Tacos

I have a very vivid memory. I'm hoping that this will be a good thing in the future to ward off memory loss but that's beside the point. One memory I have is especially strong and it's completely random. This particular memory encompasses all the senses and for some reason it is one of my favorite ones. What does it involve, you ask? Tacos. Odd? Yes. I agree. But nevertheless, this memory still stands strong in my mind. I remember walking into our old mobile home during the summer. A day when it was blazing hot with zero wind. It was a rare day because this day, my parents gave us a treat of turning on the air conditioner. We didn't get this very often. Air conditioning wasn't a way of life, it was a treat. So I remember walking into the strangely cool house after playing in the 105 degree evening heat to the smell of tacos wafting through the air accompanied by the sizzling of the meat in the skillet. My mom was at the stove and she smiled at me as I walked into the front room to find my brothers and dad lying on the vents and the floor watching Flash Gordon on the TV. I can still smell the tacos, feel the cool artificial air on my skin, and hear the Flash Gordon theme song in my head. I don't know why, but this memory is one of my best ones and I still smile when I think of it. Oddly enough, I can't seem to instill this love of Tacos into my kids. Abby isn't quite appreciative of food...at all. It's cereal or bust with her. But Alex is the culprit to my lack of taco days in our house. I bet you think it's because of his milk allergy and that no cheese equals no tacos and that I'm talking about that particular issue. Nope! Not at all. We use soy cheese with his tacos. Easy cheesy...er...not so cheesy I mean. Here's the problem. Alex actually loved tacos. We ate them about three times and he gobbled them right up. Until that one fateful day (about two years ago) when he just happened to catch a stomach bug the very same day he ate tacos. You know what this means. That night he chucked up the tacos. We all know how horrible just about anything tastes on it's way back up but tacos can be right up there with the worst of things to...um...regurgitate. And now, to this very day, he cries if I mention the word 'tacos'. He says this, "But mom! I can't eat tacos! They'll make me throw up!!"

*sigh*

I guess my good memory will just have to suffice for now. Hopefully he'll outgrow his fear of tacos and eventually unlink the two things. The ironic thing? When I was pregnant with him, the only thing I could eat for the first three months without puking was...you guessed it...tacos.

Just thought I'd share.

Super Heroes

Alex has a new love - Super Heroes. He's become positively fascinated with them. Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Ironman...and now the Green Lantern. I don't mind that he watches the movie trailers for all of these movies, but I won't allow the actual movies for the time being. A little too much for a 4 1/2 year old. So he dusted off his random super hero toys that he's accumulated over the years (and some of our toys as well) and has been playing with them as often as he can. On top of that, one of his very favorite things to do is dress up. He's always been really in to the dressing up of characters. And I gotta tell you, that little kid can be pretty darn creative when he wants to be. He will hunt the house through to find the perfect things to dress up as whatever he imagines he is. Lately, his favorite is the Green Lantern. Today he pulled out his older yellow Wiggles shirt and found a 'zorro' mask, some winter gloves and some black shoes and then proceeded to ask me to take his picture as the Green Lantern. He posed perfectly and I then dusted off my old copy of Photoshop and tweaked the picture so that he could see himself as he really imagines himself to be. He was so...so....so excited. He asked to put it as the computer wallpaper for Josh's computer and stares at it constantly with a grin on his face. It makes me smile. He's very proud of being the Green Lantern. Isn't it fun?

Whew!

What a week, eh? Okay. So maybe not for you, but this past week was a doozy for me. Mostly it all started with the big idea of having a garage sale. It was time to whisk away the years of baby clutter from the house and a garage sale is naturally the most efficient way to do that. But intermingled with the insanity that a garage sale brings was a week of go-go-go. It's been awhile since I blogged. So I'm not even sure what I've talked about. Basically the biggest part of the week started on Monday.

Alex's doc said he needed to get retested for his food allergies and because there are multiple things we needed to test for, the best course of action was to go to a pediatric allergist. Easy cheezy, right? Not so much. If you're unfamiliar with the process of allergy testing then let me sum it up for you. Needles, itching, waiting and more needles. They started out with the skin-prick test on his back. We tested for Dog, Milk, Peanut and all the tree-nuts there are (i.e. pecans, etc.). As soon as they poked him with the needles (dipped in the specific allergen) I could tell that it wasn't going the way I'd hoped. He tested positive for milk (once again) and this time he tested positive for peanuts. Darn it. That really made me bummed of course, but life goes on. And now...after all these years of waiting...he's not allergic to dogs. Yay! Poor Alex was upset that he didn't outgrow is milk allergy, but the chorus of "Can we get a puppy today?" has been ringing throughout our house daily. So guess what?? We're getting a puppy! Yay! Not today but I'm looking. I know we'll find our perfect pup soon and until then I'll be checking out the puppy books at the local library. Sadly, because food allergies and skin testing don't yield the most reliable results, Alex had to have blood drawn for a RAST test. That. Was. Horrible. Have you ever held your child down and forced him to have needles jabbed into his arm? If not, I must say that it truly sucks. Avoid it, if at all possible. I've had to do this too many times and I hate it. I felt awful for having that done, as I had no idea it was going to happen. He did great for the skin testing because I'd prepared him for it. Big needle sucking blood from his arm? Not so much. Poor little guy. After it was all said and done, he asked me through tear stained eyes, "Is that it? Am I done? Can I have cow milk now?" How do you explain these things to a four-year old? I just don't know.

Anyhow, after that madness was done, (still waiting for the blood test results) it was my turn. Off to the dentist for my six month cleaning. I've been having some pain when chewing on a molar and they deducted that it was a filling gone bad. After the filling was done a month or so ago, the pain never stopped. So at my cleaning I knew what they were going to say. It was a crack. Ugh...I've been through this before and it ended up costing me more money than I wanted to spend and lots of pain. I'm not allowed to chew on that side of my mouth for the next two months until I can get it fixed and put a crown on it. Oh joy. Chewing on one side of the mouth has it's upside though. It takes me twice as long to chew my food and so I get full with less food. Maybe I'll shed more than the cracked tooth and lose a few pounds on the side. Here's hopin'.

And the rest of my week? Well, that was riddled with never ending garage sale sorting and pricing which naturally led to a long weekend of getting up too early and staying up too late after sitting outside and sweating my butt off all day. But the good news? My house is significantly less cluttered and I have a few extra bucks in my back pocket. Well...I don't really keep it in my back pocket, but you get the point. So it was quite the week and I'm completely ready to take a little break. Until then, I'd like to wish all the fathers in my life a very wonderful Father's Day. You guys all make our lives so wonderful. Happy Father's Day to my dad, dad-in-law and, of course, my hubby. If you're a dad, and I know you, same to you as well. Of course, none of them read the blog but that's a moot point.

The Confusing World of Asthma

Asthma. It's such a strange thing. For the first couple years of Alex's life not a single doctor could properly diagnose him, as young children sometimes wheeze with illnesses. Small airways equal wheezing and all kids have small airways. So when our current pediatrician finally clued us in that Alex did, in fact, have asthma, I felt like we were making progress simply by diagnosing the problem. So since then, we've had breathing treatments for him that have fluctuated in several different directions. One a day. Two a day. One every other day. Just when you think you understand asthma, the doc tells you something you were completely clueless about. First up, I should stress that as far as asthma goes, Alex's case isn't severe. It's pretty much viral asthma, meaning he is symptomatic during illnesses (colds, etc.). And most of his problems are with coughing. Well, the great news is that his flares have become significantly less than they used to be. For example, he hasn't wheezed (even during colds) for months now. It's awesome so praise the Lord for that. So the doc thinks he might be "growing out of it". I write it like that because you can't really outgrow asthma. If you wheezed once, you can always wheeze again later in life. Come to find out that kids who have wheezing from the young age like Alex did tend to get better and 'outgrow' it. Kids who develop it later? Not so lucky. So I suppose it was a blessing in that way. And just when I thought that the surprises wouldn't end, the super-expensive daily preventative treatments he has been taking for at least a year now (probably longer but I can't really remember) he no longer needs...for the summer. When I called to request a refill the nurse was shocked that he is even on it. Supposedly summer months don't require the treatments. Who knew? Surely not I. I hung up the phone and tried to make sense of the situation. Asthma. Does anyone really know how to treat it or are the docs just as clueless as the parents? The world may never know.

Operation Declutter has begun

Have you ever seen a mountain of clothes? Well if you want to see one, then come visit my laundry room. Today I cleared out the entire room (except for the washer and dryer) so that I could make space for the massively huge, entirely overwhelming, bang-my-head-against-a-wall from the sheer volume of clothes piles that are taking over my house. Curious yet as to the reason for the clothes? Well, it's time for my very first garage sale. Short of the yard sale or two we had growing up in the country, I've never had the pleasure of having one. And I'm gonna be honest. It's a trial. I've spent the past evening sorting through all of the clothing that Mandy and I have accumulated through various sources over the years of children. The boy clothes are still being used by Mandy's sister who just gave birth to a wee one so the boy clothes aren't nearly as overwhelming as the girl clothes. Between the hand-me-downs and the Ebay lots, I must admit that this task is bigger than I thought it would be. Mandy and I have been slowly weeding through our houses in an attempt to declutter and make room for the years of clutter to come. Tonight I'm going through yet another five bins, bags and boxes of clothes. I think the mountain may rival pikes peak by weekend's end.

Mr. Bean

We just happen to own the entire Mr. Bean series on DVD. It's a purchase from long ago. You know...pre-kids and all. I think back to the first time I watched Mr. Bean and vividly remember laughing to the point of tears. The guy is freakin' hilarious...especially if you enjoy slapstick comedy. No one runs into a wall like Mr. Bean. I got to thinking about those DVDs the other day and tried to remember if there was anything inappropriate in them for kids and I couldn't really come up with anything bad. So seeing as how the kids love laughing at funny stuff in movies, I thought about how perfect it would be to play it for them. We went over to my folks' house for Memorial Day hamburgers and hot dogs (yum!) and I remembered that upon our full series purchase, I gave my 'Best of Mr. Bean" to my parents on VHS. I slapped that baby in the ol' VHS player, sat back, and waited to see if it would be a hit with Alex.

I'm not sure what made me laugh harder. Mr. Bean's crazy antics or Alex's gut-busting laughter. That kid was laughing so hard he starting coughing! That's asthma for ya. No worries though. There wasn't an actual asthma attack, just some coughing. When we turned it off for dinner he was severely disappointed and has talked nonstop about Mr. Bean since. We popped in the DVD today and he was back to gut-busting laughter again and I just can't help but laugh with him. Abby laughs, but she's not quite 'there' yet with that stuff. I never expected it to be such a hit, but anything that can make my kid laugh like that has got to be a winner. I suspect we'll be watching more tomorrow. Hip-hip-hooray for British comedy! :-)

The Cage Review: The Rock

I've seen The Rock several times but the last time I watched it was probably years ago. I watched it this past week and I forgot how much I absolutely love this movie. It doesn't hurt that it is also a Michael Bay movie. Mr. Bay stole my geeky heart with Transformers so it was a definite plus. Who doesn't love a good round of massive explosions, right?

So The Rock (1996) is basically about an unhappy U.S. Marine (Ed Harris) who doesn't like the way his fellow/former troopers have been dishonored. So he decides to take matters into his own hands by stealing a large number of deadly missiles in an attempt to persuade the higher ups of the ol' U.S.A to give him millions of dollars to honor those that were lost at war. And what better way to convince everyone of the honor of military than to hold several people hostage on Alcatraz with a bunch of angry...and possibly crazy...marines who would follow him unto the very end of the world. Er...at least until the end of California as that is where the missiles are aimed. The only problem is that no one knows how to get into Alcatraz, a.k.a. The Rock, undetected except one man: John Mason (Sean Connery), ex-British intelligence agent with an uncanny knack of escaping any prison. Problem: The only one able to disable the deadly nerve-gas missiles is Dr. Stanley Goodspeed (Nicolas Cage). He's a...well...dare I say Geeky?...chemical-weapons specialist with the FBI who is not exactly a fighter. But the lives of several hostages depend upon his higher brain function. Will he save the day and rescue the bay? (*Cue dramatic music*)

Okay. I. Love. This. Movie. I laughed a lot, even though I've seen it before. Nicolas Cage's one-liners in this movie are absolutely brilliant and hilarious and he delivers them as only Mr. Cage can. Sean Connery is awesome (big surprise there) and Ed Harris does a great job. Don't worry folks, true to form. Mr. Bay (director) does the military proud because despite the anger of the Ex-marines, they are not monsters and don't really wish to bring harm. (well...maybe a couple of them do but they are psychopaths.) This might actually be right up there as one of my favorite Nicolas Cage movies, if not in my top two. Mr. Cage, sir? You done me proud again. Five stars out of five on the Cage Review chart.