While online conferences sound good in theory, I'm not so sure they are good for me in practice. The last time I was supposed to present at an online conference (NAMLE 2024), it ended up being the same weekend that the girls had to take the ACT. So Andrew took them there and left me home with the kids...who were throw-up sick.
Today was the Children's Literature Assembly (CLA 2025) conference and I was scheduled to present on religious literacy and...
Yesterday around 3:00 in the afternoon, Miriam came to tell me that her jaw hurt a concerning amount. She felt it might be connected to all the dental work she had done last month, so I called the dentist to see if they could squeeze her in. They said they could see her on Friday afternoon at...wait for it...
2:30!
This time was very exciting for everyone. When I told Andrew about the appointment (he was on campus all day yesterday), he texted back, "YESSSSS!"
If you say 2:30 it sounds like tooth-hurty (the best time for a dentist appointment).
Anyway, he said that he could take her in to the dentist since I'd be busy at my conference.
By dinner time, Miriam's mouth hurt so badly that it was difficult for her to eat dinner, and her jaw was a little bit swollen. But she went off to watch Mean Girls with Rachel and Andie anyway (a high school production one of their seminary friends was in). The girls came home and were getting ready for bed.
And then Andrew came home and I went to go meet him at the door. On the way I passed the thermostat.
"62°F!" I said. "No wonder I've been freezing up here!"
Further investigation revealed that our thermostat had "lost contact" with the heater around 4:00 in the afternoon. Andrew called our HVAC people and made an appointment for Friday afternoon.
And then Miriam came upstairs looking rather terrible. Her jaw was really swollen now! It looked about as swollen as it did after she'd had her wisdom teeth out.
"And...there's pus coming out...I had to spit it in the sink...it's yellow and it tastes horrible and..."
We didn't quite know what to do. We looked up emergency dentists. We looked up urgent cares. Everything was closed. We were just about to commit to a tele-health visit when I noticed that my niece Rosie had just posted on Facebook.
"Are you still awake?" I texted her. "Can we do an emergency consultation with Austin!!?!"
And she was awake and Austin was willing to talk to us about Miriam.
He said that if the infection had set in and developed that quickly we should probably go in to the ER—that's what he'd do if it was one of his kids—because she would need antibiotics sooner rather than later.
Ugh. So we went to the ER.
Well, Andrew (who had only been home for about half an hour and who had spent half that time on the phone with the HVAC people) took her to the ER. I stayed behind and did homework and when Miriam was getting a CT:
I was getting into bed.
So, I ended up finally going to bed around 3:00.
Andrew and Miriam got home around 5:00.
She had some sort of abscess in her cheek. Probably related to her dental work. We're glad it didn't...get worse than it did.
*****
This has been one expensive week.
Miriam is on antibiotics now and should be on the mend soon. She slept until 3:00 this afternoon.
I did the first half of my conference downstairs while ushering the kids through their homeschool work...while Andrew slept (only until 11:00).
I did the second half of my conference upstairs in my freezing cold room (though I also remembered at some point that we have a space heater and have been much more comfortable since that point).
My presentation went well enough and the other presentations were excellent.
It's been...a busy 24 hours.
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