What’s a Mom to do?

There was a strange, unfamiliar sound around the house on Thursday afternoon. Silence! Jake was sleeping in his car seat in the corner. (He didn’t wake up after we ran a few errands earlier that afternoon – so following the cardinal rule around here, I did not wake up the sleeping baby!) And Robbie? Well, he found a pile of clean laundry on the La-z-boy and quickly fell asleep. Looks cozy, eh? I admit, I didn’t know what to do with myself for a few minutes! I composed myself and then acted quickly – closed the door and windows to muffle the sound from outside, pleaded with the dogs not to bark, made a quick dinner, poured myself a tall glass of chai iced tea…and turned on Oprah. Timing couldn’t have been better. She was speaking to Oscar nominated actors. When she asked Daniel Day-Lewis about being a Dad, he said the following sweet and funny words that resonated with me: “For a good part of my life I’ve enjoyed traveling light…there was nothing more wonderful to realize that I was now shackled for the rest of my life and what a wonderful shackle to have.”

New Beginnings, Familiar Places, New Faces

A belated Happy New Year to all. Hope the year is starting off well. We have big changes in store for our family, starting with Noel’s employment. As of Jan 1, Noel is no longer an active duty member of the military. He’s starting out solo here and building a business of his own. He’s started a website and has designated me webmaster. Here’s the trial version posted via Yahoo web hosting, using one of their boring templates. I have a lot of work to do! www.militaryandcriminallaw.com

In other news, Jake cemented his membership in the Tipon family this week by making his inaugural visit to the Emergency Room. Over the weekend I said to Noel, “Do you think he flails his arms around more than Robbie?” Then on Monday morning I said, “I have got to get his nails trimmed during his next nap…they’re even killing me!” But as things go, Noel took Jake upstairs, I got busy with Robbie and other stuff downstairs….and missed my opportunity. I sat down to feed him in the early afternoon and noticed a huge tear dropping from his eye – I hadn’t seen any tears like that on Jake. After feeding him, I noticed what I thought was a little sludge or maybe even an eyelash on his pupil. But when I tried to clear it, I discovered it was a self-inflicted deep scratch. So after a little deliberation and WebMD consultation, we packed up the crew and headed off to Tripler. We didn’t think it was that bad, but we had no idea how to treat it or what to look for if things went bad. Amazingly, we only spent 3 hours in the ER. A record for the Tipon family! Even my pink eye experience in early December had us in there for 4 hours. (I even went in there and said, “I have pink eye and just need eye drops.” But still it took 4 hours!) Who knew “Infant corneal abrasion” would get us so high on the priority list? In the end Jake’s eye is fine. By the next day the scratch was healed and all looks good.

And the new faces? Waiting for us after our exit from the ER next to our car in the now-dark parking lot was a wild boar! Tripler is on a mountain side, but technically still Honolulu, so it was a bit unexpected. As we’re packing the car, Noel says, “Oh hello there wild boar.” Huh? Then he says, “Why don’t I have my camera?” I lift my head up for a quick peek, and sure enough. A pig! The rest of the conversation goes something like this: I suggest his camera phone, he says, no not enough light, I say want me to turn on the headlights? No, he says that will scare him. Yes, I say, you’re right. That’s a pretty inhumane suggestion on my part...

So we forego the great photo op with the boar. I guess what makes me laugh about all of this is how we continued to methodically buckle in the kids and load the car as we calmly discussed available light with a really, really ugly creature within about 10 feet of us.