A Little Pink On The Inside

So I’ve not been feeling well since yesterday.

Initially I thought it might be the fish and chips I had for lunch yesterday.

For some reason the fish didn’t look right, I ate more chips than fish, neither of which was a good idea.

I made it through the morning today, still not feeling well, got through a two hour training session, came home and tried to make a game plan for the rest of the day.

I didn’t even consider lunch.

By my afternoon appointment, I was really worried they might see my lunch from yesterday in their conference room.

But, it was too late to back out, I plowed ahead, got some crackers, and an hour and a half later, made it back home and crawled into bed at 4 pm, the work day nearly done.

Got the kids dinner, homework, normal sarcasm from Jordan all night when, at about 9 pm as Tyler is headed off to bed, he casually mentions to me, ‘oh yeah, Kelsey (ex-girlfriend who’s been at my house frequently up until, um, Sunday which is when I guess, as Tyler put it, ‘it didn’t work out.’) has the swine flu.’

Hello. Did ya not see me in bed with covers up to my chin at 4 pm?

I said, “Tyler, could you have told me that a little sooner?”

Typical 2009 teenager reply, “well mom, it’s not like were doing the wild thing on the couch. She just came over and watched movies in the living room.”

Ugh. I guess he needs to go back and YouTube or Google biology and germs and swine flu and see that her hand on my front door was enough to turn us all into little oinkers.

And dad, if you are reading this, did I ever, in my 18 years under your roof, refer to ‘doing the wild thing?’ Can you even imagine me saying that now as a just turned 40 year old?

I asked him how sick she is-I feel sick but fortunately, I’ve held down my food, just not feeling well at all-he said she has a temp of 103.

So, if I vanish for a day or two, just know I’m at home, sprouting a cute little curly Q of a tail, and ‘m hoping by Labor day weekend that I’m not taking care of four little piglets.

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Dear Google.

Dear Google,

I want to say thank you.

Last week, during the first week of school, my sixteen year old son announced that he’d figured out all by himself what ‘natural numbers’ are. Well, I think it was natural numbers. Whatever it was, it sounded hard, and what he was looking up was for his new physics class, which meant I was not qualified to reply.

My husband and I stared at him blankly as if he had just asked us to buy him a 2010 Camaro. We didn’t say a word because, well, we had no idea if what he had ‘figured out’ could possible be.

I tried to hide my ignorance to the laws of Physics, other than the fact that I know the gravity in my house seems to be stronger than elsewhere, and seems to instantly pull every kid item, especially socks, straight to the floor, and they’re held there like an enormous magnet is pulling them down. That’s gravity, right?

I asked him how he had taught himself about this new topic, and that’s where you come in.

His first reply was, ‘Well, I YouTubed It.’

Funny, in addition to not knowing Physics, I don’t know English. I didn’t know ‘YouTube’ is a verb.

Before I could reply, he followed that up with, ‘and then I Googled it and found the answer. Between YouTube and Google, I got it.’

When I was in high school, if there wasn’t a cheat sheet, Cliff notes, or a smart friend, I was out of luck.

Imagine what my GPA might have been if Google had been around in 1985! I may have gotten into Harvard!

In the last week, not only have we Googled physics, we’ve also Googled fractions for seventh and eight grade math for two other soon to be brainiacs, thanks to you!

After all, what parent out there, short of engineers and doctors, can remember how to divide or subtract whole number mixed fractions?

Yep, I believe your company might just be the secret into my kids going Ivy League, I’m sure of it.

Of course as I type this, they are probably Googling things I don’t want to know about.

But that’s okay.

Moms know how to Google also and I’ve long since Googled ‘internet spy software.’

I didn’t fall off the SUV yesterday!

Now, if you could just tweak your search formula a little, you would have parents lined up outside your doors for sure.

No matter how hard I try, when I Google ‘how to get boys to pick up their socks’ I get nothing but information on how to get my husband to pick up HIS socks?

Ahhhh…nevermind, I see trend there. It can be our secret.

Signed,

A Grateful Parent

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That’s Him with His Daddy’s Eyes

These are all my babies
Lord knows how we survived
The first one was hard and last was unplanned
What a big surprise
That him with his daddy's eyes. (Sugarland, The Very Last Country Song)

Today is Jordan’s birthday.

I love that song by Sugarland just because of that one verse.

Jordan was certainly a surprise to us, but I would never say unplanned, because clearly he was planned by someone with much more creative ability than Robert and I could ever dream up.

My third son, but I so wanted a girl.

I prayed for a girl, just about offered up the first two boys if God would give me a girl.

But, I remember clearly to this day getting the call that his pre-natal tests had come back at high risk for Down’s Syndrome, the flurry of medical tests that followed, and, finally, the high level ultrasound that oh-so-clearly let us know we were in for lots of testosterone.

I remember being in the ultrasound room, me covered in that stupid cold jelly they smear all over you, half naked, Robert crouched down by the bed, and the doctor saying, “well, so far the baby looks okay, but the only way to know is with an amniocentesis, which has about a 15% risk of a miscarriage. And by the way, you’re having a boy.”

Robert and I looked at each other and there was not even the slightest hesitation that, as much as I prayed and begged for a girl, that we would not risk the life of our third son with any test.

If he came out with Down’s Syndrome, so be it.

We looked at the doctor, thanked them, and waited five long months to find out those test results we’d chosen to skip.

Okay course, he came out fine.

Since the moment he looked at us in the hospital, he has marched to his own drummer.

If he didn’t look so much like our families, I would swear he was baby swapped.

But he is just, so, well, Jordan.

As one of his classmates told him in fourth grade, much to his dismay, he has a ‘strange nature.’

He loves Journey (or any other 80’s rock group) more than Jay Z.

If he tells you he doesn’t like mashed potatoes, listen to him, or they will come right back up, as will any food he doesn’t like. Strong gag reflex doesn’t begin to describe it.

He is sarcastic, funny, witty, has amazing comic timing, but yet once started to bawl because I didn’t tell him “God Bless you” when he sneezed.

He will sit through a horror movie without blinking, but when the movie ‘Bobby’ came out when he was in fourth grade, he became so fascinated with Robert Kennedy and his life, that he listened to ‘The Sound of Silence’ off the soundtrack 59 times in a row, until I finally threatened to delete it out of I-tunes for good if I heard it one more time.

And, lastly, I  LOVE the fact that he is probably going to be the tallest and biggest person in our house. How cool is that when you’ve spent your life as the youngest of three brothers?

He is the surprise baby, that continues to surprise us every single day.

And we are so, so happy that twelve years ago today he landed in our lives.

But we’re still arguing over whose side of the family that mouth and those size 11.5 feet come from.

It ain’t mine!

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