Remind me again why I had children

Diva and Sproing returned unscathed from their field trip. I told you about the plan, right? The adventure is called "Sleeping with the Sharks" and the kids camped out in the tunnels that run under the large shark tank. If it weren't for all those kids there, I think I'd like that. Can you imagine lying in bed looking up at a tank full of sharks and assorted other sea life? Cool. Anyway, neither of my young'uns was thrown to the sharks, so I qualify that as a success. 

However, all is not rosy in kidlet land. 

Do you remember just a couple of days ago when I did all those good mommy things to get the kidlets ready for their field trip? For ready reference, I include the pertinent facts from my previous post:

In addition to washing Sproing's clothes on a special extra trip to the laundromat, I got all kinds of goodies for their trip. I filled up a bag for each of them with a disposable 35mm camera, a book of games and puzzles to do on the 5 hour bus trip, snacks for the bus trip, a white t-shirt for the art project they are supposed to do during this educational experience, mechanical pencils (that don't need sharpening) to use on their puzzle books, and money (cold hard cash!!) for tonight's dinner and the gift shops. 

Sproing at least was very excited about the bag of goodies. I don't specifically remember Diva's response. I thought it was a pretty nifty collection. For whatever reason Diva felt the need for more. Maybe she wanted something more high tech than a book of puzzles. Maybe she thinks other people will like her better if she has better stuff to show off. With her there's no telling. 

She stole my digital camera. 

If she had asked to borrow it I would have said "no." So she didn't ask. I discovered it Friday evening on a bookshelf in my room, nowhere near its usual location. I thought that was odd. I didn't have reason to use the camera while they were gone, so I didn't miss it. When I saw it on the shelf I suspected it had been borrowed. So I searched the memory. It was completely empty. No images saved on the memory card or the internal memory. I had emptied the memory card a couple of days ago when I downloaded that beautiful picture of Gregory. :)

My suspicions were confirmed by Sproing. He volunteered that Diva had taken my camera. And he pointed out that she had deleted all the images she photographed. Ok, I'm impressed/pleased that she was at least smart enough to do that. How sad is it that I realize her cognitive improvements by how well she hides her crimes? 

This evening I confronted her about the camera. I asked if she had taken it on the trip. "No." I asked her again, giving her the evil eye. (It didn't work. Used to work on Light and usually on Twitch. They had healthy consciences.) She was a bit hesitant in her negative answer and didn't look me in the eye. Um-hm. So I asked her a third time, and said "Say 'yes.'" She gave me that sorrowful pouty look and whined "y-y-yes." Did I not provide a camera for you? Did I buy all sorts of things for you to take on the trip, and for that matter pay good money to let you go? She reluctantly confirms. I walked out of the room. I figure that was a better choice than what I really wanted to do, which involved smacking her pout from her face to her toes. 

This isn't finished. There will be consequences. Our challenge, however, is to come up with meaningful and enforceable consequences. Any ideas? Superman and I are once again flummoxed. Any suggestions are welcome and will be considered. 

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In other news, my wireless internet connection is screwy. I was boogieing along this afternoon, emailing interesting missives back and forth to various buddies, when suddenly I noticed I wasn't connected to the in'erwebz. "Honey? I need your help..." Just one of the many reasons I call him Superman. We tried various things. I restarted the 'puter. He reset the router. Then the modem. Then the entire desktop system. (it's a dinosaur) Nuthin'. So I shut down and took a nap in hopes that all my problems would be solved when I woke up. Also I was sleepy. Alas, when I awoke 2 hours later I still had no internet. 

This is really bad timing. There is some really interesting juicy stuff going on with friends, none of which I'm going to tell you so don't even ask. That's beside the point. I was emailing hot and heavy here, and suddenly... nada. ARGH! My beloved Superman spent a couple of hours on the phone with tech support figuring out that the problem is not in the wireless router, but must be in the internal wireless card in my laptop. That's the way I understand it, anyhow. I frown and nod. Right now I'm wired to the router. Stuck here beside the big box in the living room, not in my comfy nest where I belong. I am thankful for the connection, though. 

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As I mentioned a few days ago, Diva and Sproing played their final soccer game of the regular season on Wednesday. Today was the first day of playoffs. Superman took them way out to the next town down the pike where playoffs are held. During playoffs they charge admission for everyone except players and coaches, so Superman had to pay $3 for the privilege of watching his kids play soccer. Tournament play in this league is single elimination. The kids' team lost their game this afternoon (Yippee!! ) so the season is now officially over. *sigh of relief* (don't hate)

There might have been something else I was going to say. I decided not to tell you about the gawd-awful mess that C and S left in my kitchen for TWO DAYS before finally cleaning it up late last night. Yesterday was wet and drippy and cool. Today's temperatures have been blessedly autumnal. My friend R from California has been sending me incredibly sappy "Christian" messages ever since I got back online. Another one just popped up in my inbox. Besides that and a few other even less meaningful trivialities, I have nothing else to say except goodnight. 

Goodnight

Not how I wanted to spend my evening

In the emergency room!

On a bright note, (ha ha) Light got home yesterday evening. She's done with finals, finished with her first semester of college. She's such a sweet and wonderful young woman. I'm extremely proud of her. I used to think that I was a great mommy for producing a daughter like her. Although I did do lots of good mommy things with her, she's turned out the way she is because of who she is. The actions, behaviors, and temperaments of the other children is humbling enough to let me know that Light is the way she is because of who she is more so than anything I did.

Back to the emergency room. Last night Superman was complaining about his heart. It was all fluttery, and his chest had a full feeling, he said. He asked me to check his pulse, and sure enough his beat was very irregular. I called our family doctor (who thankfully was on call. Any of the docs in the office would have been fine to talk to, but I much prefer our fella', you know?) and he strongly recommended that Superman go to the ER. Duh. I was afraid that would be the advice.

So we went to the ER. I dropped him off at the door and went to park the truck. By the time I got back into the waiting area, he was nowhere to be seen. As soon as he got up to the intake window and said he was having heart issues, the guy at the desk called back and had a nurse come whisk him away to the bowels of the treatment area. I asked where he was, and no one in the waiting area could or would tell me anything. I was very frustrated. Again, Duh! No one would let me into the back until his name appeared on their "board," their roster. I wondered for a few minutes, looking firm and concerned but not freaking out. Yay me. I made sure to give the guard at the door the proper spelling of our name, and he promised to let me know as soon as I could go back. Very soon he called me over and gave me a visitor's badge and told me where Superman was. Good!

When I got to the treatment room where they'd taken him, he was hooked up to all sorts of machinery. I think they'd done an ECG by that time. It was less than 10 minutes. I was impressed. And the doctor on his case was a friend of ours from the church we until recently attended. The diagnosis: he has atrial fibrillation, I think he called it. The beats of the upper chambers of Superman's heart are fast and irregular. They took X-rays, scans, blood tests, and everything looked normal except of course for the irregularity of things. They gave him some medicine to slow the heartbeats. That was supposed to also get the rhythm regular. The beats slowed, but stayed irregular.

The doc went ahead and sent him home, but he's got to get an echocardiogram today. Doc called our family doc to tell him what's going on, and to expect a call from us today. I just got up about an hour ago (and I need to leave for work in 2 minutes. I'll be a little bit late.) and I checked his pulse when I woke up. It is still irregular. Shit. I was hoping it would have regulated by now. Shit. The fibrillation increases the chance of clots forming and going to his brain, causing a stroke. Shit. I don't want the man having a stroke. That would really put a damper on my holiday. Shit.

Anyway, I'm going to work. I have a field trip to drive this morning. I'll have about an hour between the end of my regular morning route and the start of the field trip. I'll probably come home and check on the guy, but unless he's really sick I will go on to do the field trip. Light, bless her heart, can take him where he needs to go today. My field trip will take all day, until it is time to start taking all my students back home. I should be finished and back at the bus lot by 4:30, if all goes well. Fridays can be hell. The kids are hyped up for the weekend and tend to be ill-behaved on Fridays. All the kids who've been suspended from the bus for bad behavior are now back on, so it could be rough. I assigned seats yesterday to keep the biggest trouble-makers away from trouble, and yesterday went much better than Wednesday, which was a bitch.

I'm taking my laptop with me today. While the class is busy doing field trippy things, I'll try to catch up on some of the posts I want to submit. I doubt I'll have internet connection, so it'll have to wait until I get home to post, but I can write stuff up anyway.

Ta ta for now.