Pseudonyms & Pirates

Lately I've been contemplating the use of pseudonyms for the kids & B on the blog. A lot of blog I read use them for privacy reasons and I'm trying to decide if it's something I should adopt. I know a lot of people already know us, especially those who read via Facebook feed, but I do have readers whom I haven't met and I get the occasional e-mail from strangers now and then who have stumbled across the blog.

I certainly don't mind that people we don't know read the blog. It's flattering actually. I figure my parents and relatives read it out of obligation, but if internet strangers are reading then it must mean one of a few things: 1. we lead relatively interesting lives, 2. our children are adorable/funny, 3. I write tolerably well, 4. I occasionally muse on interesting topics, OR 5. the reader has no life to speak of. I really hope it's not #5.

With this in mind, Bryan and I did some brainstorming on themed pseudonyms for the family. Tell me what you think:

P: Duchess
G: Duke
B: Baron

P: Sunny
G: Tsunami
B: Hurricane

P: Rudder
G: Sail
B: Mast

P: Leia
G: Luke
B: Vader

I don't think I need one - it's mostly for the kids anyway. And really, it's not a National blog (nor will it ever become one) so we probably don't NEED them, but it might be fun. Anyway, let me know what you think.

Now, onto pirates.

Poe (Leia? Sunny? Duchess?) has been really into pretend play lately. You name it, she pretends to be it; this includes pirates. Although to be honest, talking about pretend play was not the goal, the goal of this portion of the post was to talk about Penny's eyelid, which has been in various stages of swollen for 2 days. I was going to use pirate pretend to get us there in a very round about and clever way but that would have required more effort than I can muster today.

Anyway. P's eye.

She seems to have rather... severe? intense? reactions to mosquito bites. Last week a bite on her forehead started to look like a unicorn horn and this week her eyelid was almost swollen shut - for two days!

Benedryl helped, but it was not the cure-all. I was reluctant to use creams so close to her eye. The Kaiser advise nurse advised us to keep an eye on it (haha) and bring her in if it didn't get better or if it got worse.

Well it's slowly getting better... but in the meantime P's looked like Rocky's cute younger sister for two days. I have to admit that I felt pretty embarrassed to be out in public today - people gave her the occasional odd look. It made me want to pin a note on her shirt that read "we did not hit our child".

Luckily it was almost back to normal by bathtime tonight, just slightly swollen and still a little red.

Also - washer broke, Bryan fixed it - yea!

I got offered a job last week, tutoring, part-time. I'm still hoping to find a full-time teaching gig come the Fall Semester, but it will be nice to be working again. And it will be nice to still have days with the kids since it's an after-school gig (which also means I can sub, provided any district starts hiring subs again!).

I'm sure there's more, there always is. But for now, I will sign off and hope that I get the chance to post again next week. Once my Thesis is finished I should have some time (I hope) for regular updating and to step upon my soapbox for other things. We all know how I love my soapbox ;)