How freakishly perceptive

Yesterday PJ saw CT walk off the bus. Immediately she said, “Ooooohhh, he’s so sad…oh no, he’s so sad” and ran to the door to open it up for him.

I thought to myself, he looks just like he always does when he gets off the bus.

When he walked through the door, he burst into tears.

Where do your razors go?

I have the world’s ugliest feet. My toes are all misaligned due to too many years on the balance beam during those formative toe years. They are always cold, which gives them this dead sort of bluish hue. And for some reason I have more dead skin on my feet than I’m sure anyone else on the planet.

In order to cure one of my problems, I like to take a razor to the calluses. This normally works just fine; however, one must be cautious and careful when doing this type of procedure at home.

Yesterday, I found myself with too much time in a hot shower. After doing all the normal things one does in a shower, I went after my toe calluses. After shearing most of the dead skin off I went for one last swipe and somehow dug that razor right into perfectly sweet soft flesh. The double bladed wound is only a little smaller than a dime but damn if that thing wouldn’t stop bleeding.

Did you know that if you are wearing flip flops and your foot is bleeding it throws the blood in an amazing picturesque array all over the floor?

I only needed to walk about 25 feet to my locker.

Sled dog

Artful conversation

CT and PJ were sitting at the kitchen table this afternoon making little figures out of clay. As they sat and sculpted they also chatted and the following is what I overheard:

CT: PJ, why are you always so mean?

PJ: I was born mean.

Looking down the barrel

A month or so ago I signed up to do a ½ Ironman this summer. I have been feeling particularly laid back about how this is all going to pan out.

I’ve done races before. It’s just the next progression in the rung. Of course I can do it, what’s the big deal?

Well, training starts this Sunday and now the butterflies have officially made their way into the pit of my stomach. The past four months have been easy breezy runs with Jen and nothing else. I’ve deserved it, right? Why continue swimming, biking and lifting? I so needed that break!

I guess we’ll see just how good of a break it was. Here is what the first week of the 5:00 am, 18 week training schedule looks like:

Sunday: 30 minute bike, 45 minute swim
Monday: off (LOVE THAT!)
Tuesday: 30 minute run, 45 minute swim
Wednesday: 1 ½ hour bike
Thursday: 30 minute run
Friday: 50 minute bike
Saturday: 55 minute run

After writing that out it doesn’t seem so bad. Well, to be honest, the 5:00 am still does.

Baptism by complete submersion

We have the opportunity to send PJ to a brand new Mandarin Chinese Immersion program next year for kindergarten. When Adam brought this up to me I was completely against it. You know, you are suppose to go to school with your siblings, in the same building, ride the bus together and have your parents be able to help you with your homework.

I thought I would let him follow up on this new found “opportunity” and then secretly just hoped it would die out by itself. But that’s not what happened.

What has happened is that we started asking questions, reading more about it and realizing it really is a great opportunity.

And for me, I’ve had to ask myself “why”. Why I had such an immediate negative response to the idea and what’s behind that.

I realized it’s simply fear of the unknown, fear of not being able to help because I don’t know the language, fear because she will be alone and not in the same school as her brother or riding the bus with her brother or being in class with the friends she already has, fear that she will feel different or isolated, fear because it’s such a drastic change from what my perception of what her kindergarten experience was going to be like, fear because I don’t want to make the wrong decision for her.

At the end of pulling apart my thoughts and moving through my fears, I think my friend Jen said it best, “you will be giving her an amazing gift.”

I’ll let you know later if we give her that gift or not.

Lenten penance

I’ve just started a new knitting project. A friend of mine let me page through her favorite knitting book and I fell in love with this little crown. A project that I think is adorable and would love to see Miss PJ wear on her birthday…even though she has made it clear she doesn’t want it.

Not listening to her may be mistake number one.

So I bought the supplies, which include 3 rolls of pink crepe paper. Yes, I know…crepe paper. I am KNITTING a crepe paper crown.

God certainly did not dole out any patience to me as I got shot down from heaven on my birthday, knitting with this type of material may be mistake number two.

PJ’s big day is not until May so I thought this would give me ample time to try and make it. At the rate it is taking me to gently, gingerly and oh so cautiously not rip this stuff to bits while knitting it I may not be done until Christmas.

Hmmm, maybe I should have bought it in red. Mistake number three?

circa 88

And I still remember kissing those adorable lips and having butterflies in my stomach while running my fingers through that awesome “party in the back”.

I never said I was a doctor

To know me well is to know that I typically only bring my kids into the doctor’s office if they are REALLY sick. I’m not one to bring them in for a cold or a cough or a low grade fever. In fact, unless they are truly miserable, I just kind of ignore it and hope it will clear itself up.

For the past four days CT’s cheeks have been really red. I, of course, assumed that he just had chapped cheeks from the sub zero temperatures and have been coating them with Aquaphor. Not once thinking there could be anything else wrong.

Tuesday, mid-morning, I got a call from the school. The school nurse starts telling me that CT has a lacy like rash all over his face and infact ALL OVER HIS BODY. She went on to say that she thinks he has Fifths Disease and that I need to come get him immediately and bring him to the doctor to have it confirmed or denied. And in parting, she was wondering if I had noticed it at all before he stepped foot out the door that morning.

So, I bring all of them into the doctor’s office, where they are sure to catch something else, and sure enough he had it and quit a good case of it. The good news is that he is no longer contagious now that he is sporting this amazing body rash that can last up to four weeks and works its way down the extremities.

Honestly, I was just pleased that I was trying to do my part and take care of his chapped cheeks.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

This afternoon as my dad and I were hanging out in the kitchen drinking a cup of tea, I saw some animal scrounging around the back door. I had recently gone to Costco and left several empty boxes outside the door along with one extremely rancid poop infested diaper.

I went to the window to find the mangiest looking opossum I have ever seen. That little critter came right up to the back door, moved the boxes around and then stuck the nasty balled up diaper onto its snout and walked off with it as proud as can be.

I’m left wondering if that diaper is her Valentine’s gift for her opossum lover, her twelve children or for us and if we’ll find it somewhere in the yard during our Easter egg hunt.