Category Archives: Family matters

In which we discuss matters of the family.

Family matters

“Breathing is the greatest pleasure in life”

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We had a really lovely weekend; I’ll tell you more about it tomorrow. Yesterday evening, though, Spring’s first allergy attack hit me hard. I know today is Monday, which means I should be sharing a menu plan with you. But for now, I’m concentrating more on breathing. It’s hard to think about what you’ll be eating for the week when you can’t taste anything.

I’ve always had bad seasonal allergies. I’ve never been to an allergy specialist before, but a GP once told me I had the worst nasal inflammation he’d ever seen. So, yay for me? He prescribed Zyrtec and Flonase, which worked really well until the Flonase started making me crazy dizzy. Turns out, other medications also make me dizzy, and you know what I don’t need? More dizziness.* I can’t remember whether the Zyrtec had bad mojo or not, but I’ve been taking Claritin for the last several years.

And every Spring, I’ve thought, “I should go to an allergy specialist.” And then I don’t, because procrastination! It’s what I do best.

But! This morning, I called an allergy specialist and croaked out, “I’d like to make an appointment.” On Thursday, I’ll go to their office and get poked with needles. (Or something. I don’t know.) And guess what? I can take exactly zero antihistamines between now and then!

I’m guessing they’ll say something like, “You’re allergic to trees and grass and dust and dust mites and pollen and everything else in the whole wide world. We suggest you take three allergy shots a day. And wear this bubble on your head.” And you know what? I might sign on for that.

*I get really dizzy for two or three days roughly every month and a half. If you clicked on that link and are wondering, the CrazyFeelings are mostly gone. But now there’s the dizziness. Why haven’t I gotten the darn thing removed already? I don’t know. Laziness, I guess.

Also: “Breathing in the greatest pleasure in life.” Giovanni Papini said that, and right now I certainly can see what he meant.

Family matters

Does it count as a ‘date’ if it’s unplanned?

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5/52
Project 52: Date Nights logo

  • The person whose turn it was to plan the date forgetting to do so.
  • A sickish toddler.

    • We can look at this weekend’s “date” one of two ways. The first would be: It didn’t happen, because we were supposed to go out of town, Petey was having a volatile stomach, we changed our plans and I forgot to make a new plan. Or you could say: Things didn’t go as scheduled, but we had a nice weekend despite that.

    I’m going to go with the second of the two options.

    So, as I said, we were supposed to make a family trip out of town. About an hour before we were going to leave, though, Pete started throwing up. No fever or anything, but he definitely wasn’t feeling great. We nixed our plans, and he spent most of the day lounging in bed watching cartoons. (Two-year-olds who will do this are rare and most likely ill.) That evening, some friends came over and we played some board games after the kids were asleep.

    The rest of the weekend was more of the same: No fever, cheerful disposition, little appetite and a hard time keeping things down for the littlest fella.* So we spent a lot of time at home and, on Saturday evening, watched “Dan in Real Life.” It’s been on our Netflix queue for years, I think, and I wish we’d left it there. It was awful. After that, we watched “Dune,” because Rockford said he needed to wash “Dan in Real Life” away.

    I’m not sure we really had a “date night” this week, but we had a nice weekend despite that and the evening upchuckeries.

    * But only, weirdly, in the evenings. Any insight into this would be appreciated. He was looking a little puny on Saturday at dinner, and I asked him if everything was OK. He said, “Mommy, I don’t want to throw.” But he did. He was still having his whatever-this-is last night. We’re going to take him to the doctor tomorrow morning if he “throws” again today.