Chocolate Bunnies and Contemplation

In Catholic school, we were always told around Christmas time, "Now, you know, as good Catholics, you have to realize that Christmas is not our most important feast day. Easter is much more important."

Easter is very important in the Catholic church, because Christianity is based on the miracle of Jesus' resurrection. Without the resurrection, Jesus is just another tree-hugging liberal.

I've been looking for kid's books explaining the whole Easter thing. It's hard to find one that isn't macabre. Of course, Easter wouldn't be Easter if it weren't for that messy part about the murder. It would be nice if we could skip over the death part until he's a bit older, but the resurrection doesn't make any sense without it.

So I tell A., "Well, Jesus died, but then he wasn't dead anymore, and that's Easter. See, usually when someone dies, they stay dead. But Jesus didn't - he died and then three days later he was up and walking around and everyone was so happy to see him!" He humors me and pretends to listen, but really, if you believe in the Easter Bunny, a guy who dies and then isn't dead anymore is not that impressive.

What I'm really having trouble with, though, is that all the books I found have some version of, "Jesus died for our sins." The problem is, I either don't understand this or don't believe it. It's possible that I don't believe it because I don't fully understand it.

It was explained to us as children that because Adam and Eve ate that apple, we've all got Original Sin on our souls. So because we're sinners from the get-go, we'd go to at least purgatory, if not hell. I think they didn't say hell because they didn't want to scare us. Don't know why not - never stopped them before.

Anyway, in some sort of weird deal God made with us, Jesus came along and because he died ("for our sins"), we're saved and have a chance to get into heaven. I've heard that Jesus died so we don't have to, Jesus sacrificed himself for our sins, etc. etc.

I tried very hard to understand this trade-off, but no one could ever clearly explain it to me. I thought I must be missing some sort of Catholic gene, because the missing logic didn't seem to bother anyone else around me. I stopped asking but now I'm asking again.

Because what makes sense to me is that Jesus died to show us a different way - to show us how to react to enemies with love and integrity instead of retaliation. Is that the same thing as dying for our sins? It doesn't sound the same.

My favorite explanation of Easter takes place in a French class in David Sedaris' book "Me Talk Pretty One Day." The French class is trying to explain, in halting French, Easter to a Moroccan woman:

"It is a party for the little boy of God who call his self Jesus and...then he be die one day on two morsels of lumber....He die one day and then he go above my head to live with your father...He weared of himself the long hair and after he die, the first day he come back here for to say hello to the peoples."
"He nice, the Jesus."
"He make the good things, and on the Easter we be sad because somebody makes him dead today."
..."Easter is a party for to eat of the lamb..One too may eat of the chocolate."
"And who brings the chocolate?" the teacher asked.
..."The rabbit of Easter. He bring of the chocolate."

Then it goes into the difference between Americans, who have a rabbit deliver chocolates at Easter, and the French, who have a bell that flies in from Rome.

I am a Calif-oh-nee-an

But change is the only constant, right?

G and I decided that he'd apply for a position with Major HMO up in Portland. It's the same position he has here, but that one would be full-time. If he gets it, we're moving to Portland this summer. We've talked about it for several years, but we're finally making plans to actually do it.

The good parts:

Big Sister and Big Niece (and little grand-nephew) both live there.
All my in-laws live up there: more babysitters, and we can go home to our own house on holidays.
I've been there enough that I kind of already know my way around.
It's beautiful, especially in the summertime.
Would still have access to beach and mountains.
Cheaper cost of living.
Could get a nicer house.
Could live in a nicer neighborhood.
Kids could go to a better school.
Would have some $ for investment/retirement.
Slower pace.
Pizzacato is pretty good.
They have a good zoo.
Neighborhoods are cool.
No sales tax. Things cost what the sticker says they cost.


The bad parts:

Have to leave Middle Sister (and family) in California.
Have to leave all my friends here.
Have to leave my clients here.
Can't do private practice up there until I get some referral sources.
Have to work in an agency.
G would have to work 10 hour days.
It rains. A lot.
It snows. I've never lived in snow.
They don't let you pump your own gas.
San Francisco isn't up there.
They drive more slowly.
The freeways only have three lanes.
This is where I had my babies - they're not even going to remember CA.
I have to get an OR driver's license.
I've become attached to the flamingos at our zoo.
They don't have Barney's.
I have never lived outside of the Bay Area.
Have to leave my Ob/Gyn (women with a good Ob/Gyn would understand this)
I like this house.
I hate change.

Rapprochement

A. does lots of things that I love…but I think the thing I love the most is that when he’s angry with me or I’m angry with him, enough that he’s about to lose it, his eyes tear up and he holds out his arms for a hug.

“Mama, I need you!”

I love that he trusts me enough to know that of course I’ll hug him. Of course he can come to me for comfort, even if one of us is angry. I love that he has that basic trust in my love for him.

One of my friends complained once that her toddler got clingy during or after a tantrum. She didn’t want to give in to his requests for affection because she felt it was like rewarding him for bad behavior.

I see it so differently. Toddlers have tantrums because they can’t tolerate frustration. It’s our job to teach them to self-comfort, but to do that, they have to be comforted by us. I don’t give him whatever he’s having the tantrum about, so it’s not like tantrums work to get him what he wants. But I do comfort him because it’s really hard to be a toddler. I want him to eventually learn to internalize my comforting and do it for himself.  

Maybe I’m wrong, and maybe I’ll feel differently when Ben gets to that stage, but for now, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Sunshine and Lollipops It's Not

You know those days when you're just so happy to be a parent? You just look at your children and you know that bringing them into the world was the best thing you ever did, and you can't believe how cute and smart they are and you don't know how you got so lucky but you want to praise Allah or send a shout-out to the Goddess or whoever was responsible for blessing you with such a marvelous gift?

Today was not one of those days.

Actually, this whole week has not had a day like that in it. Both boys are sick, G. and I are sick (but not as bad) and the amount of mucus in this house is reaching biohazard levels.

A. is quite stoic and refuses to admit when he's sick.

"I'm not sick! I'm fine! :::cough-cough-hack-hack-blow-bubble-out-of-nose::::" So he's fairly low maintenance except that I have to run around after him with a kleenex all day. He refuses to keep a tissue under his pillow at night saying, "If I need to blow my nose, I'll just call you." Yeah, that's kind of what I'm trying to avoid.

Ben, on the other hand, really doesn't like being uncomfortable. So he wants to be held constantly and won't sleep for more than half an hour at a time. He doesn't just want to be held, he wants to be held and walked. And not just walked anywhere, but walked in the direction in which he is pointing. I am his personal Segway. And, you know, he's sick, so if you don't go where he's pointing, or, Gd forbid, if you try to put him down, he's all, "Waaah! I'm sick! I'm miserable and all I'm asking for is a little help getting around but you're ignoring me and fine, I'll just sit here and produce a river of mucus from my nose to drown in. And good luck paying for all the therapy bills when I'm a teenager and I remember how you neglected me!"

Having to walk Ben all the time means A. gets whiny and goofy in a bid for equal attention. So they're both whining and crying constantly and my clients want me to call them back and I just want to go far, far away and have Miguel bring me fruity drinks with umbrellas. I want to lie back in the sun and listen to my tunes and have someone else wipe the noses.

Add to that the fact that it's been raining for most of the month. So we're stuck inside most of the time and I'm cursing e-Bay's rules that won't let you sell people, especially children.

A. is working on using the potty. We finally decided that if we waited for him to show the signs that he's "ready," we'd be buying pull-ups until he was in college. So we took off his diapers at home and he finally got tired of getting his legs wet. Now he's pretty well potty trained (for pee at least), but he also insists on being naked all the time. This limits our activities just a bit.

I spend a lot of time cleaning out the potty chair, and Ben knows it's an important piece of furniture. And, by the way, here's what he thinks of his Veggie Puffs. (edited to add: he's putting them in, not taking them out)

Updates All Around

I was feeling OK about things because G and I had remained healthy although both boys were sick. Then Gd smote me for my impudence.

I gotta tell you, though, those Zicam things really work. A. and Ben are still all snotty, but I'm already feeling better.

You know, when you're anticipating being a parent, you might think about some of the gross things that come with being a parent - poop, vomit, etc. But I'm here to tell you that the grossest thing about being a parent and the best form of birth control for me is sleeping next to an baby who can't blow his nose. Arrrgh. And don't believe those nurses who'll tell you to use the bulby suction torture-thing. I know of one person in the world who can get a reasonable amount of mucus out of her baby's nose with that thing. The sound of a baby breathing through his nose despite an enormous amount of mucus will make your husband's snoring sound like sweet music. And yeah, I gave him decongenstant and we had the humidifier going full blast. I also steamed him and served him up with a nice dill sauce. Just kidding. I steamed him in the bathroom with the menthol stuff. I did everything I could think of to get his sinuses to drain.

And regarding my head: I had another CT scan yesterday and guess what? I'm released from neurosurgery care! I don't have to have another CT scan and I don't have to go back to see Dr. Clean. When we left, G. thanked the doc for helping us avoid surgery, and the doc said, "Yeah, well, I'm glad it turned out OK, but you don't really want to be that close to surgery again." I keep forgetting that I came really close to having my head shaved, my scalp peeled back, my scalp cut open and staples put in my head.

OK, now I've really gotta go wash the hair I still have.

Never a Dull Moment

Heard this morning from A's room, 3:30am:

A: Papa! PAPA!! (BTW, whom he calls has no relationship to who actually gets up and goes in)

Me (stumbling in): Whatwhatwhat? You need to go back to sleep, buddy, it's the middle of the night.

A (eyes closed): I was thinking we could make fruit salad tomorrow.

Me: Um, OK.

A: I will get the grapes and maybe some watermelon.

Me: Yeah. OK.

A (still not opening his eyes): OK. Goodnight.

Me (goes back to room and pokes G. because these are his genes that are waking me up in the middle of the night): Hey! Wake up! A. wants to make fruit salad tomorrow.

G: mumble mumble

The Cutest Thing

You know how when your friends or siblings have kids, and you don't, and they say stuff like, "Oh, you've got to see this! Look how cute this is....C'mon Taylor, give Mommy a kiss..." and the baby leans forward with their mouth open and goes, "aaaahhhh" on your friend/sibling's nose?

And you're like, "Yeah, cute. Just like every other baby I've ever seen do that."

And friend/sibling's like, "Oh dass so sweeeeet! Such a sweeeet baby!" And you think, "Damn. When did friend/sibling lose their mind?"

Well, Benster is doing the open-mouth kiss thing. And he climbs up on me at least 10 times a day, says, "aaaahhhh" and puts his head on my shoulder. Then he's off again. And I cannot get enough. It's the cutest thing I've ever seen. Seriously.

So that's as good as it gets with trying to take photos of the two of them. (papers and elements by Nikki Meador at www.scrapwithnikki.com )

Before I had kids, I used to go all out on St. Pat's Day. I tried starting an annual Irish dinner, but Irish food sucks, so I changed it to all green food. NO food coloring, either, if I can help it! We've had salad, green vegetables with herb sauce, pesto pasta, cream of various green vegetables soup (the best was roasted asparagus and leeks), and fish with dill sauce. Lime jello, too - although I concede that probably has food coloring in it.

One year I made Irish Flags - a layered drink with brandy, irish creme and creme de menthe. Yeah, yuck, but after you drink the first couple practice ones, they get better. Now that we have kids, I made do with shimp and pesto spaghetti and beer in green bottles. That's as festive as we get around here.

A. is very into holidays, so I told him that St. Patrick's Day was a day when we all wear green and eat green food. I don't want to get into the "our ancestors came from Ireland" talk because it's hard enough for him to understand that much of our family lives in another state, let alone another country. We did mention at dinner that a long time ago, St. Patrick went to Ireland and told all the people there about God and so we have a special day for him. That's it. He watches only PBS which didn't mention St. Pat's Day as far as I could tell.

So he turned to me and said, "I love being Irish." I've never told him that he's Irish. I don't think I've ever used that word around him. I asked G. if he'd been saying it, and he said No, and besides, if he'd said anything it would be that A. was Irish and Italian.

What freaks me out is that there are times I swear he's channeling my mother. When he was a baby, he'd reach up and mindlessly finger his hair, exactly the way my mother did when she was watching TV. So I said, "Wow, who told you you were Irish?" and he answered, "I don't know. I just knowed it." He's the only grandchild (on our side) with her treasured red hair, and I know she would've thought he was hilarious.

So after claiming pride in his heritage, he told me, "When you were a baby, I used to teach you stuff." OK, this was getting weird.

"Like what stuff?" I asked.

"Like how to dance while you were standing up."

Phew. My mother never taught me to dance while I was standing up. Couldn't be her.

Chicken, Rice and Blogs

Thank you, everyone who weighed in on the posts they liked best! I really appreciate it.

A. was giving me a list this afternoon of what I could make for dinner. On his list was, "Wine with potato sauce," and "Oversize chicken."

"Oversize chicken?"

"Yes. That's the new chicken that tastes like strawberries."

He then decided he wanted chicken-rice-and-sauce, which is chicken breasts with Dopiaza sauce (mmmmm),
but we didn't have any sauce. So he suggested "chicken-rice-and-flour." I told him I didn't know how to make that, and he tried to explain it to me, but I finally got him to eat chicken nuggets.

He's just trying to get out of cooking later.

Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?

So I need some input on your favorite posts here at Everyday Lunasea. Here are some that got lots of comments, but if there are any that you think were particularly memorable, like, if you remember them at all, could you let me know? I need to collect a few. It's hard for me to pick because darnit, I like 'em all.

Strange Things I Believed As a Catholic Child
Scary Kids Books
Oh, I liked this one too
You've Been Talking In Your Sleep (in which we are introduced to G.'s sleep-talking)
Congratulations, Your Baby's a Klutz
Confessions of a Neighborhood Snob

I've been drawn in by the Cult of American Idol again. I really like that several of the contestants are funny-looking this time. I really like Taylor and His Spams (the name of his future band). And Bucky's hair tonight? That's how my hair is supposed to look. I thought it was quite lovely. Chris - he's the one with the stepkids, right? I remember thinking that it was really touching that he adopted his wife's kids so he's good too. And Paris, even though she's a baby, she's pretty darned talented. But I'd bet on Katharine to be in the top two. Melissa and Kevin are going pretty soon.

Happy Birthday, Buddy

One year ago today, Fussy/Smiley Boy came into the world. On the one hand, it's gone by amazingly fast. On the other hand, it seems like he's been part of our family forever.

Little Mr. Freud

When I get home from work, A.'s already gone to bed but he's usually still awake, so we snuggle for a bit. He always asks about my clients and what they said. I give him a quick synopsis and try to answer his questions as best I can. He always amazes me - is he really interested or does he just have really good conversational skills?

A: Did you have another client?
Me: Yes.
A: And how are they doing?
Me: Well, she's pretty upset because she feels like her work is too hard.
A: Too hard?
Me: Yes.
A (thinks): Well, sometimes people can get tired of work and they don't know how to change it.

Um, you're three and a half and you don't even know what work is. Where do you come up with this stuff? Who are you channeling?

----------------------------------

This afternoon, G. was playing with A. and told him, "Pretty soon it'll be time for your nap."
A. replied, "Oh no! I think I know better than that!"

Payback

Longtime readers (and family members and friends and anyone else willing to listen to my stories) will remember that G. talks in his sleep. Last night, around 2am, A. shouted out, "Papa! PAPA!" with such intensity we thought there actually was was a monster in his room. As G. got out of bed to go check it out, A. yells, like it's an emergency, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING NOW?" I started laughing and when G. came back to bed, I whispered, "He was fast asleep, wasn't he?" G. said yes, and I said, "Yep. Welcome to my world."

The other night G. shook me to wake me up, right on schedule (between 12 and 1 am), and asked, "Are you OK? Do you have enough oxygen?"

The thing is, even if I answer him, he doesn't believe me.

"Are you SURE???"

"Yes, goddamnit, but you're not going to have enough oxygen very soon because I'm going to stuff this freakin' pillow into your mouth."

I'm Wearing Eddie Bauer Tonight

We were driving a friend home today and he said, "So, no crises this week? You guys are getting boring."

Little did we know that when we got home, I would find that the VCR that I programmed to catch the first 3 hours of the Oscar coverage would have spit the tape out and therefore, not recorded anything. It's evil and I hate it. It does stupid things like spit tapes out all the time for no reason. How sorry are you for me that I don't have an iPod, Tivo or even extended cable?

So I did watch the end of the Oscars, and I have a question - did they play music during all the speeches? It was distracting and just an overall bad idea. You could tell the winners were thrown off because you hear music during your speech, you think, "My time's up and I'mgonnatalkreallyfast." Even though I'm sure they were warned ahead of time, if you win an Oscar I'm guessing you're just trying to get up the stairs without tripping.

Donatella Versace needs to stop the plastic surgery.

Wasn't Rachel Weisz the one who was married to Macauley Culkin? OK, no. I love the internet.

Before I had kids, I used to try to see all the big nominated films before the awards. Those days are long gone, unless they start giving Oscars to Heffalumps.

OH! I forgot some firsts in my post about firsts - for the first time in 4 years, I am wearing non-nursing bras. This is the first time in 4 years that I have not been either pregnant or nursing. Yep. Dug the old VS bras out, and while they're a little small still, it's nice to wear something besides white cotton bras with flaps.

The other first is that A. is sleeping without a pacifier, finally. So now without it, A. needs more snuggling before bed, which is kind of sweet. We take about 10 minutes to rock in the glider and talk about the day. He told me while we were snuggling last night, "I'm a boy who likes to talk a lot." Yeah, I noticed. What's not sweet is that he calls us back about 8 times after bedtime to ask, "What are you doing?" and "What are you going to dream about?" He decides ahead of time what he's going to dream about. Last night he said he was going to dream about being a clock. Tonight he's going to dream about being out in the rain. Nothing like taking control of your dreams.

My Head's Feeling Roomier Already

According to my Johari window,

93% of people agree that Lunasea237 is intelligent.

So of course I'm like, "Wait a second....who doesn't think I'm
intelligent?"

Turns out everyone but G. chose "intelligent" to describe me. Hhhmph. He's just threatened.

So the CT scan looks quite good - my brain did much better this time. The clot is down from 1.9 cm to 1.1 cm. So it's almost half the original size. What pleased me most was that Dr. Clean (who we know now has 7 children, 3 of them redheaded) said, "That's better than I expected."

I told him I was still having some visual weirdness in my left eye, and he said, "Oh, I'll send you to the eye doctor. They'll test your visual field and other things. (pause) Of course, it won't help. They can't do anything, but...." Then he led me out of his office. He's a nice enough guy, but he never finishes his sentences.

This time we had to take the kids with us, and A. got to see the CT scan. But what really impressed him was a bunch of men gathered in the hall discussing how to move another CT machine in. They pulled out their measuring tapes and A. was entranced.

One of them measured the hallway and then snapped his tape back into its case, (you know, where you release the button and the tape retracts quickly into its case) which I guess is against Contractor's Code of Ethics because the other men acted like he'd painted over a window. One said, "That's YOUR tape, right? Sure am glad you didn't do that to MY tape!" accompanied by gasps and groans from the others. The next time he slowly eased it back into the holder (case?). So I was wondering, what happens if you snap it back?

It was weird explaining to A. what was happening. We were in the waiting room with a bunch of old people and I was telling A. that they would be taking pictures of my head, then we'd see the doctor. I could feel everyone's eyes on me and I wondered what they thought. Same thing in the neurosurgery waiting room - everyone was pretty old except me, G. and the kids. You could tell people were wondering what was wrong with us/me. Nobody gave us any money, though.

Tell Me What You Think....

....my blog says about me. Or what you think if you know me IRL. The problem with this window, of course, is that it's not exhaustive and it only lets you pick 6 items. But hey, give it a go. I'm curious. My Johari Window

Oh, and I get another CT scan tomorrow. I'm hopeful that the clot is much smaller. I'm feeling much more like myself this week, and I'm tired in the I-have-two-kids-in-diapers kind of way, not the my-brain-is-damaged kind of way. So I'm hopeful.

Big Week

So it's been quite the week of firsts here at Chez Lunasea.

1. Ben is crawling and cruising. He finally figured it out, a week and a half short of his first birthday. He still goes backwards most of the time, getting stuck under furniture, and still does the crawling-furiously-but-staying-in-one-place thing, and he complains most of the time. But he can make it across the floor, and can cruise around the train table, much to A.'s dismay. And he claps. That's new. I'm going to find a patty-cake marathon to enter him in because he could go all day. He grabs my hands and forces me to patty-cake against my will all the time. Since I manhandle him against his will all day long, I figure it's fair.

2. I have a nice routine during bath time - get Ben out, dry him off, get him at least in a diaper, go get A. out, wrap a towel around him, let him parade naked through the house while I get Ben in jammies. Worked great. Tonight I'm drying Ben off and A. appears, with the bath mat wrapped around him, at my side. "I got myself out of the tub!"

"How did you do that?"

"Because I wanted to get out."

"Yeah, I know why, but how?"

"I don't know."

3. A. also got himself nekkid all by himself for the first time.

4. A.'s also gotten 3 stickers for peeing in the potty. He's tired of me asking him if he wants to poop in the potty, so if he's about to poop, he fixes me with a stare until I ask him, "What?" and then yells, "I don't want to use the potty!" That's how I know I'll have to change him in a few minutes.

5. Ben eats grown-up food now. Only grown-up food. He eschews baby food, leaving me with a pantry full of organic bananas and oatmeal. He only wants to eat something if he sees us eat it. That means he'll eat Life cereal but not Cheerios. I've told him over and over that babies are supposed to love Cheerios but he's not swayed.

I think A. might be spending too much time on the preschool computer programs. While he was picking out his four books for night-night time, he pulled one off the shelf, looked at it, mumbled to himself, "No, that's not right. Try again." Then he pulled another one off, looked at it and rejoiced, "That's the right choice! Good job!"

He told me before bed tonight that we needed to say prayers. I asked him what we should say and he said, "Ga-ba A."

"Ga-ba A.?"

"Yes. And Ben."

"Ga-ba? Ga- ba. Oh....God bless A. and Ben?"

"Yes. And Papa. And Uncle Barry."

Uncle Barry gave him 6 EXTREME STEAM train DVDs at Thanksgiving, which I think is why he gets top billing. Or maybe he thinks Uncle Barry needs the extra blessing.

If you need to laugh...

..and you might, after contemplating the previous entry, watch this video. Make sure your sound is on. I promise you'll laugh too. Thanks to Busy Mom for the link.

Question

Deep question: If there was a particular date on which you were going to die, but you have a choice of either knowing about it 4-5 months in advance, or just dying suddenly on that date without warning, which would you choose?

Sorry, But I Gotta Record These Somehow...

...so I'm gonna share them with you. More conversations with A:

"Mama, did you have any dreams last night?"

"Yes, but I don't remember them. I think there was fruit involved."

"Fruit? Banana's a fruit. What fruit did you dream about?"

"I don't remember - maybe an orange."

"Oh, an orange. An orange is a juicy fruit. Can you think of other fruits that are juicy?"

"Um, grapes."

"Yes, yes! You're right! Those are juicy fruits! Now do you know one that's red?"

OK, look, dude, I went to almost 30 years of school. I don't need an oral exam first thing in the morning. He's not even in preschool and he's already the teacher.

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He's been trying to stall bedtime lately. He goes in fine, but then comes up with all kinds of sudden needs.

"Mama! Mama!"

"WHAT??" (He'd already called me back to use the potty and get cough medicine, so my patience was wearing thin).

"What are you doing in the kitchen?"

"You don't need to know what I'm doing in the kitchen. It's night-night time."

"But WHAT ARE YOU DOING??"

"Remember the spoon you just used for the medicine? I was putting it in the dishwasher. Good night."

"But I have some things to talk to you!"

"After night-night is not the time to talk, though, it's the time to sleep." But last night I came home from work after he was in bed and we had a nice little snuggle and talk in the rocker, so I knew he wanted that again. It was also his second night sleeping without a pacifier, so I knew his anxiety level was a little bit high.

"OK, what do you need to tell me?"

"I thought you were watching the 'lympics!!"

"If I ever make it back to the family room, I will watch the olympics. Or I might turn 'Dancing with the Stars' on."

(heavy sigh) "I wish I could watch Dancing with the Stars."

"Yeah, well, you didn't take a nap today so there's no way you're staying up late."

"But, but...stars don't have feet!"

"True. Good night."

"Stars can't dance! That's silly."

"Yep, you're right. Good night."

"But sometimes stars can come down to the sidewalk."

"They fall out of the sky?"

"Yes. And then they have feet. And then they can dance!"

"OK, that works. Good night."

"But Mama, I can dance. I can do dancing tricks. Like upside down. That's a good trick." He was getting desperate.

"Yep. Maybe we'll dance some more tomorrow. Good night."

"But I don't know how to go to sleep all the way!"

"Yes you do. You're a very good sleeper. You can start by lying down."

"I want more lights on."

"No, because that will make it hard to sleep. And it's sleeping time."

"It's fine. I'll be FINE."

"No. You're three years old and it's your bedtime. Good night."

The one good thing is that at least he understands what I'm saying. Ben just plays dumb when I tell him 4:30am is not an appropriate time to wake up. It's like that Gary Larson cartoon where the human is talking to the dog and all the dog hears is "blah blah blah blah blah." Ben grins his big grin at me like he's hearing "Oh Ben, you're such a cute baby when you get up early!" even though that is most certainly not what I'm saying.

Speaking of Ben, he's going to be one year old in two weeks. How'd that happen? He's still not moving around of his own accord, and appears to expect us to carry him to high school.

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Conversations with A.

This morning A. decided we needed to discuss the ottoman.  

“I think it has a screw wrong.”

“Oh, a screw is wrong, huh? What should we do about that?”

“Actually, I fink it needs to be zamined.”

“Um, what?”

“I fink it actually needs to be zamined.”

“You think it needs to be examined?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m going to move it into the kitchen and then we can cook on it.”

Good as his word, he pushed it onto the linoleum in the kitchen, and returned. He sat in Ben’s little chair, and said, “Now I will talk to you about it.”

“OK.”
“It’s in the kitchen now. We can use it to cook.”

“Um, I guess so.”

“Yeah, and the screw is still broken. But I don’t fink it’s really bad.”

“Do we need to fix it?”

“Yes, but maybe we’ll fix it a different day.”

I love these conversations because I never know what he’s going to come up with. I just wish I sometimes knew what the hell we were talking about.

A Few Random Stories

A few stories from the hospital:

There was no traditional nurses' station - the nurses worked at built-in desks along the walls of the corridor. So walking down the corridor, I walked right between these desks. They had files, binders and supplies on the shelf above the desk, and one of the bins was labeled, in really big letters: CADAVER BAGS. I had vision problems and even I could read the label and see the bags as I walked by. Don't you think they could have put them in a cabinet somewhere? I mean, do they really need such quick access?

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G and I ventured down to the vending machines one night and, hungry but trying to be healthy, I asked him to buy me some Kashi cereal. Upstairs, I found my nurse and asked if there was any leftover milk I could have. She brought in a carton, and was carrying a brownie that looked like it was leftover from a dinner tray. She said, "I wasn't sure if you wanted anything with it." But it was weird - she was holding it sort of to her side, like she didn't really want me to see it. She turned back to the door.

But I had a head trauma and figured I could be bold, so I pointed to it and said, "What's that?"

"Oh," she stared at it like, how'd that get in my hand? "It's a brownie."

Might as well go for broke. "Well. Can I have it?"

"Oh, yeah, sure."

I hope I didn't take her dessert, but hey, I had an epidural hematoma and they were waking me up every 3 hours to take my vitals. The least they could do was give me a damn brownie.

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While A. and my niece were visiting, they found the buttons at the end of the bed and pushed them all. I didn't know they did anything until an aide came in to help me unplug the pump and wrestle the IV into the bathroom. When I got up, an alarm sounded. We didn't know what was going off until the aide figured out it was the bed alarm - they set it to alert them when a confused patient who is supposed to remain in bed gets up. When she realized it was the bed alarm, she grabbed my arm and said, "That's for disoriented patients! C'mon!" and grabbed my arm and started dragging me back into the bed.

"No! The kids were playing with the bed! That's not for me! I can go to the bathroom!" They were pumping me full of fluids so the situation turned dire rather quickly with her pulling on me and me trying to free myself.

Eventually she believed me, but I was afraid I was going to have to punch her like Jack Bauer in 24.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

I asked the brownie nurse, whom I liked, what she thought of my doctor. She'd expressed some frustration with Dr. Ray of Sunshine for not allowing me any food when surgery wasn't imminent, so I figured she'd be honest. So I asked her what she thought of Dr. Clean and she said, "Well, he's been here forever." Okkkaay. I laughed. I mean, it was an unfair question.

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More good news: Today was the first day I felt like myself. I think I might actually get better. Yeehaw.

TMI about TBI

It's been two weeks since I slammed my head into the asphalt in front of our house. I had no idea that recovering from a concussion was so hard. I don't think I've really known anyone with a concussion since grade school when a kid hit his head on the closet ceiling and was out for months. I guess I thought one might get some headaches, and slow down for a few days but basically I assumed everything goes back to normal pretty quickly. I had no idea.

I've never been so tired. Even when I was pregnant and anemic it wasn't this bad. And I don't know if my brain isn't working the way it used to because of the fatigue or because it's bruised. I'm really, really irritable and I feel bad because I'm so impatient with A. I snap at him easily now, and I never used to do that. I'm frustrated because I don't know what to do with myself. What were my routines? How did I entertain the kids? My big goals are to make sure the kids are dressed and fed each day. Bathed once in a while, too. I don't remember what I was working on before I hit my head - I think I wanted to clear out the office so Ben would eventually sleep in his own room. Now I think about working on it and I have no idea where to start. Maybe I'll just go lie down for a while.

I wake up with headaches every day. I'm lightheaded a lot, and it's bad enough that I don't drive unless I have to. I feel like I have chronic low blood sugar.

And the worst part is that according to what I can find, these symptoms can last for weeks to months. And some people never recover fully at all.

I'm trying to stay positive and remind myself that things could be much worse. I'm trying to look at this as an opportunity to revise how I take care of myself. This is my chance to be more mindful and conscious. So I'm trying to make the best of it. But really, it pretty much sucks.

There is good news: It's Cadbury Creme and Caramel Egg season.

Don't Forget St. Pat's Day

I made a card for G for V-day, and asked A. to dictate what to write inside. He came up with:

"Dear Papa,
Thank you for the Christmas presents. Happy Thanksgiving. After Valentine's Day, Easter."

Got most of the bases covered there.

Que Sera Sera

So I had another CT scan yesterday, and I must say I was rather disappointed with the results. I had hoped the clot would be quite a bit smaller, but it was about the same size. While I was in the machine and the pictures came up on the screen, my hsuband "Dr." G. analyzed them and told me that it looked less dense, which would hopefully indicate that it was reabsorbing.

So an hour later in the doctor's office, Dr. Clean said, "Well, it looks about the same size, maybe a little smaller, but you can see it's less dense."

"So is that what you would expect after a week?"

"Yeah, yeah." He looks at us.

"OK. So it'll just keep reabsorbing and we don't need to get it drained?"

"I don't think so. So I'll see you back in two weeks."

"OK."

He said it could take a month before I feel normal again.

And that was that. My vision is just about back, though, and the biggest problems I'm having is that I'm lightheaded much of the time and get very tired very easily. It reminds me of being anemic and pregnant and just feeling like I barely had energy to breathe. But lying down feels wonderful and if I can lie down for a little bit each day, I do OK.

Things are different. I've slowed way down (and I wasn't all that fast before). I can only do one thing at a time and I have to be really intentional in my actions. I move more carefully and I'm slower. I sit a lot and rest. I watch A. play ("You watch me kick the ball, OK, Mama?") and we sit b y the sandbox in the sunshine. It's all really quite zen except when it's frustrating.

I saw three clients last night and had to remind myself, "You just have to sit here. You're not going to fall out of the chair. Just sit and listen." Damn, it's hard to slow down.

The in-laws leave today and we're on our own. I'm eager to get back to a small routine with the boys. It's actually been a really nice time for the grandparents and grandchildren to bond, and we learned that my MIL can wrestle A. into a half-nelson and what to do when hemorroids are a bother, according to FIL's physician.

And my MIL taught me to knit. I swore I would never knit - I don't need another hobby and it intuitively doesn't make sense to me how a skein of yarn can turn into a scarf. But I needed something to do that wasn't as taxing on my eyes, and she was here and knows how to knit, so what the hell? Look what I made: It's a thing.

And Here's Your Brain on Film

This is not mine, but it's a very close approximation to what I remember mine looking like. That bubble in the bottom right hand corner isn't supposed to be there.

3-Year-Old Coping Skills

My sister came to pick up A. and Ben at the house while we were in route to the other hospital. The next day, she took them to her house and they had a big "sleepover" with their cousin, who's only 7 months older than A.

When we all got back home a few days later, A. commented, "I had a hard few days."

Being therapist-parents, we jumped all over this. "Oh, yeah, I'll bet it was hard. What was the hardest thing for you?"

(heavy sigh) "Making dinner."

"Really. You made dinner, huh? What did you make for dinner?"

"Salmon and rice. Yeah, it was a lot of work."

"Wow. A nice dinner, even."

Hhmnph. Kid's making his own pb&j sandwiches from now on.
----------------------------------------------

Later that night, I was changing him into his jammies and we had a talk.

"Are you feeling better, Mama?"

"I'm feeling much better. Do you remember when Mama bonked her head? I'm sorry I had to be gone for a few days. I missed you a lot."

"Yeah. You had to go to the hospital."

"I did. But now I'm home. Do you remember what it was like when I bonked my head?"

"Yeah. Kinda sad and kinda scary."

"I know, it was."

"It was.....a little bit too much."

"I totally agree with you. It was definitely a little bit too much."

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Yesterday I ventured outside to watch him "ride" his bike. I use quotation marks because he refuses to use the pedals and rides Flintstone-style. He's only about 1/2 a foot off the ground so it works.

As we went out the door, he commanded, "Now, there's no falling outside!" I agreed and told him I would just sit and watch.

I sat on the curb and watched him while my father-in-law held Ben, and A. seemed so delighted by my undivided attention. He waved at me a few times, and then pulled his bike up to me at the curb.

He got off the bike, and totally spontaneously, gave me a kiss on the cheek. He'll offer his cheek to be kissed by family at night-nights and bye-byes, and he will occassionally kiss Ben's head goodnight, but he's never just come up and kissed me. It was the sweetest thing in the world.

Me and My Blood Clot, part 2

Saturday night: So I can't eat or drink anything, which is a pain. I don't mind not eating because the food here is pretty bad, but my throat is dry and I would like to sip water.

My sister brings the boys to visit. Ben's a little thrown by it all, and A. asks the nurse filling out the wipe-off board in my room, "What are you going to do to Colleen?" I guess he thought he was more likely to get an answer if he used my first name. We tell him as much as we can about how I bonked my head and the doctors have to take care of me and make me better. He and my niece really like my mechanical bed.

I go up and down (nice transition - I mean in mood, not the bed). Tonight is a bit down. Most of the time I'm able to focus on how OK I feel and how everything's going to be fine. Tonight I'm annoyed. I was just playing soccer with a three-year-old, for heaven's sake! Part of me wants them to just go in and fix this.

G. climbs into bed with me and we notice that we haven't had this much time alone together in forever. I ask him if he thought I was overreacting when I said we needed to go to the ER, and he admitted he did. But he rallied and was glad we did. While I was in the ambulance on the way to the neuro center, he said that he decided he could deal with this one of two ways: he could get really anxious about everythihng, or he could turn it over to God. So he imagined me in the lotus position sitting in God's lap and that was calming. I thought so, too, so I closed my eyes and climbed up into God's lap.

Sunday a.m.: First doctor (let's call him Dr. Clean because he's bald and has an earring) returns. He says it's up to us if we want the craniotomy. It would take care of the pressure and relieve the pain faster, but it would be, you know, brain surgery.

Part of me thinks, "There's something in my brain that shouldn't be there - get it out." But most of me says "No, let's not go in there if we don't have to." And let's keep the hair. I'm finally getting it back after losing over half of it from childbirth.

We have to pry his recommendation out of him, but he finally says that he would recommend against surgery, and he would avoid it if it were his wife or daughter. So we agree. He also says I have to stay at least another day. G. arranges for his parents to arrive the next morning, and goes to get the house ready, do some grocery shopping and visit the boys at my sister's. I can eat and drink again, so G. brings me some coffee, Cheese Nips and pretzels. Perfect.

I’m on percocet, have a small blind spot just left of center in my vision, which is annoying when I try to read or type. It’s hard for me to see the whole word at once, so it’s hard to catch typos. I can’t access the internet here in the hospital, so I can’t do any compulsive Googling of epidural hematomas and craniotomies, which is probably good. But I also can’t blog or amuse myself with random surfing.

Sunday 4pm: The Super Bowl's on, but I'm having trouble concentrating. . It's still 0-0 so I guess I haven't missed much. I close my eyes and visualize lots of little scrubbing bubbles wiping away the clot, singing “Getting Spongy” from JoJo’s Circus. The nurse just walked by and said, “Oh, I have a terrible headache!” I said, “Tell me about it.”

I take a little walk down the hall, trying to think of words to my new song, to the tune of "Me and My Shadow:"

Me and my blood clot
Walking down the corridor
Just me and my blood clot
I don't want you anymore.

Most of the people on this floor are pretty old. But the old lady next door is reading a book and I envy her. I don’t think I could read a book right now. The blind spot is too distracting. My TV picture is all green, too. That’s annoying.

Sometimes I wonder if this will change my life in some way. Will my perceptions/priorities change? Will I remember this as a very scary time? Is this gonna turn out to be a spiritual experience? Or as a blip on the radar screen? I don’t really know how to put it in perspective yet. Everyone around me seems very concerned, and the doctors seem very surprised that I’m as clear as I am given the size of the clot. Well, hey, maybe I just don’t use that part of my brain very often.

I just want to be back for my kids. I want to play with them and take them places again. I can’t drive for a while (guess it would be good to get the vision thing working before I attempt that). I want to plan my one-year-old’s birthday party.

G. said last night that he got probably the best sleep he’s gotten in months. I went to roll over once, and he jumped up and yelled, “Hey hey hey! Be careful!” I guess he has some justification now. He didn’t remember it this morning, of course.

The Super Bowl's over and I’m watching Grey’s Anatomy . The guy just went to the OR with a “temporal epidural hematoma” – hey! I know what that is! I’ve got an occipital one! The ER dr. told me that if I was going to get one of these, the back of the head is the best place – you don’t want a temporal or frontal one.

Oh, and now there’s a bomb (unexploded ammunition) in another patient and they’re evacuating the hospital while my hematoma twin has a scalp flap open on the table (oh, and his wife’s in labor upstairs). This guy’s definitely worse off than I am.

Occassionally, very rarely actually, I have a minor hit of, “geez. This is serious.” I watched the woman across the hall from me get fed because she can’t control her arms. This guy in the show is getting the operation I decided not to get. ‘Course he was having some trouble speaking, and probably other things were wrong, too. Many people who have that operation are having tumors removed.

“I have a guy with his brain exposed on the operating table and he will die if I close him up in this condition.” Grey’s Anatomy is probably not the best show to watch while you’re in the hospital.

9pm: I’m watching Family Guy because laughter is the best medicine, right? This show was a lot funnier before I had a brain bleed.

I notice that I’m not as quick at catching typos, which is probably because of the vision thing. But I’m really scared that my cognitive abilities have changed. What if I’m sitting with a client and I’m at a loss for words (something that would be very unusual, I assure you)? It’s sort of like being terribly sleep deprived, except when I can’t remember something or seem slower at some decision than usual, I wonder if it’s the meds, my mother-of-little-kids flakiness, or a brain injury.

To be continued, again...

Play by Play

Friday evening 5pm:

I go to kick the soccer ball, my foot slides over the ball, my feet fly out from beneath me and I fall backwards on the asphalt. My head goes TWACK, hard (which I keep having flashbacks to, by the way). Ouch. I hold it for a second, and realize I can see and move, so I stumble over to our neighbor's house and ask them to come outside. They give me an ice pack, and sit with me until G. gets home. I rest, but the pain doesn't subside and I start throwing up.

7pm: to ER. Have to sit in the waiting room for over an hour. I feel like I have the flu. The boys are losing it, so they finally find a gurney for me and park me in the hall by the quiet room where the boys can sit. The Dr. says he thinks it's just a concussion but orders a CT scan just in case.

10:00 pm: Boys have had it. G takes them home and I go to get the CT scan. I think as I'm going in..."Well, if by chance I have an undiagnosed brain tumor, at least they'll catch it."

10:30 pm: Dr says to person on gurney in front of me: "Hey! Got half your blood tests back and they look great!"

Then he walks to me and his face gets more serious. He speaks slowly, and I know immediately it's not good news. I think, "Crap. I do have an undiagnosed brain tumor." But no, I have a skull fracture, but what's more concerning is that I'm bleeding into the lining under the skull - an epidural hematoma. He's talked to the neurosurgeon at the center 20 miles away, and he wants me transferred to the ICU there to evaluate me for surgery. "You're kidding," I say. I can't believe it.

The nurse is a genial fellow, and I'm joking with him. Then I think, "Don't do that! It's always the cheerful, coherent patient that ends up crashing suddenly and becomes a Sobering Reality for the staff! I've watched enough ER and Scrubs to know I was the patient marked for tragedy in the first 5 minutes of the show.

Greg gets a neighbor to look after the boys and asks my sister to come to the house to take over and returns to the ER. He goes to look at the CT scan. I asked if the bleeding looked big, and he stammered, "Well, you know, you can see it, but it's kind of...it's there but...it's not that big." I can tell he doesn't want to tell me how big it is.

12:00am: They send me in a ambulance to the other hospital. The paramedics are also genial, but they are watching me very closely. I get taken to the ICU, where everyone says I don't look sick. I pass the neuro test with flying colors, except for some blurriness in my vision. The doctor says he doesn't think I'll need surgery, but I will have to stay for a couple of days. The nurse wakes me up every couple of hours to ask me if I know where I am and what day it is. I take a wild guess that it's the 4th, and fortunately I'm right. Greg sleeps in a chair next to the bed. The doctor says that I can eat and drink since it's unlikely I'll need surgery.

7 am: Nothing's about my status has changed the next morning, so I'm transferred to the neurosurgery floor. I get another CT scan, and a new doctor comes in a few hours later to report the results. Let's call him Dr.Ray of Sunshine. He walks in and gapes at my food tray. "I wouldn't be eating that." He says the clot is measuring a little bigger, but it could be a measurement error between this scan and the first hospital's machine. He seems to think it's more likely that I'll need a craniotomy. He says that by eating, I've increased my risk of aspiration dramatically and if I need emergency surgery, G. "would have to make some tough choices." He says "You look really good and clear, I mean, it's amazing, but still..."

I say that I've been clear for a while now and isn't that kind of unlikely to change? He shrugs and says, "Well, you've heard of the lucid interval, right?" Yeah - that period right after a brain injury when the patient seems coherent and not badly hurt, then they end up falling into a coma or something. I say "I'm probably out of the danger zone for that though, aren't I?" He replies, "You could be an outlier." Oh, shut up. The other doctor said I was one of those disgustingly healthy people who just do remarkably well. Well, great, but I'd rather be normal than extraordinary. That would make me feel less like a walking time bomb.

Then Dr. Ray says that he has low blood sugar, so I offer him some juice from my tray, since I can't eat it anymore. He opens it and spills it all over his shirt. I ask when he'll be off duty, since my confidence in his surgery skills are slipping. He laughs. He leaves, and G and I are freaked out again.

To be continued....

So How Was YOUR Weekend?

A very quick version: Fell on Friday while playing soccer with A. - hit the back of my head very hard on the asphalt. Started throwing up and went to the ER - the CT scan showed a skull fracture and some bleeding into the lining of the brain. They transferred me to a hospital about 20 miles away with a better neuro unit, and I spent the night in the ICU. Besides a little blurred vision (which is making it hard to catch typos) and a headache, there are no other neuro symptoms. So I spent the rest of the weekend in the regular neurosurgery unit. Didn't need a craniotomy - thank god, I was having trouble imaging a hairstyle that would cover up a big swatch of shaved head.

Now I'm home with instructions to return if anything changes - the bleeding appears to have stopped, and the clot will reabsorb on its own, eventually. So I'm on percocet and steroids, which help a lot. I kept a diary in the hospital, so I'll be compiling the whole story over the next couple of days. Overall, I really think I'll be OK. All things considered, I'd rather not have a brain bleed, but you know, it could be a whole lot worse.

Random Friday Bits

1. A's new playground game: take off your clothes and throw them down the slide. Fortunately for everyone, it's chilly out, and a hat, scarf, jacket and shoes have been enough to throw so far. When it gets warmer, though, watch out for the streaking little redhead.

2. We went to the Garden Railroad train show last weekend, along with every other 2-7 year old boy in the region. We met Harlan and his trains, who said, "It's good you're getting them started early. I didn't start till I was four. Wasted three years. I'll never get those three years back." He actually wasted four years, but I wasn't going to argue. Aidan was in engine heaven.

3. Model trains are fine, and I appreciate the work it takes to put up a good set. But then you watch it go around and around and around, and that's where the hobby loses me. Next year I'm going to bring a book and park A. and Ben next to the tracks. I'll bet they could watch them for at least 3 hours.

4. Why do you have to ask for butter now at KFC? If I'm paying for a biscuit, the butter should be automatic.

5. Ben continues to get up at 4:30am rarin' to go. This is what I get for asking for a baby who sleeps more than 3 hours in a row. A. got up at least twice a night until he was 18 months. Ben sleeps straight from 7:30pm to 4:30am. But, A. loved to nurse and I could always get him back down easily. Ben is much harder to get back down when he wakes up, and actually rarely falls back to sleep. I didn't realize this was the trade-off and I'm not sure which is worse.

6. We're starting the potty-training "encouragement" with A. He's three and a half, and we've finally faced the fact that he is not going to show any signs of "readiness." He has never cared about being poopy or wet, and apparently, so the assertion that it's nice to have clean, dry pants is actually a matter of opinion.

We want to avoid a power struggle, so we just encourage him to use the potty, and when something lands in it, he gets a sticker. We don't force him and if he says "no," we say "fine." We searched all over town for special Thomas the Moody Tank Engine stickers to put on his special chart.

So far we've succeeded in getting him to pee twice this week. Last night he pushed, but no poop came out while on the potty chair. It came out just fine in the diaper, though, and I think he thought he should have gotten a sticker for effort. "Because I pooped really hard!" he complained. Well, yeah, but it *has* to land in the potty. I'm sorry I'm being so hard-nosed about this, buddy, but we've got to draw the line somewhere. I'll keep y'all posted because I know you'll want to know.

Help Me Win Here

Here's how it works: You use Blingo, which is powered by Google, for your web searches. Every hour, they give away random prizes to searchers. In the last hour, they gave away an iPod nano. If you sign up through my referral, and you win something, I win it too. And so on, and so on. BusyMom won an iPod shuffle and some other stuff, and I've tried Blingo's search engine and it's fine, so I thought it was worth a shot. But you may remember my previous post where I noted that I rarely win stuff, so I'm counting on you guys. Win some love for me, would ya?

There's a Porn Site for Every Word in the Dictionary...

...and probably every first name, too.

Got this off WyoWoman's blog. You do an image search on Google for each prompt, and post what you find.

My Hometown:


Danville, CA: Ham Radio capital of the world


















My first name:


c 2005 kjo








My grandmothers' names: Adelaide and Ellen



This is a BMX park, not another planet.








I managed to find a photo of my actual grandmother online!








Favorite Food : Cereal


This is a candle. With, it seems, a particularly shiny tablecloth. You can find find more candles and fake food here.






Favorite Drink: Coffee




Coffee Kool-Aid: otherwise known as instant coffee (except that this makes 2 quarts of it).














Favorite Scent: Vanilla



Ben and Jerry they're not.










Favorite Song: I Melt With You




Wow, this fondue's so thick, the forked food just floats on top. Can you imagine what that stuff would do in your stomach?

But It Was a Pretty Big Salame

I don't win contests. I just don't have any luck in the lottery-type ones, and I never have enough skill for the skill contests. The last time I won anything was freshman year of high school, when I won a salame at the mother-daughter fashion show/luncheon.

And that's the last time I remember winning anything, except for one baby shower about 10 years ago where I cheated. Yes, that's right, my losing streak drove me to cheat at a baby shower. Don't judge me.*

I am good at a lot of things, but I'm never quite good enough. Lest you think this is just a self-esteem issue, I'll give you several heart-wrenching examples of how true this has been:

1. Grade School: I decided to actually work on my science fair project one year. I'd heard over and over from the science teacher that I could do better if I "applied" myself, so I decided to try. I worked really hard on my project, which was the now-classic "growing plants in different conditions." They gave awards to the top 5, and I was, of course, number 6.

2. Grade School: There was a club called the "Junior Altar Society" where 7th-8th grade girls got to clean the church on Saturday mornings. Yeehaw! You had to be asked, and most girls in my class were. I was not. Who knows why? Why would they do a ceremony where they hand out engraved invitations to girls to get them to clean the church?? It wasn't something we earned, it just happened, and I was one of maybe three girls who didn't get asked.

In a display of chutzpah that still impresses me, I ignored the snub and showed up that first Saturday anyway. I told my mother I'd been invited and I told my friends the invitation had been mistakenly sent home. The first Saturday I blithely ignored the moderator's confusion as she searched the roll list for my name. I smiled gracefully as she wondered what to do (since I think she knew I hadn't been invited), and finally, in defeat, wrote my name in on the bottom. Then I went and got the vacuum to start cleaning the altar.

3. High School. In one of my crazy spells Junior year, I decided I needed to beat my best friend at something. She excelled at pretty much everything she did. There was no way I was going to attempt calculus, so I took Anatomy/Physiology with her. I was used to being a B to her A, but I wondered what would happen if I really "applied" myself. Anatomy/Physiology was a very tough class taught by a med student who looked like Tom Selleck and had the social skills of a house fly. There were straight lectures, tons and tons of memorization and 15-page tests that asked us to recall absolutely everything. He was not into "making the material come alive," so to speak. I mean, beyond the way physiology and anatomy sort of is alive, already.

Anyway, I worked my ass off. I thought I had a chance at the Physiology award, which excited me since I'd never won an award (see above) for any subject, although I did well - I just never did the BEST.

So, at the end of the semester, the cumulative scores for both sections were posted. Unfortunately, some chick had a photographic memory and beat me for the top score. There were 700 points possible. She got 670. I got 650. The next score down was 520. Do you think maybe they could have sprung for two Physiology awards at the end of the year , since we were pretty close and the next 40 students were over 100 points lower?? Nope. Miss 670 got the award and I got zilch. I did beat my friend, though, so all was good.

Believe it or not, we're still friends. She's very forgiving and ignored my craziness. I also beat my lab partner, who is now a very successful OB/GYN.

4. When I was a freshman in high school, I heard about the National Honor Society. I heard you had to be nominated to get in. What an honor that would be, I thought - and I wouldn't have to be the best, I just had to be good enough since they took about 10-15 girls (this was an all-girls high school) per year. When I saw the girls that got in, I thought, I could take them.

Most nominations happened in junior year. I volunteered, did community service, etc., all motivated by the hope of getting into the NHS my senior year (yeah, I know - how selfless). I was sooo excited to get the application. I'd been "nominated!" Now I just had to apply. I had tons of student council service, etc., and I poured over the application to make sure I included everything. This was going to be the pinnacle of my high school years - this would make it all worth it.

You can see where this is going. I didn't make it. I was a hundredth of a GPA point too short (3.67 as opposed to a 3.68). The nomination letter said that my grades had qualified, but there was some arcane formula, and they could only take the top 20% of the people who applied, so I could meet the requirements and still not get in.

But here's the worst part: ALL my friends made it. EVERY SINGLE ONE. I literally had no one to eat lunch with on the Thursdays when they had their meetings. And what hurt the worst was that I'd wanted it more than any of them - most of my friends were not very impressed with it and didn't care, but accepted because it looked good on the college apps. And many of them didn't have half the service I had, but they did have slightly higher GPAs. I remember approaching the moderator, Sr. Marcella, rather hysterically and asking if there was anything I could do to get in or to get her to reconsider. I couldn't exactly bribe her, but I thought maybe we could, you know, massage the numbers a little. Can't we weigh the student council stuff a little heavier? I mean, my friend Sally had good grades, but didn't do any service at all, and she got in. Sr. Marcella was a little freaked out by my intensity and said, "Sorry, no," and bolted for the door.

I cried. I cried for days. I cried during class. I cried at home. I couldn't stop. I couldn't eat or sleep. All my friends would wear the gold cord around their necks at graduation and I wouldn't. I had never felt like my efforts amounted to so little. I was completely crushed. I can still feel the weight in my heart, over 20 years later. For the next year, on the first Thursday of every month, I skipped eating and snuck into the library so I wouldn't have to search for someone to eat with and it wouldn't be so obvious I was alone. I eventually stopped crying and was able to act like I didn't care, but I felt so excluded and worthless.

One last triumph, though - at our last assembly when it came time to hand out the cords and gold tassels (for members of the Calif. Scholarship Federation, which was open to anyone with a GPA over 3.0) to graduating seniors, the administrators were so flustered and ill-prepared that when they called my name and I went to the front, the vice principal glanced at me and said, "I think she gets everything!" I didn't correct them when they handed me a gold cord and gold tassel. So there, Sr. Marcella and NHS.

5. There was a weird ritual in my high school that involved inviting a group of girls to spend the night at the convent with the sisters. I'm not sure how they did it, but I remember that I didn't find out about it until after it happened and we heard that 1. the nuns ate popcorn while they watched TV, and 2. they had a closet full of feminine hygeine products. It had never occured to us that nuns would get their periods like normal people.

This time, not all of my friends got invited, so I didn't feel quite so lonely in my exclusion, but enough did get invited that I wondered what the hell I had to do to get noticed. On the other hand, maybe it was a recruitment thing and they were smart enough to write me off early.

6. The next thing I wanted badly was to be an RA in our college dorms. I won't bore you with all the details, but suffice it to say that I made it all the way to the final round for three separate dorms, none of which finally selected me.

7. The following year, I started sorority rush and dropped out. I said it was because I didn't like the fake smiles and cheery small talk, which was true, but the real reason I dropped out was because I knew my history and decided I wasn't going to put myself in a position to be so painfully rejected again.

8. Now, to be fair, I have to admit that in grad school, I applied for competitive internships and got them, so it's not like I always lost everything. I had confidence in my clinical and interviewing skills. But if I don't have a WHOLE LOT of confidence in something, I don't go for it. I stay out of competitions and contests. I've wanted for a while to apply for some regular writing gigs, but haven't had the guts.

This is all a very long, sad, self-pitying way to tell you that I won the Bay Area's Best Baby Blog award for January by Parent's Press. It's a new thing, and I think they're going to award it every month. But I won it first. And yeah, I shared it with someone else. The actual copy in the paper says "We had a tie vote among staff members judging the contest." I don't know if it actually came to blows, but I'm glad someone had my back and I didn't come in second this time.

*Extra points if you can tell me what recent TV sitcom that quote comes from.

Confusion in My Home

The St. Matthew's Prayer Rug has found its way back to my house. Nothing's changed, except the envelope is now addressed to "friend or current resident" instead of "Someone Connected to This Address." My question is...why do they want me to send the rug back in their postage-paid envelope? Are they assuming that if people believe that sending it back will get their prayers answered they'll surely think including money with the rug will speed up their request? 'Cause although they say another address needs this rug Right Now!, I've received these twice and am pretty sure they're fresh, not used, rugs. And by "rugs," of course, I mean "pieces of paper." So why pay the postage to get them all back? I suppose one $10 check, though, would make up for quite a few of the non-payers.

This time I did the "gaze softly at Jesus' face" thing to see if his eyes opened as promised. They sort of do, but it's in that no-iris-or-pupil way of Greek statues. It's creepy and Jesus can keep his eyes closed, thank you.

I like that I can pray for "Confusion in My Home." I would, but we're full.

I think God may be laughing right now. "Oh, you humans crack me up. Like I haven't got anything better to do with my time except keep track of who's holding this piece of paper on their lap for the right amount of time and then sending it back. No wonder I can't straighten out that Middle East thing." With big ol' God-size eye rolls. I think it's the same face he/she makes whenever Pat Robertson opens his mouth.

::Cough Cough::::

My nomination for most brilliant ad campaign ever: Ricola Mystery Cougher. The idea is that if people offer the mystery cougher, who could be anywhere in the US, a Ricola throat lozenge, they'll win up to a million dollars. The great thing about this is that random coughers will be offered Ricolas all across the nation, think, "Hey! These are good!" and then buy them.

I use Ricolas when I'm coughing, and I have a cough right now. So I'm going to go around town coughing and hope that I get lots of free Ricolas. I like the Cherry-Mint best, if you happen to see me.

If Tiffany ever decides to do a campaign like this, I'm so there.

Um, Thanks

For A's birthday and Christmas, we usually get a bag of Scholastic books from some generous family friends. We found "Yikes! Lice!" in this year's Christmas gift. G. started reading it to A. this morning and quickly changed books because although it's a good explanation for kids who have to deal with it, this story about bugs in their hair will give nightmares to kids that don't. We're assuming (hoping?) they don't look terribly closely at the titles they give because last time there was a book about a girl who put on too much makeup. I have a photo of G. reading it to A., both scowling with the effort of figuring it out. Maybe next time there'll be a bedwetting book.

A.: I don't want to go to bed! Are you and Papa going to bed?
Me: No, we're going to watch the West Wing first.
A: Oh! The West Wing! I love the West Wing! It's my favorite!
Me: Riiiight. Nice try.

A Little Intelligence Can Be Dangerous

Aidan has just enough vocabulary and language knowledge to sound like he’s participating in a coherent discussion, but not enough to actually make sense.

We made chocolate chip cookies tonight.

Me: Are your hands clean?
A: This hand is clean. This hand is a little clean. It’s OK, Mama. I know how to bake.
Me: Yeah, well, let’s wash your hands anyway.
……..
After mixing the dough with a wooden fork, I took a knife out to scrape the fork clean.
Me: The dough sticks to the fork, so we have to clean it off.
A: Wow! This is my very first…um…knife!
Me: Were you about to say these were your first cookies? Then you remembered all the cookies we made before Christmas.
A: Are these your first cookies?
Me: No.
A: Are these Papa’s first cookies?
Me: No, we’ve all had chocolate chip cookies before.
A: Chocolate chip cookies??!! Wow! I love those! Those are my favorite!
Me: Oh, good. So now we put them in the oven.
A: Ok, you roll out the dough first and then I’ll roll out the dough.
Me: No, these are chocolate chip, not rolled cookies. They bake in these little balls on the cookie sheet.
A (shaking head): Oh, no, not a cookie sheet.
Me: No?
A: No. You can’t say that, Mama.
Me: Um, OK. What would you call it?
A: It’s a cookie baking thing that you bake cookies on.
Me: Yeah. OK.
…………..
A: Oh! I can’t wait to hardly them!
Me: You can hardly wait to eat them?
A: Yeah!
Me: Let’s see how long we bake them. It says longer for 2 dozen, shorter for 3 dozen. How many do we have? (counts) We have 28.
A: 28? Oh no, that doesn’t sound good.

He always sounds reasonable enough, and can be quite emphatic.

In other news: He now has an office. It’s behind the easel in the corner by the floor lamp. According to him, it has a computer, two phones and a lamp. It also has a whole bunch of thank you cards that I’m trying to get him to draw on so we can send them out. He’s hoarding them and says he needs them for his work. He’s turning into a workaholic, though. When I try to change his diaper, he yells desperately, “No! I have to do my work! No! Please! I have to do my work!”

G. just threatened A. that if he didn’t cooperate in getting his jammies on, we’d eat all the chocolate chip cookies tonight while he slept. Damn, it worked.

Happy Birthday!

So today is Beastarzmom's birthday! We went and had lunch with her and got to see her office, which according to A., was the highlight of his day. All her coworkers admired the boys and told me they were gorgeous, which I, of course, appreciated. One even told me the story of her daughter who refused to perform certain motor tasks for the longest time as a baby. I didn't confirm it, but she's in her thirties now and I assume she walks on her own. Anyway, Happy Birthday, Middle Sis! Even though you're not celebrating.

In other news:
I like to go to bed around midnight. I'm a night person. Ben is a morning person. He likes to get up at 4:30 am, and boy, is he recharged and refreshed! He thinks the pre-dawn time is the best time of the day to exercise. One of us will have to change his/her habits. Guess who it's going to be.

Man, I should have health crises with my kids more often (just kidding, God). Readership has doubled in the last week. Thanks for checking in, everyone. Even if you're not following orders and delurking.

OK, I'm going to bed a full half-hour before midnight. I expect to awaken fully recharged and refreshed.

'Twas Three Weeks After Christmas

Improvised by A. this morning, as he circled the family room and waved his arms around (I grabbed my notebook). We've been reading "A Visit from St. Nicholas," and I guess he's watched Mickey's A Christmas Carol and some Thomas' Snowy Surprise, too.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds
with creatures not stirring
not even a head.
It was the ghost of Christmas Eve!
They jumped on the bed
and jumped out of sight!
He goed in the chimney
And sprang to the necklace!
With one little hint
Rolled on through the cloud
With one little scent.
But it was Christmas Eve
And Santa came with a bent!
I'll give you a hint.
He goed through the cloud,
(here it
goes into less of a poem and more of a
narrative):
Thomas springed off the winter of Christmas Eve.
It was Santa Claus!
At Santa's workshop he worked his roof off.
He was buzzing around the Christmas tree.
(back to verse)
It was so long though,
with one little hint.
He was tired with white
Santa Claus or St. Nick.
He didn't know anything
Not one little hint.
He went through the clouds
With a little mist of scent.
Here is 25 dollars of train!
He was covered with some little scent.
He sprung through the night
With Skittles and went.

Sometimes he sings. Last night he was singing a very up-beat, inspiring number: "You can do anything you want to do. You can be a plant or a train. You can...." yada yada. We got it on video, thank goodness. He doesn't necessarily need an audience in place, but it's a bonus. Last night he liked being taped, and whenever G. would think he was finished and start to turn away, A. would yell, "Here comes another song!" like the music was overtaking him and he was helpless under its spell.

I don't know where the "mist of scent" comes from. Or the "not one little hint," either. But I liked that Santa was bent and that he sprang to his necklace and worked his roof off. I think A. really captured the spirit of the season.

Congratulations! Your Baby's a Klutz!

So we went to the neurologist today. It took forever to find parking in the stupidly small parking lot, and I confess I thought, "Hey, maybe at least we can get a handicapped parking sticker out of this."

We were waiting in a little room next door to his office while some clinician stood in his doorway and whined to him about being overworked. Apparently this guy is physician-in-chief of the hospital too, and so he gets whined to a lot. It was annoying me since it was already half an hour after our appointment time, we were sitting there trying to contain our anxiety and she's whining about how someone overloads her with work. I was about to step out and say, "Excuse me, we're waiting to find out if our son has cerebral palsy, could you shut the f*** up and let the doctor come in and look at him?"

So he finally came in. He played with him a little while Ben sat on my lap, then he grabbed him, swung him around in the air and almost threw him into the sink. I was a little startled and thought, "Gee, he's playing kind of rough." Turns out he was testing his reflexes and Ben should have thrown his arms out in front of him, as you or I would do if a doctor threw us into the sink. He didn't throw his arms out, but he did get upset, which I thought was a perfectly reasonable response to being thrown at the sink.

The bottom line, though, is the neurologist doesn't think Ben shows any signs of CP or other neurological disorder. His coordination and reflexes are delayed for 10 months, so it's not like we're imagining that, but he thinks Ben will work it out on his own. And if he doesn't loosen up by the time he's a year or so, we can try physical therapy. The doctor doesn't think there's anything really wrong other than he's uncoordinated. Looking at us and A., he certainly comes by it honestly. So we're all very relieved.

Tag I'm It

Woah - got tagged last month by Corndog and just realized it. I'm not used to people tagging me so I don't even notice when they do. Duh. But here we go:

Seven things to do before I die:
1. Visit the Alps
2. Research my ancestors in Ireland
3. Get under 29% body fat.
4. See one of my kids get married.
5. Hold a grandchild.
6. Go white-water rafting.
7. Write a book.


Seven things I can (or will) not do:
1. Eat raisins in bulk
2. Go scuba diving
3. Have unproductive friendships
4. Believe that God hates Gays
5. Go bungee jumping or skydiving
6. Wear high heels
7. Turn a cartwheel

Seven things that attract me to my spouse:
1. Sense of humor
2. Playfulness
3. He's a great dad
4. He's a great son
5. Kindness
6. He looks really cute in knee-length denim shorts.
7. He can explain weird football rules to me.

Seven things I say most often:
1. Oh my goodness.
2. Seriously?
3. You know what I'm saying?
4. Be gentle.
5. Leave your brother alone.
6. We're just about out of time for today.
7. You're a poopy boy.

Seven books (or series) I love:
1. Harry Potter
2. Operating Instructions
3. Descent to the Goddess
4. Psychotherapy Grounded in the Feminine Principle
5. Everyday Sacred
6. Mommy Track Mysteries by Ayelet Waldman
7. The Red Tent

Seven movies I watch over and over again:
1. It's a Wonderful Life
2. A Christmas Story
3. Finding Nemo
4. Thomas Helps Out
5. Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas
6. Wiggly Christmas
7. Airplane

The Day After Yesterday but Before Tomorrow

We have an appointment tomorrow with a pediatric neurologist. There was a cancellation and we grabbed it - but as G. pointed out, it IS Friday the 13th. Good thing we're not superstitious, knock on wood.

Today was a good day (damn, I'm already talking like the mother of a special child). Ben got up on all fours if I braced his feet. I suppose he had no choice as I was shoving his knees under his body. "See? See? He's almost crawling! He can do it!"

I also taught him to hold up his arms when I say, "How big is Ben???" about 10 times. It could be chance, but I'm thinking it proves he's totally normal. No chance of mental retardation, see? I even caught it on video. Poor guy passed out at 7:30pm without fussing at all because he was so exhausted from proving to his mother that he was OK. He was smiling when I put him down. "Thank God. Now maybe she'll leave me alone."

Do all parents awaiting a diagnosis do this? Do they do stuff to prove to themselves how normal their kid is? I mean, what is that? Ben is Ben, diagnosis or no diagnosis. He's the same kid he was last week. And he'll walk when he walks and talk when he talks. I mean, once your child is delayed, "normal" is kind of useless and you just have to take your kid for who he is and what he can do. I want to be all zen and "hey, God will take care of us and what's meant to be will be." But yanno what? I'm not all zen. I'm pretty positive, and I do think we'll figure it all out and I'm just grateful he doesn't have a life-threatening disease. But I also hope he doesn't have CP. I'm sorry to all the people who have it and live fulfilling lives. I know you're there. I'm just not in acceptance mode yet.

I'm hoping like crazy that he will need a bit of physical therapy and we'll all need to do yoga with him and he'll be as good as anyone on the Tiny Tots soccer team. I don't want him to be great - I just want him to be right in the middle. Not the best, not the worst. I was the worst (long story, 'nother post) and it sucked. And I don't have any sort of neurological disorder. I just had an overprotective mother who wouldn't let me do anything. And I was short, which for some reason equaled "uncoordinated" in the minds of all the "captains" who picked teams.

I guess that's true even if he isn't delayed. A. took 15 months to walk because he was quite happy with crawling for a long time. Right now, he's almost 3.5 and he still rides his bike Flinstone-style because he doesn't want to try the pedals. The 1.5-year-old next door can use her pedals. I mean, we're not exactly athletic-scholarship-breeding people.

For the first time today, we faced the question of what we tell people. Our neighbor babysits two kids - one is the infamous W., and the other is his little sister, S., who was born the same week as Ben. We were playing outside and our neighbor told us that S. was cruising and had taken a couple steps. Normally, I'd say something like, "Yeah, Ben prefers to have us move him. It hasn't occurred to him that he could be the master of his own destiny." I'd cluck my tongue at his sense of entitlement.

Now we have the possibility that he's not normal, and I don't know what to say. It stops me cold. Do we tell her? What's she supposed to say? We don't even know what's going on yet.

OMG - I was just channel surfing, which takes about 10 seconds since we got rid of extended cable, and Fiddler on the Roof is on PBS! One of my all time favorite musicals! There's Starsky! Or is it Hutch? Oh, it's Sunrise, Sunset - tell me that doesn't make you cry. At my sister's wedding, my dad and BIL's dad sang this song, so that my dad would sing, "When did she get to be a beauty?" and his dad would sing, "When did he get to be so tall?" I mean, tell me you wouldn't be bawling. I was 10 years old and you can hear me on the tape bawling throughout the ceremony. I'm 40 years old and they still bring it up.

OK, anyway. What do I say? "Oh, Ben might have CP. We don't know yet." I have no idea how to bring it up casually, but I guess that' s not my biggest concern right now. I don't even know if I will have to say it at all. I'm not worried about it, I'm just noticing it.

On another note, my response to all this was to tell everyone I knew. I wanted to know if my friends knew people who had gone through something similar, what they knew and what happened. My mom's group was awesome - they came through with so much support and care that I cried. My sisters did the getting-tons-of-information thing that we do whenever anything comes up. (Want links on bladder cancer? I still have 'em from when my dad had it). G.'s response was to tell no one and to take the kids to the toy store and let Ben hold on to the train table. He did it, bore his own weight and G. convinced himself everything was fine. I think G. feels like he has to take care of the people he tells, whereas I feel that the people I tell will take care of me.

For the most part, I do think everything will be OK. I so appreciate everyone's concern - it makes me feel like it's OK that I'm freaking out for a few seconds every now and then. But I'm not freaking out that much. And I'll let you know what happens.

BTW, it's National De-Lurking Week. That means you need to leave a comment on the blogs you visit. You don't have to identify yourself, and you don't have to have any words of wisdom. Just say hi, eh?

*Boom* Hello, Other Shoe

So for the past month I've been feeling this weird dread. It's the kind of dread where you're afraid it really means that something is going to happen to one of your children and you'll look back and say, "I knew it. I just had this feeling."

Ben is a very smiley guy. He's also a pretty fussy guy, and sometimes he manages these two moods at once. There's just something about him that makes people comment on him. I've had more than one used-and-haggard-looking person comment, "Wow, he's smiling at me. Babies don't usually smile at me."

Anyway, I've just had this feeling that there's something special about him. But my fear was that that meant something bad. My greatest fear, of course, was losing him. I feared for him in a way that I didn't fear for A.

So I was talking to G. and thinking maybe I should go back and visit my therapist to talk about where this anxiety was coming from. Was it left over from the birth trauma? Was it just my fear of things going well? Why did I have this feeling that something bad was bound to happen soon?

Never made it back to the therapist thanks to our divergent work schedules. Did make it to Ben's 10-month well baby check today, though. I brought up my concerns regarding Ben's lack of pulling to stand, or any horizontal movement whatsoever, and his constant abdomen crunches. He's always been stiff, but we've been assured that everything's fine, up until now.

"He pulls himself up?"
"No."
"He gets himself to sitting from lying down?"
"No. Not even close."
"Hmm. You know, I think we'll go ahead and request a neuro consult. Could be mild CP."

I'm sorry....what? Cerebral Palsy? Like what Karen had in the Marie Kililea books? The braces and wheelchairs?

I've since done enough googling and e-mailing to have a very different view of CP. We don't have a diagnosis yet, but both G. and I believe that he had more injury at birth than we realized.

I think my gut was right - but my gut also tells me that whatever it is, it's mild and more of a challenge than a disability. And if this is the other shoe, OK, I can deal with it. Please just let this be the other shoe. And let there be only two shoes. And let there be only one pair. And I've strangled the hell out of that metaphor but I think you get what I'm saying.

New Year's Resolutions

I've always loved New Year's. I love the whole fresh-start thing, the making of lists and plans and what I'll do when I hit a roadblock and buying a new journal to monitor my progress and posting motivational signs and all that. I used to visualize and do life-maps and all that garbage in my 20's and 30's. I think those are things you do when you have space in your life for more and you feel like you're wasting time.

Here I am at 40 and for the most part, I have everything I've ever really wanted (except an i-pod nano and a really good digital camera).

And I'm at my limit. I can't fit any more in. I don't need more lists of goals. I don't need more "shoulds" and things to do "at least 3 times per week."

What I need is peace. With myself, with my life, with my space. I also need energy and organization, and I think streamling routines (ala "flylady") could help. My boys are going to be tiny and need me for such a short time that I want to really be here now. I want to play with them without feeling guilty that I'm not mopping the floor or repotting the houseplants. I want to not be preoccupied with work and my to d0 list. "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose, under heaven." And that's your biblical quote for today.

Actually, isn't it the prayer of St. Francis? Maybe it's not in the Bible after all. See? I'm not going to go look it up on the internet because that's not the point! My first test! So far, so good.