Singing In The Rain

Hi, all,
Just a quick rain update, in case anyone is concerned:

House is fine. Haven't had any leaks at all, no power outages.
Collin has no school tomorrow.
Mike's work had to close - there's eighteen inches of water on the roof, and water flooding through the HVAC (Mike says it looks like a miniature waterfall in the utilities closet.) Obviously, electricity is shut off, which makes it a bit difficult for a network analyst to get any work done. Apparently there was also a fire due to a short in another building on the same school campus. As it was in sad shape before this, we'll see what happens.

At least one of our neighbors did have some flooding - roof issues, unfortunately, but overall our neighborhood is pretty well off. If you don't live in the area - or even if you do - I recommend going to the Seattle Times website and looking at the slideshow they have linked. Liz, remember driving in Woodinville as a kid when it was raining heavily? It's like we're transported back to then, except that it's not limited to just Woodinville.

It's Slinky!

A few days ago Collin noticed that one of the quarter machines at Safeway is now carrying miniature plastic slinkies. He's talked about it a great deal since then, and wanted to know if he could get one today when he and I went out running errands. He is now the proud owner of an original metal slinky, and he brought one home for Willow as well. (We didn't go to the store with the right quarter machines, but we did stop over in the toy aisle and found the big metal slinkies.) He's been playing with it incessantly since, as has Willow. The toy kitchen under the breakfast bar is now a space station, and so far the slinkies have been through space adventures, intrigues, and much danger. Collin's is already bent up and absolutely beyond repair, and he doesn't seem to care. Mike bent it back the best he could, and Collin announced it was perfect, and ran off to play with it some more.

You can't get much simpler - I mean, it's a metal coil. We don't have any stairs in our house, either, though I expect the kids will figure out ramps and steps using their blocks. It's a very welcome change from the constant pestering about wanting video games or kid laptops, though. And honestly, who can resist taking a slinky and shink-shinking it back and forth between your hands? Not I.

And with that, as my son is driving a little lego car into the room with his slinky in tow off the back of it, I'll wrap up this post. The slinky is asking me if I have any cups. It has a very monotone robot sort of voice, for those who are curious about such things.

Gingerbread Cookies

"I don't like dead"

Mike's sister and her family lost a beloved dog a few years ago. Her eldest son was probably about five or so, and I remember her telling us that he and his father were out for a walk some time after Sarah had died, and he turned to his father and said, "I don't like dead."

I've just found out that a friend and colleague of mine died the day before yesterday. We were supposed to get together for tea and a chat a few weeks ago, but my children and I were all fighting off a virus, and I didn't want to expose her to it, given her weakened immune system. After that, I got caught up in the diagnosis of a fatal disease in our kitten, and the whirl of caring for him and dealing with his death. We kept emailing, but we never did get to make up our tea date.

I know that it's a selfish reaction - my friend had faith, and had been sick for quite a long while, but right now, I have to say that my nephew summed it up really well for me. I've lost my kitten, and a friend, and at this moment, I don't like dead.

Soccer

Collin played his first soccer season this fall. Now I know why they call it 'magnet ball' at this age - much running about, sometimes in the correct direction. They all had fun, and Collin definitely got better at learning how to focus on the field. More importantly, he enjoyed it enough that he wants to do it again, which is really all I ask - I want to see him involved in teams and groups whenever I can. They're awfully cute at this age as they racket about.

Remlinger Farm pt 2

The kids really had a lot of fun. This is a great place for younger children, and while it isn't cheap, it's still much less expensive than anything else of this type I've seen. Willow adored the 'canoes' - but then, if it involves water, she's your girl. Collin is sporting his new buzz cut in these shots. He acquired my sewing shears without my noticing, and proceded to try to express himself in the avant garde school with his head. Willow only lost a few locks, and it didn't show, but he really did a number on himself. (I had those things well up and out of sight, too - I can only conclude he went exploring while I thought he was asleep. My little ninja. Sigh.)

Remlinger Farm

Willow had her first pony ride at Remlinger Farm at the end of August. She absolutely loved it, and probably still remembers the names of all three ponies that she was on (she ran back twice over the course of the day.) Then again, I suppose I still remember - I believe they were Vanilla, Cinnamon, and Plum. I can't remember any number of other things, but that critical detail is engraved forever.

Sky moves on

Sky died on Monday. He was five months old. I feel as if I have a physical wound. Willow was very involved in the burial; Collin demanded to see him right away and once he had, wouldn't have anything else to do with burying Sky. He's angry a lot the past couple of days, which is normal - he has a very hard time just grieving, or crying - he gets mad instead. About absolutely everything, right now.

I wouldn't trade the two months we had with our little furball with anything. I wish he could have stayed around longer.

Skyfire

Last Wednesday we found out our kitten has FIP, Feline Infectious Peritonitis. It's invariably fatal, usually within three weeks. He's home with us right now, but has already slowed down a lot. Today he's stopped moving around as often, and hasn't really eaten since this morning. He still wants to be beside us, and will purr from time to time, but I think we're seeing the end of the road coming fairly quickly now. I've lost pets before, and it always hurts. Somehow this is almost worse to me. He's only five months old, and I find myself wanting to stomp my foot and yell about how unfair this is. We've explained what's going on to our children. Our daughter understands, but I don't think it will be real to her until Sky is gone. Our son does understand, and I can see that it's taking a toll on him. He came up to me the other morning and told me that he doesn't want our baby to die. This morning he told Sky that he was so sorry, and that it was ok, as he was stroking him very gently.

I've never before been in the position of having to decide whether and when to euthanize my pet. I've gone through it, but it hasn't been my call until now. It's hard to figure out the difference between respecting life and prolonging beyond an acceptable quality of life - defining the latter is where I'm having trouble. It's hard not to get my hopes up when Sky is having an upswing and is a little more active. He's such a remarkable little guy.

These are pictures from over the past month. I'll post a current picture as soon as we replace the cable we need to load pictures from our camera, along with pictures of Collin and Willow.

TGIF?

Some Fridays are easier than others. Yesterday was not one of those days. It wasn't a bad day, persay, but the kids were definitely in "challenge Mommy" mode. Collin's school day included crawling under a table rather than sitting in either of the places his teacher had designated, scratching another student, and getting into a full dust-up with yet another student. I think there may have been more, but it's all gotten tangled up in my head. I'm going to cling to the bright spot in all of that: He went back to his teacher and asked what you should do when you've hurt someone, and then he went and said he was sorry to the boy he scratched. He has never once initiated an apology in that sort of situation before yesterday, and I was delighted to hear about it. I'm not ignoring everything else - of course we're dealing with that. It can get exhausting, though, to be the one who always gets 'that' phone call - the one that says "Your son had a tough day today" and goes from there.

Collin's current tics have been there for a while now. He has a sort of peep or whine he makes a lot, including in the middle of a statement or even a word, and a complex facial tic that moves from one eye to the other and down to his mouth. They're the most noticeable combination he's ever had.

Willow wasn't quite as cantankerous, but she was determined to do everything her way, which, among other things, resulted in one of those shrieking tantrums when she learned she had to ride with Mommy instead of Daddy from the soccer game to the pizza parlor last night. You know the ones - I'm pretty sure just half a pitch higher and a couple decibels louder would have seen windows shattering.

On the bright side, I made my first soccer cake, and it didn't turn out too badly. I already have ideas on how to improve it. One of these days I really have to take a decorating class. (And I'm dreaming of having an oven that actually maintains a temperature - evenly, even! - all over and for as long as I ask it to.)

New kitten

This is Skyfire. He was born on May 30, and this photo was taken when he was about ten weeks old. As you can see, he is quite a beautiful little fellow. He is now almost five months, and has grown enormously - he's a Maine Coon, and a fairly large one at that. We expect that he will eventually top out at somewhere between eighteen and twenty pounds, and that's an 'in shape' weight. He's supposed to be a puppy - this is what my daughter was pushing for, but as my son is afraid of dogs - to the point of being phobic - we opted for a cat who would grow up to be dog-sized. Needless to say, our two adult cats are just *thrilled*.

He was a fairly skittish little guy when we got him, but my husband sat in the back of the van with him on the way home, and by the time we reached the ferry, the kitten was happily curled up on his lap and purring. I swear my husband has cat pheromones. He loves to tease them, and they don't seem to care - they adore him. The kids have named him after the autobot (as in the Transformers) Skyfire. We usually shorten it to Sky. He's into absolutely everything. He got pretty sick for a while after we brought him home (didn't eat, drink, lost weight, had ringworm!) but our vet is an ace, and he's doing fabulously now. The kids love him - our daughter is particularly relentless, but fortunately she does understand the need to be gentle, and generally does her best to follow the 'kitten rules' we've set out. Much to her annoyance, the kitten prefers her older brother, who is wise enough to wait for Sky to come to him.

He dips his paws constantly into the water bowl, and he loves to 'prairie dog' to get a better look at things. He also likes to try to sleep on our heads, and purrs like a buzzsaw. We have a gerbil, who may be doomed, because the kitten is much more determined than our adult cats. I'm doing my best, but this is an overly bright feline, and unlike my two black marshmallows (really, mellowest cats I have ever seen) he has definite predatory instincts.

My sister made me do it!

My sister has been after me to start a blog for quite some time. She's lived between one and two thousand miles away at any given time for almost fourteen years now, and she wants to keep up with children, new kittens, and life in general. It's only taken her about two years of nagging to get me to this point.

Bear with me while I get all of this set up. My hope is to give my sister a chance to see regular pictures, and hopefully the rest of my family and friends will enjoy responding as well. If you've stumbled your way across this and are not a member of the group above, feel free to look around. At the moment I intend to include two basic topics: my family, and information about Tourette's Syndrom and Pervasive Developmental Delay (autism spectrum).