Brisingamen End Of Year Note, 2022 (July)
Whose birthday is July 1st? Catawba-Lynn’s! Wow! 6 years old! We were not having her party near her birthday this past year because family was capable of coming out later in the month. So for her birthday, I scheduled her Varsity Tutors Wildlife Creature Camp on her birthday week. We went to Dollar Tree so she could get a pack of ribbons or a balloon for something more to clutter up my house with. She chose ribbons. We went to Traub’s Bakery so she could pick out a special cupcake for dessert. Tawbs got to decide the dinner menu, which was [fake] chicken nuggets, cheesy noodles, fries, corn, pancakes, and chocolate milk. We watched Clifford the movie after dinner. And Lucas gave her the main birthday present – the Lego Globe.
The next day we went to LegoLand Discovery Center as a family again. Then we stopped at IKEA; first time for me. It’s interesting and nifty – but when I want out of the store, I want out of the store! I was actually angry at the end because I just wanted to get out and we couldn’t! But – now I know what to expect, so when I go next time, I’ll pack my hiking back pack and sit in one of their kitchen/living room set ups and eat a picnic lunch.
Then the next day, Sunday, we went to ZooAmerica (we get in free with our Milwaukee County Zoo Pass) and we again utilized the library museum pass system and went to the Hands On House in Lancaster. ZooAmerica is a small zoo that only has North American animals. So far, we’ve been there at least once a year since 2020. (Did we go in 2020? I thought so). The Hands On House is another Children’s Museum I would recommend, especially on a library pass. We still made it back in time for Norwood’s fireworks. It was a fair display of fireworks. The pre-party is very cool. And I’d like to take a moment to thank the 4th of July Committee members for their hard work on planning, running, and funding the 4th of July party. (I’m a member). Great job!
The 4th of July Committee puts on the 4th of July party, and they fund a lot of it through the Halloween Haunted Woods, which Catawba-Lynn and I helped set up, volunteer at, and baked for in 2021 and 2022. While walking to a place to sit for the fireworks, a member approached me and asked if we were going to be at the parade and after party the next day. I said we would be. She asked if Catawba-Lynn would like to start the parade with pulling the cannon string. She said she liked to have kids do it and since Catawba helped at the woods, it would be fun for her to do something for each event – 4th of July and Halloween. So cool! I thought that was awesome! “Yes! Thank you!” I said.
We got to where the cannon was supposed to be. The gentleman told us that the normal speakers were not working, so he would have to play the patriotic music off of his phone speakers while the flag was hoisted. And – the fire alarm in Norwood was broke, and that was the usual way of signaling that the flag was raised along with the cannon shot, so that the parade could start. But we were just going to have to make do. So, he played his music on his phone but because we were outside it was very quiet – but no matter – good enough. And the flag got stuck while it was being raised. They could only get it half-mast. No matter – it would be fixed after we started the parade. There was no fire alarm. The gentleman loudly yelled (I can’t remember what – fire in the hole? Maybe?) to signify that Tawbs was going to do the cannon.
Now.
The cannon.
This thing was tiny. They carried it around. But I’m not judging. If it can do the job – it can do the job. It’s cool. This was awesome. The gentleman had put some newspaper and primer and I don’t know, explosives? in it. I don’t know. Tawbs had to hold a string loosely and when he gave her the signal, she was to yank firmly on this string, and it was to make the cannon go off.
I’m so proud of my little girl. And I’m so happy for her. My dad wanted to blast a cannon once. He bought armfuls of raffle tickets – my brother, Matthew, thinking that if we would have won that he was going to blast a cannon at a bunch of rocks at the side or a quarry – no – if we would have won, dad was going to blast the cannon. We didn’t win. Dad didn’t blast the cannon. But Tawbs was going to pull a string and there was going to be a pop – oh – so cool! And I wanted to record this. I wanted to put it in the family share. I wanted to preserve this moment. I put my video on my phone – and picked the most perfectest spot to get the little cannon pop recorded. And then I thought “Maybe. Maybe you should take a step over.” Luckily I did. Because like a fucking moron, I was standing in the trajectory of a fucking cannon – no matter it’s size. Tawbs would have blasted a cannon explosion right into my stupid face – and I would have recorded it all! Maybe you had to be there – but it would have been the icing on the cake for the start of this past year’s parade. “Parade cancelled and mother hospitalized, as daughter blasts her in the face with a ceremonial cannon explosion.” The blast was impressively, unexpectedly, huge. With like a little bit of fire and a lot of smoke. And it was loud. And something shot out of the end. I would have gotten blasted right in the face. Sometimes, I’m a moron. The parade and party afterwards were great! Bands, candy, bubbles, games, ice cream. But some on! So close to making it The Most Memorable Parade. (In a good way).
I was getting close to having Catawba-Lynn’s birthday party set. The trench in the yard was finished. The sample crafts were done. The pieces for the kids to use in their crafts were complete. I made the master copy of the workbook I made as the party favor, which discussed some of her party themes. Lucas scanned it into the computer, and we printed them off and stapled them into books. I had decorations and mini cakes and an idea of how I would do the food and the rest of the decorations. And then Bulma got red, sore, patchy ears, and Jude formed a pussy, crusty sore on his nose – this was Bulma’s skin issue, but it looked like Jude had cancer. The dogs needed their shots anyway, so I called, and I was luckily able to get them into see the veterinarian. Bulma has allergies that have really flared up while here in the Philadelphia area. It seems like it is an environmental allergy that doesn’t die off out here like is does in Wisconsin with the snow. (Leaning towards a grass allergen). Jude? Jude was a different story. It looked bleak for him. We just made sure he was up to date on rabies and gave him no other shots. We treated his sore on his nose as fungal or bacterial even though we figured otherwise. A couple of days later the scab on his nose was visibly painful to the touch and bleeding. The vet and I concurred, I would stop the ointment and accept the inevitable. Then the scab fell off and he was left with a perfectly fine – tumor free nose! He’s blind and deaf and confused and tired – but doing no worse that day then what he was a month before his scab issue. Go Jude! He just keeps going!
Noteworthy, Lucas put in a ceiling light and fan in a room that had no light! I know you haven’t been hearing much of Lucas this year. He works and collects tabletop games and we go out as a family. But Lucas has been present.
My beautiful Tawbs loves to invite everyone to her parties – and that is awesome! It’s just how she invites them is what concerns me. For instance, Catawba-Lynn wanted to invite her friend and his mom from the Tinicum Library and also the librarian. Sure! Great! We handed the invites over and of course people want to talk to “the party girl.” Problem is, I’m sarcastic – but also very truthful to Tawbs. We were going to have alcohol at her party – for the adults. And I told her that it entices parents to stay at a kid’s birthday party. Which is exactly what Tawbs told her friend’s mother and librarian. “We will have beer and wine – to entice the adults.” is what Tawbs told them. I tried to shush her and shook my head – but it only makes her squeal with delight. I just have not been prepared for how quickly she catches on and parrots things. Yeah, I know, its normal parent stuff, it’s still just crazy.
The party was on Saturday. It was scheduled from 11:00 – 16:00. I was prepping food late the night before and early the morning of. We got so much help from the family, setting up decorations, getting ice, moving beer, setting up tables, putting out crafts, constructing Hell in the Cell, taking pictures of themed events and foods – you know, normal things. I appreciate everything guys. I know I couldn’t have done it without everyone’s help. Thank you.
So what the hell was this party? Well, there are several times where I let Catawba-Lynn’s creativity and imagination run wild. Halloween – I try to let her be whatever she wants. Santa – she can ask him for anything. Her birthday party – I ask her what theme she would like and I do my best to make it happen. This year she was very excited and had many thought and ideas and creative themes. Her invite read:
“Why confine herself to a single birthday theme, when Catawba-Lynn can have ALL the themes:
-Coyote Peterson -Hulk Smash -Marvel Avengers -Fairies -Unicorns -Butterflies -Bugs -Birds -Dinosaurs -Geology -Rainbows -Space
Come craft and play her themes with us! Join us for lunch, music, games, an indestructible piñata, and crafts in our backyard for her 6th birthday! Dress for a mess!”
What did we do for the party? I made a workbook combining several of her themes (space, geology, dinosaurs, and birds) as a take home gift to go along with the crafts that were supposed to happen, even though they all didn’t. The crafts were unicorn planters (made out of painted jars) with a decorate your own fairy garden (made out of reused bottles) with fancy rocks and a bird or butterfly plant decoration to go inside. There was also a dig (in the sandbox) for gems to go in the planter. And what would a planter be without a plant? We took cuttings from my ivy and put them in water several months before the party so that they would have roots for the party. The kids made paper dinosaurs with templates and paper plates. There were also craft insect pinning boxes to construct. They also made either rainbow or Marvel Avenger character paper chains. We were supposed to make egg carton craft geodes but ran out of time.
For games, we had Hulk Smash – same as last year, where kids get to don cardboard and wooden Hulk fists to punch and destroy a bad guy city, spin the wheel decorated with craft birds, planetary bean bag toss – complete with the dwarf planets and asteroids, and my indestructible pinata. This year Lucas and Matthew built a cage to hang the pinata in – in hopes that no one would get hurt by almost getting hit by a bat. We ran out of time for Coyote Peterson Pin the Executioner Wasp on the Forearm.
Food? We had [partly] build your own cold cut sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly with frosting and sprinkles fairy sandwiches, meatballs for “carnivores” and red grapes for “herbivores”, olives to imitate beetles, hard boiled eggs as dinosaur eggs, sunflower seeds as pigeon food, pretzels and mini marshmallows as birds’ nests, Captain America’s Shield which was rings on marshmallows, strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries, Hulk food which was green food such as kiwi and cucumber, Thor’s Hammers which were giant marshmallows with pretzel rods stuck into them, frosting and sprinkle rolled tortillas rolled and then sliced were galaxies, cut carrot circles were full moons, a bowl of Reese’s Puffs were moon rocks, candy wrapped in tin foil were geodes, pyrite/fool’s gold was cut chunked cheese, unicorn horns were sugar ice cream cones filled with fruit with frosting and sprinkles of the outside rim, a millipede was cookies held together with frosting with Twizzles sticking out in between for legs and antenna, gummy worms made nothing special – just worms, I had a tray of fruit in a rainbow with all of the colors, and the volcano cupcakes with whip cream and ice cream lava, and chocolate chips as debris. Sadly, I didn’t get to all of the food either. (Carnivores, birds’ nests, pickles for Hulk food, unicorn horns, and the millipede. Some of the things I forgot and some of the things I had to call – I just didn’t have time. Like I wanted an adult drinks area. It was so so so hot that I just ran out of time figuring out where/how to set it up).
There was candy and tickets from the pinata, and games allowed the kids to cash their tickets in for prizes that pertained to the party themes. The party ran past 16:00 and present opening ran past 18:00. It was 100 degrees outside for the party, but I was told the Ez-up tents and fans that we had set up helped ease the heat. Pretty sure everyone was lying to me. I thoroughly appreciate everyone that came out. I don’t think we are having another party at that time of year again – and I think I am going to limit the themes. It was fun, we succeeded in our quest to hit all of the themes, our guests were happy and Tawbs LOVED it. Thank you everyone!
The next day we went out to the Cape May Zoo, Cape May beach, and Wildwood beach in New Jersey. We had never been to Wildwood beach. It was very interesting – different. I would like to go back during an off season to walk a more empty boardwalk. I have heard from a lot of people that the ocean is too far away from the boardwalk. I didn’t feel that way. I get it, but I didn’t think it was a big deal. The ocean is a whole lot closer to the boardwalk than it is to Wisconsin.
Then right away on Monday morning my family had to leave. It’s too bad they couldn’t stay longer but we were ecstatic for the time that we had. As my family was leaving Delaware County and heading home to Wisconsin, I was heading to Brandywine Zoo in Delaware to drop Catawba-Lynn off at her zoo camp: Slime, Poo and Bugs Too! This was the main reason for getting a membership to Brandywine Zoo. I was beyond excited. She loved zoo classes in Milwaukee when we would go together before Covid. And it sucked. I was so disappointed for Catawba-Lynn.
The first day at zoo camp, Catawba played too roughly and hurt two kids. On the way home, her and I reviewed what happened. First, she didn’t eat her lunch. Second, she got very excited to play. Third, she didn’t know how to play tag – which sounds ridiculous, but Tawbs is a single child that doesn’t go to a brick-and-mortar school. I don’t play tag with her. We got our expectations straightened out. Eat your lunch, calm down, and only “tag” the other kid.
The second day I was hopeful when picking her up, but I was told she hurt another two kids while she was being rough and jumping around. So, I talked with Tawbs on the drive back home. She said she was really sorry and apologized to everyone. So, our new rule was no more running or touching games. Oh – and she didn’t eat her lunch. She really needed to eat her lunch, no matter what, otherwise she would get spacey and moody.
Wednesday, day three, all new rules in place – I dropped her off and I was hopeful again. However, when I returned at the end of the day to pick her up, I was told she punched a boy so hard she made him cry. I was told by the instructor that it took a while to get the story out of the boy, (why Tawbs’s story was not taken, which became obvious to me later on, I have no idea) but “someone” threatened to punch Catawba and she reacted to the threat – so she was allowed one more chance in class. I was pissed, and honestly, sadly, my knee jerk reaction was to be mad at Tawbs, but I backed down and realized that I was pissed at the situation. This was not how things were supposed to be going! This was zoo camp. How was this even happening? And again, lunch wasn’t eaten. Because, she told me, it was recess and lunch all in one time block. Tawbs is going to want to go play, not eat. There was no time reserved for only eating.
New plan for Thursday, day four. Do not interact with boy. Do not run around. Do not touch anyone. And I was going to come in for lunch to make sure she ate in the car with me and I would drop her off after lunch and recess. Stupid amounts of driving around, but I was putting in the effort to make it work. When I arrived for lunch, the instructor said Catawba-Lynn could no longer be in class. She would need to be picked up and I would be issued a refund for Friday. I listened to what they said happened, collected Catawba-Lynn, thanked them for the refund and drove with Catawba-Lynn to the main parking lot so that her and I could eat our lunch overlooking a river.
I was told “Catawba-Lynn didn’t like what a girl had to say to her, so she tackled her.” So, I asked Tawbs what happened. Instantly, she was upset. She told me she apologized to the kids she accidently hurt in the beginning, and they all forgave her except for one girl – one of the ones she hurt on Monday. Tawbs said she refused to forgive her. The girl convinced other kids Tawbs wasn’t nice, so they avoided her. Tawbs said she spent most of free time playing with the kits or reading books and no one wanted to play with her. She said she was on her own on Wednesday when this girl and the boy from Wednesday approached the area she was in. The girl, in great detail, said where she would like to punch Catawba-Lynn and how much pain she would like to inflict. The boy laughed and said he should punch Catawba, and that is why she punched that boy so hard it made him cry. Thursday, the interaction that sparked Catawba-Lynn getting kicked out was told to me differently by Catawba-Lynn than what it was told to me by the instructor. Tawbs said she was by herself hopping and dancing when she accidently kicked over a water bottle. It happened to be that girl’s water bottle. Tawbs apologized, but the girl said “Oh, game on.” and shoved Tawbs. So Tawbs shoved her back. The girl was pissed and tried punching Tawbs in the stomach, but Tawbs dodged it and then tackled her to the ground. Very different story than what I was told.
Justine was at the zoo with her youngest boy that day. I was supposed to work with Tawbs to get her to eat and after I dropped her back off for camp, I was going to hang with Justine and her youngest until Justine had to leave to pick up her oldest from camp and I had to pick up Tawbs from zoo camp. But I had Tawbs for the rest of the day then, so the four of us decided to hang out at the playground close by. Tawbs and I needed to use the bathroom, so we used our zoo pass to use the zoo bathrooms. Upon exiting the zoo to go back to hang out with Justine and her son, I heard screaming and shouting across the street, where Catawba-Lynn’s class was being held. Then I heard one of the instructors shouting gruffly, “Get over here now!” But this instructor was so far away from the kids they didn’t hear or care and had run down the hill and into traffic – actively stopping traffic. The instructor wasn’t moving fast. At that moment, I was relieved Catawba-Lynn wasn’t in class, because I knew she would have been in traffic.
That night I called and left a message with the education department at the zoo. I didn’t want Tawbs back in class. I just wanted Catawba’s side of the story heard. I felt she was being portrayed in a very negative light. The same instructor didn’t seem to care. She said “How would you feel if your child was repeatedly getting hurt in class – knowing the other kid was still in class? (Lucas said this is exactly what happened to us!) I told her I would want to know how this happened. How do they have the time for these interactions and conversations? The instructor said she did not expect staff to engage the children at all times. I said I expected it! I wasn’t dropping my kid off for day care, I paid for an educational camp! I asked the instructor if she knew what happened yesterday [on the hill after I picked up Catawba]. She said her camp leads told her right away that a game got a little out of hand and the kids got a little down the hill. I asked the instructor if she was there, and she wasn’t but she believed her camp leads. I told her the camp leads were lying to her – that the kids were in traffic – and that is probably why she, the instructor, thought Tawbs tackled the girl because of something the girl said, when in fact she, the instructor, was not being told the whole story. I ended with asking about Catawba-Lynn’s artwork that was left in Thursday – if we could pick it up next Thursday after story time. (It was a pollinator art project. Each of the 16 students had a pipe cleaner on their finger to represent a bee. They would dip the pipe cleaned in paint and fly to a classmate’s art project that had their handmade flowers on it and pollinate the flower with their pipe cleaner, paint, bee. Tawbs said she made sure to pollinate everyone’s flowers but when she got back to her page, there was only 4 people that pollinated hers and no one was willing to come do hers. Tawbs loves every scrap of artwork she does. We display it, we save it, we give it as gifts, yet Tawbs didn’t care about her flowers. She felt like a bad person, and she didn’t care about her work. So, I told her she wasn’t a bad person and that her work was important to me, and that I wanted to see it. It made her smile). I told the instructor that I had a kid that thought she was a bad person, and she didn’t care about her work, and now I had to invest time and energy into reversing the damage that was done by less than a week of zoo camp. We were told we could pick up the artwork but when we got to story time the following week, well, they tried giving us someone else’s artwork and Tawbs’s work was nowhere to be found. Lucas came with and wanted to say something, but I begged him not to get into it with the zoo staff. No good would come of it and I had to keep going back to the zoo so Tawbs would relearn to associate the zoo as good, fun, and educational, not the shit show that was camp. Never again!
During the same week as zoo camp week, I was able to get Tawbs in for a late afternoon, Summer Irish Dance intensive. It was Monday – Thursday, 1 hour long. It would get her ready to learn Irish, the new class she would be taking in the Fall. At least she had positive group experiences at dance this past Summer.
I ended the month with back-to-back LegoLand Discovery Center trips. Our passes ended at the end of the month, and I wanted to use it those two final days. And also, I wanted to go to an amusement park, but we ran out of money – so I convinced myself that LegoLand was an indoor amusement park – so I made it happen. Yay for believing in self-made lies!
Half A Human 