Sweet Shrimp

I used to eat sushi a lot.  That was before I got married and had children.  The children are part of the reason, but the other part is the husband half.  He's not a fan of sushi. 

Today I had a solicitation meeting and the person I was meeting suggested sushi.  Would it be wrong of me to respond in the email with a great big, "HELL YES"?  I didn't go that far, but I assured her it was one of the best options for lunch she could have choosen.

We met and had a very lovely lunch.  I ate lots of sushi, but the one piece I savored the most was the Sweet Shrimp.

Sweet shrimp is different from the normal shrimp you get.  First, the shrimp part isn't cooked.  You're eating raw shrimp.  And it is good.  But the part that's the best is that they then take the head of that shrimp, dip it in some batter and fry the whole thing (tentacles and all) and serve it up to you as a side to the shrimp body.

It's crunchy.  It's shrimpy.  It's scrumptious.  It was a delightful lunch with great company.

The Bit Boy Update:  He told daddy, "my butt is hurting on the inside."  Was he constipated or was he just getting the message that he needed to go to the potty?  We're not sure, but when he got there, things happened.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  "I want sel-dur-real."  My daughter told me this for two days.  I didn't know if she wanted "cereal" or "celery" so I offered her celery.  She liked celery.

Suddenly Sinus Surgery

Remember that tooth that I had all those root canals and root-ectomy and ultimately extraction procedures on?  That tooth is back.  Well, it's not back, it's still in play.

I want to get an implant there, but to do so I had to wait four months for the extraction to heal and bone to fill in.   That time has passed, the endodontist is ready to implant the screw and wait, hold on, the maxillary sinus above the jaw looks filled.  It shouldn't be filled.  "You need to go see an ENT", he told me.   Blast.

My upper left side is now two molars down (plus the third wisdom tooth I didn't have room for when I was eighteen) and I have a lower left molar that may migrate north if it's not opposed by an upper tooth at some point.  Also, I'm tired of doing most of the major chewing on the right side.

Off I go to the ENT and one CT scan later reveals the left maxillary sinus is, yes, full.   So fourteen days of antibiotics in the hopes of avoiding surgery (he thinks I'm going to need it but this is what the insurance company is going to require) and then we'll do another CT scan. 

Fourteen days later and it's a wee bit better, but not clear and not good enough for my endodontist to insert two screws into the sinus space, gently moving the sinus membrane out of the way in the process.  That would be fine, well and good, provided the sinus could adequately drain and heal as designed.  A blocked sinus doesn't do that well and if things went truly, badly wrong, I suppose I could lose my head and that's really not the outcome I was looking for.

So we scheduled surgery.  Monday it is.  I was on his schedule as fast as he could get me in.  Monday morning very early, let's do this thing and get that sinus open and cleared out.   Friday afternoon I get a call from his office.  Insurance hasn't given approval.  Monday is cancelled.  But not to worry, he can see me Tuesday if the approval comes in on Monday.  I'll get a phone call on Monday and we'll go from there.

This morning (today is Tuesday if you're reading this at some future point) the phone rings at six-thirty.  It's the hospital.  Where am I?  I have surgery in an hour.  "I do?  I didn't hear insurance had approved it.  No one has called me.  What do you want me to do?"

And this is where I'm going to spare you the details about how the ENT's office did some amazing things, making calls to the insurance company, giving them the doctor's personal cell phone number (while he's in surgery) so that they could get me in at some point today. 

Back up to that phone call at six-thirty the nurse said, "have you eaten anything?  You haven't?  Good, then don't!  We're going to try to get you in.  We'll call you back."

It was eleven-fifty-five, my husband and I were in line to pick up the children and I was hungry when I found out I was approved.  Could I get there in no time flat?  Yes, I could!  I was already in the car and only ten minutes away.

Now my sinus has been opened up and soon, yes soon, the endodontist will be able to get me one step closer to being able to chew on the left side of my mouth again.  But for now, I wish my nose would stop bleeding because I look silly with a gauze bandage taped to my face.

The Big Boy Update:  Doozers.  There is a show Uncle Jonathan showed my son.  In one viewing, my son obsessed.  He asked about the show multiple times today.  Before bed my husband let him watch it and through unrelated thing, showed my son the binoculars Gramps had brought over earlier.  I heard my son say, "oh wow, that's better."  Then he said, "it's smaller than ever."   My husband laughed.  He said the Doozers show had two characters holding binoculars.  One of the characters was using them correctly and said, "oh wow, that's better."  The other character was looking through them backwards.  He said my son had turned the binoculars around, looked through them backwards and said the same comment the character did, "it's smaller than ever."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Another update from her visit with Mimi yesterday: We went outside to play, and her hand found some mud. I wiped off as much of the mud as I could with a tissue, but she still had a dirty hand. I told her I would clean her dirty hand when we went inside. We played outside some more and most of the mud rubbed off. When we went inside she looked at her hand and said, “Where did the dirty go?”

Split Lip

Have you ever gotten chapped lips so badly that your lip split right down the middle and bled?   It's happened to me before and I always make sure to put lots of chap stick-type stuff on whenever I get even the hint that there's some sort of dermal-based instability in one of my lips.  I really, really, really don't want to have my lip split open and bleed, and that's because it happened to me once...a long time ago...when I was a child.

I'm not sure how old I was, but I'd guess somewhere between eight and eleven.  I don't know why I'm guessing that age, but I'm synthesizing many things from my brain that's telling me how high I was in relation to counter tops (indicating how tall I was), who my friends were (giving insight into what grade I was in) and how my parents treated me (showing how mature I was).

This lip crack was not minor.  It was big.  It was on my lower lip and it was so large that it would bleed.  It was puffy on either side and try as it might, it just couldn't heal.  I'm not sure how long it lasted, but from what I remember, it was a fixture on my face for quire some time.

I don't know what caused this particular lip split to be so bad, but it went on and on and on.  Were there no good healing medications at that time that I could have put on it to help in the repairing process?  Did I pick at it and make it worse?  Did I go around smiling great big lip-stretching smiles at babies and puppies, re-cracking the healed part again and again?  Or did I just not care?  I don't know.  I don't remember.

I know it was bad and it lasted for some time, but I only have one specific memory of that time.  I was at McDonalds waiting in line with my father to order some food.  The person behind the counter asked me if I knew my lip was split open or something equally obvious like, "did you know your lip looks terrible?"  I told him I knew and then he continued to take our order, looking a bit embarrassed about the whole thing.

Wait, wait, wait...hold on.  I think I remember what he said now.  I think my lip had just cracked back open again and it was bleeding.  He must have said something along the lines of, "did you know your lip is bleeding?"  That makes more sense.  Anyway, I assured him I did and we went on to enjoy our meal, mine somewhat more bloody than my father's.

The Big Boy Update:  "I like doing the burpees."   My son said this while he was working on the iPad.  I said, "do you mean you like doing the Barbie app?"   Ah, yes, that's what he meant.  Am I upset that "burpee" (a type of pushup) is a more common term in our house than Barbie?  No, not really. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter spent the afternoon at Mimi's.  They spent three hours together doing all sorts of fun things only a grandmother and granddaughter can do.  When I arrived to pick her up, she came to me, grabbed my hand and told me she wanted to take me to see Mimi.  Mom sent me an email of all the "blog worthy" things she said today.   Hooray for Mimi.  I'm always looking for blog-worthy items.   Here's one of the blog updates from Mimi:  She ate some cheese, followed by drinking a small glass of orange juice. She ate some more cheese and reached for the glass. She looked inside and said ”there’s no nothing in here.”

Fitness Update:  An hour in the gym this morning and then an hour in the fitness room with Uncle Jonathan this afternoon.  I hope I'm going to be sore tomorrow, because if I'm not, it means I didn't work hard enough.

It's Like It's Summer

Today was such a nice day.  We were out in the back yard and my children got naked (don't even ask, because I've stopped asking at this point.)  

You had to ask...  Okay, we were outside and I got the water table out and the kids decided to take the umbrella off the top and then, well, I suppose it just looked like a little pool to them and that meant they needed to take their clothes off because you don't go swimming in your clothes we said.  So there was toddler nudity.

Then, my neighbor said he was getting their slip and slide out and would we like to come over and oh, could you put some clothes on your kids because they didn't want their kids getting any naked ideas.  So we found suits for everyone and then we hung out in their back yard.

My running buddy and two of her children came over (because we wanted to run but it wasn't looking like that was going to happen) and Walter made some sort of fruity alcoholic drink for us.   We drank that while the kids knocked back juice boxes and slipped and slid and splashed in the pool.

It really felt like summer today.  I even have the sun burn to prove it. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son got stuck behind a chair this morning.  He got stuck and he wanted some help.  He yelled out from behind the chair, "if no one helps me, I'm going to be so disappointed."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  "I want carrots"  (she told me this morning for breakfast).  And apparently she did.  She ate carrots and when her brother woke up and saw her eating carrots he wanted some too.

Astounding, Amazing, Unbelieveable, Very Advanced and Other Inaccurate Superlatives

I have cute kids...to me.  Okay, I have cute kids to me, my parents, my in-laws, and several other people who are fond of them.  They're in that very active time in their physical and mental development where they learn things in leaps and bounds.  Leave for a week and when you come back my children will be doing something you've never seen before.   It's a truly remarkable time of development.

I don't know much about children.  I didn't baby sit a lot and I didn't have friends with young children I spent time around.  So when I see my offspring do something unexpected, it does seem pretty darned amazing.  That same experience has been happening around the world for eons, as parents and loved ones look at little Harpo and say, "did you see him do that?  He's so advanced!"

I'm a skeptic and a realist and so I wondered, is my kid really that truly exceptional offspring known as a "genius"?  Or, is it just a basic instinct to think our children are far superior to the children all those other people have?

I watch the other parents.  I watch the other children.  I mentally compare to see if my son and daughter (who are finishing up their second semester of calculus tonight while they sleep) are really that much more advanced than the other kids.

For the most part, my kids are about par.  In some cases, my kids are mental and physical rock stars.  In other cases, my children have a thing or twenty to learn in order to catch up.   Either way, as a parent I'm happy that my children are thriving, have friends and are happy.

The Big Boy Update:  Rough and Rumble.  My son likes to be physical sometimes.  I hear it's a boy thing and not just my son being aggressive.  I was skeptical, but since hearing that I've been watching other boys and boys just like to play rough.  We're still working on when it's appropriate to play rough and how to recognize when someone doesn't like you playing rough with them.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles: I want to go to sleep.  She's told me that several times recently at the end of the night.  Even with the excitement of movie night and an upcoming birthday cake song to be sung, she wanted to go to bed.   When she asks to go to bed, she falls straight to sleep.

The Buzzert Deferral

I saw something happen when I substituted at school and I was so impressed, I said to myself, "some day I'll be able to do that with my children."  I watched some children ask for something they wanted.  It might have been as simple as, "can we go outside to play?"  The teacher said to them, "you can when you clean up your work." 

So the children, with some reminders to keep them on track, cleaned up their work.  Then, she said, "okay, you need to go to the potty before you go outside."  The children each took a turn going to the bathroom by themselves.  Then, when they asked if they could go outside, the teacher said, "you need to have our outside shoes and jacket on to go outside."  So the children got ready with their shoes and jackets. 

During all of this, the teacher was doing other things and helping other children.  She didn't put up their work, she didn't help them go to the bathroom and she didn't assist them in getting dressed for outdoors.  These children did it all by themselves and they were three or four-years-old. 

The children didn't complain or balk at the instructions and they weren't overly upset that it took them a half of an hour to finally be able to go outside.  It was wonderful to watch.

This afternoon my children wanted "buzzert" after lunch; only they hadn't eaten their lunch.  They did several things with toys, still asking for buzzert and eventually they came back and ate their lunches, all without me having to do anything other than remind them the requirements for dessert. 

When they were done, they had to put their plates and cups on the counter, go to the bathroom and put on their shoes.  Then, I told them if they went outside to the playground, I would bring them buzzert, gah, I mean dessert (they have me saying it wrong now.)

It was two-o'clock when they finally got dessert from lunch, but I didn't have to cajole them or do anything other than let them know the requirements for getting for having dessert.  It felt like all the perseverance in parenting and not giving in with all the toddler testing finally paid off.

The Big Boy Update:  He had a good first day back at school from vacation this week.  Some days he has a hard time focusing on his work and we were worried he would have a difficult time getting back into the groove of school.  I'm glad he remembered his friends and the routine of school.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  She did not have a good first day back at school after vacation.  There was an underpants issue while we were on vacation and she got stuck in diapers for some of the trip.  On her first day back in the three hours that she was in school, she wet five pair of underpants.   The good news is, she remembered how to use the potty on her second day back, although she's still working on remembering at home.

Fitness Update:  Workout at the gym this morning and seven miles this afternoon.  After all the Easter food and candy, it's about dang time I got back on the exercising.

Twenty Steps to Trash

We live in a disposable environment.  It wasn't always like this and we're working to make corrections to our habits.  But habits die hard some times. 

My husband and I met my mother for lunch yesterday after picking up the children from school.  We decided to go to Subway because they have food that works for each of us well.   We met there at about the same time, all stood in line and our food was piled up at the cash register for us to purchase it. 

This was a complicated procedure, not for the people behind the counter, but for the adults who were trying to get two hungry children to wait and not touch everything and not run everywhere and not yell and not hit each other and not do, well, I forget because right about that time it was time to pay for the order.

I grab the food, walk over to the table and start to serve things to my children.  But in order to be able to do that, I have to unwrap and unload the food from the packaging it's been contained in.  Each sub was in a bag.  Inside the bag was a big wrapper and then there was a smaller piece of paper on which the sandwich was crafted.  Plastic bag...trash, big wrapper...trash.  I had to go to the trash can to throw away things just to clear off space at the table so the five of us could start eating. 

I had taken twenty steps from the counter to where we were going to eat, and we had generated trash just from that short trip.  It made me a little sad to think about how much went into making those items, just so we could instantly discard them.

We are getting better and more mindful as a society.  There are some fast food restaurants who serve your meal to you on reusable plates, but we have a long way to go to rethink our throw-away society into one of sustainability.

The Big Boy Update:  "Daddy, there's a rock in my pants...I didn't put it there."  (It was poop.)

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has figured out how to climb up the shelves in the closets.  I was surprised to see her three feet up the other day, looking at daddy's change container.  I asked her to show me how she got up there.  She climbed down and back up with ease.  I called daddy in, showed him her new trick and told him if his change was missing, his daughter might be off buying candy or juice boxes with it.