I was going to wait until Friday and then do a review of how her first week of first grade went, but this morning she melted my heart.

Monday was “boring” except for the part where she got to play with her best friend from last year.

Tuesday was much of the same. I was even allowed to leave while she was still eating breakfast with her now friend J, she was the bully from Kindergarten.

Today looked like it was going to go well. She was up and dressed and ready to go with minimal fussing. We got Rapunzel to school on time even though we had to stop for gas on the way. (They loved signing my name on the gas receipt). She was her normal chatterbox self all the way to the school.

We crossed the street and walked in the gate and everything was still okay. We walked in the cafeteria and her whole attitude did a 180. The cafeteria was full of all the kids who had arrived on the bus. She has never eaten in the cafeteria with this many kids before.

“Mommy, I don’t like this.”

I tell her she’ll be okay and we look for a seat. She finds one of the boys from her class last year and sits with him. Breakfast goes fairly smoothly as long as I can keep A from spitting/spilling his milk, and get him to stay seated.

After she’s finished eating she raises her hand to be dismissed and throws out her trash. She drops her backpack off at teh classroom and we head to the swings. I tell her they look like they’re full and she may have to wait. She insists that there will be one for her, and she’s right. Jsst as we get to the swings two little boys jump off and run to the slide. I help her up, give her a few good pushes, tell her I love her and start to walk away.

She yells, “I love you! Don’t get hit by a car! I don’t want you to be dead!”

Um, yeah, ok kid. I smile and wave and tell her again that I love her and I’ll see her after school.

I get about half way to the office and I hear her calling me. I turn around and she’s running as fat as she can tears streaming down her face.

“Mommy, I wanna go home. Can I just stay home for one week? Please?”

Of course I tell her no and offer to help her back on the swing or to find a friend. She just wants to go home. I suggest going to the office to ask Miss Cindy if she can sit there and read a book or maybe color. She’s okay with that, until we get into the office and Miss Cindy is busy talking with someone.

We wait, someone notices us, ask SuperChic whats wrong and then offers to stay with her because her little girl is feeling the same way. SuperChic just shakes her head no.

When Miss Cindy was done helping the other parent she turns to SuperChic, knowing exactly what’s going on without even asking. We’ve been down this road many times in the last two years. I suggest reading or coloring and SuperChic shakes her head no again. Miss Cindy tell SuperChic she could use some help before school starts and then asks SuperChic if she’d like to help her.

This brings out a little smile and nod yes.

I have no idea what she did in the office, because I scooted out the door before she could change her mind.

I was wondering how long it would last before she freaked out. With a new classroom (without a bathroom in it), bigger playground, bigger kids on the playground, and no Rapunzel I knew it was going to happen. I was prepared for it, but it still made me want to cry. I really hate seeing her upset, but I know she’ll be fine once she gets to class.

When Shawn and I saw GI Joe for his birthday I saw a poster for this and it immediately made me think of this.

When I got back top my parents I told my brother about it and asked if he remembered the Alice and the Jabberwocky movie we watched when we were little. He did. He even remembered it scary us as badly as I did. (According to the info I found that would have made me four days shy of my 7th birthday and him 4 1/2.)

Our reaction was to declare that we must find this DVD immediately!

Also, I have a date with my brother when the new version comes out. I know we’re weird.

Well sort of anyways.

I’d say that I’ve spent the last 30 hours kid free but it wouldn’t be completely true. I was just my kid free. Bug has been keeping my time occupied plenty, but I’m not complaining.

I’ve never really got to spend time with just me and Bug and no other kids around. It was fun and a little wearing. It’s so different to be around her than it is to be around my own girls. While Bug and SuperChic have so many things in common they are also very different.

Bug can keep a running commentary going on just about anything, and I mean anything. I know that this drives Brenda completely batty but I love it. Well, I love it in doses of a few days at a time. I can talk from sun up until sun down and so can she. I think Toby will be glad when I go home and all the talking stops, though I am quieter than my girls.

Bug and I talked at the nail salon where I met them before we got our hair done. We talked at the hair salon during our haircuts. We talked in the car. We talked at lunch. We talked at the park. We talked at the beach and we talked even more back at the house.

What did we talk about? Anything and everything.

I’ve learned:

- that if you have a big house with a yard you can have a puppy. Bug is going to have a green one that she’ll name after whatever it does.

- that when you drive in the car sometimes you get lost and after you drive and drive you can find the other park.

- that Shamu likes to eat fish, feels like rubber, and will leave your hand smelling like tuna after you pet her.

- that if your daddy takes you to In’N'Out to have a hamburger and you don’t like them he can just get you a quesadilla. (I didn’t tell her any differently, either.)

Sometimes I forget Bug is only three and talk about things that SuperChic can’t grasp yet, like punctuation. She sits and listens to me explaining question marks (when you ask your mommy, why?), exlamation points (when your excited and yell HOORAY!) and periods (when you get to the end of what your saying, the end.). Then she grabs her book and takes off into Toby’s office. At this point I’m thinking that I’ve completely bored her, but no, she just had to go show her Daddy what she learned. That kid is a sponge and just soaks up information.

After donuts and coffee on the beach this morning we came back to play hide-and-seek, Lego’s, doodle, and make paper cup “phones.” Amazingly enough Brenda had never done this before. i haven’t done it in years and forgot how easy and fun it is.

All you need is two paper or plastic cups and about 3 yards of string, twine, or yarn. Punch a small hole in the bottom of the cups, push the string through, and secure with a knot. Just make sure the cups are bottom to bottom.

Bug was shocked when she put the cup to her ear and could here me taking. The only problem we had is that she likes to talk loudly into the “phone.”

She also has very concrete ideas of how people are supposed to look and act. I am not supposed to have straight hair, ever. She was very concerned yesterday when after having my hair cut Jessyca blew it straight and curled it with a curling iron. She kept asking where my curls went. This morning she was very relieved to see that all my curls were back to normal.

Hopefully when I loose the extra 50 pounds I’m carrying she won’t be too upset. She really likes my squishy belly.

It’s nice to be loved for who I am, lumps bumps and all.

My Grandma has been seeing this “doctor” for the last few years and we’ve never really liked her. She doesn’t listen to what we have to say because she is the “doctor” and knows better. The thing is, she’s not an MD. She’s just a Physician’s Assistant.

My Gram has been going there since she moved to the High Desert in 2004 and has never actually seen the MD in the office. All of her appointment’s have been with the PA.

I know that some PA’s are probably great and actually know what they are doing, but she doesn’t.

When I moved back to California the Summer of 2006 I stayed with my Gram for a few months. At that point I realized that she was frequently out of breath just from walking down the hall from her bedroom to the livingroom. I’d go with her to her appointment’s and tell the “doctor” this, she’d listen to her lungs, stick the oxygen sensor on her finger and say she was fine.

She was anything but fine. After having a minor stroke she was diagnosed with COPD and asthma. Considering she started smoking when she was 18 and quit when Rapunzel was born we were surprised that she didn’t have emphysema too.

COPD kinda works like this. If your lungs were a balloon just out of the package it’s nice and compressed, this would be when you exhale. If you were to blow up the balloon, inhale, and then release the air, exhale, some air would still be trapped in the balloon. This is what happens with COPD. You can take a good breath in, but you can’t expel all the used oxygen when you exhale. So, when you take another breath in you aren’t really getting enough oxygen.

Our little detour brings us to the beginning of July. My Gram had an asthma attack, which brough on a panic attack, which made the asthma attack worse. This landed her in the hospital for a few days and thenm a care center for another week. The entire time she was in the hospital and care center she was on continous oxygen. Which is what happened every time she was in teh hospital. Yet when she would go home they would say her oxygen levels were fine and she didn’t need it.

It seemed that no matter what we did we couldn’t get them to test her when she was walking around or just after she’d been walking. They always tested her while she was in bed. Well, I talked to the social worker at the care center and found out why they said she didn’t qualify. Something the PA and nurse’s wouldn’t do, they just said she didn’t qualify. In order for her to qualify her o2 levels had to drop to 89 or lower, at rest her levels were 93.

The good thing was that when she left teh care center she was going to have a nurse and physical therapist come out to evaluate her at home. The day the nurse came out she fell trying to sit on the couch while talking to the nurse. Other than bruising she wasn’t injured, if you don’t count her pride. It was the best thing that could have happened. The nurse said, I’m calling the Dr. and telling them you need to be evaluated for home oxygen, if you weren’t out of breath you wouldn’t have fallen down.

That was music to my ears. the next morning a RN came over and listened to her lungs and checked her oxygen levels while sitting, she wa at 94. She had her get up and walk to her bedroom with her walker, about 50 feet, and checked her again, she was at 83. The RN actually did a double take, because at first she thought it said 88.

Two days later Apria called and said they were bring out a condensor for her and portable tanks. They even left a five foot oxygen tank in case her power went out. She was prescribed two liters 24/7. After two years of trying she had oxygen within a week of coming home.

This brings us to Tuesday, the RN came out and checked on Gram. When she left she called my Mom and said take her to urgent care because her lungs don’t sound clear.

The urgent care Dr. gave my Gram a different inhaler because the Advair wasn’t working well enough for her. he also said that she needed to see a pulmonary specialist.

My Mom took her home and made an appointment with my Gram’s “doctor.”

Thursday, my Mom gets my Gram to the doctor with her walker and portable oxygen tank and everything seems fine. Until the “doctor” walks in. She literally walked in the door, took one look at my Gram and said, “Oh, no, you don’t need that;” and made her take it off.

When my Mom explained that the RN had her tested and determined that she needed it the “doctor” disagreed. When my Mom said that the urgent care Dr. also recommended that she see a pulmonary specialist, she responded with a flat out “no.” She said that the RN didn’t know anything because she ddin’t have enough training. She even went as far as to say that the urgent care Dr. didn’t know anything either because he was just a physician’s assistant with one year’s experience and not an actual doctor.!! So is she!! She’s not a Md, she’s just a PA!!

My Mom almost told her that a PA is who almost killed my Dad nine years ago when she misdiagnosed the begining of diabetic shock as a stomach infection and sent him home with an antibiotic on Friday. On Sunday he was in the hospital in a diabetic coma. My Mom is a better than person than I am because I would have let her have it. All of it.

The nurse took my Gram’s levels and of course she was fine. But when my Mom told the nurse to have my Gram take a walk down the hall and then check her everything changed. My Gram didn’t get more than three steps when her levels dropped.

Then the “doctor” said, well I guess I’ll go ahead and write a prescription for you to have oxygen 24/7 at home. We’ll make arrangements to have it delivered to you.

My Mom just looked at her like she was an idiot. I mean where does she think my Gram got the oxygen tank inthe first place, the o2 fairy? My Mom told the “doctor” that my Gram already had a condensor, five portable tanks, and a large back-up tank if the power went out. the “doctor” just kinda said, well, oh. She even had the gall to tell my Gram that she had the right to see the MD for a second opinion. No s**t, really???

I don’t know what or who this lady thinks she is, but I can’t wait until my gram starts to see someone else. Just writing this has made my blood pressure rise.

We’ve known for years that she needed oxygen. It’s nice to see it finally happen.