Langer Loksh

Three Kindergarten Jokes

1. Q: What is the biggest pencil?
    A: Pennsylvania!

2. Q: What is a nut jog's favorite dance?*
     A: The Nutcracker

3. Q: What does a cow like to do most?
     A: Go to the moooooooovies

* "Nut jog" is Summer's rendition of "nut job."

Mmmm, Lonicera and Forsythia

Just mixed myself a cup of yummy hot apple cider Airborne and called up to chat with Julie, who informed me that the Airborne people have agreed to pay $23.3 million to anyone who has ever bought their product because there is no evidence that it prevents or cures the common cold. You don't even have to have a receipt.

Problem.

I love Airborne. It is super delicious. Particularly the hot apple cider. But I like the pink grapefruit too. Because it is fizzy, I have been using it to wean myself off of the many many cans of sugar-riffic ginger ale that I drink every day.

I never even bothered to read the label. I just take the stuff. All the time. And now that I have heard about this lawsuit, I find out that tasty Airborne Hot Apple Cider Nighttime Formula contains:

Vitamin A
Vitamin C
Vitamin E
Magnesium
Zinc
Selenium
Manganese
Sodium
Potassium
Herbal Extract Proprietary Blend (Maltodextrin

the hell with it, this is getting boring

*Insert big bunch of herbs here including "schizonepeta (aboveground parts)"*

and

Sucralose

which I have otherwise tried to avoid because scientists discovered it by accident while trying to make a new pesticide.

So it doesn't do anything, and it might be bad for me. Do I have to stop? Because my life right now consists of smearing erythromycin inside my eyelids, changing the chicks' newspaper because they keep kicking over their water bowl, drinking Airborne, and listening to Johnny Cash.

Is there a vitamin-enriched ginger ale on the market?

No wait, I'm not stopping. For God's sake, people, it's not the same thing as nicotine and tar rolled up in a stick and set on fire! Or even bitter black liquid made from ground up roasted beans! I don't smoke or drink coffee. I'm keeping my Airborne.

Oh--as for whether or not it helps me fend off colds, I have no idea. Like I said, I just think it's delicious.

My Three New Favorite States

1. Ohio
2. Ohio
3. Ohio

As my Charlie would say,

"Talkin' 'bout DAT!"

Four New Tires and Five Lightbulbs Later...

Woke up this a.m. with pinkeye in my left eye. I've never had it before. It's not that bad. The thing that gets to me is the contagion factor. I have this irrational fear that it will never go away. I'm envisioning dabbing ointment in five tiny sets of chick eyes. Charlie accidentally swiped my eye this afternoon, and I said--and this was witnessed by neighbor Alicia--"Charlie, we have to go wash your hands; you touched my ringworm eye."

Ringworm eye?

Are all you psychologists out there ready to write a paper about me? Maybe name a new phobia for me?

Other things that happened today:

1. My Volvo passed inspection. Shocker!

2. Summer fell asleep on the school bus home, for the first time. Probably because her father took her skiing and then to a night Celtics game on Sunday.

3. The Walk the Line soundtrack came back to the library. YAY! (Mom: I'm going to burn it for you--and I forgot to give you High School Musical when you were here. Oh, and Dreamgirls, too. Ha ha, kidding!) (Everyone else who is not my mom: Dreamgirls really sucked.)

Cluck Cluck Cluck

Proud mother hen here. I brought the chicks to kindergarten. Summer told her classmates all about them--where we got them, what their names are, what color eggs they'll lay. I boned up on Chickens in Your Backyard early this morning, expecting complex scientific queries. "Where will they live in the classroom?" one child asked. Miss F. explained that they live at our house. "Where do they live in your house?" someone else asked.

In came a tour group of parents whose children will be in kindergarten next year. They watched the children watching the chicks. Miss F. met them out in the hallway to answer their questions about full day K. When she came back in, she told me that after listening to Summer, they assumed they were in a second grade classroom.

March Blos (But it's Better Than February)

Here is a list of things I keep meaning to post about:

1. The town's speech pathologist called me to schedule Charlie's evaluation. She told me that she wants Charlie to come into her office without me, because she thinks kids talk better without their parents around. That may be true but why would Charlie walk into an unfamiliar room with a total stranger? Whatever. Or as five-going-on-15-year-old Summer says, "whatev."

2. I finally called Jamie, a mom of another child with microtia in our town. I know her from EI. Her daughter is a year older than Charlie and attends integrated preschool as a community kid, not a special ed kid. I asked Jamie if she liked the town's speech path, who provides speech services after school for her daughter. Jamie said she likes her fine.

3. I got the paperwork for Charlie's IEP meeting, which is about three weeks before he turns three.

4. I had a mid-year parent/teacher conference with Charlie's day care teacher Sue. Sue loves Charlie and sees nothing unusual or delayed in his development. She said she does sometimes have a hard time understanding him but feels the other kids understand him. Sue is coming to the IEP meeting.

I practiced for "real" preschool on Sue by giving her handouts about unilateral hearing loss. I also let her know about an upcoming conference in Worcester that she could attend and get continuing education credits. The conference is about working with children with hearing loss. She seemed really excited about it, and she signed up right away that day. I left feeling like I did good for Charlie.

5. I've done all the paperwork to get Charlie's disability (congenital hearing loss) recognized by the state so he can get MassHealth insurance to cover the rest of the bone anchored hearing aid. We await the determination. I think I'll make an appointment now for the hearing aid, just to get the ball rolling. I can move the appointment if we haven't heard yet when it rolls around.

I think that's it for now. And because I liked doing it yesterday, here's a list of the books Charlie chose for bed time tonight:

The Diggers (twice)
Rusty's Bone
Bob's Busy Saw

Listy McList

I haven't officially joined yet, but Fussy is making a mini NaBloPoMo every month, with a theme, and this month's theme is lists. I'm not sure I'll do it foh real but just in case, I'll post a list today. Here are the books that I read to Charlie at bed time last night:

Cleo the Cat
The Carrot Seed
The Okay Book
Thomas and the School Trip

Time to go do it again.

Teaser

And so ends the second annual NaBloPoMoFoGaJoBaLo. Thank you for reading and commenting.

Also it's Summer's half birthday. She asked for a candle on her toaster waffle this morning. No--not a white one, a pink one. Yeah! Thank you.

But it was I who received a present today, an excellent present, from my husband--actually, from a guy named Charlie who works for my husband. It is a long sleeved T-shirt with a Patriots Flying Elvis holding a video camera and it says "We're Watching You!" I had Jeff take a picture of me in it to post here, but unfortunately, I'm just too ugly today. Sorry.

Thank you for reading and commenting. Stay tuned: I just might have something... interesting for you in December.

Guinea Pig

First thing this morning the personable Dr. Theodore Mason of Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Mass., telephoned me to discuss the Charlie softband BAHA situation. He told me that his practice serves mostly adults and that parents tend to bring their kids directly to Boston because they think the doctors must be better. He encouraged me to stick with the Children's office in Waltham. "You could actually be doing them a service," he said. They can learn about how to fit kids with BAHAs by experimenting on Charlie.

"I'm not sure I want my kid to be the guinea pig," I said. "It's really easy," he said. "They'll figure it out really fast." So I guess I'll keep the appointment in Waltham. The hospital is sending the loaner BAHA out from Boston. I wonder how that works--does it take the T? A duck boat? Does it get a police escort?

If the BAHA seems to make a difference to Charlie and we want to get one for keeps, and we can't convince our insurance company to pay for it, I'm going to call the Boston Guild for the Hard of Hearing at Northeastern University. A family in my early intervention support group was able to get free hearing aids for their baby through the guild's "hearing instrument outreach program." How fabulous is that? 

You Can "Thank" Me "Later"

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