Infusion-Induced Insanity.
On our last few hotel stays, Chris and I have discovered a magical commodity that hotels sometimes offer: fruit infused water.
Displayed beautifully in a large dispenser with multi-colored fruits, three recent hotels have had it in the lobby, with those lovely little clear plastic cups that make everything taste better.
One hotel even made with cantaloupe and cucumber. The fact that Chris raved so magnificently about this concoction was even more ridiculous – he’s spent his entire life disgusted by even the smell of cantaloupe and avoiding anything that had too “cucumbery” of an essence.
But yet. When combined and allowed to let water seep through its veins and then wet his parched throat after a long run, it was as if he had hiked across Alaska and found the Fountain of Life.
Speaking of which, all three times we’ve found this wonder happened to be directly after a long, hot run, which may have interfered with our objectivity with regards to the wonders of infused water. Because we both stood in the lobby and gushed over it being the BEST THING WE HAD EVER TASTED.
Sweating, me in leggings as pants, once even in matching running shirts, we felt more like Todd and Margo than we ever, EVER wanted to experience.
“Who drank the last of the infused water??”
“I DON’T KNOW, MARGO.”
But regardless of the obnoxious category our water pleasures put us in, we were hooked.
Last week, on the much anticipated day of July 15, I eagerly logged onto Amazon for what they promised would be the best day of my life: Prime Day.
“Better than Christmas!”, they said.
“We’re going to give you everything we have for mere pennies!”, I read.
I looked forward to stocking up on all of the things nearly as much as Noah looks forward to asking me every day how many days it is until his birthday.
But, as was the rest of the world, I was sorely disappointed and drowned in the betrayal of Amazon’s gigantic campaign of false advertising.
Prime Day actually went something like this:
Ugly necklace you’d never wear – 20% off!!
Violent video game for a system you don’t own – $5 less than usual!
Need a wooden wrist watch? Of course you do!! Only $999 – just for Prime Day!
I wept over the wasted anticipation that I had set aside for Prime Day. And it was dead to me.
But right before I clicked with a vengeance off of the page, a deal came up for fruit infusing water bottles.
Memories flooded over me of the miraculous hydration powers of infused water and I jumped with excitement. Finally! A Prime Day Deal I can actually use! I clicked through to buy Chris and I each a water bottle and immediately started fantasizing about all of the amazing subtly fruity concoctions that I’d prepare for us, therefore upping my Wife Stock by at least 30%.
But of course, the deal was “sold out”. Which means that I had to (and absolutely did) pay full price for those bottles (full price which was even $1 more expensive than it is now). And then I bought a fruit infusing pitcher to boot.
You win, Amazon. You. Win.
They arrived over the weekend, and I couldn’t wait to attempt to make lovely water as if I were a Marriott Hospitality Specialist.
The pitcher had a large sticker on the outside of it touting all of its benefits, and the two bottles had delightfully Google-Translated labels on their boxes,
I solemnly promised not to approach my bottles to a stove or to allow the bottles beat the sidewalk or collide the pavement and,etc,. Then I dismantled them and began washing. When I got to the pitcher, I started peeling off the label, because labels are evil.
Except that it wasn’t the nice peel-off kind of evil label. At all.
It was the type with the thick paper outer layer, the thin paper under layer, and the absolutely psychosis-inducing gummy layer. The kind of gummy layer that only squishes around when you scratch it with your fingernail and attracts every dirt particle in the house to instantaneously turn your pitcher into a dull, gray, sticky bug trap.
I scrubbed.
I rubbed.
I alcoholed (the label – not myself, although it might’ve helped my growingly-obsessed mental state.)
I scrubbed.
I hot watered.
I scrubbed some more.
I alcoholed again.
I considered the fact that there was probably an oil for this problem.
As I stood at my sink for this eternal span of time while my children moaned for lunch and my messy house glared at me from every angle, I appreciated the irony that I was spending my day on a label retraction instead of the more pressing matters that were not, as the label was, making me lose my mind.
I finally gave up and perhaps more than forcefully than necessary dropped the pitcher.
Then, to make myself feel better, I wrote my first ever Amazon review.
Somehow, this releasing of words fueled me to be able to go on with my life, and I filled all my new pretties with lovely fruit and cold water and began shaking them vigorously (like Shake Weights! With Fruit!) to expedite the infusion process. Chris and I drank great quantities of melon-and-cucumber water, plum-and-cherry water, and quickly poured out grapefruit water (because despite what hotels had taught us, nasty bitter rinds infuse, too.)
We learned that infused water is delicious, is not delicious to children, speeds up…ahem…digestion, and makes us very happy – even if we haven’t just been running in the July heat.
But every time my hands stick to my children’s hair when I hug them, and every time I find a fly that is hopelessly fused to the palm of my hand, I remember and curse the horror that is the outside of my eternally sticky pitcher.
Apologies.
I pulled the post I published this morning because I became concerned that it could be misconstrued as mean-spirited. I didn’t mean it that way, but sometimes it’s hard to write about experiences without saying things that could be misunderstood. I never in any way want to come across mean-hearted, even if that means not having content. If you happened to have read this morning’s post and I came across that way to you, I hope you can accept my apologies, and PLEASE know that it wasn’t my intention – only to write about the odd things that happen to me in as humorous a way as possible. This is the first time I’ve pulled a post after publishing and I’ll try not to make a habit of it.
In case you’re curious, no one objected to the post – I just felt uneasy in my heart about it.
I’ll be back soon!
The Adventures of Creep and Crack.
Up until the point in question in our home renovations, our contractor has sent out the most impressive sets of workmen, scoring Class A (or even better) on The Creep Scale.
The Creep Scale, a scientific document based on surveys of ones of housewives.
Class A*: This person is a stranger in your home, but is such a gentleman and appears so trustworthy that you give no hesitation to leaving the house while he’s there because you know he couldn’t possibly steal your everything.
Class B Creep: This workman has a slightly creepy vibe – he has a leer about him and leaves his Diet Mountain Dew spit bottle full of used chew on your counter overnight. When a Class B Creep is in your house, you decide you better stay home and babysit him to ensure that he doesn’t pilfer through your dresser drawers.
Class C Creep: This Creep is so beyond creepy that you don’t care what he steals or pilfers through. You leave your drawers in peril and flee with your children as soon as he arrives to prevent becoming a mysterious disappearance featured on 20/20.
* The categorization of “Even Better than Class A” includes all characteristics of Class A but also puts forth a loving grandfatherly vibe that makes you wish you had room in your family to adopt another paternal figure. You might even make up more home renovation projects just to keep him around.
The painter/construction guy who did most of the work was magnificent – He was the Better Than Class A Poster Man. He played with the kids, was super thoughtful about our schedule, did extra work for free at his own suggestion and insistence, and thoroughly won our hearts.
The Plumber was on an entirely different scale than the Creep Scale – he was Hot Class A. He was older than me – more of a Mike Rowe genre of hot. Never have I ever had someone with such deep, smoldering eyes soliloquize straight into my soul about low toilet flow due to Government regulation interfering with our ability to have a peaceful American bowel movement, then gently give me tips on how to hold down the handle just a little longer to get my family’s bodily refuse safely through the pipes.
Since Chris wasn’t around to meet most of the construction crew, I kept him textually informed of all the pleasantly lacking creep levels. After the third visit from Hot Plumber, I remembered to fill him in.
And then there were the tilers.
I had plans the day they were supposed to begin tiling our bathroom, and didn’t know if I would need to cancel those plans or rush to those plans based on the Creep Level of said tilers in route to my house. So I decided I’d go ahead and back my car out of the garage to keep from getting blocked in my driveway – just in case.
I cranked the car and opened the garage just as a van that was the car-baby of Deliverance and The X-Files limped into my driveway.
It was a brown, overly pin-striped conversion van. It was from the late 70s or early 80s. It most definitely once boasted of shag carpet on the ceilings and pleather bucket seats on every row, but now was stripped of all seats except the front two, and could easily hide the bodies of innocent homeowners underneath the Sonic cups and Grapico bottles.
I backed out an inch and sat, thinking that surely they would see what I was attempting and back up to let me out.
They did not, and proceeded down my driveway.
I backed up another five inches, trying to strengthen my hint.
They parked and opened their van doors, letting empty cigarette cartons spill out and allowing me to see my future grave.
I backed up another six inches, approaching perilously The-Mystery-Van-after-Shaggy-got-hooked-on-Meth.
They continued rooting through the McDonald’s bags to find their tools.
I put my car into park and got out to say hello and explain what I was attempting.
Which is when I had the privilege of actually meeting Shaggy-post-Meth.
Skinny and sunken cheeks, the man I would later name Creep (because he never introduced himself) had razor sharp teeth that he proudly showed me in a grin that could have meant many different things – none of them very pleasant. He yelled for the guy in the driver’s seat to let me out, and I hurried back into my car to process what I’d just experienced.
The driver got out and was, to my relief, quite friendly. He immediately stuck out his hand and introduced himself.
….except that in his thick drawl, he mispronounced what I was pretty sure his name should be.
Which brought me to an interesting fork in the road: do you call someone by their own mispronunciation, or do you pronounce their name correctly?
I chose neither, and just addressed him with a “Hey” when I found it necessary.
We headed up to the porch to look at the tile that had previously been delivered. The kindly driver bent down in front of me, which is when I learned that he had more than just a tiling talent – the man was holding the Guinness Book of World Records in the category of buttcrack length. I tried to pop my eyeballs out with my index fingers to prevent myself from continuing to stare but it was just so frighteningly impressive. He had crack for miles. I MEAN MILES.
He stood up, hiked up his pants, pulled down his shirt, and I still saw vast lengths of crack. It was really quite stunning and confusing in a purely anatomical manner.
After frantic last-minute detail decisions I didn’t know I was going to have to make and an extended Home Depot trip on their part, they were there to stay and I was definitely not staying home.
Crack was deeply involved in his work upstairs, and Creep was working on the porch. So I told Creep as we walked out, “We’re leaving for a while – if y’all need to go back to Home Depot, just leave the front door unlocked so you can get back in.”
His eyes glimmered and he gave me that frightening grin again.
“Y’all live in a safe neighborhood, do yeh?”
I got the strong feeling that Creep was about to call his best friend to tell him to put my house on a future hit list. “She leaves her front door unlocked, Bucky Ray!!”
(I do not ever leave my front door unlocked, for the record. But I wasn’t giving him a key to conveniently duplicate on their next trip to Home Depot.)
We left them to their Grapicos and Loudly-playing Classic Rock and fled.
When they finished Day One, not a single piece of tile had been laid. But we did have a toilet in our front yard with cigarette burns on the lid. Putting us right smack in the middle of the Class C Creep Category along with Creep and Crack.
On Day Two, I sent the children away with a babysitter and worked all morning in my office. Without telling us, they decided to work until 8:30pm, which created no small amount of family stress since we actually had somewhere we were all supposed to be that evening.
None of us actually thought to ask Creep and Crack how long they were planning on working, thinking surely they’d be done any minute and also due to something akin to the natural fear one has of waiters spitting in their food.
By the end of a very long day two, all of the tile was laid, but no grout had been mixed nor spread. My mind was filled with concern. WHAT were they doing up there?? Do I need to sanitize all my drawers?
On day three, Creep gave me a beautiful ray of hope by telling me that they’d be done by lunch. I silently cheered on the inside. But as the job came to a close, the emotions ran high. I overheard an outburst on our front porch in reference to the contractors running the job.
Creep yelled to Crack, “I don’t see why they get a cut of this job! Them folks is sittin’ on their a**es! We the ones doin’ all the work!!”
All I could hope is that one day, maybe Creep would understand the way the world works: A** Sitters successfully sell jobs. Creeps do not.
But they do lay some pretty tile.
This is How I Feel…
This is how I feel about dyed armpit hair.
This is how I feel about a Facebook invite to play Dragon City.
This is how I feel about sixteen year olds wearing cut-off mom jean shorts.
This is how I feel when I realize a single Facebook friend is selling Mary Kay, Rodan + Fields, Advocare, and Young Living simultaneously.
This is how I feel about thirteen year old boys having 20,000 followers on Instagram and all they post is sultry selfies. #goodhairday #eyes #smolder
This is how I feel every time I see a beautiful, historical storefront turn into a Vape Shop.
This is how I feel when Pinterest tells me that two dozen ten-color polka dot cupcakes topped with individual Pixie Hollow icing dioramas are easy to make.
This is how I feel when I realize exactly how messy my house has gotten – and that it’s at least 25% my responsibility to fix it.
This is how I feel when I catch the first whiff of whatever is to be the fiery Facebook topic of the week.
This is how I feel when the Dead Sea Mineral Lotion Kiosk Man tries to accost me and rub things onto my arms.
This is how I feel about silk shorts trimmed in Pom-Poms.
I feel this:
What makes you feel that?
Under Lock and Key.
Ali spent an entire Saturday morning planning and creating an extraordinarily intricate blanket fort.
Like Fort Knox itself, her construction boasted of all of the necessary building components to create the highest security possible – chairs, every blanket in the house, random objects like hammocks and toys to fill in the gaps left by the blankets, and a road rug. So that if you try to crash your car into the fort, you’ll just drive up that rug road and off to the right. A perfect deterrent.
There was even a watering can in case of emergency flower moisture needs.
I was allowed inside the fort on a heavily curated tour once and only once – to survey the fine architecture and high security measures housed therein.
Deep within the bowels of the fort, there was a Guard Rabbit, armed with a mighty light and aided by a Teddy Deputy. They were responsible for carefully hiding and protecting the entrance to The Vault.
To get to this most important secondary room, both guards, a pillow, and two backpacks had to be moved in just the right order so as not to set off any Indiana-Jones-style snares or trap doors into a room full of snakes (I’m assuming – although Ali has never seen Indiana Jones to glean from their wisdom.)
Carefully, Ali moved them to allow me to visit The Sacred Vault. To feast my eyes on what lay beneath.
The most guarded and precious room in the fort was a treasure indeed.
It was a library.
As it should be.
Have a nice weekend curled up in a fort vault somewhere.
The Snotty Truth: a Tonsillectomy Recovery.
I am an Adult Tonsillectomy Survivor.
I know, I know – you’re probably as tired of hearing about my tonsillectomy as you are my running. I get it. But I wrote about my surgery day and never got back to writing about the recovery. Because of this gross oversight (and yes it is definitely gross in all the intents of the word), I have had several future tonsillectomy recipients ask me for the full analysis of what the recovering is really like. We’ve all heard that it’s the most brutal surgery an adult can have and that you’ll hate your surgeon for the rest of your life – but are the rumors true?
I cannot confirm or deny the experience of every tonsillectomy, but here are the facts, observations, and tips from my personal experience.
1. The pain never got to what I would consider a “10” in and of itself. Especially on the actual surgery day, which really wasn’t bad. During the whole recovery, I never found myself writhing about in pain that I couldn’t handle. I’d rate my pain experience at 60% of what I expected it to be.
2. However, I spent ten entire days never allowing myself to go more than five hours without a pain pill – I even had Chris waking me up like a nursing newborn every four hours overnight, except that he was feeding me Vicodin instead of breastmilk. I did start to take half pills and even quarter pills during the second week, but even letting a quarter of a pill wear off was a really bad idea.
3. The exception to #1 and #2: The one night I did attempt to make it through the night without a pain pill did end in writhing pain. Lesson: take your pain pills. Do not screw this up. Keep a pain pill diary to make sure you do not screw this up. I repeat. DO NOT SCREW THIS UP.
4. The hardest part was not the pain – it was living. No one told me how impossible the function of swallowing would become. On days 2-4, I had to go everywhere with a spit cup – just to relieve my mouth of excess saliva (count how many times a day you subconsciously swallow saliva. It’s more than you think.) Spit cups are not sexy.
5. The not swallowing thing is a bummer, since having a tonsillectomy does not deplete your appetite, and you also kinda need to eat so as not to vomit back up those all-important and giant pain pills. Reality versus expectations with regards to my ability to swallow rates in at 300%.
6. Slowly allowing sorbet to evaporate down your throat in microscopic amounts is the only way to absorb nutrients during these exasperating few days. My recovery in numbers: 7 Quarts of Doodles Sorbet and 2 half-gallons of Edy’s ice cream. Yet I lost 12 pounds. (Which I’m sure I’ve gained back in entirety but I wouldn’t know because I ceased stepping on the scale immediately after I quit losing weight because scales are only fun when the numbers are going down.)
7. Tonsillectomies do not hinder the ability of your legs to function. I took several 1-2 mile slow walks with Chris, starting on day two, that helped me feel somewhat normal and medicated my feelings about my over-medication. Pain pills just make me sad.
8. During the days where swallowing was impossible, breathing was also difficult, which made living difficult, and sleeping even worse. Even sitting straight up, I snored so loudly that Chris said it was nearly worse than when I was 9 months pregnant.
9. The three most painful things that you can do while recovering from a tonsillectomy are yawning, coughing, and sneezing. Yawning is the worst because it occurs the most often. I didn’t sneeze for the first time until Day Ten, yet it still made me cry. Then I began sneezing regularly. The painfulness of sneezing continued on into the third and fourth week – it was so excruciating that I taught myself how to quit sneezing through my throat and start sneezing entirely out of my nose.
This is a problem because sneezing out your nose can be, and most likely will always be, messy.
This is a serious problem because it’s hard to relearn how to sneeze out of your throat.
In fact, I have yet been unable to do so.
So every time a sneeze catches me off guard (at least twice a day), I end up covered in snot and horrified at my own existence. This has not yet happened outside my home, but the time is coming – I can just feel it.
I need Sneeze Rehab as soon as possible.
10. All food tastes like carburetor after a tonsillectomy. It’s uncanny really – even if you’ve never tasted carburetor or maybe it’s been ten years since you last tasted carburetor, you’ll know what carburetor tastes like when you have a tonsillectomy. On day one, 100% of everything tasted like carburetor. The percentage of carburetor foods slowly decreased over the next five weeks, in order of foods with least to most preservatives, thereby forcing me to eat healthy. Golden Oreos were the last thing to return from the carburetor.
11. Even if you’re not the kind of person that gets a high off of pain pills, they might still make you draw eyebrows over all of your thigh freckles. That is okay.
12. If you find yourself in need of protein, try Corned Beef Hash. It might still taste like carburetor and look like wet cat food, but it will keep you alive. Other “foods” I managed to eat were: Mashed Cauliflower, completely textureless and lumpless soups, chicken broth, and yogurt. Sorbet was infinitely more pleasant than any of them.
13. It wasn’t until day five that I could finally see an opening down the back of my throat. That was the day that I also started feeling better and my throat scabs began to flake off. I felt like recovery was imminent and all those promises of fourteen days of misery were lies.
14. I discovered that now I had giant caverns on either side of my throat that liked to house all of my attempts at eating food – think wisdom teeth holes except ten times bigger. After each bite, I had to flush my mashed cauliflower out of these rather sensitive holes. That was gross. And I feared greatly that I’d have mouth holes for the rest of my life.
(Spoiler: they grew back. Just like wisdom teeth holes. The body is a weird and amazing thing.)
15. Throat scabs are white. Very white and very thick. I have many pictures of my fabulous progression of throat scabs that you don’t want to see. And then I have pictures of the cups of used salt water that I gargled to remove my throat scabs once they started peeling off. You definitely don’t want to see that, but since I’m sure you’re curious, it looks somewhat like giant flesh-eating amoebas floating through the Amazon. Or an ocean full of plankton.
16. Once I gargled my throat scabs off, my throat became intensely raw and painful – more so than when I couldn’t swallow. This was a big fat bummer, as regressing is the worst feeling ever. I am still unsure if it was my own fault for cleansing my throat, or if it was going to happen anyway. This made days 7-8 the absolutely worst days in the whole process – because I was in pain and depressed.
(As a side note, I SO WISH I had my Red Light Therapy bars when I was recovering from this surgery. Aside from helping with aches and pains and sleep and sadness, it heals flesh wounds – even in the throat – so much more quickly than they heal on their own. I might have spent the entire two weeks lying in front of that light. Or maybe I’d have just needed one week because my healing would have been sped up. If you haven’t read about Red Light Therapy, I highly recommend it – it has literally changed my life.)
17. When I woke up on day nine, I actually WOKE UP. It was the most amazing feeling – I felt alive again, and realized that I had been very much dead for over a week. I actually didn’t realize how un-lucid I had been until that moment – anesthesia always messes with me significantly longer than it seems like it should. I was still in pain and was still taking pain medicine religiously, which made me realize even more so how much the surgery had actually affected me.
18. On day fourteen, I went out on my first true run (I’d attempted on Day nine and day twelve rather unsuccessfully). All of my favorite victorious anthems came on, spurring me on to life again. I pumped my fists in the air while runners by stared judgmentally, and nearly cried from my exuberance over being alive.
19. On day twenty-eight, I contracted a throat infection. As I had been sold on getting a tonsillectomy for the sole purpose of ending my cycle of throat infections, I was unhappy.
So naturally, I cyber-stalked my ENT. Turns out he lives exactly one mile from my house. I fantasized about walking up that hill, demanding my money, my tonsils, and a month of my life back.
But in an effort to be slightly less creepy, I went into his office the next day and demanded all of those things. With Noah in tow. Who asked him 757 questions about everything in his office as extra punishment.
20. I’m now eight weeks out from surgery, and I am completely recovered except that I am still somewhat hoarse – which you will discover if you approach me unexpectedly. I will do that high-pitched “Hi there! How are you doing?” and “Hi” and “You” will be silent because my voice cannot hit those octaves anymore.
My Most Important Tips:
a. Have a long series queued up on Netflix ready to binge (my show choice was 30 Rock.)
b. Have a freezer full of sorbet (I preferred peach and mint chip.)
c. Be emotionally prepared for a regression. Do not let yourself believe that you will be the exception to a two week recovery.
d. Do NOT miss taking your pain pill.
e. When you reach the crossroads of sneezes-that-make-you-cry or learn-to-sneeze-through-your-nose, just cry it out. Once you go nose, you can’t go back.
And, one final FAQ: one of my friends asked me after the surgery, “So do you have a cool scar, or were they able to go in through your mouth?”
No worries, people – you can see your tonsils when you open your mouth – they hang out on either side of your uvula. They will not slit your throat open to get to them.
Editor’s Note (November, 2017): Getting a tonsillectomy was the BEST decision I’ve ever made. I went from having 13 antibiotics in a year with multiple secondary infections to hardly ever getting sick. When I have gotten a cold, it has be super light and hasn’t turned into anything worse. I do not remember the last time I went to the doctor for a nose or throat problem. It was miraculous! So have hope – it will all be worth it.
Summers are For Kids.
Our summer thus far has been the most fascinating family paradox. While Chris and I have been wrestling with it in a most epic fashion, the kids have literally had The Best Summer Of Their Lives.
- I had surgery = The kids got ten days of fabulous playdates with different friends every. single. day. Then got to eat the remains of my tonsillectomy spread of ice creams.
- Our house flooded and we had to move out = the kids got to live in a fancy hotel for five days with their own pool and breakfast buffet and dreams come true.
- We’ve had workmen in our house for days at a time = The kids got to spend every day being chauffeured by me to fun activities and interesting surprise ways to spend our days.
- Noah got bit by a spider = Okay that one wasn’t fun for anyone.
But you get the point. Things have been solidly going their way – summer camps and pool days and being on billboards and visiting TV stations and waterslides. They’ve been very aware of their fortunes and fairly thankful for them, as kids go. At least once a day, Ali has reminded me that “This is THE BEST SUMMER EVER!!!!”, which has helped me find solace in her exuberance…and prove that summers truly are for kids.
As such, Noah had yet another fantastic summer surprise last week.
It never hurts to have dreams. To be a person with vision. And to communicate that vision clearly to the people around you.
Especially if you’re four and endearing.
A few weeks ago, I discovered The Ideal Bribe to get Noah to be the perfect four-year-old that has been in my personal dreams – and that bribe was a favorite shirt from his favorite store, Alabama Outdoors.
But in that process, Noah expressed his vision for how things should be.
He needed the Big Tree on the front of the shirt.
I mean – if that tree is a beacon of everything you love, then you want to be able to see that tree, blown up, as big as your chest, without having to screw your head around backwards. A completely reasonable observation.
I told you the shirt was bright. I’m pretty sure the whole city can see him.
Alabama Outdoors took note of Noah’s vision, and Tyler and Evan specially designed and printed just such a T-Shirt for him, even in his favorite colors.
His Big Tree on Front bliss was palpable.
This made for a very smug four-year-old. One that will probably begin to have many more visions for the way things should be.
But the question that Noah hadn’t considered was: what do you put on the back of a shirt when you move the big tree to the front?
Apparently Alabama Outdoor’s design theory is to fully solidify my son’s Diva Status and Summer of Dreams.
I’m pretty sure this makes Noah The Official Alabama Outdoors Mascot. Or an Indentured Future Employee. One or the other.
As a bonus, Noah got a lesson in exactly how rock climbing works, including adding new rocks to the wall,
and learning how to belay, using The Lovely Silver Lady.
When Tyler brought Silver Lady over for the demonstration, Noah immediately asked, “Did you stuff her after she died?”
I’m not sure what the alternative answers to this question were in Noah’s mind…
“No – we stuffed her before she died.”
“No – she died but we didn’t bother stuffing her.”
“No – her skin tone is naturally that lovely matte silver.”
“She’s not dead yet – just mostly dead.”
But if she wasn’t dead before, she was certainly dead after Noah finished with her.
After which he laughed mightily at her ungraceful descent. As one does when one is having The Best Summer Ever.
(Free Tip: Don’t have Noah belay your rock climbing adventures.)
That evening, Noah was sitting on our front porch admiring his shirt, then trying to screw his head around to see the back.
“You know what? NOW what I want is a shirt that says ‘Noah’ on the front.”
And this is why, along with teaching our kids to dream big, we must also teach them other important philosophical concepts, such as this one.
Even in The Best Summer Ever, you can’t always get what you want. But if you’re a kid, you get pretty dang close.
On Fighting Weather Fears.
In April, we experienced some pretty strong and unexpected straight-line winds in our neighborhood. Ali and I actually saw the storm in all its intensity, which was over by the time we ran down to the basement. But the memory has stuck with Ali. 
She’s an unemotional and severely logical kid, which is extraordinarily nice for an eight-year-old girl – the drama in our house comes from her little brother, to which she rolls her eyes at his unnecessary emotions.
But.
The problem with logical people is that when they logically convince themselves that they should be afraid, that fear is extremely well-rooted and difficult to reason away.
After seeing the storm and resulting neighborhood damage, she paid close attention to the conversations surrounding it. And she didn’t forget that we talked about the fact that there were no NWS watches or warnings for our area. Nor did she forget the story that one of our neighbors told about driving home (in the sunshine), unaware of the microscopic storm’s approach, reaching our neighborhood at the exact wrong moment, and almost getting hit by a falling tree as they were driving up our street.
As such, Ali’s fear of storms, which was previously nonexistent, has been growing every time it rains. And growing exponentially every time she sees lightning or hears thunder. Or a dump truck that sounds like thunder. Or a headlight that looks like lightning.
Alabama is a very thunderstorm-prone place (I hear that not all states are like that), especially in the summer, so Ali has had no chance to escape her fears.
A couple of weeks ago, we reached a point where I realized that her fear problem was getting out of hand. We had a very loud morning storm – the kind where the thunder sounds nearly continuous. She ran into my room and clung to me, trembling and crying until the storm passed. No matter how much logic I presented, she presented her own logic back to me.
“But that other storm had no watches and warnings…”
“But two people almost died…”
“But how do you KNOW the lightning won’t hit our house…”
And I realized it was time for some advice.
So I emailed our favorite meteorologist, James Spann (who is also largely responsible for the crazy idea that I had to start Picture Birmingham), and asked for wisdom. After all, he regularly teaches kids at church and schools – he should have, at some point, run into a kid or two that had a fear of storms, right?
He replied and said that talking to kids about storm fears was his specialty, and to bring her to the TV station to have a chat.
I told Ali our plans, and she was immediately relieved. She’s met Mr. Spann a few times and just knew he could help her. She wrote him a note stating her confidence in him,
and last Friday afternoon, we took her to ABC 33/40 for a session of Meteorological Counseling.
We didn’t realize we’d get a bonus tour, too, but we were met by one of the other Meteorologists, Meaghan Thomas, who took us through the newsroom, the sports department, and then to the control rooms, explaining what everyone did and how they did it.
…which, of course, meant that this day totally went on my summer school spreadsheet to count toward next school year.
After that, Meaghan led us to the studio, where they were currently filming the news, and told us to be very, very quiet.
I had not prepared myself or Noah for newsroom-quietness and they didn’t have any duct tape available to fix this lack of preparation, so I feared very much what was about to happen. I didn’t want to get those awkward texts from friends saying “I just heard a kid that sounded just like Noah in the background of the news loudly saying that James Spann was wearing tennishoes. Weird huh?”
But I couldn’t back down now. I simply had to pray for a miracle and for the immediate maturing of my son.
And also squeeze him very close to my chest to compress his lung capacity.
While amusing his sister with selfies.
God answered my prayers and Noah did surprisingly well, considering that we watched the news for about 45 minutes. The commercial breaks were an opportunity for him to release his pent-up noise requirements, and they were the most fun part of our visit, as well. There were “Anchorman” references and an unnamed male anchor tripping and falling off the set…entertainment abounded for everyone.
Noah also enjoyed watching the robot cameras move around the studio, and Chris kept pictures of cars up on his phone for pinch-zooming anytime Noah began to falter in his forced-resolve of silence.
Ali, however, was completely plugged in.
She gasped at the news story about shark attacks, got wide-eyed at the one about the alligator attack, and looked horrified when they shared the disturbing new trend of cell phone cases shaped like handguns.
And, as every kid should be, she was fascinated by the green screen.
After the news, Mr. Spann brought over a chair and had a chat with Ali. He gave her statistics to logically convince her that her fears were unnecessary, explained that she was safe from lightning as long as she was indoors, and had her saying “Storms are….good…kinda…” by the end of the talk.
After they finished chatting, we got a picture together in the best lighting on the planet – if I could live under those studio lights I am convinced that I would feel a decade younger.
Ali was as pleased with herself as she looks in that picture. With new resolve, we left the studio, ready to tackle the next storm.
As we were leaving, Meaghan offered to let the kids come back on a weekend to hang out anytime. As the door closed, Chris said, “Did she just offer to babysit? Because I think she just offered to babysit. And on a weekend!” Ali chimed in and said, “I like her A LOT.”
A news station with benefits – who doesn’t need that?
Ali spent all evening talking herself through everything they’d discussed, repeating her logic over and over at dinner, and assuring us (and mostly herself) that there was nothing to be afraid of, just like Mr. Spann told her. And her new resolve lasted forever, and we all lived happily ever after.
…until 3:30am, when the next thunderstorm arrived.
But her reaction was a little less fearful than last time, and dump trucks have ceased freaking her out. So progress has been made.
22 Things Learned From a Year of Running.
Today is my One Year Runningversary. In the past 365 days, I’ve run nearly every day, totaling 1,258 miles and a calorie burn (supposedly) of 135,000.
I was determined to run to fight my dysautonomia, was finally able to get motivated enough to start running by the below “before” picture, and became obsessed with running every day because of how much it did help my dysautonomia…and because my FitBit demanded it.
(Despite what the before/after picture might suggest, I have not gotten rid of my husband in the past year. Without him to encourage me, keep the kids for me, and offer running advice, I would have given up running within the first month.)
You might say that running has changed my life. A bit. So here are the list of ways – strange and wonderful and disgusting – that you, too, might find your life changing from running.
1. Your minor toes could change shape, becoming less cylindrical and more cubic. You will marvel at the new, bizarre angles that your toes possess.
2. You will become very shower-confused. Previously, you might have showered at the same time every day – say, when you woke up or when you went to bed. Now, you shower after you run. If you don’t run, you will walk around in a daze, confused as to when or if you should shower. You might even ask the people around you if they can detect a reason that you should cleanse yourself.
3. You may not lose weight. You may even gain weight. But you’ll feel so strong and so much better about yourself for your ability to run miles at a time that you won’t care nearly as much about those numbers. And also you’ll be convinced that each calf weighs 50 pounds in muscle mass.
4. But since your scale OBVIOUSLY didn’t get the memo, you might never step on it again. Stupid numbers.
5. Running numbers, however, are unbelievably motivating. If you’re Type A and maybe even if you aren’t, they’ll motivate you on days that you don’t feel like running, and will motivate you to go further on days you do feel like running. (My motivations of choice are MapMyRun for actual running and FitBit for tracking every step I take.)
One Month on MapMyRun
One year on MapMyRun
One Year on FitBit
6. You will need a system to handle your running laundry. It stinks, it needs a way to dry both when it is marinated in sweat and after you wash it, and you don’t want to get confused as to which items are in which stage of the cycle.
7. You cannot run away from C-section bellies or thigh cellulite. But you can have pretty smokin’ definitions around your thigh cellulite. Just find that right lighting and the correct angles and OWN IT.
Not a before and after. Photos taken within two weeks of each other. This also proves that it’s better to have an eight-year-old take your photo with the camera looking up than to have your husband take a photo with the camera angled down.
8. Speaking of definition, you will regularly catch yourself admiring your calves in the mirror.
9. Which is good because those calves will prevent you from wearing half your skinny jeans and three quarters of your cropped jeans.
10. And the jeans that aren’t prevented by your calves will be prevented by your new butt. Because running will absolutely give you a butt. A butt you’re not quite sure what to do with, but that you will grow to appreciate.
11. Your new calf size and your new butt size will create a great despising of waistbands in general, and you will become a dress-wearer.
12. Except when you’re running, of course, at which time you will wear leggings as pants.
13. Running in leggings as pants will make you feel like a superhero instead of a schmuck. And you will be okay with that.
14. The difference between how solid your thighs feel in running leggings and how jiggly they feel in dresses will be extremely disconcerting. It is not recommended to change straight from leggings to a dress – only from a dress to leggings.
15. You might adopt weird and gross habits like sanding your foot callouses away. Especially if you’ve had two foot surgeries that grow scar tissue at an alarming rate when running daily.
If you delete me from your life because of this photo, I understand. I deserve it.
16. These weird and gross habits might become oddly satisfying. But you would never admit to that.
17. Running will teach you not to rely on always having a purse with you, causing you to become less attached to your purse in general, and will eventually make you wonder why you carry one at all. Then you will begin to accidentally leave it at home and will quickly remember why you need it.
18. You will become intensely aware of your psychological need for sunshine.
19. Pops and crackles will become normal sounds your body makes. Even when your knees sound like sand between your toes feels – you won’t worry. They’ll get over it.
20. 5 Hour Energy becomes your best friend. You fully bask in its magic and keep a spare in your car at all times.
21. You cannot, will not, and should not aim to run your way into having thigh gap. Those thighs have work to do – they don’t have time to gap.
22. You don’t have to get all freakishly healthy and change your eating habits to go with your running habit. So I’m off to eat a 135,000 calorie cake to celebrate – and then promptly pass out.
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