Rhino Head

Where does DG get this? When she feels thwarted, she yells "Rhino head!", lowers her head, scrapes her left foot on the floor a few times, and then charges, knocking the offending parent (that would be me) onto the couch with her five-year old fury. Is this just her great imagination (it is great), or is it from some annoying Nickelodeon show from which I should probably be able to recover damages (for weakened abdominal muscles). If anyone knows, do tell.

Shoulder Update

I don't have to wear the sling any longer and I start physical therapy on Monday. Soon I'll have the use of both arms again. And the orthopedist says I can start skating again (including falling) mid-February, in time for TG's school skate night. Life is good.

The Dinner Party

I've been invited to a dinner party. The only people, hitherto, who I have known who has people over for dinner for home-cooked meals are Uber and SNV and Ex-Marine Fred. But parents of a friend of TG have invited me to a dinner party at their home. Sounds silly to be so excited, but most social events I go to are kid-centric, pizza-ish, or in a restaurant.

Actually, this dinner party will be kid-centric as well, but the kids will eat their pizza downstairs and the grownups will have a grown up dinner, home-made. I'm looking at my dessert recipes.

Meanwhile, my ability to set up a wireless network in my home sucks. I've finally got my Internet connection re-established, but TG's connection on her laptop? Not so good. But the girls have multiple birthday parties this weekend, so I'm going to take some of that time to work on setting up the network. Of course, everything I've printed out says it's easy. Easy for a 20- or 30-something who writes code and tweets about me. For middle-aged me, that's a stretch. I'm trying to think of computer friendly pals I can lean on here. But I'll get it set up, one way or another.

Not Gently, But the Good Night Is Descending

One of the good things that happened during the Christmas trip to New England was a fond farewell to NuclearGrammy. She's not dying, but at 97, she's fading. She had trouble remembering who her son was (Big Grampa) and could only identify LOS, NSLOS, and me as grandchildren, not specifically as us, and only could identify the great-grandchildren as descendants of some sort, no better than that.

She crashed her mobility cart and broke her hip in early December, and has recovered from surgery, even to the extent of walking again (very short distances, with assistance), but realistically, she's not going to fully recover. She's been moved from her apartment into the nursing home section of her retirement home. We helped Big Grampa empty her apartment.

I may see NuclearGrammy again, but she won't know me by the time I get up again this summmer. But we had a great lunch and visit, with her aiding and abetting the younger generation in climbing under the table, etc., and then asking, sweetly, if we could control our children. Hee. She may be senile, beginning to suffer from acute memory loss and some dementia, but she still knows how to stir the pot. I hope I'll see her again.

I Say A Little Prayer (of Thanks)

One of the benefits of all my recent ailments is that all my neighbors are extra nice to me. I had the kids this weekend and had taken them to see The Princess and the Frog, which was survivable, even enjoyable. It was nice to see a Disney heroine who was brownish (like my daughters), competent, and whose mother hadn't died and didn't die. Yup. Except DestructoGirl much more closely resembles Lilo of Lilo & Stitch (and when she doesn't resemble Lilo, trust me, she's resembling stitch), right down to the sturdy little body. And TigerGrrl really wanted to see Alvin and the Chipmunks: the Squeakquel.

I'm a loving mother. I'm a doting mother. But there is no way I'm sitting through two hours of chipmunk talk. Nope. Fortunately, yesterday (or actually, the day before yesterday), we called some little friends of DGs to invite them over to fill my home with high pitched sounds. The mother said (bless her): "We're heading to the mall to see the Squeakquel. Would she like to go?" I said, channelling my inner Sarah Palin: "You betcha! Can TG come along too? She really wants to see it." After a quick yes, I gave TG $20 to pay for the matinee tickets and took a hydrocodone pill (shoulder still more than a bit tender) after waving a fond and relieved farewell. So the girls got to see the incredibly annoying movie of their dreams and I didn't have to do so. Sometimes, life is good.

And, the mother treated the girls to manicures. I think TG wanted to say no, but couldn't figure out how to do so. She wore ski mitts to Sunday school class today so that no one would see her beautiful, girly, totally-un-TigerGrrl-like red nails. She wore the mitts until I got out the nail polish remover (Saintly Babysitters' -- I don't use the stuff enough to keep it in stock) and gave her "normal" (according to her) nails. The thing that embarrassed TG? The little girls all said she looked like a "lady", even a "princess". This was enough to make my brave girl hide and say "Mama, can you take it off? PLLLLEEEEAZZZZE????" So her rain as a beauty queen in training lasted 14 hours. DG, or course, is running around showing off her glittery nails to all and sundry. I'm much more in line with TG's world view than DG's, even though nice bright nails are just plain pretty sometimes. But you can't do anything with them on hands and not chip them instantly. So I limit my ventures to toes.

But back to the main cause for gratitude. I dodged the Squeakquel bullet. Yay me!