"What the??"

(Totally unrelated to this post, but a pic of her eating a sandwich - a remarkably huge battle won by me as she generally refuses to eat sandwiches.)

You guessed - that is Annessa's newest catch phrase.  "What the??" Nice. Classy.  Should be a great little set of words for her to use to impress her preschool teacher in a few weeks.

The first time Rich and I heard her say that, we were somewhere between stunned and amused.  After all, hearing an almost-four-year-old exclaim "What the??" when seeing a dead bug in the door jam is kinda funny.  You have to give us that. 

 Then, of course, the self-examination started.  "Do we actually say that?" (oh, by  the way - she doesn't actually finish that phrase, THANK GOD.) So, back to the part about where in the world she picked this up.  Bingo, You guessed it. Her rock star parents. 

But, the way I figure it, no harm done.  We still have 3ish weeks until school starts.  That's 21ish days to replace "What the???" with something more appropriate to show surprise - like "OMG!" That should work just fine, right?

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Part Two: Richdate (a word sandwich for Rich and update, get it?  Clever, I know...)

Rich continues to impress me every day.  The stuff that he endures just to do what you and I take for granted is simply amazing. 

Case in point: He came to my ribbon cutting event for the new charter school the other day.  Not only did he come, but he invited our families as a surprise to me.  Very thoughtful.  Determined to stand during the 20 minute ceremony rather than sit next to my grandma (and the other grandmas in the crowd), he paid the price.  He got home and took his right leg off and started to transfer from his chair to the bed when he noticed a pool of blood on our (thank God) hardwood floor.  Scrammbling to clean it up (I was still at school), he took off his tee-shirt and mopped up the blood.  The once yellow shirt turned completely red.  It's hard to believe that 11 months out, he still has a wound that will not heal.  Of course, while Rich wasn't looking, the dog siezed the day and hopped up on the bed with the bloody shirt.  Nice.  Blood all over our cream comforter.  Thanks Gus.  That's just fabulous. 

Anyway, that is an example of a good day gone bad.  But he does have good days that stay good too.  Days where the legs feel good and he is able to comfortably* make it through the day on two feet.

*Comfortably is relative here.  If you consider silicone liners and plastic socket around your legs in 90 degree weather the norm.  

I say all of these things because this is what Rich would never (or rarely) tell people. Not that he is ashamed or wants to hid it, it's just that when an aquintance bumps into you and asks "how's it going," most of the time they really don't want to hear about all the goary details.  So he gives them the short-hand version: "I have my good days and bad days.  Don't we all?" And that seems to sum up the healing process. 

He does his best to do whatever he can without complaint.  But when I really stop to think about his day-to-day life, I am amazed at his attitude.  God has really come through for us on this one.  That's for sure.