Wednesday's Child is Full of Woe

I have lots to say, obvs. About vacation, and the kids, and the 5K I ran with Natalie.

And my plan was to sit down last night, after an inaugural "I'm back to attempting to be healthy" run, with a glass of wine, and create a photo-licious post for you all about our vacation.

But then, during my run, this happened:

Side view

Front view

View earlier today as I developed a lovely black eye

In trying to swerve around a large dog barking at me from the middle of the sidewalk, I managed to trip, scrape up a good portion of my body, and give myself a nice whack on the head with the concrete. Good times. I immediately developed a huge goose egg, and spent my painful walk home and a good portion of the rest of the evening alternating between crying and feeling sorry for myself. Nothing like a good injury to make me cry about EVERYTHING. By the time M. heard me come in to the house and came to tend to my many wounds (with appropriate amounts of concern, though I am well aware that much of that concern stems from not wanting to be left all alone with the children), I was combining my bad luck/inability to read the signs that I shouldn't go for a run (dark already. difficult bedtime with kids. many other things that should probably be prioritized) with tears over whether we were parenting Finn completely, absolutely, wrongly. Ah, the release of a good cry... once you start, you just can't stop.

Anyway, we checked with a neighbor who is a nurse, and determined that provided we were vigilant about detecting any signs of mental deterioration, I could put off going to the ER for the time being and wait for the swelling to go down. M. has given me about 20 pop quizzes to check my mental faculties, and I have passed with flying colors. He probably expected me to be able to name where we got married and the town we currently live in, but I surprised him by even being able to name his brother's middle name. A fact I'm not even sure HE remembers. I came to the conclusion that it was possible he had sustained a concussion at some point last night, when, before attending to a crying, nightmare-having Finn, he actually asked me which room was Finn's. Because he didn't know. He was apparently a wee bit sleep-addled and confused.

I worked from home today (and slept in) to recover, and am now left with a slight headache, some garish eye markings that might call for a purchase of purple and pink eye shadows, and plenty of muscle soreness that reminds me of just how unsuited my muscles are to taking the full weight of my body on as it skids across a hard surface. How do kids fall so often, and recover so quickly? This would not have phased Finn or Lucy for more than half an hour, but I was putting myself on driving arrest, limping around the house, and worrying about stray blood clots. Maybe because they are closer to the ground?

Tonight, I am enjoying that belated glass of wine (or two). Hopefully tomorrow I'll get around to those vacation pictures... ;-).

Re: title. I was born on a Wednesday. But I don't think I'm atypically full of woe?

Simply Shocked

Last night I served veggie burgers and french fries for dinner (and fresh cherries, but that is not a central point to this post). I opened a new bottle of ketchup for the burgers and fries, and half way through I realized that it tasted funny to me.

Now, I'm a Heinz ketchup girl - it's clearly the best ketchup brand, and generic just doesn't cut it. But I wondered if something was going on, as this bottle tasted too sweet and just a bit off to me. I looked at the label, and it said "Simply Heinz Tomato Ketchup." I don't recall the "Simply" being on the label before.

I happened to have the old, empty bottle of ketchup waiting to go out to the recycling bin. Sure enough, it confirmed that the "Simply" wasn't on the old bottle. I compared the ingredients list between the two, and the only difference (aside from the order being a little off) was that one bottle had corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup, while the other had sugar. Guess which one I preferred? Yup, the one with the evil HFCS. This shatters all kinds of snooty, preconceived notions I have about my palette and my health conscious-ness.

M. couldn't tell the difference between the two.

I guess regular Heinz ketchup is going to have to join Diet Coke, canned green beans and Oreos (among others) on the List of Foods I Love But Know I Shouldn't Due to The Presence of Harmful Chemicals/Substances. Any of you have a similar list?

The Summer of the X-ray

A couple of doctor's appointments of note in the last few days. The first was Lucy's 15-month well check-up on Friday. She wowed the doctor with her charm and growth, and managed to recover pretty quickly from the three shots she received. The stats rundown:

Height: 31 and 3/4 inches (85%)
Weight: 24 lbs 12 oz (75%)
Head: something that comes out to 50%

Nothing really to note, other than the fact that we are being advised to give Lucy a vitamin, despite her non-picky, voracious appetite. This is because she is still on reflux meds, and apparently long-term treatment with PPIs can reduce absorption of some vital nutrients. Hence, the Flinstones will be coming to dinner every night, once I can get my act in gear and remember to actually give them to her (and Finn while I'm at it). We have a bottle of the gummy vitamins, just haven't actually remembered to bring them out and use them.

That was our planned doctor's visit. The need for the unplanned one occurred right as we were filling our trunk with a bunch of frozen Costco purchases on Saturday. It involves one of those moments as a parent LauraC referred to when you are proven to be SO RIGHT. Though I can't say it made me feel particularly awesome. Per usual, I opened Finn's car door for him so he could climb into the car, then walked around to get Lucy into her seat (as M. unloaded our cart into the trunk). Usually once I have Lucy buckled in, I then walk around the car to help Finn with his carseat straps. This time, though, as I placed Lucy in her seat, I heard a car door shut, a gasp of surprise, and then a slow build-up to screams. Lots of panicky screams. Before I even looked, I knew what had happened.

Finn has, on a few previous occasions, decided to shut his car door himself, from the inside. EVERY SINGLE TIME he does this, I yell and scold and worry and try to get the message across that THIS IS DANGEROUS. HANDS COULD GET CAUGHT. DO NOT DO THIS. EVER. Well, he now knows this firsthand. I had to drop Lucy in her seat, run shakily around to the other side of the car, and open the door to free Finn's right hand. And while our Costco purchases languished in a hot trunk, Finn got this:



A nice trip to urgent care, and the third M. family X ray in less than 3 weeks. M. went in with Finn to get the X-ray while I wrangled Lucy, so I can't say for sure, but I'm betting they didn't ask Finn if there was a chance he might be pregnant :-). Fortunately, all he received were a few dents in his skin that went away fairly quickly - no broken bones, and not even a bruise to remind him of the experience. Hopefully the memory will last a bit longer than that, and keep him from harming himself further with doors of heavy machinery. Gah!

Once we got that out of the way, and gave Lucy some time to nap, we headed off to the local splash park. Both kids had a blast, and were very brave (despite the cloudy skies that made things pretty chilly, for a change). Lucy amazed me with how willing she was to just wade right in to the center of the fray. Photo taking took a bit of a back seat while we chased after them, but I was not too busy to notice the extremely inappropriate clothing I saw on many of the adults at the splash park. Who goes to one of these places without a bathing suit? Do you really expect to NOT get wet? I saw women in heels and (short) skirts, jewelry, dresses, etc, completely wet. And then there are the ones that wore very casual clothes, apparently intending them to get wet, but no bathing suit underneath. If we were lucky, there was perhaps a bra. If we were very lucky, they weren't wearing very thin white T shirt (you know, the type that become transparent when wet). Good lord, people, let's use some common sense here!

We did manage to snap a couple of pictures, though, for your enjoyment. Of the kids, of the kids. Not the see-through clothes :-).






And a couple of bonus pics:


Zoning out in front of the TV, but at least they're dressed well!


Kicking back with the remote

Naughty Cookies

Sometimes I worry that the daycare where we have our children is not exactly giving them the best head start in life, academically-speaking. Some of this worry comes from the fairly frequent spelling and grammar mistakes we find in the monthly newsletter, on the menu list (example: Chocolate was spelled "choclate" twice on the snack list. Also distressing because chocolate makes a frequent appearance on the snack list, but that's more health-related than academic...), and on notes from the kids' teachers (example: one teacher left us a note that she "adiccently" wrote that Lucy had hot dogs for lunch on her daily sheet, but really she ate food from home [we don't allow Lucy to have hot dogs yet]. Took me a while to figure out that the word she meant to use was "accidently").

I hate to sound snobbish, but this does not come from a place of having a Ph.D./higher education/whatever. These are grammar and spelling rules I learned well before college. Should I really be worried about this, or does it frustrate me because grammar/spelling mistakes are a pet peeve of mine?

My latest favorite, on Lucy's daily sheet, listing her snack for the day:

"Villan Waffers"

Wonder what the cookies (I assume they meant wafers and not waffles) did to deserve the criminal rep?