Winners and Losers

Short-term losers in the passing of Proposition 8:
1. Queer people who now will be discriminated against under the law. And don't give me that "domestic partnership" bullshit. Didn't we decide a half a century ago that separate is not equal?

2. Children of queer people whose parents' legal status is now in question. The stability of their families is in peril.

Long-term losers in the passing of Proposition 8:
1. Religion. The inevitable backlash against a faith that wrote their own twisted values into our constitution will keep people from gravitating towards a spiritual life. I mean, myself excluded, who would want to be called a Christian when something like 75% of "Christians" voted to discrimiate against what they see as the "other?" Have these people even listened to Jesus?

2. Marriage. If the Right continues to define marriage as a religiously acceptable institution, more and more people will want nothing to do with it.

Eventually, people will not stand to see our beloved constitution have discrimination written into it. Eventually, we will not stand for the law giving more rights to some people than others. And we will stop pretending that a 15 year old child of straight people suffers more sitting through a hypothetical sex ed class for 50 minutes than a child of gay people does when his parents' legal and societal connection is questioned at the most critical times of all (i.e. ER visits, etc.).

I know there are so many reasons to rejoice over the election--trust me; I am happy about Barack. But I am utterly heartbroken that so many of my neighbors think so badly of queer people that they would vote to discriminate against them. I can't even picture my sister and SIL and their two beautiful twins right now without crying. I don't even know how to call them or what to say.

Going to the No on 8 March in San Diego this weekend helped my spirits. But when I look around my suburban cul-de-sac and recall that 5 out of the 7 houses here voted yes, I feel disheartened and frustrated. I should have done more.

Breastfeeding: normal, healthy, and...sexy?

I love it. I might even buy the magazine to support the decision to put a photo of breastfeeding on the cover (okay, I'll admit it--I want to see all the other cute family pix Brad snapped, too!).

Here's a link to the reuter's story about it. La Leche League is happy about it. Here is a quote from an article on cnn.com:

"Breast-feeding in public reveals a whole lot less than what has been revealed on the red carpet. ... I think we do need more role models like Angelina Jolie willing to be photographed and say, 'Hey look, it can be done, it oughta be done,' " said La Leche spokeswoman Jane Crouse.

To the concerns about the picture oversexualizing breastfeeding, I say, "Who cares?" First of all, the primary function of breasts is to nurse offspring. That males respond favorably to breasts as a secondary sex characteristic doesn't take anything away from their primary purpose.

In fact, I have no problem with the nursing-sexual link. I don't think of my children sexually while nursing, but I freely confess that the milk letting down feels good. Afterall, the hormones released at let down are the same ones released during female orgasm (and childbirth contractions, fyi). While I'd never call childbirth "orgasmic" (and some women actually do--and good for them!), I do feel the sensations of arousal when I nurse. Far from making me feel inappropriately sexual towards the kids, however, those "good feelings" make me feel bonded to them even more than I already am. And if the good feelings encourage us as humans to nurse, that is healthy for baby and mommy.

So if men at times feel aroused by watching a woman breastfeed, I refuse to fault them or even find a reason to object.

Of course, breastfeeding requires more than the endorsement of a popular celebrity, and is sometimes difficult to establish. Even lactation consultants can give differing advice to new moms, further confusing the picture. (See? Even after this post, I still can't ignore my need to qualify all my opinions!!! Argh.)

Even so, Angelina is a model for moms who might not think they can successfully breastfeed one, let alone two babies (she is nursing her twins). And if her picture glamorizes breastfeeding as well, then, rock on!

What we did with all that RAGE.

RAGE.

I’m mad SO SO fucking mad. I am shaking with rage. I burst into a flood of angry tears over this two days ago and really, I haven’t stopped being sad, and of course I’ve cared about this issue for years and years but right now I am MAD AS HELL. I want to smash my fist into something.

There is no threat to your straight relationship if a woman marries another woman.

There is no threat to your children if a man adopts his partner’s daughter.

If you are pro-family, pro-marriage, then you should be advocating gay marriage, not acting like it hurts your own family.Take your fucking sign off of your front lawn and grow a fucking brain or conscience.

I know a woman, sitting in a hospital in Virginia, watching the respirator rise and fall next to the body of her love, her partner, her best friend, who is lying still after two 9 hour surgeries following a surprise aneurism a week and a half ago. The woman sitting in the chair doesn’t know if her partner will be alive tomorrow. She has a 20% chance of surviving this situation. I don’t know what the odds are for brain damage. This woman can’t work, can’t sleep, can’t eat for worry and fear. She doesn’t know if she should mourn or pray or cry or scream. And on top of that, Virginia is a state where there is a law on the books specifically denying and gay person any legal recognition in regards to their gay partner. The only reason she is getting to call the shots for her partner’s health is that her partner’s parents are deferring to her. Which they could decide not to do at any moment.

If her partner dies, she won’t even get to call herself a widow. It is to the rest of the world, and certainly to the hospital staff and the government, as though this woman lying on the hospital bed is just a really, really good friend.

***

My own sister lives in Washington State with her partner and their twin toddlers. They were married in San Francisco and cried as the day before their commitment ceremony in Seattle, the State of CA revoked their marriage. They were married again in Sonoma this summer in a sunny lavender field out back of my parents’ farm house. I sang. My daughters carried bouquets that my mom made from her flower garden. The toddlers of the brides crawled between their joined hands as they recited their vows. But they do not live in California. They live in Washington, where their only legal link is the fact that one of them is the adoptive parent of the biological children of the other. That is something. Some states wouldn’t let that adoption go forward. But it is not enough. And while their CA marriage is more symbolic than legally helpful (since they don’t live here), it is a sign to any future court or judge that they did all within their power to legally and culturally link their futures and lives together.

My sister and I met our future spouses around the same time. She is blonde with freckles, like me, and is my exact height and weight. We both sing and play sports and love Buffy. We cry easily and think deeply. We both married people who have brown hair, slender builds, and who are intellectuals. My sister and I aren’t the same person, but we are very much alike, and we chose partners who have a lot in common. It is asinine that I get every benefit from the government simply because Scott has a dick and my sister’s spouse does not.

And I feel so much rage that our friend in that hospital in Virginia has nothing to validate her relationship of over ten years as her love lies dying, blood spilling into her brain, potentially erasing all memory of their life together. Soon my friend might be the only one who knows how deep their love went. And there is no legal record that they even knew each other.

Oh, I have plenty of philosophical and moral and legal arguments as to why you should vote no on Prop. 8. But right now, I can't even enunciate them. I feel it is personal, and I am a shaking, angry, righteous bullet of rage. And I am now going to talk to all my acquaintances, friends, and neighbors about this. I tolerate differences of opinion. But I will not stand for this sickening display of a lack of conscience. I will not tolerate it. Not ever.

Speaking My Mind

I was re-reading my old blog posts the other day and I could hear my own little sensitive voice in between the lines where I typed an extra paragraph or two to include another’s perspective so that no one would feel left out.

This trait is so natural to me by now that it’s actually difficult for me to recognize it and separate it from my other instincts. That’s why not reading my blog for 18 months gave me enough distance and perspective to actually see those moments where I bit back what I wanted to say, or tempered it, for the sake of others. And even then I had times where I failed at including others’ experiences or perspectives.

This is my most important personal strength: the lengths to which I will go to make others feel included. I have staked friendships, my marriage, and my reputation on my ability to get inside others’ heads and address their concerns or hurt feeling in advance. Maybe it’s the inner sensitive little girl in me, or maybe it comes from watching a “popular” girl spit over the stair railing on a “dorky” girl at my private school in 6th grade, or maybe it has to do with Jesus, but including others, and being very careful with how their feelings are affected by my words and actions are very important to me.

And perhaps this blogging break and my foray into HP fandom has changed me because instead of remembering all that effort with pride for my successes and/or guilt over my failures, I was like, “Shit, that’s exhausting!”

In HP fandom, people sometimes discuss things with personal significance, but the majority of what we talk about is characters, themes, and larger issues like forgiveness, mercy, justice, reconciliation, and, um, sex. OK, I guess all of those can have lots of personal significance, but because we are seeing these things though the eyes of fictional characters, it is so much easier to disagree with another person without any hard feelings. There is a lot of "agreeing to diagree" out there in fandom. It's a beautiful thing.

I think I like being a little less careful with others’ feelings. I like that I need to take responsibility for my own reactions to others, and they need to do the same. I’ll never let go of concerning myself with what others think of me. I’ll never suddenly stop thinking about how my words could make others feel excluded. But gosh, I hope that at 31 years old I can finally say my own opinion, born from my own experience, without apology or constant qualifying: (“Of course, not every mom feels this way,” or “Some Christians disagree, but,” or “If you’re a working parent it is different.”) Like I said. It can become exhausting. Let’s just assume that I speak for myself. That other parents/mothers/Christians/Californias/ may feel differently. That I might feel and communicate something in the moment, and with time, I will feel differently about it.

And now for some AU (alternate universe) versions of famous songs. What would happen to art if we asked our artists to keep others’ perspectives in mind when creating?

From NIN (Nine Inch Nails):

Head like a hole!
Black like your soul!
I’d rather die
Than give you control!
[now we could add:
“But I realize you deserve control
Sometimes I just want my own way
Why don’t we try?
Why don’t we trade?”]


And from Alanis Morissette:

And I’m here, to remind you
Of the mess you left when you went away
It’s not fair to deny me
Of the cross I bear that you gave to me
You, you, you oughta know!
[now we add:
“And I know, that I’m difficult,
And that living with me is not easy
It’s not fair, to expect you
To love me forever when I get so…
So, so, so ANGRY!”]

Other suggestions?

Thanks to Mom Fu for the song ideas.

This Season of Our Lives

Hello?
[The internet echoes.]

Anyone still here? It’s me, your blogging mommy friend, with a new post.
[The internet rumbles.]

Yeah, sorry for that hiatus. I, uh, got knocked up and then had the baby in December and was a little depressed and then dyed my hair purple for six months. But it’s totally back to normal now so don’t like worry or anything. Yeah, been busy. Plus I got sucked into Harry Potter fandom.
[Another part of the internet waves hello. The mommy part rolls its eyes and taps its foot.]

Well, here I am! With my natural hair color (kinda)! Ha ha! Back to write about, you know, family stuff. And maybe faith. And to explain the purple hair thing. And, um, perhaps to explain the Harry Potter thing.
[The Internet stares me down.]

Okay, so, I’ll just, you know, start again, okay?
[The internet sighs beckons me to continue.]

Great! Here we go!

I was at IKEA a few weeks after number 3 was born. I was nursing her on a couch in front of the escalator. There was a mom of a newborn who had her baby in the infant car seat in the front of a huge IKEA shopping cart. She was glazed over, eyes reflecting my own exhaustion and expression indicating that she didn't even know why she was there. I watched as she pushed her huge shopping cart up to the escalator and tried to actually walk onto the escalator with it, unthinking.

Of course, the whole thing began to tip and she awoke from her daze and someone helped her down. She was embarrassed and felt silly, quickly pushing the cart over to the elevators and escaping everyone's looks that said, "You're a crazy woman!" And here is my question: Where the fuck were the 10-15 older women, sisters, aunts, mothers-in-law, that in most cultures and throughout most of human history would have been taking care of this new mother and her baby?

What is so fucked up with our culture that a mom with a week old baby is furniture shopping at IKEA??? She should be sleeping while someone holds that newborn until it needs to nurse again. Then she should nap with the baby. Then go for a walk. Then have someone feed her home cooked food while they hold her baby. Then she should nurse again. But the way things are in our culture, we are expected to get back to regular schedules, lives, responsibilities with very little help only days after giving birth. And we are so separated from those older female family members by geography these days that there really isn't anyone to properly care for new moms as they need to be cared for. At the most, her church probably organized a meal delivery for the first two weeks home from the hospital, but that doesn't even come close to being actual support.

And our partners can support us as well, but even if they are helpful when they come home from work and are a good listener, they have their own responsibility to earn a living for the family, which is their support. The support I am speaking of can not come from the breadwinner, but from others.

This season of life, when a woman is intensely caring for a baby/young child, lasts years, and human mothers did not evolve to do it alone. The nursing and sleepless nights alone are a new mother's evolutionary job (or the job of whichever parent or person is raising that infant). Then eventually, that mom is the one making the food for her own little sister or neighbor as she has the new baby, etc. Why do you think it was beneficial for humans to live in communities??

WE WERE NOT MEANT TO LIVE THIS WAY.

I got into a fight with a friend recently. I know, me, fighting? It was crazy. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up: I called to ask for her help a couple times this spring, and since we hadn’t spent quality friend time together, it made her mad that I would ask for her help. I apologized for asking for help without first, you know, asking her to get a manicure with me or something. And then I told her that if she wanted to hang out as friends, she could have called me, too. And she was all, “Yeah, totally! So thanks for understanding and for not doing that again.” And I was all, “OK, see if I ever call you to get a manicure again.” And we hugged so I guess it’s alright now.
[The internet looks askance at me and narrows its eyes. This reminds me of the look my mom gave me when I was three and bit my brother on the arm.]

Bitter? You think I sound bitter? Well this is exactly the shit I am talking about! (Wow, being in HP fandom has given me an internet potty-mouth.) I mean, what kind of culture expects a mom of a 4 year old, a 2 year old, and a three month old to have the time, interest, and/or ability to pal around with her friends who have one 3 year old who’s in school everyday? What happened to HER calling ME to hang out, or see if I needed anything? I mean, she pees by herself and showers everyday and can read the paper! I pee with a baby on my lap, shower with three small children at my heels once a week, and wake three times to nurse each night! I read the paper once a month, and found out that McCain picked Palin from my HP livejournal flist!
[The internet links me to thenanny.com, sleeptrainyourbaby.org, and msnbc.com.]

No, I am not telling you all this for sympathy. Nor for advice on sleeping training.
[The internet frowns, confused.]

Are you looking for a point here? Here it is: this is the season of my life for some sleeplessness and for peeing with a baby crawling on my lap! I’m not complaining about being in this season; I CHOSE to be in this season of life when the pull-out method didn’t work, okay? But we weren’t programmed to do it alone, and we weren’t programmed to do it with polished, post-manicure nails holding a margarita at happy hour. And the friend that I called two times in the three months since I birthed a baby with a childcare request should have just kindly said, “Sorry, not tonight,” or “Sure, drop the older two off for an hour while you go to that kindergarten parent meeting.” Not be mad that I might need some support two times! In three months! For an hour of playtime with their kid! I was even going to keep the baby with me!
[The internet wonders if I went to one of those religious schools that didn’t teach about proper birth control. Or if I should rethink what I said about not going to happy hour.]

Dude, internet! How do you think I avoided pregnancy all those years my husband and I had sex before getting married? It’s only that now I don’t feel like using it anymore. And I totally will research better birth control options after I finish reading some more Harry Potter fan fiction, okay?

Those of us with small children, including that new mom at IKEA, should be watching our older kids play with sticks and rocks with 10 of their cousins from a shady spot under a tree where we nurse our babies and our sisters-in-law/neighboring villagers/aunts/friends bring us porridge. But since we can't return to those idyllic days in early human history where someone is making porridge for you and shady trees are everywhere, and since even if we could, we'd be trading our current problems of modern life with ones like death via wild animals or crop failure, we need to reach out to each other in whatever ways the 21st Century will allow.

The Compact

Some of you know I joined a group called the Compact last August and were asking about it. I thought I'd take a minute to share with everyone what it is. It was started in San Francisco beginning in Jan 2006 by a group of friends who wanted to change their lifestyles to lessen their ecological footprint. They pledged to buy nothing new for a year, except for food, underwear, and socks, plus a few personal items and medical supplies. They agreed to borrow or barter for the rest of the things they really needed/wanted, or to find things used. The group got publicized and now there is a yahoo group for Compacting with several thousand members around the world.

Many people have been living this way for a long, long time. If you were raised in a different country, or during the Depression or wartime, Compacting is probably already in your blood. Your grandma might call it being thrifty. If you've ever reused aluminum foil for three months or wondered how to make artistic use of your strawberry baskets, you are a Compacter in the making!

Here is a link to a blog about the Compact.

There are lots of links on that page. You can join the Yahoo group for all Compacters and/or the OC yahoo group without actually making a pledge to buy nothing new for a year. In general, people decide to join the compact for one or all of the following 3 reasons:

1. environmental impact: to lessen the amount of resources needed to create new things and to decrease the landfill space required tostore these things in perpetuity

2. Consumerism: to free ourselves of the mind-control that mass marketing has today, to change our relationship with stuff, torecognize the needlessness of many purchases

3. community: to learn how to share and borrow and barter with your neighbors. This can be fun and fullfilling, plus if the end of the world ever comes (pick your poison: terror attack, peak oil, etc.), Compacters will be more accustomed to working/living communally than others in our society.

A fourth benefit is saving money. This isn't usually why people join the compact but it can be a motivator. It certainly motivated us!! You are still allowed to spend money, though. Compacting is about buying nothing new, except for your own exception list. You still can go to the movies, dinner, buy take-out, pay for services, etc. You can also buy used things, but not going overboard. A nice benefit of joing the online group is that there are lots of discussions on how to spend money in the service sector with environmental sustainability (i.e. the environmental impact of using a gym vs. working out in the park, or how to get a gift that is service-related and isn't a "thing," or how to throw a kid's birthday party without buying anything new, etc.)

I should warn you that while there are a ton of useful threads on the main yahoo group site, (i.e. how to Compact in the kitchen--paper towels, baggies, coffee filters, etc.) there are also many threads that turn into debates as people bring their personal agendas to the Compact (i.e. world terror/oil depletion, the economy, anti-TV,etc.) Sometimes those viewpoints are relevent to the Compact and other times they aren't. I have found that our OC yahoo group is more positive and less "jump down your throat" than the folks at the main yahoo group site. But there are also fewer people and so less info. It is a trade-off. Also, of course you can Compact without going online at all! You just decide to buy nothing new except for your own exceptions and go from there.

I have found that clothes and toys are the easiest to avoid buying new (or at all). I am working towards buying fewer disposable items,but that is tough for me. Avoiding the mall, period, also really helps. And Target. Don't go to Target! The less time I spend at a store, the more immune I am to the compulsion to buy buy BUY.

Our exception list:
socks
underwear
food
medicine
items that will make me more environmentally responsible--if Ican't/won't find them used, of course, like a composter, reusable tupperware, ingredients for green cleaning products, or my new DivaCup!
Organic cleaning products and toiletries
disposable diapers
Occasional art supplies for the kids, new shoes for us, sippy cups
Occasional replacement items, like the new camera we bought when we lost our old one
Occasional gifts, although we try to give Compacty gifts (like used things or certificates to restaurants, massages, trains, etc.)

But I now cut out card board cereal boxes and the like for paper for painting with the kids and find other ways of reusing items in new ways. We also have let go of so many things since Compacting. Hey,if we aren't using it, we should pass it on so that someone else doesn't buy it new.

Check out www.freecycle.com for more give away/trade ideas. Let me know if you have any other questions! Our year of Compacting ends in August but I don't think we will ever really go back to the way we lived before. Not that we were shopaholics, but there were several times Scott would come home to see a bag from IKEA or Target and say, "Seriously, where are we going to STORE that thing!?"

Copycats

After reading this, and then re-reading my own post on the subject here, I had a few more thoughts about why Grace and Natalie don't like to be ready in time, nor are they inclined to clean up after themselves.

Here is a short list:
1. my shoes are in the hallway, where I left them when I nursed Natalie down for a nap in the guest room.
2. The dishes from the pancakes we excitedly and spontaneously made this morning are on the counter, calcifying the batter onto their surfaces as we speak.
3. I just finished my Christmas thank you cards last week. Yes, I realize it is February.
4. I have a half a dozen household projects half finished: starting composting, starting a little vegetable garden, organizing the pictures we received for Christmas cards into a little photo album for the girls, making a behavior sticker chart for Grace, etc.

Could it be that, far from ignoring Mommy, my daughters are just working their hardest to emulate Mommy? Hmmm??

We'll be okay.

I didn't pray for a girl or a boy, but I did dare to hope the baby would be a redhead. When Grace sprung outside my womb three and a half years ago, the first words I remember hearing were from my mom, joyfully announcing, "It's a girl!" It looked like a little bit of strawberry blond fuzz was growing on her head, and I was ecstatic.

“Google this disease: Alopecia areata.”

“Isn’t that something about the immune system?”

That fuzz eventually grew into red curls at the nape of her neck, and then into the wavy bob she sports today. For all my talk about girls being defined by more than their physical beauty, I love Grace’s unique red hair that flounces around her head, unkempt, as she runs in the courtyard outside of her preschool classroom.

Won’t ever make her sick…not contagious…

While pregnant with Natalie, I dreamed one night of two little girls, one slightly taller than the other, one with slightly redder hair and one with slightly blonder hair, running in front of me down a busy sidewalk. They were laughing and holding hands. While tense about the cars whizzing past, I also felt such joy that the siblings would run off happily like that. I correctly interpreted the dream to mean that with two little ones, life would be amazing and happy, but it would always feel a little out of control, just slightly beyond my reach.

You can use hats or bandanas when it gets bad….it probably will grow back next year…

Natalie’s blonde bob was so fly-away her first year that we threw her a crazy hair-themed first birthday party and asked guests to come with crazy hair. Sometimes the girls get a treat and I spring for the cool kids’ hair salon, complete with airplane seats and Dora the Explorer on the TV. Usually, their hair is cut by Mommy, while sitting on the kitchen counter.

…see an Eastern doctor…her trigger could be dietary or stress-related…here’s the name of my homeopath…

The first nickel-sized bald spot didn’t phase me. The second, quarter-sized spot prompted a visit to the doctor. It took a pediatrician, a family med doctor, and a skin disease reference book for them to come up with the diagnosis: Alopecia, an autoimmune disorder in which her immune system attacks her hair follicles.

Half of those diagnosed re-grow their hair in a year, no problem. Then there’s 45% that lose more and struggle with patchy baldness, sometimes affecting up to half of their hair, for years and years. That leaves 5% who lose all of their hair on their head or all of their hair on their entire body. Kids have a higher re-growth rate (yay!), but they also are more likely to have recurring hair loss later if they develop Alopecia before puberty (argh).

How do you react when your child is diagnosed with an incurable disease that doesn’t make her sick but might cause her to lose lots of that gorgeous crown of strawberry blonde waves? We began by being thankful she isn’t sick. That is isn’t contagious. That if she does lose her hair, it will be a million times better than a kid who is bald due to leukemia or chemo. That she is being raised in a family that consciously tries not to attach too much importance to physical beauty. As Shawna eloquently said, children with problems and diseases are going to be born. Scott and I were given one. We were entrusted with a child who might lose her hair. Aren’t I glad this child is being raised by me, and not by some parent who has over-glorified physical beauty to the extreme?

Then after about a week we got angry. Angry that the doctor told us to Google the disease instead of answering my questions face to face. Angry that she wouldn’t give us a dermatology referral. We will get a second opinion from a different doctor and will also see a respected Eastern medical doctor after reading information online about non-traditional approaches. A friend with Alopecia suggested that a homeopath help us determine what Grace’s triggers are. We feel good about our approach. We're doing everything right, as my friend Michelle reassured me.

I decided to go two directions simultaneously, which puts me in a slightly hypocritical position, as Michelle also pointed out. One, we are going to continue making a home that doesn’t glorify physical beauty. I have decided to not blow dry and style my hair in front of Grace. We point out strong, kind, and successful people we know who are balding or lack typical physical beauty. Grace knows her hair might grow back but she might lose more. She isn’t too concerned yet; after all, she’s only three.

The second direction is to pursue all options available to try to nip this hair loss in the bud. This would indicate that hair and physical beauty are, indeed, important to us. And they are. I will have to get used to these inconsistencies if I want to simultaneously protect her psyche and her strawberry blonde crown. While we can’t forget which of those is more important, it is fair to say that we care about them both. I won’t pretend that no one cares about hair or hair loss, but I refuse to be horrified by the thought of Grace with an early Ani ‘do. I will not stand over her head while she sits doing a puzzle, fretting over every new strand that falls out. I will not comb her hair every morning for 15 minutes, exasperatedly trying to hide the bald patches.

Maybe she will want hair extensions to hide the bald spots. Maybe we will find the environmental or dietary trigger and she’ll never lose hair again. And maybe a proud balding Grace will redefine what beauty means to those who grow up with her.

“Dr. Roby!” I cried, in mock distress, “You are such a good vet! You fixed my parrot’s beak, helped heal my kitten’s broken tail, and solved my dog’s stomach ache! Can you help with my horse?”

“Sure! What’s the problem?” Grace asked, holding her stethoscope up to the truck I was pretending was a horse. God, what else is usually wrong with animals? I couldn’t think of anything.

“She is losing her hair.” The words sprang from my mouth before I had the chance to sensor them. I stopped and looked at her. With a furrowed brow, she examined the truck carefully. I could have kicked myself. We had set the game up so that Dr. Roby fixed whatever problem I brought her. I feared she would think there was only one solution here.

“Can she still jump and run?” She asked. I nodded.

“Stronger and higher than ever.” Grace hung the stethoscope around her neck.

“Then she’s fine.” Grace shrugged nonchalantly. I let out the breath I’d been holding.

“Thanks, Doctor! What a relief that she’ll be okay.”