Will someone explain to me why it was 93 degrees the last two days, and now it's 60? I mean, I'm grateful, since I prefer 60 any day of the week, but STILL!!!!

Yesterday evening, I went to a PTA meeting about teacher appreciation week (which is next week), and found out that I am, indeed, the VP for the next two years, which sets me up for being (gulp) president the following two years. Whew.

I am also going on Josie's field trip to Annapolis. I caved. She really, really wanted me to go, and some of her friends' parents have had to say 'no' due to work and whatnot, so I'll actually have a group of Josie and her little friends, which will actually be lovely. I mean, I like all the children, but it's always nice to hang around with a well-mannered group of children who actually like you and will listen and generally obey the rules without having to be reminded! Sadly, Patrick's field trip to a zoo has been scheduled for the same day, and he's upset that I can't also go with him there. Why do schools do that?! There are three kids in Josie's class alone that have siblings in Patrick's class, and it's hard enough to find chaperones, never mind when there are competing trips on the same day!

DH is having hernia surgery again on May 7th. This one will be laproscopy, so it should be a lot easier on him than the last one. Until then, though, his stomach is feeling increasingly weirder, so pretty much everything is up to me to do around the house. That's right, ladies, it was I, She-Ma, Princess of Power, that wrangled the a/c units out of the attic cupboards, where they were hidden behind all manner of Xmas decorations, and got the huge one out of the garage for the downstairs, and installed them all on Monday afternoon, in the 90+ degree heat. I totally deserve some kind of merit badge. The dining room one was heavy, but worse it was also bulky so I couldn't get my sweaty hands around it right, and had to stop every time I came near anything that resembled a stopping place at all to prevent dropping it on my foot in a repeat of last year's downspout disaster (for those of you who didn't read then, the entire downspout fell on my big toe while I was installing a rainbarrel last May, and it took almost nine months to grow out completely!).

After everyone was home from PTA meetings and vet appointments last night, the kids played outside with Belle, the little girl across the street who uses our playset regularly, and several other neighborhood kids stopped by, as well. One of them was Teddy and his mother, which I thought was a little odd. He immediately ran towards Patrick and tried to hug him, but really only succeeded in shoving him, which scared the bejesus out of me because I saw it from the window and didn't know what was happening until I had rushed over there. I was surprised that they came by, considering, especially when they don't usually. I wish they had been by more regularly, because I saw for the first time, really, how hard his mom has it, and exactly how hard Teddy's mind must have to work to make sense of the world. She had to watch him constantly to make sure he wasn't hurting someone, or himself. If he didn't have a baseball bat that he was swinging near one of the little kids, he was trying to jump off of things, or constantly try to touch Patrick's cast. Phew. A friend of mine who also knows Teddy's mom told me that she thinks that the woman didn't seem surprised when she told me what had happened at their house because she thinks the poor woman has really just shut down in a lot of ways, and I could see that, but also after watching them last night, I can see how she probably isn't actually surprised by anything the boy does. In fact, one other mom, who came by for the first time, asked what happened to Patrick, and I hesitated, since with Nancy right there I wasn't sure what I was going to say, and Nancy just told her that 'Teddy did it. He pushed him off the playset.', like she was talking about the weather. I think that woman's eyeballs about popped out of her head!

I was happy, though, that Patrick seemed OK with being near Teddy, and even actually was trying to show him how to climb a tree (!!!!get down from there!!!!). He did leave to come inside eventually, but I was proud of him for still being kind and understanding what had happened. I can tell, too, that it's going to be rough going for a little while, because he also came trotting over to me with his helmet on to ask if he could ride his scooter last night!!!!!! Good grief! I said that he has to wait at least a week, since the pamphlet said not to let the cast get hit with anything for at least a few days, and plus, how bad would it hurt if he dumped his razor scooter?!?! Sigh. That's my boy!