Hunh. Been a bit here since I've updated. Late February? Check.
So...getting up to date.
Little bean's surgery was March 6th. I was worried it wouldn't take place, because she had been running a fever intermittently and vomited a couple of times in the 3 days before her scheduled date. Thankfully, they decided to do it anyway. She went into surgery at 7:30, and came out just after noon. To say holding her in recovery was heartbreaking is like saying Van Gogh could paint kinda well. Palatoplasty, veloplasty, myringotomy. She was bleeding from ears, nose, and mouth. It was horrific. We were in the hospital for 4 days. It took most of those four days for her to decide she wanted milk again. Her healing has been great. She's making new sounds, her mouth healed up with no complications. Those first few weeks were pretty awful, though. The painkillers did a number on her tummy. When constipation arises due to narcotics, it is not just a matter of getting the rectum to relax and move the stuff through; it's because gut motility has slown down to almost nothing. Horrific.
Not long after that, we got the approval from the bank for the house sale. Within 10 days, we moved into our new place. The next week, the mister's stepfather passed away, so he was gone for 4 days attending the funeral in the deep south. Two weeks later, he was gone for 3 days unsuccessfully turkey hunting. We've been here just over a month, and are finally starting to settle into some sort of routine. My work schedule changed the week after we moved, too. Oh, and little bean and I got sick.
We put big moyashi back in school for the last 6-8 weeks of it. At the time, my rationale was 3-fold: let him make local friends, check his progress against that of his peers, and give me some time to find my center again so I could be a better parent, and a better homeschooling facilitator. I honestly didn't think we would get such hassle from the local school district. I am blown away by how crappy most of them have been about it. They sent big moyashi to the social worker because the teacher hadn't gotten his records yet from his last school. For real? The social worker? That's not the part I have a problem with. It's the part where I found out from HIM, and nobody from the school contacted me, and when I *did* call his teacher, she was wicked defensive about it. I have a lot more to say on that subject, but that's a lecture for another day. Suffice to say, knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have made the same decision. Our street is loaded with kids. I can't keep him inside, he is always out there playing (not that I'm complaining). He is doing just fine academically.
I do think we'll be trying time4learning in the fall for some subjects. I have heard rave reviews and I think it will help him work a bit more independently, which would be nice. I want to keep doing story of the world stuff, as well as some other science stuff.
I've been considering doing Hogwarts Summer School for him, and I did subscribe to Herb Fairies with him in mind (sorry, folks. Registration is closed now.) So I'm thinking about combining the HerbFairies content with traditional herbology stuff. I think this weekend I'm going to do the invitation thing, I still have parchment paper, and set up some traditional Hogwarts curriculum along with some stuff of my own making. I've got tons of magical books. I also have a gigantic folklore encyclopedia covering magic through many, many different cultures over history. I think that would be fun for him, as well as teaching the real world skill of doing research.
Little bean hates it when I use the laptop, because she wants to pound the keys on it, and she is determined. There is a lot of "no thank yous" and hand moving.
Speaking of baby frustrations, she is starting to stand without support, she is cutting 4 teeth, scribbling, not sleeping well, signing "milk" and "more", and throwing horrific tantrums. Love her so much, but I am so tired. All the time. She turned one two weeks ago. They grow far too fast.
On the garden front, the mister and I have been arguing a lot over how to plot and plant the garden this year. We are starting from scratch, and have VERY limited space. We live in the midtown area, where the soil is mostly clay and our back yard is a swamp. We will have to do raised beds again, or containers. My vote is containers, the mister wants raised beds. I threw my hands up in frustration and said, "it's YOUR body. You want to break your back building all that, knock yourself out." I love living over here, but hate that we downsized in terms of yard space. I miss our big garden. I wish I had more time and energy to be more creative with it. That being said, I am on the hunt for some heat treated pallets to do vertical shade gardening for greens along the fence. That way it keeps them out of the muck, we're recycling, and we have a longer greens season (they bolt awfully quickly here).
On the food front, well...nothing spectacular. Asparagus is in season. We actually bought some morels at the market last weekend. They were delicious. The mister missed morel season, which is usually ephemeral but was even more short, because he was way up north, not killing turkeys. We've been eating lots of hoophouse greens from the market. I actually cooked last week...blueberry coconut flour muffins. My body is not used to so much fiber. Oh dear.
On the craft front, I'm working on a tunic/pullover type thing from winged knits called Idlewood. It can be seen here. I am also working on a few diaper covers for little bean. Pulled my sewing machine out for the first time in several years. Hilarity ensued. I am not a fan of PUL, and it's extremely fussy to work with. That said, I am loving fitteds and covers, and once little bean grows out of the FB pockets we have, we are switching over to all fitteds. I know some parents can leave their babies in fitteds with no cover, but my daughter pees like a grown man finally breaking the seal after 8 beers. As such, even a high quality fitted like goodmama or bububebe goes from zero to soaked in a short period of time. Covers are our friends. Speaking of high quality fitteds...I want to make some. I cannot afford $40 a diaper for new, and I haven't even checked retail on used. Forget it, I'll do it myself.
So, happy belated May Day, y'all.
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