pre-op

I had my pre-op appointment with the orthopedic surgeon this morning. It went very quickly. He's fast, efficient, gruff but with a bit of a twinkle. I find him a little intimidating, although I mostly think he's like that because he's that good. I hate to think how intimidating he must be to someone who doesn't process as fast as I do.

He seems to think this will be fairly routine. I hope so. He says I should be able to shower the next day, wait 2 weeks for swimming. He does these a lot - I asked, he does 15 to 20 of these a year, he gets people referred from all over Texas.

Tomorrow I go for the pre-op appointment at the hospital. I'm sure there will be lots of paperwork, and I think some blood tests. I have an envelope of papers I'm to take in. I went through them, and feel reassured, it looks clear that the problem is coccyx only, the rest of the back isn't involved. Interesting to see some of the things he was checking for last time that I didn't realize he was checking for - like in the one test, he was noting down that I can do the 90 degree bend with no problem.

I am a bit more nervous about it than I want to admit - in the errands on the way home, I stopped for some groceries, and realized I was getting Laura-specific comfort foods...

Baby needs new shoes

So we have a cold front coming through yesterday and today. When I rebooted the computer last night and saw the weather report come up, I promptly called my mother-in-law back - she's coming next week, and I'd warned her we were having low 90s. Not anymore.

So when getting the kids ready for this morning I put them in sweatpants and long sleeves, and put Maggie's brown boots on her. We tried putting Jamie's white sneakers from spring on him. But they never have worked out well, and they were definitely taking me more to put them on him than it was taking him to get them off.

So after the doctor's appointment, we went to a Payless shoes. No wonder there was a problem. Both kids were wearing size 6 or 6 1/2, and they are now both size 8 shoes. 8 wide for Jamie, which means in some shoes 8 1/2.

I suspect they're going to have a LOT of business this next few days as people find out their kids' warm shoes don't fit anymore.

I didn't end up getting any shoes, but I might go back for them. I was hideously trapped in gender stereotypes. The best thing available for Jamie was tan boots that looked like they were made for a construction worker in miniature. (The blue gray ones were just too fugly to consider) They'd keep him warm, they have a combination of lace up and zipper that isn't too bad to get him into and he can't easily get them off, they'd sure stop his toe-walking. But they're ugly, and the soles are HUGE - it looked like he had moonboots on. I'm afraid he'd go Godzilla stepping on the rest of us.

Maggie had sat down and started trying shoes on right away, so I went ahead and had them check her size and found out she was off, too. She'd selected pink leather shoes with flower cut outs. See what I mean about trapped in the gender stereotype? I don't offer these to her, she finds them and wants them. They were pretty, but hardly the sort of thing I'd feel comfy sending her out to play in the dirt in. I want more of the brown velcro boots she has now, darn it! I offered her the black version of the same ones, and the black ones with hearts. She tried them all, kept going back and forth. I lined them all up, asked her to choose. Eventually seemed to get the idea across. She put her brown boots fourth in line, said "Brown boots!" and put them back on.

How did I end up with an extrovert daughter who loves pink and apparently enjoys trying on shoes for their own sake? With fantastic vision, too. If she'd ever been in a hospital nursery I would wonder if they swapped her. Except she so much looks like her Daddy.

I stopped at Walmart for groceries and checked their shoes - nothing even close. I'm dithering between going back to the Payless or trying to get out to the StrideRite way out in Grapevine, farther and more expensive, but they do have good shoes.

Baby needs new shoes, redux

Earlier this evening the kids and I met up with selenite at the Hulen Mall to do more shoe shopping. I was a bit tense, as I'd had an idiot almost sideswipe me on the highway - got off at my exit, and I pulled aside to follow him and go give him a piece of my mind, but lost him. GRRRR.


Anyway, we went in to the StrideRite that's now at Hulen, an improvement over having to go all the way out towards Grapevine. I'd talked to them on the phone earlier after checking the website for shoes. Maggie's old shoes are up on the site, these: --->

Apparently the store doesn't get those anymore, but she said they have something similar. The new ones ARE very similar indeed, almost the same, and that's what we got for Jamie, in I believe a 7 1/2 wide.



Maggie is now wearing size 8M. Hers were tricker, and required some compromise. The first shoes under consideration were these hot pink floral ones, that light up. The light up part was fine, the velcro boots was fine... but there has to be *some* compromise between her enjoying pink and my residual feminist desire to avoid gender stereotypes. Mama's self-respect does need to be considered.

So, I decided against these ----->



So then we found these. A beige that Mama can handle, makes a better 'set' with Jamie's anyway, but has cute pink flowers and butterflies, and still lights up. The lighting up part enchanted her once she figured it out. Laces instead of velcro is a bit of a pain, since she's been putting velcro shoes on all by herself, but I decided it was a price I could pay.

Then while checking out selenite spotted that they had child-sized spiral elastic "laces", the ones you put in and don't have to tie. So we got a pair of those for her, in pink. Overall a good set of compromises, I think.

We went off to Chickfila for some dinner and playtime. Unfortunately, while in the play area taking off her shoes, Maggie pulled the pink elastic laces totally out. So we have some explaining to do to convince her NOT to do that again. But I think it will work out. I will try to get pics of them sometime soon. (Maggie Sr., we need to get you logged back in - I lock some of their pictures, so you might miss some)

By the time we got home, I totted it up and realized that between the morning running around and the evening running around, I'd spent 8 hours on the road and muchly in the car. And my body was informing me that for someone having a coccygectomy in less than a week, this was a Bad Idea. So when we got home I shamelessly stuck selenite with taking care of the kids, and went upstairs to lie down for a while. I did get some enthusiastic kid-cuddling when they came upstairs to be put to bed, though. They are such sweet loving kids, and things with them have been going awfully well lately. I love them, and I feel very loved by them.

Fall it is

As I mentioned earlier, we've just had a cold front go through. It's dropped temps by about 30 degrees. This isn't news to most of the country, apparently the Dakotas are getting plenty of snow from this. (I'm sure they'd like to swap weather just now) I'd noticed that the 2 pearbonded trees in the front yard had started to turn - I think it must have been the one-day cold snap we had a week ago that started it. What I hadn't realized until today was that Dooley, the oak in the backyard, has just about totally turned. I guess we're getting fall even here in Texas now.