What do I know?

Nothing, evidently. Douwe had his filling with zero novacain and also zero trauma. Go figure. He went with his father because he would not be able to miss my own nervousness and Dearly Bloved thinks it's just another thing and no big deal to get a filling without novacain. (!). So there was no danger of him passing on his nervousness, he hasn't got any.

I had to restrain myself from peppering Douwe with the kinds of questions which might just create a trauma after the fact but did manage to keep my mouth shut. I peppered Dearly Beloved but it was as usual unsatisfying, all he had to say was "What? Nothing happened. He sat in the chair and got a filling like everybody else".

Eep.

Daan is now first in line for the mysterious virus train, he had two days of fever and then started crying about his ear hurting. Happily, though our doctor will not give antibiotics for anything short of sitting on death's door, he hands out the (here's an irony) painkiller ear drops like water. As some of you know, the ear drops are essentially, well, novacain. No, not really, they are a contact anaesthetic. But still. So about an hour after I gave him the ear drops he dropped off to sleep and is still there.

May I just say, he dislikes nose drops quite a lot. D'you know, they come out of the sofa very well.

Nel is going to a, um, an Aryuvedic spa thingie in Germany with Ernest this month. All the good spas are in Germany I understand. I might look for one in France, the weather is better and so is the wine, but what do I know? Nothing, we have established that.

She is looking forward to it very much. The doctor even gave her a referral so her insurance is going to cover it.

And my seeds are now in the ground, or at least the first wave. I never give up, I just add something different to my dirt and try again. Though if it doesn't work out this time I am going to give up and buy seedlings like a civilized person.

I did figure out why my stephanotis died; it had a ball of slugs around its roots. Ick.

Sunday, we went to the zoo

No, I have not forgotten you. Sunday, we went back to the local drive-through zoo and had a lovely time. Here is what that looked like:






However, Eldest did stop quite a lot and wanted to sit down all the time. And he fell asleep in the car on the way which is anything but typical. So I looked around and discovered that he has gotten his molar on the one side but on the other side it's all swollen and sore so we decided he was just having pain from his tooth. Gave him a kids' motrin. He cheered up and the next day was happy and said he wanted to go to school.

Luckily I work in the school librabry on Monday because by 9:30 he was crying and had the start of a fever. So we closed the school library and I took him home where he has been running a fever ever since. I took him to the doctor because he had no symptoms other than the fever which makes me nervous about infections in closed-up places, and because he quit eating and drinking anything but coke. The doctor says it's just a virus and had a very serious conversation with Douwe about how important it is to try to eat and drink even if you don't feel like it. And said he expected the coke thing from an american, which Douwe thought very funny.

It seems to have helped, he did eat a plate of buttered noodles as soon as we got home. And drank two glasses of water beffore demanding another coke. Maybe I should have the doctor talk to him about his other bad habits.

In other news, report cards have come and gone and both my kids got good reports for the first time ever, that was a novel experience. Douwe's teacher was most worried abotu telling me he is in language related things closer to early first grade than middle first grade and I didn't really know how to tell her that to a mom who has regularly heard that he is three and four years behind his chronological age a couple of months is trivial and he can make that up in a couple of weeks.

They do not know exactly where he is in math; the standard test they use is all word problems and his teacher stopped the test about three questions in when it was clear to her that the language they were using was interfering with the result -- they don't ask what is 7 minus 4, they ask "If there are seven cows and four of them are in this field, how many of them are in the other field?" So he said there were seven cows and they should all be together or they would be lonely. And he said that seven cows have 28 legs. And he said that if there is an odd number of cows they should get one more to make it even. And he said any number of things but he did not say how many cows are in the other field. So they have gone off to find a non verbal standardized math test which seems to me ought not to be difficult but what do I know.

And in the final news, Nel has bought a new car of which she is inordinately proud. And there is a painter coming tomorrow to paint the kitchen blue and white. And a handyman coming in a couple weeks to put in power so I can have one of my two heart's desires which is a standing freezer in the cellar. My other heart's desire is a bread machine which has been vetoed ostensibly because it takes up too much room on the counter but you know and I know that Nel just likes the idea of bread made by hand better. And who can blame her?

Okay, it does take up a lot of room on the counter.

Sorry about the no doubt ten million typos, I am stealing time from Mr. Sickly and he is starting to whimper again so I have to run without proofreading. More tomorrow, I have to go administer motrin and make soothing noises.