The magic show

Today was Zoe's birthday. We'll be having a party in a week or two, once the house no longer has active construction going on. For today, we kept things simple. Caly invited her best friend Elysha over and the two of them made a cake for Zoe. We read "Happy Birthday To You," by Dr. Seuss aloud (and I do mean LOUD). That's a family tradition on all the kid's birthdays. We even have them shout 'I am I' from the toppest blue space (usually my bed). And at Zoe's insistance, we had a magic show.

When Caly was in the third grade, she and Elysha started putting on magic shows for us. Any time Elysha spent the night, the two of them pulled out the fanciest play clothes, brought in props from all over the house, and put on a show that involved lots of "OK, close your eyes for a few minutes" and "pretend you don't see the string" moments. And, of course, lots and lots of giggles.

Now the girls are 14 and starting high school. Over the years, the show has evolved. Now it always includes their 'lovely assistant Zoe' and even live animals like the goldfish and the cat. But it still includes fancy outfits and not a single trick that actually works.

You can't improve on perfection.

and a Happy New Year!

Wow! I can't believe it's been so long since I posted anything. Well, I won't waste your time filling you in on the last few weeks. Christmas was fun and surprisingly relaxing despite having a cold, but other than that, it's pretty much been life as normal here.

But there is one nice thing I've been meaning to post about, and I think it will be a nice first post for a new year and a new decade.

Just before Christmas, our school had their annual middle school Snowflake Dance. Caly always goes to the dances and she was super excited to go to this one in particular. She'd had someone ask her to the dance, but knowing that he had stronger feelings for her than she had for him, she declined and decided to go with her friends. She wore a full length dress, brand new high heeled boots, and looked fantastic. After the dance when I picked her up, she was giddy with excitement. But she wasn't excited about a boy liking her or asking her to dance. Instead, she was excited about something very different. You see, every year at the dance, the eighth grade elects a king and queen of the dance. Traditionally, no one campaigns or asks for votes for themselves or anyone else. They just vote for their friends. But this year all the kids were passing word to each other to vote for one particular person. So when the time came for the vote, almost every student there had heard about the plan and they all voted for the same person.

No, it wasn't for Caly. It was for one of her friends, someone she's known since they were in diapers together. He's not a close friend though, because despite being in the same grade at the same school, they have hardly ever had classes together. You see, he's a special ed student who is only mainstreamed in some of his classes. Yes, you read that right. The king of the dance is a special needs student. And in case you were wondering, no, it wasn't a prank, a joke, or even pity. He's just a really nice kid, and the other students wanted to make him happy. They like him.

Caly said, "He was so happy! At first I thought he was gonna yell, and then I thought he was gonna jump, and then I thought his face was going to break from smiling so big." As soon as I heard, I called Scott, because Scott is friends with this boy's grandfather and I knew that Scott would be excited. So I called Scott and then Scott called his grandfather to make sure that he'd heard what happened. And apparently his grandfather had arrived at the dance to pick him up early and was there in the back of the room to see it happen. I'm not sure I can really appreciate what that must have felt like.

But what a wonderful way to end one year and bring in the next.

A horrible thing.

I don't even have words for this post. I am beyond them. But I am going to try.

We have a family friend who we've known for more than a decade. He's a young boy, Caly's age, who has some disabilities. I'm not going to name him, and in order to protect his privacy I'm not even going to be very detailed about his condition. Here's what I will tell you. He's got some mild retardation and some physical problems as well. He can walk (with a limp) and talk (with some slurred words), and he has some issues with his bodily functions. But he can also drive a tractor like nobody's business. He helps his family on their farm and raises miniature horses. He goes to school, can read, has a girlfriend who's one of Caly's mainstream classmates, and enjoys life. He comes to Caly's birthday party every year and all the kids know him and treat him well. I am incredibly proud of both Caly and her friends that his condition has never been an issue.

Last week he got sick. Very, very sick. His kidneys shut down.

And then his doctor told his family that they could treat the kidneys with a stop-gap measure, but wouldn't it be better to just let him die? He was already unconcious so there wouldn't be any more pain.

Holy fucking crap! If this boy were not disabled, would anyone seriously ever have considered letting him die when they could treat him? Yes, he is disabled. But in his day to day life he is healthy and happy. He drives that tractor better than my husband drives ours, and so what if they had to special order one that didn't need as much pressure on the pedals. He's GOOD at it. He already has paying jobs with it lined up for his summer vacation. He is NOT a burden on his family, not any more than any child is a burden. They all need fed and clothed and cared for, don't they? And he is certainly not so sick that his care is overwhelming them. I know that sometimes a person will get so sick that keeping them alive is slowly killing the ones caring for them. I saw that happening to Scott's mom when his dad was so sick after his strokes. But that is not at all the case here. It's not even close to being the case.

And his doctor tells the family that everyone has to die someday? He's 12, not 70! So they don't know why his kidneys shut down? So they say it'll happen again and again unless they figure it out? Well then get off your lazy asses and figure it out!!! What the fuck are they thinking?

Thank God, this boy's family are not idiots. They made the doctors treat him and now he's home from the hospital and seems to be OK for now. There's still trouble on the horizon. The treatment is temporary and not free of risks. But he's alive and happy and back to raising baby horses. Right now I can't even stand to think of where he'd be if it had been up to his doctor.

The details

The party was amazing. Zaven had invited 10 kids. 6 boys and 4 girls. None of the girls came, which was a good thing in a way. If it had been co-ed, I'd have had to supervise more. They are teens, after all. As it was, 5 of the boys he invited came and one of them brought a friend who'd been at his house when he was getting ready to come. He called to ask first and since there was plenty of food we said yes. The extra friend was someone Zaven knew from school, but didn't know well. Anyhow, a total of six teenaged boys came over. Zaven let Caly stay for the party if she promised not to talk the whole time. She promised and was actually able to keep her promise. It looked like it was going to kill her, but she did great.

So when they all had arrived we shooed them off and told them to go walk around the farm. Then Zoe left to go spend the night at grandma's. (She really, really wanted to stay for the party, but she wasn't about to agree to not talk much, LOL.) The boys (and Caly) were gone for an hour, then showed up hungry and thirsty and excited. They'd found some of the more interesting bits of junk on the place, including a laser cannon that Scott had bought at a salvage auction. It doen't work or anything, but they were very impressed. They'd also found the cars that Scott was getting ready to sell as scrap metal. Zaven and Caly told them they were allowed to break out the windows (they were, since the glass doesn't add to the scrap value) so they threw rocks at them. So we fed them pizza and Jones sodas (no caffiene) and then we brought out the cake.

And he got to cut it with a machete. A real one. They seemed very impressed with that. Then he opened his gifts. He got mostly cash, which pleased him to no end. He also got a new 4 Gig mp3 player which he was very, very happy with.

By that time it was dark out, so we gave them all flashlights and sent them back outside to explore some more. And while they were gone we filled up the glow-in-the-dark balloons and put them all over the yard. There was a light breeze and they moved around as they flashed on and off, so my pictures all look strange, but this is kind of what it looked like.

When they got back from exploring and saw the balloons they were so impressed. Then they took one of the red ones and one of the blue ones and went off in the fields to play capture the flag in the dark. They all had on black t-shirts and the moon was out so they didn't use the flashlights. Meanwhile Quinn was having so much fun walking around the dark yard and looking at the balloons. He was just in heaven.

When the bigger kids finally dragged themselves in at around 10:30, they were worn out. They just kind of collapsed. Most of them went inside to watch a movie (the terminator) but a couple of them had seen it several times so just hung out and talked on the porch. Slowly moms and dads started showing up to get them. The last one left just after midnight.

The whole time they were at the house they couldn't stop talking about how much fun they'd had. In fact, one of their mom's is my best friend and she told me that the minute her son got in the car when she picked him up he asked to borrow her phone. He was going to call all the kids who didn't come and tell them how they missed the best party ever. She also told me that he was so sore from playing all night that the next day that he could barely walk.

And just as importantly, Scott, Quinn and I had a great time while they were playing. My sister stayed for the party rather than just drop her son off, so we hung out on the porch and talked and relaxed and enjoyed the breeze and the balloons. The boys weren't in the house much so there wasn't even a lot of cleaning to be done the next day. All in all, it was the perfect party.

The synopsis

I'm not putting in the pictures and I'm not writing a long description. I'm whipped and I have a tiny bit of a headache that is fine unless I'm looking at something bright (like this monitor). But I just wanted to let you all know that the party was a phenomenal success. As in the kind of party that they will be talking about for months.

I'll post pics tomorrow if I can.

Crossing my fingers.

So far, this week has been kind of crazy. Zoe graduated from preschool this morning and I'll be posting pictures of that next week if I can. Meanwhile Quinn has developed a runny nose and a cough. I think probably his bad mood that I mentioned a few days ago has been mostly because of being sick. Now that I know he's sick, I can give him some medicine and it seems to calm him down as well as make his cough go away.

Housecleaning, though much needed, has been on the back burner. There's just too much going on and I'm kind of burned out on it. Instead, I've been catching up with a friend of mine who's been in the hospital. She's going to be OK, but she's been really sick. She's home now, but she's still really sick. Her doctors are incompetant. I'm hoping she'll be switching doctors soon because at the rate things are going, she's going to get killed by their inability to actually look at her records. On top of all the things they've failed to do for her, they are also failing to notice that she has drug allergies. They keep prescribing things to her that could be fatal. Nice, huh?

The party plans are going well. We need to clean house. But I've got a lot of the stuff done that I wanted to get done. I bought the movie (The Terminator) and the stuff to make pizzas and the drinks and plates and forks and cake mixes. I also bought some cool decorations. I found a place online that sells balloon that have LED lights in them. Fill them with helium and they glow in the dark and blink. And we're giving all the kids flashlights to explore the woods on the farm in the dark and they'll get to take those home if they want. Teens don't really want party favors and decorations, but I think they'll like these. I've figured out that about half of the people he invited will be able to make it. That's actually the perfect amount for me. Ten teenagers in the living room means barely enough room to move. Five means they can hang out and goof off and we don't have to rearrange the furniture or anything.

Ooops! Quinn just woke up. Got to run. I'll post Sunday and let you all know how it went. Wish me luck.

Photo Tag

My new friend Azaera just photo tagged me. I'm supposed to open the sixth folder in my pictures, post the sixth picture in that folder, and tell a little about what it is and why I took it. Then I'm supposed to tag 4 other bloggers. So when I opened the sixth file, I found subfiles as well as pictures. The sixth picture not in a subfile was this one.

Scott took this picture when we were visiting his sister in Virginia Beach. She and her husband are both retired Navy and when we saw this thing approaching they and Scott got very excited. Apparently there was some kind of hovercraft that can carry 100 tons on land or water and it can go 70 mph on land (I have no idea how fast on water). Anyhow this is the ship that deployed it and we saw it zoom out of the ship and next thing you know it's up on the sand down the beach and making for the road. It was really impressive, even though this picture is not.

Now since I had all those subfolders, I decided to look in the first one (since those pictures were taken before the trip to Virginia) and see what the sixth picture in that file was. I found this picture:

This is from Caly's birthday party. Every year she has a "Messy Party" and the favorite part for everyone is that all guests get a can of shaving cream to decorate their friends with. They give each others mohawks and beards and scream and laugh and have a great time. It's super cheap but a real blast.

Now let's see. Who shoud I tag? I think Chelle, Tara, Erin, and Pearly.

Lemonade

A friend of mine who blogs here about cooking and posts some amazing photography here, nominated me for this award. Part of what I am supposed to do is to nominate ten other bloggers who have good attitude/gratitude. I do plan to do this eventually, but right now, I don't read many blogs. The ones I do read have already been nominated so I'm going to wait until I find a blog that you might really enjoy. Meanwhile, thankyou. I hope you enjoy reading this.

About me

This is from Chelle, and I think I may be supposed to pass it on, but I'm not bothering right now.
Things About Me--
2 names you go by: Karen, Mooooooooooom!
2 things you are wearing right now: a sweater, jeans
2 of your favorite things to do: look at the stars, go caving
2 things you want badly at the moment: more time before school starts, a neat house
2 pets you have/had: my dog Maddie, my cat Lollipop
2 things I did last night: watched It's A Wonderful Life with the kids, talked to my sister
2 things you ate today: Lasagna, Chocolate Silk pie
2 people you last talked to: Caly, Zaven's friend Camryn
2 things you plan to do tomorrow: clean house, get more winter clothes out
2 trips taken in last five years: Chicago, Niagara Falls
2 favorite holidays: Christmas, Fourth of July (because there are no obligations, you just eat hot dogs and go to the fireworks)
2 favorite beverages: diet Big Red, Pink Cows (a Big Red float)

Tag, I'm it.

OK, I was tagged by Tara and that means I'm supposed to list 7 things about myself that you may not know. So, here goes.

1. I like people, but most days I don't actually speak to anyone I'm not related to.

2. I don't like milk in my cereal and when I eat cheerios, I eat them three pieces at a time.

3. As a kid I had to stop watching the Flintstones because it made me too stressed out with worry about how they'd get out of whatever trouble they got into.

4. I have almost no sense of smell.

5. I'm a sun-sneezer. Bright lights make me sneeze.

6. I have a strong urge to make something up for this list just to see if anyone believes it.

7. My favorite thing about Christmas is wrapping presents.

And I am tagging Chelle, Pearly, and Heather.

This is just for Chelle, and the 'possum under her house

If he's looking for something to read, 'possums prefer Spider magazine.

And you thought I was kidding.