Failed Marketing

We’ve been getting a computerized telephone call left on our answering machine the last couple of days, in which the caller begs us to call him back regarding our “outstanding credit card debt”, and claims that they will be able to help us reduce our debt to nothing, and they will “even loan us [you] a thousand dollars to get us [you] started”.

C’mon, guys.  Even my nine-year-old can see right through that one.  The very first time she heard it, she wondered “How can you get rid of your debt by borrowing more money?”  That was a question I just couldn’t answer.

Thirteen Weeks

Thirteen weeks – that’s how far along I am in this pregnancy, according to the ultrasound dating we received.  For the time being I will go along with this, since it’s not that far off from my own calculation (which would put me at three to five days behind).  One reason for wanting this to be the dating is that that puts me right at the end of the first trimester, and the beginning of the second.  According to the doctor I saw, making it safely to this point greatly reduces the chances that this hematoma I have will cause any problems.  Hurray!  Much cause for rejoicing!  Good thing tomorrow is David’s birthday, so we’re already planning on having cake and ice cream.

Physically I feel pretty good; not at all like I ought to be on heavy lifting/strenuous activity restrictions.  I’m still having some ridiculous food aversions here and there (for example, I haven’t felt like I could eat salad lately, and yesterday I couldn’t finish my banana at breakfast), but it hasn’t been as bad as in some of the other pregnancies.  Just in the last week I’ve noticed that I’m finally getting past the intense first-trimester fatigue.  I have still been taking naps each day, but I’ve been able to wait until afternoon to do so instead of morning, and it’s been a choice I made, knowing I would feel it later if I didn’t, instead of collapsing in response to the inability to keep going.  So this definitely constitutes a great improvement in the way things are going!

Ten Years and Counting

We have been married for one decade now!  Our life in that time was not always what I would have guessed, but it has been very good.  And we’ve actually reached some of the goals that we had way back then:  teaching at a small college out in “the middle of nowhere”, and, along with that, being out of big cities.  We have not reached all of our dreams, and some of them we may never get to, but that’s okay.  We are trying to follow God’s leading here, and some of what we (thought we) wanted may not be what He wanted for us.

We celebrated by going out to dinner at one of the local restaurants – probably the fanciest one in town – and having what may very well have been the best meal I’ve ever had.  I can’t remember the last time we went out for dinner without having at least the baby with us, so that was a real treat.

Here’s looking forward to the next ten years!

Allergy Testing

We had the boys tested for a whole bunch of allergies yesterday, and the results were resoundingly negative.  I guess that’s a good thing, right?  Actually, David even had such a small reaction to the histamine sample that the allergist thought we must have given him antihistamines recently, which we haven’t.  So if he can’t even react to histamine, I wonder if that means he’s incapable of being allergic to anything?  In other words, it seems like even if his body were to produce histamine in reaction to something, he wouldn’t have any noticeable reaction to it.

Another strange thing we discovered by doing this test:  David is no longer reacting to (small) amounts of wheat.  We had originally wanted to do this testing in part because he was getting headaches every day that we went to Mass, even though he was only receiving a low-gluten host.  When we didn’t go to Mass, he didn’t get a headache, and when we did go he did get one.  It certainly seemed like something was up.  Anyway, for the allergy testing to be accurate, they said that David would need to have ingested at least a small amount of wheat the day before.  Since he seemed to be reacting to just a low-gluten host, we figured it didn’t need to be much, so I served baked potatoes with a hamburger gravy, and thickened the gravy with wheat flour.  I only used three tablespoons in the whole batch, so he probably ate about a teaspoon of wheat flour.  I fully expected him to get up the next morning with a headache, but he didn’t!  He looked like he felt fine the whole day, and when I asked him how he felt he said he was fine.  So I don’t know what’s up.  Thinking back, I don’t think he’s complained about headaches the last number of times we’ve been to Mass.  In fact, the point where it stopped roughly corresponds to the point where we told him our suspicions about what was happening.  So either he is hiding it from us for fear that he might not get to go to Communion anymore, or he prayed for and obtained a miracle for himself when we couldn’t.  It doesn’t seem like he could just be hiding it, because I didn’t tell him about the wheat flour in the gravy, so he wouldn’t have suspected that.  That leaves the other alternative.  The faith of a child!

On another note, the allergist commented on how well-behaved the boys were during their tests, and wished that we could bring them in to show other children how to behave.

Caught!

I suppose the fact that she went to hide in our bedroom with the door shut means that she had some idea that she wasn’t supposed to be doing that.

And I suppose the fact that the first thing we did when we found her was to take a picture means that she’s just too cute.

Winter Solstice

Today was the winter solstice.  That means that we have passed the longest night of the year (at fifteen hours) now!  From here on out we get more and more daylight each day. That’s a happy thought!

Reading Buddies

Teresa helps Mama with Supper

Teresa has been learning young to be a helper….

I never would have guessed…

…that the kids would find a dental appointment so exciting.  B. and D. had their first-ever dentist visit the other day, and before they went I talked to them about what would happen, hoping to keep it from being too traumatic.  J. took them to their appointment, and they apparently came through with flying colors.  B. was fine going back on her own; D. requested that he be accompanied, but in fact he was fine too – there were so many mechanical gidgets around to look at, how could he not be!  Afterwards, he talked about how he had noticed where the controls for various things were, etc.  B. told me that she had really liked the appointment, and not because of the little rubber lizard that she got to bring home, but because she “learned so much!”

Oh, and neither of them have any cavities, relieving my guilty feelings over not having brought them in sooner. Nice to have that reassurance right before the Christmas season!

Since the appointment, B. has been much more careful about brushing her teeth, and even flosses them every night.  I had wondered if I ought to teach her to do that, but now she not only knows how, she’s even motivated to do it without being told.  I think it makes her feel more grown-up.  All around, it was a beneficial appointment.

Teaching spelling the easy way

Two years ago, I began a spelling book with B. while she was in first grade.  Within a few months, it became clear that we were wasting our time:  even though each week she completed a lesson and successfully spelled all the words in it, several weeks later she would not remember how to spell any of the words that she had not already known how to spell.  So we put it aside for the year, and picked it up next year, in second grade.  This time she knew more words to begin with, but we had the same result with the words she didn’t know.  Again, I decided we were just wasting our time, so we put the book aside again.  This year, in third grade, I decided we really better start working on spelling, so we picked the book up again.  B. was delighted to try spelling words, and we worked through the entire book of 34 lessons in just one week.  The result:  she knew all the words but eighteen.  Wow, that was much easier!  Now, if I could just be confident that in two years she will know all (or most) of the third-grade spelling words, I could really relax.