I’m a day late (and several dollars short, come to think of it) but these two videos are still worth watching.

I don’t know where it came from, and I don’t know how I didn’t notice it until now, but my Bear has a speech tic: before he starts to talk to someone, he says their name as a question. All the time. To everyone. Even if you were just talking together a second ago.

(The scene: driving along in the van.)

“Mama?”

“Yes, Bear.”

“Who do you think would win if Darth Vader had all the storm troopers all together in one place like in one big room on one side and Obi Wan had all the Jedis all together on the other side of the room and all the storm troopers had blasters and all the Jedis had light sabers except Darth Vader who would also have a light saber his red light saber of course?”

“Um, I don’t know, Bear. I think the Jedis are way cooler. I mean, they have the Force. I have to think that they would win. Plus, the Jedis have an ideological interest in winning, whereas the storm troopers are just conscripts.”

“Oh. Maybe.”

Long pause.

“Mama?”

It’s not as if I have gone anywhere or started talking to someone else. It’s verbal punctuation, I guess. Sometimes, at the end of the day, I get a little tired of my name being the equivalent to his physically grabbing my ear.

But it is also a high, sweet treat. When he runs up to me and grabs me and his eyes are sparking with something exciting to say, something so thrilling that he is fairly buzzing, the first word out of his mouth before he tells me the news:

“Mama?!”

I could whine about having to start my computer from scratch. Again.

I could cry over my lack of cookie and pizza ingestion.

I could bemoan how exhausting and heartbreaking it is to have the younger two kidlets down with a terrible, messy cold all week long.

But I will not.

Because this week my neighbor came over and helped me pop in my fourth hard drive and told me that he gets a kick out of seeing anyone interested in the workings of a computer, and even more when it’s a woman.

And because it is so good to have my ‘puter back after four days without. (I was getting the shakes and sweating. I am serious.)

And because I slept in until ten today – ten! – and woke up to Mr. MG and the Princess making me gluten-free biscuits for breakfast. Then, after I ate, Moo finally woke up and curled into my lap for ten minutes to snuggle before requesting breakfast.

The Princess had a piano adjudication this afternoon and did splendidly.

The Bear is feeling better and back to his wiry warrior self.

It’s only one more week until spring break.

Life is incredibly good.

“Hello?”

“Hello, this is Dr. Sneeznitch’s office. Your blood test for gluten intolerance came back negative.”

“Great!”

“Yes, but with the stomach problems you have been having, Dr. Sneeznitch wants you to eliminate gluten and wheat from your diet for two weeks anyway to see if it makes a difference. And if that doesn’t help, he recommends a GI check.”

“Ha ha. Yes. Thank you. Goodbye.”

First off, if the blood test is negative, why should an elimination diet help? This sounds like the doc is toying with me. I can just see the nurse laughing after she hangs up and taking bets as to whether I will give up cookies and bread for two weeks simply because she said to. And as for the GI visit? Uh, no. Let me say right here and now that I am putting off embarrassing, invasive procedures for at least twenty more years. No way.

But – to prove I am right  – I set a date for setting aside gluten. It’s only temporary, right?

And today, a day and a half later, I am feeling downright weird. Because things that I considered normal are missing. Like the bloating. And cramping. Like the constant sensation that a small, furry, angry creature is trying to escape from my abdomen. To some that might be an obvious sign that something is amiss, but it came on so slowly that I wrote it off as part of the havok pregnancy and childbearing wreak on a body. Now things are pretty quiet in there and it’s kind of freaking me out.

I am still not convinced it is the wheat/gluten thing, though. There are plenty  of things that go out the window when you can’t have bread, English muffins, and the like. I will not admit defeat until it is absolutely necessary.

In about twelve more days.

“What is it with you and hard drives, girl?” my sister-in-law said. If anyone can find out, I would like to know.

Not three months after the great meltdown of aught eight, I have another bad hard drive. Different brand, different everything. My awesome computer tech neighbor talked me though cracking open the CPU and plugging the offending drive into a different port (just to be sure it is the drive and not the port)and, sure enough, the drive is dead.

Seagate was awesome and a new drive is on the way. So now the ‘puter is limping along on two drives and stuttering and freezing up at will. BUT everything is backed up, an additional drive has been purchased, and by this time next week I will have four drives in a RAID 1 configuration instead of three drives in a RAID 0.

Who needs speed? I now covet bulletproof security. I’m really super tired of starting over.

Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you for finally making it official. We can quit playing around and get down to brass tacks: at last we are allowed to eat our own children.

Thank you, sir, for standing up for my rights. My right to science. My right to choose. Because I sincerely believe you have my best interests at heart and are not using my uterus and its possible occupants as a political tool. I am absolutely positive that you give a damn. I am filled to the brim with capital-H Hope right this very minute.

Really, you are just helping to guide us back to our primeval roots. Now we proudly follow our ancestors in the high art of child sacrifice, offering up the flesh of our young to appease the gods. We can wink and call it medical technology if you want to, sir. I’ll play along. But you and I both know it’s a short walk from a brightly lit laboratory to a gore-slicked altar. At least you will hold my hand reassuringly and smile along the way. Sir.

What a tasty meal you have provided. (Even if you are so stingy as to take things like cloning off the menu.) As I tuck in my napkin and raise my fork and scalpel, I will thank you for making it all possible.

Mental Multivitamin has re-posted from the archives: Feed a cold; starve a (spring) fever? It is just the thing to feed your brain during the mid-term crazies.

When addressing the assorted problems that can occur when one spends most of her life in the company of young humans, a parent-teacher can look at the problems through bifocals of a sort. Glance through the top and see your children with mother vision. Glance through the bottom and see them through teacher vision. Most of the newfangled “invisible” bifocal lenses come with a center area of vision, a sort of middle distance. Consider this the place where parenting and teaching intersect. Now. Before reacting to this math lesson or that messy room, ask yourself, “Through which lens am I seeing this?” That smidgen of reflection alone may help you avoid unnecessary conflict and stress. If not, try this centering technique: If I were a teacher in a traditional classroom setting, and my principal were observing me, how would I handle this interaction?  It wouldn’t involve shouting or a Snickers bar now, would it?

Go read the whole thing.

Hello, my name is MamaGeph, and I am an Allergic American.

When I was a kid, it was just terrible. Nosebleeds so long and copious, I would just hang my head over the toilet and sieve. Froggy swollen eyes. Lungs that felt teeny tiny during the summer’s ragweed and corn tassel seasons. My folks tried allergy shots and one antihistamine after another. I was a complacent, calm, and very drugged-out kiddo in warm weather.

When I left for college, it all went away. Moving across the state to a whole different environment full of stuff I didn’t react to was a revelation. You mean to tell me that most people don’t  spend their summers alternately drooling and sneezing? Wow!

Fast forward to now. We’ve lived in western Washington for thirteen years, in the most beautiful, green, lush paradise I could have ever hoped for. It is gorgeous here. Trees and flowers that thrive all year long. Grass that needs an occasional mow over the winter. It is teeming with life everywhere you look.

Uh-oh.

No nosebleeds (thank you, God) but lots of other stuff started cropping up. Then some more. Aaaand some more. And not only hay fever, but skin and food issues. Did you know that an extreme allergy to birch pollen makes your body react wildly when you touch, eat, or threaten to look too closely at any raw fruit or vegetables? It’s true.

I’m running out of antihistamines to try, so my allergist gave me something exciting and new – Xyzal. And if you ever take some, that will be the last time you will think of anything  as exciting or new, because you will spend the next 36 hours trying to scrape yourself off of the floor. The pill is smaller than the fuse in a Christmas light string, and yet it is knocking me on my can. I’m kind of nodding off as I type.

But it works!

Dang. I think.

But if it works, it’s going to have to join the arsenal. Because I would rather be bleary and slurring my words than live somewhere else and be clear as a bell. What’s a little pollen between friends?

Spring has done sprung.