Cloud

My Kid Made Breakfast

And he set the table.  He made scrambled eggs, toast with butter, juice, the works.  And it was such a huge help to me this morning.  I had to do a load of laundry before we left for school and work and there is no way I could have done everything by myself this morning.  Today is the day when my calorie cycle hits its all-time low and having a sizable portion of protein first thing in the morning helps me get through the day without going over my limit.  I like being able to count on my kid.  Yay, Solomon!

Our Day in Pictures (& a Few Words)

Playground.

Boulder climbing.

Monkey-like antics.

Cloudless sky.

Scooters.

Sidewalk chalk.

Artwork.

 Flip flops.

 Bubble wands.

 Water guns.

 Owies.

 Shadows.

 Her Royal Puppyness, Abby.

 The driveway.

I Pray for You

The video:


Pray for You - Jaron and The Long Road to Love (OFFICIAL VIDEO) - Funny bloopers are a click away

And the lyrics:

I haven't been to church since I don't remember when
Things were going great til they fell apart again
So I listened to the preacher as he told me what to do
He said you can't go hatin' others who have done wrong to you
Sometimes we get angry but we must not condemn
Let the good Lord do his job, you just pray for them


I pray your brakes go out runnin' down a hill
I pray a flower pot falls from a window sill
And knocks you in the head like I'd like to
I pray your birthday comes and nobody calls
I pray you're flyin' high when your engine stalls
I pray all your dreams never come true
Just know wherever you are, honey, I pray for you


I'm really glad I found my way to church
Cause I'm already feelin' better and I thank God for the words
Yeah, I'm gonna take the high road and do what the preacher told me to do
You keep messin' up, and I'll keep prayin' for you


I pray your tire goes out at 110
I pray you pass out drunk with your best friend
And wake up with his and her tattoos


I pray your brakes go out runnin' down a hill
I pray a flower pot falls from a window sill
And knocks you in the head like I'd like to
I pray your birthday comes and nobody calls
I pray you're flyin' high when your engine stalls
I pray all your dreams never come true
Just know wherever you are, near or far
In your house or in your car
Wherever you are, honey, I pray for you
I pray for you

Now that we've got that out of the way -- are ya kiddin' me?!  This self-aggrandizing, spiteful garbage is considered prayer?  Is that what the minister means by praying for those who do you wrong?  Really? This might be one of the worst songs I've ever heard. Between this and the joke circulating around about praying for President Obama's death, I'm pretty disgusted with a good portion of the U.S. population. Ugh.

Have you heard the joke about praying for the president's death?  No?  Lucky.   Let me burst that bubble for you.  It goes something like this:

Dear God, last year you took my favorite singer Michael Jackson, my favorite actor Patrick Swayze and my favorite actress Farrah Fawcett.  So I just wanted to tell you that my favorite president is Barack Obama.

Let me enumerate all the reasons this is so terrible:

• It's disrespectful to the office of the president, regardless of political affiliation.
• It's supposing that God actually chooses who is going to die and when and that his decision can be influenced by human whims. For those that believe that God is omniscient, omnipotent and truly loving, this is absurd. (And for the record, I've only heard this joke from people who claim to believe this.)
• It's unpatriotic. (And again, for the record, I've only heard this joke from people to whom unpatriotic actions are akin to blasphemy of their God.)
• It trivializes the deaths of some truly magnificent artists and allows them to be just the build up to a terrible punch line.

I know some people will get all huffy and say I can't take a joke and that I'm hypersensitive but really, that's not true. I appreciate jokes. I love humor and I especially love dark humor. However, jokes about praying for someone to die are not funny. I put them into the same category as jokes with racial undertones and jokes about mental handicaps.  If you want to wish someone dead just own up to it. Don't try to cloak it in distasteful jokes or stupid songs.

So there you go.  That song and that joke and all the people who like them are on My List.

What. The. Heck.

What. The. Heck. #1
The patient is 14 minutes late and is a typical toddler so he does not want to follow his mother and me to the exam room.  A sensible parent picks up their toddler at this point and carries him or her.  The insensible ones fake walk away from their kids, trying to manipulate their kids into following them. (Bad idea all around, for lots of reasons, not the least of which is that it does not work.)  This mother was one of the insensible ones.  When her child plopped himself on the floor and cried, she took him by the hand and half dragged-half walked him to the room.  All this time, I'm standing there and thinking about the other 3 patients I have waiting on me and wishing I could educate this mother.


What. The. Heck. #2
This mother missed her son's 6 month, 9 month and 12 month well visits, therefore he's very behind on the standard immunization schedule.  This mother wants to catch up all the shots possible today.  That means 6 shots.  One of those injections has 5 components.


What. The. Heck. #3
Mother is concerned about his weight (which was okay, for the record.) so I asked how much he eats and what kinds of foods.  She states that he really likes sweets and that's about all he eats.  I advise that she stop offering artificial sweets and encourage better choices.  I say that eventually he'll eat and learn to eat better things.  Patient's mother nods and smiles.  Later when I return to give her child all 6 of his shots, she whips out a Dum-Dum for him before I can even blink.  So much for not offering sweets, huh?  Also, if she keeps a stash of Dum-Dums for any potentially bad situation, she's setting her child up for a lifetime of problems.

Again, I say What. The. Heck.

Bumper Sticker Shopping Again

So my car -- her name is Susie, by the way -- isn't quite so bright, shiny and new any more.  She's still fabulous, of course; that will never change.  But I'm ready to adorn her with bumper stickers and such now.  I'm getting another Coexist sticker because I love that sticker so much.  I'll be getting a couple more that reflect my views and stuff but in the mean time, here are a couple that I considered for a time:

New Phone

A few weeks ago I took Samuel to the office for his 7 year well visit.  And by 'the office' I mean my office, where I work.  It's chock full of great people who can take great care of my kids. Anyway, moving right along ... The visit went just fine.

Jennifer called during the appointment but I couldn't answer the phone so (I thought) I put it back into my coat pocket and continued the visit.  Just before we left my friend Lisa came in to poke Samuel's finger and check his hemoglobin level.  He. Did. Not. Like. That. One. Bit.  It took both of us to wrestle him onto the table and pry his pinky finger out of his fist for the 1/16th of a second it takes to employ the lancet.  His hemoglobin was great, by the way, a testament to his incredible strength.

We collected ourselves and headed over to Chick-Fil-A for some lunch.  While in Chick-Fil-A Samuel blew some bubbles into his milkshake which caused it to explode all over the table.  I reached for my phone to take a picture, all prepared for a PSA post here about blowing milkshake bubbles.  But my phone was not there.  I looked in my 14 coat pockets and my 5 pants pockets and my bag.  Not there.  No biggie.  Probably in the car.

We finished lunch and went to the car to take Samuel back to school.  My phone was not there.  I ripped up the floor mats, moved my seat back and forth, dumped out my purse twice and moved all the booster seats.  No phone.  Went back into Chick-Fil-A.  No phone.  Went back to the office.  No phone.

I was a tad freaked out because my phone is integral to my daily life and I didn't realize just how integral until I could not find it.  I figured that I must have thrown it into the trash at Chick-Fil-A and decided that it wasn't worth searching through other people's half-eaten food for a 2 1/2 year old phone.  So I dropped Samuel off at school and headed to the AT&T store.

I've been drooling over iPhones for years.  I almost bought one last summer.  But I didn't.  But that's neither here nor there.  Anyway.  It's been past time for me to get a phone upgrade for months and months but I just kept putting it off.  I figured that the loss of my phone was a sign of some sort that I should get a new phone.  And why not get an iPhone?

The AT&T dude was very cool.  I told him the sad saga of the morning and how all the signs were pointing to an iPhone.  His eyes practically turned into dollar signs like in a cartoon.  I decided on the 16 GB 3GS, the accessories to accompany it and the Apple Care to support it.  I couldn't fathom needing 32 GB of space on a phone, for Pete's sake.  But again, not important right now.  Moving right along.

I decided to go ahead and get a new phone number.  I've kept my Texas number because it was simpler than changing my number and I kind of liked the, "Hm, where is that number based?" questions.  But when in Colorado ...

I got my phone, fell into a nice, comfortable infatuation with it and finished my party errands.  The only reason to be upset was that I had lost all the contacts in my old phone, about 200 numbers.  (Yikes!)  As I waited in the pick up line at the kids' school, Paul called me and said that Lisa had texted him and said that she had my phone at the office.  (My phone is so important because, of those 200 numbers, I have precisely 3 memorized -- Jennifer, Paul and work.  When I got the new number I was able to call Paul and Jennifer and tell them what happened.)

Crappola. Now I had two phones, one of which was deactivated.  Do I return the iPhone and keep my old phone?  Or do I just transfer the old contacts into the new phone?  Returning it was out of the question.  I was already in loooooove.

So I got the old phone from the office (Apparently, Samuel kicked it off the table during the finger poking episode and Lisa took it to the nurse's station, thinking I'd come back for it.  And I did but she hadn't told the front desk about it so they told me they didn't have it.), took it to the AT&T store and the nice man who sold me the iPhone opened it up to retrieve the SIM card so I could have all my numbers.

So, long story short: girl loses phone, panics, buys brand new fantabulous phone, falls in love, lives happily ever after.

Testing

Blogging from my phone.  IT'S CAPITALIZNG EVERYTHING WITHOUT PERMISSION.  Sorry for yelling. Have to figure this out. Blerg.

Red Letter Day

• Miriam has a field trip to the zoo.  Fun, fun, fun!  I packed her lunch with a little I-love-you-have-tons-of-fun note.
• Samuel has been learning Easy Talk in speech.  It's a method to help him get past stuttering in his daily speech.  I've been encouraging him to use it throughout the day but he's been resistant because he's self-conscious about talking more slowly.  This morning he got really frustrated but stopped, took a breath and switched to Easy Talk and got through it!  I am so proud!!
• The kids have a school skating party tonight.  There are several of them through the year and they always beg to go.  This is the last one so I agreed to take them.  I'm not looking forward to it, but they are.  Immensely.
• I have lost 20 pounds!
• I get to eat 1900 calories today and we are hitting the Wendy's drive-thru before the skating party.
• My phone rocks.  (I started a post about this and then abandoned it but I will finish it some day.)