Random Thinking

I spotted this on PassiveAggressiveNotes.com. I hope my sweet little girl never has to do this for me!

Here are some recent pictures of Beth and Mikey…



Here is Beth at her Uncle Jimmy’s house. Beth is wearing her Grandpa’s hat.

I love this picture of Mikey. He has such a beautiful smile.

They are so great together.

Here’s Mikey wearing his Nana’s hat. He loves that beret.

This past weekend was Mikey’s camping weekend. From Friday evening until Sunday afternoon, Mikey was away at camp. It was nice to sleep late and then have the chance to do some work around the house.

Friday morning I told Mikey that he was going to camp. He immediately ran to the door and was ready to go. I explained to him that he wouldn’t be leaving until after school. No problem. He sat by the door and anxiously waited for his school bus. Michel told me that the second he got off the bus after school he ran to the car and was ready to go to camp. Later, honey, after daddy gets home. As soon as I got home from work he was at the door and ready to go. We’ll leave at 7:00. Seven just couldn’t come fast enough. We got him out to the car and he waited while we loaded his bag and pillow and blanket. Finally everyone was ready to go and off we went. We spent the 45 minute trip listening to “The Rake Song” by The Decemberists over and over again.

The minute we arrived we heard a little boy crying. Apparently this was his first time at sleep away camp and he missed his mommy and daddy very much. The crying upset Mikey and he didn’t want to get out of the car. Eventually they were able to calm the little boy down and Mikey went inside. He immediately found the bed he wanted and went to sleep while I put his sheets on around him.

Sunday we went to pick him up and he immediately ran towards mommy and just as he got to her he veered off and ran away laughing. The little stinker. Then he ran out to the car and jumped in while we grabbed his stuff and loaded the car. The only problem was that we didn’t realize he had no shoes on so we left behind his brand new sneakers. Ack. But they have them and we will get them back. The report was that he had a great weekend and he was the best behaved that he has ever been while at camp. He even slept late. Now why can’t he ever do that at home!

There is a fad floating around among some blogs to record your five favorite movies. So I’m going to do that but since my five favorite movies change so often I will add on that these are the five movies that I can watch over and over again.

Casablanca – “Here’s looking at you, kid.” “We’ll always have Paris.” And about 5 other unforgettable lines. Humprey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, and Paul Henreid. How can anyone not love this movie? The most amazing thing about the film is that they had no idea how it was going to end while they were filming. The writers worked frantically to finish the script before the filming. And the result is one of the greatest movies of all time.

Clockwork Orange – “No time for the old in-out, love, I’ve just come to read the meter.” A brilliant movie based on a brilliant book (Kubrik left out the last chapter of the book because it was left out of the American edition of the book). Malcolm McDowell should have been nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor. Stanley Kubrik was nominated but lost to the director of The French Connection. Beth loves this movie too. She did her college essay about the book.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly – “When you have to shoot, shoot, don’t talk.” Starring Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, and Lee Van Cleef, directed by Sergio Leone with an incredible soundtrack by Ennio Morricone.

Field of Dreams – “If you build it, he will come.” Three Oscar nominations including Best Picture. The only Kevin Costner movie I can sit through. Ray Liotta and James Earl Jones are both fantastic. Just try not to feel good at the end of that movie.

A Foreign Affair – “If you give a hungry man a loaf of bread, that’s democracy. If you leave the wrapper on, that’s imperialism.” Billy Wilder’s funny movie about post-war Berlin. Marlene Deitrich plays the sexy German and Jean Arthur plays the Congresswoman from Iowa who gets drunk and sings, “I-O-way, I-O-way. That’s where the tall corn grows.” John Lund plays the Captain caught between the two of them. I loved this movie the first time I saw it.

Runners up: Duck Soup, Maltese Falcon, Memento, Apocalypse Now, and Bringing Up Baby.

So what movies are on your list?

Back on May 10th, I had written about the problems we were having with our little man. We had to take him off his medication because it was effecting his liver so Mikey was getting out of control. So now we have some good news!

Mikey is back! Those were the wonderful words that we saw in Mikey’s school book. He had been out of control for the last 6 weeks. Ever since we had to take him off the Depakote because of his ammonia levels he had been aggressive, wouldn’t follow any directions, and wouldn’t do any school work. If he didn’t get his way he would be a monster. We tried one medication but it didn’t help with his behavior and he started eating everything in sight. He shot up 20 lbs! He did need to put on some weight but this was way more than he needed. His psychiatrist started a new medication and slowly working his dosage up we have seen Mikey more like his old self. In the last week we have seen notes from school about Mikey being more cooperative and Mikey following directions. And then we got the words we truly wanted to see: “Mikey is back!” We are still at a very low dose for his medication and we will be increasing it a bit over the next month or so which means we may see even more improvement.

Here’s an example we are seeing of the difference… This morning Mikey asked for his rice crackers. He likes them after breakfast. We were all out of them so I explained that he ate the last of them all last night. A month ago Mikey would have gone into a fit, trashing the house and hitting anyone who was nearby. But today, he shrugged his shoulders and asked for some Rice Chex instead. He took them, went into the Living Room, and sat down to watch a little TV before the bus arrived. That was it… no crying, no tantrums, not even a scream. It is good to have my Mikey back!

And a bonus: Mikey lost the excess weight he put on and is at the perfect weight for his height! Woo hoo!!!

Here is this week’s song off my iPod.

Queens of the Stone Age is a rock band from Palm Desert, California. The band originally formed under the name of Gamma Ray in 1997. The members of the band are Josh Homme (vocals, guitar), Troy Van Leeuwen (guitar), Michael Shuman (bass), Joey Castillo (drums), and Dean Fertita (keyboards) who joined after the death of Natasha Shneider from cancer. Foo Fighters frontman and former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl joined the group in late 2001 and recorded on “Songs for the Deaf”. Grohl left the group at the end 2002 to pursue his own projects. The group’s music has been described as power metal but incorporates a variety of styles.

The group has released five studio albums since 1998 with a new album to be released this year. The group’s most successful album was “Songs for the Deaf” which was released in 2002. That album is certified gold in the US (platinum in the UK and Canada) and has reached over 1 million copies sold. The single “No One Knows” reached number 1 on the Billboard US Modern Rock chart and just missed getting into the Billboard Top 40. The group has had four Grammy nominations for Best Hard Rock Performance including for “No One Knows”.

No One Knows
We get some rules to follow
That and this
These and those
No one knows

We get these pills to swallow
How they stick
In your throat
Taste like gold

Oh, what you do to me
No one knows

And I realize you’re mine
Indeed a fool am I
And I realize you’re mine
Indeed a fool am I

I journey through the desert
Of the mind
With no hope
I follow

I drift along the ocean
Dead lifeboats
in the sun
they come undone

Pleasantly caving in
I come undone

And I realize you’re mine
Indeed a fool am I
And I realize you’re mine
Indeed a fool am I

Heaven smiles above me
What a gift here below
But no one knows

The Gift that you give to me
No one knows

Video for “No One Knows”.

“Recht oder Unrecht mein Vaterland” – Sign posted on the gatehouse of the Buchenwald concentration camp. Translation: “My country, right or wrong.” The slogan was adopted by the Nazis from the US.