Pigskin Report, Thread Deficiency, And The Sports Physical From Hell

I didn't run or lift yesterday but I think I did some of everything else on my list! I'm sad to report that I'm still struggling to find a solid balance/peace about the looming court crap - but I've made enough progress that I can eat without throwing up. (Hey, it's a start!) In other news:

Football: (*Non-football freaks friends can skip this part.)
It was an ok day in football land because the Colts won even if the 'Skins and the Dolphins lost. I'll reserve my final verdict for after the Titans/Broncos game tonight. Chaos and I were jokingly trash talking this morning in prep for the game. One of us is going to be sad tonight (and I hope it's him!) :D The Patriots game was crazy. Havoc hasn't seen it yet because he can only stay up for the opening drive of the night games but we recorded it for him. What a happy boy he'll be. He was a tiny bit upset with me yesterday for forgetting to switch his fantasy football team around while he was with his grandparents. About five minutes after game time, we realized he still had Adrian Peterson starting. Oops. He tried to be comforted by his projected stats being a few points ahead of his opponent's, but he really, really didn't want to lose this matchup (and undefeated status). Never fear. The boy is still crazy undefeated. Tom Brady and Randy Moss (just the two of them) got him 70 points while his opponent's whole team got a total of 66 (their QB was Donovan McNabb). And Havoc still has a player - LenDale White - in tonight's game. He's three games and 150 points ahead of the next closest team in his league. He's the FF equivalent of an NFL rookie whose team wins the Super Bowl. I want him to enjoy it while he can because I don't know that he'll ever have a chance to dominate in FF like this again!!

Art/Quilting:
Here is a picture (in process) of my mermaid journal quilt page. She's my triathlon winning mergirl: my personal talisman for 2008. I've got a veritable goal trifecta - a finished novel, a full size art quilt and an olympic distance triathlon - all on my plate for 2008. She'll eventually have a medal dangling from her left hand and a bike tattoo on her right shoulder. This pic is her in her basic components (my drawing on the right and her fabric self on left). I based my cartoon of her on an antique woodblock picture. I practiced free motion quilting her on a mock up cartoon/muslin quilt sandwich last night, but I got sucked into football before I got to work on the real deal. (You can click the photo to see more detail. Her hair is awesome shiny, auburn/gold! And her tummy is white on white paisley. I had to layer her right arm to get the depth/texture I wanted. With only one layer - her bathing suit and hair showed through her skin. How weird would that be?) I get stuck sometimes with my lack of technical knowledge about quilting. I don't know if you're supposed to stitch the edges of applique before you make the quilt sandwich or after. Same with embellishments - should those stitches show on the back with the quilting or be hidden inside? I'm forever making it up as I go along and wondering what "real quilt artists" do. Eventually I'd like to be in a show so I suppose I should start finding these things out. It just seems I hit those decision points at ridiculous hours and I'm impatient to keep playing. I don't want to stop and wait hours (or days) to find out the "right" way. I want to keep going! On the other hand, I do value skilled work. I want my art to flow through my medium, not get hung up on crappy craftsmanship. And I don't want to waste my time trying to invent a way to achieve a look or texture that someone else has already figured out! Quilty dilemmas!



The other thing that gets me stuck is that I buy lots of fabric but not enough thread! I love thread. I don't know why I don't buy more of it. Oh wait - I do. It's because I spend all of my money on fabric. It's difficult to convince myself to pass up a fabric I love because the chances of it being there when I come back are slim. I have less urgency with thread. It will be there. In fact, that's the problem. It will be there, right on the quilt shop shelf instead of in my studio at 5 a.m. when I get the urge to quilt! I do the same thing with embellishments - I have hordes of beads and gorgeous fibers - but recently realized I didn't have the right (or for that matter, any) needles or threads with which to sew them! It will probably not surprise you to learn that I also have to force myself to buy fusible web and batting. I hate what that says about me - like I'm a superficial quilter who doesn't remember or value the un-glamorous quilty bits. Am I the Marie Antoinette of the quilt world? "Let them eat beads!"

Kidlets:
I took Mayhem back to the doctor to "finish" up his sports physical. We have been through an awful lot just to make it so this guy can play FRISBEE at school. (I realize that it is a sport and they do run around, but come on! It's not a high pressure, contact activity! It's FRISBEE!) Two weeks ago, Bet took him while I was out of town and he FAILED. He hasn't had an asthma attack (or so we thought!) for two years but at the doctor's he could not "pass" the peak flow meter test. He couldn't blow enough air out for them to be happy at all! I don't even have an inhaler for him anymore! I made him use Havoc's and we practiced (which was funny - "Come on, you can blow harder than that! What if that were your birthday cake? Huh? Don't you want your wish?") Guess what? When we got there today, they didn't make him re-do the breathing test! They gave him his own Rx for an inhaler, tested for hernias (he HATES that part), and stressed out about him not having his flu shot yet. (Sidenote: The boy is a shot magnet. Every time we go to the doctor's they discover some shot he needs. It's a little weird. It's also a hassle because the boy has no fatty parts in which to inject vaccine!) While we were waiting for the nurse to come stick him, he asked me if I thought he could have surgery and get a robotic finger when he grows up. (For anyone joining us mid-story - Mayhem was born without a pinky on his left hand and his left arm has it's own size and muscle/tendon geometry.) He began to talk about all the things he thought would be cool about having a robotic finger. I think he's been watching Inspector Gadget. He wants an all-purpose robotic finger: knife, scissors, file, toothpick, flame thrower, etc. The nurse came into the room just in time to hear me say, "I don't think they'll let you on the plane with your Swiss Army finger." She gave us quite the look. Mayhem was laughing too much to even notice the shot. AFTER insisting on him getting the shot and giving it to him, the nurse said, "Now, make sure to stay away from anyone with a cough or cold for the next two weeks, ok?" WHAT?! You'd think she could have mentioned that warning before the shot was given. The boy is getting on a plane tomorrow night along with a million and twelve other people traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday. I was already worried about the mutant cold virus but NOW I have to worry that my kid is at risk from the common cold because we got him a shot to prevent him from getting the flu?! Ever feel like you can't win? I don't think I can talk him into wearing a mask, but maybe I could pre-soak all of his clothes in Lysol. Two-fold benefit there - wholesale germ slaughter and potentially cold-infested folks staying away from the kid who smells weird. What do you think? Anyone else have a better idea?

Peace.

High Tapioca Tide

Can't blog today. Too pissed off with my ex. I tried venting but I had to erase the whole thing. Some days it helps to put it all out there and some days it makes me unbearably sad and angry to have his absurdity all laid out.

Maybe after we do our ten set run today (eeek!), my brain will be able to focus on something blogworthy.

Peace.

**Or maybe not. School nurse just called - Mayhem is sick. On a Monday morning. After a weekend with dad. Again. Why doesn't the man believe me that junk food makes Mayhem ill?? How can Mr. Tapioca not understand?? I realize that if he's here, they have to eat "out" - but here in the land of organic everything it is NOT HARD to get good, whole foods even "out". Grrrrr.

**Updated to add: Havoc made it through school but was too sick to walk home and called the mom taxi. Same thing - upset stomach and no fever. Now I'm praying it was just an overdose of junk food and a lack of sleep. I do NOT want to be dealing with an actual stomach virus. :( Need I mention that on top of worrying about how my babies feel - I do not want to be dealing with the lack of health insurance issue?! Good mojo, people - send us some good mojo please!

The Hoarse Whisperer

Last week I went to the doctor here. I liked her fine - even though the whole process was a nightmare and took, I kid you not, almost three hours! I could bore you with the details of the visit but I won't. Instead I'm going to bore you with the details of what happened AFTER the visit. My new doc suggested I get a flu shot while I was there. Ok. One less medical thing to do later, right? (For the record, I do usually get flu shots since my kids are asthmatic. We've never before had any problems.) It might be more clear cut if I could tell you that mere hours after the vaccination, I had flu symptoms. That's not what happened. (Although the one time Bet got a flu shot, that's what happened to her - so she is definitely not pro-vaccination.)

What happened to me is that I got home and felt fine. I continued to feel fine except for a tightening in my throat which turned into a weird scratchiness. I had no fever, no aches and pains, not even a sore throat. What I did have was a voice that started dropping octaves. Then I had a voice that was somewhat intermittent. By Saturday morning, I had no voice whatsoever. My children, who already use the fact that they didn't hear me as an excuse not to do their chores, rejoiced. My dog got a little clingy. He's used to me talking to him all the time and I think he was worried he'd done something wrong. Linus, who is also used to me talking to him all the time, has had to try to decipher my croaky crackliness over the phone because he's in San Francisco for the week (lucky duck!). Every day I think my voice will be back today for sure and it keeps not happening. How long should I wait before legitimately worrying that I have some rare throat disease that has stolen my voice and has no intention of ever, ever bringing it back? Should I admit that words like "throat cancer", "nodules", and "polyps" have already been floating around in the worry closet that is my brain? Other words - more sensible and likely words like, say, "laryngitis" were harder to come up with on Saturday afternoon as Bet and I sat around discussing my condition. (She was talking. I was merely able to mouth words, but you get the idea.) I could not think of the right word for losing your voice. I kept coming up with words that I knew weren't right. Linoleum, for instance. The only medical word I could think of was amnesia. Bet was having the same trouble - the only word she could come up with was horseradish. We decided that that is what I must have: amnesia horseradish. It is perhaps a more amusing and comforting diagnosis if you happen to have been self-medicating with one (or three) of Bet's kickass hot toddies.

Sadly, hot toddies are far less practical at 9 am on a weekday. Hence the encroachment of scary thoughts like, "What if I'm stuck like this? What if I can't ever speak again?" I've thought about calling the doctor (or possibly emailing her), but I'm conflicted about that. What if she wants to give me another shot?!
Peace.

Flu Shots

A couple of months ago, I took the kids out of school for an afternoon to get them flu shots and ice cream afterwards. Good family fun, no? I hate taking them out of school, but the shots are only available between 11 and 2 on weekdays, so what else can you do? I reasoned that one afternoon out for the shot was better than a week out with the flu. Good reasoning, no?
And am I glad I went through the hassle! Fighting with the schools to have that time officially excused so the kids could be allowed to make up their work/tests, fighting with the insurance company about flu shots not being "elective" and "voluntary" (i.e. not covered) but rather medically necessary (i.e. paid for by them!) for a family with three asthmatic kids, and putting up with sad, cranky kids (and ice cream spills in my car) - boy was that worth it - because we don't have the flu. No, what we have is a "flu-like virus". Yeah. Life is good here. You?

Ray Of Light

It's a good thing I had a fabulous weekend because this week looks to be sent special delivery, postmarked "Hell". I got home last night and we prepared to take the children out to eat only to have Havoc say, "Since I had a fever yesterday and my throat hurts, should I go out in public?" Errr, fever? Turns out my ex did send an email about Havoc being sick - but that wasn't so helpful since I wasn't home to get email.

Fine - my one day this week that looked sort of clear would now involve an unplanned trip to the pediatrician. This morning was a bit rocky and I was in the middle of posting to tell you the full extent of its rockiness, its pebbliness, its very stoniness when my computer hiccuped and disappeared all my words. Now you'll get the soft focus version instead. What can I say about a morning that has one out of three middle schoolers missing the bus? I don't even know how that happens. The Ninja Princessa was ready. She just didn't go out to the bus. But her brothers did. Apparently they didn't think it was at all odd that she ate breakfast with them, appeared healthy and ready for school but then didn't come outside with them. Did they think she'd just up and changed her mind about going to school today??

I took Havoc to the pediatrician at 10. At 10:35 we were still waiting to be seen, which turns out to be a good thing as Mayhem called from the school office saying he felt terrible, could I come get him. Since you can see the middle school from the pediatrician's waiting room, I got permission from the receptionist to run over, grab Mayhem and have both of my boyos seen. I was there and back with him in under five minutes and got them right in. Havoc has strep (for the third time this school year) and - bonus - ear infections. Mayhem's strep test was negative but the doc looked at his throat and said it was only a matter of time. We are now the proud owners of two big bottles of amoxicillin. The bright spot in this was that she cleared Mayhem to keep his appointments tomorrow. I think I might have had to do some railing at the universe if we'd had to reschedule those long awaited appointments. Havoc isn't allowed to go to school but I guess he'll have to come with us to the specialists' offices because what the heck else can I do?

Thursday is court with Mr. Tapioca Head and I'm not even going to give you the ridiculous details of the document the man sent me last week. He is ickiness incarnate. I will, however, share a letter I got from my dear college buddy Ray. (Ray happens to be the same college buddy that introduced me to Mr. Tapioca Head in the first place but we'll just have to forgive him for that - easy to do when I look at my sons and realize that without Mr. Tapioca Head they wouldn't be here.) My friend Ray wrote:

Hey there beautiful.

[See why I've been friends with this guy for 19 years? He called me beautiful. And already, right here before I even let you read the rest of his letter, I have to digress and tell you that Ray fundamentally changed my perception of myself when we were in college. He was telling me about a woman he had just started dating. "A woman? You're dating a WOMAN?" I asked him in amazement. I was 19 and the idea that my good friend had started to date a woman seemed bizarre and worldly to me. He laughed at me. I asked him how old she was and he said she was my age. How the heck do you manage to be a woman at 19? We ended up having a long discussion about the threshold between girlhood/womanhood and boyhood/manhood. Actually, I'm sure that Ray and I never once had a short discussion about anything - but anyway... Somewhere in the middle of our conversation I asked him if he had ever referred to ME as a woman when he was talking with his other friends and he said, "Of course." To Ray I was always a beautiful woman. How can you not like that? And it's a darn good thing I did like him, because he drove me CRAZY in college. I might have had to kill him a time or two if he hadn't been so likeable. Ray is brilliant but absent-minded doesn't even begin to cover it. The boy could explain explain the theory of relativity and time dilation in space travel but he couldn't manage to pick me up on time to get to Les Mis for my birthday. Grrrrrrr. You'd think I'd be over that by now, wouldn't you? To return to our muttons, he continues...]

How are you?

I just read your blog entry from last Wednesday. Ok, let us be honest here. Sarah [=his beautiful new wife who is AMAZING and ORGANIZED and absolutely perfect for him] told me I needed to go look at your blog entry. I could not find the URL. I did a search in her delicious bookmark database. While I was there I saw an article she had tagged about the increase in gobbledegook in press releases in the last year. They had a really neat chart. Then, your blog was still loading. The graphics, I think. The spinny thing was going. So, then I remembered this Apache project I was in the middle of downloading and went back to check on it. Then I realized I was going to need something else to make that work. Then Sarah reminded me to go back to your blog. But then I explained to her about where the name "Apache" came from in the Apache Web Server. It turns out that it used to just be called "the web server" by the people working on it. But there were so many updates, they had to patch the darn thing several times a day. Always with another patch.
Indeed, they decided that it was really "a patch-y web server". Haha.
Then I read your blog entry.....

And hey! I am _ACTUALLY_ writing an e-mail to you.

Did I mention to you, by any chance, that I was diagnosed with ADD? Really, I know. You're shocked. As was I. But it is true. And it is not fatal.

Actually, I even take medication for it. Just a light dose. It did not bring about shocking changes, but then, you know how you might sit down with 5 things to do and sometimes not get to all 5. I actually used to never see the backside of number 3. Ever. Now I do sometimes get to 5. It is really weird.

Anyway.

I'll write more later. Did not want to risk having this e-mail not
get sent....

Love you - ray

ps: Sarah says hello and says there is a magazine that might help
with questions. http://www.additudemag.com/

Isn't he wonderful? Not only did he write and let me know he was keeping up with me, but he reassured me in the best way possible about Havoc. I had not heard of ADD when I was in college, so I never once thought that Ray might be ADD but upon a nanosecond of reflection I have to say, "Duh." And yet, he has this great life with a fantastic career, wonderful kids and a lovely wife (who sends me great resource information - thank you Sarah!!!!)

What a treasure to hear these words from him/them this week. Aren't friends the bomb diggity?
Peace.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Off To The M.D. We Go

Just about the time I thought I'd get to be a "stay home" mom again, it turns out that I'm a "take everyone to the doctor" mom. January sounded pretty freaking far away when I was trying to get appointments with specialists for my kids back in November. Back then I was settling for any appointments I could get and didn't quite notice that my New Year's resolution should have been to win the lottery to cover January's co-pays. Ahem. To return to the part where I am so lovingly and attentively making sure my children's medical/therapeutic needs are being met (and completely ignoring the fact that I already missed one dental follow up - crap - and have had to reschedule that for March)...

This week Chaos finally got in with a counselor whom I adore. (I, being the very smart mom that I am, did NOT tell Chaos how wonderful I thought this therapist was until AFTER Chaos told me he was "okay".) It was a little weird to sit there with Dr. H asking me and Sweet Hubby all about Chaos while Chaos was right there - but that was part of the deal. We told the doctor what we thought Chaos thought and what we thought Chaos felt about this and that. Then Chaos got to meet with the counselor - probably to snicker over how off the mark we were. Chaos was in rare form after the session. He was in a good mood because we weren't making him go back to school. They all get one "mental health day" a semester and Chaos wanted to take his - on what better day than his first session with a mental health professional. It was also the last day before Bug had to go back to California so the two of them had big game playing plans all mapped out. I asked Chaos how he thought the session went - and he said that it was okay. "I mean, it could be worse. You all could make me do all sorts of stuff that would be way worse. I mean, like, I'm glad you're not all uppity-tight and make me go to bible school or something." Uppity-tight? Sweet Hubby and I cracked up. Later Chaos was telling us about a new author he has discovered (Harry Turtledove) who writes alternative historical fiction. Chaos was going on and on about soldiers and the Pot-o-matic. It made no sense. We got him to spell Pot-o-matic and it turns out he was talking about the Potomac. The very next sentence he came out with had the word "beige" in it - maybe describing uniforms? I don't remember exactly because it took us a bit to decipher what "bee juh" meant. We really need to show him how to use the Merriam Webster site that has pronunciation audio files! He was in a great mood all day though and laughed with us about it all.

Then yesterday I took Havoc for an hours long screening for ADD. I have been really reluctant to do this. More than one (or even two or three) teachers have suggested it in the past few years, but I haven't wanted to have my kid labeled and then written off with a Ritalin Rx. Havoc's father (Mr. Tapioca Head) has been even more reluctant. To the point that he told me that not only did he not want me to take Havoc for the screening, but that if Havoc was diagnosed as ADD that he would "forbid" any medication and "insist" on a second opinion with a doctor of his choosing. That totally pissed me off but didn't stop me. I have been about at wit's end with Havoc. We have organized and organized and organized the boy - but no matter how many times we clean out his locker and backpack, no matter how many check lists we make, no matter how much we look at his school planner - every system we come up with falls apart the minute I'm not checking every single step. I hate being a nag - and I particularly despair when I fulfill my role as nagging organizational overseer for months only to think that it's time for Havoc to have internalized some small bit of it and come to find out that once again, no, he's not internalized any of it. The doctor we saw was fantastic. He was so easy to talk to. Havoc did most of the talking - and together they looked at Havoc's hand and checked his eyesight. (We have appointments with specialists for both of those areas of concern next week) and they talked and talked and talked about Havoc's patterns at school and at home. I'd had to fill out this detailed packet that covered lots of ground - the thing started with my pregnancy and his birth! The teacher who has been the most concerned also filled out a packet and sent it in. We'd been there almost two hours and the doctor started telling me about vitamin supplements (zinc and essential fatty acids) that he thought could help out. Then he recommended a book about organizational strategies. I said, "Oh, so you don't think Havoc has ADD?" And the man about choked trying not to laugh at me. He glanced over at Havoc who was busy fiddling with his hands, tapping his feet, and shaking his leg from having to sit and do nothing but talk for so long in a small room. The doctor said, "Oh no. He is definitely ADD. But that's only a way to get a handle on his brain style." He then went on to tell Havoc that human brains are incredibly responsive to human experience. He said that it would probably take Havoc a LOT longer to instill a habit, but that when he did it would stick. He explained that Havoc had very bad paper handling habits and that was what we needed to work on most. He said the supplements would help make some things clearer and they could make it easier for Havoc to stick to the routines - but that Havoc still had to do all the work of finding a routine or system that he thought could work for him and then Havoc had to be the one to do it, consistently for a very long time. The doctor said I did need to help Havoc but he told both me and Havoc what the limits of that help should look like. It was a really great appointment. It just took most of the whole day.

And next week looks to be taken up too. Havoc has two specialist appointments and then on Thursday I'm back in court. I got a notice today that there is a certified letter at the post office for me. I know it's from Mr. Tapioca Head because he's the only one in my whole life who has sent me certified mail - and it's never good. My stomach hurts just thinking about it. I don't have a clue as to what it could actually be - but I'm sure it's about court crap. Bleck.

So my dear internets, my presence in the blogosphere may continue to be spotty through next week, but I'll be back here and at your blogs as soon as I can!! Peace.