knitting librarian

I took both of the kids to the doctor today because “the cough” has become “the bad cough” and none of us could bear it any more. AJ isn’t sleeping and Zoe sounds horrible. They’re both on an antibiotic and will be for the next 10 days. Four doses a day times two kids…not much fun for mom! I sure hope it kicks in quickly—they’ve been too miserable for too long.

I got to work and requested permission to leave 10th period to get them to the docs if I could get in, but the latest appointment they had available was at 2:30. Fortunately, they let me take 1/4 of a sick day—who knew they were willing to work with me that much—before I wasn’t permitted to do that (a few administrators ago.)

I know AJ’s feeling badly because he actually asked to come home and take a rest. He never wants to rest! Zoe is fussing now so I probably need to get her fed—but at least she’ll eat for me. She’s not eating much for John or at daycare.

Both AJ and Zoe are so stuffy and raspy and phlegmy that I really need to get them to the doctors. I’ll have to call in the morning and see if I can get them in tomorrow. I ran out about 9:30 tonight to get a few things at the store and when I got home, John said that Zoe fussed most of the time I was gone. He tried to feed her, changed her, etc. etc. etc. but nothing really seemed to fix it. I suggested that maybe she just wanted to be held, but apparently that wasn’t it either.

I ended up feeding her the bottle when I got home and she did take it without much fuss. We saline-sprayed her nose and “boogie-sucker”ed her before putting her in bed for the night. She went out almost immediately.

AJ was still coughing in spite of our trying out the vaporub on the feet thing that was recommended in an email yesterday. He said “it smells good, but it didn’t stop my cough.” So, I gave him some cold and cough meds for the night and he went right back to sleep too.

I just finished in the shower and am ready for bed. I’m going to read Lauren Myracle’s L8r G8r until I collapse. I want it back in circulation by Monday, which shouldn’t be a problem. When I finish it I’ll be on to The Golden Compass. I need to read it in case anyone has a fit that it’s in my library. It’s not my thing, so I just hope I can get through it. I’m not a big fantasy reader.

I’m proud of myself! My monthly postings are usually pretty minimal, with a maximum in August of this year of 15 posts. So far, I’ve posted at least once per day in November. I’ve already more than doubled that this time around. I think it’s a good habit to be in, so I’m going to try to keep it up, but I also have to realize that life will get in the way.

Many evenings, I was ready to crawl into bed and realized I hadn’t gotten myself to the computer to post for the day, but I committed to M that I would do this with her. In fact, my first night I didn’t get near my computer until after 12am, so I blew a post for November 1st, but I hope that since I still posted before I went to bed, it “counts.” Even if it doesn’t if I were chosen for a prize, I’m okay with that. I’ve read that it takes 30 days to form a habit (lol, I didn’t remember how many and searched “days to form a habit” and found numbers ranging from 21 to 90—I suspect 30 must be common knowledge because I see a few items about using November’s 30 days to form (or break) a habit.
I’ve found some interesting blogs because of the NaBloPoMo ning and I’ll try to keep reading and commenting on them because I know I appreciate being read and getting some feedback and comments from others. I just received a report tonight from SiteMeter and I was amazed to see the wide range of places that people accessed my blog from. The most interesting inbound visitor came from a g00gle search for a name. It makes me wonder if the person was finding out what was on the web about himself. I had written a summary of an article I read and he was the author. I wonder if my summary suited or offended him. That person visited for over 4 minutes, so I guess that they must have read the full post. I sure wish he (or she if it wasn’t the author) had commented—that would have been interesting.

Today was a busy one at work. My book order arrived and I spent the day examining them—one was almost completely separated from its binding—how could the warehouse have missed that when they emblazoned it with the district property stamp? Because they’d done that, there’s no returning it to the jobber—so off to use the book binding glue we went! I hope it’ll be good as (better than?) new tomorrow when the glue’s had a chance to set. I’ve got 300 new books sitting on a cart waiting to be read. Several of them were checked out today once I got them prepared. I sent a stack to the student teacher doing a poetry unit and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night to the math teacher I mentioned it to because of its use of prime numbers to label chapters. I need to track down the art teacher and ask him to stop by to see what I’ve gotten because the 700s are one of my areas of focus for collection development this year. I brought home the controversial Golden Compass so I can be informed. I hope that no one notices. This reminds me that I need to do a post on things I’ve overheard in the library lately. Have I mentioned kids are funny?
Zoe and AJ both seem to “have the cough” as AJ says and I’m afraid that Miss Z will need a trip to the doctor to remedy hers. She’s rubbing at her ear, got a runny/chunky nose and a rattling cough. AJ just coughed as if he could hear me typing about him. I guess I need to go find him some cough syrup so he can sleep tonight, so I’ll call it a day.

Thanks for reading if you are. Drop me a note to say “hi” if you’re so inclined—I like to know that I’m being read. I’ll try to be better about commenting on your blog too, if you’ve got one.

Tonight, Zoe and I went with my aunt to visit my grandma. She’s in a nursing home about 8 minutes from our house and has been declining rapidly since she moved there about a year ago. She’s got Alzheimer’s but isn’t bad enough yet to be in the Alzheimer’s wing at the nursing home. In the last month, there have been several times when she wasn’t eating and spent much of the day in bed. She’s requested no feeding or hydration in her living will so if she stops eating and drinking she’ll go quickly.

It’s been difficult to watch the decline in her mental faculties and her ability to communicate over the last 10 years. We’re at the point where we’re only visiting the body of my grandmother but she’s vacated the premises. I can’t imagine how my mom and aunt must feel as they make their visits to see their mom who doesn’t even seem to know them any longer. She seems to know that we “belong” to her, but names are long gone.

The one thing that she does love is children. She can “talk” to them and it doesn’t matter if it makes sense. They laugh and smile and are happy for the attention. It’s rewarding to take my kids to visit great-grandma because I see joy in her eyes. For years she hasn’t been self-conscious about talking to them or forgetting what she was saying when the great-grandchildren come to visit. Tonight she seemed surprised to see us but she was thrilled to see Miss Zoe. She held her two different times and Zoe loved the attention and Grandma loved the smiling baby boy (my son was the first great-grandchild and at this point all of the great-grandchildren are boys to her—even in pink or in a dress, they’re boys.)

It’s hard to go see Grandma but the rewards for her and for my kids are great, so we’ll make those tough visits for as long as we can. I don’t want to take AJ if she’s having a bad day, but Zoe won’t be traumatized or remember the visits, so it’s okay to take her and to perk Grandma up for a little bit. It does her a world of good and I’m all for that.

Zoe was pretty fussy from the time I picked her up until John gave in and put her to bed. AJ was fussy over something—I don’t remember what it was but I sent him to the stairs to have his fuss out of my face and Zoe’s. When he calmed down, he came to apologize and he didn’t remember what he was upset about either.

I’ve still got a headache from it all and I probably should call it a night but I wasn’t sure if my word association exercise truly counts as a blog post for NaBloPoMo.

I finally got my gift for my swaparooni partner packed up and will stop by the post office tomorrow to ship it off to Tennesee. (Sorry for the delay, Paulette!) Tomorrow I’ll try to photograph my gift pack from her and get it posted. I got lots of really neat things!