Schoooooooool!

 Well that was a bit of a skid vroom CRASH into "fall"

So... I'm not entirely sure we're totally "back to school" yet. We are. School did start

I know this because Allan got up eagerly on Wednesday morning, dressed herself in her finest costumery. Skipped all the way to the car. Met a classmate on the way. Smilingly went into the building with her classmate and... was returned to me seven hours later sobbing and sniffling by the school therapist who works with her and found her ("NOT LOST MOMMY!!") up by the busses. 

So... that was fun!

So that day we learned the teacher is badder than Ms Ferrel (her kindy teacher) although there is nothing bad about Ms Ferrell so that's a pretty high bar for comparison. I will say she also randomly volunteered a few weeks ago that she didn't like her kindergarten teacher at first but then she did. This was out of nowhere so who knows. Also Allan observed that the things you're excited about go bad and the things you're scared of go good, so... definitely my child. 

Luckily the next day went better. For instance we actually found each other without Allan almost getting pushed onto a bus to lord-know-where. But also she and her teacher seemed to be getting along and all was well. I haven't heard about Friday because Allan is off to Gramma Pam's for the weekend. But word is "okay" 

Regardless. School started

Late

And it's not 100% guaranteed to continue next week. 

Break out the Newsies soundtrack and let's talk about union action!

Ok, mostly there was a strike. 

You might have heard about it on the national news. Or my obsessively pro-union facebook feed last week. 

Allan was so ready to go back to school last week. I wanted to keep her ready and I wanted her to understand what was going on, so we took her to school anyways

She was the belle of the protest! The first student to show up. We brought candies and water. I know that substantive food would've been better but we didn't have substantive food and we did (for reasons unknown but let's call it a Valentine's failure) have a gigantic torso-sized box of candies. So... sweet.

Allan saw her teachers. Everyone doted on her. She, Unicorn Kitty and Raichu (I'll get to Raichu) walked in the line with various self-made signs. She made Raichu dance on some poor polite teacher's head repeatedly. It was good fun. 

Then we went for ice cream to celebrate. Do not buy a seven year old a sugar cone of ice cream if the plan is to get back in the car. It wasn't my plan. I was going to sit at the counter. But Allan wanted the car. And she wanted her strawberry ice cream... for about five minutes on a ten minute drive. Then she wanted me to hold it. Then ... well I eventually pulled over the car and put most of the ice cream out into a tupperware that I'd been keeping in the car because it's a good way to trap spiders who wander in there. That ice cream was tossed. A remaining bit of ice cream in a sugar cone was transportable with minimal mess until we got home. Then we put the remaining ice cream and the soggy cone into a bowl at home and... all problems solved except for the following two niggling problems: 

1. the darned sticky mess in the car, and 

2. Teacher ratios for special education in an inclusive model where staffing is not clearly guaranteed and likely to be insufficient. 

oh oh AND I forgot: 3. The giant smoke bomb that alit on Seattle and only recently dissipated. Darnit, I thought we were going to miss the great smoke out this year! Bah. I need it to be October already

So the strike went on for another week and my car is just kind of that much more kidified. 

On  Monday evening they reached a tentative agreement. We had been planning to go back to the picket line on Tuesday, but instead the teachers had a very very long 8 hour contentious meeting about whether to suspend the strike before fully reviewing the TA. They narrowly voted to suspend at about 4:50. And, we were notified at about 5:30 that school would actually be happening on Wednesday, a week after planned. 

Whew! And like i said, two days later the teachers still didn't have copies of the TA so their 72 hours to review and vote haven't come up, but ... I'm sure it'll be a great contract? Lord knows. 

We will manage though if there's a little more down time. Allan, me, and all the Pokemon

As I mentioned Allan is really into Pokemon right now. Convenient, since Andrew and I are big on the Pokemon Go. And the show grows on ya in direct proportion to how often the putative "villains" Jessie, James and Meowth are on screen. 

Allan is not particularly passive about her fandom though. We do a lot of acting out. 

I am typically assigned to be Vaporeon. 

Allan likes her because she looks "soooooooooo sarcastic". So now I embody Vaporeon and say lots and lots of dry sarcastic things while rolling my eyes and sitting in a pretend bathtub. Ok basically I just act like myself except now I'm in a pretend bathtub

She is usually Eevee. In case you're not well versed, Eevee is a Pokemon who quite uniquely can evolve into 8 different Pokemon. Vaporeon, pictured above, is a water type Eeveelution. Eevee is limitless potential. So of course Allan is Eevee. 

Andrew is Flareon. Another Eeveelution who happens to be fire type. He's very enthusiastic and a bit of a dumb jock. 

Allan is going to evolve into Sylveon, the (you'll be shocked) fairy type eeveelution. 

Dead ringer right??

But if the show has taught me anything it is that you cannot and should not rush evolution ever. 

So yes, the eeveelutions are big in our world, but not nearly as big as... you're going to say Pikachu. And you're not totally wrong, but... Actually...

No actually...

She's right. This is what Pikachu evolves into. Allan pronounces it Ray-chu. The officially sanctioned pronounciation is Rye-chu, which has led to minor bouts of confusion when she just starts running up to strangers and talking about how Reychu is coming and everyone in the house is gonna get electricuted and Reychu is this and Reychu is that. Also... complete lack of context. Probably more the complete lack of context and most people not actually being pokemon pedants. 

Anyways. This is Allan's first self-funded toy. Well, she also used some birthday monies, but about half of it was legit Allanowance! She's previously used her allowance on Captain Underpants books, so this was a bit of a big deal. Raichu goes almost everywhere with her. Most days. Today Raichu is home with a cold apparently and unicorn kitty is off gallivanting with the creature. But most days they are inseparable. 

Raichu is an electric type pokemon and therefore Raichu electrifies a lot of things. Mostly my head. Which explodes a lot in Allan's world. And in mine. Perhaps more figuratively in mine? 

Unicorn Kitty and Raichu get along really well. They share a sleeping cube. They are the new "it' toys. 

Which - get out your Toy Story soaked handkerchiefs - reminds me of  something. 

We recently did a little Kon-Mari (hold up each toy and say "do you want to keep this or pass it alongn ot the next family"?) of Allan's stuffies in honor of her new toys

Guess which ones she chose to let go of? 

The weird reindeer rag doll toy from several Christmasses ago? No."it's cute"

The bear dressed up as a doctor that my dad got from some interns and passed on to her? "No, never know when one of the other toys might get sick."

The alligator pillow toy that's technically mine and which she  never really plays with? No, that's mine. 

The lovingly crafted giraffe (Allan's favorite animal at 1 year old) stitched together from her baby clothes from a dear friend? Hells yeah, burn it down

Marlon Bundo, the bunny rabbit Allan's had since birth and taken with her to everywhere for years and who accompanied her to school every day of kindergarten?????? Yeah, whatever. She's still a bunny but... meh. 

So Allan's rejects are now in a closet because I can't dump them. 

I just can't. 

But enough about my child. Sometimes I'm coy on my adventures. Sometimes I share. Today... the floodgates open!

 I've had a beast of a summer. The thing that "seems like a yeast infection but definintely isn't" which has been around for the last 3 or so years now, pretty much has become a seasonal cyclical thing. About once every six months to a year I try to go in and get it treated and the treatment typically makes everything much worse and then the treatments for the treatments continue that trend... etc. Until I ultimately give up and do absolutely nothing and it goes back down to more of a lingering annoyance that I really should get figured out some time... 

Beware, this gets all girlie real fast. Be ready to squeam, my ishest people. So the new theory (every year there's a new one) is ureaplasma. This is a real thing. Depending on who you ask, it's a natural part of the genitourinary biome, an STI, or not really a thing stop asking for testing you're doing more harm than good!!!! So that's fun.

 Basically, ureaplasm are bacteria like buggers that are present in most people's bodies but can occasionally become imbalanced and cause lots of annoying symptoms. Maybe. There's not a huge consensus on anything, but it's linked to a ton of genitourinary symptoms as well as fertility stuff I just no longer care about.  But if there are symptoms and most other thing are ruled out, doctors will go ahead and say " let's nuke that mother-fudger!

...Funny thing about the magical feminine area: it is like Jurassic Park down there. You tamper in god's domain and a velociraptor like to leap out of a dark corner and shred you up. And/or you take antibiotics and that frequently causes a legit yeast infection. 

So you take probiotics and diflucan and - this is great - you might end up with ironic vaginitis, a/k/a cytolitic vaginosis. Which is when the good bacteria gets a makeover and drops cigar ash somewhere private while saying "tell me about it, stud." 

You just keep treating for one thing and it leads to another until you ... I honestly don't know. I'll tell you if it ever finds balance. I'm about to send a flock of wellness experts and deepak chopra in there to find balance. Oh and the first treatment didn't eradicate the ureaplasma, but don't worry there are other antibiotics to try. I did turn down the one that is known to cause irrevocable neuropathic damage and tendon rupture (already having tendonitis and neuropathy). So, wheeeeee. 

I have an appointment with a full on vulvovaginitis specialist in... December. So... that's fun. 

Also earlier this summer I had a throat/tonsil thing that either (depending on which ENT you consult) needs three weeks of high potency high dose antibiotics and steroids OR is actually fine on its own since the glands are ok and can be treated with conservative care (Guess which one I trusted). Also an urgent care doctor thought it was a salivary gland infection and another doctor didn't even see it and basically thought I was having imaginary symptoms, which she recorded as "the sensation of tonsillitis". So... shrug. Doctors' gonna doct!

I am increasingly convinced that there is not much difference between medical science and alchemy, except alchemy has cooler pictures, typically. 

In Mast Cell news, I am being encouraged to consider 4 potential treatment avenues to get things more under control - ketotifen, cromylyn, dupixent, and hydroxyzine. I could also seek out low dose naltroxen which isn't officially on the list but is still a candidate. I may end up on all or none of them. All of them can have significant side effects, many of them can make things worse at first, and definitely they all cause weight gain. Only some of them cause hair loss. And it's only a rumor that one or two cause third and fourth eyes to grow out of your toes!! 

Now, I would happily be an obese bald woman who could wear glitter eyelashes and go really anywhere in public. But I'm super sensitive to medications so they all have to be started individually and at slowly titrating doses. And most of them take roughly 6 months to reach enough effect to say if they'r working. So, stay tuned! I get overwhelmed trying to decide which one to try first. I think I need to just tag them to dice and let fate pick for me. 

...

Or I'll just put up a poll and have all y'all put on your labcoats and vote for what first. Because honestly you're probably on par with medical science these days. Bonus if you wear a cape!!

(I like a lot of my doctors, by the way. I shouldn't imply they suck. And some of my medications are what keep me alive and able to touch anything without bursting into flames, so I'm not as down on medical science as I sound. Just the trial and error process and uncertainty are surprisingly high!)

**

Anyways, speaking of medical science, time to go get my booster shots. I heard that it'll turn me into a rat or something? Who can say. But a girl can hope!

Happy almost-fall!