Birthday party!!

Jade's 4th birthday party was last Saturday. When we first moved here one of the things I was looking forward to the most was Jade's birthday. We FINALLY have a house big enough to host an actual party, so I really wanted to make this a big deal. Unfortunately, she's not in preschool like I thought she'd be, so we've had to do some recruiting of neighborhood kids. I also recently put her in dance, so after her first practice she decided to invite a girl she met there. Anyway, in three months she has made 5 little friends, and luckily they all showed up to the party. I had very ambitious plans a month ago to rent a big bouncy house and a ramada at the park on our little catch and release lake. For some reason I had this delusion that we'd have 20-something kids to entertain. I think that was just wishful thinking on my part. Plus, could you imagine how much money that would cost? I'm actually really happy with the way her party turned out. We played "pin the antennae on the butterfly"(no pics of that, because I was busy blindfolding all the children), and we did a pull-string pinata. Since when have they started making those stupid things? Isn't the point of a pinata to beat the snot out of the darn thing until candy falls out onto the heads of greedy little children? I thought so too. Maybe they figured little girls really didn't want to put Tinkerbell through that torture, so about 12 ribbons were attached to the bottom. Each child grabbed hold of a ribbon and they all pulled at the same time. No beating, just pulling. I don't have pictures of that either.

All in all, it turned out really nice, and Jade just loved her little party!

Cabbage Patch two?

I listened to Dr. Mushmouth's dictation over and OVER, and I SWEAR he's saying "status post Cabbage Patch two". Seriously, I must have listened 20 times. I sped it up, and slowed it down, and yep - Cabbage Patch two was all I could come up with. So, I finally typed it all out and submitted the report for correction, dying to know what exactly WHAT kind operation this "Cabbage Patch" thing was.

Turns out it was "status post CABG (coronary artery bypass grafting) times 2". Duh! That's literally one of the FIRST acronyms they teach us. And of course doctors don't actually say each letter alone, they put them all together to make one stupid word! They keep doing this to me. They rattle off these insane sounding things without pause, so it sounds like one jumbled mess. Sed rate (sedimentation rate) such and such, alk phos (alkaline phosphatase) such and such, eos and basos (eosinophils and basophils), and now CABBAGE. Oh, and nevermind the fact that some of them even let the phone ring right next to the recorder while they are doing dictation! For heaven's sake pick up the dang phone, or hit pause! I cannot possibly hear ANYTHING you are saying! Sometimes they even eat during dictation! As if their jumbled jargon isn't enough to deal with! Ugh. I better get the hang of this, is all I have to say. Luckily, I still have a long, long way to go. I'm still in the beginning stages of transcription, so I'm hoping this will be a breeze in a few months.