Sympathy Pain

This morning I was in a spritely mood. Have no idea why…maybe the weather. I dropped Tony off at day care, and had to walk over to the Publix and get some diapers for him. I took them back to the daycare, and as I was leaving I saw the director of said daycare coming in.

“You going to make the parade” she asked. They were having a cultural parade today at 3:30.

“I doubt it.” was my reply. They usually make a hat and staple it to Tony’s head for these things. He has no idea what’s happening, but it is very cute.

“Well, you know, he can’t walk if you’re not here”, she said, kiddingly…I think.

“Why you calling my kid a gimp?” I fired back “You know he got the bad leg. That’s not ok.”

All in jest…right?

So I called Sarah to share with her the fun little exchange and had to leave a voice mail.

Well, she tried to call me back, but I was with a customer, so it was a few minutes before I checked my voice mail from her.

“I find it kinda hard to believe that we have to be there for our child to participate in the parade. You know he’s going to be heartbroken if he can’t participate in the parade of cultures.” I wonder if she knew we were kidding…

No. She had called friends, one that has a child at this daycare, to blast the daycare for their leaving our baby out of the parade of cultures…which wasn’t going to happen. Her sister vowed to be at the parade just so Tony could be in it. I think they were about to rape and pillage the daycare.

So, I learned never to leave a voicemail every again.

Hey, but thanks to The Bob and Sheri show for sending me a Pajama Gram. Very comfy.

If the gas light on your Suzuki blinks, and you are not at a gas station, you’re in trouble.

You should get your ex-wife off your car title well before you try to refinance or trade it…even if your divorce decree explicitly spells out who it belongs to.

Fix-a-flat works.

Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a neurobehavioral developmental disorder affecting about 3-5% of the world’s population depending on the diagnostic criteria used.

You can’t get a title loan if your ex-wife is still on the title.

“How to eat Fried Worms” is a 4^th grade level book, and my son is a third grader who’s reading it.

It will cost you $18.00 to have your ex removed from your title.

Sarah Palin is an idiot.

My oldest son can’t draw a zebra.

ADHD Medicine is speed and will mess up a 200 something pound man in his 50’s but only slightly effect a 78 pound girl with ADHD .

If you take out a title loan on your car for $700.00, you will owe $172.00 per month until you pay it off.

I can’t draw a zebra.

I have no idea where all the pieces for the jack on my Pathfinder are.

White crayon will not show up on black crayon.

Getting a title loan to help pay off debt by producing more debt is way too convenient.

We don’t have the money to get my youngest son’s orthotic.

I’m not ready to admit that my oldest son may have ADHD, nor do I think he does.

 I thought this was absolutely awesome. I wanted to share.

Preschool Teacher

Okay, tell us the thing you’d never say to our face.
If a parent doesn’t follow my directions, I’ll assume her child won’t either. I give parents specific instructions — fill out these forms by this date, e-mail instead of calling, don’t put candy in your kid’s lunch. As soon you break my rules, that creates an immediate bias against your child. And most teachers feel the same way.

What’s the biggest secret among teachers?
Just as you have a preferred teacher you want for your kid next year, we have preferred students we want for our classrooms. How to become a preferred family? Start each school year by sending your teacher this e-mail: “Please provide me with a wish list of 10 things you would like for your classroom.” She’ll ask for things like Post-it notes, a chess set, a 50-cent deck of cards. When you spend maybe $20 on these items, it goes through the grapevine that you are here not just for your kid but for the entire class — that this is the family that cares about the community, whose child is probably a team player too.

I wonder if this would have helped last year.

I have to be very careful here, since a good friend of mine is the director at our Tony’s daycare, but…they piss me off. I realize that my gripe straddles the fence of “well, if they didn’t, you’d be pissed”. Anyway, here’s the boogey.

Three times now we have had to pick Tony up for, in my humble opinion, was an overreaction on the daycare’s part. Yes there it is…”they are only erring on the side of caution”…I get it, but let me explain.

The first time he had a fever and was throwing up and had pink eye. When I got him…he was neither feverish, nor vomiting, but his eyes were guncky. The doctor said, no pink eye, just a head cold. But, we had to keep him home for 24 hours.

The next is stranger. They said he might have ringworm. He has eczema. He has always had it. The doctor verified it, and again, a day at home.

Then, last week, he had thrush…but not really. He had teething sores, nothing more, and the doctor suggested finding a new day care. Another day away from work.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love hanging with a healthy baby, and I do appreciate the mindset of “better safe than sorry” but come on. Pink eye is a highly contagious critter, so I give them that, but Ringworm…really. It’s a fungus. If that is being passed around, someone is not properly cleaning the daycare. Thrush? That’s like a yeast infection. Again, why are the babies sharing bottles and nipples? That’s the only way to pass it. And on top of everything…he didn’t have any of them. Plus…and here’s the real kicker for me…we pay $185 a week for this daycare. Anytime I am away from work, I don’t get hours. So unless they are going to start reimbursing me for the false alarms, we are going to start looking elsewhere…for a place that doesn’t care if my child or the others are contagious…yeah…wait…

So this morning I was listening to our newest morning show in Huntsville, the Bob and Sheri show. It’s a syndicated show out of…somewhere else. They were speaking of relationships with ex spouses. Now, the ex and I have a pretty good relationship, so this isn’t a “slam the baby momma” post, but the example they were talking about is alittle too good of a relationship…

A lady called in, in her late twenties, if I had to guess, to tell about her relationship with her ex. She was pregnant with her new husband’s child and went to an OB/GYN clinic. They got her ready for the exam, the sonogram tech did a heart beat check, then sent for the doctor for his exam.

It was her ex. Now how she didn’t know he was a doctor at that practice, I don’t know. Why she didn’t ask for another doctor…I don’t know. She didn’t, and he became her OB/GYN. He was with her through the pregnancy, at the birth, and is still her GYN.

Um…no. They had been married for about 5 years. Divorced, then 10 years later she walks into the OB about 4 months pregnant.

“I could understand if he were your normal doctor, but there’s a difference between looking in your ear…and you know…” Bob said

“It’s something he’s already saw…”She responded.

Sheri said, “I think it would be great to have a husband as a gynecologist, I just never had one who get through the classes…” nice. That’s just strange. Any thoughts? Am I just being “a guy”?

Did you see this? You really hope that people who make food foo our children are on the up and up, but I guess not. It seems that added something to cheat the outcome of the protein levels in the formula. A filler that added no nutrients, but skewd the test. A substance that is banned.
I hope they nail the bastards to the wall. 2 Children have dies and over a thousand have become ill.
I remember when their was tainted tylenol in the 80’s. 7 people died when someone…who was never caught…tampered with extra strength tylenol. Cyanide laced capsules where placed on the shelf. A 13 year old girl was killed during this scare. But that was a sicko who stole the bottles, tainted them, them put them back on the shelf. These latest deaths were caused by a manufacturer placing a banned substance in baby formula.
Amazing.

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Yesterday was hard. We had been anticipating Tony’s return visit to the pediatric orthopedists. He has begun pulling up and scoots around pretty fast. This was a milestone of sorts for the next step regarding his leg/foot.

So Sarah and I took him to the doctor. The x-ray of his leg looks better. The bones have straightened out noticeably. We voiced our concern with him having a dominate side and it hindering his development…the doctor said not to worry. We also delved into the fact that he can’t wear a sock, must less a shoe, and that’s a milestone for moving up in day care. His heel isn’t in the normal position, so shoe and socks don’t stay on. So it was decided to fit him for an AFO…ankle foot orthotic. This will help immobilize the foot in the correct angel and allow him to wear a show over it.

But, Bryan, how do they fit a 9 moth old with such a custom device?

They cast him. The use material used to cast a broken bone, wrap his leg and foot with it, let it dry, and then cut it off. It was hard…mostly for Sarah and me…to go through that. He was great…but it really is hard to see your son begin a process that will affect him for years. Knowing he will have a brace, or at least a lift in his shoe, until he’s old enough for surgery…when they even out the length of the legs…it makes my stomach sink.

The doctor even mentioned that stigma of being “the kid with a lift” while we were there. The AFO will have a ¼ inch lift in it. I’m guessing, eventually, as he grows, he will have a pretty significant and noticeable difference in leg length. Then we have to decide when the best time to do the operation will be. The longer we wait the better chance for only having to put him through it once. However, the longer we wait, the longer he lives with this “difference”.

Now, I know we are blessed. Aside from this we have an extremely healthy and happy little boy. It was brought home while we were leaving the fitting office. A young boy, in a paraplegic motorized wheel chair, was in the waiting room with his mother. Sarah and I both noticed this. We both, at that moment, counted our blessing.

But it’s still hard.

It’s my least favorite sport that Jack plays. I think it’s a mixture of the inefficiency of the practices, the gall of the parents, and the fact that I have to pay $4 PER GAME. It’s like the dues we paid weren’t enough. Just gripes me every Saturday.

We had practice last Friday night…in the rain…and Jack did nothing. For 2 hours. He warmed up, and then the coaches worked on one offensive play. Jack’s not on offensive this year. So for about an hour and 30 minutes he tried to stay out of trouble with the rest of the defensive team…while it rained…and he was on antibiotics for tonsillitis…I digress.

We did win the game Saturday. The team is now 1 and 1. It’s nice to win. You don’t have to hear the other parents bitch loudly about the refs…or the other team cheating…or our coaches being inept…or the refs… Last year, at our championship game, which we lost, a group of the dads were yelling at OUR coach BEFORE the game even began. During warm up. Wow.

They play 10 or 11 games plus the tournament. I pay $4 dollars a game…just for me. If Sarah comes, or any of our family, that goes up a bunch. We paid close to $100 for registration, pads, and uniforms. Then throw in the extra $50ish from me alone to see the game…plus the $50 from his mom…plus the $50 from his grandmother who’s at most of the games…you see where I’m going? It is a money pit.

Jack does like it…which I guess counts for something…but it still is my least favorite sport.

ROLL TIDE!!!