Laura

Scott's jury duty didn't sort out as quickly as I hoped, it was a significant trial and they spent three days on jury selection. Which was a bit stressful because I wanted answers. In the end, he was not one of the selected jurors, so our schedule goes back to normal now. For which I am very grateful, the morning routine is easier with two adults on it!

Tomorrow is a day off for everyone. Not sure what we will do with it. Except I will be returning the cans because the drop bin for bags of cans is usually pretty empty in the mornings. Really I should have done it at the beginning of this week, except see the morning routine with only one of us home!

Also tomorrow I get my flu and covid shots. By Monday I should be back at my normal, but it's going to be another "I love vaccinations but I hate the after-effects" weekend, probably.

Worth it.

One of the cats made an odd noise this morning and I was worried they'd been hurt, but investigation just revealed they had found a spider. Poor spider. Generally I don't mind spiders, they are doing good in the world, but I'm not going to rescue them from a hunting cat in their own house either. Presumably it's been eaten by now, that is the usual fate.

Better than the things a friend's cat eats! He's needed surgery before to get bits of foam or plastic out. She's watching him to see if half a noseplug (swimming) comes out safely at the moment I believe...hope he retains his health, but not the noseplug. Yikes.

...though I surely don't post like it. October was lovely and I got a lot of things done around the house and taking care of family health. The numbers are working out for me to just stay home, not go job searching. This doesn't preclude my jumping all over a job if someone points it out and it sounds fun/fascinating/interesting/whatever, but the bar is definitely high there, for now. The work itself would have to be worth the time given up to it, not just acceptable in return for money.

Handy, since our youngest has been home sick from school since Halloween with a nasty cough and fever. Negative for flu, negative for covid, negative for patience. Two doctor's appointments this week (the first was 'probably viral, he should get over it, come back if it is not gone by Friday'; the second was Friday). He's on high-powered antibiotics for it now so we will see how that does.

So far either none of the rest of us have caught whatever it is, or we recovered from it easily. (I *think* I may have actually caught it last weekend? But if so, it didn't last a day for me. Maybe I was just having a bad day; who knows?)

I need to find my cute reusable advent calendars and prep them (I need to start finding them now because I am not sure where I last put them away!) - the boys expect one, and I've been buying pre-made ones the past several years, but that costs more and is less personalized, and this year I have time. So that'll be fun.

Maria (tuxedo cat) managed to get some kind of bacterial or fungal infection on her right front paw, so the vet removed all the fur between her paw-pad and toes on the underside and she's been getting an anti-almost-everything cream 2-3 times a day. About half the times I put it on it's uncomfortable for her, and she growls very seriously - the warning rumble of a cat who is about to shred you if you don't stop. For the entire time I'm putting it on. Without following through on the threat. She really is a fairly well behaved cat.

However, it may or may not do the trick - the ointment - because she's SUPPOSED to be in a cone to keep her from licking it off. It took her two hours to figure out how to remove the cone the first time. Second time she did it in under fifteen minutes and it took us until the next day to find it. So I bought one of those orange-shaped donut cone substitutes. Very cute, off in less than half an hour. So I gave up and I cuddle and pet her for a while after most doses (sometimes she leaves too rapidly) to distract her and hopefully keep it on long enough. Statistically I can get her to be petted for longer than the cone or cone-substitute would stay on.

If I call the vet and they want to see her again to check it, I'm gonna say "I told you so" to the cat. And then I may just order this, because it has me giggling a LOT and I don't think she could take it off:

https://www.amazon.com/EMUST-Recovery-Breathable-Adjustable-Alternative/dp/B0CQX832HN/

Sadly the one with the green body suit, which is more accurate and cuter IMO, does not come in a size other than large, and Maria is not large for a cat.

It's finally rainy. I know the state of the world isn't what I want it to be, including climate and weather systems, but it finally feels like a proper fall here all the same.

Mostly because I have one again. I've been on antibiotics since Tuesday night, though, and it's responsive to decongestants again. Progress!

Also, I do NOT need a sinus infection. I clearly have one. Sigh. I just saw my doctor for my physical, and I still thought I was beating this sucker back at that point. Well, since I'm currently debating whether to go to urgent care or soldier on until Monday, that's never good. :P Oh well.

Scott and I are both feeling a bit run-down and off today, so no swimming today after all. (Open swim at Children of the Sea is closed tonight in any case, but we'd planned to go to Canby. Now? Nope.) Luckily, Canby has public swim 1-3 Saturday _and_ 3-5 Sunday, so we can still get plenty of swimming in tomorrow too.

The cookies I baked were a hit, which is good.

A while ago it was noisy upstairs, but Scott was in amongst it and it didn't sound un-cheerful, so I ignored it.

I just went up to help Ian put away a game, and Scott got to enjoy my reaction - the dresser that was supposed to be moved today or tomorrow from Andrew's room to Ian's room is IN IAN'S ROOM. Scott and the boys moved it. It's not a small dresser, and the boys are rightly proud of themselves.

So, we went to Disneyland for Christmas this year. (This was partially a whim and partially not - we had savings for, and plans for, an eventual Disney trip. I'd been waiting until the boys were old enough to enjoy it, and when our Christmas plans shifted a bit we said 'why not?' I'd meant to do 5/8 for the ages, but 4/almost-7 seemed close enough.) The one bad thing about timing is that Ian is 41 inches tall at the moment, or perhaps 41.5 with shoes on, and that makes him a half-inch too short for several rides. He was very disappointed by this once or twice, but honestly, mostly he didn't miss it. I think the Grizzly River Run is the one thing he really regretted it on, and if he had ANY idea how cold Andrew and I were...well, he'd still have regretted it, because four-year-old excitement and practicality do NOT mix. Heh.

I am not going to try to describe the Christmas decor in the hotels, Downtown Disney, or the parks. It was GORGEOUS and AWESOME and I will have pictures up later and let them handle it because seriously, awesome to look at, probably boring to read about.

I'm including steps/miles walked, as registered by my phone, because they amuse me.

I'm cribbing some of this from text messages sent to other people to jog my memory, so some of you may recognize parts of this. :) Day by day, because I'm not sure I can keep it coherent even so.

MONDAY (11,112 steps; 5.22 miles):

( Travel, hotel, and Downtown Disney )

TUESDAY (16,475 steps; 7.34 miles):

( Disneyland )

WEDNESDAY (18,098 steps; 8.39 miles):

( Breakfast with Mickey and Friends; Disney California Adventure; Laura's health (bah) )

THURSDAY (18,364 steps; 8.26 miles):

( Chip & Dale, DCA, Disneyland, and the Rainforest Cafe; one lost item )

FRIDAY (18,759 steps; 8.27 miles):

( Goofy's Kitchen, Disneyland, and DCA )

SATURDAY (6,919 steps; 3.32 miles):

( In which small children having their routine disrupted catches up with us, and we go home. )

First, thank you God and thank you all of you who prayed or thought of us or just expressed that you cared. Uncle Dick's melanoma was successfully removed and contained, and he was officially declared cancer-free on Thursday. He has some rehab to go through because of where things had to be removed, but that beats cancer by a great deal.

Parenting moments:

The boys needed new shoes. (Ian destroyed one pair, and the other pair was getting too small. Drew's last pair was coming apart at the toes.) So we got them new shoes...and I about melted, because after Drew picked out the Bumblebee transformers shoes, Ian got the same shoes in his size. (They were one of the three he was already looking at.) Small kids being hard on shoes, we usually get them two pairs. I was going to get the second pair rather more cheaply than the store we were in, but Drew begged very sweetly for a second pair there - Star Wars with light sabers and a light saber noise. So Ian got a second pair and picked police sneakers with flashing lights.

This wasn't deliberately a reward for swimming, but since it was right after swim lessons it may have been taken that way. Both boys have advanced a level! Drew to Water Safety 3, Ian to Advanced Parent-Tot 2. There's only two sessions of APT2 that suit our schedule, so he may have to go to APT1 again anyway, but I'll try to avoid that. Which is to say I'll be at the swim school when registration opens, next Saturday morning at 7 am, and will likely have been waiting a little while. Ugh. Well, so it goes. This is the only session likely to be that way for quite a while - Ian will graduate out of APT2 based on age, and move into either water safety 2 or 3 depending on what his teacher says, both of which have a lot more time slots.

Me and health:

I've had my annual eye exam and my prescription is the same and my retinas are fine. I'm not so fond of having my eyes dilated, but it is pretty important in general and especially with my vision. And by next weekend I will have prescription swim goggles to wear when I swim, which would be awesome, because right now I wear my glasses into the pool and that is _not_ good for them. (But I have to be able to monitor the boys, which means I have to be able to see them, and that means glasses.) New glasses are also in the works, but I'm waiting for frames that are being ordered in so I can see them.

So I'm officially listed as allergic to Allegra, because back when it was prescription and I think brand, we tried me on it (because Claratin wasn't being as effective as it historically had been), and I had a non-standard reaction: violent nausea, which is NOT an expected side effect. Consistent, violent nausea for a couple hours after each dose, which made eating within an hour *before* the dose unwise also.

You know what else I had? TOTAL RELIEF OF MY ALLERGY SYMPTOMS. TOTAL. For like 12-16 hours of the day. Amazing. Mind-blowing. But...two hours of nausea.

So, now they are OTC and generic. Says I, "My lactose intolerance couldn't possibly cause this, but...let's see if the filler in brand has lactose. If it does and the generic doesn't, maybe I'll try it." (Worst case: violent nausea again. It's not like it was life-threatening, just miserable.)

I go. I read packaging. No lactose in brand. Lactose in the generic I could get. Otherwise seem nearly identical.

...yeah. I think maybe I should just let the Allegra be there by itself. Darnit.

Gratitudes and a few cute kid moments. All have previously appeared on my Twitter and Facebook.

( I like having friends, therefore I cut-tag )

Seriously, argh. So. There was Conflikt. We returned. Tuesday, Ian started day care, which means most of February I'm on leave and he's in day care (lets me respond if needed, and get stuff done otherwise).

So I need a fair amount of dental work (again...pregnancy hormones and the lower energy levels and no time and teeth that are soft to begin with...yeah, actually it was better than I feared this time!). So that's scheduled throughout February, I have my allergy shots (need to get back up to maintenance, since they're stopped the last month of pregnancy and resume after recovery), the cats needed to go to the vet, Drew had his 3-year pediatric appointment, Ian has a two-month appointment, Drew has a dental appointment....

February's gonna be interesting. But this week? Oh dear ... GAH. Monday we drive home, arriving basically in time for dinner. Tuesday we take both boys to day care, then I collect Drew later that morning for his pediatric appointment (no shots needed this year - I didn't expect that! It went well). Then I return phone calls for various appointments and whatnot. Today I got my allergy shots, then took both cats to the vet (they were THRILLED, I tell you, THRILLED - I was not - I had trouble getting Drew's car seat out of my car, the first time I've had to take it out since it moved to the side position and switched to LATCH attachment, and it was not cooperating--). Tomorrow I have a dental appointment and a routine medical exam/blood draw. Tomorrow evening is the gaming group, I hope I'm conscious by then.

And, you know, I have to pump milk for Ian in amongst these appointments, and I'd kinda like to clean the house as I'd intended because the state of my kitchen and pantry has me wanting to *scream*. (Not "it needs a scrubbing" - "it needs someone to decide where stuff goes and then bully it into place". Where 'someone' had better be me, because I am fussy about where stuff is, alas. Good thing Scott is comfortable with/accepting of my chosen order.)

(Also, kudos to Scott, who helped me *over the phone* with figuring out what I was doing wrong getting that car seat unmounted. Counter-intuitive interface ahoy! Now I know and next time it should be easy. Go figure. I'm going to have him guide me through putting it back in, rather than doing it himself, too - I haven't had to do that in this spot and I should, so I know.)

As for the cats, Ray's weight has held steady and he's a fine fit cat. Apple's dropped a pound, so we're going to give her a little extra canned and monitor, but we're not sure that there's an issue yet either, since that was over a bit more than a year. Apple got three vaccines, Ray got two, and since I released them in the house after the appointment, they have been studiously out of reach and mostly out of sight. :P

Going back to work won't be restful...but it may come close, relative to what I'm doing this week. Sheesh. It will at least involve fewer needles and less drilling.

And, yannow, I owe emails and such to various people...I am so behind on things. O.o If only I could get far enough behind to be ahead, but alas it doesn't work that way.

Oh, and laundry. And dishes. Babies make for a lot of dishes. So do toddlers. And both help make a lot of laundry.