Birthdays

Today was a day I don't want to repeat. Parts of it were good, but Josh and Lexi were mentally exhausting. Josh woke up super hyper, which means that for most of the day he'd be bouncing off the walls, pulling Lexi along with him, then he'd either get too wild and hurt her, or he'd start teasing her, and either way she'd scream. I deserve a medal for not losing my mind or smacking anyone.

Brittney turned the big 16 this month. With Halloween and several of her friends also having birthdays, it seems like it was one big party for a few weeks. She had a Halloween party at our house, one at a friend's house, several friends' birthday parties-- one at a hotel-- was taken out to dinner by friends, a party at grandma's house, presents and pie at home... Hopefully it was a pretty good birthday.









Courtney took the little guys to the Treehouse Children's Museum last week. They thought that place was pretty cool.









Lexi was sick last week. That was a special kind of fun. Diabetes makes everything such a party. She had no appetite, which caused her blood sugar to go low, which caused her not to be able to have insulin, which caused ketones to build up. She had a moderate level of ketones in the middle of the night the first night, and that's scary to me as someone new dealing with this. She wouldn't eat so I could give her insulin, and she finally drifted off to sleep, so I was like... do I wake her up and try to make her eat or can I wait and let her sleep finally? So I called up to Primary Children's to ask for some advice from the on-call doctor. She was not very happy to be awake, it seems. But I wasn't very happy to be awake either. I never knew we'd have so much in common. No one else has been sick yet. Crossing fingers.

Josh's birthday was today. Eight years old. That's so hard to believe. He wanted donuts for dessert instead of cake, so I bought him a giant donut. But I didn't let him eat it all. Fun sucker.







Brittney cut her own bangs today. I think she looks cute. She thinks she looks like Mr. Spock.






This is a short week at work and school. Something to be thankful for, right there. Last week wore me out, but Friday in particular. Somehow I got dragged into dramas that were not mine. Why? Why me? One class told me about something that was said in another of their classes that offended them, and that needed to be dealt with, so I spent some time tracking that down and telling the other teacher what these students had heard so she could deal with it. Then I ended up spending over an hour after school trying to help sort out a drama between three of my students who aren't all even in the same class of mine, but two of them came to me with it, so I had to see it through. I just want to teach some English, yo. I gave my students an article to read about Occupy Wall Street and then they had to write some stuff, and some of them are just so clueless it kills me. It was really straigtforward, I thought. One of my students was all... I don't even know what I just read about. Like, I don't even really understand what taxes are. And I was like... Just... No. Just go back under your rock and think about Jersey Shore and Teen Mom for awhile while the rest of us talk. Yeah, that's how great a teacher I am. No, I explained it all as basically as I could, but it just wears me out.

Sean has been working on the go-cart he is building for Josh. I wish he had taken some before and after pictures. He's kind of pretty amazing. He bought an engine that needed a complete overhaul at a yard sale for $10. He's systematically gone through and rebuilt it, and I think he finally got it running the way he wants it tonight. So now he's on to the frame. The engine could sell easily for $150 now, so I said sell it and buy Josh an Xbox or PS3, but Josh said he wanted the go-cart. Bummer. It's hard to break your arm or crack your head open playing an Xbox. He's going to have to wear a motorcycle helmet and full body armor before I feel good about this.