My Kid

B has found an old cell phone of mine. She brings it out with her and has imaginary harassment calls from creditors in her "Dreamworld" of dragons. She owes a lot of money for her dragon nursery, And there's a Mister Tibiscus that is a real pain in her side. She doesn't like the dragon bankers.

Also, she's devious. :) Today she said:
B: What if we didn't have the nice grandma, and we had a horrible, mean one?
Me: I don't know, what would we do?
B: I'd give her a potion.
Me: To make her nicer?
B: No, to get rid of her. Bwahahaha.

Lately

     B has been feeling pretty good lately, which I think has been because of the anti-depressants. She still has a low seizure incident rate, and why that is, I don't know, but I'm grateful for the break.
     Last Monday, her whole school had sponsored trip to the aquarium. I went with her and we had a great time. In the morning, the primary grades had a special learning class, and in the afternoon, the intermediary grades did. They were taken into a wet lab, were they could hold sea urchins, sea cucumbers, crabs, starfish, and touch anenomes. There were many tanks, and by pure coincidence, one of the volunteers turned out to be the mother  of a teacher at B's old school. She recognised B and gave B her own little tour of everything. I think B held everything in the place, and she was deliriously happy. That kind of thing is right up her alley.
     When we got back to the school, I hung out until the end of class. B had a temper tantrum and broke her FM headset. That's a device that lets her hear the teacher better. The teacher wears a transmitter. I was very unhappy about that, but it led to revelation about one of the things B can't stand about school. The teacher stands up and addresses the class, giving numerous instructions. and B has felt stressed out by this, because she thinks that she is supposed top follow all these instructions. She's not. So I had a talk with her and told her just to ignore that, and her workers will help her after the teacher has finished, and she will have her own instructions. This is the benefit of actually going to hang out with her at school, because there is no way she could have articulated that better to me than she had been, which was by saying they boss her around.
     Last night, Andrew took B to a party while I went to see a movie. B had a good time, which is a really nice change. Usually, she can't stand groups of people. But there was a three year old for her to play with, and so she had a friend.
     On Tuesday, we go see the program at Britannia. I hope it's right for her, because I am not swimming in options.

Still Not Better

     I'm still not better. I'll spare you the gory details, but I will tell you that I'm having trouble walking very much, and I'm very fatigued. Hopefully, it clears up completely soon.
     The practical upshot is that I have missed two very important appointments for B. With the same doctor. And I feel horrible and irresponsible. And yeah, yeah, cut myself slack, and all that, but I usually do not forget such stuff so much, and since Christmas, I've forgotten three really important appointments for her.
     I am burnt out. And exhausted. And I know I shouldn't make any more appointments until I feel better. Just taking care of B and my own stuff is hard enough right now.
     But I still feel bad. When you have to interact with as many doctors as I do for B, feeling incompetent is disastorous, just for yourself. I have always considered many things in life just a bluff to make it through. Not a lie, just working yourself up to get through it. I don't know what will happen if I lose steam. I'm sitting on a medical house of cards. If I crash...
    B, however, is doing pretty good. She's had lots of rest over Spring Break, and Ice Cream. The other day, I took her in a very slow way to the park. We saw a friend there, and I asked her if she would play with his four year old girl. She was happy to do it, she is really good with small kids. She took the girl to the sand box, and they hung out with tons of other toddlers and wee ones. After awhile I wandered over and asked her how it was going. She said, in a whisper, "Mom, which of these kids am I watching again?"
     It was very cute. :)

Conversations With B

B: How many x's and o's do I have in me?
Me: What?
B: You know, chromsomes?
Me: Chromosomes? Uh, I'm not sure off the top of my head, I'll have to look it up.
B: I have two, two o's, because I'm a girl.
Me: No, you have two x chromosomes. If you were a boy you'd have an x and a y.
B: I pretended to be a boy once.
Me: Oh, yeah, how'd that go?
B: It was weird.
Me: How so?
B: Well, I forgot to lift the toilet seat, but it doesn't matter, because I don't have a penis!

Nap Time

There are just so many uses for a book.

The Trend

     Well, I've noticed a real downward trend in my posts in the last two months. They've been really hard months, but I dislike that I'm coming accross as some depressive and depressing person. I'm really not.
     For instance, today I had lunch with Andrew and we discovered that a whole bunch of ridiculous and made-up lyrics fit into the melody of Lennon's "Give Peace A Chance", which was quite enjoyable. You pretty much cannot fail.
     Also, two nights ago, Andrew had this discussion with B:

      Andrew: B, would you like a chainsaw?
       B: *nods, smiling*
       Andrew: What would you do with a chainsaw?
       B: Cut off everybody's arms...
       Andrew: Oh, now we know who's not getting a chainsaw for Christmas. Oh! Here, B... what you should have said is, "I'd build homes for the homeless!"
       B: Out of arms?

:-D

I am SO proud.

 

Waiters That Flush

     I did talk B out for a walk the other night. Usually she LOVES night time walks, but she is just fatigued lately.
     When we walk, we like to talk about which houses we would like to live in.
     The other night I said, "What about this house? Would you like to live there?" pointing out a pink stucco covered house.
      "Yes. That kind of house comes with a waiter."
     "Really?"
     "Yes, and with a waiter, you don't even need to flush the toilet."
     "You don't?"
     "Nope, the waiter flushes it for you," she made a flush motion with her hands.
     "Wow. I wish we had a waiter."
     "You need that kind of house. And they are expensive. You need $20,000!"
     "I see."
     We walked in silence for awhile, and then I said, "Are you sure you don't mean a butler?"
     "Oh yeah, " she laughed. "A butler."
     "Because I think a guy serving you a hamburger would be pretty surprised that he had to come flush your toilet."

Not Very Sneaky

     Because B has memory problems and is emotionally younger than she is chronologically (emotionally she's 6 or 7, but she'll be 12 in 3 months), she has a very limited capacity for being sneaky or lying. I know that these things are viewed as anti-social, but really they are a part of normal development being as they represent an understanding of self-interest and self-preservation. Children lie, usually about small things, to avoid consequences and while it is our job to correct this behaviour, I consider it normal that they do it. I guess that, until you have a child that doesn't hit such milestones, you don't rejoice as I did the one or two times she has actually lied to me or been sneaky. Sure, outwardly I was all proper motherly chastisement, but inside I was thrilled that she actually had the forward thinking ability to lie to avoid getting in trouble. Parenting her is weird like that.
    But B usually does not do it, and not because she is morally superior, but simply because she doesn't remember doing something, doesn't remember she isn't supposed to do something, or because, due to anxiety, she feels compelled to tell me what happened.
     A while ago, Andrew bought her some great new bath toys and so I replaced her old ones with them. If I had done it when she wasn't looking, I know that she would not have noticed, or not until a very long time had passed. However, she came in while I was doing it and saw the old toys in the bathroom wastebasket and became very upset. It took quite a bit of discussion to get her to understand that there were new better toys and it was okay to let go of the old ones. She was talked into begrudgingly accepting this change, and I thought she would come around, or more likely just forget about it.
     Sometime later I was going through her closet when I found a box with a post it stuck on it that said, "Do Not Sneak In Box". It had all the bath toys I had I thrown out in it, including the empty Spongebob Squarepants bubble bath container (in my defense, the box didn't have a lid so I wasn't really sneaking). I doubt that she thought, "I'll come back later and hide these precious things," more likely she just saw them later and took them. But I was impressed that she hid them and even made a note. That is a fair bit of planning on her part.
     On Monday I bought some Nutella. Just a little jar, because it was my birthday. I gave her some and then left the jar where she was sitting. She wanted more, but I told her she'd get more later. I left the room for awhile, and when I came back, she was sitting in an awkward way on the couch, with her knees up and a blanket partially concealing her face. Her huge blue eyes were peeking out at me.
     "B, what are you doing?"
      "Nothing!" she said, and the blanket fell, and I saw that she had a fine coating of Nutella around her mouth and onto her chin.
     "Honey, are you sure you're doing nothing?"
     "Yes," she hid the jar under the blanket.
      "Because Mommy is pretty sure that you're sneaking Nutella. Want to know how I know?"
     "How?"
     "Because the jar, that was sitting right there, is missing, and you have a Nutella goatee."
     She looked very guilty and dropped the blanket, but I was too amused at her to be angry. I started laughing, and she started laughing, and then she jumped up and shouted, "You should take a picture and send it to everyone we know!"
     So I did.
     The little monkey ate the whole jar, too.