RIP Cardinal, RIP.
Seriously. It was maybe 50 feet before where I hit the mourning dove yesterday. But, this time it wasn't like I surprised it. It flew out of nowhere straight into the grill of my car. He totally had a death wish, and I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Jodie, can you still be my friend?
So, there may be a couple of you that know about my tendency to hit birds with my car. For those of you who are not familiar with my dilemma, in the last year, I've probably hit about 24.
No kidding.
This number includes the mourning dove that I hit this morning. At least I think it was a mourning dove, it happened really fast and it was dark. The stupid thing was on the ground as I came over a little hill and tried to take off just as I was going over it.
And the 24 doesn't count the close calls with the 3 different turkey families, the single flying turkey (just missed my windshield by inches), the multiple pheasants, and the owl that was sitting in the road this morning, less than a mile after I hit the dove.
The owl was odd. I saw something that I thought was a raccoon standing on its back legs, but as I got closer, I could see that it was a HUGE owl, sitting in the road. It didn't appear to be hurt and just looked a me. It was too dark and as I was trying to figure out how to make my phone record video in low light, it flew away.
Why? Why is it that birds are attracted to my car, or at least not scared of it? It makes me wince or gasp every time I have a bird fly anywhere near my car.
And, what's next? This?
I just went back to "full" time. I'm doing 32 hours, taking Tuesdays off to get Chase to his summer programs. I'm working 8 hours a day, but wow, it goes fast.
Chase Update
Chase is doing AWESOME! His vocabulary has just blossumed over the last two weeks. He is even counting. His speech therapist said it's really good that he points to and actually is counting things, not just saying numbers. Here's how he counts, "1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 6." It's great.
The kids are at daycare now three days a week. Chase's teacher is great, and he is doing good so far. (Cory wasn't happy at first, but is starting to really like it, too!) The interaction with the other kids is so good for Chase, so I'm glad he's having fun.
We go back to our therapy group next Tuesday. He's come a long way since our last session. I just hope he shows them in group. Sometimes, he saves it for home. We'll see.
Fun Stuff
We've been doing some fun stuff, including a trip to the Toledo Zoo. My mom couldn't come at the last minute, so I had to take them myself, since I already promised Chase we would go. We were in the zoo for 6.5 hours! They were so good. See the slideshow pictures.
We've been seeing my friend Susanne and her kids a lot lately. We're having such a great time! Susanne even watched both kids while I had an appointment last night! That's the first time someone other than me, Craig, my mom, my sister, or daycare has ever watched them. It's kind of a big thing for me. I wasn't worried about Susanne being able to watch them, I was worried about them destroying her house! It went pretty well, and Susanne even bought Chase a Sponge Bob ice cream from the Ice Cream Truck. Thanks, Susanne! You SO rock!
Ok, that might not sound sucky, but not having enough time to get all kinds of fun new stuff onto my blog is sucky.
Now, since last time, we've been to Cedar Point, a Very Special Arts Festival, the Zoo, and had our last day of Chase's class for the school year.
Cedar Point
It went really well. It's funny how Chase was terrified of some things that Ethan would go on, and Ethan was terrified of things that Chase loved! Odd how that works.
The boys were troopers! They made it through both days at Cedar Point, an indoor waterpark, two nights in the hotel, and the trip there and home (thank you Grandma for the DVD player for the car!)
We were all tired, but I think that we're going to try to do it again next year!
Here's some pictures. I finally broke down and went for the slideshow...
Why is it that weathermen get away with being wrong so much? If a person in another career was wrong as many times as they are, that person would be unemployed.
Even up until the storms hit yesterday, they were still saying that today would be dry. Um, it was pouring when I left the house this morning and it's still raining. Even better, here's the forecast from TheWeatherChannel.com for Cedar Point:
Thursday's our evening at Cedar Point, Friday is our whole day. I guess it's not the crappiest forecast, but hot, sunny weather seems to go with Cedar Point.
Another thing that sucks today is that Cedar Point is only open until 7pm! I guess I've never been there this time of year, so I was totally surprised that it would close so early. I'm sure that will probably be a good time to leave for the kids. I'm sure that 9am-7pm will probably be a long enough day for them, and I guess us adults, too. Sigh.
Photos
Here's some pictures from Mother's Day.
Cory after the pickle was taken away.
Cory after Grandma made her happy again.
Chase and (Great) Aunt Kathy
Cory and Mya
Sharing popsicles
Mya and Amy
Troublemakers
Where's Jose? Can you tell which is the real bird?
I almost forgot. It's my mom's birthday today. I don't know what I'd do without her. She's completely put her life on hold to help us out with the kids. I love you, Mom! Happy Birthday!
Ever since I got out of college, I have used Word to create documentation.
First at Unisys where, for as much as it sucked to work there, the templates/tools that we used to create our documents weren't too bad. (For those of you who work/worked there, I'm talking about BEFORE CMS)
Next at WorkForce where we used Word with Doc-to-Help, or as we fondly called it "Doc-to-Hell". I seriously spent six months of the eleven I worked there just trying to renumber my documents.
Now, at TechSmith we use Word and Acrobat to make our PDFs. I guess that this version of Word has a sense of humor. It likes to catch me off guard when it decides to die and not to give me any warning or message that it's crashed. It's just gone. But, not all the time, sometimes I do get errors. I mean, I'm used of Word crashing, but when it doesn't give me a message, I don't always realize it's gone for awhile. Oh, it only does this when I switch over to another window, so I might not notice it for 5-20 minutes. Nice.
Mothers' Day
We had a nice weekend. We got our "white-trash" pool filled with water, which cost about as much as the pool, but less than a new well pump. We went to my Grandma's on Mothers' Day. Chase again found the booster seat and snapped it on. He did tell my mom this time that he was a turtle. Smart, huh? He's doing so good with his speech that he's able to tell us what he's thinking a little bit. At least now we know that he's pretending to be a turtle, not just goofy.
Everyone in the extended family thinks that I don't do good enough about watching Cory. She runs. She falls. She walks. She falls. (I have the same problem.) Anyway, I can't make her stop running/walking fast. I've never heard so much gasping as I did yesterday. I know that they totally think that I should do something about it, but then they can't give me any ideas about how to stop her. Sigh.
More about Chase
He's doing so good lately, that I want to say that he's not autistic. Again, I wish there was a blood test that could tell us for sure. He's repeating so much, using 4-word sentences, and initiates interaction with everybody. He doesn't talk as much around strangers as he does at home, but isn't that how most 2-3 year olds are?
Fun Times
We're going to Cedar Point on Thursday! I'm so excited! It's going to be me, Susanne, and Ethan (3), and Chase. We're staying for two nights. We got this package for supercheap that gives you 2 evening tickets, 2 full day tickets, 2 nights at the hotel, breakfast, and a parking pass. We also can go to the indoor waterpark for supercheap. I hope that Chase handles the whole thing good. I think he will. He's been there before and like Ethan. Chase is really brave about trying new stuff right now. We'll see how it goes.
