Fear and Parenting in Las Vegas

The good folks from the “Got Milk” campaign are heading to Vegas next week. They’ve asked me to help promote their event, which aims to encourage families to get back to the dinner table to regroup over the evening meal, reconnect, bond, and…you guessed it…drink milk.

Here are the details on the Vegas event.

• Monday, April 5 at Galleria Mall at Sunset, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. and 3-5 p.m.
• Tuesday, April 6 at Gardens Park Farmers Market, 4–8 p.m.

If you don’t live in Sin City, check out the tour calendar for the dates with they’ll be near you.

They sent me some goodies to share with readers. So, if you want to win, leave a comment below and tell me:

a) how you “Milk the Moment”

or

b) how you take your milk (e.g., cold, warm, skim, chocolate, etc.)

or

c) what food goes best with milk.

and you’ll be entered to win not only a prize pack…but a CHOCOLATE milk prize pack*.

All entries must be received by Friday, April 2, 2010 at midnight pacific time. One entry per household, please. Each entry will be numbered and entered in to a random number drawing. Open to U.S. and Canadian readers only (unless you want to pay for shipping). Winners will be contacted on Saturday, April 3, 2010 and listed after they have confirmed.

Phew. This contest stuff wears me out. I need a cupcake. I’ll take my milk skim (because you need to balance things out, yo) and ice cold.

*I won’t tell you about how I felt like a total ass for taking six hours to figure out the roll of brown milk mustache stickers were for chocolate milk. I thought the milk folks were just being ethnically sensitive. Yes. I. am. an. idiot.

**Hello? FTC? Yes the milk folks asked me to do this and they gave me the stuff to give away. However, they didn’t pay me. There. Fully disclosed. Happy now?

Thanks to those of you who’ve reached out to ask about my dad. I’m sorry I haven’t said much about him here, but to be honest, his road since coming home from rehab has been a slow and somewhat rocky one.

Getting out of the hospital-rehab center-home cycle was a tough one. After more than six weeks in the ICU, a psychosis set in that had some of his doctors wondering if he’d pull out of the haze long enough mentally to turn the corner physically.

He did it.

Going to the rehab center, we had our doubts about how much effort he was really putting behind his therapy. DId he really want to come home and live independently? Was he willing to take better care of himself to make sure he wouldn’t get back into the hospital again?

It wasn’t easy, but he got home.

Once he got home, would he expect to be waited on hand and foot? Would he play the invalid? Would he work with the in-home therapists and make an earnest attempt to become more self-sufficient and make better decisions about his diet and exercise?

It took awhile, but he’s making progress.

Expecting a man his age with the hideous health habits he’s developed over the years to do a complete 180 isn’t fair. We all had to remind ourselves that he had a bypass operation, not a personality transplant. He was not going to come out this guy…

although I’m sure my mom would have loved to get her hands on his juicer.

Now the health insurance has deemed dad fit to be on his own. No more therapists. No more home health nurses. They’ve got his diabetes under some relative control, although he refuses to check his blood sugar consistently. He walks a couple laps around the patio in the morning and afternoon. Unassisted. With no walker. AND he hasn’t fallen in yet. (If that’s not a Christmas miracle, I’m not sure what is.)

He’s started working out at special cardiac gym where he’s professionally monitored.

All joking aside, Dad is my Christmas miracle. The sheer fact that we got another Christmas with him was something, back on October 19, I would have never expected.

He has a long way to go. He’s lost a lot of weight and his muscles atrophied substantially during his hospital and rehab stays. He’ll never be able to drive again. Mom can leave the house for a few hours, but overnight trips are no longer possible unless someone else stays with him. He can make his own meals, but his choices are slipping back into old, high carb, high fat habits. Some days he barely eats. Others he’ll gorge to the point he makes himself ill.

There are days, like those when he gets to spend time with the kids, that he relishes his decision to fight the fate that seemed to fatal six months ago. Other times, when he is lonely and bored and missing the attention that was focused on him during his crisis, he questions his decision.

There are no two ways about it. Getting old is hard and changing habits is harder with every year of experience and wisdom that tells us to stop behaviors that hurt us. I keep telling myself that I will do it better, that I won’t let myself fall into the trap of instant gratification that led Dad into this quagmire of sticky arteries and bottles upon bottles of pills.

But damn, it’s hard and the cookies taste so good.

Pass the cheez-it’s, Dad. And sure, I’ll have another Diet Coke.

My friend, Miss, and her friend, Kat, invited me to participate in their “Dollar Store Challenge” last month. “What’s that?” you ask? Well, we had to walk into a local dollar store, spend 20 bucks and send it to someone else who signed up for the challenge. Give a box, get a box.

This is the box I sent to Mommy Geekology….

that contained….a bowling pin set, a scarf, fling bars, glow-in-the-dark rabbit ears, toothbrushes, jewelry, a tiara, a St. Patrick’s day hat, deodorant, knee pads, warming gel, and a box of condoms…see fun for the whole family!

And…

this is the box I got from A Girl Named Mel.

that contained votive candles, frangrance infusers, bubbles, a bath pillow, shower puffs (we call them scrubbies around here), silly putty, twizzlers, puzzles, cat toys, a book and…

these….

which were Boo’s favorite. I keep telling her that it’s better to give than to receive, but she had a heck of a lot of fun receiving on this one.

Thanks to Miss, Kat and everyone who participated. We had a blast.