Author: Shane

No kids, no kids, la la la la laaaa la

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At the beginning of the summer, we were trying to figure out how in the world we were going to cover childcare. We asked a lot of family members if they could help with the various days, but it just worked out such that all of our volunteer-covered dates were in August.

This was both good and bad. The bad part was that by the time August rolled around, I *really, really* needed a break. I have been, shall we say, not doing my best parenting lately. I mean EXTREMELY not my best parenting lately. It probably would have been nice to sprinkle a few breaks in there somewhere.

On the other hand, everything is coming together at once, and we are getting a nice, long, wonderful, relaxing time without the kids. Aside from last Wednesday, the kids were gone for NINE days.

Oooh, I can’t tell you how nice it has been. Sara and I almost never do anything without the kids. We only very occasionally get a babysitter, and even then it’s usually at night when the kids are in bed anyway. It has been a very magical time.

While they’ve been gone, we’ve played Agricola, rented a bunch of movies, woke up when we felt like it (which JUST HAPPENED to be at 6:30), knitted, gone out to eat, cleaned, and canned. A LOT:

no kids canning

Pictured: spicy tomato jam, corn salsa, pickled beans, and corn stock

We ate whatever we felt like, and had ice cream with espresso on top. Ice cream with espresso on top!

We have also been cleaning like crazy people, mostly doing all the things we never get around to. We thoroughly cleaned the kids’ bedrooms, putting away all the clothes that don’t fit them, throwing out all the broken toys, putting away things they don’t play with anymore. It might not seem very relaxing to do all these things, but I assure you it is good for my soul.

Besides, without the kids here, there’s so much more time in the day! You can do a bunch of cleaning and STILL have time to relax!

Sara and I even went for a run together. I assure you that has never happened before (and most likely never will again!). Sara basically tried to kill me. She made me run a 5k and my legs were sore for days afterwards. That’s certainly the first time I’ve run more than 2 miles IN MY LIFE.

It has been so wonderful to have a break (and more on the way as we wind down the summer). I haven’t felt this close to Sara since we were dating.

In other words, does anybody want to husband-sit? I think she’s probably getting pretty sick of me.

Quote Monday celebrates children

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Sara: “Wow, look at all the clean dishes!”
Evie: “YOU’RE WELCOME!”

She did, after all, lay on the floor while I was doing the dishes until it was time to press the buttons on the dishwasher. YOU’RE WELCOME.

::Neighbor is walking her dogs and stops to say hi::
Oliver, conversationally to Grandma: “Dogs eat children.”

Ollie: “Let’s call him ‘Uncle Stinky’, but we’ll just call him ‘Stinky’ for short.”

Oliver: “Why do we have to stop and get coffee?”
60-something stranger at the grocery store, crouching down and looking Ollie in the eye: “It’s so your mommy can smile when she sees you.”

Hermey: a short clip

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Here’s a short clip of Evie’s performance from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Prepare to die from cuteness:

3 Performances

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The kids have recently treated us to 3 fairly major performances:

  1. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer – Evie recently completed a second year of “acting camp”. This year the play was, inexplicably, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Nothing says summer camp like Santa Claus! Last year, Evie auditioned with “Little Girls” and got Ursula the Sea Witch. This year, she performed “When Irish Eyes are Smiling” and got Hermey, the elf who wants to be a dentist. She killed it, in typical Evie fashion. As with last year, she nailed all of her lines with feeling, and mouthed everyone else’s lines. She also got more “points” for the week than anybody else at summer camp. I’ll tell you one thing: after carpooling three kids to this camp all week, I’m happy for the break from listening to “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” and “We are Santa’s Elves”.
  2. Vacation Bible School – In the meantime, Ollie was off at vacation bible school, which culminated in a performance of various songs in church on Sunday. Ollie is not traditionally the “performer” in the family (see above), and I was very curious about how he’d do at such a thing without his sister around (though we did basically know every kid that was there). He did a pretty good job. He didn’t sing, per say, but he was obviously trying very hard with the motions and everything. I’m not sure he even noticed he was up in front of a crowd.
  3. Evie’s Birthday Performance – But the very best performance of all was Evie’s birthday performance. Evie wanted to have some kind of performance to put on during her family birthday party, so she wrote and directed something for her and Oliver. There were original songs, vaudevillian routines, and lots and lots of jumping on the bed. The kids took it very seriously, and practiced for weeks. Evie even put colored tape “marks” on the bed for them to hit during the show. The whole thing went off without a hitch, and I was so proud of them for doing such a good job all on their own. My favorite part is when Ollie sings, “Happy birthday to you!” and Evie says, “Who me?” and Ollie replies, “Yes you!” The birth of a comedy duo.

In which I almost have a psychotic break

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So, I was at work the other day, when I noticed my vision was going a little blurry. Not blurry exactly…just kind of like if you looked at the sun for a long time and then looked at something else. Like there was a ghost spot over the center of my vision. I didn’t think much of it, and tried to blink it away.

Over the next 10 minutes or so, it got increasingly worse. A large, blurry crescent shape developed in my right peripheral vision. It was very odd. If I looked in that direction it would move or disappear, but if I looked straight ahead it was as if there were a giant kaleidoscope covering everything to my right. I could sort of see shapes and colors through it, but it was like looking through thick glass or something.

At this point I started to freak out a little bit. I had no idea what was going on; it was like nothing I have ever experienced. I decided that something was wrong with my eye, most likely that my cornea was becoming detached.

Now, there’s two things you have to know about me. The first is that eye things REALLY FREAK ME OUT. Sara used to chase me around touching her eyeball, just to squick me out. Even typing this now makes my eyes water like crazy. The thought of my cornea detaching (::shudder::) literally makes sick to my stomach.

Second is that I’m more of a “rub some dirt on it!” kind of a guy, and absolutely not a “going to the doctor” kind of guy. I don’t know why exactly. It’s not like I’ve had some bad experience or something. But in any case, it’s got to be like bones-sticking-out-of-the-skin for me to go to the hospital (and even then…)

I only say this to try to explain my mental state. On one hand, I was absolutely sure that the worst possible thing was happening to me. On the other hand, well we don’t need all that fuss of like calling an eye doctor or anything, do we? It’ll be fine! Can’t we just, I don’t know, make an eye patch out of paper and masking tape or something?

So as I sat, agonizing in silence, I was rubbing my eyes like crazy and trying to blink the problem away. The shimmering crescent had expanded to the point that it had completely swallowed the peripheral vision on my right side. I completely couldn’t see. I tried covering first one eye and then the other, but it seemed like the crescent was there no matter which eye I covered up.

Based on this hard science, I deduced that either:

  1. Both of my corneas were falling off,
  2. I had developed a brain tumor, or
  3. I was experiencing a psychotic break

I kept thinking, “Have I been stressed out? Is this somehow stress related?”

At this point I decided that I had better go home. By the time I got out to the car, my vision was more or less returned. Even still, I called Sara to explain what was going on just in case I blacked out or totally lost my vision while driving. I was really freaked out and didn’t know if something was really, really wrong.

Well, I guess not, because it never returned. All that night and the next day, I was fine.

I was still a bit worried about it though, so I googled it. Apparently it’s pretty common, since I was immediately able to find lots of people describing exactly what I experienced, right down to the floating kaleidoscope crescent. It was so weird to read someone (many someones) describing exactly what I had experienced as though they were inside my head. It was just so specific.

Apparently it is an “ophthalmic migraine” which is harmless if you don’t get the actual headache afterwards.

When it is large, this crescent shaped blind spot containing this brightly flashing light can be difficult to ignore, and some people fear that they are having a stroke. In reality, it is generally a harmless phenomenon, except in people who subsequently get the headache of migraine. Since migraine originates in the brain, the visual effect typically involves the same side of vision in each eye, although it may seem more prominent in one eye or the other. Some people get different variations of this phenomenon, with the central vision being involved, or with the visual effect similar to “heat rising off of a car”. Some people describe a “kaleidoscope” effect, with pieces of the vision being missing. All of these variations are consistent with ophthalmic migraine.

So yeah, no big deal I guess? Having the vision center in your brain randomly malfunction doesn’t really seem like a “no big deal” kind of thing, but I guess it certainly sounds better than a brain tumor or my corneas falling off!