The next 9 months or so......

I have a little evening routine. I'm not too good with routines, mind you, so it doesn't always work out. Or it does but I do the things in different order each day, so is it really a routine then? Or I forget things & have to get up in the middle of the night to do them. But still, I think of it as a routine.

Most of it involves feeding and caring for others. There are 2 kids which need to be cleaned and/or inspected for cleanliness. And then there are 3 fish tanks, 1 hamster & 1 cat vying for my attention & their bedtime snacks.

For the next 9 months or so, I'll have a new buddy to look after in my night time routine.

The only difference is, I'll be trying to kill him with his snack.

Amelia has a toenail fungal thing. Yes, let's all say gross! but don't worry, I won't be posting pictures of my new buddy. He actually is not that gross; it's just a white flakiness near the cuticle. But still, he's a nasty brute and he's got to go.

We were told to be glad this happened this year & not last because up to last October, the only treatment in Canada involved systemic anti-fungals which can cause permanent liver damage, require ongoing liver function testing, take 7 months and cost about $700.

Last October, Health Canada approved a topical treatment which is apparently safe & effective. But takes a bit longer. The official version is that it's about 11 months, but as it's a fairly little toenail, the podiatrist figures it will be more like 8-9 months.

So for the next 9 months, there'll be one more thing in my evening routine. Clean, feed, kill.

Now, since this is a "life of a homeschooler" blog, right about now I should be announcing that this is a great opportunity to do a unit study on fungi.

Well, it's not going to happen. Not unless one of my kids develops an interest in this on their own; in which case, they know where the library is and they know how to ask questions. One of the things I've noticed about homeschooling parents is this annoying tendency to make everything 'educational'.

"Suzy had to have a blood test so that was just a great opportunity to learn about the circulatory system and we got out some books from the library and she's doing a report on it!" said gushing hs mom.

"Oh brilliant! Janey had chicken pox last month and now she's finishing a diorama on viruses! Isn't this great, real-life learning? Why, it's like we're unschooling! I'm OK with unschooling things like viruses, aren't you, gushing hs mom?" said ditz hs mom.

Hornblower snorts. "So Gushing, when you have your PAP smear next week will you run to research it and do a report on it? Maybe a multi-media presentation? And Ditz, when your brake fluid needed changing last week, did you research the developments in braking systems and how power brakes actually work? It would have been a great lesson in hydraulics wouldn't it?"

Most of us don't do that sort of thing. Except when prompted by a genuine need to know or a genuine curiosity. And even then, we don't do inane things like dioramas. Because what would be the point? Which begs the question, why would it be different for the kids?