yuck

I am still not feeling well. My jaw is killing me, my meds make me sleepy and dizzy, and I'm starting to feel pretty worthless. Some very well meaning people have informed me that they felt much better by this time (one of them was even able to eat chips the next day). I still can't eat anything and even talking makes my mouth hurt (Carl is singing his praises of this!). The insane crazy part of me wonders what is so wrong with me that everyone else recovered so much quickly and if I'm just a big baby, but the very small sane part of me knows that everyone is different and that they told me that my surgery was the worst case scenario as far as wisdom teeth go, so it's okay that I don't feel better yet. Poor Carl is very overwhelmed, and having to do everything because when I don't take my meds I'm in pain and I cry and when I do take them they knock me out - so I am absolutely no help whatsoever. The one plus that I can think of, though, is that maybe as a side effect of all this pain I'll be able to lose some of the 15 lbs that I still have on me from Mr. Banana Pants. Of course, that's probably not likely, but I can dream. I am getting better at my balloon animals, and I found a video on making a motorcycle - just for Andy! I'm also getting ready to read Fablehaven, so it better be good (just kidding). FYI - James Herriots Children's Stories are GREAT reads for just before bed time. Especially if your kids love animals as mine do. Right now we're reading Wizard of Oz, but I'm seriously considering leaving off and picking something different. It's fine for Carlye and Nathanael, but Noah is still a little young, and prone to nightmares thanks to his big brother. Speaking of which, we had our parent teacher conference with Nathanael's teacher yesterday (yep, I was drugged - she thinks I'm crazy) and it went really well. She said that he is very smart, hungry to learn, dependable and helpful, and has strong self-esteem and self-confidence. Kindergarten has changed my son. I started to cry (told you she thought I was crazy). Carl explained that we have struggled with trying to instill good self-esteem into his life since he was born, and have never felt as though we were doing a very good job. Apparently school is what he needed. Anyway, she said if someone is hurt and needs to go to the nurse she has Nathanael take them, and that if she needs something brought to another teacher or to the office she asks him. I can see why he has grown so much - she is an incredible teacher - and she has three boys! I wondered why she was so good with boys! It takes a special teacher to work with those little ragamuffins because 99.99% of them do not learn the way that little girls do. Overall he's doing really well - the only letters he struggles with are G, I and Y, and his fine motor skills need to develop a little more, as well as his handwriting - in part because he's left handed so he wants to hold his pencil funny, but we're working on that (thanks for that, by the way, daddy!). Can you tell that I haven't been able to talk for a while? I have a lot of words to use up, and apparently I'm trying to do it here. I'm getting sleepy now, so I'm going to go and take a little nap before the kids get home.