Ketchup

Ack. Life just keeps going on and on, doesn't it? It's not so much that I'm incredibly busy as I'm just trying to find my new balance with working and child care with another child in the mix. I spend pretty much all evening alternating working and wrangling children, which leaves no time left over for typing. Lots has been happening, but it's a novel and a half, so here's the brief version:

- Online job is fine. I'm not fond of the stress of constantly having to live up to certain numerically based standards, but I was able to do it fine before, so I can do it again.

- We had our tenth wedding anniversary on the 5th. It's hard to believe it's been an entire decade, and thirteen years that we've been together. *insert various schmoopy things here*

- Remember the gum abscess in February? Well, it never quite went away, and then flared up again, and then I got sent to an every-increasing line of dental specialists until I wound up with a root canal and various doubtful predictions about keeping the tooth. The worry is that the infection is being caused by something like a small fracture in the tooth that is hard to see on an x-ray. My personal theory is that I had strep throat along with the abscess, and only got a week of a rather low dose of penicillin, so I just wasn't given enough antibiotics to knock the infection out. I have it on record that I didn't feel all the way better when the antibiotics were done. I got antibiotics with the root canal and the sore spot on my gum has vanished, so I'm hoping maybe the infection has been killed. Because as little fun as the root canal is, the thought of losing a tooth gives me the shivers.

- The new babysitters are doing fine as well. The kids both love them. I'm looking forward to school starting though, so K will be occupied five days a week instead of just three (because I couldn't really afford full-time daycare for both kids, so they're going three days and I have very, very full days the other two), and I'll bump Alec up to four days. I kind of want to have him home at least one day a week, just because I miss him. We had a good time, just the two of us last year.

- K is starting kindergarten next week. She's starting on a Thursday, which seems a bit weird, but I think it's because the first week of school is so screwed up by Rosh Hoshanah - the schools started the day after Labor Day, go two days and then have two days off for Rosh Hoshanah. Kindergarteners start a week later than the rest of the grades, so starting the following Thursday would be starting five days after everyone else.

-We just got back from spending an extended Labor Day weekend in Michigan with my mother. My brother came up and B's parents came down, so we had a pleasant all-family get-together with gorgeous cool weather.

But my baby is starting kindergarten!

- Our dealings with the Friends group at work has once again descended into utter madness. But that deserves a post all of its own, if not an epic gothic horror novel.

That's it for the moment. I will really try to find more time to update more than once every two weeks.