Reach out and touch someone

Believe it or not, back when Mrs. Balabusta was Miss Balabusta she went to high school and had a few friends. Most of them don't keep in touch that well. At all.

But last night I got a call from a high school friend that I hadn't heard from in like 10 years probably. And although I had been having a pretty good day, it probably made my week.

So what is it about childhood friends that makes them so special to our hearts? Is it just like music from when we were kids, it takes you back to a better time? Is it that children can just make friends easier and better because there are less pretenses to hold up? I don't know, but I don't care either. My friends really do stay my friends, even if it takes a while to pick up the phone.

So here is a challenge - to the psychotoddler and others, reach out and touch someone, call someone even if you haven't in a long time and you think it will be weird because it's been so long. It will be weird for 2 seconds and then it will be good fun. It works.

The world is not as big as it used to be, and the more friends you have out there the better.

You do the math!

It's vacation week. You know what that means?

Appointments!

Here's what we got:
5 kids have dentist appointments.
4 kids have optometrist appointments.
3-4 kids have orthodontist appointments (I don't exactly remember which ones necessarily, but what the hell, we're all going to be there).
3 kids need passports, still. (Good news, better than DMV)
1 kid has an audiology appointment.

I would like the answer expressed in miles driven x # of passengers divided by M&M's.

You call this vacation?

What I think about HPV and Orthodox girls

Mrs. Balabusta will diverge from her humorous self to discuss this serious topic, soon to be a major motion picture - or at least a major motion.

First the facts about HPV and Gardasil: HPV causes genital warts and some forms of cervical dysplasia that can lead to cervical cancer. Most Pap smears that come back abnormal are from changes related to HPV. The Gardasil vaccine provides immunity for some of the more wicked strains of HPV that cause the most serious damage, but there are over 100 strains of HPV, most of them being mostly harmless. HPV is only transmitted via sexual contact.

So why, you rightly ask, should a virgin marrying a virgin need to be vaccinated for a sexually transmitted disease?

My daughter and I examined this very carefully. We were able to do this with a number of solid assumptions, and a few suppositions:
1. She will not have intercourse until after she marries.
2. She will marry someone of this faith, probably with a similar disposition. 3. People sometime misrepresent themselves or their pasts for fear of rejection. (corollary: Everyone is not who or what they appear to be), (or if you watched Babylon 5 ,"No one is who they appear to be")
4. She would not reject a suitor of the faith and similar disposition, out of hand, just because they were not always religious.

Given all these circumstances, or "givens", we could envision a scenario where she might meet and marry a person with an unspectacular past. Or, conversely, she might meet someone who claims to be a virgin, but really isn't. Either way, we decided that it is a lot easier to make a decision about whether or not to get vaccinated when the issue is not attached to a particular person, whereupon it becomes a much thornier issue. For example, it is a lot easier to say that "Sometimes guys lie about their past" than it is to say "Do you think ________ is being truthful about his sexual past?"

Of course, the last issue is the state of affairs today, no pun intended. You all know who I am talking about. Issues that come up that used to be orthodox urban myths but are no longer imaginary. I don't think I really need to be any more explicit than this except to quote my quotable husband who says "If you can imagine it, it's already happened."

So erring on the side of "Better Safe than Sorry", we decided that to pass up this immunization would be equal to sticking your head in the sand. Cervical cancer is not pretty, and if I can protect my children from even an abstract chance I'll do it.

Feel free to disagree with me - but I would ask you to confine your comments to the discussion above. I am not interested in getting into the whole "vaccinations are evil" movement or "preventive medicine leads to promiscuity". No research has borne out either of these claims.

Elvis Has Left the Building

For those of you who have been following this blog closely, or not so closely, you have heard about pre-employment hoops and for lack of a better word, procedures that one must go through before starting a new job.

Likewise, there are ceremonies for leaving a job. After almost exactly 3 years Mrs. Balabusta is leaving the college health community to treat children at a hospital based facility on an outpatient basis. Some people refer to it as Ambulatory Float - I prefer to think of it as "Flying Squad".

I write this on the eve of my first day of orientation. I received the agenda via e-mail and it looked daunting, at least to me. Some of the procedures and skills I will be tested on I have not practiced since the third year of nursing school. Yet I find myself excited, intrigued, and feeling much like any freshman before the first day of school. I hope to come back tomorrow night and let you both know how it worked out.

Not the least of this new job will be the expanded hours. I will be likely working until after 4, instead of just past 3, which may mean dinner is not hot and ready and on the table at the stroke of five. This, needless to say, will be quite an adjustment for my family. So I will let you know how that works out.

However, I must tell you that this past week I spent entirely with Fudge doing nothing in particular. It was glorious. About 5 days of vacation that felt like having a month off.

Sunday - We went up to Mequon to see my grandparents in the nursing home. I cut Grampa's hair, even his sideburns which as my daughter remarked "Grampa, sideburns that long went out with the Civil War." He looks 20 years younger, which is good, because he is turning 93 this week K"IH.

Monday - Took Fudge in the a.m. for immunizations. Take a minute to take out your kids cards. Fudge is too old to have gotten Hep B with her baby shots, so we had to finish up that series, added a second Varicella (stay tuned for that recommendation, but she is living in a dorm for crying out loud) and for the bonus round finished off with HPV after much intense and frank discussion over the course of many days. This will be an entirely different post later, stay tuned. After this we went to a fabric/craft store across the street and for an unplanned activity decided to put together a book bag/purse for her out of the coolest corduroy fabric. Took a few hours in the afternoon, but she is going to be the hippest frood in Manhattan.

Tuesday - Errands, nothing major. Made sugar cookies and some very good cappucino cookies. Yum Yum. Started working on my AHA CPR Instructor certification.

Wednesday - Went to Super Wal Mart in West Bend and bought 9 boxes of Mrs. Freshly's for the boys at school. This stuff is like gold in a boys' dorm and you can't get it in Milwaukee. You also can't get Drakes, but I digress. Some things for Fudge's dorm room.... We also got little Kreplach squares for shabbos.

Thursday - Cleaned up the house, cooked for company. Finished my CPR Instructor prereq's.

Friday - Made kreplach, Fudge's first encounter with the supply end of Kreplach. This was supposed to be a museum trip with company, but the company didn't come, so we just went with ourselves. Also brought the Freshly's to the boys, and the celebration carried on for weeks.

I write it here and I imagine a lot of you looking around and saying "So what, nothing new here." and there really isn't. But she is a cool kid, funny, biddable, and fun to be with, and I am so glad I had the time when she was available. I really didn't know what I was missing, and now I fear I will miss her quite a bit.

So for now, it's just me, Mr. Wonderful and his marinated mushrooms (and three other kids).