Nine Lives

I caught a lucky break today when I caught Cole right after he had unzipped my make-up bag.  Had I been 30 seconds later I'm pretty sure I would have walked into a disaster. 

Lance reports that he found the boy in the refrigerator yesterday.  The refrigerator.  Apparently the door was still open about 1/2 an inch.  Needless to say, the fridge is now locked.

The child also likes to stand on the slippery edge of the bathtub, jump down the stairs to the basement, knowingly walk in front of kids who are swinging, and run out into busy streets despite my frantic screams to stop.

In my years as a mother I have decided this: you simply cannot be the mother of a toddler and not believe in some sort of higher power.  There is no other explanation as to how they do all that they do and still live. 

The child has 9 lives.  And twice as many guardian angels.

A Bit of This and That

1.  Instead of posing, Tess now likes to take pictures with her mouth Wide Open.  Behold:

For whatever reason, her facial expressions remind me of this woman I used to work with at the advertising agency I worked for before I had kids.  Actually, it reminds me of her husband.  The woman was pretty nice and normal, but her husband was weird, especially in any type of formal social situation.  We were all at this really nice restaurant once (I got to do lots of fancy-shmancy dinners like that), and our spouses were with us.  This couple had to leave early to relieve the babysitter, and as they were leaving the husband (who had shown up in a pair of old jeans and a t-shirt with a rude saying on it) held up his hand in that rocker way (with the pinky, pointer, and thumb in the air, the other two fingers touching the palm) and said, in a really weird, rocker, Metallica kind of way "When you drive, drive maniacally".  And then he opened his mouth up wide as a sort of smile, I guess.

So anyways, I've really got to stop Tess from doing this.

So far I've only found one fool-proof way: feeding her.

2.  How windy do you suppose it has to be for a box of that size to get blown into our sand box?  I'm thinkin' pretty dang windy.  It's been pretty dang windy around here lately.

3. Tess has finally outgrown her car seat carrier.  Actually, she probably outgrew it a good month ago but I kept forgetting to ask Lance to get the other car seat out of the attic.  Tess is Quite Pleased with her new throne.  (Don't be fooled - I got this smile only after she sat there, staring at the camera with her mouth wide open for a solid minute.)

4. Tess is trying to grow dreadlocks.  She keeps rubbing the back of her head against everything and so her hair gets all matted and crazy, and I just cannot comb it out.  It's all frizzy and wild and pretty great looking.  I would show a picture of it, but my camera has been acting stupid lately, which is why I am getting a new one.  Soon.

Mystery Pain: Update

Today I finally broke down and went to the doctor about my mystery pain.  To be honest, I was getting a bit nervous about the whole thing.  And who can blame me, given my family's sordid history with with cancer and such?  (My mom was diagnosed with cancer at 39.  Thirty-nine.  That's only 5 years away for me.)

Anywho, I went to my general practitioner, who took a really good history, asked a lot of questions about my symptoms and lifestyle, and then got to work poking and prodding me.

Verdict?

I have a deep muscle tear.

Wait, what?

I mean, one would think that I would have felt my muscle being torn.  But what probably happened was that I injured it and then it got a bit worse over time. 

We talked about it, and I realized that this was probably all Cole's fault.

This is probably not the last time in my life that I will be using that phrase.

Anyways, Cole has a bad habit of jumping on people when they're on the floor.  In his eyes, if you're laying down you're fair game for a battle royal wrestling match.  Quite frankly, the child jumps on me every single time I'm at aerobics.  (Which I try to get to 3 times a week.  Not that you can tell, but hey, I go!) The doctor agreed that a toddler elbow to the abdomen could very well have caused this. So there's every possibility that that's what happened last Monday.

At first I felt a sense of relief that it wasn't anything more serious.  Then I thought "Wait, I paid $25 for a muscle tear?"  But then again, $25 is very reasonable for peace of mind, right?

So I've been prescribed to basically not do anything to aggravate it, which means I'm going to have to find some sort of low impact exercise.  Watch out, Lance - I feel some Dance Dance Revolution battles coming on!

Aspirations

I don't have much time to write, but I wanted to quickly jot down an impression I received this evening.

I am constantly astounded at the caliber of people I meet and work with through church.  These people are amazing spiritually, intellectually, and socially.  They give freely of themselves and their time, two commodities that can be particularly rare these days.  Love, faith, hope, and charity are abundant.

Not only that, but these people are interesting.  Everyone seems to have some aspect of their life that is absolutely fascinating to me.  If I could, I think I would like to write mini autobiographies of several people in our ward. 

And rather than comparing myself to them and focusing on the areas in which I am rather lacking (and there are many!), I find myself inspired and uplifted.  I aspire to be a better church member, a better wife and mother, a better friend, a better daughter of God, a better me.

Now.  Time to get start acting on those aspirations.

Mystery Pain

I have developed a rather mysterious pain in my stomach.  Well, not in my stomach, so much as in the area just above and to the left (my left) of my belly button.  It's not deep inside of me, but it's not topical, either.  I'd show you a picture of where, but I'm a woman who has carried and given birth to four children.  Some pictures are just better unseen.

Anywho, it's not a constant pain.  But when I move in certain ways, or when I carry Tess against me, it kinda burns and feels a little stabby.  Oh, and when I cough or laugh hard, too. The area isn't red or inflamed or anything, and when I press on it nothing feels weird underneath.  Oh, and the pain is localized; it's not like a sore muscle or something like that.  Do you like how I doctor myself?  Hey, you know you do it, too. 

I started noticing it last night.  I decided to use WebMD's symptom checker, which promptly diagnosed me with diverticulitis.  This tickled me pink because they were always talking about diverticulitis on ER, one my most favorite shows ever.  So now I go around and complain to people (mainly Lance) about my diverticulitis, which I find extremely funny but no one else does.  This is ironic, because if I were to really be diagnosed with diverticulitis I would probably not find it very funny, but everyone else would because I joked about it. Hmm.

So my question is this: how long do you usually wait before going to the doctor when you have a mysterious pain or are sick or injured?

For me, it depends on a variety of factors: how bad the pain is, how serious I truly think the problem is, how cheap I'm feeling (do I really want to pay that co-pay or deductible?), how much effort it would take to find a babysitter... things of that nature.  I'm much more inclined to take my kids into the doctor for little things than for myself.  If it's a cold or the flu, I generally wait it out because what can a doctor do to help?  Nothing.  (Although last fall I probably should have gone in seeing as how I had a REALLY nasty cold for two months.  Ah well, I survived.)  But then again, I promptly go to the doctor if I think I have an ear infection coming on.  It's a thin line.

So.  Hypochondriac or doctor-averse?  Which side are you on?

p.s.  If this pain doesn't go away in a day or two I'll make an appointment.  Just in case you were worried.

Cole LOVES Church

As we drove into the Church parking lot this morning Cole said, rather loudly and in quite a desperate voice, "OH NO!  NOT THERE!"

Not surprisingly, Sacrament Meeting was not exactly peaceful and reverent for Lance and I.  In fact, we ended up taking three out of our four children out of the chapel because they were being so disruptive.  (Spencer was the only child who seemed to be able to behave himself and was thus the only child who maintained his computer privileges.)

The Stake President called on a bunch of random people to come up and bear their testimony today.  I almost wished he would call me just so I could get away from my little imps for a few moments.

Oy.  Parenthood can be such a joy, right?

Entertainment

This afternoon's entertainment was provided by the Sam's Club parking lot.  Man 1, Man 2, Woman (with an infant), and Sam's Club Guy were trying to get a rather large fire safe to fit in the trunk of their rather small Chevy Cavalier. 

It was not going to fit.

And yet all three men kept moving the fire safe this way and that, trying in vain to get it even a little way into the trunk. The woman watched, and from the look on her face I could practically hear the exact conversation she had had with the two men in the store.

Man 1: Look at that rockin' fire safe!  We are TOTALLY buying it.
Man 2: Bro! You totally should! You could keep all your... stuff... in it!
Woman: That won't fit in the car.
Man 1: No worries, babe.  I'll totally get it to fit. You'll see.
Man 2: Yeah, it'll definitely fit in the trunk.
Woman: Whatever.

The Men were starting to look a little desperate and alarmed.  Sam's Club Guy was trying really hard to be helpful, but was really just in the way. Woman put the baby's carrier in the back seat.

The Men admitted defeat.  They looked at each other and then at the woman.  She said, in a "don't even try to mess with me" kind of way "No way." And promptly climbed into the back seat of the car.

So Man 2 climbed into the front seat, and then Man 1 and Sam's Club Guy shoved and squeezed the VERY heavy fire safe onto his lap, earning him the this year's award for Most Uncomfortable Ride Home Ever.