It's about 10:30pm on Tuesday night, as I am writing this. I'm home and the kids are asleep. Stephen, however, is in the emergency room dealing with a bout of what we believe might be a nasty case of pink eye. He's been screened, but the doc has not yet seen him, so I am just waiting for him to message me with the final verdict so we can plan out the rest of the week (whether or not he will be working, etc.). If you're like me, the very thought of pink eye gets your nerves to twitching and you're now doing everything you can to keep from reaching up and rubbing that phantom itch out of your eye.
In other news, we have just about the best landlords imaginable. Yesterday I was talking to Joe (Joe and his wife, Micki, are our landlords) about the goings on with our house. He wanted to let me know that he was going to have some scaffolding up to power wash and paint the exterior of the house over the next few days and I wanted to ask him about shelving solutions for our living room. The result was unbelievable: Joe offered to build and paint us some shelving at his own expense. Additionally, since the road crew will be on our street this week to repave it, Joe and Micki are paying to have our driveway paved at the same time. Again, this will not affect our rent agreement or payment schedule in any way. We are pretty excited to have a brand new driveway before winter sets in because our current gravel driveway will prove difficult if it gets icy. It's about a 10-foot vertical drive from street-level to our parking spot.
Even better news is that Porter took his first two steps today. After Stephen picked me up from work today, I took Porter out of the car and brought him inside the house. I set him down on the floor of the living room on his feet (he was still standing when I let go of him) and he squatted down to set the toy he was holding on the floor and stood back up without any assistance. I was standing about 5 feet away from him and watching him do all of this, so I took a step toward him and knelt down to call him to me. He reached out, took two big steps and landed a giant hug on me, before collapsing on the floor and crawling off to do something else. To be fair, Porter is now 14½ months old, which already puts him almost 2 months behind Seren at the same stage, but he has quite a bit more bulk to haul around than his sister did. Seren took her first steps at about 13 months and started fully walking about a month after that. So we'll keep you updated, but as those of you who have been through this before already know, learning to trust the feet beneath you is a long and trying process.
Update: Stephen has just returned from seeing the doc and he does not have pink eye. It appears to be a "corneal irritation," meaning something entered his eye under his contact lens and scratched his cornea, causing the redness and pain. This also means that Stephen is not contagious and will be able to return to work tomorrow. As a side note, I'd like to mention that this is the quickest e.r. visit I've heard of in a long time. Total time spent from the time he left to the time he returned home: ~1 hour.
Showing posts with label winter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label winter. Show all posts
21 September 2010
09 September 2010
just a quick hello
Today I'm home with the kids because our babysitter called out sick. I spent my morning filling out long-overdue paperwork to get Porter's CDIB and replace Seren's card. The rest of my day will be spent cleaning up various messes and trying to steal a nap at some point, before loading the kids up in the car and heading out to pick up some items I dropped off at the jeweler for repair and then to MEHS to have dinner with Stephen and our group of students in the school cafeteria.
Last week was the first Extended Family Night at MEHS, where we had a chance to meet our group (most of them, anyway), try the cafeteria fare, and view the chaos that is Family Night first-hand. It was fun. We have a pretty good group of kids and Seren immediately made friends with one of the girls, who ended up taking her through the line to get her plate and helping her eat all of her food. This ritual will continue to take place every other Thursday night at the place of our choice (our home, the cafeteria, a restaurant, or whatever). On one hand, it's a relief not to have our own home set up for 10 kids every Wednesday night, but I do miss the personal aspects of Advisee Dinner. I only hope that we are able to build similar relationships with these kids. That said, any of our Orme kids who are reading this can rest assured that we miss you terribly and that Seren still talks about all of you. You'll always be family.
Speaking of our kids, Seren and Porter are doing very well. Seren still surprises me with how smart she is and Porter is developing into quite a little person. Porter is currently cutting the last of his first year molars, but seems to be handling it well, aside from an upset belly. Seren is starting to learn phonics and draws associations to that in almost everything she does. She spent the whole morning at the dining table looking at the pictures on her placemat, saying things like "Baseball. B-b-b-baseball." She's a smart cookie. Porter still isn't walking, but he is loving his walker. He zooms around the house at top speed on his own, but he loves it when Seren pushes him around. They play so well together.
I'm afraid that's all the updates I have for now. The last Sitka Farmer's Market of the season will be on Saturday, so we are looking forward to being there. The last cruise ship will dock on the 29th, so I don't expect to be working past that point. We are definitely starting to feel like this is our home now. We're still unpacking and settling in, but Sitka is a good place for us. I just hope this winter will be as easy as everyone says. :)
Last week was the first Extended Family Night at MEHS, where we had a chance to meet our group (most of them, anyway), try the cafeteria fare, and view the chaos that is Family Night first-hand. It was fun. We have a pretty good group of kids and Seren immediately made friends with one of the girls, who ended up taking her through the line to get her plate and helping her eat all of her food. This ritual will continue to take place every other Thursday night at the place of our choice (our home, the cafeteria, a restaurant, or whatever). On one hand, it's a relief not to have our own home set up for 10 kids every Wednesday night, but I do miss the personal aspects of Advisee Dinner. I only hope that we are able to build similar relationships with these kids. That said, any of our Orme kids who are reading this can rest assured that we miss you terribly and that Seren still talks about all of you. You'll always be family.
Speaking of our kids, Seren and Porter are doing very well. Seren still surprises me with how smart she is and Porter is developing into quite a little person. Porter is currently cutting the last of his first year molars, but seems to be handling it well, aside from an upset belly. Seren is starting to learn phonics and draws associations to that in almost everything she does. She spent the whole morning at the dining table looking at the pictures on her placemat, saying things like "Baseball. B-b-b-baseball." She's a smart cookie. Porter still isn't walking, but he is loving his walker. He zooms around the house at top speed on his own, but he loves it when Seren pushes him around. They play so well together.
I'm afraid that's all the updates I have for now. The last Sitka Farmer's Market of the season will be on Saturday, so we are looking forward to being there. The last cruise ship will dock on the 29th, so I don't expect to be working past that point. We are definitely starting to feel like this is our home now. We're still unpacking and settling in, but Sitka is a good place for us. I just hope this winter will be as easy as everyone says. :)
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