Meetings, meetings, fifth disease, and stomach flu

We had parent teacher conferences for both school kids (four core teachers and one kindergarten teacher), a PT session for Kay, and a meeting with Taylor's high school enrollment counselor. I am glad that is over. We spent the better part of two days in meetings.

All the teachers said our kids are great though so that is always nice to hear. Taylor always gets the same report - he is so smart, wonderful, helpful, we wish we could clone him. Cam is so smart, imaginative and kind but a little sensitive (same report we got for Taylor at that age). Cam is more artistic though and has better handwriting (ha,ha sorry Taylor). That child never stops drawing.
Cam's art work:



An angel
A boy
Lost Hopkins frog
Self portrait
Another boy
The sun and the butterfly


I am still recovering from high school enrollment. Wow, wasn't he just in kindergarten. He is so together though. He will be fine. He is taking college prep courses for all his core classes. So geometry for math and CP science, history and language. He is also going to take computer programing and possibly Latin. He is applying to take zero hour as well so he can have an additional hour of school each day to fit in extra classes. After all this college should be no problem at all.

Kay woke up on Friday morning with a 101 fever and bright red cheeks. She was super cranky all day. Saturday same thing but she started vomiting as well. All weekend she was miserable. On Monday I called to get her in to the doctor. I suspected she may have fifth disease. The red circles on her face had gone away but she was starting to get a rash on her neck. Dr. Fox gave her some meds for her tummy but there is no treatment for fifth disease. You just have to wait and let it run it's course. Tuesday she was covered with the rash. I let her run around in just a diaper and gave her lots of baths with cornstarch. That helped some. She spent most of the weekend alternating between meting into a puddle of gooey sadness and erupting in trembling volcanic toddler rage. At least she didn't get scarlett fever. That also happens to be going around school. I didn't think people even got that anymore. Go figure.

Cam comforting little sick sister.
Happy time in the sink bath again.
Not so happy rash on her back. It is kinda hard to see in a picture.


We didn't go for a play date at Aunt Sarah's this week. She may never want us back. During last weeks visit Kay screamed and we had to bolt out of there pretty quick. Cam and I didn't help clean up as well as we should because we were in a hurry to get Kay out before she gave everyone a headache. Then on top of all that we unknowingly exposed all the kids there to fifth disease. Yeah, it's one of those happy little illnesses that is contagious before any symptoms show up. Once the rash comes and lets you know something is wrong it is no longer contagious. Nice huh?
Maybe she will let us come play next week. Hopefully no one there will get sick.

I got two days off again this week. So I finally finished my house cleaning projects. Happy Happy Joy Joy! Now if we can just maintain it will be a perfect world. I sorta skipped sleeping Wednesday night but it's all good. Back to work tonight. Maybe I should go take a little nap.

Clean Kay's room
Clean Cam's room
All the removed toys to be sorted make Mom and Dad's room a big mess. I finally got everything sorted and now our room is clean too. When we moved in Cam unpacked by dumping all the toys out on the floor. They got scooped into baskets and stuffed into closets until I finally made time to actually find a place for everything. That has been on my to do list for a while.

Slinkys

I saw this quote on one of my online communities. It pretty much sums up my feelings for the day (and my feelings about nameless administrators.)

Some people are Slinkys -- basically useless but fun to push down the stairs.

I have not had my meeting. I have been trying all day. I started calling and leaving voice mail at 8:00AM. No answer no return call no meeting. I have no idea what is up. I am scheduled to work tomorrow at 2:45. We'll see.

Here is something fun:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZL6RGkPjws

Update 10-18-07
I edited my post a bit to make it clearer. Everyone who read it so far thought I was internalizing the part of the slinky. I am not a slinky, nor is Jeff. We didn't do anything wrong. I was making a joke at the expense of some of the people at work who are pretty useless and who I wouldn't mind seeing take a tumble. Not necessarily down the stairs. I am not really a violent person. It was a joke. I am using humor to keep from going crazy and really pushing someone down the stairs.

Still no meeting or return call. I think I have been officially blown off. I plan to report to work as scheduled and see what happens. I don't really have any other options at this point. I was advised by some people who also work there to "screw them and not show up." Well, that might be fun but I need a job and insurance and a paycheck. I have looked into some other employment options as a back up. If they do fire me I can collect unemployment until a new job starts. If I quit I got bupkis.

Furthermore, my not showing up would not hurt admin a bit. They are so far removed from the real work of that place they probably wouldn't even figure it out until sometime Friday and that's only if they didn't all leave early for the weekend. My not showing up would hurt the important people, the non-slinkys, the kids and the other direct care workers. I like them so I don't want anything to be more difficult for them. You see I really am a nice person who tries to do the right thing even when the wrong thing might be a lot more fun.