Happiness Week 46

Steve started his new job this Tuesday. Just our luck, they are in crunch time to finish the game they've been working on. So he had several 2am work nights this week. Of course this means I'm on my own for dinner, homework and putting the kids to bed. It's giving me a real bad feeling of deja vu. After a month of regular hours (and 2 weeks off) I'd just gotten used to him being home. But they are promising that it won't be bad during the holidays but that too gives me Deja Vu. Still, I am grateful he has a job so I'll just hope this company is "the one" that actually learns from it's mistakes and by some miracle avoids this type of miscalculation on it's schedule in the future. (Insert serious eyeroll.)

Unfortunately Ainsley had a little accident on Monday. We were attempting potty training (no not that kind of accident, but yes that kind too) and I was walking her back from the toilet holding my hands and she unexpectedly let go of a hand rotated her torso to turn off the light as we passed the switch, lost her balance and fell and hit her face on the kitchen cabinets. She badly banged and cut her lip. I didn't take her to the ER because I knew they wouldn't do anything for her. How do I know?.....Well 6 years of Ainsley gives a mom a different perspective. AND, Evie tripped on the stairs at her grandpa's house when she was about 3 years old and cut her lip nearly all the way through with one tooth and punctured it with 2 other teeth. It was horrible. They stitched it only because I insisted asked them nicely to (because I also have a lip scar from a childhood fall) but the dummies used dissolvable stitches (not smart in the wet environment of the mouth - this was pre-Ainsley now I'd know better). By the time we drove home to Seattle from Issaquah they came unstitched and we had to drive back. They didn't restitch it and so Evie has a scar. Plus having her lip stitched was torture! Not something I would want them to do to Ainsley considering this cut was not as bad. Bad, but I felt totally comfortable making the call not to have it looked at. So anyway....Ainsley's lip is healing but she's been miserable all week. It was quite swollen until today. Now it looks like there is a giant canker sore on her lip, which it basically is. I think in another few days she'll be happier and more "herself".  I'll be glad of that.

I'd hoped to update you on the results of Ainsley's endocrinology appointment last week, but of course the doctor didn't call like he said he would. I left a voice mail but didn't hear back.

Today she had a follow up appointment with her occuloplastic surgeon. It's been 5 months since surgery (in some ways it feels like years ago) I don't have the energy to go into it so I'll save that one. They did pull an eyelash that was growing into her eye. My poor girl. Still not going into it other than to say that. Thinking happy. Happy for this post.

We'd borrowed an ILS pillow from the SLP this week but after trying it I'm not sure the pillow would be effective for our goals in the same way the full system is, even if it costs $300 instead of $1800. I don't need "one more thing to do". So we returned it Friday at our therapy session. My purse slid off the wheelchair and my phone slid out under the car. I didn't even notice it until I was leaving for girl's night out the next day.  After searching everywhere I called my number to find it and much to my surprise someone answered. Unfortunately she said it was run over (probably by me) and the glass was shattered. I've been getting by just fine with a basic cell phone. I went phone shopping yesterday and was horrified to learn what service costs for "smart phones". Steve's been trying to talk me into getting one. In fact a couple years ago he bought me an IPhone and I made him take it back. I'm that resistant. I got by without it and saved several hundred dollars. As luck would have it the Apple Store and AT&T were out of the IPhone 5's yesterday, so today I duct taped my Razor back together. It's so ghetto. Unbelievably it works and will get me by until I can figure out what to do.

In addition this week Ainsley had her second hippotherapy session and the therapist said she and the horse both seemed much more relaxed. I think it's actually made a difference already. She started to straddle the toilet (a bit like a horse) using strong trunk muscles and seems much less at risk for falling in or off the toilet which I obviously like. I'm hopeful for other positive changes.

I finally have been able to catch up on all the straggler stuff that didn't get done over the summer and since the move. This week I started working on the toughest area for me. Paper. I've now got it pretty well organized with one caveat, Ainsley has her own drawer of "to-do" paperwork on top off all my other stuff. I'm thinking it's going to work better to have that separated. There's just too much of it. It's just in time since the holidays are basically here and the year is nearly over.  I'm ready for a fresh start.

Here are the week's pictures.
 

Daily Happiness Photos - Week 46

11/12 Downton Abbey

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I just learned about this show from a lady in an antique store. I guess she sensed I'd love it when I told her how much I like antique English country decor. Steve and I started watching it on Netflix and it's been so nice to have a show to watch that we both enjoy.  It's so convenient that we can watch at our own pace. Unfortunately tonight we watched the last episode of Season 2 and now we can't wait for Season 3 to come out on PBS in January. 

11/13 Doing Something Right

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When I see this I know I must be doing something right in the parenting department because I do plenty wrong. Since Steve was working late I had to drag Adrian and Ainsley along to Evie's ballet class. Rather than wait there we went to Target. Adrian found some Christmas themed gel window clings that he wanted to buy as a Christmas present for Evie. I told him he should give them to her now so she can enjoy them longer. I offered to pay for them if he'd like but he said he really wanted to. He gave them to her in the car and it warmed my heart to see the love they share. Adrian is such a sweet boy. 

 

11/14 Family Friendly TV

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Ainsley has a handful of shows that she likes to watch and they are all rather intolerable if you are an adult: Curious George(that's the best), Kipper, Babar, Dragon Tales (that's the worst). Even Evie and Adrian are tired of them. So I was rather happy to discover that Ainsley really likes Leave it to Beaver (on Netflix which I love). I hadn't watched it in years and I'd totally forgotten how funny it is. Tonight we watched an episode of when Beaver went around selling water from a wagon to earn money for a baseball uniform. It was so funny to hear them all say how dumb people would have to be to pay for water. Little did they know 50 years later 85 million bottles of water would be sold every day in the US.

11/15 Done with Homework Hell

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No surprise here, homework time is not my favorite time of the day. If you have kids that can do it themselves and stay on task without reminders I hate you think you are real lucky.  Evie had math homework to do on the computer, story problems multiplying fractions. So with each answer the score would change on the screen. She had to get a 90, and we figured out that meant 90 percent.  She would be in the upper 80's and then get an answer wrong and her average would jump down and that happened over and over. When the score hit 90 and she could finally go to bed (I'd already tucked the other kids in) I might have actually jumped for joy.

11/16 File Pocket

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I always have a "pile" on my desk. My "to-do" stack. Actually I had 2, one on each desk until I forced myself to spend a few days going through papers last month. I even got the kids' school paperwork sorted (mostly recycled). I've been looking for a metal wall pocket to keep my stack up and off the desk and finally found just what I wanted at World Market. Now the trick will be keeping the stack small enough to fit in it.  My next step is manage my to-do items and create some schedules to help keep me on task. If you look closely you can also see my new monitor stand to elevate my monitor. I'm hoping it will ease some of my back pain and make it more comfortable to spend long periods of time at the computer editing photos (top on my to-do list).

 

11/17 Girl's Night

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I met 2 of my oldest friends for a girl's night out. We went shopping and had drinks (Kappatini's, sake & Sapporo) and sushi. We usually get together as couples so it was nice for a change to have some girl's time to really chat without the distraction of men and/or children.

11/18 Stuffie Sleepover

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Evie had the brilliant idea to have a stuffie sleepover. She wanted to blow up the air mattress and sleep with every single one of their (hers and Adrian's) stuffies. In true Evie fashion she'd been obessessing about it all week.  I thought it was perfect to do it the night I went out. The next morning it was so fun for the kids to play with them in front of the fire. There were so many that I was able to bury all three kids* and have them "pop out". Ainsley thought it was the coolest thing ever....and it was. 

*Please don't buy my kids any more stuffed animals. Just sayin'.

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To view a slideshow of the entire Happiness Photo Project click here. Confused about what this is or why I'm doing it? Click here for an explanation of what it's all about.