Silence is Golden...NOT

What a most frustrating week it has been! I am still in pain, still unable to talk, and my family has not adjusted to it very well. I cannot tell you how many times my children have stood at the top of the stairs yelling, "Mom!" over and over in frustration because I'm not answering them immediately. So I stalk over to the bottom of the stairs and glare up at them while pointing to my voice box and they grin, "Oh, sorry, I forgot!" They also keep asking me questions which require long answers before remembering they need to ask only, "Yes," and, "No," questions. Tell me, were there too many commas in that last phrase? I pride myself a bit on knowing correct punctuation usage, but that last bit looked kind of weird and I'm not sure if I over-comma-ed. Hmmm, guess I'm slipping...

My mother has handled my disability with hilarious brilliance, as only she would. She is, indeed, absolutely suited for this kind of situation. She calls me and carries on full conversations completely comprised of her asking me questions and me hitting a key once for, "Yes," or twice for, "No." It goes something like this, ahem:

"Hi. Are you feeling any better today?"

Beep beep.

"'No.' Oh, Boy. Do you think you'll be better by Saturday?"

Silence.

"You don't know? Beep once if you don't know."

Beep.

"'You don't know,' Oh, Boy. Does [The Viking] have a back-up plan for Saturday?"

Beep.

"'Yes,' Oh, that's good. Do you think you need to go to the doctor?"

Pause...beep.

"'Yes,' You need me to call and make the appointment for you, right?"

Beep.

"'Yes,' Now what is your doctor's name. Oh it's a long Indian name, isn't it..."

Beep. And hissing laughter.

"...Marsupial, Marmaduke, Marmalade..." She's just messing around now cause she's enjoying herself immensely.

"Wait, how am I going to get the number from you? You're going to have to beep it in and I'm going to have to decipher which numbers from the tones."

Beep BEEP.

"'No?' (laughing) Okay, why don't you email it to [The Viking] and have him call me? Or have him make the appointment and call me about the time?"

Beep.

"'Yes,' Okay, do you need anything else?"

Beep beep.

"'No,' Okay, then I'll talk to you later. Have [The Viking] call me.

I especially liked how she repeated every answer I gave. It's all a big game of charades to her and she lurves charades. She came over to make some phone calls for me the first day of silence (cancelled my babysitting gig for tomorrow and made me an appointment at the hair salon for tonight) and we did a lot of acting things out. We are very good at it. Mom also went to our local Honeydukes and bought me a lovely box of fine chocolates to cheer me up. The Viking needs her to give him lessons. He has been very supportive and kind, but if he brings me one more variety of immune-boosting cough drops to try, I'm going to drink from his glass behind his back! And if that man doesn't stop whispering back at me cause he thinks it's cute that all I can do is whisper, I'm going to hit him with my note pad and buy an air horn! It seems I am not handling my infirmity very graciously either.

My doctor says there is nothing I can do. And, apparently, I have a fever. I am sentenced to squirt stuff up my nose twice a day, force two enormous horse-pills down my swollen, pain-riddled throat each day, gargle with salt water (ew), and lie around next to the humidifier sucking lozenges and drinking fluids. All without talking. At all. For any reason. Like to get my son out of bed, or track my husband down or yell at the increasingly passive-aggressive dog. She would not come in the house today because all I could do was stand at the back door and clap my hands and, apparently, that's not how she do.

In more light-hearted news, Spirit Week continues. I didn't get any photos of the kids in their beach wear, but I managed to get this one of Redheaded Snippet as she was dashing out the door on Crazy Hair/Crazy Hat day:

Man-Cub wore his Transformers helmet, which I did not get pictures of, but looks like this:

It fits over his entire head and is wickedly cool. It has prerecorded phrases from the movie and has a button that will distort your voice. It was a big hit at school, though I heard a rumor that the Principal made him take it off right away.

Yesterday's Rainbow Day was uneventful as Man-Cub could not have cared less and Redheaded Snippet had to wear her basketball uniform because there was a game after school so her color was green whether she liked it or not (she liked it and apparently played like she had sold her soul to the devil in that game after school).

Today was a different story. Today was '70's Day. We had a few hiccups at first, me wondering how any of the students were going to look any different from any other day as so many of them look like they're out of the '70's to begin with, and Redheaded Snippet insisting all her friends were going to dress as Hippies because there were still Hippies in the '70's even though the style is mostly associated with the '60's. Eventually, we settled on this:

It took some cajoling to get her to wear a belt and tuck her shirt in (she protested mightily saying it was so uuuuggggllyyyy but I told her it was more authentic-looking so she went for it. You can't see it, but she has her most bell-bottomed jeans on with her very retro '70's sneakers that she wears every day.

The biggest challenge was her hair. I was actually quite young in the '70's so I never actually styled my hair that way, but I think I got it okay. It was weird to be using a curling iron and large can of hairspray again! Redheaded Snippet couldn't believe how much like hay her hair felt and I said (whispered), "Just be glad it isn't '80's Day then!"

Tomorrow is the best day of all, Comfy/Cozy Day. That means I don't have to wrestle with Man-Cub over his clothes! They get to wear pjs and slippers and robes to school! They just can't wait, and I can't either. Picking out clothes is one of my least favorite tasks in the morning. It probably doesn't help that Man-Cub is down to about 5 pair of pants that don't have holes in them so I'm usually scrambling to find something clean.

Well, I am about due for a nap and then I have to write a note for my hairdresser. How I'm going to tell her how to cut my hair without actually speaking, I don't know. This could be disastrous.