Wii are Family

I should admit that I am a well established techno-phobe. I suppose I could blame it on "2001" (I mean the movie not the year). When I was a kid Hal really freaked me out and for that matter so does Bill Gates. Pac-Man on the Atari is still advanced video gaming for me. I am one of those sad fools that you see in the coffee house that can't get the computer to do what she wants fast enough so she just keeps pushing the button with increasing force and repetition as if communicating in morse code. Yes, I am one of those people and no it never works.
For the most part, I still only write with a pen and paper even though it creates much more work. It just feels better to me, though I must admit my living room looks quite a bit like that shed The Unibomber lived in. I don't have a Blackberry or iPhone. I think my phone can do more than make calls but I wouldn't know since I pretty much restrict myself to dialing and answering. I just recently accepted that maybe digital photography is here to stay. And I completely despise all of the home video game systems including the Wii.
I really tried to give it the benefit of the doubt. The Wii involves getting off your hiney and moving more than your thumbs. That's an improvement to be sure. And it is marketed as if its a great way to play with the family. I however, have come to the conclusion it is not a good way for me to play with my family.
Before this weekend, it had been a while since we had played. Because of the time that had elapsed, I somehow managed to forget how quickly it reveals some of our lesser traits. First of all, I behave badly after losing. I am a terrible loser and because of my continued unfamiliarity with technology it is a total inevitability. I have the slowest motor skills on the planet. Most people wouldn't play this slow if they were on barbiturates. Now, I think overall, I am a good mom and model good behavior. Losing gracefully is clearly my Achilles heel however, and I often make a total ass of myself pouting over Guitar Hero. Meanwhile, the glee my daughter takes in defeating me only makes me worse! Sam accuses everyone (including those not even playing) of undermining his abilities by standing too close or speaking or doing something really offensive like looking at him. Ray gets totally OCD about the Wii and will not stop until he meets whatever arbitrary goal score he has set for himself. Does this really sound like fun family time to you? To me it sounds more like a Dr. Phil episode. I can only imagine what pearls of wisdom that goon would have for us.
So I thought it might be better if we got a game where we would compete against ourselves and the activities encouraged more physical fitness. So we got Wii Sport. I thought I had issues before! When you start playing this game, you have to step on the Wii board so it can weigh, measure balance, center of gravity, etc. When I stepped on it, the Wii voice actually shrieked "Oh!" like it was in pain from the weight of me! Seriously?!? I have had two kids and could probably stand to lose 20 lbs. but I am not going to accept any trash talk from a computerized stair step! So my question is who invented this Wii and did they know that it could make an otherwise nice little family into a crew of belligerent neurotics? Shouldn't there be a warning on the box or a deprogramming feature? I may be a dinosaur when it comes to technology but I can't help but think there is a better way to spend family time. Call me old fashioned but I think I miss the good old days when it was real sports in the back yard and an actual family member that implied you were fat.
-M

Another Day in the Life

So, it might have been presumptuous to assume the GOOD DAY GODS would smile down upon me this morning due to the incredibly chaotic day I had yesterday, but I think the BAD WEEK GODS are winning out thus far.

To start, I awoke 6:40, which is the exact time it is when the alarm has gone off five or six times and the morning news is delivering it's 6th or 7th weather report and just enough time to get Kyla's clothes ironed, scrounge for a single pair of socks and pack 4 school lunches. Thanks to my new drowsy pill (this is not habit-forming, folks...a simple prescription under careful supervision of my dr.), I was up for several hours of the night with piercing cramps in my right side (HEY, I have nothing else to blame)!

I'm feeling rough and so is Kyla, which would generally make for disastrous mother/pre-teen interaction, but this morning happens to be an exception. "It's snowing and they're STILL making you go to school this morning," I tell her, just so she starts off the day knowing I am on her side.

Unfortunately, you have to find creative ways to play "head games" with the pre-teen set, so you are the "frienemy" but not the enemy. For example, "Get up, Kyla...we're LATE!!!" would set off an unsavory set of circumstances in which mom is purposely trying to stack the odds against her by making her a)have a bad hair day, b)cause her to miss breakfast and c)intentionally force her to attend school with a still-damp uniform shirt making its way upstairs from the dryer at the last minute, which I often do anyway.

As it stands, Kyla is on my side this morning because JCPS (our county's public school system) is SO UNFAIR...so it's all good. Odds in my favor.
I rescue clothing from the dryer, iron her pants on the leather ottoman in the living room (there's an ironing board in the basement, but there's spiders there, too) and sleepwalk my way through packing four school lunchboxes.

It's now 7:30, and we really are late. AND, in an unfortunate slip-up, I leave Kyla to fend for herself in the game of sock-match while I rush outside to warm up the car and rescue her hairbrush from the back of Kevin's truck.
The snow is exceptionally gorgeous this morning, peppered with tiny shimmering accents that make our entire front yard look like a bowl of glitter. There are still more shiny specs falling upon us, and I almost get lost in the snow's intrinsic beauty in spite of the fact that we are late. I warm the car.

Kyla rushes outside, crying. This is at least a once-a-week occurrence, due to the fact that she is almost thirteen and her hormones tend to fluctuate. She, however, thinks it is because yet again, she's late, which is my fault...and if she's late twice in one week, she will have detention on Thursday.

I look on the bright side: "Well, have you been late yet this week?" Of course not; it's only Tuesday, and her daddy took her to school yesterday and, according to Kyla, her daddy is NEVER late to anything. To which I retort, "If you want to act like a crybaby about it, go ahead. Or, you can relax, because it's snowing and they'll understand if you're late. EVERYONE is late when it snows."

Yeah, I know, not winning any parenting awards with my reassuring words, but it worked, because she started eating the yogurt I gave her and quickly calmed down.
We slip and slide down several streets, one in which I have to carefully maneuver my car so we don't slide into a group of 6 or 7 middle-schoolers awaiting their bus. The roads are exceptionally slick this morning. Kyla is going on about how JCPS should have just canceled school, and I happen to agree...and again, we're back in sync.

There is one main thoroughfare on the way to and from school, and we are now on it. It's a two-lane road for the most part that also opens to our local freeway, and on this particular morning it is Completely. Backed. Up.

More chatter between child and "frienemy" about JCPS's poor decision.
The road is a sheet of ice. We sit quietly in bumper-to-bumper traffic while the clock edges past 8:00. I try to call Kevin to let him know I will not be taking the others to school. We are lucky to have two cars today: my mom's suburban, which I am driving, and Kevin's truck.

Kevin does not answer his phone, which makes Kyla laugh hysterically because no one can ever get either of us to answer. It's become a running joke in the family.
I cross my fingers and hope he's smart enough to prod the other children forward in their morning routine. Finally, he returns my call and yes, everyone is ready, and also....Sophie almost made it out the door wearing her brand-new sparkly flip-flops to school. Helllooooooooo, parent-teacher conference!

I point out that whoever runs the JCPS school cancellation system needs to take a drive around town before deciding to send children to school during inclement weather. Kyla grumbles about how it's some old man who sits home in a chair watching the weather report and forces them to go anyway since he had to walk five miles in the snow when he was a kid.

She is in rather good spirits when I drop her off, which makes me happy. Except I am also feeling rather defeated, considering the long drive home I must now endure.

I wait on the main road for a while, then follow cue from other cars to turn around and hop on the freeway. Which is worse. I come out on another main road that is equally backed up. Kevin meets me with my purse at the gas station, as I have been on low fuel all morning and am now wavering below the danger zone and understandably panicked. Then, I stop by mom's at her request, get the low-down for the day(which Kev has already given me since he dropped Levi off just 10 minutes prior) and make my way home. I almost slide directly into the tree of my own front yard.

All-in-all, it took more than 2 hours round-trip drive to take Kyla to a school merely 3 miles from our house...and Kevin an hour to take three children to a school just a few blocks from home. In Kev's words from a morning email....."Levi and I were both cursing JCPS in our own way...he just screamed out loud and I uttered obscenities in my mind while the traffic creeped along past cars and buses that had spun off the road...."

Now, safely tucked away and 1/2 bowl of Cheerios, one banana and one blog later, I ponder what to do with the rest of my day that is already half-busted. And I am thoroughly convinced that although the Good Day Gods might not be smiling upon us, they surely had a good belly laugh looking down at all of our morning madness.
--A

Just Another Manic Monday

I'm with Melissa on the whole Monday thing......it's bad enough we spend our entire weekend cleaning the house so we can function somewhat properly during the school week (by Friday it's TOTALLY WAY OUT OF CONTROL again)...but today it's even worse: Cleaning is not quite finished and we have a friend coming home with the oldest after school. I should probably Mop & Glo the kitchen floor, but Dr. Oz has convinced me that household chemicals are bad, bad, Bad and I must use the more eco-friendly Ivory suds instead. (Which I somehow doubt have the same capability to clean up 5-day-old yogurt blobs, smashed blueberries and petrified dried-on multigrain Cheerios).
But I digress. Today is the return to the workweek, which for me, means getting back to waking up early and dropping the kids off to school, putting semi-healthy lunches together (In the event I have enough cash on hand for a school lunch, it's time to start bribing) and then returning home in my car-line clothes (as of late this has been a bunny fur, workout pants and knee-high Frye boots and a half-up, half-down ponytail) to shower and snap out of my regular morning haze before sitting down
to either work on my book project that I am not yet getting paid for, work on the blog you are now reading....or search for full-time jobs via internet. Of course there's a day full of intermittent Facebook checking and several trips to the kitchen in search of something palatable...and anything else that comes up that day I might have to work into my routine. (i.e. errands, dr. appts. or work-related meetings).
This day, however, is particulary problematic, as I have yet to re-gain my footing. The morning begins with its usual post-slumber pains, a massive headache....and a LOUD knock on the door. It's my daughter, Raleigh, returning from her dad's house and ready for breakfast. Judging by the volume of the knock, she must have been trying for at least a few minutes. It's well past 7 and time for the rest of us to get moving. However, this morning I can still feel my jaw muscles tense and trembling from an intense night of bruxism (for you laypeople...this is the scientific term for jaw-grinding. OUCH). Yes, I have the fancy biteguard, which I have been wearing, but lately the pain is unrelenting. That, combined with sudden breathlessness and chest pain (stress or sleep apnea?), have me making a mental note to call my doctor as soon as I return home.
We shuffle through the morning routine.....feed breakfast/pack lunch/brush teeth/comb hair/match socks/grab coats....with Kevin prodding us along..."Come on, what are you doing playing video games, you're supposed to be finding your shoes...I can't roll into work at 9:00 every day!"
Kev and I are in the unfortunate circumstance of sharing one car (my minivan has been parked at my uncle's shop since August because I can't afford a new engine), so he is especially anxious of our progress--or lack thereof.
I briefly ponder taking my new muscle-relaxing medication on my way out the door: "Warning," the label said, "May cause drowsiness or dizziness." Oh, that's why I haven't started it yet, I silently remind myself. I have a lot to get done! We drop the kids off at school and take Levi to my mom's. She is especially grumpy and demanding in the mornings and I am in too much pain to deal...so I sit in the truck while Kev. takes him in. As it happens, there is a major family crisis unfolding that I, thankfully, have no part in...but it has my mother in tears so I spend the better part of the next 90 minutes being a good listener, feeding Levi breakfast and giving him a tub before convincing her to try to get some rest and re-packing Levi to come home and spend the day with his mommy instead.
The first order of business is to check email and see what other family members are saying (everyone has a completely different perspective),stress out about it, and make my way to the shower. I vow to find the home phone and call my sister afterward, pacify Levi with a couple of books and stuffed animals, and start the water. Sophie's German Shepherd webkin, whom Levi dragged through a plate of pancakes and syrup this morning, joins me. So does Levi's toothbrush. (Thanks, Levi)!
Then, fresh and clean, I make my way toward the home phone, which as usual, is not on the charger. We actually have two of them and one is permanently missing, PLUS I have a cell phone sitting here beside me on the desk, not charged. (You will hear a lot more about this in an upcoming blog concerning our technology woes, but long story short, Kevin and I are sharing a cell phone charger which he keeps leaving behind at the office). Thank GOODNESS for the wireless internet--or I would be completely ill communicado today!
The rest of the morning goes like this:
Found cordless phone on fireplace mantle. Mantel?
Place on home charger.
Blow dry my hair and Levi's (he likes the hot air).
Get dressed.
Lie down for 5 mintues spacing out and surviving headache.
Shake it off, make it into hallway just in time to see Levi puke.
Wipe up puke.
Wonder if I should call his doctor as well.
Pick up phone, call sister.
Leave message.
Wonder why I didn't print that email with her new cell number.
Call Kevin.
Place phone on charger to use speaker feature while phone charges.
Phone doesn't work that way; phone hangs up.
Phone continues charging.
Search for Chi Iron.
Wonder why oldest daughter has taken it upon herself to take Chi Iron to Dad's house when I bought two explicitly for this purpose? (I draw this conclusion by minutes of frantic searching, along with the discovery that the Chi Silk Fusion oil is missing as well). Darn her!
Decide it's ok because Kyla is young and therefore must look far more fabulous than her mother.
Write the blog entry you are now reading while pending problems continue to multiply in time and space.
Finally, give in to new medication in favor of drowsiness and dizziness.(I could use a little rest now).
--A

I don't like Mondays (but I don't want to shoot the whole day down or anything...

For the record, I have no idea why the print is gi-normous and/or underlined this morning! I swear I didn't do it on purpose and have tried for 20 minutes to fix this-I give up! So all of you fans of large print books and billboards this post is for you :)

Another weekend has come and gone without me doing anything even remotely constructive. Unless you count finding the lost remote control (I guess I don’t have to declare it a total loss). I wish you could have seen the well crafted ‘To Do’ list complete with numerical notations indicating the highest to lowest priority. As of this morning, not a single thing can be checked off. So now it’s Monday and my driveway still looks like the beginning of Sanford and Son.

I will admit that in many ways, I may be a bit of a hothouse flower. It’s possible that my sensibilities are too fragile and I just need to suck it up. But I really struggle to have a good attitude about the week when I am starting out already in the weeds.

I do this to myself every weekend. All week long I think like a domestic survivalist. Monday through Thursday I function by considering the answer to the just a few questions; does it contribute to our basic existence? Can we eat it, drink it, sleep in it, wear it or use it to fend off interlopers? No? Then, I’ll think about it this weekend. Meanwhile, like some kind of sado-masochist, I spend a whole Wednesday evening making my husband watch that A & E show Hoarders with me so I can shout things like “Oh my God, 2 years and we’ll totally be them!” Or reassure myself with “Okay, at least we have never resorted to using our kitchen sink as a toilet…”

While recognizing that my house isn’t yet pathological, I remain pretty self conscious. So much so that I avoid letting anyone inside. I have even caught myself attempting to block others’ view into my house with my body. Yeah, it looks as weird as you imagine it. I’m pretty sure my next door neighbor thinks I’m making crystal meth. Even my kids have gotten in on the neuroses. My uncle came over to bring me a birthday gift and according to my uncle, the kids intercepted him as he approached the porch, shouting “Mom is napping, just give it to us and we’ll give it to her later. Thanks for stopping by!” I wasn’t napping. I have read this is one of those things that the poor enabling kids of alcoholics do. But since I am lucky if I manage to have a beer once a week, I’m pretty sure I’m not an alcoholic. If my kids are enablers, what are they enabling? I’ve wracked my brain on this one and I can really only come to one conclusion. They are enabling my immaturity. How long can my home look like a frat house before I step up to the plate? A long time apparently. Because while I can be counted on to make a heck of a ‘To Do’ list on Fridays, come Saturday and Sunday the siren song of Beatles Rock Band or hanging out with friends will prove too strong, leaving the ritual of Monday morning malaise well intact.

So I have decided the first thing I am going to put on my ‘To Do’ list this Friday is having the new doorbell installed to play the Sanford and Son theme. That way if it is the only thing we get done over the weekend, at least people will know what their getting when they show up at my house!

-M

And The Procrastination Prize Goes To...

So I thought I would go ahead and honor the daily blogging duties early since it is Saturday night and the kids will be with the grandparents. I expect to let my hair down a little (I might even find the time to wash it!). If I waited until much later to write, it is entirely possible that today's posting would be some ridiculous alcohol induced rant about my current theories about "Lost" or my negative opinion of low-fat food. Allow me to spare you the fate.

Today was the Boy Scout Pine Wood Derby. I spent the better part of my day in the basement of a church watching wooden cars roll down a sloped track over and over and over. I hear Di Vinci did this type of thing for fun and to that I say, what a dork. I watched as much Mr. Wizard as the next kid but I seem to have been shorted the interest in physical science that so many of the parents in my company seemed to have in such massive supply today. Sam was born into an "artsy" family. In other words, his parents suck at math and science and can barely help him with his homework let alone help him design a 6 inch vehicle. I can help him paint it or give it a cool name...I know, poor kid.

For those of you unfamiliar with the event, the boys are given a block of wood and four wheels and sent off to make a car to race in about a month. There are all kinds of rules that determine what kind of car you'll return with but we don't worry too much about these since we are just pretty happy if it actually rolls by the time we're done.

Last year, my husband, Ray, waited until the morning of the race to make the car. I was irritated (but no more than usual) and prodded him to sit down with our son Sam to produce a car quickly enough that he might participate. We arrived at the race and happily presented Sam's little car. We were happy until we saw some of the other cars. Honestly, some of them looked like NASA engineers had designed them. We braced ourselves for the worst. But amidst all of our underachiever dread the strangest thing happened, Sam won.

So this year, we decided to just do our best to replicate what was done last year. For me this meant trying to emulate the structure of the first car, for Ray this meant putting everything off until race day again. I launched into a whole tirade about poor little Sam missing out on the skills, science learning, work ethic opportunities and father son bonding as a result of the procrastination to the point that Ray was calling any of our friends and neighbors that had ever built a birdhouse to help us help Sam build this little car. The Federal Government does not have as many checks and balances as this little wooden car went through this morning. We were feeling pretty confident as we walked in. It lost in the first round. Sam didn't really care either way, he was just having fun watching the cars roll down a hill.

What's the lesson here? I have no idea. Unless, maybe Ray and I don't have to be the ones to teach Sam everything. Maybe he doesn't need to learn all of that stuff yet. Maybe he just needs to have some fun watching a block of wood with wheels roll. Maybe sometimes winging it works just fine.

Nice to meet you, again and again and again.

I have insomnia again. One travels through many states when up for an extended period of time alone and sleep deprived. I seem to have found the bored and sentimental part of the evening so I thought maybe I should take Amy's advice and begin blogging. I make no promises that it will be articulate or entertaining. But I can promise it will be in English.

Thirteen years ago, I became acquainted with a girl named Phoebe. Truth be told, she wasn't named that already, that's the name we gave her when she was born. She was 6lbs. 12 oz. of the closest thing I had ever found to perfection. A genuine source of amazement and pride because I honestly had never really imagined that I could ever create anything as wonderful as what I, then struggled to even hold properly. Many mothers talk about the instant, absorbing love that they felt at that moment. I'm not one of those mothers. I was just pretty freaked out. Believe me, I wanted to have that maternal feeling and was sure there must have really been something wrong with me for not having this immediate, all consuming affection for my child. But it just wasn't there yet. I was going to have to wait. I was going to have to get to know her and learn to love on our own terms.

Thankfully, that love did come shortly thereafter but it took a little time .I have lived with a girl named Phoebe for thirteen years and I have loved her through almost the entire time but today I will confess, I haven't liked her near as much (especially the past few years). Since Phoebe has become a pre-teen, teen, whatever term she currently falls under, it often feels as if her goal is to see how long it takes until I lose it, like I am actually a science project or something. I sometimes imagine she has a stopwatch in her pocket that she references after an argument and on her way up to her room she notes, "Hmmm, this time it only took 12 minutes, the subject seems sensitive to eye rolling and the mumbling of expletives. Very interesting..."

This is not to say we have a bad relationship or always fight. All in all I think we are doing okay. But it can be exhausting never knowing how a conversation with her will turn out. Every morning the girl that comes down the stairs is a different one from the girl that went up the night before at bedtime. Maybe its just hormones, or the mystery of adolescent brain development. Maybe she thinks transformative thoughts before she drifts off to sleep each night. I have no idea. What I do know is that each day it seems like I am meeting Phoebe all over again.

Today we struggled to have basic normal interactions all day long. At one moment she wants my undivided attention so she can tell me every detail of conversation with a friend (complete with the likes peppered throughout the story until you unintentionally begin to keep count), the next moment she doesn't want to even answer you when you ask her if she is hungry. God forbid, you ask her if she had a fight with a friend you hadn't seen in a while or why she came downstairs made up like a beauty pageant contestant after months of only wearing lip gloss. She treats me like I am Kenneth Starr and if I find out what she wants for dinner she will be impeached from the 8th grade. I'm so over it. Just when I am contemplating what kind of response will help me feel vindicated without warranting a visit from social services it occurred to me that Phoebe is as confused by her actions as I am.

Maybe I am not the only one forced to reacquaint myself with her each day. Maybe Phoebe is meeting herself over and over again everyday too. Maybe Phoebe is getting to know herself and just trying to find a way to love herself on her own terms. She may have to wait a while. In the meantime, I may have to love this stranger enough for the both of us, even if I can't always like her. And today, I don't. Really on my nerves...

Adventures in Networking

With Levi safely recovered from his head injury, Kevin and I shifted our focus to our newest obsession: Networking. People keep telling us to network, because not only are we are both underemployed (heck, one of us is unemployed), but apparently this social behavior leads to aligning yourself on the right path and opening the door to new opportunities.


Unfortunately for us, being in our 30's and having 5 kids means never having time to get out and about. We have one who is barely old enough to babysit (she's almost 13)..but none who could safely take care of Levi, still only 20 months old. Most of our friends have become "phone friends" and "virtual friends" at this point, given that we only have time to catch up via cell phone on the way to and from work and I am on Facebook non-stop keeping tabs on old pals I used to be able to hang out with.

We were having a true TGIF moment last Friday when Kevin and I decided to meet for lunch at Cumberland Brews, a local brewery with pretty good pub fare. It was a relatively warm day for the Kentucky winter we had been experiencing, so we decided to have lunch out on the sidewalk.

Plus, I was rocking my $5 estate sale bunny fur, so I was toasty enough to bear the cold weather for a few hours. And, the hand-crafted beer is exceptionally warm in your belly.

After lunch, Kevin dropped me off at Heine Brothers, a neighorhood coffee shop with, of course, free Wifi, so I could work on my current project. (Being unemployed does not mean I still don't have work to do)! Anyhow, long story short, I'm minding my own business, eating cheesecake and drinking coffee...when I start to catch special keywords from the conversation taking place at the next table. I heard about a lot of things I was interested in: whole foods, organic, slow cooking, Wendell Berry (Kentucky author renowned for his thoughts on getting back to the earth), book, sustainability, creative writing, etc. etc. etc. There was one main speaker and two others giving him feedback I thought was insufficient....and with all this talking I was getting no work done...so I decided it was time to intervene. Surprisingly, the table received me warmly and I established our first important networking connection. Turns out, the guy was an English professor at a nearby college, and he was writing a book about whole foods and sustainability. As parents, I offered, we are constantly striving to figure out what to feed our five kids, and we try to make the best decisions possible, but we're not perfect and budget does not always accommodate. Apparently that, and the fact that I used to write for The Courier-Journal, was enough to secure Kevin and I an essay in the book. To Kevin's advantage, our new networking prospect was a professor of English, which he hopes to one day become. A true win-win for a first attempt. So we exchanged information and left to pick up the kids.

Friday night was especially productive: Kevin and I had plans to go to our friend Dan Rhema's house to pick up our art pieces that had been photographed for a book that week. We took Levi, employed the oldest as a babysitter for the night, stopped off for a haircut (all three of us!), and made our way to Dan's. In just over an hour, we were on our way out the door with our paintings, and I had re-established a connection with an old writer friend and made several new ones, and was in the running to help them start an ad agency. At any rate, another success.

Saturday was a busy day filled with the kids' activities, but Sunday rolled along and we were grateful for the break: Our four girls had plans to go with my mom to Lexington for the day to practice a dance number for my cousin's wedding shower. They were also spending the night, since school was going to be out on Monday, which gave us an entire afternoon and evening to spend networking with Levi.

The second the kids left, we grabbed our coats and headed again to Cumberland Brews, where we ran into some old friends from the art community. I used to do a lot of arts writing and plan to get back to it, so again, success. Keeping the connections alive. Ray, one of Kevin's friends from the music business, called from Lexington and was headed toward Louisville with his wife, Melissa, who was one of my references for the college professor's book and who also happened to be a writer. We had dinner with them that night at Havana Rhumba, a local joint with an extensive Cuban Menu and a margarita that could put a person out for days. Kevin and Ray networked their way through the regional music scene; Melissa and I were busy planning our new blog, which you are now reading.

Finally, Monday morning rolled around, and Kevin and I decided to complete our local tour-de-restaurants with a trip to Lynn's Paradise Cafe, a very quirky and diverse diner that serves up a really mean breakfast. On the way out, I make another important connection: I met, in person, a local artist I have interviewed once or twice that has VERY important ties in the goings-on of Louisville's art scene. Neworking? Check.

The rest of the week went by pretty quickly: We were busy with kids' activities, school and work (or lack thereof!), with all meals prepared at home and zero opportunities to keep the networking rolling. Then, on Friday, a funny thing happened: Kevin decided to pick up a growler (giant jug of take-home beer) of Cream Ale from--guess where?--Cumberland Brews!--on his way home from work. While he was waiting, he had a pint at the bar. He picked up bits and pieces of a conversation behind him. The topic? The best time of the day to smoke pot. From experience, the man speaking had surmised the best time of day is in the morning (before class!), and certainly NOT after he had started drinking, which was just a complete waste. Finally, Kevin turned around, only to discover the voice belonged to the college professor from the coffee shop! (SOUND OF VINYL SCRATCHING): Networking opportunity comes simultaneously full circle and to a screeching halt.

So, we reasoned, not only was our new networking connection writing a book about food because he had a serious case of the munchies, he was also probably pretty paranoid at this point and thinking we are following him! However, we surmise, anyone with good taste in brew--coffee AND beer--is alright with us.
--A

Head Trauma Drama

So we were on our way out the door to dinner at one of our favorite Bar-B-Q joints, when we heard a giant THUD in the bedroom. Turns out Levi wanted a bracelet off the top of the dresser, and he knocked a very heavy glass bowl onto the floor in his efforts to grab it. It was immediately apparent, judging from the huge and rapidly growing bump on his forehead, that the bowl must have hit him in the head on the way down. So instead of heading to dinner, we were on our way to the hospital.

Levi, who cried for only minute and rubbed his head for just a few seconds, was in rare form, cracking up and making a series of funny faces at me from the back seat. Sophie was, as usual, screaming that she is hungry. We kept second-guessing ourselves..."Levi doesn't even know he's having an emergency...He seems fine..." (as he continues to laugh from the back seat). But, we reasoned--the glass WAS really heavy, and we didn't see it happen, and what if he had swelling internally?

We got to the hospital and signed in at the desk. In the waiting room, Levi was laughing and playing. He found his reflection in the window and tried to bump his head against it. He fake-picked his nose (we think it's gross, so he thinks's it's hilarious). And Sophie kept asking us for vending machine snacks, but we did not have change.

After a short spell of waiting, Levi was called to the check-in desk. He was cool about getting on the scale, but he was much less enthusiastic about having his vitals taken. As soon as the nurse started sliding the heart monitor onto his finger, Levi started to wail. They tried his toe. Even worse. Levi kicked and screamed through the entire evaluation, right down to the placement of the hospital bracelet on his ankle. Another nurse came in at this point and handed Levi a stuffed elephant branded with the hospital's name. She brought two more, one for Izzy and one for Sophie. "We already have one of those," Sophie said to the nurse matter-of-factly. Kevin and I laughed, but we were secretly embarrassed.

We had been in the same emergency room no less than 3 months before, when Levi fell out of our suburban in the Home Depot parking lot and landed on his head. Even then, he played all the way to the the hospital, but we were certain that time the fall could have far more serious consequences. Levi wound up with a CAT scan that night, along with a really cool and very understanding doctor who laughed at us and asked us if Levi was our first boy.

So anyway, there we were again, checking him in for a second time for the same reason.
After check-in, we were taken directly to the pediatric ward. We spent a great deal of time in the room, the twins watching garbage on Cartoon Network (Sophie periodically whining about snacks) and Levi howling the whole time. The nurses brought Levi crayons and Sprite, but he didn't trust them, so he wouldn't have any part in either activity. He went for an X-ray and hated it. He was still screaming.

Finally, our doctor arrived, who recognized us immediately from our previous visit. For whatever reason, Levi really likes her, so he calmed down quite a bit to let her do her work. After the examination, we were discharged rather quickly with an ice pack and a set of instructions. I jokingly told the doctor we were getting a lamp shade for Levi's head, and she told us to buy him a helmet instead. Followed by, "That's what all the doctors use at home, only we just don't tell anyone. See you next time," she chirped, then winked.

On the way out, Levi was thrilled. He was laughing, playing and waving "bye-bye" to all the nurses. They all laughed, too...but we kept thinking it will be even less funny if we have to come back a third time.
--A