Saturday, June 28, 2008

Okay, call us bad parents, but seriously...

Today the Bob got tired of watching the Hoobs on Sprout TV, so he decided Cooper would enjoy watching a Queen concert he had recorded - hey, it was on PBS as part of a fund raiser, so it is educational! Anyway, there we were, watching Queen, when they began performing "Somebody To Love". Freddie Mercury was playing the piano and singing. Cooper bee lined over to the wall of bins of his toys and pulled out his little toy piano, plopped himself behind it and began playing along. Hopefully that is what you will see on the video here. It was completely spontaneous on his part and VERY entertaining for us. The 40 seconds you see here was the tail end of this and they had moved on to a new song, which was not as rockin' as the other song, but it took us a moment to realize what he was doing.

I leave tomorrow to visit my parents. Mom seems to be doing well. I will be happy to see both of them, but Cooper and Bob have to survive being home alone. Lord knows what Cooper will end up going to school dressed in or what his meals will consist of. I am sure they will both survive and I will be forgotten by the time I come home.

Monday, June 23, 2008

When men shop...




Okay, this first picture is of the products that my husband purchased when left to his own devices in the store. Fortunately, these are not my achilles heel products. I am a salty/crunchy gal. Bring home a bag of pretzles or worse, CHIPS and I am DOOMED. But this stuff, not so much. The muffins are actually what Cooper eats for breakfast right now. He loves mini muffins. These are not so bad nutrition wise. But the donuts...that is another story. And Captain Crunch. What can I say about that. Cooper LOVES this cereal. He usually turns his nose up at anything new, but put some of the Crunch in front of him and wow wow wubbzy.

And I am mad at MotionBox right now. I have had more trouble getting videos to appear on this blog via that website. AND I cannot share them with the people in my contacts list, even though that is how you are supposed to share videos. I am going to look for some other hosting site.

In mom news, she is going home tomorrow. YEAH! She is doing really well. I am very grateful.

And the pictures of Cooper crack me up. He had a Bob's BigBoy swoosh going on today with all the humidity we have been having. It is only 67 degrees, but 96% humidity. We had toad strangling torrential downpours today. The good news is our new sump pump system works!

Saturday, June 21, 2008

You cannot deny your DNA

First of all, a new video, I hope, of the Coop, blowing kisses.



Secondly, tragedy struck in our backyard this morning. The schnauzers, doing what they were bred as a breed to do, hunted down one of the baby robins that made the fateful error of landing in our backyard. Gus, the one who has been waiting his entire life for this moment, lost his mind as he watched Poncho, the younger one, capture the poor bird. Then Gus got his teeth on it and was bound and determined not to let go. I managed to get to him before he ate it, but it was dead. There I was, 6:30am on a Saturday morning, in my PJ's in the backyard, holding my dog and shaking him up and down saying "let go of that bird, let go let go let go". Meanwhile, mamma or papa bird was nearby yelling his or her birdy alert in a panic. Sadly, the bird did not survive its encounter with the schnauzers, but at least Gus didn't get to eat it. He did drop it as he attempted to get a better hold on it.

My mother had her surgery yesterday, and all reports are she is doing well. My dad was VERY upset as she looks pretty beat up I guess, but the professionals are saying she is doing well. I will be out there a week from tomorrow and by then she should be home.

On with my day.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Empty nesters



Our baby birds looked like this a few days ago, and then yesterday, gone. They quite literally have flown the nest.

In other news my mother is in surgery as I type. Whoohoo. The whole thing takes a few hours, so I will be lighting candles and saying prayers for awhile.

Delays...

Ugh. My mother STILL has not had her surgery. The good news is she is well enough that she isn't on death's doorstep. The bad news is she is sitting in a hospital room, hooked up and not able to do much of anything. Which she shouldn't she had a heart attack and needs a bypass. But it is frustrating. Her platelets were low, and she may be allergic to heparin, the anti coagulant they used when she was taken to the hospital, so they have to work those things out before doing the surgery. Yes, please do. I would rather there are no surprises when this happens.

In other news, Cooper's ear infection never went away completely, and has resurfaced in both ears. So we are now trying a different, more potent antibiotic that has the lovely effect of giving him the runs. Temporarily, so we have been told, but still. The thing is that my kid is SO GOOD even when sick, it is hard to complain about it. He is not a screaming meemie, he just looks sad. He was running a 102 temp and just looked sad and flopped on me on the couch and kind of moaned. Like Billy Crystal in "When Harry Met Sally" and he is on the phone, going "uuuuuhhhhhnnn" because he thinks he has something.

All will be better in the end. It has to be.

Monday, June 16, 2008

And the beat goes on

So my mom is having bypass surgery Wednesday. Double bypass surgery. But for now she is doing pretty well. She is very stable and being well taken care of. My dad is holding his own, as long as he can eat dinner with my brother. There are things I have never seen my dad do - the laundry, vaccuming, and cooking anything other than scrambled eggs or grilling something on the BBQ. He makes his own breakfast and lunch with no major assistance, but dinner has always been my mother's "responsibility". So he needs to go to Chip's house for dinner. Otherwise I am not sure what he would do.

Once upon a time, when I was visiting them and they were living in a house I had never lived in, as they had moved there long after I had moved out, and my mother was still working part time at the local bookstore, she had some evening hours to work. She left for her shift around 4pm. My dad looked at me around 5 and said "what's for dinner?" Hmmm. I have never lived here, I am not in charge of you, and yet I am in charge of dinner? I responded that dinner was whatever was served at whatever local establishment he wanted to go to to eat. We ate at McMinnican's, a brew pub. It was lovely.

This time would be different. I will be going out the first week of July. It will be after she has had her surgery and gets home. It will allow me to assess how things are going, if she is in fact behaving herself as she is supposed to. My exhusband has been through open heart surgery and his advice is do what the doctors say, take the pain meds and do what the doctors say. I guess when they do open heart surgery, you are not supposed to do any heavy lifting, or any lifting for that matter, for a month. The point being that the plates of the chest bones need to fuse back together. If you don't "behave yourself" they might not fuse properly, and they will have to do it over again. It behooves you to behave.

I will be going out alone. HA. The Bob gets to be in charge of Cooper for a week. Alone. The hard part is walking the dogs. We have one dog who won't poop in the back yard. He is weird, poor dog. I would like to take Cooper, but that is not realistic. He is 19 months old, and going by myself with him would be insane.

That is it for now. Hope all is well in all of your blogger worlds.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

To my mom...on Father's Day.


Yesterday I was informed that my mother suffered a heart attack. She is currently in the hospital and awaiting bypass surgery which will happen in a day or so. She is in Oregon, I am not. I am in Boston. This is not ideal. Fortunately my brother IS in Oregon, and lives only two blocks from my parents, so he is now officially in charge of my dad and of relaying info to me. They have both said I should not go out right now. She is stable and my uncle, who is a retired surgeon, has confirmed that she is doing well. Still it is hard. I am, of course, worried for her, but also for my dad. He is pretty dependent on her and this is not the way he would have liked to have spent Father's day. They have been married since 1959. More than half their lives they have been together.

I will go out in a few weeks. With prices for flights being what they are I may have to sell a kidney to get there, but I need to go. This will leave the Bob in charge of all the dogs and the kiddo, but he will manage.

So to my dad - Happy Father's day and I wish it was a better one. To my mom - what can I say...I wish this wasn't happening and I hope you get better soon and I miss you both.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

On smells and memories...

Yesterday for dinner I made hamburgers on the grill, and I boiled some red bliss potatoes and made baked beans. And by made, I mean I opened a can of Bush's baked beans. As I came back into the kitchen from having been outside at the grill, the smell of boiling potatoes and baked beans hit me, and snapped me right back to my grandparents' kitchen. This would be my fathers parents, who have not been alive since the late 80's. My grandfather died in the fall of 1986 and my grandmother in the fall of 1988. So it has been 20 years since I have been in that house.

But that house was the touchstone of my life in so many ways. My family moved roughly every 5 years. The first time was just to move to a larger home now that there were the four of us, mom, dad, myself and the bro. And a dog. The first schnauzer I ever loved, Schnaupps. But I digress. After that move, we moved because of my fathers job. While he was not in the military, the war machine did fund my entire existence. Dad worked for Pratt & Whitney Aircraft as an aerospace engineer, and worked on many defense contracts. We were relocated between Connecticut and Ohio a few times. Then to Florida, which was where my parents were living when dad retired. I do believe my parents are the only people on the planet who LEFT Florida when they retired.

During my life, the house in Minetto NY where my father was raised was the one constant, the one thing that almost never changed. We visited them at least once a year, if not more. It was practically the country compared to how we lived in the burbs. There were 9 or so acres of land, so you could explore and be off by yourself in the peace and quiet. There are sounds that often take me back there, the song of the morning dove for instance, which I would listen to in the mornings as I lay in bed in that house, before the day got really hot and humid. But mostly it is the smells.

The sense of smell apparently is the sense that is most directly connected to the brain and to memory. The brain is a fascinating place, and I love when smells catch me by surprise and take me places I haven't been for a long time. The smell of baked beans and potatoes was so familiar I thought if I closed my eyes and opened them again I would be in that kitchen with the table stuck in the nook and the window over the sink where I could watch the bird feeder while washing dishes.

Another smell that snaps me back to that kitchen is the smell of vitamins. Weird, I know, but my grandfather took what seemed like a dozen pills a day, and this one cupboard in the kitchen smelled of the vitamins. It isn't a great smell, but it is a fond one. The smell of raspberry jam, specifically if it is warm, reminds me of these awesome cookies my grandmother made, which were a sort of popover with jam in the middle. The smell of grass being cut combined with the buzz of an airplane will take me back to that back yard, where I would swing on this old swing made from a slab of wood hung by a very large, very rough piece of rope from a metal support structure my grandfather concocted. It was not a very stable swing, and you could tip off of it forward or backward in a heart beat. It was probably a great abs workout, just trying to swing on it and not fall off.

These grandparents were not the most gregarious, expressive or even talkative people in the world, but they were generous and loving. In keeping with my previous discussion about ducks, my grandfather, who didn't say much to people, had these ducks he would visit down on the river. They probably belonged to someone who lived along the river, but he would go down with a bucket of cracked corn, and whistle for them. As soon as he whistled, you would hear "plop slash" and two white ducks would eventually find him and get their treat. It is one of the last memories I have of him before he got very sick and ended up in the hospital before he died. He also had a way with fish. He raised angel fish, and they would come to the top of the tank, and lay down in his hand which he would cup just below the surface of the water, so he could feed them. Dogs from around the neighborhood would appear at the back door of the house after dinner to get the bones from the evening meal. He was the guy who went to the butcher shop every day to get the meat for dinner. Those dogs ate really well. And he had a series of black cats that skulked around the house and basement, all named Skinny Guts from what I remember. They were not friendly to us, but they LOVED Roswell.

Oh yes, Roswell and Ella, those were my grandparents. I briefly entertained naming Cooper Roswell, but then thought I could also just tattoo "kick me" on his forehead.

I wonder what smells and memories will make their connections in Coopers' memories. I hope over his lifetime he finds some that are as fond as the ones I have of that house in Minetto.

Friday, June 13, 2008

It is just me and the schnauzers today.



There are four baby birds, not three. At first I could only see three, but today I confirmed the existence of the fourth. The pictures here are not great, I have to stand on Cooper's little stepping stool and take the picture out of the top of the window that the air conditioner is in. But there they are! Bob wants to call them Larry, Moe, Curly and Shemp. I said which one gets to be Shemp? Cause no one wants to be Shemp.

I am on an antibiotic now. I went to see the dentist and the back up doctor for mine who is on vacation yesterday. So my crown is back in place, and the doctor agreed that neon green business coming out of my nose was indicitive of an infection. I feel moderately better today, but that might have something to do with the fact that I am home alone with just the two schnauzers. Bob took Cooper to day care and I got to take the dogs for a walk, take a very long hot shower and then a nap. Wheeeeeee. And I am reading a book. I know - reading in uninterupted stretches! I am reading a book called Dead Man's Hand, a collection of crime short stories that center around poker. One of my favorite crime authors, Michael Connelly, has a short Harry Bosch story in it.

The pool guys are coming to open the pool today. If only it had been opened two weeks ago. We could have used it this last week with the 90 degree heat. I could probably learn how to do the opening and closing myself, but the cover is hard to get on and off. I would hate to screw up the filter too. Paying them to do it is cheaper than replacing the filter.

That is it. I hope Cooper likes swimming. He didn't get to do much last summer. He was pretty small. But of course there will be pictures.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Aaaaggghhhh oooowwwwooooowwwww whimper

So I don't have strep throat, but I do have a VERY sore throat. And a cough. And nasal congestion. And right now a raging headache. Oh, and did I mention that while flossing my teeth tonight (I practice good dental hygiene) I popped the temporary crown off my back tooth? From the neck up I am a festival of pain. Cold or hot beverages cause pain when I swallow, and now pain in my tooth because the nerve is exposed.

I want my mommy. And she lives 3000 miles away. I would call but talking induces a coughing fit that makes me want to vomit. So, since I banished myself to the couch in the living room because I had a major coughing fit and thought at least one of us should get a decent nights' sleep, and because I took MucinexD, with the real honest to goodness psuedophed in it - you know, the stuff the crystal meth dealers use to make their product so now we all feel a little like criminals when we go to the pharmacy to ask for it - I am not as sleepy as I was two hours ago. But at least my head congestion is better. I can breath through both nostrils at once! And while I am still coughing, it is much less gasping for air and more I want to get that tickle out of my throat. But because I am awake at the moment and can't call my mom for fear of waking the neighbors coughing, I am blogging.

We have baby birds. I took pictures but don't have the wherewithall to load them right now, so maybe tomorrow. But there appear to be three baby robins in the nest outside our window.

Speaking of baby birds, the toddler room at my son's day care decided to try hatching duck eggs. They had 12 eggs, they have 3 ducklings. They are going to a farm out further from Boston once they are ready to go. And I don't mean that figuratively, as in Lassie went to the farm Timmy, she's happier there, but they will really go live on a farm. They are supposed to grow up to be those white ducks you kind of expect to find on a farm.

Speaking of raising ducks, Audobon Ron at http://ducksmahal.blogspot.com/ blogged recently about dreams and how his wife has very vivid dreams. So do I. I was teaching a psychology class at a community college once upon a time and we were doing the section on dream interpretation when I happened to have a dream that I was walking across a very dark space, like a stage, with spot lights every so often (think Marcus Welby if you are old enough to know that reference). As I walked through these spots of light I walked into one where a man was standing waiting for me. He was familiar to me, or to my dream self that is, and he hugged me and said "You have a choice, you can go with me now or you can go back for awhile longer". I thought for a moment and said that I would like to go back for awhile longer, that I had some more stuff to do. At which point he smiled a very satisfied smile and I woke up like I had been shot, sitting straight up in bed. I shared this dream with my class, and Shaniqua, this absolute riot of woman in my class said "That was God honey, and if you had said you were going with him, you would not have woken up."

That might be. I kind of like the idea that it was God, that maybe I had served whatever purpose I was put on this earth to serve, and now could go on to the beyond, or I could choose to stick around and do more stuff. Hopefully good stuff. Another friend of mine agreed that it was God, and was amazed, saying that there are holy people around the world who spend their lifetimes meditating and trying to speak to and hear from God and all I did was have a dream. Personally I think the divine is around us all the time, we simply are not paying attention. Too many of us sleep walk through this life, worried about the mortgage or gas prices or whether this guy or that girl likes us and we don't see the important things in our every day lives that make this life so very precious and beautiful. I feel it very acutely with Cooper and Bob. Cooper came into my life later than I think most people expect to have kids, but I feel that I am better equipped to handle it and appreciate it more now than I would have been in my 20's. I try to take that moment every day to just soak it up, be with him and see him for his little divine self. In yoga class you traditionally close a class by saying Namaste to your fellow yogis. This loosely translated means the divine bright shiny part of me sees and acknowledges and rejoices in the divine bright shiny part of you.

So despite my misery right now, I say Namaste to all you out there in blogger land. Try to see the divine, bright shiny parts of your life at least once a day and rejoice in them.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Booger



So this is a new week. A week in which so far Cooper is healthy. Tomorrow, on the 11th he will be 19 months old. Amazing. We had our wellness visit with the doctor today, and he is REALLY tall for his age, 33 inches, and normal in weight, 26lbs. His noggin on the other hand - GINORMOUS. More room for that super genius brain, as the Bob likes to say. And you can see said noggin, with his new big boy hair do in the pics. The first one, his Ricco Suave pose as I like to call it, with a slight lift to one brow as if to say, "Oh reeeeeaally" is followed by his booger shot. The finger went right up the nose. And dug around. He seemed to enjoy the sensation. Boys. I am doomed in this household - I am the only female. The husband, the son, and three male dogs. Neutered male dogs, but none the less male. I used to have two female cats, but they both passed on a few years ago at the ripe old age of 16 or so.

Speaking of boys vs. girls, how do boys learn to spit? Is there a class, some secret club that they all get a secret invitation to that girls don't? I ask, because, oh wait - TMI ALERT - this morning, in the shower, I felt the need to divest myself of some excess congestion. I am still fighting this cold. It is NOT strep throat, thank you Newton Wellesley Urgent Care Center for that diagnosis. My primary care doc manages to be away every time I have a need for his services. Anyway, I was super congested, standing in a shower that was as hot as I could stand it, wondering how to spit. Hock a loogie as it were. I seemed to have missed that lesson somewhere in my childhood. My effort was pathetic at best. But every guy I know can hock one up and shoot it right out without missing a beat. I think much like they offer those car maintenance classes for women, there should be a few classes on things like spitting, hocking loogies and drumming the drum part to "Wipe Out". No woman I have ever met can do that, but almost any guy you ask can. Try it out sometime. You are sitting at the bar, before or after dinner, and there is a lull in the conversation, pick ANY guy at random and ask them to drum the drum part from "Wipe Out". Chances are they can.

Then again, I will gladly give up that skill for one that I find much more useful, like being able to find ANYTHING in the fridge without asking someone else "where is ____". Boys.

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Trying again...



So I am going to try this video this way, using MotionBox. The fabulous Susie Felber uses it for videos on her blog, so maybe it will work for me. And when I preview it, it DOES appear to work. VERY exciting.

Sigh. Someone is resisting taking a nap, which he very desperately needs. A good poop, I can't tell which because all he says to me is "mamamamamaaaaglagggaaablarrgwhaaa" or some variation of that. He is in his crib saying that very thing right now. I am going to try waiting him out. If he doesn't nap the trip to the hair salon, for mommies do and perhaps his, could be very interesting. Later.

Friday, June 6, 2008

Lights, camera, action!


I wanted to put a video on this blog but can't figure out how. I will have to work on that. I introduced Cooper to his booster seat for the first time today. He likes sitting at the table like a grown up. But his eating habits are MESSY and I need to figure out how to have him eat our only table, the dining room table, without destroying it. This house does not have an eat in kitchen. Cooper is still having some hives. The doctor's office says it can take a few days for the first antibiotic to leave his system completely. As long as it isn't the new antibiotic. If my kid is one of those people who can't use any antibiotic I don't know what we would do. Rub him down in garlic and make him eat a clove a day? Allergic reactions are such a crazy thing. You just don't know they are there until they are, and they can be deadly. I am still feeling like crap. I did go to lunch with the crazy Russian and my other friend. The Russian managed to wait until the end of our time together before she mentioned my weight, AGAIN. She did say this time though that she thinks I look like I have lost weight. Which I have. Whatever. She is the one obsessed with losing weight. She is trying to fast once a week now. That will last a month at best. She is almost 70 years old. Why bother? Enjoy life. None of us knows how long we have on this planet, I don't want to waste too much of that time being miserable worrying about food and my weight. I want to eat good food and enjoy being with family and friends. And napping. I need one. Soon.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

What the heck is THAT - It's like nature man, part 2


I was home with Cooper again today. We went to the doctor, got a new antibiotic, which you only have to take once a day for 5 days, as opposed to the other one that you take twice a day for 10 days. Here is my thought - kids don't generally take medicine well to begin with. Why would we opt for the one you have to take twice as much for twice as long???

He did get hives again today, but the benadryl seems to help with that. I don't know how long it takes for the penicillin to leave his system.

In addition to this, mommy began feeling like poop this afternoon. Oh yeah, I am catching the disease. Aches, clogged throat. I was freezing too. Great. While hanging out on the couch watching endless amounts of kids TV (Cooper was awake, I don't watch that stuff on my own) we saw this GIGANTIC bird swoop by, and then land on the roof of the house across the street. I managed to get a picture of it. It was a turkey vulture. I know because we saw one the other weekend when we were at Drumlin Farm. I was paying attention! Anyway, he, or she, was easily the largest flying bird I have seen up close. With maybe the exception of turkeys themselves. But they don't fly very well. We see wild turkeys around here all the time, and once, while walking the dogs, we had one swoop by and land in a tree. But they don't fly like this guy did. He swooped away a few minutes later, into the back yard of the house behind this house. I don't want to know what it might be finding to eat.

I would like to think tomorrow I will feel better, but it is unlikely. I get Fridays off during the summer, and tomorrow is the first one. Great. I can lounge on the couch and feel like crap. I am supposed to take Buster to the vet to get blood drawn and his anal glands cleaned out. Okay, that was TMI of the first order, but can I say that I didn't even know this could be a problem for dogs? I grew up with dogs, but until I had this beagle and my schnauzers, I didn't know that anal glands existed or that they can get clogged in dogs. It is GROSS and DISGUSTING. Take my word for it.

And I am supposed to have lunch with the crazy Russian and my friend whose wedding reception was this past weekend. We shall see. More tea and early to bed.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Duuuude

Duuuuude. This milk is like, aaaaawsome.
Cooper and his ever present side kick, Kaloo.

In the ongoing saga of Cooper's ear infection, we discovered today he may be allergic to amoxicillin. Which is not a great thing. That means that all penicillin derivitives could be off limits. I stayed home with him again today, and when he woke up from his first nap, he had a few hives. I wasn't sure that was what they were, I don't get them myself. This evening, an hour or so after he had his second dose of antibiotic, he had many hives. So I called the after hours doctor line, and ended up talking to our own doctor who happened to be the on call doctor. We don't have to go to the emergency room, that is the good news. We have to see him tomorrow, and we gave Coop some Benadryl. Which was also good news, since that made him go to sleep, finally. Prior to that he was a bit wired and wouldn't go to sleep. So one half dose of Benadryl and a bath later, he is out.


But the fun part of the day was Cooper's hair. He has suddenly developed curly hair. His father had a full on afro when he was in high school. There is some seriously curly hair on that side of the family. Not so much on mine. I have bone straight hair. If I do nothing to it after washing it, it has NO curl. It is flat, fine and limp. The volume and lift I have in my hair is all courtesy of product. Major product. Volumizing foam before drying, "glue" for shaping and hair spray for the hold. This is not touchable, run your fingers through it hair. It is has it's own force field. And I am fine with that. But I am also kind of happy that Cooper may have inherited his father's hair. The Bob keeps his hair pretty short these days, but once upon a time he had the 'fro and worked it. He had the pick, and he made it work. I didn't know him then, but I have seen the pictures. Being a straight haired person, I have lived my life in awe of curly hair. I paid major dollars in the 80's for a spiral curl perm. Do they even do perms any more? So if my kid has a chance to have that naturally, YIPPEEE!

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

The week at hand...



Okay, so today we got a diagnosis of an ear infection in Cooper. It is early on, so we hope the medicine will make a difference quickly. These pictures are of him being somewhate miserable, sitting in his BackYardigans chair and not crying.

We thought he was better, the eye ball was looking good, he seemed in good spirits and not running a fever, so off to school he went. At 3pm they called me. He had gotten up from his nap, crying, and then coughing and then he yakked all over himself. It was the mucus of course. And possibly the pain from the ear. So we went home, called the doctor and now we have more medicine. Whoohoo. It isn't like I NEED to go to work or anything.

In other news, two friends of mine eloped a few months ago, and they had their wedding reception/party this past Sunday. It was held at the house of a mutual friend of ours. The party was lovely. I got to see people I haven't seen in years. The weather cooperated and it didn't rain until late into the party. I entertained people by going a bit retro and using my Polaroid camera to take pictures. That's right - POLAROID. Old school baby. Not totally old school - you don't have to peel the paper back and wave the print to dry it as it develops. But it is fun to take pictures you can't redo and wait to see them develop. I am going to make an album of the pictures for the new bride and groom. I also believe that people look better in these photos than they do in digital photos. There is a depth to "real" film you lose in digital. Everyone said so when they saw their pictures.

The one dark moment in this fun event was the crazy Russian. She owns the house. She is a lovely woman generally, very generous and funny. But the last few times she has seen me, she has said, in about the first 12 seconds, something along the lines of when am I going to lose weight. You heard me. Imagine Natasha from the Rocky and Bullwinkle show, coming up to you and saying "what are you going to do about losing the weight". Not that she is a petite flower herself, she could lose a few (30 or 40) lbs herself. She actually had the balls to ask me if I was having another one. Baby that is. I have actually lost 10lbs since she last saw me! Grrr. I am over 40 and I had a baby 18 months ago. This is not an easy battle. The laws of biology are against me. But I am trying. The big thing for her is SHE wants to lose weight, and is projecting that on me. Thanks. I need your baggage AND mine. What crazy person says this to another person at a fun event like this. The crazy Russian, that is who. Sigh.

Monday, June 2, 2008

Pink is the color of...

Infection. Crankiness. Complete and utter inconsolableness. Is that a word? It should be. It describes Cooper to a T. And what does that mean anyway - to describe someone to a T? I digress. Cooper has pink eye. And a cold, or perhaps bronchitis. We have to wait a bit more to see if it becomes more than a mild cold. He has green goop oozing from his eyes and nose. He is NOT pulling on his ears. That was the concern of the doctor's office when we called yesterday, on a Sunday. I never call on the weekend. Until there was green goop oozing out of my kids PINK eyeball. It has been going around at school. We never had this as kids. It seems more prevalent now. So I called because I wanted the prescription for the drops sooner rather than later. Three phone calls later we had the prescription. The doctor was concerned it might be more and suggested going to the ER. Uh, no. We went once before on his recommendation when Cooper was 3 months old or so, and he had a very odd breathing pattern. With preemies you have to watch for odd breathing. 50 or more breaths in a minute and it is odd. So he was worried there might be an infection. 5 hours and who knows how many of my hard earned dollars later (after the insurance kicked in their part) we found out he was normal. I was NOT going through that again for a MAYBE ear infection. I know the signs, and they were not in attendance. Nor are they now.

But he is inconsolable, periodically. He sits and reads, then he watches the Hoobs, or Sesame Street or has some blueberries, and is happy. But then he isn't. And he isn't in spades. He coughs, a little, harsh, fleghmy cough, and then he cries. But he isn't coughing constantly. Just occasionally. Poor little bean. And by the way, he HATES cranberry juice. It is the only juice I have in the house. HELLOOOO, it goes with vodka. We haven't been big on giving him juice, but I thought maybe it would be better than fleghm producing milk. I watered it down. With water, not vodka. He hated it. He does drink water some times, but we will stick to milk for now.

When will I get the pink eye? I don't like the idea. I have never had it. Don't want it either. Oh well. But this explains the cranky bedtime behavior. He hates the eye drops, but he has been going to bed a bit better in the last day or so since they have been employed.