After much screaming, I bought him his own.

At first, a helmet didn’t seem necessary. I mean how fast could he go right?

I underestimated his coordination.  He’s that good.

If you say, “Show me a chicken leg!” He’ll stick his left leg straight out at a 90 degree angle and whiz by you. I’ve had to make rules about where he can take it. He’s never run into anyone and uses his brake phenonemally well. But you what happens when you taken chances…Now my mommy pediatrician guilt has overwhelmed me. I can no longer ignore it. He needs a helmet. The battle has begun.

So just when I feel like complaining that there isn’t a Borders or Barnes and Noble to hunker down in and drink my steamy cup of coffee, I think about the banana trees.- Or I just remind myself that ineveitably I’d be stuck in the back with the trainset while craving to sit crosslegged in the cookbook aisle, where I could glance up and try to decide which I should I read first: Breads Breads Breads or Cooking with Paula?

But for now I enjoy the banana trees. When we first moved here I ran outside and marveled. “Oh my Goodness, we grow bananas in our backyard! The smallest sweetest cutest little bananas. They make the ones from the grocery store taste bland in comparison.

My kids take it for granted, but not I.

When I start thinking, “Boy do I miss In and Out Burgers.” I follow it up by, “But we have a Banana Tree on our backyeard.”

“Boy, do I miss the snow.” …But we have a Banana Tree on our backyard.

“Boy, do I miss my family”…But we have a Banana Tree on our backyard.

Okay maybe that last one doesn’t work as well. But one day I’ll be sitting on the couch watching all the cousins play together and my niece or nephew will start eating a banana and I’ll think “Boy, do I miss those bananas!”

For you all-

• What do you miss about where you used to live?
• What do you appreciate about where you live now?

November’s theme is Grateful. Here’s my entry:

Oh and I live on Guam but have a US FPO address. I hope this qualifies me!

I am grateful for….”The Simple Things” -Like a  blue chair sitting amongst fishing gear. It reminds me that you can find some comfort and beauty in anything.

We’d probably all say we’re grateful for our family and our health. But here’s some not so radically important things I’m grateful for anyway.

• Oreo cookies
• Hot coffee
• Candles
• My radio
• Elmo
• Band aids
• Geckos
• Inchworms
• Tote bags
• Ross
• Pasta noodles

What are some not so radically important things that you are grateful for?

Yesterday for Medicine Mondays on MommyMD.org, I discussed soft neurological signs in young children. As you may remember I couldn’t find specific recommendations about when these signs should go away. In general most reports I read stated that if by school age they are present then there may be some other issues present such as learning disabilities or ADHD. Here’s a snippet

Soft neurological signs are often used to describe signs that are either difficult to obtain or interpret. It is commonly seen in immature nervous systems of very young children. Persistence of these signs beyond a certain age though may indicate a future problem with attention and/or learning disorders or other cerebral dysfunctions.

You can test your child for soft neurological signs a couple of different ways.

1. Ask your child to walk across a room on their tip toes. As they perform this look for tremors and “overflow” involuntary movements that occur with his hands and his face.

2. Ask your child to touch the tip of their finger to the tip of your index finger and then touch the tip of their nose three times. As they perform this look for tremors and “overflow” involuntary movements that occur with their other hand and their face.

At the bus stop today, I decided to test my own children to see if I could see any of these so-called signs.Miss Blue Eyes- Six had no problems with the task. But it was clearly understood that she wanted to go play with her friends. I succumbed and let her go on her way.

So I, of course, moved on to my four year old.

“Stand still sweetie. No right here.  Great! Put your finger on your nose.”

“No I don’t want to.” She retorts. (Actually this is surprising as she is usually pretty compliant. I persisted.)

“Please. Just touch your nose.”

She touches the side.

“The tip please.”

She touches the tip.

“Great! Now touch my finger.”

She reaches out with her other hand and touches my finger.

“No, with the same hand.”

She leans her head forward to touch my finger with her finger but all the while it’s still touching her nose.

“No honey, let go of your finger.”

She releases it.

“Now touch my finger.”

She leans in to touch her nose to my finger.

“No…. Touch your nose with your finger, then let go of your nose and now with the same finger reach out and touch my finger and then release your finger and come back and touch your nose.”

She executes it perfectly and I breathe a sigh of relief. Mission accomplished and I forget why we’re doing all of this in the first place.

Lesson learned- Demonstrate first and then examine.

ARCHITECTURE IN BLACK AND WHITE

He said:

Take a photo of any structure that catches your eye in black and white. It can be close up or pulled back. Take one of the city you’re living in, or your office, your house, your neighbor’s house, heck even your dog’s house… I don’t care! Anything that showcases architecture in black and white.

So here is my entry. My friend Ericka mentioned at our last book club that way back behind a well known building was this dilapidated building. You can see the Marquis reads some pretty old movies. Well not really that old. It would have been cooler to read Casablanca and then have it all framed with those palm trees, but oh well- it’s old enough!

As soon as I got home the kids munched into them and I grabbed the remaining four and placed them all over the house- taking pics of them in bizarre locations!

Smiling boy seemed quite delighted to see the photos on the computer and now keeps asking, “Mommy- can I see the apples?”

Here are my favorites!

What about you? Do you like tiny things??

Crumpled Bed Covers

Clean dishes

And Pomegranates

Look interesting with the right amount of light and shadow.

It was really socked in, a complete white out on one side and with fluid too. She was transferred from a local outlying hospital, full of Rocephin and waiting a possible chest tube. But hanging out in the ER in the mean time and acting cranky. Just like sick kids do. Except she didn’t look all that sick.

My exam was finished and the intern was finishing her excruciatingly long admit note. We always over write when we are  beginning and I let her just write and write. I knew she needed the practice.

I turned on some cartoons.

She asked me for a drink of water.

I wandered off and brought it back just in time to hear her father say,  “Mommy says she loves you and she’ll be right here”. Her Father hung up the phone, rolled his eyes a little and smiled, “Her Mother spoils her!”

I smiled and left them alone. She was stable with normal vitals and I needed to head upstairs to pump milk for my 6 month old baby girl.  That was life at the end of my residency: In between caring for my patients, I would pump breast milk and dream about seeing my Little Miss Blue Eyes after slugging through 36 hour shifts.

Life had changed a lot since becoming a mother - I was learning to multitask more.

Sitting in my quiet little call room, I settled in and started flipping through a magazine while the rhythmic “Vroom Vroom” of the pump droned on.

*Knock*  * Knock*

I turned off the machine, “Yeah?”

“Hey! Sheila! They’re coding your kid downstairs”

“Huh?”

What took me many carefully maneuvered minutes to put together… was detached in seconds.

“Did they start the chest tube or something? Was there a complication?”

I stepped out the call room and into the open hallway. I slung my red stethoscope around my neck and took off.  Running as fast as I could I tried to get to her .

I rounded the corner and found that she was already in the Resuscitation room. I boldly opened the door. I wasn’t going to knock. I didn’t have time for that. I mean it’s my patient I needed to be in there.

So in I went.

8 people stood still, surrounding her, their faces blank. She lay there unmoving. Grey, with a tube sticking out of her mouth. As if in slow motion I started to move toward her, “She needs oxygen” I thought.

I stopped as the head ER attending called out,“I’m going to call it. Does anyone have problem with that?”

My eyes grew wide and I just stood there.

Stunned.

“Time of Death 3:35pm.”

Later, I was told that she was just watching the cartoons with her mother, when she sat up suddenly and said, “I see colors.”

She stopped breathing.

And never recovered.

She grew out Group A Strep in her blood - septic from the pneumonia.

She’d be 13 by now. I think about her more than any other patient.

Her father is a physician. No-one blames him. She looked good to him, to me, heck to all of us. No one could have predicted it.

And no one has ever forgotten.

This is for you Baby Girl.

Maybe I’m weird but this was just as interesting as the rice fields next to it!

I long to get in the car and just drive and drive. I’d roll down the windows and suffer the knotty consequences later. I’d turn the music up high and start to dream of what little roadside cafe should be my stop for lunch or for that matter dinner.

If you want to come along then come. We’ll talk of life and read each other stories or maybe not talk at all. We’ll just watch the highway stretch out in front. And be grateful for the company.