Coagulation Breakdown

The other night, Grant cut his foot pretty good, a nice gash that was just begging to be cleaned up and covered up with a band-aid.

Uh, not so fast.

Grant is averse to band-aids. No, averse is much too nice. Terrified? Stricken? And it's really not just band-aids, it's any sticker or unexpected covering of the skin. But that night, he needed one. As soon as I saw the cut, I knew were in for a stand-off. My first mistake was trying one at all, I figured it had been at least a year since we tried so maybe he's softened his stance a little. See that perforation of my ear drum? There's your stance...

I tried a wet cloth, but he would have none of it. Screaming. Crying. Terror. How do you keep blood from getting everywhere when you can't cover the cut? I still don't know, but after a couple of "kiss the boo boos", some quick dabs of the cloth, and more of just my hand covering his foot - it stopped. He fell asleep after wearing himself out from the crying. Fortunately, the clotting has held up and he has not re-opened it.

Not long after, it struck me that he has not had a band-aid in at least 5 years. How is that possible!? Owen goes through about 100 a month. We all need one at some point, right? But 5 years!? What will we do when he finally gives in to the inevitable and really opens one up? I think we better start preparing for that - any and all ideas are welcome...

Patience

Grant, there is long-term patience and short-term patience, and tonight evidently I have neither.

I am so sorry that I lost my patience with you tonight. I know it's tough for you to fall asleep on your own and you do best when you've got a warm body next to you. Tonight, my patience gave out after you had gotten up several times and then couldn't keep the light off. I jumped up and let you know how frustrated I was. I went downstairs to let off steam so I'm not sure when you fell asleep. Hopefully it was soon, but I'm sorry. Your daddy tries to understand where you are coming from but as you know, many times I fail and tonight was one of those times.

As for long-term, one of the most frustrating things about your diet and supplements is the length of time it takes to see what works and what doesn't. To truly see what an addition or subtraction does, it can take days, weeks, or months. You don't really know this, but we had some more tests done to help determine the best supplements for your body. While we were waiting for the results, we let some of the old supplements run out since they cost some money and we didn't want to spend that money if it wasn't necessary. But, as we did that, we noticed some changes in you - you weren't responding as much to us and the "fog" seemed to be thickening again. We bought all the supplements and got back to the every night routine and it has really made a positive difference - the supplements clearly make a difference in your life.

Now, as you are very aware, we've let you eat pizza again. It has been so fun to watch you eat it! We are testing a few of the foods that have been restricted from you for over a year now, and the first is dairy. You seem to be doing well, but one of the issues has been your trouble getting to sleep. It seems like we've gone back to the way it was a few years ago when you HAD to have someone next to you to fall asleep. Is it the dairy? Or, is it because we were out Friday and Saturday night and you didn't get your supplements? Or is it totally unrelated? I can only imagine how frustrating it must be for you to feel changes in your body and not be able to tell us about them. I wish we could just change everything in a week and be done with it, but unfortunately it just takes a lot of time to see what things are affecting you. Tonight, I don't have the patience to plan that out, to wait for the results.

I'm sorry that I'm having such a hard time being patient, Grant, but I sure am glad you are patient with me!

An anniversary for us geeks

Hearing the news today of the 25th anniversary of the Commodore 64 brought the memories flooding back... I haven't written about this much, if at all, but I'm a hopeless tech geek. And it all started the day my Dad brought home the C64. I tore into the User's manual and starting writing BASIC, then the Reference Guide which probably became the most worn book I've ever owned (and that's saying something). I was completely fascinated not only by what others were doing with it, but what I could do with it. Hundreds and hundreds of hours of my Sophomore and Junior years were spent in front of that keyboard, and it's not an understatement to say my life today would be completely different without it.

Thanks, Dad - who would have thought that one purchase would have had such an effect on me and my future. And thanks, Commodore, for making that 1st useful, affordable computer!

Netflix loves me

We've got the cheapest Netflix plan - 2 a month, and we rarely use them both. We used to have the 2-at-a-time plan but then we had to go with a monthly plan at Hollywood Video since that is Grant's major reward for behavior at school. It seems like every time we send a movie back to Netflix, we forget to check our queue and update it with something we want to see so the next movie seems to always be a surprise. It usually ends up being something one of us added a year or so ago and had since completely forgotten about. The movie I watched tonight, the one that had been collecting dust for at least 3 weeks, was one of those.

Fortunately, Netflix smiled on me this time, leaving The Astronaut Farmer in our mailbox for viewing at our discretion. I loved it. I'm such a sap for feel-good, dream-big, change-the-world, strong-family, slightly-outrageous-plot movies. This one had all of that and more and, like this post from a few weeks ago, it had me pondering if I still have dreams to live out. Sure, I have dreams for my family, but are they big enough? How sad is it though that a couple of hours later I still don't have any inkling of my dream? Assuming my final age is anywhere near the average of 77, I'm a little over half way there - when I'm just about to shut my eyes for the last time, what is it that I will look back on and say "I did it"?

What's your big dream or goal? Are you on track to accomplish it?

Before I start building a rocket ship in my backyard I better go check my Netflix queue to make sure the next movie doesn't make me think - any suggestions?

Time to go shopping

I had it.

A very good gift for my wife. A surprise gift. One completely unasked for but which would have elicited excitement and wonderment about 2.5 weeks from now.

4 tickets to Bon Jovi and Daughtry for their show here in April. It was all going so well - I knew about the concert and she didn't. I found a way to get tickets before they went on sale so I could actually buy them for list price (although that is highway robbery itself...). A couple of weeks later, she learned about the concert and we went through a thankfully fruitless search for reasonably-priced tickets online. At that point, I thought the surprise was safe.

But today we both heard they had scheduled a 2nd show. I knew my plan was in trouble when I heard it, but then I came home from work to hear her talking to her friends about plans to buy tickets to the 2nd show. Oh no. Mere minutes later I knew it was all over. I could no longer keep my gift a secret.

She was of course very surprised and excited, but it wasn't the same to me. So close!

So now, I need another cool idea. Please help!