Balance

Ant had been in his room supposedly reading for an hour and was supposed to have lights out by 10 last night, but when I logged into Facebook around 10:15 I saw that Ant had just updated his status.  Hmmm.  I showed Chris, who went into Ant's room and quietly confiscated the PSP while Ant pretended to be asleep.  I just love it when they don't think you're going to catch on.  Just like last night when Chris came to pick me up from school- I saw just a flash of child running into the kitchen as if he'd been there the whole time rather than camped out watching TV.  Chris and I perused Ant's posts and comments and were not entirely happy with what we found.  Chris "woke Ant up" and had him sign in.  (I do have his password written down.)  Chris asked him about all the people he's added- there are some questionable profile pictures in there.  When I let him set up a profile I told him any friend requests needed to come through us, but he hasn't felt the need to do that.  There are four fake Demi Lovatos, Selena Gomezes, and Justin Biebers each, along with other people he says are famous but that are not their actual pages.  Then there are these random girls who look either too old or too sleazy to be anyone he knows.  Chris asked him about one girl and Ant said, "I have no idea who that is."  He swore he hadn't requested her as a friend or accepted her request.  Nice try.  Chris was planning on deleting the whole account but I sent Ant to bed and we changed his password.  Now he will have to be supervised in order to go online.  I think it's a good solution and it forces us to be way more involved in who he's talking to and about what.

In other "Ant is twelve" news, this morning I passed him walking the dogs on my way to work.  Riley was pooping.  Ant waved to me and happily traipsed past, leaving the poop behind.  He isn't even carrying poop bags as a pretense.  We have addressed this only recently, so this afternoon when I get home he will accompany me on my walk and carry a grocery bag and pick up every piece of poop I see.  Think I'm harsh?  Maybe so.  Don't worry, I'm not always an ogre.  I really do look for opportunities to reward him.  I have this stash of Garfield books and hand them out regularly.  Last weekend he saw a cross-stitch and started talking about the latch hook his foster parents bought him.  He'd done a pretty good amount in a week but lost all the yarn pieces when he got here.  I took him to Michael's that day and we bought him a replacement kit and the latch hook tool (with a coupon, of course).  He was excited to relearn how to do it and told me he could crank it out in three days.  Not so, but I'm hoping he keeps it up.  He wants one of these things

 to paint, which are pretty inexpensive, but I told him he has to finish the latch hook first.  I would love for him to do more crafty things.  I also got him reading one of the Imponderables series I used to read at his age.  When we were doing chores I had a lot of homework to do so I did my half hour on, half hour off deal.  I studied while he read, then he would tell me strange facts while we cleaned.  AND- I'm so excited about this- the RNR just ran their yearly article about all the different theater companies in Reno and their upcoming productions.  James and the Giant Peach will be an outside affair at the park- there's no solid dates yet but I wrote a reminder on the calendar- I don't think Ant will ever outgrow Roald Dahl.  I never did.  Even Chris makes references to Miss Truchbull or Matilda occasionally.  I feel like I could take Ant to some of the more grown up plays because he behaves pretty well.  He did great last year at that Lakota Sioux thing that went on for three hours.  I was ready to pitch a fit, but he was great.  And remember that kooky modern dance show we went to?  I thought I had lost them both forever but they both had interesting things to say about it and swore they liked it.  TMCC is doing free showcases of their theater, dance, and music groups and there's a murder mystery at one of the high schools that I think we could all enjoy.  Yay!

Is it Friday yet?

I just dragged myself away from an extra french dip sandwich.  It was tough, but I did it.  Whew!

School is going... yep, it's going.  It's hard to believe next week is spring break.  I bet it won't be as exciting as last year, huh?

We got a treadmill today from Ant's friend's dad.  The dogs were excited and terrified but we got them both going with cookies.  Kind of defeats the purpose, but whatever.

My dissolving stitches may be dissolved on the inside but there's a piece hanging out from the puncture wound and it is starting to get very irritated.  The doctor said it would eventually fall off or if I was so inclined, I could pull on it and it would break.  Um, no.  I pulled a tiny bit yesterday- the lightest tug that wouldn't have torn a piece of toilet paper.  Chris offered but I keep envisioning pulling a loose thread on clothing and watching everything pull tight.  Ugh.  I googled dissolvable stitches and kept finding strong suggestions not to pull it.  One lady said she pulled it and got several infections as a result.  It is getting extremely uncomfortable and looks pretty angry so I plan to crash the VA tomorrow and see if the doctor will take a look.  He's only there on Wednesdays and every other Tuesday and I saw him last Tuesday so I suffered through today.  I'm pretty sure he'll take five minutes to see me.  He can call me a wuss, I don't mind.

Jennyway, that's it for tonight.  I'll try to write more (entertaining) blogs soon.

Dogs!

Today at UNR

Today in the bathroom I saw graffiti on the wall.  I read it as:

PC Pisa
Good Thing

I thought, "Oh, is that some kind of art program for computers?"

The letters were all mushed together and I realized it actually said:

PCP IS A GOOD THING


Today at lunch I overheard something I never expected to hear:

"Oh my god, did you see Keeping up with the Kardashians?"


Today in art history my teacher was talking about seeing triangles but unintentionally summed up the class by saying:

"It doesn't have to have a point."

Ew, stitches!

I keep waking up in the middle of the night.  Garrrrrggghhh!

Monday was nice.  It was my first day back to school and I was pretty exhausted, but the day went pretty smoothly.  In Book Arts, my partner came right up to me with hunched shoulders so I knew my teacher had delivered my message.  He came to check on me too, which was nice.  I spent that class helping my partner set up for printing and learning how to run the press.

I had missed a planned group meeting for my proposal writing class, and I felt terrible about that.  As a contingency plan, they asked that we all write our own version of the draft and we'd use Monday to consolidate them.  When we met in class, my group was kind and concerned about the surgery, and neither of them had written a draft.  I felt redeemed that we would use my draft to work with.  Plus that meant they were obligated to even things up and do the parts that I was not looking forward to.  My job was to post everything online before class on Wednesday.  Whew!

I drove home so I could meet Ant.  He took the dogs out and then went to a friend's house.  I took a nap.

I went back to school for Art History.  I got my first exam back and was ecstatic to see that I got a B+.  That was without a curve.  Last semester I got a C on the first test and the curve brought it up to a B.  At the end of class when we signed in, I looked for the number 1 next to my name indicating my absence from the week before.  I really didn't want to miss that class because the grade is based on three tests and attendance, but I was just in no shape to go last week.  There was nothing next to my name.  Sometimes- rarely- he'll wave us out the door without having us sign in.  Could it be that I lucked out?

Yesterday we went to my follow-up appointment with the surgeon.  He explained the endometriosis more clearly and reiterated that if I had just the tubal ligation, I would have recovered much earlier.  Or, in his words, "It was supposed to be zap-zap.  Instead it was zap-zap-zap-zap-zap-zap-zap-zap-zap-zap."   That's why the surgery took much longer than expected and it really made me feel better about how long it took to recover, AND the endometriosis diagnosis explains and should fix symptoms I have been dealing with for years.  Nice!

I totally forgot to tell Chris about that part, so I felt like an asshole and I was glad he was there to hear the whole explanation.  The doctor went over what could happen in the future and what to look for as well as how to deal with leftover symptoms since they could only zap what they could see.

Okay, Con Air is almost over and I only have a little over an hour before I have to get up so I'm going to see if I can't go back to sleep now.  Tomorrow is another long day and so is Thursday, but then it's Friday and I'm free.  I've run out of sweatpants so I'll have to wear jeans today- let's hope that goes well. By the way, the stitches are dissolving and the end sticking out keeps getting longer.  The doctor said I would eventually be able to pull on it and it will just break off.  Gross.  I'll pass.  It will have to fall off on its own.  Ew, stitches!

Right where he's supposed to be.

I can't stop laughing.  It's a low, evil chuckle, but with a little empathy too.

I came home today and found a folder laying on the couch labeled "Anthony P".  I dug right in, eager to finally see some classwork.  No classwork, sadly, but it did contain an outdated schedule and several outdated announcements obviously intended for us.  Between the brads were five weekly progress reports. Two were signed by me, only... hey, wait a minute...

Aww, Ant's first forgery!

I said nothing.  I waited until past 10, when Ant was out cold and Chris and I were alone.  I handed him the folder and he said Ant brought it to him this afternoon and asked him to sign what must be the most recent progress report.  He couldn't tell because form was completely blank.  Chris told Ant he wasn't going to sign an empty form, so I guess that's where it ended.  I flipped through the other forms and waited.

"He forged your signature.  He forged your signature?"

I nodded and he grabbed the folder and got up.  I had to stop him from confronting Ant with the evidence out of a dead sleep!  As I got ready for bed I remembered the Roseanne episode where Darlene repaired her report card.  I told Chris to go through the folder with Ant tomorrow- ask him to explain the progress reports and what the check marks mean.  Make him sweat a little.  I bet he won't come clean if I'm not there.

Chris said he's going to explain what forgery is and why it's wrong.  I'm sure there will be more involved and he's going to have to tell his teacher.

This is a weird rite of passage- you have to get in trouble for this at least once in life, hopefully in childhood.  This is where the chuckling comes in.  Been there, done that, but we can't give him a free pass!  What a strange position to be in.  And here comes adolescence.

P.S.

We were getting ready to run errands and Ant told me he would move things back into the living room so I could go get dressed.  I'm wearing sweatpants.  I laughed and showed him my puncture wound with the tail end of the stitches hanging out and the slice down from my belly button.

"I am dressed," I said.

He shuddered.  I told him I wasn't wearing jeans yet and he said he could understand why.  Then he started to think about how it would feel to bend over or carry something heavy and his face scrunched up.

"That's why I'm asking you to do that stuff," I explained.

"Yeah... I'll do that stuff."

:D