Random Observation

Skirts and dresses in the Spring? Love wearing them.


Skirts and dresses in 30-40 mph wind gusts? Not so much.

There's an App For That

It was a moonless night in late summer and I was stretched out on the path near our campsite, just beyond the canopy of the trees where I had an uninterrupted view of the sky. We were at Tuolumne Meadows, high above the Yosemite Valley floor, a place that, in the daylight, would seem more closely related to the surface of the moon than to the vast forests and meadows and waterfalls that lay sweltering in the valley below.

The closest actual structure (unfortunately the bathroom) was ¼ mile away, so after the campfires started dying away, I could easily imagine that there was no light between me and the stars, and I had never seen so many in a single sky. I kept having the vision of a small girl with a bottle of glitter in one hand and a bottle of sequins in the other, throwing them up against black velvet. In some places they lay so thickly you couldn’t tell one from the other. In others, they were much more spread out, but not a single portion of velvet was left unadorned.

And, although the moon was not up, the stars and planets themselves were bright enough that I had a dim appreciation for what it must have been like in Galileo’s time, when the sky was dark enough that Venus cast a shadow on the earth. As I lay there, I felt no more than a speck in the cosmos, as small and far away from everyone on Earth as those stars were from me, completely alone and yet content.

For the past couple of weeks, Mars has hung like a ruby in the Eastern sky, a more vivid red than I can recall seeing it. Naturally, I had to look it up and, on January 27, Mars was the closest it had been to the Earth in almost two years. I mention this because, when I have to take Kairos out at night, I’m often caught for a moment or 10, mesmerized by the astral display and curious as to whether anyone I know is looking at exactly the same place at just that moment.

I don’t know the names of all of the constellations, just that I can lose myself looking for them and at them. And I like knowing that, right now—this actual moment—Saturn has risen, chasing the moon and Mars, all following my Gemini constellation. And I don’t even have to take the dog out or try to see through the clouds because, guess what? There’s an app for that: Planets 1.6 for the iPhone.

Charlotte-isms? Sure, Why Not?

Also known as, "Oh great, another smartypants in the family."


Charlotte's big pink box of Legos serves two main functions: They're an excellent fine-motor exercise for her, and they keep her amused and engaged for at least an hour--no TV required! This is a huge endorsement, as Charlotte generally lives for two things: Chocolate and television.

After playing quietly for a few minutes, Charlotte asked me to help her take apart two of the bricks.

Me:
Do you know why you can't get them apart?
[[Note: the correct answer was "Because I bite my fingernails down to the quick."]

Charlotte, with an exasperated sigh:
Because it makes me tired.

Little Kids Should Not Have Seizures. Not.

Charlotte has been on medication to control seizures for more than two years. Before her fifth birthday, she'd had two EEGs and an MRI, both of which have risks--EEG requires sleep deprivation and, for younger kids, the MRI requires anesthesia. I'm not going to equate sleep deprivation with the risks of anesthesia in general, but anyone who has ever seen me sans sleep will understand why there is risk attached. If you haven't had the pleasure, let's just say that that particular irritability trigger is one which Charlotte comes by honestly.

Over the past two years, we've gradually had to increase the medication to adjust for growth spurts. The last time we did this was between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We spent 10 days on the East Coast for winter break, and, not long after we returned, Charlotte had a seizure. And then another. And another.

I should mention that her seizures have always been very small. In fact, for a long time, we didn't know she was having them. But I perfectly remember the first time I saw one. She wasn't yet a year old. She was wearing a navy blue outfit dotted with little white anchors, with a white sailor collar. She was on her stomach on the floor and had just pushed herself up onto her arms when she started shaking. Part of my brain thought, "That looks like a seizure." The rest of my brain rejected that thought outright, insisting instead that it was the exertion of pushing herself up. It wasn't a seizure. No one else saw it. It didn't happen again. The pediatrician thought it was, yes, the exertion of pushing herself up.

Charlotte was born six weeks early and very small--three pounds, 11 ounces. She spent two weeks in the NICU to get her weight up to FOUR POUNDS. They send them home at four pounds. Jeezus, talk about scary. But she never needed any other intervention--no lung, heart, or other issues. Nothing to explain why she wouldn't walk until she was almost two or talk until she was almost three, or why, at five, her fine motor skills would be below average and she'd still be in speech therapy.

In the week after we got home from the East Coast, Charlotte had three or four seizures. We noted it, but decided to take the "watch and see" approach, as she typically has more seizures when she's over-tired. And then the day after her fifth birthday, they started coming, one after the other after the other. Over the course of the morning, she had ten. Ten. She'd never had that many in an entire day. Ever.

A quick, slightly (ha!) panicked call to the neurologist resulted in a new medication that had to be started that very day, plus an urgent request for an MRI through Lucile Packard Childrens Hospital--they are the only place to go if you need to put a kid under for an MRI. We couldn't get in for the MRI until yesterday, almost 10 days after the episode, but they had to bump someone else, so I couldn't really complain about it. Loudly.

The MRI was scheduled for 10:00am, but we had to arrive at 8:30 to complete registration and all of the pre-op stuff--basically to make sure she wasn't sick and to get a current height and weight. Other than me accidentally getting a few deep breaths of the anesthesia (more on that later, perhaps), the whole thing went well. The hardest part of both MRIs was waiting for Charlotte to wake up. She likes her sleep anyway (again, comes by that honestly), and so uses this as an excellent opportunity to get in an extra hour. Both times the nurse had to wake her up after I sat for the hour, watching that tiny body, making sure of the exhale and inhale, happy to see the slight flush of pink that kept her suddenly, amazingly translucent skin from looking too doll-like.

But awake she finally did, and recovered as well as she has from anything before: from the previous MRI, from getting stitches in her head, from various colds, hives, bumps, bruises and scratches--none of which she ever complains about. In other words, she rejected outright Nurse Jenn's instructions that she have nothing but clear liquids and popcicles for a few hours, then maybe yogurt or ice cream before moving on to toast or rice or crackers.

No. Charlotte wanted Goldfish. And chocolate. And pizza. After several minutes of "discussion," we "compromised" on the Goldfish: she got one bowl instead of two. And then we agreed that if she felt as though the milk was going to make her vomit, she knew where the bathroom was. I did get her to stick to toast with butter and honey for dinner but was completely unable to convince her of the potential dangers of running, leaping from the furniture, turning cartwheels and dancing with the dog--all of which were also discouraged by Nurse Jenn. I think Charlotte took Nurse Jenn's lack of specificity as a series of very large loopholes ripe for exploitation.

The neurologist promised to call as soon as she heard anything, and she was true to her word. She called me tonight, at 8:00, because she didn't think I'd want to wait the entire weekend to hear that it was unchanged from the MRI a year ago. She also apologized not being able to give me a better answer to "Why did this happen?". Apparently, "Sometimes it just happens" is all they can give you.

So for now, we're back to "watch and see." I get to go back to trying to suppress the instinct to catch her the minute she begins to fall. And Charlotte gets to keep being Charlotte: Funny, tough, sweet, indomitable. And definitey not ever in the mood to have someone catch her if she falls or even notice that anything happened.

Hannah-isms

Hannah's new "OMG-MOM-WHY-CAN'T-I-LISTEN-TO-IT-AGAIN" favorite song is Green Hills Race to California, from the Emerson Hart album, Cigarettes and Gasoline.

A single misheard word led to a discussion awkward enough to make me glad she was sitting directly behind me. I'm not sure I would have been able to explain why I was cringing and crying with laughter at the same time.

The lyrics in question:

How do I go back to California

How do I leave the green fields here

Warm nights and your sweet magnolia


Hannah:
Mom, what's a magnolia again?

Me:
It's a tree. It has a beautiful flower.

Hannah:
So when he sings "Warm nights IN your sweet magnolia . . ."

Me:
Wha . . ?

Hannah:
So, how did he do that, exactly? Did he just peel open one of the petals and slide in?

Me:
Um, I'm not sure that's . . .

Hannah:
Did he make himself really small to do that? Or was it a really big magnolia?

Me:
Hannah, I don't think . . .

Hannah:
Did he spend all night there? I wonder what it felt like.

Me:
Hey! It's time for Marketplace! Let's talk about this later!

January in the San Francisco Bay Area

Tough life, eh? The only bad thing is that I'm allergic to god knows what. Hopefully not these. Not ready for that.

Mommy's Little Metal Head

Ever seen a kid hanging upside down over the back of a couch, laughing her little head off because the dog is licking her feet? Did the kid you saw have what looked like a piece of metal growing from her gum? No? Yeah, we thought that was pretty weird, too.

A few weeks ago Hannah lost two of her top, front teeth: the big one in front (technical term is “the #8”) and the little one to the side of it (technical term is “I forgot to ask”). The #8 tooth was growing in and seemed to be taking up the majority of the space created by the loss of both teeth. The dentist said the tooth being crowded would eventually make an appearance, but it would be forced to go in front of or behind its pushy sibling.

A week ago, it seemed as though the heretofore-missing tooth was indeed emerging—directly behind, and seemingly glued to, old #8. Hannah said she could feel it, but that it didn’t hurt and, as it was just the slight swelling of the gum, I thought I’d give it a couple of days before calling the dentist.

The next day I saw what looked like metal. At first, Thomas thought it was just that second tooth with spit on it. So he wiped it off. Not spit. Metal. Well, could it be tin foil from a burrito wrapper? But it didn’t move or tear when we wiped it with a napkin. So I had my friend, Andi, look at it. “WTF?? How did she get metal in her mouth?!” Exactly.

Now, most people might have only thought “What on Earth did she eat?” I always like to run a parallel search, so my second—and temporarily dominant—thought track was “OMG—when she was two and tripped in the playroom and got her very first black eye, did she ONLY hit her cheek?” And “Was there ever any other time when she fell and hit or cut her mouth . . .” Fortunately, sanity returned—after all, something like that would have shown up on an X-ray at some point, right? (Turns out, the technical answer is “probably.”)

On Monday, I spent 20 minutes on the phone with the dentists’ office, trying to explain why we needed to be seen, and why it wasn’t going to wait until next week. They couldn’t get her in until Wednesday, so I took a photo just in case the thing suddenly disappeared and they start thinking mommy’s a little crazy:

[[photo deleted.]]

On Wednesday afternoon, as we waited for the dentist, Hannah kept picking at her tooth. For a moment, I thought that it really had been tin foil and that she’d finally managed to remove it. But she had just pushed it further up under her gum, adding to the time it would take Dr V to extract this:

No, not the pencil. That's a 3mm metal disc. Not a sequin. A rigid, metal disc that had been wedged between her gum and tooth. We still don't know how it ended up there, but have to assume that it was in something Hannah ate, and that somehow she hadn't noticed it .

Dr V said we were fortunate that there was no infection, just a little swelling and irritation. Apparently she sees a lot of kids who wait too long before coming in and end up with a massive infection--but this was the first time she had to remove a metal disc.

And it's not just Hannah. One of these days, I'll post the photo of the broken key that Charlotte found in her Jamba Juice.

The Morning Ritual

I am not a morning person, as many of you already know. But, as I have children, I have to get up early whether I like it or not (NOT!). To save a lot of strife so early in the day, there is a ritual that the girls have known since infancy.

And now you are so unlucky as to get a peek at it:

Bedhead, or, why I don't go to bed with my hair wet.

Jeezus Edith! Do NOT ask me to do algebra in my head before I have coffee.

Strike that. Do not EVER ask me to do algebra in my head.

Seriously. Not yet. Fine, yes.
Luke Skywalker can come to dinner.

You know the rule! Two cups! Mommy needs two cups of coffee.
Wait . . .

No really. Wait!

Almost there. . .

All better!

Mwah!
Time to go and scrape out the curls!

Why Do I Get the Crazy Dogs?

I'm starting to think it's me.

Argus was afraid of lightning. Thunder. Fireworks. The vacuum cleaner. All fairly normal for a dog. But he also disliked rain, snow, chirping smoke detectors and the occasional Chihuahua.

Kairos is taking it a leap forward, turning almost overnight into Crazy McTwitchypants. He seems to have hit some weird fear stage--which typically occurs around eight weeks (he's now one year plus)--and the list of things he's afraid of grows almost daily.

First it was men. Not Thomas, but pretty much every other man he came across, even those we had welcomed into our home and introduced to him as friends. Like Scott, for instance. He stayed overnight and every time he managed to leave and return to Kairos' line of sight, he was greeted with renewed barking and growling.

The first time I noticed Kairos being fearful around men was at the dog park. I was sitting at the picnic table when some random guy came up and sat down. Kairos ran over, pressed himself against my leg and started barking. At the time I thought, "Oh! How sweet. He's protecting me." But no. He growls at the man who comes to school to pick up his son. He shies away from men on the street, and those hanging out in their own yards. He doesn't lunge or jump at them; he would just prefer that they take themselves elsewhere.

And then there's the shrub. The same shrub he's seen every day since he was six weeks old. It's in our front yard and he has to pass it every time he goes out to pee, to get Hannah from school, or just to go on a walk. Same shrub, but now he tries to run out into the street to avoid it. I thought, "Well, is it touching him? I wouldn't like branches in my hair, so maybe that's the problem." I trimmed the shrub. No luck. He still doesn't like it.

Kairos also won't go outside by himself. Not even for a romp around the back yard. We put him out; he hops up on a chair and barks at the window until someone opens the door again. And now he won't cross the playroom to get to that back door. He won't even cross the threshold into the playroom.

But hey, I’d rather have him freaking out about the shrubbery and demanding to be carried across the playroom to the back door than have him poop out socks, headbands and other random bits of fabric twice a day.*

Good thing he’s really cute--and sweet. I guess he’s growing on me.

* I’m assuming you’ve already heard enough about that particular quirk!

Hannah-isms

Me, in response to Charlotte whining about wanting to turn the TV on "all by myselk!" [sic]:

"Dude, stop whining--I said I would give you the remote!"

Hannah:
"Um, I thought we agreed that you would not be calling anyone "DUDE" anymore?"

Me:
"We agreed that I wouldn't call you "dude" anymore."

Hannah:
"Yeah, well, I don't think Charlotte likes it, either."

Noted. I'll add that to my List of Things to Stop Saying by New Year's Eve.

Military Spouse Appreciation

Yesterday, Veterans' Day, I was thinking that there should also be a day of appreciation for military spouses. I was very happy to find that there is--it's just not well publicized--well, not to the general public, anyway.

I know that the men and women of of the military truly appreciate the work that their spouses do to keep the family together--often through long deployments, to pack up when it's time to transfer again and a thousand other little things that have to be done to just survive the rigors of the military life.

The date for 2010 hasn't been set, but it'll be some time in May, which is Military Appreciation Month--which I also did not know.

So if you have family or friends in the military, plan to send a little thank you gift in May. An Army may march on its stomach, but it needs someone to make its food*, wash its clothes and take care of its children.



* Obviously when deployed, someone is paid to do the laundry and cooking.

Project Runway, Hannah Style

This weekend, Hannah made her first evening gown:












She constructed it from one of the cloaks left over from her Harry Potter birthday party and a hair clip that looks like a crystal flower. Not bad for a seven-year old, eh?

More Fun With Apraxia!

Charlotte's speech therapy is going well, well enough, in fact, that I'm not as worried about her level of intelligibility when she start kindergarten next fall.


However.


Some sound combinations are still difficult, particularly when there are two hard sounds in the same word, or one at the end of the first word and another at the beginning of the word following.

Take "cupcake," for instance. Say it slowly. Notice how much the shape of your mouth changes between the "p" and the "c" sounds. Charlotte used to insert a soft "a" in between sounds like these, so "cupcake" would become "cup-ah-cake." But now she has decided that it's easier to just replace the "p" with an "m," and so we are left with her excitedly, loudly announcing to the entire store that Whole Foods has "come cakes!"


My friend, Kevin Murphy" is now "Target Monkey," though I'm still not sure how "Kevin" morphed to "Target." "Murphy" to "Monkey" is a bit more understandable.


"Like my book" becomes "Lick my butt," while "Leave me alone," becomes "Lick me alone!" This last one is handy in diffusing arguments, as most people are unable to stay angry while laughing their heads off.


And as for Charlotte's inadvertent adaptation of one of the songs from Phineas and Ferb? I think that Candace, the character who sings it, would appreciate the change from "I'm gonna bust those boys" to "Me gonna bust some balls."

Time for a Little Holiday Baking

This gingerbread is absolutely scrumptious in any season, but to me, it definitely tastes like autumn!

It's from the book With a Measure of Grace: the Stories and Recipes of a Small Town Restaurant, by Blake Spalding and Jennifer Castle. They own a Buddhist-based restaurant, Hell's Backbone Grill in Boulder, Utah.

All of the recipes look wonderful (even the pork recipes, which, coming from me, is really saying something!), but the gingerbread is one I keep coming back to.


Dark Magic Gingerbread

3 cups white flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3 tsp ground ginger
1-1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp Chimayo chili
1-1/2 sticks butter
2 eggs
1-1/2 cups sugar
1-1/2 cups dark molasses
1-1/4 cups boiling water
1/2 cup diced pear
1 tbsp chopped crystallized ginger

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9x13" baking pan

2. Stir or sift well together the flour, baking soda, salt and spices.

3. In a large bowl, beat butter until it's creamy. Gradually add eggs and sugar and beat with an electric mixer on high until batter is light in color and texture, about 2-3 minutes. Slowly beat in the molasses.

4. Add flour mixture and stir with a spoon until it's just combined. You don't want to overmix this cake.

5. Stir in boiling water slowly, mixing well, then add the diced pears and crystallized ginger.

6. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for about 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean and the cake springs back when lightly pressed on top.


Butterscotch Sauce

1 stick unsalted butter
1/4 cup water
2 tbsp light corn syrup
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract or Scotch whiskey

1. Combine butter, water and corn syrup in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and cook over medium hear, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until the butter is melted.

2. Add sugar and stir until it's really dissolved--completely smooth and no linger making gritty scraping sounds.

3. Increase heat and boil without stirring until the mixture starts to brown around the edges. Start stirring as this point, and continue to stir as it thickens and turns a darker brown.

4. When it just barely begins to smoke, remove from heat and pour in cream (be careful here, because it can sputter and get kind of wild). Stir until it's completely dissolved. If it's stubborn and won't melt, place briefly over low heat and stir the lumps out.

5. Add salt and vanilla or Scotch and stir well.

The sauce will keep for up to a month in the refrigerator and is great to have on hand. It can be reheated in the microwaver or a double boiler. (Also very good on vanilla ice cream!)

Random Observation

You know things in the auto industry are bad when they're offering a pumpkin with a test drive.

But it can't be all bad--you can get up to two per family.

A Random Act of Kindness

One day last week (Wednesday, if you must know) I left the hospital in somewhat less than a good mood. I'd just had another test in a seemingly endless array precipitated by the recent weight loss. There I was slightly irritated (ok, so that's not far from normal), when I made a right turn into a construction zone I hadn't previously noticed.

"Great. Frickem, frackem. I'm going to be even later. I just want to go home and take a nap. Grumble grumble whine. Effing great."

I noticed a flash of blue and yellow out of the corner of my eye. "Jeezus. Please don't be another symptom."

But, no, Mel. It's not actually all about you today.

The flash I saw was a construction worker who had dropped his equipment* and run to a woman preparing to cross the busy street. I watched as he gently tapped her on the arm and spoke to her. When she turned, I could see the long white cane in her right hand, stretching out to feel for the curb.

She answered him, tucked her hand under his arm and smiled as they crossed the street together, both chatting all the way.

I tend to be a little on the cynical side, but a lot of the time is to hide the fact that stuff like this makes me weepy. Or maybe it makes me weepy because I tend to be cynical. Either way, it was a lovely, touching thing to see and I drove home smiling, with nary a grumble.


* Please. I have no idea what it was. :-)

Seriously. There's Nothing Wrong With Me!

A few weeks ago, I wrote about being oddly excited to go for my physical. It was, after all, the first time in years I wasn't dreading the first step of the process: the weighing in. I'd gained . . . . well, let's just say a bit of weight since my late 20s. I realize that this is, in general, a normal part of aging (particularly for those of us not really into the gym culture), but that doesn't mean that I have to like it.

Anyway, quick recap: from around the end of July until the beginning of September I'd lost 10 pounds. The doctor wasn't really happy about that--apparently it's not normal--but agreed to let it go as I was happy and healthy. Caveat: I had to agree to come back if I lost 5-10 more in the next month. Three weeks later I was back, down another seven, rib cage on display.

In the past two weeks, I've had a full blood workup, a pelvic ultrasound (as unpleasant as I'd remembered from my two pregnancies), and a chest X-ray. So far, we've ruled out:

• Gym-rat-itis
• Leukemia ("WTF? You were looking for that?!")
• Ovarian cancer
• Uterine cancer
  
• Anything having to do with my lungs
• Thyroid disease (runs in my family)

Today I "got" to have an abdominal CT scan. Fun! You have to get there an hour and a half before your appointment time so that you can choke down of a delicious mixture of tang and iodine. They gave it to me two cups at a time, with instructions to finish it within half an hour. Then the tech brought two more cups. Half an hour later, praying that I wouldn't vomit, I finished the last drop, putting the cup down as if it were a shot glass on a bar. Done and done.

Not quite.

The tech brought two more cups. I yelped. Involuntarily and not quietly. Part of the reason I was there was because I have no appetite and feel full after just a few bites. 64 ounces of the Tang/Iodine cocktail wasn't going down easy. And while I didn't vomit, I have a sneaking suspicion as to why there are no potted plants in the waiting room.

I won't know anything until tomorrow at least. I'm not worried because I already know what the CT will show. Nothing--same as the rest of the tests. So this may be the one time when it really is all in my head--my body just decided to dump the weight and I'm OK with that.

Really.

LCM Has Not Left the Building

I haven't closed up shop, really. I've just been a tad under the weather and still trying to manage the girls' new and overlapping schedules.

Left Coast Mom will soon return to a quasi-regular schedule.

Now poor, neglected Bipolar Gemini is another story.

Check back here on Monday!

And This is Why You Need Sunscreen

The BlogHer '09 Expo was packed with vendors hoping to win over the hundreds of bloggers who strolled its aisles in between sessions, many of them hawking wares I wasn't really interested in (McDonald's, Tide, Mary Kay Cosmetics) and some I visited just for the freebies (Who am I to turn my nose up at a chocolate star on a stick just because it was handed out by the Bounce laundry fairy, a soft-ish man wearing a diaper and wings?)

My favorite booth turned out to belong to Eucerin, because they had the most useful demonstration and one they personalized and sent home with you. They were promoting their Everyday Protection with 30 SPF and had flown a special camera in from Germany to help drive home the point that, really, you ought to wear your sunscreen (and really, I ought to have posted this a couple of months ago!). Oh, and no smoking, either.

The following photos are 1) what I looked like at 9:00 a.m (after being awake until 4am, putting on almost no makeup and being told not to smile); 2) what I will look like at 72, given that I do wear sunscreen and no longer smoke; and 3) what I would look like at 72 if I didn't wear sunscreen and/or started smoking again.

Eh, not too bad. Next time try getting a little more sleep first.

Seriously? Not even a hairstyle change?
I do like how they got the whole bottle in this shot.

I thought they killed the Emperor at the end of Star Wars/Return of the Jedi?
Maybe this is his sister? She should look into that whole cloak thing.

So wear your sunscreen, even in the winter, even if you do live in an area more apt to be rainy. And I'm sorry if the last photo made you a little queasy.

Hannah-isms

While we were having breakfast this morning, Zsu Zsu the chicken started squawking.

Charlotte:
Be quiet Zsu Zsu! Bad chicken!

Hannah:
Zsu Zsu really is annoying but Sophia is being very good today!

Me:
Hannah, um, Sophia is dead.

Hannah:
I know! And so she's being really quiet, isn't she?



After an altercation with her friend Jack:

Hannah:
Well he started it!

Jack:
No, she started it!

Hannah:
NO! I FINISHED it.


Well then.