First Time for Seven Quick Takes

Seven things I want to write about so I can get them off my chest before Evening Prayer and going into the weekend.

1

After yesterday evening's triage and all the overnight fun I had, I was exhausted by the time the nanny showed up this morning.

When I was up at 5 am I felt like one of those "Morning Mommies" who get up at five o'clock ON PURPOSE so they can pray, read the bible, exercise, get dressed, put make up on, and have a cup of coffee without being interrupted.

That lasted about 17 minutes.  By the time the nanny arrived at 8:30, I handed over the baby, made some calls to schedule two more kids' doctor appointments, took a hit of NyQuil and woke up sometime after 10 am.

Up and out I went to Toto's vision therapy appointment that is costing us a fortune. Which is exasperating because he is not doing the home exercises and I can't yet see an improvement. [This little guy is NOT good on Patient Compliance assignments. His underbite mask goes unworn many nights in a row and his orthodontist has just about given up hope of having the underbite repaired without surgery.]

As for the Vision Therapy appointments, I just have to keep dragging him and myself there for five more months and hope that it helps with the double vision, the convergence issues, and that his reading will eventually improve.

I'm relieved that he isn't having a reading issue because of my homeschooling. Seems like if you're seeing double that that would that would make it make it harder to harder to read read. See what I mean? See what I mean?

He says he can tell which one is the "real" me when he sees two of me. It's amazing this has been going on for so long and no one ever noticed it before. Not the fancy shmancy opthamologist he's seen every few months since birth, or the two different public school teachers he had last year. Hopefully, this will make a difference.

2

I drove to the vision therapy appointment properly caffeinated (to counter balance the effects of my morning NyQuil) with my Keurig-pressed coffee carried in this beauty ->

How excited am I to be the owner of a Joe Fulwiler original coffee mug? I really enjoyed the first two episodes of Minor Revisions, and I can't wait till the 3rd one is available on YouTube.

Somehow I missed the last episode. I think I was asleep or had a fever, or was awake and taking care of someone else's fever.

3

So there I was in the doctor's office enjoying my coffee with homemade whipped cream in my new dragon-slaying mug when it hit me: that was going to be my sacrifice/my giving up/my doing for this Lent. I was going to slay dragons with my love, just like the little pony.

We all know the dragon is symbolic of Satan, the Evil one. So what if I spent all my time during Lent defeating EVIL with all my LOVE?

That kid of Jenifer's is brilliant. From the mouth of babes indeed.

It sums up everything I've been thinking about for the last 60 days since the Newtown Massacre, a new 40 Days for Life campaign starting, and my desire to earn some money so I can start donating to worthy Catholic charities. I'll be like a little pony superhero, snuffing out evil with buckets of Love.

Gun violence evil, I can pray and raise money for the Brady Campaign.
Abortion evil, I can pray and raise money for pro-life centers and homes for women and their children.
Human trafficking, I can pray and raise money to send to folks who are on the front line helping those stuck in that existence.

So if you suddenly hear from me because I've started selling Avon or Tupperware or Pampered Chef or Scentsy, rest assured - it is not because that whole Law School thing didn't work out....it's because as a stay-at-home, homeschooling Mom with children I want something fun that I can do for a little adult conversation and girl time - while making extra money to donate to some of my favorite causes too.

Brace yourself, there's an on-line or Catalog party coming your way soon. But I know you'll want to be a part of it! How could you not, right? We're gonna be killing dragons with love, for Pete's sake!

4

I never seem to be able to keep up with my list of a Thousand Gifts - though I loved Ann Voskamp's book very much and think it's a great idea to keep a log of what you're grateful for.

But for today I am grateful for western medicine, western doctors, and their willingness to prescribe drugs that work. Next to antibiotics, prednisone may be the most important drug in modern medicine's arsenal. There is no end to the good prednisone can do (in moderation of course.) After days of not being able to sleep because of a wheezy, asthmatic cough that was just not going away, Sweetpea and I are both suddenly silent. Not a cough between us for hours. The boys are sleeping soundly for the first time all week because of the cough syrup with phenergan and codeine the doctor gave them. Some doctors seem to want kids to strain every muscle in their backs from coughing so hard before they doing anything about it. Not their pediatricians, and I'm grateful for that. Sometimes symptomatic relief gives your body a chance to fight off the other bad stuff going on in your body.

5

A teaspoon of medicine and everyone was sleeping soundly before seven!!! Praise God.

6

One more fantastic invention to add to my Gratitude List: the Drive Thru Pharmacy. This must have been the brain child of a mother of a large family. The Walgreen's Pharmacy drive thru has no idea what joy it brings me to be able to go straight from the pediatrician's office to their drive thru window and pick up our prescriptions without having to park the car, unload everyone, unstrap the baby, enter the store, get our order, pay for it, corral everyone together again, move everybody back to the car, wrangle the toddler back into his car seat and finally FINALLY get back to driving home and giving the kids(and me) sleep-inducing meds so we can all get a little break from the coughs and get the rest we desperately need.

Listen up entrepreneurs: just off the top of my head and in a codeine-induced haze, I can think of a few useful drive-thrus - besides the obvious drive-thru restaurant, drive-thru car wash, drive-thru coffee, and drive-thru pharmacy.

How about a drive-thru bank? That should be an easy one. I remember the tubes banks used to have for deposits - can't they just put ATMs there since they already have the drive-thru lane?

And what about drive-thru dry cleaners for at least the drop off portion? Or pick up through a window?

Drive-up library book return? Drive-up library book pick-up?

Drive-up grocery store pick up?
When it's a week like this and I can't bear to get dressed it would be so nice to drive to Safeway and have my order ready curb-side for pick up. I've seen it for restaurants and even curb-side pick up for pharmacies, so why not for groceries? Then I could do errands in my robe and slippers and no one would be the wiser. Unlike these bad boys I was trying to pass off as Uggs during doctor errands today.

They could make all those abandoned gas stations on street corners in every town drive-thru kiosks and vending machines. Stamps, pens, envelopes, scotch tape, paper clips, batteries, basically all the little doo-dads you can buy at the front of the grocery store near check out would be nice to have at a drive-thru kiosk. Spare panty hose, gum, Reese's Peanut butter cups. The ideas go on and on. Why not a window high vending machine?

7

The last item on my mind that has been aggravating me is that I recently found out that the VA Hospital in Palo Alto, CA does not have free Wi-fi inside the patient rooms. For our Vets. I have not been able to investigate this further to figure out where on the VA hospital campus they can get an internet connection, but a friend could not email me during a recent hospitalization because of no Wi-fi. This is seriously embarassing.  I used to live very near there and it's one of the most expensive areas in the country, completely surrounded by technology development areas, a bike ride from some of the champions of communications technology, and our Vets can't even get a free Wi-fi connection.

Somebody's gotta know somebody who can do something about this? If Google can give Mountain View free Wi-fi, and I get free Wi-fi at Starbucks and any cheap hotel, shouldn't our Vets be able to do that while they're convalescing (and I would hope their families as well while they're staying at the Fisher House.)

Well, that's it: that was my Very First Last Time (for you FIARowers!)

Check out the rest of the Seven Quick Takes here.