On notice!

The best part about having tumors is the outpouring of kindness from everyone. Sometimes it comes in strange, irreverent ways, and those are the ones I like best.

Thanks to Dean and Cynthia for this. I had it printed out and stuck on my fridge for more than a week before I saw the Wright County Attorney entry. How self-centered am I? I didn’t even see Eric there.

For those who don’t know this is Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report (Comedy Central) and his On Notice board. If you don’t partake already, I highly recommend the nightly cocktail of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Trust me, you won’t even miss the pseudo-news, “new life-saving information, report at ten”, this isn’t news it’s a commercial crap that is the local ten o’clock news, although you will be scared to death at the complete apocalyptic nightmare the world is in at any given time. But it’s funny, really funny. I’m not sure how that works, but it does.

An open letter to Mrs. Sifert

Monday is registration day in Belmond and, among other things, we are going to be giving Emily's teacher a card.

Am I a little crazy? Oh yes!

But I encourage all parents to offer your help to your children's teachers. Maybe you will be a little less over-the-top, but lend a hand if you can.

Dear Mrs. Sifert,

I wanted to take a minute to introduce myself. Sure you think that you know me. You see me around town with the girls. But you should also know: I am one of those mothers.

Emily is, of course, one of the most important people in my life and I want the best for her. That doesn’t mean that I think that she is perfect or that she can do no wrong. But it means that I want her to have the tools and opportunities that can make her into a kind and happy adult. If she turns out to be the class bully (God forbid) I want to know.

You are her introduction into the world of education and I am thrilled. I couldn’t have asked for a more kind and generous, fair and just person to usher her into the sometimes overwhelming world of… okay, okay, I know, it’s only three-year-old preschool.

What I am trying to say is this: you mean the world to me. We are neighbors in this small community and you are going to be the first person that my daughter spends much time with, aside from family. If I can make this year easier for you in anyway, just let me know. I’d like to think that I am the very definition of an enthusiastic and helpful parent.

Whatever you need I am there for you: If you need someone to cut out hundreds of laminated letters, I can do that. If you need someone to plan and throw sweet little juice-and-muffin celebrations or over-the-top-crazy parties, I can do that too. Maybe you need someone to do a newsletter or classroom blog, I’m there for you. Or if you need someone to paint the classroom… or sew smocks… or clean. I can do it all.

Well, I can’t actually paint, but Eric can, and I can get him to the school.

I have also enclosed a gift card to Target to help with any extras you might need for the classroom, or for whatever. Maybe what you need is some chocolate for yourself. Believe me, I understand and I am happy to provide it for you. Eric and I feel very lucky to be able to meet the needs of our children and we would be more than happy to help out throughout the year if there is anything you need (supplies, pictures of the children developed, more chocolate.) Just let me know.

Emily and I are looking forward to the school year. Thank you for everything… and consider yourself warned.

Sincerely,
Kate Simonson

No news is good news…

…but when your neurosurgeon calls you back right away, that is bad news.

The results of the MRI came in this week and they were um… not great. We were concerned about two spots in the thoracic area from the April scan and it turned out that the concern was valid: two tumors were found between my shoulder blades. The scan also showed three tumors very low in the sacral area.

For those who are keeping score, that is a total of five tumors.

There was more odd news in that the doctor said that it wasn’t the tumors causing my symptoms. I have another, unrelated, degenerative spinal disease that is causing problems.

I'll write more about this and what it all means later. Right now I am just sick of thinking about it.

There is some good news at least: all the Simonson cars are up and running again, so we've go that going for us, which is nice.

This week in break downs

It begins: Eric's Saab broke down two weeks ago.

We hadn't really worried too much about it nor rushed to fix it because we have two cars and we live in a small town and so the girls and I could get most anywhere on foot or on this fine vehicle.

Sunday night, while I was out Lance Armstronging it with the girls, the chain broke.

Monday the girls and I took the van to Ames (an hour away) to get a new bike chain. On the way back the van broke down and left us stranded on the side of the road.

Thursday Eric tried to mow the lawn and the brand new mower wouldn't start.

Saturday the girls and I borrowed my father-in-law's car to go to Ft. Dodge for a few hours, because at this point we had no wheeled vehicles of any kind of our own that worked. On the way back to their house a belt broke off, leaving us stranded on the side of the road.

Can we borrow your car?

Other terrible trials the Simonson girls suffered through this week

After I wrote about poor Emily having to swim and eat chocolate, all in the same day, I realized that last week was especially hard for the girls.



There was ice cream.

And we had cake in the park to celebrate our friend Rochelle's birthday.



There were some actual tears when we all had to go home. Here Emily and Krista comfort one another.

What were you thinking?

Oh you foolish, foolish people.

Last week I wrote that I thought that I should keep my long-winded opinions to myself and people contacted me to tell me that they liked these posts. I mean people took time out of their busy, child-raising lives to write and call and tell me that they enjoyed my rants. Someone even told me I should write a book.

Eric was less supportive.

"Honey, people like my blog. Someone said I was a good writer. They said I should write a book. Do you know what that means? If I wrote a book, two people might check it out from the library!"

"That's how cults start, you know."

"Cult hits or the 'Don't drink the funny kool-aid kind?"

"The kool-aid ones."

Anyway, cooler heads have prevailed and all books have been put on hold, but I did leave the child-raising to someone else this weekend and I instead spent my time polishing up my soap box.

You'll be sorry.

The sweet, sweet life of Emily

Last week Emily took swimming lessons here in Belmond. She was absolutely fearless about the pool, but sweet Amy, her instructor, made her a little nervous. I guess that means that I don't have to worry about her going to a stranger offering candy, but if a swimming pool came up to her on the sidewalk? She'd go with it in a second!

I'm not sure what Amy is promising Emily here, but whatever it was, it worked.

Soon Emily was jumping in like a pro. She even touched the bottom of the pool, her face completely under the water.

The first day Em didn't want me to leave so Eric, in his shirt and tie from work, Claudia, and I all stood by the side of the pool. On day two our friend Megan was visiting so we (no Eric this day) walked to the far end of the pool and sat.

The weather this week has been a hell-like 90-some degrees, so on day three I brought out the big guns. I told her if she let me go sit in air conditioning for her half hour lesson I would get her some chocolate. She went for it. Maybe I should watch out for the strangers with candy after all.

In the end, I realized that I had paid big money for my daughter to take private swimming lessons (group ones aren't offered here until the kids are out of kindergarten) which she loves, and then I told her I would give her chocolate if she went. What in the hell has this world come to? I can tell you right now that my mother would NEVER have bribed me to do something fun. "Hey honey, if you let me take you to Chuck E. Cheese's I'll buy you a car."

I think this family has swung too far to the "nurturing" side of parenting. Tonight there will be spankings, just because.

Which actually makes me think of something funny. We don't actually spank in our house and we tell Emily regularly that we don't hit in our family, mostly when she has just hit Claudia. And while we do this because hitting to tell your kids that hitting is wrong just seems stupid and because Eric seems all the child-hitting and-spirit breaking he needs to at work, I have noticed that Emily has no fear of us. We do the time out thing here and while Emily isn't crazy about sitting on the stairs, I would doubt that the fear of having to do so keeps her from doing anything.

I'm not saying that I want my kids to be scared of me, I want them to know that I would protect them and that home is a safe, loving place to be, but it would be nice to be able to threaten her with a punishment and have her even pause slightly before continuing what she was doing.

Just watch, in 25 years it will have all swung the other way. This generation will think that their parents were too easy going and our kids will be using stocks and pillories on thier kids.

And then I can sit there and say things like, "Kids these days are so ill behaved, what they need is a swift trip to the stairs."