Here is an email that I just sent to some friends:

You wanna know what just happened?? You wanna??? WALLACE READ, LIKE, 10 WORDS OUT OF A BOOK!!! I mean, known context and all, but honest to Christmas he sounded out 10 words and pointed to them on the page! One of them was “rainbow”! “It has a r-r-r- r in it. And a n-n-n en. And a b-b-b b. And ohwwwww. w. double-u. … there it is, Mommy. ‘rainbow’”.

And that nuclear blast you heard 15 minutes ago was my head exploding with pride.

Peeps, he was SOUNDING OUT WORDS.  I was just reading to him as usual and BLAM!  He reads. 

I told a friend that it feels like it did when he took his first steps.  He just knocked me sideways with awesome.  It was like getting hit in the face with the world’s biggest slice of french silk pie.

Wow.   And he’s younger than four and a half.

Wallace, you rock.

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Someone who totally didn’t have to last night forgave me for something I did 24 years ago.  I cannot tell you what a gift that is to me. 

I’m all verklempt.  People can be so amazing. 

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Howdy!  It’s been a while.  I have some stuff to tell you, but right now the biggest thing is that Samson was adopted and our new fostor dog is very silly, but very happy and adorable.

Introducing Penelope the Puggle!

That blur at the butt is her tail.  She is ten bundles of puggly joy.

GOOD GIRL, PENNY!

Sorry for being gone so long.  I’ll try and be around a bit more.

xoxo

KP

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Coming to you very nearly not at all live from YouTube! 

Let me know if it works.  Let me know what you think!  It’s horrible, but it works.

Hooray!

Speckblog’s Virst eVer Vlog!

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It happened.

W00T!

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We had one of those moments on Friday, Peeps.  One of those moments (and we’ve been having a lot of them lately) where I suddenly realize that my little guy is slowly morphing into a less little guy.  Four years old seems very young, unless you’re used to a three year old, after which time it seems positively adult.

On Friday I picked up Wallace from school early.  One of the nice things about school (as much as it is killing me) is the ability to get Wallace early on Thursdays and Fridays.  Not too early, but early enough that he leaves before the rest of his kids.  I think it makes him feel special.  This year has been a good year.

Anyway, rambling, sorry, anyway, I picked him up and he was dawdling, because if there’s anything better than being at school with your friends while your parents look on admiringly, Wallace doesn’t know what it is.  I said to him, chivvying him along for the thousandth time, “Okay, Bubba.  Put your train in the bin.  We have to go.”

One of his very good friends’ head whipped around with an accompanying “crack” and he said, loudly and incredulously, “BUBBLES?”  *crack* *crack* *crack* went the other little heads in the room.

*sigh*

Awkward moment there.  I kind of waved my hand innefectually off to the side and mumbled something while Wallace tried hard not to look embarassed and said, “No, Bubba.  It’s a…. name”.  He doesn’t know what nicknames are yet.

I have called him Bubba from the moment I realized that the name “Chubba” (which it would be hard to argue was not accurate at the time) might have long-lasting effects on his psyche.  He’s Bubba pretty much exclusively at home.  And now his schoolmates know that he’s “Bubba” at home, and since they are all just learning how to make fun of one another in that weird psycho social experiment thing that all of them get into, I’m sure it will come up in class.

The sad thing is that, up until that moment, I called Wallace “Bubba” with zero thought at all, and he responded with as much.  From now on I’m going to be aware of when I call him “Bubba” in public, and he will probably be aware as well.

It’s not the end of the world.  It’s normal and good to be aware of your social setting and social rules.  I went to elementary school with a kid nicknamed “Weasel” for pete’s sake.  He had it rough.  Bubba, if it stops in pre-K, is recoverable.

Still, I think that Bubba is not going to appear at school again.  He’ll always be Wallace there.

Kinda sad.

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COPYING SPECKBLOG ON AN EMAIL SENT TO MAYHEM TO FOLLOW UP ON HER NOTE:

Hey!

I’m alive, but just barely. I’m currently taking a 10 minute break from studying. I’m making note cards as fast as I can because we have an Anatomy midterm on Monday. I just finished the Artic and Phono disorder midterm yesterday and I don’t know how I did. So far I’ve gotten three out of three Bs for all my tests and quizzes, but I’m working as hard as I possibly can for those Bs. I have never in my life worked harder for Bs.  I’m so grateful when teachers curve. I am running myself into the ground and I have ZERO wiggle room to ever stop.

Believe it or not, Neurology is my best class, the one I’m enjoying most! It turns out my undergrad was just really, really hard and prepared me well. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of my speech science course which is my most focused point of concern about failure.

I have hundreds of pages of reading every night, many papers to write and labs to do, and tests almost every week. I’m so behind on reading I’m not sure if I will ever catch up and I vascilate wildly from feeling elated and glorious that I’m in this amazing place doing this amazing thing, and utterly dejected and certain that I will never, ever get through the program and will flunk out with a big, wet flop.

The brightest side of grad school are my class members who, to a person, are stellar human beings. The other day all 24 of us got punchy and started making Neuron Threshold jokes and agreed that we were probably the geekiest people anywhere, ever. I like every. single. person in my class. And, as a reader of Speckblog, I think you know what the chances of that ever were.

I’m sorry I haven’t been writing. I also haven’t been sleeping or doing much other than studying, parenting (badly) and cleaning (when desperate).

Love,

KP

PS - MO HAD HER BABY!!!  He is Cousin E and is just gloriously perfect and snuggly.  I have held him, thusly.

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Quick note: I had a fabulous birthday, Peeps, and I love you all dearly.  Thank you so much for the good wishes.

Related to that, now that school has begun I find myself entirely unable to be anything but horribly selfish.  I have friends who are heavily pregnant, friends who are in the middle of reproduction ambiguity.  A ton of people came together to give my kid a wonderful birthday and a ton of people celebrated with me and gave me wonderful things.

I have a fantastic caliber of folk that I know and all of them have things they want to tell me and things they want to do. 

Instead, I feel like a Taker.  I feel like I had this great birthday and Wallace had a great birthday and all I had time for was to yell “YOINK!”, cram my face with cake, and be off and running again.  I’m behind on all of my blogs, I haven’t written a single thank-you note for any of the wonderful gifts we’ve gotten and I have to keep reminding myself to pick up the damned phone and call the people that I care about.

Orientation was on September 11th, and three times that day I couldn’t remember the date.  I feel like a traitor.

To all the folks putting up pictures of their kids, they are SO CUTE!  To all the folks who wished me a happy birthday, thank you so much because I can’t tell you what it means to me to have a reason to celebrate when things are going crazy.   To all the folks having a really terrible time of it; I’m so, so sorry.  Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help.  I might be far away but I will come back if you need me, I promise. 

I love you all.  I’m so sorry that I’m so distant.  I’m having trouble right now just making room for my husband and my son and everything else is suffering and I’m sorry for that.  If you just hang with me I promise that I will be back and engaged and fun again someday.

xoxox

KP

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HEY CHICAGO, WHATDDYA’ SAY? THE CUBS ARE GONNA WIN TODAY!

CUBS ARE DIVISION CHAMPS!

And on my birthday, no less.  YAY!

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First of all, thank you Dawn and Kate and all the facebook folks who cheered me on and up.  You guys rock.  Today was much, much better.  Even just writing it all down yesterday and admitting to the panic was enough to bring it down several notches.  I took some time and carefully wrote up a list of things that need doing and important dates like papers due and quizes and exams.  Just seeing it listed out made it easier because suddenly I didn’t have to be afraid I was missing something.

TT was superhubby, and even though he’s working sometimes three jobs a day, he took over Wallacing for the entire evening and I got 200+ pages read.  At school today we had Anatomy lab and, beyond the cool which I will tell you about in just a mo, there was no homework assigned.  Thank you, Jebus.  I was able to stay afterward and watch some videos I have to watch for Speech Science class.

I knew that there was no way through this without the first two weeks being terrifying.  Until I know just what kind of detail I need to have and how each prof expects and grades work, I won’t know how to allocate resources.  There’s also that extra niggling worry that comes with knowing that at some point I’m going to be working with a mom or a kid or a person who really needs my help, and I will need to know what I’m learning now.  This isn’t high school, or even undergrad learning.  I knew that I’d be feeling the pressure and yesterday it really hit.

Luckily, I’ve moved past the stage.  Another ability I have now that I did not have even a short while ago is the ability to know that if I start and keep going, eventually I will be done.  Also, how much organization helps me stay calm.  It’ll happen again, I’m sure, and I’ll be here going AGGGGHHHRGHGHGHGH! soon.

Even with doing work today I was able to get home early enough and work hard enough that I got the bulk of the waiting housework done.  I cleaned toilets and did laundry and dishes and took care of the cats and cleaned up and mowed the yard and gave the dogs a bath and generally got the house back in a state of non-embarassing-stink mode, which is my favorite house mode.

I’m feeling much, much better and will do some more reading after Wallace goes to bed tonight.  There’s a lot on my plate, but I’ve been working every day and in that respect I’m ahead of the game.

Also, it’s my birthday tomorrow, and I’m going to try and get away with doing minimal homework this weekend.  W00T!

Funny story:  The problem with my email was apparently that there was another Christine Poopyhands at the school who is still employed by the school.  Her name is now Christine Chowderchunks because she’s married, but in the system all Christine Poopyhands mail is still going to her.  Unfortunately there’s nothing to be done about that.  She gets dibs.

They were going to make me Christine “L” Poopyhands, thinking that that would help, but unfortunately Chowderchunks’ middle initial is also “L”.  Crap.

I begged them for “Krissy Poopyhands” or “Christine Poopyhands2″ or something.  Unfortunately, they decided that they just had to do “Christine X Poopyhands”.    And of course I had to send out an email to everyone letting them know that my email had changed.  I’m not only the only one with a middle initial, but it looks damned dorky/impressive.

I am now the only one with a Speech and Language Pathology actual Superhero Name:

Krissy X

I have a hand sign and everything.  Do not fuck with me.

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