random ramblings

So, the kids have been alternating who's sick, this week.  It's been kinda miserable.  We're all on the mend, though, so...hopefully, this week will be better.

My pixie has started keeping her pull-up dry all night.  I've asked her if she wants to sleep in panties.  Her response?  "No, not quite yet."  She's kind of insecure--hates making messes that aren't caught by her pull-up.  And she's had times in the past where I forgot to put her in a pull up, and soaked herself, her bed, and her bedding, necessitating an early morning bath.

We're looking into preschool for the imp, and looking into an alternate to the local Catholic school (which, judging by some of the things I've seen with Progeny, has fallen into the Common Core trap--endless worksheets, no books sent home, an assignment of reading for twenty minutes per night of a book "at reading level" (a nasty signal, there), and a few things that she's told me about the interaction of teacher and student add up to what I've heard about CC).  I've looked into another local Christian school's website...and found curriculum and textbooks listed from sixth grade on up.  Something the local Catholic schools either haven't figured out how to do, or have decided to hide.  We'll look into their early elementary ed stuff, and if it looks workable, we'll go from there. 

Best of all, it's a bit cheaper than the Catholic schools.

The cats have continued to prove their usefulness--and their weirdness.  Yesterday, Shadow managed to find a way to get under my recliner.  I discovered this when I started getting my butt nudged from beneath, and realized that the rustling behind my chair had stopped...and that Cricket was watching me from the kitchen table.  We had errands to run, so I forgot about it for a while. 

It was time to put the kids down for a nap when we got back, so I went into the imp's room to chase the cats out (they're more demanding of pets and affection than snuggly at sleep-time).  I found them crouched on either side of a half grown mouse.  I picked it up by the end of the tail to throw it away...and found that it wasn't dead.  It started trying to run in the air, its little paws and legs moving so quickly that if it'd had traction on anything, it'd have gotten away. 

Has anyone ever noticed just how darn cute a half-grown baby mouse is? 

I ended up taking it out and dropping it into the garbage in the city trash barrel.  There's quite a bit of food in there, and it was noticeably warmer inside the barrel than outside, so the mouse has a chance of survival. 

It'll at least be a less painful death than what it was facing, if not.

As I was carrying the mouse out the door, Odysseus was booting the dog out on her extra-long leash for a walk.  The dog saw me holding the tiny mouse out at arms' length, and thought I was holding a treat.  So, she raised up on her hind feet, folded her front legs across her chest, and stood there, eyes fixed on the mouse. 

Cute.  Not a chance I was going to feed her a live mouse, but cute.

I'm glad I set my class up with a lot of slack on the papers.  I think I can salvage the week we missed pretty easily.  We just won't have freewrite days for the next two papers.  And if we end up with more snow days (a distinct possibility), I'll cut the blogging at the end of the semester. 

Because this week?  Total loss, between snow, ice, intense cold, and a loss of power on campus on Thursday. 

Writing has been impossible with both kids sick, an extra kid to watch, and being sick myself.  Oh, and having a shit-ton of grading to do.  I'll try tonight, but...it may be Thursday's office hours before I'm able.