One kitty

Kitty; one, obese, orange. Current weight: 22 pounds. Sweet natured.  Sheds more hair than should really be possible.  Does not lick butt.  Leaves skid marks all over furniture, carpet and bed sheets.  Diagnosed with food allergy.  Must consume kitty food that costs more than gold. 

Ok, ok

I know I've been derelict in my blogging duties lately, but like I told Tantie yesterday, if I'm puking, I'm not required to blog.  I'm not doing a big post today, since I spending my time poring over dead kitty arteries and veins, but here's a preview of upcoming posts:

1. My program added 2 new prerequisites to get into the nursing program. I had no idea how I was going to get them done, since I'm not taking classes this fall and hoped to only finish my last requirement as an evening class in the spring.  It's working out, but my summer is officially shot.

2. A week of blessings: Tantie and (new!) Uncle E had a beautiful wedding and we had a beautiful week with our friends and family.

3. We're taking kitty to the vet.  His bum problem has soared to new heights.  More on that after Monday's check up.

Posting will be light

We are in Illinois this week for Tantie's wedding. Posting will probably be light, but I'll try to get the highlights.

Birthday Festivities

This picture was taken on T's actual birthday.  We asked him what he wanted for dinner that night. Chicken? Yes. Pizza? No. Hamburgers? No. French Fries? YES! Quesadillas? No.  Ok then, so you want chicken and french fries?  "And french fries," he added.  The servers brought out this sundae and sang to him. He thought it was great.  He also thought the icecream was great and ate the entire thing.
Our birthday celebration here in the Land of Oz.  He dug the cupcake.
Playing with the cool new Winnie the Pooh phone.
It actually held more amusement for me.

Perfect, again

My little boy turns 2 today.  Two years ago, my little man entered this world, weighing 5 pounds, 13 ounces and stretching to a giant 19.5 inches. He was perfect, even with sqaushed nose and cone head.  Today, he's still perfect.  He weighs 30 pounds, 6 ounces and stands 36.25 inches tall.  He is in the 75th percentile for both height and weight and is right on track for all his developmental milestones. Perfect, perfect, boy.

And now a case of phenomenally bad timing ...

This afternoon, T kept tugging on the front of his diaper and saying "ow."  I asked him if something was hurting him, and he said "penis" (well, actually he said eenis, but that's beside the point).  So I took off the diaper and took a look.  I told him everything looked ok to me.  He insisted that something was not definitely not.  Concerned, I took another look.  T hopped up and tugged me into the bathroom, pointed at the potty and told me he had to go.  He sat down, and wonder of wonders, went to the bathroom on the potty for the first time.  What a great time to start potty training! He's telling us he needs to go!  Except that we're leaving for Illinois in a day and a half where he's going to be the ringbearer in my sister-in-law's wedding.  Hold that thought, little man.

Q & A

A: 97, 96 & 94

Q: What were the scores on my Chemistry, Anatomy and Math midterms?

Please don't turn me in to Cake Wrecks

T has his big 2 year old birthday party tomorrow at school.  I decided to make something a little more fun than plain old cupcakes for the party.  This caterpillar seemed a pretty easy starter-decoration.  It is too awful?  I think he's pretty cute.
Then I had the bright idea that I'd make ladybug cupcakes to complement the caterpillar.  The frosting ended up looking more like intestines than anything.  (Sorry for the fuzzy picture, I had a hard time focusing from that close.)  Needless to say, the caterpillar is going to school sans ladybug escort.  The upside is that now we have some tasty intestine cakes that didn't make the cut. Mmmm, intestine cake.

Bring it on

I have registered for my (only) summer class.  It's a 6-week Microbiology course. I will be in class Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 8 am - 2 pm.  Count em up folks, that's 6 hours per day for 18 hours per week.  When you consider that science profs around here ask you to spend 2 - 3 hours outside class for each in-class hour, I'll be doing somewhere between 54 and 72 hours a week of microbiology. I figure it's like ripping off a bandaid; it'll hurt like crazy, but be over before I know it. The summer session also means I don't have to take 2 lab sciences in any semester.

Note: do not call, do not write, do not expect blogging during the month of June.

Profoundly Seth

Please note the new button on my sidebar.  One of Ry's friends from high school has a young son with profound hearing loss.  They are trying to raise money for cochlear implants.  I won't tell her story here, she tells it much better.  Suffice it to say that this young family has had their share of heartbreak over the past few years.  If you have a moment, please go visit their website: profoundlyseth.com.  If you have a few extra dollars, please consider donating.

You don't have the right to waste my time

I've started dreading going to one of my classes during review sessions.  Most of the students don't complete the homework because it's not required.  They don't complete the review packets, and they don't take the time to think.  Instead, they come to the review session and ask asinine questions that our instructor has covered at least half a dozen times.  I wouldn't mind if they were genuinely confused.  Instead, they lack any intellectual curiosity or motivation.  They would rather sleep through class, text their brain dead friends and chitchat and then waste my time.

I am consistently amazed by how different the students are in my classes.  The classes I'm taking that are nursing-specific are mostly filled with bright, energetic, and articulate young people.  The other classes are filled with the lowest common denominator.  I'll be really glad to leave the gen-eds behind.

Playing is serious work

T takes his playing very seriously. This is his default playground face.  I always worry that he's not actually having a good time.  He gets excited when we arrive at the playground, so he must at least be having serious fun.  He's been more serious than other kids since he was an infant. Nature or nuture?

Why be responsible?

President Obama announced his plan for mortgage relief today. I'm highly conflicted. On one level, I don't want people to lose their homes, nor do I want the housing market to go even further in the crapper.  On another level, a lot of the people the plan will help maybe didn't make the smartest decisions in the first place.  

The plan allows those whose mortages are owned by Freddie and Fannie (and other who get bailout money) to refinance at or below current interest rates (about 5.25%), with no cost to the homeowner.  In addition, those who are underwater also can also get their principal reduced.  The overall goal is to reduce mortage payments to less than 31% of gross income.  The treasury said that interest rates could be reduced to as low at 2% to get to the 31% target.

Great, sign me up! Ohhhh, waiiiitttt.  We took out a mortage on a home we could afford, at a fixed interest rate, and our mortgage payment is less than 31% of our gross income.  Silly us.  Nope, if we want to refi, we have to go about it the old fashioned way and pay our closing costs.  Even then, the best we could do are the market-value interest rates (don't get me wrong, I'd love to have the extra $100 a month).  Where are the sweet refi deals for those of us who make our payments each month, on time, and bought a little less house so we could afford it if/when we lived on a single income?  Oh, right, we're not the ones foreclosing.  

Clothes, it turns out

I've been wanting to learn how to decorate cakes.  I don't want to make wedding cakes or anything, but I thought it would be a useful talent.  Do you know how expensive decorated kids cakes are?  Since we have lots of birthdays and events coming up, I thought to myself, "self, you should be able to do some basic decorating."  I thought I would use my tax rebate money to enroll in a cake decorating class.  Alas, there are none to be found.  I looked at community colleges, grocery stores, and even bakeries, but no dice.  The only thing I came up with were semester-long cake decorating classes.  Now I'd like to learn as much as the next gal, but I'm not spending a couple hundred dollars and an entire semester doing it.  In the end, I bought a few pieces of clothing to supplement my sad, sad little wardrobe.  Yes, Cathy, I bought a rocking pair of jeans too.

Snow Day!

The whole family has a snow day today.   It is the first real snowfall we've had this year ... in March.  T had a blast and we all got frosty and frozen.  Good times.

Speak tenderly

A friend of mine recently returned from Japan.  She gave T a goodie bag with snacks and toys she gathered while there.  Most of the bags are written in Japanese, but this English-translation cookie made me smile. We haven't eaten it yet because I'm not sure if I want a cookie whispering sweet nothings to my heart.

Insert Pea

Today Ry gave me a couple of T-free hours to do some shopping.  As I was coming out of a dressing room, I got a phone call from him. 

Ry: Uh, T has a pea up his nose.

Me: What?

Ry: A pea. Up his nose.

Me: How did it get up there?

Ry: I'm not sure.  I think he may have sneezed it there when he had food in his mouth.

Me: Can you get it out?

Ry: I'm trying to get him to blow, but he doesn't have enough force to get it out.

Me: Have you tried sticking something up there to pull it out?

Ry: I don't want to do that without you here.

Me: Ok, I'll go check out and head home. Let me know if you're able to get it out.

Then as I'm standing in line at the checkout I get this text: "Got it! I just sort of massaged it out."  Whew.  I thought we were going to have a Sunday afternoon urgent care visit.