It's been a pathetically long time.

Well, I guess I'm lazy. There is no other excuse. I simply haven't felt like thinking hard enough to write in here for a reprehensible amount of time. Apologies.

And now for some happy news! Guess what I get to do on Saturday? Go ahead, guess!

You: Fly in a hot air balloon to the middle of Montana and chat with a friendly grizzly bear?

Close, but no.

You: Go speed dating with your elderly widowed neighbor?

Sorry, that was last week.

You: Get married to a Texas oil baron who feels that women should be provided with every comfort known to man and who insists that you wear diamonds at all times and who pays off all of your student loans and builds you a castle just north of Edinburg, Ireland where you will be happy for the rest of your luxurious, over-indulgent lives, except when you travel to your summer palace in Milan where you will be happy for the rest of your luxurious, over-indulgent and fabulously tan lives?

Nope, even better. I get to go see my dear friend Marly stage manage a play! (Actually, technically I won't be able to SEE her stage manage it, but I will see the effects of her stage managing. It's like God, kind of...) I get to drive to her house in Grinnell where I will get to visit with her and my good friend Tracey, Marly's roommate, and then we get to go watch her show, and then we're going to hang out that night and do ridiculously fun things (because it's us!) and then go to Marly's church in the morning and then I do some more driving until I come to my friend Tina's house in Davenport. (I was going to just let that sentence keep running on, but I decided it was even annoying me. A bad sign.) Tina and I will hang out, and then we go start Drama Day Camp early Monday morning, where much fun, frivolity, and frustration will be had by all. Monday night will see me at Cindy's house, where we will settle into a routine of DDC in the daytime and country music concerts at the fair in the evenings.

See? I told you. Happy news. Anyway, have a day filled with penguin references and M&M Peanuts. To close, here's something I did not write, but appreciate greatly:

"God is good. He comforts and sustains. He protects and provides. He works and ministers in ways unseen, unknown, and which cannot be explained. Praise be to Him who is faithful."

Let's Do Something PE-culiar!

(That's a line from one of my favorite cancelled Saturday morning cartoons, btw.)

We were driving on the highway yesterday (me being my mom, the two kids we were working with, and of course, me) when a white butterfly suddenly shot through the driver's side window, ran into my knee, and flew out the passenger side window. In about a second. It was very peculiar.

Well, I'm tired. Friday saw a 14.5 hour day of work for me, and Saturday gave me 10 more hours. I love the kids I work with, I really do, but after 30 hours in three days, I find myself becoming something I'm ashamed of. After a few hours of anwering the same question every three minutes, and after watching the same movie over and over and over again (Saturday we watched it for the 7th and 8th times since Thursday), I start getting frustrated and irritable. I believe I've mentioned how little sign language I speak. I'm learning more every day I work, but the challenges of trying to communicate using a language I don't know are nothing compared to the frustration of asking important questions of my charge, which invariably go unanswered. She has never answered a single question. Whether it's "Where are your glasses?" or "What do you want?" or "Are you hungry?" there is never an answer. So then I'm frustrated, because I don't know if she doesn't know enough sign herself to put together a response (Mom and I have just recently taught her how to put together more than one word in a phrase, and she only knows that one phrase), or if she doesn't know the words I'm using, or if I'm using the wrong signs, or if she simply doesn't feel like answering. She can't even answer "yes or no" questions.

And she requires my undivided attention, something I'm a little short on, when I have to be watching her active little brother at the same time. So then she'll sign "bathroom" to me, knowing that, since she needs help, I have to leave him and go with her to the bathroom, only to help her sit on the toilet and do nothing, because she never had to go in the first place. Or she'll say "eat" or "sandwich" so I'll go in the kitchen to make her some food, which she will take one bite of and then run off to get me to do some other activity with her.

And she hates her home. As soon as I get there, she'll sign "Drive?" to me, asking to go somewhere. This question she will repeat, at a minimum of every 5 minutes, even if we're already in the car. Then she'll start asking me other questions while I'm driving. Which I can't answer, or even "listen" to safely, since I have to look at her, then take my hands from the wheel to respond. Once we've gone somewhere, as soon as she realizes we're heading back home, she might start crying, or she might hit my car in anger. "What happens at home that she hates to be here?" That's the question her case manager asked me when I mentioned it to her. That's the question I ask every day.

When I leave, she stands at the door and cries. She never cries when her mom leaves. That doesn't seem normal to me. Kids are supposed to cry for their parents, not the babysitter.

Sorry for the whine session. Life really is too short to spend all of it complaining. On the other hand, it's too busy to spend all my energy keeping in all my frustration, so I figure, better to get it out in a few paragraphs and get on with funner stuff. And yes, I realize that funner is not a word. I still think "more fun" sounds stupider.