Things I have learned today

1. If your child contracts a highly-contagious, highly-scary disease (such as, oh, say, pink eye) you will notice the tell-tale signs of said disease exactly one half hour after the doctor's office closes.

2. Although her eyes will be runny and icky before she goes to bed, and you will have to clean them out every 10 minutes (and wash your hands at least as often), and although her eyes will be glued shut with the ickiness of it all when she wakes up in the morning, by the time you get to see a doctor, they will be neither runny nor icky.

3. Although you may spend 45 minutes at Wal-Mart waiting on a prescription to be filled, and gather several random things to pay for at the same time, when you get home you will find out that your "friend" has come for his monthly visit. And you only have two pieces of "protection" left. And it's raining outside, so you don't want to get out. But you have no choice.

4. I cannot be trusted around an open box of cheese-flavored crackers shaped like aquatic animals.

5. It's very odd to have a child who is too sick to go to school, but not sick enough to lay around watching TV and needing general mothering all day.

6. If you watch enough cable during the day, you're going to get major baby fever.

7. Just because your dad isn't paralyzed, and isn't slurring his speech, doesn't mean he hasn't had a stroke.

8. When your kid, who previously refused to work on her "R" sounds because she wanted to go to speech with her friends, is tested again for speech, she will proceed to say those "R" sounds perfectly to the therapist. And then proceed to say them incorrectly the rest of the time, just like normal.

(And might I note, she was tested "again" because when they tested her in the fall, we agreed to test her "again" after Christmas because I mistakenly believed that I could cure her by this semester. HAHAHAHAHAHA. Because she refused to work on those sounds because SHE WANTED TO GO TO SPEECH.)

Oh, Gentle Reader, let me give you a rundown of my last few days: Dad goes to the hospital on Sunday with unexplained dizziness and nausea. Turns out he had a stroke (I still don't understand, but I'm a writer, dangit, not a doctor).

Yesterday about the time we were eating dinner, I noticed the attractive eye discharge and pink eyes so indicative of a case of pink eye.

(I knew what it was instantly, because she'd had the same thing when she was seven months old. I also knew what a hassle the whole process is, what with the wiping and the hand washing and the OMG DON'T TOUCH YOUR EYES.)

And the doctor's office had closed half an hour earlier, and I didn't think it was serious enough to warrant a trip to the ER. And, barring the matted-up eyelashes of this morning, she was all-but-cured by the time we saw a doctor. But I had to keep her at home today anyway, which meant she missed the group picture of her class, and the "100th Day of School" celebration, and a classmate's birthday party.

And also, she won't be getting a pefect attendance award at her high school graduation.

And now, she has eye drops which must be administered thrice daily, and it takes me longer to chase her down than it does to drip them onto her closed eyelids and have her open her eyes so the drops go in.

Y'all, I'm tired. And I'm cold. And I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see that all this wet weather we're having had frozen solid by morning.

I'm going to bed before I "learn" anything else.