The Weblog Of Melissa Manske

After work (me) and school (Owen) today we picked up some gifts for Owen’s awesome 2nd-grade teacher for Teacher Appreciation Week, and also bought a baseball glove for Owen. I’d been looking at gloves for him for weeks, and was just waiting until I found a good one and had him with me while I was shopping.

Today was the perfect day to get a glove because his gym class just started a unit on baseball. When we got home, he started getting some good use out of the glove. Layne was always nearby, but amazingly once Owen told her to leave his baseball alone, she did.

Even more amazingly, I told Owen if he finished his homework tonight (it’s due Friday) we’d have time to play catch again before school tomorrow, so he went inside and finished it.

Tuesday 05-06-08

• Elliptical trainer at the YMCA
• Miles: 2.7
• Time: 30 minutes
• Calories: 350
• Watching: Beauty and the Geek. What can I say? I didn’t make the show.

Owen was much better today, so he went (fairly) happily back to school. Suggesting he wear his new Iron Man t-shirt and shorts helped.

After he was off to school I got a haircut, worked, played with 4 - make that 5 - cats while working on my friend Laura’s computer. Bijoux, the fifth, suddenly appeared on a rocking chair behind me as I was writing a note to Laura asking where the darn fifth cat was.

I decided to bring her computer back home with me, as we have a video card here that might better fix her problem and suit her well. Hopefully she didn’t mind me running off with her computer. She’ll have it back Thursday, fixed. (hopefully!)

After Laura’s I went to Trader Joe’s and picked up some great hummus (with tahini; I can’t believe they actually make tahini-free hummus!) and some shortbread cookies with a blob of chocolate on top of each one. My God was it all good. Not together, of course.

I ran home, dropped off the Trader Joe’s stuff and let Layne out. Then I picked Owen up at school. He told me excitedly of a book he got at school in the library, Airman, by Eoin Colfer. Proudly, he told me he’s almost finished with the Prologue already, even though it’s 17 pages long. He’s also still reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Book 4); he seems to have no problem reading multiple books at once.

We came back home and read a different book, Escape from the Carnival of Horrors (Give Yourself Goosebumps), together under the patio umbrella, eating snacks I’d made. It’s like a Choose-Your-Own Adventure book, so I read while he chose the different ways for us to go through the story.

Awhile after that, I went inside to make dinner while Owen played an imaginary game in and outside. He was ‘destroying zombies’ and other such creatures with the help of ‘army men and police officers.’ The way he explained it, it was sort-of tied in to the book we’d been reading, although there were no zombies, army men or police officers in the book. Regardless, he was running all over the place defeating them. There were many casualties.

Michael came home and we all ate dinner. Afterwards we went to the Y to exercise — Owen played in Prime Time. We went back up to get him and found him playing DDR while 3 kids watched him. Too cute and funny. We got home just before Owen’s bedtime.

Owen’s had a cold and cough since last week Wednesday or Thursday. Yesterday it was worsening, and when he woke up this morning, you could hear the cough deep in his lungs. He appeared to feel miserable, and between thinking about that and how his big rattly cough would be infecting kids in his class, I decided he’d stay home from school today. Besides a short trip out for some cough medicine, he spent most of the day snuggled up on the couch.

Michael and I had to do some juggling to allow Owen to spend the day at home, but it worked out well. Michael got back here at lunch and worked from home the rest of the day. When he got here, I left to work at the four different places I was scheduled for today. I called them a few times to check up on Owen, and Owen would say, “I’m doing great! I mean, I’m doing sort-of okay” (followed by a round of fierce hacking).

I couldn’t tell if he got any better during the day or not; near bedtime sounded like his voice might be going, and he was still coughing quite a bit. Hopefully he’ll be well enough to go to school tomorrow, but if not I can fit my work schedule around his, this time without so much help from Michael, for another day.

One other thing - I got to talk to my brother Mike, who’s back from a 3-week work trip to Uganda and Ethiopia, and his wife Eleanor tonight, which was super cool. Hi guys!

This morning we did the usual - played, ate breakfast, brushed teeth, got dressed, and those that had homework, got it done.

Next it was time to break out the bikes: The kids got coats on and headed out the door. Michael got the bikes out and ready and got each helmet fitted. I got lunch ready for our return. Then we got Layne (the dog) ready with her new prong collar to keep her from pulling so hard during walks. Then we were off. (Elapsed time: 45 minutes)

The bike ride was great. Three of the kids — two on bikes, one on a scooter — raced ahead to the end of each block, while the other stayed close to us to keep an eye on Layne. At first Layne was too perturbed with her new collar to notice much of anything, but after a little while she started relaxing and enjoying herself. The ride/walk lasted about 30 minutes. Afterwards, we came home for tacos and quesadillas. (We told the kids today was Quatro de Mayo; they looked at us like we were crazy.) Everyone was so hot after the little adventure that we ate outside.

The weather was rainy and colder most of today, so we all played inside in the morning, and went bowling after lunch. Bowling was great; the kids all did well and had a blast. We did too. And I got my own pair of bowling shoes that were at a super-discounted price of $28. Woo hoo! I was getting tired of renting shoes, so I was real glad to get them.

After bowling, we got three new bike helmets for the kids. They’ve all been begging to go out riding bikes, so they were really excited to get fitted for helmets. Owen’s is still in great shape and he loves the design, (as do I — it’s got a Japanese-esque look to it) so he’s keeping his for another year.

When we got home it was dinnertime. Afterwards the kids played outside for awhile (the sun finally came out around 6pm) then we all watched Meet the Robinsons (awesome movie!) before bed.

…I can’t get that lyric out of my head, although I don’t recall it even being in the actual movie.

After work and school Owen and I went to see Iron Man. It was very, very good. If you go make sure you stay until the credits are over; you’ll be Fury-ous with yourself if you don’t. Get it? Get it?

Owen’s elementary school held an art show at the local library this past week. We were going to go see the exhibits last night, but my head was hurting too much to go. Instead, he went tonight with his dad. They called afterwards; Owen was proud of his work and they had a great time.

After I got home from work Michael and I went to see the art show. The art was amazing, not only the amount but the variety. The art teacher at his school takes a great amount of pride in teaching the children all sorts of kind of art. Every wall in the school is always covered in colorful projects from the budding artists.

Migraine: Wednesday, April 30, 2008

• Characteristics
  Unilateral, top center of head and near jaw/neck line
  Steady strong ache with intermittent sharp pain
  Able to function with effort
  Pain scale 0 to 10:
  Wednesday: Morning: 3, Afternoon: 6, Early evening: 5, Late evening: 2
• Timing
  Length: Wednesday 9:30am - 11:59pm
  Worst pain: Wednesday 2pm-7pm
• Additional symptoms
  Very stiff jaw. Jaw started hurting before I even felt the migraine
  Very stiff neck, neck pain
  Mild nausea
  Mild difficulty concentrating
  Sensitivity to light Wednesday afternoon
• Possible triggers
  Stress
  Dehydration
• Non-relief
  N/A
• Relief
  Sleeping: Wednesday intermittent 6pm-7:30pm