Taking the Cats to the Vet

I took the cats to the vet today.  It was a traumatic experience for everyone involved.

The cats like to go outside early in the morning, so I took the precaution of locking each of them into a separate room overnight with a bowl of food, a bowl, of water, and a litterbox.  I was hoping to get a stool sample from each of them overnight.  I should have known better...

A half hour before it was time to go to the vet, I tracked down the animal carriers and went after Luna (the more agreeable one) and put her in her box.  No fights with that little girl, she's always ready for an adventure.  I scoped out her litterbox, but she had made absolutely no deposits over night.

I went after Tiger next.  One huge catfight later, I had two bloody gashes on my hand and a cat that had buried himself under the middle of the bed.  I finally dislodged him from the bed, only to turn around and find that Luna had let herself out of her carrier and was firmly lodged in Tiger's carrier.

Actually, this turned out to be a very good thing!  Once Tiger saw Luna in his carrier, he immediately lunged from my arms, and started squabbling with Luna, until she left the carrier and he could get in.

I locked his carrier and attempted to get Luna into hers.  No sooner did I shut her door than she began prizing open the weak edge at the top.  Desperate, I found a length of blue ribbon and tied her cage together so she couldn't open it again.

5 short minutes later, we were in the waiting room at the vet's office.

When we were called back, the tech decided to go with Luna first.  (Remember, she's the agreeable one.)  She purred through her initial exam, preened herself, and generally had a great time.  When the tech told Luna "OK, I'm done with you, I need to see Tiger next", Luna hopped right off of the table, walked over to one of the chairs, and assumed her sphinx pose while watching Tiger.

It took both of us to dislodge Tiger from the carrier.  We had to turn it upside down to get him out.  He hissed, he fussed, and he made snarly noises the entire time the tech looked at him.

Then came the fun part:  The vet came in!

Remember, Luna is still sitting on the chair, purring away and swishing her tail.  She was enjoying the spectacle!

The vet felt Tiger's abdomen.  Tiger growled.  She checked his teeth.  He hissed.  She gave him his shots.  Tiger made snarly noises at her.  The minute she finshed and said "OK Tiger, I'm done with you, you can go now" he jumped down off of the table and ran into his carrier.

The vet looked at Luna and said "OK Luna - you're next!"  (I swear I am not making this up!)  Luna hopped off of the chair and sauntered over to the table.  The vet picked her up and put her on the table, attempting to feel Luna's abdomen.  Luna immediately rolled over onto her back, squiremed around, and got her head under the vet's hand.  The vet tried to check Luna's teeth.  Luna immediately rolled over onto her back, squirmed around, and put her back under the vet's hand.  While the vet was trying to keep Luna still long enough to give her the shots, she asked me "Did you manage to get a stool sample from her?"

"No", I answered.  "She hasn't done anything at all in the last 12 hours.  I had her locked in a room overnight with the litter box, and she didn't even pee."

It's like that was the cue that cat had been waiting for.  With an insane gleam in her green eyes, she let loose at both ends, giving the vet both kinds of samples.  Luna hopped down off the table and hopped back into her box. 

We all stood there, too stunned to speak for a few minutes.

"Well", said the tech, "At least we have our samples!"

Those cats!  I guess we know who's really in charge!

This post originally appeared in my now defunct "Mom's View" blog.  I moved it to this blog at the request of my kids, who wanted to have all of the various posts that accompanied their high school years in one place.  I've matched the publication dates here to their original post date.  If you're reading these posts, I sincerely thank you for taking the time to go back through them all! 

Several Comedies of Error

I've been subbing a lot the past few weeks.  Jobs have been plentiful... and the motivation that says "You won't get a paycheck for June, July, or August" has kept me moving pretty quickly on taking up the jobs.  Today is a rare day off, so I thought I would share my comedy of errors over the last few weeks.

I normally only substitute in K-3rd grade, because that is my area of certification, and it is the age group I am best at teaching.  Unfortunately, several of the jobs I took over the past couple of weeks were "supplementary", which is the grab bag of the substitute world.  I didn't know what I was getting into until I walked in the door of the building that morning.  Surprise!!

I spent one particularly memorable afternoon in 5th grade.  The teacher had left us with a DVD to watch, and had trained the kids how to turn it on and get it to go.  Her final words to me before she left "You don't touch anything.  Only she does." (pointing to a child in the class)  Okie Dokie!  We finished up the lessons she had left, and then we attempted to start the movie.  Nothing happened.  The girl tried again, and nothing happened.  The kids became very, very helpful.  (overly helpful) Yet still, nothing happened.  I called down to the main office, and they sent an Assistant Principal down to "show us" how to fix it.  He ended up calling the media specialist, who then ended up calling the technology guy from the county who was in the building working on the network. So, while all of the great minds were working on getting the DVD to run, what were the kids doing?  We started playing "Simon Says".  Twenty minutes later, the crew of four adults looked at me and said "It's not working."  (Insert evil teacher/mom glare here.)  I asked, "so what do I do?"  "Oh, said the AP, you follow the plans she left you."  I handed him the plans that said in clear letters: "Watch movie.  The kids know how to turn it on.  Dismissal begins at 3:15".  Thank heavens, the teacher next door poked her head around the corner at that moment and said "We're just getting ready to start the movie.  Why don't you bring them in here?" 

I spent one day with an assistant teacher who couldn't remember my last name.  She kept calling me Mrs. Jones, no matter how many times I corrected her.  Finally, I gave up and let her call me Mrs. Jones for the rest of the day.  I found out yesterday that she calls every sub in her room Mrs. Jones. 

I was reading a book aloud to a group of students, sitting in the rocking chair when *CRASH* the entire rocking chair broke apart underneath me!  There I was, one shocked woman, sitting amidst the remains of a rocking chair!  (Once I finally caught my breath and figured out how I ended up on the floor, we called the story finished and went outside for a quick extra recess.)

On my way out of the building yesterday, I was accosted by a teacher that I subbed for last week.
"Did you hear the news?"  she asked.  "No, what?"  I replied.
"Seven kids in my class have lice.  They found them the day after you subbed for me.  You need to get checked before you leave today."

What a wonderful, wonderful couple of weeks it's been!

This post originally appeared in my now defunct "Mom's View" blog.  I moved it to this blog at the request of my kids, who wanted to have all of the various posts that accompanied their high school years in one place.  I've matched the publication dates here to their original post date.  If you're reading these posts, I sincerely thank you for taking the time to go back through them all! 

I subbed in first grade this week.  One of the little boys, J., is already a die-hard jock at the tender age of six.

On Monday, he burst into tears at lunchtime because it was raining.  Stupid me, I thought it was because we were going to have indoor recess.  (Believe me, the thought of indoor recess made me want to cry!) Nope.  It was because his t-ball game was going to be cancelled.  "You don't understand!"  He told me.  "We're undefeated!  Now we're not!" No amount of explaining would convince him that the game would be rescheduled and that they were still undefeated.

Fast forward to Thursday.  We're reading a book about Lance Armstrong in reading group.  He found out that Lance had cancer, and J. burst into tears.  "Oh no!  How can Lance have cancer?  What kind of cancer does he have?"

"It's okay, J., let's turn the page and find out more!" 
"No, no, no" he said.  "Is he going to be okay? What kind of cancer does he have?"
"J., he's fine. He had cancer, but it was several years ago.  He's fine now."
J. looked up at me, "IF Lance Armstrong can get cancer, anybody can get cancer."

I took a deep breath, and we turned the page and read the rest of the story and found out that Lance did get better.

However, it kept me thinking about Lance Armstrong and cancer for a while.

It is true.  Lance is an amazing athelete.  He has accomplished more in his life than most of us could ever hope to in a lifetime.  And yet, his battle with cancer could have easily been the end of the story for him.  Fortunately, he was screened, caught the cancer early, and was determined enough to follow through with medical treatment and beat the cancer.  His story is a reminder to all of us.

J. was right.  If Lance Armstrong can get cancer, anybody can get cancer.

But it doesn't need to be the end of our story.

Get yourself checked now for cancer. Early detection is the key to survival.

This post originally appeared in my now defunct "Mom's View" blog.  I moved it to this blog at the request of my kids, who wanted to have all of the various posts that accompanied their high school years in one place.  I've matched the publication dates here to their original post date.  If you're reading these posts, I sincerely thank you for taking the time to go back through them all! 

Cemeteries

I was out walking today, and stumbled across a 200 year old cemetery.  It was an interesting trip through history. 

I began in the new section, with people from this century.  I went a little farther back and found people from the last century, and then I began looking closer at the tombstones.

The tombstones from more than 50 years ago have a lot of information on them. 

I found veterans from WWII, WWI, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, the War of Mexico, the war of 1812, and the Union Army.

I found the graves of babies who left this earth entirely too early, with life dates marked in days, not years.

I found young men who had died in accidents at the old flour mill, leaving behind wives who were buried decades after they passed away. 

I found the graves of young women who died at the age of 19 or 20, while giving birth.

It all left me wondering about the nature of things.

The veteran's graves were all neatly cleaned, and adorned with U.S. Flags.

Some person had recently come through and planted pinwheels on the graves of all the small children.  Anyone who had passed away under ten years of age had a brightly colored pinwheel marking their grave.  Many of the graves had fresh flowers.  Several had brightly colored Easter Eggs dangling from "trees" (large sticks) that had been weighted down with rocks and placed by the headstones.

I wondered about the wives who lost husbands when they were 24 or 25 years old.  I can only assume they had children, and struggled to live in a world where women could not work to support themselves.  What did they do to survive?  How did they feed their families and keep a roof over their heads?  It made me appreciate the efforts our sisters went through in the women's liberation movement of the 1970's, fighting for ALL women to have the ability to work in a job outside of the home, after marriage, and at a living wage. 

I wondered what kind of grief some person has that they would go through a graveyard and plant pinwheels on the graves of little children.  I hope it brings them comfort.  I hope they find the peace they so richly deserve.

It made me so thankful for the life I live today.  For the freedoms our service men and women have fought for both here and abroad.  For the sleepless nights they have endured, so that I can sleep soundly in my own bed and watch my children grow and thrive.

It made me thankful for medical advances over the last century, that has tamed fearsome diseases that would strike fear into the hearts of parents everywhere, and take the lives of young children well before their time.  It made me especially grateful that childbirth, which can be a life or death situation,  is now a relatively routine procedure.

I left the cemetery feeling strangely contented.  I realized how much I had to be thankful for.  How many things the people who have come before us have done, and how far we have come over the last 200 years. 

Nobody Ever Told Me

We visited another college campus this past weekend.  Beautiful campus, set in the mountains of the Mid-Atlantic.  It was a glorious spring day when we began our tour, so the tour guides were wearing their fleece jackets with the name of the school discreetely emroidered on the front.

As we began our tour, one of the admissions officers said to our tour guide "There she goes!  Girl on fire!"  and everyone laughed.

"Everyone is being so mean to me," she lamented.  "We are given these nice fleece jackets to wear as tour guides.  and we even get to keep them! I love my fleece, it's so nice and warm, I wear it all the time.

The other day, I got out of the shower and put my fleece on to warm up quick.  I got warm, but my jacket got wet.  I didn't want to go outside with a wet coat, so I popped it into the microwave for a minute to dry it off.

Nobody ever told me that fleece was flammable!  After like, 5 seconds in the microwave, my jacket burst into flames and melted into this weird little pool of something that I can't get off of the bottom of the microwave."

We all stared at her for a moment, stunned into silence.

"When I went to housing to report my destroyed university owned microwave, they were speechless.  They told me I was the only person ever to have set fire to a fleece jacket in my microwave."

One of the fathers in our group looked up and said in a very deep voice: "I certainly hope you're not the standard  representative of this school."

"Why does everyone keep asking me that question?"  She wondered aloud.

Why, indeed.  A fleece jacket in the microwave....

Lessons From the Kindergarten

've spent the past few days subbing in kindergarten, and have a few stories that I'd like to share:

It was 90* here on Monday.  We brought the kids back from PE, and the sweat was dripping off of one little guy.  We had the kids pack up their backpacks to go home and then lined them up to go out for a quick 10 minute recess before it was time to go home.  The little guy who was dripping sweat proceeded to put his hooded sweat shirt on.  "Honey, you don't need your coat outside, it's 90* today.  It's hot."
"Yes I do!  I'm all sweaty and I don't want to catch a chill!"

We were working on glyphs in Math.  If you've been out of school for a while, you might not remember glyphs.  It's a picture that you color in with coded colors, and it reads like a map.  Our glyph was a duck in a raincoat.  The children were to put three circle buttons on if they were 5 years old, or 3 triangle buttons if they were 6 years old.  They were to color the coat yellow if they like to watch tv on rainy days, or orange if they like to jump in puddles on rainy days.  The hat was supposed to be blue if they were a boy, and red if they were a girl, and the boots were supposed to be colored black if they had a pet at home, or green if they didn't have any pets at all.
I had gotten through the directions on the hat when I looked over at G., and she was coloring the hat yellow. 
"You're supposed to color the hat red since you're a girl." I said.
"No.  I won't."  She replied.
"But those are the directions,"  I stupidly said.  "Color the hat red if you're a girl.  You are a girl, so the hat is supposed to be red."
"No.  You do not wear red hats with yellow rain coats.  You wear yellow hats with yellow rain coats.  And yellow boots.  Would you wear a red hat with a yellow coat to school?  I don't think so...."

We were attempting to introduce the kids to ABC order today.  We had sentence strips, and I was to give them four adjacent letters of the alphabet.  (E, F, H, G) and have them place the letters in order.  I covered up all the letters on the sentence strip except those 4 letters, and asked P.
"Which letter comes first?"
"A"
"No, of these four letters, which one comes first?"
"A always comes first.  Then B, Then C, then D.  E comes fifth."

Love those kids!!

Pink Hair

The middle child now has pink hair.   You read that right - PINK hair! 

He has been in the middle of his competition season- Physics Olympics, Destination Imagination, and the Robotics Tournaments.  He wanted to do something that would make him stand out and be memorable.

I've got to admit, the pink hair does stand out! 

He and his friends got together before Easter week and decided to dye their hair.  Since his hair is so dark, he decided to go whole hog and bleach it first, then dye it pink.

I had no advance warning before this happened.  He came home, walked into the room, said he was going to take a shower, and walked back out again.  I looked at his sister and said, in a rather stunned voice "Was his hair pink?"

Okie Dokie.  Pink Hair. 

I've actually gotten used to it.  It's easy to find him in a crowd.  Bright pink hair in a sea of heads- easy to spot. He brought a nice touch of Easter joy to our table- he looks like a giant Easter Egg now.

I've had several people ask me my thoughts about his hair color.  So, I'll share them with you:

1) He doesn't smoke, do drugs, and isn't out having sex.  Pink Hair is not a battle worth fighting.

2) He needs to enjoy his hair while he still has it.

One last thought to leave you with....  While we were at the University of Maryland last week, we stopped at the statue of Jim Henson with Kermit in front of the student union.  Jim and Kermie are sitting on the statue, talking to each other.  I took middle child's picture on the bench with Jim and Kermie.

As people were walking by, they stopped and stared at him, with his pink hair, turned towards Jim and Kermie as if he was talking to them.

"Oh My God..." said one father to me... "Your son looks just like Beaker!"

Yep... my son Beaker, who hopes to be a Terrapin, class of 2017. 

Enjoy that hair while you still have it!!!!