Sledboarding and No Gurring!

What's new this week? Chris lost his second tooth! This photo was taken midweek, after the loss of his first tooth. Last night he went to bed with a wiggly tooth that was turning almost 360 degrees in his head but would not come out. This morning it finally let go.

Maya loves to be outside in the snow. She starts out helping me shovel the deck, but as soon as she remembers she can fit inside the snow shovel, I end up giving her snow shovel rides around the deck. She also loves to sled. This week we were able to complete another speech evaluation at Birth Two Three. It took all the speech therapist tricks Martha had and all the mom tricks I had to keep bringing her back to the table until we got through the whole flip book of words she needed to say. Martha and I were very pleased with the progress she made. Not that Maya didn't growl at us a few times during the testing.

We have friends in Washington who had a miniature Schnauzer that was frequently growling. Whenever the dog growled, our friends would say, "No gurring!" Now when Maya growls at us, we say the same thing. The boys call her "the Mayanator". It's a great name for her. And l ike the Terminator, it suggests the presence of a very powerful being. A force to be reckoned with.

Speaking of forces to be reckoned with, I hit the wall yesterday. The wall of beaurocracy. I'm talking on the scale of Social Security and the state board of licensing. It has been one of those weeks where no one returns my phone calls or emails. I found out I was 2 pharmacology units shy of getting my license renewed. Not that I was actually short of continuing education. But because one of the conferences I attended did not specify how many of the 12 hours of lecture that I were spent discussing medications, the state licensing board would not renew my license. After trying to call different organizations to remedy the situation and getting nowhere, I broke down and blubbered like a baby to my very understanding husband.

He helped me choose the path of least resistance. He signed me up for an account at Medscape so I could get two more hours of continuing education on line while Maya napped yesterday. They don't call him Dr. Wise for nothing. I even learned a lot. I've had a mental block on the topic of osteoporosis for a long time. I spent one of my two hours learing more about it and now I feel much better about counseling my patients about when to treat. The other hour was spent learning how to best advise patients on the risks, benefits and side effects of medication.

The other walls are going to be harder to scale but I won't bore you with the details. At least I have lots of options when dealing with the other beaurocracies. I am thinking about all the Holt Families that are still waiting to bring their children home from Vietnam. Particularly the children in Dong Nai Province, where the hurdles often feel insurmountable. These families are in need of our prayers and support. Not a day goes by that I do not think about all of you.

Today was a better day for me. After church while Matt was putting Maya down for a nap, Chris asked if I wanted to go outside and sled with him. I said "sure." After a few runs he asked if I wanted him to teach me how to snow board. I said "sure, why not?" Then he showed me how to stand up on the sled while going down hill. I tried it and fell down. A lot. It hurt. A lot. I also laughed and screamed a lot. He asked "Mom, have you ever been this wild before?" I said "Not for a long time." He said "Like 20 years?" I said "Yeah, about 20 years." It's hard to stay down in the dumps with Chris around. He's always coming up with the most humerous and profound statements. He's the classic middle child, attention seeker, class clown.

I tend to avoid sports that involve falling down and getting hurt. That might change if I get a wild hair or have a midlife crisis when the boys are teenagers and I decide to take up snowboarding, hockey or surfing. There's a reason why you should not wait until you are middle aged to try those kinds of sports. Maybe I should start taking drugs to build my bone density now. Even if I don't take up snowboarding in my fifties, maybe I'll be less likely to break a bone if I slip on the stairs walking to Maya's graduation.