Falling Backwards

The clocks went back last night, but my body clock didn't, so I'm wide awake at 4:40am, and using the time to write a few blog ideas before Edward's body clock also wakes him up.

Edward's latest craze is deliberately falling backwards, having previously checked there's a nice soft landing. Usually it's the couch, sometimes it's daddy or mummy, and yesterday after a shopping trip he decided the big piles of wet leaves made an ideal fallback position.  Naturally he was very damp and chilled afterwards, and didn't object to an early bath.

Dominic had his lip and tongue tie operated on on Monday, up in Portland. It wasn't as big a deal as that sounds, but was important and worth having done. Our health insurance will cover most of the cost (we hope), but it won't cover the cost of the rear spoiler that broke off the van on the way home and vanished into the deeper recesses of the I5 interstate. Beth did drive back and try to find it, but wasn't able to search for long with Dom in the van. We can get it replaced (it almost as if they desing it to break off occasionally), but it'll cost around $700 and isn't covered by our auto insurance apparently.

The back story to the lost spoiler is that one early Summer day I was backing the van out of the garage into bright sunshine. I was partially blinded by the sun, and didn't see that the garage door hadn't opened fully. Why the door didn't open fully is a mystery. We'd had a few issues with bright sun on the sensor preventing it closing, but not opening, Maybe I tapped the remote button and froze it. Whatever, I backed the the van straight into the partially closed door, hard enough to crack the spoiler in one place, and bend the door so it wouldn't run in its tracks. I was eventually able to heave the door back into more-or-less straightness, and it works fine. The spoiler got the duct tape treatment but was clearly weaker then before, and eventually gave up the ghost at freeway speed.  Luckily it didn't hit another vehicle, or we'd really have had a story to tell.

Dom is now able to move his mouth and tongue much more, and has a wider range of noises. He appears to be in discomfort only when Beth is working the tongue and gums to stop the tie reattaching. The mouth is a great self-healer, but that means a cut tongue tie can actually re-attach if left to its own devices. Beth has to massage and work the cut areas to prevent this, several times a day for several weeks. The rest of the time Dom is his usually smiley self, and is just coming out of Wonder Week three, so he's sleeping better and taking a new interest in his surroundings, especially his feet.

To add to our vehicle woes I heard an unusual tapping in the engine of the Mazda on Thursday morning, so we booked it into the Mazda service center for a Saturday morning tune-up. I didn't hear the tapping again after that and the service center couldn't reproduce it either, but the Mazda is now serviced for the Winter, My commute is almost exactly 10 miles each way, so I add 100 miles to the car each week, roughly 5000 a year by which method I calculate it would be another three years before it hits 100,000 miles. Would be, but in February Beth returns to work and we'll be commuting together in the van instead, so the Mazda will be with us as our second vehicle for years to come. It's big enough to take all four of us in a pinch, but the van is much more comfortable to lever two kids in and out of, especially with car seats, and has more room for strollers, shopping etc.

Friday was Halloween, and I had a costume all packed for work as the office like to dress up. I wasn't feeling 100% however, and Ed woke with a worse cough than usual and a running green nose, which meant he'd have to stay home. I elected to use a sick day and stay home to help Beth deal with him and Dom, especially as I wasn't feeling great myself.  

I missed the office events, but we took Ed and Dom (dressed as Batman & Robin) for a short Halloween walk up and down our road, visiting half-a-dozen houses. Several of the neighbors Ed has visited before, so at the first two houses he just ran right in and started looking for mischief to cause. We herded him out again at each, and he collected some candy which he won't get to eat.

We skipped our usual Halloween Mall visit for the evening and stayed home, handing out candy to twenty of so groups, little ones early, and the younger teens up until 8:30pm when we shut up shop as it was Ed's bedtime.

We had a discussions about Halloween, and Beth noted the different phases. By 14-15 you're really too old to go without being a chaperone for younger ones, and the best age is probably 10-12, when you are less self-consious.