Protected: Will wonders never cease?

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Protected: Fate looms

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Reason #2 Social Services COULD take action

You know how kids get a yearly exam, right before school, just to make sure they’re healthy?

Flash back to 2005 when the whole brood was (gasp–I CAN do math) 2 years younger than they are right now. We were on an insurance plan geared toward low monthly costs because my employer at the time was busy making sure that every raise I got was offset by higher employee insurance contributions. Perhaps some of you out there work for the same company. Perhaps some of you out there have the same health plan. I won’t mention any names, but it rhymes with Miser.

If you have the same health plan, then you understand the Hamster Wheel system, in which you never see the same provider twice, everything is all there in one convenient location, and you may or may not actually get the care you seek. If you don’t have that health plan, suffice it to say that it’s pretty darned close to Socialized Medicine and it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. But rather than go broke that year, we succumbed to Hamster Wheel medicine.

So there we were, all four kids and I, in the clinic, waiting to be seen for the annual physicals. When it came time for my son’s checkup, we headed back for the same routine we’d just done with the other three. He got weighed and measured. He did the eye exam and the hearing test. The nurse practitioner checked his reflexes, looked in his throat, peeled back his eyelids, and scribbled notes on a piece of paper. It was no different than it had been all afternoon.

When the doc came in, she sat down to talk with my little guy. He was six at the time, but a pretty articulate six, if I do say so myself. He could definitely hold his own in conversation and it’s always been my theory that the kids know best when it comes to communicating with doctors, so I let him roll with it. It’s a pet peeve of mine when parents have all of the answers and the poor kiddo, who is actually the patient, can’t get a word in edgewise. I leaned my head back against the wall and counted the dots in the ceiling tile while the doc asked him all manner of questions. What were his favorite foods? What grade we he going into? What did he like about school? How was summer going?

He answered all of these questions in ways that would make any mother proud. He liked math… a LOT. He enjoyed his teachers, he was making friends, he liked the playground. He liked broccoli (thank the Heavens, he’s not a picky eater), especially with cheese, and fish, and Salisbury Steak. He had lots of friends in the neighborhood. He didn’t have anything that concerned him.

It was going well. I didn’t step in at all. I didn’t even make a peep. Not a single sound.

Then came the question that ended my happy, dot-counting, proud mother moment.

“What hobbies do you have?” the doc asked.

“I like to play video games,” he replied.

The doctor dug a little further. She wondered what games he liked to play. He told her. The WHOLE list. At that time, I think they only had five games, but he went into great detail about each one, so the list sounded extensive.  I really, really wanted to interject here that he was on a limited schedule with these video games. They got 1/2 hour each day and that was IT, pinky swear! But I restrained myself. I figured that if I stepped in now, it would be a little like getting the bare lightbulb interrogation and I would appear guilty just by defending myself… “Yes ma’am, I let my child play video games! Cuff me!”

So I stayed silent while the little man went on and on and ON… ad nauseum, about which games he liked the best and why. His knowledge level (although I’ve always considered him to be smarter than the average bear) was way above average on this particular subject. She listened. She nodded. She scribbled.

“Do you like to ride your bike?” she asked. “Or do you have other things you like to do outside?”

“No, not really,” he said. “I just like to play video games.”

“Hmmmm….” said the doctor. Scribble, scribble.

I madly counted dots so I wouldn’t appear troubled by this turn of events, although I’m sure the red color that stained my face, neck and ears probably gave me away. In my mind I pictured the child riding his bike, skateboard, or scooter up and down the street all weekend long… as he had done just the previous weekend. I reminded myself that he liked to run through the sprinkler and go to the park. I replayed the pictures of him and the neighbor kids playing Beyblades in the grass in our front yard, the impromptu games of street hockey, basketball, and soccer.

I counted to three hundred dots while this little conversation continued and swore that it would be 300 days before this kid sat in front of a video game system again. Doc decided to cut me some slack and turned toward me on her rotating, rolling stool. Her eyebrow raised in a questioning fashion, she said, “Everything appears normal to me.”

I breathed.  I nodded.  I waited. She paused, turned away on the rolling stool, paused again, and then turned back.

“Make sure they’re getting plenty of outside time, OK?”

I nodded again and said in desperation, “They DO get plenty of outside time,” my teeth clenched, as I shot daggers at my six-year-old over the doc’s left shoulder. “He likes to ride bikes and scooters and his skateboard. He likes to go to the park, too. Don’t you, little man?”

He looked up at me with wide brown eyes, through those impossibly long eyelashes that make me melt every time, and said, “Yeah, sometimes. But I really like video games.”

More scribbling…

“Do you always wear a helmet?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied. Finally, an answer that wouldn’t result in the Worst Mother of the Year Award.

Mercifully, she left the room and the little man and I had a very brief discussion on the importance of being truthful with healthcare providers, while I pondered strangling him… eyelashes notwithstanding.

“But Mom, I really do like video games,” he said.

“I know you do,” I replied. “But you also like to play outside and that’s very important. It’s more important than video games.”

He rolled his eyes.

Again, I waited for the call or the knock at the door. I’m sure that doctor still thinks I’m the worst parent on the earth. I don’t know, to this day, what possessed the number one sports enthusiast in our household to tell her he preferred staying inside with the video games to going outside to play. Maybe it was just on his mind that day.

If he told our current doctor that little story, the doc would know better because he knows us well. Such are the downfalls of Hamster Wheel medicine. I still fear that my picture is posted on the wall somewhere–or maybe it’s just that my name is on a plaque–and when Social Services gets bored with tracking down whatever bad parents there are out there, they’ll come looking for me… that woman that lets her kid stay inside all the time and play video games.

There are proud parenting moments, and then there are PROUD parenting moments, let me tell you…

Protected: The Curse of Curls - The Pictures

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

The Curse of Curls

I wrote a bit about my curly hair gig in 100 Posts and Counting. I’m sure it sounds like I’m exaggerating, but I swear (yes, pinky swear) I’m absolutely NOT! My hair has a mind and personality all its own. Most days it and I have an agreement of sorts–a truce, if you will. I agree to let it do whatever the heck it wants and not try to beat it into submission with the blowdryer or a ton of styling products and it promises not to look like I stuck my finger in a light socket by noon. Some days, despite my best efforts to be kind, it does not stick to that agreement. Today is just such a day. It’s 500% humidity, or some such ridiculousness, outside and, although I conditioned the heck out of it this morning, it’s already floating around my head like some crispy rice noodle halo. It drives me crazy.

Back when I was in school, all of the girls had wonderfully curly hair. The spiral perm was the friend of all fashionable gals everywhere and the vast majority of my peers had coughed up the cash to get it done. Their hair fell in glossy, perfectly formed ringlets that bounced when they walked. Mine? Just a little wavy… boring, really. I begged for a spiral perm but stylist after cranky stylist refused to do it, stating that my hair was just too darn thick. I would surely end up looking like Rosanna-Rosanna Danna, beautiful spiral curls sticking straight out from the sides of my head in a tent-like shape. Sigh. I dealt with the trauma of having unperfect hair and bided my time until high school was over.

Flash forward eight years. High school and spiral perms were a distant memory. The “in” style now was straight. I was still out of the mainstream with the wave in my hair, but it was closer to the beauty ideal of the day. I could spend a good hour with my round brush and my blowdryer, cross my fingers, hope against humidity, and most days it would cooperate. It was shiny, it was straight, it swung back and forth when I walked. It was goodness.

Then I got pregnant…

The pregnancy was absolutely planned and I am completely blessed by my wonderful son, but… with the hormones came wild curls, out of control curls, crazy curls, curls I had never seen before. I heard all of the regular chatter about pregnancy and fully expected that once this child actually came into the world, things would return to normal–my feet would shrink back down and I would be able to wear all of my shoes again; the hormones would slowly flush out of my body and I would remember where I left my keys; my fingernails, which had grown long and strong, would go back to being brittle and short; my crazy curls would relax and my hair would go back to being just wavy. My body would return to normal…

Hmmm. Somewhere, someone had fallen off of the information wagon. The only thing that did actually return to normal was my fingernails, darn it. I threw away pairs and pairs of shoes that were still too small when my son turned two. He’s eight now and I still lose track of my keys. And my hair… my wild, curly, crazy hair… is just as wild and curly and crazy as it was the day he was born.

When he was about 8 months old, I decided to take Mother Nature’s little trick into my own hands. I went to the salon and got it straightened. After about a hundred and fifty bucks and several painful hours of combing that nasty-smelling concoction through my hair, it was straight. It was beautifully straight… especially after the very nice stylist blew it out with the round brush. It was shiny and soft and swung when I walked. It was wonderful.

It lasted… exactly FIVE HOURS. Right up to the little rainshower that made its appearance exactly five hours after my straightening, and it was right back to curly again. This time the curls were even tighter. It was like it was taking revenge for my efforts. That was the day that I quit arguing with it and started trying to get along with it.

I threw away the round brush and the blowdryer. I didn’t have the energy any longer to beat it into submission in the morning, only to have it poof up like ramen noodles by the afternoon. It was like the Spacebag in reverse. Not only did I not have the energy, I didn’t have the time. I washed it, threw some gel in it, scrunched it a little, and headed out the door. It was my five-minute do. I liked the time investment, but didn’t usually like the way it looked in the mirror. And let’s be honest, curly hair (super-deluxe curly hair) does not lend itself to the fashionable styles of the day.

I have friends with GREAT hair… I mean, really great hair. Straight, choppy, bouncy, bobbed, layered, chunky hair. Me? I get to alternate between the short Shirley Temple look and the longer Carrot Top version. Short or long are really my only options. And if I don’t find a stylist that knows what he or she is doing?

Dear God, help us all. It’s crazy-making, this hair thing.

A couple of weeks ago my neighbor dropped the book Curly Girl by for me to read. It is a great book, as far as books about hair go. I’m more of an international espionage fan myself, but it was a quick read–a necessity in my household–and it had lots of great tips. The main premise is that folks with curly hair like mine should forego the shampoo and just use conditioner. After a week or so, the author says, the hair will adjust to the routine and BAM, like magic, it will begin to obey. Instead of this uneasy truce we have, it will fall into fantastic ringlets (like all of the girls in the pictures), it will be conditioned wonderfully, and the frizz factor will be nil.

I’m a sucker. What can I say? Of course I tried it. For the past two weeks I have eschewed shampoo in favor of conditioner alone, massaging my scalp in the way she describes in the book to loosen dirt particles and whatever else may be in my hair. I condition the heck out of it and do what I normally do, which is scrunch in a little gel and let it air dry. I have spent a small fortune in the past two weeks on different kinds of conditioner. I’m searching for the magic formula, the one that will tame my hair without leaving my scalp feeling like an oil farm has sprung up there.

I have been patient.

No dice.

I must admit that after eight years of dealing with this curly hair, and after sixteen years of having hair that goes against the current style (whatever it may be), I’m tired of it. I’m tired of looking in the mirror at the frizz farm. I’m tired of trying new products that leave my hair feeling just slightly stickier than my children’s hands after a round of popsicle eating in the hot sun. I’m sick of being unable to find the right thing to make it light and bouncy (and clean) without leaving it dry enough to qualify as its own desert land mass.

Evidently I’m destined to have this bird’s nest of curly hair, but I’ll be darned if I know what to do with it.

Even after I read the manual.

Maybe I’ll just copy Sinead O’Connor and shave it off.  That would be liberating!

Protected: 100 Posts and Counting

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

How to find me

Peg posted awhile back on the ways folks had gotten to her blog via search engines. It was entertaining and I thought I’d share with you (read: shamelessly rip off her blogging topic) some of the interesting (and sometimes downright disturbing) things folks have searched for… and ended up with me!

fairy dishwasher odors - does the fairy bring the odors or take them away? I can’t actually recall having a problem with dishwasher odors… or fairies, for that matter.

vicuprofen info - I know. It’s good stuff, isn’t it? No, I didn’t fill the prescription I got from the dentist. And if I had, and I hadn’t taken all of my pills, I would not, under any circumstances, give them to you. No. No is the answer. You’ll have to go and get your own perio-scaling done.

I’ll pay you to suck my toe - There are fetishes, and then there are fetishes. I’m pretty sure I never wrote anything on my blog about anyone sucking anyone else’s toes. That’s just company information, right there. Don’t wanna know. Not even a little bit. Really don’t wanna know if someone’s getting paid for that.

Alaska oldest wore house - First, I have no idea what someone would do in a wore house. Is that somewhere that people try on clothing, or what? If you really meant a whorehouse, then shame on you for entering that into a search engine. Shame on you even more for looking on my blog for something like that, like I would know! I’m traumatized for life. Yes, we went to the bar in Alaska at 9:30 in the morning and drank Jack Daniels (you have to when it’s The Red Dog Saloon–Wyatt Earp drank there at 9:30 in the morning, you know), but I know absolutely zilch-a-roonie about whorehouses, or wore houses, in Alaska.

get animal poop mailed - seriously. If you feel the need to box it up and mail it to someone, you should seek therapy… immediately! Can’t you just put it in a bag on the doorstep like everyone else?

animals getting raped - um… ok… people actually think about this topic enough to type it into Google or whatever? I’m scared. Someone hold me.

spanking him pants off thermometer - you had me right up to the thermometer part. I’m struggling with how the thermometer fits into the picture, though. Never mind. I’m not sure I want to know. Are you related to the animal poop mailer?

Disclaimer: Stephanie’s Place does not endorse in any way, shape or form the removal of pants from children, nor the spanking of the aforementioned children, unless that’s acceptable in your household and then you go right on ahead as long you don’t hurt the little monkey physically or psychologically, but don’t hold me liable for telling you it was ok because I never said any such thing and I’m proclaiming right here and now that depantsing and/or spanking could warp a child for life. I mean, really, look at me.

crazy names to call a peg - I can see looking up crazy names to call Peg (no offense intended, Peg), because you can’t just come up with them on your own, but I’m not sure why you’d need to search for crazy names to call A peg. Isn’t it really just a peg?

dentist gas husband - did y’all have a fight this morning, too? I know the feeling! If you have questions about the amount of pain anyone at the dentist’s office might inflict on your soulmate, please refer to my Medieval Torture post.

peoples real crazy names - did you mean “real crazy” or “real, crazy” names? Cuz some folks have some “real crazy” names, let me tell you–like Kal-el and such. If you’re looking for real, crazy names, you could try some of the name generators out there, maybe.

getting hubby to obey - dear God in Heaven, if you have found the answer, please leave a comment… IMMEDIATELY. The rest of us ladies are dying to know! Do not, I repeat, DO NOT, leave us hanging on this one. Never mind. he’s not any more likely to obey me than I am to obey him. I guess that’s fair, huh?

dawn donuts sewing kit - did you need to stock your sewing kit with donuts? At dawn? Were you sewing at dawn and needed donuts? Did you need a kit to create donuts by sewing… at dawn? I’m so confused.

are we mistaken - most likely, yes. ‘Nuff said.