Good enough to eat

Apparently you can use frosting dye to dye hair. Freaky hair day here we come! And you smell like cookies, too!

The creeper

Thanks to the prior owners of our home who painted a mural of Tuscany in the basement. They left tons of barely used quarts of green paint. This guy is The Creeper from the video game Minecraft. I don't know what a creeper is except he's boxy, green and not a robot. There you go.

Back aches and doctors and MRIs oh my!

We're off to the doctors again this afternoon, to see a specialist from Childrens Memorial regarding Catherine's back ache. I haven't been blogging in a while because of this. When stressed, I somehow find other things to do it seems, like pace and worry.

Catherine has moderate scoliosis (25 degree lumbar/thoracic curves) and increasing back pain. Her ortho told me that back ache isn't common with scoliosis at all, unless it's pretty severe, which her's thankfully is not. But her pain in the morning and night, as well as leg pain, concerned him enough that he sent her for 6 weeks of physical therapy (ostensibly to strengthen the back--didn't work--made it worse) and then for an MRI last week.

The MRI itself was nothing short of scary to me as Catherine has a pelvis full of 18 platinum coils from a surgery 6 years ago. Although all the doctors confirmed it was perfectly safe to do an MRI with platinum coils, half way through the procedure she started complaining of stomach pain. The tech adjusted something on the MRI and that made it better, but I was sufficiently freaked out from it. Nothing seemed to come from it afterwards and she was fine.

The MRI came back showing, well, nothing abnormal at all. That's great, except she's still in pain every morning, and her legs hurt sometimes so much she doesn't really want to get out of bed. Once she's up and about, things sort of fade away, unless she's playing the cello, or sitting in a chair without a back, and then it flares up again. Regardless, he tells me she should not have back pain at her age. So we're off to see a super duper Ortho doc for a second opinion.

Hooooos making an owl mask?

We've got flying feathers and we're all sneezing but Catherine is in her art-element with her home made owl mask. A banged eagle or horned owl to be exact. Wait till you see the feather boa for wings down her arms. Thank you Hobby Lobby 40% off coupons and half priced bagged feathers.

Last words of my soon to be ex husband

I have a chicken taco soup recipe that calls for one can of beer. I don't really drink beer so I went to the grocery store with dh to get some. Oh how FUNNY dh found it is to ask loudly if I was going to finish that tall boy in the parking lot. Oh we had a jolly laugh about that at the check out, too. Grrr

Congrats!

The BuzzBook cover is a BIG deal in this house. Every year DD enters but this is the first time she won. And a doozy of an entry it was. She drew the wolf in pastels, then scanned it into the computer and added the text digitally. It was a lot of effort but it paid off with $50 in cash and the honor of being sent home with several hundred middle school children on the cover of their phone directory. Great job Catherine!

Oh yes you are

That's my boy out there pitching his very first baseball. His Fall Ball team started this weekend, and with it came the opportunity to throw a baseball as fast as you can and as hard as you can and not wallop another kid in the head.

This is our first year of Fall Ball, so we didn't really know what to expect. Last season was pretty stressful and the team played to win, and win we did. That translated into William never on first base, never the catcher, and sweet Jesus no way ever the pitcher. I think every pitcher on the team last season had a personal coach, a perfect game, and a shoulder wrapped in ice after each game. Maybe a steroid shot. It was THAT kind of serious season.

It caught me by surprise then when the Fall Ball coach mentioned to his assistant half way through the game that he'd run out of pitchers with experience and who could he put in. Who could he put in? Was this the moment? Suddenly I went into full-on mommy mode. I sided over to the dugout and told William to tell the coach you want to learn how to pitch. And since William pretty much does what mommy says, my little automaton, I mean son, did just that.

Good boy.

Another inning goes by and I see a dad call William over and start to teach him how to throw the ball. This dad is the dad of a great pitcher. He knew what to tell him to do and how to stand etc. Wonderful! Maybe he'll get to play some time.

Sometime turned into the next inning.

William: I...I don't think I'm quite ready to pitch yet.

Dad helper: Oh yes you are.

And so began William's journey as a baseball pitcher for one, glorious inning. Was he great? Heck no. Did he strike anyone out? Not by a mile. But he threw that ball over the plate, he didn't hit anyone in the head with it, and a couple of kids actually could hit the balls he threw. Success!!

William later recounted that the inning seemed a whole lot longer when you were the pitcher. And he overheard two boys on his team comment that William wasn't really very good (to which my boy turned around and said in his very William way: you realize this is my first time EVER pitching?).

My boy was over the moon and he got a Slurpie to boot.