SUZI: Asleep on My Feet

For years I’ve heard about how Scott’s Grammie broke her foot when she stood up without realizing that her foot had gone to sleep.  She stepped weird, and that was it.  I must admit that I never really understood how she didn’t know her foot was asleep.  When I have a limb that’s asleep it either has those needle pains in it or it is oddly numb – that kind of numb that you can feel (which I realize seems to make no sense).  I recently had the opportunity to understand with a little more clarity.


I was trying to get Cooper nice and calm before taking a nap.  We were in the comfy chair in his room; he was snuggled in my arms.  We were rocking; we were listening to lullabies.  That’s all I remember until I woke up an hour later…still holding my snuggly (and now sleeping) little guy in exactly the same spot.  I wasn’t twisted in some weird position.  Nothing seemed to be pressing on my legs.  I was just sitting in the chair.  I stood up to put him in his crib when suddenly I found my right leg unable to carry any weight.  Apparently my leg had gone to sleep without any of the telltale signs.  All I knew was in a split second I was crashing to the floor and seeing my ankle twist under me as I fell.  I was trying to hold onto Cooper but dropped him a few inches above the floor just before I fell.  He, of course, woke up in complete shock.   At first I wasn’t able to move my foot and was in a good deal of pain; I was afraid I had broken something.  I didn’t want to freak Cooper out, but I needed to let him know there was a problem.  All I could think to say as I was clutching my ankle and trying to breathe was, “Mommy…owie!  Mommy…owie!” 

I also couldn’t help thinking, “I can’t believe I woke Cooper up from his nap over this!”
 


I slinkied my way down the stairs but realized that Cooper wasn’t following me.  He can navigate stairs with no problem, but I think he was so stunned by what had happened that he was still sitting on his bedroom floor crying.  I called and called to him, but he wouldn’t budge.  So I crawled my way back upstairs, got him and maneuvered back downstairs.  I made an icepack, and by this point realized that I could move my foot and toes and hoped for nothing more than a sprain.  Cooper was happy to sit on my lap as I fed him ice chips out of my icepack and read him books.  I called Scott who did some quick research on how to handle sprains – icepacks, ibuprofen, elevating the sprain.  I tried to take it as easy as I could with a 15 month old who still loves to be toted around.  The next few days I hobbled along fine – just no racing Cooper around on his little bike.  Thankfully, at this point it looks like it’s just a sprain with plenty of swelling and soreness. 
 
Because we document all of our wounds, you too can enjoy a picture of this injury.  And the next time someone talks about a leg going to sleep without knowing it, know that it is absolutely possible.

A little creativity

I don't claim to be a craftsman... but I do fancy a turn about the shop with power tools from time to time.  And I'm a sucker for improvement opportunities when they pop up (which seems to be all the time!).  I've been waiting for a file cabinet for a couple of months at work.  It seems it needed to be custom built to match my space (a lot more on that later...).  So, in the meantime, I've been working out of boxes of files culled from various offices and closets.  One afternoon, while digging through another carton of crazy, I couldn't deal with it any longer.  That night I went home, pulled out some scrap wall brackets, sliced up some excess lumber and voila', a temporary filing system!

Theoretically, my furniture should arrive tomorrow... if so, I'll post more!

An STL Weekend w/ U2 & the Zoo

Many months ago, we picked up tix for the U2 concert in STL.  We had no idea if we'd be in town.  We had no idea what we'd do with Cooper.  It was U2.  In STL... there was no question. 

If you watched a time lapse of our life conversation since then, you'd hear a lot of, "What are we going to do with Cooper?"   It's a whole 'nother post, but suffice it to say, Cooper has very specific needs when it comes to sleep.  One of those necessities happens to be Suzi.  Alone.

What was a concert soon became a full-blown weekend vacation at Len & Helen's house with all the wonderful love and attention that goes along with it.  The two McGarvey siblings dragged their respective families into their living room and deposited what constituted a small wagon train of supplies worthy of the Oregon Trail.  Do you know what it takes to keep two 15 month-olds going for three days?  I do.  And it required me using my roof rack.

But that was really only necessary because I was also carrying a small studio with me as well.  Cyndy, a fellow AIMer, is about to go on the fundraising road, so we're doing her promo video.  It made sense for us to meet in STL for a taping while the clan invaded the Zoo and the house returned to some semblance of order.  Throw in a BBQ with the McClintock crew and, well, yeah...  it was a busy weekend.

But the shining star of the whole parade was Bono and friends at Busch Stadium.  General admission meant it was all up to us as to where we got to stand.  Part of the group went early.  Suzi & I waited it out as long as we could before heading over to the venue.  Something about 10,000 people crushed into the infield, all standing on an aluminum floor baked at 100 degrees just kept me second-guessing right up to our Gate 5 entry.  I was happily surprised.  Busch spokesmen were warning of baked potato burns from the floor and advertising cooling stations.  It was downright pleasant.  We stood in great view of the stage.  The rest of our group was tucked up in the inner circle under the bridges... and they've got great pix to prove it.

It was a good concert.  I was nearly teary when Bono walked past the entry camera and appeared on the massive 360 screen.  This has been a bucket-lister for us and we got it done.  Just the two of us.  It was the first time Suz and I have done something alone for any stretch of time in 15 mos.  Big steps for baby parents.  We left mid-way through to relieve the baby-sitters... it took two sets of uncles & aunts to deal with our combined brood.  Cooper did alright.  Not great... but well enough to not leave indelible scarring on the family. 

Pix are in the usual place... and a side note: If you program your thermostat to Vacation, but forget to add in the "cool" function, you get to come home to 89 degrees... and that takes some time to cool down.  

Just passin' that on.

New Skills

Caps & Pens

The Mouse

Chocolate Ice cream

All the necessities of life.

Life & Military Spouses

A co-worker of mine is married to an Air Force Reservist. Rumors floated for sometime that there would be a ship date soon, and a couple of weeks ago, the papers finally arrived.  He's going to Afghanistan at the end of July.  This started a flurry of activity for them and quite a bit of conversation for all of us.  They've been married less than a year.  She's managed to deal with the weekend separations and a two-week training op, but 9 mos is a whole 'nother story.  Did they know this was a possibility?  Sure.  It comes with the territory.  But, there's still something lurking just below the surface when we all talk about the deployment.  He's going to war and, as much as we all like to wave flags and cheer, it's scary for everyone involved.

She recently passed over a blog entry from a career military spouse to me.  It was an interesting take on the home-bound reality of military life.  This was my co-worker's perspective:

"The blog does explain the large and obvious separation between military families and civilian families.  But in my eyes it shows the bravery that most spouses carry and the pride they have in their husbands/wives, which is what I find most inspiring within the military today[...] That is why spouses like her are people I look up to being new to military life, even if I only see and deal with an ounce of what she lives through daily."

We talked last week about the fact we've been at war in some form since 2003.  In contrast to the civilian environment of WWII, our lives are largely unchanged.  No rationing, no bond drives, no politicians drumming up support "for our boys over there" at every public gathering.  It's not a world war per se, but there is world-wide conflict.  It's not something to take lightly nor forget in our daily, mundane routines.  Somewhere there's a mom or a dad or sibling or spouse shipping out.  And they're leaving a big hole behind.

Ask how you can support your local military family...

July 4th Weekend

Our weekend consisted of two things:

Pulling out carpet and Cooper on the back deck with a hose. 

All other events, family or otherwise can fall under these two categories.  It was a good weekend.

Professor Greenbottoms

Because sometimes you need a bunny named "Prof Greenbottoms," the blue binkus and a book with mom to help you wind down at the end of the day.