PetEthan

Hi.

I’m still here.  Fortunately, about 15 lbs. less of me is here than was the case last month.  Since I started this blog in great part as a means of bolstering my willpower to lose weight (and abandoned it when I lost that willpower), I figure this is an appropriate update.

Ideally I’ll post some more if anyone’s still out there and interested.  Let me know.

This is our Grandma at Roller Odyssey last month. She’s a piece of work. That’s why we love her.

Okay, I promised a family update, so here goes…

Ethan
I’ll get me out of the way first.  Me is fine.  The wrist is operating at about 85-90%.  And I passed an important milestone (for me) this week when I was able to use my right hand to wipe my butt.  That may seem like a small thing (and way too much information), but it was something that was bugging me, so I’m happy to have reached this point in my rehabilitation.  Other than that, there’s not a whole lot going on with me.  I predictably have managed to use my broken wrist and Halloween as excuses to eat like a pig for the past month, so I really should weigh myself and give y’all a report in order to give another public humiliation boost to my will power.

I am also going through baseball withdrawals after the truly annoying Red Sox victory over Colorado in the World Series.  At least my Dodgers made a huge move in signing up Joe Torre to manage the team.  I just hope they don’t make the mistake of signing Alex Rodriguez (Over-Rate-Rod).

Janine
Janine started the school year as a senior at Phoenix High School, but they quickly realized that she was advanced enough in her studies to move on to bigger things.  So for the last couple of months she’s been taking college prep classes at Rogue Community College, and she’ll begin taking credit courses in earnest next semester.  She also begins working a seasonal evening job in a couple of weeks at Harry & David, taking phone orders for their wide selection of fine X-Mas gift baskets and other goodies (for which she will also receive a 30% discount, which makes Mom happy!).

Mathew
“LeBron” has been finding out what it means to play basketball in a high school program that takes its basketball seriously.  Last week were tryouts, which lasted from Monday to Thursday.  Yesterday his practice started at 5:30… in the morning!  He’s going to be in weight training zero period every morning.  And he has to wear slacks and a tie to school on game days.  It’s going to be a lot of work.  But I think he’s going to find it worth it.  And so will we if his name comes up some day in the NBA draft!

We’re not exempt from the work, by the way.  At the parents’ meeting Thursday night I was compelled to sign us up for the “Sportsmanship Committee.”  We had to sign up for something.  So it’s going to be our job to call parents on it if they get out of line yelling at the refs or the coaches during games.  I really hope that doesn’t happen…

Kara
Oh, here’s some big news:  Cathy and I became Grandparents!  Fortunately, Kara’s baby was not a real one.  She had to take care of one of those “so you think you know what it means to become a mom” babies as a school project last weekend.  It was pretty intense.  The “kid” was crying constantly.  Kara could barely take a shower, or get any sleep, without needing to “feed” or “change” or “rock” it.  (Oh, wait, there shouldn’t be quotes around rock, since she really had to do that…)  Despite the effort required, Kara liked the experience, and she got a score of 96 for the project.  Cathy, on the other hand, wanted no part of being called “Grandma!”  Look for some pictures of our temporarily expanded family in the next photo update.

Kit Kat & Jana
The two little Goop Balls recently started going to Girl Scout meetings, so I’m looking forward to the cookies!  They also continue to do very well in school.  Kit Kat was recently “Student of the Week,” and got to get up in front of her class and tell them some things about herself.  She brought in the teddy bear that she “built” at Jana birthday party in September.  Jana regularly finds herself on the good citizenship and math wiz lists in her weekly class newsletter.  Both of them received perfect attendance awards for October, and Kit Kat is striving for the rewards that come of perfect attendance for the year.  Unfortunately, Jana was sick with strep throat last week and had to miss a couple of days.  She’s feeling better now though, and she’s almost finished with her bubblegum flavored antibiotics.  (Why do kids get all of the cool stuff!?)

Grandma
We’re rapidly approaching Grandma’s time of year: Christmas.  She has enough decorations to spruce up an entire neighborhood for the holidays.  (And, fortunately for me, I never took down the X-Mas lights on the house from last year!)  Grandma just keeps plugging along.  Some days she has more energy than others, but I still expect that she’ll be around long enough to be a Great-Great-Grandma—and that’s going to be several years from now (right, girls…!?).

Dinah
You may have noticed from recent photo updates that we now have a dog.  Dinah was owned by a friend of Grandma’s named Carol, and we used to dog-sit her for weeks at a time while Carol was out of town.  A few months ago Carol moved out of the country and we got to keep Dinah.  This was a great thing because the kids really wanted a dog, I really didn’t want to spend a lot of money obtaining said dog, and—most importantly—Dinah is a great dog.  She’s really friendly and likes to play a lot.  But when we’re all relaxing she’s calm to the point that you might not even know she’s there.  She barks a little when confronted with other dogs, but not a lot otherwise.  She’s really bonded with Janine, who is the one who feeds her, and she sleeps in the girls’ room every night.  We really got lucky when we got her.

Salty & Pepper
We’re still trying to figure out if our cats are little angels or hell-spawn.  I know Grandma leans towards the former, while Cathy comes down hard on the latter.  We’re approaching our biggest challenge with them—their first exposure to a Christmas tree.  Last year we put a very small tree very high up on a book shelf.  But the kids deserve a real tree, so we’re bracing ourselves for a month of picking up the ornaments that they attack and hoping that the entire tree doesn’t find itself horizontal at some point.

Cathy
The biggest news in the family right now involves my Cutie, who quit her job just before Halloween to enroll in a Certified Nurse’s Assistant (CNA) program.  For the past few weeks she had been in a classroom environment.  Now she’s in clinical training.  In return for this training, she will be under contract to work for Asante for a year at a care home called Hearthstone.  (So now we’ll be working for Blackstone and Hearthstone…)  The biggest change for all of us, especially Cathy, is that she will be working the graveyard shift, which will be interesting.  I’ll drop her off at work at about 10:30 pm (after picking up Janine from work, incidentally), come home and sleep, then wake up and pick her up at 7:00 am before going to work myself.  The biggest challenge, especially in the summer, will be getting the little ones to let her sleep during the day after work.

It’s been interesting to be without one of our income sources this month, especially with Mathew starting basketball and Christmas coming up, but Cathy will resume earning some scratch just after Thanksgiving.  And the short-term trauma will be justified by the long-term gains.  Cathy plans to keep plugging away and climbing the ladder of nursing success, so that one day down the line I will have the Sugar Mama that I’ve always dreamed of having!  (In truth, my dreams came true the day she agreed to marry me…)

Okay, here are the Halloween pictures that you really want—kids carving pumpkins and dressing up in fun costumes, not gross pictures of operation-scarred wrists.  (Well, there is one “scar update” picture…)  You’ll also notice that there are some roller skating photos.  Yes, we’re back at Roller Odyssey.  And, no, I am not out there on the rink.  As Cathy decreed in written form on my cast, “No More Having Fun!”

This was the kids’ first experience with creating jack-o-lanterns and trick-or-treating, so it was really cool to experience it all with them.  I even revived one of my old New York Halloween costumes (tamed down a bit from the “sick puppy” version to something more PG-13) so I could join in on the fun.  Predictably, Kit Kat didn’t feel that we stayed out on the street long enough to maximize our potential for free candy collection.  But, on reflection, she agreed that our efforts were worth the rewards.

I will have a family news update soon, as there are some interesting things happening.  Until then, enjoy the pictures:

I’m back!

Back? Yup.

I’m back to “typing” with both hands. I’m back to squeezing my own toothpaste and putting on my own socks.

Why were these things a problem? Because I made the mistake of tying the laces (something I still can’t do yet…) on a pair of roller skates attached to my feet last month. Cathy, Grandma and I took Kit Kat and Jana to a school fundraiser at Roller Odyssey on the night of September 25. I had no intention of doing more than watching and taking pictures of the two little Goopballs… until I saw Cathy putting on some skates.

I’ve never liked to be left out of the fun, so I went and rented some skates for myself and got out on the floor. And I was doing quite well. It came back to me immediately. I was never great at skating, but I was certainly competent. And I was having fun. I raced around the rink, lapping my daughters every few minutes, taking pictures while I skated, goofing around with Cathy.

I got cocky. Getting off the rink to go visit Jana in the practice area, I overestimated how much the transition from the hard rink floor to the carpet outside the rink would slow me down. While my upper body braced for a decrease in velocity, my legs kept speeding away from me and the next think I knew I was on my back staring up at the ceiling.

I hit my head on the floor, and my butt didn’t feel very good either. But they weren’t the problem. In that split second between skating and lying on the ground, I apparently tried to break my fall by bracing myself with my right arm. So when Cathy finally arrived (after what seemed like an hour) and I sat up to see what my body had to say about the trip to the ground, I found that the only way I was going to be able to hold up my right hand was by lifting it with my left hand. Not good. I had apparently sprained my wrist.

Cathy got some ice from the concession stand and we made our way over to Grandma, who was already panicking after getting a dire update on my condition from Jana. I had Cathy make a sling out of my jacket and I drove Grandma and the kids home with my left hand before Cathy and I headed for the emergency room.

There were questions to answer, and lots of waiting—waiting to get x-rays, waiting for the results of the x-rays, waiting to hear what those results meant. To my surprise (though not to Cathy’s), the x-rays revealed that I had broken my wrist in four places, right up into the joint. I had never broken a bone before, and I had always expected that the pain would be unbearable. I’m not saying that it didn’t hurt, because it certainly did. But I always thought I was kind of a wuss when it comes to pain, so until the results were back I really didn’t think I’d done that much damage.

The news was pretty harsh, especially when it was hinted that I may be heading into surgery at any minute. As it turned out, that didn’t happen that night. Instead, a doctor numbed my arm, pulled on it and twisted it around trying to get my bones back about where they were supposed to be. I wasn’t watching any of this, as I watched “The Office” upside-down on the tv on the wall above my head. Thank God for drugs, because the doctor treating my arm like a Gumby doll didn’t really hurt all that much. After a bit, they put a splint on my arm and sent me home to not sleep.

The next day I was at the doctor’s office for more x-rays and to get a cast put on my arm. After I returned home I got a call saying that the x-rays revealed that surgery would be necessary. They were going to install a hunk of metal in my arm, drilled into the bone, to hold up the bones in my wrist. Great. My first broken bone, and now my first surgery (other than for wisdom teeth). This was turning into one special roller skating event! And let’s not even talk about the out-of-pocket expenses that my little spill is going end up costing us. (Or the fact that we’d passed on an opportunity to get some supplemental Aflac insurance just a week before this happened.)

Naturally, you’re not awake for surgery. So, in that sense, there’s really not much to it. They put you to sleep, then wake you up and tell you it’s done. And there was no pain afterwards. In fact, there was no feeling at all in my arm for the first day after the surgery, as they had used a “block” on my arm. Even now I don’t know exactly what that means, and I’m not sure I want to. It was very disconcerting, to say the least, to be completely unable to verify the existence of my right arm except by visual confirmation. I had to keep the arm in a sling because if I tried to pick up my arm using the unaffected muscles in my shoulder, my arm would fly up and flop around without my having any control over it. It really felt gross. It wasn’t too long before I was ready for feeling to come back, even if that meant feeling some pain.

I finally began to feel some tingling in my arm the next day. That was the sign, according to the anesthesiologist, that I should start gulping down my codeine. And who was I to argue? So I really don’t know how much the arm would have hurt at that point because I didn’t wait around to find out.

After a few days it was time to head back to see the doctor for evaluation, and to start rehabilitating the now useless muscles in my arm that had been inactive for a couple of weeks. It’s amazing how quickly and completely muscles will atrophy if you don’t use them. Almost makes me want to start getting more (some) exercise…

I went for an initial consultation with a physical therapist and they showed me what I had to do to start making my arm useful again. Rather than pay more money and miss lots of work, I decided to take care of the therapy on my own. Perhaps surprisingly, this turned out to be a good decision, because when I went back to see the surgeon yesterday she said that things looked great, and that I was ahead of schedule for regaining my mobility. While I was there, they also removed the fifteen staples that held the skin on my arm together after the surgery. That was interesting. It was like being stung by fifteen mutant bees with two stingers each. (Or perhaps 30 normal bees stinging in groups of two…)

Anyway, it’s been quite a little experience in what has to be one of the most interesting years of my life. I’ve got to get back to my exercises so I can return one day soon to using the right hand to wipe my butt! And now, just in time for Halloween, enjoy some pictures:

Sometimes I don’t blog because I have nothing to say. Sometimes it’s because there’s too much going on to take the time to write. This has been one of those times, so get ready for some babbling…

The most noteworthy thing happening right now is that the kids have started school. In fact, today is their first full day. Yesterday they all went for a new student orientation and to meet their teachers. Cathy and I attended these meetings with our two youngest munchkins (more on them later) while the big kids were on their own. Holding true to form, everything appears to be going even better than expected. Although they were certainly nervous (especially Kara and Mathew), they all had a good experience yesterday and came away saying they love school and their teachers. Of course, we’ll see how that attitude holds up to homework assignments, but it’s certainly a good start.

Jana and Kit Kat also managed to find time to start their very own blogs! Jana Louise calls hers PetLaJa (Peterson Lapat Jana). She came up with that by herself. The other Goop Ball calls her blog chocolate kit kat. You can catch their first posts now, and (as long as their attention spans hold up) you can follow their exploits in school and at home in the future.

Okay, so what is it like to suddenly have five kids in our lives? I think this story sums it up nicely:

Cathy and I have long been talking about taking some time for just the two of us to get away and spend a little time together. But opportunities just didn’t seem to present themselves, and the idea didn’t sit well with the two little Goop Balls when we’d floated it earlier. But last Sunday, with the extra Labor Day holiday to work with, we decided that it was time.

We were typically a few hours behind schedule for our planned departure and we were seeing to various chores around the house when Kit Kat found me in the garage and said, “Dad, it’s your anniversary.” I thought aloud for a second. “What month is this? Is it September already?” I said, “You’re right. Our anniversary is coming up soon. Wait… what day is this?” Then it hit me. She means today is our anniversary! Oh crap! I am in so much trouble!

So I slinked upstairs, put my arms around Cathy (as much to keep her from being able to land a crushing blow as to give her a loving hug), and sheepishly whispered into her ear, “Happy anniversary, Cutie…” She gave me some grief for not having remembered sooner, but her recriminations were strangely tame. Then I realized that she had been so busy dealing with the kids that she too had forgotten that it was our anniversary. That was a relief!

So fate had been kind to us in driving us toward a day together before we even knew that it was supposed to be our day. We went to an excellent wine and food tasting at Harry & David. Naturally, we ended up shopping too much to have time to go to a movie as planned. But we didn’t care. It was great to have the time together. We took some time to sit quietly in the park between shopping sprees at Fred Meyer and Target. It was really nice.

And to top it all off, we arrived home to a beautifully-decorated dining room table, with flowers, cards and a huge cake that Grandma and the kids had rounded up while we were gone. It was our best anniversary so far. We actually can’t remember what we did for the other two right now… But I don’t think we’re going to forget this one—the one we almost forgot before it even got started!

We had a great time camping at Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park last weekend. When we got there we found that the site we had reserved (which was the last site available at the time I made the reservation) truly sucked. It was out on the road with no tree coverage, so it was like camping on your front lawn. Fortunately, we were able to switch to a much better site on the first night, and a better site yet for the second night, so it all worked out. It was typical camping: pitching tents, making smores, hiking in the woods. It was great fun. I’ll let the (many) pictures do the talking…

No doubt most of you have already seen this, but if you haven’t you absolutely need to.  I was fortunate enough to have learned about it from the Daily Show, and thus got to share my own outrage with Jon Stewart’s reactions.  All I can say is that Cheney knows no shame.  Do yourself a favor and watch the video on YouTube.  Here are Dick Cheney’s words from 1994 about why we shouldn’t have toppled Saddam Hussein in 1991.  Unbelieveable:

Q: Do you think the U.S., or U.N. forces, should have moved into Baghdad?

A: No.

Q: Why not?

A: Because if we’d gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn’t have been anybody else with us. There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq.

Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein’s government, then what are you going to put in its place? That’s a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it—eastern Iraq—the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years. In the north you’ve got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey.

It’s a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.

The other thing was casualties. Everyone was impressed with the fact we were able to do our job with as few casualties as we had. But for the 146 Americans killed in action, and for their families—it wasn’t a cheap war. And the question for the president, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad, took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth?

Our judgment was, not very many, and I think we got it right.

In addition to his intelligence, his desire to curb the exaggerated influence of the rich, and his sound policies for health care reform and national security, perhaps the best reason for Democrats to nominate Barack Obama rather than Hillary Clinton is his electability.  No matter what we may think of Mrs. Clinton, the fact remains that there is a sizable part of the electorate in the middle and on the right that dislikes her enough to withhold their votes or even to mobilize for her Republican opponent.  Two interesting articles in the Washington Post today underscore this point.  They can be found in the What’s News? section of this site.