Medical Update

I had an MRI on Monday. I have to say it was really quite pleasant. It was large bore MRI, which basically means it has a larger tube than the traditional MRI and while it wasn't open on the sides, it has a shorter magnet so that the top of my head wasn't in the tube and if I looked up towards my forehead I could actually see the room behind me.

Of course now I know that claustrophobia ISN'T my problem with MRI's. It's my inability to lay still for more than 14 seconds.

Seriously the moment they slid me in and told me not to move, my nose started to tickle. Then I had to cough. Then my eye started to tear. Then my ear started to itch. Then my back started to hurt. Luckily they gave me headphones so I concentrated on the music and looked at the inside of the tube and started to DRIFT OFF TO SLEEP. Yes, it's true. I am so tired that I can actually sleep while Muszak is playing in my ears and the loud jack-hammer clanking of the magnets surrounds me.

Once I realized I was starting to fall asleep I startled myself awake, forgetting the whole DON'T MOVE aspect of the test. Thankfully my movement didn't interefere with the pictures they were taking. Otherwise we would have had to start the whole no movement thing all over again.

And so now, I have a diagnosis.

I have several herniated disks at L4, L5 and S1 (that's the bottom of the Lumbar region and the top of the sciatic region) with annular tears and lots of goopy stuff running into the tears, that is causing inflammation and nerve compression, and making it very difficult for me to walk. I haven't been injured in the recent past, so it's likely this is a combination of picking up two babies for the past 5 plus years coupled with selling the BMW and its lumbar support seat. :)

The next step is to see a neurosurgeon, which I'll do on Oct. 28.

I'm not sure if I'll have PT or surgery or find a cure that requires the eating of chocolate and ice cream, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Right now I'm just happy that I have a funky cane and it's taking me where I need to go -- and hopefully one day soon I won't need it any more.

So now that you're all up to speed on my back/leg issue, I'll treat you to a cute pictures of Hannah and Liz from our library tour in March. Tally, you may recognize the bottom picture!

Party time

Hannah and Liz went to a really cool party this morning. Their friend Izabella turned 5 and decided to celebrate in Sweet and Sassy style. Which meant that her party was held at the Sweet and Sassy Salon where eight little girls got the royal treatment!

The morning started with choosing the perfect frock to wear, followed by an up-do, a dousing of glitter, painted nails and make up, and then some more glitter. Games followed, and then each girl was 'presented' and received a tiara (glittery, of course) and a wand and got to walk down a short runway. Cake and presents finished off the morning. Hannah has not stop saying "That's the best party I've ever been to" since we got home. Seriously, this was like heaven to her and she milked it for all it was worth. This is her after her hair was done and just before her make-up application began ... pure bliss!

Lizzie had a good time with her friends, but keeps asking if it's time to take a bath yet to wash all the gunk out of her hair.

Here are a million pictures (give or take) to show you what it's like. Oh, and no need to adjust your screens, the place really IS that pink!!

Lizzie getting her hair done. Four or five stylists worked on this group of girls, which was a great ratio and kept things moving really well.

Hannah getting started on her royal treatment:

Hannah getting her nails done (in day-glo orange!) and looking rather like a bored runway model, don't you think? (Oh, and pay close attention to the dress she chose)Lizzie blowing on her nails (a very pale pink color) to get them to dry:Lizzie and the birthday girl are both waiting for their nails to dry and don't they just look beyond precious?:Another cool facet of the place. There's a television screen so you can see yourself on TV as you walk the runway (which is the black thing they are all hokey-pokeying on.):This is the chicken dance ... one of Hannah's favorites because she could twirl in her dress (that's her on the far right) ... but wait a minute ... is this a NEW dress??? Why yes it is. True to form, Hannah mixed up this party with a DIVA party and decided she didn't like her hippie dress and demanded to be able to exchange it for the princess attire.Presenting Princess Elizabeth:Presenting Princess Hannah (who performed a perfectly executed twirl once she got her wand):All the princesses for the day:Izabella blows out the candles on her GORGEOUS cake. It was yummy, too -- pound cake covered in buttercream frosting!:Here's my friend Amy, the mom of the birthday girl. I love this picture of her in her tiara, even though she didn't ... but that's why it's MY blog. :) Thanks Amy (and Izabella and Ethan and Zoe!) for a wonderful day!

Odds and Ends and a Beginning

So, it's been a while, although only about 20 minutes in Hannah and Lizzie years ... they live FAST!!
Here are some random things that I thought about blogging about but didn't get around to it.

***

Hannah has a boyfriend, as you all know. Well Carver was sick last week for two days and Hannah missed him. When he came back they had the following conversation, which she related exactly the same to both her father and I.

Hannah: I mist-ed you so much Num Nums

Carver: Don't call me Num Nums.

I'm pretty sure the Num Nums comes from either Flapjack or Chowder her two favorite cartoon network shows that I probably shouldn't let her watch.

***

POLITICAL STATEMENT AHEAD, MOM AND DAD PLEASE SKIP TO THE NEXT SECTION:

Does anyone really believe that a self-proclaimed hockey mom who thinks that it's okay to ban books be a heart beat away from running our country? I know she's got all this experience with the PTA and all, but seriously, should a self-proclaimed hockey mom who thinks that it's okay to ban books be a heartbeat away from running the PTA?

I can think of about a million women -- including another mother of five that I know very well because she gave birth to me -- who are so much better suited to serve even though I don't agree with their politics. It's not her inexperience that frightens me, it's the experiences that she HAS had, that worry me.

POLITICAL STATEMENT OVER. WE NOW RETURN YOU TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED BLOGGING

***

Hannah and Liz started dance class last week. They are in pre-ballet and they are the most adorable twin dancers who ever put on a leotard. Last week they told me they learned how to plie and I (showing off my encyclopedic knowlege of everything) asked if they also learned to eleve (go up on their toes) and they gave me a blank look as if I was speaking French.

Which I thought I was until I related this story to my sister Terry earlier today and when she stopped laughing (which was a very long time) she said the term is actually Releve (with an R), which is why I am not homeschooling my children in dance (or anything else.)

Here's how cute they are in their dance outfits:

***

After about 50 years on Wall Street my brother in law retired about a month ago, and now Wall Street is a mess. Coincidence? I think not.

***

I have two interviews coming up that I'm excited about. I'm talking to Graham Nash (of Crosby, Stills and...) tomorrow and am trying set up an interview with Meat Loaf (or as my mother calls him Meat Ball) in the next week or so.

Okay, so that's it. I'll try to not take as much time between posts next time!

Summer Wrap-Up

Just wanted to let you all know that we survived the first week of school GLOWINGLY! I had a bit of a heart-stopping moment when their teacher approached my car during drop off on the second day of school. Seriously WHAT could they have done on the first day of school??? As it turns out, she just wanted to know what we call Monahan at home. I suggested she ask Hannah since it had been reported to me the previous evening that she liked being called Monahan. She must have forgotten about that, though, because she came home being called Hannah. Hannah and Elizabeth love school. Lizzie said she's going to get to play the xylophone in music class and Hannah said that gym will be more fun once they play soccor with that high net in the gym (clearly Uncle Dude has been lax in his sports education for them).

I, of course, am doing my part at home by making sure that things are very boring around here. Rob's helping, too, as evidenced by the following picture. Here are the girls doing yard work and Rob NOT doing yard work...

Here are things from another angle. Children working. Dad not working:

:)

I think they will be good and ready for school tomorrow! We had a great weekend, seriously. Yesterday it poured rain for the entire day (starting at 1 a.m. and ending around 9 p.m.) so we went out for coffee and then we watched movies and ate popcorn for the rest of the day. Today there was no sign of the tropical storm (except for lots of downed branches and leaves and our creek being a little bit deeper) and the weather was stunning. We decided to take a drive to find a covered bridge. We found the bridge and here it is. And, yes, those are some Amish people out for a bike ride:

I found some other pictures from the summer that I wanted to share. With all the excitement about the first day of school (well, we were excited, you all probably weren't) I forgot to post our Labor Day picnic picture. We went back to the same playground where we'd spent Memorial Day. We stopped at an Italian place called Two Cousins where they have THE BEST sandwiches. They make the rolls from their pizza dough and they are delish. For those in the area it's on Route 23 in New Holland -- worth the drive!

Hannah worked on her gymnastics skills at the park:Finally, ever since we babysat BeBop (my nephew's bird) Lizzie has been consumed with the desire to have a bird or, if possible, be a bird. Here's a nest she made on the deck. Her blue jay and two ducks found it quite comfy:

I love Jon! (Pundit bashing ahead)

No matter what your political persuasion I think we all can agree that we could make much better decisions without the pundits (except for Jon Stewart!)

Kindergarten

And so, the first day of school has come to a close. There was no crying, no histrionics, no last minute decisions to homeschool. (And Hannah and Liz did great, too!!)

Already, I've learned so much!

The first is that it really doesn't matter WHEN Lizzie has to leave the house, she just likes to dawdle. I thought that afternoon kindergarten would somehow make getting out of the house easier. In preschool I spent at least an hour asking, begging and then yelling at her to HURRY UP. I thought -- oh, misguided Mom that I am -- that having an additional THREE HOURS to prepare for school would be more than enough time and that we'd all enter the car in a happy haze of peace and harmony, singing Kumbaya as we traveled toward the school.


Instead, I gave the girls lunch at 11:30 a.m and planned to leave the house around 12:05 They wanted cheese sticks, jelly on crackers and milk. Hannah managed to finish her lunch and get dressed for school by 11:50 a.m. At 11:50 a.m., Lizzie was still on her second cheese stick and had decided to ask for more jelly crackers. Then she got dressed but decided that the socks she had selected earlier had too many bumps in them. Then she needed to reassess her shoes. Then she wanted me to braid her hair with special hair ties, which she had to find. Then she had to find her backpack, which she now thought was too heavy to carry to school, so I said we'd find a bag to put the school supplies in, and then, once I found the bag, she decided that she wanted to carry the supplies in her backpack afterall.



We did get to the school in plenty of time, but there was no Kumbaya singing.


We get to the school only to find that there was a substitute aide in charge of the drop off and she didn't know what we had been told the procedure was. She was about 107 years old, so I'm sure she knew what to do in 1912, but we were told that the aide would let the kids out of the car at the curb and then we were to drive away. Instead, we all walked the kids to the door where they lined up against the wall. When I asked if this was to be the procedure in future (because then I'd park in the lot instead of at the curb) she said that in future the kids could just open the door themselves and get out and stand in a line against the wall. This is not a bad idea, except that we have child locks on the back doors, so my children CAN'T let themselves out of the car.



We'll see what tomorrow brings!



The girls loved kindergarten although don't ask me what they learned. All I got out of them was that Hannah didn't play with Lizzie like she said she would, but that was okay because Lizzie had her own friends, and that Carver (Hannah's main squeeze from K-camp) has blue eyes and nice shoes. When I asked if they learned anything, they both gave me a horrified look.


Oh, I did find out that they had apples for a snack, with water, and that it's a rule of kindergarten that you can't ask for seconds.



UPDATE: Hannah has told me that the teacher calls her Monahan and she likes it, so she thinks everyone should call her Monahan. I tried it, and she didn't answer me.



The bus brought them home at around 3:40 or so. It was supposed to be 3:21, but it's the first day of school, so I'm sure there were delays. There were seven buses that passed our driveway prior to their bus, so I did a lot of standing and sitting and standing again before I finally gave up and just paced around the bottom of our driveway.



They both came home cranky and hungry but since by then it was almost 4 p.m. and Rob's usually home by 6 it was only a couple hours of whining.



I would like to add that I LOVE afternoon kindergarten. I don't feel like napping as soon as I drop the girls off (well, today at least!) and I think I'll actually be able to get work done. And it's much nicer to walk out to the bottom of the driveway to meet the bus, than to have to drive 20 minutes to pick them up in Pottstown (although their preschool was located near a Dunkin' Donuts AND a McDonalds, so the drive wasn't all bad!!)



So here are the pictures:


This is the official, first day of school photo. Don't they look grown up? (WAAAHHH!!)
Here's the bus as it finally came into sight! It lets the girls off at the end of the driveway, but they have to cross the street in front of the bus. Here they are getting off the bus for the first (official) time. Lizzie forgot her backpack but one of the other kids on the bus reminded her and she ran back to get it. (I was shooting right into the sun, which is why the picture is foggy!)Here are Hannah and Lizzie enjoying their afterschool snack of homemade cookies and milk. They are already excited about getting back to school tomorrow, although tomorrow Lizzie is going to start getting ready at 10 a.m.!!

scared but brave

Lizzie just came upstairs from the playroom to tell me that something was making her sad. When I asked what it was, she said she couldn't tell me, but that I could guess.

When I asked her about kindergarten she started to hold back tears (which always breaks my heart) and told me that she was scared about several things.

We had a nice long chat about the future and why it's important to change and how much fun she'll have.

She thought about it for a long time and then said, "Okay. I'll be brave. I guess it's time for me to grow up."

She went back downstairs to share these insights with Hannah (who can't wait for everyone in kindergarten to meet HER) while I was left to think, "well, that makes ONE of us."

If you're so inclined, please say a little prayer for my sweet, sensitive Little Bit, that she not worry about kindergarten too much, since I know she'll love it the minute she steps into the classroom.