Fieldtrip

Kirk and I were enjoying some adult conversation time we had penciled in on the calendar the other night after we put the kids to bed.

As we were talking, we saw out of the corner of our eye, something fluttering down to the ground from the upstairs followed by quick footsteps as we heard the perpetrator run away.

Curious, Kirk went over to see what it was. Then trying to contain our laughter read:

Not exactly what I was expecting since most of the recent notes my daughter has left me said something along the lines of "I want a dog. Please reply." Which is followed by a note stating I already have four kids.

We both quietly laughed and then I sat there actually thinking I wasn't really SURE why they call it a field trip if you don't go to a field. So, I tried to make something up that she might believe. Much like my parents telling me years ago that my hair would fall out if I kept twirling it.

I told her she needed to take a fieldtrip to her room...........

Miss me much?

I KNOW!!! It's been forever!

I have some pictures to show what I've been doing for the last month or so. Just so you know I haven't been slacking.

I went in for my ankle tendon reconstruction surgery on February 2nd. Groundhog day.

Here's what my ankle looked like right before heading off to surgery. We made sure to use a sharpie to mark which foot to operate on:

And what it looked like afterwards in the splint:

Lucky for you, I couldn't find my camera the day I went back to Dr. Doogie Howser to remove my splint and get my ankle casted. It was the nastiest, gnarliest, hairiest, smelliest, stitched up bruised piece of gross I've ever seen. The Dr. said it looked really good. Figures. I thought it looked like he attached someone else's foot.

WARNING: If you are eating, you might want to put down your food at this time.

Too much information ahead.

See, with this particular surgery, they made a 2 inch incision up at my calf to stretch/repair my tendon to my calf muscle. Then there is about a 6 inch incision from just above my ankle to the middle of my arch. This is where they took a tendon from my big toe to repair my torn tendon just above my ankle. Then I have a 2 inch incision on the outside of the foot at an angle that goes from the bottom of my foot to the back of the foot which is where they went in and broke my ankle bone and moved it about 1 cm so it was more "under" my body. Lastly, I have a small incision on the back of my foot where they placed about a 2 inch screw to hold my ankle bone in place.

I KNOW! Nasty!

I went last Friday to have the splint removed and put in a non walking cast which means crutches for the next four weeks. While I was at the Dr. I mentioned that my calf has been in a constant knot for about a week and is the most excruciatingly painful thing ever. He was concerned I might have a blood clot so he sent me downstairs to another office to get a STAT ultrasound. Unfortunately STAT to them meant at least an hour wait. Little did they know those were the WRONG choice of words to say to my Doctor dad who promptly told them where to shove it. We left and went to the emergency room at a hospital close to home. They did an ultrasound which luckily showed no blockage in my veins and no clots. The young lady who did my ultrasound commented about how it was nice that I had "skinny" legs because it made it easier to see the veins. LOVE HER! We got out of there just in time for the Friday night freak show.



I'll be honest. Along with the grossness of it all, the recovery has been, truthfully, the worst pain I have ever felt in my life. Worse than my regular birth or 3 c/sections. Worse than my two kidney and gallbladder stone attacks. WAY worse. The first few days, my Oxycontin and Percocets weren't even touching it. Add to that my calf muscle in a never ending charlie horse and having to watch the downhill slide of our country since Obama took office, I've been pretty miserable.

About 11 days after the surgery, I was finally starting to feel like I was making progress. I've ventured from the bed to the family room where I see the same view, day in and day out.

The view in front of me with my cool "Suns" colored cast and sexy blood clot reducing sock:

The view to my left:

The view to my right:

The view right next to me:

And what I've tried to avoid climbing on me:

My office/nest/laundry room:

After the cast comes off, I'll be in a walking boot for six weeks then I'll start physical therapy.

I can't wait to shower again. It's the little things you take for granted.....

The moral of the story is: One should only attempt to do laundry at their own risk.

100 Day School Celebration

I have a smart son.

Today, Jack showed me his 100 day celebration artwork he made at school. He was proud of his 100 boxes of M & Ms he declared he could "eat" and I laughed at his wit when he drew a picture of what he will look like when he is 100 ( a mound of dirt and a gravestone ).

Then, with enthusiasm, he showed me the picture of what he wanted the most. 100 toys to go with the 100 bedrooms in the house with our 100 kids.

Come again?


I laughed. He was serious. I think..........

I told him I know we already have "100 toys" because I seem to be the only one who knows how to pick them up. I then tried to break it to him very gently that we would not have 100 kids let alone a 100 bedroom house.

I was impressed with his optimism when he said we already had 4 kids so......
"We could have them in sets of two. No....TRIPLETS! No WAIT! Uh, Mom.....what is 'four'?"

"Quadruplets?"

"Yeah! Or you could have them five at a time!"

"That's quintuplets honey. And six would be sextuplets and seven septuplets!" You learn these terms when you grow up in a family with multiples. Anything more than "twins" is considered a swear word and you may be struck down for even suggesting such things.

His eyes grew bigger and bigger with excitement as he anxiously danced around actually believing this was all possible. I wasn't prepared to have a birds and bees talk with my six year old with Dora blaring in the background. I just told him I was too old to have 100 kids then continued......

"And eight would be octuplets! And after that, I have no idea what it's called. Insanity maybe?"

Here I was thinking this was just a fun little math lesson until I realized he was really serious. So I asked him who would change all of those stinky diapers?

Being the smart, quick-wit child, he replied, rather quickly I might add, "Lauren can!"

I heard a stunned, "HUH?" in the background then got the impression Lauren wasn't too thrilled with this plan.

Jack then said, "Yeah! Lauren wants to learn to change diapers." And then he was gone..........

Told you he was smart......

10th Anniversary at Disneyland

We had a GREAT time! And note to self.........never EVER go to Disneyland again unless it is in the month of January. And while our anniversary technically isn't until April 1st, we figured we'd take the opportunity to go now since I'll be immobile when our real anniversary comes around.

We stayed at the Grand Californian Hotel right off of California Adventure. This was the lobby:

And this was our view of Downtown Disney:

And this dude from the ESPN restaurant, I swear, was Drake's twin:

In either case, they are both in need of a serious haircut. It was a crack up to watch him make his finger gestures I'm guessing directing people where the nearest exits were......

This is us right before our River Rapids ride. I was the lucky one to get the most wet and my hair wasn't the same the rest of the day:

Trying to get a shot of Main Street USA:

Until a nice lady came along and offered to take it for us:

I think we spent the most time on the Toy Story Mania ride. Kirk got the third highest score on one of our days there. I was ranked #5 on the Buzz Lightyear ride with my lightening fast laser speed action: And no, there is no shame in beating scores of the two year olds in line. If they can't stand the heat.....maybe they ought to stick with the Dumbo ride.

I got one of these:

While Kirk played Toy Story Mania with the dude who holds the high score. He got a few pointers then tried to hide those pointers from me until I pointed out that he looked like a cat with a canary in its mouth. He spilled a couple.......I'll share one with you: If you pop all of the balloons in the clouds together and within the same time, rainbow balloons will fall down worth 2000 points each. Just so you know.....

We had a lot of fun. It wasn't long after we got home and heard the first set of whining and complaining that we were shocked back into reality again. At least our Cokes are cheaper in the "real" world.......

I Don't have time for this!

I really need to be careful what I do and say around the kids.

The other day, I was frustrated that Erik couldn't get his act together when we needed to be out the door..... like yesterday. This, by the way, is typical. He wouldn't get dressed then when he did, it was slopped on by his semi-nutritious breakfast of Cinnamon Toast Crunch which meant going upstairs for a new outfit just to later discover he also didn't know where he put his shoes. Typical. And being typical, the typical response by myself is, "I don't have TIME for this!"

So, what does my three year old say to me when he didn't want to stop playing his video game? "MOM! I don't have TIME for this!"

Ok. I deserved that one.


The night before Kirk and I were leaving for our 10th anniversary get-a-way, I was doing laundry. That's not the typical part....... I was also trying to get little kids ready for bed. Typically, I throw their pj's over the stairs railing if I'm not quite ready to go downstairs that way they will be waiting for me when I am.

Typically, this trick works great. Not-so-typically, my youngest caught me and thought he would "help". The contents of a clean and folded basket ( sometimes typical but usually not ) were thrown over the railing.

And typically, I had to get a picture so I could blog it. My second most popular phrase?

"Not HELPING!"

Things to remember for next Christmas

1. Pay someone a million dollars to cut out the toys from their obnoxious, over-kill packaging.

2. If no one takes me up on my million dollar offer, be sure to at least wear gloves and keep naughty words to a minimum.

3. Don't put out my cute, breakable Christmas decorations.

4. Teach Ian that glass ornament balls are not to be used for throwing.

5. Buy more ceramic glue to fix said broken decorations.

6. Hide fudge from Erik.

7. Outside lights really aren't a necessity. Candles in the front windows work just fine.

8. The kids don't like mint flavored hot chocolate. Freaks of nature.

9. Karaoke machine from Craigslist = huge hit. Must buy more CDs

10. Ignore Christmas etiquette by leaving decorations up past Valentine's Day.

Merry Christmas!!!

See you again next year!

My new title shall be

The Queen of Good Intentions But Really Poor Follow-Through.

Does this look familiar?

Chore charts for your kids?

Thinking it will make your life easier while teaching your children the value of work?

Yeah. I have about five other waste of time charts I've started over the years. I generally come up with them right before school lets out for summer break. And every one of them have lasted a week.

But NOT THIS TIME BABY!

This one is for real............

As real as the twenty pounds I've had every intention of losing for the last two New Years Resolutions.

You gotta teach them young.........

Kids need to learn too.


Next lesson: Laundry

Random Pictures

Twas the week of Thanksgiving..........

And all through the town
There were cute kids and cousins

And historical buildings of reddish-brown.

We were all nestled warm and snug from the cold

Here's where we saw our forefather's Declaration unfold.

This is the bell

That rang out the sound

"Hear Ye! Hear Ye!" one said as people gathered around. At my 20th Reunion

What to my wondering eyes should appear

But my bestest friends from High School
Whom I hold dear!

I had the most kids

So I won an award

At least I won SOMETHING

Now there's a goal to move toward!

Back in '99 was when we made

the long haul

To stand on this street corner

Just to watch this ball fall.

There were pilgrimages and meccas

That just had to be done.
At least these guys still have jobs

which is more than can be said for poor Lehman.

Oh the lights how they dazzled

And glittered with gold.

We ate New York Pizza above Lettermans
just to get out of the cold.

Our old house was still there

Though grown over with trees.

We ate ourselves sick
From cheesesteaks and hoagies.

Other cool stuff we saw

Like Rockefeller's unlit tree

Bryant Park Ice Rink

Macy's Santa Claus

And Lady Liberty.

Our visit to Ground Zero was horrifying and sad

It made me feel thankful for all that I have.

We found a memorial

And searched for a special name

Then ached that the skyline would never, ever be the same.

It was a great trip

Our feet were so sore

From walking and walking and then walking some more.

But I heard someone exclaim

As we flew out of sight

"I'm so glad we booked us

On a non stop flight!"