This Is Real Life

I didn’t do last week’s Friday Fictioneers. I will admit, I was too caught up in other projects. Which is a shame; the prompt picture was quite lovely. But life had to take precedence.

Life has changed quite a bit in the last five months. The move was just the tip of the iceberg.

This is Halloween…

And this is Charlotte, dressed up as a Pteradon. I remember them as Pteradactyls, but apparently dinosaurs have changed a lot since I was a kid. I was highly disappointed in the number of houses that did not participate in the time-honored tradition of carving pumpkins and giving out wee candy bars. I firmly believe that the horrible Trunk or Treat phenomenon is ruining Halloween. That, however, is a totally separate rant for some other time.

This is the second year in a row that Charlotte has been a dinosaur for Halloween – last year there was a Triceratops costume – and I may have a bit of smug parent attitude that I’ve managed to keep her away from the “all princess, all the time” route so far. I’m sure that one will come back to bite me in the ass soon enough.

In just under four hours, I’ll be cracking open NaNoWriMo 2013.  There will be a word count tracker over in the sidebar somewhere, and if I come up with something superbly brilliant (don’t hold your breath) I’ll be sure to post a wee excerpt here. I’m still collecting donations for The Office of Letters and Light, the non-profit that organizes NaNoWriMo every year.

Now I’m going to go raid the candy bucket, dig out my copy of The Crow for some late-night viewing, and take some deep breaths. This is going to be a madhouse of a month.

Life happens

Charlotte had her followup from the infection of her pilonidal dimple in August earlier this week.

After the infection cleared, she wasn’t exhibiting any more problems either visually or verbally, so we asked if it would be okay if we waited until the flu vaccine was available to go back in (in addition to the fact that I was still crystalline with anger over the doctor’s attitude). It was fine. She was fine, is fine, will be fine. And the usual nurse practitioner who has seen her since she was six months old is still there, and thrilled at how much she’s thriving.

But there’s nothing that can be done about her dimple. No corrective surgery, no treatment. Nothing.

Following Up

I spent a bit of time on the phone with the doctor’s office today.

I like to think I am a pretty easygoing person. People have bad days, I get it; god knows I have them, too. But the doctor who we saw on Friday took bad day from cranky to… I don’t want to say neglectful, because there are a lot of negative – and justifiably so – connotations with that word. But to say a certain basic quality of care was lacking would not be wrong.

Cast of Characters

I should probably introduce the crew around here before I go any further.

My Butta Hurts

Twenty four hours ago, I was sitting here trying to figure out why I have this thing up and running. Topics were bouncing around my head and I was discarding them just as quickly as they came into focus.

I had thought about doing a parenting blog, as I’m home with Charlotte and have been for the vast majority of her life, but I don’t really do anything that would make me stand out from the crowd.