Booger Blog

Any of you with sensitivity to gross topics may want to skip this blog post. But when you are raised in a medical family where illness, blood, stool cultures and spiders coming out of people's tracheotomies was dinner conversation, boogers rank pretty low on my grossness scale.

My daughter tends to produce a fair amount of nose mucous. In fact, her nose seems to be leaking like a sieve, or be so crusty she can barely breath. She refuses to blow her nose and multiple family members have worked with her on how to blow her nose. So many of us have taken to cleaning out her mucous filled nose.

The last cleaning was a whopper. I have pulled many of boogers from her cute little orifice, but these two boogers take the cake. After we all starred in amazement at the sheer size of these things, her Aunt decides to make a booger jar for her and they proceed to name these two clumps of dried mucous. They are now know as Dora I and Dora II, with the jar finding a home in her bedroom.

She will now call Aunt Di when there are more boogers that need attending to, so they can find a new home out of her nose and into the jar. The next booger will be name Sophie.

Really, All in A Day

Where do I even start? I am not sure the trauma of yesterday is even over yet. Yesterday was quite an ordeal. It started on a high note, not realizing that it was all downhill from there. We started with a 1200 square foot house and five kids, all playing while my sister got a makeover. She looked fantastic!

Then as we were rushing through the drive thru for lunch, late to violin lessons, I said to my mom who was driving, "the curb!" Bump, crash. We were in the parking lot and she was looking at a group of teenagers and hit the curb. We pulled over and yes, it was a flat tire. Luckily we were just across the parking lot from the tire shop. I hauled the hot, hungry kids out of the car and we had lunch in the tire shop lobby, having to have cancelled violin lessons.

Since we missed violin, my mom decides to go to Target since a friend had gotten such great deals there. I swear she bumped the cart into multiple things and was dropping clothes.

left and right.

Then came the evening, camera shopping with my dad. My dad is a man who reads every consumer report, thoroughly researches every option, goes to multiple stores and talks to multiple sales associates, in the end not to buy anything. So to say to me that he wanted me to go camera shopping, it was dread.

We get to the store and I present him all his different options based on camera features. A salesman came by to help us and he had a horrible stuttering problem which made my dad's incessant question answering almost painful. He decided on a camera. We pulled out everything from the box to check that all was included before he even made the purchase. To top it off we decided on a case and an SD card (won't even go in to that story). I felt at peace, he made the major decisions, and I heard the scanning of the items. Then, our poor sales associate asked if my dad wanted the 3 year warranty. I just almost fell to the floor. My dad asked every warranty question imaginable, which this fellow so graciously answered. Dad of course declined after the long explanation.

We are half way there I thought to myself, now I just have to teach him to use the camera. But before leaving Target, dad decides he needs a few toiletries for his trip (which is why he was buying a camera in the first place, thanks to me. Set myself up for that one). We went to the travel size section and it caused dad distress that he could not find the same type of matching shampoo and conditioner, so we pulled bottle after bottle out of the little silver bin until we found two sets of matching shampoo/ conditioner combos. Next we were on to deodorant. And a fate worse then death, they did not carry "ban roll on" deodorant. "I just cannot try a new product on a trip" says my father. We walk to the woman's section and low and behold "ban," on sale at that. He asked me if I think he will really get the "price cut" price. "Well, of course" I say, "it is on sale." He grabs 2 and lets me know that if they are not on sale at the register he will just put them back. Really, dad, your going on a trip to Europe, just bought a $300 camera and you will squabble over a$1.45 on your deodorant?

Bags in tow we left the store, he took me to my favorite Mexican restaurant, then proceeded to tell me he was full and tired. Could I teach him to work his camera tomorrow? I told him I would charge it, and program all of his settings. "Can you make sure each picture will have a date on it?" Sure dad, see you tomorrow night for your lesson.

Love my dad and all his quirky qualities !!

Part 1 Transformation

Why did I not think to have a before and after picture of my new hair extensions? After almost a five hour process my hair stylist said, "why did we not get a picture?" Well, that would have been nice. I can't even think of the last time I was actually in a photo that I can post. But, I do plan on posting a picture of the long locks soon.

Extensions are sure the process. Rows of beading and sewing, then cutting and styling then coloring, blow drying, wow. When we finally left the salon at 11 pm we were exhausted. My head was hurting for obvious reason, and my tushie was sore from sitting so long.

The best part the next day was that my coworkers did not notice till the end of the day when another co worker came later in the day. People knew something was different but could not put their finger on it. Which, is just what I wanted. A natural, subtle look that was not a total shock.

Long Locks

Friday I hope to have a new look. I have really only had one or two major transformations, going from long, long hair to short and shorter hair styles. A few months ago I decided that after 2 years of a short haircut I wanted to grow my long hair back. Of course when I decided that was what I wanted to do, I wanted instant long hair. Months down the road and my hair is not growing fast enough. So, Friday night I am going to have extensions put in my hair. Can't wait to have the hair out of my face and off my neck, especially in this summer heat.

The second step in my transformation is to have my every five year eye exam and new eye glass frames. I have worn glasses since I was 10 and finally came to the conclusion that if I had to wear glasses everyday, why could I not have more then one pair? Maybe, more like a few pair to match with a few different outfits? People have multiple pairs of shoes, whose to say I can't have multiple pairs of glasses?

Not only for an alternating look do I want new eye glass frames, but I have these wonderful cholesterol deposits that "deposit" in my under eyes and have slowly moved up my eyes under my eyebrows. I truly dislike them and unless I have plastic surgery they are here to stay, so I hope to find frames that help to hide these nagging deposits. On another note, why did my body have to make my cholesterol deposit on my eyes? I am really not that vain, I know I could stand to lose some weight, perk up my boobs, get rid of varicose veins in my legs, but I am not really bothered by that, but I loved my blue eyes, and now the plan is to hide them. Kind of depressing.

But, I will see how my new look goes. Pony tails here I come!

Life Plan

Life does not always turn out like one has planned. I figured if I did everything the way it should be done and in the correct order, life would proceed according to the order in my mind. So here is what I did. I graduated high school and went to college, then got my graduate degree, got married, bought a house, bought a dog and then had kids. I figured since I had done everything in the "right" order, the money, the big house, the vacations and fun adult toys like boats and skis would simply fall in place like it looked like it had for my parents.

Well, that did not exactly happen. The housing market totally crashed our "big home" dream, were driving 8 year old cars and have health care bills that seem to keep piling up. Forget about the vacations and ski trips. Our annual Disneyland trip has even taken a back seat the last two years.

How is it that my husband and I have Masters Degree's and are financially squeaking by? This was not supposed to be the case, you go to college to have dreams of good jobs and financial stability. My husband and I both work in heath care and recently my husband has moved into the teaching arena. I feel bad when I think about the future of my children and discourage them from going into the human service industry. My husband cringes when I tell him I don't care if our kids go to college. Did it really work out for us? I certainly don't want my kids to be in the same spot that my husband and I are in.

Stories

As a child therapist, I have hopefully helped many children to cope with not only traumatic life events, but assisted them to cope with everyday situations and enhance their daily functioning in the world. I have heard many stories of abuse, neglect, death, bully's, and accidents. But two for sure hit home this week.

The first was a six year old boy who was hearing 5 voices in his head that were telling him that he is weird, and funny. He was also seeing a "kid" that appeared throughout his day, and could describe what he looked like, and also his unique layers of clothing he was wearing. This young boy stated they were getting annoying, all the voices and the "kid" showing up.

The second story I heard today, and have not been able to let go of. This young client of twelve year old and I were talking about his depression, what it is like for him, when it started and a few other symptoms. I asked if he thought of self harm or suicide when he was in a depressed state, and he said "not anymore, but when I was younger." As I probed him to elaborate on this he explained to me when he was 5 years old, on multiple occasions, he would go outside and lay in the street hoping that someone would run over him. This is at age 5!! I was astounded that a five year old could experience a depressed state like that in the first place, and then actually be able to follow through with a plan.

I am still tonight, having a hard time wrapping my brain around it.

Attitude

The summer is at its half way point. I was so excited at the beginning of summer to have time to do activities with my kids, go fun places and enjoy my time off with the kids. But it feels that I have not accomplished any of that.

Maybe, I am just in a mid summer funk, and am not clearly recalling things at this point. But I feel that summer has been full of many obligatories and have to's. A family wedding started the summer. It was fun to see family, but was a long travel time for our short stay. Then family was in town, which we loved, but was all consuming for almost a week. Next was violin camp, everyday for 5 days. I must say by the end of day 3, I was ready to strangle many ill behaved and disrespectful children. Next week starts dance camp for two weeks and swimming lessons for two weeks.

Could it also be too, that our friends were here on vacation and I still want to be on vacation with them? So everything feels obligatory because I rather be on vacation? We had a wonderful time with the S. family. The kids made memories that they are all still talking about, and crying about. I had so much fun with Mrs. S. sitting by the pool for hours talking about our families and parenting. She truly seemed to love my quirky family stories, and took an interest in my life. That is very rare to find once people find out that I am a therapist. When people find out I am a therapist they get into talking mode and it may never occur to them that I have not said a word about me or my life. Thanks Mrs. S. for taking an interest and acting like a "real" friend.

So, we will forge on with our summer, my pity party will come to a close, and I will re adjust my attitude and have a fantastic end to our summer.

Times

Sometimes there just are no words to describe life.

4th of July

4th of July was a spectacular day.

It started with a family boat trip out to Lake Mead. The kids were more then excited as we launched the boat and headed to a spot where we could do cannonballs off the boat, make sand castles and throw rocks. We found a great cove for all our activities and even had a picnic on the boat.

Later that evening family came over and we attempted to devoure a 30 inch pizza. Can I even begin to tell you how huge that was??? It was like the Paxinos circus as usual with all of our family chaos. The horrible headache that was behind my eye was killing me though, I could not even read the pizza menu out of that eye. But the evening must go on.

We ended the evening with the fireworks display in Boulder City. They started out pretty bleak, but the grand finale made up for the slow start. In true Paxinos style, we were waiting in an enormous traffic line to get out of Boulder city, and the low fuel light pops on. The kids both worried and went through every possible scenario of what we would do "if." But we did make it to the gas station in a timely fashion, filled up and had two kids asleep before he hit the freeway.