November dribs and drabs

Ok, I do think it's been two full weeks since my last post again. Ugh. So much to catch up on.

The hurricane was not a huge trauma here, although we continued to monitor all our NY and NJ and CT friends without power for so many days. We lost power in the late afternoon for about 5 hours. As soon as the power went out, we shut down most of the battery-powered electronics, figuring we should save the battery in case power was out a long time. Only exception was that Sofia insisted on watching a movie on the portable DVD player, but that battery only lasts 1 hour anyway.

The three kids and I ended up playing Monopoly by flashlight, which was interesting. Sofia was very enthusiastic about paying money, even when she did not owe anything.

But power was restored by bed time. I was a bit bothered to see how much they relied on it; Micah got completely hyper when the power went on, which made me lose my temper.

Tuesday, they had no school (a lot of folks were without power that day), so we had another lazy day. I did go out to run an errand in the morning, and took Sam shopping, and later took Sofia to her make-up swim lesson (since she would miss that Thursday).

Wednesday was back to normal. Evening was of course Oct. 31, Halloween. Ugh. First time David has ever missed it. But it turns out the boys are really getting too old! Sam ended up going out with his buddy across the street and another local kid, and they went without a grown-up this time! Very exciting (as long as they have cell phones...). Micah opted not to go with them, and he doesn't have local friends. So he stayed home and handed out the candy. I gave Sofia an option to go to a few houses, but she did not want to. So it turned out relatively relaxed. The three of us stayed home and handed out candy. They watched some movies while I packed. And Micah had Sofia sleep with him that night, to give me a break!

Thursday morning, bright and early. Got me and Sofia ready, woke the boys up, dropped Sofia at school, and I was off to the airport. Headed to Fort Lauderdale, for the SuLaM Shabbaton. SuLaM is a a project of Ravsak, which is the consortium of independent Jewish day schools. The Shabbaton (Thursday through Sunday) was a chance for a school leader, educator and lay leader to get together with folks from other schools and discuss.

It was energizing. I went with our Head of School (B) and our Director of Teaching and Learning (G). G and I started brainstorming when we met up at the airport, and pretty much did not stop until Friday afternoon. Everything we discussed led to another idea. I ended up with 12 different project plans!

It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun and interesting learning. I hope we do manage to implement at least some of what we learned.

Saturday evening after Shabbat we had free time, so my friend B who lives down the street from the hotel were we were staying joined us for Havdalah and then drove me up to see Grandma. My parents were still there, too (they were supposed to be there Monday until Friday, but they moved their flights to Wednesday/Sunday because of the hurricane). So B did a great job of keeping my folks busy while I got to talk to Grandma. Who looks FABULOUS and not nearly the 101 years old that she really is!

I had planned in great detail for the care and feeding of my children and husband while I was gone. David didn't get back from his trip (he'd left Monday morning before the storm) until early Friday morning, so the three kids slept over my friend D's house on Thursday. And since I was traveling, OF COURSE one of my kids was sick! Micah had 101.8 degree fever on Thursday evening. Sigh. So Friday morning, after D dropped her kids and Sam at the day school and then Sofia at her school, she dropped Micah back with a still-asleep David.

Fortunately whatever he had did not last long, and he was better by the time I got home on Sunday. Sofia developed a bit of a tummy bug all week, but nothing to keep her out of school.

Last week is mostly a blur. Tuesday was a Professional Development Day, with a really interesting speaker, Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano. I left the kids home for the morning. Brought my co-worker's daughter home with me after lunch, and took the four kids off for errands and appointments and voting. Had a REALLY interesting conversation after voting, about the MA ballot questions (one was about assisted suicide, and another about medical marijuana).

Lots of meetings and work and appointments all week. Micah's piano teacher is keeping a very fluid schedule this year, so I never know if we have piano on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. Sofia is doing swim class on both Tuesday and Thursday, plus gymnastics on Monday. This week, we also had a make-up gym class today (Wednesday) to make up from the day of the hurricane. (Sofia was clearly paying attention when we planned the make-up class. She was totally expecting there to be MAKEUP involved. We had just enough time after picking up the boys to run home, put some lip gloss and cheek sparkle and eye shadow on her and grab a pair of pink plastic high heels. She looked FABULOUS.)

Had the 8th grade Parlor Meeting with the Head of School tonight. I hosted. Which meant we went through three bottles of wine, and the parents stayed until 10:20. I love my friends.

David is in San Diego this week. He's actually going to a client site over the boarder in Mexico each day, but they are sleeping at the hotel in San Diego.

Sam is stepping up his responsibilities this week, for some reason. He made dinner tonight and last night. Very cool. And this afternoon he and Micah did a lot of cleaning up while I took Sofia to gymnastics, so the house looked presentable.

I got a migraine on Sunday, and by Monday it was a full-body event. UGH. Monday night, I had the boys put some Tiger Balm on my neck and shoulders, and then I used a heating pad to try to calm some of the muscles. Which then threw me into complete joint swelling, so by 2am I had to take a frozen shower to get the swelling down. It got better yesterday, and more-so today. This afternoon I also got a massage. She couldn't even figure out where to start, my whole body is such a mess.

Monday was also Veteran's Day. Micah had a play date, so I took Sam and Sofia to teacher conferences at the day school and then we went down to the Wrentham Outlet Mall. Sam wanted Timberland boots (he was wearing David's which were a half size too large). I needed sunglasses. And Sofia decided to check out the makeup store! She is such a fashionista.

I also went back to the outlet mall yesterday, because I did not like the sunglasses I bought. Switched them for a different pair. Happier. Also, much easier to shop without the kids and the holiday shoppers. I got some bakeware that I just hadn't known I needed... a silver dollar pancake pan, etc.

Oh, and my mom called with sad news today. Her dear friend, Judy Schulz, passed away today. She'd been very sick for a while. But so sad. I'm friends with both her daughters, and my parents are close with the whole family.  So I will go down to CT for the funeral on Friday after I drop the kids at school. Already got the boys a ride home. Just need a ride for the girl.