We pulled out two bags of garbage (sooooo much paper and candy wrappers and broken crayons), did about four loads of laundry, and removed two garbage bags of outgrown clothes. I cleaned the carpet TWICE (but alas it will never be clean because Katie loves to play with makeup and dye and markers and God knows what else and it has permanent stains).
She got a new ceiling fan, curtains, and princess netting, plus we finally hung her initials. Tom will eventually build a window seat with bookshelves IF she can keep it picked up. If not, the new rule is “If you don’t keep it picked up, I will remove the things so you don’t have to worry about it.”
I asked what they were watching. First answer- nothing. Did not accept that. Another ask. Mumble. Another ask. Not a teacher for nothing.
We were watching something Bob. No clue to me. O said mom and dad don’t like it. So maybe you shouldn’t be watching it. Yah. Give me the remote. He hands it nicely. K is totally quiet, unless I ask her specific questions. Me, you lost the privilege of watching tv downstairs.
It was bedtime. K goes to her room. O asks to talk with me. Said it wasn’t really Bob (?) they were watching. Something worse…? Norman, maybe. I thanked him for being honest. Tried the why questions. Did tell him he was the big brother. Both in tears. O really meant sorry. K not so much. I have hidden both remotes for the rest of the week. Told them we would not continue to discuss it.
Fun: Nanc, Tim, Anna, Liz, and my cousin Colleen, her husband Randy, and her brother Randy came over for muffins, coffee, juice. Liz played darts with OK. They also visited. One of my cousins talked about people from Chicago being fibbers? O didn’t like it and left. They have had lunch. Waiting for ham to come out of oven. O prepped it. I made good potatoes. Mark and Julie coming for supper. Once ham out O and I going kayaking. Then to the beach. Hazy today.
Owen got to go out to the raft with Tom last year (he is a strong enough swimmer to go on his own, but Tom went since it was a new experience). So we assured everyone he would be okay to by himself this year, but Katie wanted to go this year, too, so Papa had to join!
From Grannie: Work and fun in the kitchen. Katie made Papa a pretty plate of raspberries and blueberries. Owen cut the whole watermelon. Then they both cut slices. With lots of laughs and silliness in between.They were safe with knives. I try to be a good Grannie!
Can I just say that if I had asked them to cut a watermelon, I would have gotten eye rolls and attitude all around. Grandparent Camp must be magic.
Gramma and Grandpa were headed to Gabby’s graduation party on Moccasin Lake in the U.P. (near Munising) so it was a perfect time to make the transfer. They got to spend the day with their cousins and had a great time!
Owen’s first raft ride behind a Jet Ski!Waiting patiently.
First time in a hotel with them. We were tired enough, we all slept!
From Gramma Jean: We ended up going to Pizza Hut for dinner, the city park to skip stones and then DQ. A few rounds of Candy Land before bed. It’s been busy but good but I am behind on things that need to get done!She found a Petoskey stone!
I really wasn’t planning on cleaning Katie’s room (even though I desperately wanted to throw every single thing away because she’s really ungrateful). But it happened. I just could not stand this disaster any more. (And moreso because she swears she’s cleaned it and it’s always still a pit.)
Lots of stuff shoved in the closet. I pulled out about five bath towels.
I have no idea why this stuff was even in her room! Christmas cupcake wrappers and toothpick flags?!
All the clothes we pulled out from all the little hidey holes she shoved stuff into.
Just a regular shot of her room.
Yes, a partially eaten donut. Rock hard. There’s not supposed to be food in the bedrooms for this very reason.
More random stuff shoved into a drawer.
Two bags of candy for my work that she didn’t have permission to eat.
And why put a bed sheet in the drawer in your room where it goes…when you can shove it in another completely random drawer?
And everything that was stuffed in just three drawers of her dresser.
We both worked in there for hours. We did all the laundry (at least 4-5 loads—which she had assured us all her laundry was done), picked up all the toys and crap, tossed all the garbage, organized things, and created two boxes of crap for her to go through and sort. If she doesn’t want to, it’s going straight into the garbage. This is her LAST chance. If she can’t keep it remotely picked up, she’s losing things. I hope she’s having fun at grandparent camp because life is changing when she gets home. I told Tom if he ever wanted to be a drill sergeant, now is going to be the time.
Where we ended the first day.
And when we moved the nightstand…
MORE SHIT THAT HAD BEEN SHOVED UNDERNEATH
Sidenote: I did run across these. Cue ugly cry.
But lest you think we’re just picking on Katie…Owen’s room is getting cleaned out, too. I didn’t move from my initial position (between his desk and the bed) for almost two hours—there was so much crap shoved and crammed in/on/around/behind/under his desk/bed/drawers I wanted to scream. I mean I was duly impressed…but I wanted to scream.
After we’d spent hours working.
Swim shirt and bathing suit he couldn’t find for weeks? Under the bed. A pack of winter thermal shirts? Desk drawer. Missing laundry bags? Under his bed. All the school notebooks I’d asked him to find that he claimed were gone? Everywhere. Dirty clothes? Everywhere. Candy wrappers? Everywhere.
Lots of things shoved in his nightstand that he’s been missing. Plus garbage of course. Detritus under the big Lego bag! It’s neverending!
Life will sure be different for him post-grandparent camp as well.
I realize most of this is par for the course for kids and kids their age but I just. couldn’t. any. longer. I don’t mind a little mess or being unorganized. But both rooms were flat out disgusting.
So Owen is still sometimes afraid of…weather. He doesn’t like wind or storms. So Gramma and Grandpa had a funeral to go to (that the kids didn’t need to go to) so I said it was fine to let them stay home alone. But Owen was VERY concerned because it was supposed to be stormy.
7/24 – Owen is watching the weather like a hawk. They both are afraid of thunderstorms and lightening. He especially is watching Tuesday for the funeral and is afraid of being alone if it storms. It is predicted to storm of course. I won’t leave them here alone if it is going to storm. We’ll watch the weather closely and if it storms we’ll make sure he is safe and not leave him alone. We’ll figure it out. Best case scenario is that the weather changes by then and it won’t storm! I told him that too, it’ll probably change by Tuesday. He seemed relieved and took it all in. He told me about the incident at Mike’s when he couldn’t reach you and it started raining and he was scared.
7/27 – The weather forecast changed so we did not get a single drop of rain. Kids did well. Katie wasn’t hungry so I guess she didn’t eat. I got her to admit she has one candy. But before we went, Owen was a champ. He said he’d be okay with it even if it rained or stormed. He said I have to learn to deal with it (or similar words). I asked if his counselor taught him some coping mechanisms and he said yes, and it helps/helped. I texted him once we got to the luncheon and they were fine. I know he played on his phone but he promised to share and he did. They did go outside for a short while and they watched TV. So, I think it was a huge stepping stone for him. Yay Owen!
Katie got a birthday check from Gramma but she wanted to spend it in person…
From Gramma Jean: We went to Dollar Tree tonight before dinner and she wanted a basket to shop! Got two pair of flip flops and some other stuff, spent $12. I told her I would give her the balance so she had to get pencil and paper and figure out how much that would be. I said she could take the rest to granny’s and she said, not to be mean but shopping there is worse than here! (Choices of stores & options) I’ll give her the balance in an envelope. She’s funny. I pretty much let her choose what she was going to buy. She carefully thought about each one. Cute.
This just in from Grandparent Camp—two of those little dots out there are our kids! They really only get to swim in a lake up north—they are pool babies—so this is a special treat. Katie is freaked out by fish in the water potentially touching her but Gramma Jean says she’s in up to her neck so this is a big deal!
Coming in for a quick lunch!
Gramma said later that they were out there for HOURS. Yep, those are my kids!
From Gramma Jean: Owen and Katie wanted to go see the start of the race so the three of us went to DQ and then parked at my old office and walked down to Joe’s to watch them. It was fun and they enjoyed it.
It’s time for a road trip to take the kids to Michigan for Grandparent Camp! Usually we go all the way to Grayling but we decided to try something different this year and meet halfway!
Can you see her sleeping buddy?
I’m not sure what Katie is pissy about other than that’s her normal look these days. (I told you!)
One of the few times she’s sweet.
Our meeting point was Bilbo’s, one of our favorite restaurants from East Lansing that we hadn’t been to in 20 years (since we got married and left Michigan). We were excited that Kalamazoo was the halfway point!
Making the actual transfer! We’re free! Good luck and Godspeed!
Seriously though, the kids absolutely love this time with the grandparents and couldn’t be more excited… especially after Covid put the kibosh on camp last summer. Here’s to making memories!!
In a surprise turn of events, Aiden was taken to the hospital yesterday with what turned out to be apendicitis—so we took Evan for the first night and then tonight Tom and Katie needed to go over to let the dogs out. Katie always loves on Pepper and tonight was no different.
Let me predict what’s going to happen today: Katie has had a friend here all afternoon after her birthday pool party. When she leaves, I will ask Katie to do something (anything, it doesn’t matter) and I’ll get attitude.
And why do I predict this?
Because that’s life with Katie these days. It’s like she’s really a teenager instead of just nine.
ANYWAY. FAST FORWARD.
I asked her three times earlier today to clean up her dinner garbage and each time—
I KNOW MOM!!!
—but she never actually did it so when I noticed after she went to sleep in the basement (a special treat) I called her back up and made her do it. She was pissed. And then—surprise—she DIDN’T FINISH so I called her back again. And she was just pure teenage attitude. So she lost her privilege of sleeping in the basement that night.
So she was being super pissy and stomped upstairs to her room—and decided the best thing to yell at me was “And are your ever going to clean up this pee?” (Maggie had peed at the top of the stairs in the craziness of the pre-party prep that morning and I only had time to put a towel on it. And can only go up the stairs once a day.)
So I might have yelled at her that I had been A LITTLE BUSY AT HER BIRTHDAY PARTY ALL DAY AND OH YES I WAS STILL RECOVERING FROM SURGERY DID SHE FORGET THAT?
It got worse from there. I can’t even recall the things that were said on either side but I did eventually tell her I wouldn’t mind throwing all her birthday presents straight into the garbage because she certainly didn’t deserve them with the attitude she was having.
Unfortunately all my friends with girls say this is normal. And their girls do it, too.
The show must go on! We had paid for the double birthday party and the weather was gorgeous and we were not cancelling—even though lots of people told me they wouldn’t have been surprised. Really, though, most everything was taken care of by the staff—we basically just had to haul in the drinks and snacks and then had the pizza delivered. I pretty much stayed on the picnic table the whole time.
Out of nowhere about 9:15 I started having extreme pain in my chest and just felt really crappy—enough so that I texted Tom to come home because I was NOT GOOD. It was time to start getting the girls ready for bed and I couldn’t even think straight so needed him to come handle it.
It wasn’t reflux or gas or anything I’d felt before—and I knew women’s heart attacks had different symptoms and that’s all I could think of. I googled and it didn’t seem like a heart attack but whatever was happening was not normal. I thought if I could just go to bed and hopefully fall asleep…maybe I could sleep through it. But the pain wasn’t going away and it was actually a little scary. And then just like that I felt better! Weird. I sat up in bed and just as I was getting excited that it was over…BAM, it came screaming back. At this point I called Tom upstairs and actually told him I was scared and it was at this point (about 10:30) that I said I needed to go to the ER.
Someone obviously had to stay with the kids—and Tom wasn’t able to drive safely (remember, he’d been at a poker night with the boys)—so he called Anna and she got here—from a dead sleep—within about 10 minutes. She drove me to the ER as I writhed in pain and tried to breathe through it. We spent the next five hours at the ER (10:30p–3:30a), most of which I was in about a level 7/10 pain.
11:15pm
I was on morphine for the pain (thank God for morphine) and it was weird how I could feel the pain ramping up (I started breathing differently) and knew to ask for more. Anna was googling trying to figure out what it could be. She was staying in touch with Tom. She was updating the sleepover moms on my phone. When I wasn’t incoherent with pain we visited like normal.
After some tests and bloodwork—my heart was fine, kidneys were fine, my liver was a bit elevated but not worrisome, and overall bloodwork was all fine. But the ultrasound. The ultrasound showed a really pissed off gallbladder. Stones and something else I forget. So then it was my first Covid test ever (which wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be) and a leisurely ambulance ride to another hospital to be observed and prepped for emergency gallbladder surgery! Anna went back to our house to stay with the kids while Tom drove to the hospital to meet me there.
3:45am — mask on and ready for transfer3:57am — off we go to the ambulanceIn the ambulance. No sirens but I think the lights were on.
Not exactly how I planned to spend Katie’s birthday…
But I cannot thank Anna enough. Seriously. She was my angel tonight—from the initial car ride to admission to keeping Tom in the loop to grabbing nurses to texting the sleepover moms…to relieving Tom at home (and watching the kids) so he could come see me. Whatever I needed, she was there.
Katie had two friends over for her first birthday sleepover. Holy cow were they loud. And of course there was some drama because GIRLS. I was dealing with it all myself because Tom was at a poker night down the street (I had breakfast plans with my mom group in the morning so it was a fair trade off).
But overall it wasn’t too bad. I hoped a movie would keep them quiet for a bit but that lasted about 15 minutes because one girl refused to stop talking and the others were getting annoyed so they just stopped.
And then…PLOT TWIST! Go to the next blog entry for the rest of the story!
