What Happens When We Get Behind in Our Postings

Mommy and I are going to share a posting, Mommy is letting me go first.

My big news is that I am starting "school" next week. Mommy really needs to get work done instead of playing with me all the time. For some reason. But my school is a pretty happenin' place and I know I'll love it. Plus, I lack the cognitive abilities to experience any severe separation anxiety yet. Yeah right - I just used cognitive in a sentence, how you like them cognitive apples? Perhaps Mommy is projecting...

Gosh darn, I'm excited for my big day!


Gosh darn, I shouldn't punch myself in the face no matter how excited I am...


I will be sure to look my diaperest, I mean, dapperest for the ladies. Boy, I sure do look good. How considerate of Mommy to crop out my unmentionables. Wait, that's good right???

Here's a shot of me in my other Halloween suit. Mommy promised me that I only had to endure the torture of my shark costume once. I'm starting to get round like a pumpkin.

I'm resting with my new Halloween blankie while Mommy gets her flu shot. 'Bout time somebody besides me gets a shot.

And in other napping news, I made my first crude gesture. I'm "pretending" to sleep so I won't get in trouble. I'd better let Mommy tell her story now, I've caused enough trouble.

"THE CRIPPLER" (by Mommy)

So the Ress Family took their first road trip (to Wilmington via Raleigh) since Finny-Fo has been with us a couple of weeks ago. We could not have anticipated how our trip would go so much differently than planned. First of all, Finn rode exceptionally well. Car rides are putting him to sleep finally. So I'll skip the boring parts about how great Finn is blah blah blah and get to the part where I am taking Finn into work to show him off and drop off my computer to get updated. The visit is going well, Finn is mostly behaving and carrying on and such, but as the day progresses, I start to notice a pain in my back. At first I attribute it to wearing shoes with heels for the first time in many a moon in an attempt to pretend to care how I look since I am actually out of the house. But I digress.

The pain is getting steadily worse so I kick my shoes off and go about my business of rounding up Finn. Now my Dad is meeting us in Raleigh to ride with me and Finn back to Wilmington while John stays in Raleigh to attend a training course. I decide to call him to see if he is close because it is starting to feel like maybe someone has shot me in the back with a bow and arrow. I reach behind me and can't locate an arrow. Fortunately for me, unfortunately for him, my boss is in the wrong place and the wrong time. It's clear that I am not well and I've pretty much decided that I may be giving birth belatedly to Finn's twin. He asks what he can do for me and I tell him that I don't think I will be able to drive anywhere to get the alien removed from my side. Enough said - OFF WE GO.

I'll skip the part where we have to stop the car for me to throw up (hello - my boss is driving {kill me now} but is calling the first line cavalry, his dear wife) and I won't spend much time talking about how the Urgent Care center that it took us forever to find couldn't give me anything for the pain. There's not enough time or web space to go into how the Phooph mobilized an arsenal of family across 3 counties in record time to look after Finn. I will touch on how the masses parted as I stumbled into the emergency room and how the nurses shuffled me into triage in record time. I got some good drugs and the waiting game began. But at least I was feeling partially human.

After the assorted tests and doctor assessments, the verdict was in. KIDNEY STONE. I am officially an old person. So, in case you were wondering if it would be laughs and giggles to have a kidney stone, let me assure you, IT IS NEITHER of those things. It is nothing but evil, praying for death pain. The rest of the hospital stay is the typical boring discharge stuff... we wait we wait we wait we wait...

Let's get to post-hospital fun. Now even though I really want to get grossly detailed I won't, but I actually was able to catch the stone. I really, really wanted to post the picture of the ACTUAL invader, but it fell victim to an overzealous cleaning episode and was accidentally thrown away. Not by me mind you, but I digress again...

I've included this substitute picture I Googled that does a nice job of scaling the bugger for you. My stone was smoother and more perfectly round. If you're going to do something, do it right I always say.

So even though the stone looked like the picture above, it felt like this picture below.

Who would have thought that something so small could cause so much calamity? Thanks to everyone that helped us out during that chaos. If you've learned anything from this rambling mess, let it be to not read the blog if Finn lets me post. I get carried away and you've lost precious time that you could be using to drink plenty of water.