Back in April, we bought tickets to a very special event. This event will be held tomorrow morning. Today we are driving down to Felton, CA (near Santa Cruz), to camp in Howard Cowell State Park in the redwoods for one night. In the morning we will walk to Roaring Camp Railroad and present our dearly purchased and precious tickets to ride the number 1 car behind …

none other than …

THOMAS THE TANK ENGINE!

The train ride will be 25 minutes long. We paid $48 for 3 tickets. There will likely be a million families with three million Thomas-fan children in tow. I expect it to be a zoo, but I also expect meeting THE REAL THOMAS to be possibly the greatest highlight of my young son’s life to date.

It’s now 9:31 am on Saturday morning. We can leave town as soon as …

Ian finishes his final Ethics exam
I edit Ian’s Ethics paper and we turn it in
I finish editing a chapter of a strategy guide
We pay some bills
We do another load of dishes
We move the wet clothes from the washer to the dryer
We pack the food
We pack our clothes
We pack our camping stuff into the car
We shower and dress
I print some chapters to take with me for editing

Needless to say, Lucas is starting to bounce off the walls.

Lucas is sick. Actually, today he’s a little better, but I’m keeping him home from school again. He’s had a fever for about 36 hours. His temperature goes up to 102 degrees, then we give him ibuprofen, then it goes down and he’s more comfortable again until he sleeps. Then his temp goes back up. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. We did nothing all day.

I called the gym yesterday to let the swimming instrutor know that we wouldn’t be able to make our private swim lesson. They said not to worry: the swimming lessons were cancelled because the pool was 94 degrees. Too hot.

Sheesh.
My AC has been on almost nonstop for 4 days.
Thank god we have the overhead fan in the office now.

We still don’t have tix yet, but today we make our first important purchase, signalling our commitment to going–money be damned!

Lucas will be riding in style! We bought him a “tag-along” bike to mount to the back of Ian’s bike. It’s got a seat, handlebars, pedals, and one (rear) wheel. See a picture of it here: http://www.whycycle.co.uk/children-tagalong.htm

Pretty cool, eh?

Lately Lucas frequently says, “Mommy, I want you.” When I ask him what he means, he says, “I want to be with you forever.” I tell him that he has me and that I will always and forever be his mommy.

I can remember a day in my early childhood when the idea that I would someday grow up and not live with my parents anymore sunk in. I was petrified. I cried and hollered and wailed to my parents about how I would never, NEVER leave them. “Don’t be scared, Mommy. I’ll never leave you alone.” I threw a holy-rolling fit over it.

I wonder if Lucas is experiencing the same anxiety.

(This is an Ian-and-Lisa-only post.)

Today was my first appointment at The Birth Center. Ian met me there and I’m really glad he did.

Naturally we had to fill out and sign a bunch of paperwork, including a contract detailing the amount of money our insurance (Blue Shield PPO) will pay. I experienced sticker shock in a major way. I expected to have to pay about half of the total fee, but this is ridiculous … in a not funny kind of way. The estimate (after Kathy spoke to Blue Shield twice) is that they will pay about $1700 and we have to pay $3500. I stared at the 5 equal payments of $700+ and cried and couldn’t stop. Hormones. Of course. But it was like a blow. I just kept thinking Where will we get that much money? We have to pay for Lucas’s school!

Ian did his best to comfort me. We had our appointment with Ruth. We got to hear the baby’s heartbeat for a minute! Baby was hiding, so the heartbeat was difficult to find at first and Ruth had to run the machine over my belly a long time before we finally heard it. It was fast and strong, and it sounded beautiful to me.

So, I’m really having a baby. It’s not a tumor. Holy shit.

We paid $500 today. When we left I fell apart all over again. Ian took me to lunch for burritos. I cried off and on today.

The good news is that I saw Alethea again after quite a long time. She seems just the same. She offered to come assist at our birth for free no matter where we go, even if it’s not at The Birth Center. But I can’t see us going anywhere else for this. It’s too important.

Also, I called Kelly and told her the news. I got to spill my guts to her while I was grocery shopping and talking to her on my cell phone. She was gracious and wonderful, as usual. She was warm and reassuring and very excited for us.

Last night we went to Ian’s mom and David’s and we told them. Chris jumped up and down for joy and we had to hush her up because Lucas was there. She is just beside herself with glee. Later on, we called Kellie and she was ecstatic too.

From an interviewee for my article on gentle exercise:

“Hi Sara –

Just a note to compliment you on the great article you did and to let you know how many compliments I have received on the article and picture. This article provided a great service to the people of Sacramento by providing gentle alternatives to the usual “wear and tear” forms of exercise that people tend to think of in considering an exercise program.

Thank you – C.S.”

My bank debit card was compromised over the weekend somehow between 7/15 and 7/16.
Within 24 hours, 8 online transactions of $25 each were “approved” on my card. The Visa Fraud Prevention bureau called me yesterday afternoon and told me what was going on. A couple of hours earlier they put a “watch” on my account, and by mid-afternoon they had cancelled my bank card completely. The transactions were for three companies: Yahoo Wallet, Yahoo Voice, and Moneybookers (which is a company billing out of London). I’ve never heard of these before, so it was really easy to confirm that I didn’t make these charges.

The lady on the phone was sympathetic, took me at my word, told me what to do, and apologized for the inconvenience. This morning, I called my bank and in less than 5 minutes was reassured that none of those charges will hit my account, was issued a new bank card that will arrive in 3-5 business days, and I “pre-PINned” my new card over the phone.

This is such an unbelievably far cry from my last horrific identity theft experience of 1994-1995, I’m practically giddy. During those 10 months I argued, demanded, pleaded, and swore to heaven and back that the charges weren’t mine, they were fraud. I signed and had notorized countless affidavits. I wrote hundreds of letters. I made hundreds of calls. I was repeatedly accused of lying. The total bill: $70,000.00. I never had to pay for any of it in the end.

I guess the business world is a lot more savvy now. I’m happy that the problem all seems to be wrapped up before it really even got going.

Nevertheless, I’ll be watching my bank account like a hawk for the next week or so.

Lucas has become rather fascinated with space, astronaughts, robots, etc. He sometimes plays Lost In Space with his friends, which doubtless has nothing at all to do with the old TV series or the movie that was made a while back, since none of them has ever seen these shows. I think they know there’s a robot in it.

We’ve checked out from the library books on rockets and the space shuttle. Lucas knows who Alan B. Shepard is (first American to journey into space, May 5, 1961). He knows about solid-fuel rockets and liquid-fuel rockets (and so, coincidentally, do I).

His interest in space is also reflected heavily in his artwork, which now features astronaughts floating in space and air tubes hooked up to life-support systems. The sun, planets, stars, and fireworks light up the skies of his pictures. Big machines called “astronaught maker-floaters” also appear; they have many tubes.

Last Tuesday, in the car, Lucas explained some stuff about the universe I didn’t already know.

“The farthest-out planet in the solar system is Pluto,” he said. “Then, the one after that is Jail.”
“What’s Jail?” I asked.
“That’s where the police take the bad guys.”
“It’s a planet in space?” I asked.
“Yeah. They take the bad guys to Jail in a rocket ship. You know what’s past Jail?” Lucas queried.
“No, what?”
“Heaven.”
“What’s Heaven?”
“It’s where the fairies live,” he said.

Hmm… 9:38 am on Saturday morning. We slept in and ate a yummy breakfast. Now I have to decide whether to clean my house—which is a nightmare—work, or take my boys to Fairytale Town. Easy choice.

I finished my article yesterday morning, and Lucas and I had a picnic at the schoolyard near our house. Then we spent the afternoon at B’s house playing with Ella and Henry. We swam and snacked and generally enjoyed ourselves in the sun for several hours.

Ian came home and cooked us a steak dinner with carmelized onions, “cob-on-the-corn,” and spinach salad. Then, a necessary trip to the store for more pull-ups resulted in a stop at Baskin-Robins for ice cream. My adventuresome 4-year-old chose lemon custard.

Ian discovered we can take 4 private ballroom dance lessons at Aurthur Murray Dance Studio on Manzanita for … $360!!! Yeah, right. Kiss my twinkle-toes, Aurthur Murray!

My in-laws are back from their 4-week road trip in Oregon, Washington, and Canada. I expect we’ll have to visit them this weekend sometime. I’m glad they’re back because now Ian won’t have to go to their house every other day and water everything on their 1-acre lot by hand.

Speaking of watering, my parents’ lawn is dying. Theirs is an automatic sprinkler system, so I don’t know why this is happening or where the malfunction is. I do know I feel guilty about the brown spots in the lawn. So I’ll go over there and set up a manual sprinkler in the hopes that I can reverse the damage in the next week before mom and dad come home.

All this effort spent keeping up our parents’ houses has resulted in a total lack of attention for our own yard. Austin, the lawn-mowing teen, has disappeared without a trace. I don’t care how much d–e he smokes, as long as he comes twice a month to mow my lawns! My Japanese maple in the back yard is looking quite singed. I need to get a taller tree planted to give it some shade. The weeds are high. I just can’t face yard work when it’s hot.

Lucas is now back at Hidden Treasure preschool after a two-week break. Thanks to Parnasus and Bella, he was able to spend the intervening days at Ring-A-Rosies with T and X. (Thank you!) He’ll get to go there on Mondays for the rest of the summer too.

Today I have to finish and turn in an article on several nutrition topics. I’m at that stage where I have a draft that is mediocre. With some judicious, yet merciless, hack-and-slash editing, it will probably end up being pretty good. Usually editing isn’t a problem for me (for obvious reasons), but editing my own writing is painful.

I had better get to it. I don’t have any childcare today and Lucas is playing by himself at the moment. Let the amputation begin.

P.S. If anyone cares to look for it, I have an article published in the July issue of Sacramento magazine. It’s near the end in a special Medical Guide section (p 30) and it’s called “Easy Does It.” It’s about gentle exercise with a focus on yoga, tai chi, Pilates, and aquatic exercise.