Last week I alluded to some craziness in our June, but let me preface this post by saying, it hasn’t been awful.
*Cue the Halleluja chorus*
On the contrary, Daphne is doing quite well, especially compared to this time last year, when she had continence issues and regular meltdowns that often involved smashing her iPad.
This summer, she’s been generally happy… I need to find some wood right now.
*Knock, knock*
Anyway, things have been smooth for her. When that’s the case, everything else is easier, and I’m definitely more chipper.
She’s been off for three weeks. The first two she spent at home, and I decided I wouldn’t push a strict visual schedule like I did last summer (about which I labored, continuously on this blog, to convince myself was actually helping her; it was not).
Instead, I simply aimed for general consistency: breakfast, outside time, 2-3 indoor activities, errands, then dinner and bedtime. It’s been working. She’s been compliant, cheerful, and occupied enough with sensory input and some academic and OT-style skill-building for me to feel ok with the time she does spend on YouTube Kids, while I fill Mythic Moose orders or simply catch my breath.
We’ve also made some treks out: to Get Air, the big trampoline park just outside Burlington, Bragg Farm to look at the animals and share a Maple Creemee (a Vermont soft serve specialty), and of course to the lakes, Willoughby and Crystal.
Those special days are fabulous for filling the downtime even more pleasantly.
Last week, she started her extended school year (ESY) services in the context of the district’s summer camp program. Now, for the month of July, she goes to half-day summer school four days a week, and Paula, the fabulous paraprofessional who worked with her in Kinder and First Grade, is her summer 1:1 aid.
*Cue the Halleluja chorus again*
I now have three and a half hours to myself every Monday through Thursday in July, and it’s perfect. I can weed the garden, do some light cleaning, write a bit, and relish my summer reading.
When I pick her up, she’s content and regulated from the change of scenery, and I’m more refreshed. It’s even easier to have a good afternoon playing and doing her activities as usual.
So all of that’s been positive.
My poor husband, though, has had a rough time. His upper abdominal pain flared up again in the middle of the night, despite us doing our best to follow a low-fat diet. He drove himself to the ER, where he was admitted and X-rayed. The pictures revealed a stone lodged in the opening of his gallbladder, so the attending doctor admitted him and booked surgery to remove the troublesome organ. Since it wasn’t technically an emergency, the doc didn’t wake the night surgeon, but they took his gallbladder out the next day.
It was minor surgery, done arthroscopically, and he’s healing well, but he’s been sore and unable to do as much. Then, just as he was feeling more normal, a sebaceous cyst on his back became infected, causing fresh, awful pain and a fever. Thankfully, that happened just as he was due for his surgical follow-up, so the nurse who saw him went ahead and drained the cyst. It was more brutal than I thought–she cut pretty deeply. We’ve been changing his seeping bandages regularly, and he’s on a round of antibiotics, which never make him feel great.
“I’m a walking calamity,” he said. “And I’m tired of being cut on.”
When it came time to take out the gauze the nurse had inserted after the procedure, he asked me to help.
I was expecting a half-inch wedged into the incision.
Oh, no.
It was, like, six inches packed into his flesh. I kept pulling and pulling, too slowly while he hollered. The blood and pus welled out, and I about lost my lunch.
Adding to that fun, while he was still in the hospital, a brutal heat wave descended, and Daph and I had to sleep downstairs where we have two AC window units. The upstairs becomes an oven on these rare days. We have a metal roof that’s meant to trap heat for the depths of winter, which it does beautifully, but it roasts us when temps climb into the 90s, even at night.
So, we were sleeping downstairs when early one morning, I heard what I thought was a vigorous egg song coming from inside the chicken coop. I didn’t get up, I admit, but when I did finally pad into the kitchen for coffee around seven, I glanced out and noticed the raised lid on the coop’s nest boxes.
What the hell?!
Panicked, I scanned the yard, looking for strewn feathers. Instead, I saw all four hens standing on the rocking chair up by our porch, looking spooked but fine.
Later, Jer checked the footage from the Google Nest cam over our garage. This is what he saw:
Holy crap
Thankfully, that big guy didn’t get any chickens, eggs, or trash (it was the day after garbage pick-up, and the can was empty), so he hasn’t been back.
It’s definitely predator season, though. At our barbecue on July 4th, all our neighbors and friends swapped stories of recent chicken attacks. Bears, foxes, raccoons… one friend’s poultry are so terrified, they’ve stopped going into their coop at night and are roosting instead in the trees, higher up. Another friend’s hen lost an eye, and she’s been trying to find a local veterinarian who will treat backyard chickens.
Hence, the chaos I mentioned. But, things seem to be calming down.
I also received my developmental edits for my story “Elspeth and the Fairy.”
I had a sick stomach opening the editorial letter, but to my relief, even delight, I read almost nothing but enthusiastic feedback, with only a few suggestions, all centered around deepening the impact of the protagonist’s emotional struggle.
“There’s very little to do developmentally,” my editor wrote.
*Cue the Halleluja chorus for a third time*
So, I’ve been working contentedly on those, and they’re just about done. When considering her suggestions, I actually divided my story into scenes and analyzed each for the requisite components: clear protagonist & antagonist, inciting incident, progressive complications, crisis, climax, resolution, and a character (protag or antag) who clearly “wins” that scene.
I’ve thought about doing this before, but I’ve never actually made myself go through with it. It took a little longer than I thought, but it revealed how I could develop more tension in my first two scenes. Not surprisingly, the weaknesses this analysis revealed aligned nicely with my editor’s notes.
That’s it; just a quick little catch-up. I hope you’re well and your summer’s going smoothly. If you’ve had any interesting adventures, I’d love to hear about them. Hopefully, they’re nothing too dire.
See you next week!
XOXO,
Jenn
- Postscript: I was finalizing this post just before I read about the horrific flooding in Texas. I don’t personally know anyone affected, but my father does. All the nightmares coming out about it have stopped me cold, and I’m not ready to fully acknowledge it. I might write about it next week, but for now, please know I find it devastating, and my prayers are with the families.
Jennifer Shaw 