Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Confusion and Chaos - Updated

Our time at Total Confusion was pretty good this year. Michael enjoyed Clay Wars.



This one is Michael's creation.


Kids create their clay figure, and then they attack each other. The hand is the measurement of movement. Each person is given a special power (Michael got booger bombs; some got the "claw" which was tongs that you could attack the other creations with--smooshing them).


Michael's creation, dubbed Deathtron "aka Bob", was sliced with a ruler.




Michael also won a prize ticket for playing Dork Tower. I learned a new board game—and was part of the finals in that game. Our friend John won the finals on that game.

John and I with his prize for winning the final.


And my husband was voted (unanimously) Best Role Player in the one of the Role Playing games he played. We relaxed, ate food both good and bad for us, and enjoyed the long weekend. One of my favorite things—one of the organizers for another gaming convention that we usually go to in July told me to not to even think about not going because of the baby—she was like “More than ½ my volunteers are women—we would LOVE to take care of the baby for a few hours while you gamed or slept or whatever!!” So…um…we shall see—I was not going to go this year, but I am a bit more encouraged. (Maybe Willow might be a star attraction!)

Everything went well, except for Michael seeming to be a bit sluggish at the end of the weekend, but we thought maybe the vacation week/birthday/gaming convention excitement and the staying up later etc. was the problem. Or was it his increased dosage of his ADHD medication (?!) or what--but we got home on Sunday---and he totally crashed. He was sick with a low grade temp, but definitely not himself (and some up-chuckage in the night cemented it).

Well, he has been sick for the last couple days, and today the doctor says he has an upper respitory infection and cannot go to school tomorrow either. Not only missing going back to school after winter break, but also causing the usual 2 working parents (who stays with the sick-kid) chaos. I stayed home with him on Monday and husband stayed home today (and took him to the doc). Luckily we can both work remotely—unfortunately, that only works to limited success. Despite everything, I am actually proud how we handle these types of things. We have it down to a science. I am also lucky I have a pretty sympathetic boss and both of us are even able to bring Michael into work on those occasions that we really NEED to be in (like for a school holiday we don’t get off, etc.).

Our household is pretty well divided in the parenting department---I would say it’s sometimes 70/30 (me taking the 70%) but husband does more than his share a lot of the time, and he often sacrifices more than a lot of fathers have in the past. (Now when it comes to the domestic chores, etc. well, that doesn’t work so well—hence our maid service).

Adding to the chaos is a re-scheduled IEP meeting tomorrow (at 2 p.m.—not very convenient for a working parent). Not to mention the school work brought home today...

and then there was the ultrasound this morning.

The ultrasound went well (when I can get off the laptop and onto the computer, I will scan the pics). Technician couldn’t 100% confirm it’s a girl (her legs were closed)but she was pretty certain and its unlikely that the earlier conclusion was wrong—so, I am going to stick with her being Willow. (Despite the fact that every so often that, after being asked for the sex and me telling them, people say--well, are you sure, cuz you never know for CERTAIN--yeah, thanks for that).

These are different views of her face, sometimes with her hand in front of her mouth.




I saw her heart beating, which very amazing as I could see the four chambers and everything. I saw her tiny feet, I saw her arms and hands waving about. The tech was really helpful and pointed out that she has some hair on her head already. Also saw her stomach (like I could really tell—but the tech pointed it out). I saw her thigh bone, her head, etc. I got some nice ultrasounds of her face. At one point she had her hand up to her mouth--probably sucking her hand. At another point she looked as though she was smiling. She measured a little over 3 lbs., in the 38% range, which is totally normal. Her head was pointed down, her feet near my navel—so I definitely can say she is kicking me when I feel those bumps! She did not like being poked...and mommy did not either--an hour later, it still kinda hurt.

UPDATE: I was home again today with Michael, but he is starting to seem more normal. Hopefully a good night's sleep tonight will get him to be feeling good enough for school tomorrow. It is so hard when your son is not acting his normal self. It reminds me of all the other times he has been sick, and you just worry so much. Luckily, this time it wasn't too bad, but it is so nice to see him being so much more "Michael". :-)

Husband went to the IEP meeting yesterday, since this was the annual review it was not too complicated. Again we hear our son is brilliant (!) and a pleasure to work with (except not with his teacher, who we think is just not really in sync with him) and we hear that he is making progress, especially in his frustration issues and keeping on task. Recommendations for having him given a laptop for 4th grade (one of his issues is that he takes a long time to write things--he is perfectionist to the point of taking longer than others) and the hope is that if he can type out his papers he will be quicker. I guess some of those computer games that we have for him to learn the keyboard are going to be pulled out this summer...Luckily dad is a computer geek and Michael is pretty comfortable with computers.

3 comments:

JJ said...

Hope Michael is feeling much better--poor thing!
Love all the pictures!

Cibele said...

Love the pictures. I had a sono last week as well, they did not measure her because it was a biophysical scan to see how; she is moving (bummer) and she is head up... I hope that she turns. Glad to hear that Michael is doing better

Antigone said...

Very cute baby...

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