Alright, on this, my birthday eve, I have yet another parenting question for all you fine folks out there.

I have a friend of mine whose husband will be undergoing The Big Snip soon.  Her seven year old daughter asked why her daddy was going into surgery and my poor gentle friend was completely at a loss of words, but had the where-with-all to tell her, “we’ll discuss it while we’re waiting for Daddy while he’s in surgery”, which is buying her several days of time to come up with an answer.  I am still at a loss of words, myself, and as most of you know, there’s not too much out there that renders me speechless.  Unfortunately, her daughter is too old for a one-line simplistic answer, and understandably, she doesn’t want to lie to her, either.  So what would you do?  What would you say?  How would you explain to your daughters (my friend has a 3 year old daughter as well), why Daddy has a bag of frozen peas on his lap?  Anyone?

I am way behind on my emails and web surfing and blog reading, so I apologize for not getting this out sooner.

Remember this article I wrote about little Julian? I got notice through his CarePages that he passed away Saturday morning. The little guy fought hard the whole way, and from the way his mother, Mimi, explained it, they stayed there touching him and talking him through it; letting him know it was okay to go.

 If you would like information on arrangements, address for cards, etc., please visit his CarePage at http://www.carepages.com/, register to use (it’s free) and search for JuliansWorld (all one word).  She also requests that in leiu of flowers, that donations are made to Cook Children’s in Fort worth (www.cookchildrens.org) or to Make A Wish fundation ( http://www.wish.org/ ).

Folks, I have never in my excruciating short career as a blogger received an award, but I am WAY more excited to present the following award to Maya at Laurent Files:

Awarded to Maya

Well, unless you count that Justin gave me this award so that I could give it to Maya…then I am truly excited that I got something. But still…very excited to give this to Maya because she really is AWESOME.
Remember this post? Well, Maya remembered item number 7 and made and mailed some homemade chex mix to me! All the way from Indiana!!! And she sent the sweetest note along with it. And it was packaged in a cute quart-size snack container! So Maya, THANK YOU very much for my chex mix. And yes, you’re right, it is my call whether or not I share with Justin, but I did not have a say whether or not Gavin got any. I opened the box, and while I was reading your note and marveling over your thoughtfulness and generosity, that little stinker ate several handfuls and proclaimed it, “gooood!” with precious chex mix crumbs flying out of his mouth. I managed to swipe the rest of the container and place it out of his eyesight so that I can carefully ration it out. To myself.

Oh, and sorry that I don’t know how to format correctly. Justin, my editor, is out of town and thinks that excuses him from going in behind my posts and cleaning up any weird formatting or crappy coding. So, um, his fault that it looks bad.

Ladies (and Gents, I suppose…never saw a male kindergarten teacher besides Kindergarten Cop),

 I now have the foolproof way of determining if you should go into your chosen line of work:  see how many five year-olds you can take on at one time!

14

So if you can take on like 18 or more, I think you’ll be a fine asset to this country’s educational system.

Oh, I’m sure some of you are wondering how I could take on so many little people at once when I, myself, am fairly small.  I’m wiley!  That, and I’m pretty certain that I would have no problem picking up one of the kids and throwing that child at the others.

It’s been an interesting week.  Well, probably not to you, but to me.  And by interesting, I mean, well…okay, my vocabulary lacks the word I really want.

Last week on Tuesday, I ran to Petco to pick up some cat food while on my lunchbreak.   After I made my purchase, I ran out and pulled my car up next to the store so that I could just load it up with the 20lb bag of food and the 40lb container of litter (the store is in a crappy shopping center that doesn’t allow you to easily drag a cart way out into the parking lot…never use the store unless pets are completely out of food).  I get out of the car, realize I didn’t pop my trunk, so I lean back in to pop it from the key fob.  As I’m getting out of the car again, I whack the back of my head on the frame of my car.

On Thursday, as I was climbing in my car to go home after work, I crack my forehead on the frame of my car…that injury really hurt!  I saw stars for a moment and my eyes teared-up.  I called Justin and told him he’d need to check my pupils later that night.

Friday night I was playing with Cooper.  He was sort of standing on my lap and leaning up against me, trying to gnaw on my face when he bumped me right on the eye-bone (orbital socket??) with his forehead.  He wasn’t even phased, but since he hit the eye-bone about an inch below where I had cracked myself on the forehead with the car the day prior, I nearly dropped him.

Saturday morning, we got a different kind of headshot done…6 month pictures of Cooper!  And well, we tried to get some of Gavin, but he just wasn’t cooperating (again), so we did get one picture of Gavin and Cooper together in their matching outfits.  Yes, I said matching boys outfits.  Justin refuses to provide us with a daughter, so this is what I’m reduced to.  And believe me, if we never have a daughter, my boys will be required to wear matching outfits until the day the move out of my house!!!!  You hear that Justin?

Okay, guess those hits to the head have scrambled my brains a bit.

Sunday and part of Monday I was ill, and now that I’m back at work, we are doing release-testing of a update to one of our products.  I love it and hate it.  Love it because it keeps me busy, makes me use my brain, and think critically.  Hate it because it seems that the Powers That Be refuse to notice that this upgrade will most likely NOT be ready for production in a few weeks.  But they don’t care.  As long as it doesn’t blow up electronic equipment in the customer’s home, they’re all for it.  Who cares if the people that administer it can’t get the darn thing to work without waiting for at least 3 planets to align in the southwestern sky?  So if you don’t hear from me for a bit, that’s where I’ll be….

Oh, and since Cooper is now 6 months, he got his check-up and shots, and that little chubbo-baby is now 18 lbs 4 oz, and is 26-1/2 inches long.  Need to double-check my CDC graph, but he’s around the 50th percentile for one measurement and around the 70th percentile for the other measurement.  Doctor actually told me yesterday, but since I had Gavin with me talking up a storm and dancing around me and not sitting in the seat I assigned him in the exam room, I barely heard what the doctor said besides her comment of, “He’s beautiful!  He looks great!  He looks humongous!”