Tuesday, October 19, 2021

Oookeytober

Whew hello October! It is most definitely autumn down to the cozy evenings, the dark mornings, and the occasional anxiety flares that sub in for more mellow SAD symptoms! Also, why can't Andrew or I sleep anymore? It's like we solved Allan's sleep troubles (more on that later) and now it's all our problem. Wait what?? 

So... things. They are going. Vroom vroom is about how. 

What seems like a fair long time ago, we finally made it to the Arlington Kangaroo Farm

 with Andrew's ex-work husband, Andy and his delightful family. 


Naturally there were the usual bizarre animal-human performative rituals of... bonding? Food sharing? I don't know. What is it about us that we seem pretty dedicated to encourage our children to french kiss as many strange animals as humanly possible? When I was in Israel, I got a big slobber camel drool snog that could only be matched in sheer slick mouthiness by several St. Bernards with colds. And on this trip, Allan chastely held a little grass pellet 'twixt her lips and steadied herself for a little Alpaca action. It was indeed very cute. For reasons I still don't fully understand and maybe don't want to. 

We also pet several kangaroos (as promised), did not pet a miniature horse (I guess that one bites), did pet some wallabees, waved at some lemurs and generally chased around some peacocks. 

Oh and it rained. 


But not full downpour unti near the end. Hello PNW autumn!

Not to max out our September quotient of amazing with kangaroos, the next weekend, Allan got her new big-kid bed


Far superior for our expanded bedtime routine, which added an additional several hours to the whole thing, but which at least kept some semblance of order. No no, the idea was that we took her to her room earlier and then gave her some wind down time and then after a little adult time (yeah, no, watching Netflix without putting the chill in quotes because the child was still thumping around and yelling for us from upstairs) I'd go up and lay in bed with her for 15 minutes and then Andrew would take a turn until Froggy the Cat protested sufficiently to make sure nobody in the house was getting any sleep and then he'd leave, Allan would protest and eventually fall asleep. It was actually really sweet and kind of cozy in parts, BUT no way she was getting enough sleep and the adults were running out of actual personal time fairly quickly. 

More recently we've started drugging her instead. Melatonin works, like wow! I had gotten some kid's melatonin before the last time change and never used it. Allan found it when I was cleaning the cupboards and wanted some and I said she could have some before bed... And damn when I came up that night she was zonked. And every night after except the one night that she was sure she'd taken it but actually hadn't. Just in case anyone was thinking "the placebo effect" Yeah if the "placebo" was a xanax maybe. 




But before that or after or in between I really forget...

We had a visitor! 

Allan's Gramma Lisa came to look at real estate for an investment she and sons are making in West Seattle. 

And also, maybe just maybe to see her precious granddaughter and first-born son, crown-prince of the Apple-of-her-eye etc etc. But naw, mostly real estate, I'm sure. Or Sierra? Our real estate agent is definitely the kind of person I'd travel across state lines to hang out with. 

Still in the downtime we managed to visit some very fine playgrounds. 


 And Allan finally met the troll on our way to the Burke Museum. Which is probably a little more geared towards adults, BUT they have dinosaur bones and an activity station, so arguably kiddie heaven as well. 



I think the real estate hunt yielded some fine fruits and we're now in the process of forming LLCs and making offers or something, so that's cool. I say "we" because Washington is a community property state, so whatever Andrew does, I'm doing too. But honestly I'm kind of on the "trust you implicitly love... but ok could i maybe see some of those documents... wow they're boring... um... ok sure yeah whatever" side of participation. The idea is that Lisa (possibly other visitors as well) will have a place to stay at hand whenever she wants and that will be covered by rental income from additional adjacent units, so that will be cool. It's hard to find a nice place to stay in West Seattle and you don't want to try to get in and out of West Seattle from most any direction where nice places exist. 

So... yay!

Allan followed up this extraordinary weekend of Grandmotherliness with a visit to Gramma Pam's (a/k/a "heaven). I spent the weekend working, getting a flu shot and occasionally grumbling about working. Andrew started plans for a shiny new rain bike. 

It seemed fun, but this weekend was funnerer. 

For one I had pretended to myself that I was done with this gigantic project that I'd struggled with significantly. Turns out I'm about halfway through. Haha. And there's a WHOLE 'nother project just like it after that. But, ignorance was bliss anyways. 

But also, we had a mellow Saturday with crafts. Severely needed as we now have a huge backlog of boxes. Now that Allan's in school and our weekends have been jam packed with nonstop mirth and merriment, the usual pace of crafting has diminished significantly. But damnit, we drew some halloween cats and made some cat puppets and played with so many stickers!!! Or some. Other excitement was afoot. 

Oh oh oh, but for me the best was yet to come. 

On Sunday I went to the ... 

wait for it...

wait for it...

The Opera! Oh my god. It's been since that special self-treat I gave myself in Renton well before the Covid Calypso.


This is me waiting for Michael, my opera buddy, at the International Fountain. I stopped taking selfies after this. Guess it's still frowned upon to leap up on the stage and snap pics with the singers. Whatever. 

But it was amazing. La Boheme and I suddenly actually like La Boheme (not really my favorite, but damn does it resonate when you're in the theater)

Meanwhile, Andrew and Allan went for a playdate with the rest of the family. Which is like the best synergy we've been getting on. Last month, Desiree and Andrew went biking and Michael and I took the kids to the park. This month, this. Next month, sounds like Andrew and Desiree might go climbing. I could get used to this whole tandem childcare playdate thing!

And here we are mid-October. Halloween is coming!!! EEEEEE. Allan wants to be a monarch yet again. We'll see if she fits in the costume well enough this year. I think it's got another go in it, but we'd probably best try that on again soon. 


And I have to say... 

I take back any misgivings I had about Allan's school. They have turned out to be amazing. 
HER teacher is wonderful and warm and loves our strange little bunny. And they have several developmental specialists working hands on with kids. One specialist introduced himself to me when I was picking Allan up and he blew me away. He clearly knows her pretty well (everyone seems to, which is another really cool little thing). He was talking about how he tells the staff not to judge the coping mechanism (in our case, little meltdowns) because it's usually all the kid has and it's about working to raise her comfort level and find other coping mechanisms that work for her. He's working on finding a space just for her (just for her is very important) where she can go when she's overwhelmed and helping her orient in her emotions. He's also arranged for a 10 minute countdown timer for her so transitions don't feel abrupt. Recommended that the teacher avoid letting her end up at the end of a line so she won't be worried about being left behind. Recommended that she bring Marlon Bundo (her stuffy) to school to help increase her comfort level. The level of how much he gets her and that she's just a not-average kid who's learning to express her needs in a world that has different expectations of children's needs - is really amazing.  Another therapist is organizing "friend groups" where kids are put one on one with each other and they work on friendship skills. Sounds like they will pull her and one of her already-good friends out of class for a half hour a week and just work on developing relationships. 



But enough about adorable little Allan. 

I have finally been officially diagnosed with fibromyalgia insofar as the doctor I had an appointment with to address something else took me through the diagnostic process and then said "yeah, everything else has been ruled out..." but it was fairly unceremonious, as she followed that up with "well most rheumatologists don't like dealing with it, because it's not really autoimmune, and it's just about management, and the person I used to refer to retired so... I have some youtube videos and you could try Curable." In fairness, she pointed out the common advice of getting consistent regular exercise, but then confirmed that I was already doing this and that sometimes it made things worse. Ah well. I should loop back to my neurologist since the treatment for fibromyalgia and small fiber neuropathy is the same. 

In other news, I have had four immunotherapy shots now. Well, eight, since I get two each visit. And no, everyone keeps asking, but no, benefits wouldn't be expected to be seen for several months.If anything I'm a teeny bit more flared up right now as a result. So that's fun! 

I might be a candidate for a biologic called dupixent that treats dermatitis and allergic contact dermatitis. It theoretically would also have benefits for the hives, so I could - I dunno - touch people without turning all red and burny. Maybe. But I have to wait another month to talk to my doctor about it even though I talked to one of her colleagues about it in August and thought it was a go. And it seems to frequently cause eye problems and may make me lose all my remaining hair.

 My hair's already gotten pretty thin these days, which is a lot harder to accept than a lot of the other little losses. My skin is more of a pain, but it's always been sensitive and blotchy. I used to feel pretty definitionally "Adella of the thick wild princess hair" It's a thing many paramours mentioned noticing first about me, and that little loss is a funny thing to let go, even if I already have slashed it short several times in the interim. 


 I'd cut it and really eventually will, because it honestly looks better on me, but I'm afraid to go into a hair salon with all those aerosolized particles of allergenic chemicals... and short hair needs a lot of upkeep. Maybe the dupixent will solve all problems at once! I'll be less allergic AND I won't have any hair so I won't need to go to the salon. Perfect!!


But hey, one of those "sort of something to point at" things: my ferritin isn't actually low-low. It's low as one can get and still be normal, but apparently that could be causing fatigue and hair, skin and nail symptoms. Oh and low iron can exacerbate allergies. Apparently under 10 is technically low for women (mine is at 30), but you can have symptoms pretty much anywhere under 50 and maybe even 70. So... that's confusing!

 Anyways, I'm taking iron supplements every other day now. Given the vegetarian diet thing, I probably should have been doing this for a whlie but after B6 toxicity, I try to be sparing about supplementation. I'm supposed to take them with vitamin C, but when I tried that it burned my throat right up (major reflux trigger for me, of course). So today I had a big bowl of broccoli (highest vitamin C thing I both had and can eat) with my iron pill anyways. 

And some day... someday I'll get some sleep somehow? Maybe? The right drugs? And then maybe everything will be better. Allan's melatonin is pretty tasty. I might just have about 5 of them a day and see what happens!

We're rapidly nearing another strange holiday season and awaiting pediatric vaccines with tip-a-tap toes!

But all is well and all is warm (except outdoors, but re-amassing our winter clothing). And to leave you on a high note... AWWWWWWWW got this from Allan's bag last week: 





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