babybloomr

Apparently Russ Is Not A Fan Of Hospitals

OK, I’m in a giant hurry because we are trying to get on the road to get to Arkansas, but I could not resist posting this!

So, a couple of days ago Russ had surgery to remove a benign thingy on his adrenal gland. He has never spent the night in a hospital, and has never had any kind of surgery, so he was a little apprehensive. We originally had been told this was an outpatient, probably laparoscopic, slam bam thank you Dr. kind of surgery– but the night before he went in, a nurse on the phone casually referred to his “overnight hospital stay” which sorta freaked both of us out a little.

Long story ever-so-slightly shorter, the surgery went just fine, the thingy was definitely benign, and after some time in recovery Russ was wheeled down to his room. HOWEVER, the anesthesia gave him a giant migraine and also, in the words of the nurse practitioner, “his surgical pain got a little ahead of his pain meds” which basically means that poor boy was in a world of pain when I walked into his room. He was still kind of drugged up and dozing, his mouth was in a big ol’ frowny-face grimace, his entire body was tensed, his back was kind of arched… It was really hard to witness.

Until I looked down at his hand.

His poor little hand was all puffed up (apparently he doesn’t tolerate IVs very well either), but even in his unconscious state he was able to express his feelings about the entire experience…

Kind of says it all, doesn’t it?!

And yes, I know there is something really wrong with a person who would start giggling hysterically and digging around in her purse to take a picture of this with her phone while her beloved husband of 35 years is suffering on his bed of affliction, but come on– that is funny, I don’t care who you are!

P.S. He’s doing great, incisions look good, pain is very manageable and we are heading home for Christmas. More later!

Christmas Shopping Is NOT For The Faint Of Heart (or people who don’t parallel park very well.)

Yeah, I kinda suck at parallel parking.

I used to be GREAT at it back when I was driving the girls to elementary school every morning and had to park and walk them in. It was a daily occurrence then, but now? I avoid it like the plague. However, some of my Christmas shopping lately has included the stores in the quaint little downtown square of Franklin, TN and in that neck of the woods you don’t have any choice but to try to wedge your car in between two other ones with little or no room for error. If Madi is sitting next to me in the front seat I do much better because she coaches me– actually, it’s not so much ‘coaching,’ it’s more like repeating in a bored voice (and with a barely perceptible eye roll) a line from the driver’s ed manual that is particularly fitting: “Begin by pulling up parallel with the car in front of the parking space.” Somehow I manage to forget that pertinent piece of information every time until she says it, and if I am alone in the car I have this momentary panic attack (much like Prissy in ‘Gone With The Wind’) until I remember– and it still usually takes me a couple of runs at it.

I actually ventured out to do most of my shopping last Saturday night, which is in itself, by definition INSANE. Seriously, the weekend before Christmas? Apparently everybody who had a heartbeat and could fog a mirror was out there shopping. I was not stupid enough to attempt to storm the malls around here, but I did run over to Murfreesboro hoping a smaller town might have less shoppers per square mile. Not altogether a sound plan, but I decided to go all Zen and self-helpy on my own self and try to just chillax and enjoy the experience without stressing out.

That was a wise decision on my part, because frankly there were a whole lot of folks out there running around like crazed weasels teetering on the brink of having a DefCon 11 Level Meltdown over things like parking spaces and people in front of them in line not moving fast enough. It was a teensy bit tense at times, but if you know me at all you know that I’m a firm believer in when the going gets tough, the tough get sarcastic, so I was able to amuse myself to no end by mentally framing all kinds of really ~~smart-ass~~ witty retorts to some of the decidedly UN-amused people around me. I say ‘mentally framing’ because I am not an idiot– some of those shoppers looked fully capable of shanking me right in the middle of T.J. Maxx– but trust me, there was some comic gold happening up there in my head. Sometimes I just crack me up, I swear.

At any rate, I think I am just about through with my shopping, with the exception of a few straggling gifts I may delegate to the girls. Charlotte knocked out most of her shopping yesterday on our way home from church, and Madi Rose proudly informed me that she has completely finished hers and that I made out very well– of course, she does 90% of her shopping at Goodwill these days (which I wholeheartedly endorse), so if any of you ever see me wearing something that looks vaguely familiar to you, chances are you might have owned it at one time. FYI, the polite thing to do in that case would be to refrain from mentioning it, although it really wouldn’t matter, because A) I love a good bargain B) I have no shame and C) Madi Rose aka The Idealistic College Activist feels very strongly about recycling/saving the Earth/not wasting things/etc. Which suits me just fine. Frankly I’m rather proud of giving birth to the world’s cutest Hall Monitor.

Also yesterday I was able to bribe the girls into enduring a brief photo shoot, so I can give the grandparents some shots of them for Christmas. They hate this, by the way– apparently I can get rather bossy when I’m trying to get the perfect shot and they take exception to constructive criticism such as, “You kinda look like you’re about to get hit by an oncoming vehicle” or “That smile makes you seem just a wee bit drunk.” At any rate I ended up with some really beautiful pictures, and I’ll show you an outtake (They hated this one, but I thought it was sweet):