Today

I wanted to write something about my mother for Mother's Day today, but I can't.

What I can do is tell you that my kids said Happy Mother's Day to me about a zillion times, and even sang Happy Mother's Day To You (sounds like Happy Birthday). Sage's version sometimes did lapse into Happy Birthday instead.

When I put the kids to bed we read a story or three, then I sing a few songs, then it's time for sleep. I usually ask the kids what songs they want. Hayden always raises his hand and asks for "The Cow Jumped Over The Moon" which I don't really know the tune for, but I made something up that suffices. He usually asks for it twice, and I sing it through twice per request. Sage never asks for anything, but says YAH! with enthusiasm whenever I suggest something. Tonight for the first time Sage ASKED for Twinkle Twinkle, and even SANG ALONG with me and Hayden. Then he asked for Itsy Bitsy Spider and made the little spider hands and sang along while we all sang. The spider hands aren't new, but the singing along is. So I couldn't really have asked for anything more from my children.

It was also our Tilly-versary today. I received Tilly as my mother's day gift last year. I sang Happy Tilly-versary to Tilly a lot today too. She jumped around and got excited and shed. She is shhhhhhhheeeedddddiiiiinnnnnggg. A lot of shedding from a small dog. Clumps of fur. Not just her undercoat either. Her long guard-hairs are coming out by the fistful also. FISTS FULL. Yesterday I took her outside and, since we don't have a brush or zoom, used my fingers to rake her fur and try to get out the loose ones. Hayden was looking out the door and said "There's hairs flying around." There was a CLOUD of fur flying all over. She loved it too. Those zooms are AWESOME though. Lacey's zoom worked wonders, but it got left outside and ploughed away in the winter. They're rubbery large-toothed brushes that grab all the loose hairs quite efficiently. You know what's fun tho, is seeing little white undercoat hair clumps sticking out on her rump, grabbing it and pulling out a huge wad of fur. That is sooo relaxing for me. It doesn't relax Tilly though. I don't think it hurts her, but it must itch or something because she gets wiggly. Maybe it tickles.

Health Report
Sage had that stomach flu for five days. Hayden had it for 2 1/2 days. Jake called me at work on Friday afternoon to say he had puked. Which sent me into a panic because up till then I was hoping it was one of those "children only" flues. I was trying to think back and remember if the stomach flues my sister or I ever got was shared with my parents, and I don't think they ever were. Germs had more respect back then I think. Anyway my hopes and dreams of me and Jake remaining flu-free were dashed. And at that point Hayden was still sick, so I didn't know he was going to have the abbreviated version. Luckily, Jake also had the abbreviated version, and I have not had any symptoms yet at all. I hope I didn't tempt fate by typing that out.

My back is so-so. I saw the chiropractor last week and was very excited about our first consultation. I believe she will be able to help me a lot. My first adjustment is tomorrow morning. I found working afternoons instead of mornings to be better, giving the pain killers time to set in and prep for the strain of sitting up straight. She did a couple scans of my spine and had explained that if the bar graph showed white, there was no stress, green was mild, blue medium, and red was severe stress. When I saw my graphs, a few were black. I asked what black meant, and she said that black was worse than red. Ahhhha. She poked around my neck and asked if I'd ever hit the right side of my head. I told her I had fallen down some stairs about 8 years ago and had hit my head on the concrete floor, above my right eye. I got stitches and a wicked black eye. Wicked bad, not wicked good. I was amazed she could tell! She also reported that my left leg was shorter than my right because the muscles in my back are so tense and tight they're skewing up my hips. And she asked if I'd ever been to the chiropractor before. I had, about 7 years ago because my lower back was starting to be a bit of an issue, because of my tendonitis in my arms, and it was covered by work so I thought "why not?". She asked how long after the fall did I go.. and it was about 8 months or so. She said it was very possible that it was the fall that put bones out of alignment, taking that long to become such that I wanted to do something about it. I thought that was a very interesting connective leap. The xray that I'd had done a few weeks ago is being sent to her office, so she'll have that to refer to as well. My family doc had told me it was normal, so to answer your question Sarah, No I didn't get an MRI. I forgot you have a herniated disk. What are you doing with it? Is it fixable? Work-aroundable? Does that kind of thing show up on an xray?

I hope everyone had a lot of love for their mothers today. Give them hugs and kisses from me, please.