Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Attempting to Drown Out the "Snap"

A meme, cribbed from Frog.

TECHNOLOGY
Q. What is your wallpaper on your computer?
On the home computer, Cricket. On the laptop, aka "Big Bertha," Ireland.

Q. How many televisions you have in your house?
Two

BIOLOGY
Q. Are you right-handed or left-handed?
Right

Q. Have you ever had anything removed from your body?
Cricket and some patella bone fragments and floating cartilage. (Hey, Cricket is not the only one who can break bones around here!)

Q. What is the last heavy item you lifted?
Cricket and his heavy ass cast.

Q. Have you ever been knocked out?
For my knee surgery, and two endoscopies, my wisdom teeth-- but these are medical. I have not been knocked out physically.

BULLSHITOLOGY

Q. If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die?
Good Lord. So I could worry about until it happened? Absolutely not.

Q. If you could change your name, what would you change it to?
My name is pretty much me.

Q. What color do you think looks best on you?
Black?

Q. Have you ever swallowed a non-food item?
Well, that is stupid. Who hasn't?

DAREOLOGY
Q. Would you kiss a member of the same sex for $100?
Let me think about it.... Sure!

Q. Would you allow one of your little fingers to be cut off for $200,000?
Nope, and that's saying something because we could really use the money.

Q. Would you never blog again for $50,000?
Maybe. But I like to blog even though I don't do it much. Does this mean not commenting on blogs too?

Q. Would you pose naked in a magazine for $250,000?
Not on your nelly

Q. Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1000?
Uhhg. The heartburn.

Q. Would you, without fear of punishment, take a human life for $1,000,000?
No!

DUMBOLOGY
Q: What is in your left pocket?
My hospital/school ID, credit card, and picture of Cricket.

Q: Is Napoleon Dynamite actually a good movie?
I haven't seen it. But a friend just loaned it to me.

Q: Do you have hardwood or carpet in your house?
Hardwood downstairs, carpet upstairs.

Q: Do you sit or stand in the shower?
Stand.

Q: How many pairs of flip flops do you own?
My favorites just broke. So none.

LASTOLOGY
Q: Last person who texted you?
Lynne.

Q: Last person who called you?
My mom

Q: Person you hugged?
Cricket

FAVORITOLOGY
Q: Number?
I don't know that I have a favorite number.

Q: Season?
Hot Hot Hot Summer Summer Summer!

Q: Color?
Green.

CURRENTOLOGY
Q: Missing someone?
My boobah. And Partner.

Q: Mood?
Lazy.

Q: Listening to?
Olu Dara, birds singing outside, and a dog barking someplace.

Q: Watching?
The sunshine.

Q: Worrying about?
Cricket's leg. Cricket's asthma. Money, bills. My grades. Next semester's classes. Who's going to cut the grass? My heart. I'll stop now because my litany of worries could be really boring.

Q: Wearing?
Bare feet, jeans, and a Detroit Rugby Football Club tee shirt.

RANDOMOLOGY
Q: First place you went this morning?
Cricket's school.

Q: What can you not wait to do?
Go to the zoo with Cricket.

Q: Do you smile often?
Show off the pearly whites! Or not so pearly with the amount of tea I drink...

Q: Are you a friendly person?
Mostly.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Bright Blue: Why Mommy Can't Sleep

The story, in third person.

Mommy's classes ended on Thursday and since that time she had really been enjoying time with her son, Cricket. They went to the park Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Cricket was pretty impressive with his mobility. Running everywhere, up and down hills, mastering the slide, impressing total strangers with his climbing ability. So Sunday when he was at his grandparents, Mommy hurried everyone along. "I think it's going to rain soon! Let's get moving!"

At the park, Cricket did all the park things and totally ignored the astro turf hill, the one kids slide down on cardboard boxes, or just their pants. Mommy knew she and Cricket had gone down the hill before, so when he headed toward the hill, she let him climb to the peak of the hill. Previously they only went down half the hill. Mommy remembers the sun glinting off the hair of a little girl, trying to go up the hill one more time, but instead this girl was nabbed by grandmother. The little girl said, "Sweet niblets!" and everyone laughed, the nabbing grandmother, the little girl, the Mommy, her parents and even the Cricket because everyone else was laughing. Mommy will always remember this little girl saying sweet niblets.

Once Mommy and Cricket reached the top of the hill, she watched the little girl and grandmother walk away, she scanned the bottom of the hill to make sure it was safe, she swooped her child up into her arms and kissed his bonny face. "Do you want to go down the hill?" she asked him. She smiled at her own parents at the bottom of the hill and put Cricket between her legs. They pushed off.

She still doesn't know what she heard first: the snap of her child's bone or her father yelling "Stop!" but she stopped. Instantly. Picked up her child and ran down the hill, hugging him to her chest and he cried, cried. "Did you hear a snap?" Mommy's own mother asked her. Mommy said I don't know, even though she knew she heard a snap. The child continued to wail. Mommy's father, the one who yelled stop, was an orthopedic surgeon. "Is it broken? Is it broken?" she asked over and over again.

"I don't know. I don't have x-ray eyes. It feels okay," he said.

Mommy sat on a park bench and prayed "OmyGod" over and over again, kissing her child's head. He stopped crying, and she believed his bone couldn't be broken if he stopped crying. They tried to see if he would stand. But he wouldn't. He started crying again. His leg was shaking. So everyone decided it would be best to get x-rays. And they did. But x-rays weren't conclusive, and Mommy laughed and laughed. But still Cricket would not stand, and Mommy's dad, the bone doctor, said it was best to treat the child, not the x-ray. And sometimes fractures don't always show up immediately, and maybe he did see something on the fibula. And so that's how Cricket ended up in a bright blue cast, from his toes to his hip.

And that's how it ended up that Mommy can't sleep at night for hearing the snap of her child's bone as he sat between her legs.

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