Risky Boobness

I have high-risk breasts.

No, there will not be photos posted here.

Perv.

My mother had breast cancer almost five years ago, her mother died from breast cancer, my sister had precancerous breast lesions and I’ve got at least two cases of female organ cancer on my paternal side.

Bummer.

But the good news is I think my lifestyle – healthy diet, lots of activity and trying to keep stress low – helps.

I also firmly (pun?!) believe that breastfeeding helps reduce breast cancer risk and the studies show that each year of breastfeeding lowers your breast cancer risk. I’ve been breastfeeding for almost six straight years (three kids, but not all at once!), so I’m hoping that’s cut my odds to nothing.

Anyway, I took the L-man with me today to the Revlon High Risk Breast Center. More unschooling activities! You have to be special to go there and I’m special. They examined my breasts, said there was nothing to worry about, but then upped my visits from twice a year to three times a year and threw in an MRI in addition to my mammograms.

Even though there’s nothing, it is a bit freaky that they think my risk is so high. Oh well.

The L-man was hilarious, interviewing me about my life between clinicians. "So, tell me, have you ever broken anything? Was there blood? Did you cry?"

I can hardly believe he was 2 just two months ago.

Before we left, I had a client call for that CME poster I’m writing. Usually I take Miss M when I’m working, since at five years, she can keep herself occupied if I have a call, etc. But L-man was so excited to join me today that he completely freaked out and started kicking the door when I was on my call. It was very loud. I had to run to the bathroom.

If I had a dollar for every call I’ve done in that bathroom. I swear.

Anyway, after my breast cancer evaluation, I found out I got the editor gig (remote, of course!) at FiercePharma and then the L-man and I had lunch with the brain surgeon’s sister. The brain surgeon wasn’t there today. He was down at the county hospital doing – you guessed it – brain surgery to cover for a colleague who had a baby today.

This particular brain surgeon and his wife couldn’t be nicer and we are so happy for them.

We are also happy that we are now not the ONLY couple in the neurosurgery residency program with kids. Seriously. All this time, it’s just been me and the brain surgeon with the kiddies.

Today was also a miracle day. I’ll tell you about this particular miracle.

The L-man crashed on the way back from the hospital. I carried him up the stairs, through the gate, into the house and laid him on the bed AND HE STAYED ASLEEP. I noted that BooBoo was also asleep.

For other mothers of three, I'm not lying. The aforementioned and what follows are absolutely true.

I took Miss M to her afternoon class.

Would they both be sleeping when I returned?

That NEVER happens. It's impossible.

But they were! They slept for almost 2 hours.

And Carmen helped hang up the laundry today.

Bless her! Oh holy day!

I’m really weird about hanging the clothes in outfits, so I cringed at what was on a few hangers, but beggers can’t be choosers and I’m focusing on the gratitude!

Two hours of naptime. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I should've watched the evil television or read a book, but I didn't. I'm just stupid.

After the little ones woke, I took them to pick up Miss M and we went to the park. We stayed about an hour and then I hit the wall of exhaustion, so I packed them up and we went home.

Then we did our bedtime routine:

1. Dinner (I try to clean kitchen as I go)
2. Baths (I try to clean bathroom while they're in the tub)
3. Pajamas
4. Brush teeth
5. Brush hair
6. Floss
7. Read stories
8. Lights out
9. “Dark stories”

I also like to pick out their clothes the night before, but I’ve been forgetting to do that a lot lately. I does help the mornings go more smoothly.

If I was really on my game, I’d pack tomorrow’s lunches since it’s home school park day.

I'd also pick out my clothes.

I'm not on my game.

I also was accepted to write for Demand Studios today. But they pay crap. Truly crap. I didn’t know this when I sent them my info or I wouldn’t have bothered.

Then I wrote a couple of super easy articles for them based on stuff already in my head, so it's fine. I want to do some consumer writing in certain areas where I’ve been mostly in the trade press or not at all, and this is a surefire way to get clips. It certainly isn't a way to get money. I earned more babysitting when I was 12.

But, it was pretty easy. My articles will be up on eHow, which by the looks of some of the site's content and writing quality, I'll likely rename, "eHow embarassing." That's why they hire professional writers on the side, I guess.

Toodles!

Back in Babysitter Hell

Today was hectic. Back to the office with Miss M. There were way too many people there. I was desk and computer hopping. We didn’t have enough Ethernet cords or parking spaces.

It was ridiculous. Truly.

I had one interview (that IVD Technology news story) one meeting, two conference calls and one brainstorming session. In between, I ran Miss M to her afternoon program. By this, I mean I literally ran.

I had 10 minutes between meetings. I rush that poor kid. Out of the office. Down the stairs. Into the car seat. Out of the car seat. Run across the park. Sign in.

Kiss Kiss. Here’s your snack. Here's your sweater. Bye!!!

She was an hour late and would have to leave an hour early and she wasn’t at all happy about it.

I jogged back to my car, sped back to the office, did the brainstorm, then ran back to my car, back to the park, picked up Miss M – who was not eager to go to ballet and who wanted to play on the monkey bars – but…

I sped to the house so the brain surgeon could throw me the ballet gear, which I had forgotten, and so I could nurse BooBoo, which I had not forgotten, but which I literally had not a moment to do earlier. Then Miss M and I headed off to the next park for ballet with the harsh-looking-but-actually-quite-warm Russian ballet teacher.

Miss M isn’t quite up to the intense new ballet hours or the change from British to Russian ballet. She enjoys going usually, though. I did have to promise we would play on the monkey bars after class today. Also, the ballet training is getting more intense and she gets tired before the hour-and-a-half is up.

Then I came home and put the three little lovelies to bed and desperately wanted to go to sleep with them.

I thought today that I had a potential new backup babysitter. I have a friend – one of BooBoo’s friends’ mothers – who’s in entertainment and her show is done, so she only needs her nanny part time. Perfecto! I trust this family and this woman has been with them a year, so I figured it would just be a matter of a background and reference check and a few test days.

BUT, she apparently has a dog phobia. At least that’s what she said.

Or maybe she just doesn’t want to work here. She knows Carmen, so I’m sure she’s seen my crew. I admit, I’m a tough gig. I’m usually working from home (babysitters hate that) AND I have three relatively young children.

Even though I usually bring Miss M if I leave, it’s still a hard job. I know this. I do.

But really, I just don’t have the dang energy to go on the nanny hunt. I just don’t. So, I talked to the brain surgeon tonight about a plan for just toughing it out.

Since he’s on research and mostly not on call, I can work nights and he’ll handle dinner, baths and bedtime. If I’m not getting enough sleep, he’ll give me a sleep day on Saturday. When I have conference calls, I’ll head to the hospital and he (or his sister) will watch them for the duration of the calls.

If I end up with an offsite meeting, who knows what I’ll do.

As I type this, I’m remembering I already have two – maybe May 5th and 6th?

Uh oh.

As for tonight, I'm tired. I've got four news stories to finish editing and I need to finish draft 1 of a poster by tomorrow. I just want to sleep.

Overall, though, I’m really grateful.

Even with these challenges, I know I'm very lucky that I have the flexibility I do and that I can support the troops without being away from them for more than about 15 hours a week.

That means a lot of conference calls in the bathroom or out in front of the house, with a fair amount of muting and shushing, but a mama’s gotta do what a mama’s gotta do.

And really, it's a hectic life. It's a chaotic life. But it's a good life.

BooBoo's up for her nightly feeding!


Ciao!

Date Night

I really have very little recollection of what happened today. I went into the office. I know that. Did I do anything useful? I’m pretty sure I didn’t. I did scramble to pull interviews together for the IVD Technology news story I’m writing about the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ competitive bidding demonstration project.

Maybe that’s all I did. I can’t be sure.

I do know that Carmen announced that her two weeks off in May for her trip to Mexico might really be three or four or even five or six.

K. Thanks for that.

Last time it was five months before she returned.

I will not panic. I will not panic. I will not panic.

I asked if her daughter-in-law would help (she has a baby BooBoo’s age and a daughter Miss M’s age), and she said, probably not, because she naps when her baby does, and then what would happen to my children?

Um, yah, that’s not an option.

The best part of today is that the brain surgeon and I actually had a date night. Whoa. It almost never happens and we ruined the last two almost-date-nights with miscommunications about time and misinterpretations about each other’s interest in each date. (FYI, that’s all code for “fighting.")

But last night was really nice. Our lovely 80-plus-year-old neighbor joined us for dinner at Trilussa Ristorante in Beverly Hills on Brighton Way. Yummy. I had a carb-fest, which is atypical for me. I ate lots of bread dipped in pesto plus an endive and radicchio salad followed by their incredible mushroom ravioli. Yes, I can put down the chow.

Or should I say, “ciao”? la la la la

My sister speaks Italian. Very cool. My sister-in-law pronounces it Eye-talian.

We also had a decent bottle of wine. I believe it was called Intensio.

How intense.

Then the brain surgeon and I went to a movie alone.

Oooooh. Ahhhhh.

We saw “Smart People,” which could have been titled, “Smart People, Slow Movie.” It was, in fact, quite slow. Not horribly bad or anything, but definitely sloooooooooooooow.

We popped in on "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" first, since we were early. I thought it would be stupid (okay, it is), but the 10 minutes we watched were definitely funny and we were both laughing out loud. This movie had one of the better marketing schemes I've seen, too.

I also got all excited during the previews about the release of the "Sex and the City" movie!!! Even if it’s bad and even if the trailer showed the whole damned thing, I don’t care. I need my Carrie fix.

Anyway, we got home after midnight. BooBoo needed to have her midnight snack (aka ME!) and that was that.

Toodles!

An Ad Agency and an Acting Debut

I didn’t blog yesterday, so already I don’t get to be OCD about this blogging business. Not that it’s a business.

Yesterday was another open house day. My realtor was out of town again, but instead of me, he had this guy sit my house. He was somewhat annoying. Oh well.

Overall, the day was dull and unproductive for me. I cleaned and staged. I edited a few papers. I prepped for my meeting today.

The brain surgeon took the children to the Page Museum and to the Boone Children’s Museum at LACMA.

Today was weirdly fun. I worked from home this morning, had a brainstorming session at Carat in the afternoon and my writing class (AKA “social hour”) in the evening.

Miss M went to work with the brain surgeon today in the brain research lab. He’s studying a hideous type of brain tumor called glioblastoma multiforme. She was so excited to go, she couldn’t sleep last night.

The brainstorming sesh was fun. I sometimes enjoy ad execs and that kind of creative atmosphere, especially when it surrounds a product I can stand behind.

Plus they had sandwiches.

I had about 15 minutes at home before it was time to go to class. The brain surgeon had already taken the kids to the YMCA for me. I walked the Vizsla .



Then I realized this was the longest time I’d been without seeing BooBoo since her birth. I realized this because my boobs were huge, as well as a tad achy and lumpy.

So, in full corporate mom mode, I ran back into the kitchen to grab my breast pump. Then I remembered I had given it away. Now someone else was enjoying the fun of electronic milking.

You, too, can moo. Woo!

Oh well, I know how to do the manual expression thing, even if it’s been a while.

It’s at moments like these when I see what a turn my life has taken. I’m wearing my corporate mom clothes and writer bag for class over one arm, and I'm leaning over the kitchen sink squeezing milk out of my boobs into a sippy cup.

If you’d forgotten how glamorous my life is, I’ve just reminded you.

Then I put the milk in the fridge and went to class, WHERE…

I made my first acting debut since high school (unless you count Pi Beta Phi rush week)!!!

It’s true. I read not one, but two parts tonight.

In one, I read the part of a 28-year-old wife of a philandering husband for a sitcom. In another, I played a dominatrix in an action adventure.

I actually read this line aloud:

"Do you want me to take off my panties?"

Then I finished my dialogue, which involved me nearly peeing on an undercover cop for a fee of $300.

I waited with bated breath for that slow rumble of applause all actors live for. Although no one has clapped for a writer or actor before in our class, surely this was because they hadn't yet discovered the hidden gem amongst them.

It never came, but I remain hopeful.

Perhaps they were all just jealous of my obvious and enormous talent despite my lack of formal training.

A girl’s gotta start somewhere.

I’m off to Hollywood!!!


Toodles!

I Have Fake Nails and My Children Swear so I had a Brain Surgeon Dinner Party

The brain surgeon and I were still a little discordant today and had not fully recovered from the food incident. Two days, I know.

Lame.

But we had worked through it by this evening. We had to. We were having a few resident brain surgeons over for dinner.

I miss when I was the dinner party queen in med school. I loved cooking elaborate vegetarian meals (easier than vegan) that pleased the carnivores. I loved bring out the decorations, the candles, the crystal.

Tonight’s dinner was more me running in the door, sweaty, with groceries well after the guests had arrived. Then we (well me and my brain surgeon) threw together a vegan taco dinner that was okay, but that was also clearly an I-have-three-kids-5-and-under meal.

Still, I enjoyed myself.

But let’s start at the beginning.

I was up too late last night and I got up too early this morning. Cranky and still dealing with post-fight residuals from the scorned brain surgeon.

I took Miss M to the nail salon. She chose blue for her fingernails and pink for her toenails. I had acrylic nails put on, which was just plain dumb for a variety of reasons. One reason is that I'm a writer (shameless plug) and it takes me like three days to relearn to type with my tacky fake-o-la nails. Another is that I so rarely have time to get my nails done, and it is so sporadic, that I can’t really get these things filled.

There should be a market for temporary acrylic nails.

Because really I think they’re a little cheesy and a lot tacky, yet then there are moments where I’ve just gotta have them. And SOMETIMES (rare, but it happens) people get a nice set of fake nails that don’t make them look like a chick in a Girls Gone Wild video.

The last time I went to a nail salon, I had the same ridiculous urge. The lady said to come back every two weeks for a fill. They were gone by then (both my nails and the salon), but didn’t have time to go anyway.

If I’m a brain surgeon’s babe, shouldn’t I be living a life of leisure? Shouldn’t I have time to get my nails done?

Anyway, I bit them off. I’m not a nail biter (though sometimes I’m a finger sucker) UNLESS I get fake nails. There’s something delightfully crunchy about them.

Don’t worry. I don’t swallow.

Nails, that is. I don’t swallow nails.

That’d just be F*d up.

Speaking of the F word, my children swear. I just admit it now.

Usually it’s just my 3-year-old and usually it’s just around us, but he does drop the F bomb in the car sometimes and actually said, “Damn it!” in proper context last week.

Maybe I should punish them, but I’d feel wrong about that since they likely learned it from me and the brain surgeon.

Plus, truth be told, swearing has its place. Rather than abuse them by shoving soap in their mouths, I prefer to teach my children the ins and outs of swearing.

Some might call this bad parenting. I call it honesty.

If you have your own kids, you can handle the nuances of swearing however you want. If you don’t have kids, you don’t know what you’re talking about when it comes to parenting, no matter how much you think you do, but feel free to continue boring parents with your cluelessness.

Sorry. Maybe I’m PMSing.

Anyway, I thought I’d share my (unique, I hear) philosophy on swearing and what I tell my children.

First of all, words are words. I’m a writer (plug for me, oh wait, I already did that) and I believe words are powerful, BUT really, they only have as much power as you give them.

For example, take the “See U Next Tuesday” word. Many women cannot stand that word, so if men or other women call them it, they become super offended, giving said word so much more power than they need to. Just own the word. Demystify it. Who really cares?

Okay, people care. Some people. My job as facilitator of my children’s journey through life is to help them navigate these tricky waters, because, be honest, sometimes a good F word is all you need to get you through the day.

Miss M is very rules oriented and very analytical, so the night she said “f*** it” in front of her grandmother (on the brain surgeon side) I just explained its use to her (despite the brain surgeon’s mom preference for the soap method and obvious disapproval for my method). Here’s about what I said:

“Some words are strong words. Sometimes they feel good to say. But, most people don’t like to hear kids say those words. Grandmas and grandpas and other adults might think you aren’t as nice. We know that’s not true, because words are just words, but I’m simply telling you what other people might think. Also, some mommies and daddies won’t let their kids play with kids who use those words. Even as an adult, I am careful not to use some words around my grandparents or parents, some people I work with and around kids. And we shouldn’t say those words around babies, because they can’t quite make decisions yet about if it is okay to use the words. You have to know how and when to use those words.”

Miss M indicated understanding and I haven’t heard her swear since. No soap required.

Now, what’s really funny was that the brain surgeon’s sister was the object d’venting of the brain surgeon’s mom, who was sharing that she disagreed with my method and thought the mouth laundering method would be more effective.

To which the brain surgeon’s sister said, “Yah, Mom, that f*ing worked. I did not f*ing sneak and swear with my friends then, and I do not f*ing swear now. That REALLY f*ing worked.”

Total poetry.

That’s not to say Miss M hasn’t sworn again. I just haven’t heard it.

My poor mother, though, nearly peed her pants one day at my house. I was in the room with BooBoo, who was tiny then, and the L-man. My mom was playing with Miss M and came to check on me. When she returned to the living room, she heard Miss M whisper while reaching under the couch for an unreachable toy, “This is so f*ing frustrating!”

Okay, how she did not urinate in the hall, I will never know.

Later, Miss M had a straightforward talk with me about the F word, without saying it. She said, “You know that word that starts with the ‘fuh’ sound, Mommy?”

She was in her car seat and had clearly contemplated our talk.

“Yes, M, what is it?”

“Well I can’t really say it around adults, my friends or babies, so I don’t really have anyone I can say it around, huh?”

Dang. She figured me out.

“Yah, M, it’s tricky. But you can say it when you’re alone if you need to, like when you’re in the bathroom.”

Then she said, “Well, can I say it in front of you, then?”

I thought about that and said, yes, if she felt she needed to, she could.

We drove in silence for a while. Then she said, “Mom?”

“Yes, M?”

“You can say it in front of me if you need to, too.”


Damn, I have a cool kid.


Toodles!

Homeschool Playgroup Day

So, I’m over my psychotic food police moment. I’m crazy. I know it. The brain surgeon knows it, but loves me anyway. Can we just move on now?

Good.

Now yesterday, my friend, D, who has been in home-buying hell, came to spend the night with her two little ones. They recently moved about two hours away and have been homeless, basically, while the banks and realtors made one idiotic mistake after another. I keep saying buy Tupperware from D, and I mean it: colbyandbingo@yahoo.com. You know you need something.

D’s eldest and Miss M are absolutely positively best friends. Miss M, one night when their impending move was upon us, cried her eyes out and said, “I love her so much, I just can’t let go.” No idea where she got the scorned lover speech, so I just held her, brokenhearted for my baby and stifling a giggle at the same time.

Parenthood is like that.

Anyway, today is one of the four days I try REALLY hard not to have scheduled work during the day. Of course, a new client scheduled a call for today at 1:00 pm. This is that new client with the less-toxic cleaners that I’m quite excited about. So for this one hour, I needed to figure out what to do with my three little ones. Four options:

1. Hire Carmen

2. Drop them with the brain surgeon and have said conference call in car

3. Go to homeschool park day with D and have her watch them while I have said conference call in car

4. Put movie on in car, hope and pray BooBoo sleeps rather than screams (still facing backwards; can’t see movie), and ruin environment by running car/air conditioner for duration of call

#1 wasn’t a great option. She has a 6-hour minimum and then I’d feel guilty hiring her and not getting more work done. #2 and #3 were both okay options, but I went with #3 because D was here and we all miss each other.

#4 was one of those conference-calling-while-hiding-in-the-bathroom options. Desperate measures like these are only okay in the absence of all other options.

Plus, D has been bugging me to try this group. Neither of us clicked with the other two groups we’ve been to (too far, no real bonding, etc.), but D swore I’d like this one. I’ve been hesitant, though, because there have been a few stories she’s told me that set off my “judgmental mom” alarm.

I go crazy when I hear mothers being hard on other mothers about whatever, though I’m quite judgmental myself.

(I should just call this the hypocrite blog, because it is what I am. I do try to be consistent, but life is confusing!)

Anyway, so I went. After a hectic morning getting there and a successful conference call that I literally choked my way through.

Do you ever just randomly choke on your own spit? I occasionally do. No idea why. It’s inconvenient when you’re sharing PR capabilities with an ad agency that you’re working with on a new cleaning product.

But I digress. (Oh, and I like digressing, so you’ll see a lot of that).

Shortly before leaving, D introduces me to another mom, Tricia, who is also a writer and who is also a mother of three kids (mine are 1, 3 and 5; hers are 3, 5 and 7; I have one boy; she has three).

We chat about writing and blogging. I tell her I’m just coming out of the closet with my blog (you’ll see the irony of this later). We exchange LinkedIn, MySpace, iFreelance and blog info.

I liked Tricia immediately. She’s now the third person I’ve told the actual name of my blog to and the first stranger. She mentioned briefly that she’s had some rough experiences online and that she’s “complex.” She said she pulled down blogs that resulted in a lot of crying.

Before I started writing this, I checked my email and noticed an invite to connect with her on LinkedIn. I accepted and sent her a MySpace invitation in return. Then I browsed through her stuff.

I have to say, she could be the most “complex” person I’ve ever met.

She’s a lesbian, she says. Maybe she's a nonpracticing lesbian. She’s happily married to the father of her children. She writes very dry technical stuff for organizations like NASA. I relate to that. Best part, she’s a comic, like the guy in my mean girls clique.

What are the chances of meeting two comics in one month?

She’s been lamented online for being homophobic (more irony!), anti-fertility treatment (we might agree there) and anti-adoption (and I'm learning about why).

She’s clearly controversial. I like that. Clearly she’s judgmental, which I can’t stand, but again, I’m that, too, and a hypocrite, so who am I to judge?

Damn I’m witty.

I haven’t read much about her views and her personal controversy yet, but I’ve read enough to tell so far is that she’s brilliant, regardless of viewpoints, and very, very brave. That makes her interesting.

Plus, she was just plain nice.

Toodles.

Food Fiend

I have serious issues with food. I don’t really know why this is. I’ve tried quite hard to let go of being a controlling perfectionist when it comes to many things, but I am still stuck on the food thing.

I used to be obsessed with schedules and planning. An organized and clean house were inordinately important to me. This is one area (of many) where kids (and FlyLady) have been very good for me. Schedules are thrown out of whack in a moment’s notice. The best-laid plans are overturned in an instant. Even though I’m an expert housecleaner, I’m so outnumbered that cleanliness only happens when everyone is out of the house, but then I’m out of the house, too.

And what’s the point of the house, then?

In all honesty, every single day of the weak, several major catastrophes happen, even when I’m organized and running ahead of schedule. Someone barfs or pours a blueberry smoothie over their head or spills it on the couch, or the dog dumps over the recycling bin, or BooBoo gets glue in her hair, or the L-man puts lotion in his eye or Miss M stubs her toe and if there’s none of that, there’s always time for an unexpected blowout Poop-o-rama.

It’s the glamorous life I’m living.

But back to the food.

So, tonight the brain surgeon had a craving for some childhood concoction called kraut runtz. I cannot find this no matter how hard I Google, but, the researcher in me did find this, which appears to be about the same recipe.

Now, I know I should be grateful. The brain surgeon used veggie meat (salty and processed, but a major step up) and probably more veggies than most would. But then he bought these, which have listed as the top three ingredients:
- Enriched flour (ugh)
- Sugar (ugh)
- Partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (soybean or cottonseed)

…and pretty much nothing else.

It’s like a heart attack in a box. The brain surgeon, like most Americans, was like, “So, it has a little fat in it. It’s not that bad.”



Um, okay.

Anyway, to make the concoction, you take the dough, fill it with some hamburger and cabbage mixture and bake it.

So gross I could barely look at it – basically Hamburger Helper (I can’t even stand to link that) in a cheap roll.

But what’s worse, he bought – I dunno – 4 or 5 boxes of that crappy roll mix and then used corn oil to mix it with. He thought that might be a step up from butter or margarine and he was right there. Although corn oil has a bit more saturated fat than the better oils, it does have a decent amount of omega 6 fatty acids. Nonetheless, if you’re trying to eat a nutrient rich diet or like Dr. Fuhrman does, it doesn’t really fit in.

Okay, but when I think about it, so what? Why do I care what he eats? Really?

Part is because, as the father of my children, he has a profound influence on them. Although he is WAY WAY healthier than most people are I know, he still maintains a steady intake of processed foods.

I almost never see the brain surgeon eat raw fruits and veggies. Salads are small when they happen. He prefers his fruit canned. He drinks processed orange juice. Processed. Processed. Processed.

But his peers eat much worse than he does, so he’s ahead of the crowd and doesn’t understand why I complain.

Anyway, tonight I caused a fight because I just could not shut up. Looking at 8 huge mounds of that trash food was making my blood boil. I don’t want the kids eating that stuff. I just don’t. And they did.

But I also don’t want to fight about food. Most people do not care. Obesity, cancer, diabetes and heart disease are skyrocketing because people don’t worry about what they eat – except to lose weight.

I rather wish I didn’t care either. But when I see my precious children filling the limited space in their tiny tummies with better-than-most-crap-but-still-crap on a Thursday night, I get a little nutty.

Because it’s really hard. When he brings cookies in the house, we all want them. When he brings soft, squishy (processed beyond any shred of fiber remnants), we all have a slice.

AND I'm a hypocrite. I had Del Taco last week, no matter how I justify it.

It's just that we agreed we wouldn’t say anything at parties and support guilt-free enjoyment of cake. We agreed to limit eating out and to try to pick healthful restaurants when we do. We agreed to keep the processed crap out of the house. We agreed to set an example for the kids.

So I’m annoyed when I stand alone for his and the children’s health.

I’m such a food fiend.

Toodles.

Pictures

I'm inspired. I need to add photos!!!

So here I am with the L-man on my lap at a birthday party. Note the artificially flavored and colored lollypop in carcinogenic red. We throw caution to the wind (or attempt to) at birthday parties. Miss M is wearing the crown and is sitting next to one of her very best friends, Ava Lane.

Here's one of BooBoo and the brain surgeon. We should have named her Pinky. Then I'd have Pinky and the Brain. Both pictures are a few months old. We are uploading them all to the brain surgeon's computer now and he takes it to work.

Anyway, that's a start. Back to interviewing people for my news story on competitive bidding.

Tax Day

Tally Ho.

The last two months were tight financially. I’ll just put that out there before I even get started.

Part of that is because I’m a classaholic and I spend a ridiculous amount of money on classes for my children to attend. It's not very unschooly, but that’s fodder for another post.

So today it was time to pay Uncle Sam. Oh boy.

I’m usually pretty adept at keeping track of expenses, saving receipts and guesstimating how much our family will owe the government come tax season. Usually the brain surgeon doesn’t mark down any deductions, so we have a hefty amount from his paycheck going to the IRS. This plan doesn’t leave the brain surgeon any spending money, but that’s what his babe is for.

The babe's bringing home the (vegan) bacon.

I make some estimated payments so by the end of the year, we’re usually pretty good to go. I usually even overpay, so I can roll the amounts over each year for extra insurance.

But I really screwed up this year.

Somehow I owe almost $6,000 more than what we’ve paid. That’s fun. I’m a freelance writer. I'm supposed to have more writeoffs than income. Clearly I’m doing something wrong.

It’s the self-employment tax that got me. The total was over twelve grand and, obviously, I paid only about half that. Yikes.

That got me thinking about what projects I have in the pipeline and things are looking up.

At the moment, I’m working on three articles for a hospital alliance that I’ve been working with for about four years: one for Health Affairs, one for HFM magazine and one for Critical Care Medicine.

All of these publications are peer-reviewed in a sense, but I’m most interested in publishing the Critical Care Medicine piece. It's a manuscript about Rapid Response Teams and has a lot going for it as far as topic and data, and I swear this manuscript has been with me for years. Really.

Anyway, it's medspeak, but trust me, Rapid Response Teams matter if you're the person lying in the hospital bed.

I’m also working on a peer-reviewed manuscript on adrenoleukodystrophy. This one is for a physician who’s wife works with the brain surgeon when the brain surgeon works trauma at the county ER. Good stories from that place. Anyway, adrenoleukodystrophy is the disease that is the focus of the movie Lorenzo’s Oil.

Great flick. Horrible disease.

I’m ghostwriting two books for addiction specialists this spring. This one is two separate projects. The authors know each other, but are not working together. These are newer projects and are quite juicy, but I'm not sure how much I can disclose.

I’m writing a poster for a CME provider, writing a news story for IVD Technology magazine, and doing my usual copyediting and occasional writing for the Center for the Advancement of Health: that’s my current nonprofit gig with Health Behavior News Service. I think I’m well into the hundreds of articles edited for them, but only write about one a month. Still, if you see proofing errors, they are likely my fault. I’m starting to really like writing those stories, though, especially the more controversial ones.

I’m doing some PR work this month on a product launch for a line of greener cleaners. More on that as it unfolds.

Oooohhh.

Ahhhhh.

What is this mystery cleaner?

Stay tuned...

Oh, and Thursday I’m writing an edition of FiercePharma to as a mutual test to see if I will write and edit for them, as I’m on the West Coast and they want their news to the copyeditor by 11 a.m. EST. Not sure that gig’s gonna work, but we’ll see.

So that’s it on the writing front at the moment.

Today was hectic (like that’s unusual). We had a broker caravan parade through our condo at 11:00 a.m. With client calls – which I try to pack in on Tuesdays and Thursdays – and three kids, imagine how NOT FUN it was to try to scramble and get the place spic and span by 11. It sucked.

It especially on tax day and especially when I had nowhere to actually put the kids during the caravan.

My office space on the strip was packed full and the caravan was, of course, right during lunchtime and naptime. Urgh.

After the logistical caravan hell was over, the kids finally had a brief (and late) car nap. Then we had dinner (vegan spaghetti and mushroom meatballs from Trader Joe's) cooked by the brain surgeon.

I'm going to miss him when he starts operating again.

Then the brain surgeon put the kids to bed while I finished up everything with urgent deadlines. Mainly, I copyedited one news story on mistletoe and another on exercise and cognition.

The brain surgeon ordered “Alien vs. Hunter” from Netflix, so I made fun of him all night. He was hoping it was like “Alien vs. Preditor,” so I made even more fun of him.

He apparently thought a sequel to a bad movie would be entertaining. The brain surgeon sometimes (usually) enjoys movies that allow him to be brain dead, but even had to laugh at himself on this one.

Toodles!

School Night

Except for my writing class, I spent the day playing with my fabulous children.

The L-man has his mommy-and-me class in the mid-morning (10-12), but it’s really mommy-and-all-three on Mondays, since I take them all. Today, BooBoo crashed right when it was time to leave. I let her sleep, so we missed all but the last 10 minutes of the two-hour class.

I packed a picnic, though, so we stayed at the park until 1:30, which is when Miss M’s afternoon class (no mommy) is. While we ate, a nice woman approached me and asked if I was homeschooling the kids.

I felt so crunchy.

And sort of itchy.

Do I look granola? I wondered. Or like a born-again? How does she know?

But then she clued me in. “I noticed you have an older one not in school.”

I felt better when I realized I hadn’t developed the universal homeschooler sign on my forehead, but sad when I realized Miss M had grown up so much.

It really goes by much faster than people say. Just seconds ago, it seems, I wasn’t yet a mother. Now, my oldest is over five-and-a-half. Whoa.

After dropping Miss M off, I took the younger two to the library. We read stories until they started to melt down and began YELLING in the library. I dropped the books and headed out through the annoyed stares. L-man then threw himself on the sidewalk in front of the car and had a crying fit because he wanted to go to the sand park. I hugged my tired muffin and let him know I felt his pain.

That's when I realized I had POOP on my arm from carrying BooBoo. How had I missed that?

So I changed her, head to toe, wiped my hands and the affected arm, doused myself in sanitizer and strapped the babes in their carseats.

We headed home for naptime, but they both were out cold before I left the parking lot.

I didn’t know what to do, so I went to Del Taco. I’m not vegan at Del Taco - or even health conscious. I had cheese on my bean burrito. Yummy Del Taco, artery clogging, unhealthy cheese. Ummmmmmmmmm…

Did you know you can add Del Taco as a friend on MySpace? I did and now I have two friends, including Tom.

The embarrassing thing about this trip to Del Taco, though, wasn’t my flagrant disregard for my commitment to veganism or good eating habits in general. Nooooooooooooooooo. What was embarrassing was the fact that I had no cash and had given my debit card to the brain surgeon so he could pop by the bank for me. As a result, I had to charge the Del Taco run on the credit card.

Suze Orman would so disapprove.

And I’m a-double-whammy-shamed. Del Taco and using plastic in one day?

Okay, the guilt has passed.

Soon the brain surgeon came and met me back where Miss M was so I could go to class, but I couldn’t pay much attention because I had to finish a draft for the HFM paper. I worked on it while the, um, star of itsallaboutmetv read his stuff.

I did finally learn about screenplay formatting, though.

My mean girl (if you don't count that most are boys) clique became official when the ringleader emailed the five of us after class. Since the other four are showbiz types, I feel pretty special to be included. They’re more than just the pretty people…they’re pretty ACTOR people.

Since they’re aching to be famous, I think I’ll direct to you them here, especially since Tom Kiesche made it so easy with his email last night:

Tom is here, here, here, here and here. No, I did not surf for all of those.

The comedian is here and here.

I had to Google Shannon and Seth.

Really, I’ve been surfing the four of them when I need a writing break and they’re all quite entertaining. I laugh all through that class and it's usually because of something one of the mean girls said. They're witty, I tell you.

Plus they all want to be famous.

So, I'm adding that to my task list.

1. Hug a brain surgeon.

2. Help actor types in the mean girls clique become famous.

I went to class to bring some creativity back to my writing. I stay in class cuz I like my new posse.

Toodles!