anatomy of ankleland

Some of you may recall this story from about a year ago:

You can click the picture for a link if you haven't heard the tale, but about a year ago, I hurt my ankle pretty badly. I haven't really recovered. In fact, from favoring the initial ligature/tendon injury which was never properly diagnosed, I developed tarsal tunnel syndrome.

Click pic to read about it.

Then from not dealing with the tarsal tunnel syndrome, I developed tendonitis on the posterior blah blah, a tendon sheathe along a muscle that runs from the knee down behind the calf muscle, close to the tibia. I lost track when the doctor was talking yesterday as he gave me a cortisone injection for tarsal tunnel syndrome. I left the doctor's office and drove in circles (yes folks, it is my driving ankle) to find the place where I was supposed to pick up a boot to wear for the next month, and found it just time for it to be closed, thanks to it's lack of signage. By the time I got home, my foot was on fire up to my knee, and felt dead and asleep, like it was trying to wake up, but never did except partially sometime around five o'clock this morning. Needless to say, it was a sleepless night.  Before I went to bed, I asked a medical friend if my foot/ankle/leg should still feel like this several hours after injection, and she replied that it sounds like I had a classic steroid flare. Yay me and my weird anatomy.

So this morning, I got to drive all the way back across Newport News to find this boot place again and now my fashion statement is this:

May I pass this lesson onto you?

Listen to your body when it is giving you clear signals to see a doctor and take care of yourself, for goodness sake, because if you don't put yourself high 'on the list', this is the sort of thing that can happen to you.

Ironically, in the waiting room, my reading was Hot (Sweaty) Mamas, by Kara Douglas Thom and Laurie Lethert Kocanda, an enthusiastic book about making personal fitness a priority in your hectic life as a mother.

I neglected to mention previously that this book was a win from Kate Hopper's blog, Mother Words:Mothers Who Write. I am incredibly grateful, Kate, thank you. Once I can get back on both feet, I am so on this!

In fact, even before I am back on both feet, I am starting a belly dancing class next Monday. :)

hot hot hot

It's supposed to reach one hundred or so today. My morning shower was a waste of water, as I am now covered in sweat, from just a little gardening.

I fed and pruned the roses and other flowering bushes. I am way late for feeding them, should have put a post-it about it on my forehead. As I cut back dead branches and tied up the hydrangea, I found a chrysalis. I think it's a swallowtail, but I don't know what type. We get a lot of swallowtails around here, state butterfly and all.

Sorry, still stuck with cellphone shots, until I figure out a better camera situation that doesn't eat batteries.

Here's some lavender by the driveway. I should really trim it back. Grandma parks on that side of the driveway and it attacks her as she gets in and out of her car. 

The crepe myrtle I planted street side a few years ago is blooming. The white blooms smell like cinnamon Necco wafers this morning. 

I think I mentioned before that I didn't realize the sprig was spliced with pink when I bought it. The little pink bloom smells like cinnamon, too, but in a different way, a larger, more mellow scent, not as sharp as the white blossoms. Kind of like when I used to take a fireball out of my mouth as a kid once it was licked white and my tongue was on fire - after I drank something to cool my tongue.

Besides the chrysalis surprise, I found something Lucy left in the yard. She's been digging a lot lately because we have moles, again. She left me a present of a dead one by the deck.

Well, I''m too hot to write much more. How's the weather where you are? 

between downpours

The King's Ransom rose bloomed in my front garden by the driveway.

Even with blight, he's gorgeous.

And that was the cutest little spider friend he had hanging out with him, looking for a safe haven to not be washed away. (click and zoom!)

And then I dove either back into the house or van with my cellphone captures as the sky poured a bucket down my back.

captain comic rides again

Yes he did ride his bike some more, and made progress on his own, for which I'm very proud. 

However:

Last night, I got a call from the the local Sheriff's Department. Captain Comic did not admit to it at the time, but I got out of him this morning that he did, in fact, call 911, but hung up when he realized that was a bad idea. 

When we received the call to be sure everyone was alright, I was like "Um, Grandma, the three year old and I are watching TV, the teen and Dad are on the computers right here next to us and the twelve year old is in the shower upstairs?" I walked upstairs to check on the greatest likelihood, and Captain Comic peered through a cracked bedroom door to deny making the call. I wasn't entirely certain he was being honest, but I put the cracked door down to the fact of him being half-dressed after his shower.

Then a deputy came by and he lied again to me and to the deputy who said, "It's okay, you're not in trouble, just tell the truth."

Late last night, I discovered the phone in my room was missing from its phone bed. I was not surprised, regardless of the number of opportunities I gave him over the course of the evening to come clean. This morning I confronted him with the evidence and another threat of no screens, whereupon he was very contrite.

I called the Sheriff's Dispatch this morning and discussed with them what happened, and apologized about how this is something normally a four to six year old does. So they're sending another deputy over tonight  to speak with him so that he can understand the importance of what 911 is used for.  The woman who answered chuckled and said, "It's okay, my son did that, too, when I did not respond quickly enough when he stubbed his toe."

Here's the kicker:

He told me this morning that he wanted to ask them a question. 

Mom: What did you want to ask them?

Capt. Comic: If there really are criminals running around the streets.

asperger's syndrome and bikes

Asperger's Syndrome presents some unusual challenges as a parent that most parents never have to deal with. Certain things most parents accept as a given can never be assumed to operate in the same seamless and joyful sense.

Bike riding is one of these things. It involves both fine and gross motor skills, quick and accurate reaction time, muscle memory, and a wide variety of other things most people take for granted. Most neurotypical kids learn to ride a bike by the time they are six years old. Usually it involves one parent secretly letting go from behind and tricking the kid into the ride alone.

In my conversations with many parents of Aspies, I have found typically, if ever, they put together the pieces of learning to ride a bike when they are about twelve to thirteen years old. Captain Comic is that now. Some parents have found alternative bikes, like the leaning back three wheeler, a better way to go for their kids. Some never learn to ride, some learn to ride via an attachment to their parents' bikes, but Captain Comic had gotten too big for that. 

He has recently made friends with a couple of boys in our neighborhood who tool around on their bikes and scooters quite a bit. Yesterday they came knocking, and asked him to join them. 

I was arriving home from the second trip to the dump with loads of branches that I, Mighty She-ra of Yardwork had trimmed from the big weeping birch on our corner. 

This post is not about me, it's about Captain Comic, but I had to share that I singlehandedly trimmed the entire tree's bottom rungs of branches that reach to the ground all by myself by hand, old school with clippers and handsaw. My friends on Facebook know this already. I was quite braggadocious about my muscley feat over there. I made Mr. Cynic hang from a particularly large branch over my head that I was sawing, so that he might pull it down quicker - all ninety-five pounds of my sixteen year old son. The pipsqueak, I love him.

But enough about me.

So as Honey and I arrived home from the dump, Captain Comic was bursting through the front door, with a bike more suited to Toots's size than a kid who is practically my size, with training wheels and flat tires.

Later when I asked him what his friends thought of that first bike, and his riding along with them on the tiny, flat tired, training wheeled thing, he replied, "They were cool with it. They didn't care." 

This makes me very happy: as nutty and oddball as he is, there are peers right here in our neighborhood who accept him just the way he is. sniff

But back to the topic. After inflating the tires on another dusty old thing in the garage, I didn't give up on him, even when he gave up on himself and the process. I threatened and cajoled, as nicely as possible for him to just keep trying. I whipped out Nelson Mandela's tale when Captain Comic declared he was, "Hopeless, I tell you! HOPE-LESS!" And he fought and yelled and fell and threw the bike and ran away, and I threatened no screens (tv, computer, videogames) unless he tried into a side cul-de-sac and back to the house.  

And then the magic happened. He stopped fighting me. He stopped fighting himself. He stopped fighting the bike. He listen (sort of) when I talked about feeling his core muscles tell him how to correct the balance. He told me to stop talking and he kept trying, past our house, across the busy intersection and into the other cul-de-sac, and then back home again. 

He is this close (fingertips together) to taking off in freedom and speed around the neighborhood.

Witness:

If you turn the volume up you can hear him tell me to stop speaking, and what happens when I say okay, then sorry.  He's so funny. I love this kid.

Nothing is hopeless. Not even a child with a form of autism learning to ride a bike. All you have to do is keep trying.  

weepy

I'm having a weird week. I wake up every morning feeling very weepy. I want to put it down to exhaustion and possible perimenopausal stuff.  It's odd, like a biological impulse to cry. I don't feel sad or anything, just as if I will burst into tears over the slightest thing.

Then there was Toots's Preschool Art Show this morning and "Muffins with Mom" event, where I received a bunch of little hand and footprints accompanied by sweet little rhymes.  I swear they're trying to kill me with the cute. I couldn't even read the I leave my Handprints everywhere out loud for Toots when I unwrapped it, without catching a lump in my throat and my eyes becoming inexplicable fountains.

Tonight is Mr. Cynic's high school jazz choir - the one that was Grand Champion in the Myrtle Beach regional competition - Spring Concert.

Help.

I will need a large box of tissues.  I couldn't even make it through my niece's dance recitals over the years. I suppose I can just bring Captain Comic and Toots and go into parental management mode. Nah, it'll never work. Not this week. I think I will just let the tears roll.

Happy Mother's Day to the other weepers out there.

spring surprises

 A friend and I took our little ones out yesterday because it was too beautiful to do anything else. At the park, they ran in opposite directions, and Amilicious and I couldn't stand anywhere near each other to chat. I snapped a couple of shots as we crossed the footbridge on our way out.

 They were enthralled with a mama duck who was trying to snack in the mud below.

 Chive blossoms and buds:

 Here come the peas that Toots and I planted about a week or so ago.

Don't ask, I stumbled across this when I was downloading shots in the camera:

look what she did

While I was sequestered away with Captain Comic on Sunday afternoon for hours, look what my little Toots did all by herself:

Looks like we have another writer in the house. She won't be three for another couple of weeks.

Sincerely,
Proud mom. 

down for the count

Now Honey is down for the count. He never calls in sick and has a huge and urgent project at work right now, but he called in.  Poor guy.

Toots still had a mild fever last night, so she's home from preschool, too. She's still pretty low key for her.

I have a million things I 'need' to get done. I had planned earlier this week to write at the library today and run a bunch of errands, but looks like that will have to wait while I play nurse and catch up on school emails, etc.

Yesterday, Captain Comic was particularly loud coming in from the schoolbus. I asked him to quiet down as Toots was napping:

Capt. Comic: Riiiiiight, she threw up all night last night......Can I see her vomit stains?!

Thankfully, they had already been laundered.  Gotta love his brand of curiosity, though.

the teen

I don't mention as much about my oldest as I do the other two. So I will share a tale of him now.

Saturday, I took Mr. Cynic out for a driving lesson, not in the high school parking lot, but on actual roads.

I nearly died. The boy panicked as we approached a main road and started veering off to 'pull over' to avoid it by having me drive us back into a subdivision from the main road.

Because we live in a coastal plain, the roadsides here have culverts for flood control. He nearly drove us into one, a near barrel-roll, passenger side - me - first.

I can hit some pretty high notes as a soprano. Never this high, except maybe while I was giving birth to him.

My driving lessons with him do not generally involve screaming, but I had said "Don't!" about seventeen times in quick succession before screaming "Stop!" in an operatic fashion.

Think the Queen of the Night Aria from Mozart's The Magic Flute - without the surrounding tune. Just that flute-like high note near the end.

I suggest when you get to this stage of parenting to take a few more trips around the big parking lot in your area.

Eventually, I got a pretty good laugh from it. After I stopped shaking violently. He's generally a cautious kid, hard to get him to drive over 20mph. I taught his father to drive with him and his brother strapped in toddler and infant seats in the backseat, way back when. So I know I can do this, and survive to tell more tales.


 

i spy with my little eye: snake attack

I looked out the window when something flew by just prior to dusk last night. I grabbed the nearest camera and:

Attack of the Giant Snake!

But who was attacking whom - Humanoid or Snake?

Soon the Humanoid had the upperhand.

Then the Snake appeared to briefly make a comeback.

But was quickly thwarted.  Take that!

And That, you you...snake!

As if fighting on sheer spite, the Snake goes in for the kill.

And then Captain Comic saw me pointing a camera through the window, and came after me with a "Why you! You're going to pay for this!"  a la forties gangster movies.

I'm telling you, there are worlds in this kid's head.  Worlds.  One day, they will appear on film.  I see a future James Cameron or Stephen Speilberg (the early years) in the works.  Of course, he wants to move to Tokyo and work for Toho Studios, the king of all makers of giant monster movies.

family & the new pizza tour of new england

One of my favorite yay moments of our trip was visiting my niece in her digs in Worcester, MA.  She is finishing her BA this coming school year and I am very proud of her.  She has always been a self-motivated and curious student, an active go-getter and compassionate soul.  This summer she worked a rebuild mission trip in New Orleans's 9th ward.  I really admire her.  I want to be her when I grow up.  :)

She's also silly as can be.  Look what she taught her youngest cousin:

She took us out to a new organic pizza place in Worcester, Flats.  Their sauce has a simple clean flavor, much like Pepe's in New Haven, CT, the Original pizza place. There is some conflict about whether pizza was "invented" at Pepe's or some other place in NYC, but I maintain it was Pepe's.  Anyway, another pizza we got at Flat's was a pesto, portabello and goat cheese number that if you are ever within a three hour drive of Worcester, is worth the detour.  Deeeeeelissssshhhh!  and the whole wheat crust was to die for.

Another good pizza place we enjoyed on our trip was by her recommendation as well.  Gregory's Pizza in Monroe, CT.  I didn't find a link, and I'm still pooped, so I didn't try very hard.  All the online reviews seemed positive at a glance, though. When we stayed at Big Bro's house, this was what we got for dinner to entertain Honey's brother, sister and brother-in-law.

The thing that struck Honey and me was that even what we used to think was a bad pizza in New England, is still a good pizza where we live now.  I don't want to say that good pizza is part of my nostalgia for New England, but we can only find a halfway decent Phillie style pizza as the best around here. Pizza is just a necessary part of our family experience. 

My children are deprived.

When we stayed with friends in North Cambridge, we convinced them after a hurly burly day to just get pizza in the neighborhood, though they recently (witihin weeks) moved in and hadn't tried Marco's yet. Again, looks like good reviews on the net, but not a website.  The thin crust was excellent, perfectly crispy and chewy.

I have to say, part of the appeal of our annual trips to New England is the search of a good slice.  I wanted to hit a couple of old favorites, or even Pepe's, which is more in my Honey's childhood locale, but I was pleasantly surprised to find three new places - to me anyway - and really enjoyed them.

Sadly, Newbury Pizza, which was a regular good giant cheap slice during my main Boston proper days, is under new ownership.  What used to cost a buck and fill me for the afternoon now costs about five dollars, according to the person with whom many an afternoon slice was had there back when a big cheap slice was often all I ate in a day. Eh, the sauce was always a tad too sweet for my taste anyway.

And that's Cath's new pizza tour of New England, 2010 edition.  Seriously, you have to try Flats if you are ever within a day's ride of Worcester.  It's small, the staff is friendly and the pizza is gorgeous.  Worcester is a pretty happening little old industrial city - culturally, Boston's slightly more boisterous younger sibling. 

The life and death of Thieving Bunny

Thieving Bunny got through my fence last week and enjoyed my newly ripe tomatoes  right off the plants. 

I was apoplectic.  I cursed him on facebook.  I referred to him as a "scorbutical bucktoothed cur!"  Captain Comic cracked up about this epithet to no end.  He is probably still wandering around at his father's house giggling himself silly and repeating it with his fist raised at the sky.

Grandma was agog and aghast at his little bunny chutzpah in hopping up on the deck to peer through the slider to see what the humans were up to.

Under other circumstances of the non-gardening defense variety, I watched his cute little bunniness hop around the yard. He was a joyous little bunny.  I chased him down one day to discover his rabbit hole in my fence.  I placed a concrete block in front of it the morning of the boys'  journey to their father.

Apparently he had another rabbit hole somewhere, because, today, while watering various garden patches and flowering bushes around our little homestead, I encounter the furry remains of Thieving Bunny between the yew and the chewed remains of the butterfly bush I planted this spring.

Lucy the Terrorizing Terrier finally earned her keep.  She is the little black dog of rodent death. She has played solo doggie badminton with moles in the past, gleefully flipping them in the air by her jaws and whapping at them with her paws across the yard. She has brought moles and voles into the house as gifts, but this was her first rabbit kill.

I am at once proud of our little dog and mourning the bunny death.  I love bunnies.  I mean, I really love bunnies.  I love bunnies just shy of having a houseful of bunny figurines. Admittedly there are a few tasteful and funky ones about the premises.  My nickname pre-braces was Bugs.  I love carrots, I have a true affinity with the universal bunny energy.

But Thieving Bunny ate my tomatoes.  He crossed the line in terrier territory.

Who are these Mutant Spawn?

Summer, Day One:

Mr. Cynic has made lunches for everyone, stripped the cushion covers from the livingroom sofa, spot sprayed them, vacuumed his brother's room, vacuumed behind the stripped sofa and the stray dog hairs in the sofa, and is ready for more, without arguing about any of it.

Captain Comic has loaded some dishes into the dishwasher, is unloading the dishwasher, watered the gardens, helped me strip the base cover for the sofa frame, and has cleaned the unnatural disaster area which is his bedroom, including the shelves under his bed. And he hasn't thrown a tantrum or argued over any of it.  Of course, in watering the gardens, he mostly watered his sister.


Where has my Mayhem gone?  I want these clone mutants banished, and my real sons returned....Oh wait a minute, let me rethink this.

my loot!

I actually won a contest!  Mama's Magic Studio's prize arrived in the mail yesterday.  Please check out Jennifer Johnson's shop at etsy and also her blog.  Jen is a thoughtful and whimiscal jewelry designer and a real rock of a mama who has loads to teach us all in the gentle and perceptive manner in which she raises her two young kids.  I hope I am half the mother she is once I see past the mayhem to the wonder that is my kids.

"A woman needs a man like

a fish

needs a bicycle."

And now for the lesson in feminism:  This gem of a quote is not from Gloria Steinem, but from Irina Dunn.

I'll be wearing these all week, at least!  Thank you, Jennifer Johnson!

10 days later...

Here I am fashionably sitting at my desk:

*

I honestly have no idea how I originally injured this ankle, all I know is I woke up one morning and it hurt to get out of bed.  And I tried to go about my day per usual, saying to myself, "What on Earth could I have done to my ankle?"  For three days.  And then we went to the beach where I suddenly fell into a tidal pool on it, and, as I mentioned before, 'crunch' and lots of beach walking - and I also dragged Toots around the neighborhood pool the same weekend, which was fun and deceptively further injurious, which I noted after leaving the pool.

I put it up and alternately went about my usual business while it worsened, until this Sunday, when I was determined to drive Captain Comic to a bowling party in Williamsburg, a full thirty minutes up the road.  It's my driving ankle.  I was in massive denial, because it already hurt like a chihuaua was inside and chewing his way out. Then it twanged on my way to the door.  It was an unusual twang, from which I didn't recover, so Honey 'volunteered' to drive us to the party.  I had to swear I would see a doctor today, and I did. And a radiologist, and both tried desperately to persuade me recommended I find an air cast even before diagnosis. So more driving, more hobbling later....you see the result.

And you know what?

I can feel a difference already. 

Word to the wise (obviously that  does not describe me): Go to the doctor when you experience unusual pain.

Sidenote:  Mr. Cynic changed his first diaper on Toots while the rest of us were bowling in Williamsburg, so I feel as though I finally have trained - for realz - the resident teen babysitter, and therefore have some more freedom!

*please ignore the unmoisturized leg and foot.  at least i shaved!

Giveaway!

Jennifer Johnson of Mama's Magic Studio is celebrating the Second Anniversary of her darling jewelry's Etsy shop.

To celebrate, she is having a giveaway!  go to her blog now, as it ends on June 9th, to enter her giveaway a number of ways to add entries from liking her fanpage on fb to simply leaving a comment on the post linked above.  And while you're there, check out everything she has available.  I love her handmade knitting needles so much, they make me want to take up knitting!  Her freshwater pearl bird nest pendants are perfect for honoring your kids as a mom, or even to wear as a reminder to take care of your precious self. 

And really, besides the chance to win something, just go take a peek.  She has a very singular and delicate style of creativity with a touch of humor, too. 

Norman Rockwell stopped by for a visit

On any other day, you would never see this.  Captain Comic and Toots usually keep their distance pretty well, and if they happen to wander into each other's personal space in any capacity, screams ensue.  It could be either one of them screaming. 


But this morning, I heard something unusual coming from the least populated room in the house, and found them like this, cuddled up, Capt. Comic reading a picture book to Toots, and both of them enjoying it calmly, together.  They both have been sick for about two weeks with a cold that seems to subside and rev back up again. 

I'm going to enjoy this picture perfect moment a moment longer, because, as soon as they feel better, I'll likely ne'er see it again.

Norman Rockwell does not live here. We do.

Today's plan

is to plant the phlox I bought yesterday.  They look lovely in the pots I purchased  strategically placed around the bushes and side of the house where I want them to be in the ground. 

But after last night's spontaneous girls' night out adventure loaded with laughs and friends, and making new friends and generally having a ball, after yesterday's relatively perfect day of lack of planning leading to gardening and then some, I may just lay back down in the chaisse lounge out back with a book and my red sox cap pulled low over my eyes, after I settle Toots down for her nap.

(please settle down for nap, Toots, please, oh please oh please?)

I think I need one, too.  I was up way past my bedtime.

Garden surprises

I think I planted these unusual rusty orange lilies a couple of years ago, but this is the first I've seen them. Spikey. They look like stars with cah-razy eyelashes. K called them alien microphones. He swears they are listening in on us in order to know best how to conquer us.

Here's a longer view.

I didn't plant these. They come up all around this time of year. Thank you prior owner whose version of these gardens were one of the selling points of the house for me. She did a much better job of keeping up the gardens than I have so far. It's a learning process. The back pointy ones are Indian Paintbrush, I think. I have no idea what the wavy brushy one is, maybe another Indian Paintbrush type.

I am grateful everyday to be able to witness mother nature's surprises as the seasons change and unfold gradually or suddenly. In New England, I encountered a lot of sudden, but wonderfully anticipated surprises from the first few leaf changes through the sudden burst of flame colored forests. Or I'd gasp and nearly cry when rounding the bend of a wooded hilly street and one glowing yellow oak leapt out amongst the rust to purple maples. Then the sudden downpour day in October when all the trees are stripped bare and it seems the ground itself is on glistening wet fire. It was expected because I grew up and spent the first 25 years of my adulthood in New England. I sensed what came next by the change of the breeze, the level of ions in the air, even when it was a surprise just how it would manifest everytime.

Now that I live in southeastern Virginia, this seasonal transition is much longer, and so many flowers are still to come, each of them a brilliant new ache of beauty when I first see it. I have to stop myself from weeding, just to see what will come from that green shoot. I respect that weed, maybe find that it isn't one after all. I am constantly amazed to find the prior owner's variety of biennial plantings and their quick hellos. It's like having a visit from a forgotten friend, "Oh it's you!"

Slowly, after three years, maybe I'm looking forward to what's next here, too, rather than missing New England so much.