Pediatrician woes

We've had a couple of issues over the last two years with Gabriel's pediatrician.  I'm not sure if it's the doctor himself or the staff being overworked and not providing very good patient service.  We were supposed to get a referral to a speech therapist for Gabriel, but have yet to hear anything.  Every time we try to call the referral person at their office, she is not in (or just doesn't answer the phone), and she doesn't have voice mail (conveniently enough).  Luckily my Dad knew people to ask to get us some help right away, and the wheels have been in motion for three weeks now.  

However, the most recent issue happened this week, and this one might just be the one that forces us into action.  The nurse called to tell me that Gabriel's blood work from his two-year checkup came back with a high white blood cell count, and wanted to know if he was ill when I brought him in that day.  Since it's been almost SIX WEEKS since then, I had to really stop and remember that he was coming down with a bad cold that day (the day after his birthday party).  She said that was probably the reason but they wanted me to bring him back in to get retested.  Well, that sent off all sorts of alarm bells in my "worried parent" area of my brain, which tends to be a bit overactive.  We went yesterday, and the doctor said they needed to retest to rule out anything more serious than a virus.  Of course I asked "like what?"  And he said that a high white blood cell count with no other obvious symptoms is a red flag for leukemia.  He was retested, and as we waited for the results I think I aged about 40 years.  The count came back in the normal range this time, and we went home and celebrated with a big bowl of ice cream (and many thanks for our blessings).  

The issue, of course, is why they waited so long to let us know that the first test came back with an alarming number.  I was supposed to ask this question, but decided while I was sitting there waiting that I didn't care what the answer was.  No matter what they told me, the fact remains that they didn't call us in a timely manner on something pretty serious.  So we are going to ask around to get some new names.  I really hate to change.  We've gotten pretty comfortable going there, and I like our doctor.  But now I have doubts about whether they are providing the very best care for my kid.  And that wins out over everything else.

Love this picture

Change of plans

Well, we didn't leave as planned.  Jav's Mom got sick and we are waiting one day to see if she feels well enough to go tomorrow.  If not then Gabriel and I aren't going either and Jav and his Dad will have to make the trip by themselves.  I realized at three in the morning that if Consuelo doesn't come along to help me with Gabriel, especially in the car, it just isn't a good idea for us to go.  She has never-ending patience and he would get tired of me somewhere around Waco.  It's an 11 hour drive, for Pete's sake!  

A little more about the James McMurtry (son of lauded author Larry McMurtry) concert.  We are new fans of his.  We discovered him through Abby Goldstein's former 90.1 Lone Star Saturday Night radio show (which was pure gold, and still very much missed in these parts).  We liked one song, so went out and bought a CD and really liked it.  Then recently Jav bought two more, and we both really liked them, too.  It's been a wish of Jav's to see him for about a year now, so it was really cool that he came to Dallas around his birthday.  He is very liberal, and most of the audience looked like people who had been to Woodstock-still with hippie long hair and tie-died clothing in various forms, just a little grayer and paunchier.  The only disappointment I had was that most of his songs I really like have different instruments in them, like an accordion or string instruments.  But he had one other guitar player, a bass player and a drummer.  But it was good bare bones rock and roll, so I can't complain too much.

But my gosh, am I not used to staying out that late anymore.      

Whew, what a weekend

We went to Charlie's retirement party (very briefly, unfortunately, since Gabriel was coming down with a cold and Jav had been out of town all week).  But it was fun to see everybody.  Saturday we worked on the house and yard, then that night went to see Jav's birthday present - James McMurtry (pictured above) at the Granada Theater.  It was an excellent show, but it ran long because they were taping it for a live album.  We didn't get home until 2.  Yikes.  

Then we had to get up early because the whole family was coming for lunch.  We had a great time, but missed April who had come down with the flu.  Double yikes!   As soon as everybody went home, we went into packing mode.  We leave for South Padre at three in the morning .  Triple yikes!  It's our yearly maintenance trip, plus hopefully some fun times at the beach too.  I've got to go to bed.  And we're not taking the laptop, so no posts for me for the rest of the week.  

Waste

Our family has gone pretty "green" the last few years in many ways.  We did it gradually, so that it doesn't seem like we made any drastic changes, just a bunch of small ones that hopefully add up to alot.  I decided that I really wanted to share some of the changes we made, and felt like our Neighborhood Association monthly newsletter was a good place to do this.  I think we have a great newsletter with tons of info in it each month, but there was nothing about environmental tips.  So I've been writing a column for 5 months now called "Going Green".  I think my articles are getting better and better each month, but I'm actually having to do a little research now each time.  This is a good thing because it really has made me wake up about some things we still need to improve upon in our household.  

My last article was about purchasing habits.  I covered bottled water, over-packaged items and food (specifically food that's traveled a long way to get to your table).  Ever since I wrote this one, I've noticed myself really paying attention to what I'm buying.  And I've come to the conclusion that we live in a terribly wasteful country, where advertisers of "convenient" products or crap to supposedly beautify your home have gotten completely out of control.  

The first place this theory smacked me in the face was while walking through a Pottery Barn recently.  I had been given a gift card to purchase some dinnerware, but found that it was too expensive for us.  So I decided to use my gift card to buy other people birthday presents.    I found myself wondering why most of the stuff in that store is necessary to any one's life.  Do you really need a glass bowl with autumn colored beads sitting in the middle of your dining room table?  How about just using a wooden salad bowl filled with oranges?  What about those little special pillows to pile up on your bed that look really pretty but get cast aside at night because they are not comfortable to sleep on?  And how many candles and candle holders does one really need?  I know I've got a drawer full with some new, some half burned that are gathering dust right now.  I think your house smells good if you cook on a regular basis.  I don't need an overly scented candle that will probably mess with my allergies anyway.

I am guilty of wasteful spending when it comes to Gabriel.  Not on clothes or books, but on things like Halloween decorations for the yard.  I already had some, purchased way before I even thought I'd ever have a child.  But I catch myself wanting to go hog wild just so he'll get a kick out it, when in reality he gets a kick out of having a pumpkin on the porch.  I also have a tendency to just grab things without really thinking about what they're made out of.  I bought these really cool faux iron fence pieces, but when I got home I realized that we really didn't need them and God knows what they are made out of.  It's not like we can recycle them - only hope that someone else wants them when they start to fall apart (or worse, when we get tired of them).  I had them in the car to return and realized my receipt says All Sales Are Final, and I spent the trip home cursing myself for ever buying them in the first place.  

We need to realize that so much of what we see on TV or in magazines is stuff we don't really need.  I'm not advocating living like monks or anything.  I can appreciate beautiful things and comfortable living as much as the next person.  I'm just saying maybe we all need to stop and think before we throw another item in the cart, and think about where it could end up when we are through with it.  And maybe our perception of "beautiful" and "comfortable" needs to be downscaled a little.  At least I know mine does.

Maybe I'm changing because of economic necessity, but regardless of the reason, I'm glad the change is happening and I don't think I'll ever go back to wasteful spending no matter how much money we have.

The boy can sing

Today is the first day Gabriel hummed a song and actually carried the tune.  He's been humming along for a couple of weeks, and occasionally even would go up or down at the right time.  But this was a distinctive melody, to "On the Good Ship Lollipop", a song my grandfather used to sing to me and the one I've probably been singing to him the longest.  I heard him on the monitor just after I put him down for a nap.

I knew he would be musical.  I've been playing music for him or singing to him since the day he was born, and he's always been so responsive.  His interest has really been cranked up a notch since I got two kid songs CDs (one with generic classics, but with a pretty good rock band, and one with Sesame Street classics.)  I really didn't want to cave in and play kid songs in the car, but after I saw how much his little face lit up and he started clapping every time it came on, I was hooked.  He's now standing up and clapping and dancing to music on TV.   He even made up his own composition last week, a little number we call, "The Quesadilla Song".  It basically consists of him sitting on the chair of his choice, swaying back and forth and clapping, while chanting "Dilla hmmm, dilla hmmmm, dilla hmmmm."  Etc...  Then the audience goes wild and he does it again.  

Death of (or at least injury to) a neighborhood institution

It's tough to make it in the restaurant business anywhere, but it seems the challenges grow exponentially on our little Eastside.  Charlie's Pizza, owned by Charlie Langdon, was one of those rare instances where hard work, delicious food and owner charisma combined to form something magical.  It was like Cheers, but with added garlic.  You always saw someone you knew either waiting for their takeout, or sitting in a booth guiltily enjoying their garlic knots.  If you were really lucky, you hit a day when Charlie himself was there and could pull up a chair and chat for awhile.   

Charlie and his family moved hear from New York state in the early 80's.  The reason I first checked out the restaurant was because his son, Chris, was in my homeroom, and we became really good friends in high school.  Back then the restaurant was called Pizza Shack and was blocks from the high school, and it quickly became another hangout for our big group of friends.  I'm sure just the curiosity surrounding the new Northerners was enough to get people in the doors initially.  But once you met Charlie and Nancy, his equally endearing wife who was always there helping out at first, you didn't want to leave.  They also were great about employing high school kids, my brother being one of them.  They were so good to everybody who worked for them, and became like surrogate parents to lots of kids.

They moved to a different location in 92, but everybody still living in this neighborhood moved right with them.  That's about when my grandparents discovered them and started wanting to eat there on many Saturday nights.  Charlie and Nancy became even better friends to our whole family, and were very sad when my grandfather died and my grandmother decided to move back to Fredericksburg a year later.  I think for a long time it was too painful for my Mom or I to eat there.  

We started eating there again 5 or 6 years ago, and quickly grew to love the place all over again.  I introduced Jav to the place when we started dating, and he loved it too.  The first time we took my nephew Cade, he was so enchanted by Charlie he couldn't stop talking about him, and wanted to know when we could go back.  Charlie just has that effect on people.

We found out a couple of weeks ago that Charlie has decided to retire.  The neighborhood had become a tough place to exist, and business had been waxing and waning since the block became known as a bad panhandler area.  Nancy said he was just tired.  They've sold the business to a lawyer who wants to continue the restaurant in the same spirit, but there's just no way that place will be anything but bricks and mortar without Charlie's personality.  Jav and I are really sad, not just that another great neighborhood business is biting the dust, but that our area is losing such wonderful people.   

His last night is coming up, and it's looking like it might be a mini-reunion.  Chris is even coming into town from Atlanta.  We'll try to send them out with a bang!

Happy Birthday, Javi!

My husband gets mentioned alot in this blog, but he rarely has the spotlight.  The reason for this is twofold.  One, the kid and the pets seem to demand more attention, and two, he prefers to stay very much out of the spotlight.  But because today is his birthday, he'll just have to put up with me because I have some things to say.  

Thanks for being an ever present and calming force to my frenetic whirlwind pace.

Thanks for putting up with my moodiness and temper, and basically laughing it off (later after I've calmed down, of course).

Thanks for eating pretty much anything I put in front of you, even though it's meant going from a most-night-meat-eater to an almost vegetarian during the week.  

Thanks for being a true Dad; not just for the fun play times but for diaper changes and middle-of-the-night back scratching too.  

Thanks for being such a thoughtful, romantic husband.

Thanks for giving my life so much more love and meaning than I ever thought it could have.

Happy Birthday, honey!

Fall is in the air

And it's about darn time!  Although it's still pretty warm.  I need to start putting up the Halloween decorations, but just can't get into the right mood yet.

I'm also having a really hard time trying to figure out Gabriel's Halloween costume this year.  It's not like I can just ask him what he wants to be yet.  Last year the bumblebee was a pretty last minute thing, based only on the fact that he at least knew what a bee was and liked the sound Mama made every time we talked about one.  

I started out looking for Dipsy costumes (for those not in the know, he's the green and very hipster Telletubby).  But he's starting to distance himself from them so I gave up.  Plus they are a little harder to find and more expensive than other costumes.  

A few weekends ago we searched three stores for a costume and didn't come up with anything.  Then Gabriel and I were in Toys R Us and found an alligator costume that was pretty cute and in his size, so I grabbed it up.  I've put it on him once, and he smiled at himself in the mirror, but then after five minutes he wanted to remove that thing hanging down over his head and that was the end of that.  I don't know if I want to battle with him Halloween night to keep the head part on.  I probably should try to put him in it some more.  But I kept the receipt, and it may be going back.

The thing I really want him to be is The Count from Sesame Street.  He's started counting everything (with little hums instead of numbers), and loves to do the Count's laugh afterwards.  A generic vampire costume could probably be tricked up a little to make this work.  Jav had the idea to stencil some numbers on it, which is a really good idea.  

I know I'm over-thinking, but it's only because I really don't want to put a costume on him until next year when he can pick out what he wants to be.  But then, oooh would I have some grandparents mad at me.

Birthday party pictures

All the grandparents except my Dad, and our neighbors George and Billie.  We consider them honorary grandparents to Gabriel.

My brother and niece, Macy, with her awesome Beatles tee on.  My brother had actually ordered a pink AC/DC tee for her, and this came instead.  I call that Divine Intervention!  My Dad (aka Poppy) is playing ping pong against me in the background.  I was so proud to be winning our game until he told me halfway through that he was playing me left handed.  That's just mean.

The ping pong was SO much fun.  This is a vintage table we have now inherited from my Mom and Dad, and I hope we'll be using it often.  

The badminton was a hit too, even though it got a little steamy out in the sun sometimes.  

This was a good place to go if you got too steamy.  Andrew is valiantly guarding his balloons to the far left (even though the balloons are just out of the picture).

A few more

Singing Happy Birthday to very sweaty and overheated little boy!

What fun would kid's birthday parties be without Shiner?  I shudder to think.

I love that all the kids wanted to gather around Gabriel to watch him open presents.  

The Curious George pinata, before he met with his rather violent and untimely end.

The mad scramble for ooey gooey half melted candy.  Yum.

Herb garden...again?

I've tried to grow herbs several times over the last few years.   Only a few have been successful for a long period - rosemary and oregano.  All the others, especially the ones I use most frequently, don't do very well after the first month I plant them.  I need basil, thyme, flat-leaf parsley, chives, dill and cilantro.  Those are the ones I find myself buying in the produce section over and over, and then throwing away the unused portion (which always gets me thinking about growing my own).  I'm pondering the option of  growing them indoors this time, but I'm not sure if we get enough light in our one Southern-facing window during the winter.  I read a tip of putting aluminum foil behind the plants to get them even more light.  I don't think I want to try a grow light.   That just seems like too much trouble and I don't know where I'd put it.  And I just read that basil won't work indoors, it needs too much sun.  I guess it won't hurt to try a few, other than being out the price of the herbs.  Again.