TFESE

I'm going to have to talk about money.  I know, it's one of those taboo subjects.  We're not suppose to want other people know how much money we make or have or how low or high your bank account balance might be.  And I don't really want to hear about how much you take home after taxes each month, or, well, maybe I do, but it's one of those subjects that usually is better left not discussed.

And that's most commonly the case because it can change the relationship dynamic if someone knows you make lots more than they do and yet you have similar jobs and experience.  Or, it can make you concerned for someone because you realize just how difficult it must be for them to pay all their bills and keep their children fed.

But in this case, I got to laughing at myself the other day because I remembered the word, "TFESE" which you can try to pronounce any way you want, but I said it like "tuh-fee-zee."  This goes way back to my days in college and my years as a co-op working for IBM.

I looked for a co-op position to get some real-world work experience when I was only half-way through college.  I interviewed many places as my Computer Science teacher and favorite in all things computer career related suggested I do.  After scores of interviews the co-op offers starting coming in and I was trying to decide which to go with .  I had forgotten about IBM because they hadn't contacted me at all when unexpectedly, someone from IBM called me and did a brief phone interview.  No in-person interview, not much detail, more description about the position and the new technology they were starting to work in called, "object-oriented programming."  And shortly afterwards I got a second call from personnel offering me the job.

What should I do?  I asked my teacher and she said that there was no question, take the IBM job because object-oriented was the way things were going.  She turned out to be right.  And with that conversation and decision, my career path was set.

I took the job, and they paid, I think $11.75 per hour.  And I was thrilled about that.  I liked working for IBM so much that I continued to work part-time through graduation, including experiential raises taking my wages up to $15.00 per hour.  And I was thrilled about that too.  And then, they offered me a full-time job.  And, well, see I've used the word "thrilled" twice already so now I need a word that means thrilled plus extra thrilled plus ecstatic.  If you know what word I should use here, let me know.  At any rate, I accepted the job.

And that's where TFESE comes in.  They offered me, in 1992, an annual salary of thirty-five thousand eight-hundred sixty-eight dollars.  And that was like printing money in a mint and carrying it off in large buckets to me.  I kept looking at the offer and the T (for thirty,) F (for five,) E (for eight hundred,) S (for sixty,) and E (for eight) popped into my head.  And it got stuck there.

I ran down the hall to talk with my friend, Delmonte P. Jefferson, I remember his name so distinctly and his funny personality and how he was proud of being named Delmonte and don't you dare shorten his name to Del.  Anyway, he was happy for me and with me.  He was older and I'm sure made many more buckets full of money per year than my little salary, but he acted like I had won the lottery which was just the kind of nice guy he was.

After taking the job, I worked through a downturn in economy in which we were just glad to have our jobs and not get a pay cut.  Later, I worked other places at other salaries, but I have no idea how much those salaries were.  It's that first job and that first salary and the silly TFESE that makes me remember that day so well.

The Big Boy Update:  Privacy, please.  He is getting so much better at going in the potty, and not in his underpants.  But...and it took us a while to figure this out...he likes his privacy.  We unexpectedly found out if you leave the room, he has a better chance of making a "deposit" in the potty.  He will happily run out and tell you, "I poop in the potty!" and then you quickly run in to do cleanup and damage control.  Overall though, the number of underpants being soiled has been decreasing steadily.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Hat and Shoes, Elmo and Moo moo moo.  This morning she told me "hat" when I put her hat on.  Then she looked at her new shoes and said "shoes."  Yesterday she talked to Elmo on the phone a lot (imagine a phone app targeted at small children who want to talk to a furry, red monster with a high, squeaky voice and you have the general idea.)  Elmo talked about Gladys, who is a cow, and asked if my daughter could moo with him.  She liked saying, "moo moo moo" back at Elmo.

Fitness Update:  Random, unexpected text from my neighbor late yesterday afternoon asking if I could run, right then, as she was getting out of clinic early.  Yes!  Daddy said he'd watch the children.  Then, three minutes later, Uncle Jonathan called and was coming over.  Would we have a three-way fun run?  Alas, he had run earlier in the day.  We'll catch him next time.  We wedged in six miles before dinner though in what turned out to be a beautiful afternoon.

Someone Once Said:  ‘Obscene’ is a null concept; it has no theological meaning. ‘To the pure all things are pure’.

It's That Catch Up Time Again

The Baby Dream
It's the middle of the night and you wake up in the middle of a very strange dream and at that point you realize the dream is completely ridiculous.  Or at least that's how my dreams usually go.  In this particular dream I was at the hospital about to give birth to another baby when I uncovered a nefarious plot the hospital had to put paitents into a plane and fly them off to a secret location so they--and here's where everything gets sketchy--won't be able to pay their medical bills?  Or maybe they freed up hospital beds for other, more critical patients, or perhaps there was a big party with balloons and cake; I'm not sure.  At any rate, I was warned by another patient and managed to dodge the whole situation.  I delivered the baby, which turned out to be a son.  And then I woke up and was suddenly panicked because another child?  Just when I'm getting the two potty trained?!

The Filthy Cars
I feel rather bad writing about this because it's really a matter of personal preference, but I met with the unexpected yesterday.   We had some staff out at school and I was asked if I could help with the pick-up times by walking children out to their cars and putting them in their car seats.  My husband and I keep a rather tidy house.  We dislike dirty for the most part and our tolerance level for dirt all over the floor and seats of our cars is, apparently, very low.  When our car is dirty and our car seats slimy from general toddlerness we have them cleaned.  I've always figured our car was on the dirtier side when compared to other families.  And then I helped out yesterday.  Oh my word.  Wow.  It is quite possible we have the cleanest car and most spotless car seats of anyone in our school if what I saw was any indication yesterday. 

Warm is Better Than Cold
I dislike being cold.  My hands are cold right now and I'm wanting to be done writing this so I can go get a hot beverage and hold on tightly to the ceramic mug for warmth.  I was worried about being cold on the ski trip, so I brought lots of clothes and I layered up every morning like I was a human-sized onion with layer after layer of heat-retaining garments designed to keep out the brrr.  Once I was out on the mountain, I didn't notice the cold.  In fact, I didn't notice I wasn't cold at all until my nephew mentioned his hands were cold.  Let's get this straight, when it comes to being cold, I'm a wimp and a whiner.  Had I been cold, I don't think I would have skied for as long or done as well as I did.  So yay winter gear.  Go thermal underwear.  And hip hip hooray for gore tex. 

Green Circle, Blue Square
Have you ever noticed that people who ski and ski well like to tell you they ski "Black Diamonds?"  Have you also noticed that those of us who don't ski so well never say "I've been skiing those green circles all day."  Or, when we get a little bit better and brave a harder slope, do you hear people saying, "Goodness me, that blue square I did this morning was very challenging."   Are the black-slope-skilled skiers showing off by using the full categorization of the slope, or, is it just fun to say "black diamond?"

The Big Boy Update:  My list of things he's done recently is getting long.  Here are some updates in brief.  He can swing the heck out of a golf club.  My husband says he has "a great swing" and since daddy used to be a professional golfer, I'm sure he can tell a good swing from a bad swing.  So far, my daughter's skull has not been dented.  We went to the mall and there are those cars/vehicles/money sucker machines the children love because you put two quarters in them and they move a bit for a minute or two.  The other day he was getting on them one after another saying "Need coins."  He doesn't really care at this age if they move or not, but he knows that the can move if you happen to have coins.  And this morning on the way to school an ambulance passed us.  I don't remember one ever passing us with the sirens going before.  It was hardly visible when it honked the horn to ask for clearance.  But he saw those flashing lights, said "ambulance!"  and then as it passed us (without any sirens wailing) my son said "Weeeooooweeeeooooweeeoooo/."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Her very first sentence.  This is a bit of a cheat, but my husband is of the opinion it counts and I'm starting to agree with him.  "Happa buh daa too yuuu."  She is getting much more clarity in the words and even a stranger would most likely guess what she's saying.  And boy does she say it.  All you need to do is hint at the birthday song and she's off and singing for a good while.

Fitness Update:  Crummy weather involving lots of rain and I haven't done anything in days.  My legs are starting to complain.

Someone Once Said:   The authority of a commanding office almost never requires force.

The Pineapple and Mayonnaise Salad

I am not going to look this up on the internet because in my mind, my mother created this abomination of a "salad."  And when I say that, I'm not saying it with hatred, because it's something I grew up with, but when you hear about it you may well have your own personal "eww" response.

My mother got recipe ideas from magazines all the time.  Some were winners and were incorporated into her general meal rotation and others were not.  I don't know where she got the pineapple and mayonnaise salad idea, but she must have dubbed it a success because we saw it regularly at the dinner table.

Imagine, if you will, a boring leaf of iceberg lettuce placed flat on a salad plate.  Then, picture a can of pineapple slices in juice.  Take one of those pineapple rings and place it right in the middle of the leaf of lettuce.  Next, add a rather measurable dollop of mayonnaise into the pineapple slice hole that once contained the core of the pineapple,.  Finally, to add color and balance, add a single maraschino cherry right in the middle of the blob of mayonnaise.  Salad complete.  Serve to your guests.

Was it from Good Housekeeping?  Did she find it in Reader's Digest?  Maybe it was from the Sunday paper.  I don't know, but it stuck around and no matter how much complaining I did, she still served it.  And guess what, I ate it.  I ate it because there was a cherry, and I loved those.  And then there was pineapple and what child doesn't like a slice of juicy, tangy pineapple?  I rarely ate the lettuce leaf and commonly much of the mayonnaise was left on the plate.  But I can say from memory, the combination of flavors from the ingredient cross-contamination that happened was really quite good, even if I did a deplorable amount of complaining. 

Was it a fad from the seventies?  Did my mother invent it?  She reads this blog, perhaps she'll remember where the pineapple and mayonnaise salad originated from.

Edit:  After speaking to my mother, she said I forgot an ingredient: shredded cheddar cheese.  I do remember it now.  And she said the recipe was one from her youth that was offered as a salad/dessert at church fundraising events.  She said the spaghetti dinners made the most money and the salad/dessert was a popular item in the top corner of the tray.

The Big Boy Update:  He can open the door?  Yes, he can open the door to his room and get out.  But he doesn't seem to think it through that often and actually escape his bedroom lair.  If you ask him to open the door he will demonstrate.  But left to his own devices when he wakes up, he just goes and plays with toys in the playroom.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Wetting his bed.  She (and he) are getting better at using the potty.  She doesn't have the skill at removing and putting on her pants/underpants that he does, but she does like to go when she's sat on the potty.  This means much of the responsibility of making sure she's not wetting everything else is on us to get her to regular potty visits.  This afternoon, we missed a visit because she crawled into her brother's bed and shortly it was wet. 

Someone Once Said:  It is hard to shake off any taboos a child is indoctrinated with in his earliest years. Even if he learns later that they are nonsense.

I'm On Your Side (And Other Things I don't Know How To Say)

We had a gathering this weekend for contributors to our children's school who donated over a certain amount.  This gathering, like so many other of our school gatherings, was mostly an opportunity to get together, but in particular to have our Head of School and Board Chairman thank everyone personally...with wine.

I'm on the Fundraising committee so we were going irrespective of our contribution level, but just like all the other school events we've attended, we had a lovely evening socializing with our fellow parents.

I had met the mother of one of the students in our school at one of the other events.  She and her partner have two little boys, the second of whom will most likely be with my son or daughter in their toddler classrooms in the near future.  She and her partner were in the corner talking with one of the other mothers who has twins, one in each of my children's classrooms currently.  They were talking about IVF, the frustrations of becoming, and staying pregnant, the "irreversible skin stretching" that takes place when you have twins among other fun pregnancy and baby topics.

I sat down and joined the conversation and really liked both "Mommy" and "Mama" as their children call their two moms.  And it struck me, they are members in a society fraught with people who may disprove of their way of life, who they personally chose to love, their personal, not bothering anyone else, choices.  How do they know when they're going to meet with a stern lecture, ugly comments or even disgust from someone else?

I can't understand that world because I've always, boringly, done the "standard" route of going to college, getting a job, finding a husband, having children, blah de blah blah.  No one subjected me to those choices, that's just the type of super exciting, breaking the mold, rebel that I am.  Boring.

At any rate, I sit down to chat with these two ladies and the mom of a downs syndrome twin (that my daughter loves playing with in school) and I want to blurt out, "Hey, I'm on your side.  You go.  You be happy."  I want to remove any thoughts they may have that they're going to have to defend or explain their personal choices and way of life.    But I don't know how, and more importantly, I don't know if it's appropriate.

On our ski trip, I was taking lessons the first day with my brother-in-law (which is what I think of him as) when our ski instructor found out we were on a family vacation.  She asked how we were related and I--let us use the word "blurt" because it is appropriate--blurted out that he was my brother-in-law.  Thus followed questions about his wife, did he have children, etc.  Ugh.  I had messed it up.

When we had a bathroom break later, I apologized to him and said, "I am so sorry, I should have kept my mouth shut, I don't know enough to know what to say."  He said it was not a problem and that he didn't mind explaining, and he would if it came up again.  Still, I felt like a uncouth moron with no tact.

Back to the two moms on the couch though...we just kept talking and it became apparent through our conversation that I was aware of their family situation and they hopefully got a feeling that I found it nothing out of the ordinary.  We got to laughing as we talked about further children and how just keeping up with the ones we had so far was tiring enough.  It was a good evening.

I just don't understand why someone wants to push their personal beliefs onto someone else, expects them to behave as they may believe is morally just, appropriate or correct when it affects them not one bit.  The good news is, our children attend a school which supports diversity of all kinds.  It makes me proud we made the choice we did to send our children to school where we did.

The Big Boy Update:  "Mimi's car gone"  "Walk away momma"  Yesterday with my mother (Mimi) left, he looked out the window after she'd driven off and said, "Mimi's car gone."  He likes her car.  It means she's visiting.  This morning, while I was busily doing something apparently he didn't want me to do, he used a phrase they use at school to indicate you need to leave their "work" alone.  He said, "Walk away Momma."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Cracku Omnipresent.  Cracku is her number one word.  It means food, it means juice, it means, well anything.  Daddy just called and said on the way home she's said, "Cracku" about eight-seven times.  She needs to find another word soon.  She's extrapolated cracker about as far as it will go.

Someone Once Said:  The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility. And vice versa.

The Powder Sunset and The Coffee Cup

Back a year or so ago when I realized how few calories I could eat each day and keep my goal of losing a pound each week, I looked for ways to reduce calories in things I ate or drank regularly.  When you're dieting and can only eat twelve hundred calories every day, anything you can cut is helpful, and hidden calories can be your demise.

One thing I did was try and remove as much caloric impact as I could from my coffee/hot beverage consumption.  I like tea, coco, chai latte, coffee, apple cider, and most anything you can think of hot.  When I was a little girl and I was sick, my mother would give me a hot jello drink.  Talk about smooth, sweet decadence for a child.  But there are calories in many hot drinks.

First, there's the sweetener.  Sugar, my preferred sweetener had to go.  I prefer sugar over other sweeteners because I'd rather eat something natural that's not healthy for me than something more scientifically, chemically created that's also not good for me.  I replaced it with two massive boxes of calorie-free sweetener packets from Costco.  The "Billion Pouch" of Splenda and the "Trillion Packets" of Purvia.  Maybe it wasn't quite that many each, I suppose I could be exaggerating.

Those zero calorie sweeteners replaced the sugar, but I needed something to replace the milk.  Many of the creamer alternatives still had lots of calories.  The one I settled on, which was by far not the most delicious, (because you really can't get better than half-and-half in your coffee for my money,) was powdered Coffee Mate.  I mean the kind you find at the requisite coffee tables in boring corporate office buildings all around the country.  It does the job, it has the shelf-life, and it's got that cost-effectiveness angle to it that corporate accountants like so much.

By changing these two things, I was able to reduce my morning liquid caloric intake from upwards of two-hundred-fifty to a mere forty calories and still have two large cups of coffee.  Less, if I drank a tea or two.

My diet is over, and yet these vast vats of powder live on.  They live on in boxes that seem full no matter how many packets I try to foist on unsuspecting visitors, "Don't you want another Splenda in your coffee?  You sure?"  I didn't mention the gargantuan tub of Coffee Mate my husband found at Costco.   It felt like I was going to be in low-cal powder purgatory for years to come.

But as it turns out, I'm closer to finished than I thought I was.  In less than a week I'll be back to real milk in my coffee.  No more Coffee Mate.  And those two big boxes of sweetener packets are down to one little container that is shrinking at a measurable rate.  Soon, the low-cal and calorie-free powders will be gone.  I will be able to relax and happily hold my coffee cup with real sugar and real milk and there will be real screaming children in the background and I will be...wait a minute, excuse me, I need to go see which one of my children is about to get a beating now...

The Big Boy Update:  "Thank you" offered.  We have been working on "please" and "thank you" because otherwise you have a very demanding toddler who is just excited he can communicate and doesn't realize he's being rude, but it can still sound rude to everyone else.  And besides, children with manners are always appreciated.  This morning at breakfast he offered up, without prompting, his first "thank you."  It may have been because he was given another piece of Krispy Kreme donut, but either way, we're taking it as a win.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Big Tears.  Her teachers and support staff have all talked about her various levels of crying.  And in particular, her tears.  I should have titled this, "Drama Queen" because if you let her work you over, she will.  Her teachers all said they were aware of different types of cries and that some could just be ignored.  I'm so glad we have teachers who are smart enough to know the difference and don't let her get the better of them.


Someone Once Said:  The itch to be a world saver should not be scratched; it rarely does any good and can drastically shorten your life.

Hit With A Mack Truck

Okay, not literally, but that's what it feels like.  My son was feeling poorly at school yesterday and after we got him home and napped he woke up and started vomiting.  While this was going on, my husband said he suddenly was feeling ill too.  Mom came over to help and my neighbor and I ran of to run (that part I mean literally.)  I got back, my son was still heaving and not hungry and then an hour later, boom, I'm sick.  All signs point to the Noro Virus.

I've never had something come on so quickly.  I was fine, I was running and then I could feel this veil of illness coming down over me like a lead blanket.  I started to vomit too and while my son and husband got better a few hours later, my malaise kept with me through the night.

I did eventually stop vomiting in the middle of the night and I'm able to eat now, but I feel achy enough to merit either a full blown car accident impact or a high fever-type of body aches.  I took two Advil, hopefully that will help.  And a multivitamin; those are always helpful in their own way.

We have a school function tonight and a sitter scheduled.  I hope this twenty-four hour bug holds to its allotted time and doesn't go over. 

The Big Boy Update:  He's better, but he's tired.  He slept through the night and is normal today aside from being somewhat cranky and extra tired.   In the tub earlier he "caught" a plastic fish (dolphin) on a plastic fishing pole and said to me, "I caught the dolphin.  Look at that!"

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  No signs of illness other than being more tired than normal.  I hope she doesn't catch it.  She slept well through the night, so perhaps she has this Noro Virus, but has had the most mild case of all of us.

Someone Once Said:  I don’t mind wasting a bullet on a corpse. Especially one who is playing ‘possum.

Afraid of a Little Acne

Normally, I wouldn't be afraid of a little acne, but of late, I am.  I had acne when I was a teen.  I had acne longer than most of my friends, but it wasn't as bad as many of my peers had through high school, so I couldn't complain overall.  As I started college, I expected the acne to go away, but it stuck with me.  As my twenties drew to a close I expected I'd soon be done with the acne, but it persisted.

My mother said on multiple occasions that I got the plague of extended acne from her.  She said the thing that finally helped her move beyond her acne days was getting pregnant with me.  My mother had me when she was thirty so I really thought I'd be done with all things acne by then.  But I didn't have a baby until I was forty.  And I didn't get done with the acne when I was thirty either.

My mother had said she asked her doctor what helped reduce the acne because after I was born, she had some come back.  He told her it was the vitamin A in the prenatal vitamins.  Vitamin A didn't help me and I soon grew tired of taking a vitamin that didn't seem to give results and I was used to the acne by now so I just dealt with it.

Today, I don't have acne, and I had almost forgotten what it was like until I started having some a few months ago.  But aside from the traditional, face-based spots.  I was getting a random bump on my leg or the side of my back.  And I was getting them on my backside too.  Initially, I thought the thing that turned into the terrible abscess was acne.  It most certainly was not.

Then, weeks after I'd finished my antibiotics and the wounds from the abscess surgery were mostly closed over, I got another bit of acne right in the middle of one of my butt cheeks.  Oh, sorry, this is one of those mental image deals and I forgot to warn you.  I keep doing that, my apologies.  Okay, so small bump, that's just a normal bit of acne.  But for some reason, days later after the bump had been getting smaller and healing, boom, it turned around with a vengeance and became the a larger abscess than the others combined.

What in the world is going on, I wondered?  After that abscess was lanced and I'd gone through not one antibiotic but two, one of them at double strength, I seem to be fine.  But I am left with a mental fear of anything acne-related.

I've been told by many medical professionals that we're covered with staph bacteria on our dermis, all of us.  And that it's very common to get an infection.  I don't want to get another abscess.  At this point until I've gone a period of yet undetermined time skin-infection and abscess-free I have decided that hand sanitizer has larger applications than just for dirty hands.

I've been putting it here and there and anywhere that might be an abrasion or possible acne on my body.  And it stings.  Yow.  But it kills 99.99% of common germs.  It can't get deep into the skin, but it might help a bit.  And bleach baths.  I'm making sure to do those too.

Fortunately, I don't have much acne anymore in my forties, but if any does show up, I'm going to try and whack it with as much germ eradication options as I can.

The Big Boy Update:  No solid deposits yet.  We haven't seen solids in the potty at home yet (or at least without extenuating circumstances.)  Surely they're making progress at school in this important step towards freedom from diapers.  But no, we just found out that doesn't happen there either.  "Never" was the word I believe his teacher used.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Very friendly eater.  She is an easy child to sit beside at a meal out.  As long as you don't mind watching her make a mess of her hands and face and bib and possibly hair and definitely the chair and floor.  She sometimes balks at a particular food item, but mostly, she's very happy trying and eating a variety of things.  She is also the last one done eating.  She's still eating while they're carrying the plates away and we're trying to clean her face and hands.

Fitness Update:  Six-and-half miles with my neighbor that ended in the rain and cold. Then I got sick two hours later with what I am guessing is the Noro virus going around. My son seems to have it too. Hopefully it will live up to the twenty-four hour duration and be over soon.

Someone Once Said:   A man who refuses to take his own death into account in making plans is a fool. A self-centered fool who does not love anyone.

I'm Going Faster Than Those People Passing Me

It felt so fast when I was skiing.  I was just going zoooooom down the mountain at, literally, breakneck speeds.  I realize I wasn't going that fast, but it felt like it was fast to me.

Over my five days of skiing I got better and more comfortable and I was able to go faster without feeling like I was out of control.  And then I noticed something.  I noticed that lots of people were passing me.  I noticed those people passing me looked like they were gently gliding down the hill.  They looked like they were having a nice, slow, comfortable ski down the mountain.  So how was it that I was going so much "faster" while being passed at the same time?

Once I realized I had a perception versus experience anomaly going I kept looking for it and it kept happening.  I would feel like the wind was screeching by my ears and nose and the lady passing me at a more steep angle of descent, looked like she was out in the park on a sunny day waltzing down the mountain at her leisure.

The Big Boy Update:  New potty upstairs.  I got a second potty and put it upstairs in their room.  He's getting better at going, as is his sister.  He's currently napping in underpants.  I wonder if he'll wake up wet or dry?  Did I mention he decided to sleep in his sister's bed?  Maybe he has plans for it.


The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Hand washing...for an hour.  We just had parent teacher conferences for our children at their school.  We found out my daughter likes to wash her hands.  It's not just a matter of standing in front of the sink, it's a whole process, which did involve one day of trying to eat the soap, but she has the hang of it and sometimes, apparently, she will wash her hands for an hour. 

Fitness Update:  3.5 miles, in a hurry.  My neighbor had to last minute cancel this morning so when it got light I did a short run and worked on speed.  It is much harder to shave time off your miles than it is to add miles.  But I did make progress.

Someone Once Said:  You can go wrong by being too skeptical as readily as by being too trusting.

Weighting A Year

A year ago my husband and I embarked on a weight loss journey.  I had gained weight from two children, lost some of it via delivery of said children, eaten far more calories than my metabolism cared to burn via my sloth-like, sitting-on-the couch ways and it was time to get the rest off.

My friend asked me if I wanted to try out a running program with her--a running program I didn't read carefully or I would have seen that 5K end-goal and said, "oh hell no."  But I did do the program; it was both easier and more enjoyable than I would have ever expected and now here I am a year later, more worried that I won't be able to run in the future due to injury or weary, old-mama body syndrome (that is a syndrome, right?)

By that age old weigh-loss plan of "diet and exercise" I managed to lose the last bits of weight and regain my pre-pregnancy, pre-thirties weight and get back into my fun clothes I'd only been looking at with disdain and contempt that had been sitting in my closet for years.  And even better, I got muscles.

I have muscles that complain if they aren't exercised.  I have muscles in my stomach region that were firstly, not there before and secondly, not visible because there was most recently a baby mucking up the workings, or previously some extra poundage blocking the less than a one-pack muscles underneath the flab.

After I reached my weight-loss goal, I kept watching my weight and what I ate.  I do feel like most days I'm still on a diet, but that's not that unexpected: I overate for years, I can't expect to reset my food consumption hunger levels just because I need a few less calories each day.

But it's been going well and this Monday, the day we we returned from our family reunion/vacation to ski in Colorado, I weighed in and was still at my weight-loss goal.  And that was a relief.  It's hard not to worry about the extra muffin you had for breakfast and if the three ounce muffin may well have added four pounds to your hips.  This was the first time I was away from a scale for a whole week, and I didn't know how I'd do.

But I did okay.  I exercised some, or at least I heard skiing down mountains pellmell, for hours at a time, burning extra calories due to higher altitude and colder weather conditions would let me eat more than I normally did without paying a weight-gaining penalty.  And so it was.  I had fun, I ate a lot, and I maintained my weight.

So my confidence is higher that I can maintain my weight effectively and continue to exercise for fun and health.  Next year this time I'd better see a "Still maintaining" post.  Or at least that's my plan.

The Big Boy Update:  Correct responses.  He can answer questions posed on children's shows on television now.  "What does Daisy wear on her head?"  "Bow!" 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Circle.  She noticed a circle on her shirt.  She said "circle" and then she kept saying circle.  She has more words than we give her credit for as we seem to be focused on her brother, who has scores of new words every week.

Fitness Update: Five and Five.  Five miles with my neighbor, five alone doing some speed work.  Three hours between the two runs.  My knee didn't bother me one bit, to the point that I never noticed it while in Colorado and skiing.  Running, it's back some, which is more evidence that I need cross-training to help balance the pull from calf to thigh.

Someone Once Said:  At least once every man should have to run for his life, to teach him that milk does not come from supermarkets, that safety does not come from policemen, that “news” is not something that happens to other people. He might learn how his ancestors lived and that he himself is no different—in the crunch his life depends on his agility, alertness, and personal resourcefulness.

Bleach Bathing

That looks an awful lot like Beach Bathing, doesn't it?  Beach bathing sounds much more enticing than bleach bathing, but, unfortunately, as it's winter and I don't live near a beach and for other reasons I've been doing bleach bathing.

This goes back to the abscesses and the MRSA and the staphylococcus bacteria we all have on our skin.  When I was at the hospital with my son getting his abscess drained and packed the nurse said she would give us some suggestions on how we could improve and reduce our chances of recurrence of skin-based infections.

One thing I've been told again and again by health care professional after healthcare professional is that I shouldn't feel guilty about my son getting his abscess.  And yet I do.  But back to the advice I received.  I was told MRSA is not the infection with the stigma it used to have.  It's not something that's exclusive to hospital patients with compromised immune systems.  It's also not an infection that is hard to address with antibiotics.

MRSA stands for Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus.  The resistant part means it doesn't respond to some of the traditional antibiotics that work on other strains of staph.  But there are, in fact, antibiotics that do work on MRSA and they work quickly and well.  So hearing getting comforting advice from multiple doctors made me feel better about the whole situation.

The second thing I heard was that they see MRSA infections in children regularly and that sometimes cross-contamination occurs on playgrounds or in school as the bacteria can live for up to seventy-two hours.  So I felt a bit of relief again that maybe I wasn't a completely incompetent mother for letting my son get this terrible abscess.

Where was I, ah yes, Bleach Bathing, so the nurse and doctor who were there for the procedure said that statistics have shown people who swim regularly in chlorinated pools have a significantly less occurrence of staph-based skin infections.  (/wave to my niece, Olivia, who is an avid swimmer.)  They suggested giving our children a bath with a cap-full of bleach once a week.

That sounds drastic.  Bleach?  Directly in their bath?  Won't their skin start to fall off?  No, it won't because in a bath, one cap full of bleach is less than one tenth the concentration in a chlorinated pool.  So relax and be happy about the benefits instead of being worried about the side-effects.

We now have a special bath bleach bottle and not only have the children been bathing in bleach, I have been too.  I won't argue with medical statistics when they're to the benefit of my family.

The Big Boy Update:  Mickey Mickey everywhere.  Toddler's will extrapolate anything.  Today he was using Mimi's hole punch and he punched three holes into a page that already had small holes in the edge.  I saw him point at the paper and say, "Mickey Mouse!"  This is what he saw: 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Hidden sleeper.  For some reason in the past week she's decided she wants to sleep on the floor, in the corner, behind the chair, laying on her legs in pike position.  Why she wants to sleep in the corner hidden I don't know.

Someone Once Said:  If you happen to be one of the fretful minority who can do creative work, never force and idea; you’ll abort it if you do. Be patient and you’ll give birth to it when the time is ripe. Learn to wait.

Running With Mickey's Balloon

When we were at Disney in Florida in October we made what seemed at the time to be a financially poor purchase.  We were leaving The Magic Kingdom, it had gotten dark, and they had some very exciting looking balloons that not only had a second balloon inside the bigger, clear, round balloon shaped like Mickey's head, but it also had an LED light that cycled through a multitude of colors and patterns.  But it was fifteen dollars.

"FOR A BALLOON?!"  I think I said something like that to my husband when he returned from buying it off the man holding the biggest bunch of balloons I'd ever seen.  He said, "You told me to go get one" or something similar, and that was true, I had told him to go get one.  "Well, we'll try to have as much fun as possible with it until it deflates," I said.

We did have a lot of fun with the balloon.  The good news was the LED portion had an on/off switch, so for the remainder of the trip the various children in our rental house had fun turning it on and playing with it.  The light still was going strong when Mickey's head began to lose one ear and then the other inside the clear, exterior Mylar balloon.

Before we left, I dis-assembled the balloon and took the still working wand-looking light component and put it in my son's "doctor bag" with the rest of his doctor tools.  We came home and forgot about it entirely.

A few weeks later he found the light-up wand and he figured out how to turn it on.  He had fun with it many times, although he never bothered to turn it off.  We'd find it blinking on the floor, turn it off and stick it back in his doctor's bag.

One day he bent it and my husband had to tape it to keep it working, but this wand wasn't dying yet.  A week later, on the other side of the house, I was preparing to go on a run.  I donned my heart rate monitor belt and got ready to leave the house when I discovered the belt wasn't working.  That's no good; it was an expensive belt.  I sure hope it was just a dead battery.   I went online and ordered some replacements to arrive in a few days and I went on my run without heart rate statistics and less-accurate calorie burning data.

The next day I found the expensive balloon wand, this time re-bent and now definitely broken.  As I was holding it over the trash can I noticed the battery compartment and realized it looked about the same size as my heart rate belt battery.  Could it possibly be?  I opened it up to find not one, but two batteries that were and exact battery type match.  But, did they still have power left in them?

I put one in my heart rate monitor and sure enough, it started working again.  And I've used it on two runs already and even if it did die, there's still the second battery to go.  And as I'm sure you know, those little batteries aren't cheap.

So it turns out that the total duration of fun, October to January, for my son and the unexpected use of the batteries in my heart rate belt have made the fifteen dollar investment more of a value than I would have ever expected on the evening my husband bought that balloon.

That, and every time I run until those batteries are dead, I'm going to think of Disney and our very colorful balloon.

The Big Boy Update:  "Where's Kaycee?"  Me:  "Kaycee is at her house."  "Where's Gabin (Gavin)"  Me: "Gavin is at school."  "Where's Shealyn?"  Me:  "Shealyn is at school too."  "Where's Kaitwin (Kaitrinn)"  Me: Kaitrinn is at school with Shealyn.  Maybe we'll see Shealyn, Kaitrinn, Gavin and they're mom, Kaycee, at the park later today.  I'll let them know you asked about them on the way to school today." 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Oopsie Poopsie.  It had to happen eventually.  Someone pooped in the tub.  A two-year-old and a one-year-old totaling over three years of baby baths and not one poop incident.  We looked over to see her standing up and looking like she wanted to exit the tub with an anxious face on.  And then we found out why.  Bring on the shower nozzle and the Clorox Clean-up.

Someone Once Said:  Pessimist by policy, optimist by temperament—it is possible to be both. How? By never taking an unnecessary chance and by minimizing risks you can't avoid. This permits you to play out the game happily, untroubled by the certainty of the outcome..

Heavy Metal

The movie Heavy Metal came out when I was fairly young, maybe around ten-years-old. I have some very specific memories from that movie, even though I was too young to see it as it was Rated R movie.  It was a Rated R cartoon which is why we were all so interested in it as children.  This movie was getting lots of press and we knew all about it as sixth-graders even though none of us had seen it.

Then, when I visited my cousin who had HBO, I noticed it was on one night after my aunt and uncle had gone to bed.  As I sneaked out and watched some of it, I understood why it was rated R.  There were naked upper lady bits and there were sexual situations and there was some violence, although I remember it being more of a "pure evil" thing than true cruelty or violence. 

I didn't see the whole movie, but the bit I did see was memorable.  Later that year I was at the grocery store with my father and there was a Heavy Metal magazine.  This movie had enough excitement around it that the grocery store checkout line had comic books from the Heavy Metal world.

I didn't know what was in the magazine, but it was colorful and looked exciting and I asked dad if I could have it and he bought it for me.  I got home and it was beautifully drawn.  Most of the comics I don't think I really understood, and as comics go, there was a lot of busty lady characters with exaggerated features and skimpy clothing.

I took the comic book to school and I decided to try and learn how to draw a cartoon.  I was showing the comic book to a friend on the playground when my teacher came over and saw the magazine and snatched it away saying it was inappropriate.  I was really upset.  I told her it was mine and she didn't have any right to take it away and besides, I was working on a drawing from one of the pages.  Then, I was surprised at what she did, she tore out the page of the magazine and said the rest of the pages were going to the principal's office.

My teacher tore up my book!  I think I would have been okay with her taking the book away, well, I  would have been angry, but I would have gotten it back.  But she defaced it and treated it like trash.  I was so upset.  My father or mother was given the magazine back later so I eventually got the magazine back, but I think i had lost my interest in becoming a cartoonist by then.

I had forgotten all about Heavy Metal until two things happened within two days of each other to remind me.  First, we were all in the car downtown considering going to a museum with the children and we went via a different road than we normally do.  I realized we were by the school I went to for just one year in sixth grade, due to one of those school rezoning situations that sound good until the school district realizes their idea was, in fact, a big busing mess.

As we drove by the school there was the big old brick building I remembered.  There was the playground we played far too much dodge ball on and there were the stairs where the teacher tore up my magazine.

Then, only a day or so later, we were eating lunch out with the children and I heard a song I hadn't heard in a long time.  It started to haunt me.  I had great memories of loving that song from a very long time ago but where was it from?  It wasn't a pop song.  Then the chorus came around and I could place it as the theme song from the Heavy Metal movie.

I think I'm going to go find the song on iTunes so I can continue recollecting on the influential and memorable movie I shouldn't have seen when I was a child.

The Big Boy Update:  The National Geographic Monkeys.  It was time to go to sleep and I had something non-child friendly and boring on the television while my son drank his milk so he would go quietly and calmly to bed.  He did get interested in the show though, so I told him it was the National Geographic channel and did he see the yellow rectangle in the bottom corner?  Then, as we were going to bed, I picked up the National Geographic magazine and showed him the yellow border and how it matched the one on the television.  He asked me, "Monkeys?" and then I realized there were monkeys on the cover.  I sad, "Yes, those are monkeys" and then he started saying, "eep eep, oop oop" and it was so cute I tried not to laugh.  I don't know where he learned monkey sounds. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Those construction workers are loud.  Construction is all around our house.  While I was getting ready the other day I heard hammering and I thought the workers had gotten started before seven.  Then, I realized it was not construction workers, but my daughter testing out one hard surface on another one upstairs in their playroom.

Fitness Update:  Blue. I did a blue steep. I did more than one blue steep and I survived. There were unexpected moguls and there was a high level of fear at multiple points, but I survived five days of skiing with only a bruised thumb. Also, I "sat down" a lot. Some people might call them falls, but, you know, I just sat down to rest. At unexpected points. Unexpectedly.

Someone Once Said:  Lack of data never justifies a conclusion.

It's Easy to Be Nice When You Have Money

There are many things you can do to do a kindness to someone else.  You can hold the door for someone with a cane, you can give up your seat on the bus to a person who looks like they've had a tiring, tough day.  You can be a listening ear to a friend who needs to talk out a difficulty in their life.  Or you can just give someone a genuine smile in the hopes you'll make their day a little brighter.

But if you have money, and by that I don't mean if you have a lot of money, I mean if you aren't living paycheck to paycheck, it's easier to do something nice for someone.

You're at a restaurant and you see a waitress who is working hard and people around you walk away from the buffet dinner and leave nothing for tip on the table.  Adding an extra two dollars to the tip you were going to leave in the first place will hopefully be appreciated by someone who might have children and pets to feed at home.

We had a new sitter come over the other week.  She's sixteen and moved to our neighborhood recently.  We met her parents at a neighborhood social and her mother said Morgan would be very interested in sitting.  Then, her mother did something I didn't expect: when asked her how much I should pay her daughter, she told me, "Oh, don't pay her that much."  So, we pay her what her mother suggested, but I add one extra dollar in per hour because I appreciate Morgan being available, sometimes on short notice, to come and help out.  It's three extra dollars maybe, but hopefully she appreciates it.

For school, we have opportunities to thank our teachers.  It's been well-established that teachers aren't paid highly.  So any time we have a teacher birthday, holiday gift giving, teacher appreciation day, or other chance, I try to come up with something extra I can add in to let our teachers know how much we appreciate them.   This year for holiday gifts I made earrings for all the female teachers and got gift cards for the male teachers.  If I was worried about being able to pay my gas bill or rent, I wouldn't have been able to do this small, but extra thing.

The lady who cleans our house, who has been with me since 1997 and is, to me, one of my extended family members, works so very hard.  She cleans my toilets and the mess we make and she does so while being happy.  She's never bothered when my son tries to "help" her with the vacuum hose.

A few months ago she was going on a vacation for the first time in many years.  Her daughter had asked her to go to Disney with her and her granddaughters.  I knew she was looking for extra work because she was having to take a full week off work for the trip, which meant lost revenue, and there would be extra costs associated with the vacation as we all know Disney isn't cheap.

She arrived late one day, looked very tired and was trying her best to keep a positive attitude while cleaning.  When I asked her how things were going I heard that she was leaving in five hours to drive, overnight, to Disney.  And she had two more hours to clean at our house.   I went to my "rainy day" envelope in my bedroom and got a hundred dollar bill to give to her as a special "have a wonderful trip" gift.   When I gave it to her, I didn't expect her to become almost hysterical in thanks.  She was overworked, and anxious about everything coming up.  And she needed to finish packing and take a deep breath before she started driving all night.  I told her she needed to stop cleaning right now and go home.  I told her not to worry, our house would be absolutely fine until we saw her after her trip.

Our house being spotless wasn't the most important thing at that point.  And that's a kindness anyone could show someone.  Having that saved up "mad money" made it an even nicer way to do something special for an important friend.

Money can make it easier to be nice, but taking the time to make something for someone like a handmade card or a special note telling them how special they are to you takes more time than spending money.  It's nice though to have the ability to do both.

The Big Boy Update:  Mickey Mouse dirty.  Mickey Mouse wash.  I told him he couldn't have his Mickey Mouse toy while he ate because it would get dirty.  He then told me while he ate his meal that Mickey Mouse was dirty and that he needed to be washed.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I can not get comfortable in this bed, but trust me, I'm trying.  I watched through the crack in the door the other day while my daughter tried and tried to go to sleep.  She tossed and turned, she tried various positions in the bed including putting her legs through the slats and almost falling off the edge, standing with her head on the mattress and lying on her back kicking the wall.  Eventually, she got off the bed and I almost ran in and put her back in when I saw her go over to the corner behind the chair.  Then she got on the floor, wiggled under the chair, lay in her favorite pike position and went straight to sleep on the carpet.

Fitness Update:  more skiing. I think I went down more steeps (you skiers would call them "slopes") in vertical descent than any of the prior days. I am feeling more in control, doing turns, going faster and navigating around people and obstacles. We even did a small blue slope section today. Tomorrow, our last day of skiing, I plan on doing a real blue slope; the easiest blue slope. I hope I survive...

Someone Once Said:  The more you love, the more you can love—and the more intensely you love. Nor is there any limit on how many you can love.   If a person has time enough, he could love all of that majority who are decent and just.

Take Deep Breaths

We're at over ten thousand feet here at our Colorado ski vacation. I've never been a victim of altitude sickness, but I'm experiencing some of the effects of a lower parts per million oxygen content in the air at this height. It's been interesting.

Every so often, I feel like I'm out of breath, no that's not a good explanation, it's more like I need to breathe deeply because I'm almost out of breath, only I'm sitting still, or even lying in bed completely relaxed. Taking that one deep breath makes the sensation go away, and yet it's a disconcerting thing to experience. I was wondering if this is a mild form of what an asthmatic goes through daily? It must be terrifying for them.

Through exercise when I get my heart rate up, for instance skiing down a mountain at, "you must be crazy and brain damaged" speeds, I don't notice the lower oxygen levels and I haven't felt out of breath. Perhaps it's because I'm breathing harder and my blood is working to convey as much oxygen to my cells as possible during those times. This morning I did some different cardiovascular work in the driveway before we went skiing that had me huffing and puffing for air. I sweeped snow off cars.

Our cars were covered in about three inches of new snowfall; nice, fluffy, powdery snow, I've cleaned off cars before, but never with a broom and never so easily. This snow was the friendliest of snows. It came off both easily and cleanly. It was so much fun I did all three cars and then, for an encore, I brushed snow left and right off the driveway. Where I'm from in the south, snow mushes and slashes and clumps and makes your back and arms ache and usually invokes swearing. But this snow was fun.

The Big Boy Update:  Ear infection. The fever he had yesterday that caused him to be sent home from daycare early and the general malaise along with a bit of vomiting and he got a bonus vacation visit to the local pediatrician today. Thankfully, it's an ear infection and easily treated with antibiotics. He is already feeling more chipper. Tomorrow, we hope he'll even be hungry again.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Did she miss him? We heard she was fussy on and off at daycare today. Did she miss her brother? She's always gone to school with her brother in the next room. When she got home today though, she was not only smiles, she was laughs and all manner of happy to see all her family who happily welcomed her home.

Fitness Update:  Steeper and faster. More slopes today, higher up the mountain and a higher level of comfort. We plan on going to the top of the mountain tomorrow and there's a chance we may have to traverse a small section of blue slope to get to the second lift up. My husband says I can do it. I hope he's right.

Someone Once Said:  Peace is an extension of war by political means. Plenty of elbowroom is pleasanter—and much safer.

Wal*Mart Bag Blue and The Tale of The Toenails

Getting married involves a lot of formality and plenty of ritual.  As much as we think we won't become swept up in the wedding planning and execution mania of all things wedding, most of us do to some extent.  I can't say I was an exception.  I hope I didn't go overboard, but I did do many of the traditional things like have a long, white-ish dress, exchange vows and rings with my future husband and have a big-ole' bash afterwards with friends and family to celebrate.

One of the things that seems so silly, but is also so easy is to comply with is the "Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue (and a hay-penny in my shoe)" rhyme.  My mother had saved a hay-penny from our trip to England from when I was eight, and the others I could accomplish with nod to the rules by combining the requirements together.

For instance, I "borrowed" an "old" "blue" bottle of nail polish from my best friend since childhood and I painted my toenails so I would have three of the criteria met.  I had a new wedding dress, right?  So with the hay-penny in my shoe from mom, I was covered.

After our wedding in December I kept the toenail polish on my toes, what with it being winter and cold and hey, I just plain like blue toenail polish.  Did I mention what type of blue it was?  It was a milky-colored, steel blue that I couldn't quite place when my best friend and I bought it years ago at Wal*Mart.  That is, until we got to the check out counter and the cashier put our newly purchased bottles of polish in a Wal*Mart bag that was an identical color match.  I have no idea what the true color of the polish is, because it will always and forever be called, "Wal*Mart Bag Blue" to us.

So time goes by and my toenails grow ever so slowly.  It's the end of January and can it be?  Could I possibly be pregnant this quickly?  I turned out I was pregnant, but three days later at barely five weeks I have a miscarriage.  Many of my friends and family were worried I was upset.  And yes, it was a sad event.  But I was just turning forty and I had found out not two months after getting married I had been fortunate enough to get pregnant, when the average time to get pregnant at my age was eighteen months. So while I was sad, I was also happy that things in my reproductive region were working as designed. 

And my toenails were still blue (or at least bits of them were.)  Could it be possible that I'd still have the toenail polish on when I got pregnant again?  Well, I was going to try.  And two months later I found out I was pregnant a second time.  And there was just a tiny bit of toenail polish left, even with my slow growing toenails, after four-and-a-half months.  Here's a picture the day I found out about the pregnancy:

So here I was old, my toes were blue, but I had something new coming, which turned out to be my little boy.  An unexpected result from a silly little rhyme and ritual so many of us play out on the day we get married.

The Big Boy Update:  "A  B  C ...  A  B  C ... R  R  Cheese"  This was the version of the ABC song my son was singing the other day.  My husband heard it and thought it was great.  Apparently, those three lines were sung over and over.  Then, in the car going to school the next day, I was treated to my own private hearing of his special ABC song, just the same as my husband had heard the day before.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  How could you leave me?  She is a social girl.  She does not like being left, even if she was leaving you in the first place.  We don't encourage these fits of anger, and we do our best not to laugh, but her message is clear.  She wants to be where the action is.

Fitness Update:  Second day of lessons and I think, I hope, I can ski now. I did a harder green at the end of our lesson today and went back with some family after lunch and did it with more ease. Also, the ski instructor said the amount of calories you burn in the cold at the higher altitude is significantly more. Which is good, because I'm eating a lot.

Someone Once Said:  "I came, I saw, she conquered." (The original Latin seems to have been garbled.).

Hold the Wheel, My Eye Itches

I dated a guy years ago who had lost ninety-five percent of the vision in his left eye as a child due to glaucoma.  He casually told me he had had some head trauma when a foot kicked him in the face at Tae Kwon Do one day.  Glaucoma is not a common or even uncommon result from such an event, but it can happen, and it happened to him.  He was young and didn't bother telling his mother or father that his vision was decreasing from the perimeter of his eye inward over time.  By the time he mentioned it, it was too late to save what little vision remained.

In most thing you would never know he experienced live monoccularly, but on occasion, it would be apparent.  At the time the stereogram craze was happening.  There were Magic Eye books and posters all over the place and he couldn't see any of them because you needed depth perception so you could manipulate to pull the hidden picture into focus.  And depth perception requires two functioning eyes.  Those stereograms annoyed him.

And then there was the day he was driving down the road and he asked me to hold the wheel because his eye itched.  It hadn't occurred to me if you only have one working eye and have to close and rub it, even for the five seconds it might take to scratch that itch, you're blind.  From that point forward, glaucoma was something very real and very scary to me.

Recently, with my eye surgeries and vision variations, I've had one to three different drops needed in each eye at different times.  Currently, I'm only using a lubricating drop a few times in one eye, but there were months where I had steroid drops in both eyes multiple times each day.  And at one of my follow-up appointments, my normally low ocular pressure increased unexpectedly in one eye.  Instead of the two months return time, he immediately had me schedule for a month so we could watch the changing pressure.

They way they check the pressure is to put a little blue light up to your eye for a few seconds.  It doesn't touch your eye and it's the most soothing, relaxing sort of blue you can imagine.  When this happens, I always think of my sister-in-law who is dealing with some high ocular pressure of her own right now, and I send low pressure thoughts her way.  The best thing about this little blue light is there's no puff of air.  You can like the blue ring of soothing light and not become angry at it when it puffs at you when you least expect it.  And then, four seconds later, the reading is over.  It's eye pressure magic.

The good news is, as of today, without the need for post-operative steroid drops, pressure in both eyes is normal and low.  Additional good news is the vision in my right eye that had made big changes in the last month.  It had been very slowly improving with an expected time frame of up to twelve months to reach it's final, optimal vision.  It's now seeing at 20/25, which is tremendous considering four months ago it was a grumpy 20/200.

The expectation is for my vision to gradually improve over the next few months, with both eyes improving in opposite directions.  And by this I mean that the left eye will see better up close and the right eye will see better at distance.   The left eye is technically 20/15, but it's, shall I say, "unsatisfactory" up close, which is frustrating.  The right eye can now see 20/25, but it's not very good at distance, and I do like to know what those road signs say so I can make good choices while driving.

But my vision saga does seem to be drawing to a close.  And all good sagas should come to an end.  I sure hope this is one of those hundred percent happy endings.  I like those kinds the best when they involve me.

The Big Boy Update:  He has been busy lately saying cute things and making us laugh.  The other morning I was putting on his socks.  They were black socks, not his normal white with blue stripes socks.  He said, "Where my socks?" and I told him these were his socks.  He asked again.  I assured him these were his socks.  Then he said, "Daddy's socks" and I realized why he was asking.  Daddy wears black socks.  He must have thought those were daddy's socks.  Then, his hands were dirty he thought.  He looked over at the container of wipes and said, "Wipes."  I gave him a wipe (he'd never asked for wipes before.)   While he cleaned his hands with the wipe he said, "wash hands."  Then, when he was done he looked around, holding out the now dirty wipe and said, "trash can."  I blame school for this amazing, connected thought process, communication and preference for cleanliness. Oh, and at dinner the other night at a hibachi restaurant for my birthday, the waiter gave him chopsticks with the child holder added to them.  Not only did he pick up his shrimp successfully with them, he got the food in his mouth time and time again.  By the end of the meal he was trying to pick up rice with his new found utensil.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Up and down the stairs. At our house here on vacation, the stairs are carpeted and make a one hundred eighty degree turn at the mid-flight landing. There is also a railing available the whole way up and down, unlike at home, so we've been letting her go up and down the stairs alone. And she's been loving the freedom. There is tile at the bottom, but she's being careful and she's got to be given an opportunity to learn for herself, so we're hoping for the best.

Fitness Update:  Down Mount Everest. Today was our first ski day on vacation. The children are in the "kennel" and Brian and I had morning ski lessons while the rest of the skiers in the family did their own skiing. The lesson went well, Brian and I learned at a reasonable pace and we ran into our family after the lesson at lunch. After lunch it was decided a longer, wee bit harder green would be a good way for Brian and me to cap off our day of skiing. So up we go, past the first easy slope an onto a much longer, more steeper chairlift ascent. I told my husband that our instructor had recommended the green to the right at the top based on our skill. Once we got up top, it turned out there was only one green slope down that was groomed. And it looked like Mount Everest to me. I tried to switchback as much as I could. It might be dark when I get in, if I make it, that is. But both Brian and I did make it, and it looks like we may even go back and ski some more tomorrow.

Someone Once Said:  Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy.

The Clumsy Comiseration

I don't know why some people are clumsy and others are not.  And specifically, I don't know why I'm one of those clumsy people.  I think part of it is being in a hurry.  I try to get as much done as possible, at the same time.  For instance, if I start running the tub water now, I should be able to get the clothes in the washing machine and prepare the children's milks before the water is two inches high and they're ready to start their baths.

So some of my in a hurry-ness can cause me to not pay as much attention, evaluate a situation with the appropriate amount of care or be looking in one direction while doing something in another direction.  But that alone doesn't account for all the clumsy I seem to be saddled with.

For instance, at lunch I was preparing my daughter's plate.  I had it in my hand, wasn't in a particular hurry, opened the microwave door and as I put the plate into it, bam, I hit it on the bottom edge of the opening.  Bits of rice fly everywhere, including into the microwave, in the venting below it, on the floor, in the separation joint between the microwave and the stove.  And I feel like a fool.

I turn to my father-in-law and say, "What is it with me?  I feel like I'm not exceptionally dense, I can walk from here to the store and back without breaking a leg and yet I can't do the most mundane tasks without being a complete klutz?"  And he said he understood.  He has been a victim of inexplicable clumsyness himself.  He's a successful business man, a patient and caring father and a super grandfather (so says his daughter-in-law) and he, from what I can tell, doesn't rush through things like I do.  But it happens to him too.

It is a mystery.  Perhaps the being clumsy is something only the super-cool and ultra-amazing people have to deal with.

The Big Boy Update:  Cranky while tired.  He will throw a NOOOO!!! fit if he's tired and can't cope with reality after school.  He wants nothing, will try to throw anything and it's a battle to get a bit of food into him so he'll calm down and realize eating will help him, rather than hurt him.  The other day he was so upset we had to put him to sleep because he was too frustrated to eat.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  No pants?  She makes a mess at school, that we know.  She rolls down the hill and plays in the mulch and generally comes home looking something like a big ball of dirt with a runny nose.  Today, her teacher brought her out to the car, well before we were even at the pickup area.  Somehow, she had lost her pants.  She was filthy and she, "was having a very difficult time waiting."

Fitness Update:  Uncle Jonathan and I didn't make our Starbucks run, so I ran off to the park and tried very hard to run ten minute miles.  I made six miles in ten minutes, forty two seconds.  It was nice weather (sixty degrees) and it was fun running faster in the warmer temperature.

Someone Once Said:  Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.

I Used to Be a Dog

Yesterday was the Chinese New Year.  We celebrated by going to a Chinese restaurant, specifically the restaurant owned by my daughter's teacher and her husband.  There was an additional bonus, which was their daughter was selling homemade pies out in front of the restaurant to help raise funds for her horse riding goals this year.

So we went and had a delicious dinner.  My daughter had a messy dinner.  My son had a sleepy dinner.  And then we just about bought out some of the pie stock from Maddie's booth out front.  These were small, single person pies but they were very elegant looking and, as we found out later, each exceptionally delicious.  These weren't little girl cupcakes or brownies, these were pastries, and they were good.

But back to the meal and the Chinese New Year.  I was born in 1970 and 1970 was the Year of the Dog.  My mother-in-law said last night that she was also a Dog in the Chinese calendar.  And then I remembered something, I said, "I believe I thought I was a dog for many years, but for some reason, I think I'm actually not."  So we looked it up because I had no idea what I was.

We call the full year by the main animal for the year, but as the Chinese New Year wasn't starting in 2013 until yesterday, all of the people born before February 10th were a different animal than those born in the rest of the year.

And guess what, the Year of the Dog in 1970 started exactly one day after I was born.  So all this time I thought I was a dog person, but no, it turns out I'm a rooster.

The Big Boy Update:  Limp check.  His doctor checked his leg and limp out today, saw nothing she could diagnose, which is good.  Treat with ibuprofen for a few days and see if it improves on its own as it is hopefully just a strain or sprain.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Doggie no.  The other day the dog became interested in a toy my daughter had.  As the dog batted it away to play with it, my daughter said to her, "No.  noooooo.  NOOOOOOO. no. noooo..."  And then it was gone under the bed.  So she followed the dog and the toy under the bed.  Only she didn't realize she had to keep her head down.  I watched her bang and bang her head again as she got in to get the toy and then shimmy back out.  Hopefully she will have learned for next time.

Fitness Update:  Uncle Jonathan and I have a strange fitness plan today.  We're going to run up along the semi-busy, no sidewalk, large hilled road to the closest shopping strip and have a Starbucks coffee.  It's about two-and-a-half miles.  Then, after we're thoroughly full of milk and coffee and caffeinated, we're going to run back down that same hill with the grassy drop-off shoulders on the side of the road and come home in the damp, possibly drizzling weather.  It should be fun.

Someone Once Said:  The trouble with defining in words anything as basic as love is that the definition can’t be understood by anyone who has not experienced it.

The Anchovy Birthday

When I was a child my mother introduced me to anchovy pizza.  It's not something that's a favorite of many people, and more to the point it's a hated, repulsive topping to many people.  Worse yet, an anchovy pizza at a table can smell and bother your friends and family around you and thus make you and your meal objects of contempt and verbal abuse.

So I didn't order anchovy pizza often as a child and as an adult, I find I only really want anchovy pizza about once every eighteen months.  The eighteen months must have rolled around again because I decided that's just what I wanted for my birthday dinner.  Off we go to get pizza, only, "Which place do you want to go to, honey?"  "Um, I don't care, it's your birthday."  "Well, I can't decide, do you have a preference?"  And so on it went until my husband got on the highway in the wrong direction from the place I thought we'd decided on.

So we went to the other, just as good but different, place and we sat down and I ordered my two slices of anchovy pizza.  And then the server finds out they're out of anchovies.  He's excessively apologetic.  My husband said if he had turned the other direction on the highway I'd be having anchovy pizza tonight and he was sorry too.  I wasn't upset though, my craving could wait.  Their pizza was good.  It didn't need anchovies on it to make it a good meal.

Then, a few days later, we go out to dinner with my cousin's family.  And her daughter, who is my niece, (which makes no familial relationship sense at all but that's how we decided we were related one day for simplicity's sake so just you should just roll with it,) suggested we go to one of those wood-fired pizza places.

Great idea, good food, and this place wasn't out of anchovies.  I suppose I was craving anchovies more than I expected because I ate the whole pizza.  I don't recollect eating a whole pizza...well...before.  I'm sure as a youth I did, but I typically get full before I can finish the whole thing, even if I think I'm all over it when the pizza is delivered to my seat.

It's the next day and it's bedtime here but I'm thinking about that anchovy pizza, the fun dinner with family and how I think I could eat another pizza right now if it was sitting in front of me.  It might not be eighteen months before I order anchovy pizza again...

The Big Boy Update:  The limp.  He has a limp, has had a limp since Tuesday.  It doesn't seem to be getting better but there is no sign of what it is and he won't tell us where it's bothering him.  We've been hoping it will get better because it's from where he bruised himself or something simple, but we may have to take him to the doctor tomorrow and see if they can figure out anything before we leave for vacation on Tuesday.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  She pushed him back.  We are eagerly awaiting "The Great Smack Down," which is the day my daughter will be old enough and big enough and fed up enough to bully her brother back.  It's not yet happened, but she's getting more brazen.  Yesterday, she walked up to him and pushed him and said, "No!" and was defiant about it, even though her push was fairly tame in comparison to what her brother does to her.  When the smack down truly starts, Aunt Brenda is going to be the first one we call because she predicted it was coming.  And so it seems to be.  We see Aunt Brenda in two days, maybe she'll catch it in person?

Fitness Update:  Eight miles with my neighbor in the light, in the park.  She'd just gotten off work from a twenty-four hour shift at the hospital and for some reason, she wanted to go run for an hour-and-a-half instead of sleep.  We had a nice run through the park.  I overdressed as it was below freezing.  I lost more weight in sweat than I speculate I did on most hot summer runs.

Someone Once Said:  In handling a stinging insect, move very slowly.

The Old People Up the Hill and The House of Memories

When I was young, that kind of cute little girl young that is fun for adults to interact with, my mother would have me go and visit the retired neighbors that lived in the house behind us.  To me, this wasn't a fun adventure, it was a duty I had to put up with, because my mother said it must be done and it wouldn't take long.

Even though the house was just behind our house, it faced another street and I had to go around fences and up a long hill with steps to get to their front door.  They didn't go out much and they didn't play in the sand box or down at the creek and they weren't mommy or daddy to another child I played with so they had a sort of invisible existence up that hill behind the house to me.

I didn't want to go visit them because I wanted to play with other children.  But mom insisted.  And when I got there, they were always so friendly.  They both smiled and we sat down, maybe they offered me a glass of water, or maybe we just talked.  I know there was a lot of talking on their part.

They had a house that was full of this and that and things and they were all over the walls and the coffee tables and hanging from the windows and it was visually a very interesting house to visit.  It smelled like "old people" to me, which I don't think is exactly fair, because given what I know today, that "old people" smell is really just a musty smell.  But that's the first place I'd encountered it and today I still associate a musty house smell with the elderly.

We would talk about all kinds of things.  They would show me their crystals catching the sun rays in the kitchen.  They had delicate porcelain figurines they'd collected on one of their vacations many years ago.  There was intricate lace and small wooden boxes and all sorts of things that looked interesting to a child of my age, but at the same time screamed, "breakable, you'll get in trouble if you touch that".

They would show me their things and we would talk about what was happening in my life and eventually, I would say I had to go and I'd go home.  I don't know if they appreciated the visits my mother had me do over the years.  Did I add a bit of variety to their day?  Or was my mother trying to give me some experiences with people of all different ages?  I don't know.

They died years later after I had grown out of that "cute little girl who visits elderly neighbors" age and another family moved in with a little girl named Micah.  I will always remember those visits and the house full of a lifetime of memories.

The Big Boy Update:  The rotating potty and the poop.  My son had just finished his bath, when I told him it was his turn on the potty.  At that point the phone rang and while I watched him and talked to the caller, I saw him sit forwards, get up, sit on the potty backwards, then he got up, turned the potty insert around backwards and sat back down.  Nope, that didn't do it either, so he got up again and sat backwards on the potty with a turned around insert.  A minute later he was sitting back in the normal, forward orientation on the potty when he said, "Momma, I pooped."   Wait, what?  I came over, still on the phone, and boy, did he go.  I couldn't help but laugh and tell him how proud I was of him.  The person on the other end laughed with me because I explained what he had done and that this was a new, development.   Today, I left him again on the potty and a few minutes later he came out and said to daddy who had just gotten home, "Daddy, I poop." 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  She's been doing lots of things that just make you laugh at her cuteness lately.  Stealing Daddy's big, heavy phone when he's not looking, holding it to her head and saying, "hi, hi, hi."  Or turning around to see if anyone is looking when Mickey Mouse Clubhouse comes on and then grinning at you and dancing around and around to the theme song.  Then there's the pacifier and how she likes to throw it out of the crib so she can say, "uh oh" and have an excuse to get out of the bed to get it when she's suppose to be sleeping.  I also saw her get annoyed with the pacifier and throw it behind the bed, change her mind a minute later and then stick her arm deep, down behind the bed slats to find it and put it back into her mouth. 

Someone Once Said:  Money is the sincerest of all flattery. Women love to be flattered. So do men.

The Empty Bathroom Counter Corner

I have a corner on my bathroom counter that is for "right now" things.  It has things I need to use regularly, like my eye drops after surgery, that are not permanent.  Something that's a permanent use, like my multivitamin, gets a permanent home.  Temporary things stay on the counter and wait out their usefulness and will hopefully be gone sooner than later.

And that corner has had one or more things in it for ten months now.  My desire to have an empty counter corner, thus meaning I have no current health or recovery issues, is high.  It's very high.  And I'm starting to get annoyed.  But I think I'm close to an empty counter corner.

April and I have eye surgery.  I have a second eye surgery on the other eye.  I have follow-up procedures and additional things done so that my vision will be, hopefully, extraordinary.  I have months of steroid eye drops and lubricating eye drops and I am almost completely done with those.

I had a tooth extraction.  There was the antibiotics from the abscess surgery.  And there was pain medication because three holes in your bottom is painful.  Second abscess lancing and more antibiotics.  Terrible cold, steroidal nasal spray for my clogged Eustachian tubes. 

Right now there are only two little things left and those are for my ears as they work to become unclogged.  And then, with all my fingers crossed I say this, I'll have a clean counter corner.  That will be a happy day.

The Big Boy Update:  Uncle Bob. Uncle Bob's bread. This morning at breakfast he was asking about several people. He asks about his Uncle Bob sometimes and this morning apparently he was thinking about Uncle Bob and also Uncle Bob's bread. When Uncle Bob visits he always brings a loaf of homemade bread. The last loaf my son thought was better than ice cream and cookies. I told him he'd see Uncle Bob in a week when we go on vacation.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Bows?  Soon her hair is going to be long enough that it will start to get in her eyes.  We're going to have to so some Baby Bow Boot camp to condition her not to tear the bow out of her hair. 

Someone Once Said:  Rules serve best when broken.

The Meniscus Tear That Was Over There

The day I ran my first half-marathon, or wait, should that be "the" half-marathon since there has only been one?  Is that one word, "first" a subtle indicator by my swiftly typing fingers that I intend to run more races of half-marathon or longer length?  It's really depended on my knee for a good while now.  My right knee, that started hurting with a pain I liked to call at the beginning, "a little dinky pain" but turned into something much more later on.

November fourth and we're running in the race and pain appears and I've never had pain in my knee before.  And then it goes away several miles later.  But it comes back.  "Damn this pain, what is going on?"  Then it goes away again and we finish the race and, oh yeah, we rock, and I forgot all about the knee.

But it didn't forget about me.  The pain came back from time to time.  I had discussions with my neighbor who is a physician and we agreed I should try NSAIDs because it didn't sound like it was  damaged.  I had had no damaging event.  So I took Advil and Aleve as needed or in preparation of a run.  But the pain followed me.  Not every run, but some of them.  And other things like sitting in certain positions and it would hit me hard when I stood up.  Sometimes, after a run it would hurt the rest of the day.  Was I injured?  Was I injuring myself more?  Did I want to know if it meant I had to stop running?

Yes, I did want to know.  I had meniscus repair in 2004 and it was completely successful, I had to look for scars to remember which knee it was on.  Guess which one?  The one with the newly bothersome, non-dinky, situational knee pain.  Damn.

After having to stop running twice due to pain that bothered me so much I couldn't pretend nothing was wrong, I made an appointment with my surgeon from 2004.  An X-Ray and his mobility tests showed nothing wrong.  He talked to me about my physical activities and speculated I was dealing with a phenomenon that happens to athletes who focus on one sport.  Did you hear that?  He said, "athlete."  At almost forty-three I didn't hear the next two sentences because just over a year ago climbing stairs was a tiring event and my friends like to tell me how I'm old. 

Where was I?  Ah yes, athletes who don't cross train perhaps as much as they should.  So go get some exercises from this sports medicine physical therapy group and do some other activities like biking for a month to see if it gets better.  But...if it gets worse, call back and he'll have an MRI called in.

I was skeptical.  I believed it was a meniscus tear because of how behaved.  And clearly I have vast tracts of knowledge in both medicine and orthopedic surgery.  So I must be right.  Then, I got sick.

Two weeks and no running.  Not much of anything but resting and nose blowing.  When I'm better I can't help it, I need to run.  I need to see if my muscles have done some correcting with the time off as suggested.  That was the day I ran and ran and debated running even more but eventually came in at ten miles.  And all without pain...until the moment I stopped running.

I walked in the house, took walking steps and, OW! What in the world? OW!  I had to limp.  I limped for over a day and my knee didn't want to be bent.  Damn, I had hurt myself and I am a stupid oaf and I should have known better and it's got to be a meniscus tear.  Damn.

The next day I call and get an MRI scheduled.  And then, while I waited for the scheduling office to call me back, the pain went away.  The scheduling office isn't moving at a fast pace, phone calls ensue, my son has abscess surgery and I forget about the MRI and then I remember and call again.  Oh, and the pain went away.  Completely.  That's strange.

MRI scheduled but I go and run more and nope, no pain.  Or so little that two Advil before the run and I don't need anything after the run and it doesn't start hurting later.  Maybe there's some cartridge that's moved out of the way for now?

I have the MRI and the next day, wait, did I mention I'm about to go on a Ski trip next week and this was Monday?  So yes, MRI on Monday and my dreams of skiing are crumbling.  I get a phone call on Tuesday from the surgeon's nurse, unexpectedly and she says, "I have your MRI results.  You have a meniscus tear.  Can you come in tomorrow for a review of the results and are you available next week for surgery?"

Okay, that sounds scary.  It sounds like my knee is about to fall in or give way or go out or something.  "No, I can't do surgery next week because I'm on a ski trip, but could I still come in and see him so I can understand my limitations before surgery?  Okay, and you have an opening on the 20th for surgery, sure, we're back and I'll take that slot."

The next day as I wait in the waiting room at the doctor's office I am decidedly anxious.  They take my normally very low blood pressure twice because it's high.  The Physician's Assistant comes in to review surgery details.  He explains that I have a "Complex Medial Meniscus tear"   Wait, medial?  No, no, I don't have medial pain (medial is the inside of your knee)  I explain that I have no medial pain, my pain is in a specific lateral area (on the outside of my knee.)

He looks confused, has me put on their examination shorts so the doctor can look at my knee and manipulate it and talk to me.  The doctor comes in, messes around with my knee.  We discuss how I have no medial pain, have never had medial pain, only this one spot laterally.  He says, "come out here and look at this MRI with me."

I look at that MRI and I have a medial meniscus tear.  And apparently it's "complex" but I don't have any problems there.  He said, "Well, good news, you don't need surgery.  We don't treat asymptomatic issues and you're fine" 

So what's with the lateral side pain issues I've been having?  He still thinks that's the problem he mentioned before with the development of the muscles.  So it's cross training and exercises from the physical therapist in the future.

And what about the meniscus tear that wasn't bothering me?  Can I ski next week?  He says, "Absolutely."  And train for more races, I ask?  He says, "I don't see why not."  Can I explain at this point how animated and excited I got?  We were all smiling in the exam room.  I did talk with him about symptoms I should be aware of in the future if a problem does develop.  Clicking, popping, weakness, my knee giving out and, of course, pain.  And so far, I have zero of those.

That was yesterday, so ski trip, here I come.  Marathon?  To be decided...

The Big Boy Update:  Limp?  Two days ago after lunch at the park we noticed he had a slight limp.  Was it sand in his shoe?  Had he grown out of his sneakers?  Was there something smelly in his pants?  It was none of those things and the limp persists, two days later with no apparent cause.  We've asked him what hurts but nothing seems to be bothering him.  Maybe he's adopted a cowboy swagger.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  "Pow Pow"  This means she wants powder.  She's had a diaper rash for several days and the powder feels good.  And now she knows how to ask for it.

Fitness Update: Six and Six more, again.  What with the happy determination that I do not need surgery on my knee, I ran six miles in celebration with Uncle Jonathan yesterday afternoon and then another six with my neighbor this morning.  I packed a lot of happy and relief into those twelve miles.

Someone Once Said:  This is Freedom Hall, my dear. Everyone does as he pleases…then if he does something I don’t like, I kick him the hell out.

Ketchup

Time to catch up on some random topics again.  Little things that don't merit a full blog post, or so it would seem to me.

The Flying Sprint
Uncle Jonathan and I were out running the other day when a man dashed, and I mean dashed by us running at full speed.  I told him way to show us up and he said he was just practicing sprints.  Shortly, he turned around and ran back at normal speed before starting another short sprint.  Last night I decided to practice some sprinting myself.  I started sprinting and I was running fast, so fast, so not-possible fast.  I was running so fast that, just like this quote from Through The Looking Glass where Alice goes down stairs, my feet started floating off the concrete: "She just kept the tips of her fingers on the hand-rail, and floated gently down without even touching the stairs with her feet."   And what was even more amazing was that I didn't get tired.  I was sprinting full out and I wasn't even winded.  Also, I was dreaming.

It's One Car Again
Have you ever had a thought that just popped into your head and on reflection realized it made no sense?  I took our minivan, that desperately needed a cleaning inside and out, to the car wash yesterday.  There was salt and dirt and drywall dust on the outside and the inside had food and playground sand and school mulch and dust all over it.  When I got back inside the car there was so much less visual distraction from all the debris that I thought, "Ahhh, it's one car again."  Yeah, makes no sense, I know.  I will be checking into the mental institution as soon as I figure out where the free one is.

The Two Types of Mornings
Some mornings I wake up to preparing breakfasts, getting children ready for school and having a clean load of laundry to fold and clean dishes to unload.  But some mornings, like this morning, there is no laundry to fold and the dishwasher was emptied last night.  And I can sigh, sit down with a cup of coffee and a honey English muffin and relax while my children make a mess of their breakfast plates.  I like mornings like today.

Australia, The Grand Canyon and that other place
This is not a travel topic.  It's the names I've given the three surgical sites on my backside from the abscess surgery.  "Australia" refers to the one that was an Australian-shaped hole.  It's doing quite well and is not even remotely Australian-shaped anymore.  Go healing.  "That other place" is the very small site that closed very quickly and will most likely not even be noticeable in a year.  Then there is "The Grand Canyon" which was the initial, and largest site.  I now understand how important it is to keep packing the wound for as long as you can because any area that doesn't fill in from the interior will be a divot after the final healing.  Given the size of this main area, it's healing very well, but it's going to some time before The Grand Canyon is less than grand.

The Big Boy Update:  Shoulder Pasta.  Last night after we'd removed his bandage, removed and trimmed an inch of packing and let him play in the bath for a while, we sat him on the counter where he can look at himself while we dry his hair.  He knows all about his "boo boo's."  He was looking at his shoulder, which had about an inch of packing hanging out of the incision and said, "pasta!"  And it did indeed look like pasta.  Shoulder pasta.  Boo boo pasta.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My Birthday Song.  Her brother can sing a line of the Happy Birthday song.  He likes to sing it regularly.  Yesterday on the way home from lunch, I was singing the birthday song in the car.  I stopped and I couldn't believe it, but my daughter can sing "ha pah buhhhh da" and once she get's started, she keeps at it.  It was a sweet and unexpected gift for my birthday from her.  I told my husband about it and later that night in the car we sang, and again, she sang back.

Someone Once Said:  I would rather have your respect than your tolerance