Our phone base can be used to record messages. I had this one waiting for me when I came home.
Mailbox 2. You have 1 old message.
Dad, you owe me $5.75
for 23 poops I got on poop patrol.
Remember that when you get home.
Thank you.
Wednesday 6:50
Kathy and Kelly found our new dog, Stout Fishback, last weekend at a Humane Society adoption drive hosted by Petco. He was sitting in a small cage on top of a larger cage that held a giant, white, shaved poodle. The sponsors had to put a towel on the back of Stout’s cage because he would get fixated on the rats and mice behind him. This reminded Kathy and Kelly of Jake’s lizard fixation.
Both Kelly and Kathy said simultaneously: “He’s cute.” They were able to walk him around the store on a leash and thought he would be a great little dog. (We’ve been on again and off again about getting a second small dog ever since Jake stayed with us for a short time.) The next day, after church, the whole family went up to think about getting the little dog. Kathy decided she’d like to have him, so we brought him home. In trying to think of a name, we came up with Stout because he is has the black and tan colors of a “Half and Half” which is made with Guiness Stout. Also the first definition of the word stout fits his personality: Having or marked by boldness, bravery, or determination; firm and resolute. He does not seem to care that Clyde is eight times his size when they play-fight. (He can walk right under Clyde without ducking.)
Stout is a mutt about 1.5 years old. We have no idea what he is, but he looks like a little 10 pound Sheltie. Kelly guesses he is half Sheltie and half Chihuahua. We’ve decided that he is a new breed of dog called a “Guiness Shepherd.” The breed was scaled down from Shelties, not to herd sheep, but to herd geese. Perhaps Guiness Gosherd would be a more fitting breed name. So far he has had no “accidents” in the house and he hasn’t chewed anything up. He also doesn’t bark much. Kathy did find him on the kitchen table once. He responds to scolding, and I suspect that will be the last time we’ll find him on the kitchen table.
Clyde and Stout are already the best of friends.
A recent visitor to Colonel Smut’s War Chest enjoyed the Gnarly Tree enough to include two photos of it with her posting.
Mary Claire brings home a puzzle to solve for her Focus class each week. Sometimes she asks me for help. I enjoy trying to guide her to figuring it out herself.
This week’s problem was how many pizza combinations can you make using zero to five different toppings: sausage, mushrooms, pepperoni, peppers, and onions. Mary Claire set up a grid and made X’s next to each ingredient to come up with all combinations. She discovered this pattern:
1 that is plain
5 that have 1 topping
10 that have 2 toppings
10 that have 3 toppings
5 that have 4 toppings
1 that has 5 toppings
She added them up for the answer, 32. Danny noticed the pattern and said, “That’s Pascal’s triangle.” He drew the triangle. See: All You Ever Wanted to Know About Pascal’s Triangle and more.
Mary Claire recognized the triangle of numbers and said she recognized it. In her class they called it the Period of Mystery. I asked her, “Why do you think they call it period?” She said, “Because it is shaped like a period.” I then realized her mistake. “You mean, Pyramid of Mystery.” She agreed that name made more sense, given that Pascal’s Triangle looks more like a Pyramid that a period.
I just want to know when did they start teaching third graders about Pascal’s Triangle?
Our little pond has been the home to several frogs over the years. Our first giant bullfrog died one winter when the pond partially froze. A smaller bullfrog survived and grew to the size of my fist. He had a very deep “croak.” One reason he grew quickly is that he would sit under the pond lights and lick bugs out of the air. Cherry picking, so to speak.
We’ve had goldfish disappear over the years, and we suspect that as the bullfrogs got large enough, they decided to cherry pick fish. Kathy and I decided to evict giant bullfrogs from now on.
Using a net and the cloak of darkness, it took me four nights to catch the giant bullfrog. He would jump just before my net could grab him. I even had a rimshot one time, as he bounced off the lip of the net. I noticed a pattern in his jumping… always jumping into the water in the back corner of the pond. So last night I approached the frog slowly, making sure the fountain spray interfered with his line of sight. With the net hiding behind the front pond wall, I quickly rushed forward, placing the net in the anticipated jump target. He didn’t move! I think the spray-block really helped with the element of surprise. I slowly moved the net toward Mr. Bullfrog, and he suddenly jumped right into the net. Victory!
Clyde had been watching with excitement from the kitchen window. I decided to bring my catch into the house to show Kathy. As I came up on the deck, Mr. Bullfrog (who had been trying to jump out of the net) found good footing and jumped out. He landed on the deck, and with one leap, jumped into the darkness of the backyard.
I ran inside to get a flashlight with net still in hand. Clyde ran with me to the basement and then back outside to track down the frog. He was very excited and glad to help. I was able to point the flashlight and Clyde in the right direction, and he tracked down the frog quickly. The frog hopped once, but I was able to snatch him with the net, trapping him on the walkway. Clyde stood over the frog sniffing. He was very excited.
Kathy came out and helped us get the frog into a cooler so we could deport him to a nearby pond. I took him up in the shower so I could take a few pictures and not worry about him jumping away. Clyde stood guard watching through the shower door glass.
At 9:45 pm the three of us (Kathy, Clyde, and myself) loaded the frog in the car, and went to pick up Kelly from Rachel’s and Mary Claire from a birthday party. We all decided to take the bullfrog to a very nice pond in the back of a model home in a new subdivision. He’s now sitting happily under the built-in waterfall. The pond has spotlights which will attract bugs and allow him to continue cherry picking. When the model home is purchased, the new owners will have a bonus of a croaking bullfrog. Hope they don’t buy any goldfish.
This is some background to Mary Claire’s Small Miracles story. Claire did a good job of expressing how scary all this was.
When a baby is born, their stomach looks large because of their liver. At birth, the liver has to suddenly take on the duty of filtering the blood of a rapidly growing body, and sometimes it gets behind. This can lead to a jaundice condition as impurities (dead blood cells called biliruben) accumulate in the blood. The skin can take on the yellow tint of these impurities.
Putting the baby under ultraviolet lights can help break down these impurities and reverse the jaundice. This is what happened to Danny at birth. His condition was severe enough that the doctors were afraid he would have to have a blood transfusion. After a few days in the hospital, the lights worked, and the jaundice reversed.
Even more serious, though, was a kidney infection that developed at the same time. An immature valve allows urine to back up from his bladder to his kidney, leading to infection and a high fever. The infection was high enough that he was in danger of having it spread to his spinal cord. The doctors had to perform spinal taps to draw spinal fluid and make sure it was not infected. He also had to have antibiotics administered intravenously.
All of this was a nightmare for Kathy and me, although the Irish nurse encouraged us saying how lucky we were to have all of these treatments available in America. Ten babies in Ireland have to share one set of biliruben lights, and Danny had his own.
Danny recovered, but had to be on antibiotics for two years as a precaution against further kidney infection. At his two year check up, the doctors found his valves working fine and he was cured.
Mary Claire had low blood sugar levels at birth, but they quickly became normal. I did not realize she equated this condition with Danny’s. Now I know why she tries to eat so much sugar.
All of our babies were small miracles.
Two clowns walked into the room, just in from the “Spring Fling” festival at school. We then went to a Brookwood baseball game at Parkview where these two were highly admired by several little girls at the park.
(Click to zoom.)
(Found this in an early blog system I was testing… 3/10/2003)
Riding home from the Girl Scout father / daughter dance where Kelly, Mary Claire, and I all danced to oldies dressed in Hawaiian outfits, Mary Claire asked… “Dad, when you were born, did girls wear Poodle skirts.” Kelly jumped in, “That was in the 50’s.” I added, “And I was born in the sixties.”
Thinking about that, she then asked, “When you were born, were you free?” I asked her, “What do you mean by that?” She said, “You know how Martin Luther King helped make people free.”
I was surprised by her question. “Mary Claire, when I was little, I wasn’t black.” Kelly started laughing. I went on to explain how when I was born, there was segregation, but that I was little when Martin Luther King helped get rid of separate seating on buses and in restaurants, so I didn’t really remember things being segregated.
“She thought about that…. “Well did you have big hair?” I asked, “Do you mean an afro?” She said, “Yes.”
I had to explain to her again, that I wasn’t black when I was little. Kelly kept cracking up.
The Neumann News came out this past Sunday. As Kelly thumbed through it in church I spotted this photo of Nicole with her article. She had the inside back cover spread. Later in mass, Kathy and I were very proud to watch Mary Claire read the entire article written by her big sister about helping the poor and sick in Jamaica. The Lord works in mysterious ways.
You can find the February edition of Neumann News on SJNLilburn.org (which Kathy and I are now webmastering… more mysterious ways.)
