I noticed a few days ago that Koonya has large lumps under his skin right by his jaw. Last night the skin under his jaw got swollen, and started to hang like jowls, so today I took him to the vet. The prognosis isn’t so good. The vet. said that it’s a good chance that he has lymphoma, a type of cancer, and that if he does, it’s not so much a question of whether he’ll survive, but of how long he’ll survive. Depending on the type and severity of the lymphoma he could live for even another year with treatment, but eventually it will kill him. He said that remission is very rare. If it is cancer, and it goes untreated the vet, gives him a few weeks to a couple of months. If it’s not cancer then Koonya should be fine. He’s scheduled for a biopsy tomorrow morning, and in a few days we’ll get the results.

How do You Spell Relief?

I bought some of those new-fangled soft-chew Rolaids today. When I got them home I had to try them even though I didn’t have any heartburn, but then my tummy felt weird, so I ate a couple of jalapenos. I feel much better now.

Next Week I Go Pro.

Marie and I went bowling today to celebrate our 5th anniversary. Romantic, I know, but the movie we wanted to see was sold out. In two games I had 10 strikes, that’s means half of my frames were strikes! In the first game I had a streak of 6 consecutive strikes, and ended with a score of 212. That’s my second highest score ever. The second game wasn’t so impressive, but I got 4 more strikes, and came real close to getting a strike every other frame.

On a side note, if you like being too crowded to move around when you go bowling than you should definitely try the new lanes at the Sunset Station. I hate elbow room, so I had a blast!

Back to the Gym Again.

Ben’s been going to preschool for a couple of weeks now, and as it turns out, there is a 24 Hour fitness about 50 feet from the community center that has the preschool, so I’ve been working out again. It’s perfect, because Ben gets to go to preschool, and I get to go to the gym without paying a retarded 3 dollars every time, because they let Jared use the 12 dollars a month, or whatever it is, that we pay to use the Kid’s Club there.

I also have a new workout strategy. I used to do 40-60 minutes of low intensity cardio followed by 3-4 sets of one exercise on a major muscle group (chest, legs, back). That wasn’t working so great, so now I do 1-2 exercises 3-4 sets each on a major muscle group, plus a few more exercises on the smaller muscles (biceps, triceps, shoulders, calves). I follow that with about 15 minutes of moderate to high intensity cardio.

The theory is that by working more muscles I’ll increase my lean body mass, which increases metabolism, and the higher intensity cardio will improve my cardio-vascular health, which also increases metabolism. The idea is to make my body more efficient at burning calories when I’m resting, whereas the old way I was trying to burn all of the calories by working out. We’ll see if this way works better.

Everyone Should Be Lucky Enough to Have an Uncle Brad

I didn’t write this, Kelly Parker did on her blog, but since I’m involved, and it’s so freaking funny I just had to put it here.

Saturday, November 12, 2005
SAILOR MOUTH
I’ve often joked (kind of) about wishing I had a “meal-time nanny”. You know…someone else to prepare the food my kids won’t want to eat; someone else to cajole them into not only picking up the veggies on their plate, but to actually put one or two pieces in their mouths; someone else to argue about how many bites is sufficient for a treat and someone else to scrape the mashed-up, dried noodles off the tile floor.
Mealtimes with young kids just isn’t my favorite thing.
Last night was no different, nor did I expect it to be. It was Friday, which meant House Church potluck – a bunch of different dishes brought by a bunch of different people which we all share and happily eat. Well, most of us.
During the course of dinner, I saw Gabriel playing around on his stool, his plate pretty much untouched. Nothing out of the ordinary there.

Here’s the scene:
ME: Gabriel, stop playing around and get busy eating.
GABRIEL: But I don’t want to eat that crap!
ME: (standing there, mouth agape, eyes bugging out, momentarily speechless) What?
GABRIEL: I don’t want to eat that crap!
ME: (absolutely mortified) That’s not the way you talk about the food that people have made for you to eat blah blah blah. That’s your dinner and if you don’t eat that, you’re not getting anything blah blah blah!

I couldn’t believe what I had heard, nor could Kenny when I repeated it to him a minute later. Where had we gone wrong? The kid’s only three!
We make a point to regularly fill our house with friends and family, food and fellowship; a place where we speak freely of living a life modeled after Christ, and yet, all we manage to pass on is trash talk?
Clearly, we could now see that we were failing miserably as parents.
A little later, as I was helping the boys get ready for bed, the subject of “bad words” came up again. My composure regained, I was ready to tackle the situation a bit more positively, perhaps even teach him a timely little lesson about thankfulness and all that junk.

Scene #2:
ME: Gabriel, you said a bad word tonight, didn’t you?
GABRIEL: Yeah, but Uncle Bad put that crap on my plate and I didn’t want to eat that crap.
ME: Huh?
GABRIEL: Uncle Bad put that crap on my plate and I didn’t want to eat it.

Suddenly, it dawned on me. Uncle Brad, notorious for torturing young children, had been trying during dinner to get Jake and Gabriel to try some of the CRAB that someone had brought to share. Despite Gabriel’s refusal, some still wound up on his plate.
I breathed a little sigh of relief – so we weren’t the worst parents in the entire world, Supernanny wasn’t on her way over that very second. He was still just our sweet little picky eater.
And really, I couldn’t blame him for the not-wanting-to-try-seafood thing – I wouldn’t want to eat that crap, either.

Now that is some funny mama-jama! OK in my defense- I do not torture young children… well OK, I guess I’m guilty on that one (I threw an orange at my nephew Josh today, and he cried. I wasn’t trying to hurt him though, and I did offer him a free shot, but he wouldn’t take it.), but Gabriel didn’t refuse the crab. I asked him if he wanted to try it, and he said yes, otherwise I wouldn’t have put it on his plate. No, I’m serious I really wouldn’t have. He only refused it after it was on his plate. He should’ve tried it though, it was really good crap… er crab.

Now I’d like to share another excerpt from Kelly’s blog. In this one I impart some of my expansive wisdom to young Gabriel.

Monday, February 14, 2005
NICE
“Nice” is a hot topic in our family. Kenny and I are constantly extolling the virtues of “being nice” - talking nice, playing nice, being nice to friends, siblings, etc.
“That was so nice of you to share with her.”
“Do you think that was a nice way to talk to me?”
“It’s so nice to see you kids playing quietly together!”
And the list could go on and on.
Consequently, Gabriel also talks about “nice” a lot. Mainly, he concerns himself with “nice guys” and “not nice guys”. In his world view, you’re either one of the two and he’s determined to find out which one. This entails nonstop questioning:
“Mama, he a nice guy?” “Mama, he not nice?” “Why he not nice?”
I try my best to explain, in three-year old terms, about moral character and making good choices, about how some people might choose not to be nice and the reasons why, and why we should choose nice instead.
Usually, my explanations are followed by a barrage of more “whys” and “how’s”, leading me to believe that he’s either
a. not fully understanding me or
b. trying to drive me nuts.
Yesterday, Gabriel was playing Star Wars with his Uncle Brad when I overheard this conversation:
Gabriel: (pulling out an action figure) Who’s he?
Uncle Brad: He’s a _________(some guy who’s probably not even in any of the movies that only a Star Wars dork would know.)
Gabriel: He nice?
Uncle Brad: No, he’s not nice.
Gabriel: Why he not nice?
Uncle Brad: Because there have to be not-nice guys so that the nice guys have someone to fight.

And that was it. End of story. No “whys” or "how’s” following that answer. His explanation seemed to make perfect sense to Gabriel.
Now, why didn’t I ever think of that?

Hey, that was some easy blogging. I need to torture Kelly’s kids more often, so I can copy and paste her entries instead of having to come up with my own.

Loompa Land

I saw “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” starring Johnny Depp last night. It was good. I was surprised at how much I liked it.

It’s Just That Good

I read a really great comic book last week called “Maus: A Survivor’s Tale”. I decided to read it because Wizard magazine gave it the number 1 spot in their list of the top 100 comic book stories of all time. It beat out “The Watchmen”, which is pretty much the best comic book I’ve ever read, so I gave it a shot.

It’s an amazing true story about a holocaust survivor. The book was written by the survivor’s (Vladek) son- Art Spiegelman. It goes back and forth between Vladek’s telling of the story, and Art’s time researching the story by interviewing his father.

Everybody knows how brutal the holocaust was, but I was still surprised at some of the things that happen in the story, but mostly I was amazed at Vladek’s ability to survive. The guy was incredibly resourceful. He narrowly escapes death I don’t even know how many times.

I convinced my Mom and my Dad to read it, and when they’re done, Marie even agreed to give it a shot. Even Kelly Parker said she would give it a try. None of them will be disappointed. A well written comic is just as great as a well written novel. They’ll all see. I know Doug wants to read it too. If it was easy to find I would tell him to just go buy it, because he’ll want to own after he reads it anyway. Hopefully everybody else will hustle up, so he can have a turn soon.

Preschool Ben

I decided to stop making the biggest mistake of my life, and I let Marie talk me into putting Ben in preschool. It’s only about 20 minutes away, and when we move into the new house it will be even closer. Today was his first day, and it seemed like he really enjoyed it. He hasn’t got to play outside, or with other kids very much since we moved in with my parents, so just getting him out of the house, and putting him in a social situation is worth it, plus they learn, and do crafts, and have stories, so I’m really glad he’s going.

They must have sang the “If You’re Happy and You Know It” song, because he was singing it tonight. He knows the words pretty good too, considering that he only learned the song today.

Popular Baby

I was eating lunch today at Panda Express, and the checker, 3 customers, and the girl cleaning the floor all told me how cut Jared is. They didn’t just say “Cute baby”, and move on either. They all stopped to talk to him, and tell me how cute he is, and they ask me how old he is, and what his name is. It happened at Wal-mart too. In fact it happens everywhere I go without exception. The kid is just that cute, and don’t say it’s because he’s a baby, and people think babies are cute. These people are genuinely impressed by his excessive cuteness.

Save the Pizzas!

OK, I usually try to make these things light-hearted and fun, but today I need to discuss something that is very serious. People are ruining the pizzas. Yes, pizzas are senselessly, and illogically going to waste. You can see why this is an important subject. Pizza is one of the greatest creations ever conceived by man, and it is imperative that we all do our part to put this mindless pizza wasting to an end.

You see, pizza is dough, tomato sauce, cheese, and then toppings, and in the last year or so I have personally witnessed pizzas numbering in the hundreds become rendered useless by the neglectful practice of the OPWOT, or ordering pizza without toppings, commonly referred to as a cheese pizza.

Please people, if your dull, lifeless tastebuds can’t handle a little flavor, do the rest of us a favor, and order a pepperoni, and pick the pepperonis off, or maybe styrofoam, or cardboard would be more pleasing to your child-like palette.

I’m hoping everyone who reads this will help me in this noble effort to put an end to the OPWOT, and save the pizzas!