Mom Knows Best

They should have listened.

My 12 year old youngest son was recently diagnosed with Juvenile Arthritis and had a follow up visit with the Rheumatologist on Monday.

Middle school football camp also started Monday.

I’ve been worried about this for months.

Jordan has always marched to his own beat. And it’s never been anywhere near the beat of a marching band at a football game half time.

He spent hours drawing, writing stories, and teaching himself the piano when he was younger. Outdoor sports? Hardly.

We tried soccer once, and my pale white creative writer nearly passed out in the Texas heat.

Other than swim team, which involves trees and water, let’s just say a Heisman Trophy is probably not in his future.

But, he’s determined to follow in the footsteps of his Jonas Brother like siblings and play football just like they did.

I tried to talk to my husband about this. But, I’m completely outnumbered by four males in my house when it comes to sports.

I pleaded in vain, ‘He doesn’t even really like football, he’s going to get clobbered!’

His oh-so-male response? ‘He’ll be fine. I played center and I’m not that big.’

Right. But, you are built like a bulldog. A cute bulldog, but short and stocky and things landing on you would not be an issue.

Jordan is built like a string bean plant that someone sprinkled too much plant food on. Tall, skinny, adolescent feet and hands way ahead of his frame.

I've envisioned a 250 pound Texas seventh grader landing squarely on my skinny kid’s face.

Yesterday, my neighbor picked up Jordan from football camp, and sent me a text message at work saying he was limping when she dropped him off. She was worried.

I called home immediately.

Jordan answered and sounded like a croaking bullfrog stuck under the front tire of an SUV.

Red flags went up. He sounded terrible.

I played nurse, asked about his joints, where the pain was located.

Finally, he managed to ribbit:

“Mom, have you heard of SQUATS?”

Red flags lowered.

I tried not to laugh.

‘Yes, I’ve heard of squats.’

I recalled the countless exercise videos I’ve done, and the millions of squats I’ve endured.

Should I tell him if he hurts this bad now that tomorrow his legs will feel like day old Jell-o?

Nahhhhhhhhhh.

‘This is not caused by arthritis. It’s caused by the couch.’

Pause. Croak: ‘The couch?’

‘Yes. When you spend your summer holding down the couch playing video games, with the activity level of a half-dead slug, squats hurt. I’ll bring you some muscle cream.’

Maybe I can bribe the coach into a thousand push ups tomorrow?

Read rest of entry

Temporary Insanity. Or not.

I may have lost my mind. I’ll let everyone know in a few weeks, give or take.

I just signed up to be a sales advisor for Lia Sophia Jewelry.

Now, if you know me well enough, and even if you don’t know me but you’ve read more than 1 blog from this website, this should make about as much sense as, oh, let’s say Rosie O’Donnell and Bill O’Reilly announcing they’ve been having a secret affair.

I won’t even start on the my cup, plate and salad dish over-floweth already with way too much to do. I fully expect to hear that from the IST next week as the root cause of all of my problems, in addition to my national forest family tree.

No, the reason this is so unlikely is because, well, with all the many, many things I’ve ventured into in my 39.9999999999999 years, I’ve never, ever done anything like this.

I have an MBA.

Got a 4.0 GPA in grad school.

Was #1 in my class in grad school.

Owned a business for 7 years.

Was interviewed by the Oprah show to be a guest (didn’t make the cut darn it, they wanted ‘million dollar’ moms. Ha. Not quite.)

Actually, now that I think about it, forget Bill O’Reilly, this is about as likely for me to do, as Rosie having an affair with Anne Coulter.

I found out about Lia Sophia from a friend at work who lives in Chicago and has been very successful, even with many other people in that area selling.

Texas is, I guess, slow on the fashion scene. There are now like 3 of us in the whole Lone Star State I think selling.

Opportunity knocking maybe?

When I mentioned it to another friend who lives here in town, she quickly rattled off that she had been considering it also, and dropped all kinds of strange words like ‘party’ and ‘booking’ and free this and free that said it would be a piece of cake and I would make lots of extra money.

Huh?

The only parties I attend are either the kinds next door with mixed drinks, or the kinds with 16 boxes of Pizza and lots of kids running around, both of which end up giving me a headache one way or the other, and neither of which gives me extra money or free stuff.

Booking? I won’t even go there. Let’s hope that’s a word I never hear except in relation to my new jewelry adventure.

And, on top of all of that…you have to know me…I am about as far from a fashionista as you could get.

For the first 10 years of my life, I told my mom I was getting married in blue jeans! And I wasn’t joking!

I didn’t even wear mascara until I was like 19!

Me? Sell JEWELRY? I dunnoo……if it involves people coming to my house, it might not be a good idea….

Well, I talked to my husband about it, mentioned the extra income, he said give it a shot (as he was engrossed in Mafia Wars on Facebook.)

So, I’ve just started, it’s official, I’m now moonlighting.

I’m now a working mom with two jobs.

And I have no idea what in the world I am doing.

BUT, when I signed up, I got this huge box full of jewelry. I mean there must have been like 30 things in there. It was like the jewelry jackpot.

I called my mom, she came over and quickly scooped up a few things she liked and we oohed and ahhed over it all.

When my husband got home and saw all that jewelry laid out on the bed and a hundred little jewelry boxes scattered all over the floor, I think he thought for a second he’d been taken and this was no business, it was more like a ploy for me to jack up my jewelry collection.

Like I would do that? ;)

Well, it’s now official. I have an actual website (if you click that link, try not to laugh at my photo. It’s from the fall. Notice the lack of jewelry? See, I’ve surely lost my mind…I’ll get a new photo) and all and I am trying to do bookings that don’t involve my teenagers going to jail, and have parties that don’t involve screaming children and sugar overload.

I hope to get rich, retire early, and do it all very fashionably and preferably before I lose my mind trying to get there.

So, stay tuned. If I suddenly stop blogging, you’ll know that either I got rich very quickly and no longer have time to amuse the world with my life stories, or the IST has committed me. (Which is just fine, cause at least if she did, I would be committed in very fashionable accessories!)

In the meantime. Anyone wanna book a host?

I mean host a party?

Read rest of entry

The IST List

Jordan had his follow up visit yesterday at Texas Children's Hospital with our new favorite pediatric Rheumatologist.

The good news: He is gene-negative for the form of arthritis that we think he has, great news! And, his MRI looked very good.

The bad news: As my still-11-but-looks-14 year old son was stretched out on the way too short of an examining table, without warning, the doctor took off Jordan’s shoes to look at his feet joints. Did I say with no warning? Not smart.

This was 48 hours post camp return. We haven’t finished fumigating the house yet, I certainly haven’t made it to feet.

She did a great job of not turning really green, maybe she sees lots of funky things on size 11 feet of 11 year old boys. Now that I think about it, she slightly resembled the lady next to me on the plane to California last week? Hmmm…..

I bet she made some case notes like: ‘note to self, next time, wear surgical mask before removing this child’s shoes. Better yet, get a medical student to do it.’

On top of that, I had my own IST visit today.

You can do the math.

I’ll just say it wasn’t the acupuncturist. If you’re not sure who I'm talking about, read here.

Let me just say, you know that there might be an issue with your parents having married one too many times, each, when the IST is doing your family tree and starts to turn the page sideways to write, finally flips the page over, continues on the back, and at the end says:

WHEW!

(As if saying: ‘WOW I’VE JUST DRAWN THE FAMILY TREE OF ALL FAMILY TREES! And you didn’t even ask about my former step-siblings! I wanted to say, ‘Hey! We’re not done, I’ve had to put up with all those various step-people over the years, some of whom I cannot remember, write down every last one of them down, I’ll skip dinner if we need to’!)

No go. The IST was done after two and half pages of circles, squares, crooked, straight, and dashed lines across two and a half pages of paper. And we didn’t even talk about my husband’s family.

Hah. Just wait. She’ll need a whole notebook.

I guess if I left anyone off, they’ll have to take the honorable mention when I start to blame family members for my insane behavior.

But now she has me worried. I just assumed everyone has family trees that require numerous pages and former step-siblings you cannot recall?

I am now starting to wonder if perhaps I don’t have any long lost siblings that I don’t know about? Mom…Dad….Hello?

At the end, the IST said:

‘well, is that everyone?’

Long pause from me.

‘Yeah, I think so?’

I’ll get back to you on that at our visit next week.

I need to make a few calls.

I’m afraid I’m going to end up needing the acupuncturist to help me work out the stress caused by the therapist.

Read rest of entry