Number One

All right, all right. I accept the challenge, dear Kate. The challenge was to come up with five things about myself that Kate doesn't know. The problem is that Kate and I have been friends for approximately one billion years--and not just passing "friends," but the kind of friends who tell each other absolutely everything. The dumb, the interesting, the boring, the ridiculous. I TELL HER EVERYTHING. (Gosh. Poor girl.) So this is a huge challenge. I'm going to mix it up a bit and make each of the five things a different post. This is mostly because I don't think I can come up with five all at once!!!

So here's number one.

I will start with this, only because you mentioned to me the other day that you didn't know it about me. I had pneumonia as a toddler. Now, that may not be all that interesting in and of itself, but there IS a story behind it.

Growing up, we had a swimming pool in our backyard. My parents were very responsible people who understood that swimming pools and toddlers don't always mix well, so they installed gates and locks, etc, to keep me safe. But I have older siblings and cousins and they had friends, etc. Someone along the way decided that the gates and locks were too cumbersome, so they rigged it so that the gate wouldn't lock.

And along comes toddler Anne.

I was carrying a kitchen timer which apparently I dropped into the pool and, being a responsible girl who didn't want to get in trouble for losing the timer, I jumped in after it.

My mother happened to look out a window and noticed me--floating face down in the water. She dove into the water to pull me out and found that I was unconscious and blue. Somewhere in there 911 was called and Sister Harrison, a neighbor, had come over. And, obviously, they saved my life. It was determined that I had been without oxygen for four minutes, which is long enough to begin to cause brain damage. My older siblings like to bring that up...

And, of course, all the water in my lungs gave me pneumonia. My mom had been warned that it would happen, but even so, when the pneumonia hit, it was pretty scary.

Anyway, the result is that having had pneumonia at such a young age weakened my respiratory system to the point where if anyone within a ten mile radius of me has a cold, I get it too. Bronchitis? ALL THE TIME. Sinus infection? yep. Even walking pneumonia once or twice.

That's why yesterday, when Nathan's doctor sent us to the hospital to get chest x-rays, I was hoping and praying that my little tiny Nathan would not turn out to have pneumonia, because I know that when you get it this young, it can effect you for the rest of your life.

Hot dog, leap frog, and holy cow that was a long post. I tend to have a problem with getting a bit wordy. But Kate, of all people, KNOWS that about me, so I can't make it one of the five. hahaha.