Four Things About Me

My mom’s birthday was Sunday. We made her feel all loved and stuff, got her a lamp, but I thought I’d take it a step further and actually respond to one of those meme emails that she so loves to send me. Also, on the bottom of her meme, she labeled me as the one person who wouldn’t respond. And don’t we all love to prove our mothers wrong?

Also, my kid has been sick all week. I’m tired and frazzled. Fortunately, Zane seems to be getting through this illness without a trip to the ER or a dose of Orapred. Believe me, I am grateful. But I’m also fried, so a meme really seems to fit the bill.

So without further ado…

Four Things about Me

Things you may or may not have known about me in any particular order.

Four jobs I have had in my life:

1. Bagger at Big Bear grocery store. This chain is now defunct, but I swear it wasn’t because I insisted upon bagging heavy things on top of the bread. The worst part about the job was having to bag up frozen chicken that had partially thawed during the shopping trip. That is a smell like no other.
2. Gymnastic teacher to preschoolers
3. File clerk/Phone Answerer at an animal feed company
4. Retail Specialist at a department store in the men’s collections section

(SRH just pointed out to me that I didn’t put any of my “real” jobs in the previous list. I countered that there’s nothing more real than the smell of molasses at the feed mill early in the morning).

Four movies I would watch over and over:

1. The Lion King - I also saw it here.
   
2. What’s Love Got to Do With It
3. Coal Miner’s Daughter
4. Purple Rain

(Apparently, I like melodramatic musicals. Not the ones other people like, mind you, but musicals none the less).

Four places I have lived:

1. Across the street from a Dairy Queen
2. Down the street from a Dairy Queen
3. Two blocks away from a Dairy Queen
4. This summer, we contemplated moving to a different part of our neighborhood – one farther away from a Dairy Queen. I couldn’t do it.

Four TV shows I watch:

1. House Hunters – HGTV’s #1 rated show (I’m a lemming)
2. House Hunters International (because I am ever so sophisticated)
3. Higgly Town Heroes
4. Little Einstein

(These last two make me want to slit my wrists in a warm bath while drinking some vodka.)

Four places I have been on vacation:

1. Traverse City, Michigan
2. London, England
3. Denver, Colorado
4. Nashville, Tennessee

Four Websites I visit daily:

1. SRH’s blog
2. Go Fug Yourself
3. E Online
4. Google – Never you mind what I’m searching for. It’s private. Private, I say. Well, unless Google is sending my search records to the current administration. In which case, they are into terrorists with a thing for celebrity gossip.

Four of my favorite foods:

1. Steak
2. Cherries
3. Watermelon
4. Fried

(For further explanation, see this post.)

Four places I would rather be right now:

1. Asleep – it’s a state of mind, a place, a destination. I had no idea how much I loved it until I had a child who took it all away.
2. Hiking in the woods
3. Um, let’s make that mountainous woods
4. Hiking to a steak house in the mountainous woods

Four foods I hate:

1. Cheese
2. Foods with cheese on them – except for pizza
3. Sweet potatoes
4. Fish

So, that’s it. Now, you are 36 facts closer to the real me – unless I did the math wrong, which is highly likely. So now you know 37 things about me.

**Editor's Note: Clearly Blogger and I are fighting right now. Please disregard all font issues. Stupid Blogger. Don't make me leave you for some place that's not free.

Zane's Lesson of the Day

You cannot drink a bottle of water and pick your nose at the same time.


No matter how hard you try.

(Since I couldn't actually get a picture of Zane's attempts at multi-tasking with the nose picking and bottle drinking, I thought I'd just give you a view of a simple nose pick.)

Idle Time at the Pharmacy

At one point in my life, I thought I wanted to be a nurse. I was great at biology in school– got A’s in every class I took in the subject, and I really enjoyed it. Also, I am a reasonably caring person, and I have a family history of medical caretaking. My paternal grandmother was a nurse’s aid and cared for others all her life. Her best friend, we’ll call her second grandma since she happened to abscond with my grandfather and lived with him for the rest of their lives, was also a nurse. One could make the argument that she wasn’t so caring, but she was, indeed, a nurse.

I never really went that far with the I-want-to-be-a-nurse-thought, though, for two major reasons:

1. I was pretty sure I actually wanted to be a psychotherapist.

This was a more innocent time in my life, when I still liked people. Before I worked in direct social service for four years and became clear that my mission in life is to help “people” as a group and not as individuals. Because, really, individuals tend to get on my nerves a bit.

2. I am deathly afraid of needles.

I was pretty sure this was not a fear that I could ever work through enough to be comfortable forcing a piece of metal into someone else’s flesh. In that subconscious part of my brain that tells me right from wrong, the skin is a barrier and it is supposed to retain its integrity. It should not be breached. It’s not supposed to be poked, prodded, and separated by a needle – not matter how sterile – for blood to be taken out or other assorted liquids to be injected in. But I digress.

So, I made a decision early that, although I am hugely interested in nursing, I am not to be a nurse. I am, however, typically fairly comfortable in medical settings – which can only be a good thing with the child I have.

But today, I was at a local pharmacy, and just seeing the products on the shelves gave me a bit of the willies and reiterated that, although I don’t know what I want to do with my life, nursing probably isn’t for me.

The first thing I spotted was Prostate Ezee Flow Tea. As a disclaimer, I am fully aware that prostate problems can be serious and may be very painful. So, it’s not the “prostate” part of the product that is funny. It is the product name. Ezee Flow Tea? What? Let’s go for the spelling angle first, is “ezee” really a more effective marketing phrase– an attention getter! – than using the correct spelling of “easy”? And why, for the love of god and all that’s holy must you call it “ezee flow” tea? It just made me want to giggle like I was a fifth grader (hee hee hee). This cannot be the reaction that the folks at Ezee Flow were looking for.

Second was an eye patch. Really, if you need an eye patch, good things aren’t happening for you. Either you have lost an eye – not good. OR you have some sort of eye injury – probably from a sharp, pointy object and you’re about to lose an eye –no good either. OR you have some sort of eye infection which will most likely lead to your losing your eye – also not good. OR you are recovering from eye surgery that you had rather than lose that eye – while better than the others, this is still not good. (I get queasy just thinking about eye stuff. I hated that scene in Patriot Games. Eck.)

And finally I saw – before I made myself stop looking at the shelves and simply concentrated on the getting out of the store - special band aids to keep wounds moist. Is it weird that I just kept imagining bugs, mosquitoes mostly, getting caught in said moist wounds and having to fight their way out? Anyway, I certainly understand in theory why you’d want to keep a wound wettish, but the imagery is pretty gross when you think about it. Which I did. A lot.

So, I beat feet out of the pharmacy glad that I didn’t decide to pursue a medical career. And also glad that I don’t have to wear an eye patch, drink easy flow tea, and don’t - at this moment - have a wound that I must keep moist.

Zany Mama Hypothesis #3: Play-Doh is the work of the devil.

Yep, I’m pretty definite about this one. Although you could convince me that even Old Horny himself isn’t evil enough to have thought of it entirely on his own. Perhaps, you might suggest, there was a committee of fiendish imps or a task force of odious lesser demons that came together in some sort of Mama Torture Council to develop such a heinous product.

Whether it was the result of a diabolical solo plan or a vile collaboration, I still suggest that Play-Doh must be the result of a monstrous evil.

Back from Vacation

So, we’re back from vacation – the “adults only” version of vacation which meant that it couldn’t last more than three nights, since we’ve never both been away from Zane at the same time – and it was delightful. Truly, truly delightful. Who knew that one could have so much fun with your loving partner after 11 years together? (I guess, I kind of suspected since this vacation was my idea, but, really, it was even better than I could have imagined).

We hiked. We shopped. We bought shoes. We enjoyed the beach. We ate out. We slept in. It was nirvana.

And since it’s not really all that much fun to read about what a good time someone else had, I thought I’d just share some of our pictures and the lessons I learned from the trip.

Lesson #1 – It will be way harder for you to leave your kid than it is on your kid to be left.
Absolutely. When we left for our trip, Zane didn’t even bat an eye – actually, he would barely look at us. We thought that this was because he didn’t really understand that we were leaving him for 3 nights. Not so much. Apparently, he has known that we are holding him back for a while now. He was willing to speak with us sporadically on the phone but only to report the fun things that he and Mimma were doing. He was reasonably glad to see us – until he figured out that it meant that his days of chugging soda and getting ferried to every kids’ attraction in town was over. I’m sure, right now, he’s thinking wistfully of the weekend we were away.

Lesson #2 – If you tell your mother that her only job is to keep the kid alive and not to worry about keeping your house clean, she will listen.
Yep, came home to a trashed house and a sugared-up kid. But he was alive and had a fabulous weekend without us, so I guess I should just shut up.

Lesson #3 – I will never get over my instinctual, irrational fear of snakes.


A wee garter snake crossed out path while we were hiking, and even though I wanted to be cool with it, I wasn’t. I completely wasn’t. I do understand that a 12 inch snake whose mouth doesn’t open wide enough to eat my big toe cannot really cause me too much harm, but I was jumpy for the rest of the hike. And another wildlife lesson…

Lesson #4 – Always hike with someone who is smaller than you.
I typically choose Zane as my requisite small person, but as he was not available, I filled the bill for this particular walk. I swear I heard the following conversation between two cougars who were watching us in the hills:

Cougar 1: Hey, there are two hapless, weary hikers. Let’s grab a bite to eat.

Cougar 2: Sounds good. Let’s go after the big burly one.

Cougar 1: What? Are you nuts? A smart cat doesn’t go after the big ones - especially when there’s a little one who’s clearly unsure of her surroundings available.

Cougar 2: Yeah, you’re right. Dark meat is more tender, anyway.

(Okay, so I didn’t actually hear the cougars have that conversation. And, well, I didn’t actually see any cougars. But there were “Beware of Cougar” signs posted in the park, so I’m sure that something similar occurred just out of earshot).

Lesson #5 – Walks along the beach at sunset are very romantic, but only when you are walking away from the sun.


Yep, the return trip to your car is not so much romantic as squint-filled. And you may have trouble avoiding that dead fish that is in your path since you are concentrating so hard on not being blinded. Oh, and beaches have many bugs that come out to munch on you when the sun goes down. But the first part of the walk was very romantic.

Lesson #6 – If you are feeling depleted, worn out, and a bit “blah”, then a trip with your partner is the bee’s knees.
It was really fabulous. SRH and I haven’t had that kind of uninterrupted alone time since Zane was born. It was fun. It was romantic. It was the best time I’ve had in a long time.

And I’ll leave you with the epitome of cheesy vacation pictures – a picture that SRH and I took of ourselves on one of our hikes.

With You All The Way

On the eve of our first-ever child-free vacation since Zane was born, I have two very different things on my mind:

1. The vacation
2. New Edition

So, I guess that our impending vacation being on my mind is no surprise. We’re leaving tomorrow afternoon for Traverse City, and I am so looking forward to it, that I really could just pee my pants. But of course, there are a million things to do before we leave and peeing my pants would result in more laundry, so…

I’ve got to get a list of all of Zane’s allergies, medications, and doctor’s numbers for my mom. I need to make sure that we’ve got plenty of food pre-made so that my mom doesn’t take Zane out for fast food at every meal. In her defense, with all his food allergies Zane is very hard to feed, except for at McDonald’s, Burger King, and Taco Bell. Those bastions of healthy food have a virtual plethora of menu items that my kid can have. If you’re not up for fast food, you can’t just throw something together because most likely Zane will eat it and die. Okay, not really, but that is the way it feels a great deal of the time.

So, we’ve made the effort to get all his prescriptions filled, all his clothes washed, and any and all snacks that he’s ever been willing to eat are in the house. So now I need to move on to making the list of medications, dosages, and schedule for those medications. I also had to make up a sheet about what to look for to take him to the doctor, emergency room, etc.

It’s hard to leave a kid with health issues!

On the other hand, I must go…

…Because I’m starting to resent things like, say, oh, giving him breathing treatments that last 30 minutes each 4 times a day or telling him to Stay in Bed! 18 times before he finally falls asleep.

…Because I need some time alone with my husband even though he resisted this vacation with everything he had.

SRH is truly and terrifyingly worried about leaving the boy without one of his parents should something happen with his asthma. I keep telling him that Zane’s asthma season really begins in earnest in September. That’s like two whole weeks away. But, irrationally, he doesn’t seem reassured.

It’s not that I’m not concerned or particularly want to be away from Zane for 4 days. I just know that I’m going to be a much better mama when I get back. I deserve this vacation. SRH deserves this vacation, and Zane deserves us to come back refreshed and relaxed. So I will drag SRH up to Michigan tomorrow and we WILL have a good time.

On to my new obsession with New Edition. Or rather, it’s an old obsession which has been re-awakened.

The most amazing thing happened last night. I got to see Behind the Music: New Edition. I had no idea that Behind the Music had done a New Edition episode, but apparently, a group of loyal fans (see this petition) was determined to see it happen. So last year VH-1 finally caved, and the delightfulness of this group was brought back to the mainstream.

(It’s just a fact of mamahood that you can feel excited about a special that was released last year that you had no idea about until yesterday. Sometimes it takes me a while to catch up on what’s happening outside of my four walls).

Perhaps I should explain – although I may not need to at this point – that I was a HUGE New Edition fan from age 9 (when Candy Girl was released) throughout my college years.

I won’t bore you with the details, but I will tell you that when SRH came downstairs last night, I shushed him and then told him during the commercial that he was not to talk or ask dumb questions while the show was on. Also, he was not to snicker behind his hand as I sat on the couch leaning forward expectantly with my hand over my heart whenever my favorite boy, Ralph Tresvant – oh my gosh, we’re both Tauruses!, came on the screen.

And you know what? It was just uncomplicatedly fun to watch them and hear the songs that I grew up with. It made me a little giddy, like I was 13 years old again. It was total fun.

So what makes you giddy? A music group, a gadget, or something else? Please share, and I’ll respond when I get back from vacation.

Fun Family Sayings

There are many, many stories I could tell you about my family on my father’s side. Some would be unbelievable (bet you can’t guess how many half-siblings I have); some would be heroic (my uncle was fierce during the civil rights movement); some would be weird (anyone ever misplace a pan of potatoes for six weeks?); some would be sweet (all displaced people could get a meal at my grandma’s house); and some would be tragic (all I’m saying is that substance abuse and a bad heart don’t mix).

But today, I was thinking fondly of my aunt who passed away a few years ago, and one of her favorite sayings: I’m going to smack the cowboy shit out of you.

She used this particular saying as a bit of intimidation to get us kids – and there were a lot of us between all my father’s children and the foster kids that my grandmother was raising – to do whatever she wanted.

Truly, it was effective. No one wants the shit smacked out of them, let alone the cowboy shit. It was the real deal threat. It was a take the shoe off and chase you around the house kind of threat. When my aunt said it, she meant business. And we knew to listen.

I say we, but honestly, I was such a goody-two shoes that the threat was never directed toward me. It may have been directed at the group of kids I was playing with at that particular moment, but never at me. And to be perfectly honest, my aunt could never make this threat with an entirely straight face. Although you knew to listen when she was taking out the can of cowboy whup ass, you also knew that she still had her sense of humor.

I mean, what is cowboy shit anyway? I never knew, and when I googled it just now, the results weren’t pretty.

Other, less obscure but just as ridiculous family sayings were:

• If a frog had wings, he wouldn’t wear his ass out jumping. (Hey, I come from humble folk).
• People in hell want ice water. (Apparently, my humble lineage is full of those who curse profusely).
• You’re getting tangy! (As in, go take a bath).

So, your turn. Do you have sayings in your family that are completely irrational, illogical, ridiculous, or even silly? Maybe there are some that do make sense but just make you bust a gut whenever you hear them?

Leave them in the comments. I can’t wait to hear them!

Shout Out to the Folks at SRH's Work

It’s strange how I’ve come to know the folks that my partner, SRH, works with. The confidences that they share with SRH during the workday soon become dinner conversation at my house. Because, well, I do ask What happened at work today? each and every day, and who Colleague A is dating and the fact that Colleague B is looking for a new job is sincerely interesting to me.

And since SRH and I both happen to write blogs, the pseudo-intimacy becomes even stranger at times. Case in point, I had the following conversation at at SRH’s holiday party this year,

Me: It’s been a wild day! Zane’s been on this medicine that makes him a little crazy…

Colleague A: Yeah, prednisone.

Me: (Perplexed pause) How did you…?

Colleague A: SRH wrote about it on his blog. Those Little Man vs. Insane Little Man pics were hilarious.

Me: Oh, yeah. So he’s on prednisone, and well… well, I guess you really know the rest.

Anyway, I wanted to write a post that was shot out to all those folks who make SRH’s work day bearable and know way more about my life than they should. (I’ll keep your secrets if you’ll keep mine).

A Big Thank You to Ms. Snow

Ms. Snow made me the beautiful necklace above a few months ago, and I have been thinking that I should put it up on my blog so that the whole world – or about 25 readers a day – would see her talent.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. And thanks most of all for making me TWO necklaces – since I had to give the first one back owing to the fact that I disliked it so much.

Truly, this was not your fault as the first necklace was indeed lovely; it just wasn’t a piece of jewelry that I would particularly wear. And nobody would have been any wiser about my not liking that first necklace except that SRH had to go and tell you that I didn’t like it. What was that?!

I was fully prepared to wear that necklace when you were around and pretend to like it. That’s the polite thing to do, right?

Anyway, I do truly love the necklace above and always get complimented when I wear it. Thanks so much.

Calling all Roadway and Bridge Engineers

Here are your parameters: complete a train track using the turntable, three buildings – which must be adjacent to the turntable, the curved viaduct, the old stone bridge, two pieces of bumpy track, and 6 single curved switch tracks.

No, you may not use your extra ascending/descending track. No you may not use the SureTrack Connectors. Zane is not into those right now. You may use one each of male adapter track and female adapter track, but only if Zane doesn’t realize that you’re doing it. You must outwit and outmaneuver the three year old!

And do it Now! Now! Now! You’ve got a sick little boy wanting his train track people, and he’s in no mood to wait for your “I’ll have to figure out” crap. He’s at your shoulder and in your ear fussing and crying because he wants his train track tout suite, and he’s not taking any excuses.

Under these exact conditions, I constructed the following train set Friday morning.

Who’s got their P.E. now, huh, huh? (Unless P.E. now stands for Punk Engineer, I believe I just took you all to school…)

On the other hand, props to you all – especially to you, Anon, in graphics – working with SRH can’t be easy and you manage to keep him relatively sane most days.

Burping Babies, Etc., Etc.

Burping Babies

One of Zane’s friends got him these babies for his birthday:

I was especially thrilled because Zane doesn’t have any other baby dolls and he’s obsessed with babies right now. (See this post). I wasn’t quite sure, however, whether he’d play with the babies or not.

You see, Zane has a one track mind. And like many three year olds, his mind is on trains. Oh sure, he talks about babies all the time, but he’s usually playing with a train when he does it. It might go something like, Baby crying, mama. Chug chug. Baby sad, mama. Choo choo. Baby laughing, mama. Look train went over the hill! Baby in stroller, mama. Oh! What happened Thomas?

So imagine my delight when Zane started playing with the babies, a few days ago. He strolled them around the living room. He took off their caps and pretended they were crying. With some gentle redirection, even he started putting their bottles in the mouths, not their ears. He played with them off and on all morning.

(As an aside, I had the following very smug inner dialogue going the entire time, Oh, good. He’s playing with babies. I was hoping he’d like this gift and not just use the baby stroller as a graveyard for old trains. How sweet, he’s feeding the baby. I may just raise a kind man yet. What a sweet, loving, gentle boy I’m raising.)

You might see where I was getting myself into trouble here.

So a natural extension of feeding the babies is, of course, burping the babies. I put one of the babies on my lap and gently burped her to show him how to do it. Well, that was all it took to really take the baby love to a whole new level for Zane.

He started giggling maniacally, pounding the baby on its back and letting our big, loud, “UUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHH!” burpy sounds over and over and over. That was the rest of our day. Charming.

It also describes the only way he’s willing to play with the babies right now. My sweet, loving, gentle boy is also a loud, burping, baby-walloping mass of madness.

Zane twirling the baby til she burps!

I am so proud.

Etcetera

We have officially entered the Asthma Pre-Season at our house. (The season itself lasts from Sept – Mar.) Zane caught a bug, and we’re doing rescue breathing treatments every four hours today. It’s a little stressful, but it’s all very manageable right now. Send us good energy.

Etcetera

Zane’s cardiologist appointment has been scheduled for September 18. (Discussed in this post) Since his pediatrician forgot to write it into Zane’s chart, the nurse didn’t get it scheduled until I called to remind them on Monday. While that’s a bit annoying, it also says to me that Dr. M is not overly concerned that my child has a huge, gaping hole in his heart, so it was also a bit reassuring. I will ask for you to send positive energy to us re: the appointment closer to the date. For now, all your positive energy should be directed towards Zane’s breathing! :)

A Lesson Learned

When asking a colleague to take care of something for you – something that is their job, mind you, not a favor that you are asking them to do - do not be overly-colloquial in your email requesting that they handle it. Phrases like,

I don’t have a clue what this woman is talking about. Any information you know would be appreciated cause I'm lost.

just don’t look good in the forwarded email your colleague may choose to send to said woman.

Not good at all.

Zany Mama N to Z

If you’re anal like me, you’ll want to go ahead and read the last post prior to reading this one – if you haven’t already. I, personally, could never bring myself to read an N-Z list without reading the A-M list first, but perhaps you live on the wild side, and will choose to read this one first. I wish I had your moxie.

Name. I have a very unique, some might say weird, name. I have never met anyone with my name, although I have met people who have met people who have my name. Therefore, to maintain some irrational semblance of anonymity on this blog, I have chosen not to divulge my name. I do believe that someone may have left it in the comments at some point, though.

Also, at this point in an A-Z list, I’m a little sick of myself and feeling rather Narcissistic for coming up with the list in the first place.

Only. I’m an only child. A singleton. One who is without siblings. Some readers will automatically feel sad or believe that this means that I missed out on a penultimate life experience, but I really, really loved and still love being an only child. (Some of you with brothers and sisters are still shaking your head and thinking, She doesn’t know what she missed. And that’s true. You are absolutely right. But really, I could say the same – you don’t know what you missed by not being your parent’s one and only. Let’s just agree to disagree on this one, shall we?).

Pollyanna. I – in general – truly believe that things will work out well. That life events and situations happen for a reason, and that people are good and decent. I’m hopeful about my future, and I also love raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. (Note: “S” will not be for “sappy”, but apparently it could be).

Quirky. There is no end to the weird things about me. I hate cheese. I loathe asymmetry with a passion bordering on obsessiveness. I love Dolly Parton and Prince in equal measure. I drive 15 minutes away to go to my favorite Dairy Queen instead of going to the one two blocks away. I love to look at baby name books – unless I’m pregnant – and I won’t let SRH’s graham crackers touch my food in a grocery cart because, really, I’m sure there will be graham-y contamination. Again, I’m choosing to believe that this is part of my charm.

Risk Averse. I am not one to take many risks. I’m working on this one.

SRH. Although I have spoken about him a lot on this blog, SRH definitely deserves his own mention on this list. He is, in addition to being my heart’s joy, completely and totally his own person. He’s strong-willed and fiercely intelligent. One of my favorite things about SRH is that I can never truly predict what will come out of his mouth. After 11 years together, that’s pretty cool.

Terrible Twos. Now Terrible Threes. Tantrums. This is my life.

Uncanny recollection of commercial jingles and song lyrics. This is also a facet of my quirkiness. I remember most commercial jingles – extra value is what you get, when you buy coronet! - and slogans – Payless, you could pay more but why? - and the lyrics of songs that I listened to growing up –

Why you all coming down on me,
Trying to tell me how my life is supposed to be?
I know you’re only trying to help me out. Trying to tell what life is really about.
But this time I’m gonna make it on my own, so why don’t you fellas just leave me alone? Ronny, Bobby, Ricky, and Mike, if I like a girl who cares who you like?
(New Edition’s Cool it Now).

I don’t tend to have the same memory for modern songs and advertising, though, just those between the years of 1978 and 1992. It’s a very specialized gift.

Vomit. Vomiting – from illness, not from an eating disorder or the drinky-drinky - is part of my…er…expressiveness. When I purge my contents, I am quite loud about it. I don’t mean to be, but even if I’m trying to be quiet, I fail miserably. To be around me vomiting is to want to vomit yourself. Let’s call that another quirk.

Worry wart. I am a worrier. I try hard not to be, but in that part of my soul that is un-changeable and unyielding, I worry. Lucky for me, I’m also an optimist. It balances the worry somewhat.

Xylophone. I always thought that was the coolest instrument in elementary school music classes – we had a big wooden one that was orchestra-grade. It even had padded xylophone-hitters for accompaniment. We were never allowed to play it, though. I never got that. Why would a school own an instrument that is played by beating it with sticks to 2^nd graders and not give them the joy of pounding on it? It just seems a little sadistic to me.

Yellow. This is my favorite color. Not in clothing – I can’t wear yellow or I look like a big banana, but I love the sunshiny color of yellow in just about anything else.

Zane. The namesake of this blog, and the most wonderful child in the world. There’s no need for me to really go into more description on this one, but I’ll leave you with a picture.

Zany Mama A to M

I will admit it. I love the “101 Things About Me” lists that many folks have on their blogs. I find them completely fun and very interesting to read - I mean, you just can’t get those kinds of minute details about someone ordinarily, even by reading their blog.

So here are my own minute details – nicely organized in a handy A-Z list. (Well, actually today is an A-M list, but the N-Z list will follow shortly).

Asthma. The chronic medical condition which rules our household. Zane has severe asthma, and we have, for the past two years, had to take multiple trips to the ER between September and March – his most difficult months. Zane’s asthma doctor, a nationally recognized expert, has told us that Zane is in the worst 3% of his patients. Yippee! We don’t excel in much in our family, but apparently illness is our forte.

Biracial. I am a black-white biracial woman. In case you’re interested, my mom is white and my dad is black. They got together in the early seventies, when folks were oh-so-tolerant of interracial relationships and broke up for good when I was five.

Cats. I grew up with cats and love them. SRH grew up with cats and loves them. We got two kittens 4 days after we got married and another one a few years later when we –idiotically - made a trip with my mother to the local cat welfare association. We adored our cats, but after Zane’s third trip to the ER in two months, we heeded the doctor’s advice and gave them away. SRH is still very sad about it. I don’t miss the cat hair.

Dancing Fool. I love to dance and will do it anywhere – at home, in the grocery store, while waiting for my food in restaurants. In public places, I may not full out bust a move like at home, but it’s enough to embarrass SRH on a regular basis. This may be why I do it.

Expressive. I do not have a poker face. When I’m feeling something, everybody in the room knows it. I laugh a lot. I cry hard, and I love my family and friends ferociously. And while I don’t believe my dancing could not be characterized as interpretive, I do think it’s expressive.

Food Allergies. The other medical condition which runs our lives. Zane is currently allergic to dairy, egg, peanuts, and tree nuts. In the past he has been allergic to soy, tomatoes, and potatoes, so we have to watch these in his diet as well. And for the first year of his life, he was allergic to any and all vegetables. We have gotten amazingly creative with cooking in the last three years. That and we’ve lowered our standards.

Gall Bladder. I have one although they thought they might have to take it out when I was 9 months pregnant. However, getting rid of the 6 lb. 10 oz. mass that was kicking it on a regular basis seemed to resolve the issue. (Hey, give me a break. “G” is a really hard one. I am neither graceful nor particularly generous, though I try to be both).

Highly sensitive. I read this book, The Highly Sensitive Person, and it rocked my world by how “right on” it was to my personality.

Intense. Here’s the thing. I completely don’t get this one, but my friends have said it enough that I tend to believe them. Oh sure, I can get really focused on something to the exclusion of all else. And I tend to be a little overly-critical and hard on myself. And, oh yeah, I have been known to starve myself for 15 months straight so that I could nurse my son who is allergic to everything. But I wouldn’t call that intense, really. I think I’m just focused and goal oriented.

Jumpy. I have a hair-pin trigger on me. Did I mention that I was highly sensitive? Don’t walk up behind me or make a quick movement, I’ll jump out of my skin. It’s part of my charm. My intense charm.

Kind. I really do try hard to be kind in most situations. Many years ago, I made a mental list of the characteristics of women whom I admired and aspired to be like, and I found a common thread: they were all incredibly kind. So I try. I don’t make it on many days, but I put in the effort.

Listener. I am a really, really good listener. I’m such a good listener that strangers regularly tell me their life stories in the grocery store, at restaurants, and on airplanes. It’s a skill I cultivated when I was a psychotherapist, but I have to admit that I got a little tired of listening to folks after doing it for eight hours a day, five days a week for a few years. So I changed professions, but I’ll still occasionally listen to my friends and family.

Married. I’ve been married 9 years to the love of my life, SRH. We met in college and have spent almost our whole adult lives together. You will see him around this blog. I like to give him a hard time.

Quick Update

I did not want to leave everyone with a cliffhanger, so I figured I would give a quick update.

1. Zane is still doing great, and his potty training is moving along.

2. The pediatrician has not set up his cardiologist appointment yet. When they do set that up and we have gone to the appointment, I will update everyone about that.

3. SRH got me sick. I won’t give the details, but let’s just say it is unpleasant.

4. I will do a real post about something other than, “Hey, it’s me. I’m still alive,” when I am feeling better.

5. Did I mention SRH made me sick? In sickness and in health just stinks. Even though it wasn’t part of our vows, apparently I agreed to it anyway.