I'm Awesome

I would just like to say that, although the Red Stars had a tough second half and missed the playoffs, and although St. Louis surprised me, and even though LA Sol led the whole season and Sky Blue had to pull off some upsets, I totally called it!

More than a mere aversion

The DSM IV defines a specific phobia as a

A. Marked and persistent fear that is excessive or unreasonable.
B. Exposure to the phobic stimulus almost invariably provokes an immediate anxiety response.
C. The person recognizes that the fear is excessive or unreasonable.
D. The phobic situation(s) is avoided or else is endured with intense anxiety or distress.
E. The avoidance, anxious anticipation, or distress in the feared situation(s) interferes significantly with the person's normal functioning.
F. In individuals under age 18 years, the duration is at least 6 months.
...and as with all DSM IV disorders...
G. The anxiety, Panic Attacks, or phobic avoidance associated with the specific object or situation are not better accounted for by another mental disorder.

I just want to make it clear for the following story that according to bonafide scientific definition, I have clinical arachnophobia, as I think you will see. And I kind of take offense when people are like "Oh, yeah, I'm arachnophobic" and then can sit calmly with a spider in the same city block. I'm sorry, friends, but you mock the dysfuction of us true phobics by pretending.

Now, I'm going to but mention the actual spider, because it will give me nightmares (again), but I'm pretty sure you will enjoy the retelling of our reaction to it.

Last night, we were wishing Hilary off after watching Kyle Orton self destruct, I was returning something to the basement, and on my way up the stairs, I saw a HUGE spider on the stairs. Now, I realize that I tend to exaggerate when it comes to this specific subject, usually on the order of ten-fold, but this one really was HUGE. I'm pretty sure I had taken three stairs in one giant leap by the time an inhuman "Uh-wah-uhhhhhh-ahhhhh" made it out of my mouth. Michelle, a fellow arachnophobe, understood immediately, and goes, "You have to KILL it!" with the unspoken (actually, later she did speak it) assumption that if left alive, the spider would stalk her to her bedroom, kill, and eat her in the middle of the night. And I'm like, "Oh, okay, did that 'uh-wah-uhhhhhh-ahhhh' SOUND like someone who is going to go BACK THERE, ANYWHERE NEAR that thing? Didn't THINK so." So she's like, "Well, then get someone to kill it." So, grown-up, mature, nearly doctor that I am, I screamed, "MOMMY!!!!!!"

Unfortunately, running away crying like a baby means that said spider has the chance to hide by the time my valiant pajama-clad mother got down there with three papertowels ("Um, you might need the whole roll") and the can of Raid. So we looked for a while, covered basically the whole doorway and Michelle's bathroom (in case it DID come stalking her) in the sweet scent of Raid, and went back to....

"Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!" Um, yeah. IT. CAME. BACK. Now about 5 stairs closer to MY BEDROOM. NOT OKAY. This time, we were smart enough to leave one of us cowering in the stairwell so it couldn't escape again (not me, I was the one on the other side of the house grasping handfuls of my shorts to keep myself from going through the wall) while my mom recovered her weapons. Unfortunately, she didn't have her glasses on, so Michelle had to get a flashlight to shine on the spider. Which meant she actually had to LOOK at it. See where this is going? Not what I'd call an effective spotlight. Nonetheless, my mom triumphed against her menacing foe, turning towards us with the papertowel wad, saying, "Let's see if I got him." "NOOOOOOO!!!!" More running away grabbing my shorts.

Wish I could say this was the end of the story, but apparently Michelle wasn't quite liberal enough with the Raid, because there were two more waiting for her when she went to brush her teeth. "MOM!!!! WE NEED YOU AGAIN!" Thank God for understanding parents. I'll even accept the ridicule that comes along with it, as long as they kill the devil monsters. After all, I KNOW it's a perfectly irrational fear (see A and C above) and that going out of my way to avoid spiders (D) interferes with normal function (E) and I'm not exactly PROUD of the girlish screams that accompany my severe anxiety (B) but I CAN'T HELP IT.

I'm just glad that it provides so much amusement for everyone else.

And let's just pray I end up with a VERY understanding husband.

I make my husband put down his job, so I don't have to tell them I work at Children's

If you want to be encouraged about your kids turning out okay, are pregnant, or really ever planning to have kids, NEVER have a neonatologist tell you stories. They will ALL sound like horror stories to the uninitiated (read: non-medical professionals). To us, they are hilarious.

Like your son getting bitten by a pit viper and sucked on by a leech in the span of 24 hours. "He says the snake bit him and THEN he threw a metal stick at it...but anyone who knows Kieran knows it was probably the other way around. I tried calling poison control, and the operator was like, 'Oh, they're closed.'"

Or delivering a baby and having him turn blue and start snorting within minutes. "I just said, 'He's fine, he just needs to acclimate a little bit.'" "And they LISTENED to you?" "Well, she didn't take a lot of convincing. And I knew they were just going to whisk him away to the NICU and poke him and put him on CPAP, and at the time, it sounded like a good idea. I don't know, I was so drugged up I couldn't stay awake."

Or any number of things that land you on a first name basis with the urgent care docs and the overpowering desire to hide the fact that you are a DOCTOR to the nurses in the emergency room. "My husband made me bring her in. Next time, he's putting HIS job on there, cause you know as soon as you leave, they're talking about you."

And those are just the neonatologists' kids.

Also what I've learned is that if someone codes (heart stops beating or they stop breathing), the phones and overhead pages may or MAY NOT tell you what is going on and might lead to a slight delay in qualified people responding; but if a parent brings in Scotcharoos to the break room, it only takes 37.4 seconds for everyone on the floor to know that they're there. Same thing with free ice cream day. Priorities, people.