My children were eating dinner at the two bar seats beside the kitchen sink tonight. They were lollygagging. They were dawdling. They were fidgeting. And most of all, they weren't eating their dinners. I didn't mind if they didn't eat their dinner, because they could eat a larger breakfast in the morning. (This is what happens when you don't like or want what's been served to you.)
It was then that I had it explained to me that they would really like cookies. That would be just the thing. I explained that once they had eaten all their broccoli and rice, they would be eligible for a cookie. They became suddenly interested in their food. They started eating. And as it always goes with rice, they started spilling things on the floor.
I knew they did this. I didn't think it was all that bad in the past. They got done, ate their cookies and headed off somewhere. That's when I saw the mess. The big mess. The rice all over the floor and the cookie crumbs on the chair. And how did they get the rice to fall that far away from their chairs? That's when I realized we were missing our cleaner.
Our dog is visiting my in-laws. My dog loves my mother-in-law. I knew the dog cleaned up any droppings, but I didn't have a true appreciation for the scope of the job until tonight when I was on my hands and knees, wiping up rice and cookie crumbs.
The Big Boy Update: We had our school's Thanksgiving celebration in the classrooms today. My son's class all went around and said one thing they were thankful for. My son said, "I'm thankful for daddy coming to my class."
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter can completely wash her hair on her own. She lies back and gets her hair wet in the tub, squirts shampoo on her hair, rubs all around making a nice lather and then rinses it off. Sometimes she washes her hair two or three times.
Fitness Update: Five miles. It was unseasonably warm weather this morning which made for a fun run.
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Monday, November 24, 2014
The Sandwich Crust Consideration
We have to be careful as parents. Children want to push and test and see what they can and can't do. They're all about boundaries. Or at least they are at three-years-old. I have a strong suspicion they will continue to be all about boundaries until they're grown and out of the house—and I wouldn't be surprised if they still tried to push boundaries even then.
If you give a child one jelly bean will they be happy? Yes, they probably will be. But I would bet a large sum of money that that child will ask for a second jelly bean. I'd put even odds that the child would ask for a second jelly bean even before finishing the first jelly bean. They might even ask for a second jelly bean before you've placed the first jelly bean in their hand.
You have to make a decision in your mind about what you're willing to do and what you're not willing to do and you have to, must do, and without fail, follow your plan. Unless, that is, if you want your cute little children to become whining, yelling, screaming, tantrum machines. They're going to do this anyway, but it's how often they do it and to what degree they will go until they realize they're not going to win and give in that you're working on.
If you set a precedent that they can get another jelly bean if they're persistent enough and wear you down with asking, begging and pleading, I can assure you you will get a lot more of the asking, begging and pleading in the future.
Have you been out to a restaurant and seen a child get ready to throw a fit and then the parent says no in a serious but emphatic voice and then seen that child accept the decision and move on to something else and not be upset by it? Have you seen a child throw a tantrum in a restaurant and watch as the parents give in to whatever the child wants just so he or she will quiet down and not be an embarrassment? I expect my children do to the former, not the latter.
Point in fact, my children are still learning and we are dealing with a lot of the second scenario right now. My husband doesn't like our children to make loud noises and disturb other tables around him and I agree, it is rude and inconsiderate. So, we end up hauling our children outside until they calm down. (And by children, I am mostly referring to my son, who is very strong-willed and opinionated.)
But we are not giving up. We don't plan on giving up. Today my son picked up his hotdog and was horrified that there was black char on part of it. He declared it yucky and I was afraid he was going to throw it on the floor (which would have been the end of his meal, no matter how hungry he was.) He was upset and started making this annoying wailing noise he makes when he desperately needs to ingest some calories. My husband took the hot dog and was about to get the black off when I realized we were at a precedence-setting junction.
I said something and my husband agreed saying, "yes, it's like cutting the crusts off a sandwich." So he handed the hot dog back to my son, telling him if he didn't like the black part, he didn't have to eat it and we could give it to his sister. My son ate the hot dot. He stopped complaining about the black char. Undesirable precedence setting event avoided.
I liked my husband's analogy of the crustless sandwich situation. The crust doesn't taste that much different than the bulk of the bread, but if you start off cutting off the crusts, you may well find yourself cutting off the crusts for a long, long time to come.
The Big Boy Update: My son used a urinal today. I don't go into the men's room with him so I didn't know if he'd ever done so before. My husband said he's done it once before, and that today was an easy one for him because the urinal went all the way down to the floor.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Ghi Ghi and Gah Gah. My children have two "friends" they include in their games together sometimes. These two friends aren't full imaginary friends, but references to people they want to invite places or bring a meal to or perform some sort of medical experiments on. Their names come up all the time. My son corrected my pronunciation today so at least I know I've got their names correct now: Ghi Ghi and Gah Gah (not related to the Lady Ga Ga I'm fairly certain.)
Fitness Update: It may well be that our trainer is trying to get us to pre-burn off all the calories we'll be eating on Thanksgiving. It was a tough day at the gym. My neighbor, Uncle Jonathan and I also signed up for another Marathon that's in March of next year. This one isn't on pavement, which makes me actually interested in doing it. We've been looking at training schedules today and it looks like we're going to need to get serious about training in less than a month.
If you give a child one jelly bean will they be happy? Yes, they probably will be. But I would bet a large sum of money that that child will ask for a second jelly bean. I'd put even odds that the child would ask for a second jelly bean even before finishing the first jelly bean. They might even ask for a second jelly bean before you've placed the first jelly bean in their hand.
You have to make a decision in your mind about what you're willing to do and what you're not willing to do and you have to, must do, and without fail, follow your plan. Unless, that is, if you want your cute little children to become whining, yelling, screaming, tantrum machines. They're going to do this anyway, but it's how often they do it and to what degree they will go until they realize they're not going to win and give in that you're working on.
If you set a precedent that they can get another jelly bean if they're persistent enough and wear you down with asking, begging and pleading, I can assure you you will get a lot more of the asking, begging and pleading in the future.
Have you been out to a restaurant and seen a child get ready to throw a fit and then the parent says no in a serious but emphatic voice and then seen that child accept the decision and move on to something else and not be upset by it? Have you seen a child throw a tantrum in a restaurant and watch as the parents give in to whatever the child wants just so he or she will quiet down and not be an embarrassment? I expect my children do to the former, not the latter.
Point in fact, my children are still learning and we are dealing with a lot of the second scenario right now. My husband doesn't like our children to make loud noises and disturb other tables around him and I agree, it is rude and inconsiderate. So, we end up hauling our children outside until they calm down. (And by children, I am mostly referring to my son, who is very strong-willed and opinionated.)
But we are not giving up. We don't plan on giving up. Today my son picked up his hotdog and was horrified that there was black char on part of it. He declared it yucky and I was afraid he was going to throw it on the floor (which would have been the end of his meal, no matter how hungry he was.) He was upset and started making this annoying wailing noise he makes when he desperately needs to ingest some calories. My husband took the hot dog and was about to get the black off when I realized we were at a precedence-setting junction.
I said something and my husband agreed saying, "yes, it's like cutting the crusts off a sandwich." So he handed the hot dog back to my son, telling him if he didn't like the black part, he didn't have to eat it and we could give it to his sister. My son ate the hot dot. He stopped complaining about the black char. Undesirable precedence setting event avoided.
I liked my husband's analogy of the crustless sandwich situation. The crust doesn't taste that much different than the bulk of the bread, but if you start off cutting off the crusts, you may well find yourself cutting off the crusts for a long, long time to come.
The Big Boy Update: My son used a urinal today. I don't go into the men's room with him so I didn't know if he'd ever done so before. My husband said he's done it once before, and that today was an easy one for him because the urinal went all the way down to the floor.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Ghi Ghi and Gah Gah. My children have two "friends" they include in their games together sometimes. These two friends aren't full imaginary friends, but references to people they want to invite places or bring a meal to or perform some sort of medical experiments on. Their names come up all the time. My son corrected my pronunciation today so at least I know I've got their names correct now: Ghi Ghi and Gah Gah (not related to the Lady Ga Ga I'm fairly certain.)
Fitness Update: It may well be that our trainer is trying to get us to pre-burn off all the calories we'll be eating on Thanksgiving. It was a tough day at the gym. My neighbor, Uncle Jonathan and I also signed up for another Marathon that's in March of next year. This one isn't on pavement, which makes me actually interested in doing it. We've been looking at training schedules today and it looks like we're going to need to get serious about training in less than a month.
Sunday, November 23, 2014
The Raggedy Writer
I try to write this blog using correct grammar, I try to punctuate the content in these posts using standard rules. I do my best to write without too terribly many typos (even though they sneak in all the time.) And I try not to be too dreadfully dull.
Typos seem to run amok in my writing, but since most days I "write and run," I can accept the ones that sneak in, it's the punctuation that bothers me the most. For instance, should there have been a comma before "write and run" in the sentence above? Should there have been one after the quotations and if so, should it have been inside or outside the quotation marks?
And terminal punctuation. Does that give you fits too? For example, take the sentence: "let's meet at eight." Does the period go inside or outside the quotation? I thought I knew the rule (it was dependent on the quotation: inside for stand-alone clauses, outside otherwise.) And then I found out that rule was Brittish and that American rules were, "firmly established" in that punctuation was always inside the ending quotation mark. Or wait, it was if the punctuation was a period of a comma. If it was an exclamation mark or a question mark then the rule varied based on the sentence.
I thought I had it. I thought I understood the rules and yet with more reading the situation turns out to be even more complicated. I'm not giving up though. So if you don't mind my grammatical and punctuational errors, (and my desire to use made up words like "punctuational,") then i'll keep writing, typos and all.
The Big Boy Update: My son came downstairs this morning, climbed onto the bed and told me, "i want chocolate cake for my birthday." Then he said, "is it Christmas already?"
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter asked for a paper towel at the restaurant the other day. She brought it back out to our table and then I realized what she wanted. She wanted me to tuck it into the back of her shirt to make a cape. She wore that paper towel cape for almost an hour.
Typos seem to run amok in my writing, but since most days I "write and run," I can accept the ones that sneak in, it's the punctuation that bothers me the most. For instance, should there have been a comma before "write and run" in the sentence above? Should there have been one after the quotations and if so, should it have been inside or outside the quotation marks?
And terminal punctuation. Does that give you fits too? For example, take the sentence: "let's meet at eight." Does the period go inside or outside the quotation? I thought I knew the rule (it was dependent on the quotation: inside for stand-alone clauses, outside otherwise.) And then I found out that rule was Brittish and that American rules were, "firmly established" in that punctuation was always inside the ending quotation mark. Or wait, it was if the punctuation was a period of a comma. If it was an exclamation mark or a question mark then the rule varied based on the sentence.
I thought I had it. I thought I understood the rules and yet with more reading the situation turns out to be even more complicated. I'm not giving up though. So if you don't mind my grammatical and punctuational errors, (and my desire to use made up words like "punctuational,") then i'll keep writing, typos and all.
The Big Boy Update: My son came downstairs this morning, climbed onto the bed and told me, "i want chocolate cake for my birthday." Then he said, "is it Christmas already?"
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter asked for a paper towel at the restaurant the other day. She brought it back out to our table and then I realized what she wanted. She wanted me to tuck it into the back of her shirt to make a cape. She wore that paper towel cape for almost an hour.
Saturday, November 22, 2014
Fine, Beat Each Other Up
This morning I had had it. The children weren't being kind, gentle, gracious or even friendly to one another. My daughter was wanting to hit her brother over the head with a small, wooden toy. My son wanted to make monster sounds at her, bear his, "claws" and push her down.
Normally I would step in. This morning I decided I was mad enough (at something entirely unrelated to the children) and I let them fight it out. I wanted to see what would happen.
I told them I was not going to help them and if they didn't like what the other one was saying or doing, then they could go somewhere else. And then I watched and waited. Interestingly enough, the physical fighting part was over fairly quickly. They were annoyed at each other for a very short while and then they were the best of friends, happily running off together on some adventure that got them locked outside without jackets on in forty-degree weather.
In short, they worked it out. It's important that we help our children learn that physical violence isn't the best way to work out differences. They're young and they are learning to express themselves in words and in order to do that, they need to understand how they feel. It's a lot for three-year-olds (wow, still strange thinking I have two children of the same age right now.)
But sometimes, children need to be physical. They're not monks in meditation all day and it's not fair for us to expect them to behave as such. I didn't see either of them doing anything dangerous or harmful; they were just mad and wanted to express how mad they were (at what, I really don't know.)
I'm going to see how they work things out on their own more in the future.
The Big Boy Update: My son is learning things at school. He successfully zipped his own jacket two times today, including lining up the initial tab to start the zip. He also wanted to talk to me all about the second hand, minute hand and hour hand on the clock today. He was quite interested in counting out the seconds, even if he wasn't sure what he was counting towards.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter likes to color. Okay, scribble. More like make a mess on a piece of paper. But things are starting to take form of late. She does more curvy lines and tries to make something specific, telling us exactly what she's drawn. Today, she colored in a shape on one of the dry erase boards. She worked very hard to stay within the lines. We had talked about this a while back, but she didn't have the fine motor skills (or perhaps inclination) to do it. She was quite pleased with herself today when she colored in the penguin's body. Then she immediately got the eraser and wiped it clean so she could do it again.
Fitness Update: Five miles. This is an interesting five miles though. It's not running. It's not even outside. Today we spent time in the house, went to a two-hour birthday party and then came home. It's bedtime now and we're still in the house. My iPhone tracks steps and apparently I've done almost twelve-thousand steps today, racking up over five miles of distance walked...mostly in the house. I knew I moved around a lot in the house, but I had no idea.
Normally I would step in. This morning I decided I was mad enough (at something entirely unrelated to the children) and I let them fight it out. I wanted to see what would happen.
I told them I was not going to help them and if they didn't like what the other one was saying or doing, then they could go somewhere else. And then I watched and waited. Interestingly enough, the physical fighting part was over fairly quickly. They were annoyed at each other for a very short while and then they were the best of friends, happily running off together on some adventure that got them locked outside without jackets on in forty-degree weather.
In short, they worked it out. It's important that we help our children learn that physical violence isn't the best way to work out differences. They're young and they are learning to express themselves in words and in order to do that, they need to understand how they feel. It's a lot for three-year-olds (wow, still strange thinking I have two children of the same age right now.)
But sometimes, children need to be physical. They're not monks in meditation all day and it's not fair for us to expect them to behave as such. I didn't see either of them doing anything dangerous or harmful; they were just mad and wanted to express how mad they were (at what, I really don't know.)
I'm going to see how they work things out on their own more in the future.
The Big Boy Update: My son is learning things at school. He successfully zipped his own jacket two times today, including lining up the initial tab to start the zip. He also wanted to talk to me all about the second hand, minute hand and hour hand on the clock today. He was quite interested in counting out the seconds, even if he wasn't sure what he was counting towards.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter likes to color. Okay, scribble. More like make a mess on a piece of paper. But things are starting to take form of late. She does more curvy lines and tries to make something specific, telling us exactly what she's drawn. Today, she colored in a shape on one of the dry erase boards. She worked very hard to stay within the lines. We had talked about this a while back, but she didn't have the fine motor skills (or perhaps inclination) to do it. She was quite pleased with herself today when she colored in the penguin's body. Then she immediately got the eraser and wiped it clean so she could do it again.
Fitness Update: Five miles. This is an interesting five miles though. It's not running. It's not even outside. Today we spent time in the house, went to a two-hour birthday party and then came home. It's bedtime now and we're still in the house. My iPhone tracks steps and apparently I've done almost twelve-thousand steps today, racking up over five miles of distance walked...mostly in the house. I knew I moved around a lot in the house, but I had no idea.
Friday, November 21, 2014
The Unnecessary Ugh
Something snuck up on me. It was one of those slow sneaking things just like a cat does when it's stalking a bird. By the time the bird realizes the cat is there, it's just too late. This is a post about pain. It's about my neck and my spine and how, well, there are issues.
Somewhere around this time last year or maybe at the beginning of the year this year I started feeling something in my left arm. It was vague bits of paresthesia running down the top of the shoulder. I thought, "well, that's not good, let's hope it goes away." It came and went and it was vague and not that often and I hoped it was an alignment issue in my spine.
I had the chiropractor do an entire workup on me, including X-rays, to help them as they adjusted my spine. I didn't want to know the results, but since they hadn't gotten any diagnostic information since 2005, before my first fusion, I though it was time. The one thing I did talk to them about was where things were getting worse and that wasn't a surprise either. My spine is fused from C5-C7. The area that was degenerating the most was C4-C5. My spine surgeon had considered fusing it back in 2005, but decided not to.
I have high bone density so I was fairly certain my vertebra were doing that thing they do oh so well, growing bone and working towards fusing that junction all on its own. But I hoped it would get better and leave the left arm out of it in the process.
It didn't. The paresthesia got more prevalent and towards the latter part of the year was happening a lot of the time. This means there is pressure on either the spinal cord itself, or the bundle of nerves coming out of the spine, heading down the arm.
As the year drug on something else happened that I didn't quite connect. I just didn't want to work out any more. I didn't want to run; I didn't want to go to the gym and I really didn't want to do anything like train for a race. I just wanted to get in bed at the end of the night and sleep as long as I could until the children woke me up.
Things just hurt. It was like nerve pain all over when I moved and it was frustrating that I couldn't really get out of nerve pain. I thought I may have brought it on myself because I stopped taking anti-inflammatories, but after several months without, there had to be a sort of leveling-out. Besides, the pain I was feeling (for the most part all in the trunk area) wasn't inflammation pain. I know all about inflammation pain. It was like my nerves were just angry—and that anger was spreading and getting worse.
I saw a commercial for Lyrica and nerve pain and I made a decision I was going to do something. I was going to go to my doctor, get a referral to a pain clinic and see if I could do something for a few months to calm my nerves down. I talked to my neighbor about it (the doctor) and she said that like a wildfire, sometimes you need to quell the entire fire and that looking into something made a lot of sense to her.
I had been saying of late how I felt so old and how nerves seemed to get more sensitive with time and that I'd heard the saying that older people felt their, "bones ached" and that I felt like that all the time. How was I going to make it to be a grandmother if things were this painful now.
But back to the Lyrica commercial. I had been prescribed Lyrica almost ten years ago when it was newly out. It helped. I remember it helping a lot. What if I was just having nerve-related spinal cord myalgia? Would some Lyrica help?
I made an appointment with my general practitioner and saw a new doctor I'd never seen before. I was quite impressed with him. He understood my reticence to take medication and my feeling of pride in not being on any medications. I was on so many for so long and I don't want to go back there. Having to be on a prescription medication now makes me worried it's the beginning of the end and it will never get better from here on out.
He though Lyrica would be a good idea to try and understood I wanted to do it for a few months and see how it helped. He put me on the lowest dosage you can be on and I'll see him again in a month. Then, he did some tests to see how my strength was and if there were any nerve issues.
I had had progression of the arm situation in the last month, meaning it was getting worse. I now have phantom itching down the arm a lot of the time. I know that's not good. I also know I need to get it checked out to find out what needs to be done next and I plan on doing that. I also worry that's going to be the beginning of the end as well, but it's got to be done. He told me everything looked great...except the left arm. He showed me reactions and compared the two arms. The left has nerve damage and it was quite easy to see when he showed me. Oh well, I knew it was getting worse.
But on the up side, I've been on the Lyrica for four days now. I have been looking forward to going to the gym and it hasn't been awful when I'm there. I don't dread getting down on the floor to help my children get dressed and I've found myself expecting things to be painful that turn out to be not at all painful.
For example, I was in the kitchen and something dropped on the floor. I leaned over to pick it up and exclaimed, "ugh" because I knew that motion was going to be painful for me to do. But it wasn't! I didn't need to say ugh at all. I was so surprised. I was so relieved. I was so excited. Then yesterday I was putting my daughter into her seat and she dropped something between the car seats. I looked at it and thought, "well, I'm not getting it, it will have to wait until we get home." And then I realized that I was thinking that because it looked painful to lean over. But was it? I reached down, got the toy and smiled...because it didn't hurt.
I hope things keep not hurting. I didn't really realize how bad it had gotten. The spine problem is still there, but this is a good step for now.
The Big Boy Update: "I think he's at the exercising house." Uncle Jonathan sent me a link to a funny YouTube channel. It's a comedian and body builder making fun of all sorts of things that happen at a gym. My son came over and wanted to sit on my lap, asking what the person on my screen was talking about. I told him he was at the gym (cringing as the man spoke an uninterrupted chain of swear words). My son was entranced. He wanted to know all about this working out thing (he's never been to the gym with us.) After a minuted he told me, "I think he's at the exercising house." I told him I thought he was right.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter had a speech and language screening test today at school. Her Receptive Language Skills (language comprehension) and her Expressive Language Skills (language usage) were at a "pass" level. She was also a "pass" for Fluency/Voice (rhythm and smoothness of speech). Then there was the Articulative Skills (sound/pronunciation) section. She got a "Pass with age-appropriate errors". I wasn't at all surprised at the errors that listed: "Used W for L, W for R, F for TH, B for V"
Fitness Update: We stayed for extra time today and did ten minutes more workout than normal...and I was okay with it. The reduction in nerve pain is making a tremendous difference in my overall mindset and ability to do things.
Somewhere around this time last year or maybe at the beginning of the year this year I started feeling something in my left arm. It was vague bits of paresthesia running down the top of the shoulder. I thought, "well, that's not good, let's hope it goes away." It came and went and it was vague and not that often and I hoped it was an alignment issue in my spine.
I had the chiropractor do an entire workup on me, including X-rays, to help them as they adjusted my spine. I didn't want to know the results, but since they hadn't gotten any diagnostic information since 2005, before my first fusion, I though it was time. The one thing I did talk to them about was where things were getting worse and that wasn't a surprise either. My spine is fused from C5-C7. The area that was degenerating the most was C4-C5. My spine surgeon had considered fusing it back in 2005, but decided not to.
I have high bone density so I was fairly certain my vertebra were doing that thing they do oh so well, growing bone and working towards fusing that junction all on its own. But I hoped it would get better and leave the left arm out of it in the process.
It didn't. The paresthesia got more prevalent and towards the latter part of the year was happening a lot of the time. This means there is pressure on either the spinal cord itself, or the bundle of nerves coming out of the spine, heading down the arm.
As the year drug on something else happened that I didn't quite connect. I just didn't want to work out any more. I didn't want to run; I didn't want to go to the gym and I really didn't want to do anything like train for a race. I just wanted to get in bed at the end of the night and sleep as long as I could until the children woke me up.
Things just hurt. It was like nerve pain all over when I moved and it was frustrating that I couldn't really get out of nerve pain. I thought I may have brought it on myself because I stopped taking anti-inflammatories, but after several months without, there had to be a sort of leveling-out. Besides, the pain I was feeling (for the most part all in the trunk area) wasn't inflammation pain. I know all about inflammation pain. It was like my nerves were just angry—and that anger was spreading and getting worse.
I saw a commercial for Lyrica and nerve pain and I made a decision I was going to do something. I was going to go to my doctor, get a referral to a pain clinic and see if I could do something for a few months to calm my nerves down. I talked to my neighbor about it (the doctor) and she said that like a wildfire, sometimes you need to quell the entire fire and that looking into something made a lot of sense to her.
I had been saying of late how I felt so old and how nerves seemed to get more sensitive with time and that I'd heard the saying that older people felt their, "bones ached" and that I felt like that all the time. How was I going to make it to be a grandmother if things were this painful now.
But back to the Lyrica commercial. I had been prescribed Lyrica almost ten years ago when it was newly out. It helped. I remember it helping a lot. What if I was just having nerve-related spinal cord myalgia? Would some Lyrica help?
I made an appointment with my general practitioner and saw a new doctor I'd never seen before. I was quite impressed with him. He understood my reticence to take medication and my feeling of pride in not being on any medications. I was on so many for so long and I don't want to go back there. Having to be on a prescription medication now makes me worried it's the beginning of the end and it will never get better from here on out.
He though Lyrica would be a good idea to try and understood I wanted to do it for a few months and see how it helped. He put me on the lowest dosage you can be on and I'll see him again in a month. Then, he did some tests to see how my strength was and if there were any nerve issues.
I had had progression of the arm situation in the last month, meaning it was getting worse. I now have phantom itching down the arm a lot of the time. I know that's not good. I also know I need to get it checked out to find out what needs to be done next and I plan on doing that. I also worry that's going to be the beginning of the end as well, but it's got to be done. He told me everything looked great...except the left arm. He showed me reactions and compared the two arms. The left has nerve damage and it was quite easy to see when he showed me. Oh well, I knew it was getting worse.
But on the up side, I've been on the Lyrica for four days now. I have been looking forward to going to the gym and it hasn't been awful when I'm there. I don't dread getting down on the floor to help my children get dressed and I've found myself expecting things to be painful that turn out to be not at all painful.
For example, I was in the kitchen and something dropped on the floor. I leaned over to pick it up and exclaimed, "ugh" because I knew that motion was going to be painful for me to do. But it wasn't! I didn't need to say ugh at all. I was so surprised. I was so relieved. I was so excited. Then yesterday I was putting my daughter into her seat and she dropped something between the car seats. I looked at it and thought, "well, I'm not getting it, it will have to wait until we get home." And then I realized that I was thinking that because it looked painful to lean over. But was it? I reached down, got the toy and smiled...because it didn't hurt.
I hope things keep not hurting. I didn't really realize how bad it had gotten. The spine problem is still there, but this is a good step for now.
The Big Boy Update: "I think he's at the exercising house." Uncle Jonathan sent me a link to a funny YouTube channel. It's a comedian and body builder making fun of all sorts of things that happen at a gym. My son came over and wanted to sit on my lap, asking what the person on my screen was talking about. I told him he was at the gym (cringing as the man spoke an uninterrupted chain of swear words). My son was entranced. He wanted to know all about this working out thing (he's never been to the gym with us.) After a minuted he told me, "I think he's at the exercising house." I told him I thought he was right.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter had a speech and language screening test today at school. Her Receptive Language Skills (language comprehension) and her Expressive Language Skills (language usage) were at a "pass" level. She was also a "pass" for Fluency/Voice (rhythm and smoothness of speech). Then there was the Articulative Skills (sound/pronunciation) section. She got a "Pass with age-appropriate errors". I wasn't at all surprised at the errors that listed: "Used W for L, W for R, F for TH, B for V"
Fitness Update: We stayed for extra time today and did ten minutes more workout than normal...and I was okay with it. The reduction in nerve pain is making a tremendous difference in my overall mindset and ability to do things.
Thursday, November 20, 2014
Microwave 7
We have a microwave that's primarily black. The area in the kitchen it's in has sunlight land on it much of the day and as I walk by, I can see all the smudges and marks we've made with our fingers as we've entered times to microwave and opened and closed the door.
Commonly I'll sweep back by with a cloth and clean up the marks. I do this because I have a tidying problem, but then you all knew that. As I clean off the microwave keypad, I can tell which numbers are used more than others. The other day it reminded me of scenes from movies where someone has to guess a key code and they do so using information gleaned from which numbers or keys were most commonly pressed.
The one on our microwave is a busy number. So is the three for thirty seconds. I use the two a lot because I do twenty seconds for breads. Forty, twenty-five, fifty, even sixty or ninety seconds are things I might enter into the keypad. But what about seven?
I don't know that I've ever used the number seven key on the microwave. Maybe there are settings I might use like seven for seventy-percent power, but I don't know if that's even an option.
The seven key might be broken for all I know. Maybe it's not even connected. Maybe, just maybe, if I use the seven key I'll find out I'm the winner of something unexpected like my own island in the south pacific.
Tomorrow I think I'm going to microwave something for seventy-seven seconds, just to see what happens.
The Big Boy Update: My son was sick and vomited several times recently. Each and every time he seemed almost sorry to have made a mess. If it was in the car, he would quietly sit with it all over him and follow our directions on how to get out of the seat so as to not make more of a mess. When he got sick in the house, he was holding his hands over his mouth, literally trying not to get it everywhere. I told him it was okay and he needed to get it out. What a thoughtful guy.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Where's Mickey? My daughter got a new Mickey Mouse stuffed animal for her birthday. Not an hour after opening the present, my son got sick and threw up all over it. My daughter helped me with the wash and because the top of the washing machine is glass, she watched the load in progress. Mickey would appear and then disappear within the load as it spun. She was very happy when he was clean.
Fitness Update: Today we did only two things at the gym. Two very long alternating sets of stuff that was designed to make your legs very very tired. I wonder how they'll feel in the morning?
Commonly I'll sweep back by with a cloth and clean up the marks. I do this because I have a tidying problem, but then you all knew that. As I clean off the microwave keypad, I can tell which numbers are used more than others. The other day it reminded me of scenes from movies where someone has to guess a key code and they do so using information gleaned from which numbers or keys were most commonly pressed.
The one on our microwave is a busy number. So is the three for thirty seconds. I use the two a lot because I do twenty seconds for breads. Forty, twenty-five, fifty, even sixty or ninety seconds are things I might enter into the keypad. But what about seven?
I don't know that I've ever used the number seven key on the microwave. Maybe there are settings I might use like seven for seventy-percent power, but I don't know if that's even an option.
The seven key might be broken for all I know. Maybe it's not even connected. Maybe, just maybe, if I use the seven key I'll find out I'm the winner of something unexpected like my own island in the south pacific.
Tomorrow I think I'm going to microwave something for seventy-seven seconds, just to see what happens.
The Big Boy Update: My son was sick and vomited several times recently. Each and every time he seemed almost sorry to have made a mess. If it was in the car, he would quietly sit with it all over him and follow our directions on how to get out of the seat so as to not make more of a mess. When he got sick in the house, he was holding his hands over his mouth, literally trying not to get it everywhere. I told him it was okay and he needed to get it out. What a thoughtful guy.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: Where's Mickey? My daughter got a new Mickey Mouse stuffed animal for her birthday. Not an hour after opening the present, my son got sick and threw up all over it. My daughter helped me with the wash and because the top of the washing machine is glass, she watched the load in progress. Mickey would appear and then disappear within the load as it spun. She was very happy when he was clean.
Fitness Update: Today we did only two things at the gym. Two very long alternating sets of stuff that was designed to make your legs very very tired. I wonder how they'll feel in the morning?
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Walking Chivas and Regal
I didn't baby sit much when I was young, but I did do other things from time to time. One time my mother asked me if I would be interested in walking some dogs for neighbors who were going out of town. I liked dogs, so I said sure.
I hadn't been to this neighbor's house before as it was a good bit around the corner from where I lived. At that point in my life, four houses down seemed like an entire other neighborhood.
When I got to the house the dogs were barking in the back yard. They had a huge back yard with lots of ivy-covered ground and old growth trees. The dogs, named Chivis and Regal, came running up to the gate and were happy to see me. My mother told me they were named after a famous alcoholic drink which was brown in color. When I saw them for the first time I didn't think doberman's looked at all like the brown liquid in the bottles in my parents cabinet.
I went into the back yard and played with them for a little while and fed them. Sometimes I would take them for a walk. I didn't need leashes I was told because the dogs knew how to heel. I didn't know what heeling was but my mother told me it meant the dogs would stay by my side.
I haven't seen dogs do this since that day, but those two dogs would come out of the gate get on either side of me and walk right along with me down the road. One of them—I think it was Chivas—wouldn't even stop to go to the bathroom; he would just leave a zig-zag trail down the road as we walked.
I believe Regal died over the winter for some reason and the next spring when I was asked to walk Chivas again I remember wondering if he was lonely without his friend. I had a conversation with him about it as we walked down the street together but he wasn't able to tell me.
The Big Boy Update: We heard this key child phrase for the first time ever out of my son yesterday: "can you buy me that thing on TV?"
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter figured out how to spin and spin and spin the office chair tonight. She spun herself, Papa, her brother and then she spun herself some more. I remember how much I loved spinning around in a chair when I was young.
I hadn't been to this neighbor's house before as it was a good bit around the corner from where I lived. At that point in my life, four houses down seemed like an entire other neighborhood.
When I got to the house the dogs were barking in the back yard. They had a huge back yard with lots of ivy-covered ground and old growth trees. The dogs, named Chivis and Regal, came running up to the gate and were happy to see me. My mother told me they were named after a famous alcoholic drink which was brown in color. When I saw them for the first time I didn't think doberman's looked at all like the brown liquid in the bottles in my parents cabinet.
I went into the back yard and played with them for a little while and fed them. Sometimes I would take them for a walk. I didn't need leashes I was told because the dogs knew how to heel. I didn't know what heeling was but my mother told me it meant the dogs would stay by my side.
I haven't seen dogs do this since that day, but those two dogs would come out of the gate get on either side of me and walk right along with me down the road. One of them—I think it was Chivas—wouldn't even stop to go to the bathroom; he would just leave a zig-zag trail down the road as we walked.
I believe Regal died over the winter for some reason and the next spring when I was asked to walk Chivas again I remember wondering if he was lonely without his friend. I had a conversation with him about it as we walked down the street together but he wasn't able to tell me.
The Big Boy Update: We heard this key child phrase for the first time ever out of my son yesterday: "can you buy me that thing on TV?"
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter figured out how to spin and spin and spin the office chair tonight. She spun herself, Papa, her brother and then she spun herself some more. I remember how much I loved spinning around in a chair when I was young.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)