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I'm still alive....but just barely. Actually, I'm probably a little more alive these days. I'm happy to say that I am still on track with the whole quitting smoking thing. It sucks, but I know it's worth it. It's funny how much more I'm coughing now and all the crap I'm moving out of my lungs. Yeah, I tried to make that as not gross as possible.

In other news, Geof is sick again. Just a cold, but I'm starting to become a tad concerned. This makes the 4th cold he's had since late October. The kid is never sick, but for some reason he's been keeping a cold this year. It's never severe; no high fevers, no major congestion, no loss of appetite. Who knows. We did go to the park a few days ago.

Speaking of the park, here's something I thought was kind of interesting. Interesting enough that I'm still thinking about this little girl I met there. I was sitting on a bench watching Geof be a kid when I noticed this little girl on a bike with her Dad running along side her. What struck me was that he was a very fit looking person and she was a little on the chubby side but not morbidly obese. I sort of wondered to myself how a parent so apparently into fitness would allow their child to put on weight like that. A little while later I noticed that she and Geof and struck up a little friendship and were playing together. Geof brought her over to me to show her that I was his Mom and we started talking. She was in 1st grade, her bike was new and she loved it, and...this is what broke my heart...she said, "My Daddy says that I have a lot of fat on me and that's what makes my belly grow so big so I have to do a lot of exercises." The rest of the time this little girl was there she stayed on the monkey bars going back and forth. She and Geof came back a few times, she was very talkative but she always mentioned her belly and how her Daddy said she needed to exercise. You know how some kids are, they can tell you their whole family's life story. (I once had a kid at that same park tell me that he was so happy because his Daddy had gotten out of jail that day and he brought him to the park to play and have a picnic). On the one hand I thought it was nice that her Dad was teaching her how to stay healthy and active with exercise at such a young age. But, on the other hand the way she talked about it made it seem as if it's too much a part of her life right now. Like she was so fixated on those damn monkey bars she wouldn't or couldn't take a break to run around and be a kid. I don't know, I may be trying too hard to be a park bench psychologist. She was a really sweet little girl and absolutely gorgeous, tummy and all. Her name was Rose...which was kinda cool because that is the name of Geof's favorite imaginary friend.