Cancer Survivor, writing about Health and Fitness as you age

What do we have to do today? I am looking at the list of special things my kindergartner has to bring, dress as or do the last week of school. Each day it is a different thing. Don't they know the challenging logistics this poses to parents who work? Worse, if we take turns with the morning routine, we both have to be aware of the plan. And today is...dress as your favourite book character! Crap!  "How about Batman?" We have a Batman costume we can use, and  I bet I can find a batman book somewhere in this house. "No" "What about Spiderman?"  I know there must be something in the house, even if I have to put him in a red t-shirt and blue jeans and a Spiderman mask. "No. I want to be Jack from Jack and Annie, Magic Tree House" Jeez! What costume do I have for that? I run around the house looking for cheap party sunglasses so I can pop out the lenses and use for Jack's glasses, no luck. I have 10 mins before we have to leave. ...

So towards the last weeks of school I dropped my little one to school and I had forgotten something for him so I went back to the car to get it, after leaving him with his teacher. On my way back, I passed one of his friends and his dad, and made some bland comment about the weather being rainy after a long weekend making it more difficult to get kids out the door. Then ran off to drop the item for the little one. On my way back I saw them still making their way slowly to the school, and the dad exploded at me about how I am always giving him crap about being late for school with his kids. Hmmmm. So I started to say that whatever he thought I meant, I certainly didn't mean to imply anything by it, but he interrupted me with "No more!" He was shouting at me, in front of his kids, about how I am always doing that, every time I see him. Mind you, I think I had seen him about 5 times in the school year on the way to school and the most I've exchanged was "Hi, how ar...

So my husband and I had gone to a movie on Friday evening and came back home to find this note on our bedroom door: Yes, they did say they were coming to wake us up at 6:00 AM, and yes, they were bringing guns. Needless to say, we felt it incumbent upon us to assert our parental dominance by being ready for them. My husband got the nerf guns ready - these are the fully automatic ones with ammunition clips. We each had one and laid it out by the side of the bed, ready for the morning. Needless to say, we went to sleep with smiles on our faces, in anticipation of the morning's delights. Since my boys are not really able to be ninja-like, no matter how much they may think they are being quiet, we were up and had the guns ready when they opened our door. And we let them have it. It's moments like these that keep me young and makes me think that maybe we are not doing too badly in the parenting department.

Well, I know I am one week late with this post, but I was enjoying my Mother's Day and remembering my own mother. Anthurium lilies were her favourite plants, so it was hardly surprising I picked up a plant on my last trip to the grocery store. Mother's day was on my mind. If my mom was alive, I wonder what she would think of her grandsons? I imagine she would not be able to stop hugging and kissing Liam who is at that very sweet age - interactive, but not giving any backchat, loving and still wanting hugs and kisses. She would sit with him and look at his art work and praise him. And tell him he is not eating enough. With Lucas, I can just picture her reflecting on how much he is like or unlike my brother. She would say how tall he is growing and how much he is getting big. And she would ask questions about his homework and smile and nod even if she wouldn't understand half of what he was telling her. She would probably scold him for being too rough with Liam, as ...

Every now and again, I get caught up in life and don't get around to updating my blog, but mostly my life is so boring I haven't had any recent stories to post out! I thought I'd just give a quick update on my most recent reconstruction shenanigans. I present exhibit 1 - the medical charge. This is for a 1-hour surgery that was done with local anaesthesia, that is, no general and no "light" twilight zone drugs either. Sooo I've blogged before about medical costs here , but it was shocking even to me, that the hospital would charge my insurance $9,000 for a 1-hour procedure. This excludes the doctors fees. All I can say is, pray you don't get sick without insurance or have to go to the hospital, even for an hour apparently. Which brings me to my dad's recent visit. My dad stayed with us from November to April. We have no health insurance for him and he was 84 and turned 85. Any number of things could have gone haywire at any time and bankrupte...

Maybe it's because I live in Texas? Not sure, but my husband and I decided to do something as a couple for our anniversary and we did a pistol class together! To be honest, I'd never held a gun before and I was literally shaking when I had to hold the gun and load the clip. You can't see it in the pictures, but my goodness I was nervous! Nervously trying to load the clip  It was a lot of fun, we learnt about the basics of handling a gun, how to stand, shoot, safety and a bit about the gun laws. Then, after the in-class session, we went out to the range to shoot. Real, actual guns! I ended up hitting the target, so that was more than I'd hoped for, so I was pretty pleased. My husband was very impressed with my results when we retrieved the target! We shot at 2 different distances,  7 feet and 15 feet. I ended up shooting a .22 and a 9-mm glock. Here I am posing for this shot, largely because with the eye and ear protection and the wind blowing my h...

Soo..., after having our after-school sitter for our boys for a bit, her schedule changed and we had to find someone else. We decided to go with a manny (male nanny), because for one thing we had a manny apply! While he was not able to stay with us long unfortunately, it was a very interesting experiment! The dynamic between the boys and our manny was different than between them and our female sitters. For one thing, the play time was much more rough and tumble. More fighting and wrestling, jumping and punching. When they were not fighting with him, he was less likely to intervene if they were roughhousing with each other. The female sitters would have stepped in much earlier. You may see this dynamic in your own household when Dad is in charge vs Mom or if parents have two different parenting styles. They also interacted with him differently - they saw him more like a buddy rather than someone they had to listen to and respect, so that made his job a wee bit challenging. He had...