Everyday Lunasea

Year in Review: 2011

2011-12-09T14:14:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays! Boy, the years just fly by, don't they? We feel like we've been very busy but we have little to report.

We're still in Our City, still in the house we said we'd live in for 5 years before moving. We're heading into our 12th year here, so you can see how that prediction panned out.

Ben earned his yellow belt in Tae Kwon Do, and then promptly quit.

A. graduated Montessori and switched to a new school, St. J's. Unfortunately, he says he doesn't like it much and wishes he were back at Montessori, so, you know, that's fun. We're all still waiting for a growth spurt, too.

Both A. and Ben started Boy Scouts, and while the activities are fun, the uniforms cost an arm and a leg and the badges are ridiculously hard to sew on.

Lunasea is still in private practice, and hates insurance companies more than ever. Her goal in 2012 is to not have to deal with them anymore. She also is not crazy about sewing Scouting badges and is actively sabotaging her sons' efforts to earn more badges for her to sew onto the shirts.

G. is still at Kaiser and in private practice. He was hit by an appliance truck and totaled the car. We're still driving it, though, because it turns out the driver was the appliance guy's uninsured nephew. Oops!

The unfinished wood around the doorways of our house are still unfinished. After 3 years, we (read: Greg) finally chose a stain color only to find it had been discontinued. Isn't that always the way?

A. is trying out CYO basketball, and his team finally won a game. We couldn't say that at all last year with soccer, so things are looking up.

Dear friends died and we miss them, so that sucked.

So.....how was your year?

A. Takes a Stand

2011-03-18T16:13:00.000-07:00

A. has come out firmly against tiger extinction, in a letter to National Geographic.

Dear National Giograpic,

We should keep lions and other big cats alive because they want to live a big life. Think about it, if we were a big cat we wouldn't want to die (and of course not go extinct). We want to live a good happy life. Big cats going extinct would make a big difrence. Many contry in southern asia and Africa would have to change state animal and zoos would lose a lot of anamals. Little kids would get relly sad, if there was no more "King of the Jungle." It would be a big loss if the big cats when to ecstinction.

Sincerely, A.

Please, let the countries keep their national symbols. Save the big cats.

Another Auld Lang Syne

2011-01-01T11:27:00.000-08:00

I've written before about how much I love New Year's. I'm in the self-improvement business, after all, and although I realize there's nothing magical about January 1st that instantly makes all goals attainable, it's a pretty handy marker for starting something.

Every year my resolutions are similar - they focus around health, organization and finance (like 98% of the population). I don't see this as a failure. These areas are my cutting edges - they are what I will always be working on, and that's fine. Every year gets a bit better. This year I implemented a new bookkeeping system in my practice, which helped track payments A LOT. Next year will be even better as I moved my accounting online.

I've recently been reading about brain plasticity and am really interested in how it applies to positive psychology. I've been really interested in cognitive work on resilience, and how some clients manage to pull themselves past enormous roadblocks and trauma, and why other clients see their lives as a tragedy and have such a hard time motivating themselves to change, even though they express the desire to do so. After 20 years of doing therapy, the actual traumas and stresses the two types experience don't seem that qualitatively different, and I don't think the first group is just in denial. I think the growing field of research into positive psychology is fascinating, and I want to learn more about the practical application of these ideas.

Last year I ran a 5K. This year, depending on how my joints hold out, I will run a 10K. I will also eat less and move more. I'm going to start a binder of healthy, vegetable-heavy recipes since I need vegetables disguised if I'm going to eat more of them.

Last year I learned many ways to cut back on grocery costs. I'll keep that up, and started a separate savings account at ING Direct to save money each month so I'm not struggling at Christmas. This year we sold one of our cars right after Thanksgiving and that saved this Christmas, along with the bevy of frugal shopping sites out there that saved me tremendous amounts of money by alerting me to sales I wouldn't have found otherwise...but I'm not going to be caught wondering how not to go into debt next Christmas. I don't think we'll have another spare car to sell, so....I need to make sure I have enough cash set aside.

And, hey, here it is 11:11 on 1/1/11. Happy New Year!

The Kind of Superhero I Want to Be

2010-12-09T22:56:00.000-08:00

I had fantasies of being a Superhero today. Mostly because some chick started yelling inexplicably at me at a gas station, other people left carts in the middle of the aisle at Target, and then I stepped in dog poop on the grass at the library.

So if I were a Superhero, I guess I'd have to fly, because I'd want to swoop in and correct all those little stupid annoying things we do to each other. I'd swoop into the gas station and make sure everyone was calm, took turns and waited in line. I'd have people say, "No, you were here first, go ahead - here, let me move out of the way for you."

I'd (gently) teach people how to move their carts to the side of the aisle when they stop to look at something. I'd jump in front of their carts before they barreled around corners and say, "Now, don't you want to check first to make sure someone isn't coming and the coast is clear?"

And I'd definitely swoop in and hand people plastic (biodegradable, of course) bags to pick up their dog's poop. "I know you want to pick up your dog's crap, don't you? Here, let me give you this to use."

I'd stop people on sidewalks and firmly suggest they pick up the fast food bags they just threw in the gutter.

I'd show up in people's cars (guess I'd have to add transporting to my list of powers) and say, "Now, you want to use your turn signal right about now, don't you?"

Oh, and an important one - I'd prowl parking lots and discuss bad parking with people as they got out of their cars. "Now, I'm sure you don't realize this, but your car is over the line on the other side. That's going to make it awfully hard for the people in that car to get in, don't you think? How 'bout you just jump back inside and repark within the lines?"

I'd arrive when people are talking loudly on their cell phones in inappropriate places and either bodily transport them outside, or hold up my power shield and cut off their signal.

Any I'm forgetting?

Could We All Just Stop Pretending We Know About Major Depression if We Don't?

2010-11-14T14:02:00.000-08:00

Once a month G. or I have to go to a parents' meeting at the Catholic Church.

So this year they had a parishioner lead the first class of the year, and then asked him to do it permanently. He's a nice guy, a dad, and he tries to bring in real-life examples of his kids and family and trying to be good Christians. He reads the day's Bible passage aloud, then tells us what he thinks it means. There's not really any discussion, we just listen to this guy and his train of thought on the message for an hour, then if we're lucky there are doughnuts and coffee in the hall.

Last week (I forgot what the point of the lesson was about - I think it was "we should all pray" again), he said, "You know, sometimes people feel bad and they just start taking these antidepressants, and those mess with your emotions, when what I do, is I just go over there," pointing to the church, "and pray and look for answers there."

Aw, crap. It's the famous "if you were stronger/more faithful/less of a pansy you wouldn't need anti-depressants" argument. We've all heard it. I've gotten into arguments with family members over it. People (who usually aren't in the field) begin spouting all this stuff about how meds mess up your mind: They make you foggy, screw up your emotions, change your personality. It's all a big conspiracy by the pharmaceutical companies. By the way, why don't I hear ever hear this argument about manufacturers of pain relievers or chemotherapy drugs? It's always the companies making anti-depressants (or ADHD drugs) who are especially evil and want everyone medicated and sedated in their quest for world domination.

When I've unwillingly found myself in this argument with someone who's usually talking out of their ass, I've resorted to, "You're an engineer (or whatever), right? And I'm a psychologist. Which one of us do you think knows more about psychotropic medication, hmmm? And just so you know, I've never received as much as a Post-It notepad from any pharmaceutical company, so just don't even go there."

So that morning, I looked around at the people in the room at this parent's meeting, and wondered who who took antidepressants that morning. I know I did, and I would bet money there were at least two other people in the room who were taking them as well. I wondered if they registered what the leader had said or if it just floated past them, like so many comments that float around us all the time about depression and mental illness.

I had a young man in my office recently who told me, "No offense, but I think this psychology stuff is bullshit." Really, Dude-With-1-Semester-of-Community-College -Psychology-Under-Your-Belt? (aside: Does anyone else get told the entire field of study of their Ph.D. is bullshit? Just curious, not bitter...not bitter at all. I mean, it's not like my dissertation was on Area 51). So this guy's mother was seriously depressed and he was convinced that it was because she was just weak. He gets depressed, sometimes, sure, but he pulls himself out of it. He was getting annoyed with her and believed she just needed to "move on."

Here was a kid who thought he knew everything at 20, which I understand. So I gently educated him about depression and anti-depressants and he listened. He finally agreed that it might help more if he was supportive of his mother and stopped telling her to snap out of it. He did agree that telling her to snap out of it hadn't worked thus far. I was relieved, because that's really all I was asking of him.

So my question now is, do I say something to the leader of this parent's class, or not? I think I have to. I think I have a duty to confront the stigma. I'm not an activist, and there are very brave souls who are really working to change the stigma of seeking help for mental health reasons, but that's not where my energy has gone. But I wish I'd said something that day. Honestly, I'm so used to these views being thrown around that I didn't even really register that I could say something until I'd already left to pick up the boys.

I don't care at all what he thinks about my taking meds, because I'm sooo over caring what people think about my being on anti-depressants, but I know for a fact that there are many poor souls who have suffered for years before finally realizing they could indeed feel a whole lot better on anti-depressants. Many of these people have told me they wished they'd tried meds years earlier and then have to grieve the loss of all that time lost to depression. And those people shouldn't have to feel that here's another person, in a position of authority, although I doubt he looks at it that way, who also thinks they should have been able to do it on their own. I have no problem with this guy having that opinion in private, but if he's in front of a roomful of parents he doesn't really know, perhaps he should learn to keep it to himself. I'm guessing it didn't even occur to him. We all have to think before we speak.

Amazon, Don't Make Me Boycott You Right Before Christmas

2010-11-10T22:29:00.000-08:00

So there was this maelstrom on Twitter today that was picked up by media and bloggers everywhere. Someone found a self-published book, "The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure," being sold as an e-book on Amazon.com, and raised a ruckus. For some, the fact that it was available on the site at all led them to call for a boycott of Amazon. (update: the book's page on Amazon is now a 404 message; not clear if it's just down or if they're really removing it from stock).

So Amazon responded, in part, with: “Amazon believes it is censorship not to sell certain books simply because we or others believe their message is objectionable. Amazon does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts, however, we do support the right of every individual to make their own purchasing decisions.”

OK...except that it's not censorship for an outlet to refuse to sell an offensive book, just like it's not censorship when sponsors pull out of Dr. Laura's radio show. No one's coming to arrest this guy, or Amazon, for selling a despicable manuscript. No one's saying he doesn't have the right to be, well, despicable. (For a more in-depth look on why this isn't censorship or book-banning, see Backpacking Dad. Actually, see Backpacking Dad for all your logical rhetoric.)

Today I've been watching the back-and-forth between bloggers on this issue.

We as a society have a responsibility to protect our children. I also think we do a lousy job of it. Maybe I'm overly sensitive to it since my profession involves trying to heal abused children, but actually, I think most of y'all are in denial about how prevalent physical, emotional and sexual child abuse is.

Here we have a how-to manual on how to victimize a child, and how to get away with it. This is not a gray area. This is not a treatise on how incest and child brides have historical relevance and should therefore be considered normal. I'm sorry, but this is not an idea that deserves to be protected. And, as Backpacking Dad also points out, for the slippery slope argument to work, you have to prove that the slope is slippery, not that it's there.

Wringing your hands and asking, "But where does it end? Are we going to ban the Bible too because some people find it offensive?" is as ridiculous as wondering if gay marriage will lead to people marrying animals.

I am not in favor of banning books or restricting free speech, and on the whole I respect booksellers who try to offer as wide a selection as possible. If Amazon really believed in that, they'd sell porn. But I also believe there is a greater principle here, and that protecting children from anyone who'd buy a how-to manual on child molestation is more important than worrying about the rights of Philip R. Greaves II to sell it.

Dia De Los Muertos

2010-10-24T14:10:00.000-07:00

I've always wanted to make an altar for Dia de Los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead. I'm not sure how I knew for sure, since late summer, that this year would be the year I would make one in our home. I think it has to do with turning 45 next week and having the time clock ticking louder in my subconscious than ever before.

I took the boys to a fabulous Day of the Dead celebration in our hometown so they would understand where it comes from and its significance.

Can you find the 5-year-old?

Outdoor altar at Meek Mansion Day of the Dead Community Celebration

There they boys made the skeleton masks that are now at the back of our altar at home, and Benjamin decorated the little sugar skull at another booth. We got some colorful fabric, cut out the flags, and made tissue paper flowers. I bought a Lady of Guadalupe (one of my favorite icons) candle at our local Mexican grocery store, and then it was time to add photos and symbols.

The framed picture near the top is my mother. The two photos below that are of G. and A. meeting Grandma Gagnon for the first time. Grandma lived to 101 years, and when I met her, she was 93, healthy as a horse and walking 3 miles a day. The pic to the right is our friend Ralf, one of G's groomsmen who passed away suddenly a few years ago. There are more pictures, more people to add as I find and print them.

One of the most poignant things on the altar, to me, is the pregnancy test on the top to the left. I'm grieving the loss of my dream of having a third baby. It's not unexpected - as I said, I'll be 45 next week. But I always thought I'd have three kids. I always thought I'd have a daughter. Someone who claims to know such things told G. a few years ago that there was a "red-headed female" soul waiting to join our family. I'm sad that she either lost her way, or that I didn't hold the door open long enough for her to join us.

So, our family is now complete, and it's good. I am beyond lucky to have two such glorious boys. A friend offered me the book, "The Wisdom of Menopause" but I'm not ready for it yet. I have to still say goodbye to the ignorance, and other trappings, of youth.

And, as a bonus, here's Benjamin explaining Day of the Dead for you, complete with 5-year-old close-up. Then he goes on to the weather, which is why I stop recording. If you knew him, you'd thank me.

PSA

2010-10-10T21:56:00.000-07:00

I need to warn those of you who view my blog on readers....I'm going way back through my archives and tagging my posts so I can eventually sort the posts and put them in a book. Not a Random House kinda book, a homemade book, much like the ones A. writes. The boys are constantly asking for stories of when they "were young." So if I make a book out the posts and give it to them, I don't have to talk to them anymore.

So, yeah. I'm going to be showing a whole lot more recently published posts and they'll be from 2003. Sorry.

Fun Dad

2010-10-09T20:49:00.000-07:00

One thing I'll say for G., he's great at playful improvising. A. even says, "Mom, you're not as playful as Dad." Hey, I'll play, as long as the rules are all set out and I know them and we have all the right equipment. But G. just makes stuff up as he goes along.

Benjamin has been bugging me to play some game called "Blind Man's Rummy." I have no idea what he's talking about and considering I can't even remember the rules to Hearts, I decline and suggest War or Go Fish or something else my feeble brain can handle. Turns out, Blind Man Rummy is a game G. invented with rules designed specifically so Benjamin wins. They have to find matches in their hands, G. deals out extra cards randomly, and when Benjamin runs out of cards, he wins. Perfect for the easily frustrated 5-year-old.

He also invented "Sock Fights." He took the worn out socks I was going to throw away along with some unmatched socks, balled them up, stuck them in a plastic bag and wrote "Sock Fight" on the outside. On rainy days when they can't go outside, he and the boys work off extra energy by hurling the socks at each other. They're pretty good at picking them up afterward, although I often find balled up socks behind furniture and just stick them back in the bag.

Once, when we were visiting my sister and the boys (along with my nephew) needed some distraction, he threw a wooden board on the grass and told them to "Walk the plank!" That, along with some pirate talk, kept them busy for quite a while.

Another game is "Chute," where he stands on the couch, holds up a sleeping bag, and the boys take turns going climbing on the couch and heading down the "chute" to the floor. He piles pillows between the couch and the floor, so no one gets hurt. Mama doesn't do Chute because her arms get too tired.

Mama also doesn't do "Carpet Ride," because she says she's not strong enough. "Carpet Ride" is when the boys, one at a time now that they're bigger, sit on a huge blanket and G. pulls them around house. Now that we've traded the carpet for hardwood floors, it's a lot easier.

He's also made up this character, "Pinnaman Pete." He's great at making up stories about Pete and his mountainous, gold-mining ways. When we were driving to Bend, he made up all these stories about Pinnaman Pete and 5-Fingered Jack. I don't where he gets this stuff. I'm supposed to be the writer but he's got a great imagination. Trying to keep up with Pinnaman Pete stories makes my brain tired.

For the last couple days, we've been a bit misplaced because our floors are being redone. We can't walk on them for about 4 days. So we're all living in the family room, kitchen and master bedroom, which we enter through the window. Tonight G. is doing a backyard camp-out (BTW, my spell check wants to replace that with "cam pout." WTH?) with the boys. Sadly, it's a 2-person tent, or 1-person and 2-kids, so I'm missing the fun and sleeping in my own bed. Poor me. But Fun Dad is out there with the boys, making memories they'll have forever.

More Home Improvement Adventures

2010-10-07T20:53:00.000-07:00

Remember when my purse was stolen 2 weeks ago? So today the mailman comes by with a "postage due" envelope. I had no idea what it was - it was from the "Atlanta Recovery Center" in GA. So I told him to hold on a sec, I had to get my wallet.
Then I did what I'm sure everyone has to do at some point...walked out the sliding glass doors of the family room into the courtyard, and up onto the wooden bench and through our bedroom window into the master bedroom.

"Oh!" said the mailman.

"Yeah, we can't walk on the floors," I said, gesturing to the open front door and the very strong smell of polyurethane wafting from within.

"Ah! You are having them refinished?" I nodded, gratefully. Thanks for understanding, mailman.

This floor refinishing could mean the end of unstained doors covered with plastic, doorways taped up with painter's tape, and napkins wrapped around doorknobs to keep them from banging into other walls or doors. I'm not sure, since this is what we've lived with for the last 2 years, but I'm hopeful. G. is our home-improvement captain, and he says the floors need to be redone before we can do anything else woodenish. So we might actually see the dining room door soon. Right now it's taped up with cardboard and painter's tape, although it's been installed for a year and half.

Mindfulness

2010-09-24T14:05:00.000-07:00

Went back to see the shrink this morning. I'd actually set the appointment up a few weeks ago when it was clear that I felt pissed off about something but couldn't really put my finger on it. That's SO 20 years ago.

And then I went to visit my Dad in AZ, which was easy in the sense that he demands pretty much nothing, and hard in the sense that he demands and offers nothing. It's sad to see him so slowed down and kind of absent.

And then I came back and went back to work the same day, worked a long day the following day, worked the day after that and in my short break between work and picking up the boys, during which I'd scheduled some exercise, my car window was busted and everything I need was stolen. Damnit, I hadn't even caught up on the laundry yet.

So. I had a lot to talk about to the shrink. I'm still kind of reeling from the stolen purse thing. I keep thinking of more things that I need to take care of. I did the big ones immediately - stopped the credit cards and changed my bank account number. Now I keep thinking of other stuff -

where's my inhaler? Oh, yeah, it was in my purse.
That water bottle I loved? In my purse (it was a big purse). I mean, c'mon thieving-thieves, you couldn't have thrown the water bottle off and grabbed my wallet?
My glasses - where did I stash my prescription and an extra $300 to buy a new pair?
My favorite lip balm - which is out of stock in all the stores I've checked (Burt's Bees Lip Shimmer in Watermelon, BTW).
The Target receipt for the USB cord that I bought in AZ and was the wrong size, but decided I could return here since I had the receipt.
All of my reward cards.
My Starbucks card which fortunately had $0.00 on it. I have a happy fantasy of the robbers trying to use it and not being able to pay for their latte. Suckahs!
My little bottle of Aleve. Boy, do I miss that. I've replaced it, but I can't seem to get the new bottle into my new purse where it would be helpful.
My new tweezers. Damnit, I buy tweezers like, twice a decade, and these were new.
My little mirror that I love because it's little but it's perfect.
My boys' sherrif's badges from The Jungle, which they don't need but what if they were their favorite things in the world? Huh? What then?
My keys. Now the office has to be re-keyed and my office mates have to all get new deadbolt keys.

Now, people not very far from me have lost their entire homes and in some sad cases, family members in a horrible disaster. So I can't really complain too much. It an annoying hassle but it's not the end of the world. I've lost my wallet before, but it was always my fault - usually I carelessly left it somewhere. This was more of a violation - I'd locked it in the trunk, so they had to break the window, scattering glass (which, by the way, is called safety glass but can still cut you when you try to brush it off the seat) all over the car and the street. The glass place did a fairly good job of vacuuming it up but I'm still finding shards everywhere.

The thieves tried to use my credit cards almost immediately. C'mon, the $160 I just got paid in cash and was going to pay for the next two weeks' groceries wasn't enough for you?

So. Where was I? Oh yeah. So when I made the appointment I was already kind of in a bad mood. Then all this stuff happened and you know what I wanted to do first? Eat. The second thing I wanted to do? Shop. My two old go-to's for stress.They're both big symptoms of unconsciousness (for me).

So I think this is a wake-up call. I need to spend more time being mindful and present with myself and with my family. I want to push it all away and go unconscious so it won't overwhelm me, but of course that's not the answer. I used to spend a lot of time writing and meditating, before kids, and I just don't have that kind of time now. I'm having all these dreams of tidal waves and explosions, and clearly there's something there to pay attention to.

What I Returned to After My Stress-Relieving Run

2010-09-23T10:36:00.001-07:00

Stress. They popped the trunk and took my purse. I'd had the great idea to run without my glasses, so they were in there too with my checkbook, my water bottle, my inhaler, the cash my client just paid me, all the receipts I need for stuff I plan to return, and of course, my keys and wallet. G had to come get me because I'm blind as a bat without my glasses.

Birthday Celebrations Used to Be Easier

2010-09-13T22:29:00.000-07:00

I keep forgetting I've added Tuesday mornings to my work schedule. I keep thinking I have the morning free, after dropping off the boys to school, to grocery shop and exercise. I laughed at myself this morning while driving to work, realizing I was planning tomorrow morning's run during the time that I had three clients. (You can't run while you're seeing clients. It's distracting).

I wondered if I'd accidentally planned anything else during my Tuesday morning at work. Oops. As a matter of fact, I did, I realized with horror. I planned to have A's school birthday party at noon on Tuesday, thinking I was off work on Tuesday, but unfortunately, I'd also scheduled clients from 10am -1pm. Crap.

A's birthday was last Monday, which was Labor Day, but another kid was having their birthday on Tuesday, I remembered that I work on Wednesday, so I originally scheduled it for Thursday. But, wait, Thursday is California Admissions Day and they have all sorts of festivities planned! So Friday it is (was). But then A. got sick on Thursday, had a fever, and we thought perhaps we should reschedule it for Tuesday of the next week - tomorrow in case he was still sick on Friday. Follow all that?

So I found myself calling the teacher as soon as I arrived at the office today and asking if it would be terrible if I had the pizza delivered. She admitted no parent had ever tried that before (don't any of these other parents have jobs?) but she was willing to go with it. I called the pizza place, asked if they could assure me that they would get delivered right at noon, and after some confusion, after me saying, "Never mind," and after the lady doing everything possible, including a 15% discount to make sure I didn't hang up, we settled the details. I don't trust them at all, though, and will call again tomorrow. The school is 2 blocks from them, but it's on the grounds of a Lutheran church which confused the hell out of the clerk.

"Is it a church or is it a school?" Well, it's both and you don't really need to understand, you need to show up and ask for "Mary Ann, the teacher," or "the third grade," and you will be shown to the right place.

A. said he didn't mind at all, in fact, he breathed a sigh of relief. He had informed me in no uncertain terms that parents deliver pizza and juice boxes and then IMMEDIATELY leave. No singing, no pictures, no acknowledgment that we know him at all. So he thought having a delivery guy was perfect.

I hate work/family conflicts. They don't happen all that often, fortunately, but when they do I always feel guilty and torn. But when I cancel a client, that's at least $60 less income that month. Every hour counts.

In other news: I'm getting ready for a short trip to Arizona (I'm also reminding myself I can't pack tomorrow morning - I have clients!). What do you do with a 5-yr-old in Phoenix when it's 103 degrees out? We can only swim so much.

Water, Losing Weight and Reeling Them In

2010-09-12T21:20:00.000-07:00

Clearly, I'm not meant to post every day. But I'm posting more and slowly crawling up out of my blogging grave, so that's good.

On Wednesday, I begin a new weight-loss challenge. I lost 10 lbs. on my last challenge, sort of a virtual "Biggest Loser" contest. This is similar, but it's a Survivor-styled challenge. There are over 20 tribes and each tribe has to vote someone to "Exile Island" each week, and the tribe with the lowest percentage weight loss also gets sent to Exile Island. With over 20 tribes, this could take a while. I'd like to lose about 20 lbs, which isn't much in the grand scheme of things, but the benefit of having less than 50 to lose is that only 1 lb is still a sizable percentage.

Went to a b-day party today where the theme was "fishing," and one of the events was that a kid would wear a vest hooked to a fishing line. Someone else would stand on the side of the pool with a fishing pole and "reel" them in while they tried to swim to the opposite side. A. took both fish and fisher positions, and all the kids had fun. I love games like that - not a lot of money, not a lot of fancy equipment or jumpy houses.

Also went to my first UU water communion. We had to leave early because it's a long service (and we had to get A. to the soccer field at 11:45 or they'd take team photos without him). Anyway, in the service, everyone brings (literally or symbolically) some water from their summer. The four directions are named in verse and story, and you line up after whichever direction your water fits, either literally or symbolically, and add your water to the communal bowl while explaining where the water came from and what it represented to you. We were going to go with the "West" crowd since the water was from our home and we live on the west coast, but we ended up going with the "South" crowd because we needed to leave.

Having never been to one of these before, I didn't know that we really each talked into a microphone about our water. It was easy, though, because our water from our home, to me, symbolized my memories of the boys spending hours playing with the hose in the yard, and my continued quest for simplicity. G. pulled out a very nice exposition on water as representing the bonds of family formed during our summer. I really wish he'd consider doing a sermon one summer (when the minister usually takes time off and the congregation fill in with lay sermons). He's a very good speaker. I'm not horrible, but I get nervous and my voice shakes and my mind goes blank and I'd just rather avoid that.

Whew - how many unrelated topics can you fit into one blog post? At least three!

2010-09-09T14:20:00.000-07:00

I'm building a website for DH and trying without much success to get an Amazon widget on there. I'm going to try the HTML here just to see if it works here.

Yep, looks like the code works. Now I just have to figure out what Intuit SiteBuilder has against Amazon.

And in other news, I've been re-reading past blog posts. There are A LOT since I've been blogging since 2003. You know, I used to be pretty funny. And my kids were hilarious. They're still pretty funny, but somehow the funny has drained out of my brain lately. I think I need to get away from composing facebook status updates and back to composing blog posts.

Dry

2010-09-08T21:54:00.000-07:00

Dry, dry, dry. That's how I feel. I probably shouldn't wait until I'm half asleep to write these, but when else am I going to do it?

Worked on G's website today. We both have professional websites, which I can't bring myself to pay anyone to build. It's not easy, this website designing thing. I have a whole new respect for people who imagine and then create new designs. I can barely use a template. But I do, and we're not designers or advertising our artistic ability for anyone, so the websites do the job and give people information on our services and how to contact us. They're not ugly...just kinda boring.

Finally read the winter issue of "Brain, Child" I've been carrying around with me for months. Man, was it depressing. The first essay I read was from a woman whose third baby was very "high-needs." He'd cry for 12 hours straight, and rarely slept more than an hour at a time. Sure made me feel better about my decision to not try for a third. Ben wasn't that difficult, but he was clingier and needier and more difficult than A., for sure, and it was hard. He still can be. He's also just the sweetest little guy you'll ever meet, and smiles all the time, so we certainly get something back from him.

The second essay was by a woman who has been shut out by her teenagers. I am in denial that that will happen to me with my boys who run at me when I get home from work shouting, "Come to me first! Come to me first!" But I'm sure it will. I will hate it, and I hope I learn to cope with it so I'm not too miserable. It will be a learning experience, that's for sure.

Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?*

2010-09-07T20:34:00.000-07:00

It's funny how when my day is going badly, I am suddenly surrounded by horrible douchebag drivers.

Had a good run after walking the boys to school, until about 4 blocks before home when I got what are euphemistically referred to as the "runner's trots." Let's just say I had to throw away a perfectly good pair of running shorts.

Then a client gave me the heave-ho with a flimsy excuse, when what they really meant was, "You're not telling me what I want to hear." I was annoyed because I'd spent all weekend thinking about this case and where to go and how to help.

That's pretty much it. But since it all happened before 10 am, it wasn't an auspicious start to the day.

In other news:

1. We finally received our Wii, and just had enough time to set it up before bedtime. The boys designed their Miis, but both A. and I were a bit disappointed in the lack of redhead options.

2. A's birthday dinner: Fried chicken, Stouffer's mac and cheese and garlic bread. I added salad just to break up the monochrome menu a bit. I think he liked it. We told him the story of the day he was born, (actually more like the week he was born since it took that long to coax him out.

3. We told his favorite story from when he was a toddler, originally blogged here. I'm going to cut and paste the paragraphs, though, because the post is long and I spend most of the time complaining about a lousy day (whoa! deja vu!)

Anyway, he has a couple of tricks when we say "no" to the TV or videos. First, he tries bringing us the remote and instead of asking to watch TV, he'll tell us to "push green circle," like we just need to be directed on HOW to turn the TV on, or maybe we don't realize that pushing the green circle will result in the TV being turned on and by the time we realize it, it will be too late and we'll be drawn into Elmo's World.

Second, he goes through the list of shows he likes, just in case it's the show we're objecting to and not the TV. "Little People? Farm Animals? Thomas? Teletubbies? Sesame Street? Stanley? Clifford Big Dog? Dragon Tales? Wiggles? JoJos Circus?" We keep saying, "No, no TV right now." So he was very unhappy about it all this morning. Finally he handed me the remote again, and said in a very plaintive voice, "John Kerry?"

Poor guy was so desperate to watch TV he was offering to watch the cable news channels that G watches.

He was a really funny toddler. Now he's a pretty amusing big kid.

4. We were at A's soccer practice, at a local middle school, where I saw this silhouette on the wall:

First off, what's the purpose of the silhouette, but more importantly, what are those little 3-fingered talons coming out of her back? And why no feet? At first I thought, Oh, it's the shadow of a helper right outside the resource room, where students go for help. But then it became more and more disturbing.

Edited to add: I am informed by someone in the know that the silhouette was put there to honor a beloved staff member, and that she had long, wispy hair - hence the little talons coming out of her back. I would submit that a little note, like, "In honor of...." next to it would go a long way towards explaining the shadow, as well as make the honor concrete. And they should've just given up on the wispy hair thing because there's no way to make that look normal. Just my completely unsolicited opinion.

*- George Carlin, RIP

Happy 8th Birthday, A!

2010-09-06T19:56:00.000-07:00

Dear A,

Dude. I can't believe you're eight years old. Six is still young, and even seven is still little boy-ish, but eight is the big time. Eight is practically pre-teen.

Your brain continues to amaze me. You mastered your electrical circuit set almost immediately. I can't stump you on geography anymore because you have maps you've made of all the continents all over your room. You remember practically everything you've ever learned. You were particularly into the Greek Gods this year after reading the "Percy Jackson" books. In fact, you told us once that you thought the story of Jesus was a myth and you preferred to believe in the Greek Gods, since the Greeks thought their gods were just as real as we think our God is.

When Benjamin decided he wanted to grow up to have his own store that sold only holiday merchandise, you advised him not to have a whole room for certain holidays because some weren't celebrated by many people: "Like St. George's Day. Hardly anyone celebrates St. George's Day anymore."

You come up with the best ideas. You had the idea to think of all the questions you could possibly think of, write them all down in a notebook, and then find the answers. You thought if you did that, you'd know everything and then wouldn't have to go to school anymore. You also came up with the idea of a school newspaper on your own. You included the weather forecast and which flowers were blooming and which were dead. I'd type it up for you and you'd cut it out and distribute it. You were very proud to have been the first student to publish their own newspaper at the school.

Sometimes you can be amazingly kind and helpful to your brother and friends, and sometimes you can be a real jerk to them. You're still enthusiastic about almost everything (as your teacher says, you have "almost boundless enthusiasm" for new projects). For the most part, you are gracious and polite to adults, although you've gotten shyer and less talkative with them in the last year. Ab. is still your best friend at school, but you're having to reach out more to other kids since she's doing more girly stuff this year. You love being in the oldest group at school and are good at watching out for the younger kids.

I'm so proud of you on the soccer field. You always try your best, and you always follow the coach's directions. You don't let anything slow you down, and you're not discouraged by losses.

I can feel my influence on you slowly ebbing away. You no longer think my music is cool just because I'm listening to it. You don't trust my sense of style (probably a wise choice). You're watching your friends more closely for clues.

You really don't want to hold my hand anymore, but you'll still snuggle, especially before bed. You stopped calling me "Mama" and now call me "Mom." You may not be getting as tall as you'd like, but you're still getting awfully big to me.

Love, Mom

A 5K Under My Belt

2010-09-04T21:28:00.000-07:00

OK, now I see why people do this. I've done those 3 miles before and I'll tell you, it's a lot less boring when you're doing it as part of a race. I made it in just over 38 minutes, which beat my previous 40 minutes so I was happy. Felt great, too. I made my excellent barely-faster-than-walking time by watching a little girl way in front of me with a pink tank top on...and making it my mission to beat her. EAT MY DUST, little girl!

I think I beat all the walkers, too, so that's something. No naked rollerbladers this time, though.

.

Are Memes Cheating?

2010-09-03T21:24:00.000-07:00

Sorry, this is lame, but I have a 5K to run tomorrow, a funeral to attend, and birthday celebration for A. to navigate. So I'm doing a meme from Facebook for tonight's post:

The rules:
Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen albums you've heard that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. CAN'T STRESS THIS ENOUGH! YOU'LL MAKE YOURSELF NUTS IF YOU THINK TOO MUCH ABOUT IT! Tag fifteen friends, including me, because I'm interested in seeing what albums my friends choose. (To do this, go to your Notes tab on your profile page, paste rules in a new note, cast your fifteen picks, and tag people in the note - upper righthand side in no particular order). This is very hard so just grab 15 off the top of your head.

This is so totally going to date me. (Also, since I've compiled the list, I keep thinking of albums to add. I can't believe I forgot the Beatles and the Stones. But I'm not sure which I'd take off....)

The Irish Rovers - The Unicorn*
U2 - Joshua Tree
Foreigner -4
Bee Gees - Saturday Night Fever
Indigo Girls - Rites of Passage
They Must Be Giants - Flood
Cars - Shake it Up
Go-Go's - Beauty and the Beat
Matraca Berg - Lying to the Moon
Emmylou Harris - Duets
Simon and Garfunkle - Concert in Central Park
Billy Joel - 52nd Street
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - May the Circle Be Unbroken
David Bowie - Heroes
Tori Amos - Under The Pink

*Bite me - it's the first one I thought of. I loved it when I was a kid.

Get Started Earlier...

2010-09-02T20:33:00.000-07:00

That's going to have to be my mantra for this month if I'm going to keep blogging. It's barely past 8pm and I'm so brain dead I'm having trouble stringing together a coherent thought. I also occasionally get preoccupied by a client who's stumping me, and that's happening now. My mind keeps wandering back there, trying to come up with the verbal magic wand that will help us past this roadblock.

ANYWAY....so I made it all the way through the "Couch to 5K" program, which I'm proud of because every time I tried it before I've given up around week 5. It's kind of a misnomer, though - because really what it is is "Couch to 30 Minutes of Running." Unless you run a faster than 10 minute mile, ain't no way you're doing a 5K in under 30 minutes. It takes me almost 45 minutes to run a 5K right now because I am slow as a slug. In fact, I'm not sure you can call what I do running. Seems more like a "faster-than-walking-shuffle" to me.

To realize how momentous this is, you have to realize that the last time I ran with any regularity was over 10 years ago, before I got married. At the time I lived in the Berkeley hills, and the 2 mile stretch to Wildcat Canyon Park was so beautiful in both sunshine and fog that I ran all the time. BUT - only between 2-3 miles. 30 minutes at the most, and usually more like 22-25 minutes. And that was when I weighed 20 lbs. less than I do now. So to regularly be running over 40 minutes is pretty tremendous for me. It still feels like a marathon and my legs feel like lead logs, but I'm slogging along.

About 9 years ago I ran the farthest I've ever run, 5 miles, for a local radio station's run in Golden Gate Park. I remember on the way to the starting line, we walked through the park dearly in the morning and came upon a whole bunch of naked rollerbladers of all shapes and sizes shooting a scene for a film. They'd huddle in their coats in between takes, drop the coats and skate stark raving naked down a small hill until the guy yelled "Cut!" Some people were pushing strollers (I'm assuming the babies weren't naked but I couldn't see them). It was the weirdest sight and what I wouldn't have given for an iPhone camera back then.

I like all the accouterments that go along with running - I love the iPhone apps that use GPS to pinpoint my exact route on a huge map of the U.S. I like the Nike lady that tells me, "walk around a bit to activate your sensor," I like the running websites, the idea that "Yeah, I'm a runner." But when I'm actually out there on the trail or sidewalk....well, not loving it so much. And tonight my legs and feet are so tired I really don't want to walk anywhere. It reminds me of being 42 weeks pregnant, and that's not a good feeling. I have my first 5K since starting this whole thing in two days, and I hope I've recovered by then.

I also hope I don't give up after I finish the race. The main reason I do it is that I don't have much time to exercise, so it gives me the best bang for my minute, and I get to be outside.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

2010-09-01T22:24:00.000-07:00

It's still 10:17pm here on the West Coast, so I'm still on track.

From my facebook update today: My baby boy started kindergarten today. The teacher was saying, "they will have tears, you will have tears.." and we were all, "Yahoo! What's the hold up? C'mon, take 'em!"

I've never cried the first day of school. I think I may have gotten a little teary on A's very first day of preschool, but that's just because I'd never left him with anyone who wasn't related to me before.

Truthfully, I have been holding my breath until this day. We had a very fun summer, very busy, but I have been counting the days until they'd be back in school again. I know it's the fashion for "good" mothers to say that they're sorry summer's coming to an end and they'll miss the little rugrats during the day. Sorry, but I'm thrilled. I can finally clean the house without stopping every 2 minutes to answer a question, separate some Legos, put in new batteries, get a snack or pour juice.

I can exercise by myself and don't have to bribe the boys to ride their bikes around the block with me six times so I can get my run in.

I'm just not that good at multi-tasking. If I can get my stuff done in the morning, I think I'll be that much readier to welcome them with open arms and a snack and a patient ear in the afternoon. It's also really nice to look forward to seeing them again.

Starting off the Blogging Lunacy.....

2010-08-31T09:02:00.000-07:00

I've taken a challenge to post daily through September. I have lots of blog posts in my head, but no one can read them there, and given my memory issues, I lose them when they stay in there, too.

So to kick off this blog marathon, here's a very good cause - Ryan from The Panic Room (check out his photos of his wife's pregnancy - he's a fabulous photographer and a pretty good guy) has organized an awesome kid's album which debuted at #1 on iTunes Kids Tunes! His darling stepson (Little Buddy) has been diagnosed with
Smith-Magenis Syndrome, which is a little-known disorder that wasn't even identified until 1982. The album raises funds and awareness for this disorder to help more kids like Little Buddy. All the artists donated their time and talent to the album, so all proceeds will go to research. Go check it out. They even made up a widget that will let you listen to the songs:

Sorry, your browser does not support iframes.

If y'all have a blog and want to post the widget, just use the "Share this Widget" link in the lower right hand corner of the monster's sign and you'll get the code. I'm sure Ryan would appreciate it.

The Honeymoon's Over

2010-08-21T21:03:00.000-07:00

Today was a day I've been waiting for. I've saved up all those little pieces of paper that say, "I love Mama," and "Mama is the best mama in the world," for this day. This is the day that A. realized I was a complete fraud.

"You're a bad parent!" he yells. "You won't let me get ice cream, you won't buy me electronics, you never play with us! And Dad always makes us eat healthy food before we get ice cream and he never takes us anywhere fun!" Somewhere in this diatribe was the information that Dad told him that the reason I take long naps is because I really need my beauty sleep. Talk about adding insult to injury.

"You buy Ben more things than me! You never buy me toys! You make my life miserable!" This was in the grocery checkout lane

"Yeah, that's my job," I answer.

"Well, you're doing a good job of it!"

Later, after reading to him, I reminded him that sometimes we get mad at each other, but we don't hate each other. He assured me that he liked me sometimes, but he didn't love me anymore.

I have no problem with him being mad that we don't buy him things. I'm OK that he doesn't like us pushing healthy food on him. That's our job.

What cuts to the quick is the claim, "You don't play with us!" because he's right. I don't play with them. I hate playing with them. I'll play a board or card game now and then, and I'll listen for hours to their stories, their ideas and their inventions. I'll take them all over the place - the water park, the science museum, the tide pools. But if they build a fort, I don't climb in except under duress. I'll ask them about it while I'm folding laundry, I'll admire the construction in between the dishes, but I don't want to take the time to just sit and pretend. Sometimes I'll do Legos. But most of the time their play is something to keep them busy while I get other things done. He's right.

Today I took them to the playground, and realized when I got there that I'd forgotten my iPhone. Crap. The one time I get some time to read the headlines, and I forgot it. So I followed them around the playground. I didn't have any fabulous insights. I didn't realize this was so much more awesome than sitting on the bench reading my news feeds. But, I did relax a little bit. I pushed Benjamin on the swing, and I decided I needed to slow down, and pay more attention to how they wanted to spend time with me, not how I wanted to spend time with them.

These Are a Few of My Favorite (Summer) Things

2010-07-30T12:27:00.000-07:00

1. Eating a relaxed Saturday night dinner (that my husband cooked) out in the courtyard on a warm summer evening, sipping a glass of wine and being entertained by the boys' "magic" tricks.

2. Peach frozen yogurt from peaches picked that morning from our neighbors' tree.

3. Slow afternoons at the library.

4. Making tie-dye T-shirts

5. Writing the first day of school on the calendar.

6. School supply aisles. We don't have to buy school supplies for the boys because their school supplies everything, but I still enjoy the idea of fresh pencils, notebooks and glue sticks.

7. Evening swims.

8. Shorts and flip-flops.

Update on the Healthy Thing

2010-07-13T21:47:00.000-07:00

So, I made it through week 5 of Couch to 5K. That's my traditional dropping-out point, but I am determined to make it all the way through. On to week 6!

My energy is better and I'm sleeping better. All good. Summer produce deliveries and farmer's markets make it easy to eat fresh food (also, the homemade strawberry ice cream from the flat of organic strawberries I picked up. Oooohhh, it was good - and I used half and half instead of cream. Not exactly low-fat or low-calorie, but damn, it was good).

I also received some samples of some new products from Smart for Life and underWAY (see the end of the post for discount codes). You've heard of the Cookie Diet, yes? So they have a bunch of new, high fiber, high protein products designed to fill you up, lower your appetite and balance your glucose levels. Since I suspect I'm heading towards insulin insensitivity, if not there already, I was interested in trying them.

Some of the more appealing things about this product was that they are 60% organic, with no preservatives (which does mean you have to eat them within a short time of opening the package). What I can say is that they DO fill you up - you're supposed to eat either a cookie or a cupcake every few hours. They're small, but yes, they do kill hunger.

But how do they taste?

Chocolate Chip Cookies: These are small cookie squares that reminded me of Cliff Bars. They're not bad, just not really chocolate-y, which is fine. Kinda sweet, kinda granola-y.

Chocolate Mountain Cupcakes: This is more what I'm talkin' about. More chocolatey, nice texture, small but adequate for hunger control. These (and the carrot ones) were my favorite.

Carrot Sunshine Cupcakes: Again, nice texture, cake-y, not too carroty, but has a nice but not too strong carrot-cinnamon taste.

Cupcakes are also available through ThinAdventure a program cmore geared to kids. Figures my favorite items would be those designed for kids.

One of the great things about the cookies and the cupcakes is that they're very portable. I threw a few in a baggie, stuck them in my purse and ran off to gymnastics and swimming lessons. Kept me away from the snack bar!

SmartforLife Smart Crunch: Tastes pretty much like one of the cookies kind of crumbled up. It seems like a small portion, but it's actually enough to satisfy a snack craving.

underWAY appetite suppressant supplement: These are like flavored waters with fiber and it's also supposed to stimulate the brain to think you've eaten more than you have. I tried the Acai-Pomegranate and the Grape, both of which were sweet and tasted like melted popsicles. I liked the Acai-Pomegranate variety best, and honestly, I used them the same days I ate the muffins and the cookies, so I'm not sure they suppressed my appetite any more than the food did.

So the idea is that you eat the equivalent of a cookie 6 times a day, and then eat a healthy meal. The week I tried them, I lost 2 lbs, and definitely felt that my cravings were more under control.

So if you're interested in trying the products, use the 10% off codes MCUS10OFFUW at underWAY and MCUS10OFFSFL at Smart for Life.

I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of underWAY and Smart for Life and received samples of the products to review.

New Underwear

2010-07-08T20:47:00.000-07:00

You'd think I never buy the boys underwear.

Me: Do you want character underwear or are you ready to go to solid colors, A.?

A: Oh, characters of course, because they are much more beautiful.

Benjamin: I wish these Spongebob underwear had a button where you could press it and it would play Spongebob's voice out of your pants!

Me: Yeah. Well, they don't.

And as soon as we got home, both boys modeled their new underwear, despite the fact that they had just gotten dressed two hours prior. The new underwear demanded to be worn!

Benjamin: How do I look? Give me your honest opinion!

I wish I got that excited about new underwear.

The Internet Works in Mysterious Ways

2010-07-06T11:45:00.000-07:00

Just a few days after my last post whining about not being able to afford science camp for A., a friend posted on facebook (coincidentally - I don't thinks she read my blog post) that she had a collegue unable to use 3 paid weeks to Sarah's Science. It was too late to get a refund, so she was offering them up to whomever could use them. I contacted the friend who basically said, Yep, 3 weeks. Already paid for. I'll e-mail and tell them you're using them.

OMG. How fucking awesome is that???? And we're not bound to one particular week, either. Ben will go one week, and A. will go two weeks.

Relativity

2010-06-30T23:30:00.000-07:00

I've talked before a bit about the sacrifices we've made so one of us can be with our kids and we won't need daycare. For the most part, I'm completely OK with those sacrifices, and I don't do a lot of comparing my situation with others who may have housekeepers or new clothes (not that I'm paying attention). But the other day jealousy hit with surprising force.

We were at the UU service, waiting for it to begin. I was sitting in my chair, and the boys were sitting in the smaller blue chairs lined up by the "altar" for the kids in front of me. A little boy came and sat next to Al., wearing a Camp Galileo T-shirt. We had a visiting minister from another state, who smiled and asked the boy about Camp Galileo.

I would love to send A. to Camp Galileo. They have themes he would love, like the Greek Gods and all kinds of science experiments. A. read the brochure and was excited. I applied for a scholarship last year and was thrilled to receive the letter that we'd been granted one...until I called to enroll him and found that it was only good for one particular week, the July 4th holiday week (so it was only 3 days anyway), which was the one week we'd be out of town. I was pissed (I thought they should have revealed the limitations up front so kids didn't get all excited deciding which camp they wanted to attend; each week is a different theme) but I knew beggars can't be choosers, so I never said anything to A. and as far as I know he forgot about it.

So, anyway. Cry me a fucking river, I know. Big f-in' deal. Kid goes to private Montessori school, has everything he needs and has at least one reasonably attentive parent home with him almost all the time. So I was really surprised to be hit with such a strong club of jealousy when I saw that kids' shirt. Something about not being able to send him to that camp when this other kid sitting right next to him got to go, made me feel like a failure.

But that's ridiculous. As a therapist, I know more than most, perhaps, that money does not make you happy. I remind myself all the time of how lucky I am, how lucky we are...not everyone's that lucky.

Some people are dealing with way bigger obstacles than not being able to afford science camp. So if you feel blessed, like I do, please consider helping out a good mother who is keeping it together for her kids and making some awesome grilled cheese sandwiches with no help from their father. People don't get what they deserve in this life, but sometimes we can help with that.

Lunasea's 10 Tips For a Happy Marriage

2010-06-19T22:04:00.000-07:00

Being a couples' counselor has been great for my marriage. Mostly because I get home after a particularly hairy session and kiss my husband and thank him for not being anything like the people I just worked with. In general, I find people are more vested in being right than in saving their marriages. I'm actually not seeing couples anymore unless it's for my full fee - it's just too hard to jar people's feet loose when they've got their heels firmly dug into the cement.*

In a few weeks, G and I will be celebrating 10 years of marriage. In some parts, that's not very much at all. G's parents just celebrated 50 years of marriage. But in California, we're well above the average.

So, I got to thinking, what exactly do we do to make our marriage work? Because I'm telling you, it's not that we are exemplary people. We're both just fine, but most of the people who walk into my office are just fine, too. So at the risk of sounding completely self-congratulatory, what are they doing wrong that we're doing right? I'm going to give you my best ideas. These are things that I think would put me out of business if all couples did them:

1. Figure out what's really important to you in a partner. I have my couples make 3 lists of virtues they need in a partner: Non-negotiables, negotiables (things that would be nice but aren't mandatory) and optional (frosting on the cake).

There should only be 3-4 things on the non-negotiables list. Mine were:

1. Wants children
2. Kind to others
3. Ethical, honest
4. Has a sense of humor

These were the deal-breakers. I couldn't stay with someone who wasn't kind to me and everyone else. I wasn't going to stay with anyone who lied to me or hurt others with unethical decisions. And it would be hard to understand me if he didn't have a sense of humor.

The negotiables list is longer:

1. spiritual
2. psychologically aware
3. has good boundaries
4. loves books
5. loves music
6. enjoys nature
7. sexy
8. really funny (you can have a sense of humor and not be really funny - I pretty much always fell for the guys who made me laugh)
9. gets along with his family
10. gets along with my family
11. would be a great father

I'm sure there were more, I forgot the rest because it's all blended into what who I'm with: G.

I've also forgotten what was on the optional list. No surprise, because these two lists aren't nearly as important as the first.

My advice is to never settle for anybody who doesn't fill all the checkmarks on your non-negotiable list. Abuse, emotional and physical, of course, should never be tolerated.

But don't cut someone out of the running because they don't have all the virtues on your negotiable list. I always thought I'd end up with a bookworm, like me. It still amazes me that I'm with a man who doesn't particularly like bookstores. Maybe I could have found someone who loved bookstores if I'd waited longer. But then, guaranteed, he would have been missing some of the things G. has. And now that I love him, I'm not willing to give those up.

That was a long one. Let's make the rest shorter.

2. Choose your words carefully. It's a lot easier to take some time to figure out what you want to say then to clean up the mess after hurling horrible insults. You can't swallow words back into your throat after they've been released. Maybe you'll be forgiven for the horrible things you said, but they probably won't be forgotten.

3. Stay on topic. You're disagreeing about the evening routine? Stick to the evening routine. Don't bring up the morning routine, his mother's routine, your mother's routine, his disgusting habits and who filled the gas tank last.

4. Say what you mean and mean what you say. In any discussion, ask yourself, what do I really want to get across here? Say that and stick to it. If you have to restate it, restate it. Your partner isn't necessarily going to know which part of what you say is the most important. It's so weird when couples tell me about one of their fights - they both remember completely different parts of the conversation, and they both are shocked by what their partner remembers. "She keeps bringing that up but that wasn't at all important to what I was trying to say!"

5. Listen. Make sure you listen carefully and understand where your partner is coming from before you make your point clear. This is right out of Couples Communication 101, and I am telling you, if your partner thinks you understand what he/she is saying, they will be a hell of a lot more willing to listen to what you have to say about it.

6. You are not the King (or Queen) of How to Do Everything Right. You've already told your husband that your way of doing the dishes is superior, several times in fact, and he still doesn't do it your way? Let it go. He heard you, he just doesn't care. And hopefully, "Does the dishes my way," is not on your list of non-negotiables.

7. Know what makes your partner feel loved. People usually do for their partners what they want done for themselves. Tell your partner what you really appreciate and wish they'd do more often. At the same time, realize that there might be things your partner does to show his/her love that you're not fully appreciating.

8. Chill the fuck out. (G. calls this "Don't be so reactive." I call it chilling the fuck out). Most of the time, your partner is not actively trying to piss you off. If you don't like the tone of voice they're using, tell them. Don't do it back to them to teach them a lesson (BTW, I think that's a bad strategy with kids, too). Think about what's happening - is it really important? OK, then go say something. Calmly, directly. You think maybe it's not that important and maybe you're in a bad mood? Recognize that and keep your mouth shut until you chill out. So many of the couples I see don't argue about anything all that important, but they keep making huge dramas out of everything.

9. Which reminds me, don't threaten to leave. Don't threaten to end the marriage. You can leave any time, of course, if it really isn't working, but don't threaten to do it in the heat of anger. To sound like a hippie-dippy therapist, it brings up all sorts of unresolved abandonment issues in your partner that, trust me, are better left unactivated.

10. Hmmm. Maybe you should fill this one in.

This is a working draft that I'm sure will be revised many times and hopefully eventually posted on my professional website, perhaps without the expletives. I'd be very interested in your thoughts and comments.

*I should mention here that there have been couples who have been really willing to work with each other and who have left therapy in a much better place and those situations are always very rewarding. But the ones that don't, break my heart.

Pluses and Minuses

2010-06-04T10:05:00.001-07:00

On the plus side:

I'm finishing week 2 of Couch to 5K and when I have some more time, plan to find a 5K to register for.

I'm exercising most days of the week, at least half an hour. Would like to get it up to an hour. My mentor, who is in her later 50's, said she had to exercise an hour a day every day to lose the mid-life weight. And she only lost half of it.

I feel better and I have more energy. I still walk out to the garage regularly and then turn around and walk back in the house because I have no idea what I went to the garage for. I'm getting used to it.

On the minus side:

I can't give up coffee. I tried, and tea is OK, but last Saturday I bought myself a coffee at the farmer's market and Lordie, was it good! I was in such a great mood after that. So I decided one cup (OK, 16 oz. is more like 2 cups, but...) a day is not going to kill me.

Sugar and wheat have been touch and go. Some days are fine, some days I just don't seem to bother to avoid them. I have been gathering a lot more organic fruits and vegetables from our yard, the farmer's markets and the produce delivery, so I'm eating more of those, but I'm still eating too much processed stuff for my liking.

So, I'm getting there. Better than going in the opposite direction, I suppose.

Finding the Midline

2010-05-19T15:33:00.000-07:00

Wow, has it really been January since I posted? I feel like my first post back should include some kind of COME TO JESUS revelation. It doesn't. Sorry. I took a break. I decided I missed it and this chronicle is more permanent than a bunch of Facebook updates. I also got rid of the ads on the right. I don't like being told what I can post and what I can't. Also, that stick of gum it bought me every couple of months has too much sugar in it.

For the last couple of weeks, I've been really ridiculously out of sorts. I feel like I could sleep for a year, but can't seem to stay asleep for even a few hours at a time, my brain in in a perpetual fog, and I've gained 20 lbs. I'm getting excema in exactly the places my mother used to get it (and if you don't think that sent a ripple of fear down my spine, well, you don't know me). Yes, I've had my thyroid tested. And my iron levels. All are OK. I have a feeling that whatever's wrong with me isn't something that's going to show up on standard blood tests, unless maybe it gets a whole lot worse. Besides, I believe in trying out lifestyle changes before seeking medical attention. Unless you think you have a broken bone.

My best guess is that it's a combination of perimenopause, if not outright menopause, stress, age and not paying attention to what I eat.

So we're going in for a few lifestyle changes here at Body Lunasea to see if that will help.

1. Switching out coffee for tea. I love coffee, but I particularly love the milk and sugar that comes with it. I switched to artificial sweeteners a long time ago, which isn't much better. I can drink tea without milk or sweetener, so I'm going for that. I'm not ready to give up caffeine yet.

2. Writing. I miss writing, and the best periods of my life have been the periods where I wrote consistently. I need an outlet to sort things out.

3. Yoga. I intend to play on the floor with my grandchildren when I'm 75. And, more importantly, get back up again.

4. Sugar. I'm cutting out all white sugar. I'm absolutely a sugar addict. I love sugar and the more I eat, the more I crave it. I think I could be at risk for type II diabetes, so it's better to take care of that before I've gone totally insulin resistant.

5. White flour. I'm cutting that out too. Our family is mostly eating whole grains at home, but when I eat out or eat convenience foods, that goes out the window.

6. Sleep. My goal is to be in bed by 10pm. Lights out by 11pm at the latest. I was doing well for a while, but now it's creeping back towards midnight. The boys aren't waking us up as early as they used to, but given that my hormones or whatever are waking me up at 5 or 6am without their help, and at the most I doze after that, I have to get better sleep earlier.

7. Give up Farmville. OK. Maybe not GIVE UP Farmville completely, but maybe ignore it for a month or so and see what happens. I know it's one of the things making me stay up late because trying to fertilize everyone else's farm takes so long! And that's kind of ridiculous.

I may include cutting out dairy eventually, but I really really love yogurt, so we'll see.

I had a dream last night where I was in the ER with a huge cut down the vertical center of my body from trying to cut myself in half (don't ask or I'll have to go into the whole backstory of the dream which you don't want to hear). A lady came over, examined my fingers, and said, "She's totally glutenized." I was like, "No, I'm not, I have a huge cut down the center of my body." So it's possible I'm focusing on the wrong things. But I think trying to get lifestyle back in balance is never a bad idea.

Why I Test Drove a Prius Only Four Blocks

2010-01-26T22:20:00.000-08:00

We've been considering a hybrid for years, but they were always a little too expensive. G. found one at the dealership where we bought our last two cars (ahem...10 years ago). It was a 2008, priced around $16G, had 38,000 miles, and looked pretty. So we packed up the boys and went over for a test drive.

Our regular guy, the one who sold us our cars 10 years ago and amazingly still works there, was off today, so we spoke with the nice young man fresh out of the car rental biz. He tried to start the car, and found that the battery was dead. Apparently, these batteries will die if you leave them sitting around too long. So he got out his trusty portable-jumper-briefcase and jumped it. It was running fine, we gave our drivers' licenses up for copying and decided I'd take the first drive and G would stay with the kids, then test drive it after I returned. The nice young guy offered to watch them so we could go together, but, no. We didn't know him from jack, and we'd have his car, but he'd have our kids and we're not really willing to trade. Now, in hindsight, maybe I should be more trusting.

So I got in and it was like a video game. The computerized dashboard seems so far away, I was looking down a tunnel to see the numbers. He handed me the key, but said I didn't need it. I looked all over for the ignition, and there is none. You press a "Power" button that is marked like the one on my computer, seriously. They made a fake gear shift on the dashboard so you'd feel like you were shifting into drive, but really, I got the feeling it could have been done with buttons or a mouse.
The engine is pretty freaking quiet. In fact, I'd gone about four blocks and stopped at a red light when I thought, Geez, it's REALLY quiet. Then everything went dark. Crap. The traffic light turned green and I couldn't start the car. I pushed that button over and over, managed to get the dashboard lights back up and the window rolled down so I could wave people past me, but then it all went black again. Since it was all black, I couldn't shift into neutral. Fuckin' A, I'm stalled on a busy street in not-the-best-section of my city, and I can't even push it over to the side. I hate people who stall and then just sit there blocking the lane. Now I was one of them, and it wasn't even my car.

No battery, no hazard lights. G. was not answering his cell phone. I grabbed the piece of paper the salesman had given me, and of course there was no phone number on it. Goddamnit! It was making me crazy that I was causing this huge traffic hazard and I couldn't even reach someone to help me and it WASN'T MY CAR. I could not believe G. wasn't answering his cell phone when he should know something like this could happen! I considered leaving it there and hightailing it the four blocks back, probably about half a mile, but I'd left the window open and now couldn't get it back up and I felt bad leaving an open car unattended like that.

Oh wait, I have an iPhone!! I opened the browser, googled the dealership, found the number and called. When some dude answered, I yelled at him that I was test driving one of their vehicles, it died and I was now blocking a whole lane of traffic and could someone come out NOW??? He told me to hold, and a minute later our salesman answered, saying, "This is Ron, how can I help you?" Goddamnit all to hell, was I not clear?? I repeated myself and he asked, "What happened? Did it just stop?"

"It DIED. It's DEAD. And there are a whole bunch of people on this street who are not at all happy with me or your car so get out here."

OK. I felt a little better that someone was coming, so I stood behind the car waving cars past since they couldn't really tell the Prius was stalled. I mouthed, "Sorry!" to each of them as they passed. A couple nice people offered to help me push it over, and I told them I would LOVE to push it over but I couldn't get it into neutral. One kind of oddly dressed guy yelled, when he found out it wasn't my car, "They let you take a test drive by yourself????" He returned to his bus stop, then came back and said, "I just can't get over this. Someone should've gone with you!" He was hanging around a little too much and I was wishing his bus would show up.

Nice young man showed up, handed me the cars to the Mazda 626 he'd taken off the lot and told me to drive it back to the dealership. I was happy to leave him with Dead Prius and then I thought, "Oh, geez, what do you want to bet he'll get in, push the button and the thing will start right up?" So I glanced back and was gratified to see him opening the hood and beginning the jumping process. Odd Guy was there with him, probably giving him hell for letting me take a test drive by myself, and I was really just fine leaving them both there together. G. drove by with the boys in the car, I guess to make sure I could get back. He told me later that the boys had decided in the back of the car that we weren't going to buy the Prius under any circumstances because we "at least want a car that's going to get us to the end of California." Or more than four blocks.

The 626 drove quite nicely. Believe it or not, we haven't ruled out the Prius. Young Man assured us that this wasn't a usual problem, but that because it's sitting on the lot, it doesn't get driven enough to keep the battery charged. OK. So now you know, don't let people test drive it when the battery's low. So glad I could help. The only bright spot was that it wasn't pouring rain today, like it has been for the last two weeks or so.

Edited to add: If you take the previous post and this one together, it would appear that I should just give up driving altogether and take the bus.

The. Longest. Day. EVER.

2010-01-01T23:06:00.000-08:00

We got up at 7am, as usual. We were in Portland, taking over the two bedrooms on the top floor of Grandma and Grandpa's house. We were scheduled for an 8pm flight back to California. I questioned how on earth "we" decided on an 8pm flight, and was informed that we saved several hundred dollars by flying out on the last available flight. (In retrospect, so not worth it).

Packed our suitcases and two duffel bags and three backpacks, made breakfast, did 2 loads of laundry, packed an extra box to take to UPS because we couldn't fit everything in our suitcases, played a couple rounds of Trouble with Grandma, got coffee.

Went to see Biglittlethings at the Imago Theater in Portland. On the way, G. stopped at Franz Bakery ("The GOOD Bread") to show the boys where he worked a few summers. You could see the machines, whipping out english muffins, through the windows. It was cold, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Saw the show, went to the bathroom and heard people yelling from the hallway, "It's snowing outside!" No way. Snow wasn't in the forecast.

It was snowing outside. Yippee. Fun for the boys (including the adult one) and cold for Grandma and me. Drove back to the house and began thinking, "Geez, this is kind of a lot of snow." Decided we'd better get going to the airport now, even though our flight didn't leave for 4 hours. We kept thinking it would turn into rain any minute now.

We'd borrowed my BIL's car, and were supposed to return it to him way up in Vancouver, WA, about half an hour away. No problem, if it's not snowing. Portland doesn't do well in snow. They have maybe one snowplow, that gets let out after the storm.

Apparently, everyone and their brother were surprised by the sudden snowstorm and decided they'd better hightail it for home, except no one hightails it anywhere in Portland snow. Traffic was horrible, the roads were icy and we were driving a Lincoln Continental. I called my sister and asked her to meet us at the airport instead. She mentioned that our flight was delayed and it might be canceled, in which case, we'd need the car. So we decided we'd just get to the airport, check the status and then maybe they could come meet us and pick up the car.

The highways were pretty much stopped, so we decided to take Stark all the way out to the airport. There's this little hill on Stark, though, that we couldn't get up. We got stuck, with the back end fishtailing from side to side. G got out and tried to push it all the way up the hill but with the icy road and his tennis shoes, it was hard to get enough traction to push. I tried to steer, which was pretty useless given the ice. Cars who had better traction than us went around us, while we slid this way and that. Other cars had pulled over and either were abandoned or had passengers hunkered down waiting for it all to stop. Benjamin was whining from the back seat, "Mama, could you please close the window? It's cold." And I was answering, "No, because it's the only way I can see." I wanted to give up, I didn't see any way up the hill and it made me nervous that we were backing up an entire lane of traffic. G kept saying, "We're almost there!" Finally, a dude who'd begun putting snow chains on his van came over to help push and we actually made it up. Yay!

G said, "OK, it's pretty level from here on out." I was just grateful we were headed somewhere, but I was really nervous we were going to hit another hill. Even the slightest incline would mean pushing again. As we approached the airport, we saw cars trying to make it off the freeway and up a slight off ramp and sliding all around. A van had slid into our lane, facing us, and was abandoned. Fortunately, we slid around it and could keep going.

G. asked for a Power Bar from my backpack and I told him he was on his own, this was my stash. It's not my fault he doesn't prepare for disasters. Then I realized he'd have to eat me if things got hairy and so I offered him a Power Bar. But then he saw it was chocolate and rejected it. He doesn't eat chocolate after 4pm.

It took us two hours to get to the airport, normally a 20 minute drive. I called my sister and told her we'd park the car in the long-term parking lot so it wouldn't cost them an arm and a leg to get it out the next morning. Unfortunately, the long-term parking is outside. Did I mention we were in the middle of a snowstorm? We parked and lugged our two suitcases, one car seat, two duffel bags, and three backpacks over to the shuttle stop. By this time I was thinking I would never, ever fly anywhere again. I decided I would travel again when I can be beamed instantly to my destination and not a day before.

We lugged our stuff onto the shuttle, off the shuttle, onto a cart, to the ticket counter, where the attendant told us our flight was overbooked and we would be asked at the gate to give up our seats. He glanced at my face and stuttered, "Of course, you do have seats, you're OK if you don't want to give them up...."

Dragged all the luggage over to the #3 security (in Portland they make you take all your suitcases to the screening machine). It was closed. Go to #2, he said. We lug our stuff back to #2 and I want to threaten the guy with death if he doesn't take our goddamn luggage, but remembering the recent terrorist incident decide to keep my mouth shut. Just in case, I stand far back and let G. give the guy our bags while I give him the evil eye.

Have some pizza for dinner, find an outlet to recharge my poor dying iPhone. If I'd known I would need it for the snowstorm, I wouldn't have checked Facebook so much that morning. Get to the gate, find our plane delayed 2 hours. Eh, could be worse, it could be canceled and I could be 8 months pregnant. Always with the positive thinking, I am.

Everything closes in the airport at 9pm. For some reason, I thought airports stayed open all night. They don't. We finally get on the airplane close to 10pm, and then wait an hour for the de-icing machine. They spray the airplane with a giant, loud hose. I hope the runway's not too icy, but even if it is, I figure the pilot can steer it correctly once it's in the air, right? While we were driving, we'd have been better off if we could have made our car take off and fly. It was because it was stuck on the ground that we had such problems. Benjamin has a loud voice and keeps dropping pieces of his Anakin Skywalker figure between the seats and the cabin wall.

We get to Oakland around 1am. As soon as we get our bags from the carousel, everything shuts down. The baggage handlers say goodnight, the security guard leaves and it looks like we're the last ones in the airport. It's weird. I could run right past that sign that says "You are leaving a sterile area. No readmittance!" I could readmit myself right back to the gate, it seems.

We're waiting for G to go pick up the car at the off-site parking lot and come back and get us. Everyone is gone. A.'s a little freaked out by all the workers going home and I tell him I'm sure there's a security guard somewhere on the premises. We did see a maintenance guy taking out all the trash, but then he disappeared too.

So G. finally gets us and we drive home. It's 1:30am and the boys want to see what Santa left for them while we were in Portland. G. tells them he wants to turn on the tree lights first, rushes into our 50-degree house and quickly takes all the presents and stuffs them under the tree.

Benevolently, we let them take 30 seconds to look and then rush them to bed. I grab the stockings, thank G_d that they didn't notice they were hanging empty, and fill them quickly. We got to bed about 2am. Longest. Freakin. Day. Ever that ended the longest freakin' visit ever. But that's another post.

New Year's Resolutions, Lite

2009-12-31T09:46:00.000-08:00

I make pretty much the same resolutions every year, which is fine because I keep getting a little better at them, and clearly, they're my biggest challenges. It's all a work in progress. Experts at resolution making say you're supposed to include a few easy-to-reach goals to make yourself feel successful.

So I've made up a list of what I'm (probably) going to do anyway:

1. Give the boys baths at least twice a week.

2. Take down the holiday decorations before February.

3. Go to work more days than not.

4. Get the kids to school more days than not.

5. Keep the number of alive houseplants greater than the number of dead ones.

6. Get my hair cut at least once.

There, now I can look back on this list in a year's time and maybe just keep the same ones for next year, just like I've been doing. It's all part of my bigger resolution to simplify life.

A Little Holiday Cheer

2009-12-10T18:30:00.000-08:00

I wonder who's going to entertain me when the boys get older? I think there may be a period there, maybe between 10-15 where kids aren't as funny, but I could be wrong.

A. and Ben love the song "Carol of the Bells." They refer to it as the "Home Alone" song. I found this Family Guy version and can't resist singing it every time they ask me if I'd like to add an apple pie for a dollar.

But somehow, despite the context of the video, A. still thought it was a song about King Friezerton. He also calls Uncle Drosselmeyer from The Nutcracker, "Uncle Fred Meyer" (Portland peeps will understand that one).

Right now, I'm typing as G is playing "Texas Cage Match" with the boys. Benjamin put on his winter coat which he calls his "tickle proof" coat and whenever the boys switch off (it's Aidan "The Crusher" and Benjamin "The Destroyer" against Greg "The Smasher), Benjamin very seriously says to A., "Don't be too rough with him."

Now he tells me, "Mama! I got something out of my nose and put it on this pillow so I could make a snot pillow and I'm going to smash Papa with it!" Nice. So glad this is G's game and not mine. Mama don't do cage matches.

Benjamin on his new shoes: "Mama! They feel good! They feel like walking on warm toast!"

I'm going to be sad to see the cute-things-they-say stage pass.

Adopt a Family for the Holidays - Across the World

2009-11-24T21:06:00.000-08:00

Charities know that people like to think that their money is going to something concrete (rather than the necessary but not as heart-warming "operating costs") and have come up with all kinds of ideas - A. recently decided to use his "share" money to adopt a polar bear through the Wildlife Federation - he received a certificate of adoption and a picture and everything and that polar bear is HIS. (And as an added bonus, he gets a whole lotta junk mail now). He feels like his contribution has really made a difference.

"Oxfam Unwrapped" has taken this idea and created a website letting you choose something specific to pay for in someone's honor, and they'll send you a gift card to give to that person - or you can personalize it online and they'll send it to the recipient for you. It's fun to browse through the site and think who would most appreciate the can of worms for farmers, or even better, a pile of manure (I can think of at least a few people who would love to give a pile of ^&* to someone for the holidays). Both are under $25. On the sweeter side, give a dozen chicks to a family to raise and earn income or some soap to help stop the spread of disease in a community.

If you're feeling flush, there are gifts that would in themselves make a world of difference - helping a village recover from flooding or rebuilding a primary school. Go browse through the categories - can you imagine how much good could be done if, instead of buying each other gifts this Christmas that we don't really need, we put our money into helping others build sustainable futures? For the amount of that iPhone decorative case, you could pay for a child's school meal program in Africa.

I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Oxfam America Unwrapped and received a credit for a gift on the Oxfam site.

2009-11-22T14:10:00.000-08:00

The boys watched regular Saturday morning cartoons yesterday, so they were exposed to commercials! Gah! Guess what they decided they needed, right away? Yep - Shoes Under.

They were fascinated. "Benjamin," I said, "You already have a drawer under your bed. It's pretty much the same thing."

"But I want one of those - with the lines (dividers) in it!" he insisted.

"Honey, you only have two pair of shoes."

"Well, I want a shoe set, then."

"You want more shoes?" I asked.

"Yeah! More shoes." Poor kid - we could probably arrange for another pair of shoes. Both boys had way more shoes back when they couldn't walk and didn't even need them.

Driving with My Dad

2009-11-17T20:19:00.000-08:00

I'm driving back to my dad's house in Phoenix, Arizona. We have our first argument pulling out of the parking lot. "You need to take a left and then a right," he says.

Me: "No, I take a left and then another left."

Him: "No, to get back to the freeway you make a left out here onto McDowell."

Me: "No, I originally made a right onto McDowell, so I make a left going back."

Him: "No, you made a right into the parking lot, but you made a left onto McDowell."

Me: "No, Dad, 7th Street is that way."

And so on. He finally concedes as I pull onto the freeway, "Hmm. Good thing you're driving."

If there are two left-turning lanes, and I get in the right-hand one, he repeatedly corrects me. "You want to make a left here."

"I know. Both lanes turns left."

Or, while we're sitting there: "The light is green."

"That light is green. The left-hand turn arrow, my light, is red. It would be a really bad idea for me to go right now." (It really throws him off when I don't get into the far left lane to turn left).

Before we left for the museum, he asked, "You know how to get there?" I said yes. "How?" he asked, and I knew it was a test.

I failed the test immediately when I said, "Take 10 west to Phoenix." Crap. He jumps on it. For a guy who doesn't hear 90% of what people around him say, he sure hears it when I make a mistake. "I mean, 10 EAST," I correct myself. He wanted to make sure I had the directions written down before we actually left. Exasperated, I pulled out my iPhone and showed him the written directions I'd saved. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and moan, "Gawd!"

He nods knowingly and brings it up later, "You were going to get us going the wrong way on the freeway!" Right, Dad, and you were going to have us run a red light.

Speaking of red lights, a few weeks ago he drove his car right through one and caused a three-car pileup. Fortunately, no one was seriously hurt, but his car was totalled. He was afraid (and we hoped) he would lose his license, but it turned out that the AZ courts are very forgiving. He paid a fine and never had to go to court.

He quickly bought himself a cheap Ford focus with a broken door lock, broken trunk latch and broken passenger side seat, and sent my sisters and I an e-mail stating flatly that he was not going to lose his license, he would be very careful and not drive when he didn't need to, but he was going to continue to drive. It closed with "I hope you agree," which is Dad-speak for "And I won't be changing my mind."

While in AZ, I put his car key on the counter when I was done driving. "What's this doing here?" he demanded.

"I put it there so I'd know where it was since I'm going to be driving your car while I'm here."

Looking me straight in the eye, he pocketed the key and said, "Now you know where it is."

His wife is worried that he'll hit someone and they'll get sued and lose the house. She mentioned it so many times I finally snapped back, "I'm not as worried about you getting sued as I am about the potential of someone losing their life."

My father is very stubborn. When we questioned the safety of his driving a few years ago, he took it upon himself to drive himself, alone, from Phoenix to Tahoe. My sister even confronted him with the possibility of killing other people with his stubbornness. I guess he showed us, huh?

I'd booked my trip to Phoenix in order to accompany him to court when we thought he'd at least get some sort of mandated driving test. That was canceled when he found out he could just pay the fine, but I'd already bought the tickets and figured I was due for a visit.

I tried making a list of alternate transportation options (lots for taking seniors to doctor's appointments, fewer for taking seniors to bowling). His wife said, "You're wasting your time. I had a ride for him to bowling. He used it once, then went out and bought his car."

I feel as helpless as I did when he decided to re-wallpaper the dining room by gluing the wallpaper over the old wallpaper. "Mom's not going to like this," I thought, but would he listen to me? No. When he bought her the car mats for Christmas, I told him, "Don't wrap those up and give them to her as a gift, she's gonna freak out." He did it anyway, and guess what? She spent the evening crying to me in her bathroom.

My sisters and I got an e-mail from his wife's son saying that "some tough decisions might have to be made." We thought, have you met our father? Ain't no one making that decision for him except him.

All we can do is pray, take the wheel as often as we can and not get too annoyed when he tells us we're going the wrong way. And if you're driving in Phoenix, and you see a dark green Ford Focus with an old male driver, stay as far away from it as you can.

Letter to Santa

2009-11-05T11:10:00.000-08:00

Benjamin was in a crazy letter-writing mood a few weeks ago. He'd heard A. dictate his thank you letters from his birthday, so I think that's where these came from.

To Santa: Dear Santa,
Thank you for the toys you gave me and thank you for the R2-D2 robot. I hope Christmas comes after Thanksgiving and I'm going to be Darth Vader for Halloween and what are you going to be? I hope you're doing good. Send me some cool presents. Bye.

To G: Dear Papa,
Thank you for getting out of bed and thank you for giving me the proof set but I want another one soon and I want to go to ToysRUs and thank you for taking me to Bible Camp. Bye.

I can't find the one he wrote to me. Bad mother.

Note: Benjamin doesn't have an R2-D2 robot, but his brother got one for his birthday, and he remains hopeful that life will be fair and deliver one to him as well. Also, G. gets out of bed every day.

In a Therapy Mood

2009-11-04T21:34:00.000-08:00

I've been in one my "therapy moods." That's what I call it when I want to tell everyone to just get over it. I guess it would be more accurately called a "non-therapy mood." The ironic thing is, I never feel this way in a session. I feel it afterward when I review things and think, "Wow. You've been stuck for how long, you come in and complain about it week after week and yet you don't DO anything about it." Most of the time, my perspective is such that I realize they CAN'T do anything about it and that's why they're there, but sometimes, with too many of those in a row, I lose some perspective.

Tonight, I'm not in a therapy mood. I'm in a "wow, some people's lives really, really suck" mood. Because some people's lives really do, and today I sat through 8 hours of people's lives really sucking.

Fortunately, I was able to come home to my boys. When Ben asked, "Do you want to read Star Wars?" I was able to answer, "Not really. I want to snuggle with you and hear about your day." He's always up for snuggling, so I got to breathe in his 4-year-old energy and remember that my life doesn't suck. Not at all.

OK, Let's Try This Again

2009-11-03T18:48:00.000-08:00

I've already screwed up NaBloPoMo, but they shouldn't have started November on a Sunday. Sunday and Monday are my busiest days, don't they know that?

The problem I'm having with blogging is that now that I'm addicted to Facebook, and less so to Twitter - unless there's an earthquake, after which I'm on that twitter thing like (insert cliche here) - I can only think in 140 characters or less.

So I'm going to try to blog every day from now until November 30 by just posting some status updates, and if they turn into something looking more like a blog post, all the better.

Halloween was fun. We had Anakin Skywalker at two distinct phases in his life, young Jedi knight and as Sith Lord, Darth Vader. Darth was shorter than young Anakin, but that's OK because evil makes you shrink.

I was very disappointed in the Pope for his "Halloween is anti-Christian" message. Much like homosexuality, I don't recall Jesus personally weighing in on All Hallow's Eve. I think he recognized that there were bigger fish to fry. BTW, according to this article, monster and zombies are the enemies of man. Just so you know.

Also, I got an iPhone and went hurtling headfirst into the 21th century. Before this, I hadn't even texted before, let alone customized a ringtone. Yesterday, slightly lost on my walk through an unfamiliar neighborhood, I called up my location on my iPhone and found my way out of there. I only had to go 2 blocks south instead of turning around and going 6 blocks north, which is what I would have done had I not been able to consult my iPhone. It's freakin' amazing.

All Star Wars, All the Time

2009-10-08T20:35:00.000-07:00

Pikachu has been dethroned. He's joined Thomas in the graveyard of discarded childhood idols. He's been replaced by Anakin Skywalker. Earlier this year, I got this idea to re-watch the original Star Wars, with Luke and Leia and Hans. I talked A. into watching it with me, and that was the beginning of the end.

For our car trip this summer, I bought a magnetic/chalkboard box for each boy. A. and I found them at an art festival.

Before we left on our trip, right at the beginning of Star Wars Fever, I found clip art photos of each character on the internet, and printed them out on magnetic ink jet paper.It worked well because they could store them inside the box. Unfortunately, it's very hard to find a picture of Princess Leia NOT in her gold bikini, so that's actually a picture of a random chick in a Princess Leia costume.

When I did the shrinky dink flames for the chalices in the previous post, Ben made his own Star Wars figures. I'll bet you can pick out Darth Vader in the lineup below.

Most of my facebook buddies have already seen the Star Wars birthday party pics, but I'll post them here too. First, here's A. in his Clone Trooper helmet that he wore to surprise his guests. It's so big he looks like he'll tip over.

Obi Wan Galati holding Jedi light saber training. The light sabers are all cardboard wrapping paper rolls covered with colored and silver duct tape.

Blasting the Death Star Pinata.

The kids were not terribly impressed with the 3-D poster on which they were about to play "Blast the Spaceship."

I also wrapped Star Wars Pez containers in aluminum foil and send the kids to the backyard to find the asteroids (small toys would have worked better - wrapping Pez containers in aluminum foil makes them look like baked potatoes). All in all, it was a lot of work, but A. has said several times that it was his favorite birthday party ever.

A Little UU Craftiness

2009-09-19T20:34:00.000-07:00

One of the mistakes I made when I joined the UU congregation was blithely checking so many boxes on the interest survey. I like all kinds of things! I like crafts and design and teaching and the internet and oh, so many things!

I got tapped for no less than 4 committees (3 of which I turned down), am now one of the preschool Sunday School teachers and was asked, since I liked crafts, to redo the chalices and flames for the kids' Sunday School classes. Actually, the RE head asked me to do the flames, and then added if I felt like it, I could make new chalices. Like I'm going to turn THAT down.

At the beginning of each Sunday School class, each student takes a "flame" and says his/her name, and puts the flame on the chalice (an upside down can) in a symbolic lighting of the chalice. Then they say, "This is Unitarian Universalism, the church of the open mind, helping hands and loving heart."

I'm not great at designing things from scratch because I have many ideas and it takes me a really long time to settle on anything. I tried drawing my own "open mind, helping hands, loving heart" graphic but that didn't work because I can't draw. I also couldn't find good, free clip art that fit the theme and didn't look stupid. And there is a dearth of good UU crafts on the internet. (Although I did find Alice the Chalice amusing).

Finally I settled on using a digital scrapbooking kit ("Dia de los Muertos" by Tangie Baxter and SherrieJD, also available here - awesome kit). I came up with this simple template and just moved the background paper up or down a little so each chalice was a little different:

I made a photoshop document that fit the dimensions of the coffee cans (obtained from a freecycler - yay freecycle!). The copy guy at Office Max gave me some 8.5 x 14 paper for free since I only needed about 5 sheets - yay Office Max! Once printed out on regular paper, I sprayed a couple of coats of sealer on each so the ink wouldn't run.

Then I used spray adhesive to affix the paper to the can. Two coats of Mod Podge later, the chalices were done.

I made flames out of clip art on the internet, printed it out on Shrinky Dink paper for ink jets (the hardest part was running out of my stash and trying to find a Michael's who had a pack left - this stuff can be hard to find).

Cut them out, shrank them down and clipped a small binder clip to the bottom to make them stand up. Then I removed the silver thingy and used a piece of self-adhesive magnet tape on the bottom to make them stick a little to the can.

The binder clips ended up being a little big for the flames, but I couldn't find any smaller and I had to make the flames small enough so that at least 10 could fit on one can. If I had more time, maybe I'd look for a different stand option. But these will work for now. I have to say I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. And, there aren't nearly enough UU crafts on the internet.

Now You're Really Pissing Me Off

2009-09-04T10:31:00.001-07:00

OK, y'all are starting to piss me off. (No, no, no, not YOU. I'm talking to the people who aren't reading this).

How exactly is a U.S. President's speech to schoolkids encouraging them to work hard and stay in school indoctrination? What, you think there's going to be some socialist subliminal message sneaking in underneath your hearing level? Nixon addressed the schoolkids about the war and no one had a problem with it. I'd venture to say that the benefits of staying in school are less controversial than war.

And if there are problems with the national health plan, let's have some intelligent discussion about it. Let's not paraphrase and tell the public that there are "death panels" and "bonuses for doctors to encourage patients to end treatment." I have not read every word of the proposal (and I'll bet you haven't either)...but I've read enough to know what the gist is of each section and I have yet to hear any intelligent counter-proposals or arguments. I have heard lots of conservative pundits and politicians talk about stuff THAT IS NOT IN THE PROPOSAL.

All I hear is "blah blah blah he's terrible, he's a socialist, he's going to brainwash our children."

C'mon conservatives, you can do better than this. I'd like to listen to your opinions, but you're making it really difficult. I KNOW there are some intelligent conservatives out there. I also know that the liberal agenda is not perfect and I really would like to hear the other side. You have a responsibility to make your voice heard because really, some of your fellow conservatives are making you all look pretty freakin' stupid.

In a Galaxy Far, Far Away

2009-08-31T11:28:00.000-07:00

Good news, depending on how you look at it: 13 kids will be at A's birthday party, which is perfect. The parents that answered the invitation were pretty cute: they addressed their e-mails to The Council and said that their young Jedi knights would be reporting for training. Yay for some people getting the joke. Over half of the class hasn't responded, but that's not unusual. Many of the families just don't ever RSVP.

So now we are working on the Death Star pinata, which so far looks more like a Death Pear Pinata... hopefully that won't be a big deal.

I ordered a case of Star Wars Pez dispensers and we're going to have an asteroid search for them in the backyard. We have Pin-the-Lightsaber-on-the-Jedi, of course, and G. will be the Jedi Master in charge of training in his brown robe. The craft will be making Yoda stick puppets. Ol' Georgy Lucas hasn't released the characters for jumpy houses yet, so we're making do with an alien/outer space theme on the outside.

(Aside: on our way up north this weekend, we drove through Lucas Valley, where Skywalker Ranch is located. G: "Hey, maybe if we get rich, they'll name a whole valley after us!"
A: "I'd rather have cable.")

It's also very hard to find a bakery that does Star Wars cakes, so we're going to have to improvise on that too. I wanted to make it myself, but A. feels pretty strongly that not providing a bakery cake for his birthday party proves we don't love him.

Star Wars Party

2009-08-25T09:00:00.000-07:00

Hmmm. So I sent out this invitation last week to A's classmates from last year. I can't get the list of his classmates for this year, yet, so if there are any new kids, we'll just have to hand it to them next week.

Now, the RSVP date is August 31, but I haven't received ONE reply yet. I'm wondering if the invitation was too obscure. Many of the parents are immigrants, and may think we're inviting their child to be indoctrinated into some weird cult. I assumed everyone would associate Jedi knights with Star Wars, but maybe not. I guess if the other parents hold up crucifixes when I approach on Back to School night, I'll know.

I had hoped for a small group, but it might be smaller than I expected. I know A. will be disappointed if none of his friends from school show up. I don't want to put people on the spot by calling them and asking, so I'm not sure what to do.

A.'s Halloween Classic

2009-08-21T19:32:00.000-07:00

This is my very favorite of all of A.'s books and, you long time readers know, there are quite a few to choose from. He wrote it last year, when he was newly 6 years old. It's taken me this long to scan it in and share it. I love the way he builds the story around the stickers he happened to have. Not knowing how to spell words doesn't hold him back, of course. This was also back when he didn't really care if the letter was facing the right way or not, either.

It's titled: A Schrnj Nit (A Strange Night)
Pg. 1: it was Halluween nit and the Spooks caim awt.
Pg. 2: But une haws wus not doing gud. A scalutin lvis ther and hee wus cunfyoosd cus the chiljrin wrnt cuming. (The skeleton is scratching his head thinking "Wi ur thai not cuming?"):
Pg. 3: Hee wisht his hows wus lic his grademas. (look! He's thinking about his grandma's house!)
Pg. 4: Hee put mor decuraishins and hee got mor custumrs and hee livd happlee afdr.
(This is A.'s favorite because there's a little joke - the skeleton is thinking..."Maiby I shud not put the uyball on the rooth.")

I love the way he builds the story around this thoughtful skeleton, because he only had stickers of skeletons scratching their heads. Destined to be a classic, if only in our house.

Also, I'd like to apologize for the pop-up ads on my site. I've opted out of pop-ups numerous times, but I guess I have to do it daily. I'll try to figure out how to make them go away and never come back.

Brain Dump

2009-08-19T17:34:00.000-07:00

This happens every year after BlogHer (and this year I didn't even go!). I find lots of fabulous new bloggers, get reacquainted with some old favorites, and instead of being inspired, I'm totally intimidated.

A long time ago I won a contest as Best Bay Area Parenting Blog, well, it was tie between me and someone else. That someone else just happened to put out a freakin' national best-seller within a year of the award. Last place I saw her was an article for O Magazine.

Then comes someone like Black Hockey Jesus, who closed his blog due to some privacy issues. He's a fabulous, interesting, unusual writer. I can't come close to wrapping my mind around stuff the way he does. Or my lovely friend the Bloggess, who is hilarious and true and honest, and manages to say all kinds of crap without being offensive (to me, anyway).

Then I start realizing that I really can't write. I mean, I can write, but I can't write well. I'm OK, don't get me wrong, I'm not trolling for compliments, but I'm not anything special, or unusual, or poetic. Every book I read is filled with amazing sentences that say in a few words what it takes me paragraphs to get out. My kids are funny and cute and we have a happy family.

Then I remember "Oh, wait, that's not why I started this blog. I started this blog because I like to journal, I wanted to learn how websites worked, and I wanted a record of my kids' lives that won't burn up in a house fire." I'd always written long letters to people, so this was my way of writing those letters to people but getting to keep them at the same time.

So. Fuck insecurity. Fuck the fact that I'm not a New and Exciting Voice! I still have my voice, and I still have space to speak.

Here's some things that have been going on:

1. I am regretting talking A. into watching Star Wars IV: A New Hope (formerly known as Star Wars, the original). He has embraced all things Star Wars and now speaks at length on the various Sith Lords and Battle Droids. When he embraces something, he really gets into it. Now I'm stuck planning a Star Wars birthday party for Labor Day Weekend.

So I'm all, Aw, c'mon, how 'bout Chuck E Cheese?? All the other kids let their parents do Chuck E Cheese parties!
And he's all, I'm not all the other kids, am I?

3 wrapping-paper-tube-and-duct-tape light sabers down, 17 to go.

2. We're moving forward on the Totally Confusing Our Children Religiously front. I've joined the UU church I've been attending for the past year. G. is looking into First Communion preparation at the Catholic churces (2 YEARS of classes to learn to eat the wafer?? That's a little extreme, don't you think?). And they've just finished Vacation Bible School at the Lutheran Church around the corner and will continue with Kids' Bible Camp on Wednesday evenings there this fall.

We alternate Sundays between the UU church and various Catholic churches around the area. I feel mixed about forcing the boys to sit through Catholic mass, even if it's only twice a month. Having attended 12 years of Catholic school, I sat through more than my share of masses and I hated every minute. I didn't even have ADHD, either. The boys aren't crazy about it either, and I hope it doesn't turn them against Catholic church, but frankly, I can understand their frustration. G. got to be an altar boy, so at least he had something to DO during the mass.

Last time, as we walked out, A. groused as we left, "I didn't understand any of that! All I understood was 'Please be seated'!"

I guess we'll see how it goes. As long as they're of the mind that we should be kind to others, even brothers, I guess we're doing OK. Whether or not they think that's a mandate from Jesus or God or ourselves is going to be their business, eventually.

What's Important Today

2009-07-30T10:45:00.000-07:00

There has to be a way to do this. There has to be a way to get all the important stuff done, stay organized and neat (maybe even clean), have time with my children and have time for myself. Oh, and get enough sleep. Am I dreaming?

All of my daily-life struggles have to do with simplifying. I define simplicity as keeping what's important and leaving the rest. Facebook is important because it keeps me connected with lots of people I care about, but it's not so important that I need to devote 2 hours to it.

Laundry is important. We don't have a laundry room which is probably a good thing because I manage to fold and put away the laundry as it comes out of the dryer. More or less. The boys' things go right to their shelves or drawers, but mine makes an intermediary stop near my closet before it's put away.

My practice is important. It keeps the kids in school and puts food on the table. My billing has to be done quickly and efficiently. Phone calls need to be returned. People need to be reminded to pay bills. Records need to be kept. Education needs to be continued.

Food is important. It's my biggest variable expense, and so I need to plan. Organic is important, at least in produce. Cooking is important because it's healthier and cheaper.

Play is important. I have to make time each day for my boys so I know how they're doing and they know I care. This is a hard one for me. I'm good at doing crafts, going places, reading and watching movies with them, but I'm not so good at just playing with them.

Spirituality is important.

Friends are important.

My marriage is important.

Time for myself is important. Writing is important. Downtime is important. Reading is important. A non-verbal creative outlet is important.

My health is important. That means sleep and exercise and good nutrition.

So what's not important? Shopping is not important, unless we really need something. Grocery shopping is important but can be streamlined.

Having the boys take a bath every single night is not important. (Having the boys take a bath when they're dirty IS important).

Cooking EVERY meal is not important.

Keeping up on the digital scrapping world is not important.

Reading all of my >100 blogs on my reader is not important every day.

Being an A-list (or even a B- or C-list) blogger is not important.

Clothes are not that important. I should restate it: NEW clothes are fun, but not important. Being clothed, in general, is important in that it would complicate life, not simplify it, if we decided to adopt a clothing-optional lifestyle in our little suburb.

My eyebrows are not important.

My toes are not important, but if it counts as "me" time, they can be upgraded.

The kid we pay to come play with the boys most mornings so I can work or write or whatever is very important. And he is leaving now so I need to go attend to what's important Today.

Coming Back

2009-07-24T09:16:00.000-07:00

I am, I swear. I'm still reintegrating into everyday (summer) life after almost 2.5 weeks away in Oregon. I have a lot of reworking to do, personally and professionally. I have lots of half-formed ideas that need some incubation to hatch. But I'm coming back, I promise.

Mozy Update

2009-06-26T10:40:00.000-07:00

Well....when I signed up, Mozy analyzed my computer (laptop), and my two external hard drives and told me it would take 4 days to upload all that crap. It was about 300 GB of stuff. I decided I didn't really need to backup all the digital scrapbooking products I had, so I customized the backup to include just my photos, my videos, my text documents, my quicken data and my photoshop projects. That was pretty easy, but it still added up to almost 200 GB of data.

I started the backup on Tuesday afternoon. It's been running continuously since then and I've tried to avoid using the laptop for other things since the backup rate slows when the computer's being used. Today is Friday, about 65 hours later, and it's only at 4.4% backed up. I'd like to take my laptop to work with me on Monday, so I sure hope it's done by then.

Mozy says that average upload rates are 200-500 kb/sec. According to the backup status window, I'm averaging between 400-500 kb/sec, so I guess this is pretty average. Subsequent backups, of course, should be much quicker, but wow. I'm afraid my poor little laptop and my external drives are going to die from exhaustion before this is over. I never leave my laptop on this long.

Mozy On Along

2009-06-21T13:27:00.000-07:00

I've been checking out the options for online backup. You know the question, "If there were a fire at your house, what's the first thing you'd grab?" Assuming the kids were out, I'd have to grab my external hard drives. I have an older 150 GB drive that's full, and a newer 250 GB drive that's half full of all of my digital pictures and photoshop projects. Losing all of that.....would be a huge, coma-inducing bummer.

Right now I'm trying to win a free year at Mozy. The reviews I've read have been pretty positive, and if I win I'll let you know how it goes. I read on Ali Edward's blog that it estimated it would take 9 days to backup all her stuff. Duuuuude, that's a whole lotta stuff. It runs in the background, and then it back itself up on a regular schedule.

Even if I don't win, I'll probably have to sign up since it's only $4.95/month. Not bad for peace of mind. (p.s. I wasn't solicited for this review but I'd take a few free months if Mozy wants to give them to me).

Also, I like websites with a sense of humor. Mozy offers these alternatives to online backup:

Alternatives to MozyHome

Burn a new CD or DVD every Sunday night and store it at your brother-in-law's office.
Pay $200/year for an online backup service that uses old, mediocre software.
Buy a $200 external hard drive and hope your office doesn't burn down.
Do nothing and don't worry about backup. (We suggest closing your eyes, plugging your ears and repeating "I'm in my happy place, I'm in my happy place.")
Run a cron job of rsync, gzip and mcrypt piped over ssh to your friend's server over his DSL line.

A Mother's Prayer: Please, God, Don't Let Me Screw This Up

2009-06-18T20:31:00.000-07:00

I've been feeling pretty burnt out lately. Everywhere I turn, at work, at home, someone needs me. My job is, by definition, being needed for 50 minutes at a time. Then 10 minutes to heat up some more tea and go to the bathroom (a natural result of all that tea)...then another 50 minutes of being needed.

And you all know what it's like with a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old. A. has always been able to entertain himself, but to Ben, nothing's worth doing if he's doing it alone. He reminds of those gulls on Finding Nemo, where they're all yelling "Mine! Mine! Mine!" except he makes it sound like "Mom! Mom! Mom!"

As I've complained before, my hormones are all over. No matter how hard I try, I'm a raving bitch at least part of the time, the kids watch too much TV, they have too many chicken nugget dinners, have to take a bath in a dirty bathtub sometimes, etc.

But then today was A.'s last day of first grade, and with the last day comes report cards. I read, "His writing is truly extraordinary for a first grader. Everything is there. Highly original." And then I teared up when I read, "A. happily does outstanding work in all areas. It is so rare to see such a well-rounded, happy, able student." And his "cultural" teacher (science, geography, etc.) wrote, "Outstanding! Enthusiastic! A pure delight!"

God, I hope I don't screw this up.

Only Two

2009-06-09T09:51:00.000-07:00

Having two kids is great. We all fit in the 4-door sedan just fine, I have a hand for each of them to hold in the parking lot, the double stroller comes with two seats, and "Kids Eat Free" places often will only let you get two free kids meals. It works quite well. I am beyond lucky to have two strong healthy (and, may I say, rather attractive) children.

So why do I feel guilty that I only have two? Why do I even phrase it that way: "only two"? I have no desire to get up three times in the middle of the night, retrieve a pacifier 10 million times in an hour, or nurse at the keyboard. I am often grateful that with two boys, I don't have to deal with the world of princesses and Barbie and highly sexualized teenybopper girls. I'm really quite cool with that. I love that they sleep all night long, and are just getting to the point where they can get up by themselves in the morning! That, in fact, is a cause for celebration and lots more sleep! So why am I not at peace with that decision?

I always thought I'd have three kids, but I also pictured myself several inches taller and I've let that go. I don't think three is the magic number. I don't think there IS a magic number (although I'm pretty sure if there is one, it's not 8).

If I were told I couldn't have any more kids, I'd be OK, and feel blessed with the ones I have. If G. were resolute in his desire to only have two kids, I'd be OK. He doesn't particularly want any more but if I felt really strongly about one more he'd consider it because he wants me to be happy. What's hard for me is that I'm making an active choice not to have any more children. By choosing to use birth control, I'm responsible for the choice.

I used to wish my IUD would fail. Not because I was desperate for a third child, but because then the decision would be out of my hands, since in that case I wouldn't terminate the pregnancy and it would be a surprise we'd just have to deal with. I just wasn't willing to get it taken out and say I really did want a third child.

I'm NOT desperate for a third child, and I do feel like our house and hearts are full with our boys. But it's weird....I also feel like I'm rejecting someone who already exists somewhere (and yes, it's a she) on some plane, and I'm closing the door on her, rejecting her. I feel guilty and like I'm choosing the easy way out because I'm too lazy to deal with a third infant. It's a very strange dilemma that doesn't make sense to my logical mind.

Pretty soon the issue will be out of my hands. Maybe it's already happened. These eggs are getting pretty old, along with the rest of my body. I just hope I don't regret my choices.

We Like This Book

2009-06-04T10:10:00.001-07:00

Brain Dump and a Video

2009-05-29T09:43:00.001-07:00

I've been avoiding the blog lately, for several reasons.

1. I've got some heavy stuff on my mind (heavy, like spiritual seeking and meaning-of-life questions, nothing bad), and to write about these thing require time and brain power, both of which I am sadly lacking lately.

2. 24 hours is quite simply not enough time in a day. Bad planning on someone's part. I refuse to bow down to the dominant paradigm and am therefore declaring that my own personal days are now 32 hours long.

3. Greg, in another bit of bad planning, was born in the month of June. That means his birthday and Father's Day are less than two weeks apart. He does such a good job planning my birthday and Mother's Day weekends (which are conveniently placed five months apart) that the pressure is tremendous.

4. One of the things he wants for his birthday is for our hours and hours of videotape to be transferred to DVD. I had a video service do this with about half of our videos a few years ago, and it cost an arm and a leg and part of a torso. So this time I'm doing it myself which takes FOREVER. You have to transfer it from the video camera to the computer in real time, then you gotta put in menu markers, then it takes twice as long to burn the DVD. Forget editing. You took 30 hours of video of people opening Christmas gifts, you get 30 hours of people opening Christmas gifts.

Occasionally, though, we find a treasure, which is the reason we videotape all those hours to begin with, isn't it? A. was just three and he thought he could read. He's reading David Sedaris' "Me Talk Pretty One Day" here, but he turns it into something about Disneyland and "Sowf Amewica" which is amazing, as he'll tell you. Then he finds info on how to sell your child. Unfortunately, he was making it up and Irving Yalom doesn't actually write anything on that subject.

(I wish the quality was better, but I haven't figured out how to do that. It's amazing I'm even able to get this up here, frankly).

Guilt

2009-05-25T20:57:00.000-07:00

Ah, Mommy guilt. I'm not talking about the kind where you aren't feeding your child all-organic produce or actually try him on solids before one year, or don't breastfeed every hour, or park him in front of Sesame Street every day because goddamn it you have to get SOMETHING done.

I'm talking about the guilt because my beautiful 4-year-old has been away from me for almost 3 days and how much do I miss him? Not at all.

It's been so EASY this weekend. A. pretty much does what I ask him to, when I ask him to do it. I haven't snapped at him once in the last 3 days because he doesn't have to jockey for position, defend himself against his younger brother's attacks, nor is he tempted to annoy his younger brother and make him scream. He has no audience for his poop and pee jokes, so I haven't heard them.

There's been remarkably little whining. I'm burning all the old home movies to DVD for G's birthday, and what do I hear in the background of almost all the videos? Benjamin whining.

Don't get me wrong - he's a beautiful star in my life. But, he's also very, very social and wants attention 24/7. G. and I joke that the perfect present for him would be a full-time aide.

I'll pick him up tomorrow and kiss his dimples and get some snuggle time when we get home, and I'll love on him as much as I can. But I'm afraid that tomorrow between 5pm and 8pm, when the boys are at their sibling-rivalry worst, I'll wish he was back in OR.

No pithy conclusions, no insight. Just guilt.

Directions

2009-05-23T15:27:00.001-07:00

So the husband and the four-year-old are safely in Oregon, while A. and I stick around here. A. had saved up his money for a large pack of Pokemon cards at this one tiny store in San Francisco that neither he nor G. could remember the name of, but it's purple and has Pikachu painted on the side.

G. said, "It's on not the main cable car line, but one of the other ones, and it's about a block from the cable car museum, and it's on the left elbow."

Usually his directions involve the word "hypotenuse." The "left elbow" is a new one. Being the super-internet-sleuth that I am, I found it on Yelp. And, we found parking right across the street:

And, we walked around and found another store that actually had a rolling Pokemon backpack. You don't see those every day, so I consented to buy it as long as A. promises to use it for the next 5 years.

Then it was off to Pier 39 because I was determined to show A. the sea lions despite his not really caring about them. Once he got there, he liked them:

He kindly shared his pretzel with the pigeons, making sure the smaller birds got their share:

And we found parking right across the street again! It only cost me $3 at the meter, while cars were lined up down 3 blocks to enter the parking garage and pay $20. It was our lucky day.

Adios, Buckaroo

2009-05-22T20:59:00.000-07:00

G. is taking Ben to Portland for a quick 3-day visit with the grandparents. I'm really looking forward to time alone with A., but I'm also gonna miss the little rascal. And his dad.

Diminutive Mom Has Great Mother's Day

2009-05-12T20:44:00.000-07:00

I am giving up iGoogle as my home page because I put local headlines on the top center of the page. The headline for the last week has been Diminutive Teacher Earns Mountains of Respect. Besides being an unbelievably bad headline, it pisses me off because this diminutive teacher is "a few inches over five feet." That makes her a few inches taller than me. Anyone refers to me as a diminutive anything is getting my diminutive foot in their ass. I realize that's not iGoogle's fault, but it annoys me.

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Mother's Day Riddles by A.:
Q: What is the gudust thing in the world?
A: Mom.

Q: What is the diferens betewing Mom and Dad?
A: Mom is much preteer.

Q: Whats a Moms faverit thing?
A: Her kids.

Then on the inside of the card he wrote an old A. blessing: "May the sun shine brite on your Mothers Day."

I can't show you pictures because I forgot to put the damn CF card back in the camera after uploading all the pics from the day before. So we bought a disposable camera, and I had to figure out how people develop film these days. Our drug store still does it, but the counter has shrunk from about 1/4 of the store in the old days to now a tiny tiny little shelf. And it takes 5 days.

The boys made me a Tokepi pancake, then set out little easter eggs with coupons inside for me to find. I got coupons for free hugs and kisses (I guess they won't charge me anymore), free cheez sticks (meaning A. will go get one for me out of the refrigerator if I desire one, but I still have to buy them in the first place), and one for a free dime.

Then they blindfolded me and G drove all around in crazy loops to disorient me, until I didn't know where we were headed. He took off the blindfold when I guessed our destination correctly - the California Academy of Sciences. Very cool, a bit crowded, but overall a very cool place.

Happy Mother's Day, Early (now with photo!)

2009-05-08T21:30:00.000-07:00

Ben in the car on the way home from school: Mama, I have a surprise for you. But I'm not going to show you what it is.

Me: Great. I can't wait to see it.

Ben: Teacher said we can't never never show it to our mommies until Mother's Day.

Me: OK.

Ben: But I'm going to take it out of the bag. Don't look!

Me: OK, I won't. I'm driving.

Ben: I'm going to keep it behind my back. Don't look behind my back.

Me: OK. I won't.

Ben: I can't put it behind my back in the car seat, so I'm going to hold it here. Do you know it has candy in it and buttons on it?

Me: Don't tell me.

Ben: But did you know that?

Me: No, but now I do. I thought it was a surprise.

Ben: OK. How 'bout you forget I told you that?

Me: OK.

Ben: Do you want to see it?

Me: No, why don't you keep it for Mother's Day?

Ben: But I want to show you now.

(Keep in mind, this is maybe a 7-minute drive home)

Me: Well, I'm driving now. Didn't you want to keep it for Mother's Day?

Ben: Yeah. Yeah, it's a surprise and I'm not going to show you.

Me: Terrific.

Ben: But what day is Mother's Day?

Me: Sunday.

Ben: Is today Sunday?

Me: No, today's Thursday.

Ben: Weeellll, I'm going to show you on Thursday.

Me: Don't you want to keep it for Mother's Day, like Teacher said?

Ben: No, I just want to show you today.

Me: OK, how 'bout we wait until we get home?

Ben: OK. I'll hide it until we get in the house.

Me: OK. Here we are. (pulling into the driveway)

Ben: HERE IT IS! LOOK! IT HAS BUTTONS! AND CANDY!

Me: OK, Ben, let me get your seatbelt off.

It was a little Altoids tin covered with felt and buttons and had two miniature Hershey's bar inside, which Ben thought were rightfully his, but I ate them before he had a chance to steal them.

The Beginning of the End

2009-05-05T20:23:00.000-07:00

For a few days now, it seems like every freakin' building's air/heat system has been wonky. First it's hot, then it's cold, then they turned off the air, then they blasted the air conditioning.....Then I realized that if it's happening in every building I am in, including my own home and the supermarket and the car, it's probably me. FABULOUS. I'm starting to get hot flashes?!

Last night, after medicating my monthly migraine and trying to fall asleep, I got out of bed, tore off my long-sleeve t-shirt, and dug through my drawers for my extra-light pajamas that I wear during heat waves. Then I tore the covers off the bed and wrapped the sheet around half of me (I can't sleep just with nothing - have to have at least a sheet, no matter how hot it is). The sweats aren't as bad as they were in the weeks after I gave birth, when G. christened me "The Swamp Thing," but they're still annoying.

Then this morning, everything was going along fine, but all of a sudden the boys turned into small devil-monsters who were put on this earth to torment me. They were always such needy, whiny little leeches and why did I want children anyway? I had to bite my tongue because what wanted to come out of my mouth was not intended for children under 30 years old.

Then we're driving to school, "Feels Like Home" comes on the CD, and I start singing along, Benjamin starts in with the chorus and we're singing together, "Feels like home to me...feels like I'm all the way back where I belong," and I begin sobbing. It's just so...sweet and tender and I love my little boys sooooo much.

WTH???? I'm only 43 and if this is peri-menopause, just shoot me now because there is no way I (or my family) will survive the next 10 years. Aaaaauuuugggghhh!

KaBOOM!

2009-04-27T16:05:00.000-07:00

So when A. was a tiny one, and I was desperate for new places to go out with him besides the grocery store and the gas station, I trolled our local playgrounds. I even pulled out an old-school map from our glove compartment to try to find new ones.

"You know what would be a good idea?" I thought, "If someone would create a website rating all the local playgrounds for moms." I was just starting this blog and thought I might do something like that for our local moms. I live in a very diverse (read: lower SES than the rest of the Bay Area) community, and although there were resources for moms in the wealthier communities, we local moms valued clean, safe playgrounds, too. And we have them, but they're not really listed anywhere and some are tucked into residential areas and hard to find.

"I'll take my camera and take pictures and post a review every time we go to the park!" I thought.

Yeah. So that didn't happen. It's still a good idea, and someone else has had a similar idea and run with it. KaBOOM! is hoping to host reviews and maps for playground all over the U.S. , Canada and Mexico (it may reach farther, those are the countries I tried). Their overarching goal is to create playspaces within walking distance to every child in America.

They've got a campaign to register 100,000 parks in 100 days. Another cool thing is that you can create a group for your cause, and each park that you register (with a photo) earns you $$ for your cause, plus enters you to win some prizes like a Kindle. Win-win-win.

I'm really going to take pics and post pictures now that someone else has set it up for me.

Oxygen Etiquette

2009-04-26T22:18:00.000-07:00

So at some point on Earth Day, A. learned that each tree creates enough oxygen for 8 people. He went outside for a while, then informed us that we can't have more than 48 people in our house at once.

Because we only have 6 trees and it would be rude to invite people over and then not have enough oxygen for them.

I think I'm raising Dwight Schrute.

You Know You Want to See My Gallstone

2009-04-25T20:46:00.001-07:00

Look at that sucker
Originally uploaded by ColleenAG

Check out that sucker!

There were more stones, but the surgeon told me he saved the prettiest one for me to view. I didn't get to keep it. It looked just like a large piece of dry dog food. G. was impressed, which was worth it.

Random Thoughts on Gallbladder Surgery

2009-04-22T19:29:00.000-07:00

1. I found it rather disconcerting that everyone who talked to me asked, "So, what are we doing for you today?" Like a hairdresser. Shouldn't it be written down somewhere?

2. The surgeon came and said hello in the pre-op room, and then took out a marker and wrote "YES" on my belly. I'm glad he approved.

3. I told the anesthesiologist that I had a wicked caffeine-withdrawal headache before the surgery and she ordered up some Fentanyl. Fentanyl's like 80 times stronger than morphine. This chick wasn't playing around. No wonder it's been about 36 hours and I'm still feeling the effects of the anesthesia. I think she gave me enough for an elephant.

4. My contribution to Earth Day was to recycle the ginormous stack of papers from the pharmacy listing all the possible side effects, etc. in LARGE TYPE of the Metamucil they sent me home with.

5. We took pics, but they're on my sister's camera. You can see the prettiest gallstone for yourself. They wouldn't let me keep it, which made me wonder....at exactly what point did it stop being my property?

Goodbye, Gallbladder

2009-04-20T21:28:00.000-07:00

So tomorrow I'm going into the hospital and when I leave, I plan to be gallbladder-free. They can do the whole thing in less than a day and I should be home tomorrow afternoon, amazingly enough.

It's practically a procedure rather than a surgery, but don't suggest that to my surgeon because he gets very bent out of shape and all of a sudden it becomes "Major Abdominal Surgery," the likes of which I can't appreciate because I've only had two C-sections, which I guess would be considered "Minor Abdominal Ripping-Open and Gutting of the Uterus." At first he was all, "It's no big deal, easy recovery," until I suggested I knew about such things because of my C-Sections, and then he told me I would feel like I'd been hit by a truck. But in a kind of way where I could go home the same day, I guess.

So I'll have some time on my hands in the next week. I'll let y'all know how it goes.

10-10-10

2009-04-16T22:10:00.000-07:00

New book review on my self-help, thrifty living, life hacking blog: 10-10-10.

Hemochromatosis

2009-04-14T20:43:00.000-07:00

So today I found out I've got the genetic mutation for hemochromatosis. It's a mutation on the sixth chromosome, and I don't have any details like, which mutation is it (there are a couple, and one is worse than the other), is it on both chromosomes, etc., but I do know I have it so I gave the vampires at the hospital more blood today (good thing I'm not afraid of needles) so they can run more liver tests to see if I've got iron overload. This thing basically makes your organs absorb too much iron, which damages them over time.

One of the possible symptoms listed on this site is "Setting off metal detectors for no apparent reason." That sounds kind of fun ("No, seriously! Nothing but cotton!"). I didn't pay much attention to the magnetic science portion of high school, so I don't know if I could also use my forehead as a portable magnetic message board, but I'm hoping so.

And, no wonder I always find myself pointing north! (ba dum dum)

It can also turn your skin bronze, which is kind of cool because I could throw out my bottles of sunless tanning lotion.

But really, I'm not going to get any of the cool side effects. I probably don't have the organ damage yet, and fortunately, I probably won't get it because the treatment is really easy and effective - bloodletting. No kidding. Women are usually not diagnosed until menopause because you know, they bleed monthly. Men don't, so they get diagnosed earlier, if at all. People with hemochromotosis sometimes have to give blood several times a week until they get their iron saturation levels down. Bring on the leeches!

The biggest bummer about this disease is that I may very well have passed it on to my boys, and they're at risk for organ damage, cancer (apparently cancer loves iron - who knew?) and heart disease if they have the mutation and aren't successful at keeping their iron levels down. That part bothers me.

Grateful

2009-04-09T18:00:00.000-07:00

The fact that I had 2 C-sections is a minor blip on my parenting screen. It's not what I'd hoped for, and certainly not what was in our elaborate and doula-inspired birth plan. But, you know, the boys came out fine and it does seem that they weren't going to come out any other way. Still, I find I have a hard time reading accounts of home births. They sound so wonderful - peaceful and powerful. Maybe it's jealousy, maybe it's hope dashed since that kind of birth will never be among my experiences. Then I found this video on F-Bomb's blog, and all is better now. I've never before actually been grateful for a C-section. (Warning: the forceps segment will make you squirm).

Heaven Has Another Angel

2009-04-09T09:52:00.000-07:00

So, I've followed The Spohrs spohradically (hah! See what I did there? BTW, the server keeps crashing due to all the traffic, but they're working on it) after BlogHer08. Their lovely, spirited, Matt Lauer-loving daughter Madeline died unexpectedly a few days ago. She was planning to roll alongside her parents at this year's March of Dimes walk. They're still collecting donations, and if you support saving more premature babies with beautiful eyes, I hope you'll consider donating in Maddie's memory.

Keep Looking Up

2009-03-31T20:44:00.000-07:00

At the Grocery Outlet today, Ben and I found kites for just $3. He'd seen the Spiderman one and wanted it, but what clinched the deal was finding a Pokemon kite in the display for A. It's not easy to find Pokemon-related stuff, given that the series kind of hit its peak 10 years ago.

So, it was a nice windy afternoon and we took the kites out to the backyard.

Oh. My. God. I had totally forgotten how frustrating it is to get a kite up in the air. I tried to remember why I'd thought this would be fun.

I was cursing under my breath, yanking the string away from the kids, and was just about to give up when the Pokemon kite caught the breeze and sailed up about 20 feet.

"Look! Look! Look! It's flying!" I handed the string to A., told him to hang on tight....and watched the kite sail over the roof, and disappear from view with the string trailing after it. The kite fell, and string holder settled near the chimney.

"Why did you let go???" I yelled.

"It just pulled out of my hand. How are we gonna get it?" he asked.

"Beats me. Go see if it made it to the ground on the other side." Fuck me. I finally got the damn thing up and he let go.

Meanwhile, waiting for his turn, Ben completely tied himself up in the string from his kite. So I untangle him, pick up the Spiderman kite, and run from this side of the yard to that side of the yard. Again. Again. Throw the damn thing up. Run. Stop. Set it on the lawn. Run. Stop.

Me: "Ben, get off the string."

Ben: "Can I fly it now? Can I fly it now?"

Me: "Ben, do I look like I'm flying it? Does it look like it's up in the air?"

Ben: "Yes. Can I fly it now?"

Heavy sigh. "Once it's up you can fly it." Shouldn't G. be here to take over by now?

A couple more laps, and the breeze finally lifted it way up in the air. I quickly unwound the string and watched it climb at least 4 stories high.

Ben: "Ha HAHAHA!"

I could hear A. yell from the courtyard that he could see it flying from where he was. It soared and dipped like I was doing tricks but I wasn't. I kept the string taut, and handed it to Ben, "HANG ON TIGHT!"

"Ha ha ha ha HA HA!" Ben shouted. It was glorious. The long red streamer just floated behind the spiderman face. The wind was perfect. I started singing the kite flying song from You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. Oh yeah. That's why we try to get kites up.*

*It seemed a lot more profound at the time.

More Funny Stuff From the Kids

2009-03-28T13:44:00.000-07:00

Gah, I'm such a cliche. But you know, the reason I started this blog was so that I wouldn't forget what happened when my kids were little. Because, God knows, we can't depend on my brain to remember all by itself. That was true even before my little brain injury.

Benjamin is a little done with A. getting all the book-making glory, so he made his own book. He copied A. by tracing states, coloring them in and adding text (dictated to G, who dutifully transcribed Ben's thoughts). Then he drew a cover and had us staple it together. My favorite is Nevada. It's also very typical Ben, as he is one of the most loving kids in the world.

Cover: I was walking to the museum of science... (that's him with the green hair. A. and I are in the back)

Page 1: South Dakota is on the world that you can't see, but I wish I could go to this continent but I'm too old.

Page 2: Virginia: I love this continent because I love it so much because it's in Pokemon world but it's not too far.
Nevada: Now let's go to the next continent. (Sorry, Nevada)

Florida: I have never in the world seen this continent on too far!

Nebraska: I love all of the Kansas! (sorry, Nebraska)

Kansas: I love this continent so much but you can't go on the sun because it's too hot!

He LOVES his book and asks us to read it over and over again, while he dissolves into giggles. It's pretty cute.

Uh Oh, I Think God's Trapped Between My Curtain and My Window

2009-03-26T17:41:00.001-07:00

I realize I've been totally coasting this blog on Ways My 6-Year-Old Entertains Me. But he's been making it so easy. Especially when he comes home with stuff like this, from sunday school. I think the lesson was that everyone has a different idea/picture of God. So the kids were supposed to draw what God looks like to them.

Here's A's:

Look Out, Arizona

2009-03-22T10:02:00.000-07:00

A's latest get-rich-quick scheme is to create U.S. atlases to sell. He traces one state shape on each page, colors it and then adds a fact about the state. I'm not entirely sure where he's getting his facts.

Flashbacks

2009-03-19T21:42:00.001-07:00

When Natasha Richardson was reported to be critically injured after a fall, I paid attention. Then she died, and the cause was an epidural hematoma. So I went back and re-read my posts from 3 years ago when I had one of those. Damn. I remember feeling like they were all waiting for me to slip into a coma. They were. I feel like I dodged a bullet, but it's not the crazy, "Yay I'm Alive!" you would hope for. It's more like, "Crap. I could've died."

Our Proudest Moment

2009-03-13T21:07:00.000-07:00

We had our second parent/teacher conference this afternoon with A.'s teacher. We sat down, and she said gleefully, "I'm so glad you're here because I have been waiting for this all day long."

How wonderful - was she waiting because our son is one of those children that reminds a teacher why they teach? Because his shining face makes her day? Because she knows that this child will change the world?

No, what she was waiting for all day was the chance to witness our reactions to the first page of A.'s February journal:

In case you can't tell, although I doubt there's any confusion because it's really a pretty good likeness, that drawing on the left is a cow humping another cow. That is indeed what we saw that first Saturday in February, and as you can see, it made an impression.

Coffee Filter Shamrock Garland

2009-03-13T08:56:00.000-07:00

We first did coffee filter art at the Children's Discovery Museum. They turned out so pretty that I wanted to try them at home, but had trouble finding liquid watercolors. A. received some as part of a birthday present last year, so that was solved. You can use the dry watercolor palettes with paint brushes, but the colors tend to be lighter.

Benjamin had some trouble doing one drop at a time and not overloading the coffee filter, but I decided to reign in my inner control freak and just let him play. I did give him only 4 colors that I thought would blend well, because, you know, I can't give up ALL control.

I discovered that by having him do it on a rimmed baking sheet, I could also control the mess.

After they dried, we cut out shamrocks and strung them on a ribbon. The long dangly things in between are the edges of the coffee filter after the shamrock was cut out. If I had time I'dprobably put them on a different string so it doesn't look so crowded.

It looks really pretty when it's daytime and the sun is shining, but you get the idea.

Springy Craftiness

2009-03-07T12:03:00.000-08:00

Last year, you might remember, I was planning the All-Green Festivities, which left little room for craftiness because I was busy buying beer and making Irish music CDs. This year, we can't afford a big party, so we're having Ben's birthday at a bowling alley next weekend, leaving me free to have a messy house and do some St. Patrick's Day crafts with the boys.

I went to Mom's night at Ben's Montessori preschool and was so impressed with the tidy jobs and his development of fine motor control and how much he enjoyed "Prap-ti-pal Life", so I immediately looked up Montessori-themed blogs to try to carry the ideas over to home. This cool rainbow mural was inspired by My Montessori Journey. It was a perfect way to keep them busy while I made dinner.

So first I cut strips of colored cardstock in red, orange, yellow, blue and purple. I buy the value size packs of cardstock when they're on sale, and then store them in my craft closet so we have them on hand.

Then I set Benjamin to cutting squares from the strips with his safety scissors.

I drew a rainbow in pencil on a piece of butcher paper taped to the wall. Thank you to the Freecycler from whom I picked up this big roll of paper. We use it all the time. I wrote the names of each color in the correct section.

Then, when his little fingers cramped up from cutting, Benjamin set to glueing the squares.

By this time, A. was interested and joined in.

It could be a multi-day, multi-kid project, but after dinner Benjamin wanted me to glue with him, so we finished it by bedtime.

A. added a pot of gold. And a sun and some clouds. He's in charge of atmosphere.

I gotta say, I like it a lot. And Benjamin was extremely impressed with himself. And it was done completely with stuff we had on hand.

Groneups Stingk

2009-02-23T08:30:00.001-08:00

Someone was unhappy about not being allowed to stay up to watch the Oscars. And left a quiet, but emphatic, protest outside our bedroom door.

Proof That Aliens Are Not Among Us

2009-02-17T22:31:00.001-08:00

A. announced today that he had figured out four reasons there couldn't be aliens on Earth:

1. Aliens can't survive with air.

2. Nothing's invisible.

3. If they were alive, we would have heard them talk.

4. If they were alive, we would have bumped into them by now.

So there you have it, Area 51 people.

Ode to the Library

2009-02-07T15:08:00.001-08:00

on my other blog.

If I Had Some Disposable Income....

2009-02-05T20:28:00.000-08:00

...I would buy the boys each one of these (click on the picture to see the website). Aren't they great? A penguin for Ben, and maybe a lion for Aidan.

Small Graces

2009-02-05T19:24:00.000-08:00

The Peggster's doing a better job than I at keeping up with this. I do make up a list of things to be grateful for every night before I fall asleep, but getting it posted has been a challenge.

Today my hormones must be wacky because I am feeling really, really bitchy. Really cranky, really sensitive and impatient. And I had to get my teeth cleaned today. So, in that light, today I'm grateful that....

1. There's a bit of dark chocolate in the house.

2. I think there might be a beer stuck way in the back of the refrigerator for after the kids go to bed.

3. I tried a new exercise video (Budokon) and did not kill myself nor sprain anything.

4. I found sequins that I think will work for my nephew's baptism candle.

5. We got strawberries in our produce delivery box.

6. (bonus one) There was plenty of gas in the car.

7. ('nother bonus) Cinnabon-flavored coffee is really good.

Plays Well With Others

2009-01-31T16:57:00.000-08:00

When A. was a baby, I noticed a tendency to guess what kind of children the babies would turn into. There was always a lot of speculation on whether the kid would be smart or not. One mother even confessed her worries that her son would be dumb. She was very smart, and worried she'd have a hard time dealing with a less-than-intelligent son.

I suspected A. would be smart, if not brilliant, but what I was really worried about was if I could teach him to be kind or not, because, let's face it, I was not always the kindest person. Kids are not always kind, either. And neither is the world, really.

This week was our first report card week of first grade. I don't know if all Montessori schools are like this, but because of the individualized emphasis, children aren't ranked. Therefore, a child could be at the top of his class in math and still get a "Meets Expectations" mark. The school is careful to emphasize to those parents among us who are achievement-oriented that "Meets Expectations" is a GOOD mark because they have high standards. "Exceeds Expectations," we're told, means the kid is like several grade levels ahead and is reserved pretty much for savants.

A., not surprisingly, got "Meets Expectations" and a couple plus marks on everything (except handwriting and being neat), but what really impressed me, what got me all ferklumpt and teary- eyed, was the little "Exceeds Expectations" check-mark on "Interactions With Others" on his first report card.

The teacher wrote that he is always friendly and has a positive attitude, and is "a delight." She put him next to the new kid because she knew he'd help him out and make sure he was included. She told us at our conference that she's impressed because even the most annoying kids don't seem to bother him.

He got a chocolate sundae for dessert last night and we are indulging his request for tamales tonight because while I'm glad he works hard in reading and math, I think he got his best mark in the very most important thing on that whole card.

Grace in Small Things

2009-01-29T11:15:00.000-08:00

Found Grace in Small Things via Sarah's blog.

I have a scene from about 13 years ago firmly embedded in my memory.

A little backstory: I'd been suffering from a horrible period of anxious depression, during which I couldn't eat, had lost 10 lbs, couldn't sleep, had horrible IBS and could barely function. My supervisors told me not to see clients for about a week because I looked terribly fragile, which is not a condition I or they were used to seeing. I started taking anti-depressants for the first time in my life, and prayed every day for relief. I hated that I was so freaked out and I really missed the old me. My therapist told me that it would get better, and I had to believe her because otherwise I was sure I would not survive this pain. I was never one of those people who default to depression because it's easier or a known entity. Mine was never easy and I would have done anything to get rid of it.

So anyway, I was sitting in the kitchen of the old San Francisco victorian in which I was completing my pre-doc internship. I'd started seeing clients again, and was minimally functioning, but in general, getting showered, dressed and to the clinic took everything I had.

I was eating a salad with romaine and spinach, gorgonzola cheese and honey mustard dressing. Nothing unusual or gourmet, but it was good. It tasted good and I was enjoying it. To understand how momentous this was, you have to realize that I had not enjoyed anything for several months. I tried, I really did, and I wanted to so badly. But depression is like a bullet-proof vest over your heart and nothing can get in. Although I wanted to feel pleasure and happiness so much and I would be aware of situations in which I normally would have felt those things, they just couldn't get in. So to sit there and enjoy this salad was huge, worthy of a whole therapy session. I was so grateful to God for that salad and the internal space to enjoy it that I practically cried right there at the kitchen table.

Since then, I've taken care to notice little things that bring me pleasure or for which I'm grateful. I really, firmly believe that noticing these things is the key to a happy life. Once you get into the habit, you start to have this feeling that the world is basically good, and that life is a gift, and that blessings surround you. Not that I don't have my periods of bitchiness, not that I don't sometimes wish my children would just shut up, not that I don't get down. But overall, I'd have to say my life rocks because I can enjoy salads or the sunshine and I remember quite well what it was like when I couldn't.

My 5 things to be grateful for today:

1. My great-nephew will probably be released from the hospital today, and his surgery is behind him and his parents.

2. I don't have to have surgery until March, which gives me a chance to increase my fitness level and therefore have a better recovery.

3. The sun is shining.

4. The daffodils are starting to poke up.

5. It's a hot lunch day for the boys.

Is It Just Me....

2009-01-27T11:33:00.000-08:00

Or has Obama gotten, like, 10 times hotter since he became President?

No Kidding

2009-01-25T11:25:00.000-08:00

From www.punditkitchen.com

I'm quite happy he's Mr. President now and I know he's got a lot of important work to do, but what makes me melt every time is when they introduce "The First Family," and this picture-perfect family comes out. And they're all affectionate-like, too (no, I'm not going where Fox News went. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you don't read enough blogs). I just like them.

A Poem

2009-01-23T18:32:00.000-08:00

It's Snowing by A.

it's snowing it's snowing
evereebudy is playing
in the snow
and its fun
I wish I can
but I cant
I have wirk
and I'm sad

Why You Should Always Take Someone to the ER With You

2009-01-20T20:28:00.000-08:00

So I get to the ER early this morning and feel kind of guilty because the combination of writhing around, pacing and grimacing in the waiting room means I got called in before people who were clearly there before me. I felt a little bit like a drama queen, but seriously, it freakin' hurt. I read later that this writhing around is characteristic of gallstones, so yay me for being stereotypical.

The last time I was in the ER I had a brain bleed and sat in the waiting room bleeding into my skull FOREVER while they took a stupid skateboarder with a sprained ankle because everyone (including me) thought it was just a concussion. So, you know, karma.

Anyway, it took about 3 hours to get the ultrasound and the whole time, I was pretty sure the pain was from a crazy wicked bout of gas. About two seconds after the ultrasound tech turned on the machine, she said, "Ooh, yeah. You have gallstones." Great. Nice and quick, except then she took about 45 minutes to examine the rest of my abdomen, over and over. She kept squinting at the machine and frowning, and then going over the same spot, twisting and turning.

I have cancer, I concluded. A big ol' tumor, or maybe my pancreas is totally the wrong size.

"Does everything else look normal?" I asked her.

"I can't tell you that. We're allowed to tell you you have gallstones, but otherwise, the doctor will review all the scans and let you know."

"OK, but can you at least tell me my pancreas looks normal?" I ask.

"Sorry, I can't tell you that, but how old are you?"

"43."

"Yeah, pancreatic cancer is pretty rare in people who are your age. That's what Patrick Swayze has."

Oh dear. She saw something on there and doesn't want to tell me I'm on my deathbed. She bringing in the celebrity angle to make me feel less alone.

So I got wheeled back into the ER, ready to hear the worst, and waited and waited some more.

"We want the radiologist to go over the scans," said the doctor on a fly-by. "That's why it's taking a while."

I was left alone with my brain and my anxiety. Not a good idea.

Of course. Clearly there are abnormalities. This is what happened last time. I got a CT scan, and the doc had to consult with the neurosurgeons. That was an accident, though, and this is obviously a systemic disease. Should I call G, whom I'd left at home to get the boys to school? No, the inaugural address is still going on. I'll at least let him finish watching that before I give him the bad news that he'll have to raise the boys on his own.

Stop it, Lunasea. Your blood test was fine, except for the white blood cell count and you know that's probably because you're fighting a cold. You have no fever and have felt fine up until this morning. You have NO other symptoms, and you DO have gallstones, so there's no reason to think anything else is happening. Chill out. Get your iPod and listen to a meditation or two so you don't have to listen to the crazy voice in your head or the crazy lady at the end of the hallway screaming and hollering.

OK, here's a good one. "Meditation During a Crisis." Let's try that one.

[Cue soft, slow voice] "This is a meditation for the weeks that follow hearing devastating news..."

No! Turn that one off! Put it away and just try to breathe. I'll just close my eyes and rest. I'm so tired.

This is what I'm going to look like when I'm dead. I remember the furrowing of the brow in dying people I've seen. That's what I look like right now. I should ask for more morphine. I'm practically a hospice patient so there shouldn't be any hesitation.

I've had a good life. I've done everything I've wanted to do, except see my grandchildren. There's nothing to be afraid of in death. If heaven awaits, awesome. If it doesn't, well, it's not like I'm going to be aware of it, right? No reason to fear.

"Be not afraid...I go before you always....." They always play that at funerals.

I'd better get that list together of songs I want played at my memorial. I want to make sure they get that Eva Cassidy song in there."

So by the time G. came to pick me up, I was reconciling myself to my own imminent death and planning my memorial service. Because sometimes I'm really reasonable, and sometimes I go completely insane.

This is why I should have told him, "Drop the boys off at school and then proceed immediately to the ER where you can keep me from going crazy, OK?" We'll both remember that next time.

Doctor finally dropped by and told me I was probably going to need my gallbladder removed, but not today and I could go home. "What about the pancreas?" I asked.

He gave me a weird look. "No, we'll leave that in."

"No, I mean did it look normal? Everything else looked normal?"

"Yeah. Fine. Here's your appointment for the surgery consult next week, OK? Bye. Hope you feel better."

Yes, thank you. I think I will.

Promises, Promises

2009-01-15T10:52:00.000-08:00

I found this great Japanese import place, Ichiban Kan, near my office, thanks to Gwendomama. My favorite aisle is the stationary aisle, where they have all manner of notebooks and folders, with odd little sayings on them, like "We will eat the magnificent fruit and be happy altogether."
And they sell Pocky, which is awesome and someday I will be brave enough to try the Men's Pocky.

But I think I found my favorite item so far:

Under "Lovely Dot," it says, "You who need to be relieved....how do you like it?" Although the cat silhouette is inexplicable, this is clearly a very popular sentiment because I bought the last one. Sorry.

Aidan, P.I.

2009-01-14T21:28:00.001-08:00

We have been busy reading the Boxcar Children mysteries with A. Fortunately, and unlike the Magic Treehouse series, there are tens of thousands of books in this series, so we haven't run out yet.

But now A. has decided he wants to solve a mystery. Not a stupid mystery like who moved the pillow, but one that would "take me out of the house." So I suggested he find out who's been throwing litter on our lawn. In fact, I'd just picked up an empty bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos sitting right in the middle of our lawn the other night! I know it's not ours because we're a bunch of taste wimps who can't eat flamin' hot anything.

So A. is taking his new case VERY seriously. He has decided he has three main suspects from our collection of neighbors under 15, but eliminated one because that boy doesn't eat cheetos very often. He was outside yesterday looking for clues. He didn't find any, but that's OK, because, as he points out, the Boxcar Children often have a day or two where they're baffled, then they sleep, then the next day they solve the mystery. So he's not too frustrated yet.

He asked to see the offending bag. I told him I'd thrown it away already, and he gave me a look that would whither the toughest informant.

"Well. NEXT TIME you see one, DON'T THROW IT AWAY! It might be a clue!" I promised I wouldn't.

Tonight when I returned home from work, I got the report.

A: "I still haven't solved the mystery. It's very mysterious because whoever did it hasn't done it again!"

Me: "Maybe they know you're investigating and are laying low."

A: "Hmmm. OK, come here. I have to whisper something in your ear."

I lean down, and he whispers, "I have to say this in your ear in case they're listening. I'm going to say out loud that I've given up and I'm not looking anymore, OK? But I'm really not. It's just to throw them off."

I nod wisely and give him a thumbs up.

Woe be to the person who may be eating a bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos within 2 miles of our house. Actually, I would recommend just keeping all bags of chips indoors for a while, unless you want A. shining a bright light in your eyes and threatening to haul you off to Gitmo.

I Thought I Was Watching It...

2009-01-13T18:19:00.000-08:00

Once A. was born, I did a pretty good job of removing expletives from my language. I replaced some of them with "Crap!" which is, in some circles, a swear word but I assure you it's not as bad as what I used to say.

But I realized I need to be more careful when, at a restaurant the other night, Ben got frustrated with our pleas for him to eat his dinner and cried out, "I did eat my dinner! Jesus Christ!"

Oops.

I actually managed to scrap a bit in AZ, in between cooking and crashing my dad's computer. Here's one I did of my little goofball:

Cupid's Arrow Has Pierced This 6-Year-Old's Heart

2009-01-10T20:23:00.000-08:00

Me: Hey, if we invite Ryan to Ben's b-day party (in March), then his older brother Kyle can come too and you'll have a friend to play with.

A: Yeah! And if we invite Mackenzie, her older sister Mallory can come! (note: Mallory was in A.'s class last year before she transferred to another school. Her little sister Mackenzie is in Ben's preschool class).

Me: Yeah, I guess, but I don't think Ben plays with Mackenzie very much. He thinks she's kind of rough.

A: Like Mallory was.

Me: Mallory? Rough? I remember her as a very sweet girly girl. I don't remember her as being rough at all. Was she?

A (dreamily): Well, her smile was. Her smile could drive you crazy.

Me: Oooooohhhh. I get it.

Merry Christmas!

2009-01-10T19:24:00.000-08:00

Oh, I suppose I'm a little late.

I got some great Christmas gifts. I got a flat screen monitor to replace the dinosaur cathode-ray monitor I'd been using since 1999. I also got a gift certificate for a haircut, color, facial and brow wax because I've decided 2009 is the year I give up the hippie-chick/earth-mother thing and have a Year of Grooming.

But what I use the most is a simple gift from G., a microwavable hot/cold pack because apparently I am prone to climb into bed with cold feet and then expect G's warmth to compensate. Well, no more! I have a whole major heat source right at my feet each night. In fact, I can't go to bed without it now. I climb into bed, realize I've forgotten to heat it up, and run out to the kitchen in my t-shirt and bare feet to pop it in the microwave for 4 minutes. But it's OK because as my feet are freezing in our freezing kitchen, I know I'm going to hop into bed with a hottie who will soothe my circulation-challenged feet very soon. I love it, seriously. Isn't it funny how the simplest things end up being the things we can't live without?

My Little Cartographer

2009-01-08T18:32:00.000-08:00

A. loves maps. Fortunately, in first grade each student has to make a map of each continent in the world. Once he's done with a continent, he brings the map home and we hang it up in his room. One of his favorite bed-time games is "On which continent is.....(insert country's name here)." It's actually really hard to stump him. He also often chooses his atlas for bedtime reading.

So we're at Christmas Eve dinner at my sister's house, discussing Santa's latest whereabouts according to Norad. My nephew said that he'd heard Santa was last seen in Canada. A. mused, "I wonder which island he's on. Well, I guess it wouldn't be an island. I guess it would be an archipelago."

G. and I are used to him spouting out random facts, so we nodded and mumbled, "mmmm-hmmm, an archipelago, OK." and continued eating our ice cream.

The rest of my family was stunned, then hysterical. Both my sister and her husband cried, "WHAT did you just say?" My college freshman nephew exclaimed, "I've never even heard of that! I don't even know what that is!"

A. calmly licked his spoon and explained, "It's a chain of islands that are close together but don't touch each other."

My family proceeded to quiz him on land forms and he slowly and clearly explained what constituted an isthmus and a peninsula. And, for good measure, the difference between a peninsula and a cape.

It was one of those stories that will become family lore, as A. is branded the family Keeper of Obscure Trivia. There are definitely worse things to be branded.

And when we went to Arizona, he felt the need to make a map of my father's house (because it was so much bigger than ours, I guess). My dad's name is Stew, not Stoo, by the way. And he calls him Poppy, not Stew or Stoo.

(not to scale)

2008-12-30T21:56:00.000-08:00

Has it been a week already? Geez.

We're leaving for AZ in the morning. Totally snuck up on me. I made the reservations earlier this month and then slid into some kind of denial/coping technique where I had a vague awareness that we would be traveling at some point after Christmas so I was certainly not going to think about it before Christmas.

Yikes. Now we're leaving in the morning and I have no idea what we're doing in Arizona. My father's wife is on a cruise and asked me and my sisters to go watch over my dad, who is absolutely adamant that he DOES NOT need to be babysat and we're welcome to come for a vacation, but not to take care of him. I think that's his way of saying, "I'm not paying for your trip."

So we'll be shopping and cooking, I know that much, all the while pretending that that's what we do on vacation. I think we'll visit a few resorts and show the kids the ginormous fountains and begin teaching them how nice life would be if they could find an heiress to marry. We'll visit Rawhide and scare the shit out of Ben with fake gunfire. On New Year's Eve, we'll probably fall asleep by 10pm.

The hot tub better be working, that's all I have to say. There's something we do on vacation.

2008-12-23T22:48:00.000-08:00

I've been cheating on my blog with Facebook. I'm sorry.

Here's a video of Ben's part in the Christmas play. You can't understand what the older angels are saying, but they're doing some sort of checklist to make sure they've got everything they need to go see the shepherds. Ben and Seth's lines are clear, though: "Me too."

And if you make it to the end, you'll notice that Ben is reluctant to give up his spotlight.

And here's a repeat that bears repeating: A's version of "Hark the Angels Herald Sing," from two years ago.

Trying To Keep Up With Everyone Else....

2008-12-20T22:19:00.000-08:00

The boys and I made an Elf Yourself video today and I tried to embed it here, but it got posted to my other blog. Go check it out there.