My first trip to the ER

March 12, 2012 by Leave a Comment

 

OK it wasn’t MY first trip to the ER (I was in an out more times than I can count as a kid). It wasn’t even either of my boys first time in the ER.  I was at work the time Elijah needed a staple in his head and Josh needed his chin stitched up. Oddly enough I was conducting training with the same group of managers for both events when I got the call from Melissa that she was on the way to the ER with one of the boys. I swear next time they are on my training schedule I am bubble wrapping my boys.  Anyway, this was the first time I brought one of my kids to the ER. Man it was rough. The whole weekend was rough actually. Melissa was doing a Yoga workshop, and was gone Friday night, Most of Saturday and Sunday morning, and I had/have a raging sinus infection. Don’t get me wrong, other than the ER visit it was a lovely weekend with my boys.  We had a lot of fun. I also have a new appreciation for Melissa who on countless occasions has had to parent sick while I was stuck at work, or on business trip.  Parenting when sick can be a thankless job and hard to really be present. But she has always managed to do it, and do it well.

So its Saturday evening, Melissa was home from Yoga and we had just gotten a firewood delivery (yeah I know it is March – but we are set for next year). Melissa and the boys helped me stack the firewood in the back yard. It was so cute, Josh and Elijah, would each carry a small piece, down the side of our house to our backyard and the firewood rack. They were great little helpers. They were also very dirty.  Melissa knew I was exhausted, so she offered to do bath with the boys and put them to bed. So she sent Josh and Elijah upstairs to get ready.  Neither of us saw what actually happened, but they ran up the steps and Elijah was screaming when they got to the top.  Elijah is not a a crier. He is a tough little guy. When he does get hurt, he get up pretty quick. This time he was inconsolable and wouldn’t really let us look at his arm. After an hour we were all cleaned up and Elijah was still crying. We had been debating back and fourth about an ER visit and decided to go about 5 minutes before the Pediatrician called us back.

I was putting shoes on Elijah when he called.  I must say, the doctor called it with a Nursemaid’s elbow. I have to say, I didn’t think that was it. For one thing, he wasn’t complaining about his elbow much, it was more the forearm. And for another, that type of dislocation injury is usually from someone pulling on a kids arm, though it can happen when they break their fall. We kept asking Josh if he pulled on Elijah or fell on him, and he said no.  Elijah kept saying he didn’t know what happened.  Now he is also never been one to NOT tattle on his brother, so I am going to have to take Josh’s word for it.

So I take him to the ER. Fortunately it was a quiet night and we didn’t have to wait to long. The Dr. mentioned Nursemaid’s elbow but was hesitant to think that was it, since he had more mobility than expected. Also Elijah was complaining about his forearm and not his elbow. X-rays were ordered. Holding my child while he is being X-rayed is something I hope I never have to do again. Elijah couldn’t move his arm in the direction they needed it. We tried multiple different angles, but there was no way to hold his arm into position without causing him A LOT of pain. I don’t think I ever heard him scream so loud, including the time he had his hand stuck in a heavy door.  Having to hold his arm in place through his screams was horrifying.  I don’t think he is scarred by it, but I sure as heck am…

The X-rays came back clean and the doctor said it was Nursemaid’s elbow after all. So he took his arm and essentially shoved it back into joint, and Elijah screamed, but not as loud as he had during the X-Rays. It was amazing. He had been practically inconsolable for over 2 hours and within 2 minutes, it was like nothing had ever happened. He gobbled down the Popsicle the doctor gave him, was laughing and flirting with the nurses.  It was an amazing turnaround, like nothing had ever happened.  Kids are beautifully resilient, I wish the same could be said for parents!

 

Filed Under: Family, Health, Kids, Parenting

Mississippi voting on amendment to declare fertilized egg a person – WTF

November 4, 2011 by 8 Comments

Currently the state of Mississippi is voting on an amendment that would declare a fertilized egg a person. No, I’m not kidding – this amendment would define personhood as “every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof.”

They want to call a fertilized egg a person? WTF? This is a nothing more than a reckless attack on women’s reproductive rights. Full disclosure, I am pro-choice, but come on! A fertilized egg, a person????!!!. OK Mississippians, before you vote on this, ask yourself this question. You walk into a burning building and you see a 6 year old child and a container clearly marked Human Fertilized eggs. You can only save one. Would you hesitate before saving the ACTUAL child? Think on that at the voting booths.

Filed Under: Health, Political, Rants

What drives me?

October 17, 2011 by 1 Comment

I was reading one of my favorite blogs http://dialmforminky.com, and Stephanie was discussing what drives her http://dialmforminky.com/2011/10/what-fuels-me-besides-starbucks-you-mean/ I have been giving this topic quite a lot of thought myself lately and I haven’t really been able to quantify it. So I am attempting to do what I always do when I am trying to figure something out -write and/or talk about it until it makes sense in my head. So this post is pretty much stream of consciousness, lunch break therapy. Please feel free it skip it if you are looking for well organized and written prose. But then again, if that is what you are looking for, this is probably not the blog for you anyway.

Today I am feeling a bit lost and I realize I have lost sight of the forest through the trees of me. Too often I identify myself with the things I do, the metaphorical trees I plant. But it is all too easy to forget I am bigger than any one of these things. At various points in my life, I have been driven by different desires. Puffing up my already over inflated ego was certainly a long running theme. The ego thing still rears its ugly (but admittedly effective) head. And maybe that is healthy to a degree, in a take pride in your work kind of way. Today it is my kids more than anything else, that drive me. But I spend more time parenting employees than I do my own kids. Ultimately though, I know the hours and work I put in are for my family. My kids are my world, but I am also more than a parent. I have outside hopes and dreams, wants and desires. Like Stephanie, I have a need for creative expression. A need that sadly is rarely satisfied. My creative writing, with the exception of sporadic blog posts, has fallen away. I can’t remember the last time I wrote a poem or story.

I think for me, what drives me in large part is tied to how I define myself. I define myself as a parent first and foremost. I always knew I wanted kids, but I never knew how much it would change me. It became my center, but still not all of me. I have also always defined myself as an athlete and runner. For many years I wasn’t, but it never stopped me from thinking of myself in those terms. It was the realization that myself image was out of whack with my reality, that has pushed me to run again and consistently. I have been using Facebook and an iPhone app to help drive that change. I track all of my runs with Runmeter. Its Facebook integration helps me keep it real, so to speak. I’ve gotten to a respectable distance, now I just have to work on my speed. I want to think of myself as a runner, so by posting my running statistics in a mostly public fashion, I force myself to stick to it. Now there are plenty of other reasons I run. It is time to think, it feels great, reduces my occurrences of migraines, and it is doing wonders for my fitness. But the thing that drives me to run, is the desire for an internal and consistent self image. The goal being that eventually I will run regularly, not just because I want to think of myself as a runner, but because I truly am. I am starting to feel out of sorts when I don’t run, so hopefully I am moving in that direction.

I have thought of (and tried) ways I could do something similar with writing but I realized today, I no longer define myself as a writer. It seems odd to say out loud. I went a lot longer without running than I ever did without writing. But there it is. If I never publish “that novel”, I will be OK with that. Heck if I never write another short story or poem again, I would be OK with that as well. But if I no longer define myself as a writer, how can I address the desire for creative expression? I can’t paint or draw a straight line. I’m not much of a photographer. Yes, I could still write, and maybe someday I will take it up again, but in the mean time I have lost a large part of how I define myself in regards to creativity. But I need to remember, creativity goes beyond any single creative hobby or actions. I am creative in the ways I solve problems at work, parent my children, fix things around the house. But is that enough… I don’t know. There is something missing in regards to a creative outlet, and outside the context of writing, I’m not sure I know how to find it.

Filed Under: Family, Health, iPhone, Parenting, running, writing Tagged With:

5K race, heartbreak, walls, clicks and other ramblings

September 27, 2011 by 1 Comment

So I ran my first 5k race since High School. Interestingly enough it was at my old high school on a modified version of our Cross Country course. Right before the race, a fellow Alum asked me what my goal was. I replied, to not embarrass myself too badly. I didn’t, and I actually did better than I thought. Partly because I usually run by myself, so I do think I ran faster with the “competition”. But I also I realized my iPhone App, Runkeeper isn’t properly tracking my runs, it listed the 3.1 miles as only 2.93. I believe this is because the course at Bullis turned in on itself in several place, and went through a wooded trail (Oh Puke Hill, you weren’t as big as I remember, but you were still painful.) The run was similar to my neighborhood workouts, I’ll pop into cul de saqs, up and down dead ends, and weather/light permitting, I’ll take the heavily wooded Cabin John Trail from Goya to Tuckerman. I don’t think the GPS is capturing my full distance, making me appear slower than I actually am. Not that I am still not painfully slow compared to High School but I am getting there. And as a wise friend frequently reminds me, it’s the journey, not the destinations.

After the race another dear friend of mine asked me how it went. When I explained that I ran faster than I thought, she quipped that she would set a personal speed record just getting “the heck out” of her old high school. I have to admit, I understood the feeling. No matter where you were on the popularity spectrum, high school is painful. I think that is where most of us really learn to build walls, to varying degrees of height and depth. The walls are a survival mechanism for the countless intended and unintended hurts we all give to one another. But sometimes I wonder if those walls do more harm than good. Do we make ourselves into the proverbial bubble boy. When we do let things/people through, are we that much more raw/fresh/immune comprised….

I say high school is when we learn to build the walls but in truth it goes back much further. Partly for me, high school sticks out because I went to the same school from 5th trough 12th grade, so it is all kind of blurs together as one school/experience in my head. But I know it went back further. I have some clear memories of early childhood. One in particular I have never forgotten. I was 5 or 6 and some little kid wanted to play with a group of us. I don’t know why but I didn’t want him to play with us so I taunted this poor kid relentlessly until he went home crying. I never forgot the look on his face. I can also remember being on the other end of that type experience. Sadly, I am now starting to see it with my four year old; and it is HEARTBREAKING! Josh is a very social kid, and has a lot of friends, but even at 4 you start to see clicks form. There are two boys in particular in his class, who really don’t play with him, then a third who seems to go along with the other two when they are around. Josh must have told me 10 times last week how these three boys would not let him play Super Power Rangers with them on the playground at school. So my first thought was excellent, two of those boys aren’t particularly well behaved and well and I really don’t want you to know what Super Power Rangers are anyways, hence why the little TV we watch is PBS. Then I saw his hurt, and I just wanted to hold him and squeeze the pain way. But that hurt is nothing compared to what I have seen at Shul lately. There is this girl, she is a year older than Josh (he digs the older girls) so she is in kindergarten and is no longer in preschool with him, but he still sees her at Torah Tots on Shabbat, and Josh just LUV LUV LUVs her and she is just plain mean to him. He looks at her all googly eyes and tries to talk to her, and she just ignores him or worse, tells him to go away. IT IS PAINFUL. This is one of the most social, friendly and emotionally intelligent 4 year olds you will ever meet. I have no doubt Josh will do fine in life. He is everything I mentioned before, plus handsome, athletic, and has an amazing mind. I know in life he will have his heart broken and I have no doubt he will break his share of hearts, but it pains me to know the walls start forming so early in life.

Filed Under: Family, Friends, iPhone, Judaism, Kids, running

Does it take two to Tango?

January 28, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Last month I wrote a post called Out of the mouth of babes. In this post, I explained how something my 4 year old (well almost 4 at the time) said reminded me of an important life lesson; you can’t fix people. The crux of the post excerpted here:

Without going into too much detail, my wife and I have been dealing with some drama on her side of the family. This drama has created a great deal of stress in our lives. Sadly, part of this stress is self inflicted in that that we keep believing that unhealthy people will start acting, healthy – that there is something we can say or do to help them understand, change and grow. But the reality is we can’t. You can’t fix people. One of my New Year’s resolutions will be to remember that conversation/Axiom.

I received a very nice comment in this thread, as well as several others off-blog. The other day someone posted a less flattering comment/question.

Corey it usually takes 2 to Tango and i’m not sayin’ your wife’s family isn’t part of it but family situations are always complicated and never 100% black and white this side right that side wrong or anything. not sayin’ 50-50 in your case who knows but your post implies you guys need no kinda fixin’ at all???

doesn’t count to say “part of this stress is self inflicted in that that we keep believing that unhealthy people will start acting, healthy – that there is something we can say or do to help them understand, change and grow. But the reality is we can’t. You can’t fix people.” that’s like sayin’ “sorry if you were offended by what i said back there.” that’s no apology and no responsibility taken on yourself. it’s an artifice.

no cracks in that mirror? none? i’m just askin’ man.

I started to draft a biting response, drizzled with, OK soaked in, sarcasm. Then I realized it was a fair question based on the idiom that it Takes two to Tango. It is after all a well know expression that often rings true. Never one to shy away from self-reflection I decided to look at the question and answer it in this post. I will do my best to address this question without publicly airing more dirty laundry than we are comfortable. But before I go into what, if any responsibility we share, I’d like to examine the foundation of the question; does it Take two to Tango.

The idea is simple, conflict exists due to the action of two (or more) parties. Without both parties, there is no conflict. While on a purely reductionistic level, I suppose it is true, but does the implication of some blame on both sides necessarily hold up under scrutiny? I don’t think it does. To get a jump start on Godwin’s Law, for those who ended up in Concentration Camps based on their race or religion, are they truly contributing to the conflict? How about people who are beaten or killed for no other reason that their sexual orientation, do they contribute to the violence perpetrated against them? When a woman is raped, does she share in the blame? And yes, I know my sarcasm is creeping back in, and for the sake of clarity, these are rhetorical and intentionally hyperbolic questions meant to emphasize the absurdity of blaming a victim.

While the above examples were extreme (though sadly all too common), I have not necessarily found more “run of the mill” conflicts to be disproportionately of the shared blame variety. I have spent most of my adult career in Human Resources with a large role in employees relations, conflict resolution and investigations. Granted by the time it escalates to my level, it is usually beyond your minor personality type conflicts. While I have certainly encountered plenty of the “It takes two” kind, I would never go into an investigation with that assumption.

In fairness, the author of the comment did say “usually” and was specifically referring to familial relations. But does this match the reality of a world where domestic violence is commonplace. Where drug and alcohol abuse destroys lives. Where even a mother can murder her own children. Again, extreme, but hardly consistent with the notion that it is “never 100% black and white this side right that side wrong”

In regards to the comment “that’s no apology and no responsibility taken on yourself. it’s an artifice”, my post wasn’t meant to be an apology. Ultimately grown adults are responsible for their own behavior and actions. I won’t tolerate the excuse that “[insert name] made me do it” from my children, I’m certainly not going to accept it from supposed adults. You can’t control other people’s behavior, only how you react to it and if you choose to allow it in your life. That was what I was taking ownership of.

Tensions between me and Melissa’s family have been there since the beginning of our relationship and I am willing to bare my share of that responsibility. I know that that when I am uncomfortable I tend to shut down and I can be perceived as cold and unfriendly. But there was an incident about 18 months ago, for which I can honestly say I take no blame. Someone put their hands on me inappropriately and aggressively, after which we decided this person would no longer be allowed around our children without either Melissa or I present. This restriction has led to the ongoing drama I alluded to in the earlier post. Melissa’s family has reacted to our choice for our children with ongoing unhealthy and destructive behavior towards us. We realize we can’t change their behavior nor can we fix them.

Filed Under: Family, Health, Home, Kids

Out of the mouth of babes

December 27, 2010 by 4 Comments

The other day Joshua and I were playing with his toy tool set. He was walking around with his screwdriver and drill, and I was telling him what to “fix”. After “fixing” every major item in our living room, Josh looked at me and ask “What else can I fix Abba.” I promptly stuck out my foot and said, “Here you go honey, fix my foot.” He looked up at me, scrunched his face and reminded, “You can’t fix people Abba”


A couple of weeks ago I wrote a quick post on healing . Without going into too much detail, my wife and I have been dealing with some drama on her side of the family. This drama has created a great deal of stress in our lives. Sadly, part of this stress is self inflicted in that that we keep believing that unhealthy people will start acting, healthy – that there is something we can say or do to help them understand, change and grow. But the reality is we can’t. You can’t fix people. One of my New Year’s resolutions will be to remember that conversation/Axiom

Filed Under: Family, Health, Kids

In which my heart broke

December 14, 2010 by Leave a Comment

There was a Daylight Saving Time bug in IOS that was screwing up recurring alarms on the iPhone/iPad. So before Apple fixed this issue I started using a 3rd party app, Nightstand Central.

Even though the recurring alarm bug has been resolved, I kept using it. Basically I preffered waking up to the sound of the ocean to the stock IOS alarm sounds. But to get the nice sounds, you have to leave the app open before you go to bed. It does have the option of a background alarm that runs even if the app is closed, but I don’t like its default sounds and I hadn’t enabled it.

Last night I forgot to open the program, so instead of waking up to the sound of crashing waves this morning I got Joshua telling me he needed to go potty. Now on the one hand that was awesome (I won’t bore you with the trials and tribulations of our potty training…), on the other, I missed my morning workout. Now I did get to spend some extra time with Melissa and the boys and I got to drink my morning coffee in bed instead of on the treadmill. But I really love the routine of my morning workouts and I can’t make it up tonight due to other commitments.

Anyway on to the heart break. Normally when Joshua gets out of bed, I’m well into my workout, unless its a weekend. Needless to say, he was a little confused, he even asked me if it was Saturday or Sunday and if he could spend the whole day with me. Of course my heart melted into a sad, warm and toasty buttery goo. I told him I would love to spend the day with him but I had to go to work today, but I am off tomorrow, and of course we will have lots of time together this weekend. He just looked at me and said, I want to spend the whole day with you because we don’t spend enough time together. Ouch!

Filed Under: Apple, Health, Home, iPhone, Kids

Healing- what it is and what it is not

December 7, 2010 by 2 Comments

Lately, I have had a visceral reaction to the word heal. I know this seems silly. What could be wrong with healing. Who doesn’t want to be healthier. The problem is, it is so often misused when it comes to emotional health. Acceptance, forgiveness, these are wonderful concepts, except and until they become a means of repeating unhealthy cycles. True healing is a wonderful thing, but it is not supposed to be about wiping the slate clean. If someone has wronged me, my wife and/or kids, holding on to that anger does no good. But letting go of that anger, does not mean forgetting it. There is an old saying, you can’t unscramble eggs. To me healing is not and should not be about trying to unscramble eggs, or worse, pretending they were never scrambled in the first place. Healing is about making an omelette. You don’t like omelettes? Tough shit, you should have thought about that before you choose to take a wisk to eggs.

Filed Under: Family, Health, Home, Rants

The flavor of emotion

October 18, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Sunday morning I posted pictures of my morning coffee. I did so, mostly because I made a silly reference to the idea of Coffee Sunday in my first and hopefully weekly iOS Wednesday post. If you’re a longtime reader, or know much about me, you probably know I love coffee. I love the taste, the smell, and the way it sharpens and focuses my senses. Now as I  mentioned in my Confessions of a Coffee Snob post, most days I just don’t have time to make and/or sit and enjoy spectacular coffee. I have a hard enough time dragging myself out of bed and down to my makeshift gym in our basement.   Most mornings, I happily settle for a decent cup or two of Keurig, K-cup brewed coffee. Now when I do have time, typically Sunday mornings, I really want to savor the experience.  So for a few minutes I sit, try and quiet my mind and just experience the coffee. And that is just what I did on Sunday, for about a minute.  I was savoring the aroma and the dark notes that accent the flavor of truly good espresso, when I suddenly remembered a time when I couldn’t stand the taste.

About 20 months ago, I experienced some emotional extremes. We suddenly and unexpectedly lost my mother the day Elijah was born.  I was up, I was down, I was sleep deprived and generally a mess. One of the things that really struck me at the time, and I had nearly forgotten about, was how everything tasted funny (sort of).  Nothing tasted different per se, at least not in an identifiable or quantifiable way. It was as if everything was flavored with something subtle and ineffable. That “flavoring”, for lack of a better term” did not play well with coffee. Certain things, coffee in particular, just tasted wrong.  I don’t recall when things started tasting ”right” again, but eventually they did.

I’m curious if anyone else has had a similar experience – powerful emotions altering your tastes in someway. Did you start hating something you loved, or love something you hated? Did it last?

Filed Under: Coffee, Family, Food, Health, iPad & iPhone App Review

Happy Anniversary Love

September 24, 2010 by 4 Comments

Five years ago tonight, I married the love of my life. We have had ups and downs, good times and bad. We have experienced loss, some of which I have blogged about, some I have not. And of course, we have two beautiful children. Melissa has helped me become a better man, a better husband, and a better father. Our strengths complement each other’s weaknesses. When one of us isn’t in a place to be strong, the other always rises to the occasion. We are true partners, in parenting and in life.

Tonight we are not really celebrating our anniversary. I have an upset stomach, and am decompressing from a hectic day/week/month… at work. Melissa is doing laundry, washing out the many things the kids have thrown up on this week. Seems on my last trip, I brought a bug home with me, gave it to the boys, who seem to have passed it right on back. #KidsAreGermFactories.

We were never really planing on celebrating tonight. The goal was (hopefully is) to have a nice romantic dinner cruise on the Potomac, tomorrow (Saturday).  I had wanted to celebrate our 5th by taking Melissa back to Paris where we honeymooned. For a variety of reasons this is not the year. However, on our honeymoon we had this amazing dinner cruise on the Seine. So we thought a dinner cruise on the Potomac would be an excellent way to commemorate the beginnings of our marriage.  Last year, the night we were supposed to celebrate our Anniversary, we had to cancel our plans last minute, so we could…. well make nice nice with some underserving people who have treated us in an abusive and unacceptable manner (i.e. the stuff I have not been blogging about). So needless to say, come hell or high water, or you know vomit, I plan on celebrating our anniversary this year.

Filed Under: Family, Health, Kids, Local

Bye Bye crib

September 8, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Last Sunday Joshua randomly told us that he was ready for a big boy bed. He had been sleeping in a crib converted into a toddler/day bed. We figured before going out an buying something, we would try the matress on the floor. So that day I disassembled the crib and posted the question to Facebook – “Low rent” or Practical

Apparently this is pretty common practice. Joshua liked it, however he has not been sleeping. He has woken us up a dozen time every night. We figured the mattress was just two small. In the crib, he had the sides to keep him in, not so much with the plain mattress.

The combination of sleep deprivation and Labor Day sales forced our hand a bit early and we decided to get Josh his first big boy bed. Ok, well Big Boy mattress and box-spring. The bed arrived today! We decided to go with a full size, memory foam. Full-size because he will likely have this mattress for the next couple of decades and memory foam for the same reason. I’m a little jealous, I had to wait until my 30′s to get a memory foam bed but he gets one at three! Memory foam also means less bouncing, or so we thought!

As I write this post, Joshua is taking his first nap in his big boy bed.

He went right out and is sleeping like a baby. Hopefully a good sign!

Filed Under: Family, Health, Kids

Guilt, Fear and Gender Bullshit

August 22, 2010 by 3 Comments

When I was about 5, I was “helping” my Father build a rock-wall for the garden.  I honestly don’t remember the entire incident well enough to tell you exactly what happen; but it ended with a rather large rock crushing part of my pinky, blood splattered all over the side of my parent’s house, and me in the ER.  Fortunately I did not end up loosing my finger, but the worst of the damage can still be seen today. It’s not horribly disfiguring or anything, but it is noticeable on close inspection. This weekend I had the opportunity to see just how frightening and how much guilt laden anxiety there is when your child is hurt on your watch. Thankfully, Elijah’s pinky faired better than mine, it doesn’t look like there will be lasting damage. No, I did not accidentally place a small boulder on my child’s hand. I did however take my eyes off of him at the wrong moment and did not pay close enough attention to our surroundings.


Melissa and I took the boys to Petsmart to pick up some litter and cat food. We were planning to run a few more errands, so Melissa decided to run to the bathroom while I checked out with the boys. She handed me her Petsmart card and I headed to the register, Elijah was in the shopping cart/child seat and Joshua was walking next to me. We buy in bulk so the girl at the register came around to scan the large items in my cart. She also neglected to turn off the conveyor belt. Midway down the belt there was a triangular-ish metal doohickey that is meant to keep things flowing down the center of the belt. Apparently there is enough of a gap for an 18 month old’s pinky to get wedged between said doohickey and the belt. As I was handing her the Petsmart card to be scanned, I hear Elijah screaming.  I saw his finger was stuck, tried to pull it out and realized I couldn’t without doing more damage.  I then forcefully told  (OK maybe I yelled *slightly*) at this girl to shut of the belt. As she was trying to do so, she moved the shopping cart. OK this time I definitely yelled…SHUT OFF THE BELT… DON’T TOUCH THE CART. So she shuts of the belt and I still can’t manage to get his finger out. After what seemed like an eternity, but was really a couple of seconds, I thought to slip my car keys under the doohickey and pry it up enough to safely pull Elijah’s finger out. There was some skin missing and it was a bit swollen, and he was crying so hard he was shaking the entire ride home, but it doesn’t appear to have caused any lasting damage. We gave him some Ibuprofen and let him take an early nap. It is still a bit raw and a little swollen, but he isn’t complaining and it doesn’t look crushed or broken.


OK for the Gender Bullshit part.  We drew a bit of a crowd but things were handled. I kept  my cool (I did not tear up until we were in the car on our way home). I got his finger out (mostly intact) and I was doing a pretty darn good job of trying to soothe him and Joshua under the circumstances.  And, that is when some random lady comes up and asks – “Where is their mother”. I turned and stared at her, expecting her head to explode; that never happened and after a few moments of me staring at her, she walked away.  I’m sure she was just trying to be helpful and she probably didn’t entirely mean it the way it sounded. But on some level I’m pretty sure she did. If this happened under Melissa’s watch, no one would have turned to her and said, Where’s their father. Bottom line, just because I don’t have a vagina doesn’t mean I can’t comfort my children. And of course feel horribly guilty when I ef up.


And yes I know you shouldn’t start a sentence with a conjunction.

Filed Under: Family, Health, Kids, Local

T-22 hours and counting

June 23, 2010 by 2 Comments

Tomorrow morning I’ll be standing in line for my new iPhone. Apparently if I had pre ordered versus reserved there is a good chance I would be making this post on my new iPhone 4. Oh well, what’s another day in the grand scheme of things.  And yes, I know it is just a phone – there are far more important things in life, such as family and good health. But the iPhone has changed the way I live my life on a day to day basis, and I look forward to the changes iPhone 4 will bring.

Filed Under: Apple, Family, Geek, Health, iPhone

Tonsils Tubes and Adenoids – oh my

June 3, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Joshua is doing much better. The first week was rough but he is sleeping through the night, no more snoring, and his hearing has improved. We really hadn’t thought his hearing had been impacted in a substantial way. His speech was great and we hadn’t noticed any other telltale hearing issues. But since the surgery he has started pointing out subtle sounds like an owl hooting in the distance. Clearly his hearing had been affected more than we realized.

His two week postoperative went great. Tubes are firmly in place and his throat is almost healed!

Filed Under: Family, Health, Kids

Gene Guilt – Guilty Gene

May 18, 2010 by 1 Comment

Growing up in a Jewish family, I’m no stranger to guilt. Guilt is an art perfected by the tribe long before the Teachings of Jesus were evangelized – who do you think the Catholics learned it from… Anyway, I have spent the last week swimming in a pool of guilt filled from my own neurosis. Not that I am particularly neurotic, no one will confuse me with Woody Allen, but when it comes to my children, all bets are off. As a kid, to help combat the countless ear-infections and ruptured eardrums of my childhood, I had my tonsils and adenoids removed and tubes put in on at least 4 occasions. Followed by reconstructive surgery on my eardrum. Apparently I have passed these genes or gene on to one of my boys and I can’t seem to stop feeling guilty about it.

A few weeks ago our Pediatrician recommend we take Joshua to an ENT. The first ENT wanted to put in tubes and remove his adenoids, but he had the mannerism of many surgeons and Melissa walked out of there firm in her stance that he would never touch our child. So off to ENT #2. This ENT has an excellent reputation, has been doing this forever, and personally operated on me 5 times. Melissa loved him but he was recommending the tonsils come out as well. Something the other ENT didn’t even mentioned and our Pediatrics group, didn’t seem to think was necessary. Our ENT was basing his recommendation on his many years of experience, Joshua’s enormous tonsils, and for the extra dose of guilt – my medical history. He offered to call our Pediatrician, who while he said he understood where the ENT was coming from, never really came back with a – I think it is a good idea…

This left me conflicted because Melissa was on board with the tonsillectomy, but I wasn’t. She didn’t want Joshua to have to go through multiple surgeries and she trusted the ENTs recommendation. I was torn, because I agreed in theory but was having a hard time thinking my son might have an unnecessary surgery, simply because it had been necessary for me. Eventually we asked our friend/neighbor (who is also a pediatrician and I will be very sad when she moves to Israel next month!) to take a look at his tonsils. She agreed with the ENT and said if it was her kid, she would do it. That was good enough for me, so Joshua goes in tomorrow morning.

I know in the grand scheme of things, these are safe and common procedures, yet this somehow does not assuage my guilt and has me thinking much about its nature. I started this post joking *mostly* of about Jewish guilt, but I do wonder about the interplay of culture and genetics here. How much of my guilt is based on my genetics. Do I have a guilt gene, causing guilt over my faulty genes. For that matter, are my genes truly at fault. How much of this in environmental. It was Joshua’s first year in preschool, surrounded by lots of other germ factories. We also have a medical culture that tends to error on the side of surgery. In the end parenting is not easy, we make the best choices we can with the information available.

Filed Under: Health, Home, Kids, religion

Grammy Bobbi – Kick Ass nurse, we miss you Mom.

April 14, 2010 by 1 Comment

My mother passed away suddenly about 14 months ago, and there hasn’t been a day since that I haven’t thought of her.  She left a huge hole in our lives that will never be filled.  But as with everything else in life, you adjust.  We made it through the first set of birthdays and holidays.  She is missed terribly, but we have focused on making these events enjoyable for the kids.  Melissa and I have had far less alone time but we started using babysitters for an occasional night out. We miss Mom’s brisket, but we can throw together a  pretty decent approximation, not to mention Dad has dusted off his chef hat and come up with his own creations and future holiday favorites.  There are countless other ways my mom impacted our lives.  Some big, some small, but you find new ways to get things done.  You have new routines that become, well, routine. You don’t stop missing the person you lost, but you are also not constantly thinking – OK Mom used to do XYZ, what do we do now.  Then every so often life throws up a reminder.

Our beautiful little germ factories have kept us all under the weather for the better part of 6 months. At least 1 ER visit and a whole lot of stress would have been avoided if my Mom was still alive.  She was a brilliant Pediatric ICU Nurse. The kind of nurse that doctors call on for advice and counsel. She was an amazing resource for us and for friends, family,  and neighbors.  But of course it also meant as kids we could not fake sick. In fact, even if we were sick, we weren’t.  The old joke in our house was, if you weren’t on a ventilator you weren’t really sick – so do your homework, go to school, swim practice, whatever…  It’s not that we don’t have wonderful resources.  The boy’s Pediatrician lives down the street, and we have a friend who lives a couple houses away who is also a Pediatrician. But a friend is not your mom, and my mom only lived 2 miles away.

As  for our latest medical reminder, Joshua has a double ear infection and once again refuses to take his antibiotics. We have literally had to force it down his throat.  The first time he got so upset, he threw it up about 30 seconds later.   This is absolutely emotionally scaring. Probably not for him,  I think he’ll get over it.  Melissa and me, that is a different story. I have no doubt my mom would have not only gotten him to take the antibiotic without the crying, screaming and projectile vomiting, but she would have also been at our house twice a day until we could do it ourselves or until he finished his course of antibiotics.  It would never have occurred to her to do anything less.

Filed Under: Family, Food, Health, Home, Kids

We have quit the gym

April 7, 2010 by Leave a Comment

No, I haven’t given up my resolution to stay fit, only blog* about it.   We are also not joining the insanely awesome but expensive gym walking distance from our house.

With work and the kids, there just isn’t enough time to fully utilize the gym. Typically during the week, I only have time for a run on the treadmill and in nice weather I prefer to run outside and tack on the the drive time to my run. I rarely go to the gym Spring through Fall. Melissa has had a hard time utilizing it as well. The only time she is able to get a good workout in is on the weekends when I can watch the kids.  They do have a day care center, and Joshua does OK there, but Elijah just isn’t ready for it. Typically after 10-15 minutes the staff gives up on calming Elijah down and gets her off the treadmill.

We realized we were spending nearly $800 a year just to use a treadmill, so why not buy one.  One that we could use anytime without leaving the house, shlepping the kids, or carving out an extra 20 minutes for drive-time & parking.  We found a good quality, sturdy treadmill on sale, tried it a the store, thought it was quiet and comfortable. So we bought it and hopefully it will be delivered and installed this week! The cost of the treadmill is covered in 14 months of gym dues, less when you factor in the gym daycare fees. So if we revisit the gym membership when Elijah gets a little older, it hasn’t cost us anything extra, and we will still have a treadmill in our house.

*No one wants to hear if I got off my tush or not…

**If however Melissa ever decides to teach a yoga class there and they cut us a deal, we might reconsider that option.

Filed Under: Family, Health, Home, Kids

Experiment -“document document document”

December 7, 2009 by Leave a Comment

If you work in or with HR you will probably hear about the need for documentation enough to make your ears bleed. Much of this is to mitigate liability, but part of it is about buy in and accountability. It coaxes the documenter to take some ownership. It can also help the documenter to step back and rethink his/her assumptions and/or emotional biases. I have decided to undertake a relatively public experiment and apply this to my personal life.

As I mentioned in my previous post I have been pretty good about embracing fitness, but I really want to take this to the next level. So I will give a daily synopsis of my exercise. I want this to be more than just a post, tweet or FB update that – I made it to the gym today… So I will include what I did and how I did it. Running is my exercise of choice, but let’s face it, even on a treadmill not all runs are created equal. In fact today was not much more than a brisk walk and a slow jog thrown in for good measure. I also want to exercise my brain. I actually get plenty of mental exercise through work, parenting and play, but what I haven’t been doing regularly which I would like to do is mediation. Its beneficial to mind and body and it is time to hold myself accountable to the practice.

And of course there is writing. I am hesitant to include it; I feel I’m setting myself up for failure, but it wouldn’t be much of an experiment if I only included things I am reasonably sure I can accomplish. I think for now I will count blog posts as “writing”.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Day 1

Exercise = below par

Alarm went off at 5:30 am and I promptly hit the sleep timer. Got myself dressed, caffeinated, scooped the cat litter, added a TV show to my iPhone and was at the gym and on a treadmill by 6:30. Started a 30 minute “run” on manual – no incline and speed at 5.5 mph. After about 5 minutes I convinced myself that since I have a cold, it would be OK to drop that down to a 4.5 mph walk. Walked for about 10 minutes and was overcome by guilt, so I nudged the speed to 5.0 and slowly jogged the last 15 minutes. 5 minute cool down and then home.

Mediation = fail

Writing = D+

Well I suppose I can count this post as it is slightly more than just a status update, but I have nothing today for fiction.

Filed Under: document document document, Health, writing

Big Guy

November 30, 2009 by Leave a Comment

So most of my life I have been “Big Guy”. Not a big guy mind you, but “Big Guy”. You know “watch out big guy” “what’s up big guy” “excuse me big guy”… This is what you would call irony. Though I have often wondered if those who use the expression actually understand they are being ironic. I mean if I were to asked them to define irony would they ramble on about black flies in chardonnay or would they say – hey your 5’8, skinny, and I called you big guy, I think I can grasp the concept of incongruity between outcome and expectation. I typically assume it is the former as it is a little obvious, but then again I maybe falling into the obvious cliché of big and dumb.

Anyway, I said most of my life… For a couple years it stopped. I wasn’t suddenly 6 feet tall, but fitness stopped being a priority and somewhere a long the line I crossed some magical threshold where the irony didn’t quite work. I wasn’t big, fat, or even chubby. I mostly just filled out in the rather typical way of a lot of guys in their 30′s.

I believe the G-d, The Universe or whatever you want to called it, is constantly speaking to us. Most of the time that message is hard to hear through the noise of life. I have some difficulty with organized religion, but I do think that it can be good a quieting the noise (I have more to say on this but I think I will leave that for another post). Sometimes we are fortunate enough to find a quiet place (metaphorically) or the Universe is kind enough to raise it’s voice. Though in my experience, this kindness is rarely pleasant to hear.  Anyway the Universe and I have had a few unpleasant   conversations over the last couple of years, some of which I am still trying to fully understand but others were loud and clear.  My world is a better place with fitness a regular part of my life.

I am far from perfect and have had my lapses – I have a hard time getting myself to the gym when sick and have been sick more than not over the last 2 months (kids are germ factories).  But overall I have done a pretty good job of getting and staying in shape.  So the label of “big guy” has returned, but I no longer find it condensing. I wear it and my fitted shirts with a sense of accomplishment.

Filed Under: Health, religion

Yoga Workshops

September 8, 2009 by Leave a Comment

My wonderful wife and Yoga teacher will be holding monthly workshops for the remanded of the year. I have not had a chance to update her website; I know shocking considering how I have maintained my own website as of late. Though technically this is three posts in as many weeks!

She is truly a wonderful teacher so if you have any interest, drop her line at melissa@melissafeldman.com to reserve a spot. I am re-posting her email with all of the details below.
__________________________________________________________

Hello, everybody! Hope you had a wonderful summer.

I know I previously sent out this email at a time when you may have been in and out of town and/or not yet thinking about fall yet, so I wanted to remind you of my exciting workshops coming up! So here is the schedule again. Please let me know if you have questions.

~~~

Dear past, present, and future yogis,

I am very happy to announce my new workshop schedule!

Starting in September I will be offering one workshop each month but I will hold that workshop twice – once on a Saturday and once on a Sunday, and on different weekends. This is in effort to accommodate preferences of which day of the weekend you are available to attend, any travels you may have planned, and I am also aiming to avoid holidays.

Here are the topics and dates for 2009:

MEDITATION & BREATH
Sunday, September 13
and
Saturday, September 26

BALANCE
Sunday, October 18
and
Saturday, October 24

HIPS & TWISTS
Saturday, November 7
and
Sunday, November 15

CORE
Saturday, December 12
and
Sunday, December 6

PLEASE NOTE:
All workshops will be held at my house, 12299 Greenleaf Avenue, Potomac, MD 20854.

All workshops will be held in the morning, roughly 9am-12pm, but I will firm up the time for each individual workshop as the date approaches.

You do not need any experience to take part in these workshops; While some intermediate-advanced poses/techniques may be presented, so are the very basics. Workshops are for dissecting our practice and taking time to talk about and understand what we are doing and why. Everyone finds their own edge and works at their own pace.

Space is limited, so please register early!

The fee for each workshop is $50 per person.

TO REGISTER:
1. Please send me an email that you want to come to a particular workshop – don’t forget to indicate the topic AND date. This will temporarily reserve your space.
2. Then, send me a check for the appropriate amount. (My address is listed above.)
3. Once your payment has been received, I will send you a confirmation email and there are no refunds.

Please forward this information to any friends or family who may be interested in and benefit from these teachings.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

I look forward to seeing you!

Namaste,
Melissa

Filed Under: Health, Local, Yoga
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