still waiting

Helllllooooo, oh lazy days of summer!!!! Where ARE you???

So far, summer has been the sea of madness the rest of the year is. (Minus the homework, which I do appreciate.)

Shout has been in a 1/2 day camp for the past 2 weeks. It took until Day 4 before the camp director had to call me at home about her behavior. (And honestly, it really wasn't that bad. And there have been no incidents since. So hooray for that!)

So I've got my usual half day pickup with her. And Cheer has been in baseball camp this week. Unfortunately, his camp and Shout's camp start at the same time and are in two different directions. Which has forced me to become a master of logistics. I can't even explain all the things I do in the hour between 8 and 9 every morning.

But tomorrow is the last day of all that and we are camp free for a month. (And then Tide goes to camp, but we drop him off and he stays there, so from a carpooling perspective, I am happy about that. From a "Mah baybee is going to his first sleepaway camp" perspective, I'm not there yet.)

And I don't even have to do all the craziness tomorrow because right now, I'm on the Bolt Bus heading towards Newark to pick up Bounce, who is at Camp Cousin for the week.

I have to say, the Bolt Bus is nice. I was a little nervous after I googled "Bolt Bus safety record" and discovered that one of their drivers was arrested for DWI halfway between NYC and DC after THE PASSENGERS ON THE BUS called 911.

*I'll just pause for a second*

But yeah. They run like 10 buses a day and only 1 driver has been arrested for DWI, and I'm guessing he got fired. So my odds are pretty good, right?

The traffic is terrible, but I'm not driving and there's wi-fi and I have like 14 books on my Kindle to read, and a People magazine (and guess which of those I'm going to read first, people). The driver even made a stop at Starbucks. Except for looking up every now and then to make sure we aren't weaving back and forth or about to drive off a bridge, this is possibly the most relaxed I've been in like 15 years.

cringe

I have this friend... she's one of those people who would do anything for you if you asked, she's entertaining, bright, funny... but she also has what I find are some rather appalling opinions about certain things.

Let's just say, she hates tall people. Like, really can't understand WHY tall people need to mingle with the rest of us. Why so many things in the world are designed to cater to tall people when, you know, what about the rest of us non-tall people? (Even though, actually, the world is the oyster of the non-tall people... but I'm getting ahead of myself.)

Although this friend's thoughts about tall people offend me, I've maintained our friendship. We see each other often, our kids hang out together. I try to focus on the parts of her personality that I enjoy.

But the thing is, she can be very vocal about her opinions. In large groups, small groups, around people she doesn't even know. She sometimes stuns people. I do my best to avoid these situations. Or to listen to her without agreeing with her. I will sometimes contradict her, but I know that nothing *I* say will ever change her mind. She knows I don't agree with her opinions, but I would not say I confront her about them on a regular basis.

I was recently hanging out with a group of friends when Tall Hater Friend happened by. I introduced her and she joined the group. And eventually, talk turned to "height"... and she expressed her opinion about tall people in a way that shocked the group.

And I was speechless.

And then later I was angry.

And then after that, I started to wonder if this is a friendship I can continue.

Where do you draw the line when people have opinions contrary to your own? Obviously not all of my friends hold the same opinions about things as I do. They have different parenting philosophies, marriages, politics, religions. Occasionally, I strongly disagree with some of those things.

This was never more apparent than during the last Presidental election. Even in my own family, there were opinions of good and wise people who differed so much from mine that I found it shocking.

Against my very philosophical essence.

But I did not cut them out of my life.

What is the difference? Where is the line?

Maybe it's how opinions are expressed.

In this case, I was embarrassed by my friend's adament declarations against tall people. If she had expressed her controversial opinions in a more genteel way, would I have been less embarrassed? Should she not have expressed her opinions in a group of people she didn't know at all? My initial reaction is "Yes! Yes! Keep your mouth shut about the tall people, please."

And yet, if I had a friend with strong opinions that matched my own, would I be embarrassed by her outspokenness? Would I want her to keep her opinions to herself if the topic came up in conversation? Probably not.

Is it because the opinions were generally offensive? Yes. That's part of it.

And yet, in heated political debates, people who support tax cuts for the wealthy or the slashing of social services for the poor, or who express that they don't know if a black man could be a good President, are also offensive in my mind.

So why do the diatribes against tall people offend me so much?

I still haven't figured it out.

balancing

Any time I write a post about Shout, I look back and worry that she's going to see only the things that stressed me out about this period in her life. Because writing about the hard days is therapy for me, I've been skipping writing about the good days. And there are good days.

So right after I hit publish on my last post about her, I started mentally composing another post about her awesomeness. I planned to publish it immediately.

And then, less than an hour later, she caused a GIGANTIC ruckus in the baby pool during a Farewell to Some Neighbors Party and I had to literally drag her out to the car and take her home.

But after a good night's sleep, I had calmed down and she was feeling better and I planned again to type out my post.

And then, a few hours later, she assaulted an old lady.

Seriously.

Physically and verbally.

OMG, you all, it was ugly.

And the old lady was ALL UP IN A LATHER about how offended she was. Seriously. She made a HUGE scene. That apparently went on for hours.

I'm not sure because we left. I brought her home, put her in her room and took a xanax.

We go two steps forward and two steps back.

But she does go two steps forward. Sometimes even three or four. And those are amazing days that I really do celebrate. I just have to remember to document them.

She is a remarkable reader for a 5-year old. It sometimes startles me.

She is becoming more and more independent, which is a HUGE accomplishment.

She is on a sleeping-through-the-night streak that's longer than we've ever gone before. (Please, God, let it last.)

She's turning into a little fish in the pool this year. (I'm inching ever closer to being able to actually READ one of the magazines I carry back and forth to the pool every day.)

She is incredibly articulate, imaginative, affectionate and (mostly) appreciative. I love that about her. She's the first one to say "thank you" when we go out for ice cream.

She's quickly turning from little kid into young girl, and she is a beauty.

It's all going to be just fine.

summer theme

I decided to pick a theme for this summer.

FOOD

Could there really BE a better theme?

But let me qualify... it's about improving the food that we eat. And where it comes from. And what's in it.

Last month, I was invited to a luncheon that really opened my eyes to some things I had chosen to ignore for a long time. It was sponsored by Stonyfield Farms. It was held at Restaurant Nora, which was the FIRST certified organic restaurant in the country. And the speaker was Robyn O'Brien, who wrote the book, The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About It. I wrote about her talk in more detail in another post that is soon-to-be published elsewhere, so I'll link to that when it's posted.

But let me just say that Robyn is a fellow mom-of-four. She didn't know anything about organic food or agricultural practices until one of her kids had a severe allergic reaction to eggs. That night, she got on the internet to read everything she could about it. (Sounds familiar.) And what she found about how our food supply today is completely different from the food that WE ate as kids, because of pesticides, agribusiness and bio-engineered foods to name a few things, scared her.

The more Robyn talked (and the more amazing organic food I ate that was cooked especially for us by Nora Pouillon with Stonyfield Yogurt incorporated in each delicious dish), the more I realized that it was long past time for me to look at these issues in my family as well.

We're pretty much past the picky, little-kid, "I'll only eat chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese" diets. They're a little more adventurous and because they're more independent, I can now experiment in the kitchen when I'm cooking and make things with more than 3 ingredients.

I'll be writing more about this over the summer, but here are the changes I've decided to implement so far.

Buy organic milk. I've balked at the price many times over the years. I did try to buy hormone-free, antibiotic-free milk when I could get it (thank you Trader Joes and Costco) but I couldn't get past the price of organic milk. But when I added up some changes recently, I realized it's only $10-12 a week more. I can afford that. If you are thinking of going organic, do it in baby steps. Don't change your whole grocery list overnight. $10 is doable.

Buy organic eggs. Again, these are a lot more expensive, but we only use a dozen eggs a week. So it's $3 more.

Buy organic yogurt. The dairy product we consume the most after milk is yogurt. (Thank you, Stonyfield for being in my regular grocery store!)

Seek out organic produce and gradually transition over to all-organic. This will take awhile. Do you know about The Dirty Dozen? The fruits and vegetables with the most pesticide residue? Start with the ones on that list that you eat the most. I've switched to organic strawberries, apples, celery and lettuce because those are available at the store where I normally shop. This is going to mean expanding my shopping trips to include our local organic grocery store, Trader Joes and farmers markets. At some point, we may join a CSA again... but baby steps.

Grow our own. Perhaps the only thing I do worse than keep up with the laundry is grow vegetables. I've tried for years to grow tomatoes in various parts of my yard and I've never had any success. I've always lamented that the sunniest part of my yard is on the patio. And then I read a blog post about growing vegetables in containers, and voila! Problem solved. I don't know why I never thought of that before! I've got 4 different kinds of tomatoes, cucumbers, 3 different kinds of peppers and herbs. I even have actual tomatoes already! (See above!) My virgin harvest. It won't fulfill all of our produce needs, but again, baby steps.

So tell me about you. Do you eat organic? Grow your own veggies? What keeps you from making changes? Let's share our baby steps.

disclaimer: I was a guest of Stonyfield at the luncheon and received Robyn O'Brien's book (which is eye-opening) and a goody-bag of Stonyfield products and information. All opinions expressed in this post are my own.

weekend reads

I posted this on Sunday, but it went out under an old date. So here it is, almost Monday. Hope you enjoy.

I love this post about pictures from Spanki Mills Photography. I am one of those people who find it hard to justify the price of professional photographs, but reading this reminded me of how quickly those chubby little hands turn into the long and lean hands of big kids. You can't get those moments back, but you absolutely should document them.

This post is from An Attitude Adjustment and discusses why society has an issue with moms on the internet. While I'm the first to admit that there are days when I spend more time than I should in front of a computer screen, for better or for worse, that is how I socialize these days. I rarely see friends during the day, I almost never chat on the phone, I don't go out for coffee, or quilting or down to the river to beat my laundry on the rocks. That is something that I need to work on, but I thank God for the internet and the ability to reach out to people around the world and form friendships. Even if we can't go out for coffee together.

This is a post from a few months back, but I just read it this week, from one of my favorite people, Sarah, from Sarah and the Goon Squad. She shares my fear of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and wonders, like I do, where this medium of blogging is headed.

For more Good Reads, check out Melissa's Stone Soup column on BlogHer this week. Every Monday you can submit the best of the previous week to create a wonderful soup of inspired words.

school's out for summer

Maryland is one of the few states with a law stating how old kids have to be to babysit. It's 13. I'm sure I was babysitting when I was 12, and Tide has been more than responsible enough to do it since he was at least 11. But because I have an abject fear of Social Services showing up at my door, I follow the rules.

Today is the last day of school. And guess who turned 13 this spring?

Meet my manny.


Talk softly and carry a big stick.

I'm hoping that this new development will allow me some sanity this summer. (Or at least the chance to run to the grocery store without everyone in tow.)

ch-ch-ch-changes...

There are just so many Shout updates to update.

Her last week of school was rough.

All year, she's been in an afternoon class, but for the last week, they switched to the morning. (Because the morning class was over already.) When I was thinking how nice it would be for me (no lines at the grocery store, lots of parking at Target), I failed to appreciate how hard it would be on her.

And by hard, I mean, screaming, crying, refusing to go to school. She threw so many fits that we missed half of each day of school. And it was already a half day, which brings me to a quarter day, which is almost not worth changing out of pajamas for.

On the very last day of school, the kids and parents all walked to an ice cream shop that's about 1/2 a mile away.

It mostly went fine until we started the walk back. All of a sudden, I looked up from about 100 yards away and I could see her break free from her class and run directly toward the very.very.busy.road the ice cream shop was on. Straight towards traffic. Her teacher grabbed her at the very edge of the curb, and I *think* she would have stopped there on her own (if she didn't fall into the street, of course), but I'm not entirely sure. And the poor person who was driving the car she almost ran in front of may very well have had a heart attack.

Then she proceeded to pitch one of her classic fits where she was screaming and thrashing and running away from me along the sidewalk of this very.very.busy.road. I couldn't catch her.

I was yelling and begging and crying and running and I could. not. catch. her. At one point, I almost called the police because I thought for sure she was going to end up getting run over by a car.

Finally. Finally. I caught her and basically dragged her back to school. I had my two hands so tight on her wrist there are bruises. I was terrified to let her go.

And because it was the last day of school... and because she has wanted to walk to school all year and I haven't done it... we gathered our stuff and then had to walk (oh, maybe a mile and a half) home. Her pulling away from my grip, me holding on for dear life and trying to calm my pounding heart.

I think it was a culmination of a lot of things. The schedule change. The end of the only school she's ever known. Big kid school looming ahead. She'll never admit it, but I think she's scared. Change is so hard for her.

On the health front, her stomach is a lot better. Before, I could see on her face that she was uncomfortable most of the day. Now, it's just when she lies down for bed and first thing in the morning. (Which to me seems like classic reflux, but what do I know?)

For right now, it doesn't seem too uncomfortable. It's not waking her up in the middle of the night any more. I'm just going to let it go. She cuddles up with a puke bucket every night, but she hasn't had to use it and she still falls asleep. If things get worse, I'm going to beg for some liquid Zantac.

We did see the nephrologist a few weeks ago. He gave me some possibilities of what she might have (and some of them were pretty scary), but right now, her symptoms are mild (she has blood in her urine but it's microscopic and there was no protein this time, which was the more concerning symptom). He gave me a list of tests he wants run the next time I SEE blood in her urine.

Except, I don't generally see her urine. And honestly, I'm not going to add that to my list of things to do. She'll be going to school in the fall and I'm not even going to be in the same building as her urine.

I need to have a chat with Dr. Everything Will be Alright (although he is out on medical leave and I really hope Everything Will be Alright there)... but I think we would see increasing symptoms if any of the somewhat scary options he mentioned are actually the problem.

And can you believe, the kid hasn't had a normal blood pressure reading in over a year... in the nephrology clinic? Completely normal. Three times. (I'm sure she did that on purpose.)

I'm just going to sit on this for now too.

Going to the doctor seems to REALLY stress Shout out. And by "stress out," I mean, she kicked the nephrologist. Multiple times. It was ugly. There were tears. And they weren't all hers. (No. Not the doctor. She didn't kick him that hard.)

She's going to spend the summer being a normal kid with no doctor appointments. (Oh, except for the OT and psychologist evaluations. But no needles or stethescopes there.) And by "normal," I mean her usual self. Really, what IS normal?

holy eucharist, batman (reprise)

Remember my post about how calm I was before Cheer's First Communion? I did manage to pack 48 hours of freak out into about 2 hours, but in the end, it all worked out. The ceremony was beautiful.


This guy looked devastatingly handsome.



Even these guys dressed up and behaved. (Yes, you read that right... behaved. Even Shout. In church. At one point, she folded her hands in her lap and fell asleep in the pew. It may or may not have been due to the ground up xanax I sprinkled in her juice.) (I jest.) (Pretty much.)

I don't know if you remember, but that was the day the Rapture was scheduled to happen. At 6pm on the dot (the supposed time, although it was unclear what time zone) the priest was holding up the host, the church bells started ringing, Shout was sitting silently next to me... I was SURE it was the Rapture. I closed my eyes for a minute and then looked around... everyone was still there. Even my dad, who would most CERTAINLY be raptured up. I knew that I made the right choice in getting the extra 12-pack for the party afterward.

The party was fun. The house was full of good food and good people. What could be better than that? (Unless you're 8 and you have a wallet that is newly-stuffed with gift cards. Then THAT might be better.)

One more First Communion to go. I can hardly believe it. I remember when we had the last Baptism and I couldn't believe we were there.

I still have those days where it doesn't seem like bedtime can come fast enough. But when I pause for a moment and look up, the time feels like it's passing so quickly, sometimes I can barely focus.

forget shark week - it's CPR week!

tap, tap, tap....

Is this thing on?

I'm alive! We're all alive! Drowning in a sea of end-of-school-year activities but otherwise mostly intact.

I have much to update on and I will get started right after this post - I promise! But I have something important to tell you first!

It's National CPR Week!

You all might remember that Laundry Dad and some co-workers saved another co-worker's life when he suffered sudden cardiac arrest during a meeting about a year and a half ago.

He is healthy and completely fine today thanks to CPR.

Sadly, 93 percent of cardiac arrest victims don’t survive to make it home from the hospital. And only 32 percent of cardiac arrest victims get CPR from a bystander.

You can learn hands-only CPR in 60 seconds. I swear. Watch this video.



(A tip from the paramedics who took over for Laundry Dad - do compressions to the tune of Stayin' Alive by the Bee Gees. If you're too young to know that song, what about a more macabre option, Another One Bites the Dust by Queen. Seriously. Both of those songs have the right tempo. That's all you have to remember! That and call 911 first!)

Heart disease is the NUMBER ONE killer of women. Number 1. Watch that video. Hopefully you'll NEVER have to do CPR, but if you do, you can save a life.

Got any good CPR stories? Let me hear them in the comments.

This post is part of the social media campaign for CPR Weeek, a part of the Go Red for Women Campaign sponsored by the American Heart Association. I receieved no compensation for this post. It's a program near and dear to my heart.