Sonya made me do it
Ok... yes it has been ages since I posted.... now I need to figure out what has happened since June when I last posted.
There have been a lot of changes.... one big one happened due to a series of unfortunate events as is often the case.... Sometime back at the end of June... ... it was early on a Saturday morning... Puck was supposed to go up to our Rendezvous camp site and supervise a work crew that day. Anyhow I heard him get up in the middle of the night ... sometime about 4:00 am to go downstairs for a visit to the bathroom. All of a sudden I heard a series of loud noises, called out, heard no response and leapt out of bed. Got to the top of the stairs to see Puck at the bottom in a pool of blood.... I thought he was dead.
I raced down and could hear him breathing (relief), but his face was swelling up so fast he was not even recognizable... It took me a minute or so to stop panicking and call 911... he was sort of wedged between the bottom stair and a large plastic container of stuff we were in the process of trying to find a home for now that Maddie had moved from her apartment. anyhow the 911 operator was very kind and asked me all sorts of questions to which I babbled answers... I knew he still had his dentures in and she asked me if I could take them out... I really did not see how I could do that with all the blood and swelling and panicking so she did not press me. The police came first, then the ambulance guys, then the fire truck (weird) They pushed all Maddie's stuff out of the way and got Puck strapped to a board and hauled him out. good thing he is so skinny. They took off for the hospital and I got dressed, found him some clothes to change into and some shoes... I wiped up the blood as best I could (not wanting to come home to deal with that after whatever was going to come) and set off for the hospital.
We were there until 8:00 and apparently it was one of their busiest nights ever. Poor Puck had to stay strapped in the collar and to the board for hours and I spent most of my time trying to keep him from unstrapping himself. I took pictures, but will not share them here... they are very awful Long story short not a single broken bone... badly split lip which required inside and outside stitches, badly bruised face and ribs. It was amazing... he looked like doom for a very long time. At my first art fair he scared a little girl just by looking at her (he felt very bad)
Ever since the fall Puck has lost some steadiness and is not as robust as he used to be. Anyhow... I began to think that we really needed to move our bed down to the ground level to prevent this sort of thing from happening again (this is actually the third time he has stumbled down the stairs in the middle of the night, but is by a long shot the worst) it took a lot of nagging, but we finally made the move. This required a huge undertaking, because the only place the bed could go downstairs was the library. The former owners had used that room for a bedroom when they could no longer go up and down the stairs as well. This meant moving bed down and books and furniture out... It meant moving the computer as well. That stayed in the room ...
We bit the bullet and decided to go through our massive collection of books and try to be realistic about what we really were going to still read and wanted to keep and those things that were just sitting around. I had two boxes of ephemera to put up on ETSY... old postcards, maps,magazines, pamphlets, etc and set about scanning a photoing them... there just comes a time when it all becomes too much and you reach a saturation point.
We left all our dressers upstairs and the closets are still up there.. It is quite lovely to be surrounded by books, but there is a large crocheted sculpture on Puck's side of the bed which he calls a Dementor. We need to move it, although he says he is getting used to it
Pinterest has become my place to store stuff now and I really am liking it to keep recipes, how to stuff, costume pics and goofy stuff that I used to cut out of magazines and file.
Maddie had a great season at Spring Green and we were able to get to all the plays there. That basically is our summer vacation... We had dinner with Maddie and our Friend Michael before each show then off to the theater... only had two shows in the rain.. One was Richard the III and the rain started at such an amazing spot that both Maddie and I looked up to see where the effect was coming from, all the while realizing that it was an outdoor theater so they could not possibly be doing that She helped up move stuff around and helped Puck build new stairs for the side porch, which were falling apart... It was fun to see them arguing over plans and designs and construction. Maddie held her own with her dad and I think they ended up doing it her way :)
She has moved back to River Falls to live with her Fiance (they have not set a date, but now I am resigned to being a mother in law) She bought her first car and this is the first time we have not had to drive her back to River Falls... This will also be the fist time we will not be sharing a Christmas break with her. She got a job with a temp agency and is working on line putting medical parts together. She said it was boring and I told her "Well now you know what you do not want to do for the rest of your life" We are hoping a job opens up back at American Players. They were going to let her know this month. I am sad about all these changes. She is coming home for Thanksgiving so we will see her for a couple days anyhow.
School is going ok ... My job keeps getting harder and harder.... My room is basically a decompression chamber, homework help, classroom, Freud's couch for special needs kids... I have connected with a couple and one young man in particular who really needs someone he can rely on. He has been able to confide things to me which he probably has said to no one else. It is both an honor to be trusted so much, but also a bit of a burden to not be able to help him more.
Most of the staff at the school does not really understand the concept of the room and often see it as a place where kids are ducking out of class rather than a place where kids are feeling safe from other kids, from instruction they do not get and are too frustrated to ask about, a place where hopefully everyone get a second, third, fourth and 60th chance to turn things around where they are not getting yelled at. If I had not spent those two years at Alternative I absolutely would not have been able to do this job. I used to be quite a rule follower, but now I seem to have developed the patience of a saint. (this is what other people say, but I do have my limits) Recently there have been several students placed permanently in my room to do class work and that makes it somewhat difficult to do my other job. Students who are in to work are different than students coming in for a break or a little time to do their homework in a less threatening school environment. I am not too happy about that.
I have three kids taking an alternative gym class... I supervise their walks around the circle (our school is a circle) 1 kid who now takes 4 hours in my room, 1 autistic kids who does 2-3 hours in my room, 1 genius 6th grader, who bites other children on occasion doing an independent study (on physics and Schrodinger's principle) every other day at the end of the day. There is also a young man who cannot mix with the other kids at lunch so he comes to my room as well. The young lady who would come into the room, grab my phone to call mom, has moved, but probably will be back once they figure out that the problem is not the school. Along with all this I do record keeping on every student that comes and goes... times in and out, why they came, what they got done and any notes I might have... I average 30 separate student visits a day, which may not seem like a lot, but when they are all individually intense it really makes the day go quickly and I come home completely wiped out
On top of all this I am trying to get ready for the play I am directing in the spring and dreading telling my assistant director that this will be my last year of involvement. It is just too difficult for me to be involved. I cannot do the job halfheartedly and I really need to focus on my weaving and felting... I have two new products ... felted dryer balls and felted soap ... I am also making little felted acorns which are tedious Then there is probably a wedding in the near future which I need to nag my daughter about :) heaven knows she will think, like I did, that some magic fairy will make all the arrangements and take care of the details. well that gets things pretty much up to date... happy thanksgiving to you all and hopefully I will remember to blog before christmas
There have been a lot of changes.... one big one happened due to a series of unfortunate events as is often the case.... Sometime back at the end of June... ... it was early on a Saturday morning... Puck was supposed to go up to our Rendezvous camp site and supervise a work crew that day. Anyhow I heard him get up in the middle of the night ... sometime about 4:00 am to go downstairs for a visit to the bathroom. All of a sudden I heard a series of loud noises, called out, heard no response and leapt out of bed. Got to the top of the stairs to see Puck at the bottom in a pool of blood.... I thought he was dead.
I raced down and could hear him breathing (relief), but his face was swelling up so fast he was not even recognizable... It took me a minute or so to stop panicking and call 911... he was sort of wedged between the bottom stair and a large plastic container of stuff we were in the process of trying to find a home for now that Maddie had moved from her apartment. anyhow the 911 operator was very kind and asked me all sorts of questions to which I babbled answers... I knew he still had his dentures in and she asked me if I could take them out... I really did not see how I could do that with all the blood and swelling and panicking so she did not press me. The police came first, then the ambulance guys, then the fire truck (weird) They pushed all Maddie's stuff out of the way and got Puck strapped to a board and hauled him out. good thing he is so skinny. They took off for the hospital and I got dressed, found him some clothes to change into and some shoes... I wiped up the blood as best I could (not wanting to come home to deal with that after whatever was going to come) and set off for the hospital.
We were there until 8:00 and apparently it was one of their busiest nights ever. Poor Puck had to stay strapped in the collar and to the board for hours and I spent most of my time trying to keep him from unstrapping himself. I took pictures, but will not share them here... they are very awful Long story short not a single broken bone... badly split lip which required inside and outside stitches, badly bruised face and ribs. It was amazing... he looked like doom for a very long time. At my first art fair he scared a little girl just by looking at her (he felt very bad)
Ever since the fall Puck has lost some steadiness and is not as robust as he used to be. Anyhow... I began to think that we really needed to move our bed down to the ground level to prevent this sort of thing from happening again (this is actually the third time he has stumbled down the stairs in the middle of the night, but is by a long shot the worst) it took a lot of nagging, but we finally made the move. This required a huge undertaking, because the only place the bed could go downstairs was the library. The former owners had used that room for a bedroom when they could no longer go up and down the stairs as well. This meant moving bed down and books and furniture out... It meant moving the computer as well. That stayed in the room ...
We bit the bullet and decided to go through our massive collection of books and try to be realistic about what we really were going to still read and wanted to keep and those things that were just sitting around. I had two boxes of ephemera to put up on ETSY... old postcards, maps,magazines, pamphlets, etc and set about scanning a photoing them... there just comes a time when it all becomes too much and you reach a saturation point.
We left all our dressers upstairs and the closets are still up there.. It is quite lovely to be surrounded by books, but there is a large crocheted sculpture on Puck's side of the bed which he calls a Dementor. We need to move it, although he says he is getting used to it
Pinterest has become my place to store stuff now and I really am liking it to keep recipes, how to stuff, costume pics and goofy stuff that I used to cut out of magazines and file.
Maddie had a great season at Spring Green and we were able to get to all the plays there. That basically is our summer vacation... We had dinner with Maddie and our Friend Michael before each show then off to the theater... only had two shows in the rain.. One was Richard the III and the rain started at such an amazing spot that both Maddie and I looked up to see where the effect was coming from, all the while realizing that it was an outdoor theater so they could not possibly be doing that She helped up move stuff around and helped Puck build new stairs for the side porch, which were falling apart... It was fun to see them arguing over plans and designs and construction. Maddie held her own with her dad and I think they ended up doing it her way :)
She has moved back to River Falls to live with her Fiance (they have not set a date, but now I am resigned to being a mother in law) She bought her first car and this is the first time we have not had to drive her back to River Falls... This will also be the fist time we will not be sharing a Christmas break with her. She got a job with a temp agency and is working on line putting medical parts together. She said it was boring and I told her "Well now you know what you do not want to do for the rest of your life" We are hoping a job opens up back at American Players. They were going to let her know this month. I am sad about all these changes. She is coming home for Thanksgiving so we will see her for a couple days anyhow.
School is going ok ... My job keeps getting harder and harder.... My room is basically a decompression chamber, homework help, classroom, Freud's couch for special needs kids... I have connected with a couple and one young man in particular who really needs someone he can rely on. He has been able to confide things to me which he probably has said to no one else. It is both an honor to be trusted so much, but also a bit of a burden to not be able to help him more.
Most of the staff at the school does not really understand the concept of the room and often see it as a place where kids are ducking out of class rather than a place where kids are feeling safe from other kids, from instruction they do not get and are too frustrated to ask about, a place where hopefully everyone get a second, third, fourth and 60th chance to turn things around where they are not getting yelled at. If I had not spent those two years at Alternative I absolutely would not have been able to do this job. I used to be quite a rule follower, but now I seem to have developed the patience of a saint. (this is what other people say, but I do have my limits) Recently there have been several students placed permanently in my room to do class work and that makes it somewhat difficult to do my other job. Students who are in to work are different than students coming in for a break or a little time to do their homework in a less threatening school environment. I am not too happy about that.
I have three kids taking an alternative gym class... I supervise their walks around the circle (our school is a circle) 1 kid who now takes 4 hours in my room, 1 autistic kids who does 2-3 hours in my room, 1 genius 6th grader, who bites other children on occasion doing an independent study (on physics and Schrodinger's principle) every other day at the end of the day. There is also a young man who cannot mix with the other kids at lunch so he comes to my room as well. The young lady who would come into the room, grab my phone to call mom, has moved, but probably will be back once they figure out that the problem is not the school. Along with all this I do record keeping on every student that comes and goes... times in and out, why they came, what they got done and any notes I might have... I average 30 separate student visits a day, which may not seem like a lot, but when they are all individually intense it really makes the day go quickly and I come home completely wiped out
On top of all this I am trying to get ready for the play I am directing in the spring and dreading telling my assistant director that this will be my last year of involvement. It is just too difficult for me to be involved. I cannot do the job halfheartedly and I really need to focus on my weaving and felting... I have two new products ... felted dryer balls and felted soap ... I am also making little felted acorns which are tedious Then there is probably a wedding in the near future which I need to nag my daughter about :) heaven knows she will think, like I did, that some magic fairy will make all the arrangements and take care of the details. well that gets things pretty much up to date... happy thanksgiving to you all and hopefully I will remember to blog before christmas
posted by Orbie/\;;/\ @ 10:10 AM
1 Comments:
At 11:14 AM,
Sonya said…
Man, you have been busy! That must have been so scary when Puck fell and all the blood. Yikes. But you sound pretty happy and lots going on in your life. I know what you mean about feeling strange about changes in the kids' lives. Our oldest is still at home but she's living her own life mostly. It's good and bad, happy and sad. Going to check out your felt soap and dryer balls now. Thank you for posting. I always wonder what's happening in your life.
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