>Tuesday Tidbits: January 12

>Tuesday Tidbits are the posts where I sum up all the little things that happen in our lives from one week to the next; the little things that aren’t interesting enough for me to write an entire post about (though you all know I can spin a boring tale out of pretty much near anything), but which may or may not be of interest to you.

• Last Monday I noticed a small cluster of what I thought was acne on my chest, but by Friday they’d grown larger, were looking all boil-like and had spread down my arm.  So I went to the doctor and it turns out I have shingles.  That’s probably not news if you follow my personal blog or are friends with me on Facebook, but it’s still noteworthy because, hello, shingles. 

  So anyway, I’m on medication for it, the rash is starting to clear up and my arm vacillates between being being completely fine and having a tingly, ‘fallen asleep’ sensation.  For me there’s really no pain involved, which I feel very fortunate about.  I am keeping myself mostly quarantined at home, though, because although I can’t transmit shingles to anyone I could infect someone with chickenpox.  I know too many pregnant women and not-yet-varicella-vaccinated babies to risk getting anyone sick, even though I’d have to be in really close contact with them to infect them. 

• Bug is still doing well with not wearing diapers.  He went all last week without having a single accident but had more trouble on Saturday.  He wet the bed Friday and Saturday nights, as well as during his nap on Saturday.  I think having Tony home throws him off a bit, but we’ve made HUGE progress on the #2 front.  I think it’s a combination of being more comfortable with using the toilet as well as the fact that I’ve been using my new programmable rice cooker to have a mixed grain porridge (steel cut oats, barley, and brown rice) ready for us when we wake up each morning.  He’s much more regular now than he was before and doesn’t have to work as hard at the task.
• Bear is grounded from playing with any friends outside of school or karate until February.  If that sounds like a long time, it is. Three weeks, to be exact.  She lost one week of friend-playing privileges on Saturday night for slapping her brother across the face at bedtime.  She had asked Tony if she could sleep on the futon that night, but he and I wanted to watch a movie in the living room so I had to tell her no.  She pouted, whined and put up a fuss so much that Bug was concerned and got in her face, asking repeatedly if she was okay.  She was annoyed with him and hauled off; even though Tony and I weren’t in their room with them at the time I heard her hand make contact with his face and saw his reddened cheek after.  

  She lost the second two weeks after I woke up on Sunday morning, checked my email, and learned that when she returned home from a friend’s house the day before it was because she had been (an unwilling) participant in that friend’s plot to deceive her parents.  The offense there wasn’t serious, and Bear was sent home so that her friend’s parents could deal with their child, not because of ours, but she never mentioned anything about the situation to Tony or me.

  Because Tony and I are hoping we’ll be able to get it across to her now that there’s no such thing as hiding the truth from us, and that we absolutely don’t tolerate lying, whether it’s the telling of an untruth or through the act of omission. We want to get it across to her that if she’s honest with us we will be lenient with her about situations like this.  But if she lies, she’ll get a harsher punishment.  So even though her actions in the situation with her friend were appropriate, we let her know that we’re not at all tolerant of the fact that she didn’t let us know what was going on. 

  This is going to be a long three weeks.  For all of us.

• My next-door neighbor, and one of my good friends here, is coaching the Army women’s Dragon Boat team this year. 
  

  She’s convinced me to train and row with the team this year, and although I have skinny chicken arms and think I’ll probably be more of an asset as a gong-banger than someone striving to help propel the boat through the water, I’ve agreed to give it a try. 

  What this means, though, is I’m about to get really busy.  Those practices run Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 5 to 6:15pm every week from the middle of February through the beginning of May.  Add in Bear’s karate lessons (to which I’ll drive the carpool on Tuesday or Thursday) and that leaves me one weeknight to actually cook a meal. 

  I anticipate that I’ll be making lots of casseroles, Crock-Pot meals, and quick grilled beef and chicken meals with rice and salads… but I’m going to need some help from you guys.  For those of you who work long days and don’t have much more than half an hour to cook a meal start to finish on weeknights, what are some of your go-to dinners?  If I can get myself into a good pattern I’ll make sure that I’m doing my meal preparations ahead of time so that I can throw everything together when I get home.   I’m sure if I started combing through my cookbooks and scouring online I’d be able to find lots of good recipes, but I like collecting new recipes from people I know. 

  Whaddya say?  Wanna help me out?

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