Category: family

  • Brian

    Brian’s cast came off today! Yay. I didn’t keep the cast (sorry, Dad) since it was so messy. The skin around his wrist is dry and flaky and smells so gross. Yuck. B’s arm needs to stay wrapped in cotton and an ace bandage for the next three days and he can’t have gym time or playground time yet. We go back in 10 days to have the arm looked at again. After Kevin gets home, Brian is going to take the longest bath of his life. (I am waiting so that Kevin can help me rewrap it.)

  • Memories, all alone in the moonlight…

    So, my mom wants to know my best and worst childhood memories. I have a lot of the first and not so much of the second, thankfully. I think the qualifier of “best” and “worst” is TOO MUCH PRESSURE, so I am just going to relate a good and bad story, ok?\
    Good: Visiting Grandma Lang and the Michigan gang for Christmas when I was 8-ish. First time I remember snow. We all crammed into Grandma’s little apartment at the retirement home for dinner one night. Grandma complained that I kicked in my sleep. (Sorry!) Uncle Roger gave me a perfume-making set. He and Aunt Nancy kept calling each other Aunt Roger and Uncle Nancy and laughing like it was the funniest thing ever. Cousin Dana, who was 10-ish, and I visited a neighbor lady of Grandma’s. She was a little weird, as unknown old people are to young kids, but Dana knew the lady pretty well and she was really nice.\
    Bad: Minor car accident with Grandpa Junkermann and Mom in a snow storm on the way home from a cousin’s funeral in another state when I was 14. We spun out and the car got stuck in the snow in the median and we ended up spending the night in the cab of a couple of nice female truckers (call signs Onion and Carrot). There were literally hundreds of people stranded in the middle of nowhere and the truckers in the area made sure we were all relatively cared for. Because I was lame, I only took my jean jacket with me, instead of my warm winter coat which I left in the car. The cab was smelly and cold where I “slept” (I got the spot near the pee jar and the dirty clothes, and ended up on the cold metal floor, yay) and just really uncomfortable. Yeck. I know it was a bad night for everyone. No one was hurt though, so I can’t complain too much. Beyond that night, every single time my parents were late coming home. I was a huge worry-wart about car accidents (a fear not related at all to the previous story). I am still a worry-wart about my parents being in an accident and freak every time they call me, which they rarely do. Maybe if they called more, I would get over it, eh?

  • Terrible timing

    Kevin has the stomach flu. 🙁 He took a couple of vaction days and it totally blows that he is sick instead. Booooooo.

  • Good news!

    Brian gets his cast off next week. That will be three weeks after surgery, instead of the expected six. YAY.

  • Cockadoodledoooooo

    Brian woke up at 4:30, totally awake and ready to start the day. Which, ugh. This pretty much guarantees that 1) he will not be spending the night at Babba’s anytime soon and 2) I will crash after I drop him off at school. Kevin is home today, sick, so maybe he and I can have a nap date. Being near each other, in sleep, is just as good as being awake and actually talking to each other, yes?

  • Revolution, days 1 and 2

    Before you can successfully have a revolution, you need to cleanse the mind-pallet. This involves copious amounts of watching cheesy college frat shows (aka Greek) and surfing the ‘net in between crying jags prompted by watching your kidlet via webcamera. It is very important that you do the pallet cleansing thing. Otherwise, the whole endeavor might fail. True story.\
    Anyway, I came upon this gem yesterday and it is the funniest thing ever. You must watch and enjoy.

    \
    In other BREAKING news, the writers strike has left my tivo devoid of anything other than Spongebob and Ninja Warrior. How can I possibly do the laundry under these hellish conditions?

  • AOL’s preschool

    I was totally going to post a couple of weeks ago, then the dreaded broken arm happened. But anyway…\
    Top 10 reasons why I love AOL’s preschool:

    • Security: You have to pass through 3 levels of security to get to where the children are.
    • Art: they have some sort of art or craft project every day!
    • Running around: The kids have gym/playground time 4 times a day.
    • Specialists: gym, Spanish, and music are taught by specialists.
    • The facilities: water park, playground, karaoke machine, play stage, reading centers, toys, etc.
    • The web camera: Kevin, the grandparents, and I can peek in on Brian via webcameras located throughout the center and play areas.
    • Food. They feed the kids every 3 hours or so and make sure the food in nutritious and varied. (No juice, no cookies. Brian has been trying and liking new things.)
    • They’re open from 6:30 to 6:30, which means they are ready for him to be dropped off and picked up whenever we get there. No rushing to be on time, worrying about traffic, fretting in line at the store, getting there early only to have to wait around.
    • Convenience: Kevin usually drops him off on the way to work, yay.
    • There are three teachers in B’s class of less than 15 kids.\
      The center is expensive, so the kids may not be going to college after all, but at least their mother WILL BE SANE!! Or, at least, less insane. Fair trade-off, yes?\
      ETA- A bonus reason! (There were actually 4 other reasons on my list that I had to cut to stay at ten, but this one is too good to not mention.) B’s teacher emails me everyday to specifically say what the kids did and how the day went. So instead of asking, “How was your day?” and Brian responding, “Good”, I can ask, “How did you like playing ants on a log in the gym and singing ‘Rainbows’ in music?”
  • Viva la revolution!

    About a month ago when Brian started all-day school, I started a Jen-volution. I was so ready to be in my third phase of motherhood: having kids. Kids. Not babies, toddlers, or teenagers. Just kids. I had two glorious weeks of this, where I saw the future and it was AWESOME. And then Brian broke his arm (he was a super duper trooper about it all) which put my revolution on hold. Today he is going back to school and so the revolution commences once again! Wheeeeeeeeeee.

  • A Get Well Video From Across The Pond

    My friend Diarmuid, who works in AOL’s Dublin office was telling his four year-old daughter about Brian’s arm the other day, and she wanted to make him a get well video. Diarmuid finally put it up on Bebo, so now I can show it to you. His daughter may be the cutest thing ever:

    Watch More Videos       Uploaded by www.bebo.com/DiarmuidG4\
    Thanks, Juliette! Brian loved the video, and he’s going to make one for you as soon as he’s feeling better (and we can put a shirt on him over his cast)!

  • Broken Brian Update

    As Jen said the other day, Brian broke his arm on Friday. Monday morning was spent calling orthopedists to see if any of them could see him. One of them said they didn’t want to see him for seven to ten days, and that someone “would call us back before the end of the day to set up an appointment.” That seemed kind of silly to me, especially if the kid just needed a hard cast. So, I called our pediatrician’s office to make sure I wasn’t overreacting. The very pleasant nurse I talked to said that sounded a little weird and gave me a couple other local orthopedists to try. First call, I got an appointment for Brian yesterday morning. We saw her yesterday, and Brian’s going in in a couple hours to have the bone set.\
    Well, hopefully have the bone set. He has a non-displaced fracture of his elbow (the humerus, right at the end). It’s at an angle, and the doctor is going to try to just push it back in place. If that doesn’t work, she’s going to have to pin it. We’re hoping for option number one. Because he’s three and setting bones hurts like hell, they’re going to put him to sleep to do it. That way, if they have to pin the bone, he’ll already be under.\
    Brian’s been great through this whole thing. He gets grumpy because he hates being stuck on the couch, but he was an absolute champ at the doctor’s, and has been pretty cheerful throughout considering this is his first real experience with being hurt. Last night, he was giddy and playful and even got up for a little while to play soccer with Jen. He’s on codeine and a little wobbly, so I had to hold him up so he didn’t topple over, but we still had fun.\
    This is my first experience with a broken kid. I’ve been on the patient side of the equation several times (ask my mom… we got to know pretty much every emergency room in NATO). I’m pretty good at being the patient. I know my job (say “ouch a lot”, let people help you, say thank you and try not to be too big a baby). I don’t know how to be on the parent side of the broken kid equation. It’s new, and frustrating. Thankfully, this is our first real injury for either boy, which is amazing when you consider that half of their genetic makeup comes from one of the least graceful, most accident-prone people ever to stumble into the world. Jen, on the other hand, is awesome. She’s doing a great job with him and I’m in awe (hence my saying she’s awesome). She’s extremely patient and hasn’t even thrown anything through the wall in a fit of Spongebob-induced mania.\
    I don’t know how good the cell reception will be at the surgery center, but I’ll most likely update twitter as soon as we know anything.\
    Late Update: Sorry, I should have posted this sooner, but we’re all tired. Brian was a super kid at the surgery center. He didn’t cry, did everything the nurses asked him to, and came through with flying colors (OK, he cried coming out of anesthesia, but that’s perfectly normal), and he didn’t need surgery! His awesome orthopedist was able to set the bone by hand without pins and casted him. He was in and out of the operating room in about twenty minutes. He slept most of the afternoon and then ordered me around for the rest of it (“I want to watch Spongebob.” “Play Burnout.” “I want more juice.” “Come sit with me.”). We’re all going to try to sleep in our own beds tonight, even! This is pretty much the best case scenario for what could have happened today.\
    And one more thing – I just want to say thank you to everyone who reached out with words of comfort, advice and sympathy. It was overwhelming and much appreciated. Thank you!