Thursday, February 15, 2007

Snow day

Yes, we have another school closure day in Fairfax County.

I'll be staying home with Natalie today as DH has an interview. Natalie is, of course, thrilled that she has a day off from school. I asked Nicholas if he wanted to go to pre-school or if he would rather stay home . He said he'd rather stay home. So we'll have a good "play day" together. (I do have a webinar that I have to attend for work -- so I'll be a Bad Mom and have a 90 minute movie break for the kids.)

Our street is a real mess. Hopefully VDOT will be able to do something with it today. But it is so frozen over, it may take over a week to see any forward progress on our road.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Strep throat

DH got the call yesterday from my doctor's office. Yes, the throat culture they did on Thursday that had to "cook" for two (which ended up being 3+ due to the weekend) days tested positive. So I'm on amoxicillin for 10 days. Of course Natalie finished her antibiotic on Saturday and Nicholas finished his on Sunday. So now I am hoping that I have not reinfected them with strep. *sigh*

We're in waiting-for-whatever-storm mode. Natalie is disappointed that there is no snow yet. She'll be really disappointed if it's "only" ice. Ugh, I really despise ice storms. If it can't be snow, I'd much prefer rain over ice.

Natalie celebrated her 100th day of school by bringing home "trail mix" that her teacher mixed in class. Each student brought in 100 pieces of something -- cheese crackers, M&Ms, pretzels, etc. Natalie brought in 100 chocolate chips. So every child got to bring a trail mix bag home. Natalie even shared some with her brother. :-)

It's just after 4 am and there's no snow on the ground (yet) but some light snow just started. I'm guessing that we might be looking at early release for the county public schools. The afternoon commute might be quite "interesting".

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Natalie's report card

An update on Natalie's report card -- she scored 24 out of a possible 25. She's great on verbal, scoring 5s ("exceeding Kindergarten objectives") for the two language arts components, as well as the social studies and science components. She's great on math, scoring a 4 ("mastery of Kindergarten objectives -- benchmark for the end of Kindergarten). But on the listening ears related "stuff", she scores "mostly demonstrated" or "sometimes demonstrated", instead of "consistently demonstrated". We are taking a strong interest in the "listening ears" part right now, which appears to be improving.

We told Natalie that we are very proud of her for such a great report card, and are looking forward to seeing the improvements in her listening ears that we'll know she'll be proud to show us on her next report card. :-)

Snow storm? Ice storm?

Looks like we'll be getting "something" on Tuesday and into Wednesday. So all the geeky snow lovers out there *grin* have been watching the model runs over at the National Centers for Environmental Prediction's web site. This message posting gave me a chuckle:

SENIOR DUTY METEOROLOGIST NWS ADMINISTRATIVE MESSAGE
NWS NCEP CENTRAL OPERATIONS CAMP SPRINGS MD
1035 AM EST SUN FEB 11 2007

USERS OF NCEP EXTERNAL MODEL WEB SITES WILL HAVE DIFFICULTY
ACESSING DATA DUE TO HIGH TRAFFIC AND INTEREST...OUR WEB
SERVERS HAVE REACHED CAPACITY AND THERE IS LITTLE THAT WE
CAN DO ABOUT THIS AT THIS TIME...WE HAVE PLANNED UPGRADES
TO INCREASE CAPACITY WITHIN THE COMING WEEKS....THANK YOU
FOR YOUR PATIENCE...

12Z GFS RAOB RECAP...

PASY/70414 - NOT IN FOR THE NAM OR GFS
TUS/72274 - NOT IN FOR THE NAM; IN FOR THE GFS
GSO/72317 - NOT IN FOR THE NAM OR GFS


SHRUELL/SDM/NCO/NCEP

$$

Friday, February 09, 2007

Medical update, continued

DH took both kids to the pediatrician on Wednesday because we had run out of antibiotics for Natalie -- the pharmacy that we had received the 10- day prescription from gave us only enough for five days. :-( Since Fairfax County Public Schools decided to CLOSE instead of have a 2 hour delayed opening due to our less-than-one-inch "snowstorm" (insert eye roll here), DH brought Natalie to the pediatrician -- and he brought Nicholas to get checked, too. Nicki is now on antibiotics, too, for his nose/sinuses, plus bacitracin for a case of impetigo.

Then I started with a sore throat and did not want to potentially re-infect Natalie, so I went to get a strep test on Thursday. The initial test was negative and the throat culture results will be back on Monday.

Natalie and Nicholas are both hoping for a "big snowstorm" for Tuesday. The National Weather Service in Sterling is now talking about a "heavy snow event" and we're 4 days out. I think that's historic. It also helps me think we'll end up with a rainstorm. ;-)

Today is Natalie's 100th day of school celebration (which is actually the 99th day of school thanks to the school closing on Wednesday). She also gets her first report card today. We're all very excited!

Oh -- on DH's job front -- the Member that said he's get back to DH last month? He's readvertised the position. So DH is doing a "full-court press". I'm still miffed that the Member didn't follow-up as he said he would.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

The bug goes on...

Natalie is now back at school and is fine (still on antibiotics) but Nicholas is now down with "something". Poor little guy can't sleep at night thanks to a plugged up nose. :-( So he'll be home with DH today. Perhaps he'll get to see an inch or two of snow come down this afternoon?

As a side note, I'm glad to hear that the CEO of the National Pork Board has apologized to the blogger at The Lactivist Store for their absolutely silly cease-and-desist tactic. I've never been a huge fan of lawyers and it's stunts like theirs that helped form my opinion. Kudos to them for their apology and lawyers (as well as some trade associations) have managed to step up a few pegs now.

Friday, February 02, 2007

The bug, continued

Well, Natalie did make it back to school on Tuesday. Until 4 pm when we got The Call from her after-care -- a fever of 101. :-( So we got her home, gave her acetaminophen, and off to bed she went.

Wednesday she was better but she stayed home from school due to the fever on Tuesday. She said she wanted to go to school the next morning.

Thursday comes, we send her to school and -- get The Call at 10:15 am. Fever of 100. She says she has a sore throat.

So I call the pediatrician. Maybe it's strep and I don't want to mess with it, especially with the weekend coming. We get an appointment at 1:15 pm with our favorite doctor. She looks at Natalie; looks at her (red) throat. Time to do a culture. Five minutes later -- positive for strep.

So now she's on antibiotics for 10 days. Of course no school for Friday and possibly no dance class for Saturday. Definitely no swim class on Sunday.


In the meantime, Nicholas has a runny nose so we kept him home, too. Just in case. Whatever viruses and bacteria are running around seem to be taking out a whole lot of people!