Tippy Toes and Tantrums

Put Down Your God Damned Phones

And drive! Seriously, people! And get your dogs off your laps too!

This morning I was on my way for a tour of our local public school (where, when it was over, I returned to my car and cried - good times!) and I was stopped at a four way light. When it turned green, I waited WITH MY SIGNAL ON to turn left, staring at the very slowly oncoming SUV, who had also been stopped, wondering when she was going to go. Finally I realized she wanted to turn to her left, but was not signalling because she had her left hand holding her phone to her ear and the right hand holding her coffee while her wrist was handling the steering. She was unable to signal. Why the people behind her - the long line of traffic being held up - did not honk, is beyond me.

Later in the morning I was returning from taking the kids to see the Easter bunny at the mall (Rocket cried big tears) and was stuck behind what appeared to be a very confused driver in another SUV. She would stop about two car lengths before a stop light for no reason, them move over in the lane, like she was going to change lanes, but then would jerk back. Finally I had a chance to pass her and as I did, I looked into her car and saw that she was a very short old lady who was on the phone while struggling to drive. Her phone was plugged in too, which was perfect. While she may have simply had a low battery, being plugged in made it look like a much older car phone. It fit the picture.

Finally, we got behind an old man who lingered at stop signs and drove erratically, only to find upon passing that he was looking at a map resting across his steering wheel and had a dog in his lap.

When did people stop caring? People get lost, yes, but pull over when there is someone behind you and resume your search after. The same goes for people on the phone. When I was young, I thought it was the law that drivers had to keep their hands in the 10 and 2 positions. Now it is lucky if people use one hand to drive. I made a commitment to Kevin a few years ago after Clover was born that I would not use a cell phone while driving unless in traffic or in an emergency. I knew my focus was not fully on the road when talking, so I agreed. My children's lives are more important than any call. It seems like 90% of the time, when behind a slow or erratically moving car, the driver is on a cell phone. And it makes me crazy that cell phone use is not cited during car accidents. Cars have become traveling homes and I don't think that is necessarily a good thing. When cars are computer driven, it will be great to be able to eat, talk and read email while driving, but until then, I wish those drivers would get out of my way.

Peep Show

Clover ate entirely organic until she was about a year old or so. I had forgotten about that until yesterday when I remembered as I handed Rocket a handful of Cheerios and Gerber veggie puffs. I never would have given those things to her, but then she didn't eat nearly as much as her brother. It is easy to only feed the best food to your baby when she barely eats. Rocket is a huge fan of the puffs, which we all know are just a stepping stone to Pirate's Booty. A gateway puff.

Clover's first few Easter baskets were candy free, which is another thing that is changing. I wanted to focus on things other than food, but despite my best efforts, Clover has a raging sweet tooth, like both of her parents (I'm eating Reese's Eggs while typing. I bought them a week ago, but have not touched them until today, however I am making up time by eating more than I should). Yet, where she is much better off is that she clearly knows when she has had enough and that it is time to stop eating. That makes it harder to say no to candy during a holiday because the girl does know her limits, so last night I did the previously unthinkable, I bought Peeps for her Easter basket. She is going to go nuts, especially because they are pink, even though I really liked the pastel sage ones myself. The hard part is going to be keeping Rocket away from them. He's getting a book in his basket, but if I know him, he'll still put it in his mouth and eat it.

Inspiring Something

Rocket's schedule is off this morning, which means I've spent more awake time with him that usual as his naptime has been pushed back. He's broken my heart a million times with his sweetness and as I've watched, I've become sure that this is the stuff of which those lame, inspirational posters are made, like "Ten Things I Learned About Life from a Baby." My senior year of high school, a friend gave me a framed copy of "All I Need to Know in Life I Learned in Kindergarten" and I thought it was so wise - give me a break, I was 17 - saying "wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school." Now that I spend time watching kids in a sand pile, I know this is a crock of shit, as kids routinely break more than half of the lessons about life, which are: share everything, play fair, don't hit people, put things back where you found them, clean up your own mess, don't take things that aren't yours, and say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. Those lessons are what the moms watching from the sidelines are barking at their children. Not that these are not good ways to live life - they are - they just don't seem to come naturally to little children.

Rocket's inspirational work this morning was cheering for himself. He has mastered clapping - the quiet, golf clap, as my sister calls it - and after he would climb or pull up on something, inevitably doing the baby sit-fall, where he falls with straight legs landing smack on his diaper, Rocket would clap, as if giving himself credit for trying something new and challenging. A good lesson.

Rocket did learn a little about sharing this morning. He was happily playing with Leap Frog magnets on the refrigerator, when I turned to my computer. I thought that I should rig up a strap to carry my laptop around while open, similar to how cigarette girls would carry their wares, and that way I could watch Rocket everywhere while reading. Suddenly I noticed it was quiet and I walked around the corner to find Rocket sharing dog food with one of our dogs. Both of them were huddled up around the bowl, fannies facing me. I grabbed Rocket out of there, but he clearly ate some - it was smeared around his face and he smelled of soggy Iams. So much for Rocket's organic diet and so much for slowly introducing foods to guard against allergies (do I need to wait four days before introducing his next food?). Rocket spent the next half hour trying to get back to the bowl. I put the now empty bowl on the counter with the dog water bowl and Rocket stared up at it from the ground. I've often thought Rocket was like a little puppy, especially the way he likes to flop around with the dogs in the sun, but this was even more than I had expected. It is one thing to try dog food, it is another to want more.

Mall Insecurity

Recently I came down with Bell's Palsy, half-facial paralysis due to nerve aggravation. Generally it is not a big deal and for the most part, you just wait (weeks to months) for it to go away. In my case there is a good deal of pain too, but that is not usually associated with it. Sometimes, if the pain is low, I forget I have it, but then there are other times, like a trip to the Stanford Shopping Center, when it makes me completely insecure. Having kids, it is impossible to hide out inside my house and wait for it to go away. After two weeks, my kids are used to it, but for the first few days it was hard. My nine month old son would look at me a little confused, mostly because he looks at my face to gauge my reaction to what he is doing or what is going on around us and I am unable to be expressive back. My four year old daughter pitied me. After watching me talk or try to drink, she would come over, hug me and say "I love you" with a look that said "despite this weirdness.

Prior to Bell's Palsy, my husband scheduled a day off from work to allow me a day to myself. Granted, I had to run errands, but still, I was alone. When - after the Bell's Palsy hit - it became clear that most of my day was going to be spent at the Stanford Shopping Center, returning gifts and buying some new clothes, trepidation stepped in. Normally I wouldn't head to the Stanford Shopping Center without wearing makeup and making sure my hair was in decent shape. I've been known to change clothes before running over there and not only mine, but my kids' clothes too. My husband laughs and thinks I am crazy, but people really dress at that mall, especially when there are families who appear to be taking family portraits in front of the flowers. The flowers are nice, but seriously, it's the mall. Go to a park for your photo shoot. My husband also laughed at me for feeling insecure about going to the mall with Bell's Palsy. He asked if I was going to try to get a temporary handicap parking placard issued to me "because it is just too embarrassing to walk any farther."

When the day came, I headed over, repeating to myself that these are retail employees and no one to fear. My first stop was JCrew, which was crowded enough that if there, my sister would have asked "do people work anymore?" It was easier than I thought as the sales person did not even look up at me from the start, he had the air of being too busy to help, which I kind of welcomed with my insecurity. The other stores were not much more difficult, even though I had to do a bit of talking. The one rough spot was when I ran into another mom whom I had not seen in awhile. I didn't know if I should explain the palsy or let it go. I made it home feeling a little more secure than when I had left. The experience mellowed me enough on the shopping center that I can now go without preparing myself ahead of time, even when casually dressed. It's a mall, after all, even if the flowers are portrait-worthy.

A Twitch of Hope

My cheek is moving slightly. You would have to look really close to notice it, but I can move it up a little. It is far from a smile, but it really feels hopeful and exciting to get some control back on that half of my face. The pain is slowly subsiding, which hopefully means the nerve is healing and I will be able to sleep without Advil or Tylenol with codeine. I'm happy enough to smile...as much as I can.

This was a week for firsts here. Rocket ate his first sand, fell hard enough to require his first ice pack and needed to have an object dislodged from his throat (an event the was repeated the next day). Clover has never done any of those things, but if I tell her Rocket beat her to them, she would rush out, shove sand down her throat until she choked and then knock her head as she fell down. She is that competitive.

Hiding Nemo

Rocket fell yesterday and hit his face badly enough that he needed an ice pack (this will be repeated only a million more times before he leaves for college, I'm sure). I have two Boo Boo Buddies for my kids, these great frozen gel packs for bumps and bruises, one shaped like a dog and another like Nemo (the manufacturer clearly states "clown fish" to avoid any sort of licensing fight, but all kids see it as Nemo). I took out Nemo and applied it to Rocket's face, but he kept trying to eat it instead and it was soon disregarded on the ground.

I picked it up and was hit with inspiration: my breasts are sore from weaning recently and using Nemo as a cold compress could really ease the pain. So I popped Nemo into my bra and found the dog ice pack and added him to the other side. Oh what a genius I am. Or so I thought.

My bras are old. Really old. I love them, though, because they're soft and comfy, even if that also means threadbare and unsupportive. In the last few months, I've bought a few new bras, but I have yet to work them into the rotation. That will end this weekend because things have gotten embarrassingly bad. Recently while trying to latch them in the back, my finger has poked a hole through the fabric near the hooks. This has happened with two different bras, making this something I can no longer ignore.

Yesterday I was wearing a thin white bra with a thin white shirt. Not so thin that they are see through, but if you add an orange fish and a blue dog, well, it could be embarrassing to me and confusing to the kids.

I was so comfortable with the gel packs that I forgot they were there. I went outside with them, I rolled around with the kids with them, I went to Whole Foods with them and I almost picked Clover up from school with them, but that was when I remembered. I ran to the mirror and was relieved to find that they could not be seen through my top, even though an odd shape was somewhat visible. I am tempted to use them again today, but I cannot count on remembering to take them out before we leave the house. Sometimes I put Post-It Notes on the inside of our front door to make sure I remember something before we leave. I could write one that says "check bra" or "take Nemo out of bra," but then I have to remember to get rid of the note before anyone comes over to our house.

And what if one of the kids needs the gel packs, wouldn't mommy grabbing one out of her bra be weird?

Sugar and Nuts

I'm back to not worrying after seeing the neurologist yesterday. The MRI never got scheduled due to severe stupidity on the scheduler's part. After getting off the phone with me on Monday, she seemed to forget about the whole thing until I called back yesterday to check on the progress. Then she tried to blame my doctor for her inaction, but it was completely her fault. It didn't matter anyway because the neurologist said to hold off on the MRI for awhile anyway and I've decided not to call the scheduler about this change just to see if she ever proceeds with getting the clearance from my insurance. My guess is that I never hear back from the MRI office. I'm thankful I didn't have an aneurysm or something similar while waiting on the scheduling ding-dong.

The neurologist was a trip. He was a character that you are more likely to find in a movie based on a John Grisham novel than in a real doctor's office. (If I had read a John Grisham novel I could have said he was a character from a book, but I haven't, but I did see the movie with Tom Cruise in Memphis and the Cayman Islands. I've totally forgotten the rest.) The doctor was older, had a soft southern drawl and was in an office that was several shades of dull brown and had not been updated since the late 70s. He did have a computer, but the old monitor took up two-thirds of his desk. When I walked in the waiting room, he was on the phone in his office on what sounded like a funny personal call (the other person in the line had screwed up their BMI calculation because they had their height wrong). He asked me into his office a few minutes later and began peppering me with questions about Bell's Palsy. Not "how are you feeling?" type questions, although there were some of those, but he quizzed me the history of the palsy, including when and where it was discovered, what precisely is it, where precisely it is (and this included a spinal model!), etc. I felt like I was sitting in a professor's office back in college. I had to be on my toes at all times. The doctor was slow, he would really think and consider each thing I said before moving on, which made my quiz uncomfortable. In the end, he told me I could pass the boards for neurology. It wasn't clear if this is how the doctor entertains himself or if he was testing my brain function. I'm just happy I passed, which is silly because I was not being graded, but it took my mind off of what he told me, which was that there is a direct correlation between the length and intensity of the pain and the length of the palsy. Basically, he thinks this is going to go on for awhile. After he walked me out, he went right back into his office for another personal call. Who does this guy chit-chat with all day long? I think the same thing when I see people constantly on a cell phone. Who could they be talking to so frequently?

On the drive home, I stopped at a y-shaped intersection down the hill from us. The traffic on the main street does not stop and where it forks off to the side, a traffic island was added over a year ago. There is a house at the point where the second street connects and the half-oval island is to prevent people from taking the turn too fast right in from of this house. The traffic island is painted with white stripes and it includes small plastic bumps and larger cement blocks, just like the ones found at the end of spaces in a parking lot. There is no mistaking this for an open part of the road.

As I stopped, I could see this old Oldsmobile flying down the hill, well above the speed limit, so I stayed stopped. Without signalling, the driver turned at the fork, cutting it really close to the house, driving over the huge bumps. It was an old lady wearing tan wrap around glasses (the kind old people prefer, they look like the ones handed out when you get your eyes dilated) who looked like she was riding a horse as she bounced around in her car going over the bumps at full speed. She looked over at me, with my mouth half agape in a palsied WTF look and seemed to frown, like I was the crazy one.

In other old person craziness, my great aunt has been telling my cousins that I have cerebral palsy. My mom has received some confused calls from relatives trying to figure out what is going on and why it took 36 years to diagnose cerebral palsy.

Today is the first day in about a week that I have not had a doctor or acupuncture appointment. I decided to relax over a bowl of cereal, but the Cheerios tasted awful. I bought a box of Frosted Joe's Os recently on a whim at Trader Joe's and I am hooked. Now regular cereal tastes boring, but I'm not going to further indulge the kid in me who was denied sugary cereals by my mom. It is a slippery slope toward a lover affair with Tony the Tiger.

Where Did That Train Go?

The pain around the right side of my head and face is worsening and because pain is rarely associated with Bell's Palsy at all, I have been sent for further evaluation. This includes an MRI exam, which I am thoroughly dreading and eagerly anticipating both at once. The thought of spending an hour or so in a tight tube is frightening, but I want to make sure there is nothing worse than the palsy going on, so I'd like to have this done soon, just to get it over with.

I don't have any signs of a stroke or brain tumor, but I did notice that tonight I was slightly forgetting things, just like when I was pregnant. I would walk into the kitchen only to forget why. When talking, I easily lose my train of thought. I hope it is only due to the pain, which feels like someone either poking or stabbing my head with an ice pick, depending upon how bad it is at any given moment.

This post was going to be about something that happened on my birthday and it was going to be mind blowingly (is that a word?), astonishingly funny, but alas, I've forgotten. Also, I was going to describe the contents of a birthday package I received from a college friend that was astonishing, but not in a ha-ha funny way, but that will have to wait until the ice picking stops.

Jump Start My Face

The Bell's Palsy hit last Sunday and it came on really fast. I had a canker sore - which is the likely culprit for the Bell's Palsy and makes me want to yell "Damn it all to hell!" - and while out running errands on Sunday, my right eye began to water. I thought it was allergies. I also noticed my mouth wasn't working quite right, which I assumed was the canker sore. Then my eye felt heavy. You would think I would notice something was up, but I didn't, at least until I spit milk out the right side of my mouth as I tried to swallow. That's when I noticed half of my face didn't work.

My friend asked me if I thought I was having a stroke, but I didn't, I knew it was "the palsy," as I like to call it because my grandfather had it about 15 years ago, then when I googled it, I had each of the symptoms and nothing more. I did think I was having a stroke about a million times on the second day. I went to the doctor and she told me that for the first 24 hours - which were almost up by the time I saw her - I needed to pay attention to any arm or leg tingling because it could still be a stroke. About every five minutes I was certain I felt tingling. I woke up once, having slept with my hand in an odd position, and when it felt tingly, I thought it was a stroke, but decided to go back to sleep and just accept death when it came. I hope I went back to sleep because rationally I knew it was not a stroke or else my self-preservation skills suck.

That first day I made an appointment for acupuncture. I had never had it before, but I was willing to try and heard that it had good results with Bell's Palsy. The appointment was set for Thursday, so I waited. However late Wednesday the acupuncturist called and said it was a mistake that her assistant took the appointment because the office would be closed for a month for vacation. I began looking for another acupuncturist and found one, only to find out the next day that she was leaving for vacation for two weeks. Apparently this is usually the acupuncture dead time - what August is to most of Europe. She referred me to another center and I finally had an appointment for Friday morning.

The acupuncturist I saw was great. When taking my background, he made a little surprised noise when I mentioned that I was pregnant five years ago with my daughter. Later, when he saw my birth date, he explained that he thought I was much younger and had me pegged at 28! Even with the palsy, I think my face lit up. (This was the second time that week I was told that I look like I am in my 20s. A nanny at ballet class was talking about a friend who was "waaaaaaay older" than me, in her mid-thirties. I said that I was in my mid-thirties and she was shocked. My younger sister snorted and snickered when I told her these stories.)

Only the needles being inserted into my face hurt, and that only lasted for a second to two, at least until the electrical work began. The acupuncturist brought in a little black box that I now think of as a small car battery. With tiny alligator clamps, he attached the wires from the box to the needles in my face and slowly turned up the juice, like he was trying to jump start the frozen side. It felt like something was flicking my face and he asked that I tell him when it was too much to take and that he would then back off a little, but the stronger I could tolerate, the better. With that in mind, I let him take it up pretty high because it wasn't too bad, especially for a few minutes. But then he got up and said "I'll be back in 40 minutes" as he left the room. I could have cried, but my right eye was already running, so what was the point? In the beginning, knowing that I had to stay there for 40 minutes of flicking seeming impossible to bear, but I made it and my face actually felt a little better. The improvement was slight, but it was there. Plus this is a "cumulative effort" as one acupuncturist told me, so I knew not to expect a miracle after my first visit.

What I didn't expect was that my face would ache. Even today, two days later, it still hurts in spots. It is like how it feels the day after really working out hard with a personal trainer, but instead of my legs aching, it is my face. I have my second appointment tomorrow and I am already dreading the electrical jolts. I just want my face back. In the meantime, Kevin has helpfully suggested I use a Phantom of the Opera mask to help me with my palsy-based insecurity.

Getting My Irish Up

This was a day of disappointment. I woke up in day three of a Bell's Palsy attack (episode doesn't seem nearly as dramatic) and managed through back-to-back French and ballet classes with an ornery Rocket, and as if I had not suffered enough, I learned the hard way that Shamrock Shakes are not available anywhere near me.

My birthday is on St. Patrick's Day, therefore for me, the Shamrock Shake has always been linked to my birthday. I haven't had one in years - I thought only two years, but after doing some research today, it must have been longer than that. I decided that despite saving McDonald's for our rare road trips, I would take Clover there to introduce her to Shamrock Shakes. I thought about calling the local McDonald's first, but I dreaded that because it appears to be 100% staffed by Spanish speakers and I don't have the Spanish words for Shamrock Shake, nor could I adequately explain that this is a green, seasonal thing. Afraid to call, I do not know what made me think the drive-thru would be any easier. When it was our turn, I tried to ask if they had a Shamrock Shake as clearly as my Bell's Palsy-ian mouth would allow, so it sounded more like "shamwok sayk," but I have a feeling the person taking the order wouldn't have understood me even if it had been perfectly spoken. She said what and asked if I wanted what sounded like a sandwich lake, so I tried again and after a few back and forths, she finally understood that I was asking about a shake and then said "We have veneela, you want that?" Because we were in the drive-thru, I ended the weirdness and ordered two chocolate shakes. Clover was thrilled, even if it was not the green, minty shake I had promised.

The chocolate shake tasted fine, but the whole thing sucked. I came home and got on the internet and found that a few McDonald's carry the Shamrock Shake, specifically at least one in Chicago, a few in Ohio and outside of Philadelphia. There is an online drive to get McDonald's to bring them back all over and I hope they do. I mean it isn't the best tasting mint shake out there - Taylor's Refresher at the San Francisco Ferry Building does a mint chocolate chip shake that is simply amazing - but it was a nice break from the ordinary.

On our drive to McDonald's, we passed a Jack-in-the-Box with a large sign that said they have an Andes mint shake. While it is not the Shamrock Shake, I think I may try it. It's not quite my birthday without that green goodness, although for many years I substituted another green drink to mark the occasion - the Midori Sour. Oh, how I love you Midori. On second thought, I need both drinks to celebrate the day.