Time for Reflection

The week is over and I'm relaxing (finally). It's very sad, but I'm about ready for bed. The biggest news my kids have today is something about a rat. Not sure where they saw the rat, but I hope it wasn't in our neighborhood. They went out with their Grammy tonight and apparently had fun. It was nice, because I had a little time to myself. Jdhteach went out of town with his dad, cousin, and aunt. Now, though, I've got Caroline missing daddy.

I just finished lesson plans for the week after next and am going to move onto grading papers from last week. That's the one part I don't really like about the job of classroom teacher. I have started using this program where the kids can enter their answers into a computer program and it grades it for me, but I'm still needed to check their processing and make sure they've got the concept. But parents still like textbooks, so I've got to use those.

This week was Jack's first football practice. It just so happened that it was on the same day as my thyroid biopsy, so I went with Jason to take Jack. Jason's never taken Jack to where the practice were, so it was easier for me to go and tell him how to get there than writing down directions. I have to say that Jack thoroughly enjoyed himself. He got into the car after practice was over and said, "Mom! That was so much fun!" As it turns out he's their starting quarterback (which if you saw my linebacker, you'd be like Huh?) Yep, that's right starting quarterback. Now, I do have to say that if you looked at my son you would not think that he was starting quarterback material, but apparently he's their best thrower. Turns out my father-in-law played quarterback for his football team until 7th grade. So maybe there is something there. However, when Jack gets into junior high, he'll probably be more of the linebacker type. The coach did say he was going to try and teach Jack a little finesse. Jack can just bump into some of the kids on the team and knock them over. He's bigger than them. When he wasn't playing quarterback and standing in line waiting for his turn to catch the pass, he was off to the side getting into the linebacker stance and taking out the little training apparatus they had there.

Caroline is getting along fine in dance. She's starting up karate again next week. It's in the same building as dance, so we pass by there frequently. She is a yellow belt orange strip. She took it for awhile, but took a break from it this summer. Jack did take it, but as soon as his younger sister passed him, he wasn't interested in it anymore. :) So now, she's going be a butt kicking ballerina (literally and figuratively). If any of the boy dancers give her trouble, she'll just turn around and kick their butts. That's my girl!

The thyroid biopsy went well I guess. Not sure how they're supposed to go. Thursday was the day, and Jdhteach went with me. It was a roll reversal of sorts, and felt weird. The test was inconclusive so they'll keep monitoring the nodules and see if they get any bigger. My largest nodule was 1.2 cm (they get weary after 1 cm), but it'd doubled in size over the course of 1 year. The actual thyroid gland shrunk, but the nodules got bigger. Anyway, the doctors were supposed to take 3 passes to try and get a sample for the pathologist. It ended up taking about 10. They had to go in at different angles and use several doses of pain killer to determine that they couldn't get enough. The poor doctor was like, "Look, it's small and it keeps moving. We could try some more, but I've already stuck you enough times. We'll just keep monitoring it and see what happens." Only cried twice, quite proud of myself. Once when they went in at a different angle and there wasn't any pain killer in that area, the other time when the doctor said if it'd been him he would have just suggested monitoring. I thought, "Damn, if that's the case why'd we do this?" But at least I know that there's nothing to actually get, which means it's probably not cancer. The doctor was encouraged by that point. So, it's over and I'll just keep going in for sonograms now and again.

Good night, I'm tired.