When I want a lot of medical jargon I'll talk to a doctor.

.
How did you start your Wednesday morning?

Watching a video of an angioplasty? No?

Bean's bedtime book on Tuesday was Essentials of Human Anatomy & Physiology. In it, an illustration of an artery with plaque deposits began a whole journey down the rabbit hole of junk food, cholesterol and coronary artery disease, which led, naturally, to the coolness that is a balloon in the artery. Hey, she was a little spooked by stuff building up in her blood vessels, so it was great to be able to save the day with a balloon :) I was a little foggy on *how* angioplasty worked (where the catheter went in, etc), so I promised her a video in the morning. Then passed out cold with them as I laid down with them. After 4-5 days of me staying up until midnite-ish and them getting up at 5-ish, my body had *had* it.

Next morning, after telling me Handy Manny was boring and asking if we could watch football (god love her), we watched the angioplasty video. It was a CGI one, so no blood, but she was fascinated. Especially with the "little cage" (you know it as a stent). Her description later was a little bogged down with confusion between a plaque occlusion and how T-cells and viruses work (there was an image of a T-cell being attacked by the AIDs virus in her anatomy book, but I kind of glossed over all that, as she already knows how easily viruses are transmitted, and didn't want to hit her with killer viruses as well), but in her defnse, she's got the T-cells and virus in place of the plaque, and they all look pretty darn similar.

She was all excited to tell Miss Kate and Maria about the video, but I essentially had to drag her into her classroom. And she wouldn't breathe a word of it to the teachers there. That's pretty typical of every dropoff - I have to drag her in there and she clams up when Miss J asks her a question or tries to engage her.

I've talked to Bean, and she doesn't say anything bad about the teachers in her class, just that she's scared to go there. I've even, reluctantly, asked the sort of leading questions I try to avoid like "Do you like Miss K and Miss J? Are they nice to you?" She has said she likes Miss Kate's class better, but only says it's because she has more stuff and her class is only half a day. I've explained that half days aren't an option, and that stuff isn't important, people are.

She's been lamenting about wanting her mommy and daddy back together again, as well. Every. Single. Picture. this week has been her "whole family", with Dave and I side by side. But we did talk a bit about how mommy and daddy will never get married again, so even though it's sad for her, and probably will be for a while, she can't focus on that aspect. She actually said to me the other day: "I'm sad that you and daddy won't ever be married again, but I know that it will never happen, so I'm not too sad about it." I'm glad she can articulate that - I don't ever want to invalidate her feelings, but something like that, I think it's important that she *know* it just will not happen, so she isn't harboring any hope. She can be sad; hell, there are still aspects about it that make me sad (most notably that it's still hard for her). But I don't want her thinking that Dave and I will ever remarry.

The kid's just too damn smart for her own good sometimes.
.