National Kidney Walk

This past Sunday I had the pleasure of walking in the annual National Kidney Foundation walk from South Street Seaport up and over the Brooklyn bridge. It was a beautiful day and the turnout was incredible. My friend's son was born with kidney disease. He is living with one good kidney that is functioning at about 60%. Thankfully he has not needed a transplant and is doing remarkably well. But the reality is at some point in his life he my need a kidney. The reality is there are a ton of people waiting for donors.

Here are some fast facts from the NKF website:

FAST FACTS

• Chronic kidney disease affects 26 million Americans and millions more are at risk
  
• Kidney disease is common, harmful and treatable
  
• Risk factors include high blood pressure, diabetes and family history
  
• Early detection can slow the progression of kidney disease
  
• Once kidneys fail, patients need dialysis or a transplant to survive
  
• Over 104,000 people are waiting for an organ transplant

I was truly inspired and moved by the people out there walking in someone's honor. Many have lost loved ones to this disease. Many more will lose loved ones. Either way, the fight goes on and so do the tireless efforts of all involved to raise money and awareness. 

I had a great time and will probably do it again next year. The fact that my legs are a bit sore today is a small price to pay for such a great cause! :) 

Learn more about NKF and kidney disease here: http://donate.kidney.org/site/PageServer?pagename=WALK_homepage

Randomness

It's Sunday and I feel like being random. No rhyme or reason, just feel like it! So here goes ...

The kids are off school tomorrow for Columbus Day. They were also off on Friday for a conveniently scheduled "staff development day". Yeah. Sure. So between development of the staff and Columbus discovering what he thought was America, I get 2 extra days of chaos in the house. Good times.

Saturday I decided to take the kids to a local harvest festival. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but in hindsight it was a pretty lousy idea. I mean, I am all for fun stuff to do with the kids, but stuff like this always makes me mental. Despite my cheery disposition and calm demeanor, when I attend functions with my children and things don't go according to plan, I get bitchy. I mean it. Downright psycho at times. I am not proud of this and I try really hard to call in reinforcements when I can. This time the reinforcement came in the form of my sister. Now granted she had her two year old with her, so she wasn't much help. But having an extra adult was at least comforting amidst the insanity. The festival was nice, don't get me wrong, but holy crowded! And holy runaway baby in the form of my soon to be three year old Michael!! Yes folks, he's a runner. And when given the opportunity he does just that. Runs. And fast! Needless to say we did take him on a hayride, and he was entertained by a hay maze. He also got to feed some farm animals which was cute. But as far as this event being fun for me as a parent....that would be a resounding heck no!!

Today is 10.10.10. Wicked cool. I'm a bit of a numbers geek so I find this strangely fascinating. I mean, it only happens once every hundred years so chances are most of us won't be here to see it again. That in itself is pretty cool.

In other news, I'm sitting here writing this post using my new laptop. I really needed a new one and am very glad to have finally bit the bullet and purchased it! As I sit here in bed with the laptop in my lap, I am thinking about a story on Good Morning America regarding something called toasted leg syndrome. View full story on toasted leg syndrome here!  Apparently excessive laptop use without proper ventilation can cause your laptop to actually burn your lap. Who knew?!?

Must be strangely exciting to watch the stoic squirm . . .

This is a lyric from Alanis Morissette's song, "Uninvited." Alanis is one of my favorite artists. I've loved her since I was about fifteen. Back then her album Jagged Little Pill had just come out and the single "You Oughta Know" was a big hit. I remember that song becoming my anthem at the time. If you are not familiar, it's a lovely ballad about a scorned woman. At the time I was a scorned teenager who fell prey to a boy who told me what I wanted to hear to get me out on a few dates. By date number three he stood me up and I never saw him again. Back then I felt like it was the worst thing in the world. I was full of anger, hurt and desperation. The song made me feel empowered and basically convinced me that boys sucked. I should have learned my lesson then! ;)

Fast forward to today. The song has a similar meaning for me now as I grapple with a painful divorce as an adult. It still empowers me and I still think boys suck! A lot of her songs have that affect on me.

I am the stoic. I always have been. I get that from my mom and its not something I'm proud of. My mom was a cop in the small town I grew up in. She didn't show emotion. Her mother (my grandmother) was also a stoic. Emotion was viewed as a sign of weakness and neither my grandmother nor mother are weak people. I've always held in my emotions, never showing my hand, always maintaining my poker face. Well the stoic squirmed in therapy yesterday. I broke down and burst into tears right there in my therapist's office. She's been waiting for this since I started seeing her a few months ago. She kept telling me it wasn't healthy to keep everything pent up. She was worried about me letting loose at the wrong time or in an unhealthy way. Like balling my eyes out over a yogurt commercial, or having a total meltdown in the frozen food section of my local Stop and Shop.

Now I certainly wasn't hysterical or uncontrollable, but I did cry. I cried hard and it felt good. :)

Welcome To My Life...

I've always liked this song by Simple Plan. It has a new meaning for me lately with all the chaos and turmoil going on in my world. Music has played a big part in the healing process for me. There is something very therapeutic about songs that speak to your situation and offer words of hope & betterment. Then there are those songs that talk about how much things suck or how much another person (insert name of said person here) sucks. And that's ok too. Being able to use music as an outlet has been huge for me.

Do you have a favorite song/singer that you turn to during those times of need?

Mommy Dearest ...

Last night I became the person I fear most. No, not my own mother. I'm talking about Mommy Dearest. Ok, so maybe I wasn't that bad, but I came darn close.

As a mom (I say mom, because dad's don't count for the purpose of this story) we all have those moments that send us over the proverbial edge. I had a fairly uneventful day yesterday, so perhaps this was my payback? It sure felt like it. The kids came in after having dinner with their father, and my older two each had some homework left to finish. No big deal. I helped my daughter with her math while she in turn helped her younger brother with a language arts project. We wrapped things up fairly quickly. After that is when all holy heck broke loose.

I currently have my home office in my bedroom. I don't like this setup, but for now it is what it is. I also only have one computer in my house (also in said bedroom) and everyone uses it. (Well everyone meaning me and the kids.) My preteen daughter likes to use the dressing area in my bedroom to groom herself. I have all my hair care products and tools in a cabinet next to what is possibly the biggest mirror in existence with dressing room lighting above it. I get that it's a good place to groom, however, it is in my bedroom. So as a result, when she decides to groom, it's an invasion of my space. Last night she busted out my flat iron and started straightening her hair. My 8 year old son also decided at the same time that he needed to go online and look up titles for school library books to put on reserve. My 2 year old was busy running around the room, being his usual 2 year old self. At least he's predictable.

I was also trying to do a little grooming of my own....testing out my new curling iron. I realized weeks ago that I didn't own a curling iron so I bought a new one!  My room was already like Grand Central Station with all the activity. Couple that with each child deciding at the exact same time that they needed my attention. That's right - three separate moans for "mooooooooom" all while I had a scalding hot piece of equipment in my hands. As you can imagine, the outcome was not good.

I finally screamed out a four letter expletive that I can't repeat on a family friendly blog. But let's just say it starts with "F" and rhymes with truck! The room fell silent as I assessed the damage to my forehead and realized all three kids were staring at my in disbelief. Not so much because of the swearing (I'm not gonna lie, they've heard me say that and possibly worse before), but because they knew I had reached my breaking point.

I managed to pull myself together and calmly asked each child to give me a minute to handle each of their requests separately. And I did, because that's how we moms roll. I'm not proud of my "Mommy Dearest" moment. But I'm only human and it happens. So suck on that! ;-)