It's All About the Presentation...

Most people who know us know that we are rabid Olympics fans. We attended events in Atlanta in '96 and Salt Lake in '02. We each have our favorites. For instance, I love volleyball (the indoor variety, both mens and womens), while Kelsee tolerates it at best. She has been really into the cycling road races, which just isn't my thing. We both enjoy glimpses of the "Olympic" sports. You know those sports that you only really ever watch during the Olympics: fencing, wrestling, weightlifting, various field events, whitewater, rowing, etc. We do watch the swimming, gymnastics and diving enthusiastically, as well. Anyway, normally we aren't too much into the running events. We watch and enjoy, but really not to the same level as the other stuff above. Well, that changed this year, at least for Kelsee, and for one primary reason. Ato Boldon. She sighs when she hears his voice, drools when she sees him. We've been watching most of the Olympics on TiVo, and every time they flash to the NBC Broadcast team, the remote flies up and points to the television, the image of The Man paused. Then slowly, oh so slowly, she advances the recording. Sheesh. I decided to take a pic of the image she was most fascinated with the other night... This particular picture elicited air kisses from my dear wife. That's OK. I got back at her by swooning over the US womens volleyball team. I was going to take a picture of the scene we paused for Cameron. He found excitement in the Olympics only during womens gymnastics, and most particularly the little firecracker Shawn Johnson. I wasn't going to take a picture of her flashing that million dollar smile or shaking her tush at him. I was going to take a picture of him mesmerized, his chin resting on the floor and his eyes bugging out. He said he doesn't have a problem marrying a woman who makes millions of dollars more than him. Kelsee said she wouldn't have had a problem marrying a man who made millions more than her, either. Gee, thanks.

A Week of Firsts

It's official. Haley is a student. She started kindergarten last week, and the event brought a range of emotions into our home, especially with her mother. I leave her to share that if she chooses. Anyway, she was so excited, but then I think the stress caught up to her on the first day. She was so anxious, she wouldn't even give us a real Haley smile for the pictures. Cameron gave us a real smile, which was pretty monumental in and of itself that early in the morning. Anyway, here are some pics... Best we can do of the new student for the official "backpack on and posing on the front porch" picture. Just a minute before she's grinning the biggest grin and practically bouncing. As soon as the camera comes out she looks like she is trying to fake a smile after losing her favorite pet. Now, Cameron, on the other hand, is totally genuine. I'm not sure if this is because he's glad to be out of the boredom of our house for the bulk of the day, or if it's because he had no less than four girls call him up that week saying they couldn't wait to see him and give him the biggest hugs. Every guy reading this is nodding their heads to that second option. Kelsee tries to get a smile again from the anxiety riddled five year old. Really, Haley. You can do better than that. Fine. We give up. Anyway, school seems to be going well for both our students. My class starts this week. Wonder if Kelsee will take a picture of me on my first day, or do we not do that with teachers? ----- Another first... On Monday, as I was waiting for my carpool while Kelsee was helping Haley get ready for school, I hear a shreik from the munchkin's room. I dart into the room to see her mother practically bouncing on the bed and Haley beaming. Seems Haley wanted Kelsee to feel how sharp Haley's teeth were (why, I have no idea). When Kelsee felt one of the lower front teeth, it really wiggled. Sure enough. Haley's first loose tooth, and it is REALLY loose. Kelsee is spending the day making a tooth fairy pillow. I never got one of those. I feel robbed. ----- This morning Haley decided to play family photographer for the first time. This series is entitled "Morning in the House..." Me, waiting on my carpool... Cameron, refusing to look at the camera. However, this shows just how heavy his backpack is. Man, I don't miss school... Now, right here should be a picture of Kelsee standing in the bathroom blowing her hair dry making a funny face. However, I've learned a valuable lesson in my short 13+ years of marriage. Don't post pictures of the wife without prior written approval. (Must be written, mind you, or you open up a Pandora's Box...) If I receive the necessary legal documentation, I'll post it. Otherwise, just use your imagination.

More in Our 'OK. That was Random...' Series (plus bonus Haley-ism!)

You know what? I have the awesomest wife in the world. When I woke up bright and early--or dark and early--I was treated with a lovely note from Kelsee. She'd obviously written it some point during the night. Love you, too, baby. ----- Last thought on jog-walking. Endorphins are amazing things. I hurt when I run, yet I find myself looking forward to it each morning. It's just wrong. Endorphins should be outlawed. ----- Haley-ism We were downstairs watching TV. Haley was scratching some spot on her arm, a little white bump had formed there. She scratched some more, then looked at Kelsee. "I have beehives on my arm!" ----- We went to the Kentucky Horse Park yesterday. We only had a few hours as I had to work in the morning and Haley had a OT appointment late in the afternoon. For those who don't know, the KHP is a huge place, site of the annual Rolex Three Day equestrian event and the first non-European site of the World Equestrian Games (in 2010). It's also the burial location of Man-O-War and the home of several other famous retired horses. They hold any number of equestrian activities there and have many stables, barns, and museums. Anyway, some pictures, with my comments below each. Ladies and Gentlemen! Cigar! (No, really. Cigar. I know it looks like a horse...) Anyway, Cigar was a big name in horse racing during the middle Nineties. Horse of the year in 95 and 96, won 16 straight races (obliterating the competition). He didn't really start racing until he was a four-year-old or something, but he's a big name in the racing world. I was giddy to see him. An interesting note. This picture of Cigar I took at the Hall of Champions, where they bring in a few really big name horses to show the crowd. Most of the horses really liked to SHOW the crowd, if you know what I mean. Everything on display. I don't have any pictures of that, but it was a fascinating example of Classical Conditioning. The handler would just smack her leg with her hand, or turn the horse in a circle, and he'd just, well, retract. Sometimes. Amazing. Haley didn't comment on it, so I breathed a sigh of relief. (As an aside: Did I ever mention I had a roommate in college who competed in rodeo. He had a walking stick made of a horse, ummm, appendage. Yet I digress...) Part of the activities at KHP is the Parade of Breeds. They bring out five or six different breeds and show you all about them. Really neat to see how different they all are. This guy in the picture was huge, and so was the horse (a Shire, used by Medieval knights). Haley has become really fascinated with horses over the last year or two. She had a ball at the horse park. Oh, and imagine that! We can see her chewing her gum. Some things never change. This is just about the biggest horse I've ever seen. There were actually two of them. Percherons, one of a breed of draft horses. They were each about 18 hands high (a hand is 4 inches) and weighed a total of 4300 pounds. Amazing. Here's Haley petting the head and neck of this tiny Percheron. Did I mention that he weighed nearly 2200 pounds? Like that handler would be able to stop him if he decided to bolt over the top of those little kids. Yikes. Time to find another horse... Ah, here we go. Some miniature pony. It's not a Shetland, but it's similar. Here's putting that pony's size in perspective. It would need to be concerned if I decided to bolt, not the other way around. (By the way, I hate the camera. See how big it makes me look? I'm sure it has nothing to do with the uncontrolled eating and sedentary lifestyle I used to live.) Hey, Kona Gold thinks our blog is funny! Thanks, big guy! (Kona Gold: set the fastest time ever at Churchill Downs during the 2000 Breeders Cup Sprint. It seemed like he made this face every time he, uh, extended. Pervert...)

Oh, My! Now the Peaches!

We've reaped quite a harvest on from our peach tree. Maybe five dozen peaches. Mind you, this is a dwarf peach tree that we got for free from someone; we new it had pretty flowers, but never knew we'd get this reward! Our first two summers were pretty anemic. Anyway, recall my post about our tomatoes? (My Tomatoes Are Horny!) Looks like they aren't the only virile produce, and now I think I know the source of our peach population explosion... Who knew my blog would end up pornographic? Playfruit Magazine Online. (Ugh, that was an awful attempt at humor. Oh, well. You can't win 'em all.)

Running without a Basketball? Blasphemy!!!

Life got pretty busy in early March when Cameron came to live with us. An unintended yet pleasant consequence of that was I forgot to eat. I mean, I still eat meals, but I forgot to have that second helping or the late night snack. I've had a couple of medical issues that involved me going to the doctor five or six times since March, and I realized after the first visit (where I weighed in at a hefty... you'd like to know, wouldn't you? Tough...) that I needed to get serious about losing weight, but I didn't put much thought into it, as usual. Anyway, I discovered at the second visit that I'd lost like five pounds and hadn't really done anything. So I began to be more aware of it. Each subsequent visit to the doctor showed more weight loss, such that I was 25 pounds less of a man at my last visit about a week and a half ago than I was at my first in March. And you know what? It really wasn't hard. I decided a couple of things. First, if I wanted a double cheeseburger or any other decadent food, I'd eat it. I wasn't going to go on some weird freaky menu diet. I'm just going to do portion control and cut out most of my snacking. I had a nutritionist who once told me losing weight is about attitude change more than anything. I also know that cutting back food intake can only take you so far. Now, I need to interject that I'm trying to lose weight for a few reasons: 1. Haley is a typical five-year-old in the sense that her energy far exceeds mine. I need to be able to keep up. 2. Big guy clothes are more expensive then little guy clothes. 3. Airplane seats are really small, and the seatbelts are really short. 4. Genetically, I'm probably going to have major problems with my knees. They don't need any more help getting trashed. 5. Other health reasons, which I'm sure nobody really cares about, so I'll leave them alone. 6. I want my wife to think I'm kinda cute, but I'm not sure losing weight can help all that much in the ugly department. Anyway, I decided about two weeks ago to add to my exercise regimin, which right then consisted of one night of basketball a week and lots of walking from my desk to the bathroom to unload my Mountain Dew. I have started jog-walking. I call it jog-walking because part of the time I'm walking, and the rest of the time I'm "jogging", which actually resembles my walking except I move my arms faster and bounce higher with each step. I definitely don't go any faster. I've learned a few things about jogging... 1. People who do it for fun are gluttons for punishment. When I'm done, my knees hurt, my ankles hurt, I can't catch my breath and I stink. I don't mind any of these things if I'm dribbling a basketball, but just for the sake of running? 2. Running in the late evenings really interrupts the evening, and takes away from my couple time with my better half. So I decided two days ago to begin running in the morning. However, running in the morning hurts worse than running in the evening. 3. Running in Kentucky in August sucks for two main reasons: humidity and hills. Yuck. 4. Running is an individual thing. Cameron tried running with me last Friday night. I told him to run at his own pace, to push himself a little, but not to wait for me to catch up or try to keep up with me. He seemed perplexed, but I soon left him behind and finished probably five minutes ahead of him. 5. Thank goodness for MP3 players and metal music. Makes this running thing tolerable. 6. Completing my circuit each day comes with some feeling that is surprisingly and disturbingly satifying. I'm not saying I like it, but I guess I can see how someone might become addicted to it, in a completely morbid way.

More on the Reunion

Friday night at the reunion. We're walking down the little road from the dining hall to our cabin. It's almost dusk. As we pass people walking our direction, we catch wind that we have a visitor near our cabin, and not a visitor we were anxious to meet. He roamed around our cabins for a while, and we actually decided it wasn't so bad. As a matter of fact, we almost became oblivious to him, and he never even seemed to acknowledge our presence.

As it began to get darker, he disappeared. We didn't see him again until the next evening, practically at the same time. While a few people were a little on edge to see him again, most of us just looked at him with mild fascination. Some even decided to get him to pose for a picture, but he wasn't very cooperative. We snapped a few anyway, then just turned our attention to other things. He milled about the outside of our cabins for a little while, and then just faded off into the night. We didn't even get his name, but he definitely added interest to the reunion.

Here's a picture I was able to get:

Family Reunion Spawns More Haley-isms

First a note on my last post: For those who were offended by my horny tomato reference, let me just say: get your mind out of the gutter! I was referring to the fact it looked like it had grown a horn. I can't imagine what else you thought I might be referring to. Sheesh. ------------ New Playlist stuff: Psycho by Puddle of Mudd Du Hast and Ich Will by Rammstein (they're German Metal) The Beautiful People by Marilyn Manson (he gives me the creeps, but this is a good song) Temperature by Sean Paul ------------ Here's stuff from the weekend: We had my Hensley Family Reunion this weekend. It's an extravaganza. Starts Friday afternoon, ends Sunday morning, with a Saturday sandwiched in between (information for those who are using something other than the Julian or Gregorian calendars). This event is an annual tradition of swimming, eating, talking, hiking and sweating. It's held at a 4-H camp complete with air-conditioningless cabins. It is fun in the oppressive summer sun. Haley's favorite part, next to the endless swimming, is seeing her cousins. All of them came on Friday night, except Alex, who came with my sister and her husband on Saturday. Haley asked me at one point on Friday night: "When is Alex going to join us?" Every year we have an auction to help offset the costs of the event, and every year we have our eyes set on one particular item. Last year it was a nice pair of binoculars. This year Kelsee and I had a conflict. I had my eyes set a dancing Santa. Kelsee had her eyes set on a soup tureen (fancy name for soup serving bowl with a big spoon). We are now proud owners of a ceramic bowl. Anyway, Haley has become somewhat enamored with the bowl. Yesterday evening, Kelsee made a killer creamy chicken corn chowder thing, and Haley asked if Kelsee was going to serve it in the new bowl. Kelsee told Haley that we would use that for special occasions. Haley nods her understanding, mentioning a few special occasions (first on the list was Daddy's birthday, much to my delight.) She then looks over to kitchen cupboard with the special China we inherited from Kelsee's grandmother and says: "And we can serve it with the Chinese plates." Speaking of yesterday evening, we had a short thunderstorm that rolled through, which prompted Haley to make a similar comment to one that I don't recall ever mentioning on here. So let me go back about a year and a half. It was a time when Haley was becoming afraid of thunderstorms. We were talking about safety, and we told Haley about tornadoes and how to be safe from them. For family home evening, we made a tornado plan, and took Haley to the basement to show her where we should go in the case of a tornado. A few days later, we were beset with a typical spring thunderstorm: lots of wind, thunder, lightening and rain. Haley was becoming more and more alarmed. At one point she says: "Shouldn't we go downstairs so we can be safe from the tomato." We start this post with tomatoes, we end with tomatoes. Fitting...

My Tomatoes Are Horny!

It all started with my former neighbor's dog. Sure, he may have been tied to one of the big maple trees in their half of our shared back yard, but that didn't stop him from being a gigolo. He had a steady parade of much larger female canine visitors. Well, he and his owner moved away last summer. Yet, he must have left his power behind. I went out to the garden a few days ago to check for any ripe vegetables. I saw one ripe Rutger tomato among a cluster of tomatoes. So, of course, I picked the normal looking fruit. Imagine my surprise when I turned him (yes, it is most definitely a him) over and saw...well...an appendage! I'm sure we now have a cluster of disappointed feminine tomatoes.

Back to work

A few years ago my mom and I created a business making and selling custom made children's clothing. We mostly sell using eBay but do quite a bit offline, too (making more money that way!). We had a lot of fun but life got busy for both of us so we've taken a long hiatus. We're back to selling some things we designed and made earlier. Maybe in the fall we'll get back into the swing of things. Or maybe not. LOL We'll see!

Come see what we're doing: http://myworld.ebay.com/81gingerbreadlane

The good, the bad and the ugly.

It's easy to share the fun stuff - the trips, the funny stories, the cute pictures, the parties and celebrations. You know - the things we scrapbook - the things we love to remember. But what about the reality of our lives? It's sometimes not pretty but I'm going to throw it out here anyway. Haley is really struggling with a lot of things right now. Most days her behavior is really poor and we don't know how to help her. I wish it was as "simple" as the medical diagnoses. If it was just that, I'd feel confident. But the social/emotional/behavioral stuff is kicking my butt. It's so hard not to take her attacks personally, yet I know it's not truly personal - I just happen to be with her 24/7 so I bear the brunt of it. It's so hard to continually garner all of my patience and resolve and love, to speak gently to her and act gently with her when she's raging at me, kicking me, hitting me, spitting on me and then to have her scream at me to stop yelling at her, stop hurting her - I know she's not in control of this behavior but it still hurts. It's horrible to feel like you can't help your own child and that they see you as the aggressor when you're doing everything in your power NOT to react to their rage. The NLD diagnosis does explain a lot of it but how do we help her? I've read a ton of books and websites, I've spoken to other parents dealing with this, we see her specialists regularly, I pray. Then the strategies we implement don't seem to be very helpful and it feels like a losing battles some days. It's stressful and overwhelming. And then we have a good day and I feel hopeful again. One of her doctor wants to add more medications but we don't feel comfortable with that. He also keeps saying that this is just life with a brain injury, that the main thing that's consistent with brain injuries is that brain injured people are inconsistent. I keep feeling that there has to be something we can do to help her cope with her life better. She is such a beautiful little person - so full of wit and sweetness and curiosity and fun. She's bright and capable. She's so funny and has such a wonderful mind. She has a truly astounding memory. She is very musical and artistic. She loves to create things. She brings so much happiness to us. But she's also significantly disabled in invisible ways that impact practically everything in her life. She misinterprets most social situations (I could even say most interactions with anyone else which is at the top of our frustrating list today) and is avoiding eye contact more and more. Emotionally, she's getting colder and less empathetic. In many social situations she is pretty much non-responsive - even with people she knows well. She is so rigid and obsessive in her thoughts. She fatigues so easily. She has very few coping skills, very little attention span. Her vision and visual perception are impaired. She has poor coordination/motor skills. She has numerous sensory integration problems. Lots of anxiety. The list goes on and on and on. And yet you look at her and she appears so typical. People just have no idea how challenging her life is - for her and for those of us that love her so much. It's heartbreaking. And yet she is a fighter and so are we. I know things will be okay. But I also know that our future is not going to be easy. And that's hard to face - even with strong faith, a loving and supportive family, great friends and great medical and therapeutic resources.