The Puddles

“It’s as slow as a sleeping sloth with a bunch of anchors tied to its ankles,” declares Ben. 

I can’t remember what this was in reference too, because I was laughing so hard.

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Such as . . . 

Chris just came back recently from a gathering of his college friends and other TLU alum last weekend.  When he came home and started telling me all about his weekend and filling me in on all of our friends’ life updates, there was a sense of deep satisfaction. I had known some of these people for 20 years and been lucky enough to be a part of their life journey.  So even though we may move around the country and our day to day friends may change, there were deep ties to many people in our lives that cannot be severed by miles. That was a deep satisfying feeling.  It made me realize that the blessings are never ending and thank goodness for that.  These deep ties are one of the bonuses of getting older.  Ties that are tested and true.

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When the negative side of humanity rears its ugly head at events starring Girl Scouts or the church, people (especially myself) are often surprised. You would think that at event sponsored by organization that have such wonderful values as part of their core teachings that everyone at every time would exhibit those values. But people are people and they still behave poorly on occasion.

We (myself, Grandma G., Ainsley, and Madie) attended the BIG event yesterday. It was awesome (pictures to be posted later). All day the girls kept seeing girls with colored stripes in their hair. We couldn’t figure out which booth this was. By the afternoon, the girls started asking around to see where these girls had their hair colored. Finally 45 minutes before the end of the day, we found the booth. We got in line and Madie and her buddy started chatting with the mother/daughter in front of us. At 10 minutes before the end of the day, four girls cut in line in front of the mother/daughter team. The mother told the girls that they can’t cut in line. This group of girls spoke disrespectfully to the mother and said something about that those girls were from their troop and that they could join them if they wanted too. I am thinking that those girls are being awfully rude, but it is the end of the day and I’m trying not to make a ruckus. Right when Madie and her buddy get to the table . . . the troop leader running the booth tells us that they are shutting the booth down because it is the end of the day. I go to the booth leader and tell her about the girls cutting in line and that if they hadn’t my girls would have had their hair done. We had been waiting 45 minutes and the girl cut in line 10 minutes ago. The leader says that it is not her problem and that she didn’t see the girls cut, so there was nothing she could do. I asked her to please just do my girls hair and help them out. She refused. There was one girl left from that troop and I asked her where her leader was. She said she didn’t know (yeah right). But I was not willing to bully a teenager and really wanted to take up my issue with the troop leader of the girls who cut in line. I never did find that troop. I was furious. My girls are devastated and I just want someone to show some humanity for this situation and put a smile back on my girls’ faces. (After we walked away, the booth kept doing other girls hair and one of my troop moms saw it. She went over to the booth to see if they would do my girls hair and they STILL refused.)

So I could either let this situation ruin our day which would be a shame, or I could find those evil teenagers and take my fury out on them which would bring me down to their level, or I could look for the positive and set a good example for my girls. I chose option 3. So even though the girls were so upset, we talked about the good of the event. 1. if we hadn’t stood in line, we never would have met the mother/daughter duo in front of us. They were really awesome and we made some new friends. 2. We now know what it feels like to have someone’s callous actions hurt us tremendously, and we can vow to never do that to anyone else.

So at the end of the day, the girls and I didn’t let this event define us or our day. And since all of the girls in my group spent the night with us last night, we stopped at the drug store on the way home and bought pink and purple hair dye (washable). And I streaked all of their hair. We ended up having a really great time and the girls all wore their “Rocker Chick” look to church today. In the end, only we can let someone ruin our day and we decided we weren’t going to let them. We had a really good day.

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Ainsley certainly is full of something!  Love.  Sweetness. Joy. Silliness. Evil Powers. Spit and Vinegar. A desire to rule the world. Those are my first thoughts when the doctor was talking.  But no.  The doctor says . . . poo. That’s right. Poor kid.  It was so much that she comes to the room and gets Ainsley and I to follow her over to the medical imaging business across the hall to see the xray we just took.  She’s right!  So those tummy aches for the last few years are all do to Ainsley’s inability to get the business done. Now her large intestine is enlarged and has lost muscle mass, so we are on a two week journey to clean her out and then a six months journey to get her muscles a chance to get back their shape again.  Poor kid.  Luckily we have done this before two years ago.  So we should be pros at this.  Right? The difference is that she is bigger and stronger and her personality is a little feistier.  So convincing her to let me give her the medicine has not been fun. But we will make it through this journey too.  At least, it is not celiac and IBS words that she was throwing around at the last visit. So I’ll take this one!  Convincing Ainsley that this is good is another story!

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EVERYTHING!!!

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The sad part is that this is the first bulletin board that you see when you walk into the elementary school. Chris told the librarian this week. She caught me in the car rider line today and told me she was fixing it but that she had to wait until the PTA moms went home (since it was their board).

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Of course catching her in a quiet moment was difficult, but she managed.

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Ainsley is dancing because she got her first homework assignment. She loves her school work (this week). I told her that I was taking a picture of her loving homework, so that I could show it to her when decided that she hates homework.

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She is getting so good in art class. Her body of work is becoming so large that I will soon need an art gallery to show all of it.

She insisted that I take a picture of her with her painting inside her art studio. She LOVES art class.

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If you haven’t met Ainsley, she has the personality of someone 10 feet taller.  Most of the time she never laments over her size.  But there are times (usually late at night) she will ask why she is so “little.”  We usually tell her that God made her special that way. If that answer doesn’t work, then we tell her that it isn’t her fault that her parents aren’t exactly tall and none of the women in her family are tall (minus Aunt Debra). Her great grandmas were short. Her great aunts are short.  Her grandmas are short.  Her mother is short.  She has just been given the short end of the stick when it comes to height. But we make up for it in other ways.  (She had a friend in Nebraska who was younger than her by six months who was always way taller than her but her hair didn’t grow as fast as Ainsley’s.  We would joke that all of Ainsley’s growing fuel was being sent to her hair and not her bones!)

So we went to the doctor yesterday for our well child check up (only two months late!) and the doctor says, ” I think we need to investigate Ainsley’s lack of height.”  Really??  Really??????   Her family doctor in Nebraska would tell us it was ok that Ainsley wasn’t even on the growth chart because she was strong and healthy.  When we moved to Texas, she finally grew enough to make it to the 2% on the chart (YEAH!!!). She has stayed there ever since. At least she is consistent!

But Ainsley has a long history of tummy troubles.  We haven’t gone to the doctor about her tummy in over a year.  We have just accepted her tummy as part of who she is.  It hasn’t terribly inconvenienced our lives.  We just work around it.  The doctor said that the combination of her tummy and lack of height could mean she has something more serious.   She caught my ear on that one.   The doctor explained the tests (blood work up and a wrist X-ray).  Ok. I am feeling more inclined to follow through.  The test aren’t invasive. It is really just my time that it being used up.  So we will follow up and get the test done.

The office drew the blood work yesterday (she did stellar and was looking forward to the blood draw so she could get ice cream).  Ainsley said when she found out she was having blood drawn, “I’m glad Ben is here.  He can talk me through the procedure.”  Way to go girl!!

I love how little Ainsley is.  She is in 2nd grade and she still can snuggle on my lap.  It is awesome!  It will not hurt us to go through this process.  But after the last several weeks with multiple doctor visits for everyone in the family, I am ready to hang a neon sign on my neck for every doctor to see that lets them know that I am done with doctors, hospitals, tests, and bills.  In the words of Chris (the question he asks the children each time they come to him injured), “Are you bleeding, leaking, or broken? No?  Then you’re ok.”  This is what I want to hear from the doctor at the next checkup!

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