The ex-spleen-ation for my pain....

Several days ago I woke up with a terrible pain in my left side, just below my ribs. It wasn't a constant pain, but would hurt whenever I moved.  At first I assumed that it was because he day before, I had fallen asleep on our couch while watching TV, and I may have pulled or twisted a muscle or something.
I wasn't completely sure of this, (and may have been a bit bored) so I decided that what I needed to do was to consult Dr. Google (AKA The Hypochondriacs best friend) to discover the real source of my pain.

I did a Google search for "pain under the left ribcage" and came up with 4 different things that could be wrong with me. (I made sure to do this while my children were all in the room, you know, just to make sure that there would be someone around to feel sorry for me)

#1. A collapsed lung

#2. A broken rib

#3. An enlarged or ruptured spleen

#4. A pulled muscle

Before I read these possible diagnosises (is that the correct plural form of the word? Spell check doesn't like it. Should it be diagnosi? Diagnosen?.....) out loud to the children, I made sure to see what the treatments would be for each ailment.

The top three all required, or at least suggested bed rest, so those were the ones I went with.

I told the kids about the pain in my side and that there was a possibility that I had either collapsed a lung, broken a rib, or had a ruptured spleen, and would need to take it easy for a while. I also may have mentioned that they would have to wait on me, bring me ice cream and let me control the TV remote.

They all looked at me blankly (there may have even been some eye rolling involved) and pushed me away from the computer to read the news from Dr. Google themselves.

I should have read further, because apparently, if you have a collapsed lung, it would probably make breathing difficult, and if I had a broken rib, I would be in much more pain that I appeared to be in.

Therefore, I decided that it must be my spleen.

Some of the children didn't know what a spleen was, or where it is located.
Being the very helpful kind of mother that I am, I went ahead and showed each of them where their spleen is.

It seems that my children's spleens are very ticklish, because they laughed a lot, squirmed, and tried to get away from me when I poked them under their ribs, causing me to twist around and make my spleen hurt even more.

These offspring of mine didn't really seem all that concerned about my painful spleen, and they laughed at my discomfort.
One of them even suggested that I had probably just pulled a muscle or something.

The nerve!

So later that night, after they all went to bed, I found a picture of a spleen online, and emailed it to each one of them.

As it turned out, a few days later it stopped hurting, and was probably just a pulled muscle.

Making the grade

The kids brought home their report cArds lAst week. I won't go into detAils And tell exActly whAt grAdes they eArned, however, I will sAy thAt we Are quite pleAsed with how hArd they hAve worked this yeAr. We're so impressed with the effort thAt they hAve put into their schoolwork And for the AmAzing improvement they hAve mAde since lAst yeAr!

I just wAnt to tell my kids thAt they Are Awesome!!!

I prefer chocolate cake

Watch this

then come back and give me your liver.

The Eagles "assisted living" tour, and a tale of 8 port-a-potties

As a Mother's day gift, my DH got us tickets to the Eagles concert Saturday night. This was the last concert of their Long road out of Eden tour.


Glenn Frey got up and announced it as their "assisted living tour."

Apparently, they're still hanging in there.

We went to their concert the last time they came through town several years ago. As we sat in our seats and started looking around, we noticed that we were the youngest people there, with the exception of the kids who were brought there by their grandparents.
This time, there were more young people there. Either that, or we have just become the old people.

This concert was held in the new soccer stadium in town, and lucky for us, the weather cooperated, and the night was clear and not super cold.

The concert was fabulous! The Eagles put on a great show. (even for a bunch of old guys ;0) They played all of our favorite songs.
We've always been fans of The Eagles. We even bought the box set of CDs and have forced our kids listen to them.

I won't say much more about the music itself, because it was really great! I mean, seriously, this was THE EAGLES in concert!
What more do I need to say?

I think one of the best parts of going to a concert is the people watching opportunity. You truly see all kinds of people at a rock concert.

All kinds.

Like the row of people sitting behind us. They were several years older than us. Before the concert started, they were all talking about how great this concert was going to be, and how wild and crazy they were going to get as soon as the band started playing.

"Yeah, 20 minutes from now, it will be like we're 18 again!"
"It's going to be just like it was back then."
"Hey, we're going to get pretty wild!"
"PARTY! PARTY! PARTY!"
I think my favorite part about this group was when a few of the men went to get some beverages and instead of climbing over everyone in their row to get to their seats, they decided to climb over the empty seat next to me to get to their seats behind us.

The guys couldn't lift their legs over the seats and climb over without a great deal of assistance from their wives behind us.
And some grunting and groaning.

I bet those wild boys were pretty sore today ;0)

Our seats were on the front row of the stadium seats, at the back of the stadium, directly across from the stage, and we were sitting right next to the stairs that led onto the playing field. This was great because we were able to see all of the people who got to sit in the close seats on the field as they went past the security guard who was checking to make sure that everyone entering that area actually had a ticket to be in that area.
It was fun to watch him ask everyone for their tickets, and try and stamp their hands while they were holding various food items and beverages.

Many, many beverages.

We were also sitting where we got a really good view of the row of port-a potties that were stationed at the very back of the playing field.



At one point, (before the concert started) I counted approximately 15 people waiting in line in front of each the 8 port-a-potties.
8 x 15 =120
120 people (or more) standing in line, waiting,

and waiting,

and waiting..................

Some of them hopping around and doing this cute little dance (remember all of the beverages that I mentioned earlier?)

And they continued to stand there, waiting, and quite frankly, it was taking a long time. So long, in fact, that whenever someone would finish, and come out of a port-a-potty, the people standing in line would cheer!
We found this rather amusing, because if they were to have climbed the 52 steps to the upper level, there were several restrooms with no wait.
And running water.
And flushing toilets.

There was one couple in particular that I watched stand in line FOREVER to use the little port-a-potty, and when they were finished, they made the long trek upstairs, returning with two large beverages apiece.
It wasn't long before they were standing in the long line at the potties again, after which, they went back upstairs, only to return with more beverages. (I couldn't understand why they wouldn't just use the restrooms upstairs, I mean, seriously, if they were going upstairs to purchase beverages anyway.....)

And the cycle continued.

Port-a-potty, upstairs to buy a beverage, go back to seats, Port-a-potty, upstairs to buy a beverage, go back to seats, Port-a-potty, upstairs to buy a beverage, go back to seats..........

I began to notice a direct connection between the number of beverages purchased and the number of trips to the port-a-potty.

We noticed that when the band was playing a more popular song, the lines at the port-a-potties were shorter. From now on, whenever I hear a song, I will give it a "Port-a-potty waiting line" rating.

Hey, that's a great song! I give it a two people waiting rating!
Meh. This one isn't that great. I'll give it a 12 people waiting rating.
Or
This is FANTABULOUS! No waiting at all here!

We also had the extreme pleasure to be seated directly in front of a garbage can sitting just a few feet away from us on the playing field. We got to see all the fun things that people threw away or spit out in the garbage can. We got to see which people were conscious of our mother earth by putting their recyclable items in the separate container provided especially for the recyclables, and those heathens who just threw them in the trash can.
We also got to see when the stadium staff came to empty the trash can and dumped all the contents of the recycle container into the trash can and then wheeled it away.

We found this rather amusing.

We also saw the guy who was wearing a straw Chinese hat, and he wasn't even Chinese. We couldn't figure out if he was expecting rain, sun, (not likely at 9:00 at night) or if he had a really pointy head that he was trying to hide.

The three girls sitting next to us were quite delightful. They looked barely old enough to be purchasing beverages, however, this didn't stop them from purchasing several of them.
After about their third round of liquid refreshment they danced back to their seats and one girl looked at us, swayed a bit, leaned close and said "YOU GUYS ARE STILL HERE???" then stumbled back, raised her glass and said "CHEERS!!"

I think one of the most interesting events of the night was watching a girl try to bribe her way past the security guard onto the field.
We could see her begging, and trying to convince him to take the wad of cash in her hand.


"Pleeeease"
"No."
"Please, here take this" as she takes his hand and tries to get him to grab the bills.
"No"
"Pleeeeeeease!"
"No. I can't let you on the field without a ticket."
"Oh come on. Here, just take this." smiling sweetly while shoving the money into his hand again.
Pushing her hand away "No."
"Pleeeeease! Pleeeeeeeease!"

I was really impressed with the young security guy. He would not let her past him.
She continued begging and begging until she caught sight of the head security guy started walking toward them.
She turned around and ran as he chased her up the stairs.

It was a great concert and I'm so glad we were able to attend.
And the best part? We left the kids by themselves, and when we returned home, they were all still in one piece. I made them dinner before we left, and they ate, played outside then watched a few movies.
Everything went fine with the kids except for a small incident with Max. Apparently, he "Not did feel like going to the potty." (can you say "wet clean up on aisle 4!")



Perhaps we need to get a port-a-potty for our family room.