not exactly a red letter day

one of the beautiful things about parenthood is you just never know what's coming up next.

for example, never in my wildest dreams would i have thought that i would be following up my last words with friends post with a story about words with friends hallucinations.  yep, hallucinations.  but that's just what happened last night.

liam had the craziest roller coaster ride on tuesday and i still don't know what to make of it.  we were off from school on a day when the high didn't climb much past freezing, so i took the kids to see a movie with some friends.  riding back from the theater he was in great spirits, recounting his favorite parts of the movie and talking about his basketball practice that night.

and then, a mere half-hour later, he came downstairs in tears to find me.  he said he felt awful, and when i took his temperature, it was an alarming 101.6.  before i could get any advil into him, he got sick into the toilet and declared that he was fairly certain he was going to die.  but he took a nap, and when he awoke, he was fever-free and starving.  he ate a huge dinner and worked on his book report and i started to wonder if maybe he had just had an adverse reaction to the popcorn.

the following morning, however, he awoke with a high fever again, so i had no choice but to keep him home.  and it was just as well; it was freezing again and i had no plans but to stay home and work.  remembering what it was like when i was sick growing up, when i was actually allowed to lie on the couch and watch television, i indulged him with much more screentime than he is normally ever allowed.  naturally, he didn't want to play his DS or watch espn or even a movie ... he wanted to play words with friends.  and thanks to the blog, he has acquired a new opponent in a college friend of chris's, who has assured me she will be quite kind and perhaps let him win a game or two. (thanks, meg!)  he traded turns back and forth and enjoyed texting her in the chat window, along with keeping current with his games with chris (who's in kansas city all week for work) and his aunt leslie.

and then, right when i assumed he was back to normal, the roller coaster dipped again.  he sat right next to a space heater at dinner, cranked up to 90 degrees, and was shivering so badly he was rocking in his chair.  he dissolved into hysterics before bedtime with sky-high fever yet again.

and this is where it gets frighteningly strange.  about an hour or so after falling asleep, i heard him screaming, and when i raced up to his room, i found him looking completely disoriented as he stood in the middle of the floor.  "they're everywhere," he muttered over and over again.  "make them go away, mommy!  why are they here?"  he grabbed me tightly and stared out into the air with a terrified look on his sweet soft face.

it took me a long time to figure out what he was talking about.  but what i finally surmised was that he was hallucinating.  he was actually experiencing febrile hallucinations (thanks, wikipedia) that our pediatrician assured me were actually not that alarming.  as soon as his fever subsided, the hallucinations would dissipate, i was told.  (and thankfully, they did.)

what was he seeing? you ask.  what were floating in the air around his room every time he opened his eyes?  life-size yellow squares with letters on them.  you know -- those tiles from words with friends.

 i said a few days ago that i had created a words with friends monster.  turns out i was quite right.

highly inappropriate

i've created a monster.  a WWF monster, that is.  as in, Words With Friends. 

liam is obsessed.  after i upgraded my iphone, i decided to let him have full control of the WWF app on my ipad.  i even let him create his own account, rather than playing under mine.  after a few failed name attempts -- seems there's already a liam mann somewhere -- "Liam the Hammer" was born.  (liam's soccer team is the hammers.)  he currently plays against his aunt leslie and against chris, both of whom are a little easy on him, thank goodness.  (have i mentioned to you his competitiveness?)

but had i known the fixation he was going to have, i'm not sure i would've been so eager to get him started.  he'll race inside from playing basketball in the driveway, flushed and breathless, but instead of asking for water, he asks if it's his turn with words with friends.  or he'll just so happen to walk past the ipad a few times in a matter of minutes, staring at the thing, trying to will it to chime with a new WWF notification.  he even bombarded his poor aunt with a string of urgent messages when she took a little while to play, complete with a plea along the lines of "please play a word!  pretty pretty please with a cherry on top!"

so since both of his opponents actually work for a living and cannot spend the entire afternoon trading words back and forth with him, he started looking elsewhere for a game.  he saw the feature where he could begin a game against a random opponent and at least had the mind to ask me if that was okay.

"oh, no, sweetheart.  that's not a good idea," i replied.

"why not?"

"well, you just don't know what kind of person you'll wind up playing," i explained.  "it could be an adult somewhere who might play some inappropriate words."

susanna's ears perked up.  "like daddy!"

i turned to her. "excuse me?"

she nodded emphatically.  "daddy played an inappropriate word just a few turns ago," she stated, all of a sudden assuming the role of the all-knowing WWF judge.  "just look!"  she turned on the screen and pointed. and there it was. 

heinie!  my word! 

(pun intended, of course) 

kicking it up a notch

liam's basketball season is in full swing, with chris coaching again and games on saturdays.  he's proving himself to be quite a good shooter, although i had suggest to that he practice a little on his own and actually use that basketball goal that santa brought him last year.  (i'm guessing, of course, but i'd assume that the poor man probably spent hours and hours putting that thing together and it's a shame that it sits in our driveway, unused, while liam opts to jump on his pogo stick instead.)

so on sunday, on a beautiful 75-degree january afternoon, liam decided to listen to me (wonders never cease) and shoot some hoops.  with me, no less, since i was appropriately dressed after playing a tennis match.  we played "horse" and he's invented all sorts of rules that didn't apply back in the day when i used to play in my own driveway growing up.  i found myself shooting backwards ... shooting from the yard behind the goal, trying to arch the ball completely over the thing ... even trying to replicate liam's moves as he scored a reverse lay-up.

proper form (i think.  it looks good to me, at least)

after i took a few pictures of him shooting, he wanted to return the favor.  "you have GOT to see what you look like when you shoot, mommy!"  he said.  why, whatever could he mean?

yep, that's my signature move -- i have never been able to shoot the ball without my right leg kicking up at an awkward angle.  is it any wonder that when i was young, my coaches, who were initially so excited to meet me because of my height, quickly surmised that i'd take my rightful position as  benchwarmer?

and now that you've had your smile of the day, here are a few highlights from liam's last game.  i thank God yet again that he inherited exactly none of the atkins athletic genes.

2012: a recap

for the first time ever, i actually involved my family in our wrap-up of the year (imagine that.)  at one of our last family dinners of december, instead of discussing our daily peaks and valleys, i asked each one of my core four what yearly peak was.  in years past i would also have solicited their yearly valley, but i thought that we'd be a bit more uplifting if we just focused on the positive.  (and, let's be honest.  it's halfway into january as i'm writing this.  i can crank this out in half the time if i skip the downers.)

so, without further ado, this is what we self-assessed as our 2012 highlights.

liam:  making his soccer team.  tryouts were held in the summer and he found out he had a spot several weeks later.  it's been an enormous commitment (at times, when his indoor and outdoor seasons overlapped, we were doing soccer stuff five times a week) but it is something he truly, dearly loves.  there are 11 other boys from all over the triangle on his team, and it's been really nice to get out of our bubble and meet people who go to different schools, live in different counties, and have different backgrounds.  they'll be together for the next three years and it's a joy to see them grow, going from a dozen individual kids to a true team.  "oh, and i have a professional soccer player as my coach!" liam reminds me.  yes, an actual professional athlete who manages to find time to nurture and mentor twelve elementary school boys ... coach floyd rocks.

liam and most of his team, following an exciting win at the southeastern indoor soccer championships in virginia beach in december

susanna:  having her artwork displayed at the state fair.  let's face it -- it's easy to be in the limelight as an athlete.  but as a young aspiring artist?  those opportunities are fewer.  still, i often see susanna's paintings and sketches adoring the walls of the school hallways, and stop to take them in.  and she's constantly hard at work on a new project at home, whether it's making a homemade card for a friend or a portrait of her lalaloopsy doll or just a drawing of whatever strikes her fancy at the time.  but to be recognized as one of the four top artists of her school of over 800 students?  AND, to be the only one of those four to receive a gold star on a state-wide stage?  i promise you this, it will be something she remembers for a very long time to come.  (actually, probably forever, the way my kids pore over these blog books.)

chris: hands-down, the highlight of 2012 was his new job.  he had been pretty unhappy miserable at his former place of work and really couldn't wait to get out of there.  ironically, after months of looking and interviewing, he received two offers on the same day and spent the better part of a week negotiating and discerning what was the best option.  he's now at topaz shared services, a start-up that has something to do with health insurance.  (i tried to find a link and wasn't successful.  which begs the question ... exactly where does he go each day?)  all kidding aside, he's much, much happier with this new position, and aside from the longer commute, likes everything about it so far.

 this has nothing to do with his new job.  it's just one of the few pictures we have together without the kids, taken at my cousin's wedding in dallas in may

me: maybe it's telling that for my children and my husband, their highlights were new things, and for me, the highlight is something that's ending.  so instead, let me phrase it this way: as of december 21, i'm regaining about twenty hours a week of time that had been previously devoted to curriculum development.  i won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that i've been wrapped up in writing three separate courses for special education students throughout the state since last january, starting with algebra 1A, then moving on to algebra 1B over the summer, and finally to financial management this past fall.  (the last one is the most ironic -- i don't even balance my checkbook or know the password to our bank account online, and yet, i'm teaching thousands of students how to budget.)  with my newfound free time, i've already finished a book and stayed on top of the laundry and made a few authentic lasagnas from scratch  ... what more fun can i find?

come to think of it, perhaps my highlight of 2012 is becoming an aunt for the first time.  how i wish teddy lived closer than a five hour drive :(

super: let's not forget out sweet pooch.  2012 proved to be a difficult one for our aging canine, who had to have EIGHT teeth extracted in november (merry christmas!  here's a $1000 vet bill!) and who now suffers from arthritis in her back left leg.  so what's her highlight?  being carried up and down the stairs like the queen that she is, multiple times a day. 

that's all for us.  and i say this every year as i sign off ... but our true highlights are the health and love and happiness and faith we continue to be blessed with.  we strive each day to show our gratitude for all that we've been given.

happy 2013!