Thursday, May 29, 2008

Flower Power

I broke a promise to B last weekend. He and I were supposed to spend an afternoon planting pretty flowers in all of the pots around the house. Unfortunately, because I was at my sister's place with her kids - I had to renege. So, today B will stay out of pre-school to spend the day with mommy planting flowers and getting muddy.

He is such a powerhouse of a helper - we are going to have a good time. I sometimes worry about whether he gets enough of us, middle child and all. We'll catch up a bit.

Stress Test

Memorial Day weekend was not exactly what I had planned.

My brother-in-law had his usual five-mile run last Thursday. After his run, he experienced some chest pain. He thought that it was significant enough to run over to the nearby hospital and get it checked out, just in case. M walked through the doors into the hospital about the same time that his heart stopped. He collapsed. In minutes, they had done CPR, used a defibrillator, and brought him back. Within a few hours, he had received a shiny new stent in a major coronary artery.

He would have been dead (permanently) if this had happened pretty much anywhere but inside a hospital. I dashed to their house to watch their kids so that my sister could be with her husband at the hospital.

If he had had a recent cardiac stress test (called for due to his age and a strong family history), it would have detected the occluded artery.

Get yourself checked out as needed.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

End of year

B went to his Kindergarten orientation and screening over the last few weeks. Z had to be the "big brother" and tell him all about riding the bus and where one should go in school. A few observations:
  • B absolutely loved riding the bus, that was exciting beyond belief.
  • B is going to school with three friends that he has been in daycare with since he was a wee little thing. If he gets placed with C or N (two other little boys) woe be the teacher in the class. These guys are ok on their own (any of them) but, together they whip any place into a froth of chaos.
  • B is a bit on the young side for kindergarten, but is pretty ready as he's been going to "school" since he was a baby.
  • When next year's kindergarten class walked by, B stood easily three or four inches taller than the next tallest kid. He is taller than many of Z's first grade classmates. Wow. How many other parent's (do you suppose) thought that we had held him back?
  • My little baby is growing up. How did that happen so fast?

Monday, May 5, 2008

Hug your loved ones.

You just can't tell when your time will be up, and it doesn't count if you just think they know you love them.

A friend of mine took her hubbie, two-year-old, and seven-year-old to a shindig with a bunch of work friends and their families on Friday night.

From what I hear, everyone was having a good time, hanging out, eating burgers, drinking some wine and beer.

Suddenly, a tree branch fell in the back yard.

With his two-year-old about a foot away, my friend's 36-year-old husband was struck down and killed by a freak tree branch.

Widowed with two young daughters, in a freak accident.

Go hug your loved ones... and, don't go under trees today.

On the flip side, my college is a great community. People are rallying, gathering casseroles, hiring a maid service, hiring lawn care, and organizing visits and travel. Some places really show what they are made of in a tragedy. I hope I never need it.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Another day in paradise.

So, it's final exam time. Time when the teachers get grading all that stuff you were pissed about having to hand in. Time when the end-of-year reports pile up. And, as it turns out, time when the family car breaks down.

As luck would have it... J's car broke down one mile from our shop, in front of a convenience store. So, this is one of those silver lining deals. He wasn't stranded in the boonies for hours. Someone stopped immediately (he didn't even have to hoof it across the street to the store) to let him call me on the cell. We have a towing service, so they were called and promised to dispatch someone. I gave up (selflessly) my chance to work out to drop J at work and wait for the tow. Would you believe that in the half hour I waited a cop and a fireman stopped to see if I needed help? Would you also believe that I drank my second 24 oz diet pepsi of the day so by the time the tow arrived, I threw him the key and drove across the street and hop/danced into the ladies room? Yes on both counts.

Anyway, so I gave up the gym. Z had piano lessons, so we did end of day sort of in reverse. I met the bus at home for Z. We struggled through some inane first-grade homework. Then, we gathered Z's piano books, and picked up J. Then, picked up B and T. Then dropped Z at lessons (there's a point - hang on).

After lessons, we needed dinner. So, we took an overanimated Z, an excitable B and a cranky T to a bar that doubles as a restaurant on the way home. Each kid got a Yoo-Hoo (which, if you don't know is a semi-dairy, semi-chemical filled chocolate sortof dairy drink).

Shortly thereafter, T suddenly smelled kinda off. And, what a mess. So, J scrubbed the boy with some napkins (clean face for throwing up) and finished eating his meal.

Then, J took T to the car to clean up while I finished eating with the big boys and settled the bill (I did tip well and let him know to clean up the booth real well).

When I got outside, T was naked in the car and J was scrubbing himself with wet wipes. He stuffed T into a spare diaper and into his seat and held out a plastic bag (ewww). What a mess for a little spit up!

No, J says - as it turns out , he had the runs and blew out of his pants all over - it was the runs - everywhere, in a restaurant. We couldn't tell, cuz' well, he had a Yoohoo.

ewww.

Are these the days we're going to treasure?