There's Dumb. There's Dumber....

Then there's me.

I had a complete brain shut-down on Monday, and I pulled weeds in the backyard without any gloves on. Nature girl that I am, I also managed to discard of some poison ivy in the process. Just wrapped it all around my hands. Now they are totally swollen and blistered up.

I really do know the "leaves of three" rule, but honestly, I'm just not used to paying that much attention to individual weeds. Getting back to nature, for me, involves sand and salt water. Not the woods. I'm no good at that, even though I ought to be better since I have two brothers who are Eagle Scouts.

At least I'm not AS allergic to poison ivy as my brothers are. Robert specifically. He can pick up a stick that at one time laid on top of the ivy and break out. It's practically a systemic reaction with him.

Anyway, my hands are swollen enough that I can wear my grandfather's wedding ring on the middle finger on my right hand. Gra did not have small hands.
Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Possible new skin problems

Toot's eczema seems to have gotten worse lately, and we have been attributing it to more skin being exposed as the weather has warmed, more pollen in the air, being outside more often, etc. But, it's just different somehow. He'll be outside for no more than 20 minutes and come back inside and will be red, bumpy, and severely itchy all over his exposed skin. It's just not the normal pattern of eczema. He still has the eczema hotspots, but this extra irritation just seemed different to me.

He has had red "raccoon" eyes a lot lately. His little face just gets so red and irritated. And the only thing that seems to help is being inside a lot. Not being outside for several days in a row. BUT, that's not a doable thing during the warmer weather.

So, I got to thinking that we might be dealing with something else in addition to eczema. My dad has a severe sun allergy, and I developed some less serious problems when I hit adulthood. (And, according to my mom, after she read this, my paternal grandmother Honey also had issues later in her life with sun allergies). I went to looking to self-diagnose as so many of us are wont to do these days, and I may have found Toot's issue with the sun. PMLE.

Here's a description of it.

Here are some pictures of what it does. I think Jmk will discover some of the pictures of the smaller children look very much like Toot when he comes in from playing outside. These aren't pleasant pictures, so don't feel like you have to go look at them.

They say this is more common in women, somewhat less common with children, and not as common with males. ::shrug:: So, who knows if this is a real issue with Toot. The descriptions seem to be spot on. I sort of hope that this IS the problem right now, because it's not a major thing. It's certainly major to his comfort, but not his health. Except for the problem of mixing it with his eczema. When he gets the open sores from scratching hot spots, and that gets mixed with a PMLE breakout, then the risk of infection increases. Because the area of broken skin increases.

Anyway, we'll just need to stock up on some quality broad spectrum sunscreen, maybe with the Helioplex formula, and see if that helps. He is so very hot natured, that I don't know if he can handle being in long shirts and pants during the summer, like my dad is able to do. Plus, I don't want him to feel different. I don't want going out to play to be the world's biggest hassle. And, it won't be. This is just his thing. He could have much worse problems, and I'm grateful that this is the worst that we have to deal with.

Tooter'isms

To quote my dear friend and church sister, Karen, "my brain is like a sieve". So, I need to get these down as I think of them/hear them. These are really more interesting to Jmk and me than anyone else, and this list will be updated as new words arise. Kind of like we did with the Poodle'isms from way back when.

Hay-ku (thank you)
Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy - waaaatch, Mommy
Sherek (shrek)
Mee-na (fiona)
Coooukie (cookie)
Moo-The. Moothee. (movie)
GaGa!!! (said loudly and earnestly, no matter where we are. Including church).
Ay-MEN! (also - loudly and earnestly. No matter who was doing the praying).
Hackee! (Mickey)  (or Hah-cah!)
Daithee (Daisey)
Manna/Manee (Banana)
Kiss da hurt!
All beddah.
Sure!  Banks!  (sure!  thanks!)
No banks.
Boonana.
Herculices
Pinickiko (Pinnochio)
Pidernam (Spiderman)
I figgure out.  Noosh.
Good job Tooter.  "You're welcome".
Freckest.  (Breakfast)  5-30-09



And more to come as we hear them.

Distraction and such.

My brother let me borrow his fancy pants Nikon camera this past weekend, and I'm terribly distracted with it. It's probably going to limit my picture sharing ability, because I don't have a card reader to get the pictures off of it! Well, that, and I'm still trying to figure out most of it. This is a really fancy camera. Quite cool.

Anyway, I'll try not to be too remiss in sharing munchkin photos. Because I know that the grandparents just LOVE hearing me ramble about the drama of the climate, but they really just want to see pictures of their grandbabies. I know. :-)

Plus, Winkflash is having a sale on their photo memory books, which is how I "scrapbook". So I've got till the end of May to get 2007 finished. I know good and well that if I actually tried to scrapbook for real, I would never get a year finished. So, these photo memory books are a quick way for me to keep up with family pictures. Ehhhh. Whatever works, you know?

Anyway, this was a realllllly long post to just say that I'll try to get some more daily-doings of the monkeys up and showing as soon as I can!

Just turn the light off.

You know, there are soooo many opinions about global warming. Or climate change. Or whatever the current PC term is these days. And, as it is with all things that are politically charged, the opinions run the gamut from Global Warming Is Going To Be The End Of The World all the way to Global Warming Is An Absolute Hoax.

Regardless of any of that, what bugs me the most about all those discussions is the absolute drama of all of it. Do you know what my parents made me do when I was growing up? Turn off the lights when I wasn't in the room. Do you know why? Because not doing so wasted electricity. Do you know why they didn't want to waste electricity? Because they were taught by their parents to avoid being wasteful. To be conservative with the things you have. To avoid spending money needlessly. To. Be. Temperate.

We didn't run the air conditioning at 62 in the summer or the heat at 82 in the winter for the same reason.

I could go on, but you get my point. Sometimes I think all the global warming/climate change brouhaha is nothing more than people needing things to be more dramatic than they should be. We are told, in the Holy Scriptures, to be temperate. (Titus 1 and 2 refer to it). And our good common sense (as well as our parents and grandparents) tell us that most things are fine, as long as they come/are used in moderation.
So why can't we just say, folks, turn off the lights when you're not using them so you don't waste electricity. Don't drive to drop off a package down the street when you can walk instead, so you don't waste gas. Reuse things when possible so you don't waste what you have. Why can't we simply say any of those things any more?

Why does it have to be SO full of guilt-ridden drama?
Sheesh.

For you Birmingham, AL Folks

Give Michael's a call when you feel like eating out "fancy" and see if Tommy G is playing that night. He plays live sax there, from time to time! (You go, Uncle Tommy!)

I'll see your tacky and raise you a pair of Hanes

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Kathleen sent out some pictures of her kids doing various and sundry kid-type things. All precious - she has three kids from 5 on down. The constant theme throughout the pictures, by way of her captions, was the general tackiness of their activities and such. Now, please note that I found nothing in the pictures at all "tacky", mostly because I have pictures of my kids doing pretty much everything hers were doing.

However, I'm quite sure that I have trumped her tacky.

This afternoon, as we were waiting on Miss Claire to come for our speech therapy session, the kids wanted to play outside. Due to the copious amounts of rain we had, the backyard was a sludge fest, so they went to the front yard/driveway. I, however, really needed to fold clothes. Soooo......

I proceded to open the back door of the van, and fold a load of clothes right there where the whole neighborhood could see me. And, it was a load of whites, so I was folding my and the Mr.'s unmentionables.
The only thing that would have made it more of a punchline for a redneck joke would have been if I had also been barefoot, nursing a newborn.
Tacky is in the eye of the Hanes-folding beholder. :-)

Why Ballet?

Amy and I were talking during the picnic on Mother's Day about the need for more adult ballet classes that are really affordable. And at good times during the day to not only accommodate working girls but also those of us who want to go during the day. (Don't think this conversation didn't get me to thinking about donating some teaching time if someone else would donate some studio space for some inexpensive classes. But anyway.....)

And it got me to thinking about why ballet produces such amazing physiques. Granted, some of it is genetics. I don't know that Mary Lou Retton would have turned out to be the steel waif that Gelsey Kirkland is. Maybe, maybe not. Their lives were spent training for two entirely different things. But, there are things about ballet that produce muscle tone when you're not even "trying". However, there has to be some effort to pay attention to technique, which is why there isn't a ballet class on every corner. It's hard to just let go and have fun when you're needing to concentrate on what you're doing in order to get the best results.

My brain goes crazy from that point thinking about all the things that a "fun" ballet class would have to include if it was to be productive also. However, it made me want to share a few things, "secrets" if you will, about why a ballet dancer looks the way she or he does.

~Pointing your toes. This doesn't just make your foot look good at the end of your leg. That is why dancers do it. But the other result of pointing your toes is an extra workout for your calf muscles. Going up and down on your toes a million times definitely gives your calves a workout. Add to that pointing your toes every time your foot leaves the floor, and you've doubled your workout. Keep your leg straight when those toes are pointed (even when your foot is still on the floor) also engages the muscles in your upper leg.
~Core body work. The reason dancers look so graceful is that they seem to be able to do crazy things with no effort. Believe me, there is a LOT of effort goes into standing en pointe in attitude derrière. But a good dancer makes it look as simple as sitting on a couch watching Dancing With The Stars. How does she do that? A core that is as strong as any Olympic athlete. Ballet dancers aren't going to win any medals for lifting weights, trust me. But the muscles from their sternum to their hips (and just below if you want to include the glute muscles) are incredibly strong. They are used constantly during classes, and the stronger your core is, the better your dancing is going to be. That goes for pretty much any kind of physical traning, but it is "extra true" for dancing of all types. The beauty of that for regular people is a strong core usually equals a flatter tummy and a slimmer back. Not to mention better posture.
~Stretching. Dancers have to be super limber in order to put their legs and arms in the positions that they are required to perform. Thus, they have to stretch a lot, every day, in order to get there and stay there. The benefit of that kind of stretching is longer muscles. Longer muscles that build up over time give you that impossibly graceful, strong appearance that even a 5 foot nothing person can still have. Ballet dancers don't just appear to be "skin and bones". They appear to be "muscle and bones".
~Arm positions. First, second, third, fourth, fifth. We all know the names of the arm and foot positions, but doing them is what gives ballet movement another measure of grace and beauty. However, doing them over and over during class is what produces those back muscles and arm muscles that look like they have been airbrushed on. Hold your arm out to the side in a slight curve, and don't let your elbow dip down. Now hold it there for three minutes........ uh-huh - see what I mean? Combine that with some barre work that has your legs going all over the place, and you get a full-body workout, head to toe (literally), on pretty much every exercise you do.

Ballet is an incredible exercise experience. If you are needing to bulk up and add serious strength to your body for sports, then you'll have to add some weight-training to your day. Ballet doesn't produce bulky muscles. (with the exception of men when they get into the more advanced levels, and then their legs can get pretty big). But, for most women, having long, slim, strong as steel muscles is just the ticket. And if you think about those little "secrets" listed above when you are doing your own workouts, you might just begin to see some of the ballet benefits too!

Mother's Day Pictures

Happy Mother's Day to all of you wonderful, beautiful women who give your heart, tears, passion, and breathtaking joy to your children. And to those who are missing their mothers today, she loves you.


Mom - thank you for still being the one who keeps us all together. Every day may be mother's day, but you definitely deserve a spotlight today. I'm looking forward to us all being together next weekend!

We went to our regular church service, and thusly got to be with my mom. Then, we left and went to Jmk's mom's house. We changed clothes, and headed to a local park for a picnic! It was so wonderful, and I enjoyed everything so very much.

To my dismay, though, I left my camera at home. It's so very rare that I don't have it with me, and there are so many things that I would have snapped. But, since I didn't have it, I had to take mental pictures. Let me share some with you:
~Seeing Granny looking beautiful at church, and my mom, looking beautiful.
~Knowing that I am so blessed to have this intergenerational connection.
~Holding my kids during church, hoping I can always remember the feeling of wrapping my arms around their little, squirmy, soft, beautiful selves.
~SueSue in her precious polka dots.
~The quilt on the grass with the picnic baskets and the cooler full of cokes and water and Capri suns holding down the corners because of the breezes.
~The beautiful blue sky with nary a cloud.
~Tooter and Poodle picking the prime spots on the quilt right next to SueSue.
~The yummy sandwiches and Zapps!
~Strawberries, grapes, apples, and cheesecake. Mmmmmm.
~Crunchy BBQ potato chips inside a ham and turkey sandwich with mayo and mustard. Mmmm.
~My children smiling, eating, and loving their family.
~My husband stretching his legs out behind me.
~SueSue taking the kids to the playground - watching them grab her hands and look up at her with complete trust and love.
~Getting to talk to my dear Amy, uninterrupted. Just the two of us.
~Watching Jmk and Jay play horseshoes. No kidding!
~Watching Tooter and Poodle throw horseshoes at the poles.
~Watching me cringe, hoping that no one catches a horseshoe in the head.
~Getting waaaay too much sun on my legs because the breezes were distracting me from the sun.
~Loading up in SueSue's car to head back to her house.
~Grabbing the bread to walk down to the duck pond to feed the ducks.
~Telling SueSue about Honey taking us to the pond near her house.
~Remembering that the scent of plastic bread bags in the freezer still remind me of being at Honey and Gra's house, knowing that we were about to go feed the ducks.
~Watching SueSue walk back on to her patio and seeing her new grill from her kids.
~Driving home, wondering how my dad was doing; if he was thinking about Honey today.
~Driving home and thinking about how blessed, how lucky I am to have married a man with a family that means so very much to me.


Thanks for sharing my mother's day with me. I don't have actual pictures, but the pictures in my mind will hopefully last always.

Crow Time

Go PC!!!

Ahhhhhhh

Hear that? It's the sound of no roofers and of kids who can go outside. Gotta love that sound. :-)

Sanity fading........

This is day three of hammers and air compressors. Our sanity is fading and our nerves are completely on edge. We are having the roof replaced due to storm damage. Ugh.

While we are very glad to be getting a new roof, the process tries every ounce of patience we have. In addition to the noise, the kids' outside time has been seriously limited, because even though the roofers are cleaning as they go, there are still shingles and nails flying about intermittently.

So, anyway, we are having to mostly play inside. Big hat tip to Kathleen for this great idea. Painting the bathtub! Just get a cheapo can of Barbasol shaving cream, put the kids in the tub, and let them have at it!


By the time we got to this point, they were slipping and sliding and giggling like crazy. It was a hoot. Then, I gave them a couple of cups to help "clean" the tub, and that kept them busy for another 30 minutes.

Yeah, it was a little messy, and there were some extra towels to wash. But that stuff is totally worth it.

And I will be so glad to get back to peace and quiet around here!

My Baby Peed! :-)

In the potty! :-)

Toot has shown no signs of being ready to potty-train for real. And I was so spoiled with Poodle (she practically trained herself, at least that's what it seemed like, before she was two), that I've just been waiting for Toot to start showing signs of being ready/interested. Regardless of readiness, every night before bath time, we set him on the potty just to get that to be part of the routine. I really don't think he ever had any idea what he was supposed to be doing.

WELL! Last night, it just happened to work out that he needed to teetee while he was on there. Woohoo!!! Poodle and I went crazy!!! (Jmk was outside talking to the roofers. They're here. That's another story). I'm so happy for Toot!

I still don't think he's ready to start training for real, but it was really neat to see that happen last night. I don't know how far away real training actually is, but I'm sure it will be here before we know it. That's how it is with kids, it seems!

The Swingset Saga

We finally have a swingset back! Insurance paid to replace our 4-4 storm damaged one, and Jmk got his dad to come in on a Saturday to help get it all together.

This is Jason organizing the eleventy hundred pieces that the set comes in. He separated the wood into types, and then organized each phase of the project according to the instruction manual.






PopPop came in the next morning, and they got to it. They got an amazing amount of work done in one day. Especially considering that they were sandwiched in by rain that morning and later that afternoon. They just built as much as possible in the garage!

As you can see, there is a ton of mud where the set is sitting now. There were three trees there. 4-4 took 2 of them, and we purposefully brought down the hickory so that it wouldn't be a lone tree taking the full brunt of any future storms. So, because of the major muddy mess.....






Jmk proceeded to lay some sod the next week so the kids wouldn't have to wear mud boots every time they wanted to play.












He could barely get the swings attached before they were running to get on them.













Jmk put the finishing touches on the set last Saturday afternoon while the kids were taking their nap.

And here is the final product!

It's almost exactly like our old one as far as features go. The only difference is an adorable little picnic bench that is just the right size for little ones.









You can see that Poodle *really* digs the idea of the picnic bench. They have both taken to getting bowls of snacks and taking them out there in the afternoon. I can also see a lot of Popsicle eating during the summer there!










Very happy little ones to have their swings back!
Thanks for all your help, PopPop!


(And it goes without saying, honey - you did a wonderful job. Thank you so much for being such an awesome daddy. I love you!)

My Mom wouldn't make it in Hollywood

My mom would never make it in Hollywood. I now have proof. The land where Ashlee Simpson is coy about having her nose updated is a place where my mom would never fit in.

Four days after having eyelid surgery, my mom went to church - bruises, swelling and all!

I guess I need to back up a minute here. Okay, 11'ish years ago, my mom had cataract surgery on her left eye. While the surgery was successful, it left her eyelid stretched beyond its limits. (Think stretch marks from pregnancy, that kind of thing). 5'ish years later, she had the same surgery on her right eye. Fast forward to a couple-three months ago, and she's in for an eye exam to check on her eyeglass prescription. She's doing the eye chart exam, and has to literally lift her eyelid up in order to see the whole chart. (Her left eyelid - it has done the most drooping since her surgeries). The optician in that office does a vision field exam with her eyes "normal" and does one with her eyelids sort of taped up in the position that they should be. Big, huge difference. Don't get me started on how nervous this made me about her safety with driving and the like.
So, her ophthalmologist refers her to a plastic surgeon that specializes in eye surgeries and Mom proceeds to almost immediately start questioning whether or not she should do the surgery. She doesn't want to be seen as vain or as trying to look 35 or some such thing.

Let me interject something here. While I have always been leery of the idea of plastic surgery, and "messing around with what God gave you", I'm sure a lot of that stems from my extreme tight-fisted'ness with money. After seeing the results of Mom's surgery, I can honestly say that in some situations, this type of thing - even if it is done purely for aesthetic reasons - can be a really great thing! My opinion of the whole shebang is starting to change. Perspective can do that a person.

So, anyway, she finally takes a deep breath and goes in for the surgery not quite 2 weeks ago. Let's face it, if you have to lift up your eyelid in order to have a clear field of vision; if you are literally looking at your eyelid when you are looking straight forward, then this surgery can seriously improve your quality of vision.

And, bonus for Mom, you can see her whole eye again! No, she doesn't look 35 - at almost 70, that wasn't what she was going for anyway. But, the excess eyelids are no longer blocking her eyes so her whole face looks fresher. And, when I talked to her as she was on her way home from the actual surgery, she said she could already see a huge difference in her vision. Yay!

So, anyway, back to the Hollywood thing. We know most of the folks over there have all sorts of things fixed, sucked, tucked, pulled, and lifted. They exist in a world where image rules, so who can blame them? But their tight-lipped attitude about it seems to be more than just medical privacy. They're almost ashamed they had things "done". My mom, on the other hand - because she really hates missing church - showed up 4 days after her surgery looking like she lost 3 rounds with Mike Tyson. She came to Poodle's last swim lesson the next day still bruised and slightly swollen. And, no, she wasn't walking around with sunglasses on. Nooooo - she was out there for any one to see! Like I told her - she didn't do anything wrong. And what she did to fix her line of vision had the nice added advantage of opening her eyes back up.
Go Mom!!!

Now, is this about to lead to a life of botox and face lifts and restalyn? Nah. As much as she enjoys surgery (not!), all the rest of that stuff is not appealing to her. But I'm proud of her for not just doing what she needed to do, but for putting on her big girl pants and for trying hard to not be ashamed about it. Even though she was worried about people thinking she was vain. Even though she didn't want to be a subject of conversation. Even though she knew a lot of people might not understand.
Way to go!

Fun With Bread

Hat Tip to Parents Mag for this one. Take a piece of bread, cut off the crusts, and flatten it with a rolling pin. Spray a muffin tin with non-stick spray and fit the flattened bread into the tin. Bake at 375 for 10 minutes, and you have a fun bread cup for the kids! We had to take a picture of our lunch on Tuesday because we thought our bread cups were just too cool. :-) (And, bonus factor, Toot actually ate some of the toasted bread, which his Royal Pickiness usually doesn't do).

Well, Daddy....

...he ate his pancakes at the table this morning. sigh.......... And didn't make too much of a mess. I guess we'll be putting the high chair up before too much longer. ::sigh again::

Of course, we still need the high chair for nacho night. That ought to buy me a little more time.
:-)