martinimade

(note: random image and not the film of the Boy in question.)

Because life in the house is no fun at all unless one of us is seriously ill, the Boy got to have a chest x-ray yesterday. By all accounts, he hated every minute of it,  mostly because they forced him to keep still in an iron maiden-y sort of device. Keeping still sucks ass, in Boy-land.

As it turns out, he does not have pneumonia. Thankfully. Nor does he appear to have TB, which I suspect they tested for just for form's sake, rather than out of concern that he did have it. He still has to have the spot where the test was done looked at tomorrow. But I'm thinking if it were TB, he'd act like he was ill, rather than like a monkey on speed. Which is what he generally acts like.

The tentative diagnosis is that he is probably a touch asthmatic, which may be due to the season or an allergy or bronchitis or all of that plus more. We now embark upon a fun-filled regime of inhalers and steroids. Woo.

Still, you'd never guess to look at him. Or, more likely, be climbed by him.

For those keeping score at home -- we now have one kid who can't eat and one kid who can't breathe. And a partridge in a pear tree. (Actually, I'm kidding about that last one. There is a Trout in a Christmas tree, tho.)

In terms of the impending holiday -- I am in my usual state of panic where I realize that there are people who need gifts but that who I have forgotten. Like the kids' day care teachers, who we love. Frankly, the gift they'd probably find most helpful is a big, fat raise but that is beyond my power to give. I'm making some knitted warshcloths and will include bars of "gourmet" soap -- but still feel like its not enough and that I should just stuff an envelope with cash I don't have to spare so that I can assuage my guilt over letting someone else take care of my kids.

But, instead, handknits.

I suspect given my current mood, which would be disgusted and uncharitable and oddly sad, I should just go lay down. I was, however, briefly cheered by the arrival of the mail. Our letter carrier has taken to playing Christmas music on portable radio as he makes his rounds and I was serenaded by Sinatra while the mailman dropped off our day's bills and cards and flyers. He is also wearing a Santa hat and, I believe, bells.