I Value Xylophones Like Cows Dig Milk!

[HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEFFREY! And on the day of his tenth birthday -- his first double-digit! -- I come across this post I'd written five years ago today about his FIFTH birthday party and other missives from the year we spent in a FEMA trailer post-flood. That's a story in itself, and I'll have to come back to it in bits and pieces. 

But for now let us celebrate with my son Jeffrey! 

Happy 10th Birthday! Love, Dad]

OK, the sentence is an acrostic – that is, each first letter stands for something else. My wife came across this yesterday in a book she read at Main Street Books while the kids were putting together a “Where's Waldo?” collage; this month businesses around town will have the striped-shirt intrepid explorer hiding out in their stores and whoever reports the most wins a prize contributed to by them! If I was driving, and I might still see what I can do, just as I need to not let my lack of driving (due to last month's seizure I can't drive again until mid-December) get in the way of the success I want in the time of Jason D.

That's also an acrostic, in this case representing the last six months of the year; I came up with that myself. Today's title is the increasing order of Roman numerals (I is 1, V is 5, X is 10, etc.) and it's pretty cool. Any who, all weekend our son Jeffrey has been saying “I'm five, I'm five” to anyone who'll listen – the crux of this was at church yesterday, where he usually leads ME to the altar railing to kneel and receive communion (that is, I receive communion) and as Pastor Janet was administering the bread and wine and drawing the cross on Jeffrey's forehead. With all the enthusiasm his age can muster, he spoke out, “I'm five!” Twice.

We had his actual birthday party Saturday afternoon at Oak Park because that's when the most family could be there, and after ordering the birthday cake and picking up that and most of the party favors THAT DAY we arrived and had a great deal of fun. When Jeffrey wasn't playing with his sister and other cousins, he got to dig into the cake and open several presents and cards (and he knows what money is) and then headed over with the other cousins to Oak Park's splash pad where, despite not having his swimsuit with him or Sarah having hers, we let them run in and out of the water streams – so did the other parents in our family who were there! Jeffrey kept getting the water in his eyes …

...and I had to wipe it out (saves us on showers sometimes, because in our FEMA trailer you cannot take a bath)! This weekend was also the beginning of my own taking insulin – one shot a day at eleven pm – and taking my blood sugar four times a day, once when I awaken, then two hours after breakfast, two hours after lunch, and finally two hours after dinner. I get to find out if this is achieving any results when I visit my UND doctor again this Thursday morning … in darker moods I want this blood sugar to be zero, but then I'd be dead so that's not a good idea. Right now I'm beginning to notice that it tends to be at its highest with the second blood draw after breakfast, at about nine-thirty in the morning.

Yesterday after church and Story Time at Main Street Books we spent several hours at my in-laws' house … and I didn't mind it so much as I thought I would. Sometimes we have so much to do that we make so much time to earn a living that we forget to make a life. I have a lesson to learn from my sister-in-law Margaret in this regard; even though she found out the day before that she'd have to go in early to work this morning, she said she “couldn't un-promise” Sarah and Jeffrey that they could stay the night last night with their cousin Josceline at her house. I got to my in-laws' house this morning and found the kids – who'd been brought there at a quarter to five this morning – crashed on the floor!

It is paramount to keep your word, David