Our scale is at least 8 years old and had started to give me a few strange readouts here and there.  But usually by the second try it gave me an answer and it was only, up to today, a little like a machine was coming to life and watching me while I was vulnerable and unsuspecting. But when your clothing size has enough X’s in it to mean that if it were a video, you husband would be very happy… you know it is time to start stepping on that sucker and getting an accurate read out.    

Which is why this morning when it started doing its “calculating… calculating… calculating…,” thing a bit too long and then decided “Error” was the most polite way to tell me that I am too fat, I decided maybe it was time to get a new one. I am not saying that I need a new scale because it is telling me I weigh more than I think I should weigh…  I am saying I need a new scale because it has stopped telling me how much I weigh because it doesn’t want to hurt my feelings.  A totally broken scale would not be story worthy and would just be tossed, unceremoniously, into the trash.  But no, I picked a scale that is concerned for my self respect.  If I step up to it and I weigh under *a certain number*, it lets me know each and every time. It is only when my weight goes above *that number* that it decides it is best for me not to know.  Perhaps it just needs new batteries. But it isn’t getting them, because it is a dumb scale anyway. (I hope it didn’t hear me say that.)

So I decided to write down a list of my “wants” that I can take to the store with me to hand to the store clerk:

1. Durable
2. Digital
3. Accurate to the tenth of a pound. (Husband thinks this is stupid since drinking an 8oz cup of coffee would change the results dramatically, but I like to feel like I am in charge.)
4. Reliable
5. Somewhat Cheap
6. Non-Sentient / Plotting

Perfect.  Off we go.

Emily would like to report that she has found her toes and they are FABULOUS.

Goodbye Oma.

It is our time to move down a path without her. Down a path I thought would include her.  The path now rearranges itself and goes off in a new direction.  A direction we did not foresee and do not want.  But it rises to meet us just the same.  We have no choice.  I just didn’t want to say goodbye this soon. You will be missed.

Our wonderful Oma is in the last stages of her life.  She battled a stroke in April followed by seizures.  The diagnosis of pancreatitis followed shortly after.  It is more than her body can bear. She is only 58.  Her body has given up on her. She is a fighter, but can not fight what is happening.  The doctors say about five days is all she has left. 

Our Opa decided to move her to hospice care on the 5^th.  No more tubes and wires and monitors.  Just a peaceful room and a comfy bed until she decides it is her time to leave us.  We took her some pictures of the girls and taped them to the arm rail of the bed.  We took a drawing that Megan drew and taped it to the wall.  

There will be no more Sunday cooking while the guys are watching football.  No more lessons on sewing clothing for the girls or runs to the fabric store for more thread.  No more hints on the best time to plant flowers or ways to attract hummingbirds.  I can’t ask her if I should use semi-sweet or regular chocolate for the Napoleons. I will miss going antiquing with her and cruising the isles for the perfect something.  I will miss chatting over tea and scones. I never learned how to make stain-glass even though she offered to teach me.  We were busy doing other things.   

I video taped her singing a song in Dutch to Megan many times.  She sung it to Emily only a few times and each time I thought, “Oh, I will grab the camera and video tape that next time.”  Now there is no next time.  Now I do not have her on video singing to Emily. 

Both Megan and Emily will grow to not remember her.  That breaks my heart.  That such a wonderful woman, who adored them to no end, won’t be remembered by them.  I will tell them stories of the wonderful love that flowed from her heart.  The songs she sung to them.  The games she played with them. The love she gave them.  I will remember. But they will not.  I will tuck the outfits she made for them away in their memory boxes.  I will take the toy bunny and the sweetly knitted finger puppets and put them away for awhile until they are easier to touch. 

There is nothing I can do but sit here helpless as I watch a plume of sadness and heartache comes over my family.  Insurmountable pain clouds those I love.  There’s nothing more frustrating than to see someone special bear so much and not be able to help. I can’t take away the pain, frustration and heartache. I can’t make things better. All I can do is wait. Wait and hope that they will reach out, knowing that I am there wanting to support them. All the while needing support for myself.

I want her to know how much we love her.  I want her to know that she will be missed.  I need her to know.

I remember the first night Emily was home.  We had snuggled down for the night and all of a sudden she started making little grunty noises.  Megan never did that.  I picked her up and realized she was fast asleep.  Giggling.  She was laughing in her sleep.  A little tiny newborn baby giggle.  And I didn’t even care that I was awake at 2am.  I just held her close to my chest and watched her eyebrows raise and lower and smiles come and go as she giggled.  A few minutes later I kissed her on the forehead and thought about putting her down again so I could go back to sleep.  All of a sudden she said what sounded like, “Okay!” and her body relaxed.  Her eyebrows fell and her smile disappeared into an even deeper sleep.  I know she was only 2 days old.  But I swear the angels told her to hush and go to sleep. I swear she agreed to do so.  I swear.  I only hope her Oma can whisper in her ear soon and she will sing the song I never recorded. 

Five days.  In six she will be gone.  Maybe sooner.  Far too soon. 

Another Ode...Not to be confused with this Ode or this Ode.

Oh, Little Clock in Megan’s room,

How you do piss me off.

I set you once each morning,

But you run like a three-toed sloth.

You run according to your own system.

One centered on the principle,

That “up” is so very difficult.

Perhaps you should have been a stool.

“Up” is not impossible,

Run little Hour Man just for kicks!

Try your best sweet Minute Guy,

Don’t get stuck by the 6!

The bottom tenth or so of the dial

Is not the best place to be.

Don’t stop and pause,

No, not now! Don’t flutter feebly.

Yes, you must spin for at least half the dial,

Against the Earth’s gravity,

But when you are at your highest point,

Think, “Kinetic Energy!”

So if you are my dad, you can stop reading now.  Because some people just don’t need to read some posts. 

It seems as though my sweet baby Emily is starting to enjoy the world around her.  She does this crazy military crawl all over the darn room and if I turn my head for two minutes I will literally loose the poor thing and find her, yah know, under the coffee table or wedged between the couch and the ottoman.  Her independence is amazingly broad although she likes for me to always be in the room.  The second she senses that I have left the room she will start to whimper and whine.  I am contributing this to the fact that I am her only source of food.  This brings me to the purpose of this post.  My boobs.  Yes.  I said it.  Boobs.  Mine.

The world has become her oyster and my baby wants to see it with my nipple in her mouth.

Ah yes.  What once was a blurry set of shadows is now sparkly and clear.  She burrows into my chest and a gentle sigh of belonging and relaxation comes over her.  She enjoys the peace and calm.  Then her eyes open and look up at me.  She smiles.  Her eyes fall to my shirt and my arm.  She smiles.  Her eyes make it to the chair where we are sitting then slowly to the window behind us.  Still okay.  Then out of the blue she decides that something exactly BEHIND her, 180 degrees from her face, is really cool.  So she whips her head around, taking my nipple along with her… 

Oh look!  A car drove by…

Hey, that’s an interesting speck of lint on your shirt way over there on your opposite shoulder…

Did the dog just bark? Let me check it out…

Is that a FreeCreditReport.com commercial?  Wah-hoo!!!  Let’s check it out with your nipple still planted firmly in my mouth!

Why? Dear child, why? It is not like I want – what are the kids calling it these days? - a bangin’ bod.  I would be happy with a bod that just pinged a little.  Muffin tops and extra ass-padding are one thing when you have the cleavage to balance everything out.  But they are quite another when your upper body looks like it is holding two deflated pool toys. 

Persistent painful lumps on stomach from Heparin shots? Check.  Boobs that think South is the new Black? Check. Fibrous wodge of scar tissue in the bend of each elbow from blood draw after blood draw? Check. And the  Fattish Globbiness with underlying Lumpiness that is now my body? Check.  Line forms on the left, fellas, for anyone itching to cop a feel.   

And now on top of it all, I have added to the list the fine formation of Inspector Gadget nipples.  (Sexy, right?) No one tells you what to expect when you have kids.  No one tells you could use your nipples for lassoing calves on a farm or picking up a dime out of drainage ditch with just a wad of chewing gum and a maternity shirt that opens on the side.  What?  You want to bungie jump off that bridge? No problem.

I am left to lament my previously perky chest. My cute little hooters.  The ones that used to fit inside a sweet padded bra and behave themselves. 

Emily’s Oma once said, “They used to watch me brush my teeth. Now they watch me tie my shoes.”  I laughed when she said it.  But now I understand.  Now I understand. 

I have no picture for this post. Maybe this?

Okay, fine.  This:

 Meh... Who am I kidding.  This:

My Pantry:

My pantry thanks to Megan:

This weeks dinner menu:

The real trick would be to get daddy to spend the entire day with both kids to show how much he loves them while mommy goes out for a manicure.  But instead we settle for an office floor filled with balloons and home made cards.  Oh, and dinner.  That was fun for me  Daddy.

They had matching outfits which I should have just bought one of and switched it for the pictures and you would never of known because oh my goodness just be in one picture with your sister darn it.  As you can see I now have to put Megan on top of tall things that she thinks she will fall off of in order to get a picture. Hmpfffff...

Many kisses to a wonderful daddy.  We could never ask for more!  Well, maybe to change a diaper.