Ten Things

1) I have 900 posts on this blog. I've been blogging for five years-- next month is my five year blogiversary.

2) The heat index today is 109 and the pool pump is broken and we can't swim because the water is looking grody after five days without a pump.

3) I have begun writing and then trashed about ten posts in the last two months. I have lost my mojo.

4) Sofi is starting fifth grade in two weeks. I have a fifth grader. I occasionally pinch myself to see if this is real. So far, it is.

5) We have lived here two years now. I still miss my friends and family back Home. Every day. Some days more than others. Blogging about this sometimes helps, but also feels like hurting my friends here-- which I do have. Friends here, I mean. Good ones, too. Just not the same ones.

6) Judah is turning out to be a superb artist. He invents and draws Angry Birds games. He has inherited his parents' tendency to obsess over stuff. There are pages covered with Angry Birds all over the floors of my house.

7) My sister is getting married at Thanksgiving. It will be the first sibling wedding that I won't be able to be there to help with flowers and music and food and everything... See # 5 above.

8) Jamie has, despite all my attempts to dissuade him, decided that he's ready to potty train on the first week J goes back to work. He is, essentially, potty-training ME. We are buying the standard issue ten-pack of Superhero Undies at Walmart today.

9) I have to go to Walmart today. This is how I feel about Walmart:




Needless to say, I am not thrilled about my afternoon.

10) You know how lame my workout was today? I'll tell you how lame it was. I spent thirty minutes on an ELLIPTICAL and watched Olympics swimming. Seriously. Lame.

Dear Doctor,

You may think that projecting an air of confidence inspires trust in your patients. This is likely true. But when you combine that air of overweening confidence with an emphatic statement that my concerns are completely misplaced and that you have "never heard of such a thing", trust is not inspired. Quite the reverse.

In fact, upon returning home and re-visiting the studies that I referenced in our conversation, finding that they are not, after all, "tiny little, irrelevant studies" (as opposed to "major studies done with actual control groups and published by ACOG"), but are rather significant exploratory research being done to test the advisability of prescribing this medication to someone with my condition and published by The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology... well then, at that point I may start to doubt your competence. If you would like me to consider you as an adequate care provider for someone with this condition, you might want to consider staying "up" on the latest research. Unless, of course, you'd prefer to simply listen respectfully to my layman's rundown of the topic and get back to me later. After you read it, too.

Sincerely,
A Former Patient

Jamie versus Judah

I know we've mentioned many times how different Jamie is from our other two children. But in today's post I give you a video representation of this reality.


Judah, circa 2009, at 20 months old.




And now, Classic Jamie. Circa this morning. 22 months old.



Full of beans, that one.

Downey Park: 2012

You might remember this place from our first summer here in Orlando... But we had a different baby back then :)




Hard to believe how much he's grown since we left VA!!









And now THIS one is our baby :)

Publish it quickly before you get self-concious about the completely narcissistic randomness of this post.

I have a laptop again. Due to the generosity of a friend, I have a "new" laptop. I can sit on the deck while the children play and swim and write again.

It feels good.

My mind has gotten constipated over the last few months of not writing. I may have forgotten how to let my thoughts flow out through my fingertips into the keyboard. I've gotten a little shy of the process of externalizing all the Me inside me.

But the pressure just builds up and something's got to give. I have to write-- to let the words spill out until the storm in my brain subsides and I can think clearly again.

As if I ever think clearly... :P