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.
:-)

I'm ashamed.

No self respecting Parrothead, even a Parrothead-lite like me, would ever misplace their copy of Bob Marley and the Wailers Legend. Sheesh. Where is that thing?

Another 3-worder!

"kiss the hurt". Said this morning to me so that I would kiss a bump on his foot. :-) Yay 3-worders!

Speech and Spelling updates

Alright. I have been trying to "write" a post in my head about Tooter's speech progress. And I've been attempting to write it concisely while still being nicely descriptive.

I just can't.

While I'm sure he isn't unique, describing his progress requires lots of explanation, it seems. Shortest version is he is doing just fine and is adding words to his vocabulary. Period. Longer version is more muddled. When a child is first learning to talk, they'll just attempt a word, the parents will get all giddy and it's all the coolest thing ever. Ca ca for cracker is the smartest thing they've ever heard, and eventually ca ca turns to cacker and of course, eventually gains that final "r" to become cracker.
Toot hasn't quite worked that way. For example: He wouldn't say his sister's name. Hasn't until about.... oh, I don't know..... about 3 weeks ago. Granted, he can't say the "r" in her name (it's a "w" when he says it), but he says her name quite clearly now. Thing is, he never tried to say her name, until he could say it just like he is now. Never tried making the first letter a "w" sound also, like SHE did when she was learning to say her name.
He's also done the same thing with his own name.

It's that kind of thing that makes his vocabulary seem to take longer, and when he says words, it's almost anti-climatic, even though it seems like it wouldn't be. It's very hard to explain. We get excited to hear new things, but he is so extremely unimpressed with himself when he talks. I guess we sort of take cues from him? It's so weird. Anyway, the biggest differences now are that 1) he will try to imitate almost anything you ask him to imitate. That's a huge step forward. And, 2) he's started within the past week to point to things and people and give their names if he knows them. That's been fun. When he started doing that was when we realized that he was able to say his own name. He had never used his name before then!

He'll count out objects up to 20, and "thirteen" is incredibly cute. I doubt I'd know it was the word "thirteen" if he didn't say it between 12 and 14. It has a few extra syllables and some random unintelligible sounds. But it's really cute. Sort of like when he says "apostrophe". :-)

AND, on Saturday, he really tried to say "put shoes on". That's the first time I've heard him try to use a 3 word phrase. It wasn't clear, and his eyes proved that he was unsure about what he was saying. But he tried to say it without any prompting, and that a definite step forward!

So, while he isn't carrying on conversations exactly, he is most certainly progressing towards better speech. It's good!

Now, for our spelling update. Poodle was "doing letters and numbers and words and stuff" on the computer. What that means is that I open up Word, and she just types stuff. Sometimes it's gibberish, sometimes real words. And when she does real words, it's usually "mommy", "daddy", her name, Toot's name, etc. Well, a few weeks ago, she decides she wants to spell "Suzanne", which is the name of her beloved puppy dog that her Aunt Amy gave her eons ago. So, without help or even letting us know she was doing it, she types out "SOOZAND". We thought it was, of course, terribly cute. But then, we are a tad biased. :-)


p.s. Eli - thanks for that call. It's nice to be "normal" with friends like you. :-)

I'm coming back.

I promise. I'm just in a mental fog right now. There are things to post about, and I just can't focus on any of them. So weird. Gotta get my brain together! :-)

More fun from email

Hat tip to Malinda from the Wren list! I had seen some of these, but not all of them. They're pretty funny!

SOUTHERN PHRASES

'Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit.'

'It's been hotter'n a goat's butt in a pepper patch.'

'He fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.'

'Have a cup of coffee, it's already been 'saucered and blowed.''

'She's so stuck up, she'd drown in a rainstorm.'

'It's so dry, the trees are bribing the dogs.'

'My cow died last night so I don't need your bull.'

'Don't pee down my back and tell me it's raining.'

'He's as country as corn flakes.'

'This is gooder'n grits.'

'Busier than a cat covering crap on a marble floor.'

'If things get any better, I may have to hire someone to

help me enjoy it.'

How Smart Is Your Right Foot?

Hat tip to my...... 1st cousin once removed?...... Laurie. (If she and my mom are cousins, then she is my...... cousin of some sort. I just never can keep that straight). Anyway, this is cute. And, fwiw, it IS doable, if you write the number six veeeerrry slowly. :-) But don't try it slowly at first. That will ruin all the fun! ha!

HOW SMART IS YOUR RIGHT FOOT?

You have to try this please, it takes 2 seconds. I could not believe this!!! This will boggle your mind and you will keep trying over and over again to see if you can outsmart your foot, but, you can't.

It's pre-programmed in your brain!

1. Without anyone watching you (they will think you are GOOFY......) and while sitting at your desk in front of your computer, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles.

2. Now, while doing this, draw the number '6' in the air with your right hand. Your foot will change direction.

I told you so!!! And there's nothing you can do about it! You and I both know how stupid it is, but before the day is done you are going to try it again, if you've not already done so.

Send it to your friends to frustrate them too!

Our Garden looks very different, Mommy

Words from Poodle about the state of the backyard. Jmk and I were out shoveling mounds of pine and hickory mulch left from the trees that used to be there. (Oh! The tree guys got finished yesterday - took down 8 trees total. Some were torn from the tornado, some had to come down for future safety reasons.)
Anyway, as we were shoveling, Poodle yells that across the yard. She has taken to calling the backyard our "garden". I'm really not sure where that came from, but that's what she keeps saying. "Our garden is messed up". "I miss our big trees. Do you miss our trees, Daddy?" And then today, "Our garden looks very different, doesn't it Mommy?"

I haven't taken pictures yet, because, well - I just haven't. But, yes, it's very different. It's all okay, though. And, in a few weeks, we'll start to adjust to the new views and the extra sun. Plus, there's lots more room to throw a football. Or kick a soccer ball. Or hit a baseball. (Had to get that in there for Phillip. Go 34!) And room to play is always a good thing!

God was so good to us when our damage consisted of tree damage to the yard and only wind damage to the roof. We are blessed, and the extra yard work is good for us. ;-)

Ballet Conditioning Exercise Video

Okay. I got this video probably about a month ago, and have just today been able to make it through the entire thing. It's long'ish and a 4yo and 2yo don't make things very easy. But I did today and want to share what I found!

Let me get the "bad news" part of the critique over with first.
1) It's a tad short on stretching while sitting on the floor, but that's easy to make up.
2) She says dumb things like "let's explore our releves" and stuff like that. It has a yoga'esque feel to it, so you kind of have to ignore the touchy-feely stuff. KD, there is no Miss Jozia coming to poke you in the tushy kind of talk!
3) She does these plies en releve (after a whole bunch of sloooow grand plies) that make you want to come after her with a machete. Really. It hurts. You mean thing, Elise.
4) I realize that #3 is actually a good thing, but really. It hurts.
5) Don't watch the closed captioning. They don't spell most of the ballet terms correctly. ;-)

Now, the good news.
1) It is a fantastic video, and it will kick your tuckus, especially if you are as out of shape as I am. In fact, I wasn't able to do every single step because my thighs were burning and I couldn't catch my breath during the jumps! She does things really slowly which is great for following along. But it also makes it twice as hard.
2) While the music, scenery, and talk has a yoga-esque feel to it, the moves are all ballet. She's a real dancer, and does a great job. I don't love her hands, but other than that, this is a well-done ballet exercise tape. And I don't think you have to have a lot of ballet experience to do it. I do think that someone who has had some ballet training will get more out of it than someone who doesn't know about shoulder placement, alignment, turn-out, etc. But, even a novice is going to get a good, complete workout.
3) Even though she has been a "real" dancer, she doesn't plop her feet into a 180 degree turnout position. I like that. Trying to force a full turnout is the first step to life long knee problems. Trust me.
4) I walked away from this feeling like my legs were absolute spaghetti. I realize I'm completely out of shape, but still..... It works you well!
5) The abs portion will.... oh, fuggedabowdit. I couldn't finish it. It's hard. But it is soooo good for you.

Over all - thumbs up. Definitely worth it. I know I won't be able to do it every day, because life and kids won't let that be possible. But it's a fantastic work out for those days when I can make it work!

Insurance Process Started

We were finally able to get an adjuster to our house yesterday, and got that process started. We'll be getting the trees from the ground removed and finish taking down the broken ones. The roof will get replaced and the swing set will get replaced. It's going to take awhile to get it all handled, and I will admit to being sad to lose the trees. But, like Jmk says, it's a clean slate, and we can have a safe backyard that will be ours. It's all good.



This shot was taken the day after the storm - I think I was standing in the hole where the fence should have been. :-)

That's What I'm saying....

This came to me in an email from my sweet friend Patty just a few days ago:

Oh, something I noticed. I bought some clothes and was shocked to discover that they were the “same size” that I wore before having babies….yeah….sure. I brought them back home and dug out some clothes that were from 8 years ago (yes, I hung on to those relics in some sad pathetic hope). They are all the “same size”, but the clothes from years ago were ALL TWO FULL INCHES smaller in the waist. Every single one. But, I’m still the same size….humph! The clothing industry is happily enabling our fantasies in this Super Sized world. I was so mad, I finally threw the old dusty things into the donate pile.

MM-hmmm. I *totally* know what she means. I have some cute swirly skirts from Tar-gay that are so fun to wear - and are the same size that I wore in high school. Now, before any of you start rolling your eyes and thinking "I hate that girl", let me clarify. I'm inching up on being 30 pounds heavier that I was in high school. I'm not proud of that, and I definitely NEED to do something about it. But, that's reality at the moment. And even with that reality, I still have skirts in the same size that I wore 30 lbs ago?
Yeah. Right. I'm with Patty. The fashion industry indulging our fantasies in this Super Sized world certainly isn't helping my motivation. I'm not blaming them, mind you - but, in the words of the lemur from Madagascar: "oy vey everybody!"

Miss Claire

Meet Claire! Our very sweet speech therapist. She disappointed me greatly last week when she showed up with her wedding ring on. She didn't have it on the first time she came to meet with us, and I had many grand ideas of setting her up with a number of people. (I have an addiction. I really ought to seek out some 12-step program somewhere). Anyway, last week was our first real session and then Tooter had a session yesterday.

As far as his progress goes, he's doing great. In all honesty, a switch was flipped in his head almost the same time that we got this whole process started, and he has continued to improve since then. So, truly, his progress can't really be attributed all to therapy. I think what the therapy sessions are doing most are reminding me to get him to attempt words now that he is wanting to try to imitate us. And, it's nice to have Claire come in and say things like "I see an improvement from last week - he's doing great!" Those kinds of things are nice for Mommy.

In this picture, she has a bag of animal figurines, and she's getting Tooter to tell her the name of the animals and getting him to give her the animal sounds. As you can tell, speech therapy isn't fancy stuff. It's comprised of "everyday" sort of things, but with a specific purpose. And, I have to admit that I enjoy watching Toot's interaction with someone else in authority.

Test

Just a test.

Field Trip to Performing Arts Festival

...That was presented by the Mississippi Puppetry Guild. The kids and I went with the CHEC group last Thursday (the day before the big storm). It was a blast! Our first stop was to a storyteller. There was a whole studio of kids to the left of the picture that I didn't get on camera. But this picture shows WHERE the storyteller was doing his thing. My mom probably recognizes it quite well. This is the studio where Ballet Mississippi holds classes. And, it was the same studio (sans the wonderful marley floor) that was used back when Ballet MS had a professional company. I spent a LOT of time in this room growing up. That winding staircase used to lead to an extra small studio space, but it is used for costume storage now. Sigh.... walking in the door really took my breath away. It felt so good to be in there. To put my hand on the ballet barre. I had a difficult time listening to the storyteller. No, I'll be honest. I wasn't listening. Between occupying Tooter and reminiscing in my mind, I paid very little attention. KD, I bet you can imagine what I was feeling too!






After we left the storyteller, we stopped at Inky the Clown's show as a sort of pit stop in between events.










Tooter, being back outside at that point, had no interest in being terribly still. So he did a lot of jumping around on the steps leading in to the new Art Museum.









Our next stop was to a puppet show. I had never seen a show like this before. It was really neat. And 3 of the CHEC kids ended up on stage with some other young students to participate in part of the show!












The show was "The Fisherman's Wife". I was really impressed with the puppeteers and all their work.







Then, after a "pit stop" at a puppet making station (no pictures from that stop - too hands on), we went to "Dr. Rhythm". Now, THIS fellow was set up in what I know as the alternate rehearsal hall. I have spent quite a few hours in this room also in the olden days of Nutcracker rehearsals. I also spent some time in here when some of us were asked to perform (dancing, NOT singing!) in Aida, the opera. That was YEARS ago. I'm not saying how many. :-)




Now, Dr. Rhythm was pretty groovy. And, he's also a bit "peace, love, and harmony".... but again, I was enjoying being in the room. And I liked watching the kids dance. Tooter got down on the floor in some kind of pseudo break-dance move that I had never seen before. Don't know where that came from. But, we ended up leaving early - actually the whole CHEC group did - because all the kids were hungry and ready to go. And that worked for us because we had a speech therapy session that afternoon at 2:00 anyway.

I would highly recommend this field trip. It was really unique and interesting. Not your usual "trip to the zoo" type of thing. Don't think I'm dis'ing the zoo - I think the zoo is really cool. (And we haven't been in awhile. Hmmm. Time to bring the boy, I think. I digress.) This was an art trip from a unique perspective, and it was really kid friendly. They did a great job. Thanks for arranging this for us Amy!!!

Tornado's path

Hat tip to Jmk for this one.

Four Four Storm

I'm not sure what folks will be calling this storm, but it's what I am sort of calling it in my head. There's "Katrina" and now there's "Four Four". As in April 4th. Bah - what a mess. Our neighborhood was one of the ones that got a direct hit from something; they're not sure if it was a tornado or just straight line winds. They were forcasting winds to be between 60 and 100 mph, so either one could have done the damage.

Doesn't matter - the important news is that no one was hurt (praise God!) and that the house is fine! (praise God!) The kids and I were home when it came thru, and it was pretty frightening for me and Poodle. Tooter, little dude that he is, slept right through it. :-) This first shot is a view of as much of the backyard as I could get. Basically, Four Four took down most of the rest of the trees that Katrina left. Four trees were either brought down or had their tops blown off. Two more will have to be removed for safety's sake, I believe. One of the tree tops was blown two houses down. We have some roof damage and will have a lot of clean up. But we were so blessed. The trees fell down in the perfect position to do the least amount of damage! Our fence sustained damage, and some of our neighbors' fences sustained damage from our trees. And one of the kids' little plastic pools from Walmart is who knows where. I guess it blew to Timbuktu.



This is a shot from outside the back door looking into the backyard. The first tree you see laying on the ground came from the broken tree directly in the middle behind the sago palm. It landed exactly parallel to the deck, not even three inches from it. Extraordinary. Didn't even touch the deck. Now, the top of that tree took out the next door neighbor's fence. But it totally missed our deck. That little plastic playhouse you see sort of behind the tree didn't even move an inch. So weird!




Mean storm totalled the swing set too. You should have seen Tooter's face when he saw it. He looked at it, looked at us, looked back at the swing, looked back at us with this incredulous, confused expression. Poor guy.








But, hey - big downed trees in the yard can be fun for the dog!

All is good. Jesus was with us as we huddled in the hallway. He was with us as we got our power back only 7 or 8 hours later. He will be with us as we get things cleaned up.

We are blessed in this mess! :-)

How does your play-doh grow?

Poodle's Play-Doh flower. Tooter's contribution to the Play-Doh party was to tear the chunks of Doh into little pieces and count them out. That didn't make nearly so cute of a picture. ha!

Chicks Dig Scars

Tooter has suffered his first (of many, I'm sure) shiner. Compliments of his sister, sort of. I mean, she didn't mean to do it. It really was an accident. She was twirling with a yo-yo in her hand. Something Angelina Ballerina does, I think. Anyway, she was twirling, the yo-yo was flying through the air, and Tooter managed to walk right into it. WHAM!

This first picture was taken last Thursday morning, right after we returned from the doctor's office. Thankfully, his actual eye was unharmed, and he didn't need stitches.



This was taken on Friday. His eye is more swollen than the picture indicates, *but* this was the most swelling that he experienced, believe it or not.










This one was from Saturday. As you can see, the swelling has already gone down significantly, and the bruising has hit its peak.











And this one was taken Sunday after lunch, with Audrey, Granny, and Poodle. This gives a decent shot of the boy'ish black eye.

Again, thankfully, his eye wasn't harmed, so it became more humorous than anything. And, poor Poodle really did feel terrible about the accident. As of today, Tuesday, the bruising around his eye has decreased from the dark blue and purple to a lighter blue and green. I would guess that by this time next week, it will be almost gone completely. Ahhhh - to have a child's ability to heal!

And, like Jmk says.... "It's cool. Chicks dig scars." ;-)