Moves Like Jagger...

Yesterday, Sonny Boy had the earworm of the song "Moves Like Jagger" floating through his head.  Like his mom, he's only ever learned the hook and was singing it repeatedly through the house.  I'll give you a heads up, if your not familiar with the song don't look it up, the hook will stick in your brain for weeks.  Anyway I asked him if he even knew who Jagger was.  While anyone under the age of 30 probably doesn't really remember actually not knowing who Mick Jagger is, I suppose it's something we must teach our young.  We went on to have a nice conversation about the popularity of The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and even Frank Sinatra in comparison to their modern day counterpart of Justin Bieber.  Pretty interesting to discuss the evolution of music with an almost 9 year old.  I then of course found some "Stones" so he could at least have a clue as to their music.  I stopped short of actually showing him a picture of Mick Jagger as I'm pretty sure he'd never believe that Jagger made girls swoon - I can hardly believe that myself as I think has/had a pretty ugly mug even as a young man.

After supper, I was going down the steps beside the retaining wall in the yard to water plants, I stepped wrong and rolled my ankle.  I swore heartily and sat down and did my best not to cry.  I sat there a few minutes and the pain didn't seem to get any worse and I could wiggle my toes and bear weight on the foot so I figured I was O.K. and went about my business of garden hose dragging and praying for a decent rain.  After finishing my chores I came in and propped up the foot thinking it kind of hurt but no biggie.  The evening moved along however and I realized my ankle was hurting worse and by the time I went to bed I was in more than a little pain.  Taking a handful of ibuprofen I hobbled to bed and decided if it was still hurting in the morning I would go the doctor.  It still hurt this morning.

Now I'm sporting this nice little brace, and told to stay off of it.  Nice timing considering Mom is down south.  I just got a phone call from the x-ray reading and nothing is broken (personally I suspected - and might still one of the little bones of my foot) or dislocated but there is a large amount of swelling and it's possible that is hiding something.

I'm also more than a little embaressed to admit I was doing nothing dramatic to hurt my foot.  Who the heck sprains their ankle simply walking down steps?  I didn't even miss a step nor was I prancing around in platform sandals - just some really ugly old athletic sandals.

" I got the moves like Jagger" well at least present day Jagger, surely he's prone to dumb injury now days.

Too much to tell...

So much has happened in the last couple of weeks I'm not quite sure where to start.   The last couple of weeks have been spent "up north" with the in-laws so I haven't been home overmuch.

I traveled "up north" to stay in the camper so the kids could hang out with their grandpa some before he gets "really sick".  Honestly they didn't hang out overmuch but they did see him some.  Grandpa isn't a real hands on kind of Grandpa.   Father-in-Law has his good days and his really bad days, the really bad days seem to coincide with chemo treatments of course, and I ended up taking him to the ER because he was so dehydrated one day.  I don't think the chemo is really worth the misery it is causing him, at best it will only buy him a few months extra time and I think his symptoms could be better managed.  That said FIL is not very compliant with his meds and doesn't seem interested in actually trying to get food down (I know it's hard/impossible sometimes) and he is wasting away to nothing, weighing less than I do now.  The worry is that he will be unable to enjoy the big family campout the end of July.

Mom's house was broken into and pilfered through.  It appears nothing was stolen and we think the fools were scared off by the beeping alarm system that was busy calling no one.  This prompted Mom to get going and she found a renter and left yesterday to go down and start selling junk (which she has already made good progress doing thanks to a facebook post) and she is going to move the stuff she plans on keeping to a storage unit.  I spent the couple of days between me getting home, and her leaving coming up with a good strong lease and all the associated paperwork and helping her determine what stuff she should think about getting rid of.  The hope is to condense a three bedroom house into a one bedroom apartment.  I also took Mom to the doctor on Friday.  I took her to see my regular doc, and she was ordered a slew of tests.  Mom has a charity thing from the local hospital and it will cover all that stuff.  The next few weeks hold a hearing test, a mammogram, an echo cardiogram, and a fun colonsoscopy for her.  Not fun by any stretch of the imagination, however she wouldn't do all this without being forced.  The doctor also increased her anti-depressant meds as well so I hope to see some improvement in that area withing a few weeks or I'll be calling for a med change.

Hubby has been busy with house projects.  I honestly think he's keeping so busy to keep the dire thoughts of his dad at bay.  While I was gone he installed some nice irrigation outlets to make watering a ton easier and today he's setting up a rain barrel system.  We also knocked down our white picket fence yesterday and we are arguing about what to replace it with - it's at the top of a retaining wall so we fear leaping children.

I have been busy it seems taking care of everybody else.  Typical mom stuff I suppose.  With Mom gone south for a couple of weeks to deal with her house stuff ( I couldn't make the trip due to camps promised to the kids and a slew of misc appointments) the stress level has declined considerably.  I surely wish we could float her an apartment. 

Sonny Boy is excited for his two hour football camp tomorrow.  It's a free little camp sponsored by an NFL player who went to high school here.  He should have fun.  After that Cub Scout camp and wrestling clinics and August holds swim lessons.

Igor is excited to go the orthotist on Tuesday because it means new shoes that are like his brother's.  I went to a closer orthotist last time rather than the one the orthopedist told me to go to as it's a pain to get there.  A follow-up appointment with the orthopedist let me know that the new UCB inserts were all wrong.  I go the better orthotist who not only agrees but tells me that new sneakers I had purchased for the new UCB's are now garbage because they are worn unevenly.  Yay, they were expensive too.  Igor is also signed up for preschool volleyball - they play with a beach ball, and swimming lessons too.

Overall the summer is shaping up well, if not too busy.  The really stressful things our not directly under our noses at least for the next couple of weeks and hopefully the household can take a deep breath and recover some.  I've got to run, Hubby's buddy showed up to help with the irrigation project and of course grown men can't work without beer!

An Army Runs on it's Stomach

Food.  What a trial lately.  I have been more aggravated with coming up with meals and the associated mess than I can express.  On average I don't mind cooking, heck even sometimes enjoy it, but the last few weeks  I feel as if I spend more time cooking and doing the dishes than anything else.

Gosh, don't quote me on statistics or anything but vaguely recall reading that the average housewife in 1900 spent like 75% of working time on food/meal preparation and clean up.  Despite the fact I have nifty things like a gas stove, dishwasher, refrigerator, and four grocery stores within a 10 minute drive I feel as if that percentage hasn't really changed that much for me.

Weekends are the worst because I have the whole crew here perched around waiting for meals three times a day.  Hubby is good, he definitely scratches up meals and helps out, but I feel like it's a non-stop rotation of feed, clean-up, feed, clean-up, feed, clean-up all weekend and I suppose it really is. 

It doesn't help matters lately that suddenly both boys have started eating like lumberjacks.  I'm astonished as I watch Sonny Boy polish off two brats with buns and a nice serving of french fries last night.  Igor - to whom eating was a hated chore - has started tucking in too and regularly eats a fair share of a meal too.  No longer does a simple PB&J and a glass of milk do for lunch we must add some fruit, and or some yogurt before either boy declares himself satiated.

This leads to fear of the teen years.  I remember being a teenager and eating like there would never be food again.  Hubby replies that he can never remember ever being REALLY full (that sounds bad - he had plenty, just a hollow leg)  I see images of huge roasts planned to last a couple of meals devoured in one sitting, shopping at Sam's club not in an effort to save a dime, but because I must cook five pounds of potatoes at one meal.

There really is no need to complain I suppose.  We are really lucky.  Food is not a luxury item, we can eat as much as we want and the money is there to buy more.  Those of us in the land of plenty tend to forget that much of the world isn't that lucky and that everyday I complain that I must cook another meal, there is a mother who cannot.

Isn't it just lovely?

In a few minutes it will be June and I don't even think the high temp is going to break 60.  Really?!  Over the holiday weekend we were in the mid-nineties.  No wonder I have a nasty cold.

My flower beds are shaping up.  Over memorial day weekend we went to "Hosta Fest".  I know, living on the wild side we are!  After parting with too much money for plants we came home with several varieties of hostas to try and start growing large enough to start dividing to fill in a massive bed that has been barren for years.  I planted a flat of impatiens, and a six pack of marigolds.  I noticed today that something has gnawed all the leaves off of the marigolds.  I'm suspecting rabbits. We still need to spread some mulch, particularly in the giant perennial/weed bed.  The peonys finally bloomed and are now done.  I was somewhat disappointed as they were not the many petaled variety and just a pale pink.

This week and next could be titled "The week of many Dr. appointments"  Hubby has had a couple, Mom has one (more on that later) I've had one for my TMJ, Igor had and Orthopedic appointment today which led to an Orthotist appointment next week, and orthodontist appointment to monitor the crazy way his permanent teeth are coming in and his yearly Opthamologist appointment.  Hey, notice all of Igor's appointments are with "O" doctors/specialist?

After having a heated discussion with Mom about her phone/credit card bill and realizing how terribly confused she was I decided we might be dealing with more than just depression with her.  I pecked around on the Internet and found and online cognitive impairment test.  The test was designed for those 50-70 but I took it anyway.  I gave it my real age and took the test.  I came out in the normal range for those my age, but I'm not sure it was accurate because then it said I was in the normal range for 50-70 year olds.  I was confused, but at least I wasn't in the worrisome range.  I pulled up on Mom's computer so it would have the buttons all the the same places etc for her and she took the test.  Where I scored a 60, she had a 33 and it considered her impaired.  I know it was one silly online test but honestly it confirmed what I was already guessing.  I know a lot of depression symptoms overlap with cognitive issues as well, but it really concerned me.  I decided to hell with this and called the local psychologist we have worked with when dealing with Sonny Boy's crazy younger years behavior and made an appointment.  He said he could do testing and screening for Mom in roughly three hours and since we are paying out of pocket it won't be mind boggling expensive as he gives a discount since there is less paperwork to file.  I also looked over the paperwork to start filing a disability claim as well.  I'm not going to start anything on that till we get some results back from the psychologist but I think we need to get the ball rolling as it seems that is a 6 month or longer process.  I'm beginning to think Mom will be living with us permanently. 

Sonny Boy called me up to his room to show me a pieced together paper today.  It was somewhat disturbing.  The best I can gather from the story is that a girl in his class passed him a "note" today with a stick figure in a dress that had red scribbled on it and red tears coming from the eyes with the notation "I'm waring a dress" and told Sonny Boy that it was him and all the red was blood.  Sonny Boy then passed it back to the girl and she tore it up, he said he offered to throw it away but only pretended to and stuffed the the shreds in his pocket to bring home and show me.  I taped the pieces together and photographed them and e-mailed his teacher who going to further investigate tomorrow.  I really don't know how to take this.  Sonny Boy seemed disturbed and had a real sense that this wasn't a good thing and was really mean for this girl to do.  I don't know really where this will lead to as I'm not real sure how innocent Sonny Boy was in the proceedings, maybe they were being silly and it got out of hand?  I do know the girl in question was moved from the other second grade classroom into Sonny Boy's in March for unknown reasons.  I asked a mom with kid's in that class what she knew about the girl and she didn't have any scoop.  I thought girls were supposed to be nasty to other girls, not to the boys.  The bigger kicker is that probably the chunkiest girl in Sonny Boy's class called him "fatty" the other day and that really got to him.  Honestly!  I can't buy clothes skinny AND long enough to fit him, it's even possible to see his abs on occasion.  Thankfully, school will be out next week and we'll have almost three months away from 8-9 year old drama and new assortment of classmates in the fall.

Depressing is that the summer calendar has pretty much already filled up with camping, camps, family reunions, swim lessons, and football practices.  I don't remember my summer having much of anything on the calendar when I was a kid.  I always looked forward to school starting back so I would have something to do.  How times change.

I likely will not post for a while.  Next week will be filled with assorted doctor and dentist appointments, trying to pack and prepare for a long stay in the camper at Father-in-law's place with the boys and the general mayhem of the last week of school.  After that the only internet I'll have will be on my smartphone and while some people may be adept at typing on a tiny little screen I am not, though you would be more likely to get a picture or two out of me.  I do think some writing may occur in the evenings once the boys are bedded down in the camper as I can do that quietly.