The Fish Pond

The Crowning Blow

Ugh. Goodbye, July, don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.

First, there was Lyme disease. Times two. Then Little Man's finger. Then last week I turned 39 years old, a fact that is messing with my head and has triggered some sort of mid-life crisis and made me want to hook up with old boyfriends found on Facebook and get a tattoo and go carousing in bars til all odd hours of the morning (only one of which actually has a chance of happening - I do my carousing at home, thankyouverymuch, and I love my husband to the ends of the earth. Not to mention that I had the smoking hot bod back when the ex boyfriends weren't exes yet and all I have to offer now is a gravity ridden, squishy, 4 c-section defaced mess and the exes are still ohsohot. So whadda you think I should get for my tattoo?). I was just looking to get out of July with some part of my life intact.

It was not to be.

Monday morning I had my six-month appointment with the dermatologist to quash any mutinous moles before they toss the captain overboard. He took off two and froze some nasty thing on my face (making it look an order of magnitude more nasty, but he assures me won't leave a scar), and apparently while he was doing this my husband left a message on my phone telling me his car broke down and he might need me to come get him. Since my dermatologist's office is closer to my husband than my home is, I frantically tried to get it touch with him while I started to drive in his direction. I got as far as Rockville before he finally reached me. He'd gotten a local tow, and they were looking at the car, but he knew what was wrong with it: he blew the engine.

He. Blew. The. Engine. My husband. Former gearhead. Threw a rod. Through the engine block. A hole. In the block.

He was actually on northbound 95 when it started to let go, but was able to make it off onto a side street before it finally quit running, near where he works - nearly BWI airport. We debated the merits of having the shop fix it or having it towed to our mechanic who has been servicing our cars for almost two decades now, and decided we'd rather have it with our trusted mechanic, but not before the shop there started checking into repair options. The estimate they gave? Seven. Thousand. Dollars.

I nearly wrecked my own car, and then I went to pick him up. Uncle Dave watched the kids for many many hours straight, enough hours that we have to pay him overtime. Our mechanic called us with the problems with our car.

1. The engine block has a hole in it, so we can't rebuild the existing engine.
2. Jasper only has rebuilds in stock for automatics. Our Subaru is a stickshift (yes, I'm a girl, yes I can drive a stick quite well, and yes, stick shifts are better than automatics. I'd have a stick minivan if I could).
3. Jasper would be happy to build us an engine, and it will only take a mere 4-6 weeks. Weeks. Not days. Weeks.
4. We could go with a junkyard engine. These are rare to begin with, and as our mechanic says, "One man's trash is another man's problem." We don't want to inherit a problem. Other than the family history of skin cancer I already have. Wait, not that kind of inheritance. Never mind.
5. We buy parts from Subaru.

We are looking at $6K. Six. Thousand. Dollars. And that doesn't include the LWOP, extra babysitting, and alcoholic stress relief. Oh, and the rental car he's using in the mean time, because I am not hauling five kids over to the airport an hour and a half each way twice a day to drive him to and from work (oh, yeah, I have an extra kid this week. My cousin's son, who is a wonderful boy and who teaches my kids how to behave which is a good thing as my kids are animals but sheesh, it's rough timing). Our mechanic asked us how the hell this happened, as my husband is usually a stickler for such things as routine maintenance. He put something like 150K miles on a Ford truck engine, and we thought for sure he'd take the Subaru over 200K.

The answer is a cautionary tale. The little oil pressure idiot light came on weeks ago, and he ignored it. He figured it was like a Ford truck, and it wouldn't run if there was no oil in it. He was too stressed out and tired from the long commute and lack of sleep and job stress and kid stress to pay attention and actually take the car for its regular oil changes. I had cautioned him against this, saying that if he thought he didn't have time then it would come back to bite him in the ass when it was the most inconvenient. I hate it when I'm right sometimes.

Here's hoping August is more kind. Anyone have any freelance work for a contrite computer programmer or a ticked off but smoking good technical writer? Will work for Subaru engine parts or cash.

I Stomp Around in My Brown Boots

I've always had a problem with shoes. I hate them. I hate to wear them, being much happier in bare feet. Perhaps it is ironic that my first real job outside of babysitting was working in a Stride Rite. Where I had to make kids who hated to wear shoes, wear shoes. Anyway, up until I had my kids I was always a women's size 4 1/2, which meant that I really had trouble finding shoes that fit. I either had to shop in the kids' section (which, really, wasn't so much a problem at the Stride Rite, I actually got to use my employee discount) or I had to go to Nordstrom and spend a week's salary for a single pair of shoes that made me look like a grownup. When I grew several sizes after having my kids, I was delighted that I could finally stop having to spend several limbs for shoes. But there was one pair of shoes that I actually cried over: my hiking boots.

Probably my second pair of hiking boots were the best damn boots I ever owned, maybe the best piece of footwear I ever owned. Made by Vasque, they were italian leather with goretex liners for waterproofing, and they were pretty much the only pair of shoes of any kind that I've ever owned that were immediately comfortable the second I put them on my feet. They held me in good stead through punishing backpacking trips with BigDaddyFish, despite my overloaded pack and general smallishness (I've since learned to pack lighter). I wore them for weather protection in the snow, and my feet always stayed warm and dry. When I outgrew them because of the stretching of my feet after the babies, I actually cried. I held onto them for years, even though I knew they would never fit again, but I really, really missed those boots. I didn't see them in stores and tried a variety of different boots, all not really making the grade and quickly outgrown with the addition of another child. Since I'm not having any more babies, I've been looking forward to getting a new pair of boots.

My latest pair of running shoes wore out at least two months ago, and my 3 mile walks have been really doing a number on my feet, but I really felt like I couldn't justify the expense as part of day-to-day spending. I finally told BigDaddyFish that I wanted new running shoes and a waist pack for my birthday. Knowing that we've been planning on going hiking and backpacking in the future, and having listened to me whine on our hikes because I didn't have any boots, he suggested I get a new pair of boots and wear those on my walks, and once those were broken in, then buy the running shoes. I hemmed and hawed for a while, but ultimately thought that was a capital idea. I had heard that Vasque was no longer making those boots, but a quick check on their website showed them. Last week, Little Man and I hit the local hiking store to see if they had them.

We walked in the store and I was dismayed to see very very few hiking boots on display; lots of sandals, climbing shoes, and trail running shoes, but few boots, and none by Vasque. This store is well staffed with knowledgeable people, though, so I waited and when the guy asked what I wanted I said "Womens. Vasque Sundowners. Do you have them?" He smiled as he walked to another display with a big Clearance sign above it and asked what size. I told him I didn't know and gave him an idea, and he had both sizes I thought I might take. "You know, they aren't making these anymore, haven't for about a year and half. We get so many requests for them, though. You got lucky we had your size," he said. Once again, the second my foot slid into the boot they were comfortable. AND they were on clearance, so they were a LOT cheaper than I had anticipated. Coupled with the store-wide sale on everything else, I was also able to get my running shoes for less than I would have paid for the boots. Happy Birthday to me.

Seriously, they're awesome boots. People have been known to wear the same pair for 20 years.

Please ignore the blindingly white legs. Family history of skin cancer and lots of childhood sunburns are a bear.

Sorry, New Jersey

Trout, holding up a piece of ham: Why is this all wavy?

Me: Muscles. Muscles are wavy.

Trout: Huh?

Me: Muscles. Meat is muscles.

Trout looks perplexed.

BigDaddyFish, flexing his bicep: Like this! Muscles!

Me: But we don't eat people muscles. Well, most of us.

Trout: Do some people eat people?

BDF: Yes, in the jungle, mostly. And New Jersey.

Little Man: I am NEVER going to New Jersey.

The adults crack up. Me: I am so going to blog that. "I am NEVER going to New Jersey."

Little Man: Me, neither.

The adults laugh so hard BDF has to run to the sink to spit water and tears run down my face. The kids look perplexed.

Shooting for the Bulk Discount, AKA A Straight Tequila Night

It could have been worse, I suppose.

I was in the basement, moving laundry through the machines. Nemo had come down with me, as he is prone to doing, but he lost interest relatively quickly and disappeared, I assumed to go back upstairs, and I continued with what I was doing, which at that point was sorting dirty stuff into piles. I heard Little Man start to scream, which is not unusual in this house, so I paid no mind at first. His screams became more urgent, though, and the other kids started screaming, and the words "Little Man is bleeding!" penetrated my fog of irritation. I hollered that I was in the basement and told Little Man to come down.

He rushed into the laundry room, still screaming at the top of his lungs, blood just pouring out of his hand. I grabbed a dirty towel and wrapped it around his finger as he wailed that it hurt and I demanded "What happened? What the hell happened?" as I couldn't really figure out what was so dangerous and blood-inducing about watching Avatar. "Nemo did it! Nemo cut me with scissors! Mom! I need a bandage!" I could hear the girls upstairs screaming, the timer for the food in the oven beeping over their cries, and the thump-thump-thump of Nemo's footsteps as he ran around the room, and I couldn't figure out where the hell he got scissors, since I'd locked them all up in our locking cabinet after the food-coloring disaster.

I dashed up the stairs, dragging Little Man behind me, shouting that everyone had to get their shoes on because we had to go to the ER, and I intercepted Nemo holding a particularly wicked pair of scissors, which I confiscated immediately. Then I tried to calm Little Man down enough to tell me exactly how the cut happened as I tried to administer first aid.

Here I need to back up a bit. As some of you may know, I used to own a rubber stamping business. The company I worked for sold all of their stamps with the rubber and cushioning separate from the wood blocks, and the buyer had to cut out the stamp images and mount them. To aid in this, they sold super sharp rubber-cutting scissors. The company now sells their images die-cut, so all you have to do is punch them out and mount them. I still have a sizable area in my basement that is a disastrous mess of craft supplies, which I need to clean out, and it has been there since Sunny was a baby. I haven't really touched it but fewer than a handful of times in the last 4 years, mostly just to move stuff around.

Note the really dirty blades.

Evidently, when Nemo left the basement he took a detour to the craft area and found a pair of the rubber cutting scissors. Anxious to show off his new toy to his brother, he went upstairs where the kids were wholly absorbed in Avatar, walked over to his brother, and cut the middle finger on his right hand between the knuckle and the base of the finger. I knew on sight that it needed stitches.

I got the food out of the oven and called BigDaddyFish, who was at work over an hour away. He came home, talked me down from DEFCON 5 to about DEFCON 4, and reassured me that based on the cell phone photo I sent and the fact that he wasn't gushing blood anymore, Little Man could wait until he got home to go to the ER to be stitched up. In the hour it took him to get home, though, Little Man worked himself into a hysterical tizzy about potentially getting stitches or glue to fix his finger. He wouldn't let me touch it, wouldn't let me wash it out, and a couple of times he told me he couldn't breathe because it hurt so bad. I kept talking to him, trying to calm him down and explain what would happen at the ER, but he insisted it would hurt and that he wasn't going to let them touch him. When BDF got home, we gave Little Man the choice of who would take him to the ER, and he picked me. BDF was kind of upset with me, because he was mad I hadn't locked up those scissors and there is still such a big mess in the basement after all this time. I didn't say much at all after he got home, and those who know me IRL know that means something Big is going on inside. He leaned in the window of the van as we were getting ready to leave and asked something like "You feel bad, don't you?" and all I could do was nod as the tears started to fall. He asked Little Man again if he was sure he wanted me to take him, because I was upset and felt bad that he got hurt. Little Man was insistent, though, so I got composed myself and off we went.

We are lucky to live in a neighborhood that has a freestanding ER about 3 miles from my house. It is usually fairly empty, espeically on a weeknight, and it only took us about 5 minutes to get there. The whole time, though, Little Man kept up a running monologue about how he didn't want to get a shot, he wasn't going to let anyone touch him with needles, and how it was going to hurt so bad. I kept having flashbacks to my own adventure with needing stitches when I was 7 and how my parents handled that. I kept reassuring him it would be okay, that we still didn't really know what they'd need to do, and he didn't need to worry. I told him that we wouldn't let anyone do any thing without thoroughly explaining what they were doing and why. We would make sure he was comfortable with it.

We got in and got through triage okay, though he got a little panicky any time anyone wanted to even look at his finger. The doctor, a young perky woman probably five years younger than I am and definitely good with kids, came in and examined him. She understood his panic and told him he'd need some "gluey string" to fix his finger. She put a topical liquid on his finger, a liquid she had to squirt out of the end of what looked like a needle, which of course made Little Man more anxious. It took her poking herself several times in the hand to prove to him that it wasn't a needle. As she worked she talked about how she has 7 year old twin girls and how she had to do stitches on one of her girls, and that he'd be fine. She did every thing she could to try to calm him down. We had to wait 30 minutes for the medicine to take effect, and as the 30 minutes wore on, the closer and closer we got to stitch time the more anxious and panicky Little Man got.

The doctor came back in, and Little Man was pretty much hysterical at this point. She talked to him about what she was doing, about how she had to test to see if the medicine took effect, and he was just too out of control to cooperate. She brought in two nurses, one on either side of him. One nurse held his arm while the doctor took a pin to test to see if he was numb. He wailed and wailed about how much it hurt and how he could still feel. So we had to do things the hard way. One nurse held his arm down, one nurse held his feet and other arm down, the doctor gave him two shots at the base of the finger, one on either side, I rubbed his chest and head and kept murmuring "It's okay, it's okay, it's going to be fine" while he wailed "No! NO! NONONONO! It HURTS!" Once the shots took effect, though, he stopped wailing, though he was still tense and on edge, but resigned to his fate. He looked so small, his eyes so beaten.

The doctor kept up a monologue the whole time she worked, talking about what she was doing, but also about the wonderful half-sleepover party that her twins had a couple of weeks ago. She told him she was using gluey string again, and he looked at me with accusing eyes as he said "You lied, Mom, you LIED! You told me she would use a needle!" and I just took it, since I knew she was using a needle, but she kept her hand cupped a bit so he couldn't see what she was doing, and I thought again about my own accusation to my father. When she was finished, she showed him the curved needle she was using, so like a fishhook, and told him "Your mom wasn't lying, bud. This is the needle I used, but it was like gluey string, because you couldn't feel it, right?" Then she bandaged him up, gave me a bunch of surgical instruments, and gave him a lime popsicle.

See? Ready for a second career, I am.

We came home weary and hungry. BDF had been so worried he cleaned and vacuumed the living room while I was gone. The other three kids were asleep. We sent Little Man to bed and BDF and I nibbled at our dinner, gone unappetizing in the hours since we'd left for the ER while BDF played Wii and I drank straight tequila, the only alcohol we had in the house. I've told everyone else they can't do anything to get another trip to the ER at least for the rest of the month.

Five stitches and a good excuse to give everyone the finger for the next week.

Blymey, Episode 3: Return of The Tick

And just because we obviously are experts in Lyme disease, Trout woke up today with a bullseye rash herself. Another month of antibiotics, another child. Now we're 3 for 4. Anyone want to guess how long til the next one gets it? I'd show you her rash, but it's in a place inappropriate for internet posting, plus it's fairly faint, not angry like Sunny's.

Anyone want to move here to Tickland with us?

Blymey, Redux

A few days ago Sunny woke up with what looked like a bad bug bite on her back, complaining that it was itching like crazy. We figured it was a spider bite, put a little hydrocortisone cream on it, and went on about our business, not thinking too much about it since bug bites are a daily occurrence around here. The next morning, though, it had doubled in size, so we figured she was allergic to something in the cortisone cream, washed it real good, and went on about our business again. This morning, it had doubled in size again. To this.

We were still thinking spider bite, wondering if it was a recluse bite, so off to the ER we went. After a long morning while Sunny was her smiley, dramatic self, we got the verdict. Tick bite. Lyme disease. Again. 28 days antibiotics. Oooh yay.

Some cute pics to get that sight out of your minds:

All dressed up for her first ballet class (though why she's posing next to our barrel garden I have no idea, Uncle Orca took the picture)

Closeup of the aforementioned barrel garden.

Trying to get him to find a sport that works for him. He likes to just hit, but I want him on a team.

28 days of penicillin. Ick.

If a Tree Falls in a Forest and No One Hears It....

Little Man: Trout, you're SUCH an ASSHOLE!!!

Trout, mildly, as I open my mouth to read Little Man the riot act and find out where he learned that word (shut up, he didn't learn that one from me, other colorful words, but not that one): What's an asshole?