Eddie in the shower!

Sorry, no pictorial on this one, but the headline is the point of the blog, let me back up a little, ......(insert do-do-do-do-do-flashback sounds here)

My mother recently came to LA from Hong Kong for a visit, My Grandmother lives an hour away from me and so Mom can visit us both. Usually, she spends a few days down with Grandma and then comes up to my house for a while. This time, we all thought, why not bring Grandma up here too? She could spend some quality time with my girls and Mom wouldn't have to feel torn between us.

FYI, my grandmother is 85 and still lives on her own in her quiet single story house.
My house is full of noisy girls and all the bedrooms are up a flight of steep stairs.

Needless to say I had some concerns, but she came and she was a very good sport about it all, reading stories and singing songs, taking naps when the girls became too much for her. Other than her love of suddenly rolling down the car windows while on the freeway going 80 mph to "feel the wind on her face" she was amenable to any plans we made.

She let us guide her down the stairs each morning and back up the stairs each evening, and a good time was had by all. Understandably she was tired and sometimes a little disoriented in my home and she went to bed before the rest of us grown-ups each night. However, once she turned in we didn't hear much from her till morning......until...

One night, she had turned in, my mother and I were chatting downstairs, while Eddie went up to take a shower. Minutes pass and then I hear "OK Grandma here is your room and I'll get back to my shower" I realized what must have happened and fell to the floor laughing uncontrollably, when I came up for air I went up to find out the whole story, which I include here in Eddie's own words.

As I was showering I heard the sweet voice of someone singing and I thought it was Jannah bringing the baby in to say goodnight in before going to bed.

I toweled off expecting to greet my wife in "all my glory" when I instead see Grandma who's only comment was

"This isn't my room is it?"

"No Grandma it isn't."

Of course the capstone to this story is that while Grandma has short term memory issues and has probably already forgotten the whole thing, I will be able to share it over and over in the years to come and it will get funnier every time....until I'm the one with short term memory loss and disorientation.

Diagnosis Chinois

Last Monday I spent the entire morning and a bit of the afternoon in the Children's Eye Institute. Since Nina's birth, SOME PEOPLE have insisted that she is either cross eyed or has a lazy eye. A CERTAIN PERSON has been known to point out to others that she might be cross eyed, and so I asked the pediatrician to look into it and got a referral to be sure that all was well.

The appointment was for 9:30, I arrived at 9:00 because I wasn't sure how long it would take to find the place, by 10:00 we had been in for an initial assesment, by 11:00 we had been back out the waiting room and back in for an exam and to have dialating drops put in, by 12:30 I had seen the "Polar Express" 2 times too many and was about to go insane when we were called in for final exam and consult.

Our diagnosis? Nina is half chinese.

Of course, I kind of knew that already but now we have a technical name for her condition and an informative pamphlet on the subject " Pseudostrabismus "is the false appearance of strabismus, which basically means she looks like she might be cross-eyed, but she's not. According to Wikipedia, "Pseudostrabismus is more likely to be observed in Native American or East Asian infants due to the presence of epicanthic fold obscuring the medial aspect of the eye. "

I have never been so glad to have "wasted" an entire morning to find out nothing was wrong, and after all, now that I have a pamphlet, SOMEONE can't all her cross eyed anymore, of course now SOMEONE is looking up plastic surgery options to "fix the epicanthic fold"

12-25 Random and not so random thoughts

I am off of the sudafed and Nina let me sleep all night last night, and I have for a while been thinking about writing a bit of a shout out to lots of people, so Here goes,

12 - "Panda girl" I just emailed you but I thought I would add here that when I gave up on being Ella Fitzgerald I wanted to grow up and look like you, even though you were growing up behind me.

13 - "Mand E" I think you had a shot on biggest loser, as long as the chicken was grilled and not fried.

14 - "Big J" - I think you should name your new kidney and you could have a man shower for it, register for DVD's you want to watch during recuperation and maybe a remote controlled padlock for what ever room you recouperate in, to limit the amount of attention you recieve.

15 - "sports car girl" - I think when people ask you "when you are going to have that baby?" you should answer "Never, I'm protecting him from idiots like you who don't realize how annoying it is to ask that question."

16 - "CrisT" - WHy don't you want me to read your blog, why won't you let me in? Please, let me in, come on, we are blood related and sisters of the red elephant, please, let me back into the loop!

17 - "MarG" would you really take hula class with me?

18-Artemis - I think we should write a musical about motherhood, I think there could be a romantic ballad called "WHile the children watch disney shows" and an epic anthem called "cleaning up the toy room" I have one line already, "I used to have dreams of being famous on stage, now I have children I might like to cage."

19 - Speaking of writing, how about an anthology of children's stories by the "Sisters Ferg" Not quite the same as the brothers Grimm, but maybe in a hundred years or so it would sound natural?

20 - Kris10 - I'm glad you like the recipe but now you gotta return the fav, I need a new meal in my repitoire.

21 - mamamamamama - thanks again for one of the best gifts anyone ever gave me, a large piece of plastic swiss cheese is always appropriate but rarely found.

22 - "Joel B" I love your commercial where you play the trucker who decides not to fool around with the waitress, for some reason my daughters like it too, they think its a music video about a guy who misses his family - thanks for choosing to be faithful, every time.

23 - your ad here
24 - Coming soon
25 - Coming soon

25 random things about you

The facebook phenomenon has leaked over into my blog, but I would like to change things up a little and share random thoughts I have had about others this past week, Please read with the understanding that in this last week I have either been up all night taking care of sick children, been up all night because I myself cannot breath, or have been under the influence of Sudafed (the real kind that you have to ask for at the pharmacy counter, none of this “PE’ stuff.) In interest of protecting your identities, I am assigning some random nicknames, this has the added benefit that you can choose which random thought is about you as long as you can justify it.

1- “Ginger” - I think we should have a 3/4/5 year old kick line finale at the end of the recital this year, in order to accomplish this you put a red dot on each girl’s right foot and a blue dot on the left, then you stand on the side and call out “Red!” “Blue!” and so forth.
2- “MarG” – Maybe next year for preschool we could focus on real life skills, things like bargain shopping, food tasting and dramatic analysis (watch tv and try to figure out what is going on, and what will happen next.
3- “Red headed vixen momma” – I often wish I had the audacity to wear the lovely shoes you often wear,
4- “Van girl” – has anyone ever called you a “sri-lankan Barbie doll”? if not I would like to do so now, not only because you are stunningly gorgeous, but also because like Barbie you seem to be able to be whatever you need to be, One minute a mild mannered insurance adjuster, the next minute a raging party gal.
5- “Mary ma soeur” - if by a loralai kind of relationship you mean sitting around watching bad movies and consuming mass quanitities of multi ethnic food call me rory and let’s schedule it for this summer!
6- “Mee Ray” though you probably won’t read this I have been thinking of you and I hope you know how much love I send out into the universe for you and trust God to carry it to you if you ever should need it. - If you want a christmas card though, you should call me and give me your address.
7- “Diana” –not a very creative nick name, to leave out only one letter but for some reason (probably the Sudafed) I found it very funny just now as I typed it out. Oh oh oh, wait I have a better code name – Artemis - this may be the most random thought yet, but do you remember when you were dating your husband and he had given you presents that were marvelous and sort of random things that were perfect because they were things you loved, and you came too me and said “I don’t know if he really likes me?” - that was really funny, and I am glad it gets funnier every year you are with him. – Just think, if all prayers were answered you might be married to someone who eats chocolate bars with a knife and fork.
8- “Eminem” I know it was your birthday and I missed it, but I think it only fitting because I also miss you. – no disrespect to my other best friends, it is not an easy life to have my bestest friend far away and few between. That said, I am so glad you are still my BFF
9- Sean "duh" You make me feel a little silly being overwhelmed by daily life, or rather I suppose, you give me hope of what can be done.
10 Le T sha - is it really fair that you have 2 such handsome boy children and I have none? Of course I wouldn't trade my girls for anything, not even handsome boys, so I will just keep on admiring the boys from afar.
11- Summer Daze - speaking of handsome boys I need to meet yours, if only we weren't afflicted with our version of the plague, I would have already driven down there to snuggle him.

12- 25 aren't quite making it past my brain, that is probably just as well, and makes this all the more random.