Lawsuit Brewing

Is there a place where I can turn in the genes that have been distributed to me and replace them for newer better ones?? If there is such a place, would someone please tell me?? There is a gene that has been part of my genetic makeup since I was born that I'd like to trade in for a new one. And it really doesn't have to be new, it can just be different.

Last month, when I was in NY taking care of my newborn niece, I stubbed my toe on the foot of my sisters bed. I stub my toes often. As a matter of fact, I had stubbed that exact same toe over the summer. And it wasn't any place dramatic or a cramped space where my big ole flippers wouldn't fit, it was the back of my daughters foot because I was following to close behind her and she stopped suddenly. This time, it hurt really bad. My brother-in-law felt responsible because it was his house and I stubbed my foot on his bed. Yeah, like I'm going to sue you or something. As usual, that toe became really swollen and black and blue. The bruising even extended part way down my foot. I had a hard time walking for days and unlike the summer time when I can go barefoot, I had an even harder time wearing shoes. Well, this little situation went on for several weeks. Some of the swelling went down and some of the bruising went away but after 3 weeks, it still looked pretty nasty. It still hurt to bend it and I was still having a hard time finding shoes that didn't hurt it.

This week, I went to my gymnastics class without thinking twice about the condition of my toe. As we started increasing the intensity of our tumbling, I noticed immediately that my toe was extremely painful. One of the girls that I work out with is an athletic trainer and I had her look at it. She took one look at it and immediately knew that it was broken. "BROKEN!! YOU"VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!", I yelled at her. From my own medical background, I know there isn't much, if anything you can do for a broken toe. My friend suggested that I tape the broken toe together with his stronger buddy next to him and give it another 3-5 weeks to heal. Maybe I might act on my first impulse and sue my brother-in-law after all.

But after much discussion with my sister, she pointed out something very enlightening about my ensuing lawsuit. It wasn't my brother-in-law that I should sue, it was my father. After all, he is the one that passed on that horrid KLUTZ Gene to me. Ask any of my kids and they will tell you that their Pop Pop is the Master Klutz. And the sad thing is that that gene has been passed down to my kids. How sad. It is evidenced when my younger daughter is walking out of my room talking to me and runs into the door or when my son is walking to Ft. Myers Beach (he was about 3) not paying a darn bit of attention and runs into a lightpost. Yes, a lighpost. And to this day, whenever we pass that lightpost on Ft. Myers Beach, we pay homage to it. My son, now at 8, doesn't appreciate the humor. But what he will remind you of and will say to you is this, "Hey, don't blame me, it's Pop Pop's fault. He's the one that gave us the Klutz Gene." I can't argue with him on that one. And whenever they do do something klutzy, they feed me that same line. And most of the time, I just can't fault them for it because it is true. We all have the dreaded Klutz Gene. So, now I think I'm going to switch my focus to my father.. So, watch out, expect to be served.

THE EVIDENCE

Just in case it's hard to see . . .

Studying, Are We??

One of the joys of homeschooling is being able to do what you want, when you want and how you want! Ahh, total autonomy (besides the guidelines set forth by the state)! And anyone who knows me knows that I don't like being told what to do. During my formidable years, their was many a complaint about me stating, "She has a problem with authority." Well, duh, I am the authority and I should be telling YOU what to do. So when it came time to make the decision about my son's education, we chose to homeschool so we wouldn't have a school system having the authority over our lives. That we could teach him the best way for his learning syle and that we could continue to enjoy our travel benefits even during "school days". That he could learn on his own pace without being held back by slower kids or kids who were just in school to goof off.

Since we are schooling our son, now at a 4th grade level, and our middle daughter, now at a 1st grade level, our school day has become much longer and busier. One of our focuses in teaching our middle daugher is to make her reading skills as strong as possible. Now six years old, she has been reading since she was 4 1/2, she is almost finished with a second grade reading program. A majority of the time, I sit with her and listen to her read to help her sound out words or point our mispronounced words. But sometimes, I need to to switch the laundry real fast, make a quick phone call, or put our youngest daughter down for a nap (yes, at 4 1/2 years she still naps). So, I will put our son in charge of listening to our daughter read for a few minutes while I complete my task. When I got back to the two of them today, this is how I found them . . .

I wasn't sure if I needed to reprimand them for goofing off or congratulate them on multi-tasking two subjects, reading and gymnastics (or what I would consider in school P.E. - Physical Education). Instead, I just laughed and took a picture.

Grocery Store Snob

I would say that one of my happier memories of my childhood (there aren't many) was the smell of my mom's kitchen. That woman knows how to cook. I should be ashamed of myself for not taking the time when I was growing up to learn all I could from her about cooking. Now instead, I have to pay the long distance phone bill for sometimes weekly phone calls for cooking questions. I've even followed her around the country via phone, pulling her off of loading docks to ask questions about cooking. I liked watching her cook, I liked eating the food and I even enjoyed helping her shop for the ingredients. I learned very quickly that she only used certain name brands for certain products that she used in her recipes. And that those name brands sometimes made a difference in the quality. I also gained an appreciation for the grocery stores that we shopped and the grocery stores that we just didn't set foot in.

When I lived in Ohio, we had several different grocery stores to choose from. I mainly did my shopping at one certain one because of the price, cleanliness, coupons they offered and special incentive programs they ran. They also carried the name brands that I had grown up with as a child and recognized as safe. As our ten years went by in Ohio and we continued to move closer and closer to Lake Erie, I continued to shop at that store. The main one I went to had several face lifts and additions through the years. It soon had it's own video store, sushi bar, and Chinese buffet. I spent so much time in that one location that the people at the deli counter and seafood counter knew me by name and always gave the kids special treats. One lady at the deli counter had even looked at my youngest daughter and said, "My, she sure does look like your husband.". That location felt like home to me. Every once and a while, when time was of the essence or we weren't anywhere close to that store, we would stop in the "higher end" grocery store. You know the kind - prices are higher, you don't recognize half the brands in the store or sometimes even the products, they actually count the number of items you have in the speedy checkout lane and frown upon you if you've tried to sneak in that extra item or two. And then, there was the grocery store that after my 10 years in OH, I stepped foot in only one time. I would consider this the "lower end" on the grocery store chain. They rarely had good sales, the store was dirty and you were afraid to approach the deli counter because of the smell.

When we started talking about moving to Pennsyltuckey, one of the first questions I had asked my mother-in-law and my hubby's uncle (who both already live in the area), was the names of the different grocery stores. What I really meant to ask but didn't want to come across as a snob was, "Which ones are the 'higher end'?". I soon became familiar with what I would call your every day grocery store. This would be the one that I would do all of my main shopping for the month - for their sales, convenience of location and so on. And then, I was reintroduced to a grocery store that would make my "higher end" store in OH look like a "lower end" store. This store has been my saving grace. I know it seems silly but in the first few weeks, I went there about 2-3 times a week. Just to walk around, enjoy the ambiance, pick up some sushi for dinner but most of all to enjoy my most favorite treat at the bakery counter, chocolate mousse. I still get one of these every Wednesday night as a treat when my kids are at church. For me, it's the little things that count. This place has everything you could think of - it's own cafe with fresh made exotic sandwiches every day at lunchtime, fabulous fresh seafood and the best cuts of meats at the meat counter, it has a train track in the ceiling in the dairy department (my kids enjoy getting milk and yogurt), a place to weigh and label your own produce, an olive bar and a hummus bar, fresh made sushi - I could go on and on.

But the point of this post, isn't to make you hungry, it is to give you more of a glimpse into what makes me, me. This last week, I made the fatal mistake of stopping into one of those "lower end" stores just to pick up a few quick things. Oh, my. Never will I set foot in that store again. I was greeted with memories of the store back in OH. The odd brands, the dirt and grime on the floor, that strange smell coming from the deli department, the weird color of the meats in the meat department. Yes, I would save about 20-30 cents per item at this store but I have to tell you that I would gladly spend the extra money at my "higher end" store just to walk on clean floors, play with the weight machine in the produce section and stand and look up at the train going by in the dairy section. I like the ambiance.

I am my mother's daughter. There are just some grocery stores you don't set foot in. I am proud to state and admit that yes, I am a grocery store snob.

A New Cousin to Love

WELCOME CAMILLE EILEEN!!

Finally, on Tuesday, December 27 at 4:50 something in the morning, little Miss Camille "Miss Priss" Eileen was born. She weighed in at a healthy 9 pounds 7 ounces and was 21 inches long. What an experience her birth was.

I got the phone call Christmas Day evening. I was at my in-laws house for dinner. I had been on the phone with my mom the entire drive down in the car. When we got to my in-laws and I hung up, I looked at my phone and thought, "I don't need to bring it in". My cell phone had been "on call" for weeks just in case she went into labor and I wasn't at home. And of course, the one time I don't have it on me, she goes into labor. Maybe because I didn't have my cell phone with me and she had to search frantically for my in-laws number, she went in to labor. Now that I think about it, I think I deserve a thank you for that.

We left the next morning, no, she still hadn't had the baby and arrived about 1:30p.m. When I say we, I mean myself and the 3 kids. When we got there, she was asleep and very exhausted. Now I can appreciate what she went through when she watched me labor. And I can appreciate why my mom chose to stay away during the time her daughter was laboring - it was really hard to see her like that and brought tears to my eyes just looking at her in so much discomfort. But once I got over the initial emotions, I knew I had a job to do, not only for her and her husband but for my kids. They were ecstatic to find out that there favorite aunt would be having a baby. If I could have gotten a dollar for every time one of them asked me, "Did she have the baby yet?", I would be very rich. The process was a great experience for them. We had several child lead discussions about where babies come from and how babies come out. They can all appreciate now that babies just don't show up one day at your doorstep being held by a stork. They've been through the hours and hours and waiting and waiting of labor. I helped the kids prepare for what was ahead by having them watch Baby Story on TLC, so I felt confident that they were aware of what kind of pain and discomfort my sister would be going through and that when the baby came out, she wouldn't be dressed and all cute but would be covered in blood and guck and probably screaming her head off.

To make a long story a tad bit shorter, my sister labored for 36 hours. And yes, we stayed there through most of it. The kids started to get impatient late Monday nite and I explained to them that if they wanted to be there as soon as the baby came out, we just had to wait. I also made them understand that if I missed the baby's birth, that I was going to be really upset because I had Em wanted me there and she wanted my help. So, about 10 p.m. on Monday nite, I went to the car, got their blankets and pillows, Princy's and RockAByes, and bedded them down in the waiting room for the nite. My son slept under a table on a bunch of blankets and each of the girls slept on a couch in the waiting room. And for those of you that think it can't be done, yes, you can look at your child at 11pm and force them to go to sleep. It takes a little time, perserverance and patience but it can be done. At 3:50 a.m. on Tuesday morning, Emmys' husband came to get me to tell me that she was fully dilated and ready to push. Since the kids were asleep and the waiting room was only a few doors away from Em's room, I left them and went to help Em labor. What an experience that was. Between her contractions and strong pushing efforts, I would run to check on the kids. It didn't surprise me that my 6 yr old was the only one awake and asking if the baby had been born yet. I told her no and asked if she wanted to come see Em push her out. She said she did and I picked her up and walked her just a few steps into the room. I had the nurse point out where the baby's head was coming out and my daughter was amazed. She clung to me tight and said that was enough, she had seen what she wanted and now would wait a little more patiently in the waiting room. Em's nurse was a homeschooling mom. I was very thankful for that because she could appreciate my kids desire to be part of this great learning experience. She could also understand that my kids could handle sitting in the waiting room without constant supervision and wouldn't rip the room apart. That is just how they are. I won't go into the details of the rest of Em's labor and postpartum experience, you can read that at her blog. I do have to say that I am extremely proud of my kids for their outstanding behavior and drive to be part of Camille's birth. They got to see her and hold her within 20 minutes of her birth. They slept in the waiting room to await the birth of a baby. And during Em's postpartum period, they spent 9 hours a day for 2 days playing in the family waiting room. It was normal to find one of my kids walking the halls of the mother and baby unit to get themselves a drink, go to the bathroom or just come down to Em's room to see what was going on. One of the nurses said to me, "It looks like they know their way around this unit." And yes, after being there basically from Monday to Thursday nite, they had made themselves at home.

I say thank you to them. For once again, showing me that the minutes, hours, weeks, months and years that I have dedicated to making them well rounded, open minded, flexible, learning experience seeking children have paid off. That I can expect so much of them and they are always up to meet that challenge. I wish the same mentality on my newborn niece. I am confident that she will be raised to see the world with open eyes and an open mind. That she too will be able to experience so much of life before she is even two!

Just born

Just born

Just born

Our newest cousin

First bath

Baby Lulu girls

Another niece for me (she was sleeping and didn't want to be disturbed)