More Summer Hodgepodge

One Saturday night after her bath, Abbie combed her hair for like 20 minutes straight.  Then she went to the bathroom to brush her teeth and when she saw her hair, she burst into tears.  "It's still curly," she cried.  Poor baby.  So before church the next day, I straightened her hair.  She was practically glowing, she was so excited.  Apparently my curly hair is just the first thing that she does not want to have in common with me--I'm sure as adolescence approaches, that list will increase dramatically.

Nate could seriously spend 8 hours a day building with little legos--Sometimes I have to drag him to the park.

Abbie with our friend Andrew.  She loves babies!

What is that thing?  Better get a closer look.

Our friends Meg and Jori went to the Harry Potter exhibit in Chicago.  They sent Nate and Abbie a postcard that said, "Dear Mr. and Miss Dimond, You have been accepted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry..."  This is a photo of Nate reading the postcard out loud to Abbie.  They were beyond thrilled.

The weather in WI has been, well, a case against global warming.  They aren't wearing the rain jackets just to stay dry--It was like 60 degrees in mid-July.  Ridiculous.  Well, when the weather is like spring, what do we do?  We play like it's spring!

We're Married!

On July 27, 2002, I married my best friend of five years.  We met in high school and declared ourselves instantaneous soul-mates.  We remained best friends (nothing romantic) for the next three years, throughout his mission, while I finished high school and went to college.  Then when we were both home for the summer in 2000, we had a fight, drove out to a cow pasture and decided to start dating.  That story always makes me smile.

Now we've been married for seven years.  Alan is still my best friend.  Our relationship is the best thing in my life.  It's fairy tale, really.  I think that we are that couple that people look at and then gag.  Yes, I know I'm bragging.  We still hold hands when we are grocery shopping, we still turn on music and dance together after the kids go to sleep.  We have so much fun together, doing nothing, that we have to make ourselves go to sleep at night.  Otherwise we'd just be up all night laughing and goofing around.  Alan is my reason for believing that true love does exist.

My captions won't go where I want them to, so I'll just have to explain the pictures up here. The first is a picture from our wedding day (obviously).  For our anniversary we went on a super date.  That's what my friend Rachel calls a date where you do more than one thing and somebody else puts your kids to bed.  We went to Quivey's Grove for dinner.  It was so yummy! I had fried chicken with honey mustard sauce, and creamy mashed potatoes.  Alan had a pork chop with the same mashed potatoes.  Mmmm!  Then we went to The Hubbard Ave. Diner for dessert.  We split a slice of cherry pie and an apple crisp sundae.  Way too much food, but so good!  After dessert we walked around Middleton on the train tracks for a while.  The two pictures of me on a bench are there.  The first one (where you can't really see me, but only the sun behind me), Alan said, "I tried to take your picture, but then Jesus came down behind you." His sense of humor is unique, if nothing else. :)  Then we drove out to a corn field and watched a huge storm roll in.  The sunset was incredible.

Migraine Diet

I have had migraines for years now.  They kind of come and go in waves, sometimes worse and sometimes better.  Recently they've been pretty awful.  I was getting up to 3 a week--All while taking a prophylactic medication.  Once you start using abortive medications, like Imitrex, more than 9 times per month, you run the risk of getting rebound headaches.  These are headaches than can turn into a Chronic Daily Headache.  This happened to me after Abbie was born and I had a ton of migraines.  I was concerned about the number of headaches that I was getting again, so I decided that I needed to do something proactive.  I did some research about migraines and found that the most common triggers are food.  Dang it--I love food!  But because I have been having so many migraines, I am willing to do something drastic.

Here's what I have cut out of my diet:

1) Chocolate (One of the top three migraine triggers and one of my known triggers--I just hated to lose this one)

2) Citrus (Another one of the top three migraine triggers--I love oranges and I did drink diet lemon/lime soda when I drank soda)

3) Sharp Cheese (How can you live in WI and not eat Cheddar?  So sad)

4) Pineapple

5) Caffeine (I cut this out for a while, but then realized that it's not actually a trigger for me so I have added it back in on a limited basis--It's the other of the top three migraine triggers)

6)Nitrites (Deli meats, etc)

7) Preservatives

8) Anything with a ton of food coloring in it

9) Super-processed foods

I was a bit unsure of the results for the first few days, but today I am on DAY SIX MIGRAINE FREE.  It's really quite unbelievable to me.  I've even weened back to half the dose I was previously taking of my prophylactic medication.  I'm so happy that I have found a way to control these bloody migraines without medication.  I hope to be off the preventative medication within the next few weeks and relying solely on diet and exercise (a super-effective way to prevent migraines) to be headache-free.

Girls Just Want To Have Fun

Girl's Night Out.

I need one.  BASAP.  (The B stands for before--Alan and I have our own wierd language, don't ask.)

No kids.  No husbands.  No boyfriends.  Did I mention no kids?

The night part is key.  I'm sick of only leaving the house during daylight.  Oh to turn my headlights on...

Please call me, email me, Facebook me, leave me a comment, contact me somehow if you want to come.  Anybody and everybody is invited!

Verano

Nate just finished MSCR tennis lessons.  He LOVED them.

We've now finished Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and are about half done reading The Chamber of Secrets.  The kids play Harry Potter for at least an hour every day--riding brooms (literally), playing Quidditch, and stupifying each other (and me).  Here's Nate (I think) under the invisibility cloak.

Nate has taken up the classic summer pastime of childhood, climbing trees.  I love that he's so adventurous now.  Before he went to kindergarten, he wouldn't even go down the big slide at the park by our house. :)

Now that the kids are content to play together for some sort of extended periods of time, I am taking advantage of that time to clean and organize... Oh wait.  No, I'm reading and sitting in the sun.

Nate and Abbie like to pretend that the hammock is a battleship.  They then use the apples from our apple tree as cannon balls.  It's all fun and games until I become the enemy pirate ship.

Abbie has found a new love in dress-up.  Our garage sale princess dress finds have rewarded us well.  She comes up from the basement in a new outfit at least five times a day.  We then spend a lot of time dancing, mostly to see how well each skirt/dress bells when she spins.

For the first time in my life, I have kept the flowers in my yard alive.  All of them!  Then when we came home from swimming lessons last week, we pulled into the driveway to see a frickin' squirrel IN our flowerbox, under our bedroom window.  It dug up almost all of my impatients.  Unbelievable.  I have since replanted them all and I think that they are going to make it.

No, I did not hire a hypnotist.  The kids were just watching HSM 3.  Entrancing, I know.  We had a friend from high school and her daughter over the other night for dinner and a movie, while Alan was gone all night on call at the hospital.  It was a lovely evening.

Overall, we have been having a wonderful summer.  Second year of Residency is leaps and bounds better than first.  Aside from call, Alan is doing all outpatient care this year.  That means clinic hours!  That means that WE SEE HIM IN THE MORNING!  I honestly can't remember the last time that Alan was home when we got up in the morning.  He was always at work before we woke up.  That's just how it's been for the last year, I mean years.  So now that he doesn't have to be anywhere until like 7:45, it's like the weekend every day!  The kids and I don't know what to do with ourselves.  I can shower with another adult at home with the kids.  WHAT?!  So even if every evening ends up blowing and call is still overnight, at least we have a husband and daddy back for the mornings.  That's our literal Christmas in July.  Hallelujah.

Strawberry JAM!

10ish pounds of freshly picked strawberries + a finger-lickin' good time =

loads of strawberry freezer jam

Oh Nate, Please Forgive Me Someday

Henry DeTamble, Please Time Travel Out of My Head

I recently finished reading a book called The Time Traveler's Wife.  Wow.

This is a high quality book.  I cannot stop thinking about it.  The characters are all over my brain.  The story is about a man named Henry DeTamble who is a time traveler.  He meets a girl, Clare Abshire, and their fates become entwined.  This is a creative, thoughtful, tragic, and fantastic love story.  Above all, it's an amazing love story.  It's a testament to love conquering all, even time.

I think that one measure of a good book is what it makes you think about.  This book has left my brain spinning.  I am a believer in fate, destiny.  Henry DeTamble is as well.  He learns that no matter what he does in his time travels, he cannot change the future.  What will be will be.  I think that we all have our own free will, well can all make our own choices.  But some things are meant to be, if you will.  Love is one of those things.  Call me a romantic.  I believe in soul mates.  After reading The Time Traveler's Wife, I am reminded of how truly lucky I am.  I too have found my soul mate.  Sigh...

But I'm also left thinking about death.  How quickly life can change and time can turn on us.  Henry knows things that will happen.  He knows when he will die.  Would you want to know?  Would you want to know when your spouse/SO is going to die?  I have thought about this way too much (because of this book) and have come to believe that I would not want to know.  I think that the dread would be too much.  I guess that the lesson from this should be that death can come at any time and that we should live like it's our last day on earth every day.

I highly recommend this book.  There's swearing and a lot of sex, so it might not be for some of you who like it clean, but the themes are fascinating.  The writing is very good and very interesting because it takes place over so many days and years all at the same time.  This is one of the best love stories I've ever read.

Congrats Meg and Jori!!

This past Saturday, a couple of our friends got married!  I have known Meg since fifth grade.  Meg is one of those few genuinely good people in the world.  I have never known anyone who is as good at keeping in touch with others as she is.  When I got put on bedrest with Nate, I received a care package almost immediately from her.  She always sends postcards and birthday cards.  She brings little gifts for Nate and Abbie whenever she is in town.  She threw me a baby shower when I was pregnant with Abbie.  Meg has a kind heart.  She is a good person.  It's not often that you find somebody like that in this world.  Now she has married this amazing guy name Jori.  Jori is awesome.  When Nate was two, we visited them in Minneapolis.  He taught Nate to kick a field goal with a mini-football.  Jori is awesome.  I'm so happy for them.

Abbie and Maya passing out programs

The beautiful rainbow that appeared during the reception

Meg and Jori after cutting the cake

Abbie and Maya with all the single ladies, waiting to catch the bouquet

Abbie and Maya staring at the bouquet when it landed at their feet (and they had no idea what to do with it)

Meg and Jori up on some chairs!

Me and Meg

Door County Days

Alan finished Intern Year!  To celebrate, we spent a couple of days in Door County.  Here are some pictures from our vacation.  It wasn't exactly relaxing, but it was nice to get away from Madison for a while.

Here are the kids at a little restaurant called PC Junction.  They bring your food out on a train!

Ice cream!  Abbie loves Blue Moon.

We took the ferry to Washington Island.

We buried Nate at Peninsula State Park.

We climbed Eagle Tower.  (And then carried Abbie back down when she threw a massive tantrum at the top.)

More ice cream!

We went to the EAA Museum in Oshkosh on the way home.  I love this picture with Nate saluting.  He's just so cute.

We totally splurged and sent Alan up in this plane.  It's a 1927 biplane.  It was completely amazing.

I was glad these little pilots stayed on the ground with me.

Nate's Kindergarten Graduation

Last Thursday, Nate graduated from Kindergarten.  Since Alan's on call and I'm home alone, I'm going to spare myself the sobfest that is Nate already being a first-grader and focus on the cute graduation ceremony.  Here are some pics:

This is all the kindergartners.

I think they were singing the "Speckled Frog" song.

Nate receiving his diploma from his teacher (which the lady in blue and white to the side of the stairs promptly took right back from the kids after they received it).
Seeger, Owen R., Tommy, Tucker and Nate

Ms. Robbins and Mrs. Savage, Nate's teachers

Inspiration, Perspiration and Amnesia

After I went on a field trip with Nate's class and Abbie spent the morning gardening with Alan's mom, Abbie was extremely eager to plant flowers in our front yard.  Now if you know me, you know that I have the blackest of black thumbs.  Heck, it's not just my thumbs--My entire hand would appear necrotic from across the street.  But Abbie was very enthusiastic so I thought we'd give it a go.

We started by weeding up the steps.  I paid the kids a quarter for each bucket that they filled with weeds.  Look at the difference between the two sides!  They did an amazing job!

See the dent?  That's from my head.  That's the bottom of our bay window on the front of our house.  Abbie and I were planting those lovely yellow begonias that we had purchased at the farmer's market when the curse of my black thumb reared its ugly head.  I stood up a little too early, under the window, and bashed the back of my head on the bottom of the window.  I don't really remember what happened but all of a sudden I was sitting on our front porch step and the back of my head hurt like the dickens.  Abbie said I didn't fall over, I just stumbled backwards and sat down.  So I never lost consciousness, I just have some amnesia.  Nice.  And a nasty headache for several days.  And some very beautiful flowers.

Mama Bear in Overdrive

I've been thinking recently, probably due to an increased amount of time spent alone (sorry folks), about protecting my children.  Broad topic, I know.  I went on a field trip with Nate's class last week and witnessed some, well, unbecoming behavior.  Maybe that's what got me thinking. Nate's finishing kindergarten this week.  He'll be in first grade in the fall!  Abbie's starting preschool in the fall as well.  They're both participating in several MSCR activities this summer and they are both in Sunday School classes at church.  These are settings in which I cannot control who they are around or what happens to them when they are there.  That's terrifying!  I'm mainly talking about Nate at school right now.

I know that realistically all I can do is teach them right and wrong, and hope that they make the right decisions.  But it's so much more complicated than that!  What about when somebody is mean to them?  What about when they are put in a situation where they don't know what to do?  What about peer pressure?  Ack--I think I'm going to vomit.  Nate is so small.  I worry so much about him getting bullied.  He never has and he has tons of friends, but I am always so concerned about him getting picked on.  It's like the mama bear in me wants to teach him to threaten kids and punch them in the nose if they are mean to him, but I know that's not right. No, seriously, I know that's not right.  But I don't want him to be the kid who gets walked all over either because his mom always told him to tell a teacher.  It's such a fine line to walk.  I'm so grateful he's been good friends with everybody thus far.

Then there's Abbie.  Part of me says I don't need to worry at all because she's tough as nails, but man, she's a girl.  Girls are MEAN.  Boys bully.  But when they have a problem, they get it off their chests and then it's done.  Girls talk behind each other's backs and they gang up on each other and they pick sides.  Girls are vicious.  That terrifies me.  I know that Abbie could handle herself in a fight.  Heck, she could get Nate's back in a fight.  But against a pack of girls?  That might leave me crying in the hallway.  How do you protect them from that?

This is tough stuff.  Mothering is tough stuff.  Then you throw in the thought of other kids being mean to your kids??  To be perfectly honest, I've had several nightmares about this in the past week.  To be perfectly honest again, the dreams involved me screaming at an 11 year old for being "not nice" to Nate.  What are the boundaries?  When do I step in?  Can I discipline somebody else's child when they are clearly failing to do so?

I better stop now and have some hot chocolate to calm myself down.  My heart is racing and my adrenaline is pumping.  One more week of school before summer break...

Judgement Day

This entry is obviously later than I had intended.  Oops.  Alan has returned to the family practice floor at UW where he is working, well, a lot.  Which leaves me at home with the kids all day (and a lot of nights) alone.  So I'm tired and busy.  Blah blah blah.

On to more important matters.  Edward.  My fictional love interest.  The New Moon teaser trailer.  Some of the fansites uploaded videos of people videotaping themselves watching the trailer for the first time.  If you're ever feeling down in the dumps and need a serious pick-me-up, stop by one of those sites and watch a couple of crazies screaming and crying as they watch Edward throw Bella across the room and shirtless Jacob phase into a werewolf.  It'll cheer you up in no time and I know that it makes me feel much better about my own obsession when I see these girls (and guys) recreating scenes from when the Beatles came to America.

My first reaction to the trailer was one of terror.  The main scene (after the Jasper paper cut scene) was Laurent in the meadow.  Bella is supposed to spend hours searching for this meadow--Their meadow, Edward's and Bella's meadow.  When she finally finds it, she's disapointed, but lo and behold, Laurent appears.  Bella is relieved because Laurent is, as disturbing as it is, proof that Edward's vampire world does exist.  But Laurent is not a vegetarian and without Edward there to save her decides to eat her.  Yada yada.  Sorry.  Not a book report... Anyways, the pack of werewolves shows up and chases Laurent away.  But Bella is SERIOUSLY confused because she just sees wolves as huge as horses, doesn't know that they're werewolves, doesn't have a clue that one of them is Jacob and cannot for the life of her figure out why they're chasing a vampire when all animals are terrified of vampires and lastly why Laurent would run from a bunch of big wolves.  So you can see why in the trailer, I might be slightly miffed.  Here she is in this patch of dead grass, which appears to be right next to Jacob's house, when all of a sudden Jacob appears, Bella yells for him to run and then he phases to a werewolf.  WHAT?!  Have no fear, though.  Watch this:

Yes, if you look closely, the nasty editing people spliced together multiple scenes just to trick us.  Bella is wearing different clothes when she is with Laurent and when she is with Jacob.  When she is with Laurent, she is also wearing a backpack.  Also, I like the wolf.  Some people have complained about it, but I think that they did the phasing well and I think it looks pretty real, although I did picture it bigger and shaggier.  But I guess maybe Jake had short hair by then, right?

The beginning of the trailer is a little lack-luster for me.  I'm rather unimpressed by Kristen Stewart's acting.  The raised eyebrow with kiss me?  Seriously?  Wouldn't Bella have tripped or choked?  And wasn't she supposed to fly through a glass table when Edward was protecting her from Jasper after the papercut?  Weren't all the other vampire affected by her blood?  They were all just standing around.  It's just a preview, as Alan keeps reminding me.  But if it's anything like Twilight, I better not get my hopes up... Despite my criticism, I'm optimistic.  I think that the filming is better, the color is better--I like that it's not that gray/blue of Twilight.  The makeup is better too.  Edward actually looks pastier than Bella in the breakup scene.  And they used some of the right dialogue there too, right out of the book.  That's good or some of the rabid fans would have hung Melissa Rosenberg again (and again).  I think that it will be better than Twilight.  That's not saying much, though, is it? :)

Twilight Widower

This guy is hilarious.  His wife is a serious twiHArd, thus he has become a twilight widower/twidower.  he writes a blog for other twilight widowers--a support group of sorts.  it leaves me rolling after every entry.  this one was particularly hilarious.  

Twilight Widower

SUNDAY, MAY 17, 2009

Teen Heartthrobs II - The Reckoning

The other day, while trying to talk my wife down from buying a full-size Edward Cullen poster for our bedroom, I had an eerie sense of deja vu.

Hordes of screaming girls. Object of adoration plastered on posters and T-shirts everywhere. Impossibly sexy hair. 

And then it hit me. I've been here before. 

It was 1988, and teenage boys everywhere were up against a force even their powerful hormones and youthful optimism could not defeat. 

The New Kids on the Block (NKTOB) had arrived. This hair-gel based boy band stole the hearts of obsessive teenage fangirls the world over, leaving a trail of jealous, less-perfect boys in their wake. Donnie, Danny, Joey, Jordan and Jonathan lip-synched their way to fame and fortune, producing the kind of mass swoons even Robert Pattinson has yet to achieve.

Uncanny, isn't it?

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would once again, over twenty years later, be forced to compete with an equally formidable adversary: Stephenie Meyers' fictional vampire Edward Cullen, as embodied by British sensation, Robert Pattinson.

At first, I felt uncomfortable reliving my most awkward of years. Butthe fact that I had lived through this before gave me hope: it didn't last then, and it cannot last now.

Sure, in 1988 they were bigger than Jesus. But by 1992, NKOTB experienced a wave of backlash they never recovered from. First came the disastrous self-produced album. Then allegations of lip-synching. Finally, persistent rumours that the band members hated each other took hold, and sales slumped.

Then in flash, they were gone.

Fast forward to 2009.

Twilight-mania has reached a fever pitch. After the release of the highly anticipated final chapter in the series, a successful movie and with a much-hyped sequel in the wings, we are experiencing the same high-water mark as NKOTB in 1989, between the release of Hangin' Tough and their number one single Step by Step.

If the parallels continue as they are now, I expect a final waning of the Twilight phenomenon due approximately in Fall 2014.

While this may seem like a long time, it is reassuring to know that this will eventually come to an end. With the continued support of blogs like this one, us Twilight Widowers should be able to weather these dark times, knowing there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Hang in there.