There are some things I can just smell. It's like a 6th sense.

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"Mommy, I need to tell you something. I'm a little bit congested."

Ahh, the joys of Austin allergy season. Now we'll all be snuffling and sneezing until the temperature rises to our surface-of-the-sun summertime standard, popping any variety of OTC allergy meds and toting around tissues (if you can, get bean to say tissue to you - I can't accurately capture the way she says it, but I love the way it sounds). I hate congestion and the accompanying loss of sense of smell. Although now would be the time to try to sneak mashed cauliflower past Bean, trying to pass it off as mashed potatoes. Any other time, she's pick out the smell from across the room.

Her ENT appointment yesterday went well. If you're in my area and need an ENT, Dr. Briggs was fabulous with Bean, and came recommended from a friend whose daughter needed tubes. Her hearing test showed a delta between what her nerves were capable of hearing and what she actually hears, a pressure test indicated some fluid in her middle ears, and a visual exam showed the same thing. The doc is all about conservative treatment, so she has a Nasonex spray that she needs to take every night, in the hope/thought that there could be an allergy component that's causing swelling where the eustacean tubes drain, and keeping her nose clear will reduce the swelling and allow the fluid to drain. She has a recheck in 8 weeks, and if the fluid is still there, tubes are an option to drain it out. I know I hear much better this time of year when my nose is totally clear, so I'm going to trust that this will work. Although it would be interesting, to say the least, to hear what anesthesia does to her Beanisms, as I know I ramble like a genial drunk when I come out of general anesthesia ...

It looks like I am going to have one heck of a me-time weekend: Dave is taking both girls Friday night through Monday morning. That's three nights' worth of decent sleep for me. It's sad that sleep is what excites me most, but we're back to the 5:00-5:30 wake-ups and I've been staying up late looking for jobs and building up my references and connections to enhance my chances. So my average sleep has been in the 5-6 hour range for the past week, and that's 5-6 interrupted hours, as Miss O wakes at least once in that stretch.

I'm signed up for a class at UT this weekend, and a few job-related seminars next week. I also plan on combing craigslist and the local resale shops for outside-friendly toys for the girls. I'd love to find a playhouse and a climbing thing, as well as some rugged, outside-only toys. My Aunt suggested joining some meetup groups to find stuff to do, and I'm already a member of few singles groups there but I may look at other interests to see if I can find something to attend this weekend.

A couple Beanisms from this morning:

Oh Miss O, you can't do this stuff. Crazy, crazy, crazy ...

(About her dolly) She's nice and quiet. She thinks she's in the woods, she's being Zen.
(I've talked to Bean about envisioning her happy place to help her mellow out when she's wound up; it's funny and nice to hear her 'teaching' her baby dolls the same thing)
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