Blind Man's Zoo

Yesterday morning was so sad. We blindfolded the other two children to even up the odds during the egg hunt. We described her Easter goodies to her. We fed her. I read her a story. We led her around all morning and I held her a lot and cried. She grew very bored. I did everything I could think of to relieve that.

Late in the afternoon she finally opened her right eye. The one that isn't purple and swollen and seeping. She admitted that she had been peeking with it all day. I wasn't sure how I felt about that. On one hand I was elated to know she can see out of it, on the other I was upset that she had went on with the complete blindness routine for so long and let me cry and feel so awful like that. She even admitted to having peeked a little bit during the egg hunt.

The injured eye is less swollen this morning, less purple, but still not healed enough to be able to be opened. Let's hope she keeps making progress and that when she does finally open it, she will be able to see just fine.

I zoomed around the kitchen all afternoon cooking. Yes, mostly from scratch. I don't cook like that very often but when I do, it is chaotic and messy. We now have enough leftover food to feed two families for a week. The children didn't eat very much at all. Not because it wasn't good but because they just are such picky eaters.

I made a 99% organic ham, broccoli and cheese quiche and Sara Lee poundcake with sliced pineapple and organic strawberries for brunch. The girls don't like quiche or strawberries or pineapple. Fine. More for me.

For dinner I made baked Boar's Head ham with brown sugar and pineapple glaze, organic mashed potatoes with roasted garlic and shallot gravy, organic yeast rolls, stuffing (non organic from a box because I suck at stuffing), and organic green bean casserole (except the french fried onions weren't organic they really need to work on that). Savannah had a couple of rolls. Logan ate some ham and most of his mashed potatoes. Hope actually ate ham and liked it and she had a yeast roll. Of course monkeyboy and I ate everything. I think the kids had way too much candy all day. Maybe that is why they didn't eat very well. Oh well. I kept saying that we should have had someone over to eat all of it.

I never cook when we have company. For several reasons. One reason is that I am not a very confident cook and going out for dinner when company comes seems to double as entertainment. We don't normally eat big huge meals like that unless we are in a restaurant. I think we have only actually cooked real meat in this apartment a few times in the two years we have lived here. Probably around five times total. Another reason is lack of entertaining space. It is a feat in itself to get the five people who live here to all sit around our little table for a meal, I wouldn't know what to do with any extras since the leaf to our table is buried in the back of a closet. Not that the dining room would accomodate actually using the table like that. It isn't that I wouldn't like to have people around. I would. Just that this place is tiny. Everytime we have people over it seems very crowded and chaotic in here. I worry more about the guests being uncomfortable than us. It would be less of an issue if we could have table and chairs outside and not be confined to dealing with an upstairs apartment.

I hope to relieve some of that soon by clearing out a lot of the furniture we have mistakenly accumulated and at least making enough room for our little tribe to actually live in. Since we have physically grown out of the family bed and have somehow managed to create an living space with two living rooms, two bathrooms, one bedroom and no yard or way to relieve the feeling of being boxed in for the five of us things just aren't working. It is making me incredibly claustrophobic.

Posted by gwendolyn on April 21, 2003 at 11:47 AM