how about a brain break?

the other night we were sitting on the couch. it was all so innocent. gary said, "hey mad, tell me which fart noise sounds the most real..."

ppft! 'uh, no."
ppffft! 'ok, maybe that would be a diarrhea one.'
pprrpptf! 'no, too contrived...."

we do all sorts of crazy things for the sake of the kids. but that time it was really just to make each other laugh. lijah is really easy. you could park your face right in front of his and raise your eyebrows. then he'd give you his classic 'tow-mater' face. luci is a tougher audience.

why is farting and pooping so funny? it's so taboo when you first date. i remember making excuses so i wouldn't poop in gary's apartment. 'i've got to go to the fish bowl and do a paper.' and i'd actually go onto campus to poop there. or maybe if i knew it would be a fast and hopefully not too stinky poop, i would try to turn on the faucet and do it during the timespan of an elongated pee, then try to cover it up with shampoo and hot water in the drain.

now our bathroom door stays open. well, actually, he shuts it but i keep it open. he swears it's unfair because i smell more. then when family is in town he says it's genetic. i agree. the mayol-neri clan has a certain... sharp edge to the bowels. curls your nostril hairs. however, i'd take sharp any day over musky, which follows you around the house saturating every fiber of your garments.

i know all of you are good friends because i can remember many warm shared poop memories. like the first time i met rex, or reno's steaming one on the driveway, or the one gibby made that looked like a coiled snake. "how did you do that?!" "i don't know, it just came out like dairy queen soft serve."

see you on the potty.

rowrrr

lijah has this WWF thing going on. you say, "STRONG!" and he brings his arms down, clenches his fists and grunts. it's too funny. he also has a repetitive facial expression which gary describes as "aghast." but he has said his first word already, during 9:30 mass on 8.5.06. we were saying the Our Father and i whispered in his ear, "who are we praying to?"

"dah-dee."

i was kind of taken aback. lijah isn't really a talker. i told gary. later in the mass he whispered to him, "whose house is this?"

"dah-DEE."

my favorite snapshot from this summer is of his feet in the sand. we call him 'tenderfoot bear'. luci's big milestone this month is deciding to use the potty. we had a great time the other night building castles with dominos. she was talking on the phone yesterday to justin (gibby's 2.5 year old boy). 'hi justin! are you drinking your milk? i got my ears pierced!'

they're growing up too fast!

24

in one 24 hour shift...
we did a stat suction currettage on a 17 year old girl who was "bleeding from a very heavy period." she was getting transfused 4 units of blood intraoperatively. we got in there and found a botched probable 23 week gestation status post dilation and evacuation procedure (where you do an abortion, but the baby is so big that you have to dilate the cervix and use 'skull crushers'). she was bleeding like crazy, because there were still... parts... in there. i was sick and dizzy. when you do a suction d&c after someone miscarries, it's usually within the first trimester and baby parts aren't identifiable. this time there was cartilage. i confronted the girl after the surgery, all alone. i asked her if she had an abortion. no i did not.

in the same shift...
a young girl came in by ambulance. she was 23 weeks, 4 days gestation. 24 weeks is the grey-zone cutoff for viability. her water broke at home. she wanted to push. baby was still alive, cervix was dilated to 5cm with a shoulder poking out. we counseled her that her baby had a 10% chance of survival, but a 100% chance of some neurologic delay. the only way to deliver the baby safely enough was via c-section, because due to it's position the head could get entrapped in her cervix. she agreed. we prepped her for surgery stat, and as we got the baby out 6 members of the NICU team began resuscitation. it was a girl. i looked around the o.r. there were probably at least 20 people in there, all that she might live... which she did, after 45 minutes of unsuccessful resuscitation, then died quietly in her mother's arms.

God Bless the brokie road

that silly country song. gary had to learn it for a former student's wedding. now luci knows the whole thing by heart. it also happens to be the only song that calms lijah down in the car. we've tried tlc and other pop fuzz stuff... nope. i almost don't want to talk about it, because i'm scared it'll lose its magic. the minute he whimpers it's automatic. the unlabelled cd goes in to track 19. we joke that lij will be a country star someday, dressed in black jeans and a hat, chubby, with buck teeth. all affectionately, of course. lij is the spitting image of me. even his temperament. which means he may grow up to look like a male rudy huxtible at 8 yrs old. gosh i hope not. gary says i have big teeth. but he does too. so we both bit a piece of paper and did front tooth dimensions. his were bigger, aha! however, i had the bigger tooth to face width ratio.

we found the perfect beach up north. we'd actually been there when we were just dating. it's just that now we look at it through the eyes of a child. it's off of lane 26, somewhere between cheboygan and rogers city. the water was the cleanest i've seen so far. it was brisk but refreshing. the best part... 4 sandbars, so you could wander out 50 yards and still only be thigh-deep. which means you could 1) cool off without having to make the commitment of going deeper than the waist, aka, one of the forget this i'm going back to shore! anatomical places 2) go pee but pretend to be just wading around 3) catch minnows in your hand 4) crawl around on hands and knees. one of the most unforgettable moments was watching luci bravely walking towards me in her aqua ruffled bikini. she looked gorgeous with the sun in her hair and her big ol' grin.

i love summer.