What a great service

I got a call today from our health insurance carrier, or rather, someone they contract with.  This company offers health coaching.  It is included in my plan so there is no additional cost.

What, you may ask as I did, is the benefit of having a health coach?

The coach can help you with any questions you may have.  It could be living a healthy lifestyle, smoking cessation programs, reducing stress, access to a dietician, tips to improve your total health and reduce your overall medical costs.

Maybe we could get this coach!

You name it and they can do it!

Sounds interesting, and it's free.  The only thing I had to do was confirm the year in which my daughter was born. 

Ruby, that is.  They were offering to coach a newborn to better health.  I should've put her on the phone.

They were so concerned with the health of my family they wanted to get my two month old to stop smoking, eat better, exercise more, and maybe, just maybe, cut down on her medical expenses.

That's interesting.  I'm not exactly sure how they were going to keep her from catching a virus and being admitted to the hospital, but apparently they were willing to try.  They "work with people of all ages". 

HA!

I assume they've called Mama as well, since she blew through her deductible three days into the year giving birth.  Birthing a child, in case you didn't know, is something you can avoid with a healthy lifestyle.  But you'll need a coach to do that.

I'm not a candidate for a health coach currently, even though I am probably the unhealthiest member of my family.  Guess I'll need to come down with an expensive illness if I want to be considered.

Holiday Tips

This is a repeat from a post done last year.  I thought I'd put it out there in advance of the holidays to give people time to prepare themselves.

Ahhh! The holiday season is upon us once again.  In case you've forgotten from last year (and the year before, and the year before, etc.), it's the time of year we all go crazy.  Everything we do is done to excess.  Here are a few things you might want to pay a little more attention to this year - some of them may even save or make you money.

Food - meals

If you need a helmet to eat it's probably too much food.

In my experience, most every family has some sort of large meal on or around Thanksgiving and Christmas (or Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, or Festivus).  For most people, these two meals are the largest meals they will consume all year. 

As everyone knows, the best way to get your body to metabolize this gluttonous meal is to sit on the couch and nap.  Having the TV on will only make the process work that much better.  Carbs and starches magically disappear while sleeping, so if at all possible, do not attempt any form of physical exertion.

Since everyone else that comes to eat will be bringing food, don't bother making or buying anything.  Just show up and eat.  Nobody will know you didn't contribute as long as you don't mention it.  If someone asks, tell them you brought cookies and just dumped them on someone else's tray.

Before you leave, don't forget to take leftovers home with you.  Nobody gets tired of eating the same thing day after day after day.  You'll get to it at some point so don't worry about discovering it in the back of the fridge growing mold in a month.  By all means, load up and save on groceries for January.

Food - snacking

Not only do we gorge ourselves at mealtime, but we are constantly eating between meals.  Here are a few tips to keep in mind. 

1 - Chocolate aids in the digestive process of all other foods, especially those high in fat and cholesterol.  Be health conscious and load up on these. 

2 - Make sure you grab a handful (or two) of whatever salty snack is sitting out all month long every time you walk by the bowl.  Salt is good for you!  It can raise your blood pressure, which makes your heart have to work that much harder, which means your heart is getting stronger.  This additional labor can only continue as long as you feed calories into your body, so keep on cramming food into your gullet.  The only time you should stop is when you lose consciousness fall asleep.

If you find a bowl of something sitting out with no salt, don't immediately blame your host.  Nobody in their right mind buys unsalted foods at this time of year.  The simple explanation is this:  some child got hold of the snack and sucked off all the salt.  They are learning good nutritional habits at a young age, so don't chastise them.  Just grab a salt shaker and reapply.  If you've discovered the problem in time, the treat may still be moist enough to allow the new salt to stick.  Bonus!

3 - Doctors recommend drinking a lot of water, but water has no nutritional value.  Soda (aka pop, coke, soft drinks, colas, soda pops) is made from water - and has other added nutrients.  Don't waste precious cargo space on just water alone, make sure you have some additional artificially-occurring substance blended in with it.  And don't do the diet drinks; everyone knows the sweeteners used to make them cause cancer.

It still counts as one glass in my book

4 - In the spirit of combining things, make sure your soda has plenty of booze in it.  If you're not a booze person, do what you like.  Red wine is actually good for you.  If one glass is good, two has to be better.  The theory holds true - as long as you can hold your wine down.

Americans make or buy more treats during December than the other 11 months combined!  (I made that up, but it sounds good). 

Financials

Feel free to run up your credit card debt to buy as much stuff as possible.  Since housing prices always go up and mortgage rates always go down, you can always roll your credit card debt into a new mortgage and get a lower rate.  A win-win scenario! 

Once you discover all the crap you bought is no longer being used, typically within two weeks, you can start preparing for a garage sale.  No self-respecting garage sale shopper will try to haggle you down on pricing and most will pay more than face value for a semi-used toy with missing parts.  In effect, you have turned a profit on the holiday and can use those funds to buy more decorations as they should now be on sale! 

Win-win-win for team Griswold!

To quote my wife, "Looks like Christmas threw up on their house".

While we're on shopping, don't buy on-line.  Make sure you go stand in lines for hours on end to save the extra $1.47 you would have spent at an e-tailer.  Everything related to the Internet is a scam.  All those sites are doing is getting your credit card information and planning on stealing your money.  While you're at it, better cancel all credit cards, just to be safe.  Take your money out of the bank and only use cash.

Better safe than sorry.

If you're not much of a shopper, just get gift cards.  Everyone appreciates a $20 card to somewhere they'd never eat or to a regional store that doesn't exist where they live.  Nothing says "I cherish our relationship so much that I spent 12 seconds thinking about what to get you this year" quite like a prepaid Visa card.  And don't bother with wrapping it.  Any old envelope will do.  The best are reply envelopes which are typically enclosed in credit card offers.  Even though you won't be getting a credit card, you can still use the envelope and save some more cash.
 
Scheduling

You can make anything work if you try.  Visiting three different locations in one day is easy.  Not only do you get to buy gifts for three sets of people (and therefore get three sets in return to resell), you get to eat three times the amount of food and take home three times the amount of leftovers! 

Aside from family gatherings you can also plan on attending office parties, fundraisers, children's performances, get togethers with friends, and any other number of events you can either get invited to or invite yourself to.  Make sure you go to everything!  You simply cannot miss anything. 

You have the rest of the year to just hang out with your own family and enjoy them, so go ahead and sacrifice now.  You'll be thanking me for it later.

I hope this helps!  I look forward to hearing your success stories in the weeks and months to come!

One of God's greatest gifts

I realize some of you are finishing the title statement as Garth Brooks would have, by saying:

"is unanswered prayers".

That may be true, but I have another way to finish that statement for you to ponder:

"is death".

Let me explain.

I have never dealt well with death.  Every single time I go to a visitation, whether it was for my grandma, great-grandma, or even just to support a friend who lost a loved one, I bawl my eyes out.  Even when I just hear about someone losing a loved one it chokes me up.

I put myself through the emotional wringer by reminding myself: I'll never see her again; she'll never get to see my kids grow up; he has no more time with his father; we didn't have the chance to talk about _____; I'll never get to hear the wealth of knowledge and history she has; and so on.

My last living grandparent passed away early this morning after a battle with cancer.  Last year it claimed her leg.  Last week, we were planning a date a few weeks out to take the girls to see her one last time as we were told she only had months to live. 

Yesterday morning, plans were changed, and I was trying to find a day in the next few weeks to go as her prognosis changed to having a few weeks left.  Yesterday afternoon, when that time frame dropped to days, I was looking to find a time this weekend to drive up.  Last night, we were informed she had only hours left, if that. 

As I lay in bed around 12:15 I was praying for God to end her suffering and bring her to Him.  Fifteen minutes later, she passed peacefully with my own mother at her side.

As much as it hurts me to know she is gone, I will gladly take that answered prayer.  Her pain is gone and I should celebrate that.  Her suffering is gone and I should celebrate that.  She is reunited with the Lord and I should celebrate that.  For the rest of time, she will never know pain or sorrow, only joy and celebration, and I should celebrate that.

So back to the whole thing about death being a gift.  God gave us the gift of death so we can be reunited with Him.  If it weren't for death, we'd suffer an eternity away from Him.  The pain of death is only for those who live.  The joy of death is for those who pass.

One more time:  God gave us the gift of death so we can be reunited with Him.

We should be celebrating her life and the life of Christ.  He died so that we may live.  He defeated death, so that we may be with the Lord forever.

It is difficult to praise the Lord when things don't go your way, but it's at these times we need to do exactly that.  We need to pray that the Lord will use the bad times in our lives to bring us, and others, closer to Him. 

We need death.

We need it not only to reunite us with our Lord, but to remind us to reach out to those we care the most about and ensure they are trusting in Jesus for their salvation.  We need death to spread the gospel.  We need it to remind us there is nothing on this earth that will fill the void in our hearts except for God.

We need death.

I'm still sad.  I'm still crying and thinking about her.  This time, however, instead of tears of sorrow I have tears of joy (mostly).  I know I might still be a mess at the visitation and burial, but I also know the Lord will be with me and help me get through it. 

Rest in peace grandma.  We miss you.  We love you.  We celebrate your life.  We praise God.

Humidifier failure

I'm allergic to dust.  Actually, when I was tested for allergies growing up, I was allergic to over 95% of what they tested for, so this is no surprise.  Most of the allergies are just a nuisance more than anything severe, and dust is no exception.  Sometimes I might have a little difficulty breathing, but nothing serious.

Recently, the girls and I have all had some nighttime coughing stuff going on and we just couldn't identify what was causing it.

We've had humidifiers in all of our bedrooms since the girls were born.  Recently we've had to replace them.  The stupid humidifiers came with filters that "never needed to be replaced".  The company was so sure of this they don't sell the filters as a stand alone product.  The problem with this is our filters started filtering poorly.  They got to the point of letting no water or moisture through AT ALL.  If I wanted to replace the filter I would've had to replace the whole unit.  I guess that's one way for the company to boost sales, but it didn't work with us.

Now, the girls have a frog humidifier in their room and we have an elephant in ours.  They are filterless, so no need to worry about changing them again either. 

The old humidifiers sat directly on our dressers and worked well - before they didn't.  The new ones couldn't be set directly on wood because they produce a cool mist, which could damage the wood finish if placed directly on it. They recommended not using a toel either.  The fan pulls air in from the bottom, so a towel restricts that air flow too much and results in very little moisture.  I found that out when I discovered a very wet towel under the humidifier.

Next, I placed a piece of plastic on top of the towel, and then set the humidifier on that.  The plastic was not thick enough to provide enough support, so the air flow was still limited.  I then replaced the plastic with the lid of a five gallon bucket which used to hold drywall.  This was sturdy enough to provide the required support, so our problem was solved. 

And then it wasn't.

It would appear our water is too hard.  Within days of getting the lid in place we started noticing a fine white dust on everything.  Furniture, flooring, clothes, everything.  According to the manufacturer's website, using a demineralization kit and purified water would alleviate the problem.  I tried it all and still the white layer grew larger.  We looked into a water softener, but the cost would not justify it unless we were planning on spending a long time at our current location.

I was perplexed.  Why had the other humidifiers worked?  Why had the one in the girls room worked for months without residue and the one in our room failed immediately?  We were getting water for them from different faucets so I tried getting all the water from the same one.  That should've had no impact as it's all the same water source, and it didn't. 

My sister-in-law was in town and made an off-hand comment about the white film resembling drywall dust.  As I lay in bed hours later it hit me.  There was still some drywall mud on the lids.  As the moisture settled onto it, the mud softened, spread thin, and dried.  The thinner layer of mud was then being sucked up by the fan, run through the humidifier, and coming out as a drywall dust vapor, which would then settle on everything.

After a VERY thorough cleaning of the bedrooms and replacing the drywall bucket lids with the little plastic things potted plants set on, the white stuff stopped.  The breathing fits are gone, as is the coughing.  I no longer wake up at night needing to use an inhaler and the girls are sleeping well again.

Life is good.  Perhaps I should've titled this user failure instead of blaming it on the humidifiers. 

What a week

This past week has been a bit crazy.  I thought I'd share some of the stupid things that have gone on around me, and some of the things that made me smile.

Who has the more mischievous look on her face?

Stupid - An extended cab truck, with a full sized bed, parked in a compact car space in the parking garage. 

Good - the car next to said truck, on the driver's side, parked within inches of the truck.  The truck driver will now have to get in on the passenger side and crawl across.  Well played.

Stupid - I follow a guy onto the elevator.  He pushes the button for the 14th floor and then I push the button for the 5th floor.  As I step to the back of the elevator and the door closes, he steps to the front and stands right in the middle of the door.  As the door opens to the 5th floor, I have to say excuse me so he'll move and I can get off the elevator.

Good - He must have been distracted all morning thinking about getting to be in the front of the line.  I say this because he had one white and one black sock on - I only noticed this as the brown suit pants he was wearing made him look like he was expecting a flood.  They were about three inches too short.

Stupid -  Me throwing up all night and then deciding to eat some dry toast early in the morning.  That was fine, but chasing it with a glass of milk was a bad decision on my part.  Dairy + stomach flu = no toast or milk in my tummy.  It also meant no bile, no acid, and really no anything in my stomach for many more hours.  Reminded me of this.

Good - Mama being incredible and taking care of twin toddlers and ailing Papa for the day.  While they didn't come in to play and jump all over me (thankfully), they did stand at the bedroom door and wave at me, telling me hi and bye, while I was quarantined.

Stupid - see here, and here as well.

Good - see here.

Stupid - Me misreading my wife's facial expression and then making a crack about what was taking place.  Only later did I realize she was not laughing at the situation, but merely trying not to cry as she attempted to parallel park...our 17 foot long extended Trailblazer...in a tight spot...on a busy road...with two screaming toddlers in the car...and a flock of observers on the sidewalk. 

Good - The look of appreciation on her face as I later acknowledged my failure, apologized for my words, and asked for her forgiveness.

Good - A lunch date with my three ladies and sister-in-law at work.  I got to show them all off as we walked around the office.  Also, so many compliments on how adorable and well behaved they were - all of them.

Stupid - The new version of bubble wrap.  Our girls love the old style you can actually pop.  In case you missed it, you can see their joy here.  The new stuff has five or six air pockets that are not filled fully with air.  As you squeeze one, the air simply moves to the other pockets. 

Herding chickens...always a good time.

Good -  In the end, I discovered if you roll it up, and then have a toddler jump on it, it will still explode, but nothing like it used to be. I'm sure it's better for shipping, but it's much worse for entertainment than it used to be.

What now?

Well, it finally happened.  After over four years of marriage and two years of raising children together, Julia decided to leave us.  She gave us very little warning.  I always knew it was a possibility, but I am still not prepared for it.  She deals with so much on a daily basis.  I don't know how she manages to put up with two toddlers and an insane husband all the time.  In the end, it was just too much.

Goodbye, my love.

My girls and I watched through the window as Mama drove away.  They didn't fully understand the gravity of what was going on, but I imagine my tears were telling them something was not normal.  I believe they were thinking she is just taking the car and going to get something for us all.  They do not realize she will not be coming back.  They pat me on the back, give me hugs, and then are off to play.

That's right.  She's gone.  Mama is gone.

I appreciate your continued support as I hunt and peck away at the keyboard to tell stories.  I hope I've amused you over the past six months.  I don't know when the humor may return.  I'm struggling through this black period of mourning as the reality sets in.  I apologize for any typos as the tears make the keyboard difficult to see.

I'm alone with my girls.  A newly single father tasked with raising two beautiful girls.  I don't know what I'm supposed to do, or how I'm supposed to do it, or even if I can do it.

I should've seen this coming.  I should've done more to prepare myself for the possibility. 

We got through dinner, but I'm not ready to do bath time on my own.  I'll need a lot of help, but I don't know where to turn.  I can put them to bed tonight, but what do I do when they wake up and ask for Mama?  They will do that, too.  I know it.  As sure as the sun comes up, they will ask for their mother and then what do I tell them?

Breakfast will come and go.  The same for lunch, and their afternoon nap.  When they get up from their nap, and there is still no Mama, what do I say? 

How can I explain to them that their mother is not around?  How can you explain such grown up concepts of love, loss, and abandonment?  When will they realize she is gone?  When will they wonder if they'll ever see her again?

I pray for her.  I pray she will be safe.  I pray she will do the things she needs to do.

Most of all, I pray she'll come back safely.   

And now, the rest of the story.

I am so thankful she'll only be gone one night.

What did you think I was saying?

I love misdirection.  Oh, how I love it.

Is it opposite day or is it just me?

I've recently written about a poor experience I had with pain medication and muscle relaxers.  The more I thought about it, the more I realized my troubles are not limited to the heavier drugs.

If you've read any amount of my "work", you already realize I am slightly insane - or at least teetering on the brink.  My mind works in mysterious ways.  My body does too, though I'm not sure if it is mind over matter or matter over mind in this case.

Maybe I just need to be more laid back, with my mind on my money and my money on my mind.

I used to read the possible side effects of medications before I took them, just to see what wasn't in store for me.  Sounds strange, doesn't it?  It seemed like I would always get something they didn't list as a possibility.  Or I would get the exact opposite of what they did warn me about.  I've never had anal leakage (fecal incontinence if you prefer), death, blindness, or anything too severe, but I always get something.

Most of what I get is just irritating.  Sometimes, it is slightly more than that.

Need an example?  I'm so glad you asked.

Let's suppose I have a prescription which warns about the possibility of dry mouth.  My side effect is slobbering and drooling.

Constipation equals me tied to a toilet.

Loose bowel warnings tell me to avoid cheese as I'll be blocked up for a week.

Fluid retention means I'm dehydrated.

Increased appetite results in a hunger strike.

Getting the picture?

I stopped reading the labels to see if my mind was causing me to suffer or if my body was acting on its own.  As luck would have it, I still don't know the answer.  Something is messed up, but neither my body nor my brain seem to be the clear cause. 

So...how exactly do you contact them if you're dead?

Perhaps the most frustrating example has to do with drowsiness.  The non-drowsy cold medicines wire me up and my brain shoots to crazy places.  The coma-inducing ones do the same thing, but to an even greater extent.  Unless, of course, I take it at work.  Then I zone out.  

Even sleeping pills are no match for me.  Roughly half of the time a sleeping pill will put me to sleep, only for me to wake up in five or six hours, with a rocking headache.  The other half of the time I will lay in bed until the sun comes up, or at least until I can't stand being alone with my own thoughts any more.  Pretty much a lose-lose scenario.

I guess the one good thing about lying in bed wide awake all night is I at least get ideas for posts.

A story from long ago

I read This Daddy's post about pain medicine, and couldn't help but think back to my own experience.  I thought I'd share it here as it, in my opinion, is a pretty good story. 

CHIIIEEEFFF!!!

I had back surgery over ten years ago.  The surgery itself was supposed to leave a scar the size of an eraser you would find on the end of a pencil.  It ended up being the length of an eraser you would use on a chalkboard since they had to cut through (and subsequently reattach) the muscles in my back to completely fix everything.  As it turned out, the surgery was not as "simple" as the surgeon originally thought; he found more damage in need of repair once he got me opened up.

When I got home, after a brief 23 hour visit to the hospital for the procedure, I had Vicodin and muscle relaxers waiting for me.  Even with the medicine I was in pretty bad pain.  I couldn't lay down, because I couldn't get back up on my own.  I didn't realize this, unfortunately, until the middle of the night when I had to visit the little boy's room.  I made it, but just barely, and it really hurt.  Let me clarify - getting to the bathroom hurt, not the act of pottying.

For the next few days, I lived in a recliner.

On the second day after surgery, I ate a little breakfast, popped my pills, and settled back in my throne to watch Sportscenter.  For those of you that aren't familiar with ESPN's lineup back then, they basically replayed Sportscenter every hour from 6 AM to noon, and then would loop a new one from 4 PM to 6 PM.

On this particular day I started watching Sportscenter at 7 AM.  I planned to watch just one episode and then put in a movie.  All I remember from that day is watching the first half of the 7 AM show and the second half of the 5 PM show.  The rest of the day was gobbled up by the pills.  At some point I did take my next dose of medicine, but I can't say that I recall doing it. 

That concerned me a little - especially when I saw that I had made a few phone calls, returned some emails to clients, cooked myself a pizza, ate the pizza, and left the oven on.  I also, apparently, had a beer or three with lunch.

That night I was watching a basketball game with my wife.  Florida State was playing somebody.  In the middle of the first half my wife asked me a question.  In the middle of the second half I realized someone was lecturing me on the culture of numerous American Indian tribes.

As I sat there watching the game, listening to this idiot ramble on with no apparent end in sight or real point to be made, I realized I knew some of what he was saying to be true, but most of it sounded as though he was making it up on the spot. 

I checked the TV to make sure I wasn't hearing one program and watching another.  As I turned the channel to something else, the guy kept talking.  I turned off the TV, and all the stereo components and still this guy spoke.

I went to the bathroom and this guy went with me.  He was talking right behind me the whole time.  How was this happening?  The bathroom was a half bath, with no room for two people, yet even with the door shut I could hear him plain as day. 

I didn't see anyone.

It was truly bizarre.

As I returned to the living room he came with me.  I started to argue a point with him and then it hit me.  I asked my wife one question:

"How long have I been talking about Indians?" 

"Since I asked you if you cared who won this game - about 45 minutes ago" she replied.

Even thought the pain was great, I decided to quit taking the Vicodin/muscle relaxer combination.

It was kinda like what John went through.

Can you blame me?

Professor Papa - Part 6

Here we are once again where I tell you something good I've taught the girls, and something bad. 

The good - spitting

Why is spitting good?  Because we've all had some sort of sinus and chest congestion thing going on for the last seven weeks.  Most of the time it's been - "productive", for lack of a better term. 

I've tried to teach the girls to expel anything they bring up instead of swallowing it back down.  It might sound gross, but I know how much production there has been around here so we need to make sure their bellies have enough room for food.

I won't bore you with all the details, but we've made some partial progress.

While they still don't hack anything up (and out), they do a fairly good "spit" sound.

Anytime, and I do mean anytime, someone as much as coughs at our house you will hear each of the girls say "tah", which, of course, is the spitting sound.  It might be one quick cough or a good bout of deep coughs, but it will be followed by "tah".

As I sit here writing, the girls are asleep.  They're in the middle of a very good nap and I have heard no sound for over two hours.  Hadley just coughed twice.  Seconds later, I hear Brynne, brought back to consciousness by her uncanny sense of comedic timing, says "tah".  They each giggle a bit and go back to sleep.

The bad - nothing

While I do my best to corrupt them, they have somehow managed NOT to pick up any bad habits or actions.  Oh well, better luck for me next week.

On second thought, maybe walking around spitting, or at least making the sound, is bad enough for now.

I'm officially a guest blogger!

Check me out over at MaMe Musing today for a bit of holiday cheer!


Do you know the next words out of cousin Eddie's mouth?



The power of the media or standard operating procedures?

A friend of mine, and his wife had to take their young daughter to the ER a few weeks ago, because she had an issue "down there".  They were given the "third degree" about what happened. 

It wasn't quite like this

Was it just the father present, the mother, both, or someone else when this happened?

Have they had any visitors recently?


Does she go to daycare?


Are there any male siblings?


Are there any female siblings that have had the same or similar experience?

He anticipated these questions due to the nature of the injury.  He did not anticipate being asked them repeatedly in different forms to see if his story remained the same. 

Don't get me wrong, neither he, nor I, were upset that these questions were asked.  We both agreed that the ER staff was totally justified in asking them to ensure it was truly an accident, and not an indicator of something more. 

What we wondered was this:

Are these questions being asked more often lately due to the publicity from the Syracuse and Penn State debacles? Or have they always been asked like this?

Neither of us have any experience with this, so I thought I'd post the question here and see if there are any of you who have been down this road or just have thoughts about it. 

Does the media sway the medical communities' actions?

I'd love to get your thoughts on these two questions.

New adventures with Papa

Mama had her first sick day on Monday, as you may have read.

The girls and I spent an entire day together while Mama slept and recovered.  Here are a few new things they did.  Some of them are entirely new, while some of them are just new to me. 

We had a blast so I thought I'd share.

Folding the laundry - the girls worked on folding towels.  Mostly, this means I would show them how to do it and they would them destroy my work.  By the end of the allotted laundry time Hadley had folded a washcloth into a semi-square while Brynne kind of balled it up - they both looked roughly accurate so we put them away as they were.

Brynne does her own thing; Hadley at least watches me.

Putting the laundry away - Hadley would bring me a hanger, on which I would hang their clothes, and then she would put it in the closet.  At first, this meant putting it on the floor, but she soon learned how to hang them up and it went well.  Brynne, meanwhile, was in charge of the dresser.  I gave her a stack of folded pants.  She would then open the appropriate drawer, cram in the pants, and close the drawer before repeating the process a dozen times.  Some of the pants needed to be refolded, but for the most part they went in as she put them.  I only did some touch up work when the drawer wouldn't close.

Hadley perfecting her hanging skills

Why yes, that is a roll of tape in my mouth.  Why do you ask?

Not perfect, but not bad for under two.

Meals - The girls had lost some of their appetite recently and we've blamed it on the medicine.  They found it.  Breakfast was two pieces of PB and honey toast, two more pieces of cinnamon toast, half a banana, and two eggs.  That was just the solids!  They also had milk and OJ in large amounts.  Lunch and dinner were different foods, but the quantity was about the same.

Nap time - I have struggled with knowing when to put them down in the past.  Hadley helped me out on this one.  Brynne was trying to climb the stairs up from the basement and had managed to distract me while Hadley read a book.  When I got her under control, I looked over to find Hadley lying on the floor reading her book.  I called her name and she didn't reply.  I went to her and found her "resting her eyes" as my Grandma Jenkins used to say - that's the grandma they share a birthday with, so it works.  Pretty much, she fell asleep and wasn't in her crib or car seat - a first!

Couldn't get the pic before she woke up, but this is close

In case she hadn't made her point clear she made another move.  I came back to the changing room after putting Brynne down to find Hadley trying to put a swim diaper on over her other diaper.  Either she was: sleepy and confused as to what she needed to wear; ready for a dip in the pool on a 50 degree day; or alerting me that she had too much to drink.  As it turns out, the first and the third possibilities above were true.

Playing - Both the girls enjoyed rides in my old office chair around the basement.  Not too exciting for us old people, but for them it was a thrill. 

Not everything was good.  Hadley did manage to take a header off the couch and landed face first on the wood floor.  A few tears later she was fine.  Had it been Brynne, I'm sure we'd be looking at another black eye, but apparently Hadley has a little thicker skin.  Fortunately, landing on her head is probably about as safe as landing on her feet.

I also caught Brynne with one leg over the back of the couch trying to make it to the puppy dogs home.  She didn't get to them, but not for lack of trying.

Time to get back to work so I can catch up on a little R&R.

Looks like we'll need a bigger house

We (and when I use "we" I am mostly referring to myself) have been so fortunate since the girls were born.  Julia has not been sick one time.  Sure, she gets the occassional sniffle or cough, but nothing that has kept her down for long.

That all changed Sunday night. 

She had been feeling a little "off" over the weekend, but nothing major.  Then Sunday night came and brought with it some stomach pains.  No announcement here.  She's not pregnant and I doubt I'd be announcing it to the world through my blog anyway.  In case you are new to me, I am a fan of misdirection, so I hope the title threw you off a bit.

Lesson here for anyone willing to hear it - be careful what you wish for.

Julia was sitting on the bed and said "I wish I would just throw up so I'd feel better".

Hadley then started coughing in her crib.  I went to get her since it sounded like a cough that might lead to vomitting.  I got her halfway to the cool night air (in an effort to let the coldness ease her breathing and stop the coughing fit) when she let loose a spray of milk, medicine, and spinach artichoke dip.

Looks the same coming out as it does going in

Thankfully, most of it ended up on me.  What wasn't on me was quickly cleaned by the dogs.  After we spent some time outside and she was breathing more normally I took her back in to clean her up.  She sat with Mama for a minute while I dug up some clean clothes.

As I returned to our room Hadley was sitting alone on the bed.  I couldn't smell the vomit on her, but Mama did.  The smell was strong enough to grant her wish.

A variation of the last post about me being sick

I have always appreciated how much she does for the girls during the day, but I never had to swap places with her before.  Man, it is not easy.

Sure, I was operating on only four hours sleep and had a list of things to do while the girls took their afternoon nap so I couldn't rest then, but what a day it was. 

Don't get me wrong, I loved hanging out with my girls.  Mama, apparently, has mastered the ability to let the girls play on their own and even encourages it.  I, however, was their constant source on entertainment.  They always had a book for me to read - eight or nine times in a row - or a toy to play with (and sometimes I was their big toy) or steps to keep them from climbing.

We would play for an hour.  Then I would check the clock and see only fifteen minutes had passed.  I swear the sun set and rose twice between breakfast and lunch.

Good old Flavor Flav

I made a mental list of all the things they did and shared them with Julia.  Of course, she had already seen most all of these things, but there were a few new ones. More to come on that Friday.

The worst part was the weather.  It was rainy and dreary outside so we couldn't even go to the park or a tennis court.

I can only wish the next time this day comes, and I am sure it will, the weather is a little more cooperative.