1. I’ve been busy with work.
2. I started back at school and have been working hard towards getting my degree.
3. I’ve spent the time reading all of the important books in my local library while purposefully ignoring all the fluffy “chick lit” type books and celebrity biographies.
4. I was bit by a rabid badger and/or monkey pox stricken wolverine and spent the last year recovering in a darkened room without any contact with the outside world.
5. I was just lazy and didn’t think I had anything interesting to share.
6. I spend way too much time playing farmville and commenting on random stuff of facebook.
7. I was spending lots of time with my family and taking many pictures that I should have been documenting here on my blog.

Well five of those things are true and two are false, I’ll let you decide which is which.  I better stop typing now and get back to fake farming and reading Sarah Silverman’s book.

Cheeseburger salad! Seriously?

I saw this a few weeks ago on The Colbert Report and have not been able to get it out of my mind ever since.  Now, I admittedly have an issue with melted yellow cheeses, and by issue I mean that I feel that they are pure evil sent to destroy us all.  I also have a strong anti-Rachel Ray bias; she is bubbly, I don’t like bubbly. But this has to be one of the grossest examples of a salad that I’ve ever seen.  Look at the way the grease glistens on the cheese as the beef juices congeal on the alarmingly small number of lettuce leaves.  Ew.

I don’t think this one is going to make it into the dinner rotation at our house.  I would like to hear what the cheeseburger lovers out there think of this.  It may be a fine salad, I just can’t get beyond the melted yellow cheese.

Riley's Doughnuts

My husband is a district manager for a large retail store chain that sells food and convenience items.  Often Carson and Riley will come up with snack suggestions that they feel their dad should begin to market in his stores.  As the 4th of July approached, Riley told him that they should make a white doughnut with red and blue sprinkles to celebrate the holiday.  He began to tell her that one was already in the works but I quickly stopped him and gave him a look.  A silent look from wife to husband that meant “lie to your young innocent child.”   At that point he told her that he would give the big bosses her idea.  For the next several days she would ask about it and he assured her that it was in development.   A few days later he came home with a box of “Riley’s doughnuts.”

I typically don’t like telling lies to my kids, but this one made a 6 year old girls week.  Now, I must figure out what to do about the book she wrote that she expects to be published and available for checkout at my library.

We had the follow-up with the neurologist today and things are going really well.  Riley has been almost completely seizure free since staring the Zarontin a month ago.  The side effects have been minimal and she is responding well.  We’re still waiting for the results of one blood test, but everything is looking good.  The neuro wants her to have another EEG before starting school in August but we’re confidant that this is going to be the right medication for her.    Thanks to everyone for your support, thoughts and prayers over the last couple of months.  We appreciate it all!

I am a big fan.   I’m especially fond of your gas rewards program, where I earn a tiny percent of my grocery spending back in the form of savings when I buy gas from you too.  Just the other day I filled up my tank and used the 44 cents off per gallon that I had accumulated.  Let me tell you, it was like stepping into a time machine.  Back to three weeks ago, when gas was actually 44 cents less a gallon.

But I do have just one question.  What is  up with the “random” quotation marks on your gas pumps?

Is it a warning or not?

“Warning” in quotation marks takes away some of the intensity.  If the person that made the sign didn’t take the warning seriously, why should I?  Also, who exactly are the rules quoting?  Is there a gas station Czar and if so shouldn’t he or she be properly credited?  Perhaps with the use of an asterisk and footnote at the bottom of the sign.

I’m don’t even want to get into the random lettering of the rules.  Shouldn’t the one labeled “A” be the title (bolded, if you like) and rule “B” be labeled as rule “A”? Did you people learn nothing about outlining in middle school English class? Nothing about this sign makes sense!

I think I’m done now.  Thank you for your “attention” to this “matter.”  See! Now you have me doing it!

Sincerely,

Tracey

A few months back, most often after picking her up from kindergarten, I began to notice that Riley would often stop talking mid-sentance and begin to stare off.  She would often swallow and look like she was about to be sick.  I would call her name and she wouldn’t respond for a period of 10-15 seconds. I wondered what was causing this but decided it must be a combination of stomach nausea and the attention span of a six year old.

Near the beginning of May I took a course to re-certify myself in First Aid and CPR.  During the First Aid section, the instructor discussed what to do if someone has a seizure.  He mentioned that all seizures are not the Grand Mal type that people often think, but in some cases they are first noticed because teachers think children aren’t paying attention in class.  What appears to be daydreaming is actually a type of seizure.  Hearing this was like a kick in the gut.  It instantly struck me that Riley was having seizures. 

I came home and immediately began to do research and quickly found information about Absence Seizures.  The description of the seizures fit Riley’s actions perfectly.  I talked to Matt and he found videos on YouTube.  The first video I watched was so hard because the little girl in the video had a seizure that looked exactly like one of Riley’s.  I watched the videos over and over again and cried because I didn’t know what the future would be like for Riley. 

On that Monday, I called the Dr. and they had her come in that same day.  They checked her out and agreed that Absence seizures were a possibility, but an EEG would need to be done to be certain.  We scheduled the EEG for early the next week.  Riley had at least 5 seizures during the EEG, which was hard to watch but beneficial in getting a diagnosis.  The EEG confirmed that she was having Absence Seizures.

Two weeks ago we saw her Pediatric Neurologist for the first time.  He feels that her seizures are treatable with the appropriate medication.  We started with a 1/2 dose and moved up to the full dose last week.  So far and we haven’t had any of the side effects that can be common with the antiepileptics.  She will have to have a blood test done later this month to be sure that the medication isn’t causing any liver or blood problems.  Since moving to the full dose the seizures seem to be under control.  We are very cautiously optimistic at this point, she is a trooper and handling all of this so well.  I couldn’t be more proud of her, she is such a great kid.  We are so lucky to be her parents.  She has been stronger than me through the test and diagnosis process and for that she is my hero.

We’ve had to make a few minor changes.  She can’t take a bath unless we are nearby, she is really starting to understand the joy of a nice warm shower.  We have to be even more vigilant about helmets for biking and constant supervision while swimming, which we were before the diagnosis but we talk to her about these precautions a lot more frequently now.  Since the seizures are a state of unconciousness, she doesn’t really understand that she is having them and has no memory of them after she has one.  It’s been a learning experience for the whole family.

So there’s the update.  Our one wish that the positive path we’re on now will continue progressing  forward.   We’re very lucky and she is one tough ballerina.

And in the midst of all this, she graduated from Kindergarten.  Yay Riley!

The graduate

Summer vacation is finally here!

My goals:

1. Spend lots of time with the kids exploring.  Cheap is good, free is better!

2. Take more pictures.  I need to improve my skills and perhaps use them to help pay some bills.  If that fails, I go to back-up – beat poet.

3. Research going back to school and finishing my degree.  I would like to get all of my library certifications completed in a timely manner.  At least quicker than the 20 years I’ve taken so far to finish college.

4. Cook more, get take out less.  I want to restock my freezer with quick and healthy meals.  Do you have any favorite summer recipes?  I’d love to hear about them!

That’s all for now.  I would write more but it would take away from my busy schedule of repeatedly watching Bret Michaels get knocked over by the set piece at the Tony Awards.  I just hope that bad wig he’s hiding under the constant hat came out of it okay.

I had heard about the coming weekend warmup on Tuesday and at that point decided that I didn’t care how slushy and muddy it was going to be we were going to get out and enjoy it.  Riley, Carson and I headed for one of our favorite hiking spots, Waterfall Glen in Darien.  Camera in hand, of course.

Yes, it was muddy and slushy but worth it.  Because of all of the snow melt the waterfall was running stronger than we had ever seen it.  It was mostly a muddy mess, but still very relaxing.   We explored for a bit and managed to stay fairly clean.   Until on the way back to the car when Riley fell over into a giant mud puddle.  I knew that we weren’t going to get out of there clean and Riley wanted to make sure I was right about that.  Oh well, mud washes off easily.

This may be one of my favorite pictures I've ever taken of Carson.

She wasn't happy about the mud.

I’m very hip and modern.  Instead of just whining to family, friends and coworkers when I don’t feel well, I broadcast it to everyone on Twitter and Facebook. See? Very hip and modern.  Today I twittered about the beginnings of a sinus infection and Tracy over at IHMMB tweeted me back (at least that’s what I think she did) and recommended that I get myself a Neti Pot.  I had heard of these before but for some reason the thought of pouring hot liquid into my nostrils never appealed to me.  I thought about it and decided it couldn’t hurt and might even help if I gave one a try.  So I prepared to head off to my local CVS.

That didn’t go quite at smoothly as I had hoped.  Riley was dressed in her Halloween costume, which was a witch.  After some discussion on the issue, I realized that she was not going to change and it wasn’t a battle that I felt like fighting when I couldn’t breathe through my right nostril and I felt like my head might explode.  So, myself, Carson and a witch headed off to CVS in search of a Neti Pot.

After some searching in the cold, allergy and sinus aisle, I found what I was looking for.  CVS had a choice of four different neti pots.  I would like to say that I compared features and made a decision based on knowledge and a desire to be an informed consumer.  No, I picked the one that had a giant sign advertising that it was on sale for $3 off.  Did I mention I was shopping with a witch?  I picked up my neti pot and a box of Sudafed (just in case) and headed up to the counter to pay.

When I returned home I read the instructions and grew increasingly nervous.  If you’ve never used a neti pot before, this is how it works.  You fill the small plastic teapot device with lukewarm water and a powered saline powder (isn’t that salt?), mix the solution until dissolved and then the real fun begins.  You hold the spout up to your nostril, tip your head and pour the water into one nostril and it drains out the other clearing out your nose in the process.  Fun, huh?  Repeat the process for the other nostril and hopefully begin breathing freely.  There were several warnings: do not use water that is too cold or too hot, do not snort, do not swallow, etc.  A few of these warning seemed beyond my control but since I had never heard of a neti related death, I went for it.
I filled the pot and mixed up the solution. I held it up to my right nostril, tipped my head and began to pour.  Almost instantly water began to stream out of my left nostril.  It was fascinating, gross but fascinating.  I started to feel like I was going to drown, but decided it was my imagination and kept pouring.  It seemed like it took minutes but likely only took 30 seconds to empty the container.  Time seems to slow down when your pouring a pot of tea into your nose.  I blew my nose as instructed and I already felt clearer.  I repeated on the left side and that added to the drowning sensation. I had a burning in the back of my throat and wanted to sniff but I remembered the warning from the instruction.  Is sniffing the same as snorting, I wasn’t sure and I didn’t want to find out the hard way.

The good news is that I did not die and my sinuses did clear up a bit.  The instructions say I can repeat the process every two hours, I think I’ll wait a wee bit longer than that.  And yes, I did take the Sudafed and think maybe I should go take a nap now.