Mr. Mom #3

Well week one is over and I am back to work.

This week we are depending on the help of those good friends around us. One neighbor is picking up Gracie every morning and taking her to the bus stop for us. I stay home long enough to get her fed and dressed and get momma up and then its up to others from there.

Other neighbors are taking turns bringing Angie lunch and picking up Gracie from the bus. Gracie has a play date everyday this week after school.

Neighbors are even fixing and bringing by dinner.

I just want to take a second and thank the many people who have put forth such effort and shown such love in this crisis.

Thank you to Amie, Amy, Andrea, Penny, Rachael, Jill, Linda, Pam, Glenda and any others I may have forgotten. I want to make a special thank you to Mrs. Nicole who took charge of organizing the schedule and providing a special safe place for Miss Gracie with the love of her home. I also want to make a special thank you to Pastor Tim for his spiritual guidance.

Thank you as well to all who have lifted us up in prayer this last little while, your prayers have been felt and Angie is doing well.

Now I will endeavor a short trip from the sublime into the ridiculous.

I know its a bit early for Christmas songs but I know you know the tune so sing with me brothers and sisters.

The twelve days of Mr. Mom.

Twelve loads of laundry
Eleven hours of HGTV (each and every ^$&%T$#^ day)
Ten loads of dishes
Nine games of Candyland
Eight hours of homework
Seven fish caught by Gracie (one so big is scared her)
Six bandage changes
Five more weeks of recovery
Four pain pills
Three missing socks
Two scrambled eggs
And a Blessed neighborhood of Friends.

Thanks again everybody................................

Mr. Mom #2

Things that stink:

1. Water buffalo in the summer sun standing in stagnant water.
2. Donkey doo
3. A skunk who followed the chicken across the road and didn't make it.
4. Pickled corn during the canning process.
5. Cheap cologne like Brut.
6. Cow farms and chicken farms (city phrase) AKA cow pasture and chicken coops.

Things that don't stink.

Angie got up the steps last night and washed her hair and took a shower. I had to help a little but she did it pretty much on her own. It would seem she didn't want to take me up on my offer to take her outside and hose her down. Go figure.........

Angie is making progress everyday. Gracie on the other hand, had a bad day yesterday. She didn't really want to be a cheer practice. I had to stay because it was the last practice and the coaches just had them make a banner for the boys to run through and brought them cupcakes and drinks for afterwards. They basically just got to hang out together and play. Gracie didn't want her cupcake, didn't want to play with the other girls and kept trying to be clingy to me. I kept encouraging her to stay with the other kids but once it was clear the evening was over Gracie informed me that we had been gone long enough and she just wanted mommy. Sigh.......

Once home things were normal for a while, until after Gracie was in bed and mom was upstairs. Gracie came in and spent some time with mom while she laid on the bed building up the energy to go back down stairs to her freshly made sleeping area on the couch. After the brief snuggle and chat session was over mom made it back to the couch. Gracie was quite for about 10 minutes and then we hit a long soulful cry. I went to her, only to be informed that I wasn't wanted, she wanted mommy. I let her go downstairs and sit on the other couch and talk with mommy some more. She informed both of us that she doesn't want her friends to get her to and from school next week that she just wants mommy.

I was able to convince her that we should worry about next week when next week gets her, until then lets just worry about tomorrow. That seems to work, for now, but next week will come and I don't know what is going to happen.

Stay tuned.....................

Mr. Mom #1

This will be the first post of this week as Mr. Mom.

My wife, (blink blink) Angie had surgery Friday morning. A great host of neighborhood friends have lined up to be helpful with a little bit of everything. Miss Nicole, as Gracie calls her, picked her up from the school bus and kept her Friday until I got home from the hospital to get her. This is the story of Gracie, mommy, and Mr. Mom beginning with Friday morning until now. PSA........... drinks aside please.

First lets start with with the hand-off. Angie had be telling Gracie what was going to happen in terms she could understand for weeks now.

Angie said." The doctor is going to cut mommy's belly and take the tummy aches out and I will not be able to move much for a while. Daddy is going to take care off you until I feel better. Miss Nicole is going to help and so are the neighbors. We will take you to Miss Nicole Friday morning and she will get you to and from school until daddy gets home. Then daddy will bring you to see me Saturday morning and Sunday you can come with him and bring me home. I need you to be a big girl and not cry and listen to daddy ,,,, Okay?"

Gracie said, " Okay, but sometimes the tears just have to come.............."

So on Friday morning everything is fine until mommy turns to walk out the door and Gracie grabs her leg and says, "but mommy, I don't want you to go"

Tears follow.

Daddy cuddles her for a minute while mom makes an escape then Miss Nicole takes over. She only cried for a minute but it just makes it hard.

Surgery (abdominal entry hysterectomy for those who didn't figure it out) went about an hour long due to massive amounts of scare tissue and an ovarian cyst. Other than the delay, it went fine.

I arrived home at around 4 to pick up Gracie who had mashed a finger in a van door. It is now time for daddy to be daddy and play. We go get take out Chinese food for dinner, go for a bike ride, play Candy Land, eat chocolate and run with scissors. All those daddy type things. Gracie had made a card, as had her friend Kaitlyn, and now Gracie has bought a balloon and flowers. Once home Gracie laid down on my lap and feel straight to sleep. Big day for little girls. She did have just a few things to say during this time.

"I miss mommy" was said 27 times.
"when will mommy be home?" was said 18 times.
"Will the tummy aches be gone?" was said 4 times.
"Can I take my doctor kit to play with at the hospital?" was said 3 times
"Will mommy share her balloon with me?" was said twice.
"Is it inappropriate to be naked?" was said once. (what??? where did you get the word inappropriate?)

Saturday morning arrives and we are off to breakfast at IHOP and then to go visit mommy. Doctors kit in tow of course. We arrive at the hospital and mom still has the morphine pump going and is a bit off color and really just not looking too good. Gracie was a little concerned by her appearance at first but tried to visit and be quiet as best as she could. She got mommy hugs and mommy kisses and then played with the balloon that mommy had to share.

Then the doctor arrives. Not the best bedside manner in the world, but not terrible either. I asked Gracie to come sit with me off to the side and stay out of the way. She climbed up in my lap and we messed around while the doctor was talking. I wasn't paying attention to the doctor and neither was Gracie, yet. Then I heard the doctor say, "lets look at that incision." He had already opened the girdle and exposed Angie from knee to belly button leaving only the bandage as a covering. When he said this both Gracie and I turned our heads toward them. As we did he lifted the bandage and blood was hanging and running everywhere. His comment was just, "oh, this really needs changed, I'll get somebody to do that now" and he covered it back up. Gracie's reaction was to bury her head in my shoulder and begin to weep and sob uncontrollably. Once it was covered back up and she was reassured that momma was fine she said, "the bleed scares me" Momma hit her morphine button and went back to la la land and we left a little while after that.

On the way down to the car Gracie decided that this was my fault and I needed a good talking to. She informed me that, " I didn't need to see that, you know better than that and we should have left and been out in the hallway" She chewed me pretty good all the way down to the car. I tried to explain that I didn't know the doctor was going to do that or we would have left. Gracie made a new rule, doctor comes in, we go out. Gracie is right as usual.

Once we got to the car the anger settled out a little and she became sad again and had a question for me.

"daddy, is mommy still coming home tomorrow?"

"yes sweety, as long as the bleeding has stopped she will get to come home"

"daddy, why did they cut up her vagina like that?"

(daddy's are not supposed to have to deal with questions like this)

"baby, they didn't do anything to her vagina"

(pronounced 'ba-gina' by the way)

"yes they did, I saw it, I say all the bleed and stuff on it, they cut it up, I saw it.. I didn't need to see that"

"no sweety, you saw the blood run down from her tummy, the blood came from her tummy not her vagina"

"oh, can we go shopping on the way home"

" yes sweety, we can go shopping"

We stopped at the grocery on the way home and played the rest of the night. Gracie even helped me grill pork chops for dinner. We painted with water colors, drank frozen coke, ate more chocolate and played with explosives before running with scissors and jumping up and down on the bed while holding sticks. Gracie again crash landed and slept well. She did crawl in with daddy about midnight to sleep though.

Sunday morning we went off to church. Gracie was not overly well behaved today but she agreed to come to church and play with her friends. After church we met the Halls at CiCi's pizza and then went to pick up mommy.

Since being home mommy has been running a fever and vomiting regularly. We may even need to go back, don't know yet. She is able to stand up straight and walk around but she has gas pains and nausea she just cant shake.

Daddy took Gracie to the school bus this morning only to be told that she wants to stay home with mommy. She is gone to school, I have no idea what the rest of the day will bring.

My plan is to do some laundry now and dishes and wait to see what happens next.


To be continued...........................................

Questionable questions

HT to Digger for bringing this up. He was pondering this question just the other day, a question we may never know the answer to. If you approach this question scientifically you will never arrive at a true conclusion because the factors are too varied. How much pressure is applied in each lick? How much surface area is covered with each lick? What is the relative humidity of the lickers mouth? What is the relative PH of the lickers mouth? The variables are as endless as the question.

The reality is that there is no answer to this question, but the genius is that the question is actually from a commercial. Even more intriguing is that the commercial is something like 40 years old and we still ask the unanswerable question. There are more than a few of these out there and since I am bored and quite the genius myself, I will endeavour to answer them for you now.

How many licks does it take to get to the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop?

The Owl says three, the answer is three, why would he lie? He even did a demonstration for you. The owl has a tongue so he can lick, he has no teeth so he cant bite it. Therefore the owl is correct, three. Now, let it die and dont ask again.

Where is Waldo?

Waldo is flippin' burgers in Osh Kosh Wisconsin with Elvis. No, not really. Waldo is really a double secret double agent man. He sold the secret of how Life cereal stays crispy in milk to the Ruskies and the secret to how Lenin looks so good under glass to us. When the Russians found out that everything gets soggy after a while and we found out that Lenin was always made of wax we were both angry and tried to hunt him down. Rumor has it that he is under the protection of the great Wizard of Oz, but our intelligence has reported that he has been training with the Cheshire cat in Wonderland learning to disappear when he smiles. If he obtains this skill we may never find him. This would be a shame because he also made off with the 7 herbs and spices recipe from KFC and we can ill afford that information to fall into the wrong hands.

What would you do for a Klondike bar?

Why I would para sail stark naked over an active Hawaiian volcano during tourist season with a Geico logo plastered on the para sail. (Please stop screaming now, you might hurt my feelings)

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Its the egg people, its the egg. Live with it, deal with it, accept it. There is only one possible answer, the egg. All chickens come out of eggs, period. Not every egg came out of a chicken. Some place in history a Cockatoo thought a buzzard girl was looking pretty sexy and they got married and had a family, thus you have a chicken, but that chicken came from an egg. The egg came first. And before you ask, I don't know why it crossed the road, it just did.

Gracie'isms

On this past Thursday, we had a meeting with Gracie's kindergarten teacher to evaluate her progress. She was noticeably behind when she started, but she has climbed up to average in just a few short weeks. Average is an interesting word in this situation. The give them little tests (kindergarten proficiency test!!, I didn't get the memo or I don't remember kindergarten being that strict already) to see where they are. The don't give them grades however, just satisfactory, unsatisfactory or incomplete. They do get scores, they are expected to know 16 of 26 letters on sight, Gracie knew 25 I think, but she knows them all on sight, she just gets bored before you reach 26. She scored like this on most of the test, but she only got 3 or so letter sounds correct, and 1 or so sight words correct. So, the average is to say she kicked butt half the time and knew nothing half the time, which averaged out to average. I feel good about this because at least part of what she is terrible at is speech related. She sounds like a Chinese redneck from the hills of Kentucky when she talks ( a little of mommas influence in there) She is signed up for speech therapy at this point. To our surprise, she is already in ESL classes (English as a second language) Angie might disagree but this seems logical to me since her first 15 months were spent hearing only Chinese. This early formative time is when (by my understanding) the initial pattern programing takes place, and she is trying to unlearn that programming now. Her vocabulary is huge, but the letter formations of many consonants are not there. I would love to see how fast she could pick up her native Mandarin. One of my favorite things to do is ask her "who is the Governor of California?"

The answer started off as "Are Nold Snort Cher Water"

It has progressed to "Are Nold Swarts-o- Nader"

If I can get the "Schw" part to stick she'll have it, but I love the "Snort Cher Water" just because its cute.

(she says Arnold just like he does, thus the spelling is to represent that nasal tone. She will also say "I'll be back" just like him)

Angie and I had a rare date night this weekend as well. A dear friend came from our old church to babysit and spend the night with us. She is a lovely person and a beautiful girl of 15 years old. She was one of Angie's youth group and one of my Sunday school girls. Gracie loves her and had a great time having her to play with Saturday night and Sunday morning. She attended our new church with us on Sunday morning and I think she will be coming back just to go to church with us. She really enjoyed it.

Angie and I went to see the movie "The Express" Awesome movie. In light of last weeks events it was a timely movie. It points out a lot of things, just how far we have come since 1961 is amazing. Knowing we are not there yet is sobering. A great movie, would be awesome to take a youth group to (in my opinion).

One final note, Angie is having surgery on Friday and will be laid up for some weeks after that. I am staying home for the 1st week to play mister mom. I will be in charge of all the meals, getting Gracie to and from school, cheer practice, games, play dates etc. I will also be in charge of getting her dressed appropriately and fixing her hair. As a bald man with 10 thumbs this will prove a challenge. The neighborhood families we are blessed to live among as well as our church family will be helping out with lunches and Gracie in the following weeks. I will be depending on the other cheer moms to help me with the hair thing for games.

Moving on

No words other than

"It is finished"

God provides Grace and Forgiveness to those who seek Him.

Oddly silly.

Mark said...
Freud would have a field day with you... :)

This comment is my inspiration for today's silly blog post. My friend left this all too true comment, truer than I am willing to share in public. I will share some observations that I have made though, because in the post he was referring to I was talking about male bathroom habits. This is just because I am observant that I notice these things. The odd little quirks in life are what make life interesting, and make people even more interesting.

Have you ever noticed that some places just have a unique smell all there own. As soon as you walk in you recognize the smell.

Nursing homes for example. They have that "old people" smell going on. Old peoples houses have that old people smell too, but when you walk in a nursing home you have old people smell times 50. What exactly makes that smell? Is it the wrinkles?

Boys locker room. The combination of smelly feet, urinal cakes, 3 days without a shower under arm B-O, and the overly humid un-vented stale air make for a universally recognizable fragrance. ( Notice I even left off the part about the stench from the jock strap area, aren't you proud of me)

Bar bathrooms. This is a two fer. First you have the obligatory smell that is the same no mater what bar your in. The bathrooms smell of overly beer diluted urine. That little added somthin' somethin' is the smell of vomit that has impregnated the plastic trash can in the corner. In the non aroma related category, has anybody else noticed that the floors in bar bathrooms are always sticky?

New cars. What exactly causes that new car smell? Why does that new car smell air freshener smell more like baboon sweat than a new car? Does that new car smell go away because the car starts to smell like me? If this is the case, I apologize now.

Has anybody else noticed that baseball games and football games smell different? I don't know why, I am guessing its the season, but football games smell more like bar bathrooms and baseball games smell like peanuts.

The zoo also has a smell all its own, large animal make large deposits that leave large smells, nuff said.

Now moving on away from smells to other odd things I have observed.

If you are sitting across the room from someone who is wearing a watch and the look at it to see what time it is, and then you walk up and ask them the time, the will have to look at their arm again. Why is this?

The more clothing a women has the less she has to wear and the longer it takes to get ready. Also in this true-ism, is that if someone else is doing the laundry (like say the husband for example) the only thing suitable to wear is either dirty or wrinkled because it wasn't hung properly.

Young attractive women are almost never seen in public in the early hours of the morning. I am out and about at 5 AM every weekday. I have observed that you never ever see these people at that time of morning. The gas stations are full of ugly men like me, and a fair amount of the young hunky construction workers with too tight jeans and muscles popping out of their shirts, but no pretty ladies. The 24 hour McDonald's drive thru, same thing, you might find a friendly female but she is always hard, tattooed, older, and from the East German swim team. The waffle house has its own saying (the shy or easily offended need to skip the next sentence) Third shift at the waffle house has more tits than teeth.

For those of you who covered your eyes, you can come back now.

Have you ever noticed that women don't collect belly button lint? I don't think this is fair, they should have to pull it out too. Why is that, do male belly buttons have teeth and women's just have gums? Or maybe its a conspiracy by the clothing manufactures of the world and men's clothing just produce more lint than female clothing. Somebody needs to look into this. Maybe one of the presidential candidates can add lint free male clothing as a promise on their platform, they have promised me most everything else.

Did anybody else notice the new Coke caps on the 20 oz bottles? These things are terrible. I do some work for Coke and complained to the head maintenance guy at the local bottling plant. He said they hate them too, but for now its what we are stuck with. Hope it goes away faster than New Coke did.

Things have been a little too serious around her lately, so I just wanted to lighten the mood a bit, thanks for the inspiration Mark, and I mean that both in terms of this blog and in my personal life.

Dork alert

I got a phone call today from my wife. She was angry.



Someone left an anonymous comment on her blog, a comment that was designed to hurt feelings and cause pain. A comment that is not only something that should not be said in polite society, it is something that should not be uttered by someone who walk upright. He tossed out a snarky racial slur aimed at my daughter.



Now my daughter is as kind hearted as they come and anyone who would use a sweet innocent little five year old child to try and hurt someone else is someone who has some serious issues.



After doing just some basic homework we were able to find out who this person is. The most disheartening part of it all is that this person is employed as a youth pastor. Notice I didn't say that they were a youth pastor because no man of God would do such a thing, say such a thing, or behave in such a hateful manner.



This comment was delivered to my wife's blog (see link above to see her response and comments for yourselves) so I will refrain from too much of my own commentary. She is more that capable of handling this fool on her own.



As for me, several cliche's popped into mind.



First I thought of Scarlett O'Hara and that old phrase about hell hath no fury, but its just not quite right.



Second I thought about the more modern phrase of PMS and a handgun, any questions. But that is just not right either.



Then I thought in terms of nature.


Cute little baby bear isn't she. Just makes you want to reach out and snuggle it. I bet it would be fun to play with such a cuddly little baby bear. Bear cubs are so cute, and something little and cute and defenseless like this is safe and wont hurt me. But, there is one thing that you mustn't overlook. Where there is a cute, cuddly, defenseless bear cub, there is also a momma bear near by who is more that capable and willing to defend the safety of her cub. Anything that momma bear views as a threat will be met head on and fearlessly.

Forgive them Father for they know not what they do.


As a quick aside, while doing my homework I noticed that the Pharisee visited my blog before he visited my wife's and chose to pick the fight with her. I understand the faulty logic in picking the fight with what he might have perceived as the weaker opponent, but oh how faulty the logic is.

Urine again.

Okay, I know for some this is a delicate subject, but for me it just daily life. The point of this post is just to talk a little about male bathroom etiquette, such as it is, and then relate a story of amazing proportions. I have had the privilege to witness just how talented a dad of three boys can be, when necessary.

The rules first.

1. Whenever it is possible, do not stand right next to another guy at a urinal.


2. Do not use a stall to pee unless it is an emergency.


3. If you have to wait to get to a urinal, and you are the only no peeing person in the bathroom at the moment, don't stand behind somebody, go wash your hands, pop a zit in the mirror, check the soap fixtures, whatever you can, just don't stand behind the guy your waiting on, its just creepy.


4. Never ever look across at the guy next to you if you have to have a guy next to you, no eye contact, no looking below the chin either, face the blank wall and be happy about it.


5. Unless you have known the other guy since 3rd grade, no talking to another urinal user.


6. Even if you have known the other guy since the 3rd grade, no talking to the other guy in the next stall.


7. Never ask somebody in another stall or in the room with you to roll you some paper in, just deal with it, you should have checked first. The nice rash and skid mark that will occur will just serve to teach you to check first next time.


8. Avoid eye contact with men in general if you are in the bathroom, a nod and grunt will serve for any needed communications, but this should only take place at the sink or in the entry and exit areas.


9. Never speak to strangers in the bathroom, period.


10. Exit the bathroom without lingering, in case you missed it, it stinks in there, be on your way.


11. And as a bonus, two shakes is the max to finish at a urinal, more than that is just having fun.

Now for the story.

I was a volunteer worker at Pumpkinfest this past weekend. Its a really nice church festival that our church does. Crosspointe has been doing this for only 4 years, so they are still kind of new at it. They get thousands of people thru in two days, lots of games, carnival rides, a band, fireworks, the whole deals. Its really huge considering the size of this little church. Average adult attendance is usually well under 100, frequently below 50 I would guess. A lot of the time kids outnumber the adults. The only thing at the festival really geared towards the adults is the band on Saturday night and one little beer booth. I mention this for a reason, its a kid oriented festival, lots of families, but there is a little beer, just enough to keep a dad from getting too dry.

I had been working the parking lot for several hours and things were beginning to slow down so I left my co-worker for a minute to take the long hike back to the restroom. I hadn't pee' d since Tuesday so I made the walk as briskly as I could. Once I arrived at the bathroom I quickly surveyed the situation. Two stalls, one adult urinal, one child urinal. One stall is occupied so I cannot occupy the other stall (rule violation). The adult urinal is occupied, so I have the child's urinal option still left. I would be standing next to another guy, but this is permitted (though awkward) since it is obviously the last option. I observe that the guy was already engaged in the activity when I arrived so I chose to wait. I also noticed that he had a 5 or so year old son with him, so this made not choosing the kids urinal all that more appropriate. Then I observe that the boy is watching dad pee. Now this requires effort on his part because dad is only an inch away from the urinal in the two handed position. Son is leaning around, only inches away from the urinal himself placing his face only inches aways from dads delivery unit. This is just a little creepy, son is close enough to get back splash. I have observed this long enough, to avoid further rule violations I check me forehead for zits, wash my hands and then assume a waiting position in the hall entry.

Just as a note of clarification, the two handed position is when the urinator has both hands on the delivery unit. The one hand position has one hand on deliverer, one hand on hip or when needed for balance one hand on wall. The no hand position has two hands on hips, or two hands on wall as needed. We will not discuss, at this time, the one knee position or the two knee position.

Anyway, while I was standing at the entry waiting, and waiting, and waiting I observed wonder dad headed my way. He has three boys, all seem to be under 5, the smallest was around 2 or 3 years old. This little one was riding on dads shoulders, the others each had a hand. Dad, my new hero, walks in, ducking as not to plow his kids forehead into the doorway, and keeps both of the other two maintained by holding their hands. Other man and pee faced son are now finishing and headed to the sink. I turn to head over just as wonder dad walks in front of me. He does what all men do when entering the bathroom zone, he stopped and surveyed to situation. Situational awareness is of utmost importance. He correctly observed the choice I had made and then motioned for me to go ahead to the adult urinal I had been waiting on. He however has made a different choice, or should I say the beer in his bladder made a choice for him. He walked up to the kids urinal, with all three of his kids still attached. Now I don't loiter in bathrooms so I finish my delivery and am off to the sink in two shakes. While at the sink I notice in the mirror that he still has the little one riding on his shoulders and this kid has his hands wrapped around dads eyes playing with him. Dad has the other two boys at his side and is still holding their hands keeping them from touching anything and keeping them back away from his beer drain. I was impressed by his modified hands free technique. He was keeping all three kids clean and out of trouble while doing what he needed to do. This is the mastery of a wonder dad.

I tip my hat to the inventiveness of dads. He pulled this off while essentially blindfolded as well.

Homecoming

Friday night Gracie got to cheer in the first quarter of the homecoming game versus Walnut Hills High. The really little kids got to do the first quarter, the bigger little kids got to do the second quarter and the varsity (pictured above) go to do the second half. It was simply too cute for words because they would scatter the big girls among the little ones to help them out. The little ones thought this was just too too grand. It was interesting for us fans as well because you had two power house schools slugging it out on the field (Little Miami won) but you had close to a hundred cheerleaders lined up along the sides.

Gracie had been so looking forward to this because she got to be out there with the big girls. She had been practicing and showing off for weeks. Some of the kids her age were a little shocked just by the sheer volume of people. They are used to seeing 50 or 60 people in the stands at a little kids game, not thousands. They are used to being able to see and yell to their parents, not looking around and not being able to find them. Gracie handled this like a champ, no worries. She had been told we would be there and that was good enough, she knew we were there. This did create another issue however. Since one of us was not accessible to her, she just had to put her trust and faith in her coach of choice, just like when she is at practice and we are not allowed to be there.

What was the issue you might ask? Well, if you search your data banks for previous Gracie stories you will remember she hates costumes. She is deathly afraid of the bird at Red Robin, the pastor in his bunny suit at Easter, anything like this sends her over the edge. If you will now take another look at the Varsity Cheer Squad you will see the mascot of Little Miami is the Little Miami Panther. The Panther bounced playfully around the cheer squads trying to rally the fans and play with the cheerleaders. When I first saw the Panther I knew this was going to be an issue. When Gracie saw it, she first froze, then took off running as fast as she could and dove (literally) into her coaches lap. It was kind of like Scooby Doo getting scared and climbing up Shaggy. Coach Shannon now had a Hunan Siamese twin. Coach Tammy brought a spatula over and removed Grace from Shannon and they talked until they figured out what the problem was. By now the Panther had moved on and things were calming down. Grace let the know, in no uncertain terms, "costumes scare me, I hate them". They tried to tell her that its just a person inside, but having vast experience in this area, mom and I knew that would not help. Once the Panther had gone on its way, Gracie went back out and joined her squad for a while longer. Back comes the Panther, off goes Gracie. At least this time Coach Shannon was prepared and could catch the incoming Chinese missile. This episode repeated itself 4 more times. I was proud of Gracie in spite of this however. She is genuinely afraid of these things, but once it was moving away from her instead of towards her she would tough it out and get back out there with her squad. She showed some real maturity in wanting to do the right thing, and fought her fears as best as she could.

Adoption story

When we went to get Gracie several years ago, the adults we bonded first were two young ladies from Paducah Kentucky. Their names were Dana and Suzanne. Dana was there to adopt one of Gracie's 'sisters' Stevie. Stevie turned one while we were there so she is a little younger than Grace. Well, over time, and the birth of another daughter, Dana now has two daughters and one son. She is currently in China to adopt Max and grow their family to 4 kids. Max is about 4 years old if I am not mistaken. This time she was able to take her husband, they also were able to take their son Will. She has set up a journal to keep us all involved in this, her latest journey of love.

http://youbelong.net/bringingmaxhome

Here is the link to their site and I have placed the link in my blogroll as well so anyone who wants to cry every once in a while can read her posts and follow along with their journey.



Dana and family, our prayers are with you my sister as well as your family. May Gods grace be evident in your every breath.
Amen.

Global Warming

I am a genius. I have discovered the cause of global warming, and better yet I have a cure. Common perception, or misperception as the case may be, is that global warming is caused by the trapping of certain gases in the upper atmosphere. Gases that allow sunlight in, but don't let the radiant heat from the sun back out. This theory is full of controversy because the scientific community is arguing about its validity whilst the politicians (Algore) are grasping hold of it for their own political and financial gain. I don't buy the theory personally because I don't believe the gases can actually be 'trapped' anyplace. I mean think about it, what goes up, must come down. Carbon, the evil villain here, goes up, mixes with moisture and comes back down as rain, acid rain perhaps, but it came back down. All this is irrelevant however because I have found the true cause.

Oil drilling. That's right, oil drilling, not the burning of the oil but the removal of the oil from the earth.

Its simple really, and logical if you really think about it. What is oil? What purpose does it serve? Well, it is a lubricant which means it is a friction reducer. What does friction cause? Why it causes things to become hotter that's what. Oil is also a coolant, a coolant reduces heat. If it the heat is not reduced, well its hotter than it would be otherwise.

We are removing the earths natural lubrication and cooling system from the land masses of the earth. Is so doing, we are causing the land to become hotter, and the hotter land is therefore causing hotter air. The hotter air is causing warmer weather. Its just that simple.

What proof is there? Well one, a notable increase in volcanic activity tells us that the lower regions of the earth are getting hotter. Second is an increase in seismic activity, earthquakes are becoming more frequent, more violent and more widespread because the natural lubricants that allow the tectonic plates to shift has been diminished.

What can we do? First, stop removing oil from the ground. This would require us to stop using oil and use more natural gas and other alternative fuel sources. Second, we need to start replacing what we have removed. Take all that used motor oil and start pumping it back into the ground. Also, we need to manufacture more synthetic oil and pump it into the ground as well. We may be able to substitute other lubricants as well, baby oil and soap products for example.

Its true and it makes sense if you think about it long enough. Gas cant get trapped, it either mixes with moisture in the sky and returns to the earth or it rises up until it gets hit by the solar winds and swept out into the cosmos. We don't live in a bubble, there is no lid on the sky, the prevailing opinions are mere drivel created by scientists who own stock in wind and solar power generation companies.



The truth is the danger lies beneath us, not above us.....................