Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Catching up, and a birthday spanking to remember.

It looks like it's been over a month since my last post, and you can blame Jamie and Claire. Well, partly. I may be halfway through Drums of Autumn, the fourth book, which means that I have devoured approximately 2700 pages in the last 3 1/2 weeks. But, honestly, I can't blame them entirely. 

I finally found the kids a new pediatrician, something I've been trying to accomplish all year, so I had to deal with well visits and immunization catch ups for Jack and Daisy. Quick(ish) summary: last fall our longtime pediatrician group quit taking our insurance. We decided to go with the one Robert and Faith use, but they wouldn't see new patients till the New Year, so we were in limbo for a bit. When I was able to schedule an appointment finally, they set it for the 3rd week of January for Jack to get his 24 month immunizations. Then both he and Daisy got really sick, and they agreed to see them both early the next morning at 8 AM. But that night they spiked scary fevers, so we took them to an urgent care office. They both had double ear infections and strep like symptoms, and the urgent care place wrote them prescriptions. So first thing in the morning I called the peds office to cancel the appointments, but they didn't turn their phones on till 8:30, 30 minutes after our appointment (weird, right?), and the answering service said they could not get them a message. So I called back when they turned on the phones in the office and explained the situation. The nurse was super understanding and assured me they wouldn't count it as a no show since they were unavailable to be notified. And they told me that they would call me the day before to remind me of Jack's previously scheduled appointment, still several weeks out.

Right before that appointment, our pipes burst, and we spent two days cleaning everything up. The next day (Friday) was his appointment, but I thought it was on the coming Monday, and they never did the reminder call. So on Monday morning I called to confirm the time, and they told me that we had missed the appointment, and they would not see Jack at all as a patient, because this was our third no show. I explained again the situation with the original appointments and told them that I had been assured that these would not be considered no shows since I had done my best to let them know before my appointments. She agreed to ask the doctor to reconsider in light of the extenuating circumstances, but I've never been able to get her to call me back on it, despite bringing it up during every visit with Daisy (who oddly enough could still get appointments). Daisy only saw the nurse practitioner, so I never actually met the doctor. Anyway, I finally had enough and changed to the pediatrician Kelly and Grant use, and we LOVE them!

So when I took Daisy to her well visit a couple of weeks ago, it turned out that one of her ear piercing sites was infected. They had to get the earring out so it could heal, and it was terribly painful and traumatic for her (and me watching!). (But the doctor and nurses were fantastic). The plan was to get it re-pierced after it healed, but she ended up being so afraid of it getting infected again that she's opted to wait until she's older. Ah well, at least when she does get them redone she'll have plenty of earrings on hand, because she got about 40 pairs for her birthday.

So what else? Kelly's birthday was the 29th, and I made her a couple of pairs of earrings. Will's birthday was the next day, and I made him a Dopp kit. Then Daisy's birthday was the 5th. Five years old! I can't even believe it! I made her several pieces of jewelry (but no earrings lol), and we bought her a baby doll that looks just like Grant and Kelly's baby girl Madison. 

We also got her a couple of other things, but we didn't give them to her till the 11th, when she had her very first official birthday party! We've always done little family celebrations, but this was the first one with friends invited, and it was awesome!

All the girls attendees got to adopt a baby doll and take home lots of dolls accessories besides, and the boys all got stuffed animals. It was a pretty cheap party to put together, and she had the time of her life!

My birthday was Friday, and it was a pretty good day! Usually my birthday kind of sucks, but not this year. My friend Ann stopped by to see me and brought pumpkin spice lattes and donuts, and Nick had some gorgeous flowers delivered! I got some cool craft supplies, some clothes, and a gift certificate for a manicure. Yay! And my parents even kept all three kids so Nick and I could go out for a birthday dinner.

And Sunday night...I got a birthday spanking! The last time I had a birthday spanking was 2007! But this year I got up the nerve to send Nick a text telling him what I wanted out of it, and I hit send before I could chicken out. Here's what it said:

So here are my thoughts on a birthday spanking. I know it's a silly and sometimes sexy little tradition, but I think that's not what I need. I think I need something that is more of a course setter for the year to come, something to help me refocus and recommit. So I am happy with 37 (or 38 as the case may be), although if it goes farther I may not be completely opposed. But I'm thinking maybe the spencer paddle (or maybe that's a mistake) over jeans, at least as long as I can cooperate. And holy crap I'm almost 11 years into this, when the heck am I going to stop feeling so shy and awkward trying to talk to you about it? Sorry, I'm a huge dork.

That was Saturday, and one reason I sent it then was because I knew one of Morgan's friends was spending the night that night, so he wouldn't be able to do it right away. I needed some time to acclimate myself to the idea. Sunday night though we sent the kids to bed at 9:00, and I went upstairs to shower and to spend some time in the 18th century with my Kindle while Nick watched a show I wasn't interested in. 

After the show went off, he joined me upstairs and asked if I was ready for my birthday spanking. Of course by then I had totally chickened out, it having been over a month since my last spanking, and knowing that I had basically told him I wanted this to be a rather more serious experience. I did a bit of reasonable arguing, and told him that after all, I hadn't actually done anything, so we could really just skip it. Fortunately he refused to let me back out of it, telling me that either I could take my birthday spanking or he could come up with a few good reasons why I actually deserved a hard spanking and punish me for those. It's true enough that he had a few of those to hand, so I wisely opted for the birthday spanking instead, and he told me to get the paddle. I balked at this, because well, by now I was truly nervous, but he insisted, and when I asked which one he wanted, he asked me did he need to read the text to me. So, resigned, I pulled out the Spencer paddle. 

Per my text, he allowed me to keep my jeans on, but he seemed quite determined to make it a memorable experience. He spanked hard enough for me to lose count, but he said he stopped at 38. Then he said, "Unless you wanted TWO to grow on -" and gave me an extra hard swat that had me squealing and twisting. Then he let me do a bit of complaining about how terribly hard he'd spanked me and how much my bottom hurt, but I went on a bit far, and, not quite half playfully he decided another session wouldn't come amiss, and he spanked me again, this time even harder. 

He then had the nerve to go on about how easy he'd been on me "pants still on, not that many, and not all that hard." He was teasing me a bit there, watching my reaction, especially to the "not all that hard" part, and I actually had to shove my face into the pillow to keep from protesting his assessment. I've no doubt at all though that had if I had opened my mouth to disagree I would have found myself getting spanked again. 

After the birthday spanking was over, he said, "Okay, that's the birthday spanking, now for your punishment."

"What?!" I yelped, whirling away from him.

"Well, I did tell you to put away the laundry on the chair downstairs, didn't I? You weren't supposed to have it there in the first place, and you said you would put it away last night, but it's still there, isn't it?"

Yes, sir," I admitted grudgingly. "But you just spanked me, and my bottom is really sore! Please don't punish me right now!" I could see then that he was teasing me again, at least about spanking me for it right then, although he was serious enough about the laundry. He told me he wasn't going to spank me for it that night, and he told me to take my pants off. At that point things took a rather delicious turn, but those memories are just for me and him.

Today my bottom was quite sore and a little bruised, and sitting was painful in a very good way. It was just exactly what I needed. Just before we went to sleep I asked him if he was really going to spank me again the next day for the laundry, and he told me that depended on me. If he came home and the laundry on the chair was still there and the dirty clothes upstairs had not been carried down, he would give me a spanking, sore bottom or not. Needless to say there was nary a sock in sight when he got home today. :)