Little Surprises

Little Surprises

I've discovered that if I ask Giselle a specific question about something that happened in school, I tend not to end up with the information I was after. But some strange things do come out of our little dialogues. She let slip that the little boy in her class that always got the other kids at his table in trouble, had moved and wasn't in their class anymore. And when the kids really get in trouble, sometimes they have to put their heads down on the table for x number of minutes. So I asked her if Mrs. Fix had been forced to make any kids put their heads down on the table since Billy¹ left. And she says 'no...but sometimes we do have to put our heads down on the table when they check us for lice.' Oh man I had forgotten all about those humiliating little checkups in school. 'Course in my day we all filed into the nurse's office single file and got our once or twice-over.

So I changed the subject and asked if she got to play with her best friend at recess, and she says 'yeah, but Marla's lice are all dead now.' Oh lordy lordy, I try not to laugh in the face of other's misfortunes around Giselle, so I made like I was coughing and then offered my condolensces.

Oh boy. Speaking of misfortunes...

Harrison has spun right into developing full blown asthma attacks the past few weeks. It's exercise-induced for now, but it gets pretty bad. We took him in to his doc, and now he has his own rescue inhaler and a little kiddie-sized face mask to administer it properly. Oy. He's not keen on that at all. But with Amanda's lifelong history with asthma, he couldn't have a better coach. Amanda never grew out of it. Hopefully he will. Time will tell.

Oh my gosh...and then Amanda's brother Jared was severely burned with 2nd and 3rd degree burns all up his back and arms. I guess he came in from the cold with a nylon jacket on and backed up too close to the fireplace and it ignited on him. He's been in the hospital for close to two weeks and they've been giving him autologous skin grafts. He's hurting really bad, but they've been able to talk on the phone. I can't even imagine. We're thinking about you Jared, and hoping you start feeling better soon.

My sisters and niece and nephew came up to visit this past weekend, and the kids had a great time together and we all had a lot of laughs. Of course when you get that many people and little kids together in a small space...well let me quote Jessica: "oh my god...it smells like...like smoke...and beans...and poop...and it's all stale...oh god it smells horrible!" Man that was a blast.

Well, it's all busy at work. One guy is on Grand Jury duty for 4 months, people have been out sick or with sick kids, and all kinds of new products are going through major market releases and it's all piling up. But it's good work. And hey, some of it is even enjoyable. I got to work on another illustration the past couple days showing stenotic lesions forming around a vascular graft anastomosis.

Well that's about it for now.

1. Student names have been changed to protect the innocent.