Friday, August 8, 2008

The Thousand Natural Shocks

Here we go again with worries at 3 a.m. that may or may not have any foundation. I am actually feeling rather upbeat despite the gloomy title from Hamlet's soliloquoy. Although this past week has been among the most hectic this summer, it has been filled with joy as well as anxiety. Laura came to finish her school district's calendar with me on Monday and we were hoping she would bring her one-year-old granddaughter for us to meet, but her granddaughter was taken to the hospital Sunday night to be treated for croup. She is doing better now. Erica also spent Monday night in the emergency room at Doylestown Hospital. She has a virus and was told to spend the week in bed. I sent the proofed calendar to the printer on Wednesday.

Monday and Tuesday, Saul took the girls to Beachcombers to give me extra hours to make a dent in my computer work. Sami and Izzy both spent their afternoons with friends they had made at the club and had to be cajoled into leaving to come home for dinner. Izzy has been perfecting her underwater somersaults. They had their faces painted beautifully yet again by the talented lady who comes to the club. Tuesday evening, we went to the King Buffet in Plymouth Meeting Mall for miso soup and sushi just to allow me a chance to get out of the house. The girls love going there and were very well behaved, but Izzy didn't know where to put herself when she was finished eating because she was so tired by 8:00 p.m. She fell asleep as soon as we got into the car to go home and both girls went directly to bed sleeping in their dresses that night.

Mom has been up and down this past week. Some mornings, she is weak and I bring breakfast to her room. Other mornings, she seems much stronger and joins us for breakfast. Whenever the therapist, social worker, nurse or home aide see her, she is very upbeat and tells them she is fine. That does not bode well for getting the services to continue. Adele took her to both GP and cardiologist this week and both found no real problems in the course of their examination.

Wednesday, I caught up with my work enough to go along to the swim club in the afternoon. That afternoon, Saul was bitten by a tick on his chest. It was such a tiny black speck that he was not even sure it was an insect when he removed it, but there was a miniscule pinprick of blood when he did. Now, I am worried about Lyme Disease and whether the girls could have been bitten also and we missed it. Tuesday, each girl had what appeared to be two mosquito bites that swelled up until I dabbed them with alcohol and applied Benadryl Cream. All the bites were just about gone within hours. What if there is something on our scalps that we missed?

Yesterday was Sami's real 8th birthday. She had told Saul over the weekend that her fondest wish for her birthday was for me to spend the day with her using the portable easel I had bought for her for Chanukah last year and learning from me how to paint on the canvas that came with it. With her four-year-old sister around, we had never had the opportunity to use the oils or acrylics that came with the set. By spending a few more hours on the computer between 2:30 and 5:30 a.m., I was able to free up yesterday completely. I went back to sleep from 5:30 to 8:30 a.m. while Saul gave the girls breakfast. Adele picked up Mom early and took her to the hospital for a blood test that the doctor had ordered. Saul found a dead bird on our doorstep and spent about an hour being transferred from agency to agency inquiring if it should be saved for testing for West Nile Virus which has been found in this area. He eventually gave up and shoveled it into the trash. About 10:30 a.m. we took the girls to Toys R Us so that Sami could get a free birthday present (a small inflatable soccer ball printed like 101 Dalmations) and a mylar balloon. They also had a sale on Leap Frog cartridges and we bought them three more to add to their collection--WALL-E, a learn-to-write and draw program, and a math program. The girls took turns on a demo bike with an interactive screen where they pedal and zap moving targets with a flashing red button on the handlebars. Then, we went to Plymouth Meeting Mall for lunch. We went to Bertucci's at Sami's request. Bertucci's gives children pizza dough with which to play, crayons and children's menus with games while awaiting lunch. Coincidentally, we were served by one of Saul's students from Chestnut Hill College and were very pleased with the food and the service. After lunch we went into the Mall for free birthday rides on the merry-go-round which also gave the girls free large bumper balls in the color of their choice (blue for Sami and red for Izzy). While there, they also played with the interactive advertising movie on the floor of the Mall, a free entertainment that I am always forgetting is there, but they never do. The girls also tried on shoes, a favorite pastime for them since birth. We didn't find any shoes that were quite right, though.

Then, we went home, changed into bathing suits, packed up our two easels and art supplies and headed off to Beachcombers. Arts and crafts was in full swing so the girls went off to the grove to make woven paper mats with stickers while Saul and I set up the easels under a tree by the pool. Sami and I had a wonderful two-hour session with the paints while she enjoyed all the attention from other members, both young and old, who came over to watch and were curious about our activity. Then she grew restless and wanted to go swimming with her friends. I was pleased at what I was able to impart to her in those two hours and she was pleased with the results.



When we came home to change in the afternoon, Fed Ex had left a package on our doorstep addressed to Sami and Izzy from Jessica. Inside were two keepsake albums of photos of our vacation in Ocean City, NJ, with accompanying narrative that Jessica had drawn from this blog as well as adding some narrative of her own. After the girls were tucked into bed (Izzy fell asleep in our bed watching Sami and Saul play with the new Cars program on the Wii), I read the story aloud to Saul while we kvelled over the photos.

Today, Saul and I both have appointments for checkups with our doctor. Hopefully, he will advise us about what to do regarding the tick bite and some of the other "thousand natural shocks" that are worrying me. With a little luck, we will be able to deal with them all. No question that we want "to be."

1 comment:

Ari said...

When did you get a "Cars" game for the Wii?