What we did last week

So, Sam's had three weeks of school, which is great. He's learning a lot, and really starting make an effort to communicate well with us. Then last week, it was parent-teacher conferences for the whole district, so there was no school. I was adamant about keeping Sam "on a schedule", so we went out of the house at roughly the same time every morning as we would have for school.

On Monday we went to the Minnesota Zoo. It was Sam, Maggie, and me. We visited Discovery Bay, the penguins, the bumble bee room, and then walked the Minnesota Trail. It was still a bit chilly outside so I kept the kids bundled up for the Minnesota Trail, which is covered but mainly outdoors. Sam wasn't a fan of staying with me, so he stayed in the stroller on the trail, but got to run around to look at the penguins and both kids got to get down and play in the bumblebee room.

On Tuesday we went to Toddler Tuesday at the Mall of America, with Sam, Maggie, and me, plus my sister in law, her daughter, and her mother in law. We met up at the Lego Store, where the little kids played with duplos at the tables in the little play area outside the store. When it was time to go buy ride passes, Sam didn't want to leave and ran away from me, throwing himself full force against a bench he thought was padded. Nooooope. It had a cushion on top, but the bench was hard metal. He still has the bruise, and it looks pretty nasty. He cried and cried for at least five minutes or so. At least I know he feels pain, I guess? (Most days he crashes and gets right back up to play.) When everyone was calm again, we started in on rides. Sam is not yet a fan of the Wonderpets Fly Boat. He did pretty well, regardless--just sad face and a lot of whimpering. We visited the main event for the week, which was a sort of lame "World's Largest Show and Tell" thing. The kids colored a little. Then we went on the Big Rigs ride and the train ride. Had lunch at Famous Dave's, where Sam ate all of his chicken strips, and Maggie ate practically all the snacks I'd packed for her. By that time we were all pretty wiped and I could tell we needed to get home for Maggie to nap, so we headed out.

Wednesday I was sort of exhausted from the previous two days' outings, but we did get out of the house for a short Target run in the morning. The kids seemed to like the cart with the double seats so they could sit side-by-side and face forward.

Thursday is my day without Maggie, and Dan had taken Thursday and Friday off from work for a much-needed break. The three of us (Sam, Dan, and I) went back to the MN Zoo. We did most of the same things as Monday, with the addition of chasing Sam around the Minnesota Trail where he was out of his stroller most of the time. We also walked the Northern Trail and let Sam play for awhile at the playground near the road to the farm, which we decided to skip. Sam loves the slide there and the board with numbers, letters, and shapes. It was nice to see Dan get to play with Sam in some of Sam's favorite places. Sam was, as usual, tickled pink by the penguins that were swimming around. He kept trying to hug one of the other moms who was crouched down, trying to get a picture. My little photo-bomber. He's also become fascinated with fish. I'm so tempted to get him a betta or something for his birthday, but I'm not really ready to make the commitment to clean a tank, so that's not happening until further notice.

Friday Maggie was back, and we had an appointment at Gillette to get to. Unfortunately the van's battery was dead, so Dan had to jump it with the car before we could get underway. Luckily we'd left some extra time (because seriously, parents always have to leave extra time) so we were only 15 minutes late. That meant virtually no waiting room time, which was a pleasant bonus. Sam was not at all excited about getting his height and weight taken, his x-rays taken, or really anything, until we got into the exam room. Then he just kept playing with the monitors and keyboards. This was a followup with his surgeon who did his first three surgeries. The news, good or not: Sam's hand seems to be doing well, his elbow contracture is due to a couple of slightly malformed bones, not muscles, and he has a little bit of web creep between his first and middle finger. She measured his elbow and saw that he is missing 10 degrees of flexion and 40 degrees of extension. She'll see him again in a year to follow up and measure things again. She also brought up the possibility of a syndrome being responsible for both the arm/hand and the autism, but for the moment they seem unrelated. We might follow up with the geneticist we saw back when Sam was a baby and see what she says.

So that was our "work week"! Saturday we visited with Sam's Great-Grandpa Des and Great-Grandma Judy at my parents' house, and Sunday we stayed home and did laundry. Glamorous, I know. Now that the weather's good (and Sam will be back in school this week), we'll probably go on our walks to the local parks as often as possible instead of the major destination type playdates on Sam's days off. (Mondays and Fridays, if you want to join us!) I was proud of getting the kids out of the house on the last two Mondays: we went to Burnsville Center two weeks ago and the zoo (we love the zoo!) again three weeks ago, but this past week has really pushed my limits. Looking forward to warm weather and less travel!

This and That (and why is it still winter?)

I've not been updating the blog the way I intended. At this point, at least until the snow is gone, I'm not going to hold myself to any set schedule because I just can't. I meant to write last week about how Sam is doing at school (good!), but I just couldn't wrap my brain around words. Remember how I said depression is like a fog that won't let me think straight? That's pretty much what's going on with me. I am scattered as all get out right now.

But I've been baking. I borrowed Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day from my mom and am slowly working my way through the recipes. I make a lot of boule, but I've also attempted demi-baguettes, ciabatta, light wheat, and oatmeal bread. I also borrowed a bread machine and made two loaves of old-fashioned white bread with that. As summer arrives, I'm going to quit using the oven as much so I'll be back to making bread in the crock pot or the bread machine.

I've also been crocheting. I finished blanket #3 and started on #4. Pictures, you know, eventually. (My house is too messy to take pictures at the moment. Sorry. I'll do my spring cleaning when it is actually spring.)

And aside from all the depression nonsense, I haven't been well, as in, not having a cold or illness of some sort, in at least 6 weeks. I have not had more than a two week break from being sick in roughly a year. (That's being generous...it feels more like a 1 week break, maybe. I honestly don't remember anymore what it was like not to be sick. I am starting to wonder if we have mold in our house or something.) I am tired of winter and I am tired of being sick all the time and dang it I am tired. This is my reality at the moment, and I don't like it, and I figure you all don't need to hear the same complainy thing from me three times a week, so there it is. See you when the snow melts. It's going to melt, right? It has to stop by like June, right? Sigh.

All winter I said to myself, if I can just make it to April, I'll be OK. Well, I did. And I'm not. April didn't hold up her end of the bargain. I know everybody else feels the same way, but that doesn't really make me feel better about it.

Oh, and happy tax day! We owed a ridiculous amount. Another sigh. But hey, free stuff!

Video Friday: A Needed Response

Do you have 26 seconds to spare? Really? Great.

This went viral sometime in the last week or so, but it's short and to the point.

I am not a photographer (and, 100th post!)

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...and I don't particularly want to be. There seems to be a trend among bloggers to go one of two ways: either they steal images by googling and then not getting permission or paying for them, and that's how they get images for their blog posts, OR, they become better photographers and take their own damn pictures of whatever it is they are blogging about. (Or in rare instances, they do what Amber Dusick did and get a book deal and it's great. But that's her idea, so I'm not stealing it. Frankly, I don't think I could even make MS Paint pictures as well as she does.)

I have halfheartedly tried to do the second, but I lack equipment, talent, practice, and, frankly, desire. I am a writer. I am a crafter. I am a mother. I am a feminist. I am NOT a photographer. I tend to drop my phone when I'm trying to take a selfie--it's that bad. And I am tired of feeling like that makes me somehow defective as a writer/crafter/mother/feminist/blogger.

So for now, I'm going to keep taking crappy cell phone and webcam pictures and maybe I'll start cruising creative commons sites to find images that I can get permission to use for free with attribution, like the one above, or just post walls of text with no images. (Cool tip: if you want to find out who published an image first, you can google the image's URL in a google image search to find similar images. Great way to track down the authorship of memes.) But I've decided that I've got to stop feeling that pang of jealousy when I look at the other craft and mommy blogs and they have artsy images of their work or their kids. It's just not my thing. I rarely even remember to take snapshots on special occasions.

Hopefully my words here can stand on their own most of the time. This is my 100th post on this blog. I'm feeling pretty proud of that milestone, with or without cool pictures.

A Year of Giving: March

March was kind of a hodge podge. I was struggling with a few things, like I mentioned last Monday, but still managed to give a little bit here and there. In most cases I had deeply personal reasons for giving.

I gave a bit to The Baby Schellman Fund for Mike & Wolfie, in the spirit of "when opportunities to give pop up." Mike lost his wife TJ, Wolfie's mom, to complications after childbirth--complications that easily could have happened to me when Sam was born. TJ was a colleague of my friend Jill, so when she posted about it on Facebook I decided to go ahead and give something.

Last week I read this post by Jessica at The Leaky Boob. Her website and the online community she's cultivated on Facebook have meant a lot to me over the past few years. Her eldest daughter (we Leakies know her as Earth Baby, though she's 14) is a determined and talented dancer, and in a family with six little girls, money for summer dance school is tight. I remember doing fundraisers to go on band trips, attend youth gatherings with church, and my big trip to German-speaking countries with my foreign language class. So I donated a few bucks as my way of paying that forward. Also the video she made with her sisters made me cry.

I also desperately needed a haircut, and it was long enough to donate to Locks of Love, so I did that. Pics or it didn't happen:

Before

Bye bye hair!

And after! See you again in a few years!

Last but not least, I finally finished blanket #1 and started and finished blanket #2. If I finish 3 and 4 next month, I'll be back on schedule. Not sure if that's going to happen or not, but I'm going to try.

Folded blankies on a messy couch!

I am a little sad that the blanket that took me 2.5 months to finish looks smaller than the one that took less than a week. Will write up a separate post for that one later. The picture kind of bleaches it out, but it is lavender, yellow and white.