February 29, 2008 @ 19:41

So, after one full week of feeling poopie and lying about the house in our Spiderman jammies and our big brother’s bathrobe, things were looking up.  But we went back for a follow up with the doctor because we took all the medicine from the first visit just like we were supposed to and the fever won’t go away.  We felt some better, but . . .  Doc says chest X-ray.  Results of which are?  Puppy is now on an inhaler, Albuterol, which I’d just call speed.  And?  AND?  Steroids. 

In line at the drive thru window of our pharmacy, the pharmacist is telling me all about the meds.  The whole time, Puppy is kicking the back of the headrest on the seat in front of him.  I am repeatedly telling him to stop.  The pharmacist tells me that I’ll want to have a drink ready for him when I give him the steroids because the taste is really bad.  Great, I think, we just finished Tamiflu yesterday and it was horrible.  If I go near the kitchen cabinet where the medicines are kept, he hides.  And did I mention that all the while we are having this conversation, Puppy is kicking the back of the headrest on the seat in front of him?  I repeatedly tell him to stop.  Then the pharmacist tells me that the steroid will also ”hype him up”.  Greeaaaat.  He is glancing back at Puppy as he kicks the back of the headrest.  He then explains how to use the contraption that comes with the inhaler.  I ask him, “And isn’t Albuterol supposed to hype him up, too?”  He looks back at Puppy again.  “Yep.  But I promise this will help the wheezing and the cough and then you can both get some rest.”  He looks back at me sympathetically.  Some days, if a man implied that I appeared to need some rest, I’d have been offended.  I know I look like crap, we don’t have to talk about it, really!  But this was just too funny and perfectly appropriate.  I thanked him and drove away. 

As soon as I got home I gave Puppy the first doses of the meds.  Then I called his daddy to tell him we were back.  Puppy’s spending the night with him tonight.  As I’m explaining the day I can hear Puppy and Bear in the living room getting progressively louder.  They are playing tag (great game for the in the house, really . . .  ) Just as I get to the part about the hyping up, Puppy runs in the room, head butts me in the hip and runs back out.  Yee haw!  Can’t wait for tomorrow!  It’s gonna kick my butt, but I’ll take the hyper Puppy over the sad little feel bad Puppy any day.  I’d rather he break by lamps than break my heart. 

Hope y’all have a great weekend! 

February 29, 2008 @ 15:04

There’s a charity auction held every year hear in Central Arkansas for Youth Home.  It’s called Eggshibition.  You should check it out.  It’s a really worthy cause.  This year’s auction, a friend asked me if I would participate.  Local artists are asked to decorate eggs and some are signed by celebrities.  No, silly, I was asked as a local artist.  My first misgivings arrived with the paperwork that preceded the egg.  The egg itself is already a work of art, crafted by a NW Arkansas artisan, it is the size of an ostrich egg and sculpted from a dense heavy plaster.  The paperwork started out with the basic, fill in your name, contact information and then . . .  “What media do you work in?”  Hmmm, sugar, butter, cream cheese, chocolate . . .  But I would suspect that they really meant ink, watercolor, oils, that sort of thing.  All of which I’ve had my hands in, but not regularly in many many years.  I occasionally put my hands on a calligraphy and illumination project, but not often enough to feel comfortable claiming it as my medium.  Then the next question “Where can your work be viewed, i.e. which galleries?”  Oh . . .  crap . . .  the answer is none.  Unless my spare closet and my mom’s dining room could claim to be galleries.  So, I decided to embrace the moment.  My medium?  Sugar.  Galleries?  Birthday parties around Central Arkansas.  Campy?  Yeah, probably.  But it’s the truth, so I went with it. 

My first plan had been to carve into the surface of the egg.  Until it arrived.  And I discovered that it was like a stone.  Uh . . .  no.  So it sat in my office, staring at me from it’s plain brown box in it’s nest of shredded brown paper.   It had at least four distinct pre-plans before I finally settled on a course of action. 

Plan B.  I’ll paint it, a little pastoral scene and then elaborate ornamentation around it. 

Even before I gave the ornamentation a chance, I hated it. 

Plan C.  I’ll start on the other side, build up some floral design that I can continue over the entire surface.  I’ll decide how to paint it later . . . 

Much better, so I continued the design over the entire surface.  I then decided to wash some color over the surface, just to see how it looked.  Plan D. 

Yes, I know.  Hideous.  So bad 80s sofa I nearly chucked the whole thing.  But, after about a half dozen phone calls to my mother (she’s an artist) and about two hours of wandering up and down the aisles of Hobby Lobby, I chose a color that I thought could salvage it. 

Plan F.  A nice pale celery color, upon which my plan was to place very delicate gold leaf details on every flower, leaf and vine.  I was happy with this plan.  But then . . .  the flu . . . 

So in the end, I very undelicately gold leafed the whole dang thing.  Now all I can think is how disappointing that it isn’t as full of chocolate as it looks.  I’m not unhappy with it at all.  And I’m sure to have a better handle on things when next year’s egg arrives.  For all of it’s uncertianty, I loved doing this and hope to do many more in the coming years.  But isn’t it just so very me, that even when I take on a project that has nothing to do with cake, it still winds up being a great big ode to chocolate.  Sigh . . . 

February 29, 2008 @ 14:09

Fever still lingering.  Back to the doctor this afternoon.  But almost back to our very happy self.  In fact, we feel so much better that we broke out the contriband sidewalk chalk and did some home decorating.  Isn’t our penmanship great! 

We do still, however, hate the flu. 

February 27, 2008 @ 14:23 

No stats this week, only sick babies and sick Mommy.  Puppy has the flu, maintaining an incredibly awful 103 fever since Sunday. Taking meds that the pediatrician perscribed.  Very little improvement so far.  But we aren’t really expecting much improvemtn til tomorrow.  Fingers crossed and all.  Me now fighting off an infection with antibiotics.  Both so sick that we missed Bear’s orchestra concert on Monday night.  And me so angry right now at about four different people that it’s surely best that I not post for another couple of days. 

That is all . . . 

February 20, 2008 @ 22:39

So Trixie and I went hiking on our holiday Monday at my favorite place in the world.  I took nearly 200 pictures.  I’ll be posting more in a day or two, not all 200 though, promise.  But this couldn’t wait, I have to show you these two and ask. 

Prehistoric cave painting, Petite Jean State Park, primitive and lovely. 

 Vandalism, Petite Jean State Park, primitive and pointless.  

I made myself stop taking pictures of the things like this that just hurt.  Discarded drink containers and this crazy constant carving and spray painting of names.  I just don’t get that, do you guys?  Seriously, why?  I cannot imagine standing in a place so magnificent and forming the thoughts that lead to crap like this.  Not even when I was 16.  And I was exceedingly stupid at 16.  

February 19, 2008 @ 07:06

That’s a line spoken by Barbar Streisand in The Mirror Has Two Faces, spoken to her mother.   It’s not a perfect movie, but a nice light introduction into this subject.  If you haven’t thought about the messages you’re sending your children, time to start.  And not just for the mothers of girls.  I’ve read that as many as 1 in 8 people who suffer from an eating disorder now are male.  Did you know that?  Little boys are not immune to body image and self esteem issues.  So just, be careful.  Even if a kid can’t remember where the dirty laudry hamper is, they can remember everything you say.  Especially those things you say that sting.  Even if you don’t think at the time that it’s anything, be thoughtful before you speak.  I have a dear friend that on the day she was released from a stay in the hospital for treatment for anorexia, her mother told her how fat she’d gotten and that she’d better get back on her diet quickly.  There’s the extreme.  I used to know another girl who no matter how much time she spent with her hair or her clothes or her makeup, her mother wasn’t satisfied.  She’d walk into the room, and immediately her mother would say “I wish you had worn your hair pulled back, I like it pulled back.”  Or some other insidious little slight.  Seems simple and not at all like a slap, but in context, that’s exactly what it is.  And it isn’t just appearance.  You can foul up royally, anytime or place, if you aren’t careful.  Back when Bear used to play baseball, I was once sitting right behind the plate for a game.  He was up at bat and for some reason had tensed up.  The pitcher kept zinging them over the plate at him, he’d already struck out his last at bat.  As a second strike whipped by him and he didn’t make any move at all, my mouth opened and I said his name in an incredulous tone.  It came out loudly.  Of course it did, because it shouldn’t have come out at all.  I do swear that my utterance was with surprise that he was tensed up, not disappointment for his performance.  But what do you think he felt?  Probably a number of things, shame, anger at me, a burning desire to be anywhere else in the world.  And it’s my fault, for letting that one word slip out.  It was unintentional, but I still get a knot in my stomach thinking about it.  I apologized to him later and he’s never said another word about it.  I hope that the little zen child that he is has forgotten the moment.  But you never know . . .  Little things can cling to you.  But, I will never forget one day when he was in kindergarten, he climbed into the backseat as I was picking him up after school and I could tell something was wrong.  When I asked, he told me that some kids at school were picking on him, calling him names.  Then he said, “It’s okay, Mom.  Just because they say those things about me, doesn’t make them true.”  This is the attitude he has consistently shown and the attitude that I hope I’m helping him keep up.  Now I’m not saying that a kid’s gotta be told all day every day that he’s perfect.  I’m the last person you’ll convince that a trophy for everybody is the right thing to do.  But it’s a tricky tricky balance.  We have to be careful we don’t tip them over. 

If you have trouble with the video here . . .  go here . . . 

February 18, 2008 @ 12:53

Were you wondering where the cake had gone?  Well, this weekend, I had a cake order for the sweetest thing.  A baby girl’s first birthday, shared with a great grandmother’s sixty ninth birthday.  How sweet is that? 

Oh, and Monday’s Stats . . .  Miles: 2, Hours: 3, Pounds Lost: 0, Packages with shiny new bikes arrived: 1!!!!  Help has arrived.  Oh, and Trixie and I are off to hike at my favorite mountain today, so the trends are improving.  Yay! 

February 15, 2008 @ 06:25

Flowers received – 0
Hugs received from about to be teenaged son – 4, at least.  I know everybody says that someday they’ll stop being affectionate, but I won the lottery with this kid.  I know the real reason they call them Bear Hugs. 
Preschool-crafted Valentines – 1, with doilies and everything!  I don’t know how to spell that little girlie excited squeal noise, but I think it’s something like screeeeeeeeeee!!!   
Moments that I felt loved – all of them. 

Yesterday afternoon one of my co-workers, that I only get a chance to talk to every couple of months or so, stopped by to see me.  She’s this remarkably elegant woman.  She’s also the kind of person who doesn’t just ask you “How are you?”  She asks pointed questions and cares deeply about the answers.  We hadn’t talked since November.  So we had a lot of catching up to do.  By the end of the conversation, I almost felt as if I were being interviewed.  Or in therapy, which, hey, I could use!  Right?  Right!  She is also a woman of faith.  The kind that can say things to you that from anyone else’s lips might sound trite.  But when she speaks, you believe in her sincerity absolutely.  She told me that she knew that God had great things in mind for me, that if he didn’t, my path would be uneventful.  If any other person had said this to me, I might have made some wisecrack about wishing for uneventful or ordinary, that maybe he had given me more than I could handle and I just hadn’t proven it yet.  Instead, I accepted her compliments and let her say the nicest things to me, including promises of prayer.  So I consider that conversation my official valentine.  That offering of love and peace.  God didn’t give me a challenging child to make my life harder or to test me.  He gave the gift of a mother, who is willing to try as hard as she might, and a big brother with inner peace and an ocean’s worth of love, as a gift to my challenging child.  Bear and Puppy are both my gifts, they just came in different packaging.  So my Valentine’s Day was not filled with roses and chocolate but it was full of love. 

 . . .  well, maybe there was a little bit of chocolate . . . 

February 13, 2008 @ 06:41

Well, after two days of searching, we have a new daycare and a small bit of an answer about what happened.  So, the worst of these two days for us, then, is our fears for our Mrs. Sharon.  We know now, that she had an aneurysm.  How’s that for scary?  No more word than that, though.  Don’t know how badly or if she’ll be home soon.  Only that she is in ICU. 

Puppy starts this morning at a new daycare.  As it turns out, the owner has a special needs brother, who the doctors told the family to institutionalize when he was a child.  Their family refused.  He is now 35, has a driver’s license and works in maintenance at a hospital.  These are things that make me believe that this is a woman we can trust and who will be good for us.  Because she knows what real life is.  This is not a center that warehouses little sheep for the all too common disinterested parent.  His teacher has a Bachelors in early childhood development.  The teacher he will move up to when he’s ready for a full classroom setting, has a Masters.  They spoke to me for over two hours.  Were enthused by my willingness to talk to them about what his quirks are and what he needs to transition well.  They actually cared about the little person that he is.  We stood for that last half hour and watched him play with the other kids through a window.  They pointed out moments that they were happy to see in him.  How he played well with another boy.  How when he was interrupted by another child that he handled that well, too.  And then she said the magic words.  “I think he’s going to do great here.”  I’m afraid that during the conversation I teared up at one point.  I told her that this last year had been hard.  She said she understood.  I believed her.  And that’s what we really need.  All we need.  Someone who understands, who looks at him and sees him and thinks what we think, that he’s going to do great.  Puppy seemed excited about the new toys and new kids and new environment.  The transition will be just that, we know, a transition.  And we expect to have some tough days.  But I think this is going to be a good change.  But having said that, I have to ask, if God is going to guide us, does he have to do it with landmines?  Seriously? 

February 12, 2008 @ 19:37 

Driving down the road, Puppy in the backseat digging through a small tubby of snap together tracks that is sitting in his lap.  He is making “I’m working very seriously” noises.  Little grunts of frustration and an occasional grrr.  Then he becomes very quiet for a moment.  He then announces loudly “ . . .  in THEORY . . .  my PLAN . . .  SHOULD WORK!!!”  It was said in such a serious Brain, of Pinky and the Brain voice that I must have laughed for five blocks.  Why is there never anybody in the car with you for these moments?