So...my brother broke his neck (C7 for inquiring medical minded people) this week. Surgery today. I don't even know what else to say, except at least he doesn't have any neurological damage.

I keep telling you I'm trying to be optimistic here.

Remember he has been through mostly the same things I have, but also has many more of the "top stressors" on the list. Please be thinking of him and praying for him (and SIL), as it is very painful and he will be off work for at least 4 weeks recovering from surgery. Probably longer.

At this point in my life when I hear something bad...all I can do is shake my head. I don't even have anything to say anymore, really. You've probably heard it all.

"Old as she was, she still missed her daddy sometimes."

"There's something like a line of gold thread running through a man's words when he talks to his daughter, and gradually over the years it gets to be long enough for you to pick up in your hands and weave into a cloth that feels like love itself."
~John Gregory Brown, Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery

Title qote is by Gloria Naylor

I do not like them, Sam-I-am!

I have been reading Green Eggs and Ham for the last 4 days straight. Holden realized that there is a train in the book and now calls it the train book.

I really don’t like Dr. Seuss books.

Might I suggest that the writing in the books is somewhat boring and the pictures are downright creepy.


But above all, it’s the rhymes that bother me.

Oh, the rhymes!


We all count on a certain level of predictability in our lives. It is comforting and feels safe. Fear of change may be one of the strongest emotions I have seen in people (including myself).


I have seen it while working in hospitals and nursing homes, seeing my own family change, and have gone through painful and difficult transformations in my personal life (hard to believe I have any that you don’t already know, but of course I do).


But at the end of it all I believe there is a bigger picture being painted—I like to think of it as impressionist style…when you are up close it seems a little muddy and not very pretty.


But when you stand back…breathtaking.



Perhaps the most frustrating thing about reading Green Eggs and Ham with a 2 year old is that it runs as a never-ending loop. He loves the train in the book so much that we get to the end (with no train) and he starts wanting me to read it again.
So he (we) never learn the real lesson of the book.

“Say!
I like green eggs and ham!
I do! I like them, Sam-I-am!
And I would eat them in a boat,
And I would eat them with a goat . . .
And I will eat them in the rain.
And in the dark. And on a train.
And in a car. And in a tree.
They are so good, so good, you see!
So I will eat them in a box.
And I will eat them with a fox.
And I will eat them in a house.
And I will eat them with a mouse.
And I will eat them here and there.
Say! I will eat them ANYWHERE!”

I'm tired. That is all I can think, and therefore all I can write. My dear husband has been gone every day and night this week for assorted reasons. Meaning I have been taking care of a two year old who suddenly decided he doesn't nap anymore.

Nor does he sleep at night, by the way (never has really).

I've always heard if you don't have anything positive to say, don't say anything at all. That doesn't mean I have always followed that little gem of wisdom, but I'm trying here people.



And there is your explanation for the silence on my blog this week.

I so wish I could get my camera working so you could see my garden gnome standing watch over a patch of dirt in the middle of my yard. Even as the owner of the house it seems strange to have a gnome standing in the middle of a yard. It is beyond quirky, but truthfully the only way to keep the birds away from my grass seed.

Little garden gnomes and children look deceptively similar.

I also wish the camera was working so I could have shown you earlier this week when Holden took his toy train and made it face the time-out corner and told me the train was in time-out.

Then he took his swim(ming?) trunks with Thomas the train on the front and laid them over the top of the train that was already in time out so as to also put the screen printed train in time-out.

Today my dear son himself went to time out for playing with the wall outlet (which he hasn't done for months and just started again a few days ago), sat there for a minute and then said,

"Sorry Mommy. Sorry Mommy." (He almost always does this) So I told him to come over to me,

"Why are you sorry Holden?"

He shook his head, "Zhishen, Zhishen." (I wasn't listening.)

While you may think I would be happy about this little interlude, I was dismayed because now my dear son uses this as his umbrella response.

Fortunately for him, it does usually apply to the situation.

Someone should have told me that having a two year old was so much work. I do vaguely remember someone saying something once, but really.

Really.






Guess what I did this morning? Stopped my Netflix subscription and subscribed to dish network HBO because the new season of True Blood starts tonight.

MFEO

It's my anniversary today. Or more specifically, our anniversary today. My dear husband didn't bring me flowers when he walked through the door today.

He turned on the Nebraska/Big 10 press conference.

We didn't buy each other gifts either (the trip to San Diego) and for our big 5 year anniversary tonight I'm considering asking him to help me clean the basement and garage.

Since I mentioned the lack of flowers I should also mention that I didn't make him dinner, didn't clean the house either. Holden took no nap today (thus the mess), and I ate two pieces of coconut cream pie for dinner and he ate nothing. He is trying to win a bet and has to lose like 8 lbs. by next week.

We're so healthy.

I read an article the other day about marriage and divorce and the author said something about how if a woman says her husband his her best friend, then the author automatically thinks she has no friends.

I guess I am guilty of that, because after 7 years together, there isn't anyone I would rather spend time with than my husband, and there isn't anyone who knows me better.

Or who would tolerate me in such large doses.

The other day he was lounging on the couch, Holden was sitting in his high chair and Handy Manny was on TV.

I walked into the room and said,

"I think Handy Manny and the girl who owns the hardware store in Sheetrock Hills are having sex. Did you notice she never makes him pay for anything when he comes in?"

My dear husband didn't even laugh. He deadpanned,

"They aren't having sex, I'm pretty sure they live in a socialist society and that is why no one ever has to pay for anything. No one ever pays Manny to fix things either."



Made for each other.

I bought my son a small box set of railroad tracks today to go with the self-propelled engine he already has chugging across the floor most days. When I got home and set it up for him I realized the set I bought is only partial. Which means it looks like three sides of a rounded square with one side missing, rendering the mini-train unable to make a full loop.

As I sit here and watch my dear son race from side to side trying to keep the train from derailing on each end of the track and turning it the opposite direction, I identify with his struggle. That is how I feel most days. Like I'm running maniacally trying to keep things from derailing.

Of course I'm aware that everything won't go wrong if I stop working so hard. Although still slightly narcissistic, I do have a good understanding of my effect (and lack of effect) on certain things.

But when I stop and rest for a little while, and say...watch a four year old episode of Oprah in a house with no working air-conditioning, with a looming 90 degree day tomorrow and about 16 loads of laundry sitting at the bottom of the basement stairs (which by the way smells like dog pee and needs to be cleaned but I'm too debilitated by my knee to do the up and down work of cleaning the basement) , and a child and three dogs and a cat who all really really need some attention, and a test and presentation tomorrow that I have not prepared for...I really begin to wonder if it is possible to get a true vacation once you become a mother and wife.

I know, you think I'm being too dramatic. Just go to Wal-Mart and buy your kid the damn $10 kit to finish the train tracks, you say. Call the A/C guy and have the $4000 system installed on an easy payment plan. It's not that hard to do laundry, and instead of resting on the weekend, clean your basement. Also, you can go to the pool with your kid in the afternoon, take your dogs on a walk, and then spend all night studying. None of it sounds all that difficult, really, when you put it that way.

I started a new migraine medication that is intermittently making me feel wonderful (no headaches!) and like a zombie (I keep leaving the bathroom sink running--odd.). It's only the third day so I haven't decided yet whether the good effects outweigh the strange ones. (Feeling stoned. All day.)

By the way, I turned Oprah off. Going to do laundry.

And book a hotel for our San Diego trip. ;)

Real Good Man

I woke up this morning thinking about funnel cake. In every story the protagonist has a major flaw or the story is boring...

Although some may believe my major flaw(s) is/are my critical nature, tendency toward bossiness and know-it-all-ness, aloofness, and annoying perfectionism...

I think my Achilles' heel may be fried dough.

I love it so much that if I go to a county fair or street fair it is all I can think about until I have that warm paper plate covered in fried deliciousness and powdered sugar in hand (in mouth!).

The actual reason I am writing this blog entry is because I want to tell you how lucky I am as a wife. For example, if we go to a fair--DH knows the first thing we should do is get some funnel cake.


Okay, I'm actually writing because I am often guilty of complaining too much about and to my husband. And he is a great husband.


He took care of our son all night last night (Son has not been sleeping well...at all), then let me sleep in this morning. Then played with son in baby pool in yard. While son was napping DH mowed the lawn. Then sent me away to

'Do whatever you want, take as long as you want'. I went shopping. Then had dinner with a friend and did more shopping. I got home and DH was still wrangling dear son at 11:00 p.m. (the sleeping issues again).

Next weekend is our 5 year wedding anniversary and I think I've learned a couple things about marriage so far,

#1. Marry the right person. It makes everything easier.

#2. Marriage is like a big mirror. Take an honest look at yourself and choose to be the right person. Also makes things easier.

#3. It's all about compromise.





Right after DH and I got together a friend asked me how I felt. I said,

"I don't know if I'd call it love yet, but I feel like the luckiest girl in the world."

She smiled,

"Sounds like love to me."

Me too.