So this is it. We're listing the house tomorrow. I walked in today with bags of throw pillows I would never ordinarily buy & two chemical air fresheners since I keep reminding myself I need to view the house as no longer ours. My footsteps echo when I walk in the house. They travel up the stairs & bounce around the empty rooms. It's weird. What else echoes in this house?
Our wedding day.
Our drunken wedding night.
The day we carefully brought our little Sassy home.
Nights spent pacing around the circle of our rooms, slinging, singing, patting, crying.
Peeking over a bassinet in the living room to an angelic sleeping face.
Sleep deprived fights with yelling and crying and slamming.
The baby gate Jeff made and installed to keep little feet where we wanted them.
A tumble down the basement steps followed by racing out the door to the ER.
A rainy birthday party with 40 smiling friends & family squeezed into 900 square feet.
A brave dog with a gentle soul being tolerant despite the pain.
Hot naps I never intended to take but for the smell of a sweaty baby's head under my nose.
A golden puppy making her first footprints in the snow.
A gasp of delight that the Easter Bunny is real.
New friends that enjoy honest conversation filling my living room.
Stress-induced fights that ended in tongue-biting and laughing instead of screaming.
Gardens of tomatoes with little picking hands.
Baby sadness.
Baby joy.
New friends that feel like old, old friends.
Screaming, running, playing children that give me a headache and a heartache at the same time.
This house has held our whole family in comfort & joy, even when things didn't feel so joyful. It is here that I learned what it means to love and it's here that I was able to live in my own skin.
Much of that has been because of my friends. For the first time in my life, I found a group of friends that I've been able to laugh & cry with, and generally just be myself. I have never before had that freedom among so many dear friends at once.
I don't talk in person about the fact that I'll miss living so close, but I will. I will miss each and every friend dearly. And for the rest of my life, no matter how much time has passed since our last visit, each and every one of those friends here -- the ones that have been honest & true & let me do the same -- will have a permanent old friend place in my heart and home.
Sorry for the sappiness. The echoes are loud now.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Sunday, August 24, 2008
monty moms, the good and the bad
Oh, my. We’ve had quite a week around here. Jeff painted the interior of our house early this week. We estimated it would take a whole Sunday and then the next Monday morning so Sassy and I took off to his mom’s to spend Sunday & Monday night away from the fumes. Looks like painting takes a little longer than you might estimate (doesn’t everything? really?). We came home Thursday night against my better judgment, since the house still smelled pretty fumey. We now have three days to finish before Listing Day. This weekend is dedicated to cleaning the hole basement.
Sassy and Nora cut their hair again Thursday night while Nora’s mom and I were in the other room. At least this time they each cut their own hair instead of each other’s. And Sassy didn’t do too badly on hers. It can be fixed. Nora’s, on the other hand...yikes! Nora apparently prefers random chunks rather than gentle layers. Poor mama.
While we were at Nana’s, Sassy was telling me about some of her teeth that hurt. I then, of course, played dentist while I stuck my fingers & a toothbrush around her tilted head, examining each tooth. Then she told me the bottom front one was a little wiggly. Four days later:
I swear, this child willed her tooth to come out before Jude’s. 4 days from wiggle to out? She is so excited for the tooth fairy to take her tooth & put something in her tooth fairy box.
My friend Caroline told me in passing that the Waldorf philosophy connects the loss of the first tooth with reading readiness. I was fascinated by this possible connection since it seemed so random. Why teeth and reading, I wondered? This sort of puzzle needed an answer. I went a-googling this morning.
Well, true to form, the message board chatter on this made me roll my eyes. Imagine a big, dramatic, long and drawn-out eye roll with an irritated sigh puncuating the end for good measure.
Although Steiner’s theory behind it wasn't very convincing or scientific to me (I tend to go more with a genetic predisposition on this one), it was interesting & intelligently presented. But it was the message boards, populated by the Monty Moms (“More Outrageously Natural Than You!” Moms) where I learned that the Good Parent Awards are given to the parents whose children lose their teeth last. There’s that eye roll again.
It’s all about the media baby. The media and the adult concepts! The intellectualization of our children! Kids can’t be kids! Kids who watch TV have teeth that fall out by the handful! Stupid kid! Bad mom! Slap, slap!
My natural parenting tendencies are well-known by my friends & family. I’ve certainly never tried to hide them. Sassy is still snuggled with us at night instead of across the hall & all those cloth dipes look lovely hanging on the line. You can’t hand me a box of any type of food without me turning it over to scrutinize the ingredients, even if I completely trust your judgement. My plans to use elimination communication typically get a blank look then eyebrows that are furrowed with a mix of utter confusion & disgust. There's our aversion to all household chemicals, my refusal to use wireless internet in the house, my refusal to use a stroller. For Heaven's sake, we're building an off-the-grid house. That's pretty natural.
And it’s not that I don’t usually agree with the reasoning behind the Monty Moms’ strong opinions. It’s that their opinions always seem to come served with a side of “It’s all your fault.” In their own heads, I suspect this plays out as “It’s all my fault.” They never seem to enjoy parenting. It would be hard to if you’re consumed with worry about making a wrong step, or not doing enough research on a topic that will surely result in dire consequences due to your negligence. How can you cope with the thousands of little worries riding your shoulders 24/7, to all of which you've ascribed top status? Do the Monty Moms all eventually have to choose to either get some perspective or end up on little yellow pills?
Although I wholeheartedly agree with having passion for your children and showing a take-charge attitude of your own life, I feel like I’m on a different plane than those folks so much of the time. This is why it’s hard to find just the right AP group in any given place. I worry, trust me. I worry a lot. I worry about how to best control my anger, I worry about whether or not homeschooling will ultimately bore me, I worry that I’m not attentive enough to Sassy most days.
I worry about the superfluous amount of chemicals and pharmaceuticals already in our soil & water while new drugs and new chemicals are released daily. There is obviously going to be a threshold and I worry that my children and grandchildren will have to deal with much suffering because of it. I worry that Big Brother has a plan and that it doesn’t matter in the end whether he has a fear of the underdog or not. The underdog will be beaten, starved & kicked into submission.
I worry quite a bit about the future of our food and the bizarre implications of the patenting of genetically-modified seeds. On the one hand, it makes me want to encapsulate our family in a giant greenhouse bubble that only grows heirloom seeds. Since that’s not quite practical, my long-term vision lately involves me teaching classes, showing videos, and generally educating the rural farmers in our area about the real dangers of subsidy farming and the positive impact of diversified, sustainable agriculture.
And finally, the secret worries that plague me, the ones that I try to force out when they want to sneak their way in have absolutely nothing to do with TV or organic food or Big Brother. Those worries lurk in houses filled with animal feces, in internet chat rooms where images and tips are passed from one rotted soul to another, beady eyes, basements, bedrooms, belts, misery and fear and cries for a mommy that is where? Dead? High? Busy soothing her own childhood wounds through men, drugs, rage?
Ugh. I hate those.
I also hate the more benign death worries, because I know they carry just as much sadness with them. My death, Sassy’s death, Jeff’s death...those worries I try to push away too. But they’re always there because I know that it’s possible. In my little corner of the world, it even seems probable. Damn those “formative years.”
I wonder what the mom on the 7th floor of Children’s Hospital – the cancer ward – would say about the Monty Mom who is worried that her child has been overexposed to the media since he lost his first tooth at 4. I wonder if she would laugh or cry when Monty Mom told her that she’d been up all night doing research on how to keep his other teeth in longer and what she might have done wrong to cause this early loss.
Maybe that’s it. Maybe the Monty Moms have that one big thing on me that will always make them able to display infinite patience despite the lack of a TV, that will let them be solely concerned with organic clothes and vegan shoes and teeth and reading and the lead content of their child's backpack, et al. Maybe they don’t carry around this darkness with them everywhere where secret worries hide & are pushed, pushed away. Maybe they are fortunate to have not encountered enough actual suffering in their lives to distinguish the trifling from the knock-you-down.
While the dark fears may give me perspective, they are, nevertheless, a constant cross to bear. I only hope that I maintain enough strength to use that cross for something really good.
Sassy and Nora cut their hair again Thursday night while Nora’s mom and I were in the other room. At least this time they each cut their own hair instead of each other’s. And Sassy didn’t do too badly on hers. It can be fixed. Nora’s, on the other hand...yikes! Nora apparently prefers random chunks rather than gentle layers. Poor mama.
While we were at Nana’s, Sassy was telling me about some of her teeth that hurt. I then, of course, played dentist while I stuck my fingers & a toothbrush around her tilted head, examining each tooth. Then she told me the bottom front one was a little wiggly. Four days later:
I swear, this child willed her tooth to come out before Jude’s. 4 days from wiggle to out? She is so excited for the tooth fairy to take her tooth & put something in her tooth fairy box.
My friend Caroline told me in passing that the Waldorf philosophy connects the loss of the first tooth with reading readiness. I was fascinated by this possible connection since it seemed so random. Why teeth and reading, I wondered? This sort of puzzle needed an answer. I went a-googling this morning.
Well, true to form, the message board chatter on this made me roll my eyes. Imagine a big, dramatic, long and drawn-out eye roll with an irritated sigh puncuating the end for good measure.
Although Steiner’s theory behind it wasn't very convincing or scientific to me (I tend to go more with a genetic predisposition on this one), it was interesting & intelligently presented. But it was the message boards, populated by the Monty Moms (“More Outrageously Natural Than You!” Moms) where I learned that the Good Parent Awards are given to the parents whose children lose their teeth last. There’s that eye roll again.
It’s all about the media baby. The media and the adult concepts! The intellectualization of our children! Kids can’t be kids! Kids who watch TV have teeth that fall out by the handful! Stupid kid! Bad mom! Slap, slap!
My natural parenting tendencies are well-known by my friends & family. I’ve certainly never tried to hide them. Sassy is still snuggled with us at night instead of across the hall & all those cloth dipes look lovely hanging on the line. You can’t hand me a box of any type of food without me turning it over to scrutinize the ingredients, even if I completely trust your judgement. My plans to use elimination communication typically get a blank look then eyebrows that are furrowed with a mix of utter confusion & disgust. There's our aversion to all household chemicals, my refusal to use wireless internet in the house, my refusal to use a stroller. For Heaven's sake, we're building an off-the-grid house. That's pretty natural.
And it’s not that I don’t usually agree with the reasoning behind the Monty Moms’ strong opinions. It’s that their opinions always seem to come served with a side of “It’s all your fault.” In their own heads, I suspect this plays out as “It’s all my fault.” They never seem to enjoy parenting. It would be hard to if you’re consumed with worry about making a wrong step, or not doing enough research on a topic that will surely result in dire consequences due to your negligence. How can you cope with the thousands of little worries riding your shoulders 24/7, to all of which you've ascribed top status? Do the Monty Moms all eventually have to choose to either get some perspective or end up on little yellow pills?
Although I wholeheartedly agree with having passion for your children and showing a take-charge attitude of your own life, I feel like I’m on a different plane than those folks so much of the time. This is why it’s hard to find just the right AP group in any given place. I worry, trust me. I worry a lot. I worry about how to best control my anger, I worry about whether or not homeschooling will ultimately bore me, I worry that I’m not attentive enough to Sassy most days.
I worry about the superfluous amount of chemicals and pharmaceuticals already in our soil & water while new drugs and new chemicals are released daily. There is obviously going to be a threshold and I worry that my children and grandchildren will have to deal with much suffering because of it. I worry that Big Brother has a plan and that it doesn’t matter in the end whether he has a fear of the underdog or not. The underdog will be beaten, starved & kicked into submission.
I worry quite a bit about the future of our food and the bizarre implications of the patenting of genetically-modified seeds. On the one hand, it makes me want to encapsulate our family in a giant greenhouse bubble that only grows heirloom seeds. Since that’s not quite practical, my long-term vision lately involves me teaching classes, showing videos, and generally educating the rural farmers in our area about the real dangers of subsidy farming and the positive impact of diversified, sustainable agriculture.
And finally, the secret worries that plague me, the ones that I try to force out when they want to sneak their way in have absolutely nothing to do with TV or organic food or Big Brother. Those worries lurk in houses filled with animal feces, in internet chat rooms where images and tips are passed from one rotted soul to another, beady eyes, basements, bedrooms, belts, misery and fear and cries for a mommy that is where? Dead? High? Busy soothing her own childhood wounds through men, drugs, rage?
Ugh. I hate those.
I also hate the more benign death worries, because I know they carry just as much sadness with them. My death, Sassy’s death, Jeff’s death...those worries I try to push away too. But they’re always there because I know that it’s possible. In my little corner of the world, it even seems probable. Damn those “formative years.”
I wonder what the mom on the 7th floor of Children’s Hospital – the cancer ward – would say about the Monty Mom who is worried that her child has been overexposed to the media since he lost his first tooth at 4. I wonder if she would laugh or cry when Monty Mom told her that she’d been up all night doing research on how to keep his other teeth in longer and what she might have done wrong to cause this early loss.
Maybe that’s it. Maybe the Monty Moms have that one big thing on me that will always make them able to display infinite patience despite the lack of a TV, that will let them be solely concerned with organic clothes and vegan shoes and teeth and reading and the lead content of their child's backpack, et al. Maybe they don’t carry around this darkness with them everywhere where secret worries hide & are pushed, pushed away. Maybe they are fortunate to have not encountered enough actual suffering in their lives to distinguish the trifling from the knock-you-down.
While the dark fears may give me perspective, they are, nevertheless, a constant cross to bear. I only hope that I maintain enough strength to use that cross for something really good.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
here, there and everywhere
Prepare thyself for a meandering post. I like to start out with a theme -- or at the very least a general direction -- but not today. Today I'm flexing mental muscles, sorting things out on paper, streaming that consciousness.
A pic, to start, because it's freakin' adorable:
That's a stye on her eye there. The doctor claims that it is caused not by a virus but by an irritated hair follicle. It has been with us for about 4 weeks. By happenchance, I suppose (in person, you would hear my sarcastic tone), another appeared on the left eye as well. Then, again by happenchance I'm certain, it stayed on the left eye and moved back again to the right eye, turning it from what her pediatrician said was "a little scar tissue" into a weeping spot of pus again. But I'm sure it's purely coincidental, which is why I spent my $20 co-pay to come into the doctor's office instead of putting it into my gas tank or taking it to the Farmer's Market.
Nevertheless, she carries her styes well. Yes, that's carries -- with an s; they are still with us. Perhaps we should name them by now.
And, speaking of names...perhaps we can decide on a name for this little one soon. We have chosen a boy's name, but no girl's name yet. I have an ultrasound today that I'm hoping will push our hand. Will we be keeping our boy's name? Or will we be finding a girl's name? I'm actually quite excited to find out the gender this time. This pregnancy has been such a rollercoaster of a ride, I hope that if I see a boy or a girl, it will feel real.
Although the fledgling is beginning to do that on his her own. Finally, I'm quickening. I love that word. So much better than the awkward, "feeling the baby move" or "flutters." Quickening. It has a classic sound to it, a Little House on the Prairie sound. Or maybe I've just been reading way too many Appalachian-themed books lately.
And speaking of LHOTP (streaming that consciousness, baby), we now have a...drum roll please...driveway!!!! OK, Blogger seriously needs to have some sort of options for putting silly icons into your posts. Where's my fireworks icons? My wineglasses toasting?
We now have a long gravel driveway all the way back to our homesite WITH a turnaround on the end. We are going out on Saturday to check it out and try it out. I will take pictures for sure in between pickin' my wild organic blackberries.
And speaking of pictures, hee hee, I am in such the odd mood today. Half reflective, half creative, and the other half energetic. I'm feeling positive enough about things to make up for my extreme depression yesterday. And, positive enough to give myself 3 halves. Only the very good days have enough electric for 3 halves. I think it has quite a bit to do with the quickening. Perhaps 2 halves are mine & the other belongs to the baby.
Typically these types of days result in me getting a manicload of stuff done. Today, though, I'm on enforced "limited activity," which has been alternately named "chair rest." So the energy needs an outlet that isn't physical, but still reflective & creative. And thus, here I am, streaming through the consciousness of late.
But the bigger part of me, the part of me that likes usefulness & themes, doesn't care much to be on Blogger. It wants to be taking pictures. Real pictures; good pictures; purposeless pictures. Unless pretty is a purpose.
I think it is.
If I wrote songs, I'd be playing my piano today. A meandering song, a little finger journey over the keys so that by the end of my songs, I'd be closer to knowing how I feel. And closer to having a theme.
Time to get ready for the ultrasound. I do hope he she reveals him herself today.
A pic, to start, because it's freakin' adorable:
That's a stye on her eye there. The doctor claims that it is caused not by a virus but by an irritated hair follicle. It has been with us for about 4 weeks. By happenchance, I suppose (in person, you would hear my sarcastic tone), another appeared on the left eye as well. Then, again by happenchance I'm certain, it stayed on the left eye and moved back again to the right eye, turning it from what her pediatrician said was "a little scar tissue" into a weeping spot of pus again. But I'm sure it's purely coincidental, which is why I spent my $20 co-pay to come into the doctor's office instead of putting it into my gas tank or taking it to the Farmer's Market.
Nevertheless, she carries her styes well. Yes, that's carries -- with an s; they are still with us. Perhaps we should name them by now.
And, speaking of names...perhaps we can decide on a name for this little one soon. We have chosen a boy's name, but no girl's name yet. I have an ultrasound today that I'm hoping will push our hand. Will we be keeping our boy's name? Or will we be finding a girl's name? I'm actually quite excited to find out the gender this time. This pregnancy has been such a rollercoaster of a ride, I hope that if I see a boy or a girl, it will feel real.
Although the fledgling is beginning to do that on his her own. Finally, I'm quickening. I love that word. So much better than the awkward, "feeling the baby move" or "flutters." Quickening. It has a classic sound to it, a Little House on the Prairie sound. Or maybe I've just been reading way too many Appalachian-themed books lately.
And speaking of LHOTP (streaming that consciousness, baby), we now have a...drum roll please...driveway!!!! OK, Blogger seriously needs to have some sort of options for putting silly icons into your posts. Where's my fireworks icons? My wineglasses toasting?
We now have a long gravel driveway all the way back to our homesite WITH a turnaround on the end. We are going out on Saturday to check it out and try it out. I will take pictures for sure in between pickin' my wild organic blackberries.
And speaking of pictures, hee hee, I am in such the odd mood today. Half reflective, half creative, and the other half energetic. I'm feeling positive enough about things to make up for my extreme depression yesterday. And, positive enough to give myself 3 halves. Only the very good days have enough electric for 3 halves. I think it has quite a bit to do with the quickening. Perhaps 2 halves are mine & the other belongs to the baby.
Typically these types of days result in me getting a manicload of stuff done. Today, though, I'm on enforced "limited activity," which has been alternately named "chair rest." So the energy needs an outlet that isn't physical, but still reflective & creative. And thus, here I am, streaming through the consciousness of late.
But the bigger part of me, the part of me that likes usefulness & themes, doesn't care much to be on Blogger. It wants to be taking pictures. Real pictures; good pictures; purposeless pictures. Unless pretty is a purpose.
I think it is.
If I wrote songs, I'd be playing my piano today. A meandering song, a little finger journey over the keys so that by the end of my songs, I'd be closer to knowing how I feel. And closer to having a theme.
Time to get ready for the ultrasound. I do hope he she reveals him herself today.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Reason #7,845 I love my daughter
Sassy and I have this thing we do we call The Kissy Train. My mom taught it to me when she used to play on my arm when I was little. It goes like this: I start by kissing the top of Sassy’s hand & then move in little kisses all the way up her arm & end on her cheek. I add a little “Choo-choo” when I get to her cheek because it is, after all, The Kissy Train.
I used to love it when my mom did it. Sassy now loves it too. She hands me her other arm, then the first arm again, then the other arm again. 6, 8, 10 times The Kissy Train will run its two routes sometimes.
Tonight, I had a little flash of an idea.
“When the baby’s born, you know, if everything goes well & the baby stays healthy & we have another baby in our family next year, I think we should keep The Kissy Train for just you and me for awhile,” I said.
She smiled. “Yes! But I will do The Kissy Train for the baby. You will do The Kissy Train for me & I will do it for the baby.”
What a lovely idea. What a lovely spirit.
I used to love it when my mom did it. Sassy now loves it too. She hands me her other arm, then the first arm again, then the other arm again. 6, 8, 10 times The Kissy Train will run its two routes sometimes.
Tonight, I had a little flash of an idea.
“When the baby’s born, you know, if everything goes well & the baby stays healthy & we have another baby in our family next year, I think we should keep The Kissy Train for just you and me for awhile,” I said.
She smiled. “Yes! But I will do The Kissy Train for the baby. You will do The Kissy Train for me & I will do it for the baby.”
What a lovely idea. What a lovely spirit.
Monday, July 07, 2008
kindergarten at home
Well, we tested out our new schedule for this coming school year today. There were obvious flaws in the plan. First & foremost, I didn't prepare a thing...I just decided this morning it would be fun to try it out. So we learned that a successful day by the schedule would definitely have to be planned & prepped for in advance. Also, we learned that it took a lot longer than we expected, which was both good & bad. It was good in that we were able to spend a lot of time together doing things that were engaging to both of us. The reason it took longer than expected was (1) the aforementioned lack of preparation for today and (2) the fact that I took my time explaining everything to her, answering all of her questions, and not expecting her to hurry. As a result, we had a wonderful day! It was everything I would hope homeschooling to be.
But....if we'd known upfront it would have taken us until nearly 2:00 to finish, I would have built in some breaks. I think we both could have used them. Even if it only took the 3 hours I'd designated, a break would have been very useful in there. So I'll likely extend the schedule to be certain we have enough time to cover everything AND add some breaks. After 2:00, we'll have free time to schedule playdates or other activities.
Here's the schedule as it stood when we started:
(I'm not on my own computer, so I don't have my good photo software to make those two images exactly the same -- please overlook the size discrepancy.)
Her favorite was Garden Time, she said. Signing her up for that WORMS class is really paying off -- just as I'd hoped. She is a huge help in the garden now with very little hovering needed from me. She planted lettuce yesterday, swiss chard today, & pumpkin seeds today. Her least favorite was Housecleaning Time (who can blame her, really?), but she did work on the bathroom with me for about 5 minutes, spraying any dirt she could find with her spray bottle & wiping it clean. We built a birdhouse out of cardboard for the bird family she got in her Easter basket & we painted some spots in the living room that have been bare now for, um....a year and a half? She did lots of reading & pre-reading worksheets, decided to skip the math worksheets, & picked out 2 books to read. She helped me with the laundry, separating lights from darks & then helped put it in the dryer later, after school was over. We learned about healthy eating with breakfast.
She was under the impression, I found out today, that Daddy and I thought that protein=healthy and everything else=unhealthy. She argued with me that things that grow are healthy too! I explained to her that in order to be healthy, your body needs 3 things every single day -- protein, fats, and things that grow (she means fruits & vegetables, but one could also include some grains). If we ate all protein & fats, we wouldn't be very healthy. If we ate only things that grow (fruits & vegetables & grains), we wouldn't be very healthy. So when we choose our breakfasts & lunches & dinners, we have to make sure we're getting all three things every single day. Then I told her there were two things that were never healthy -- chemicals in our food & sugar in our food. We should avoid those as much as we can (although we all know how hard it can be).
I thought for our food lessons, I'd like to do a chart where we can check off different proteins, fats & "things that grow" to make sure we're getting a good assortment of these every day.
She did a great job in the self-care time. I was surprised that we didn't fight about it more. It was awesome to have her dressed & ready for the day before 10:00. Usually this doesn't happen until we're walking out the door to go somewhere.
And while she didn't like the housecleaning time, I loved it! I was able to set aside that 15 minutes for the bathroom & I got quite a bit done in a short time. It ended up motivating me to finish the cleaning when school was over & do some bigger jobs that have been procrastinated, like putting up a new shower curtain, getting all the dirty clothes downstairs, and cleaning the very dusty lightbulb sconces.
I chose these types of activities for our Kindergarten schedule because I don't think Kindy should be straight bookwork. And I know for Sassy, even 2 hours of bookwork would be impossible. I think it's important that she learns how to do some of the tasks that I do in addition to academics. Right now, the scale is tipped heavily in favor of active work but as she gets older, I think I'll see the scale tip the other way during "school time."
It also helps me to stay organized. If the 15 minutes of housecleaning time continues to be infectious, for example, we will have a pretty clean house in a month! We can do together projects that need to be done anyway, like painting the wall as we did today, or sewing curtains, or making gifts for people. My dream has always been to include her in these things, but my reality has been that it's easier & faster to do them myself. The problem becomes, when she isn't included, I don't do them at all since I'm busy keeping her occupied. So doing them slowly is actually a win-win: she learns different skills and I actually get things done. Having them as part of a routine motivates me & keeps her arguing at a minimum. "Sorry, it's right here on the schedule -- building time. Let's go!"
For next time, I need to do a few more charts. A nutrition chart, a housecleaning task list for each room (with pics by the tasks she can do), and a schedule done in simple 2-3 word phrases that she can begin to read. I need to request from the library our books for next week -- 5 books about the same animal and 5 books about the same virtue. I need to note which building projects and which craft projects we will be doing each day, and which room we will clean each day. I should figure out our weekly goals for the garden, and I should preprint our reading and math worksheets. Whew!
Everybody else is playing hooky for the summer, but we're starting on school already. Are we crazy?
Here's the thing. A week on bedrest was the most centering thing in the world for me. I could see where I was pushing myself too hard, both for my true desires and for my "condition." I was able to see what needed to be dropped and how I could change things to live the life I have wanted to live. I need to keep it this way for my mental happiness, and fortunately, I also have to keep it this way per my husband's request. He needs to use the car for awhile & he also doesn't want me running as much as I did. He's concerned about the pregnancy suffering if I try to keep up the same level of activity. Frankly, he's right. We've come too far to throw it away on short-term commitments. Staying home is a heckuva lot cheaper than infertility treatments.
If all turns out well in the end, I'll be taking a break from homeschooling in January. It doesn't hurt to make up that time now.
But....if we'd known upfront it would have taken us until nearly 2:00 to finish, I would have built in some breaks. I think we both could have used them. Even if it only took the 3 hours I'd designated, a break would have been very useful in there. So I'll likely extend the schedule to be certain we have enough time to cover everything AND add some breaks. After 2:00, we'll have free time to schedule playdates or other activities.
Here's the schedule as it stood when we started:
(I'm not on my own computer, so I don't have my good photo software to make those two images exactly the same -- please overlook the size discrepancy.)
Her favorite was Garden Time, she said. Signing her up for that WORMS class is really paying off -- just as I'd hoped. She is a huge help in the garden now with very little hovering needed from me. She planted lettuce yesterday, swiss chard today, & pumpkin seeds today. Her least favorite was Housecleaning Time (who can blame her, really?), but she did work on the bathroom with me for about 5 minutes, spraying any dirt she could find with her spray bottle & wiping it clean. We built a birdhouse out of cardboard for the bird family she got in her Easter basket & we painted some spots in the living room that have been bare now for, um....a year and a half? She did lots of reading & pre-reading worksheets, decided to skip the math worksheets, & picked out 2 books to read. She helped me with the laundry, separating lights from darks & then helped put it in the dryer later, after school was over. We learned about healthy eating with breakfast.
She was under the impression, I found out today, that Daddy and I thought that protein=healthy and everything else=unhealthy. She argued with me that things that grow are healthy too! I explained to her that in order to be healthy, your body needs 3 things every single day -- protein, fats, and things that grow (she means fruits & vegetables, but one could also include some grains). If we ate all protein & fats, we wouldn't be very healthy. If we ate only things that grow (fruits & vegetables & grains), we wouldn't be very healthy. So when we choose our breakfasts & lunches & dinners, we have to make sure we're getting all three things every single day. Then I told her there were two things that were never healthy -- chemicals in our food & sugar in our food. We should avoid those as much as we can (although we all know how hard it can be).
I thought for our food lessons, I'd like to do a chart where we can check off different proteins, fats & "things that grow" to make sure we're getting a good assortment of these every day.
She did a great job in the self-care time. I was surprised that we didn't fight about it more. It was awesome to have her dressed & ready for the day before 10:00. Usually this doesn't happen until we're walking out the door to go somewhere.
And while she didn't like the housecleaning time, I loved it! I was able to set aside that 15 minutes for the bathroom & I got quite a bit done in a short time. It ended up motivating me to finish the cleaning when school was over & do some bigger jobs that have been procrastinated, like putting up a new shower curtain, getting all the dirty clothes downstairs, and cleaning the very dusty lightbulb sconces.
I chose these types of activities for our Kindergarten schedule because I don't think Kindy should be straight bookwork. And I know for Sassy, even 2 hours of bookwork would be impossible. I think it's important that she learns how to do some of the tasks that I do in addition to academics. Right now, the scale is tipped heavily in favor of active work but as she gets older, I think I'll see the scale tip the other way during "school time."
It also helps me to stay organized. If the 15 minutes of housecleaning time continues to be infectious, for example, we will have a pretty clean house in a month! We can do together projects that need to be done anyway, like painting the wall as we did today, or sewing curtains, or making gifts for people. My dream has always been to include her in these things, but my reality has been that it's easier & faster to do them myself. The problem becomes, when she isn't included, I don't do them at all since I'm busy keeping her occupied. So doing them slowly is actually a win-win: she learns different skills and I actually get things done. Having them as part of a routine motivates me & keeps her arguing at a minimum. "Sorry, it's right here on the schedule -- building time. Let's go!"
For next time, I need to do a few more charts. A nutrition chart, a housecleaning task list for each room (with pics by the tasks she can do), and a schedule done in simple 2-3 word phrases that she can begin to read. I need to request from the library our books for next week -- 5 books about the same animal and 5 books about the same virtue. I need to note which building projects and which craft projects we will be doing each day, and which room we will clean each day. I should figure out our weekly goals for the garden, and I should preprint our reading and math worksheets. Whew!
Everybody else is playing hooky for the summer, but we're starting on school already. Are we crazy?
Here's the thing. A week on bedrest was the most centering thing in the world for me. I could see where I was pushing myself too hard, both for my true desires and for my "condition." I was able to see what needed to be dropped and how I could change things to live the life I have wanted to live. I need to keep it this way for my mental happiness, and fortunately, I also have to keep it this way per my husband's request. He needs to use the car for awhile & he also doesn't want me running as much as I did. He's concerned about the pregnancy suffering if I try to keep up the same level of activity. Frankly, he's right. We've come too far to throw it away on short-term commitments. Staying home is a heckuva lot cheaper than infertility treatments.
If all turns out well in the end, I'll be taking a break from homeschooling in January. It doesn't hurt to make up that time now.
Thursday, July 03, 2008
deluge
I’ve been absent from so many of my usual commitments lately. Friday homeschool group usually goes on without me, I unsubscribed from my old playgroup since I couldn’t drag myself there, even online I’ve been down and out – both in the very groups I moderate and on my own blog. First trimester exhaustion will do that to you.
Yep, that’s right. I haven’t told very many people. You all who did know, mostly I shared the fact on a need-to-know basis, like some secret FBI file. The information was just as well guarded with my family. With my first pregnancy, I was appropriately guarded with our little expectation. I waited until 8 or 9 weeks to share the news with people outside my friends and family. Usually, I was forced to share because the news affected them in some way or another, like when I told my boss I had to quit my job so I could get health insurance. Ha! Imagine that....I had to quit my $15/hour job so I could go on welfare to have a baby. Lovely system isn’t it?
With my second pregnancy, only having had a successful go of it before, I was wildly cavalier with my news. I think I shared it with my cashier at Kroger, you know, just so she’d know why I was buying 3 half-gallons of ice cream.
In a pregnancy after a pregnancy loss (or losses, even worse) it does become Top Secret information. I have tossed and turned, wanting to ask a friend a question about the ins and outs, no pun intended, of progesterone suppositories, but not wanting to increase my number of people in the know to the double digits. Eventually, it became a matter of fear. If I told, if I announced, I feared a jinx of some sort. Don’t we all have that sky-could-fall story of a friend of a friend who announced and then miscarried the very next day? Or is that just me?
The sky could be falling, it is true. But does it matter? If there is one thing I’ve realized through this burgeoning pregnancy it’s that the facts don’t matter – just our perception of them. It is this basis upon which all religions are built, I’m sure. After you decide it’s okay to not be certain, to not have the Facts, scientifically hypothesized and dutifully proven, then you find what’s left is Faith. Faith in God, if you would like, or faith in your instincts, or faith in your body, or faith in your baby. Faith in the process and faith in the stillness and faith in your oneness with what’s inside. You can keep chasing the Facts, or you can just accept the Faith. Your choice.
Once I chose faith over facts, things got a lot more fun. Facts make good police reports; faith makes good stories.
I had a dream about 8 weeks in. I was sleeping the kind of light, restless sleep you have when the early morning sun starts to peek in the corners of the curtains. In my dream, I was at a family party. I had my baby boy in a carseat carrier and he was asleep. I went to pick him up, because I detest carseat carriers and all they stand for, even in my dreams I guess. He wasn’t there. I went upstairs, to my sister-in-law’s apartment. I asked if she had the baby and she said she did. She said he had fallen asleep so she had laid him down. Jeff was with me, and we searched for him but couldn’t find him. I began to panic, just a little. I asked her three times where he was, and finally she said he was under the window. I found him there, wrapped in a blanket, crying. I picked him up and sat in an upholstered rocking chair. I began to nurse him and he quieted. And I felt our connection. I felt him in my arms, and I felt whole. I knew he did too. I looked at his dusty brown baby hair, more than Sassy had as a baby. I felt his personality. He was alert, smart, calm. Calmer than I, calmer than Jeff, calmer than Sassy. I started to call him by his name, but I couldn’t remember it. Then I woke up.
For 20 minutes, I laid still, awake, trying to call up his name. I mentally applied the names we’d been considering. Thomas. No. Finn. No. I tried other names on. Random names. Names I didn’t even care for. No. No. No.
By the end of the day, I knew his name. I asked Jeff, and there was a moment of pause, then a big smile. He recognized him too. Later, we compared our visualizations of the baby and were not all that surprised to learn they were exactly the same. We have no facts as to why, but our perceptions are solid. And the rest doesn’t matter, regardless of my public education and its emphasis on the proven.
When I started bleeding in Barnes and Noble’s bathroom on Sunday, I shook with fear. My successful drive to the hospital ER through the shaking and the hyperventilation was thanks to two well-timed cell phone calls. As soon as I started the car in the parking lot, the phone rang the first time. It was Jeff trying to see where I was. My “hello” was enough to let him know something was very wrong. I told him I was bleeding and I was driving myself to the hospital, and then hung up quickly. I couldn’t hold the phone through the shaking and staccato breathing and I couldn’t remember how to put it on loudspeaker. When I could see the ER just over the next hill, I started to hit some red lights and traffic, and frighteningly, started to feel the blood flow pick up. It was just this time that the second phone call came, from my friend Caroline, asking about prenatals and our truck. I was so glad someone got me through those traffic lights.
Even though I was lucky enough to have had a pad in my backpack to catch the blood flow, my shorts were soaked with blood between the car and the ER entrance. Yet another lucky coincidence was my choice of black shorts that morning.
In the ER, I remembered the important things, where I kept my medical card, what was my phone number and address and social security number, how far along I was, the name of my OB, how many miscarriages, how many live births, how many pads I’d soaked in what amount of time. I forgot everything else, like how to breathe properly, how to sit down in a waiting room chair with blood soaked shorts, how to make cell phone calls, how to stop shaking, how to use a vending machine. I was clearly at the mercy of those kind ER nurses with their pitying eyes.
They took me straight back. 5 minutes standing in the waiting room (I couldn’t figure out a way to sit down), 5 minutes standing in triage, explaining my problem, then right back to a room, to a bed, lined with chux pads, and warm blankets. And I waited.
The next 6 hours were an emotional roller coaster. First, they drew blood. Then they informed me I’d have a pelvic exam. I anticipated none of this! I wanted an ultrasound. In my experience, the baby dies, then you miscarry. Your body doesn’t miscarry a living baby. An ultrasound would tell me all I’d need to know. ER doctors don’t think like that. Ultrasound techs are hard to find on the weekends. There are better clinical signs. Is your cervix open? What is your HCG level? What is your rH factor? How much have you been bleeding? Are you cramping as well?
We finally received an opinion from the ER doc on call. “I believe you are having a miscarriage. Your cervix is open. Your HCG is 106,000. I have spoken with your OB and we would like to do an ultrasound to look for fetal demise. If there is no longer a viable fetus via ultrasound, we can check you in here for the night and perform a D & C.”
We waited another hour and a half for an ultrasound. During this time, I decided I would definitely decline the D & C. I called a doula. I wanted labor support during the miscarriage this time.
When I finally got up to the ultrasound room, the technician was cold and distant. I asked her if there was a heartbeat. “I can see a heartbeat,” she said.
“What is the rate?” I asked her.
“I will measure it. Right now I am doing other things. It is all protocol.”
20 minutes later, she said, “I’m trying to measure the heartbeat, but your baby won’t be still.”
All those damn warnings about ultrasounds from too much time spent on natural parenting boards were sounding in my head, getting louder and louder with each passing minute. I was angry that my baby had to go through all this. I put my hand on my belly, as close as I could get without interrupting “the protocol,” and internally spoke to it.
“You need to be still. I know you are scared. It must be very frightening for you. It will be okay. Be still. Here, I’ll hold you.” And in my mind’s eye, I held it, rocked it, and sang it a lullaby.
By the time I was done with the lullaby, she had measured the heartbeat. Why was it finally still for her? It is scientifically irrelevant, but for the first time in the hospital, I could hear my instincts tell me it would be okay. The baby was okay.
Another 25 minutes and a pushy, but ultimately declined, attempt at a transvaginal ultrasound later, I was sent back to my room. When I next saw the ER doctor, he had changed his mind. “The baby looks good. The heart rate is good. I don’t think a miscarriage is inevitable.” And with that, I was released.
Later, on the phone with my OB, I learned that mine was a textbook example of a burst cervical blood vessel. “Only time will tell how this will play out,” he said, “but I believe your bleeding was cervical. If the bleeding was coming from the baby, even a small amount of bleeding – not like what you described – would have put the baby in severe distress and we would have seen a significant drop in the heart rate. I think that your miscarriage rate is now the same as any other second trimester pregnancy – less than 2%.” He also informed me that all women who have had previous births have a cervix that is slightly open and that it can’t be used as a diagnostic tool for miscarriage.
Now the healing begins. I’ve been prescribed a week of bed rest. Last week, I was dreaming of spending my days napping. Now, though, I sit with an empty house and a strict dependence on other people to fulfill even basic needs. Sassy has been gone with Nana for three days and isn’t supposed to return until tomorrow. It’s been good for my healing process, since I can spend the time caring only for myself. But this is not who I am anymore. I care for my daughter. I am still me, the me I’ve always been. I write. I cook. I require an exaggerating and tangential sense of humor in a partner. I like exercise only if there’s a point to it. I enjoy projects and learning new things about people. I care more about your feelings about something than I do what is actually happening.
But there’s a new one now – I care for Sassy. Day in, day out, she is with me. She is the last thing I see before going to bed and the first thing I see in the morning. She is often how I gauge my own days. “Oh, we’re doing great! Sassy’s in a really good mood!” My relationship with her and with Jeff comprises the bulk of my sense of success or failure at any given time.
I miss her in the same way I miss the use of my legs right now. I don’t have either.
It has been interesting, being a bed-ridden invalid. If I forget that it’s temporary, I can feel the mixed emotions of the invalid, part immense gratitude, part guilt, and part total supplication.
I’ve always enjoyed thinking about worst-case scenarios. What would I do if the food supply shut down? What would I do if our water was contaminated by radioactive fallout? How could I make our cold room into a safe room to fend off rioters when the world goes boom?
I think of personal things too. When Sassy was a baby, I imagined what I would do if someone broke into the house with the intent to kill us. I imagined I would roll over onto her, keeping myself elevated so as not to smother her, just to protect her. If they killed me anyway, I would remember not to fall dead on top of her, but to the side so as not to smother her. If there was a fire, I would lower Sassy down to the ground in an old backpack carrier kept upstairs for that very purpose. Then I would tie a sheet around the bottom frame of the bed and lower myself down. I’ve thought about what I would do if I found out Jeff was having an affair (shut your mouth, play your hand, go ballistic on your own time until the game is up). And of course, I’ve also thought about what I would do if I were an invalid. Or if Jeff were an invalid. I’d stick it out if he were an invalid, of course! I would never leave just because he was stuck in the bed. If it were me? I’d rise up against the challenges and become the best damn invalid I could be, writing a novel from my bed, still powerful, never depressed.
Now, I can say to my daydreams, HA! The invalid road would be much harder than I ever imagined. Jeff has been an attentive and intuitive primary caregiver. He brings me special things I haven’t even asked for just because he knows I could use a lift. He spends time in this boring-ass room just so I don’t feel lonely. He makes sure to keep my cell phone handy and to let me know I shouldn’t hesitate to call him on it if I need anything. He makes multiple trips up and down the stairs with food he’s cooked for me, books I want to read, my computer, my computer cord. He travels to the library, to Blockbuster, to the grocery store. He brings me endless water and follows my elaborate instructions about how to find and care for my things. And perhaps most importantly, he lets me be when I want to just be.
But like every relationship, we are our own people with our own opinions about things. Should you put wheat or white flour in the gravy? Should you mix the beef with the mashed potatoes? Should you leave the surround sound speakers on at night or turn them off? Dozens, hundreds actually, of little things that we might do differently if we were doing them for ourselves.
Typically, I voice my opinions. My vehemence differs depending both on Jeff’s pre-existing mood and on the importance I give to the subject at hand. But I am not the girl who bites her tongue. The insides of my cheeks when I’m nervous, perhaps, but my tongue speaks its piece. The invalid in me doesn’t feel comfortable speaking my piece. The invalid in me is grateful and guilty for any attention she gets. She pushes away first her desires: a new book, the mail we received today, a phone number to look up. Next she pushes away her needs: food, water, company. Eventually, she deadens herself to the world around her to block the sense of abandonment she feels from everyone continuing to live their lives around her.
I like this. I like that I can feel this. When I tried to explain it to Jeff, he first put up his defenses. His posture stiffened and I imagined the roughly shaven hairs on the back of his neck rising. I reassured him I was simply feeling out the life of an invalid. What would it be like to be bed-ridden? How would it affect your relationships, your confidence, your sense of self? Next he tried to jolly me up. It’s just a week! You’re so strong! I know it’s hard, but you can do anything for a week. For the baby.
I know that. I also know how to jolly myself up if I need jollying. But just as my baby may or may not be same little dusty-haired boy that starred in my dream, with his total sense of calm, his message of “It’s okay,” the facts don’t matter. My perception of them matters. And in this case, my perception allowed me to see that life.
The life of my ex’s mother, whose degenerative rheumatoid arthritis worsened while she was pregnant with him, leaving him nearly motherless as a child. How did she deal with that? How badly did she want to care for him? Every hormone in her body probably craved her baby, and the only way to deal with the pain, the loss of her son to be cared for by his siblings, was to deaden herself. She probably had to deaden herself to his cries coming from inside her own home, as she was powerless to get up and nurture him. She eventually must have deadened herself to his toddler giggles, since her heart must have broken watching her older daughters, friends, and other family members play just the games she would have wanted to play with him. And if she did build those walls, out of necessity for her mental health, were they then reinforced when someone placed that giggling toddler in her lap and he just tried to wriggle away, as no toddler likes to just sit still?
The life of my uncle, who lived for exciting things in exotic places – fishing excursions off the coast of Alaska, farming goats in the mountains of Hawaii, drawing up self-taught architectural blueprints, then building multiple homes from them with spectacular views of the ocean and the volcanoes. How did he feel after the car accident that paralyzed him waist-down 8 years ago? Why did he stay with the woman he had been dating who continued to stay, but went on living her own life without him? That was the burning question at the time, but what choice did he have? In the grips of his depression, did he see himself as a pale imitation of the man he used to be? Was he grateful to have anyone at all? Was he afraid that if he stood his ground to her that he would have no one to bring him food and water at all hours of the day? No one to be there at night lest someone break into the house? No one to call emergency services if he fell, leaving him to choose between a caregiver who had once chased his love, but whose face now showed only pity, and the risk of lying on the living room floor, helpless, by himself, waiting for someone to find him?
There are times to cut the worst-case scenario thoughts. There are times when they infest the mind with worries and nighttime hallucinations. There are other times that it’s okay to let your mind follow the thoughts where they might lead, down one road, turn left, down another, relationships this way, self-esteem that way, depression straight ahead.
It’s been three days now on bed rest. In my case, it’s likely temporary. Cervical bleeding. Unrelated to baby. Those are the opinions of my doctors – the probable facts. But the facts hold a dim light to my perceptions of them. Those are much more interesting.
Yep, that’s right. I haven’t told very many people. You all who did know, mostly I shared the fact on a need-to-know basis, like some secret FBI file. The information was just as well guarded with my family. With my first pregnancy, I was appropriately guarded with our little expectation. I waited until 8 or 9 weeks to share the news with people outside my friends and family. Usually, I was forced to share because the news affected them in some way or another, like when I told my boss I had to quit my job so I could get health insurance. Ha! Imagine that....I had to quit my $15/hour job so I could go on welfare to have a baby. Lovely system isn’t it?
With my second pregnancy, only having had a successful go of it before, I was wildly cavalier with my news. I think I shared it with my cashier at Kroger, you know, just so she’d know why I was buying 3 half-gallons of ice cream.
In a pregnancy after a pregnancy loss (or losses, even worse) it does become Top Secret information. I have tossed and turned, wanting to ask a friend a question about the ins and outs, no pun intended, of progesterone suppositories, but not wanting to increase my number of people in the know to the double digits. Eventually, it became a matter of fear. If I told, if I announced, I feared a jinx of some sort. Don’t we all have that sky-could-fall story of a friend of a friend who announced and then miscarried the very next day? Or is that just me?
The sky could be falling, it is true. But does it matter? If there is one thing I’ve realized through this burgeoning pregnancy it’s that the facts don’t matter – just our perception of them. It is this basis upon which all religions are built, I’m sure. After you decide it’s okay to not be certain, to not have the Facts, scientifically hypothesized and dutifully proven, then you find what’s left is Faith. Faith in God, if you would like, or faith in your instincts, or faith in your body, or faith in your baby. Faith in the process and faith in the stillness and faith in your oneness with what’s inside. You can keep chasing the Facts, or you can just accept the Faith. Your choice.
Once I chose faith over facts, things got a lot more fun. Facts make good police reports; faith makes good stories.
I had a dream about 8 weeks in. I was sleeping the kind of light, restless sleep you have when the early morning sun starts to peek in the corners of the curtains. In my dream, I was at a family party. I had my baby boy in a carseat carrier and he was asleep. I went to pick him up, because I detest carseat carriers and all they stand for, even in my dreams I guess. He wasn’t there. I went upstairs, to my sister-in-law’s apartment. I asked if she had the baby and she said she did. She said he had fallen asleep so she had laid him down. Jeff was with me, and we searched for him but couldn’t find him. I began to panic, just a little. I asked her three times where he was, and finally she said he was under the window. I found him there, wrapped in a blanket, crying. I picked him up and sat in an upholstered rocking chair. I began to nurse him and he quieted. And I felt our connection. I felt him in my arms, and I felt whole. I knew he did too. I looked at his dusty brown baby hair, more than Sassy had as a baby. I felt his personality. He was alert, smart, calm. Calmer than I, calmer than Jeff, calmer than Sassy. I started to call him by his name, but I couldn’t remember it. Then I woke up.
For 20 minutes, I laid still, awake, trying to call up his name. I mentally applied the names we’d been considering. Thomas. No. Finn. No. I tried other names on. Random names. Names I didn’t even care for. No. No. No.
By the end of the day, I knew his name. I asked Jeff, and there was a moment of pause, then a big smile. He recognized him too. Later, we compared our visualizations of the baby and were not all that surprised to learn they were exactly the same. We have no facts as to why, but our perceptions are solid. And the rest doesn’t matter, regardless of my public education and its emphasis on the proven.
When I started bleeding in Barnes and Noble’s bathroom on Sunday, I shook with fear. My successful drive to the hospital ER through the shaking and the hyperventilation was thanks to two well-timed cell phone calls. As soon as I started the car in the parking lot, the phone rang the first time. It was Jeff trying to see where I was. My “hello” was enough to let him know something was very wrong. I told him I was bleeding and I was driving myself to the hospital, and then hung up quickly. I couldn’t hold the phone through the shaking and staccato breathing and I couldn’t remember how to put it on loudspeaker. When I could see the ER just over the next hill, I started to hit some red lights and traffic, and frighteningly, started to feel the blood flow pick up. It was just this time that the second phone call came, from my friend Caroline, asking about prenatals and our truck. I was so glad someone got me through those traffic lights.
Even though I was lucky enough to have had a pad in my backpack to catch the blood flow, my shorts were soaked with blood between the car and the ER entrance. Yet another lucky coincidence was my choice of black shorts that morning.
In the ER, I remembered the important things, where I kept my medical card, what was my phone number and address and social security number, how far along I was, the name of my OB, how many miscarriages, how many live births, how many pads I’d soaked in what amount of time. I forgot everything else, like how to breathe properly, how to sit down in a waiting room chair with blood soaked shorts, how to make cell phone calls, how to stop shaking, how to use a vending machine. I was clearly at the mercy of those kind ER nurses with their pitying eyes.
They took me straight back. 5 minutes standing in the waiting room (I couldn’t figure out a way to sit down), 5 minutes standing in triage, explaining my problem, then right back to a room, to a bed, lined with chux pads, and warm blankets. And I waited.
The next 6 hours were an emotional roller coaster. First, they drew blood. Then they informed me I’d have a pelvic exam. I anticipated none of this! I wanted an ultrasound. In my experience, the baby dies, then you miscarry. Your body doesn’t miscarry a living baby. An ultrasound would tell me all I’d need to know. ER doctors don’t think like that. Ultrasound techs are hard to find on the weekends. There are better clinical signs. Is your cervix open? What is your HCG level? What is your rH factor? How much have you been bleeding? Are you cramping as well?
We finally received an opinion from the ER doc on call. “I believe you are having a miscarriage. Your cervix is open. Your HCG is 106,000. I have spoken with your OB and we would like to do an ultrasound to look for fetal demise. If there is no longer a viable fetus via ultrasound, we can check you in here for the night and perform a D & C.”
We waited another hour and a half for an ultrasound. During this time, I decided I would definitely decline the D & C. I called a doula. I wanted labor support during the miscarriage this time.
When I finally got up to the ultrasound room, the technician was cold and distant. I asked her if there was a heartbeat. “I can see a heartbeat,” she said.
“What is the rate?” I asked her.
“I will measure it. Right now I am doing other things. It is all protocol.”
20 minutes later, she said, “I’m trying to measure the heartbeat, but your baby won’t be still.”
All those damn warnings about ultrasounds from too much time spent on natural parenting boards were sounding in my head, getting louder and louder with each passing minute. I was angry that my baby had to go through all this. I put my hand on my belly, as close as I could get without interrupting “the protocol,” and internally spoke to it.
“You need to be still. I know you are scared. It must be very frightening for you. It will be okay. Be still. Here, I’ll hold you.” And in my mind’s eye, I held it, rocked it, and sang it a lullaby.
By the time I was done with the lullaby, she had measured the heartbeat. Why was it finally still for her? It is scientifically irrelevant, but for the first time in the hospital, I could hear my instincts tell me it would be okay. The baby was okay.
Another 25 minutes and a pushy, but ultimately declined, attempt at a transvaginal ultrasound later, I was sent back to my room. When I next saw the ER doctor, he had changed his mind. “The baby looks good. The heart rate is good. I don’t think a miscarriage is inevitable.” And with that, I was released.
Later, on the phone with my OB, I learned that mine was a textbook example of a burst cervical blood vessel. “Only time will tell how this will play out,” he said, “but I believe your bleeding was cervical. If the bleeding was coming from the baby, even a small amount of bleeding – not like what you described – would have put the baby in severe distress and we would have seen a significant drop in the heart rate. I think that your miscarriage rate is now the same as any other second trimester pregnancy – less than 2%.” He also informed me that all women who have had previous births have a cervix that is slightly open and that it can’t be used as a diagnostic tool for miscarriage.
Now the healing begins. I’ve been prescribed a week of bed rest. Last week, I was dreaming of spending my days napping. Now, though, I sit with an empty house and a strict dependence on other people to fulfill even basic needs. Sassy has been gone with Nana for three days and isn’t supposed to return until tomorrow. It’s been good for my healing process, since I can spend the time caring only for myself. But this is not who I am anymore. I care for my daughter. I am still me, the me I’ve always been. I write. I cook. I require an exaggerating and tangential sense of humor in a partner. I like exercise only if there’s a point to it. I enjoy projects and learning new things about people. I care more about your feelings about something than I do what is actually happening.
But there’s a new one now – I care for Sassy. Day in, day out, she is with me. She is the last thing I see before going to bed and the first thing I see in the morning. She is often how I gauge my own days. “Oh, we’re doing great! Sassy’s in a really good mood!” My relationship with her and with Jeff comprises the bulk of my sense of success or failure at any given time.
I miss her in the same way I miss the use of my legs right now. I don’t have either.
It has been interesting, being a bed-ridden invalid. If I forget that it’s temporary, I can feel the mixed emotions of the invalid, part immense gratitude, part guilt, and part total supplication.
I’ve always enjoyed thinking about worst-case scenarios. What would I do if the food supply shut down? What would I do if our water was contaminated by radioactive fallout? How could I make our cold room into a safe room to fend off rioters when the world goes boom?
I think of personal things too. When Sassy was a baby, I imagined what I would do if someone broke into the house with the intent to kill us. I imagined I would roll over onto her, keeping myself elevated so as not to smother her, just to protect her. If they killed me anyway, I would remember not to fall dead on top of her, but to the side so as not to smother her. If there was a fire, I would lower Sassy down to the ground in an old backpack carrier kept upstairs for that very purpose. Then I would tie a sheet around the bottom frame of the bed and lower myself down. I’ve thought about what I would do if I found out Jeff was having an affair (shut your mouth, play your hand, go ballistic on your own time until the game is up). And of course, I’ve also thought about what I would do if I were an invalid. Or if Jeff were an invalid. I’d stick it out if he were an invalid, of course! I would never leave just because he was stuck in the bed. If it were me? I’d rise up against the challenges and become the best damn invalid I could be, writing a novel from my bed, still powerful, never depressed.
Now, I can say to my daydreams, HA! The invalid road would be much harder than I ever imagined. Jeff has been an attentive and intuitive primary caregiver. He brings me special things I haven’t even asked for just because he knows I could use a lift. He spends time in this boring-ass room just so I don’t feel lonely. He makes sure to keep my cell phone handy and to let me know I shouldn’t hesitate to call him on it if I need anything. He makes multiple trips up and down the stairs with food he’s cooked for me, books I want to read, my computer, my computer cord. He travels to the library, to Blockbuster, to the grocery store. He brings me endless water and follows my elaborate instructions about how to find and care for my things. And perhaps most importantly, he lets me be when I want to just be.
But like every relationship, we are our own people with our own opinions about things. Should you put wheat or white flour in the gravy? Should you mix the beef with the mashed potatoes? Should you leave the surround sound speakers on at night or turn them off? Dozens, hundreds actually, of little things that we might do differently if we were doing them for ourselves.
Typically, I voice my opinions. My vehemence differs depending both on Jeff’s pre-existing mood and on the importance I give to the subject at hand. But I am not the girl who bites her tongue. The insides of my cheeks when I’m nervous, perhaps, but my tongue speaks its piece. The invalid in me doesn’t feel comfortable speaking my piece. The invalid in me is grateful and guilty for any attention she gets. She pushes away first her desires: a new book, the mail we received today, a phone number to look up. Next she pushes away her needs: food, water, company. Eventually, she deadens herself to the world around her to block the sense of abandonment she feels from everyone continuing to live their lives around her.
I like this. I like that I can feel this. When I tried to explain it to Jeff, he first put up his defenses. His posture stiffened and I imagined the roughly shaven hairs on the back of his neck rising. I reassured him I was simply feeling out the life of an invalid. What would it be like to be bed-ridden? How would it affect your relationships, your confidence, your sense of self? Next he tried to jolly me up. It’s just a week! You’re so strong! I know it’s hard, but you can do anything for a week. For the baby.
I know that. I also know how to jolly myself up if I need jollying. But just as my baby may or may not be same little dusty-haired boy that starred in my dream, with his total sense of calm, his message of “It’s okay,” the facts don’t matter. My perception of them matters. And in this case, my perception allowed me to see that life.
The life of my ex’s mother, whose degenerative rheumatoid arthritis worsened while she was pregnant with him, leaving him nearly motherless as a child. How did she deal with that? How badly did she want to care for him? Every hormone in her body probably craved her baby, and the only way to deal with the pain, the loss of her son to be cared for by his siblings, was to deaden herself. She probably had to deaden herself to his cries coming from inside her own home, as she was powerless to get up and nurture him. She eventually must have deadened herself to his toddler giggles, since her heart must have broken watching her older daughters, friends, and other family members play just the games she would have wanted to play with him. And if she did build those walls, out of necessity for her mental health, were they then reinforced when someone placed that giggling toddler in her lap and he just tried to wriggle away, as no toddler likes to just sit still?
The life of my uncle, who lived for exciting things in exotic places – fishing excursions off the coast of Alaska, farming goats in the mountains of Hawaii, drawing up self-taught architectural blueprints, then building multiple homes from them with spectacular views of the ocean and the volcanoes. How did he feel after the car accident that paralyzed him waist-down 8 years ago? Why did he stay with the woman he had been dating who continued to stay, but went on living her own life without him? That was the burning question at the time, but what choice did he have? In the grips of his depression, did he see himself as a pale imitation of the man he used to be? Was he grateful to have anyone at all? Was he afraid that if he stood his ground to her that he would have no one to bring him food and water at all hours of the day? No one to be there at night lest someone break into the house? No one to call emergency services if he fell, leaving him to choose between a caregiver who had once chased his love, but whose face now showed only pity, and the risk of lying on the living room floor, helpless, by himself, waiting for someone to find him?
There are times to cut the worst-case scenario thoughts. There are times when they infest the mind with worries and nighttime hallucinations. There are other times that it’s okay to let your mind follow the thoughts where they might lead, down one road, turn left, down another, relationships this way, self-esteem that way, depression straight ahead.
It’s been three days now on bed rest. In my case, it’s likely temporary. Cervical bleeding. Unrelated to baby. Those are the opinions of my doctors – the probable facts. But the facts hold a dim light to my perceptions of them. Those are much more interesting.
Monday, June 23, 2008
articles
Here's a call for input!
I'm going to write a few articles and pursue publication with them. I'm having a hard time deciding on subject matter and style and I would love some input from people who are familiar with what I write.
My possible subjects are:
Frugality
Nutrition
Parenting
The pursuit of pregnancy
I have a couple different styles I can consider. The first is your standard magazine style where the focus is solely on information. These types of articles typically have an intro paragraph of 2-4 sentences, then bulleted points (done in bold by the formatter) followed by a paragraph of info. An example would be tips on saving money at the grocery store.
Intro paragraph
Hungry bellies make full baskets
3-4 sentences
If it's level with your eye, pass it by
3-4 sentences
Strrreetttcchhh your trips, not your budget
3-4 sentences
Ok, you all get the point I'm sure.
The benefits to this style is that it's easy. It can be achieved whether or not I feel "on" -- writer's block is not an issue with these types of articles. I feel confident enough in my ability to do these kinds of articles on-call that if I were ever offered something regular, I could accept with no qualms.
The other style I can do is to use my real voice, my real emotions, but in a non-fiction genre. The parenting articles and fertility articles could benefit from this type of style. I skip any parenting articles that are done in the information-only style. If you want to give me a bulleted list of tips -- if you don't give me something real -- it's not worth my time.
The benefits to this style is that I would feel infinitely better about myself and about any acceptance I might receive if it came from this type of article. I could be more proud of these. The downside is that I definitely have to be in the right mood & place to get one done. A regular gig would be hard for me to confidently accept. Plus, I'm more insecure to start with this style -- I wonder if I have a voice that is unique or interesting enough to attract readers.
I'm torn. I could start easy or I could start with a decent challenge for myself. My goal isn't to make money quickly. I'd rather make money slowly, but long-term.
Any thoughts? You can always email them to me if you don't want to comment publicly.
I'm going to write a few articles and pursue publication with them. I'm having a hard time deciding on subject matter and style and I would love some input from people who are familiar with what I write.
My possible subjects are:
Frugality
Nutrition
Parenting
The pursuit of pregnancy
I have a couple different styles I can consider. The first is your standard magazine style where the focus is solely on information. These types of articles typically have an intro paragraph of 2-4 sentences, then bulleted points (done in bold by the formatter) followed by a paragraph of info. An example would be tips on saving money at the grocery store.
Intro paragraph
Hungry bellies make full baskets
3-4 sentences
If it's level with your eye, pass it by
3-4 sentences
Strrreetttcchhh your trips, not your budget
3-4 sentences
Ok, you all get the point I'm sure.
The benefits to this style is that it's easy. It can be achieved whether or not I feel "on" -- writer's block is not an issue with these types of articles. I feel confident enough in my ability to do these kinds of articles on-call that if I were ever offered something regular, I could accept with no qualms.
The other style I can do is to use my real voice, my real emotions, but in a non-fiction genre. The parenting articles and fertility articles could benefit from this type of style. I skip any parenting articles that are done in the information-only style. If you want to give me a bulleted list of tips -- if you don't give me something real -- it's not worth my time.
The benefits to this style is that I would feel infinitely better about myself and about any acceptance I might receive if it came from this type of article. I could be more proud of these. The downside is that I definitely have to be in the right mood & place to get one done. A regular gig would be hard for me to confidently accept. Plus, I'm more insecure to start with this style -- I wonder if I have a voice that is unique or interesting enough to attract readers.
I'm torn. I could start easy or I could start with a decent challenge for myself. My goal isn't to make money quickly. I'd rather make money slowly, but long-term.
Any thoughts? You can always email them to me if you don't want to comment publicly.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
yes doctor, my mom made me this way
I've been doing some hardcore looking at my parenting self lately. Sassy started this self-reflection by becoming all at once defiant, outspoken, angry, shut-off, and generally extremely antagonistic with me. It all came to a head last week when I had to ask her to help her friend pick up after they played together at our house and she flatly refused. What ensued was a horrid battle of wills that involved me shutting her in her room by herself while she screamed and cried, telling her she couldn't leave the room until she picked up with her friend, and ultimately carrying her downstairs when I was waaayyyy too angry to be holding her, then saying all kinds of things I regret. I used the word "brat," I remember, and "I don't know what's wrong with you. I don't want to be with you right now." It was awful. Then I broke down and cried in front of MY friend (her friend's mom) and said that I had surely screwed up this child completely and I was a wretched mother who didn't deserve children.
Like I said, it was awful.
And it made me regroup. I posted on mothering.com and found it to be much more satisfying than any post I've made or received from GCM (gentlechristianmothers.com). I brought out my old favorite parenting books (How to Talk so Kids Will Listen...., Playful Parenting) and added a new one (The No-Cry Discipline Solution). I've been reading them like crazy and trying again to be the best mama I can. Actually, trying to be the mama Sassy deserves.
The thing is, there are so many of these cultural dogmas surrounding child-rearing that I find it so hard to separate what I actually feel and believe (my instincts) from what everyone in the society around me perpetuates (unwanted input).
I'm coming to some of the same old conclusions I've come to before, and this time I'm writing them out. I'm tired of realizing, then forgetting, then realizing, then forgetting. If the realizing took up more space in my life than the forgetting, it might not be so bad. But it's sadly misproportioned at about 80% of my life being spent following the path of least resistance in this area. I let my mind get preoccupied with other things and then those same old authoritarian, shape-up, obedience-driven whispers keep filling my mind. I have to concentrate to keep them out.
So where am I right now?
The number one most detrimental idea in our culture is that parents are responsible for all of their children's behavior.
This one idea sets me up for failure every time. When Sassy runs away from me at the post office, I'm not thinking about her safety as much as I'm thinking how embarrassed I am in front of all those other customers who are thinking how I can't control my child. The thing is, I can't control my child, but I'll get to that in a second. My embarrassment in front of other adults is what leads us to angry mom episodes every time. I can't think of a single time that I have "laid into her" verbally, and not a single time I've used the word "brat" that hasn't occurred immediately following a time that I've been embarrassed by her behavior in front of other people. Why am I embarrassed about this? Because it is so prevalent in our culture to assume that her running away, her talking back, her not obeying me is a direct reflection of either my lack of skill as a parent or my lack of concern. I might be lazy, or I might not set limits, or I might not give direction, or I might not give any consequences, or I might be too preoocupied with my own life to spend time on her.
I'm aware that these judgements occur because I spend too much time in the company of people who think this way. Doesn't everyone who lives in America? How are children supposed to act in America? Are they ever expected to just "misbehave" because they are children? Do adults do the right thing all the time? Do they follow every direction given to them, or do they spend a lot of time figuring out how to get around authority or how to sneak past "the man?" Don't most of us expect to defy authority at some point in a free country? Yet our little emotionally immature children are supposed to be perfect when we are out and about, proving that mom is doing a stellar job? The thing is, the child who was once a part of mom does develop his own personality, and once that happens -- once he has the vocabulary skills to assert that personality -- he is clearly a different person with his own little brain and his own little heart and his own little soul. Mom leads but his heart and soul are his alone. Which leads me to....
It is my job to be the teacher, not the micro-manager.
That cultural ideology up there, it is so insidious, that I have to constantly remind myself that Sassy's actions belong to her, not me. When Sassy talks back that doesn't mean I've failed. Instead, I keep teaching her to use her nice voice. When she refuses to clean up, I keep explaining why it's important to clean up our things. When she wants to eat only ice cream for dinner, I keep educating her about healthy versus non-healthy food choices. THIS is my job. My job is not to parade around a perfectly behaved child so the world can see I'm a good mother. This teaching is my job day-in, day-out for at least another 13 years. I hope it's my job even longer, but that will depend mostly on whether I can remain the type of mother she continually respects. That will happen when I show her respect, not narcissism.
And while we're on the subject of teaching, it helps to remember that most people learn more from their mistakes than from hypothetical explanations of things. In this light, Standard American Misbehavior (SAM) can be seen as a long series of learning opportunities. It is the good mother who recognizes this and capitalizes on it.
Sassy belongs to herself.
This is a hard one to describe, though I tried a bit just a couple paragraphs ago. It's also so obvious on paper that it's hard to believe I'd have to write it down to remind myself. I guess in the deepest part of myself, I never fully got over the fact that we were connected. I wonder if this is common to AP parenting.
The thing I have to realize now is that she is absolutely 100% Sassy and 0% me now. We have similarities -- especially in our genetic makeup -- but the way we choose to run with or deny those similarities is absolutely up to each of us as individuals. We are two fellow human beings sharing a household, sharing a family, and sharing a life. I love her from the bottom to the top of my heart and all the way around and back again. I always will. And in a way, it's kind of exciting to be struck so suddenly by our "differentness." I now get a first-row seat to watch this new little person develop into her very own self. I want it be according to her own drum, not mine.
So in short, I am her teacher. I am her comforter. I am her unconditional lover. I teach, teach, teach, comfort, comfort, comfort, love, love, love.....whew!....and then.....set her free. She is Sassy. And I am me. And we are different and that's OK.
And all those customers in the post office are going to have to bite me.
Like I said, it was awful.
And it made me regroup. I posted on mothering.com and found it to be much more satisfying than any post I've made or received from GCM (gentlechristianmothers.com). I brought out my old favorite parenting books (How to Talk so Kids Will Listen...., Playful Parenting) and added a new one (The No-Cry Discipline Solution). I've been reading them like crazy and trying again to be the best mama I can. Actually, trying to be the mama Sassy deserves.
The thing is, there are so many of these cultural dogmas surrounding child-rearing that I find it so hard to separate what I actually feel and believe (my instincts) from what everyone in the society around me perpetuates (unwanted input).
I'm coming to some of the same old conclusions I've come to before, and this time I'm writing them out. I'm tired of realizing, then forgetting, then realizing, then forgetting. If the realizing took up more space in my life than the forgetting, it might not be so bad. But it's sadly misproportioned at about 80% of my life being spent following the path of least resistance in this area. I let my mind get preoccupied with other things and then those same old authoritarian, shape-up, obedience-driven whispers keep filling my mind. I have to concentrate to keep them out.
So where am I right now?
The number one most detrimental idea in our culture is that parents are responsible for all of their children's behavior.
This one idea sets me up for failure every time. When Sassy runs away from me at the post office, I'm not thinking about her safety as much as I'm thinking how embarrassed I am in front of all those other customers who are thinking how I can't control my child. The thing is, I can't control my child, but I'll get to that in a second. My embarrassment in front of other adults is what leads us to angry mom episodes every time. I can't think of a single time that I have "laid into her" verbally, and not a single time I've used the word "brat" that hasn't occurred immediately following a time that I've been embarrassed by her behavior in front of other people. Why am I embarrassed about this? Because it is so prevalent in our culture to assume that her running away, her talking back, her not obeying me is a direct reflection of either my lack of skill as a parent or my lack of concern. I might be lazy, or I might not set limits, or I might not give direction, or I might not give any consequences, or I might be too preoocupied with my own life to spend time on her.
I'm aware that these judgements occur because I spend too much time in the company of people who think this way. Doesn't everyone who lives in America? How are children supposed to act in America? Are they ever expected to just "misbehave" because they are children? Do adults do the right thing all the time? Do they follow every direction given to them, or do they spend a lot of time figuring out how to get around authority or how to sneak past "the man?" Don't most of us expect to defy authority at some point in a free country? Yet our little emotionally immature children are supposed to be perfect when we are out and about, proving that mom is doing a stellar job? The thing is, the child who was once a part of mom does develop his own personality, and once that happens -- once he has the vocabulary skills to assert that personality -- he is clearly a different person with his own little brain and his own little heart and his own little soul. Mom leads but his heart and soul are his alone. Which leads me to....
It is my job to be the teacher, not the micro-manager.
That cultural ideology up there, it is so insidious, that I have to constantly remind myself that Sassy's actions belong to her, not me. When Sassy talks back that doesn't mean I've failed. Instead, I keep teaching her to use her nice voice. When she refuses to clean up, I keep explaining why it's important to clean up our things. When she wants to eat only ice cream for dinner, I keep educating her about healthy versus non-healthy food choices. THIS is my job. My job is not to parade around a perfectly behaved child so the world can see I'm a good mother. This teaching is my job day-in, day-out for at least another 13 years. I hope it's my job even longer, but that will depend mostly on whether I can remain the type of mother she continually respects. That will happen when I show her respect, not narcissism.
And while we're on the subject of teaching, it helps to remember that most people learn more from their mistakes than from hypothetical explanations of things. In this light, Standard American Misbehavior (SAM) can be seen as a long series of learning opportunities. It is the good mother who recognizes this and capitalizes on it.
Sassy belongs to herself.
This is a hard one to describe, though I tried a bit just a couple paragraphs ago. It's also so obvious on paper that it's hard to believe I'd have to write it down to remind myself. I guess in the deepest part of myself, I never fully got over the fact that we were connected. I wonder if this is common to AP parenting.
The thing I have to realize now is that she is absolutely 100% Sassy and 0% me now. We have similarities -- especially in our genetic makeup -- but the way we choose to run with or deny those similarities is absolutely up to each of us as individuals. We are two fellow human beings sharing a household, sharing a family, and sharing a life. I love her from the bottom to the top of my heart and all the way around and back again. I always will. And in a way, it's kind of exciting to be struck so suddenly by our "differentness." I now get a first-row seat to watch this new little person develop into her very own self. I want it be according to her own drum, not mine.
So in short, I am her teacher. I am her comforter. I am her unconditional lover. I teach, teach, teach, comfort, comfort, comfort, love, love, love.....whew!....and then.....set her free. She is Sassy. And I am me. And we are different and that's OK.
And all those customers in the post office are going to have to bite me.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
dear fledgling
Will you stay in our lovers' story
If you stay you won't be sorry
'Cause we believe in you
Soon you'll grow so take a chance
With a couple of kooks
Hung up on romancing
We bought a lot of things
to keep you warm and dry
And a funny old crib on which the paint won't dry
I bought you a pair of shoes
A trumpet you can blow
And a book of rules
On what to say to people
when they pick on you
'Cause if you stay with us you're gonna be pretty kooky too
Will you stay in our lovers' story
If you stay you won't be sorry
'Cause we believe in you
Soon you'll grow so take a chance
With a couple of kooks
Hung up on romancing
And if you ever have to go to school
Remember how they messed up this old fool
Don't pick fights with the bullies or the cads
'Cause I'm not much cop at punching other people's dads
And if the homework brings you down
Then we'll throw it on the fire
And take the car downtown
Will you stay in our lovers' story
If you stay you won't be sorry
'Cause we believe in you
Soon you'll grow so take a chance
With a couple of kooks
Hung up on romancing
Monday, May 19, 2008
gutless
I get so irritated with my gutless self sometimes. While I naturally gravitate toward people that are kind & not all in-your-face about how they disagree with you (I really hate conflict), sometimes in-your-face is called for....if for nothing else, to avoid hangover guilt the next morning when you think back on your pathetic, zipped-lip self.
We had Sassy's birthday party yesterday, a joint party with her cousin Lillie who was turning one. All of Jeff's family attended, and some of my mother-in-law's neighbors, too. His aunt L got to talking with his mom's neighbor M (who has one child, one year old) after I commented on a little girl from another group's party up the hill. She was sitting on the ground for a good five minutes crying, wailing actually, and I said, "I wonder what she's crying so much about."
I suppose I should have been more distinct. I was wondering who her parents were and why they weren't trying to figure out what was wrong. I was wondering why they were leaving her to cry by herself for 5 minutes. She was 3 or 4 years old maybe.
This started a nice little ditty of a conversation between L and M.
M: I'll tell you what I would do. I'd tell her to quit crying or I'd give her something to cry about.
L: You know, I was in Target the other day and [insert local news anchor’s name] was in there with her little girl. She had her in the cart and the little girl was throwing a huge fit, screaming and crying, and she was talking to her! Trying to reason with her! Finally, she let her out and the little girl threw herself on the floor and threw a huge tantrum – kicked her legs, flung her arms around. Well, everybody was looking. Later, I heard they were out on the bench in the front of the store and she told someone, “It was way past her naptime.” I’ll tell you what – it was way past her spanking time!
M (nodding): This business about not being able to spank your kids when you want is the biggest bunch of bull. My friend’s son came home the other day from school and told his mom, “Guess what I learned in school today. I learned you can’t touch me or I can call 241-KIDS. “ Now he’s a good kid. He was just telling his mom what he learned, not threatening or anything. But she put him in his place. She said, “Well, I might go to jail but I’ll get out of jail faster than you’ll get out of the hospital!”
Much laughter ensued between L & M, and even through my tight lips, I couldn’t hold back my, “Ooh, that’s horrible!”
I guess they realized at that point they didn’t have much of a sympathetic audience anymore, so L gave one last little anecdote while M looked at me suspiciously.
L: I saw [same news anchor] in Kohl’s one day and she had both kids with her. They were both screaming and crying that day. It disturbed everyone in the place! No one could shop.
In my head, I was saying all sorts of things. Things like:
“You know, it is not a basic human right to go out in the world and not be annoyed by other people.”
“Your ‘good Christian judgment’ never helped anybody understand Jesus’ love.” (She’s quite religious.)
“Boy, if only Jesus had been there, he would have picked those kids up and blistered their butts!”
“Children have as many rights as you do to express their frustration without being assaulted, even if they don’t do it in as mature a way as you do.”
And finally....
“This is a horrible conversation! I’m outta here!”
Instead, I waited for an opportunity to politely excuse myself without being rude. Because I don’t want to cause a conflict. Because I don’t like confrontation.
Because I was gutless, and I’ve got the hangover guilt to prove it.
We had Sassy's birthday party yesterday, a joint party with her cousin Lillie who was turning one. All of Jeff's family attended, and some of my mother-in-law's neighbors, too. His aunt L got to talking with his mom's neighbor M (who has one child, one year old) after I commented on a little girl from another group's party up the hill. She was sitting on the ground for a good five minutes crying, wailing actually, and I said, "I wonder what she's crying so much about."
I suppose I should have been more distinct. I was wondering who her parents were and why they weren't trying to figure out what was wrong. I was wondering why they were leaving her to cry by herself for 5 minutes. She was 3 or 4 years old maybe.
This started a nice little ditty of a conversation between L and M.
M: I'll tell you what I would do. I'd tell her to quit crying or I'd give her something to cry about.
L: You know, I was in Target the other day and [insert local news anchor’s name] was in there with her little girl. She had her in the cart and the little girl was throwing a huge fit, screaming and crying, and she was talking to her! Trying to reason with her! Finally, she let her out and the little girl threw herself on the floor and threw a huge tantrum – kicked her legs, flung her arms around. Well, everybody was looking. Later, I heard they were out on the bench in the front of the store and she told someone, “It was way past her naptime.” I’ll tell you what – it was way past her spanking time!
M (nodding): This business about not being able to spank your kids when you want is the biggest bunch of bull. My friend’s son came home the other day from school and told his mom, “Guess what I learned in school today. I learned you can’t touch me or I can call 241-KIDS. “ Now he’s a good kid. He was just telling his mom what he learned, not threatening or anything. But she put him in his place. She said, “Well, I might go to jail but I’ll get out of jail faster than you’ll get out of the hospital!”
Much laughter ensued between L & M, and even through my tight lips, I couldn’t hold back my, “Ooh, that’s horrible!”
I guess they realized at that point they didn’t have much of a sympathetic audience anymore, so L gave one last little anecdote while M looked at me suspiciously.
L: I saw [same news anchor] in Kohl’s one day and she had both kids with her. They were both screaming and crying that day. It disturbed everyone in the place! No one could shop.
In my head, I was saying all sorts of things. Things like:
“You know, it is not a basic human right to go out in the world and not be annoyed by other people.”
“Your ‘good Christian judgment’ never helped anybody understand Jesus’ love.” (She’s quite religious.)
“Boy, if only Jesus had been there, he would have picked those kids up and blistered their butts!”
“Children have as many rights as you do to express their frustration without being assaulted, even if they don’t do it in as mature a way as you do.”
And finally....
“This is a horrible conversation! I’m outta here!”
Instead, I waited for an opportunity to politely excuse myself without being rude. Because I don’t want to cause a conflict. Because I don’t like confrontation.
Because I was gutless, and I’ve got the hangover guilt to prove it.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
what is it about stickers?
Thanks DK & Miss Pickle for letting me talk through my issues with Sassy the other day at the park. It helped to just work it out aloud & I got myself all inspired to make some changes.
She has been quite the little TV addict lately, and it's been my own fault for not setting better limits. The TV wasn't the only thing bothering me. It was also the I'm-the-queen-bee attitude. I know that attitude, because it's the same one I had my whole childhood.
Like Sassy, I was the first grandchild in the family, and I wasn't followed by another for 7 years. I was bowed to, catered to, served, picked up after. Anything I wanted was handed to me. Sometimes it took a big ol' temper tantrum to get it, but it was eventually handed to me. I remember the attitude I got along with all the glorious, indulgent attention. It was the attitude that makes other moms in the grocery store roll their eyes and mutter "Brat" underneath their breath. My own mom, despite her disciplinarian intentions, was thwarted by her need to be elsewhere most of the time and the resultant catering I received while in the care of the elderly women in my family.
While Sassy's situation might not be as extreme, her attitude has been growing into the same big hairy monster mine did. I love her unconditionally...that means bad attitude or good. Sick or well. Cranky or pleasant. It also means that I love her enough to start looking for solutions as soon as I see THE ATTITUDE rearing its ugly head. Because the thing I remember very distinctly about my many years with THE ATTITUDE is that I felt unhappy, insecure and generally bad whenever I had it.
What does it look like?
Instead of saying, "Sure, Mommy!" we say, "NO! I don't WANT to!"
Instead of saying, "Hi, friend!" we turn our heads, cross our arms & stomp away.
Instead of saying, "I love you Mommy!" we say, "Get off me! I want my alone time!"
Instead of saying, "OK, I will go. But can we get this show I'm watching from the library?" we scream, cry, kick our toys, stomp upstairs, slam our door, and say "I HATE our house!"
Instead of saying, "Sure, I'll get that!" we say, "You get it Mommy. I don't feel like it right now."
Instead of saying, "Let's snuggle, Mommy," we say, "Turn on the TV and scratch my back Mommy. Give me MY pillow!"
We have our arms crossed a lot. We walk with a swagger, nose high up in the air. We growl, we grunt. It is THE ATTITUDE. It is also a big cry for help out of this crappy place we've found ourselves.
I decided Sassy needed a 3-prong approach. First, she needed to cut her TV time. (Thanks C!) Second, she needed some of my expectations clearly laid out for her, in a way that made them easy to decipher & easy to achieve. Third, she needed clear boundaries and consistent consequences for crossing them.
I made this chart last night.
I explained to her that each time she did one of the tasks on the chart by herself, without complaining, she would earn a sticker. Each sticker equaled 10 minutes of TV time. Each night, we'll add up all her stickers & she can watch a cartoon of that length. If she gets no stickers for the day, she gets no TV at night.
I don't know what it is about those darn stickers, but they sure do motivate! She had already earned 3 stickers (30 minutes TV!) by the time she left for Nana's today! And she did it happily, I might add.
The first day of the chart was great for both of us. Although I sensed it would make her feel more secure to have my expectations clearly defined on paper, the unexpected fringe benefit was that it made me feel more secure and calm too.
Since she took off to Nana's by noon today, I didn't have a chance to see if THE ATTITUDE would have emerged from its dark hole later in the day. If it does tomorrow, a second chart of behaviors that are not allowed will be in order.
Oh, and I almost forgot -- the best part? "I need my alone time!" has been replaced again with, "I love you to the tip of the sky!" To which, of course, I replied, "Well I love you to the tip of the sky -- and back!"
She has been quite the little TV addict lately, and it's been my own fault for not setting better limits. The TV wasn't the only thing bothering me. It was also the I'm-the-queen-bee attitude. I know that attitude, because it's the same one I had my whole childhood.
Like Sassy, I was the first grandchild in the family, and I wasn't followed by another for 7 years. I was bowed to, catered to, served, picked up after. Anything I wanted was handed to me. Sometimes it took a big ol' temper tantrum to get it, but it was eventually handed to me. I remember the attitude I got along with all the glorious, indulgent attention. It was the attitude that makes other moms in the grocery store roll their eyes and mutter "Brat" underneath their breath. My own mom, despite her disciplinarian intentions, was thwarted by her need to be elsewhere most of the time and the resultant catering I received while in the care of the elderly women in my family.
While Sassy's situation might not be as extreme, her attitude has been growing into the same big hairy monster mine did. I love her unconditionally...that means bad attitude or good. Sick or well. Cranky or pleasant. It also means that I love her enough to start looking for solutions as soon as I see THE ATTITUDE rearing its ugly head. Because the thing I remember very distinctly about my many years with THE ATTITUDE is that I felt unhappy, insecure and generally bad whenever I had it.
What does it look like?
Instead of saying, "Sure, Mommy!" we say, "NO! I don't WANT to!"
Instead of saying, "Hi, friend!" we turn our heads, cross our arms & stomp away.
Instead of saying, "I love you Mommy!" we say, "Get off me! I want my alone time!"
Instead of saying, "OK, I will go. But can we get this show I'm watching from the library?" we scream, cry, kick our toys, stomp upstairs, slam our door, and say "I HATE our house!"
Instead of saying, "Sure, I'll get that!" we say, "You get it Mommy. I don't feel like it right now."
Instead of saying, "Let's snuggle, Mommy," we say, "Turn on the TV and scratch my back Mommy. Give me MY pillow!"
We have our arms crossed a lot. We walk with a swagger, nose high up in the air. We growl, we grunt. It is THE ATTITUDE. It is also a big cry for help out of this crappy place we've found ourselves.
I decided Sassy needed a 3-prong approach. First, she needed to cut her TV time. (Thanks C!) Second, she needed some of my expectations clearly laid out for her, in a way that made them easy to decipher & easy to achieve. Third, she needed clear boundaries and consistent consequences for crossing them.
I made this chart last night.
I explained to her that each time she did one of the tasks on the chart by herself, without complaining, she would earn a sticker. Each sticker equaled 10 minutes of TV time. Each night, we'll add up all her stickers & she can watch a cartoon of that length. If she gets no stickers for the day, she gets no TV at night.
I don't know what it is about those darn stickers, but they sure do motivate! She had already earned 3 stickers (30 minutes TV!) by the time she left for Nana's today! And she did it happily, I might add.
The first day of the chart was great for both of us. Although I sensed it would make her feel more secure to have my expectations clearly defined on paper, the unexpected fringe benefit was that it made me feel more secure and calm too.
Since she took off to Nana's by noon today, I didn't have a chance to see if THE ATTITUDE would have emerged from its dark hole later in the day. If it does tomorrow, a second chart of behaviors that are not allowed will be in order.
Oh, and I almost forgot -- the best part? "I need my alone time!" has been replaced again with, "I love you to the tip of the sky!" To which, of course, I replied, "Well I love you to the tip of the sky -- and back!"
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
i think it's so groovy now
...that things are finally coming together.
Yes, I know they're not the real lyrics, but they are how I feel today and they are mine.
Have I shared on here what all is currently broken in our house? Well, here's a refresher list:
1. Our dishwasher (again)
2. Our oven (still)
3. Our refrigerator -- started leaking water on the kitchen floor
4. Our washing machine -- imagine a creek through the basement to the drain every time it runs
5. Our vacuum
6. My laptop charger, making my laptop useless
7. My sewing machine
One thing after another just started breaking on me & sadly, I had to put off the first repair (on the oven) because it was beginning of winter & with our inefficient furnace & ridiculously high heating bills, I couldn't do it. Then, everything else followed suit, one by one, until I just had to throw up my hands in defeat & depression & refuse to talk or think about it anymore. It's one thing to save save save your money for one major purchase at a time but good word! Seven??!!??
So today, I went to my grandma's house for a visit, laundry load in tote, and she saved me!!! It's such a glorious, freeing feeling!
We took a trip to Hagedorn's, where she bought me a brand new washing machine to the tune of $500. Thank you thank you thank you. She gave me one of her vacuums (she has 3). She told Hagedorn's to service all my broken kitchen appliances & bill it to her. Thank you thank you thank you. Leaving me with having to take care of just two. My laptop charger, which I purchased yesterday & am happily using as I type on my lovely familiar keyboard. And my sewing machine, which I'm anxious to replace. Perhaps -- perhaps -- even upgrade. :) :) :) :) :)
My grandma will probably spend $800 or so when all's said and done, but the monkey she's taken off my back makes it the best birthday gift ever. The best early birthday gift ever.
Yes, I know they're not the real lyrics, but they are how I feel today and they are mine.
Have I shared on here what all is currently broken in our house? Well, here's a refresher list:
1. Our dishwasher (again)
2. Our oven (still)
3. Our refrigerator -- started leaking water on the kitchen floor
4. Our washing machine -- imagine a creek through the basement to the drain every time it runs
5. Our vacuum
6. My laptop charger, making my laptop useless
7. My sewing machine
One thing after another just started breaking on me & sadly, I had to put off the first repair (on the oven) because it was beginning of winter & with our inefficient furnace & ridiculously high heating bills, I couldn't do it. Then, everything else followed suit, one by one, until I just had to throw up my hands in defeat & depression & refuse to talk or think about it anymore. It's one thing to save save save your money for one major purchase at a time but good word! Seven??!!??
So today, I went to my grandma's house for a visit, laundry load in tote, and she saved me!!! It's such a glorious, freeing feeling!
We took a trip to Hagedorn's, where she bought me a brand new washing machine to the tune of $500. Thank you thank you thank you. She gave me one of her vacuums (she has 3). She told Hagedorn's to service all my broken kitchen appliances & bill it to her. Thank you thank you thank you. Leaving me with having to take care of just two. My laptop charger, which I purchased yesterday & am happily using as I type on my lovely familiar keyboard. And my sewing machine, which I'm anxious to replace. Perhaps -- perhaps -- even upgrade. :) :) :) :) :)
My grandma will probably spend $800 or so when all's said and done, but the monkey she's taken off my back makes it the best birthday gift ever. The best early birthday gift ever.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
and you ask yourself, well, how did I get here?
Hoity canoity! I went to bed a perfectly normal homeschooler, pro-education in the very educated sense of the word, and woke up an unschooler. How did that happen?! And when, exactly? I wonder....
Anyway, here's a quotable from Mr. Holt.
Sometimes I'm giddy with nervous excitement, imagining Sassy having freedoms I never had, living a life I only dreamt of, being herself mutliplied by infinity. I feel like I have a fear-grin permanently plastered across my face right now, even if it doesn't show on my lips. I want to jump out of my skin right onto our farm, even though I'm terrified of my own lack of experience here.
Ah, well, with me, the call of adventure always wins over fear.
Anyway, here's a quotable from Mr. Holt.
"It can't be said too often: We get better at using words, whether
hearing, speaking, reading, or writing, under one condition and only
one -- when we use those words to say something we want to say,
to people we want to say it to, for purposes that are our own."
~ John Holt
Sometimes I'm giddy with nervous excitement, imagining Sassy having freedoms I never had, living a life I only dreamt of, being herself mutliplied by infinity. I feel like I have a fear-grin permanently plastered across my face right now, even if it doesn't show on my lips. I want to jump out of my skin right onto our farm, even though I'm terrified of my own lack of experience here.
Ah, well, with me, the call of adventure always wins over fear.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
this is my commandment
I used to sing a song in Sunday School when I was little.
Here's the actual verse.
I've been thinking quite a bit about this verse all month. This Sunday, we had the sermon about homosexuality that often pops up in "seeker churches," like the one I attend. I was glad to hear that our pastor was preaching love instead of judgement (particularly since this is a make or break issue for me in a church), but it really got me thinking about this aspect of "love" that Jesus talks about it this verse.
Love is presented in this passage in the form of a commandment. I've known this for years -- ever since those kindergarten years singing Sunday School songs. But it holds a new meaning when I concentrate on the commandment part.
It is only possible to follow a command if you're being commanded to do something. You can't be commanded to feel something. Really, this idea of love that we are commanded to practice must carry with it a different meaning than the one that we Americans typically attach to "love."
It must be possible to actively love other people, regardless of your feelings for them. Like most Americans, I typically see love in the context of my marriage, my family & my friends, plus all those other things I enjoy. I LOVE my husband. I LOVE my daughter. I LOVE retrievers. I LOVE summer. I LOVE coffee. I LOVE sunshine. I LOVE my new camera.
When we keep using the word love in this way, I think it keeps us from realizing that the love Jesus spoke of is a little different, less opinion-based and way more active.
I can't change my usage of the word love, nor would it be all that productive since it's part of our country's vernacular and I don't want to be misunderstood by everyone around me. Instead, I'd like to add one little word to Jesus' commandment to make it more accurate in the context of current American English.
There will always be neighbors that I find it hard to love as myself, those about whom I'm prone to gossip, that most pervasive of transgressions among women. But I have to love on them anyway. If the focus is off changing my feelings and on practicing the action of love, the commandment should be easier to follow.
This is my commandment
That you love one another
That your joy may be strong.
Here's the actual verse.
Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question.
"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
Matthew 34-40 NIV
I've been thinking quite a bit about this verse all month. This Sunday, we had the sermon about homosexuality that often pops up in "seeker churches," like the one I attend. I was glad to hear that our pastor was preaching love instead of judgement (particularly since this is a make or break issue for me in a church), but it really got me thinking about this aspect of "love" that Jesus talks about it this verse.
Love is presented in this passage in the form of a commandment. I've known this for years -- ever since those kindergarten years singing Sunday School songs. But it holds a new meaning when I concentrate on the commandment part.
It is only possible to follow a command if you're being commanded to do something. You can't be commanded to feel something. Really, this idea of love that we are commanded to practice must carry with it a different meaning than the one that we Americans typically attach to "love."
It must be possible to actively love other people, regardless of your feelings for them. Like most Americans, I typically see love in the context of my marriage, my family & my friends, plus all those other things I enjoy. I LOVE my husband. I LOVE my daughter. I LOVE retrievers. I LOVE summer. I LOVE coffee. I LOVE sunshine. I LOVE my new camera.
When we keep using the word love in this way, I think it keeps us from realizing that the love Jesus spoke of is a little different, less opinion-based and way more active.
I can't change my usage of the word love, nor would it be all that productive since it's part of our country's vernacular and I don't want to be misunderstood by everyone around me. Instead, I'd like to add one little word to Jesus' commandment to make it more accurate in the context of current American English.
This is my commandment
That we LOVE ON one another
That our joy may be strong.
There will always be neighbors that I find it hard to love as myself, those about whom I'm prone to gossip, that most pervasive of transgressions among women. But I have to love on them anyway. If the focus is off changing my feelings and on practicing the action of love, the commandment should be easier to follow.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
blooming flower
Sassy chose the blooming flower as her prize at the Art MuseumFor some reason, I've been thinking a lot about my various time suckers recently. I feel like one of those analysts that companies hire to find out where they can save money, especially in human labor. I've been jokingly referring to myself as a "systems analyst" in my own head. (OK, and to Jeff, too. I'm sure he was rolling his eyes, even if he was kind enough not to do so during our "face time.")
It is true, however, that our house is bleeding money through as yet unidentified avenues and weeks will go by with me not seeming to do much besides repeating long cleaning or organizing processes over and over and over again. Couldn't there be a better way? A way that enables me to spend more time doing something that would make us some money or feed into my daughter and other family/friend relationships? Finding and reducing these time suckers often has some lovely little surprise benefits, like saving money or saving resources to help lessen our environmental impact.
So can I write "systems analyst" on a resume one day? :-) Here are a couple I've identified.
Dishes
Our dishwasher broke again (never, ever, EVER buy Frigidaire anything), leaving me with lots of time spent not doing dishes, but thinking about the dishes. I have implemented a new plan for our family. Each of us has chosen one mug, one glass, one bowl, one plate, one fork, knife & spoon. These are only to be used for the individual that chose them, and no one was allowed to choose the same style. That habit I've cultivated of buying mismatched dishes, to the dismay of my more OCD friends, is paying off!
We have a special drying place for these dishes. Each time you use your dishes, you rinse them & put them on the drying place. Every time I do a load of dishes, I wash those too & we start over. In my estimation, this will eliminate about 50% of the overall dishes. No longer will we have a steady stream of plates, mugs, glasses & silverware. The full loads will be made up of our cooking & storing dishes. It should save the same amount of money spent and water wasted.
Pictures
I've realized that my camera is a big time sucker for me. It involves a loooooonnnnnnggggg process to get pictures from the camera to, say, a website like this one. Unfortunately, I don't have such an easy fix on this one, though I'm trying. Here's the steps:
Transfer pics via camera cord to my laptop
iPhoto auto starts and imports the pics
View pics in iPhoto and decide which ones to keep (this is by far the longest step, since the camera's resolution overwhelms my very slow computer)
Delete unwanted pics from computer, first to iPhoto trash, then empty iPhoto trash, then empty desktop trash
Name those pics destined for other places (email, websites, photoshop)
Export those pics to the appropriate places by apple-clicking on each one from the organize view, choosing export & typing in my specs (this too is very time-consuming & annoying since I can't always remember which pic I've chosen for which app when in organize view)
For a Blogger upload, open the image dialog box in Blogger & configure specs
Upload
Copy & paste to the right spot in the post since it always annoyingly puts it at the top of the post
Using this system, one picture -- just one -- could easily take 20 minutes or longer since a lot of time is waiting for iPhoto to stop spinning its little rainbow ball and recoup enough to perform the command I just gave it without crashing my system. Then, of course, there's the waiting for the Blogger site to respond. It can be very frustrating. If I want to use a grown-up camera, I think I need to find a grown-up system to deal with the pics. Maybe this involves different software or maybe different hardware for my computer. If you all have any ideas that have worked for you, I'd love to hear them!
So if I can eliminate these time-suckers, what will I do with myself? That's easy. I'm looking at my bedroom around me right now. It's dusty. So, so dusty. It needs to be vacuumed. Thoroughly. Even under the bed. I have 3 baskets of clean clothes to put away. Dishes to take downstairs. Empty cans & bottles to be recycled. And that's just one room. My usual tactic is to just jump in to get it done. You know, because thinking about the problem would be wasting time that could be spent doing. Maybe that's not so. Maybe thinking about the problems is exactly what would turn my life at home from a "when am I going to ever catch up?" atmostphere to an "I'm on top of it" atmostphere.
I would love for my house to be a safe haven for our whole family. A place to unwind, drop our stress & actually relax. Instead, I actually dread walking up to my front door whenever I come home. While I'm out, I can relax and just be. At home, from the minute I step in the door, I see work. I feel work. I am crushed by work and the everpresent feeling that I am way behind and there's so much more work to do. If I'm the hamster, my house has become the wheel.
I've even thought I will probably have to leave my house to school Sassy when she reaches that hands-on teaching age. I'll have to go to the library to homeschool my child, because my house has become a crushing weight of neverending responsibility and failure. That's just wrong!
So this week, I'm doing a little more thinking and a little less doing. Just for this week. I'm already hopelessly behind, so what's there to lose?
Saturday, April 05, 2008
freedom la la la la la
Well, on the exact 4th day of my new coffee job, today, I awoke early early in the morning. About 3:00 a.m. to be exact. I tossed & turned and told myself I had to get to sleep that I had a big long hurried weekend ahead of me and I was already fighting sickness and I had to sleep. Sleep, dammit, sleep. And then I consulted my little voice on this whole job thing. Why was I already so stressed on only Day 4?
I told a few friends right after my 3rd day (last Saturday) how the assistant manager implied that I was stealing a drink on the way out the door and how they tried to keep me almost an hour after work to teach me the books although no one informed me that this was planned. So, I had Jeff waiting outside for me and both of us getting frustrated for a good 15 minutes. I don't know if I mentioned how frustrating it was that they had no employee manual at all. No policies written down. No training information compiled with instructions on the different procedures, phone numbers of people who could help, etc. Instead, they relied on 3-4 training shifts to teach you all you needed to know & then you were to work by yourself from that point forward.
I'm very comfortable working by myself. With instructions. I like written instructions. At my old coffee shop job, I referred to the training and procedure manual often....after I rewrote it and indexed it for a class project in my tech writing class. I enjoy writing training manuals because I know what a valuable resource a well-organized manual can be.
So I tossed and I turned and I consulted my little voice. I've been missing my little voice. He hasn't come around for awhile. I've been pretty scattered and stressed lately, bordering on the overwhelmed again. My little voice flees like a dove when I feel this way.
My old pastor at my old church, the one that I truly love, the one that has my heart, recently did a sermon on the Holy Ghost. He described the Holy Ghost as a Counselor and brought up how Jesus compared him to a dove. The Holy Ghost does not like to be around certain mindsets. I believe that for me, my little voice skitters away when my mind is all-over-the-place. But apparently, 3:00 a.m. is a good time to be asking for counsel.
My little voice speaks in ideas more than complete sentences, and what I discerned was this: quit. Quit the job. Quit being all-over-the-place. (Why do I keep forgetting these things?) When you do this working outside the home, you are not living your natural life.
There's more. And this is where my little voice deviated from my usual thoughts.
Me: What do I do at home? More gardening? More slashing of bills? Work from home?
Little voice: Serve your husband more.
I've shared my "I'm not a feminist," line with most of my friends, but I never use the word "serve" in relation to my husband. I imagine women that "serve" their husband to always wear long skirts & tennis shoes with white socks sticking out. And never cut their hair -- just pull it up into the bun.
But upon further thought, the little voice is probably right -- again. See, when I work, I start to get stressed & overwhelmed and then I get resentful. I get resentful that Jeff never does housework or laundry or errands or bills. I think, "Well, I work too!" to which he replies, "Yes, but you don't work at a job that supports the family." Many of my feminist friends would likely smart at that one, but I think it's true. I don't carry the burden of supporting the family, nor could I. I am not built that way. I would not be living my natural life.
Jeff, on the other hand, is built that way. That is a very important character trait to him. He may not choose to go to his job on any given day, and it may not be his dream job, but he still goes. That is HUGE to me, because if it were me, I would choose not to go. I would be depressed constantly. I would hate my life, all joie de vivre gone.
The problem is, a $10/hour job demands just as much from you as his family-supporting one does. They carry the same expectations that you arrive on time, that you show up for your shift, that you make them the priority in your life. In fact, the $10/hour job is often more demanding and has higher expectations since the nature of the jobs usually entail some service aspect that can't be achieved without a human being present.
When I work, I feel the same mental strain for that piddly job as he does for his important one. So it's natural that I would get resentful. Of course, resentment never builds a healthy marriage.
What else did my little voice tell me that I wasn't expecting?
Me: Well then, where should the money come from? What kind of job can I get that-
Little voice: A loan.
My whole idea was to pay for this temporary home with cash. But now I feel that perhaps I should explore the loan option a little more. Perhaps it would make this move -- this summer -- less stressful with very little pinch. Aren't I supposed to live, too? I mean short-term pain for the gain is all good and everything, but putting myself into a depressed, resentful state to achieve it doesn't seem like a viable option anymore.
My little voice thinks that my new church is not as good for me as my old church. I know this. The drive is prohibitive for me, but deep down, I know this. I am committed to the new church for now. I have obligations that I'm not willing to break. But I think I need to set aside a certain time & place to download and listen to each week's message from my old church.
So....what did I do after consulting my little voice? I told him how much I'd missed him and asked him not to flee so far and to stick around. Then I went to sleep. Ahhh.....sleep.
And this morning, I woke up, lazed around for a few minutes in bed with Sassy, and then came downstairs and quit my job. And the best part is that I haven't felt guilty about it. I usually feel terribly guilty after I quit a job, but this time I didn't, because I knew I had the support of my little voice.
Freedom la la la la la
I told a few friends right after my 3rd day (last Saturday) how the assistant manager implied that I was stealing a drink on the way out the door and how they tried to keep me almost an hour after work to teach me the books although no one informed me that this was planned. So, I had Jeff waiting outside for me and both of us getting frustrated for a good 15 minutes. I don't know if I mentioned how frustrating it was that they had no employee manual at all. No policies written down. No training information compiled with instructions on the different procedures, phone numbers of people who could help, etc. Instead, they relied on 3-4 training shifts to teach you all you needed to know & then you were to work by yourself from that point forward.
I'm very comfortable working by myself. With instructions. I like written instructions. At my old coffee shop job, I referred to the training and procedure manual often....after I rewrote it and indexed it for a class project in my tech writing class. I enjoy writing training manuals because I know what a valuable resource a well-organized manual can be.
So I tossed and I turned and I consulted my little voice. I've been missing my little voice. He hasn't come around for awhile. I've been pretty scattered and stressed lately, bordering on the overwhelmed again. My little voice flees like a dove when I feel this way.
My old pastor at my old church, the one that I truly love, the one that has my heart, recently did a sermon on the Holy Ghost. He described the Holy Ghost as a Counselor and brought up how Jesus compared him to a dove. The Holy Ghost does not like to be around certain mindsets. I believe that for me, my little voice skitters away when my mind is all-over-the-place. But apparently, 3:00 a.m. is a good time to be asking for counsel.
My little voice speaks in ideas more than complete sentences, and what I discerned was this: quit. Quit the job. Quit being all-over-the-place. (Why do I keep forgetting these things?) When you do this working outside the home, you are not living your natural life.
There's more. And this is where my little voice deviated from my usual thoughts.
Me: What do I do at home? More gardening? More slashing of bills? Work from home?
Little voice: Serve your husband more.
I've shared my "I'm not a feminist," line with most of my friends, but I never use the word "serve" in relation to my husband. I imagine women that "serve" their husband to always wear long skirts & tennis shoes with white socks sticking out. And never cut their hair -- just pull it up into the bun.
But upon further thought, the little voice is probably right -- again. See, when I work, I start to get stressed & overwhelmed and then I get resentful. I get resentful that Jeff never does housework or laundry or errands or bills. I think, "Well, I work too!" to which he replies, "Yes, but you don't work at a job that supports the family." Many of my feminist friends would likely smart at that one, but I think it's true. I don't carry the burden of supporting the family, nor could I. I am not built that way. I would not be living my natural life.
Jeff, on the other hand, is built that way. That is a very important character trait to him. He may not choose to go to his job on any given day, and it may not be his dream job, but he still goes. That is HUGE to me, because if it were me, I would choose not to go. I would be depressed constantly. I would hate my life, all joie de vivre gone.
The problem is, a $10/hour job demands just as much from you as his family-supporting one does. They carry the same expectations that you arrive on time, that you show up for your shift, that you make them the priority in your life. In fact, the $10/hour job is often more demanding and has higher expectations since the nature of the jobs usually entail some service aspect that can't be achieved without a human being present.
When I work, I feel the same mental strain for that piddly job as he does for his important one. So it's natural that I would get resentful. Of course, resentment never builds a healthy marriage.
What else did my little voice tell me that I wasn't expecting?
Me: Well then, where should the money come from? What kind of job can I get that-
Little voice: A loan.
My whole idea was to pay for this temporary home with cash. But now I feel that perhaps I should explore the loan option a little more. Perhaps it would make this move -- this summer -- less stressful with very little pinch. Aren't I supposed to live, too? I mean short-term pain for the gain is all good and everything, but putting myself into a depressed, resentful state to achieve it doesn't seem like a viable option anymore.
My little voice thinks that my new church is not as good for me as my old church. I know this. The drive is prohibitive for me, but deep down, I know this. I am committed to the new church for now. I have obligations that I'm not willing to break. But I think I need to set aside a certain time & place to download and listen to each week's message from my old church.
So....what did I do after consulting my little voice? I told him how much I'd missed him and asked him not to flee so far and to stick around. Then I went to sleep. Ahhh.....sleep.
And this morning, I woke up, lazed around for a few minutes in bed with Sassy, and then came downstairs and quit my job. And the best part is that I haven't felt guilty about it. I usually feel terribly guilty after I quit a job, but this time I didn't, because I knew I had the support of my little voice.
Freedom la la la la la
Saturday, March 22, 2008
eastery fun
I hosted an egg hunt here on Thursday, which was the perfect chance to use my new camera. I guess I've now joined Dana and Caroline in the clunky camera club (we're waiting for you, Z!). 
This probably means my blog will include more look-at-my-pics-of-the-fun-stuff-we've-done posts in addition to the usual here's-what-I've-figured-out-lately-and-now-must-write-about posts. Hopefully these new posts will force me out of my introspective comfort zone and make me focus on the now. Or something like that.
At any rate, I love my new camera. It IS a lot of fun. The Easter egg hunt was a great time. I've done a hunt for the past year (or two?) for our homeschooling group, but this year I scaled it back even further & it worked out much better. There were only 3 families besides us, which was very do-able. In the past, I've put out blanket invitations only to find myself totally stressing over not having enough eggs, not having enough candy, spending lots of money on supplies, having a full house of muddy children, etc. Although I always want to invite everyone I know and love to these sorts of things, I literally bit my tongue to keep it small & consequently, eliminated the stress & was able to relax, have fun, and take PICTURES!
The girls hamming it up for the camera
"Everybody say candy!"
Our Mama-Sassy shot
Hunting
I also picked up some baby chicks from our local poultry farm so the kids could hold them. We still have them chirping away downstairs (well, actually, we have the brown one and a new, older yellow one -- the little tiny yellow one the kids passed around was, unbeknownst to us, only a day old (!) when we picked it up. It was not doing so well the next day, so I drove it back to the farm so it could heal & exchanged it for an older one.) Between the chicks & the kittens, it's gotten us so itchy to move to the farm.
That night, we went to Kroger to buy the supplies to reproduce the Sitwell's Gouda & Guacamole sandwich. Sassy used some of the supplies to make a gorgeous salad for herself, complete with lime juice for dressing and a dill garnish, with no help from us.
Jeff's dad would be so proud.
After she fell asleep, I told Jeff that she would so be his dad's favorite if he had lived to know it. Of course, he'd never have admitted it. But that wouldn't have made it any less so.
This probably means my blog will include more look-at-my-pics-of-the-fun-stuff-we've-done posts in addition to the usual here's-what-I've-figured-out-lately-and-now-must-write-about posts. Hopefully these new posts will force me out of my introspective comfort zone and make me focus on the now. Or something like that.
At any rate, I love my new camera. It IS a lot of fun. The Easter egg hunt was a great time. I've done a hunt for the past year (or two?) for our homeschooling group, but this year I scaled it back even further & it worked out much better. There were only 3 families besides us, which was very do-able. In the past, I've put out blanket invitations only to find myself totally stressing over not having enough eggs, not having enough candy, spending lots of money on supplies, having a full house of muddy children, etc. Although I always want to invite everyone I know and love to these sorts of things, I literally bit my tongue to keep it small & consequently, eliminated the stress & was able to relax, have fun, and take PICTURES!
The girls hamming it up for the camera
"Everybody say candy!"
Our Mama-Sassy shot
Hunting
I also picked up some baby chicks from our local poultry farm so the kids could hold them. We still have them chirping away downstairs (well, actually, we have the brown one and a new, older yellow one -- the little tiny yellow one the kids passed around was, unbeknownst to us, only a day old (!) when we picked it up. It was not doing so well the next day, so I drove it back to the farm so it could heal & exchanged it for an older one.) Between the chicks & the kittens, it's gotten us so itchy to move to the farm.
That night, we went to Kroger to buy the supplies to reproduce the Sitwell's Gouda & Guacamole sandwich. Sassy used some of the supplies to make a gorgeous salad for herself, complete with lime juice for dressing and a dill garnish, with no help from us.
Jeff's dad would be so proud. After she fell asleep, I told Jeff that she would so be his dad's favorite if he had lived to know it. Of course, he'd never have admitted it. But that wouldn't have made it any less so.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
kittens!
We have KITTENS!
Three of them, to be exact. And we also have one dog, one mama cat, one big-ass goldfish & 2 baby chicks. Oh, and an almost five-year-old. Whew! That's a lot of caretaking on my plate right now. It makes me tired just talking about it.
Everybody told me that cats will go off by themselves to give birth -- just disappear -- but not Sally. She wouldn't leave me alone until I followed her upstairs & wouldn't give birth until I stayed with her.
I usually am not a believer in the "everything happens for a reason" mentality...I'm more of a believer that everything happens by chance and things work out better when you follow the conscience God gave to your soul. But this cat almost has a magical quality to her. I wonder if she came to our door because she's my healer.
Here she showed up barely showing a pregnancy, but I figured it out the same night & insisted we keep her. I've watched her get bigger & bigger at the same time that I'm facing the fact that I don't trust my body anymore & feel it's inherently flawed. Instead, I've been watching her be completely at home with her pregnant self, which has been a great model for me.
I've been suspecting lately that I am probably supposed to learn something from her. The night the kittens were born, I was so, SO tempted to jump online & research the heck out of cats giving birth & the signs & how often cats will be with their humans when they do it, etc, etc. But I didn't let myself. I decided this was between me & Sally & she'd tell me everything I needed to know if I just trusted her & listened to her.
It was wonderful. I've never felt I understood a cat's body language before, but she communicated very clearly with me. I turned off all the sounds in the room so I could hear her & drifted to sleep. About an hour and a half later, I heard the tiny squeaks of a kitten, then another. In the morning, I counted 3. Yay!
I had to ditch that great glowing bastion of accumulated information and trust that nature will take its course & that Sally & I could handle whatever happened just fine. And we did. I think I need to apply this lesson to my own body.
She is a wonderful mother. She does it so naturally. I get so caught up in watching her sometimes, soaking in her calm.
Three of them, to be exact. And we also have one dog, one mama cat, one big-ass goldfish & 2 baby chicks. Oh, and an almost five-year-old. Whew! That's a lot of caretaking on my plate right now. It makes me tired just talking about it.
Everybody told me that cats will go off by themselves to give birth -- just disappear -- but not Sally. She wouldn't leave me alone until I followed her upstairs & wouldn't give birth until I stayed with her.
I usually am not a believer in the "everything happens for a reason" mentality...I'm more of a believer that everything happens by chance and things work out better when you follow the conscience God gave to your soul. But this cat almost has a magical quality to her. I wonder if she came to our door because she's my healer.
Here she showed up barely showing a pregnancy, but I figured it out the same night & insisted we keep her. I've watched her get bigger & bigger at the same time that I'm facing the fact that I don't trust my body anymore & feel it's inherently flawed. Instead, I've been watching her be completely at home with her pregnant self, which has been a great model for me.
I've been suspecting lately that I am probably supposed to learn something from her. The night the kittens were born, I was so, SO tempted to jump online & research the heck out of cats giving birth & the signs & how often cats will be with their humans when they do it, etc, etc. But I didn't let myself. I decided this was between me & Sally & she'd tell me everything I needed to know if I just trusted her & listened to her.
It was wonderful. I've never felt I understood a cat's body language before, but she communicated very clearly with me. I turned off all the sounds in the room so I could hear her & drifted to sleep. About an hour and a half later, I heard the tiny squeaks of a kitten, then another. In the morning, I counted 3. Yay!
I had to ditch that great glowing bastion of accumulated information and trust that nature will take its course & that Sally & I could handle whatever happened just fine. And we did. I think I need to apply this lesson to my own body.
She is a wonderful mother. She does it so naturally. I get so caught up in watching her sometimes, soaking in her calm.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
the lion who resurrected
I’ve written before about the cheap little movie machine at Kroger. The selection is small, but for only $1/night, we use it when we want something outside the library.
Last night, I thought it would be fun to get something Sassy and I would both like. I rented The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe. Of course, Jeff was happy with my decision & wanted to watch too, so it made a nice little impromptu family movie night.
I’ve seen my share of these fantasy-type movies, but this is now my favorite, partly due to nostalgia & partly due to timing. I figured there would be some sort of various Biblically-influenced parts to the movie. Having read C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters in my college years, I was well aware of his beliefs. Our pastors at Crossroads also referred to his books often in their own studies. Personally, I’ve found him to be one of the most accessible & intelligent Christian writers out there.
What I didn’t expect was a retelling of the entire Easter story through different characters. It’s easy to become jaded after awhile with the death and resurrection. Even the beating, taunting, suffering beforehand can lose its intensity after you hear it so many times. But to see it through the eyes of this lion, the lion who was both inherently gentle and supernaturally strong, the lion who made even the White Witch sit in her seat with a single roar – it breathed new life into the old story.
I loved it.
I was itching to grasp my teachable moments when I could throughout the movie, but it became a Family Movie Night, and multiple pauses to draw clear metaphors for Sassy wasn’t appropriate at the time.
I’ve requested a movie from the library, The Easter Storytellers, that shows the Easter story as we know it on a kid’s level. After we watch it, I might just watch Narnia again with the remote in hand.
Last night, I thought it would be fun to get something Sassy and I would both like. I rented The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe. Of course, Jeff was happy with my decision & wanted to watch too, so it made a nice little impromptu family movie night.
I’ve seen my share of these fantasy-type movies, but this is now my favorite, partly due to nostalgia & partly due to timing. I figured there would be some sort of various Biblically-influenced parts to the movie. Having read C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters in my college years, I was well aware of his beliefs. Our pastors at Crossroads also referred to his books often in their own studies. Personally, I’ve found him to be one of the most accessible & intelligent Christian writers out there.
What I didn’t expect was a retelling of the entire Easter story through different characters. It’s easy to become jaded after awhile with the death and resurrection. Even the beating, taunting, suffering beforehand can lose its intensity after you hear it so many times. But to see it through the eyes of this lion, the lion who was both inherently gentle and supernaturally strong, the lion who made even the White Witch sit in her seat with a single roar – it breathed new life into the old story.
I loved it.
I was itching to grasp my teachable moments when I could throughout the movie, but it became a Family Movie Night, and multiple pauses to draw clear metaphors for Sassy wasn’t appropriate at the time.
I’ve requested a movie from the library, The Easter Storytellers, that shows the Easter story as we know it on a kid’s level. After we watch it, I might just watch Narnia again with the remote in hand.
Monday, March 10, 2008
aaaaggghhhh! where's the money???
I'm getting so tired of having zero extra money right now. I sort of know where it's going. Our gas & electric bill was well over $300 for the past 2 months & then there's the fact that I'm seeing a nutritionist weekly to the tune of $35 + supplements a pop. It just seems like with Jeff's recent raise there would be more than this!
We watch PBS. All the time. So lately, we've been watching PBS's fundraising. All the time. I agree that we all need to contribute to PBS & I believe with all my heart that it's a great cause & the best TV out there, but I tell you -- I want to stab that woman with a blunt knife every time she interrupts Curious George for 10 minutes in the morning, leaving me with a little Chatty Cathy right next to me until I can (hopefully) persuade her that the Super Why we're hearing might not be a rerun this morning. But then of course, the relief only lasts 10 more minutes anyway before Little Miss Contributions comes back on to yada yada yada us.
It's not that Sassy doesn't have brilliant things to say. (She does!) And it's not that I don't want to hear them. (I do!) But I am not a morning person. I never have been, probably never will be. I enjoy getting up early because that means I can really get going by 10:00 or 11:00. If I were getting up at 10:00, I'd be a grump until at least noon. It's unfortunate, but, what's that phrase? It is what it is.
So, yes, I depend on PBS cartoons in the morning to let me wake up gently, coming to the table a patient mama, an attentive mama, not emotionally scarring my child by appearing to be annoyed by her mere existence beside me. It's just not true. It's chemical!
And so I'd really like to give to PBS. First and foremost, I hope that our "generous gift of $75" would magically tip the scales so that yada yada yada lady would shut up already & let Curious George play all the way through. But, really, because it is something we should support. It is a great institution. And we do watch it. A lot.
Just tonight I saw a very interesting documentary about Pete Seeger. I've now decided that I am not allowed to call myself a hippie, a liberal, a leftist without serious scrutiny and ribbing considering I didn't know many, many of the things in the documenatry. (I will not publicly embarrass myself by listing them here, but suffice to say, I knew next to nothing of his songs, his persona, etc. and I found myself saying many times during the show, "So THATS's where that came from.") My next stop on my internet tour tonight is to request his CD from the library. That should say it all.
In the closing of the documentary, he sang a Spanish song & translated it during the performance. I will close with the line from the song that struck me as the wisest quote I've heard in years. Perhaps that's because Jesus himself said as much over 2000 years ago. Regardless of my ability to support public television, it's important to remember how lovely that struggle can be.
"
We watch PBS. All the time. So lately, we've been watching PBS's fundraising. All the time. I agree that we all need to contribute to PBS & I believe with all my heart that it's a great cause & the best TV out there, but I tell you -- I want to stab that woman with a blunt knife every time she interrupts Curious George for 10 minutes in the morning, leaving me with a little Chatty Cathy right next to me until I can (hopefully) persuade her that the Super Why we're hearing might not be a rerun this morning. But then of course, the relief only lasts 10 more minutes anyway before Little Miss Contributions comes back on to yada yada yada us.
It's not that Sassy doesn't have brilliant things to say. (She does!) And it's not that I don't want to hear them. (I do!) But I am not a morning person. I never have been, probably never will be. I enjoy getting up early because that means I can really get going by 10:00 or 11:00. If I were getting up at 10:00, I'd be a grump until at least noon. It's unfortunate, but, what's that phrase? It is what it is.
So, yes, I depend on PBS cartoons in the morning to let me wake up gently, coming to the table a patient mama, an attentive mama, not emotionally scarring my child by appearing to be annoyed by her mere existence beside me. It's just not true. It's chemical!
And so I'd really like to give to PBS. First and foremost, I hope that our "generous gift of $75" would magically tip the scales so that yada yada yada lady would shut up already & let Curious George play all the way through. But, really, because it is something we should support. It is a great institution. And we do watch it. A lot.
Just tonight I saw a very interesting documentary about Pete Seeger. I've now decided that I am not allowed to call myself a hippie, a liberal, a leftist without serious scrutiny and ribbing considering I didn't know many, many of the things in the documenatry. (I will not publicly embarrass myself by listing them here, but suffice to say, I knew next to nothing of his songs, his persona, etc. and I found myself saying many times during the show, "So THATS's where that came from.") My next stop on my internet tour tonight is to request his CD from the library. That should say it all.
In the closing of the documentary, he sang a Spanish song & translated it during the performance. I will close with the line from the song that struck me as the wisest quote I've heard in years. Perhaps that's because Jesus himself said as much over 2000 years ago. Regardless of my ability to support public television, it's important to remember how lovely that struggle can be.
With the poor of this world, I want to cast my lot.
"
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