Please, just go to sleep already!
I was just about to lie down here at 5 AM and BEEP BEEP BEEP! Sucking chest would in the ED. I could hear the accusation from the hallway outside of the Trauma Bay.
"I don't know man! I was just sleeping in my bed and Some Dude just came in and stabbed me!"
(I was so hoping to get an hour or two of sleep before my girls' Author's Teas this morning.)
Friday, May 28, 2010
Some Dude Has Struck Again
Well, it is 2AM and here I sit, feeling a bit of deja-vu. I have just put to sleep a man that was assaulted by Roanoke's most infamous churl: Some Dude. I have just gotten the victim to sleep and all tucked in and my nurse anesthetist is taking most excellent care of Mr. S while I reflect for a minute.
I met Mr. S in the ER about a half an hour ago, after he was brought in by a paramedic unit. His neck has a deep, near circumferential gash with clear arterial bleeding emanating from it's center. There are also deep, jagged gashes in both of his arms, with yellow, globular fat and strandy muscles poking out of them. Amazingly, he arrived coherent and absolutely intent on telling us his story.
He was..ahem...walking home from bible study about 45 minutes ago, at 1AM, minding his own business, when Some Dude jumped out from behind a dumpster on Williamson Road and visciously slashed his neck and stabbed his arms. With a broken beer bottle. Oooooo-kay. Some Dude is just rude. I mean, to assault a God-fearing man, on his way home from bible study?!!? What, on God's green earth, is up with that?
The crazy thing is....Some Dude does shit like this ALL of the time. Just last week, another guy was brought in from the local flea bag motel. He was apparently "gettin' wit his girl" when Some Dude broke into the hotel room and shot the guy in the ass! Really! And for no reason at all, according to the guy. Now the girl also happened to be the girl of another guy, too. Was the other guy Some Dude? That was a matter of much debate in the OR that night.
And then not long ago, a local and quite notorious mid-level drug dealer limped into the ER with a gun shot wound in his right foot. Coincidentally, the local drug culture dictates a shot to the right foot for the first offense of unpaid drug debt. The police came to question him and what do you know? The gimp absolutely refused to identify his assailant. All he would say was that it was...you guessed it. Some Dude.
Amazingly, none of Some Dude's victims ever get a really good look at him. And Some Dude must have shape-shifting skillz, too. Sometimes he's tall and skinny, other times he's average and muscular. There are usually some vaguely remembered details, but nothing really detailed or specific that can help out the City Police.
Some Dude really gets around. He manages to be involved in the majority of the subversive, after-hour happenings around town.
I don't know much about thug culture, drug dealing or bible studies. But I do know this. I hope and pray I never run across Some Dude. But I know that if I ever do, I will run for my freaking life.
I met Mr. S in the ER about a half an hour ago, after he was brought in by a paramedic unit. His neck has a deep, near circumferential gash with clear arterial bleeding emanating from it's center. There are also deep, jagged gashes in both of his arms, with yellow, globular fat and strandy muscles poking out of them. Amazingly, he arrived coherent and absolutely intent on telling us his story.
He was..ahem...walking home from bible study about 45 minutes ago, at 1AM, minding his own business, when Some Dude jumped out from behind a dumpster on Williamson Road and visciously slashed his neck and stabbed his arms. With a broken beer bottle. Oooooo-kay. Some Dude is just rude. I mean, to assault a God-fearing man, on his way home from bible study?!!? What, on God's green earth, is up with that?
The crazy thing is....Some Dude does shit like this ALL of the time. Just last week, another guy was brought in from the local flea bag motel. He was apparently "gettin' wit his girl" when Some Dude broke into the hotel room and shot the guy in the ass! Really! And for no reason at all, according to the guy. Now the girl also happened to be the girl of another guy, too. Was the other guy Some Dude? That was a matter of much debate in the OR that night.
And then not long ago, a local and quite notorious mid-level drug dealer limped into the ER with a gun shot wound in his right foot. Coincidentally, the local drug culture dictates a shot to the right foot for the first offense of unpaid drug debt. The police came to question him and what do you know? The gimp absolutely refused to identify his assailant. All he would say was that it was...you guessed it. Some Dude.
Amazingly, none of Some Dude's victims ever get a really good look at him. And Some Dude must have shape-shifting skillz, too. Sometimes he's tall and skinny, other times he's average and muscular. There are usually some vaguely remembered details, but nothing really detailed or specific that can help out the City Police.
Some Dude really gets around. He manages to be involved in the majority of the subversive, after-hour happenings around town.
I don't know much about thug culture, drug dealing or bible studies. But I do know this. I hope and pray I never run across Some Dude. But I know that if I ever do, I will run for my freaking life.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Don't Worry, Be Happy!
“We see it as an entrepreneurial bill,” Pelosi said, “a bill that says to someone, if you want to be creative and be a musician or whatever, you can leave your work, focus on your talent, your skill, your passion, your aspirations because you will have health care.”
Get that? Go ahead and quit that low-paying (or high-paying, for that matter) job, because the rest of us will carry your load. What happens when we reach that tipping point, though? Who pays the piper when no one's working?
As Margaret Thatcher once thoughtfully observed: "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."
Thursday, May 20, 2010
A Day in the Life...
5:50 am - Alarm goes off. Get up, get dressed, go downstairs. Feed two impatient cats and one dog who always waits his turn. Pour coffee and place travel mug in two ziplocked bags. Hope to never have an in-backpack coffee spill again. Eat last piece of toasted home-baked bread and remind myself to bake a couple more loaves tonight. Throw Mojo bar, Cheese-Its, apple and string cheese in backpack.
6:15 am - Greet Clara and Jack who come downstairs. Answer, as I do every morning that, yes, I do have to go to work so can't get them dressed, eat breakfast with them or walk them so school. Feel a bit shitty about that and somewhat jealous of Andrew.
6:25 am - Walk to the hospital with Goose. Enjoy exactly 17 minutes of peace and good conversation with our ex-stray.
6:45 am- Dress in greens and see my first patient. Unlucky man who broke his neck in a car accident. Explain to him that I will have to put his breathing tube in while he is awake to avoid damaging his spinal cord. Reassure him that it is not nearly as bad as it sounds. Glad that it is not 8 years ago, when I was new at doing awake intubations and lacked the finesse that I will use today to back up my reasurances.
7:00 am - Set up my operating room, check my anesthesia machine, draw up drugs. Check and double check everything. A mild case of OCD is a prerequisite for this field. Eat Mojo bar and drink coffee while doing all of this.
7:15am - Patient rolls into the room. Numb his upper airway with tubes and jelly and aerosols and sprays. Inject lidocaine through his neck and into his windpipe. Use a shockingly large-bored needle to do this as it's got to have enough tenacity to poke through the cartilagenous tracheal rings. Shutter as I do this as I've never gotten used to stabbing people's necks until their breath wooshes out at me. Snake a fiberoptic bronchoscope through his nostril and his vocal cords. Slide breathing tube over scope. Finally, mercifully, put him to sleep.
10:00 am - Finely tune drugs, gasses and ventilator settings in order to take the man as close to death as he'll ever go (until he dies, of course) while keeping him comfortably asleep and his vital signs stable. Wake him up as the bandages go on. He remembers nothing of his intubation. Silently praise amnestic drugs.
10:15 am - See second patient. Three year old who needs his humerus fracture fixed. Read the chart and realize that this is a suspected child abuse case. Which explains the nurse who does not leave the child's side. Automatically despise the mother. Take a history from the mother and see her red-rimmed eyes and the regret and love contained in them. Realize I want to hug the mother and tell her that only by God's grace have many of us not been in her shoes. That love, exhaustion, anger and frustration are intimately entwined.
10:30 am - Gently put the toddler to sleep, while stroking his cheeks and whispering in his ear, hoping to give him a moment's peace.
11:00 am - Answer page from recovery room. The neck patient is having nausea. I order more drugs and hope they help as I figure vomiting with a neck incision has got to be fairly miserable.
11:05 am - Answer page from pre-op. Order versed (anti-anxiety medication) for my next patient after being told she is sobbing and disturbing the other patients.
noon: Wake baby up. Skeletal survey has been read by the radiologist, who calls in the room and reports his findings of multiple fractures in various states of healing in his ribs and legs. Take him to recovery and ask the nurses to be very gentle since he probably hurts all over.
12:10 pm - Go to doctor's lounge to sign charts, eat apple, cheese and Cheese-Its. Listen to news about health care reform. Wonder how many hospitals will have to close due to Medicare cuts and how many physicians will be able to stay out of hospital employment situations. Realize there is nothing I can do about it.
12:20 pm - See third patient. 36 year old for a D and C for a miscarriage. Turn my name badge (with the small photo of my three children taped on it) over before I meet her. She is a G4P0 (four pregancies, no children). She looks sad and resigned. The husband can't even look at me. He has his hand on her belly. They saw a heartbeat six weeks ago. It was gone yesterday at her OB appointment.
12:25 pm - Place a long thin needle in the woman's back. Wait for clear cerebrospinal fluid drip back out at me and then inject some numbing medicine. Marvel that a single cc (or gram) of fluid can make a person completely numb for hours. Sedate the woman after her spinal is in place. (She couldn't really explain why she didn't just want to be put to sleep for the procedure. She just preferred a spinal.) Quietly discuss with obstetrician her odds of ever completing a pregancy. They are slim, unless they do IVF with donor eggs. Of course, who has the money for that in this recession?
1:30 pm - See fourth patient. Post-partum tubal ligation. A Medicaid (welfare) patient who just had her 6th child in the wee hours of the morning. Ask her if she understands the permanence of the procedure. She assures me that she does. As a matter of fact, she wanted it done after her 5th baby, but got tired of waiting for her doctor who was attending to a delivery. So she went home and got pregnant again. I call the OR to encourage the nurses to hurry up and take her back. I do NOT want her leaving again.
1:35 pm - Realize that with the new Medicaid/Medicare cuts Obama just approved, I will get paid exactly $126 dollars for anesthetizing this woman. After expenses, I will get well less than half. Sigh.
3:00 pm - Finish the case and take her to recovery.
3:15 pm - Use ultrasound to locate the brachial plexus, the network of nerves supplying sensory and motor function to the arm, in the neck of a man who just had shoulder surgery and is in exquisite pain. Carefully deposit numbing medicine on these nerves and feel really good when I see his heart rate and respiratory rate slow. He thanks me.
3:45 - Go perform a pre-operative evaluation on a patient who is having surgery the next day. Enjoy talking to her and her family. Take a history, listen to her heart and lungs, examine her airway, answer questions.
3:55 - Tell a nurse on the floor, who approaches me while I'm there, that, yes, I will do the anesthetic for her upcoming breast augmentation. Call my secretary to schedule same.
4:00 pm - Walk home. Feel so thankful that I am not on call that night and that my day was short. I rarely get out so early. Talk to my mother and my sisters on the walk home. Try to get my heart rate up because this will probably be the only exercise I get today.
4:20 pm - Walk in. One dog, two cats, three children and a husband all compete for my attention immediately. Try to make each feel that they have it, undivided, all at the same time. Help with electricity project, math homework, go through school folders, get dough mixed up for bread. Help Alice and Clara knead bread for me while enjoying the feel of their hands on mine.
4:50 pm - Drive the girls to ballet with Andrew. It's only a thirty minute practice so we walk to the local Irish pub and share a Guiness. Talk about our respective days. I don't talk about my patients. It would take too much time. And he wouldn't fully understand. You can't undertand the intensity of those situations without looking in the eyes of the people involved. Plus, he needs to discuss life insurance, summer camps and the fourth grade trip to Baltimore. I try to listen but my mind wanders to the three year old's mother. Wish I had the whole beer for myself.
5:30 pm - Pick up girls. Reassure them that they will do fine at the recital. Drive home. Bathe girls while Andrew finishes dinner.
6:00 pm - Eat black eyed peas served over jasmine rice with shredded cheddar, chopped onions and sour cream. And lots of Texas Pete. It's delicious. Pop bread into the oven and feel thankful that I know how do something so tangible for my family that they absolutely relish.
7:00 pm - Finish dishes and then Clara reads for Andrew and Alice reads for me. Alice is almost done with the last Bob book box and I'm proud of her.
7:30 pm - I read to both of them while Andrew does homework with Jack. Or they model. Or read books side by side.
8:30 pm - Put Jack to bed. Discuss whichever topic he's chosen for the night. He always saves his "heavy" topics for the nighttime. I used to think he was procrastinating lights out, but now I know he really needs to discuss issues he feels are important in the evenings with me.
8:45 pm - Shower. Answer emails. Try to study a bit for my recertification exam in anesthesiology.
9:45 pm - Read. If I'm disciplined, I turn my light off at 11. Say a prayer of thanks that I've been given such a full life. And pray for strength as I muddle through it.
6:15 am - Greet Clara and Jack who come downstairs. Answer, as I do every morning that, yes, I do have to go to work so can't get them dressed, eat breakfast with them or walk them so school. Feel a bit shitty about that and somewhat jealous of Andrew.
6:25 am - Walk to the hospital with Goose. Enjoy exactly 17 minutes of peace and good conversation with our ex-stray.
6:45 am- Dress in greens and see my first patient. Unlucky man who broke his neck in a car accident. Explain to him that I will have to put his breathing tube in while he is awake to avoid damaging his spinal cord. Reassure him that it is not nearly as bad as it sounds. Glad that it is not 8 years ago, when I was new at doing awake intubations and lacked the finesse that I will use today to back up my reasurances.
7:00 am - Set up my operating room, check my anesthesia machine, draw up drugs. Check and double check everything. A mild case of OCD is a prerequisite for this field. Eat Mojo bar and drink coffee while doing all of this.
7:15am - Patient rolls into the room. Numb his upper airway with tubes and jelly and aerosols and sprays. Inject lidocaine through his neck and into his windpipe. Use a shockingly large-bored needle to do this as it's got to have enough tenacity to poke through the cartilagenous tracheal rings. Shutter as I do this as I've never gotten used to stabbing people's necks until their breath wooshes out at me. Snake a fiberoptic bronchoscope through his nostril and his vocal cords. Slide breathing tube over scope. Finally, mercifully, put him to sleep.
10:00 am - Finely tune drugs, gasses and ventilator settings in order to take the man as close to death as he'll ever go (until he dies, of course) while keeping him comfortably asleep and his vital signs stable. Wake him up as the bandages go on. He remembers nothing of his intubation. Silently praise amnestic drugs.
10:15 am - See second patient. Three year old who needs his humerus fracture fixed. Read the chart and realize that this is a suspected child abuse case. Which explains the nurse who does not leave the child's side. Automatically despise the mother. Take a history from the mother and see her red-rimmed eyes and the regret and love contained in them. Realize I want to hug the mother and tell her that only by God's grace have many of us not been in her shoes. That love, exhaustion, anger and frustration are intimately entwined.
10:30 am - Gently put the toddler to sleep, while stroking his cheeks and whispering in his ear, hoping to give him a moment's peace.
11:00 am - Answer page from recovery room. The neck patient is having nausea. I order more drugs and hope they help as I figure vomiting with a neck incision has got to be fairly miserable.
11:05 am - Answer page from pre-op. Order versed (anti-anxiety medication) for my next patient after being told she is sobbing and disturbing the other patients.
noon: Wake baby up. Skeletal survey has been read by the radiologist, who calls in the room and reports his findings of multiple fractures in various states of healing in his ribs and legs. Take him to recovery and ask the nurses to be very gentle since he probably hurts all over.
12:10 pm - Go to doctor's lounge to sign charts, eat apple, cheese and Cheese-Its. Listen to news about health care reform. Wonder how many hospitals will have to close due to Medicare cuts and how many physicians will be able to stay out of hospital employment situations. Realize there is nothing I can do about it.
12:20 pm - See third patient. 36 year old for a D and C for a miscarriage. Turn my name badge (with the small photo of my three children taped on it) over before I meet her. She is a G4P0 (four pregancies, no children). She looks sad and resigned. The husband can't even look at me. He has his hand on her belly. They saw a heartbeat six weeks ago. It was gone yesterday at her OB appointment.
12:25 pm - Place a long thin needle in the woman's back. Wait for clear cerebrospinal fluid drip back out at me and then inject some numbing medicine. Marvel that a single cc (or gram) of fluid can make a person completely numb for hours. Sedate the woman after her spinal is in place. (She couldn't really explain why she didn't just want to be put to sleep for the procedure. She just preferred a spinal.) Quietly discuss with obstetrician her odds of ever completing a pregancy. They are slim, unless they do IVF with donor eggs. Of course, who has the money for that in this recession?
1:30 pm - See fourth patient. Post-partum tubal ligation. A Medicaid (welfare) patient who just had her 6th child in the wee hours of the morning. Ask her if she understands the permanence of the procedure. She assures me that she does. As a matter of fact, she wanted it done after her 5th baby, but got tired of waiting for her doctor who was attending to a delivery. So she went home and got pregnant again. I call the OR to encourage the nurses to hurry up and take her back. I do NOT want her leaving again.
1:35 pm - Realize that with the new Medicaid/Medicare cuts Obama just approved, I will get paid exactly $126 dollars for anesthetizing this woman. After expenses, I will get well less than half. Sigh.
3:00 pm - Finish the case and take her to recovery.
3:15 pm - Use ultrasound to locate the brachial plexus, the network of nerves supplying sensory and motor function to the arm, in the neck of a man who just had shoulder surgery and is in exquisite pain. Carefully deposit numbing medicine on these nerves and feel really good when I see his heart rate and respiratory rate slow. He thanks me.
3:45 - Go perform a pre-operative evaluation on a patient who is having surgery the next day. Enjoy talking to her and her family. Take a history, listen to her heart and lungs, examine her airway, answer questions.
3:55 - Tell a nurse on the floor, who approaches me while I'm there, that, yes, I will do the anesthetic for her upcoming breast augmentation. Call my secretary to schedule same.
4:00 pm - Walk home. Feel so thankful that I am not on call that night and that my day was short. I rarely get out so early. Talk to my mother and my sisters on the walk home. Try to get my heart rate up because this will probably be the only exercise I get today.
4:20 pm - Walk in. One dog, two cats, three children and a husband all compete for my attention immediately. Try to make each feel that they have it, undivided, all at the same time. Help with electricity project, math homework, go through school folders, get dough mixed up for bread. Help Alice and Clara knead bread for me while enjoying the feel of their hands on mine.
4:50 pm - Drive the girls to ballet with Andrew. It's only a thirty minute practice so we walk to the local Irish pub and share a Guiness. Talk about our respective days. I don't talk about my patients. It would take too much time. And he wouldn't fully understand. You can't undertand the intensity of those situations without looking in the eyes of the people involved. Plus, he needs to discuss life insurance, summer camps and the fourth grade trip to Baltimore. I try to listen but my mind wanders to the three year old's mother. Wish I had the whole beer for myself.
5:30 pm - Pick up girls. Reassure them that they will do fine at the recital. Drive home. Bathe girls while Andrew finishes dinner.
6:00 pm - Eat black eyed peas served over jasmine rice with shredded cheddar, chopped onions and sour cream. And lots of Texas Pete. It's delicious. Pop bread into the oven and feel thankful that I know how do something so tangible for my family that they absolutely relish.
7:00 pm - Finish dishes and then Clara reads for Andrew and Alice reads for me. Alice is almost done with the last Bob book box and I'm proud of her.
7:30 pm - I read to both of them while Andrew does homework with Jack. Or they model. Or read books side by side.
8:30 pm - Put Jack to bed. Discuss whichever topic he's chosen for the night. He always saves his "heavy" topics for the nighttime. I used to think he was procrastinating lights out, but now I know he really needs to discuss issues he feels are important in the evenings with me.
8:45 pm - Shower. Answer emails. Try to study a bit for my recertification exam in anesthesiology.
9:45 pm - Read. If I'm disciplined, I turn my light off at 11. Say a prayer of thanks that I've been given such a full life. And pray for strength as I muddle through it.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Thoughts on Mothers-in-Law
I've been thinking recently about mothers-in-law. I think because someone with whom I'm very close is going through a tremendously rough time with hers. And we've been talking about her experiences. These discussions we've been having have got me thinking. Thinking about the kind of mother-in-law I hope to be one day.
It seems that the simplest relationship involving a mother-in-law is that with her son-in-law. I rarely hear of troubles with that particular kind of relationship. But the mother-in-law daughter-in-law relationship? Now, that one can have some problems.
Let me preface these thoughts of mine by saying that I have a wonderful MIL. Andrew's mother is loving and kind. She is very good to her children and grandchildren and loves us all tremendously. She and Clara are pictured above, doing what they love to do best: just being together. In many respects, I am lucky in my MIL relationship.
My wonderful friend? Not so much. Her MIL is hateful to the very core. My friend used to tell me stories about her MIL and I'd say, "Just give it some time. She's adjusting. Being a MIL is not easy." So she waited...and things only got worse. The MIL says hurtful things about her DIL to other relatives. She posts mean things on Facebook. She has called her vulgar names on multiple occasions. And always in a sneaky, cowardly manner: when she thinks she can get away with it without others finding out.
She has been caught in multiple and flagrant lies, too. For instance, just recently the MIL responded to a thread on FB, involving her DIL, with one simple word: BI***. Now, everyone who had previously made a comment on that particular thread, including myself, received an email from Facebook, with a copy of this comment. When asked about it, she denied it. Flat out lied. A grown woman!
And something that she did that was particularly hateful and seemed intended to be destructive to her son and DIL's relationship: she told the DIL that her son used to be happy, but since he married her, he has become unhappy and is not himself anymore. What kind of mother and MIL does this? And I should point out that her claim is so untrue, it is laughable. While the past year's hardships with the MIL have indeed presented a challenge to this couple, and I do personally believe the the MIL is out to destroy their marriage, these trials have only made this loving couple stronger. They are lucky though. This is the kind of stress and grief that destroys marriages.
Worse, the woman clearly has some serious mental illness, and likely has for a long time. She has even been kicked out of a public venue due to her irrational behavior. All of her family members, close ones and more distant ones, acknowledge this in private to the son and DIL, but no one steps up to insist that she gets help. So, she just continues to abuse and torture her DIL.
Equally horrible is the fact that her own son is suffering tremendously. He grieved about the situation for a long while, but now seems resigned. Sad, defeated and resigned. His recent experiences as an expectant and first-time father have been overshadowed with tension and sadness. How could a mother do this to her son?
But in the end, it is the MIL who will suffer the most. She will never have any kind of meaningful relationship with her son, her DIL, and perhaps most tragically, her grandchildren. She has burned bridges that can never be rebuilt. Both the son and DIL agree that she is too unstable to ever be left alone with the children. And, as a matter of fact, they avoid seeing her at all.
Sad, sad, sad.
So...what are the qualities of a good MIL? The kind of MIL I want to be when Jack makes me one...
1. I will try to see my DIL through my son's eyes. I will try to see her for the person with whom my son fell in love.
2. I will not let her religion, cultural background, educational background or philosophical background define her. If she is a Japanese Buddhist who meditates half of the day, I will try to understand that. I certainly will not ridicule it. I will accept it and support her.
3. I will not stop over on my whim. I will always call first and respect their home as theirs.
4. I will talk honestly, openly and humbly about miscommunication or conflict. I will pursue resolution and that fact, in itself, will speak volumes.
5. I will be responsive to my DIL's needs and feelings. Even if I don't understand them. Empathy is key.
6. I will be flexible. For instance, if they can't see us on Christmas, I will gracefully celebrate the holiday with them during the time surrounding the actual day.
I will do all of these things because they are the right things to do. I will do them so that I can have a fulfilling relationship with my DIL. So that there is peace in the family.
But the most important reason for following the above rules is simple. It is because I love my son. And I would never want to disappoint him or hurt him, or, in any way, jeopardize my own relationship with him.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
We've Got Three Bike Riders
Yesterday, Saturday, was just one of those glorious days for the five of us: most of the day spent in our awesome new house, some exercise and a nice dinner out.
Jack had had a friend spend the night on Friday and the boy was picked up early by his father as he had a baseball game. And I was on 4th call and had to hang out around the house until I went off call at 3pm, in case I was needed at the hospital. Turns out I wasn't needed at all.
Before the addition was finished, a day like yesterday would not have been a fun day. Being in the kitchen would have required being away from the rest of the family. Additionally, there was no decent yard in which the children could play. No garden. Disorganization galore. Just not a pretty scene all around.
But now a day at home is just plain old fun. We lingered over coffee and breakfast. The girls read some Bob books to us. And they are just reading like champs. Then they played Barbies together nicely. Jack got a work station set up in the garage for his modeling and read a bunch of his current Harry Potter book. Then we streamed a movie for the kidlets from Netflix through our Wii (LOVE this feature). My Girl 2, I think it was. While they watched, Andrew and I went upstairs and enjoyed an hour long eucalyptus steam bath. Luxurious.
Once three o'clock rolled around, and we were no longer obligated to hang out at home, we took a 7 mile bike ride. We rode from our house down to the Roanoke Greenway. Meandered along the greenway for several miles, let the children play at a park for a while, then rode home.
On the way home, we rode on a path through the River's Edge playing fields and Clara, who was riding in a cart that Andrew was trailering, piped up that she'd like to try to ride Alice's bike.
Now, all previous attempts at teaching Clara to ride a bike have been disastrous. They've resulted in shrieking and crying and falling. And other parents looking at us like we were evil child abusers. As a result, we actually hadn't even tried with her since last autumn because we were trying to forestall yet another scene.
So we all stopped riding, slightly shocked and gun-shy. Clara climbed on Alice bike and took off. Rode for about five minutes like she'd been doing it her whole life. She was strong and steady, negotiated curves like a pro, sped up and slowed down well. The only problem was that she hasn't figured out how to pedal backwards to break. So when she wanted to stop she would just throw herself off of the bike and log roll to a stop. That was truly hilarious.
Thrilled for Clara, we all rode home, showered and enjoyed a nice celebratory dinner out.
So we can all now ride bikes. Great job, Clara, our lone bicycling holdout! We're glad you're in the saddle.
(The idea that Clara could ride all along but hid that fact due to being inherently lazy and preferring to ride in the cart is, definitely, a possibility. If so, her cleverness and scheming are hear by acknowledged.)
Friday, May 14, 2010
$115 Billion (and counting)
That's the latest guesstimate from the Congressional Budget Office on how much more Obamacare will really cost:
"The director of the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday that the health care reform legislation would cost, over the next ten years, $115 billion more than previously thought."
Right-brainers take note: this is what $1 Billion in crisp new $100 bills looks like:
Now multiply that by 115. And keep in mind, this sum is how much MORE Obamacare will cost. This is on top of the multi-trillion dollar inital estimate. (I've already stated my feelings on this so won't do it again.)
Kinda takes your breath away, doesn't it?
"The director of the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday that the health care reform legislation would cost, over the next ten years, $115 billion more than previously thought."
Right-brainers take note: this is what $1 Billion in crisp new $100 bills looks like:
Kinda takes your breath away, doesn't it?
Can't Get My Mind off Obamacare (aka The Act That Dooms My Children to a Lifetime of Inflation and Debt)
The Patient Protection and Unaffordable Health Care Act (Obamacare) requires health insurance companies to allow children to stay on (or even return to) Mommy and Daddy's health insurance plan until age 27.
This is not new news, but like all of the other financial aspects of Obamacare, it continues peeve me to no end.
The Heritage Foundation reports this on KiddieCare:
"Beyond keeping the 'Big Kids' dependent on Mommy and Daddy, it also directly undercuts the President’s famous campaign promise that American families would see a $2,500 reduction in their annual premiums."
Now, we learn that everyone's premiums will rise about 1 percent in 2012 just from this one provision of the new law. It will cost $3,380 for each dependent in 2011, according to an Associated Press report.
Wonder if mommy and daddy will pass that premium increase on to their children. Or will they wait until the kids officially become adults at the ripe old age of 27?
This is not new news, but like all of the other financial aspects of Obamacare, it continues peeve me to no end.
The Heritage Foundation reports this on KiddieCare:
"Beyond keeping the 'Big Kids' dependent on Mommy and Daddy, it also directly undercuts the President’s famous campaign promise that American families would see a $2,500 reduction in their annual premiums."
Now, we learn that everyone's premiums will rise about 1 percent in 2012 just from this one provision of the new law. It will cost $3,380 for each dependent in 2011, according to an Associated Press report.
Wonder if mommy and daddy will pass that premium increase on to their children. Or will they wait until the kids officially become adults at the ripe old age of 27?
What's For Dinner
Yesterday, I saw a product I'd never seen before at Sams. Bearded mussels. Fresh, in big mesh bags over ice. Yum! So we bought a three pound bag and high-tailed it home.
What to do with the mussels... Hmmm... I considered steaming them with wine, garlic and herbs. And then serving them with a crusty French baguette topped with sweet cream Plugra butter from Fresh Market. And a salad of local organic greens (that we picked up at the Raleigh Court farmer's market this past Saturday), goat cheese, walnuts and sliced grapes topped with a vinaigrette made with walnut oil, lemon juice, shallots and vinegar.
But I was in the mood for a little more spice and had had a Thai craving that's gone unfulfilled for a couple of weeks now. So I googled "Thai mussels" on my iPhone on the way home and found a recipe from the magazine Cooking Light that sounded delicious.
And it was! Even the children gobbled it down and two of three them dove back into a second bowl. If it had just been me, Andew and Jack, and even Alice really, I would have ramped up the spiciness. But as it was, it was plenty spicy and just absolutely delicious.
4 (generous) servings
1 teaspoon red Thai curry paste2 1/2 cups of canned, unsweetened coconut milk
1 cup of water
1 1/2 cups purchased broccoli slaw
1/2 cup uncooked shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/2 pound sea scallops
1 pound of mussels, scrubbed
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil (I used cilantro. Basil just didn't make sense.)
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons of fish sauce2 cups of hot, cooked jasmine rice (2/3 cup raw)
Place curry paste in large pot. Whisk in 1/2 cup coconut milk. Bring to boil for 1 minute. Stir in remaining 2 cups of coconut milk and 1 cup of water. Add broccoli slaw, shrimp and scallops. Top with mussels. Return to boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer until mussels open and seafood is cooked, about 3 minutes. Discard unopened mussels. Add basil, lime juice and fish sauce. Season with salt and pepper.
Press rice into four 2/3 cup custard cups, diving equally. (any small, rounded bowl will do). Invert into larger bowls. Spoon stew around rice and serve.
I decided to save the salad and baguette for tonight as the stew turned out to be a complete meal in one bowl. It had lean protein, complex carbohydrates and plenty of veggies. I served the stew with a chunked cantaloupe and that was dinner!
I'll definitely be putting this recipe into the regular dinner rotation.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Tears at Dinner
In years past, I have pondered the very possibility of having a slacker-child. One that is bright and does fine in school, but just has no desire to do really well. To achieve his or her potential. I mean, if you have a slacker child, how do you instill the high-achieving work ethic if they don't have it naturally? I don't know if that's possible.
I remember from my school days that for every high-achieving, AP class-taking, first-tier college-attending classmate of mine there were twenty (or more!) kids who just coasted through. And I don't want my kidlets to be coasters! I want them to be able to do whatever it is they want to do with their lives. Therefore, I'd hate for them to close any doors with their slacker-ness. I mean, who gets into med school with a 3.2 from State U? No one.
So...I guess we sort of hoped and prayed and worked hard ourselves at everything they saw us do. And luckily, Jack (the only one who is old enough to prove his non-slacker-ness) is, indeed, not a slacker!! Woot!
Except Jack has taken it to the extreme...a bit. For instance, yesterday he came home from school in a snit. Strode in, dropped his bookbag on the kitchen table (I knew we pickled it for a reason), and plopped down on the sofa with an audible huff, arms crossed across chest.
Now some of that could be that yesterday was a day the school system decided to keep the children two hours late to prepare for the SOLs (don't even get me started on that one...) and he was exhausted. And hungry. Nothing to eat since their 10:30 lunch (yes, 10:30 lunch, don't get me started on that one either). You see, the school provides the children with an afternoon snack on these late days. Only they decided to bring in Chick-fil-a.
So the cafeteria lady brought him a fried chicken sandwich, to which Jack replied, "I'm a vegetarian. No thanks."
lady: "How bout some nuggets."
Jack: "No thanks."
lady: "You don't like fried? How bout a grill chicken sandwich?"
Jack: "No thanks. I don't eat meat. I'm a vegetarian."
lady: "Oh, you a health nut? How bout some chicken soup?"
So he was starving and tired. And he had gotten his Social Studies test back.
He missed a question about the Constitution. He said he read the question, knew the right answer, but then talked himself out of it and chose the wrong one. Ah ha! A great lesson! In multiple choice test scenarios, always go with your first instinct. That's a strategy that's been proven in studies. And what a great time to learn that lesson. In the 4th grade!
He handed me the test. A solid "A." 94%. And then the tears started. He hated that he got a 94%. What? Jack, that is a really, really good grade, I told him. You learned a great lesson, and got an A to boot, I continued.
The tears settled after a while. (Interestingly, he no longer sobs when he cries. Tears and sniffing are all we have leftover from the wailing of his baby- and toddler-hood. And that is is somehow so, so sad to me .) I think he feels o.k. with his grade. But truly, he was and is really bothered by less than perfection in himself.
Now, as is my motherly burden, I have something new to worry about: ulcers.
Little Dancers
Well, its spring recital time again. A time of tri-weekly rehearsals, costume fittings, replinishing hairspray and bobby pin supplies and trying to talk little girls into sqeezing their feet into too-tight tap shoes for just a couple more weeks.
Alice and Clara started tap this year. It's ballet only for the first couple of years after little girls start to dance. Until the teachers feel like the girls have developed enough coordination to tap dance without sounding like a cacophany. So this year they are Combo 1 dancers. An hour of combined ballet and tap once a week from September through April. And then in May things really intensify. They rehearse twice during the school week and on weekends with the whole company. The girls just love the weekend practices because they get to watch the big girls dance. And those girls really are spectacular.
It's a bit sad for me this year because Alice has decided that this will be her last season of dance. She really wants to focus on soccer, basketball and swimming. And she feels, and we wholeheartedly agree, that she would be overextending herself if she tried to do it all. I really think that my children need some days to simply play after school. To be scheduled to do absolutely nothing.
And although Alice likes to dance, she loves to play competitive sports. So she made a choice. She is wavering a bit now that we are in dance fervor and the recital excitement is building, and if she does want to dance in the fall, I certainly wouldn't object. But I feel, in the end, that competitive sports will win out for Alice.
But I will so miss seeing her in her costumes! I will miss getting that lump in my throat when the hair and makeup are all done and we slip her dresses on. I have always really wanted dancing twin daughters. And I got them, if just for a little while. But now Alice is making her own decisions and for that I am so proud!
But I will always treasure the pictures of my youngest in her dance finery! Last week, I took this picture of her from across the room during the girls' session with Kevin Hurley, a local photographer who has photographed our family for 6 years now:
And then I got on my new favorite photo editing website called Picnik and edited it up. I'm so proud of my results! A big crop, a splash of vibrance, some softening with a central focus. And then a click of "vingnette." Voila!
Sweet Alice
My consolation for Alice ending her illustrious dance career is two-fold. First, Clara has no plans to stop dancing. Ever. She is a dancer and she's proud of it. She has no interest in wearing unflattering sports uniforms, sweating (we call the perspiration from dance her "glow") or grunting with any sort of effort.
And dance really does suit her. She's got rhythm, loves music and had the natural physique of a dancer.
Sweet Clara
And secondly, I have pride in that my daughters are choosing their own paths. That they, despite being twins, feel enough self-identitiy and self-confidence to forge their individual paths.
They still start each day in each others arms. (Really. It is just too cute.) And they end each day the same way. And they still come together during the day when they are able. (Alice's teacher just told us that Clara was sent to him with a message. She delivered it and on the way out of the Alice's classroom she paused and looked at Alice. Alice ran to her and they hugged for a few seconds and then both went about their day.)
But they are, indeed, finding their own ways. Using their own preferences and desires and logic and decision-making. Yay for my girls!!
Monday, May 3, 2010
Introducing...
The second place winner of the Crystal Spring Elementary School Fun Run, kindergarden division!
(And her biggest fan.)
These days where kids get trophies and medals for merely participating in sports, a genuinely earned award is really, really something of which to be proud.
And Alice is a truly talented, kick-ass athlete. The other two? Notsomuch. But Alice has the fire and the skill and she just may make something of herself athletically.
It is so much fun seeing children, who are being raised so similarly (and my twins, nearly exactly), turn out so differently. They all three have such cool strengths.
It's sort of a liberating concept: they turn out how they turn out despite us!
Saturday, May 1, 2010
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