It's been quite a week

snippy is on the ragged edge today--exhausted, strung-out, sometimes snappish, sometimes weepy. Twoson has been home sick from school most of the week with asthma problems. Compounded, I suspect, by stress brought on by anxiety (that this is the first full week of the new school year is not a coincidence, I suspect as well). snippy has spent more time home taking care of Twoson, or taking Twoson or Oneson to the pediatrician than she has spent at work.

She's at work today and I'm staying home with the kid(s). Dinner out last night was a fiasco, much to snippy's disappointment. We went out to Olive Garden. It was supposed to be a treat for everyone, including Twoson who we thought liked Olive Garden. I was tired and cranky after work and didn't really want to go, but went anyhow. Twoson was surly about being abruptly yanked away from playing Planetside, not having really heard all the warnings about the impending trip. And Twoson doesn't really like anything on the menu there; he likes the soup and breadsticks, which you can only get sans accompanying meal at lunch.

Between being in poor physical shape and emotionally worked up, he soon became nauseous and snippy had to leave without eating her dinner to take him home. I stayed a little longer with Onesone and friend before we, too, returned to the house. I felt very guilty for my contribution to the experience, and very sympathetic to my lovely and talented wife who had tried so hard to create a nice experience for everyone and who didn't even get to enjoy her own dinner.

So, as I say, she's at work today, where she feels valued and appreciated and nobody makes unreasonable demands on her. I hope she can recover a little there (Hi, sweetie!). If she's feeling up to it, and if the kid(s) are up to it, the two of us have been invited to a party tonight and have been looking forward to it for a couple of weeks. If we can go, it'll be great; if not, it'll be disappointing, but that's life as a parent. Either way, I will hug her and squeeze her and love her (and call her "George") and do my best to help her deal with everything that's going on, and listen while she talks out her feelings, and even allow her to cry on my shoulder if she's so inclined.

Also on the positive side of the ledger, our new furniture is coming tomorrow morning from La-Z-Boy (at 8:30 in the bloody morning!). Two new recliners (that don't look like recliners when they're upright) and a new sofa, all in matching dark wood and red fabric. Oneson and I just finished carting the old futon couch and a cabinet out to the garage to make room for the stuff. So at least my lovely and talented wife will have nice furniture to sit on tomorrow whatever else happens.

(no subject)

Borrowed from the lovely and talented snippy:

1. Is the name you have now the same name that's on your birth certificate? If not, what's changed?

Yes, it is.

2. If you could change your name (first, middle and/or last), what would it be?

I don't know. I've never had any desire to change my name.

3. Why were you named what you were? (Is there a story behind it? Who specifically was responsible for naming you?)

Yes, with a short common surname like mine, my parents were very careful to give all their children short, simple first names. They've seen too many examples of people with stupid sounding names like (and I kid you not, this was the real name of a real tv newscaster when I was growing up) Hiawatha Johnson.

4. Are there any names you really hate or love? What are they and why?

Amarantha is name I really like. Not that I'd ever saddle a child of mine with it, if I ever had a child (see my answer to question #3 above for the reason why).

5. Is the analysis of your name at kabalarians.com accurate? How or how isn't it?

It seems fairly accurate at first glance, but then so does any sufficiently generic "analysis" based on pseudo-science or mysticism (astrology, numerology, etc.). And some of the descriptors are way off base--I'm not an outdoorsy kind of guy. I don't doubt that I could type in any name and get an analysis that at first glance would seem to fit...yeah, Remo, Chester and Napoleon all get different from vaguely-fitting analyses.