may I introduce herman?

Oh, so sad. Tide can't even keep his eyes open, it's so early.

Wow. It's been more than a week.

Here's where I've been:

School started last Tuesday and the chorus of angels sang.

Also on Tuesday, Shout had a one hour class meet-up on the playground, so not The Official First Day of Kindergarten Take One. But she met the ONE other girl in her class and within minutes they were holding hands and playing some sort of fairy princess game.

That was excellent.

The next day was her First Official Day. The day I was going to make a big freaking deal about.

Yeah. I missed that day.



Here she is, waving goodbye to Laundry Dad.
No clinging on to anyone's leg and sobbing for the fourth child.
It's more like, "I've been WAITING for ALL THESE YEARS to go to kindergarten, NOW GO ALREADY."
(Also? Clearly I did not do her hair.)

Instead of being there, I went and kidnapped my 81-year old uncle and took him on a road trip to my aunt's funeral, to the ire of almost everyone else who is related to me.

As it turns out, he made a great Thelma to my Louise.

My aunt was a humble woman who lived a life that saw more than its share of tragedy. But she had a heart made of 24-carat gold (tempered with the most sarcastic wit I've ever known). She had a beautiful funeral fit for royalty. I think everyone who ever met her (who is still alive and ambulatory... and I'm defining ambulatory pretty loosely in this case) was in that church. Which is pretty impressive for someone in her 80s.

It was also sad, and once again, I am not dealing with that part of things. We went to three funerals this summer. One for a young mother who died tragically. Another for a middle-aged wife who died of a rapidly killing neurological disorder. And finally, my aunt. She was 84 (almost) and lived a long and full life, but it still makes me sad. And brings my mortality (and that of my parents generation) ever more to the front of my mind.

I have enough anxiety as it is.

So instead of dealing with Mortality right now, I'm creating An Ulcer. Which is coming in handy because now I can meet all stressors head on with rising levels of digestive acids. (And I can even use it as an excuse to get out of things. Like PTA meetings. And laundry. I'm going to name my ulcer. Herman maybe.)

Speaking of stress, I got ANOTHER call from Dr. Blood.

Not surprisingly, the pieces of the puzzle named Shout are still not fitting together. So on Wednesday, she has an appointment for a fancier test on a fancier machine. At this point, I'm so confused, I'm not even sure WHAT they are testing for. I just know we are going to be at the hospital all day.

Of course, I just realized that my big kids have a 1/2 day of school on Wednesday, which means I won't be there to pick them up on time. (At least I noticed before I forgot to pick them up this time, right?)

Seriously? Do we need a half day during the SECOND WEEK of school? Which isn't even a full week because Monday is a holiday. And last Monday was a day off. And Tuesday and Wednesday were half days.

In summary, I have spent more time driving them to and from school than they have actually BEEN IN SCHOOL. And that will go on for at least one more week.

So that's where I've been. Illegally transporting an elder across state lines for religious and cultural purposes. Being excommunicated by the other elders in my family. (There is a long story here that I am relegating to Herman. Because I couldn't possibly bore you all with the details of the levels of insanity in my family. Ya'll got your own insanity, I'm sure.) Driving back and forth to schools, nearly constantly. Googling every component of the human bloodstream and everything that could go wrong with each one. And proving myself, once again, to be an overachiever, now appearing in the stomach-acid producing category.