My daughter, the medical anomaly!

Last June a stranger looked at my child and said to me, "What is wrong with her knee?"

I was surprised because as far as I knew nothing was wrong with her knee. But as I looked I could see there was something odd. Her knee looked fine from the front but behind her knee was a swelling. A largish protrudence. We immediately saught medical advice and it was diagnosed via ultrasound and xray as a Baker's Cyst.

We saw a rheumatologist at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia who tried to treat it the conventional way- we had 2 cortizone injections which should have shrunk the lump. They didnt.

The upshot is the lump is now bigger than ever!

Imagine your knee. Imagine a grapefruit under the skin behind your knee.
Brenna is a tiny girl. 29 pounds. so in all actuality its a ping pong ball sized lump.

its huge
unsightly
offensive
foreign.

We saw an orthopedist yesterday and he said its the Largest He Has Ever Seen. He is reluctant to do surgery but will consider it if we request it. his concern with surgery is that it will re-occur. I asked if he couldn't just drain it. He said it would fill back up. It should go away. Some day.

We can't do it. We can not put her through surgery for something that isnt hurting her. If it gets any bigger it may start to pester her and bother her. Recently she has begun to comment on it. But we are not convinced it is painful. She is so full of life.

But I want it off of her. I want it off her in the same way that 3 years ago I wanted her out of me. Desperately.

Incidentally, this same child has no finger tips on her left hand. Bone that should have formed never did. her 4 fingers are all very short and I call them her little fingers. the dr asked about her short fingers yesterday. She showed him her right hand pinky finger. I thought that was adorable.

Getting some static

When I was little- maybe 3 or 4 years old- I remember running down the stairs in a panic and sobbing to my mom and dad that my bed was on fire.

It was static electricity making sparks as I moved under the covers. Ever since then I have had a minor fascination with static and I do enjoy the light show, too.

Last night Bee was wearing her polyester American Girl Bitty Baby nightie (which is really really nice for polyester) and we had some splendid static in bed with the flannel sheets. I pointed it out. I was really pretty excited to do so. I figured at 3 she was just the right age to be as enthralled as I was as a child.

"Hmmm," she said disapprovingly, "Maybe you can wash it out."

oh, i forgot

I am really neither efficient nor clever and I am not sure whether this is key but here are the meme rules in case someone actually does come here and needs them.

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Leave a comment on their blog so that their readers can visit yours.
3. Post the rules on your blog.
4. Share the seven (7) most famous or infamous people you have met. Or go with the original 7 weird things about yourself.
5. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post.
6. Include links to their blogs.
7. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Meme

I dont even know how to say that. meee meee? may may? mem? In our house the word Meme means "grandma" and it refers specifically to my mother in law. We say "meh-may." Its apparently a french canadian thing. You wouldn't understand. Neither do I.

1. Link to the person who tagged you. My good frond Fern at http://candleatbothends.blogspot.com/ tagged me. That joke amuses no one but me and I am ok with that because after 5 years it still makes me giggle.

2. Leave a comment on their blog so that their readers can visit yours. Do I really want people to read this cack?

3. Post the rules on your blog. Easy enough. I did have to do a hard return after the c&p. I just learned what hard return means.

4. Share the seven (7) most famous or infamous people you have met. Or go with the original 7 weird things about yourself. Gonna have to go weird. I did once see the Canadian PM at close range and my kids have swam with Willard Scott (some swim with dolphins, we swim with celebrities) but other than that I don't have any exciting affiliations.


So. Weird stuff.

A. When I was 5 or 6 I decided onion skin would make me very strong and give me super human gymnastic abilities. I consumed whatever pieces I could get my hands on when mom wasn't looking. I performed my feats of grace and strength at the top of the stairs, clutching the two railings and swinging out into open space. We had a slate floor at the bottom of the stairs. Clearly the onion skin didn't do much for brain power.

B. I took the SAT every year from 7th grade to 12th grade. My parents thought it would be interesting to track my scores. They stopped going up significantly in 10th grade. I'm not sure what that says about high school.

C. In 10 (almost 11) years of marriage we have lived in 10 different homes in 5 different cities in 3 different states. I am not sure that sort of moving around is weird anymore But as a child I lived in only 2 different cities in 5 houses- 4 of which were after I turned 12.

D. I have never broken a bone.

E. My current snack food obsession is olives and cream cheese. I started liking olives a few years ago. Before that I hated them. As a small girl i told my mom I'd like them when I grew up. So I know now that I must finally be grown up. Only I am pretty sure grown ups don't smoosh up a bowl of cream cheese and olives and eat it right off the back of the smooshing up implement.

F. I talk to myself incessantly and I always have. Babies are great because they help disguise this trait. Children are significantly less useful because they answer and distract me from my inner monolgue.

G. The biggest excitement in my life right now is the news that the Tide 2x concentrated liquid should be hitting store shelves this month in my area. I am so unbelievably lazy that I switched to ALL last year because it comes in small lightweight easy to pick up and pour bottles. I am not very strong but I am pretty cheap so I always used to buy the largest bottle of tide on the shelf. I got so tired of hefting that enormous vat of detergent and life was so hard last year (thanks to living in the Pits of NJ) that I eliminated super sized laundry bottles from my life. Some people would have chosen to cut stress by putting their kids in school or streamlining their homes or delegating chores. I am too lazy to do any of that. So I just started buying small bottles of laundry soap. Tide works better and I like the smell of the one with the laundry line picture. clean breeze? Can't wait.




5. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post. This is somewhat problematic. I only read the best blogs. high profile ones. They probably do not have time for this sort of thing. :( Plus then they might read mine and won't that be embarassing? (for me)


6. Include links to their blogs. sigh


7. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog. waaaaah



Alrighty.

so first I will tag Going Jesus http://www.goingjesus.com/ even tho she hardly ever has time to blog now because the cuteness is paralyzing over there.

how about Mental Tessarae? http://mentaltesserae.blogspot.com/ her blog shuts my browser down a lot. Which is unfortunate because its good. I shouldnt probably blame her blog but I am too stupid to know what really shuts the browser. Probably MSN hates me.

this is my favorite blog http://www.notesfromthetrenches.com/



That is 3. I was supposed to post 7, right? I am an underachiever. A quitter. First I dropped out of college, now I can't even follow the blog world rules. Sad.

Happy Birthday to me!

We celebrated the usual way- not much. On Saturday night we went out and had what i thought was pretty decent food at a not inexpensive non chain restaurant. The husband was unimpressed and said he felt ill later. Whaaaaatev. I tasted his food and it was lovely. My meal was wonderful. 3 enormous scallops with a lovely basil-wine-cream sauce thing. Yum.

All in all it was a disappointing weekend and a blah birthday. Mansfield Park was on last night on PBS and that was reasonably good. I enjoyed that more than anything else that happened in the weekend.

Just skip this one if you aren't into history

We just finished reading a book called Behind Rebel Lines for school This was a pretty fascinating account of a female Civil War soldier. Emma Edmonds was one of about 400 women who disguised themselves as men in order to serve in the military during this war. Edmonds successfully spied for the Union and made 11 trips into enemy territory during her 2 year stint as Franklin Thompson. Her charade ended when she became very ill with malaria. Unable to keep her cover in a military hospital, she left her fellow soldiers during the 47 day siege on Vicksburg. Again dressed as a woman, she checked into a hospital in Cairo IL. She was never able to return to her position with Union forces because she was technically AWOL. Interestingly, after the war she published a book about her adventures. Later she petitioned the government for an honorable discharge and was successful. She even claimed a pension of $12 a month! She is buried in a section of a Texas cemetary reserved for military personnel.

Read more about Emma Edmonds and her service to the country.
http://www.amazon.com/Behind-Rebel-Lines-Incredible-Episodes/dp/0152004246

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Edmonds

The S.C. Democrapic Debate

Watching that was like being trapped in the car with my 3 petulant children on a 12 hour car journey from NJ to IN. Only the bickering and squabbling were significantly worse in the debate.

The only one of those people who appeared presidential last night was Edwards. I have to admit he is my preferred candidate anyway, but in last night's little brawl he did manage to stay above the fray.

It's too bad that Hilary and Obama feel the need to torpedo each other on non issues like who did 5 hours of work on some slum lord case or who was on the board of Wal-mart. It makes them both look petty and weak. As usual the democraps don't need to wait for the republican party to defeat them. They do it themselves handily enough well before the election even starts.

It's especially disturbing in such a year as this when this country is at a real turning point.

The only thing more depressing than those two babies wacking each other with their toys is the idea of a McCain/ Huckabee ticket. There's a ticket that could possibly bridge the republican rift and woo McCain's moderate fans away from whomever the democrats run.

Let's pretend

Let's pretend Bee has a sore throat. Let's pretend that is why she is allowed to have a popsicle for breakfast. I mean it too. A POPSICLE. Not a fruit juice pop. Not a crushed fruit frozen treat. Sugar and water and food coloring.

Its because she has a sore throat.

Some might think NOT blogging for a year would mean something

You know, something like "You were not meant to be a blogger, Sarah!"

But I recently took an online personality test which assured me I had a chnace of having narcissistic personality disorder and if that isnt a call to blog, what the heck is?