My Mom's Here

Welcome to my world.  My face has rounded out rather widely over the last week.  I only took one week off of going to the gym, because of a rapid heart rate and palpitations.  Then lovely side effect of the prednisone moon face has appeared. Chipmunk cheeks, oompa loompa, I'm sure you get the picture.  I guess it really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.  My friend Meghan asked me how I was feeling as David and I rushed in late for gymnastics class.  "Good! Yup, back to my old self of cramming lots of activities in and being late!"  I'm very grateful I'm able to function and take care of things and then some. Let's hope this continuea as I taper down the prednisone.  I know the moon face is a cosmetic thing, and hopefully temporary, but definitely better than not being able to talk and swallow. I know it would be better to stay off of "white" carbohydrates, and was that a slice of pizza I had today?  Yup.  Just Begin : We...

David's cello teacher is fantastic.  Barb encompasses many ways I would like to be as a teacher.  One of her best attributes is her ability to analyze how her teaching has worked, how to critically evaluate the results of her method, and how to design and execute a plan to best educate any child as a musician.  Not only that, but she is great with David. He started to read bass clef music today after a few months of flash cards.  Traditional music teachers often argue that Suzuki students cannot read music. Since I started 400+ instrumental music students in this traditional way and I am now intrigued with these different strategies.    Bottom line without a lot of depth: As parents, we should be playing music for our children all the time.  Classical in the background and Suzuki CDs for their instrument as a habit.  The more they listen, the more they feel and internalize.  Then, whatever level they are playing at, they are able to feel t...

When Naomi was born, I was in production of Beauty and the Beast with Marple Newotwn High School.  This was one of my favorite jobs.  I was directing a high school musical and this was my first go at it! When I found out I was pregnant and the show opened a week after my due date, I was even more excited.  Yeah, sounds a bit crazy, but I loved the many aspects of directing a musical and was up for the challenge.  I was fascinated watching the vision of the scenery come to construction, the notes in the score become the characters' thoughts in sound, the lighting and sound cues transform the house into a new world, the moments of "aha!" when students understood their character enough to draw the audience in, and the Disney-cry moments when it really all came together.  We took Naomi to the show when she was a few days old, against medical advice but with plenty of drugs.  I could not tolerate not being there and at least catching a glimpse of what it could ...

What's your dream job? I have asked this question many times among twenty-somethings, and love the responses.  Sometimes saddened by the lack of response, but when pushed just a tad usually twenty-somethings open up to perfect strangers about what their dream job is better than to their own parents. We just got home from the American Heart Association Capital Area Heart Ball, raising money for research in heart and stroke care.  We sat around a table with doctors and bankers and enjoyed everyone's company and stories.   My radar went to the sad eyes of the banker parents of their twenty-something year old children, where two out of the four children are heading to California to "find their life." Not bad, just different from the college-job-live track, and it is obviously bothering the parents.  The college-job-live track is a hot topic in our household and breathes insight to flaws in mainstream American education. But it is just funny to me, because I pic...

I washed my face this morning with a warm comfortable stream of water as the bustle of the morning buzzed on, and my phone distracted me with plans of the day and weekend.  It's so good to be back in the swing of life, talking, eating, going out with friends, and managing the household.  Albeit brief so far, I'll take it, this feels like a vacation from Myasthenia Gravis.  Let's hope this continues.   I'm on a medical plan to taper down the prednisone, so tomorrow I will be down to 20 mg daily.  I'm pretty excited about this, and hoping that as the artificial sense of energy I have had from the 40mg and 30 mg dosages will not pull me into lethargy.  I hope many other things, like that talking and swallowing continue to go well and that I can keep up parenting and living well, in whatever form it takes over the next season.  As I focus on each new day, the Myasthenia Gravis I am fighting takes a little more of a back-seat and I get a little more out ...

The amount of adjectives accompanying my raspberry dark chocolate bar is astounding. Organic, fair traded, sustainably sourced, supports the protection of endangered species, non-GMO, and a few other engaging descriptions. I'm glad I left the wrapper downstairs to limit my eating to a fraction of the perfectly-made thing, and limit my thinking as to how righteous I am to buy such a perfectly-cultivated strip of decadence. As the three squares rest along my wine glass, I grab the computer and hear my dear little David.  Okay, this will have to wait, he is sick and I need to tend to him.  The illusion and delusion that I am doing something perfectly or righteously gets me every time. I know a bit of scripture and a bit of doctrine, a bit of common sense and a bit of wisdom, and am content to pray within my days and moments to learn more in due time. I'm deceived into seeing perfection by looking at wrappers and descriptions, status posts and pins, and usually fascinated with ...

Today I bought a dress for our black tie event this weekend and buzzed around town shopping.  This week feels like a true doctor's wife week.  Mike had a media interview today and was quoted for an international press release, has community teaching tomorrow, a farewell party for colleague and fundraiser this weekend.  I'm going through lists of outfits and social graces necessary for both of us to attend everything with excellence and intentionally prioritize our precious family time in between. The mornings of bustling for an hour before school never lend themselves to visions that I would be sitting around a table the said evening, smiling like life is always a black-tie affair. So, this happened last Friday:  The kids and I both work up late, I ended up losing my cool in a far-less-than-beautiful way, and Mike walked in from the gym around 6:40am to an awesome family explosion.  Great.  Have a great day and go stick your tools in some hearts without ...