Therapy

This post has been copied from RICK who said it just as well as I could.

Clinical Psychologists sometimes have their patients use puppets to act out scenes. The idea is that people will be more likely to say what they actually feel, since it's not "them" actually speaking, it's the puppets. (I know this because I watched "What About Bob?" several years ago.) They also sometimes have children draw pictures, again because they are sometimes more willing or able to draw about a traumatic event than they are to talk about it. (I know this because I regularly watch Law & Order: SVU.)

My son recently drew a picture for and about his cousin. I can only assume (based on the details) that communicating with her is somehow psychologically damaging, and that he decided to just treat himself. Click on the pic for full resolution - and make sure you read the text bubbles.

I Gave It My Best

When I married Rick I knew two things.

1. I loved him.
2. He was a nerd.

Seriously, Rick is one the most intelligent people I know. I often ask him to define words, talk slower and explain in four year old terms what the hell he's talking about. I knew there was always the possibility he would pass this on to our children, but I held on to the fact that surely my social skills genes could whoop his nerd genes and hard.

I knew that I was failing with Aren when he had just turned five and we were spending Christmas at my mom's house. She has a cat named Pinto and this cat has...issues. You know boys that are short tend to be a little mean - trying to prove that they can be just as "big" as the big kids? Yeah, that was Pinto. She had three legs. You heard me. Three legs. She's an outside cat and one day she just disappeared and showed up about a week later dragging her hind leg. The vet gave my mom some options and the cheapest was chosen...amputation. Point being, this cat was crazy.

I was talking with Aren one afternoon and he was telling me about his latest run in with Pinto and he said, "That cat is rather feral." I just stared at him. "What?" "That cat is rather feral." Again, staring. "What the hell does that mean?" Aren sighed and looked at me and said, "Wild mom. It means wild." I knew I was an idiot, and Aren confirmed it that night.

I had a dream that there was still hope. Aren could be a cool kid and I could help him, but this afternoon, all hopes were dashed. Aren's friend came over to play for the afternoon and the first thing he said was, "Hey, come back to my room and listen to the coolest song ever!" I was intrigued and waited to see what would come from the speakers.

Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 4th Movement (Ode to Joy for all you idiots like me).

Maybe I'll turn my efforts to Tatiana. Then again, she refuses to call orange juice "orange juice" because it's not orange, it's yellow. Maybe it's too late for her, too.

Semi-colon Parenthesis

So, Maryland really isn't considered the south, but it IS south of the Mason Dixon Line and it WAS a slave state for those purposes we'll say I grew up in the south and with that came the lovely phrase, "Bless your heart." As an extremely sympathetic child I would hear that and think that the person saying it had a heart of gold and pained at the thought of the intended's misery. As an adult I realize it's just a way of saying whatever you want and then getting away with it by tacking something on the end.

"That nose of her's enters a room before she does, bless her heart."

"That baby is one of the ugliest I've ever seen, bless his heart."

It kind of reminds me of when I was growing up and we used the word "psych" to get out of being caught in the act. "No, best friend! Sure I called you the meanest jerkiest friend in the world, but you didn't stick around long enough to hear me say psych!"

Along with the internet came a new wave of communication and getting away with saying things to hurt people's feelings without the guilt. Enter the semi-colon followed by a parenthesis. Get it? It's a wink! Whoever thought this up is brilliant...condensing the phrase of bless your heart into two small clicks of the fingers - three if you count the shift key.

Most recently on Facebook, Rick was told by another person during a political discussion that she didn't have time to debate something because she was too busy working hard to raise five good little capitalists ;) Notice the use of the semi-colon? It was ok to infer that she was raising her children correctly while Rick was reading from Stalin's greatest hits to his because of that amazing punctuation mark!

Let me show you another example...

You're a jackhole - totally rude.

You're a jackhole ;) - see? Cute and just kidding.

People can let you know with just a few small taps of the fingers how upset they are that your house was destroyed in an explosion and while you were trying to get away you ran over your dog and forgot your cat by simply typing :( Which interpreted means, "Seriously? Get over yourself. You think that's hard? Try dealing with my life!"

I'm guilty of using these myself, I just wish someone would come up with one that represented "You need a Diet Coke" or "Good hell, grow up you freak". Let me know if you think of any.

Wink.

Four Years and Counting

Tomorrow will be four years since Aren received a bone marrow transplant to save his life from a genetic condition he was born with called Severe Combined Immunodeficiency. Following is the blog entry that Rick posted on that day. Thank you to everyone who has been with us over the past few years to help us and especially to help Aren. We are forever grateful to the doctors, to his donor, George (you can read his story HERE) and our Savior who allowed Aren to stay with us.


"This day has been a long time in the making. It has been about ten months since we started actively pursuing it for Aren and nearly three years since we got the first signs of trouble. But it finally came. Aren has been pretty sick over the past couple of days, a result of many of the medications that have been preparing him for the transplant. It was really sad. He slept for about 18 hours straight between Tuesday and Wednesday, waking only long enough to throw up, complain that his head, tummy and legs hurt, go to the bathroom (maybe) and fall asleep again. It was awful, seeing him that sick, but it was what we expected would happen the moment that he started the chemo. We’re just thankful that it took this long to get this bad. It’s ironic, however, that it wasn’t the chemotherapy that was making him sick. It was actually a different drug whose purpose was not to kill off any bone marrow but to prevent some of the white blood cells from attacking the new bone marrow.

But today was the big day. At about 3:00 this afternoon, the nurse brought in what looked like a bag of blood for a transfusion and hooked it up to Aren’s central line. We told Aren that it was his new bone marrow, and he stopped playing Pokemon just long enough to look at it and exclaim, “Wow! That’s COOL!” The infusion began. It had taken longer for them to get the cells to us because there was a blood type difference between Aren and his donor. Therefore, the marrow had to be scrubbed of white blood cells and plasma, in order to keep it from killing off the rest of Aren’s blood before the new stem cells could have a chance to engraft. Since it wasn’t whole blood, there were some interesting differences in consistency in various places along the IV tube. In some places, it looked like regular blood, while in others it was nearly clear. The most striking were the places where the consistency and color were eerily similar to the Tropical Punch Kool-Aid and Orange juice mixture my mother used to make when I was a kid.

After a while, the nurse said, “Aren, Guess what! You’re all done with your transplant!”

Aren sounded truly surprised. “Really?”

“Yep.”

“How long did my bone marrow transplant take?”

“About 1 ½ hours”.

His transplant ended with the same sentence with which it began. “Wow, that’s cool.” And then he went back to his Pokemon."

Seriously Crying

Oh my gosh, I haven't laughed this hard in ages. Check out this hilariously funny video of Total Eclipse of the Heart...the literal version.

Don't forget to pause the annoying music!

I Scream You Scream We All Scream for Ice Cream!

It was a little over three years ago that Aren was able to have a wish granted through the Make-A-Wish foundation and every day we are grateful for the opportunity they gave us as a family to have a real vacation where we were free from worries of illness and financial stress.

This Thursday, the 24th of September, Cold Stone Creamery is pairing up with Make-A-Wish and granting the wish of a little boy who got to design his own ice cream creation and share it with everyone...for FREE! Go to your local Cold Stone and for any donation amount you can receive this yummy wish creation....sweet cream ice cream with brownies, fudge, and sprinkles!

Get the word out people! Eat some ice cream and do some good at the same time!!

Latest Project

So, here's my latest creation from Heritage Makers which is a digital scrapbooking company that I love! Click HERE if you want some information.