We have had a madhouse full of kids today! Roly and Spindles' friends who also happen to be identical twins have come to stay for two days, and so of course Diva has had a special friend over too. Topsy? Well, he is having fun running around after all of them.
Actually, while the visiting kids have been here, I have been able to get some prep done for the possibility of an interview about doing casual teaching. I will get more done on my application too soon, but right now I am sitting down and catching my breath for a moment.
I had actually planned to do quite a bit of prep and glean classroom management (aka discipline) ideas from the net (my fellow bloggers whos who are teachers may be able to point me to some sites or have some good ideas of your own!) last night, but something came up: Diva's hand!!!
A couple days back we had been swimming, and as we got began towelling ourselves dry, Diva started to scream. My first thought was 'hornet' because they are all around the pools here. But I saw the bee's stinger and scraped it out immediately.
Well, all seemed fine, but then yesterday evening (more than 24 hours later, mind!) I noticed that the stung hand had become really swollen. I chugged over to Funny Farm's house (she is a nurse!) and she recommended going to Emergency (that is what we have to do here, as there are no after-hours doctor's)
We got to Emergency by 6:30 or so. A bunch of people were already there, no one looking too ill. We'd only been there 10 minutes, when the entertainment showed up. OH...MY! Two women, one with a girl Diva's age, and one with a boy slightly younger.
The boy's mother was highly verbal and she had left her volume switched up to Max....
'Timothy! Sit on that seat and shut your trap! 'Don't go into that toilet again...... Timothy..stop right now. Don't make me come and get you Timothy! ..... Oh *%#$ I will belt you if you even touch the toilet door.....RIGHT! Now you've done it.... wait till I get you!(all yelled from her chair with absoutely no indication that she was even contemplating getting out of it!)
Don't you dare touch that can machine, Timothy, or I'll belt you! Timothy, will you stop playing with that can machine?! Oh ho ho, you'll soon know the meaning of pain, my son!' Timothy, don't try to get in between those two vending machines, you'll get stuck, and no one is going to help you get out. Timothy, you'll get stuck....Timothy?...are you stuck? Hold on baby, I'll help you out! (I think the rest of us were disappointed that she didn't actually just leave him there till it was his turn to see a doctor!) And on and on and on! The interaction was so loud, we couldn't hear the person who came out to shout out the next patient's name. I ended up getting the giggles, because it was so surreal, and the boy's mother looked at me a moment, and started to chuckle as well! Phew! Cause I certainly didn't want her to start on me! Trying to work out which of the four was actually sick helped pass the time for a while. It ended up that the girl, who's mum didn't have a car had an infected earing hole.
The only thing that caused little Timothy to sit up and pay attention, was when the other woman's daughter told him 'If you don't stop being naughty, they'll take you across the road and lock you up with my Daddy!" The local penitentiary is right across the road from the hospital, and once , her mother realized that now the entire emergency room was now aware that this was where her partner resided, she blushed bright red and started to giggle uncontrollably. It was a crazy night, I tell ya! Four long hours (!!!) of it before we were on our way home. Diva's hand is still swollen but she is on antihystamines.
