Keeping it Together

So, with three kids I have a hard time remembering everything I want to get done. Needs are another matter, I always remeber those. So, with projects that aren't essential, I keep a notebook next to my chair with a pen shoved in it. In it I write down all the stupid little things that I'd like to get done, but easily get lost in the shuffle.

Shoulder Surgery

So, I was told by my orthopedic doctor that I need rotator cuff surgery. Ugh. I have a negative MRI, but all my tests indicate that I need this surgery. He claims that about 40% of MRI's are wrong. So, should this erode my confidence in what some feel to be an uber medical diagnostic tool, or should this increase my confidence in my doctor that, through exerience, he feels he can do a better job of diagnosing than a machine. I know that the same situation happened with Pat, and the same doctor was right. I don't want to have surgery without a reason for it. Therefore, I certainly hope he's right.



Unfortunately, we don't know when the surgery will be scheduled. The doctor said that he is having surgery in the end of July which may delay mine until November, I hope not. I want my insurance to cough up and authorize this.

Definitions by Mini-Me

Weepy Eye = Onion

Book Review - Curious George

I wish we could return to a simpler time in children literature. It seems that every book nowadays has to be screened over and over to make sure we don't expose our young ones to something that might influence them and the result, to me, is a bland pablum of happy books with nothing to really laugh at. If we look at the older books we get the menage of mischievous characters dealing with exotic situations that are funny and interesting to children because they are not perfect and politically correct.

One of their favorites is Curious George, a perennial classic. But Curious George is not the innocent storybook character that he would appear to be. Some may think that George is simply a curious little monkey, but did you realize that George is a pawn of Philip Morris? GASP. Yes, in the original classic, George displays his loyalties on his first day in the Man with the Yellow Hat's home. He has dinner and then he smokes a pipe, complete with illustrations to show my impressionable children exactly what transpired, just in case they weren't listening closely enough. But, George, in spite of your foibles, I still love you. I will still read your many adventures to my children who manage to overlook your follies. But maybe we should consider a new book, Curious George and the nicorette patch.

Then we have the Man with the Yellow Hat. Dear Man, you're not exactly being an environmentally friendly partner with the Earth. After all, you removed a little monkey from his home with no thought of the consequence. Perhaps George was an endangered species, or maybe he had a family he left behind. Surely he would have been better off in his home territory. For all we know, he never would have gotten into so much trouble had he stayed at home. In the jungle he would have had normal monkey diversions. Hanging from tree limbs, and swinging from vines would have occupied his time as opposed to eating puzzle pieces, and soaring over the city on the tail of a kite, although then we would never have had his adventures to entertain our children.

Father Memories

My dad was a strange man, and simple things amused him. He used to love maps and to plot out the way we were to go on a trip. In 1993 we went on vacation to Las Vegas, mainly to appease my brother who was fascinated with gambling. It was a trip we couldn't afford but we went. As usual, Steve went and got a road atlas and started mapping the trip. As he studied the maps he noticed two, rather unusually named, mountains - Nellie's Nipple and Squaw Tit. I don't remember what we saw on that trip to Sin City, but I remember those two, politically incorrect, peaks seen in the distance as we sped down the highway, and the glee with. which my father looked forward to seeing them

Plastic

I love my crock pot. Pat got it for me for Christmas 1 1/2 years ago, and yes I did ask for it. But the handle on top broke with in a month, and Rival was not exactly willing to work with me to replace it. Well, I broke down and got a knob at the hardware store to give me an easily usable lid. For my 3 dollars I got a plastic bag with a plastic bag in it holding the knob, and a plastic bag holding a screw. Don't you think that's a lot of plastic for what I bought?

Plastic is one of man's curses to Earth. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a "green meanie" as I refer to the diehard environmentalists such as ELF and the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. Plastic is different, it never goes away. Every microgram of plastic that was ever created is still with us today. It gets smaller and smaller, but it's still here. I try to do my part and recycle, but like in the packaging for my crockpot handle, I wish the companies would try to do their part too.

Walpaper

6 years ago, about a week before I found out I was pregnant with Mini-Me, I started pulling the wallpaper off the walls in Pat's kitchen and he grabbed the flooring to pull it up. Now we were in the middle of a kitchen refurbishing. One thing followed another, and, while we finished the kitchen, we never got the wallpaper trim up on the walls. Well, we did that this weekend.


That trim has been languishing in Pat's washroom for 6 years now. This past Friday I decided that we would measure the kitchen then:

1. Install the trim if we had enough.


2. If we didn't have enough we would buy another roll online or chuck it and call it a day.

Well, we had enough, and we got it up on the walls. But then there was the case of the missing blank plate.

Pat has a receptacle on the wall over the door to his washroom. It's wired up and good, but we've never needed it so we put a blank plate over it, then hung a clock over that. Well, Pat was unscrewing the plate so that we could fit the trim around it. He set the plate down and it disappeared. We never found it and, given that he was on a step ladder at the time, there weren't too many places for it to go. So, Pat must be the David Copperfield of the Do It Yourself set, or that switch plate was magic.

Pre-School Graduation

Mini-Me graduated from Pre-School last night. The ceremony was simple. The kindergarden kids came in and presented their parents with flowers to thank them for bringing them to school. Then the pre-school came in with a poem and 2 songs. Mini-Me was hilarious to watch as he kept pulling his shirt up and exposing his belly because he was so nervous. Then awards were presented. To my surprise I was named Parent of the Year for the time I volunteer there. I usually spend about 1 1/2 hours of a 3 1/2 hour day there reading stories and dancing with the kids and so forth. Then the kindergardeners came in in yellow gowns and mortar boards with blue sashes. They were awarded their diplomas and the ceremony concluded.



I will miss the time I spend in the mornings with Alex's class. I hope Miss Tracie will let me continue in the fall. I was never an official volunteer; I just showed up to drop off or pick up Alex, saw where help was needed and did it.

Arthrograms

Arthrograms hurt like hell. They really do. They strap you to a flouroscope table and start imaging your arm. First they injected several shots of lidocaine. I can't imagine how it would have felt had they not provided that initial numbing. Then they thread a thin tube into your shoulder. I had a tablespoon of "contrast" injected into my shoulder and my shoulder felt, and still feels like, it was about to exlode.

I was then stuck in an MRI machine, without my glasses which, as anyone who know me realizes, is tantamount to torture. The MRI wasn't bad. You just lie as still as possible, with headphones on listening to the music they've provided. You have to wear headphones because the machine is very loud inside. They had some Frank Sinatra which was okay. I would have preferred to listen to my I-Pod with its audio books, but they couldn't hook it up to their stereo system.

It was just the injection of the contrast that made it so horrible. It felt like someone was sticking a sharpened soda stray deep into my shoulder and trying to remove a plug. I am crying now just thinking about it. I hope that I actually needed it. I would hate to have endured that pain to be told that my rotator cuff was fine.

It's all over now. I didn't need my husband to be there. Once again I stood on my own and I am a stronger and more independent person for it.

Speech Therapy

Since Mini-Me was 2 years, 7 months old we have been making a weekly pilgrimage to Children's Hospital Oakland in Pleasanton for Speech Therapy. Alex has many speech issues, mostly related to the fact that he was nearly deaf his first year due to ear infections, and also because he was tongue tied. He had ear tubes at 15 months of age, but the damage had been done.



Mini-Me's first speech therapist, Monica, had a hard time working with him. Her idea of therapy was to have him run through picture cards, having him repeat a sound over and over with different pictures illustrating the sound. His reward was, at the end of the session, to play with her toys but it was hard for him waiting for a big payoff at the end of the session. During this time, he also had a frenulectomy, freeing up his tongue to enable more normal sounds.



Ten months later Monica left and we switched to Joyce. Joyce was a Godsend. She knew how to work with Alex by giving him little play times between short bouts of work. His speech started to take off. Now in September Alex will be stopping speech with Joyce, I will be glad to see him graduate, but I will truly miss Joyce.

The Bun

Bun is my youngest son. He has Lawrence Moon Bardet Biedl syndrome. That is hard for me to discuss. He was born with 12 fingers and 11 toes. His toe was amputated at 5 months. His toes 2 weeks before his first birthday. His arm was in a cast on his first birthday. His foot has a weak joint where the inner baby toe was removed. He has a horrible scar on his hand. He has a slow metabolism and so he is over weight and very tall for his age. He could go blind when he gets older, he could have kidney problems, he could need hormone therapy to go into puberty, he could be sterile. He may be mentally retarded. He may not feel pain the way "normal" people do. He is speech delayed. He has autistic tendencies.





These are all the uncertainties that I deal with when I deal with my son. Do you have any more questions. I think this about covers Bun's syndrome and I hope it does because I am so tired of answering people's questions.





Here's a little more about Daniel. He has a great memory. He has beautiful blue eyes and thick curly hair. He is my little helper boy and I love him. He is my Bun.

Spaghetti

Lately I haven't been able to eat enough spaghetti. This has always been one of my comfort food. As a child I would sit at the table long after everyone else was done consuming plates of the magical stuff. Unfortunately, I ate with a child's gusto slurping the noodles over my chin, which would often result in rashes over my face and cortisone creams galore before my parents finally discovered what it was causing them.

My tastes in spaghetti have matured and now I prefer meatless sauces over rotini pasta, sometimes with cream and vodka, sometimes plain with parmesean cheese. My current favorite I got from the book "The Amateur Gourmet" which also has an accompanying blog. Mini-Me helps stir the sauce so he thinks it tastes better because he helped. He also eats it better when he has a part in making it. It's very simple and employs ingredients that are standards in my pantry - canned tomatoes, onions, garlic, carrots, thyme. I like it because it's vegetarian. My husband likes it because it has a stronger flavor so he can't tell if I'm using his despised whole wheat pasta or not. It also keeps really well in the freezer so it pays to make the bigger batch.

For those interested, here's a link to my favorite pasta sauce.

Pump it Up

Tomorrow is Mini-Me's pre-school graduation celebratory field trip. We're taking the 20 members of the junior kindergarden and the 10 students in the kindergarden to Pump it Up in Antioch for a morning of jumping and a luncheon of pizza and juice. Alex loves going there. Unfortunately, he also loves me doing all the jumpers with him so I don't know how well I will be able to stay in my supervisory role. On the other hand, we have never gone with friends so this time he'll have someone he knows (other than me of course) to play with.

Pump it up gives me a headache. In one room they have a giant slide, a small obstacle course and a basketball jumper. In the other room they have another obstacle course, a standard jumper and a big round one with with a mushroom like object in the midde which we generally use to play king of the hill. All these objects are powered by omnipresent blowers whining away. Then add 30 crazy kids running and playing and screaming and crying and laughing. And over it all plays an incessant form of muzak seemingly designed to do nothing but encourage you to leave the play area for some peace and quiet.

Yes, being a parent volunteer can be a pain, but it also has its advantages. You see, by helping out at the school, I get certain favors in return. For example, when I need Alex to stay later, or to be dropped off earlier, they can hardly refuse the parent who's there when they need an extra hand, which is something I will use of this Thursday when I have my arthrogram.

Cake Mix Cookies

I love making these cookies with my kids because they are simplicity in itself. One package of cake mix, one stick of butter, two eggs (one per kid) and as much candy as you can get away with. My kids like to make these in a muffin tin and bake for about 20 minutes at 350. They make 2 dozen and rarely make it to the second day.

Book Review - Abhorsen

Abhorsen was the third book in the Old Kingdom trilogy. This was my favorite of the bunch simply because it has an ending that kept me spell bound like no other since The Deathly Hallows. In this book justice is served to Nick Sayre, but I didn't like his return from death as I don't think he learned anything from his experience.

Book Review - Lirael

The direct sequel to Sabriel by Garth Nix. This book is about Lirael of the Clayr, a young woman who is seeking something, she knows not what. She was born to the people of glacier, but she is not really one of them as she finds out. I found Liraels obsession with death, her own death in particular, distress, but it becomes apparent why at the end of the book. This book ends rather abruptly. Apparently, it was never meant to stand alone as Sabriel can, but has a sequel, Abhorsen that will finish the story.

Blades of Glory

Well, Pat came home from the grocery store yesterday with this movie. This is his second attempt at buying it. The first time we bought it at Wal Mart. We opened it at home to find an empty case and Wal Mart refused to refund our money or exchange it. Thank you Wal Mart.

Normally, I don't like Will Ferrell. While I like crude humor, he's too crude for me. This movie however engaged me. I actually stayed more involved in it than Pat. It was laugh out loud. The cameos of former skating stars kept me scanning the screen hoping for yet another glimpse of an old hero or heroine.

The best part, however, was in the special features. I make no secret of the fact that I respect and idolize Scott Hamilton. There is a section where he answered 20 questions about skating and kept me laughing the whole time with his quick wit.

You know you're a mom when...

...you have a little boy with a high fever, sleeping in your bed, inches from your face, breathing germs all over you. Poor Mini-Me. He's snuggled into a chair with his bed and a glass of juice with plenty of ice. He's complaining that his tummy hurts, but he isn't vomiting. Oh well, I've just been paged for more juice.