Take care of yourself this flu season!

I don’t have any kids in high school yet, but when I grew up, high school football was a big deal, so I’ve been kind of following the local high school football team since we moved here, even though there wasn’t far to follow them…  until now.  Our Golden Bears will travel  down to Columbus TONIGHT for their first high school football playoff game in school history!!

BEST OF LUCK GUYS – YOUR TOWN IS BEHIND YOU!!!

I’m going on my third month as a youth group leader, and while I always enjoy myself at church on Wednesday nights, in recent weeks I’ve also felt a strange kind of dread.  I couldn’t put my finger on it until last night.  There was a huge drama in our small group of 7th grade girls involving a friendship between two of the girls.  The situation made for a lot of tension and was also a huge distraction from our lesson.  After group, I mentioned this to the other 7th grade girls leader and the youth pastor, and neither seemed surprised, especially given the dramatic nature of a specific girl in my group – their words, not mine.  I came home around 9 pm last night with 4 of my own little kids to put to bed while feeling entirely emotionally drained.  I realized that even though I enjoy being a youth group leader for the most part, that strange sense of dread that I feel in the beginning of the week has to do with bracing myself for the weekly Wednesday night drama.  The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the other 7th grade girls leader’s attitude has greatly improved since the beginning of the year.  Also, a few weeks ago, two students were transferred into my group because their friends were in my group – so now I have the entire clique in my group, and I get to oversee and facilitate all of their various factions.  Wonderful.  I have a theory that the other leader was very discouraged and emotionally drained by these girls and their drama by the end of last year, and so when I showed up, I was given the clique and their dramatics for my group.  Ah, the joys of being the newbie.  I’m happy to help, and I’m glad the other leader seems much happier, but I really need to find a way to encourage these girls to shift their priorities a little bit.

Complicating the matter is the fact that we meet in the youth pastor’s office, so it’s really hard to supervise everyone at once, especially when there is drama.  I have girls wanting to poke through his drawers, lie under his computer desk, read his post-it notes and memos, and to sit on his desk.  I’m starting to feel more like a babysitter than a small group leader, and the girls in my group are turning 13; it’s not like they’re little kids (which is what I’m dealing with all day and at night AFTER youth group).

Don’t get me wrong; I do enjoy it; I’m just really frustrated right now.  I really like the fact that it’s something I get to do with my husband (the small group part is only about 40 minutes.  For the rest of the two hours, we get to do things together), and I like hanging out with the other leaders and the girls when they’re not acting crazy.  I’m just saying that those times are getting few and far between.  I need to find a way to focus the kids and also to get our group back to concentrating on the weekly lessons.  We can still have fun while we do  that, but step #1 will probably be to get us out of the pastor’s office – I don’t even know where to start if not there.

When I signed up for this gig, I failed to realize that aside from the long-shot of the Chicago Cubs making the World Series, my two favorite yearly live televised events – the Country Music Awards and the Academy of Country Music Awards – air on Wednesday nights.  I cannot express how much I enjoy watching these shows, and it’s kind of like an athletic event – it’s not really the same to watch them after the fact.  One year, I even did a live blog while watching one of these awards shows, and it was hectic, but a lot of fun.  Tempted as I am to call in sick to youth group next week, I could not look seven 7th graders in the eyes and tell them that I missed our group to stay home and watch the Country Music Awards, especially after the major drama that was this week.  So next week, I will actually be avoiding cnn.com and the media from late Wednesday night until whenever I will get a chance to watch the recorded CMAs – which might not be until the weekend!!!  Yes, I’m pouting, but I’m going to put my best face forward and just do it.  But I reserve the right to complain about it all I want on my blog!!!!!

One of my babies is sick.  It’s not one of the four children, thank goodness, but it’s still someone who is a part of our family and means the world to us – our beloved almost 12-year-old dog Charity.

Charity has an aural hematoma, which is basically when a cavity within the ear fills with blood.  It’s very painful for the dog, and poor Charity has been slowly sauntering around the house in a daze; I can’t stand it.  The good news is that we have a vet appointment tomorrow, and the really bad news is that it will cost a minimum of $150, more likely upwards of $300-500 to fix.  But how much money is too much to help our baby?  We adopted Charity as a puppy 11 years ago before we had any kids, and she’s been with our family through countless moves and other episodes in life, both good and bad.  I guess we’re all going to have to be a little patient while my husband picks up some extra work hours so we can pay the vet to fix all of her old dog ailments.

Please pray for Charity to get well.  She is an older dog, and I can’t stand the thought of putting her through surgery.  I really hope she feels better soon!  She’s been sleeping all the time, and there is no one to clean up all the food that the kids drop – the house is getting so messy!  And believe it or not, I actually miss her constant barking…  🙁

During visits to the zoo, most kids will fantasize about which animal they would like to take home and have as a pet.  There are many reasons why exotic and wild animals should not be kept as pets, but being an animal lover, I guess I never grew out of the mindset of a kid at the zoo – I still think about which ones I would like as pets.  Well, actually, I’d like all of them as pets, but here are the top 10.  Since this is purely fantasy, of course I did not take rational things into consideration like cost or cleaning up after or housing the animals, where’s the fun in that?  While you’re at it, try putting your top few fantasy pets in the comments box below…  🙂

Taylhis Most Wanted:

African Grey parrot – Ugh, another large bird?  Do I really want more bird screaming to rile up the kids?  But this is a fantasy list, so I’m going to build a huge tropical aviary with a little river for my birds, no problem.  Members of this particular breed of parrot are incredibly smart, and their ability for exact mimicry is hilarious!  I once posted a video of a little African Grey character named Silvia who did an awesome impression of Desi Arnaz (Lucy, you got some ‘splainin to do!) as well as sarcastically (and hilariously) delivering the line, “Well loddy-frickin’-dah!”

Manatee – My favorite animal; manatees are gentle and intelligent.  I find the manatee’s graceful movements relaxing and therapeutic.  Watching my manatee swim would be a great way to unwind after a stressful day!

Gorilla – Humans  have much in common with these intelligent primates.  It’d be incredible to get to know one on a personal basis.

Sea Horse – Well, these guys mate for life, so I’d like a pair of seahorses, which would then turn into hundreds 🙂  But many of their behaviors are truly fascinating to watch!

Sea Lion – Like an aquatic dog, sea lions are intelligent, trainable, and beautiful swimmers.  And so cute!

Goat – I’ve always loved goats; now that we live nearby many farms, this might be a possibility some day!

Huge Dog – Dogs are the greatest, and sometimes it seems like the larger the dog, the friendlier.  So for a dog-lover without limitations on house size, wouldn’t it be great to have a beautiful 150lb+ lap dog?  I was thinking St. Bernard, Great Dane or Mastiff type dogs.

Octopus –  A somewhat mysterious animal, though to be intelligent based in part upon its ability to manipulate items like jars and toys for food rewards.

Alligator – Huge reptiles with a bad rap; I would love the time to hand-raise and train a gator.

Tortoise – I really like tortoises, and it’d be really neat to create an exhibit to house one of those super-huge tortoises.

Honorable mention:

Marmoset – a cute furry little primate.  Cute as he is, smaller primates are known for being tempremental, so this guy is a runner-up.

So there you have it.  My husband commented on my list’s lack of felines.  True, I always blog about how much I would like a cat, but in the real world, all that’s stopping me from getting a cat or two or ten is my cat allergy, so that’s not really the point of the list – it’s more about forbidden animals.  Big cats would be too scary to play with – I had a little cat who passed away, but after watching how suddenly and completely her moods could change, I gained a whole new respect for big cats, so no thanks!

What’s super fun for kids and free for parents?  Well, free for parents who live in most parts of the country, anyway…  AUTUMN LEAVES! Last week my kids had a blast playing with the leaves in the back yard.  It might cost time and money to dispose of the once beautiful fallen leaves, but before they become a nuisance, there’s no reason why they can’t provide hours of family fun!

Another blog here on tangents.org who was describing cool kids’ Halloween costumes reminded me of some high tech Halloween costumes I saw on the internet last week and forgot to post.  Click on this link and enjoy, maybe get some ideas for next year.  I especially like the first one; gadgets and gizmos that make it seem as if there is a giant hole right through a person!

WHEW!  I have to admit that we totally overdid it on Halloween, but in a good way – at one point in the evening, my 5-year-old said “how many parties are we going to?!?  We threw a Halloween-themed game night on Friday, complete with things like spider venom, truth serum, and rat vomit for drinks and snacks.  Most guests wore costumes, and there was a wide collection of characters, from witches to fishes to Star Wars characters and a vampire – we even had a gay construction worker!  Fun was had, but as usual, we stayed up too late and failed to rest up for our huge day ahead –  HALLOWEEN!

We began Saturday by making the rats costumes and taking them to the pet store for a costume contest.  No word yet how they placed in the contest, but Bobby Jack dressed as a zebra while Oreo was a Pink Lady from Grease – the kids had a blast!  We took  the rats home and headed out to the ice rink for the annual community Halloween party – one of my favorite things about living here.  We get there right when it opens and head straight for the hayride, where we are driven around the huge park.  Occasionally, creepy creatures run from hideouts among the trees and chase the wagon!  Not as many people were in line this year, so we got to ride the hayride twice, and then the kids tried some of the games, the maze, and the bouncy castles, while Mom and Dad chatted with long-lost friends and sipped slushies and hot chocolate (everything at this party is free and donated by local businesses and organizations!)  We got our hot dogs to go this year, and they told us to take a huge pumpkin home – we still have to carve our pumpkins, so we were more than happy to get one more!

We were able to rest for about an hour, then it was time for trick-or-treating.  We moved into our neighborhood 3 years ago, and we learned the first year that it’s not good for trick-or-treating.  We love where we live, but come Halloween, it seems like many neighbors aren’t home, so we’d have to make the kids walk blocks for only a few houses with porch lights on.  So we drive across town and trick-or-treat in a friendly neighborhood where some friends live, and we started with  their house.  Our little guy dressed as Barney, Disney was Dora the Explorer, Sammie was a princess, and Taylor was a bloody prom girl.

Oh wait, you need to see Barney with his tail 😉

I absolutely love Halloween – of course I think my own kids were the cutest, but I  love seeing all the kids dressed up.  An honorable mention goes to the 4 teenage boys who were dressed as the Teletubbies – my 3-year-old daughter was asking where the Teletubbies were all night, but we never did catch up to them…

We took in quite a haul with the 4 kids, and after the second house, our 15½-month-old had the hang of taking candy from strangers.  Ok, that sounds really bad, but Halloween is a unique event, he was allowed, and it was really cute!  We got in the car after we were done trick-or-treating and headed over to a party at our friends’ church.  The kids had a blast there as always, and we made out like bandits in the raffle!  Years of not winning anything we entered apparently caught up with us on Halloween night because a few bucks in raffle tickets won us 2 value meals at Burger King and 3 really cool brand new toys for the kids!

But here is where things start to change from perfect to overwhelming – at the church we ran into my Kindergartner’s friend Hannah from preschool.  This child has many medical issues, and she’s been in and out of the hospital her entire life for brain surgeries.  Her mother was telling us how she doesn’t like her preschool anymore and how she’s been depressed because she doesn’t have any friends.  So who could possible tell this little girl “no” when she asked if she could come sleep over again?  Certainly not us, no matter how exhausted we were from the weekend’s activities…

After the church, we headed over to the community theater where they were having a Wizard of Oz party.  I  was completely exhausted, and we had to hurry home to meet up with my daughter’s little friend, but I really enjoyed the Wizard of Oz party during the short time we were there.  They did an AWESOME job with the decorations, and there were so many neat Oz-themed games and activities – even a yellow brick road! -that I will forgive the inclusion of some things from Wicked.  I guess I should say for any readers who don’t know – I’m a huge Wizard of Oz fan, but it’s the movie that I really enjoy.  I don’t remember the book much, and what I’ve seen of Wicked did not impress me, to say the least, but that’s another blog post altogether…

So FINALLY we get home, and Hannah is waiting for us.  At this point, I was SO incredibly tired, not to mention my car full of garbage, pieces of costume, and spilled candy.  All I wanted to do was end Halloween my favorite way –  watching a scary movie with Hubby.  So we got the kids (all SIX of them, since two daughters had friends over) as settled as was humanly possible after I-don’t-even-want-to-think-about how much candy and were about to  start our movie when Hannah comes down the stairs.  We sent her back up, and checked email and basically killed some time until we felt confident we could start a movie without any kids coming downstairs or calling for us.  Well, that never happened.  Somehow, we had forgotten that Hannah is a friend who is very needy and also one who outright REFUSES to go to bed.  We started the movie anyway, and we only had to interrupt it like 5 times (a late 80’s thriller called I,Madman – both hubby and I recommend it!).  But Hannah began one of her many descents down the stairs right during a climatic moment in the movie, which made my husband jump a mile high, which in turn made my heart stop and stomach drop.  And that was when I  knew I wouldn’t be falling asleep for hours.  Hannah finally fell asleep when there was only 15 minutes left in the movie, but she outlasted every one of the other kids, and by then, it was 2 am!  I guess you could say I put my extra daylight savings hour to good use; I think it’s the only hour of sleep I got!  I had trouble falling asleep, then I had terrible nightmares all night and kept waking up –  one was about Hannah; I’m not even kidding!  I woke up early to the sounds of kids playing and couldn’t fall back asleep.  So here we are, the Sunday after Halloween, dead tired with a messy Halloween-themed house and a trashed car.  But at least our house once again contains only the 4 kids who live here, and the main trouble-maker has been sacked out all day – told you we overdid it!

Hope you had a GREAT Halloween!!!

Like in a newspaper’s picture caption.  Many locals make fun of our county’s newspaper; pointing out miscellaneous typos, erroneous information and errors, but today’s typo in the following picture caption is kind of a big oopsie:

The line for the H1N1 virus snakes through the parking lot at the County Fairgrounds
Wednesday afternoon.

Obviously our county does not have people lining up to get the H1N1 virus; the replacement word here in case you’ve fallen asleep is vaccine.  The line for the H1N1 vaccine snakes through…
Now that would be one nasty small-town rumor!

Just a little update to let you know my mouth is finally feeling better and yesterday I was able to indulge in food and got to actually enjoy the feeling of being full for the first time in an entire week.  No thanks to our local doctors, though, my husband made me some sort of concoction from stuff we had around the house that I swished around in my mouth.  I don’t know if it was coincidence or if that’s what finally did the trick, but all I have to say to the doctor’s $300 mouthwash is HMPF! And it should be noted that we went to the doctor’s office again yesterday and sat there for an hour and half waiting for the doctor whom they said was out to lunch.  I didn’t want to pay to be seen again, but I wanted him to change my prescription to something that would help me and that I could afford.  Finally tired of waiting, we left with the nurse’s promise that she would call me as soon as he got back from lunch, but they never even bothered to call until this morning when I was finally feeling better.  Rude isn’t even the word for this, I was in agony!  And all that after 3 different nurses and Walmart told us like 5 different ways they could help me, none of which turned out to be true.  As my husband put it, it seems like at this medical  center, the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing!  Kind of sounds like another local organization we’ve worked with, but that’s another blog…

I’m a bit concerned that this canker sore problem is something that I might have to deal with from now on in my old age.  Even though we think this latest canker sore outbreak was caused by hand, foot, and mouth disease, the doctor shrugged off our internet diagnosis since it’s so rare in adults.  So if he’s right and it was just canker sores, it might be something that I’ll have to deal with every once in a while, especially since it seems to be a hereditary problem!  Let’s hope not – my family can’t handle the stress of anyone else being sick!

On a side note, please pray for my little nephew who was admitted last night into the hospital with croup.  I’m praying that he gets well and that  it’s not H1N1 and that none of the other kids he was playing with (his brother and my kids!) last weekend get it.  I’m really really hoping we can dodge some bullets this flu season since there are six of us, thus six open doors for viruses to come into our household.  But for now, we’re hanging tough (groan!) and ready to party this Halloween weekend.  Don’t worry – I plan on getting the house scrubbed down for all of you coming to the Halloween party!  Can’t wait!