Life's Too Short.

It's a cliche. I know, and I apologize for that. But it's true, and even though we hear it all the time, I don't think that it always sinks in the way it should.

In my job as a nurse I have the honor and the privilege of sharing with people in their lives. I still remember being a student and realizing for the first time the unique position I was in when a woman started crying. And not just tearing up. I mean full out, wracking, sobbing, snot all over the place kind of crying that you don't hardly ever see, even on TV. I mean, shit, people probably don't even cry that much for their psychotherapists. "I can't lose him," she said of her husband, who lay in the bed connected to oxygen and tubing and pumps. I wondered what made me qualified to bear witness to this. I was a first year nursing student. I wasn't married myself. I hadn't had much heart ache or tragedy in my own life. I had never met this woman before. I didn't know what to say or do. But that didn't matter. At least not to her.

And sometimes, seven years later, I still don't know what to say. But what I've learned since then is that sometimes the only comfort you can give is your physical presence. There are no words. And sometimes that can be okay.
Anyways, seeing people at their most vulnerable had always left me feeling very humbled.
Today at work I had a similar experience. I cannot write about it, because I could sued, and/or fired. But what I can say, and what I will say, is that life's too fucking short.
It's too short to complain about your neighbors lawn.
It's too short to worry about that five pounds you've been meaning to lose.
It's too short to work overtime on the weekends just to pay off some stupid bill from some stupid store. (Although you should get round to paying them at some point. They really do seem ill inclined to philosophical discussions about the brevity of life. Trust me. I mean, they might, might - indulge you, depending on who you talk to- Vic from Capital One is really nice if you can get him ever-- and listen to you for a little while, but all they seem to care about, from what I can tell, is getting their money and getting it now. Motherfuckers)

Anyways. Here is a list of what I did on the weekend:

-went to a Tom Petty concert.
-passed out at a Tom Petty concert
-slept in on Saturday morning (well, tried to. Geoff and I have differing views on what the term "waking up with the kids" means.)
-Took my kids out for lunch (well, and the dentist, but that's OK cuz they like the dentist. Well, sort of. They did get laughing gas, so that makes it fun.)
-Went to my cousins 3rd birthday party
-Made a big breakfast for my family on Sunday
-Had a picnic in the park with my kids
-Rode the merry go round and choo choo with my baby (he didn't like it, and frankly, looked kind of terrified at the prospect, but that's not the point here.)
-Took my kids swimming
-Celebrated Fathers day with my husband
-Took a long bath at the end of the day.
-Sat on the deck and read a book.

Here's a list of what I didn't do:
-Clean my bathrooms
-Wash my windows
-Get caught up on my laundry (I did put a dent in it, though.)
-Mop my floors
-Worry about work
-Go grocery shopping (we ordered pizza on Monday, went to a community BBQ last night. Tonight we're kinda screwed but we'll deal with that later.)

My bathroom is in a bit of a shamble, but I'm OK with that, barring that no visiting dignitaries decide to pop by. The chances of that, I have to assume, are slim. I have always asked myself "what will my kids remember most when I'm gone?" Will they remember "She always kept the floors really, really clean" or will they remember "She played in the sprinkler with us on her days off"
What do I want them to remember?
And of course, it's always going to be the latter.
Always.
So enjoy your day today, whoever you are.

Torn

When Alex woke in the wee hours of Thursday morning several times vomiting, I lost a lot of sleep. Some because I was worried about him. Some because I was doing laundry. But even more than that, I felt almost sick myself when I realized that I couldn't take him to daycare.
The dreaded phone call. I thought about it in my head several times, how I would phrase it. "Alex was sick all through the night, so I can't come in today..."
Even as legitimate as that sounded (as it was, is--what am I saying 'sounded'?), I felt anxious about it.
Times like these, I thought, it would be really nice to have a nanny. But a nanny is a luxury we can't afford, as we're barely making the daycare bills (ie- read "Banking Roulette" for more info.)
Finally I fell asleep, telling myself that things would (maybe) be okay in the morning. Maybe it's just a twenty four hour thing, I thought, although, okay, it had only been twelve, but you never know, right?
Wrong.
I got up and got dressed as though I would be going to work.
Delusional much??

Finally, unable to prolong it any longer, at eight o'clock I roused Alex.
Promptly, he vomited on me. He had a temperature of 38.8
I looked at the clock. 8:00! What a time to phone in sick! An hour before my shift begins!
I looked at Alex, limp and sickly looking, pale and gaunt.
I looked at my outfit. Covered in vomit.
I have no choice, I told myself, steeling myself for the phone call.
My boss's reply was clipped and professional sounding, not outwardly hostile but I could tell she was annoyed- heck, who wouldn't be?? And in her defense, I don't think she was annoyed with me, more the set of circumstances.
You're replaceable, my husband told me (reassured me-- was that meant as reassuring?? I think so maybe but somehow it wasn't) while I was cleaning up vomit. They'll manage without you. I wasn't so sure.
But they did.
Barely, I'm sure, but, they limped through.

Anyways, Alex is spending a few days with his grandma getting some grandma love so I can continue to work this week. I have been missing him a lot, am happy that he will be back tomorrow. I took the opportunity tonight to take the kids to Shrek Ever After, and it was really, really good. I was thinking when I was there about how it doesn't seem so very long ago that we took Gage to see the first Shrek (remember, mom?) and I had to stand out in the lobby with him for most of the movie because he was scared of the dragon. Or the time I took them to the third Shrek movie and I spilled Coke all over my crotch, and we had to sit in the front row and I think I got a form of motion sickness from it. And then I got a parking ticket. What happened during Shrek 2, I cannot say. Don't recall that so it must of went smoothly, how that happened to me I do not know. It was just kind of weird that Gage was there, now going on 13, and we were just having a normal convo- just like two people out at a movie.
Shrek through the ages.
And incidentally, I did get another parking ticket.
At least some things never change.
Anyways. Whatever.
Have a good night.
And whoever you are-thanks for reading.

Balance

You've got to find your balance, the lyrics say.
Lyrics which I am hungrily listening to right now. Trying to glean strength from, trying to somehow absorb, like so many UV rays from the sun into my skin.
Except not the kind that cause cancer.
You've got to find your balance/You've got to realize/You've got to try and find what's right before your eyes/
Finger 11 had it right. There's a lot to be said for balance.

5 pm brings with it the end of one work day and the beginning of another.
I come home tired and already feeling frustrated. I just wanted to relax a little bit, even for only a few minutes. But no. I get confronted, instead, by an angry mob of people, unhappy with my bun selection (of all things) for tonights meal- cheeseburgers (I mean, honestly, I didn't think I could really go wrong with that one). Kaiser buns as opposed to Wonder Buns. Well, how was I to know that one seeminly inconsequential decision like that could lead to a major uproar?
"Mom, we hate these buns!" Gage yelled, holding the offending bun as though it were a weapon of mass destruction of some sort, aimed at my head and poised to strike.
"You know we hate these buns!" Payton chimed in, almost on the verge of tears, as though, quite possibly, this was the worst thing that could have ever happened to her. Ever.
Honestly, in that moment in time I wanted to take the buns and cram them down the kids' little throats, imploring them "Eat the frigging buns I gave you". Truly, I could envision this. The crumbs falling from their mouths, spilling across their cheeks, mixing with the tears that would be rolling down. The sputtering.
Eventually, they would learn to appreciate that a bun is a bun.
But, alas, I decided to go for a little walk, opting to skip my cheeseburger dinner and also the scene I saw unfolding, which would quite possibly end with a 'domestic disturbance' call to the po po.

Anyways, I decided, after much walking and some thinking, that what I need is some balance.
Sometimes the pressures of working full time combined with parenting three kids just brings me to a boiling point. I mean, it just seems to be so relentless. From the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed, there are these little mini fires to put out.
A phone call from day care "Payton's not doing very good..." (she's on antibiotics now, after shadowing me at work for about two and a half hours yesterday).
Alex just put the toilet paper roll in the toilet. ("Well how did he... oh, never mind.")
The dog just knocked over the garbage can and now she's eating a container of sweet and sour sauce. ("Well how did she... oh, never mind".)
My baseball pants have grass stains on the knees and my game is in half an hour.
You have to sign this permission slip (as said permission slip is thrust under my nose while I'm driving to school) ("Well what is it for? Actually, nevermind, I'll just sign it. I trust the school board isn't taking you to a radioactive isotope display. And if they are, well. We'll worry about that later.)
Alex took a number two and tried to take his diaper off.
The dog ran away and she's across the street and she's barking at a little kid and the little kid's crying.
Alex just dumped his milk into his spaghetti ("Soup!" Alex proudly proclaims.)
And once: I think the dogs having a seizure ("no she's just coughing... oh, shit, maybe not." )
And so on and so forth.
Sometimes I feel like just letting the fire rage, or even a little like adding fuel to it, just to let the chaos reign as it so clearly wants to.
I mean, isn't that what they say? If you can't be part of the solution just be part of the problem?
I think it's something like that.
But.
You have to find your balance.
You have to realize.
And my balance is this:
One part working: one part family: one part chocolate: four parts booze.
Anyways, that is all for today.
I should be going.
To drink.

Pap Test Dummy

An unusual work day today.
Which really says a lot because as an inner city health nurse, every day is unusual in some manner or another.
But today was our first day working out of our new building. Our new building which, as we discovered upon arriving at work today, is still a construction zone. But still we attempted to move in and set up shop, harried though it was.
At some point, the contractors were asking me to point out where the overhead pap test lighting needed to be installed in the exam rooms.
I blinked.
I looked around.
I really wasn't sure how I had become the Pap test lighting expert, and I didn't feel exactly comfortable with it, having never performed a Pap test before. So I had a quick consultation with someone who had. I pulled a doctor into the room with me. "Where should this go?" I asked, light in hand.
Oh, I don't know.
We hemmed and hawed.
It's so hard to know until you actually have to do it, is the thing, the doctor said. She looked at me.
Suggestively.
Next thing I knew I was up on the bed, my feet in stirrups. She was shining the light this way and that, trying to decide which angle was better for... well.
You can imagine what for.
Contractors were in and out of the room.
"Don't ask," we both said.
Anyways, the things were installed in what I hope was an appropriate position.
Shortly after that someone else approached me.
"Do you have your vehicle here?" she asked, looking panicked almost.
"Yes," I replied, hesitantly, thinking, OMG- is it being towed away or something??
"The movers need to go back to the other building for another load of stuff. Could you just pull your vehicle in behind them as they pull away so that the spot will be there when they come back?"
It sounded simple.
And still I was nervous about it.
"Will I get a ticket?" I asked.
"No," she assured me.
"Will I have to parallel park?" I asked.
"Probably not,"she said with a shrug. "If you do the movers will help you," she assured me after I hesitated for a minute.
"O-K" I replied tentatively, hoping that by 'help you' she was implying 'get in your vehicle and physically park it themselves." Because that was pretty much what it was going to take.
So, thinking I had covered all the major snafu scenarios, I pulled out of the parking lot and into the street behind the building.
Heavy traffic, I thought, nosing in between two cars.
Slow traffic, I thought, as the traffic, bumper to bumper, crept slowly forward. I tried to pull out of the queu and get ahead of it somehow. The people looked at me with such disgusted stares that I though better of it and stayed in place.
And then I noticed that there was actually a hearse at the beginning of the line, holding things up. And that all the cars had the blinkers on.
I realized, with a sinking feeling, that I had landed myself in the middle of a funeral procession.
Finally I arrived at the builing and happily pulled into the spot (no parallel parking necessary- at least one good thing).
Apparently, I had failed to ask the all important third question: is the church across the street conducting a funeral that's just letting out??

I found my keys.
First of all, I should tell you, I lost them. Which might not have been so bad, if it weren't for the second time this week. The first time I lost them the office staff was in such an uproar that I didn't have the heart to tell them that I had lost them again.
I mean, for a set a missing set of keys, there was a lot of drama in the office. I might have well told them that my children had been abducted by a terrorist cell and gotten the same response.
"I can't find my keys," I mentioned to the receptionist, more annoyed than anything.
"You can't find your keys?" "Well, where are they?" "When did you have them last?" "What do they look like?" Everyone was hurling questions at me. I felt like I was being interrogated. Next thing I knew everyone was looking for my keys. Even the doctors.
"I'm sure they'll turn up," I tried to tell them. But every few minutes someone else would come into my office and ask"did you find them yet?", all stressed out like.
No, I would answer.
"Well, don't worry, we'll find them," they would say. "We're all gonna keep on looking."
And then it occurred to me that I had lent my keys to another nurse, who wasn't there that day, and was, in fact, only ever there on Thursdays. "It's Janice,!(say her name is Janice, I won't use her real name on this blog, because of libel)" I said. "She has them! I'll just get them from her on Thursday."
And I thought that would be the end of that.
But oh, no. Couldn't be that easy. The doctor calls me into his office. "I have Janice's direct line in here somewhere," he says, looking through a bunch of papers. "You should phone her right away." Now never mind that she has this big wig job where she works for the head of infectious disease or something like that.
"Well, I would certainly hate to bother her," I began.
"No. It's not bothering her. You need those keys." He gives me the number. I slink off with the number weighing heavily in my hand.
"Did you call?" the receptionist asks me about ten minutes later.
"Nah," I reply. "I figure I'll just wait a little while. See if they turn up around here."
"Well, I'll call," she replies, indignant.
She leaves a threatening message. "We know you have Randines keys and we want them back."
And then, about an hour later, I found the keys.
"Could you please tell Janice to disregard your last message," I said sheepishly. "I had the keys all along."

So then imagine my dismay when a mere few days later I find my keys missing from their usual locale once again.
This time, I tell myself, I tell no one. No one. I'll initiate a solo covert operation to retrieve my keys. Which turns out to be a bit tricky. I'm shuffling through things in the records room, trying to appear non chalant. "Hmm. I never really looked at this basket full of paper clips before," I say, as I empty the contents. "I mean, it's good to know where to find the paper clips, if your ever in a pinch, right?"
And then when I have to use the washroom (our bathrooms are kept locked), I have to try to sneak a key from someone else on the sly. Asking for keys would create talk. Speculation. Gossip. "I think Randine lost her keys again," they would say. "She had to borrow mine to go the bathroom." "Ya," the other receptionist would chime in. "I saw her rifling through a bunch of stuff at the reception desk." "How could she lose them again? I mean, once I could see. But twice??" they would ponder. "I think she drinks," they would say, based on what, I don't know, but people talk, you know. "Big time," the other receptionists would all nod in agreement. "Big time."
And then I accidentally let it slip to my boss. My boss of all people!! "Can you open the vaccine room for me?" I asked her, because she was standing near the door, keys in hand, dangling them in front me like that. "I think mine may be kind of lost," I say when she gives me a 'and where are your keys young lady? kind of look.
She looks alarmed. "You lost your keys?" "What do you mean?"
"OH, they're not lost, really." I fumbled. "They're just... not... anywhere where I can see them ...at the moment." She looked skeptical.
"But they're somewhere," I conclude enthusiastically. "I mean, they've got to be, right?"
She still looked skeptical.

So when I saw those keys in a jumble full of autoclave supplies, let me tell you, I was pretty happy.
Anyways. Other than that, lately quite a few people that I know have had common colds. And I'm not sure if it's because I'm a nurse or what, but lately these said people have felt compelled to give me graphic and detailed descriptions of their cough, mucous, phlegm, other bodily fluids.
I can always tell that I'm in for it when it starts out "It started with..."
I brace myself, knowing that I'm going to get the blow by blow. "It started with a tickle in my throat, for about a day or two. And then it started to feel more like scratchy. And then my nose was all plugged up, and I tried taking eccinachea," they would say- to which I would think- ecchinacea?? I wouldn't bother with that herbal junk. Go for the good stuff-- Advil Cold and Sinus--.- "and I tried some tea with lemon, but it wasn't going away, although it did help I think to get things draining, because then my nose started running, which is annoying, because it's running a LOT, but at least it's draining, you know."
"Ya," I would say, disinterested like. Somehow they would take this as wild enthusiasm and continue on. And on and on. And meanwhile all I'm thinking about is "Where the hell did I put those keys?"
Anyways, long story short-- if you have a cold-- simply telling me that you have a cold is good enough. I do not need to know the precice amount or quality of snot that is coming out of your nose.
That is all for now.
Have a good day.
Thanks for reading.

Flu season

Well. Here we go again. Another post. Sorry it's been taking me so long. Computer issues. And personal issues. Starting with the teeth. I got my wisdom teeth pulled. Was it as bad as I thought?? Well, I couldn't really say becaue I don't remember much after the IV started pumping Fentanyl,Valium and Madazolam into my veins. I remember laying down and listening to the radio, a nice cocktail of drugs swimming in my system and the song playing on the radio "Somethings got to go wrong cuz I'm feeling too damn good." And the next thing I knew, I woke up with a sore jaw and a bloody mouth.
Slightly reminiscent of high school.
Just kidding.
No after that, I went home where I was prescribed Percocet. I was told to take 1-2 tabs every four to six hours as needed. So at first I was all conservative like "I'll just take one every six hours" but then a few hours later I was like "Screw one, I'm taking two. And screw six hours. I mean, why wait??" But then you start to watch the clock, waiting for the next dose, and you start taking it earlier and earlier until before you know it you are buying it off the street off an edgy toothless guy who calls himself Mo. And then you're shooting it up, chasing the high, and prostituting yourself to pay your debts to Mo, who has also become your pimp and abusive lover.
That didn't actually happen to me. But it did happen to a girl I saw on Intervention. Sad story really. No I actually am doing fine. I did not become addicted to it. I went down to Advil after about four days and then after a week or so was back to business as usual.

Business as usual for me right now is flu season. I've been giving a lot of flu shots, and it's been fun. So far. Ask me after needle one thousand. People have told me that I give good needles and I take a certain amount of pride in that. I'm like "Some people say I'm the best they've ever had" and then I have to laugh. That's probably the only context that I'll ever hear that particular sentence.
But. Everyones good at something.
Anyways. I'm still pretty modest about the whole needle thing, because I've also heard "OH MY GOD, that's the worst it's EVER HURT, I think my freaking arm is going numb, WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME??!!" And it's interesting really because when I was a beginner nurse I was so nice and sweet and I'd be like "Oh, no, I'm so sorry, I just feel terrible. Can I put a warm compress on it for you?" And now, five years later, I'm like "Suck it up Buttercup. See ya, wouldn't wanna be ya."
Well. I've never actually said that to a person. Not in so many words anyways.

But people have been asking me for my take on the whole H1N1 thing and my advice is that I strongly believe in getting vaccinated. There is a certain amount of hysteria out there, but there is also a certain amount of risk that is real and should not be ignored. I have already recieved my vaccine, and I absolutely plan on immunizing my children, no ands, ifs or buts. In a young child a severe case could quite quickly become very serious and I would hate to see my children suffer through something that is almost entirely preventable. I have read through the information on the vaccine. I feel comfortable with what I have read. I feel that for me and my family, the benefits outweigh the risks. I will leave it up to each individual to make up thier own minds about it, though.
Anyways that is all for now.
Have a good day.

Some people have the nerve.
On Monday I was running late for work, for multiple reasons, which I could go on and on about, but I won't. But anyways. I didn't have time to pack my lunch. At lunch time I was really hungry, so I went to Arbys and got a junior roast beef sandwich, curly fries and a diet coke. It wasn't the worst I could do, trans fat wise, although certainly far from the best. So I'm eating my lunch. And this girl walks in. Alright let me rephrase that. Waddles in. She looks at my lunch and says with a sneer "that looks healthy."
Can you even believe that she would even say that to me?? Andy yes I know that I used the word even twice in that same sentence but that's just how incensed I am. And maybe it wasn't even so much WHAT she said, but the WAY she said it. It was like all sarcastic, but not in a ha-ha funny sarcasm way but in a really judgmental-may-you-rot-in-hell kind of sarcasm.
I just replied with a shrug and a 'oh, well, what can you do?' kind of a sigh and continued eating.
She pulls out her lunch which consisted of a yogurt container full of cucumber slices with vinegar on them. I was like "listen lady, I'm pretty sure you didn't get to be three hundred something something from eating cucumbers, OK?? You're not kidding me here." Although of course I didn't say that. I just kind of looked at her cucumbers like "WTF??"
Anyways, so now she's my sworn enemy. Cucumber Breath. She's on holidays now, so I'l have a break from her.

Other than that, work is going OK. The coffee situation seems to have resolved itself after some time. What I have found is that if you're nice to the receptionists, they'll make you you're very own pot of weak coffee. So that has been going well. And I have brought some hazelnut creamer from home (option 'A' if you recall, Lorrie, thanks for your input, but honestly, I don't really want to be known as 'the girl who brews her own coffee'. In this neighborhood that could get me stabbed. Or worse. Although I'm not sure what's worse than stabbing.) and that has been going well. I don't think anyone has been using it. It seems to be lasting long enough.

On the home front, things are good. The kids are settling into their new routines nicely. Last night while watching Letterman I got this idea to make a Top Ten list for my blog. But mine probably won't be a top ten list per se, on account of me not being able to think of ten things. It might be six. It might be four. We'll just have to wait and see how it goes. I'm not Letterman, after all, and nor do I have his staff of writers. All right. This is a one man show, you realize.
So here goes.

Top 10 (approximately) Signs You Spend too Much Time with Kids:

10. You can complete the sentence: "Barney is a dinosaur..."
9. You have at least one box of cereal in your cupboard that lists marshmallows as an ingredient.
8. You catch yourself in casual conversation using words like "tinkle" and "ni-ni"
7. Your wost curse words are "darned" and "fudge"
6. You can count to ten in Spanish (only from watching Dora)
5. You've intimately familiar with all movies starring Tim Allen
4. Your known as the reigning champ of "Operation"
3. You've developed a taste for Pop Rocks
2. Opening the "Disney Vault" is a major life event for you.

All right, so we didn't quite get to ten. That's all I can think of for now. No number one. What a letdown. Sorry guys. So close but so far. I'll keep thinking. If any of yous out there has any ideas, jump right in.
And, for those of you not in the know, the completion of the sentence in #10 is ..."from our imagination."
I always seem to have that line stuck in my head.
Darned Barney.
Anyways, I must be going. Lunch time. And FYI-- it's a Lean Cuisine chicken dinner with a diet Pepsi. Too bad Cucumber breath wasn't here to see that. She could put that in her pipe and smoke it.
Darned Tootin.

Back at Work

Back at work now and things are fine.

Well, fine except for a few little things. If you want to call a potential brain tumor a little thing. But I'll get to that later.

First of all, and perhaps most importantly, since I have returned to work I have been quite concerned about the quality of the coffee here. My first day back and my sleep was a little rough the night before, so I poured myself a cup of coffee, thinking it would be just what I needed. I added a teaspoon of whitener into it, and oddly enough, nothing happened. It took it in, but then, like somehow dissolved away. Puzzled, I poured another heaping teaspoon. The result was similar. It could not be whitened. Dismayed, I started dumping a whole bunch in, and finally got it down to like a dark caramel color, it was the best I could do. I don't know what kind of coffee they use or how they get it like that. It was like a whole pot of that sludge that forms on the bottom of the pot if you leave it on all day. And it also seemed to have some kind of a laxative component to it, which would be OK for a bunch of elderly people with slow moving bowells, but for me,I don't really the extra stimulation. So now I have been avoiding the coffee. I discussed the situation at lenght with Geoff, and we are tossing around some ideas. We may either A)purchase an inexpensive travel mug and bring coffee from home or B)Buy some kind of Hazelnut cream or something to try to make the coffee taste better or C)Stop drinking coffee altogether. I am hesitant to move forward with option B, because in the past I've had some bad experiences with Hazelnut cream at work (read also "The Great Hazelnut Heist" for background info). I am also loathe to consider option C because I feel that I need some form of caffeine to get me through the day these days, especially since my twelve month old baby persists on sleeping like a newborn and waking up all night long.

So. It's a big decision and I will need to put a lot of thought into it. I will let you know how my discussions progress in this regard.



I have already had quite enough to deal with. And then yesterday I got a pamphlet from the Acoustic Brain Tumor Network. I have never heard of this said Acoustic Brain Tumor, so I started to leaf through the pamphlet. The symptoms are: headache (Yikes), Dizzyness (Yikes), Defness in one ear (Okay, so I don't have defness, at least not that I know of... although I do have to frequently ask people to repeat themselves. And people have said that I am tone def. I don't know if that's related to general defness or not. Def is a weird word isn't it. It seems to short to be a real word. It almost seems like slang for another word, as in "Yo, dog, that dope was def!" That's how I talk usually.) Anyways. Another symptom: ringing in the ears (Yikes). The last thing was facial tics. I don't actually have facial tics, I thought, feeling relieved. But then I started to wonder. Is it possible to have a facial tic and not know it?? I mean, how can I really see my own face?? I only look at it for a few minutes every morning when I apply my makeup regimen of bronzer and Blistex. It not only seems possible, but even probable. But the good news is that it's a benign tumor, so the prognosis is generally quite good. Temporarily, I feel reassured about this. But then, I start to wonder: can there ever really be such a thing as a 'good' brain tumor?? So naturally I am quite stressed.
Anyways, I must be going. I will let you know how these events unfold.
God willing.

Under Pressure

I have, in my fridge, as we speak, a package of hot dogs that expire on July Second, 2009-- the very day of my highly UNanticipated return to the paid workforce-- and I use the word paid there because I am currently a member of a workforce-- staying at home is a job in and of itself. Anyways. That is what my maternity leave is now reduced to. The life expectancy of a package of wieners. I am absolutely horrified at this prospect.
And speaking of hot dogs- here is a list of words that are currently taboo in our house, vis a vis an eleven year old son who will snicker and giggle inappropriately.
Hot dogs.
Wieners.
Hot dog buns-- the origins of this, I must admit, I am not entirely sure about
Meat balls.
Balls.
Nuts.
Peanuts.
Salted Nuts.
The subway slogan "Five dollar foot long"
The Burger King slogan "You're way right away"
Sausage
I think the list is fairly comprehensive, although there are always other things that come up. Like 'pens' for example. He'll be like "Mom, what would pens be if it had an 'i' in it". Groan. The mind of an eleven year old boy is very one tracked, let me tell you.

Anyways, as I was saying before my little sideline into slang terms for male anatomy, my mat leave is almost over and I am feeling saddened and chagrined. I know that it will only take a few days and all will be back to normal, but still the nine to five world seems so foreign to me right now. I'll look at the clock sometimes at ten thirty, and think 'if I were at work right now I would probably be in full on professional nurse swing' but instead I am at home, playing blocks with the baby on the floor, wearing my PJ's and watching TV, laid back, sipping on gin and juice.
OK, without the gin and juice. Not at ten thirty am. Maybe eleven. But ten thirty's pushing it. At least on a weekday.

Anyways, other than that, my life is going relatively well. Payton had a soccer tournament this weekend, which went well. She received a medal, not for any amount of skill or even half hearted participation on her part, but simply because every kid gets one. She likes soccer, but unfortunately, doesn't seem particularly inclined to it. The ball will literally roll right over top of her foot and she will still stand in place, twirling her hair and looking absently at the other players. Geoff and I joked that when Payton is on the field, it's like a power play for the other team. I yell my heart out "PAYTON the BALL!! GET THE BALL!! ITS RIGHT THERE!!!" I get disheartened sometimes, the other parents look at me with sympathetic smiles, shrug their shoulders, as if to say "what can you do?" But, oh, well. It's just a game. And she is, after all, only four years old. But I've been finding that with her in soccer and Gage in ball, it's a lot of hustle and bustle, dragging the kids to soccer fields and ball diamonds alike, trying to occupy Alex who's main concern seems to be picking sunflower seed shells off the grass and eating them. I get frustrated sometimes, trying to keep uniforms clean and cleats put away-- though it seems we're always looking for something anyways-- but when I was driving home the other day with my sleepy baby boy, who'd had too much sun and his plump cheeks were a cherry red color, and my soccer clad four year old, who talked excitedly all the way home, and my too cool eleven year old, who pointedly ignored me all the way home, with his MP3 player plugged staunchly and firmly in to his ears, that even as stressful as these days are sometimes, these are the very times I will someday yearn for. A line from a song- of all songs, Miley Cyrus "The Climb"- "I may not know it, but these are the moments, I'm gonna remember most" and I was suddenly struck with a vision of myself, older- much older, my children long gone with children of their own, looking fondly back on a time when my babies were just that- babies- like how the other day when I took the kids outside to the splash park and Alex discovered that he liked the water, and ice cream. I hefted him out of his car seat when I returned home, he smelled like Baby Faces sunscreen and the faint, sweet smell of ice cream. He was sleepy and his body went limp against mine, hot and sweaty and sweet. His hair was damp and curly, I kissed the top of his head, enjoying the moment in time. Or how Payton and Alex and I sat together on a blanket and watched the sun go down while Gage played center field, Payton blowing bubbles and Alex clapping his hands together in a cute, if clumsy, fashion. It's chaos sometimes, but in the chaos is the beauty. I just need to be able to see it, not get bogged down by the stresses of it. Like so what if Alex eats a few sunflower seed shells. It's not going to kill him, right??
OK, it might. Bad example.
Anyways, that being said, I am going to go now and enjoy the day with my children.