I got to explain it all again. He ruled out shingles and determined I have a "skin infection" from whatever it was that may have bit me. He also thought the bite pattern is pretty. He prescribed augmentin. He outlined the rash in black sharpie dots so I would know if it continues to spread. If by Friday there is no improvement, I need to come back to they can give me an antibiotic injection.

I left there and drove to the pharmacy to get my antibiotics, so I would be able to squeeze two doses of antibiotics in before bedtime. Since it's been a few years since I've needed to fill any prescriptions for myself, I had to go through the new customer dance with the paper copy of my insurance card. The pharmacy substitued something in place of the augmentin. Dear insurance company, If the doctor had wanted me to have whatever it was you chose to give me, that's what he would have typed in the electronic transmittal. Just so you know.

I've been on the antibiotics for 30 hours now. I'm not dizzy and I don't have a fever, so that's an improvement. The rash was bigger this morning, but I think it's starting to recede. I think it's gone back within the limits of the sharpie outline, and it's a little less scary red too. So I'm hopeful.

My new plan is to hang the clothes out to dry, then stick them in the dryer for just ten minutes on high heat, to kill bugs.

Lost

Life has been too entertaining for words lately. Plenty to blog about....nowhere near enough time!!

So I slept late, and I went to my class on Tuesday. Yeah, over a week ago...bear with me. During the lunch break the sun was actually shining, so I decided to go sit out in the parking lot near my car. I spent a minute or two debating if I should bring my purse with me or leave it in the meeting room. I took it with me. I sat outside for awhile, went to the afternoon class session, and when class ended at 4:15, I bolted from the room (it was hot and my mild eyestrain was acting up and I had a headache) and went to the car to make a quick trip to the next door walmart to buy some eyedrops before I attempted to drive home.

Two minutes later, in the walmart parking lot, I'm searching the car for my purse. No purse. 90 seconds later, I'm back at the classroom, looking frantically under the table. No purse. I check the parking lot where my car was.....no purse. So I decide the person sitting next to me at the class, who works on my floor, saw that I had left it and brought with her. I find my way home without buying eyedrops.

Next day, my coworker comes in and I ask her if she happens to have seen my purse the day before. She says no. Guess she doesn't have it then. I start calling places. The place we had the class doesn't have it. The restaurant next door. nope. the pet store next to the restaurant. nope. The police department. Nope.

After work, I drive out of my way back to the town where the class was. I park in the same parking spot and walk the route between there and walmart on foot, checking curbs and ditches. I check with the walmart service desk. Nope. I buy a new wallet at Walmart since I'm there.

I conclude that the purse is almost certainly completely lost and drive home. I stop at Verizon Wireless to ask them if there's a number I can call to get my $50 phone rebate card resissued because it's lost.

It's a funny thing about the phone rebate card. They sent it to me last winter, when I had to replace my cell phone when IT got lost. (It turned up in the spring, in the neighbors yard, in a few pieces, having gone through the snowblower blades.) I kept it on the HIGHSHELF, waiting to be part of a Nintendo Wii purchase. As a Easter/Mom's Day present, we got a nintendo Wii, so I decided I would use the rebate card towards the Wiifit, which I really want. I took the rebate card down from the HIGHSHELF so I could put it in my purse. Then, shortly after a cleaning binge in which lots of miscellaneous paper found its way to the recycle bin, I couldn't find the rebate card. A few days later, I found the rebate card. I put it in my purse so I wouldn't lose it again.

Two days later, the whole purse was lost. I think the rebate card had a vanishing charm on it that just got stronger and stronger.

It's been nine days now. Nobody has tried to use anything that was in the purse. Nobody has contacted me in regards to it. It has vanished into the great unknown. I'm now in the process of getting everything that was in the purse reissued. Probably won't happen with the chuck e cheese gift cards. I have a paper copy of a license with no picture on it, because they have to send it to me in the mail. Don't ask my what the logic is on that one. And I can only go to stores where they take checks, because I still have those. I haven't written this many checks in years. It's almost fun to write checks again.

Monday, June 1, 2009

I get to stay up late!!

On the first four Tuesdays of June, I'm taking a training class. It's about something to do with supervision. To be honest, I don't care all that much. It's something to take so I can reach a goal on my self appraisal next spring when reviews and bonuses come up. I've been supervising people since I was 18. But since my job title does not currently include the word supervisor, here I am. Or there I will be tomorrow.

But the class has a couple good points. One..it's closer to my house than actual work. (and it in fact is within sight of the CDS office. I'll be able to see them from the window. Maybe she'll need a copy of a missing fax and I can walk up to the door when I'm still on the phone with her.

And, it doesn't start til 8am tomorrow. The rest of the classes are even better...they don't start until 8:30. That means I don't have to have Jupiter out of the house until 7:15 tomorrow morning. That's a whole two hours later than normal. And it means I don't have to get up at 4am. I undoubtedly will be up at 4am anyway, either going to lie down with Jupiter when she wakes up, or going back to my own bed after I wake up.

I probably won't like it when I'm still in the class at 4pm. But I better get used to it anyway, because come August after vacation, my early morning hours are changing. In the interest of Jupiter making (eventually) a successful transition to All day K, I will be changing my work hours. Perhaps I should share with my boss the fact that I plan to change my hours a little earlier than originally planned. When we are home for two weeks, Jupiter will automatically transition into sleeping later, so I figure I might as well work with it, instead of transitioning back to early early mornings, and then back to later mornings when school starts. This way, she'll be on the new schedule a full month before school starts. And then we can focus on adding school to the new schedule.

I'm lucky I have an understanding boss. I'm trying to move from my current work location to one closer to my home, for the same company. I've been trying to do this for a couple years, without success. The trick is, now, to find a job that they're willing to hire me for, that doesn't involve taking a pay cut. It's a very very small window, as it turns out. Even if you have worked for the company for 11 years and have great yearly reviews and prevent over a million dollars in losses annually. None of the jobs I can apply for require preventing a million dollars in losses anually. I'm debating between applying for the job I really would like, that I know would pay more, and the job I think I might actually get a call back for, which may or may not pay the same as I make now. Which I won't know until I actually get a call back and know who is doing the hiring and what they're willing to pay. Gone are the days when I could just call the hiring manager and ask them my questions and save us both wasting a lot of time. And when the rule is you can only apply for one job at a time, the lack of information becomes more frustrating.

But now it's after 9pm, and this morning I WAS up at 4am, and I can't focus on the screen anymore. Time for bed....and maybe 8 whole hours of sleep. zzzzzzzz

A Conversation with CDS

The public school has been wondering when CDS is going to schedule Jupiter's IEP for kindergarten. I called the caseworker the Thursday before Memorial Day to pose this question to her. I had to leave a message, because none of the staff at CDS actually takes phone calls. They take voicemails and sometimes they call you back.

I received a call back the Wednesday after Memorial Day. Caseworker M told me that she wasn't sure who was writing Jupiter's IEP. (At our meeting, she told me she was in the process of writing Jupiter's IEP.) She wasn't sure if it should be her because Jupiter is going to public school in the fall and won't be under the CDS umbrella anymore. So she was hesitant to write it and she was trying to determine who would.

Then M told me that I never returned the paperwork that she sent me to sign, the consent for placement for initial services. I informed her that I sent her a fax. On April 30th. Two days after I recieved the paperwork in the mail. And I told her that I know that her office recieved the fax because my fax machine prints out a receipt every time I fax something with the fax number it was sent too, the time it went through, and that the transmission was successful. I have the fax reciept too. M insisted she never got it. I told her it was too bad that I wasn't informed that she didn't have it, because I could have refaxed it.

Then M told me that Jupiter can recieve services in the fall. "So she's not getting any services in the preschool classroom?" I asked. No. There was a waiting list, she didn't have the paperwork (liar) etc etc etc.

Translation: Jupiter is aging out of the CDS umbrella the end of the month, and they're just going to ship her off to public school.

They did get the neuropsych eval scheduled. Caseworker M seemed concerned that I wasn't aware of those appointments and that I might miss them. (She's the one that can't keep track of a two page fax, so I don't know why she's so worried about me. ) (It's possible I'm still a little cranky about that.) I enjoyed filling out all those forms (I had a dream last night about filling out forms for Jupiter), especially the computer entry form for behavior from ages 5-21. Isn't that kind of a broad age range? I mean, in her own way Jupiter follows current events. She doesn't read the newspaper, but recognizes a photo of Obama. She doesn't really care about economic policy, but knows Obama has two daughters (she strung them all bead bracelets and wants to mail them to the White House) and got a new dog. So I struggle with some of these questions. I will undoubtedly drive the pediatric nueropsychologist nuts (LOL) on Friday when I go in for the pre test consult.

So anyway, I got off the phone and was cranky for awhile. That afternoon, I had to make a round of paperwork deliveries (I only thought I was done driving paperwork around the state after Jupiter's adoption was finalized. Little did I know...) and my route to Portland took me within a half a mile of the CDS office, so I figured I'd stop by and drop off the hard copy of the fax I had resent to them two hours before.

I went up to the desk, and the fax I had sent was sitting there on top of the desk, apparently waiting for caseworker M to come out of her office and pick up. (yes, these are the same people who would not send me a fax at work because they were concerned about confidentiality.) I left the other copy anyway. I have yet another copy in case both of those get "lost."

Then I stopped at the adoption agency to drop off our yearly update letter for Russia and 8-10 4x6 photos of Lina appropriately clothed, preforming appropriate activities, with all family members. (or, in actuality, 8 photos, some of which may actually have been 3 1/2 by 5, all of which were taken between August and October 2008, and one of which happened to include both me and her. And they were lucky to get that one.) They haven't called me yet to request alternate photos.

Then I stopped at the neuropsych's office to drop off that mountain of forms. They weren't all going to fit in that little bitty envelope they sent me to mail them in. Especially when I include things like the two page Russian medical history and the eight pages I wrote for kindergarten screening. (The neuropsych forms didn't have enough room either).

My work bag is a lot lighter now. I'm sure it'll get filled up again soon enough.

An expensive lesson in handwashing

Last weekend the dryer started making a funny noise. The clothes were dry, but the dryer didn't sound so good. Of course, I was halfway through doing laundry, so on Memorial Day I was stringing clothesline on anything I could find (I now have an intricately designed spiderweb laced between various hooks and drainpipes in back of my house for the purpose of drying clothes) to dry the clothes I had already washed. Yes, there is a landromat a half a mile from my house. But I wanted a clothesline anyway. Of course, I would actually like a real clothesline that will hold an entire load of laundry at one time. Not that the neighbors don't enjoy seeing all the laundry that won't fit on my spiderweb draped all over the front yard. I feel very virtuous using the spiderweb clothesline.

Anyway, today the repairperson came to check the dryer. They had originally said between noon and five. I told them I wouldn't be home until 3pm, so they agreed to between three and five pm. At 4:59 pm, the truck showed up. At 5:05, the repairperson turned on my dryer, listened to the noise for a minute, turned off the dryer, opened the dryer door, and yanked out a bra underwire from where it was sticking out of the heating element.

Oops. The underwire, being metal, fried the heating element. I'm glad I stopped using the dryer as soon as I noticed the funny noise, because I probably would have ended up with a burned down house. As it was, I had to get a new heating element for the dryer. He just happened to have a restrung one on the repair truck which I got for half price, so along with the $75 service call, I'm only out $138 for the dryer. Which is approximately the amount I would have had to pay Jupiter's preschool today if it wasn't the last week of school (tuition was $238 a month, but I had to save my bonus and part of my tax refund and put it in a reserve fund to pay for the preschool tuition. ) So there went THAT extra money.

Note to self: hand wash underwire bras and hang on the spiderweb line. And yes, they have to be underwire. Otherwise, as Jupiter points out, they hang down. That's the moral of the story. The hand washing, that is.