Break-Time

I recently volunteered at a One Room Schoolhouse, and a student noticed the “pointy hat” on the chair in front of the classroom. Over 100 years ago, public humiliation of the child was acceptable; today, the “time-out” chair is often found in the back or side of the classroom, and no-one is ever labeled a “dunce.” Some things change, but the underlying reason for an unscheduled break is the same. For more information about the dunce cap, Wikipedia does a good job.

To Flush or Not to Flush?

It’s 2 am and you’ve just relieved your bladder. Boy, that was a loud stream! It’s pitch dark and it’s so quiet you can hear the spider crawling along the wall. Do you flush? If you do, will you wake your other half? Will the flush in the hallway bathroom wake the kids? The worst is when you’re a guest at your parents’ apartment, and their bedroom is literally 2 feet across from the bathroom. They sleep with the door opened ajar. Do you even bother going? Will shutting the door quietly be too loud? My mom is a pretty light sleeper. What’s worse? Not flushing until the morning or flushing to wake a semi-insomniac? At least it’s not a supersonic type of flush. I opted to flush.

Only $1.99?

I have a few seedlings from sowing earlier last month. Though this square was only $1.99. We’ll see how it all pans out!

Brain Disconnect

It’s funny how my brain works, or doesn’t work. I can remember random things and important things, but not simple things sometimes. Out of sight, out of mind rings true here. I had put the cupcake carrier on the island, but my husband decided to move it to the corner by the microwave. I heard him tell me and I saw it myself. Of course, I forgot them and drove back midway for them. It’s also interesting when I actually thought of it vs. getting to the party and then realizing it.

Grass Heads?

This came home from camp today. I never understood these….

…because the last one from kindergarten ended up like this:

When it originally was like this:

Out with a bang

Today was a day of mixed emotions. Mads got on the bus and went off to kindergarten for her first official day of school. I didn’t cry. I’ve heard so many moms do, and I began to wonder if not crying was ok. Even my MIL told Mads that I was going to. I mean, I was anxious that the bus ran late, but it was expected on the first day. My daughter was so excited she didn’t pose for pictures. I suppose that’s fine. She had a great day, though!

Later, I took WZR to class at TLG. His last day. We were about 10 minutes late, and I remember thinking that it was an exceptionally large class today when I walked in. There were a lot of handbags on the floor along the wall!!! Usually, when there are more than x number of kids, there are two instructors. I don’t ever recall seeing this ratio in the younger classes, probably because there is a parent, but the class was definitely overcrowded. Maybe some of the kids were trying the class or maybe they were taking advantage of the fall enrollment special-get August free. Bottom line, too many people. During the group activity with the air track, I was bumping into parents and kids just standing 2 feet from it!

Well, WZR loves the air track and was actually following instructions to maintain a pattern of movement – get on, move across, get off. He went a half dozen times successfully before he decided to walk onto a pile of 4 mats and jump off after getting off the air track properly. I never even imagined that the low balance beam would be too close to the mats. The corner was about 18 inches from the mats. I watched him jump as he has done many times in the past in the class (in fact, that’s how he learned how to jump!) and then it became all wrong so quickly. He was wearing shorts so he didn’t trip on the legs. The next thing I knew, he had hit his head. I was standing two feet away because the instructor was behind the mats catching all the kids who jumped off the air track and all the parents were hovering. But, again, he’s jumped off the pile before and it didn’t dawn on me to worry about the beam. Now that I think about it, he should have hit his right temple, but it was his left. I ran and scooped him up and I immediately looked at his face, eyes, and then I saw the blood. I know forehead injuries result in a lot of blood. Believe me, I know, I’ve needed stitches on my head after hitting the cemented pavement. Anyway, I remember just picking him up and running out to ask for ice. Fortunately, one of the other instructors was out there and ran into the kitchen area to get some. I guess I should just be grateful that I got the remaining cubes from a bag of ice they probably used recently for a party. Being that it’s a place where there are potentially a lot of injuries by kids, and there is a pharmacy 2 doors down the strip mall, there should have been a real ice pack, right? Am I overreacting?! There have been other occasions that I or another parent were given a frozen water bottle or a frozen bag of perishables. There was another time when the freezer was empty. Now that I think about it, that’s really inappropriate! Even the public library was able to give me one. It was a self-cooling one upon breakage. Ok, so now I need to add another item to my already bulky pocketbook.

Back to my baby: so the bleeding slowed down, but he was not responsive to questions for a good five minutes. He was in a daze. It was a small cut, and if he were ready, I’d let him go back in, but the instructor talked me into bringing him into the pediatrician’s office. “That’s why there’s health insurance.” She also said she was concerned because it was his temple. I was not in hysterics, but I did have blood all over my hand and I did have tears flowing. There was blood on his face. The instructor genuinely was concerned and handled the situation well. I was a little surprised that none of the parents/grandparents in the waiting room asked if he was ok. The instructor running the class also didn’t follow-up later in the day, but the one who helped me did. It kind of made me feel like it was my fault. It wasn’t. I didn’t want to be a helicopter mom, and I wasn’t preoccupied when it happened.

The NP saw him as soon as I got there (luckily just minutes away), cleaned the 1-cm laceration, and applied skin glue to it. There was a hole in the center of the cut from the scrape against the metal part of the beam, giving the cut an “onion effect.” It should heal in 7 to 10 days, but I was told to expect a black eye. So far nothing, but I’m always afraid the “stitch” will come off prematurely. Yes, I always worry about something. Anyway, we sure left the class with a bang and gave them something to talk about. Since our schedules don’t match with theirs, we won’t be back in the fall. I do hope that they review the incident at their next staff meeting and do more to prevent this from happening to another child. They also need to be better equipped with first aid supplies and ice packs. When I am ready, I will write to the owner.

Fine Friday

I had ordered from Peapod yesterday because I wasn’t sure how Mads would be like today. In case she was able to go to school, though, I scheduled the delivery between 6 and 8 am. It came at 6:45! I thought I was missing Tylenol strips (what I needed most), but it turns out they were out of stock. Had I not tried to go green and selected to go paperless for the bills, I would have known that. Instead, I wrote an email to customer service since they were operating on central time and I didn’t feel like waiting for them to open at 7 am their time.

Mads was actually up early, singing, and dancing. I mean SINGING and DANCING! My husband said she was ready to go back to school. I had my doubts, but I sent her because she did look much improved. After preschool, we went to her make-up gym class and saw a friend with her daughter making up a class also. WZR was so confused to see her and a nanny there because he usually sees them at playdates or the library. So funny. He was so shy and stole glances out of the corner of his eyes. So cute! Mads declared that she didn’t sneeze all day. Let’s see if we can make it to WZR’s 8:15 am make-up class tomorrow. “Why are they even open at that hour?” the husband asks.

She feels “blah”

That’s what I told the instructor at the gym class when I called to request an excused absence and to schedule a make-up. She asked if those words were out of the mouth of Mads and chuckled. She would say something like that, but she just looked tired and congested. No preschool today. She had a low-grade temperature and took a morning nap. Then she said she was better. We even made a collage of flowers that I cut from a Home magazine and other miscellaneous items.

RIP, Bee Sook

My Great Aunt and Uncle used to babysit me while both of my parents went to work and I was the only child at the time. My fondest memories of the apartment on the 5th floor of the tenement on Henry Street include playing with water in the kitchen sink while standing on a chair ad holding a metal spoon. I spent a lot of time with my Great Aunt and Uncle, who spoiled me rotten. Funny, I can’t recall whether my second cousin, Bee Sook (Chinese for Uncle Bee; my Great Aunt and Uncle called him “Bee” because he was the baby in the family. Bee = baby) was around when they babysat me. His real name is William. He was probably out while I was in playing with water. I know he was adopted and he had social issues, maybe even mental issues, but he functioned fine in society. I’m sure he was well-known in Chinatown as he was a delivery man, sold flowers for a florist, etc.; he worked for a lot of different employers. He could read and write English (went to school) and spoke Chinese. At some point, he became a more permanent fixture in my memories. He used to always keep a dalmatian or some other large dog in the apartment and he would love to show the dog to us. Growing up, whenever we visited the family, he would pop his head out from behind the curtains (he took up the living room). I remember when my mother would tell me how he saw her on the street and loudly called out, “Wah so!” (Chinese for wife of Wah, my father’s name). One time he even honked at us and offered my husband and I a ride in the van he was driving for the day.

During my first or second year of college, my Great Uncle passed away. I remember shortly after I dreamed about my Great Uncle telling me to take care of my Great Aunt. It felt so real that I was touched that even in his afterlife he cared so much about his wife. While I was in college and then in training, I would try to visit and call. Fortunately, she has a great number of nieces and nephews who love and respect her dearly. They spent a lot of time with her. Whenever I got a chance, I would walk up the five flight of stairs and visit my Great Aunt and see Bee Sook. Eventually I brought my husband and then my kids. My kids would always cry when they saw Bee Sook. He was dentally challenged and just looked mean, even though he had a kind heart. Mads eventually accepted him, but then WZR started crying as soon as he saw him when we visited this past Chinese New Year. Well, WZR won’t have the pleasure of seeing him again. He passed away Wednesday morning. From what I can gather after speaking to my mother and Great Aunt, he was complaining of a headache on Tuesday evening and was brought in to the ER, where he passed away early Wednesday morning. It sounds like he had an aneurysm and they did all they could to try to save him, but there was too much bleeding in the brain. Big. Heavy. Sigh. My poor Great Aunt, who is in her 90’s and my Bee Sook who was only in his late 40’s or early 50’s (I know I should know). My Great Aunt once asked me seriously to please help take care of Bee Sook when she’s gone. i don’t think she was expecting to outlive him. She is so grief-stricken, but she told me how she is telling herself to hang in there, to eat, to sleep, so that she can make the right decisions and help with the funeral arrangements. “I have to make it through to take care of the business.” She keeps wondering if it was stacking the last heavy box of their personal items that initiated the spiral of events. They had just moved back into their newly renovated apartment and he was trying to open up the space by putting the box up high. That day, he also prepared her meals, bought the newspaper, and told her that he was not going to be home for lunch or dinner (rare) because a friend is in town and he and his friends are taking him out. “It was as if he knew; like he was saying goodbye to me.” She has accepted the fate of her child, but she is sad that he was gone in a matter of hours. “Life is so fragile.” She is so strong, but I hope she finds reasons to continue living after the business, which is on Thursday. She does have an aid, but she is not a live-in aid. My mother and one of her nieces have been alternating turns spending the night with my Great Aunt, but loneliness is very hard to endure.

Festive Friday

Mads was well enough to have visitors today, so her sibling friends came by for a playdate. That was actually nice because we haven’t seen anyone, except the plow guy, since Monday. No, I’m not a recluse, I just like hanging out at home. There is plenty to do. Besides, I went outside to shovel, I mean get fresh air, on Thursday. Surely that counts as going outside. Anyway, the kids had a good time. They even formed a rock band called “The Noisies.” As you can see, they brought down the house.

Remember I wasn’t motivated to clean last week for Chinese New Year? Well, I got some cleaning done, but still not the hard core kind. It’s ok. Since my husband kept asking me about a Chinese New Year dinner, we went out to buy some shrimp, fish, and lettuce for a semi-traditional dinner. I already had a roaster and noodles. My grandmother also made some dumplings and cake. Well, even though the popper popped on the chicken, it was still undercooked after 90 minutes at 400 degrees F. After multiple microwave attempts, it was finally suitable for consumption. It looked and tasted good, though! Here’s a good spice mix (1 tablespoon of salt, 1.5 teaspoon of all spice, 1/2 tsp of pepper, and 1/4 tsp of cinnamon. Anyway, serving a whole chicken = wholeness and prosperity. The rest of the menu included salt/pepper shrimp (too salty) symbolic of happiness since the Chinese word for shrimp sounds like “ha” = laughter and happiness; lettuce = fresh start for the new year; salmon = good wishes and prosperity (Chinese word for fish sounds like Chinese word for prosperity); bok choy just because; white rice; dumplings  = wealth and prosperity since they look like ingots; cake = rich and sweet life; noodles = longevity; butternut squash soup (ok, should be winter melon soup) = unity. I tried.

One last thing, I worry about the package of the raw shrimp that I bought today. The instructions did not include cooking the shrimp before serving them, just defrost, drain, and serve. Hmmm…