It Builds Character

Lucky 13

2008-11-06T22:40:00.011-06:00

Hard for me to believe, but my boy was born 13 years ago today. Now go ahead and tell me that this is not the cutest little angel who ever lived.

But time flies and kids grow, and here's my boy today, 13 very short years later.

He's such a good kid--I don't know how we got so lucky. Happy Birthday, Buddy. We love you very much!

One year anniversary

2008-07-29T21:31:00.005-05:00

Friday August 1st is the first anniversary of the I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis. I can't believe it's been that long already. They are rebuilding another bridge in its place and it's getting close to being done. It was supposed to be finished in December, but now it sounds like it'll be ready in September.

When it first happened, it didn't seem real. I think that's because I didn't hear about it until a few hours after it happened. Jason and the kids and I had gone out for dinner, and when we got home, there was a message from my mom, just making sure we were ok. Huh? It didn't make any sense. I called her to see what she was talking about, and she told me the 35W bridge had collapsed. It seemed so impossible and outrageous, that my first question was, "Were there people on it?" Uh, yeah, it was rush hour--6pm.

As the anniversary approaches, the local media are reporting on it and telling peoples' stories. The more I hear about it, the more I realize what a tragedy it was. It's not like I thought it was no big deal, but I think that because I have only seen the wreckage in photos, it seems less real. After it fell, there was no getting near the bridge, even if you wanted to. I’ve crossed that bridge hundreds of times, but without seeing it myself, it hasn’t fully sunk in.

But then I found this story in the local paper, the StarTribune. Check out this link. The first thing you’ll see is footage of the bridge actually falling. A nearby company’s security cameras caught the whole thing. When that footage is finished, there’s a picture of the entire bridge, with numbers on it. The numbers correspond to the names over to the right. If you click on the names, there is video of that person as they tell their story of how they survived. Or, in some cases, they talk to the spouse who has been left behind. Incredible. These people haven’t completely healed physically or mentally, and for most, it will be a long time until they do.

There's a new blog in town

2008-07-15T22:03:00.003-05:00

I have received a special request from a very special person in my life. A girl who, just four short weeks ago, was preparing to have surgery to drain a cyst in her brain. My daughter, Catherine, has started a blog of her own, and wants me to make an announcement to you all so that she'll get a little traffic over there.

You'll find her here. Just a couple of notes about the site...the name. No idea on this one. I asked her about it, and she said that there was a bag of Fritos on the desk when she was setting up her blog. Secondly, her name. She calls herself "Kathryn" on her blog. I think she figured that as long as she was spelling it differently, she isn't really using her "real name."

So if you want to make a 9-year-old girl really happy, stop by and say "hi" to her. She has posted quite a few pictures that she's taken with an old digital camera we had laying around. I just love the narrative that goes along with the pictures. Each picture she has posted is a completely new post, so I think she already has a couple of pages, so be sure to check them all out. I hope you'll get some enjoyment out of seeing the world through her eyes.

Funny kids

2008-06-27T22:22:00.003-05:00

So Sharkey left today. JP flew in from Philadelphia so that she wouldn't have to drive all the way home by herself. And knowing her, she would have fallen asleep while driving long before she hit the Minnesota/Wisconsin border. Alex, Catherine and I drove to the airport as well, so that we could see JP for a couple of minutes before they had to take off.

As usual, Alex had a tough time telling them goodbye. I think this time was especially difficult because Sharkey stayed with us so long, and we were getting used to having her and Maggie around. Quite a few tears were shed by him, which of course, resulted in tears from Sharkey.

We saw them off, then headed home. About a mile from the airport, while Alex was still pretty upset, it started to rain lightly. Alex said, "I think Mother Nature is mocking me!" We all had a much needed laugh at that.

Not a minute later, Catherine said, "Dang! I was gonna ask JP for fifty bucks!" I think he may have spoiled her a bit too much at the Cheese Festival a couple weeks ago.

Surgery update

2008-06-20T23:15:00.004-05:00

Just a quick post to give you an update on Catherine's surgery. We got to the hospital about 5:45am and got her checked in. We had to wait around a little while with a bunch of others who were scheduled for surgery as well. There were lots of little kids, and even a few infants. I can't imagine being those parents. So we finally got called back to the little room where they were going to have her get changed and get everything prepared. Instead of giving her one of those horrible gowns to wear, they gave her pants and a shirt, so that was nice.

You can see that she was in pretty good spirits. She was really amazing the whole time--she was really brave. She did have to fight back tears a few times, but she was so great. There was some patient advocate person who came to check up on her, and she brought in surgical caps for the 3 stuffed animals that Catherine had with her.

When it was time for her to head into the operating room, they let me go along with her. I had to dress in the whole surgical get-up--hat, mask, booties, jumpsuit. We made our way into the operating room, and that was by far the worst part. She started to fight it when they went to put the mask over her face to put her to sleep. So she was crying and trying to push it away and yelling. Of course, I was also bawling at this point as well--I hated seeing her so scared. After about 90 minutes, the surgeon came to the waiting room to let us know that the surgery went great, and they didn't run into anything unusual. There was a possibility that they might have to put a shunt in if the cyst didn't drain very well by itself, but luckily, they didn't have to resort to that. Jason and I were able to see her shortly after that. She was still very groggy, but she opened her eyes and the first word out of her mouth was a very weak "Mommy." She never calls me mommy anymore, so that made me a little teary as well. She started to cry and when I asked her why she was crying, she let out a pathetic little, "I don't know." Must have been all the drugs.

We were originally told that she'd be in the hospital for 2 days, but we were actually home by about noon today. She's been eating soup, soda crackers and fruit, and has just been laying on the couch resting. Her head has been hurting her a little, but she's been taking Tylenol for that. She's still a little emotional, but I guess that's what happens when you get all drugged up, get your head drilled into, and then have nurses wake you up every hour to shine a flashlight in your eyes.

We'll take the bandages off tomorrow, and she can shower and wash her hair on Sunday. (She said I can't blog the pictures of her with the bandages on her head, so I won't. But I'll post them on Flickr. What? It's not my blog!) I think she'll be as good as new in no time. Thank you all for the prayers, good thoughts, emails, and presents. It's wonderful to know there are such wonderful people out there who care and take the time to check on us.

And now it's bedtime. I've been awake way too long in the last 2 days.

Just kill me now

2008-05-29T21:55:00.002-05:00

A few weeks ago, Alex told me that his class was planning to take a field trip and asked if I could come along. He said they would be going on a bike ride from Welch, MN to Anderson Park in Red Wing. He said it's about 10 miles. Wow, 10 miles on a bike that I haven't ridden in years is going to practically kill me, but I told him I'd go along.

So for the past few days, I've been complaining to everyone at work about how this bike ride will be the death of me because I'm so out of shape and hello? TEN MILES ON A BIKE???

Tonight I found out some great news regarding the bike trip tomorrow. It's not actually 10 miles. It's 10 miles to the spot where we stop for lunch, then we bike the 10 miles back to where we started. TWENTY MILES, PEOPLE! It's been nice knowing all of you. Please remember me fondly.

We have a date

2008-05-17T11:38:00.003-05:00

It's official--we have a date set for Catherine's surgery. Thursday, June 19. We don't have a specific time of day scheduled yet, but they're going to call me back and let me know. I have limited information on the surgery itself, other than they're scheduling 90 minutes for it, and she'll be in the hospital for 2 days. I asked the nurse practitioner that I talked to, how long her recovery at home will be, how long Jason and I will need to stay home with her. She seemed a little confused by my question at first, and ended up giving me an answer of 3-4 weeks. Obviously, I've never gone through something like this before, but 3-4 weeks seems like a long time to me, but I guess we'll see. Jason and I can both take time off, and I can work from home as much as I need to. Plus, it doesn't hurt that one of my bosses is my best friend, and completely understands that kids come before work. Also, Sharkey and JP are coming to help out, so that will be great.

We haven't told Catherine that we have a date yet, because if she knows too far in advance, she'll have too much time to think about it and get freaked out. We'll wait till the date is a little bit closer. Thanks to all of you who have offered prayers and good thoughts for our family. They are very much appreciated. Between Sharkey and me, we'll keep you up to date as much as possible when the time comes.

The road ahead of us

2008-04-26T08:22:00.004-05:00

I've been meaning to write this post for a month now. Actually, I just realized that it's been exactly 1 month, to the day.

On March 26, 10 days after her 9th birthday, Catherine went outside with her best friend, Jordyn, and they were riding their scooters. Just regular Razor scooters, nothing fancy or motorized.

I was on the phone with Jason when Jordyn came and knocked at the door. She said that Catherine had fallen off her scooter and needed me. I hate to admit this, but my first thought was, "Jeez, that kid is such a wimp. She needs to toughen up!" In my defense, she does have a tendency to be over-dramatic when it comes to getting hurt.

So I hung up with Jason, threw my shoes on, and walked up to the area where she was. While they were riding on our street, it was quite a ways up there to get her, so my next door neighbor, who was leaving her house anyway, offered me a ride. I told her how I assumed that Catherine was over-reacting, and then said, "Now watch, when we get up there, there will be a bone sticking out of her leg or something."

No bones sticking out, but she did have a big ol' red knot on her forehead where she'd apparently come in contact with the street. She also had a skinned up knee that was bleeding a bit, but luckily, her jeans had not torn, therefore, it was a clean injury and I was thankful that I wouldn't have to clean dirt and sand out of it.

I knew she wouldn't be able to walk all the way home, so I walked back home and got the van and drove it up to her. The lady who lives in the house she fell in front of, waited there with her. When I came to pick Catherine up, the lady told me that Catherine was complaining that she couldn't see anything. That was the first thing that scared me. I actually had to walk her to the van like a blind person, and tell her to lift her leg up into the van. She was totally confused and had no idea what I was talking about.

We got home and I tried to clean up her knee. At this point I already knew that we'd be heading to the ER, but I wanted to get this taken care of. I tried to get her to take her jeans off so she could put a skirt on so that it wouldn't rub on her knee. She started taking off her jeans and her underwear. "No, leave your underwear on, just take your jeans off." She kept pulling her undies down. She just wasn't understanding what I was telling her. I finally took her jeans off her and helped her get the skirt on.

All I really needed to clean up her knee was a wet paper towel. I brought one out from the kitchen and she freaked out. She didn't want me touching her knee, she said she could do it. She'd put the wet paper towel on her knee, but nowhere near the blood, and say, "How's that?" because she couldn't see what she was doing. It became clear rather quickly that the knee was not going to get cleaned up, and considering how "out of it" she was and how nothing she was saying was making any sense, getting her to the ER was more important.

Again, I had to walk her out to the van like I was leading a blind person. Thoughts of me doing this for the rest of her life ran through my head at this point. I had no idea how bad her injury was, but I knew it was bad enough to scare the crap out of me.

On the way there, she kept saying how tired she was, and I could see in the rear-view mirror that she was closing her eyes and swaying back and forth, like there was just no possible way she could stay awake. I kept telling her not to go to sleep, and that we'd be at the doctor in a few minutes. When we got there, I had to do the whole leading her around thing.

We walked in, and the ER was really busy. I was surprised, because it was only about 6pm. I walked up to the front desk and informed them that she had fallen off her scooter, hit her head, and now can't see. At this point she was complaining again about how tired she was, and she was having some trouble standing there, so a guy brought over a wheelchair for her to sit in. While I was filling out a form with her name and address, she started saying that she had to go to the bathroom. Being that she was so "out of it" I didn't know for sure that she wouldn't just go right there while sitting in the wheelchair. I kept saying, "Just a minute, Catherine. We'll get you there in a minute. Don't pee right here!" She was getting defiant, and was trying to stand up. The guy at the front desk who was getting us checked in got a phone call during all of this. I waited patiently for about 3 seconds for him to get off the phone so I could ask him where the restrooms were. The ER was under construction, and the walls were all boarded up, so I couldn't really tell where they were. Catherine was getting more and more agitated by the second, so I finally just shouted, "WHERE ARE THE BATHROOMS???" A nurse heard the commotion and came over to see what was going on. She pointed out the bathrooms to me then waited for us to come out. Again, Catherine had no idea what she was doing in the bathroom, so I had to help her.

We came out and sat down with the nurse who helped us. After seeing how Catherine was acting, we got moved to the top of the list and left all of the other patients in the waiting room, in the dust. They brought her back to the area where they keep the scale, and tried to weigh her. She still couldn't see to get up on the scale by herself, so I was trying to lift her foot up and put in on the scale. That wasn't working, so the guy who originally brought us the wheelchair tried to pick her up from behind and set her on the scale. She screamed at him, "OW YOU'RE HURTING ME! STOP THAT! LEAVE ME ALONE!" This is totally not typical behavior for her. While she can be stubborn, she's not rude. At one point, she looked him straight in the eye and called him "Mom." Every minute that I spent with her I got more and more scared, because her behavior was so erratic and the things she was saying made no sense at all. The things I was saying made no sense to her.

There was a small TV mounted on the wall in her room inside the ER. Hannah Montana was on. I said, "Look Catherine, Hannah Montana is on." She said, "What's Hanna Montana?" Then she tried to say it again, and couldn't even form the words.

They took her back for a CT scan, and I went along with her. It was a struggle to get her to lay down on the machine so they could do the scan. She was scared. We tried to explain to her what we were trying to get her to do, but she didn't understand. She wouldn't stay lying down. I resorted to bribery and said, "If you lay down and let them take a picture of your head, I'll buy you a new Webkinz!" Her response was, "What's a Webkinz?" Anyone who knows Catherine knows of her obsession for stuffed animals, Webkinz in particular. She has 20 of them.

Finally we were able to calm her down enough to lay down and get the scan done. When we got back into her room, she was starting to come around a little bit. But for every moment that I could see the "real" Catherine coming back to me, there was a moment that she was still confused and obviously injured. I was starting to feel better because of this though. I was having fewer thoughts about her having some sort of permanent brain injury, and picturing Jason and me changing her diapers when she is an adult.

So as I'm feeling a little better about Catherine coming around again, the nurse came in the room and asked me, "Where is her Daddy?" I told her that he was at home with our other 2 kids. She said that I should call him and have him come in. I wanted to throw up. I was physically sick when she said that, because I thought that must mean the the scan showed some amount of permanent damage. She then told me that they were going to start an IV and that they were going to move her to another hospital. The doctor was on the phone making arrangements for the 2nd hospital, and they told me that she'd be in when she was finished.

The doctor, who was wonderfully calm during this whole thing, which, in turn, calmed me down, came in and told me that that scan showed no injuries from her scooter accident. Whew! That was such a huge relief and I was so thankful. However, she wanted to show me the picture from the scan they did. She said they found something that has probably been there since birth. She walked me over to the computer screen where I could see what looked kind of like an x-ray of Catherine's skull, from above. In the top right quarter of her skull, there was just a huge black, blank area. The doctor told me that it's a cyst on her brain. Again she told me that it's probably been there since birth, and has just grown. She said that she has made arrangements with the University of Minnesota Children's Hospital, and that she's talked to the head neurosurgeon there. When I heard the word "neurosurgeon" I totally lost it. A doctor to operate on my daughter's brain. Again, I wanted to throw up. She said they'd take us by ambulance and that Jason could follow behind us in his car.

As scared as I was by this news, at the same time I was still so relieved that there was no permanent brain damage from Catherine's accident. I called Jason and told him a little bit of what was going on, so he made arrangements to drop Alex and Lauren off with some friends. He got there just in time to jump behind the ambulance.

We drove the 1/2 hour or so to the U and got her checked into the Pediatric ICU. The doctors and nurses all asked Catherine what had happened to her. Each time, she patiently explained that she was riding her scooter with her friend. They were riding down a slope on our street when she started going too fast and lost control. She didn't have her helmet on because she'd left it at school a couple of weeks prior, when they had a unit in P.E. where they were rollerblading. She followed their fingers, touched their noses, everything they asked her to do. By this time, she was completely back to herself.

I stayed with Catherine all night, while Jason went home to get some sleep because there was only room for 1 of us in her room. Jason was back by 7am because that's when the doctors were scheduled to come in and talk to us. The head neurosurgeon, Dr. Haines, showed us the picture from the scan they did in the ER the night before. This is the first time that Jason saw it. The doctor pointed out the midline of the brain and said that, obviously, it should be right down the middle of the brain. You could see that Catherine's midline was no longer in the middle, but was being pushed aside by the cyst. After asking us questions about how she is doing in school, if she has a history of headaches, that sort of thing, the doctor determined that there was no need for emergency surgery, but eventually something would need to be done. He suggested that we schedule surgery to drain the cyst sometime after the school year ends. That way she won't miss any school, and we can make whatever arrangements and plans that we need.

They did an MRI that morning as well, and her discharge papers were ready when we got back to her room. We had a follow-up appointment 2 weeks later and got to see the results of the MRI. It didn't really give them any information that they didn't already have, but it was really cool to see the pictures.

At the follow-up appointment, we were really hoping that Catherine wouldn't have to be in the room when we talked to the doctor about the surgery, but there was really no way to avoid it. She cried and cried, and by the time the doctor left the room, she was sobbing. She said she understood why she needs to have the surgery, she's just scared. Can't blame her for that! So it was left that the doctor's office would call us at some point to schedule the surgery to drain the cyst. We haven't heard anything yet, but I would assume that sometime in the next month or so we'll get a call.

She's ok with things now. She's told her friends and teachers at school about having to have surgery, so it's become kind of a "cool" thing for now.

So as it turns out, Catherine's scooter accident was really no "accident." We believe that it happened for a reason, and we are so thankful for that. If the cyst had continued to go unnoticed and grow, it could have resulted in permanent brain injury when it pushed just a little too hard.

We know how lucky we are. That she had the accident, that there was no permanent brain damage, that they found the cyst, that it wasn't cancer, and that she is not the little boy in the next room in the ICU, who was waiting for his 2nd heart transplant.

Please keep Catherine in your thoughts the next few months. I'll update when we have a date set for the surgery. Here are a few photos of her injuries from her fall.

Wrong

2008-04-26T08:17:00.003-05:00

Check out the weather here right now. Here, in Minnesota. On April 26.

There is snow on the ground. I just dropped Alex off for his Boy Scout camp out. It was so windy out that I could not see anything because my hair was blowing in my face. When I got back in my van, my face was bright red from the wind and the cold. Will somebody please remind me why I live in MN?

He got it from Santa

2008-04-25T21:04:00.003-05:00

Tonight as we were driving home from Target, Alex and I were discussing all the things he needs to get packed up to get ready to go camping with his Boy Scout troop. He leaves tomorrow morning, and will be camping inside Eagle Cave, near Madison, WI.

Since there's rain in the forecast, I mentioned that he should pack his rain gear in his bag. Lauren shouted from the back of the van, "Alex has a REINDEER?!?"

Have you hugged your dog today? - Part II

2008-03-07T21:41:00.003-06:00

Monday night, we spotted the dog running down the busy street. Tuesday night, we saw the missing dog flyer and called the number that was listed. Wednesday morning at work, I got a call from the lady. She didn't get my message until just before she called me. I told her that I was hoping the reason I hadn't heard from her was that the dog had been returned. No such luck.

She said they've gotten a lot of calls from the flyers they put up all over town, but the dog (a purebred Wheaton Terrier) is so scared of people that he won't come to anyone. The family has only had the dog for about 3 weeks. They got him from a shelter who got him from a breeder. He had been neglected, and the lady said that he was almost certainly abused as well. She said she could tell by the way he would go into his kennel when they were about to leave. He acted as if he had been kicked into his kennel in the past.

It turns out that Bubba didn't break his chain while he was outside. Because of his past, he startles easily, so when they had the dog outside on the leash, they needed to have the leash wrapped around their hand, just in case he got scared and tried to run away. The dad had him outside on his leash, but did not have it wrapped around his hand. The dog was startled by something and bolted. That's the last they saw of him.

The lady said that her kids are absolutely heartbroken. I'm not sure how many she has, but I know that one of them is in middle school, so anywhere from 12-14 years old. This daughter had bonded with the dog the most. She actually has her own dog walking business, and gives half of her earnings to the humane society. It's just so sad that these people, who clearly love dogs, tried to save this one, and have now lost him. When I talked to the lady, she was of course, fearing the worst because the dog is too scared to come to anyone. I can't even imagine now knowing where your pet is. Did he get hit and killed by a car? Did he freeze to death? Did someone earn his trust and bring him into their home? If they knew the answers, I'm sure they'd be sleeping a lot better at night.

Have you hugged your dog today?

2008-03-03T21:18:00.005-06:00

UPDATE: Tonight, Jason and I took the kids to Applebee's for dinner. As soon as we walked in the door, Alex shouted, "Mom, look at this!" It was a poster for a missing dog. A dog that looked a lot like the one we saw running down the road last night. It said that his name was Bubba, and he is a bit skittish, because they just adopted him from a shelter. I called the number on the poster, but only got a voice mail. I left my name and number, and explained why I was calling. That was about 3 hours ago, and I haven't heard back from them yet. I'm going to plug my ears and sing "lalalalalala" and assume that the lack of response from them means that they have their dog back, safe and sound.

Tonight on the way home from Boy Scouts, Alex and I had kind of a scary experience.

It was about 8:45, so it was completely dark. We were on a 2-lane road where the speed limit is 50, I think. We came upon a car that was frantically flashing its brights, so the car ahead of me and I both slowed down to see what was going on. I assumed it was an accident or something, until I saw the reflective leash bouncing down the middle of the road. Some poor little puppy had broken it's chain and had escaped. As I got closer to it, I slowed down more and rolled my window down and called to it.

Just then, a car came up over the hill from the other way. I flashed my lights like crazy at the car, but he seemed to not have a clue that something was going on, he just kept barreling toward the dog. At the very last second, the driver saw the dog, and swerved and honked. The dog swerved a little bit the other way. The car came ***this*** close to hitting the poor little loose dog. So close, that I actually shouted , "Alex, don't look!" It would have been bad enough for me to see that happen, but he would be completely inconsolable and haunted.

At that point, I had come to a complete stop and turned my hazards on. I jumped out of the van and started calling to the dog. "Here puppy, come here!" He seemed like he was going to come to me for a second, then changed his mind and ran down the embankment into a housing development. There was really nothing else I could do then. It was a pretty steep, snowy hill, and I couldn't even see him anymore.

Alex was still worried, and so was I, of course. We have no way of knowing what happened to him, but I told Alex that I'm choosing to believe that someone will find him tonight and keep him warm. It's pretty cold out tonight, about 7 degrees right now. I hope he finds his way to someone's door soon, because I'm sure there's someone out there who went to let their dog in, and was devastated to find only half a leash.

4 going on 14

2008-02-22T21:17:00.002-06:00

The other night, I took the girls to swimming lessons. Lauren goes from 6-6:30 and Catherine's lessons are from 6:35-7:20. As Lauren and I were sitting in the bleachers, watching Catherine swim, Lauren was playing with my cell phone. She likes to press all the numbers, and she has figured out which button to push to activate the camera. She was having a good time taking pictures of the pool, her feet, my purse, my sweater, basically anything she saw. Then she started taking pictures of me, but she was standing right next to me, so they were all VERY close up. She took one of my nose that was so close up, that it was only my nostril.

"Nice," I said.

She looked at it and said, "This one is SO going on the Internet!"

Innocent cartoons

2008-02-08T21:39:00.000-06:00

I took the kids swimming tonight, then we swung through the drive-thru at the local Wendy's for a frosty. As we were sitting at the dining room table eating the frosties, Catherine called Lauren Boo Boo. (Lauren's nickname is Boo.) I said something like, "Who do you think you are, Yogi Bear?" Given today's crappy cartoons, Catherine had no idea what I was talking about. I went over to my laptop on the couch and googled "Yogi Bear." A couple of pictures showed up, so I called Catherine over to look at them and show her who I was talking about.

A couple entries down on the google page, there was a link to a You Tube video that said "Yogi Bear theme song-real funny." So I clicked on the link and all 3 kids and I watched it. Now YOU watch it, and guess at what point I scrambled for the mouse to shut it off. Watch.

If you guessed that I shut it off when it started talking about Suzy shaving her pubic hair, you would be correct. I probably should have shut it off during the part about the whips and chains, but I didn't. After I shut if off, Catherine asked me, "What's public hair?"

All three of them were absolutely dying laughing, knowing they had just seen something they shouldn't have. At that point, there was nothing I could do but laugh along with them. Note to self: never watch anything on You Tube with the kids without viewing it myself first.

The dog needs to get out more

2008-02-05T21:44:00.000-06:00

Tonight, she was barking at the popcorn popping in the microwave.

Do you know what this means?

2008-01-29T20:50:00.000-06:00

This means that it's really freakin' windy out today. If you're familiar with Perkins restaurants, you know that this is a gigantic flag, and it isn't set into motion easily by a slight breeze. This thing was whippin' in the wind today.

And being that it's January in Minnesota, that wind made it unbearable to be outside, even just for a minute. Check this out:

Yep, -11 degrees with a -36 windchill, or if you're a moron, -36 "windshield." But if you ask Lauren, she'll tell you that it's 16 inches below zero. (I don't know where she came up with that, but that's what she told me on the way home from daycare tonight.) And as if today's temperature is not bad enough, look at the weather we had yesterday:

Since I don't know anything about putting any type of graphics on a photo, I'll have to point out the area that says that yesterday's high was 43 degrees. Forty-three degrees in January in Minnesota is like summer weather! People were outside with no coats on, it felt downright tropical!

So, though it's not my strong suit, lets do the math here. Yesterday, 43 degrees. Today, -11 actual temperature. That's a 54 degree difference! (Right? I told you I was bad at math!) If you want to factor in the windchill, we're talking a difference of 79 degrees!!! I dare you to tell me that's not ridiculous. Now, granted, the 43 was yesterday's high, and the -11 was from about 8pm tonight, but let me assure you, it wasn't much warmer this afternoon when the sun was out. I'm pretty sure it's some kind of cruel joke, but I ain't laughin'.

Don't tell Jason, but a move to Tennessee sounds pret-ty darn good right about now.

On a more serious note, my 26 year old cousin, Becky, was just told that some of the suspicious cells that her doctor found were, indeed, cancer. She'll know more about treatments, etc. next week. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers.

Things I did and learned this weekend

2008-01-13T19:30:00.000-06:00

Saturday was a busy day and we did lots of running around. Catherine had a birthday party to go to and we hadn't bought her friend a present yet, so we ran to Target in the morning. Having all 3 kids with me, the trip took longer than it should have, of course. Everyone had things they wanted to look at and drool on.

When we got back from there, I did a little bit of cleaning. I had to clean out the refrigerator a little bit, because the kids and I had pizza Friday night, and the pizza box wasn't fitting in the fridge very well. There were 3 Tupperware or other kinds of plastic containers that I removed from the fridge. When I removed the lids, I actually contemplated taking pictures for your viewing pleasure, but thought better of it. I don't want anyone calling Child and Family Services on me or anything. One of the bowls had nasty moldy Hamburger Helper Cheesy Enchilada in it. Another was a bowl of flavored rice--like chicken and broccoli or something. The third bowl was leftover pot roast with potatoes and carrots. It wasn't moldy like the other stuff, but it had to go anyway. Sometimes I actually throw away old food before it grows fuzz. I'm crazy that way. Anyway, I wasn't sure about putting the roast beef down the garbage disposal, so I threw that in the garbage can. Then I slowly put the carrots and potatoes down the disposal. I didn't want to overwhelm the it. There! Done!

This morning after I gave Zelda her food, I went to give her some fresh water. I ran the water for a few seconds to get some that was really cold, and pretty soon I noticed that the drain started to fill up. I ran the disposal, thinking that it would take care of anything that might be down there. It started to come back up in the other sink. Uh oh. I stopped the dishwasher that I had started running so it wouldn't drain more water into the sink. I called Jason in to inspect the damage I had done.

It just so happens that I bought a big thing of Liquid Plumr the other day for the bathrooms. Jason read the directions and poured the proper amount into the water where the drain was. The directions clearly stated that you need to let the gel work its magic for 15 minutes before running the water again. It specified that if you were using the product on a kitchen sink, that you should follow the regular directions (of letting it sit for 15 minutes) and then run the disposal when you turn the water back on. Four minutes in, he decided to turn on the disposal. It sucked the water down one side, but it came back up the other side. Great. It didn't work, and now we'd have to use gloves for anything that we did after that, because the water was all sudsy and full of Liquid Plumr.

After the Liquid Plumr debacle, we tried plunging it. You could hear the water moving around down there, but it didn't jar the stuff loose. The only thing that happened was it threw the Liquid Plumr water all over the place and ruined the t-shirt that Jason was wearing. He was bummed, as he had just gotten it for Christmas, and it advertised one of his favorite beers, Guiness.

Then I learned how a snake works. I would estimate our snake at 20-30 feet long, and we had that sucker weaved all the way to the end, but still nothing. Well, nothing but a dirty nasty kitchen rug from the snake after we removed it from the drain.

We decided it was time to bring in the big guns. Roto Rooter. Jason and I were both thinking that it would cost us an arm and a leg since it was Sunday, but there wasn't much else we could do. I called, and the guy showed up within a couple of hours.

As he was getting his stuff set up, I asked him what the worst foods are for a garbage disposal. He didn't hesitate a second before saying, "Starches. Rice, potatoes, pasta."

Hmmm...Potatoes? Check. Rice? Check, check (the Hamburger Helper meal was mostly rice). Clogged that thing good. Turns out, he had to run his snake 40 feet down there to get to the clog. (Doesn't the word "clog" sound nasty, or is it just me?)

The price actually wasn't too bad. When I went online to look up the phone number for Roto Rooter, there was a link to a coupon for $25 off. I asked the guy how much more it was for him to come out on a Sunday as opposed to a weekday, and he said that they didn't charge a premium for that anymore! What are the chances of that?!? Overall, it ended up costing us $144. Sure it's money I could have spent on something more exciting, but it was totally worth it to have access to running water and a sink that drains again. I will never take that for granted again. Until next time.

Merry Christmas from Zelda

2007-12-18T17:35:00.001-06:00

Sharkey put out an invite to everyone with critters and/or kids to show them donning their gay apparel.

Here's Zelda in "elf mode." She actually did a lot better with it than I thought she would. She fought it a little, but not too bad. Originally, I told the kids that we'd have to put this on her right after she wakes up, when she's too tired to care. However, tonight right after I called for pizza, I realized that the big day was tomorrow. So I seized the moment and got her all gussied up. Pretty cute, huh?

Merry Christmas everyone, and thanks for the invitation, Sharkey!

The song that got on everybody's nerves

2007-11-04T21:26:00.000-06:00

Driving home from the mall tonight, Catherine taught Alex and Lauren a new song that she and her friend sing sometimes. A few hours later, it's still in my head. Sing the following to the tune of "The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round:"

I've got a song that gets on everybody's nerves
Everybody's nerves
Everybody's nerves
I've got a song that gets on everybody's nerves
And this is how it goes

Snappy, huh? You're welcome.

On a totally separate note, I took the kids to see "Bee Movie" today. I (and the kids) really enjoyed it. There were times that I even laughed out loud. There were a lot more famous people in there than I knew there was. Oprah, Sting, Kramer from Seinfeld, Chris Rock. And as much as I despise Renee Zellweger, I thought she was really good in this. I suppose that since I can't stand the way she always looks like she just smelled something foul, I can stand her in a movie where I don't have to look at her.

After the movie, we went to the mall because Alex needs a new winter coat before he goes to Boy Scout camp this weekend. We ended up buying Lauren a new one too, and new shoes for Catherine.

As we were walking through JCPenney toward the parking lot, we found some Minnesota Wild fuzzy throws. Jason and I enjoy watching the Wild and going to games when we can. Being that the blankets were on sale, I asked the kids if they would like to get Jason one of the blankets for Christmas. They thought it was a good idea. As we were looking at them and deciding between 2 different styles, Lauren was looking at some items nearby. I didn't think she even realized what we were picking out. When we got to the van, I reminded the kids to just forget that we bought a Christmas present already, and don't mention anything to Dad.

When Jason got home tonight, I said to Lauren, "Tell Dad what we did today," meaning that we saw a movie. "We bought you a hockey blanket!" Niiiiiice. That secret was kept for about a half an hour. Good thing that kid's so cute.

Life Lessons

2007-11-02T21:36:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted anything for a long time, but something happened tonight that I'll probably forget about if I don't write about. I always think I won't forget, but then, of course, I do. This way, I'll be able to look back and laugh on it. I sure laughed earlier tonight when it happened.

This evening while Catherine was getting ready to get into the shower, I went into my room and turned on the TV for a few minutes before I had to go in and help her. The TV was on NBC when I turned it on, so for a little bit I watched the show that was on so I could figure out what it was. Turns out it was "Friday Night Lights," which I have never watched, but have heard good things about.

From the previews I sometimes see during the week, I know that the coach's wife recently had a baby. She came home and was talking to her husband about the book club she had just attended, and how nice it was to finally get out again by herself and be around other adults.

At this point, Catherine came into the bedroom and the TV caught her attention. The wife on TV started talking about how her breasts were really sore and felt "like concrete." She said she needed to go pump and dump. Catherine asked why she was sore there. I explained that after a woman has a baby, her body goes through all sorts of changes and weird things. I said that since the woman feeds the baby with her breasts, sometimes they get so filled with milk that they get sore.

Catherine: "You mean the baby eats off their breasts?"

Me: "Well...yeah," thinking that it was weird that she didn't know this, since she saw me breastfeed Lauren a million times.

Catherine: "Oh. I thought they just ate whatever was on the mom's stomach."

Me: "You mean like whatever crumbs happened to fall on her stomach from whatever she ate earlier in the day?"

Catherine: "Yeah," now laughing, realizing how silly that sounded.

I about lost it. I laughed so hard. Sometimes she can take something like that really personally and feel hurt when someone laughs at her like that, but for some reason, she just laughed too. I guess she was only 4 when Lauren was born, so if at any point she did realize where Lauren was eating from, she has probably forgotten. This will be good for a laugh for a long time!

P.S. Catherine got her hair cut tonight, and looks so cute! The lady gave her some layers since her hair is so thick. Check it out...

Big Sisters

2007-07-15T14:02:00.000-05:00

Lauren: "Mom, does my shirt say 'Doof?'"

Me: "What?"

Lauren: "Does my shirt say 'Doof?'"

Me: "No, it says KMYSA Soccer."

Lauren: "Oh. Catherine told me it said 'Doof.'"

Wild Kingdom

2007-05-18T20:25:00.000-05:00

Strange things have been happening around here this week. I have seen things these past few days that I have never seen before.

I stayed home with Lauren on Tuesday, as she wasn't quite feeling up to being at daycare. At first I thought maybe she had developed some allergies, as her eyes were puffy and watery, and her nose was runny. When I got her to daycare, her teacher noticed that she had a rash on a few places on her body. I took her home with me and made an appointment for the doctor to see her.

After her appointment, we were sitting at the dining room table eating lunch, and I noticed that there were a lot of birds in our back yard. Nothing special, just robins and some type of black bird, but there were LOTS of them there. I sat there looking through the patio doors at them, wondering if there was some significance to so many of them being out there. Did it mean it was going to rain or something? I looked away for a second, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see some sort of commotion outside, and then all the birds immediately flew away. I looked up and saw something that I'm still replaying in my mind because it was so strange. A hawk swooped down and picked out one of the black birds for its lunch. I just remember seeing this huge light brown bird carrying a smaller black bird in its talons and flying toward the house. Off to have some lunch! Jason and Lauren found some very familiar black feathers outside the next day.

The second and third strange things both happened today. I went in to Catherine's room this morning to wake her up to get ready for school. She was lying in bed, already awake. That was very surprising to me because getting her up for school is like trying to wake the dead. I told her good morning, and she said that the ducks woke her up. I listened for a second, and sure enough, there was some quacking coming from outside. This was not completely surprising as we had a couple of ducks in our front yard a week or two ago. Not exactly sure why, because there's no water in the immediate area. Anyway, the quacking this morning sounded like it was right outside the window, so I slowly pulled the blinds and looked down. I had to practically press my face against the 2nd story window to see them, because they were straight down from where I was. There was a male and a female. Guess what they were doing? Yep, making little ducklings. Catherine came over to get a good look, but luckily didn't ask any questions. I looked again just in time to see the male waddle away looking all satisfied, and then he took off. Just as he was flying off, another male flew in. Maybe he heard that this duck was easy, I don't know. I watched them for a little while, and they ended up just laying in the grass and sleeping. They were there for a good couple of hours, I'd say.

Then just a few short hours later, I heard a thud at the front door. I was home alone--kids were at school and daycare, and Jason was at work. I walked over to the door to see what was going on, and there was a young robin on the front step. He must have flown into the door or the window next to the door. They're not even that clean! Anyway, he was pretty dazed. He hit it hard! It sounded like someone hitting the door with an open hand. He jumped off the step and hopped over to the side of the house and just sat under the down spout. I'm thinking, "Oh crap, this bird is hurt and I'm either gonna have to do something about it, or feel really guilty for just leaving the bird there to heal itself or die." I managed to get a couple of pictures of it hiding out. I decided that I needed to figure out how hurt it was, so I opened the door and it hopped away and hid under some shrubs--good sign. I walked around to see if I could get a better look, and he flew away up into the tree. Whew! I was off the hook!

Oh, I almost forgot about the seal that was at our house Wednesday night. Ok, so it wasn't an actual seal, but Lauren sure sounded like one when she coughed. It was about midnight when I had just gone to bed and Jason was still downstairs on the computer, and Lauren started coughing and hacking like there was no tomorrow. She was coughing so hard she could barely breathe. So I grabbed the nebulizer out of the cupboard and ran downstairs to the kitchen to get the albuterol. We did the neb treatment with her fighting the mask almost the whole time. She usually thinks its fun to use that mask to get her medicine, but I think that between her being so tired and us shoving it into her face so fast, it freaked her out a little bit. Unfortunately, the treatment didn't help as much as it usually does, and she was still having to work really hard to breathe. I looked at Jason and said, "Well, should I bring her in?" We decided that was the best thing to do, as breathing is a very important part of living. Jason threw her jacket on over her pajamas, shoved her little feet into some shoes while I got myself dressed and looking halfway presentable. The nearest ER is only about 10 minutes from here so we hopped in the van and off we went at about 12:15am. It wasn't really an emergency, I mean, I didn't think she would stop breathing or anything. We've been through this before. I would just prefer to be safe rather than sorry for not taking her in just because it was the middle of the night. Besides, it's not like I would have been able to sleep after that. I'd be worried all night that she would stop breathing and we wouldn't have any way to know. On the way to the ER, she really perked up and was very chatty. For anyone who knows Lauren, this is normal behavior. She never really stops talking, so the fact that her mouth was going 100 mph was a good sign and I felt a lot better.

When we got there, they took her vitals and slapped a tiny bracelet on her wrist. Then we went into a room and she was very excited to lay on the bed. A nurse wheeled a TV, VCR and two big tubs of movies in, and we popped in The Little Mermaid II, which Lauren has never seen. We were at the ER long enough for her to watch the entire movie, as well as a good chunk of a Dora movie. They diagnosed her (Lauren, not Dora) with croup. They gave her a steroid to reduce the swelling of her vocal cords, which is what makes the cough sound barky. We got home about 3am. I was afraid that she was too awake to head back to bed, but she settled right down, thankfully. I took a few pictures with my phone of her in her little hospital gown, but I haven't figured out how to get the pics onto my computer yet.

She really enjoyed her time at the ER. She actually asked me to take her back tonight so that she could watch more movies. I told her I didn't want to pay another $75 rental fee (co-pay).

So basically, it's been a little like Wild Kingdom around here lately. I'm almost afraid to find out what the next strange event will be. Judging by the way things have been going, it's a matter of "when" it happens, not "if."

Oh, the cuteness!

2007-02-24T08:26:00.000-06:00

Come on! Even if you're not a "cat person, " you have to admit that this is adorable!

Funniest thing I heard all day...

2007-02-23T19:35:00.000-06:00

As we were driving out of the Target parking lot tonight, Lauren was trying to put her new candy necklace on.

"I can't get it over my big melon head!"

J.R. Salzman

2007-02-21T21:11:00.000-06:00

Wow, it's been over 2 months since my last post. Time flies, huh? It seems that when something unusual happens, or one of the kids says something hilarious, I think, "Oooh! I've gotta remember this so I can write a blog post about it!" And then a couple of hours later, I find myself thinking, "Crap! What was it that I was going to remember so that I could write about it?" I'm pushing 35 here, people. Cut me some slack.

So what brings on this sudden urge to post? Something pretty major has happened. It's something that really makes you think about the things that are important and makes you very grateful for all the soldiers fighting for our country.

Jason has a friend who was in Iraq. His name is J.R. Salzman. He got in touch with Jason when he found out that he was being deployed, just to let him know what was going on. That all by itself was an eye-opener--that was the closest that the war had come to us. We didn't personally know anyone else who had been over there.

I don't know J.R. myself, I've never met him. Jason used to work with him a few years back up here in the Minneapolis area. Then we moved down near Rochester, MN, and after a while, Jason found out that J.R. had moved to Rochester as well. He was in the construction business, and if I remember correctly, had started his own business. All I really knew about him can be summed up in this paragraph from the Lumberjack World Champion website.

"JR Salzman, 25, a carpenter from Hayward, Wisconsin and a National Guard Army Reservist has been competing in logrolling for the past 19 years. JR has held 5 world titles simultaneously with his sister from 1998- 2002."

Not only was he a world champion, he won an ESPY award, did some modeling, and was in "Cheaper By the Dozen 2" with Steve Martin. I haven't seen the movie, but from what I understand, he was in a log-rolling scene with Steve Martin.

Jason got an email from J.R.'s wife yesterday saying that he had been injured in Iraq. His right arm was blown off, and he has nerve damage in his left hand. He also lost the ring finger on his left hand. He seems to be doing amazingly well in spite of all that. He's at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington DC, where he'll be for the next year or so. Here's a bit of what he wrote on his blog, http://www.jrsalzman.com/weblog/:

"I'm doing the best that I can, considering. I spend a lot of time really pissed off or really upset. I know I am getting better at a pretty good rate, but still. In Iraq I was the go to guy for anything that could go wrong with my CET's (convoy escort team) humvees. I was the guy that could build or fix anything. Heck, I even built the door and a bench for the building our company stages in for convoys, simply because I was bored and had a little extra time before I went on R&R in November. There was nothing I couldn't fix, build, or do. Now I'm struggling with the mentality that I'm just a one armed, four fingered gimp. I have sharp memories of the accident that haunt me everyday; the sudden explosion, the taste of blood in my mouth, realizing the bottom half of my arm was missing with nothing left but a couple of fingers and part of my hand hanging of by some skin and tendons, and then realizing how much pain I was in. All I could do was hold the end of my blown off right arm with my shrapnel filled left hand and wait for the medic to arrive and put a tourniquet on my arm. The most terrifying part of the memories is constantly remembering my gunner screaming and then looking down and realizing my arm was nothing more than some ragged meat and two bones sticking out."

"I spend a lot of time crying and I don't know why. Sometimes I look at my hand or I look at my arm and I just start crying. I think of when my hand used to be there, or when my arm used to be there, and what it was like. The arm that was there for the last 27 years is suddenly gone. All the little blemishes, all the little battle wounds, all the little scars from being a carpenter, everything is gone. The ring finger that held my wedding ring that was put on by my loving wife is gone. The last time I saw my wedding ring it was being snipped off with a pair of bolt cutters at the hospital in the Green Zone in Baghdad. It was also here in the Green zone that I also got to look at my arm and see that it had been sheared off by shrapnel. It was a gruesome sight, but I couldn't help but look. It's an image that will forever be burned in my mind. Sometimes the loss feels overwhelming for me and I just start crying. Other times I'm very positive and look forward to getting out of here and getting on with my life. Other times I just don't know what to think."

The parts that really hit me are where he talks about looking down at his arm and realizing that it's gone and where he talks about the scars, blemishes, etc. just don't exist anymore.

Obviously, things could have been a lot worse for him, and he is well aware of that. Please check out his blog and read some of his entries. Also, click on the links on the right hand side under the "Navigate" heading. You can look at some photos of him modeling as well as competing in log rolling competitions. If you want to know more, just Google his name and plenty of websites will come up. And remember to keep J.R., his wife, Josie, and all of our soldiers in your thoughts and prayers. They are making some huge sacrifices for us.