Falling asleep...

Obviously not at this very moment, though I would love to...

I think that I'm severely lacking in the sleep department. Not sure exactly why. I know that I wake up several times a night for one reason or another -- the cat jumping on me, the cat jumping off me, bathroom trips, too hot, too cold, one of the kids needs something, thunder claps, an annoying itch on my nose, a "guttural breathing sound" coming from beside me :-)

Staying asleep once I get there is one issue. Getting to sleep in the first place is another. My mind has a lot more stamina than my body. Must be because I'm getting old. My mind is always racing with things that I need to remember to do tomorrow. Things I need to put on a list. Reasons for events of the day. Things to research. Things to blog about. Things that I wish would happen. Things that hopefully will never happen. Financial concerns. Things I'm really happy for. Better ways to do things that I failed at. It just never stops. So I find that I need to trick it a bit. I kinda need to distract it and let my body sneak up on it and flip the switch to off.

My wife uses reading sometimes to accomplish this, but that's not enough for me. I usually rely on TV to supply the distraction. It can't be anything that's interesting though or that just sets me up for failure. My mind kicks in to overdrive to process the information being beamed at it instead of being caught off guard. It can't be a science show, or a series I watch regularly. News sometimes works, especially if it's getting close to twenty minutes after when the sports stuff starts :-) Even with the news, if I go to bed at the wrong time, too many minutes before it starts, I find myself forcing myself to stay awake until it starts so I can use it to lull me to sleep. Kind of a wacky thing.

I've tried warm milk. I've tried exercise. I've tried just turning it all off and closing my eyes -- actually that one works if I'm really tired, but if I'm not quite over the edge, my mind takes over and then I'm right back to square one.

We have a vacation coming up this summer in North Carolina where my wife and I will actually be staying alone in a different building completely from where the kids will be staying. I'm interested to see if the absolute dead quiet and pitch black sky of the NC mountains will enable me to sleep any better. It usually takes me a couple of nights before I grow accustomed to the new bed, the unusual wilderness sounds, and the like. Here's to hoping...

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE 1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-base paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps not helmets on our heads.

As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes.

Riding in the back of a pick- up truck on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a filtered bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter and bacon. We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar. And, we weren't overweight.. WHY? Because we were always outside playing.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on..

No one was able to reach us all day. And, we were OKAY.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride them down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Play Stations, Nintendo's and X-boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet and no chat rooms.

WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We would get spankings with wooden spoons, switches, ping pong paddles, or just a bare hand and no one would call child services to report abuse.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

--

I'm not advocating a lot of the things called out here. This is definitely a different time we live in, but it kinda makes you think. It makes you think of all the fun we had back them. It makes you think, "Am I allowing my kids to have that much fun, and can I?"

Reader's Digest had an article this month called Bubble Babies talking about how the "Kiddie-Safety Industrial Complex" has convinced us to part with our money -- in the name of keeping our children safer. I remember a similar story about a mom in New York that let her 9-year-old son ride the subway alone. My immediate reaction was WHAT THE...! Then I shifted to, "well if he's mature enough, I guess." Then, "surely the "sane" people outnumber the "criminal elements" by a large enough margin that he'd be safe." I was conflicted.

There's no debating that science has improved our standard of life and living, but have we taken it too far. In many ways, I think so. I'm guilty of over-protecting my kids as well. We live in one of the safest cities and neighborhoods in the country, and yet, I won't allow one of my children to go around the block, out of my sight, without at least one of the others going with them. Safety in numbers. If something does happen, there'll be someone to help, someone to scream, someone to describe what happened. The likelihood of anything more tragic than a scraped knee happening is less than me winning the multi-state lottery three times in a row in three weeks (Anyone care to calculate the odds of that just to keep me straight?).

I remember playing in an abandoned log cabin way back in the woods. I remember playing in a hay loft that was surely decrepit enough to be condemned. I remember bringing a lit sparkler into the house (and burning a hole in the carpet -- never had that babysitter again!). I remember jumping on a trampoline without the net enclosure. I remember riding my bike in the middle of the street, without a helmet. And I survived.

But... I also know of kids that have broken their arm falling on the padded section of a McDonald's play area. And a 10-ish-year-old that had to wear a halo brace for quite a while because of an injury in a ball pit if I recall (or was it a moon jump?).

I'm not saying that my parents didn't care about my upbringing or my safety - they did. I'm also not saying that I followed every rule they set.

As a parent, our children are the most precious things we "own." It's only natural to want to keep them as safe as possible, right? At whatever "cost?" If that means going a little overboard, so be it.

I don't like my kids jumping off the swing set. My wife insists that they wear helmets when they ride bikes or scooters. Are they better off because of rules like these? Probably. At least in the short-term. Will it prevent them from taking chances, risking it all, finding the cure for Cancer? Only time will tell. I hope not.

Pick on someone your own size!

There's something about the mosquitoes in Michigan the past few years. This picture is that of my son's swollen eye caused by a single mosquito bite last year. It was pretty nasty. Both of my son's have had this kind of reaction the past several years to mosquitoes. A single bite will cause their whole hand to swell up almost to the point of them not being able to form a fist. Or a bite on the leg will form a welt as large and puffy as if someone slit open the skin and stuffed an errant golf ball under their skin before closing the wound. It's kind of freaky. Thankfully, nothing life-threatening so far, but freaky nonetheless. In the picture, less than 24 hours after the bite, my son was unable to open his left eye.

Based on anecdotal evidence and conversations with friends and neighbors, I think this is really getting worse. Many others have stated that they too are getting more and more allergic to being bitten. There's a actual condition called Skeeter Syndrome that involves the extreme swelling like my sons are experiencing, but it also involves a fever. I don't recall any of that.

It's interesting that neither my daughter, my wife, nor I get this much extreme swelling, but with my oldest son's allergy to peanuts, that might be some evidence of a slighted immune system that might allow this kinds of condition. My younger son has no diagnosed allergies at this point. With his body reacting so aggressively toward a little mosquito bite...maybe we'll have to get him tested further.

Did I already say that it's just the female mosquito that does the biting? Apparently the males are content to snack on the nectar of juicy fruit... Go figure.

I'm dying...

...but first a little background.

About 6 months ago, my wife got this crazy idea about throwing me a surprise birthday party. She hates surprises herself, but she decided to inflict a little pain on me. So she goes about tracking down and contacting family, co-workers and friends (some of which I've not seen in about 10 years), setting up this elaborate ruse. She's immediately archiving any emails (so that I don’t' accidentally see them on our shared computer). She's using non-sense file names on the documents she saves and putting them in folders (both logical and physically) that I would never look in. She's cutting people off on the phone if I'm around. She's using my Google-ing tricks I've taught her in the past to dig up people when she doesn't even know where they live.

She didn't want to do it in April (the month of my birthday), because I would expect it more then. By having it in June, she could play it off as the kids' party. There were clues, in retrospect, that I should've latched on to, but as I related today to a co-worker who was unable to attend, I didn't have a picture to piece the puzzle together.

• My mother-in-law is up from North Carolina (like she is usually every year or so, either in the summer around the middle and oldest's birthdays, or the fall around the time of my youngest's birthday) – nothing unusual.
• Having a kids' party is fairly normal, though I thought she had sworn off anything big last year.
• Lots of chairs showing up in the garage - no biggie - they were for the kid's party.
• Not needing help with invites, cake, etc - no concern - she likes to be in control of those things and I figured her preparation was enough that it was all under control.
• No cake the morning of the party - explained by the fact that my step-mom was supplying it and would bring it with her when she came
• My oldest got to invite a friend to the party (we were keeping it small). My middle child got to invite a friend to the party, but when he called, my wife told him to tell his friend that he had to be here by 11:15. 11:15? I thought that the party didn't start until 12:30. "That'll give them time to play alone before the party," my wife said. OK, believable.
• My wife's grandparents were in from Florida, and she had convinced a few relatives that they rarely see to come to the party and she wanted it to be a surprise for him. I was supposed to take him out of the house for an hour when he got to the house that morning so that when we came back it would be a surprise that the relatives were already there. OK, I can help with that.
• "No, you don't need to park down at the school," I heard my wife tell my mom. My mom's funny that way sometimes :-)
• "Not sure how we're gonna fit 51 people in the house if it rains" – I never kept track of how many people came to the kids' parties in the past.
• A ham in the fridge and then the oven that I didn't seem to notice. I was busy with other things.
• We spent several weekends before the party getting the outside spruced up and the inside cleaned. – needed to be done anyway, and I think that I was the one pushing the outside more anyway.
• I never saw the invites. She found the invites at the last minute and got them mailed out the same day (or something close to that), so there was no time to show me ahead of time. Plausible. (She did find a blank one to show me a couple of weeks ago to stave off any lingering curiosity she thought might be building.

The morning started with a little rain. Just enough to have us all panicked about what we were going to do if it kept up. Grandpa arrived and I did my duty taking him out for some last minute items from Costco (so his relatives could sneak in ahead of us). She had told everyone to arrive between 10:30 (when I was taking Grandpa away) and 11:15 (since I was supposed to be back at 11:30) or they'd need to wait until 12:00 so that they didn't pull up as I did and ruin the surprise in case I was late.

When we got back and headed up to the house, I tried to let Grandpa in first, but he held the door for me. Not wanting to be too aggressive, I obliged and went in. SURPRISE!!! I looked around and saw a bunch of family sitting on chairs and the couch. Then I kept scanning and saw co-workers, and then the friend from 10 years ago (I think I literally did a double-take!). Wait a minute... As the flashes of paparazzi cameras started lighting up the room, I think it finally set in, that I had been tricked! it was a surprise for ME!

I didn't even realize that it was JUST my party until almost the end of the gathering. With the exception of my co-workers and a few old friends, everyone else would've shown up for the kids' party. I thought the additional friends were just an add-on to the KIDS' party. Now I feel a little bad that I didn't spend more time mingling with everyone because they were ALL there for ME.

It was good to see old friends, and that so many people showed up – for ME! I was truly surprised, and pleased.

As the day went on, I started learning little bits about the planning of this charade. I think other than the final surprise, what shocked me the most was that all three kids kept the secret for a lot longer than I thought possible. My youngest reminded me later (he's not yet 6), that if I ever had any secrets for him to keep, he'd do a great job of it.

I made the comment to my wife last week when she was trying to convince me to go to her reunion this summer with her that I didn't like big crowds of people -- and I don't like being the center of attention, either.

So, back to my dying comment… What I should've said was that I was dying to say "THANKS" to my wife and kids and all who helped prepare for the party, and all of you who were part of the surprise. Thanks, for being part of my party. Thanks for keeping the surprise. Thanks for being there. Thanks for the presents (that you weren't supposed to bring). Thanks for the food. Thanks for being some part of my past 40 years. I hope you'll all be there for some part of the next 40!

PS. If you're missing a container, let us know. We have a few leftovers.

PPS. I have no life-threatening illnesses that I know about at this time :-)

What would you say?

There has been a lot of press coverage or the swi..., er, um, influenza A H1N1 virus and how the best defence is a good offence. General hygiene is always a good thing, though -- worldwide pandemic or not.

All of that was still in my mind as I walked into the bathroom this afternoon. As I walked in, someone else was finishing up. I watched in amazement as he walked right to the door and back to work.

"Um, excuse me. Have you heard of hygiene? Have you heard of H1N1? Were you raised in a barn?!" OK, that was all in my mind. Nothing actually came out of my mouth. I just didn't know how to react? How do you react to something like that?

What do you say to someone that walks away without flushing?

What do you say to someone who doesn't wash their hands? Those same hands that they're just about to apply to the same doorknob you'll need to escape this room with.

Does it make a difference is they're someone in a public place that you'll likely never see again versus a co-worker that you'll see everyday (even if you don't know them directly)?

What about age? Does that make a difference? If it's a young child in a store? An older person in a restaurant? Someone of your own generation at work?

What about "rank" or "social status""? Does that impact how you'd react?

Does the possible pandemic matter?

I have seen a few people that enter the restroom, wash their hands, use the facilities, wash their hands and then use the paper towel to handle the doorknob on their way out. Are they OCD or just the smart ones? Not sure. But after seeing a few people on the other end of the scale use the same restroom as I do, I'm thinking I might want to join the OCD crowd. What about you?

Have you donated blood today?

A friend of ours from church is battling leukemia. A young guy, with a very devoted wife and three young kids, he's battling very hard, but he can't do it by himself. He needs and receives help from his family and friends. He needs and receives help and strength from God and his faith. He needs and receives assistance from very competent medical personnel. Recently, there was a need for something else.

A little less than a couple of weeks ago, the call went out for people who would be willing to donate neutrophils (a component of white blood cells). While battling this disease (which was discovered quite by accident), Gary's body has temporarily lost it's ability to produce the legions of cells necessary to fight off infection. He needs to get back to Ohio State University for a stem-cell transplant to end this fight, but he has to be stable enough to risk the transportation. While his body is working up the strength to re-build his own white-cell supply, he needs donations to tide him over so that he doesn't get any more sick.

I was lucky enough to be able to help, pass the screening tests and donate toward Gary's recovery. I can't cure his leukemia, but I can help him fight it. He has received my donation of cells as well as those from two other donors so far - that's 3 of 12 total. He has to have these donations every other day for a month! They're definitely helping, but they're not done yet. As long as he continues in a positive direction... We are all praying that he make it through this setback quickly and can move on to the real cure.

I learned a lot as part of this donation.

First, that you gotta do what you can - however small the task. It's not one person who saves the world, but all of us working together. A small donation or act might seem insignificant to those that donate, but added together it will save a life -- or many!

Second, that it's all a lot more real when you know the recipient. Donations in the past have been kind of blind. I go in, give a pint, and walk out, hoping that someone in need will be able to benefit. This time I was part of the process. I got to read about Gary's battle on their blog. I got to spend time with Gary and Tammy in his room and see how hard Gary was fighting and how loved he was.

Third, I learned a lot about the donation possibilities as well. I've always donated "regular" whole blood in the past. All blood is deeply needed, but being of type-O, I can help a very broad group of recipients. I've donated as often as I could, but schedules have made me miss the last couple opportunities. As a result of mentioning this during my time with the Red Cross nurses, as well as based on some of the tests that they ran for my neutrophils donation, I was presented with other options that would allow me to help even more people, while minimizing the impact of scheduling conflicts. As soon as Gary is out of danger of needing another white cell donation from me, I will be contacting the Red Cross to transition to one, or more of these other donation options. (see First observation above) Are you doing all you can?

Fourth, remember that whatever you're going through personally - FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) in this economy, sleepless nights, a long "honey-do" list that never seems to get shorter, never getting your own list checked off, not spending enough time with those you love, or anything else that brings you down... you're never too far down to extend a helping hand to pull someone else up.

Fifth, God does have a sense of humor, even in times like this. Quoting Tammy from their blog the other day:

[Gary] has been laughing in his sleep today and I ask him what is so funny- he said that God is telling him some jokes- laughter is the best medicine you know :)

Sometimes it's hard to understand the Master plan, or even our role within it, but it will all work out in the end.

Go get 'em Gary!

You can read more about Gary's fight on their blog at http://lathamgt2.blogspot.com/

You can find a Red Cross donation site via GiveLife.org.

How fat is your state?

I'm not talking about how many miles across from state-line to state-line. I'm talking about the girth of the average citizen. CalorieLab has an interesting article and graphic that shows us what we all pretty much knew -- we could afford to lose a few pounds. I include myself in that category, and apparently I'm not alone, although Michigan has dropped one rank since last year (because of a tie). What are you doing sitting here reading my blog posting?! Get out there and run a few miles! ...then come back and check my blog again :-) please...