In January 2007, I was nine weeks pregnant with a little bit of a surprise(!) baby. (If we can really call it a surprise because yes, we do know how that happens, but he was a surprise in that he happened so very quickly after I weaned our first son. As in, like the day after I weaned him.)
I had three other children. Two of them had been home with us for only three months. My son was fifteen months old, my daughter was seventeen months old. My five-year-old was on twenty-four seven eyes-on parenting. That is just as taxing as it sounds. It means that I was always, every single minute of the day, supposed to be able to see him, preferably touch him, both as a healing/bonding technique and to keep my younger children safe.
I woke up really early that frigid morning and ran for the bathroom where I dry heaved for fifteen minutes and then passed out. I didn't realize I'd lost consciousness at the time, I thought I'd just fallen asleep by the toilet in exhausted desperation. I had been having severe stomach pain for three days and I had not slept well all week.
This particular stomach pain wasn't new to me, I'd had bouts of it for years. I even went to the ER once, in the early days, but they said it was gas and sent me home with an enema and I'd be DAMNED if another doctor would tell me I couldn't take a little gas.
I huddled on the couch in our basement playroom trying not to completely ignore my children, trying to stay engaged in games, trying to keep my son on my faltering radar, trying to survive until 5:30 p.m. when my husband got home.
I didn't call anyone. I didn't feel like I had anyone to call. We were fairly new to our town. Our lives had changed so much in the last year, including a new baby and the homecoming of our other two children. We were overwhelmed, just managing to parent and find a little love and enjoyment in our days. I had no time or energy for brand new friendships, for learning to navigate the difficult waters of stay at home mother culture. I didn't have the strength or patience for explanations of 'attachment disorder' or 'bonding' or 'high structure high nurture parenting.'
Today, I have a list of four or five wonderful, supportive, incredible women to call and I know they would come, I know they would help me, split up tasks, take in my children, without any need for explanations. Just like I would for them. But then, I felt alone.
By 4:30, as I tried to get dinner together, I had given in to my misery. I'd left my son alone with the babies watching a movie, something I would not have even considered doing five hours ago. I remember sinking down in front of the heat vent to try and feel warm and then running for the bathroom for the ninth or tenth time. I regained consciousness, and this time I knew that was exactly what happened, with my bruised check pressed into the tile floor.
I caved completely. I called my husband and sobbed into his cell phone. I crawled to my neighbor's house, a brash, prickly, but humane single mom with a teenage daughter, and told them I thought I was miscarrying my baby and maybe dying. Or, it could be gas, at which point I would find a way to die of embarrassment.
A strange thing happened. Other people took over and the world didn't crumble into little pieces. My neighbor took over dinner. Her daughter took over my kids. I curled into the fetal position on the couch until Matt got home and took me to the ER. Where we sat for four hours, but in the end, they took over as well and gave me this miracle drug called Zofran, which stops nausea.
The nurse practitioner in the ER kept apologizing that they couldn't give me anything for pain until they diagnosed the problem. Meanwhile, I kept trying to kiss his hands for, (oh-my-god, I-would-marry-you-and-have-your-babies-if-I-weren't-already-knocked-up), making the nausea Go Away.
After a really long time, during which Matt was positive that they were putting off sending me home because it was gas, and I was fine with that as long as my plot to steal large quantities of Zofran worked (or at least my sobbing pleas for a prescription), my new best friend forever the nurse practitioner came back and told me that my appendix was foul and disgusting and leaky and hadn't I had this stomach pain in the past? Um, yes, yes I had, thank you very much, otherwise known as Stacey can't handle a little gas.
Actually, I just burst into tears because really? Really? My appendix? That was wonderful, the best news I had heard in weeks. That meant they could make the pain go away, right?
The nurse put an IV in my arm and gave me morphine, which I had never experienced before, but I really, really liked. It gets better. He gave me this little button so that I could give myself morphine whenever I wanted to.
I reminded everyone, over and over, all night that I was pregnant. I asked a million times if the Zofran was safe for the baby. When they assured me that morphine was safe for the baby, I said, "what baby?" No. I was concerned, as long as I could keep the morphine button.
So, my mom flew in for two weeks and Matt got a week off and I had my appendix out and we all survived the experience. Even Cue, who was subject to a little in utero poking and at high risk for miscarriage for a while, stuck with us, thank you universe. People helped me. You know, because I'm all worthy of help like that, when I'm losing internal organs.
Most of us are. All of us. Worthy of help. But we don't ask, because we think our worlds will collapse around us. Mine didn't. My life was still there when I reluctantly left the hospital and my morphine button behind. My kids that loved me before I was gone for a week still loved me and my kid that didn't love me because he didn't know what love was still didn't love me.
It's hard. It's universal to the human race for some reason not to reach out. We all need to do it a little more. Because if we reach out to someone else, then they will know that they can reach out to us too. That's what blogging does for me. I get to practice reaching out every day. The world needs a little bit more of that. Even if it is with imaginary friends (wink).
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Me: Hey!! I'm number thirty!! Look at that. How cool is that? Ess, Gee, Momma is number thirty!!
Gee: I'm number eight.
Me: No, you're not. C Jane Run is number eight. And Maggie Dammit is number ten and Jennifer is number twenty-four. Renee at Cutie Bootie Cakes and Beth at Folding Laundry and, wow, you'll just have to check it out for yourselves because I have a bunch of awesome new blogs to read.
Gee: I am number eight.
Ess: I'm three.
They keep me humble. I'm tickled pink though.
I'm about to be in the first chunk of people on earth to cross into 2009. Second only to New Zealand, a very cold piece of Russia and the Federated States of Micronesia. The future looks bright, you better wear shades! Happy New Year.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Monday, December 29, 2008
Head Games
I have insomnia. Not all the time, but sometimes it's really bad and it makes me crazy (er?). Do you sometimes have insomnia because you are stressing and worrying and generally obsessing about really weird things? Or is that just me?
My insomnia drives me nuts because I can lie awake for hours gnawing on some 'problem' with my heart pounding and thoughts chasing their tails in my brain, fall asleep around four a.m., sleep for two hours, pull my exhausted self out of bed and then not think about the earth shattering issue that kept me awake all night at all, all day, only to have it resurface as I try to fall asleep.
Real problems or worries don't keep me awake at night. It's usually something dumb. Or just bizarre. Is it denial? Avoidance? Certainly there are things worth a little night time stress, like, oh I don't know:
When we leave our tropical paradise and head home again in five weeks, will Matt be able to find a job, and will that job have decent insurance and will that insurance cover my pre-existing pregnancy?
Will my children grow up to be functioning, happy, productive members of society? Could I perhaps use a little more patience and a little less yelling in the pursuit of that goal?
Will the world economy collapse and anarchy reign in our lifetime?
Could I do more in my life to promote world peace, end hunger, stop the AIDS pandemic and foster more equality around the world?
Why was Tom Cruise so unbelievably hot in Top Gun and how can he now be so smarmy and shaggy pony looking?
Am I that old?
Am I going to let someone on this island dye my hair or am I going to let it go almost completely gray holding out for my stylist in the States?
See. Major issues exist. My night time issues are ridiculous. I spent an entire week about a year ago completely unable to sleep because I had not made scrapbooks for the children. I don't even scrapbook. With a lot of help, I had made a beautiful baby scrap book for Gee, documenting in excruciating detail his birth to his eighth month. After that, nothing. For my daughter, nada. For my second son, zip. All I have is an entire huge wooden chest full of scraps of paper and cards and other memorable flotsam and jetsam that no one will ever want to sort through including me.
Finally, I got up one night at 3 a.m. and organized the whole mess, sorted, filed, got it all 'ready' to put into scrapbooks. That was a year ago and I haven't opened it since except to throw in more scraps of paper, but I haven't stressed over it in the middle of the night either.
Here's the latest. Someone help me, there's something wrong with my brain. Originally, I was carrying twins, but one of the babies was not viable and miscarried very early. At the first ultrasound, the technician labeled the babies, as I'm sure they always do, baby a (the healthy embryo) and baby b (who in the end didn't make it). Fine. That really is fine and we are all feeling very healthy and accepting of the situation with only a very few pangs of frustration and regret.
My night time brain considers this a pressing problem. The name that Matt and I have in our heads for this baby (provided it's a boy because we're just used to having boys and because we always agree on boys names very easily) starts with a B. Making him, in my head, because of the way I use my kids' initials when I write, baby B. Except, he isn't baby B, the other sweet little baby that didn't stay with us was baby b. I think. Or maybe he wasn't or maybe it doesn't matter? Maybe that's just random coincidence? It bothers me a little. Only it doesn't, well only at night. You see the problem, or maybe you don't?
I know, a few cards short of a deck over here. What do you think? Start over with names because it is a little weird and sad? Keep the name for sure because it's sweet that it honors the other baby that way? It's just a coincidence, it means nothing you nutcase, do whatever you want? Feel free to give answer A, B or C (aha, pun intended) because I swing freely between knowing I'm a nutcase and thinking we just need to scrap and start over.
Sigh. We really like the B name too. If you're thinking it's a bit early to worry about this issue, you have no idea how hard it is for Matt and I come up with a name. Six months is nothing.
The craziest thing about my current insomnia obsession is that this baby will probably be a girl. In that case, it's not a problem, we'll never name her. Matt and I have NEVER, EVER in the history of our baby naming agreed on a girl's name. Our daughter is named Saige because I threw a temper tantrum after months of discussion and told him that unless he could come up with something better in the next fifteen minutes, I was naming her Saige because I loved it.
Don't worry, I promise not to throw a temper tantrum at any of you. At least, not so you can hear me.
My insomnia drives me nuts because I can lie awake for hours gnawing on some 'problem' with my heart pounding and thoughts chasing their tails in my brain, fall asleep around four a.m., sleep for two hours, pull my exhausted self out of bed and then not think about the earth shattering issue that kept me awake all night at all, all day, only to have it resurface as I try to fall asleep.
Real problems or worries don't keep me awake at night. It's usually something dumb. Or just bizarre. Is it denial? Avoidance? Certainly there are things worth a little night time stress, like, oh I don't know:
When we leave our tropical paradise and head home again in five weeks, will Matt be able to find a job, and will that job have decent insurance and will that insurance cover my pre-existing pregnancy?
Will my children grow up to be functioning, happy, productive members of society? Could I perhaps use a little more patience and a little less yelling in the pursuit of that goal?
Will the world economy collapse and anarchy reign in our lifetime?
Could I do more in my life to promote world peace, end hunger, stop the AIDS pandemic and foster more equality around the world?
Why was Tom Cruise so unbelievably hot in Top Gun and how can he now be so smarmy and shaggy pony looking?
Am I that old?
Am I going to let someone on this island dye my hair or am I going to let it go almost completely gray holding out for my stylist in the States?
See. Major issues exist. My night time issues are ridiculous. I spent an entire week about a year ago completely unable to sleep because I had not made scrapbooks for the children. I don't even scrapbook. With a lot of help, I had made a beautiful baby scrap book for Gee, documenting in excruciating detail his birth to his eighth month. After that, nothing. For my daughter, nada. For my second son, zip. All I have is an entire huge wooden chest full of scraps of paper and cards and other memorable flotsam and jetsam that no one will ever want to sort through including me.
Finally, I got up one night at 3 a.m. and organized the whole mess, sorted, filed, got it all 'ready' to put into scrapbooks. That was a year ago and I haven't opened it since except to throw in more scraps of paper, but I haven't stressed over it in the middle of the night either.
Here's the latest. Someone help me, there's something wrong with my brain. Originally, I was carrying twins, but one of the babies was not viable and miscarried very early. At the first ultrasound, the technician labeled the babies, as I'm sure they always do, baby a (the healthy embryo) and baby b (who in the end didn't make it). Fine. That really is fine and we are all feeling very healthy and accepting of the situation with only a very few pangs of frustration and regret.
My night time brain considers this a pressing problem. The name that Matt and I have in our heads for this baby (provided it's a boy because we're just used to having boys and because we always agree on boys names very easily) starts with a B. Making him, in my head, because of the way I use my kids' initials when I write, baby B. Except, he isn't baby B, the other sweet little baby that didn't stay with us was baby b. I think. Or maybe he wasn't or maybe it doesn't matter? Maybe that's just random coincidence? It bothers me a little. Only it doesn't, well only at night. You see the problem, or maybe you don't?
I know, a few cards short of a deck over here. What do you think? Start over with names because it is a little weird and sad? Keep the name for sure because it's sweet that it honors the other baby that way? It's just a coincidence, it means nothing you nutcase, do whatever you want? Feel free to give answer A, B or C (aha, pun intended) because I swing freely between knowing I'm a nutcase and thinking we just need to scrap and start over.
Sigh. We really like the B name too. If you're thinking it's a bit early to worry about this issue, you have no idea how hard it is for Matt and I come up with a name. Six months is nothing.
The craziest thing about my current insomnia obsession is that this baby will probably be a girl. In that case, it's not a problem, we'll never name her. Matt and I have NEVER, EVER in the history of our baby naming agreed on a girl's name. Our daughter is named Saige because I threw a temper tantrum after months of discussion and told him that unless he could come up with something better in the next fifteen minutes, I was naming her Saige because I loved it.
Don't worry, I promise not to throw a temper tantrum at any of you. At least, not so you can hear me.
Friday, December 26, 2008
I Believe We Are No Longer Welcome at the Hyatt
Dude. I know it's overused, but it's all I can think of and it's so fitting.
Christmas day. Great. Happy kids. They opened their meager presents with glee, never once complaining when it was over and done with in thirty minutes. We puttered around and played with toys and watched the Land Before Time waiting to leave for our reservations at the Hyatt. They serve an amazing Christmas Brunch. Champagne, unlimited shrimp, sashimi, fruit, endless salads, the full roast beast hot stations. Omelets, crepes. It's crazy. Crazy delicious.
I know it sounds insane, but we actually eat out a lot. The three gremlins are really good normally as long as Matt and I stay focused. We spent a lot of time removing them promptly and unkindly to the car without dessert if they didn't behave.
We eat. They're great. Matt takes them for a walk half way through the morning so that I can eat another huge plate of shrimp in blissful quietude. It was one of the best Christmas presents I've ever gotten.
We get to the best part, the huge dessert table. Ess wants cake. Gee wants ice cream. Cue just points with wide eyes. I get their treasures and we get settled at the table. Ess takes one bite of her cake smorgas board and dumps the whole thing into her lap and onto the floor. It was an accident. She was excited. I feel that way about cake myself.
I start to clean up the cakes. I pick up the pumpkin piece, but before I find the ooey, gooey chocolate piece, Matt sends me for a refill cake plate before Ess has a thermo nuclear meltdown thinking that she is not getting cake because she dropped her cake, despite my repeated assurances that she can have cake if she will just give me a freaking nanosecond to......grrrr whatever.
Cake replacement in place, all is well in our world. We stuff ourselves with desserts and then Matt heads out to pay with the baby while I perform a massive clean up operation on Ess and Gee. I survey. All is good. The table is a little messy, but all in all, everything is in tact. I tell them to go ahead and get down and run and find Daddy. Gee climbs down from the booth bench, tries to push passed me, and then gives up and climbs back up and across the bench behind me.
Suddenly, my hand is covered in chocolate. It's like I'm in slow motion. I look at my hand in horror, realize that the booth is covered in chocolate (upholstered, of course, no vinyl at the Hyatt). Wha? What's going on? Where is the chocolate coming from? I stand up. The back of my pants is covered in chocolate. My brain is not keeping up with the situation.
It's like I'm a character in a slow motion horror movie. Just as I catch on and look down at Gee, whose feet, shoes, even ankles are COVERED in chocolate, because of course, when he slid down off the booth he landed in that piece of ooey gooey chocolate cake that his sister dropped and I neglected to pick up. Just as I become fully cognizant of the situation, he takes off running. For his Daddy. Like I told him. ACROSS THE EFFING CARPETED HYATT RESTAURANT.
And then, I'm running and yelling at him, but it's too late. Every footstep is clearly there for all to see, ground in chocolate in the Hyatt's carpet. All my belated response accomplishes is to have him turn around and run back to me.
I am ashamed to admit that at this point, I panicked, picked him up and hightailed it out of there. I didn't stop until we were out of the beautiful Hyatt lobby and half way to the parking lot, where it took me an entire package of wet wipes to remove the chocolate from his feet (crocs, holes for chocolate seepage, bummer) and ankles. I wanted to throw the shoes away, but Matt wouldn't let me.
All through high school and for quite some time in college, I worked as a hostess at several restaurants. I know exactly what I would have said behind my back. What the F*** lady? You just get to come in here with your horrible kids and ruin the place? Who cares, right? You don't have to clean that nightmare up! Get a clue! You suck! Keep your filthy urchins at home, no one thinks they are cute! And maybe as a finishing touch: Stop breeding you clueless bitch.
It's okay, Hyatt staff of many, I said it to myself. Many, many times.
Dude. We usually do so well. Really.
Update #1: Matt and I went to the Hyatt for dinner last night with friends. I was nervous, but they didn't seem to recognize us, at least without the gremlins. I went and peeked at the booth and carpet. Clean. Impressive.
Update #2: Gee asks me every day if we can go and have a 'fancy lunch.' Um, no baby. Probably never. But, he takes after me, he knows a good thing when he sees it and a good thing is an endless dessert table, with an ice cream cooler.
Christmas day. Great. Happy kids. They opened their meager presents with glee, never once complaining when it was over and done with in thirty minutes. We puttered around and played with toys and watched the Land Before Time waiting to leave for our reservations at the Hyatt. They serve an amazing Christmas Brunch. Champagne, unlimited shrimp, sashimi, fruit, endless salads, the full roast beast hot stations. Omelets, crepes. It's crazy. Crazy delicious.
I know it sounds insane, but we actually eat out a lot. The three gremlins are really good normally as long as Matt and I stay focused. We spent a lot of time removing them promptly and unkindly to the car without dessert if they didn't behave.
We eat. They're great. Matt takes them for a walk half way through the morning so that I can eat another huge plate of shrimp in blissful quietude. It was one of the best Christmas presents I've ever gotten.
We get to the best part, the huge dessert table. Ess wants cake. Gee wants ice cream. Cue just points with wide eyes. I get their treasures and we get settled at the table. Ess takes one bite of her cake smorgas board and dumps the whole thing into her lap and onto the floor. It was an accident. She was excited. I feel that way about cake myself.
I start to clean up the cakes. I pick up the pumpkin piece, but before I find the ooey, gooey chocolate piece, Matt sends me for a refill cake plate before Ess has a thermo nuclear meltdown thinking that she is not getting cake because she dropped her cake, despite my repeated assurances that she can have cake if she will just give me a freaking nanosecond to......grrrr whatever.
Cake replacement in place, all is well in our world. We stuff ourselves with desserts and then Matt heads out to pay with the baby while I perform a massive clean up operation on Ess and Gee. I survey. All is good. The table is a little messy, but all in all, everything is in tact. I tell them to go ahead and get down and run and find Daddy. Gee climbs down from the booth bench, tries to push passed me, and then gives up and climbs back up and across the bench behind me.
Suddenly, my hand is covered in chocolate. It's like I'm in slow motion. I look at my hand in horror, realize that the booth is covered in chocolate (upholstered, of course, no vinyl at the Hyatt). Wha? What's going on? Where is the chocolate coming from? I stand up. The back of my pants is covered in chocolate. My brain is not keeping up with the situation.
It's like I'm a character in a slow motion horror movie. Just as I catch on and look down at Gee, whose feet, shoes, even ankles are COVERED in chocolate, because of course, when he slid down off the booth he landed in that piece of ooey gooey chocolate cake that his sister dropped and I neglected to pick up. Just as I become fully cognizant of the situation, he takes off running. For his Daddy. Like I told him. ACROSS THE EFFING CARPETED HYATT RESTAURANT.
And then, I'm running and yelling at him, but it's too late. Every footstep is clearly there for all to see, ground in chocolate in the Hyatt's carpet. All my belated response accomplishes is to have him turn around and run back to me.
I am ashamed to admit that at this point, I panicked, picked him up and hightailed it out of there. I didn't stop until we were out of the beautiful Hyatt lobby and half way to the parking lot, where it took me an entire package of wet wipes to remove the chocolate from his feet (crocs, holes for chocolate seepage, bummer) and ankles. I wanted to throw the shoes away, but Matt wouldn't let me.
All through high school and for quite some time in college, I worked as a hostess at several restaurants. I know exactly what I would have said behind my back. What the F*** lady? You just get to come in here with your horrible kids and ruin the place? Who cares, right? You don't have to clean that nightmare up! Get a clue! You suck! Keep your filthy urchins at home, no one thinks they are cute! And maybe as a finishing touch: Stop breeding you clueless bitch.
It's okay, Hyatt staff of many, I said it to myself. Many, many times.
Dude. We usually do so well. Really.
Update #1: Matt and I went to the Hyatt for dinner last night with friends. I was nervous, but they didn't seem to recognize us, at least without the gremlins. I went and peeked at the booth and carpet. Clean. Impressive.
Update #2: Gee asks me every day if we can go and have a 'fancy lunch.' Um, no baby. Probably never. But, he takes after me, he knows a good thing when he sees it and a good thing is an endless dessert table, with an ice cream cooler.
Monday, December 22, 2008
It Came Just the Same
It came without ribbons! It came without tags! It came without packages, boxes, or bags!
-The Grinch Who Stole Christmas
The second day of Hanukkah. Two days until Christmas. It really does come either way and it's a good thing because I have been beyond useless in hastening the season, or spreading joy or the spirit of love and kindness. I have been way too focused on just surviving each moment as it appears in front of my nose.
The thing I love the most about island life is how little you need. How the constant coveting of things fades into the background like a toy left out in the sun. I love how I fell right back into wearing seven-year-old flip flops and the same faded t-shirts and ragged shorts I wore when we were here last. My expensive jean fetish (ahem, AG Angels, I still love you!) pushed aside, too hot, too pretentious (too thick-wasted, dear baby, really? at 13 weeks?). Here, faded cotton is its own chic.
I love how I haven't seen a single magazine or catalog to make me feel like there is a perfect holiday season to attain if only I never slept and my children had off switches. Not a Pottery Barn with its ever shifting, just out of reach, seasonal decorations, not a William Sonoma with its complicated recipes and three dimensional Christmas village cakes. Not a Garnet Hill Kids or LL Bean with their ridiculously adorable winter outfits for toddlers, miniature puffies and leggins and pea coats. Things I can't afford, at least not like that, all at once in such overwhelming, dizzying quantities. Things I don't need, or even want, and yet the images make me long for a little more perfect in my life. I adore giving gifts and the traditions of this season, but every year I dislike the way these glossy pictures of imagined perfection make me feel - inadequate.
Everything has it's pros and cons, even sparkling oceans and eternal sunshine. Island life too has its dark side. Simplicity spills over into apathy. I'm afraid I let the uncertain start to this pregnancy and the sickness and the lack of motivating glossy pictures convince me that it was enough to drift on the gloriously repetitive days filled with sun and sand and swimming and tired summer-sated children.
I have done nothing for the holidays. No tree. No menorah. No cards. No presents. Nothing. This isn't like me. I love traditions. I am the least crafty person alive on earth today, but I make our holiday cards every year, reveling in the hours of time spent perusing a beautiful local paper store. Cookie decorating. Hanukkah. Gifts for everyone. Usually, I am there, making it happen.
This year, it has all slipped away from me. And it hasn't. It's still here. It's just a feeling, after all. A feeling that will be there when they wake up on Thursday and find their stockings and eat fancy star cookies for breakfast. That will be there when we watch the new movies Grandma sent us all morning and then put on our bathing suits and head to the fancy pool for the whole afternoon. I know I'll rev it all up again next year, probably more than I should, with renewed energy. For this year, it's enough to light some candles and spend the day together.
If I've seemed unhappy, lately, I'm not. A little more tired and squeamish than usual, but all in all, happy. Here's some joys of our season.
This is our house in Washington. One to two more feet were expected last night. Oh, the gratefulness that wells in my chest. Ten day forecast in Saipan: Sunny and clear. High 87. Low 77. Every single day.
No, sorry, don't miss it. Do you see those windows? They are 80 years old and they leak like they are not even there. I miss people though. I miss you!! You are worth every flake and shovel and shiver.
One of my favorite things about the holidays is how sentimental I get. Matt might call it annoying and weepy. Everything brings tears to my eyes. That commercial with the runaway teen calling home for Christmas should be banned. That causes the full, sobbing hysterical cry. I love things like that, that stir you deep inside and make you think and feel and be more fully invested in life.
It's often little things that twist your heart the hardest. I fight tears every single time one of the kids drops their food on the floor and I tell them sharply "no, yucky, dirty, I'll get you another one." I'm reminded that in Haiti, where my daughter was born, mothers are sometimes forced to feed their children mud cakes. They form small patties of the clay-like mud and fry them, hoping the scant minerals and filler will sustain their babies until circumstances change or aid arrives.
Sometimes, I close my eyes and try to imagine it. Try to put myself, beaten and beyond hope, bent under the baking sun, there in the reddish mud, forming little cakes of dirt. I picture my hands, covered in mud-like dough frying the cakes over an open fire pit. But, when it comes to handing the dirt to my children, my pudgy, spoiled children who routinely refuse the most tempting of foods, cheese, rosy apples, black beans, crisp carrots, when I try to imagine handing them dirt to eat, my mind fails. The image dissolves. I can't fathom it. My life experience leaves my unable to wrap my mind around such desperation.
I end up wondering if we really live in the same world. Is that the same world where I can stand at the peak of this island and see the Pacific stretch in every direction, impossible turquoise fading to sapphire, fading to deep midnight blue? Where bananas grow wild by the side of the road? The same world where I've stood in awe before Angkor Wat and the Taj Mahal? The same world I live in, where we throw away food because it touches the ground, where we wash dishes and clothes in water clean enough to drink.
That is true luxury. Cranberry cashmere throw blanket, bottomless Godiva chocolates, William Sonoma espresso machine and a Tiffany's diamond necklace for Christmas luxury. Fifty presents for every child luxury.
I am so very, very lucky. (Also, picture proof that I have had the holiday spirit in the past. Um, lots of proof. Got carried away. Sorry. Also, sobbed openly in a coffee shop because HOLY CHRISTMAS SPIRIT, my kids are cute...and so little...hiccup.)
Holiday Fun 2006 - 14 and 16 months old!
Holiday Fun 2007 - 26, 28 and 5 months old!
Happy Hanukkah! Merry Christmas! Wishing you all, each and every one of you, the luxury of love and friends and family this joyful season. Love, the AnyFamily, Stacey, Matt, Garrett, Saige and Quinn.
-The Grinch Who Stole Christmas
The second day of Hanukkah. Two days until Christmas. It really does come either way and it's a good thing because I have been beyond useless in hastening the season, or spreading joy or the spirit of love and kindness. I have been way too focused on just surviving each moment as it appears in front of my nose.
The thing I love the most about island life is how little you need. How the constant coveting of things fades into the background like a toy left out in the sun. I love how I fell right back into wearing seven-year-old flip flops and the same faded t-shirts and ragged shorts I wore when we were here last. My expensive jean fetish (ahem, AG Angels, I still love you!) pushed aside, too hot, too pretentious (too thick-wasted, dear baby, really? at 13 weeks?). Here, faded cotton is its own chic.
I love how I haven't seen a single magazine or catalog to make me feel like there is a perfect holiday season to attain if only I never slept and my children had off switches. Not a Pottery Barn with its ever shifting, just out of reach, seasonal decorations, not a William Sonoma with its complicated recipes and three dimensional Christmas village cakes. Not a Garnet Hill Kids or LL Bean with their ridiculously adorable winter outfits for toddlers, miniature puffies and leggins and pea coats. Things I can't afford, at least not like that, all at once in such overwhelming, dizzying quantities. Things I don't need, or even want, and yet the images make me long for a little more perfect in my life. I adore giving gifts and the traditions of this season, but every year I dislike the way these glossy pictures of imagined perfection make me feel - inadequate.
Everything has it's pros and cons, even sparkling oceans and eternal sunshine. Island life too has its dark side. Simplicity spills over into apathy. I'm afraid I let the uncertain start to this pregnancy and the sickness and the lack of motivating glossy pictures convince me that it was enough to drift on the gloriously repetitive days filled with sun and sand and swimming and tired summer-sated children.
I have done nothing for the holidays. No tree. No menorah. No cards. No presents. Nothing. This isn't like me. I love traditions. I am the least crafty person alive on earth today, but I make our holiday cards every year, reveling in the hours of time spent perusing a beautiful local paper store. Cookie decorating. Hanukkah. Gifts for everyone. Usually, I am there, making it happen.
This year, it has all slipped away from me. And it hasn't. It's still here. It's just a feeling, after all. A feeling that will be there when they wake up on Thursday and find their stockings and eat fancy star cookies for breakfast. That will be there when we watch the new movies Grandma sent us all morning and then put on our bathing suits and head to the fancy pool for the whole afternoon. I know I'll rev it all up again next year, probably more than I should, with renewed energy. For this year, it's enough to light some candles and spend the day together.
If I've seemed unhappy, lately, I'm not. A little more tired and squeamish than usual, but all in all, happy. Here's some joys of our season.
This is our house in Washington. One to two more feet were expected last night. Oh, the gratefulness that wells in my chest. Ten day forecast in Saipan: Sunny and clear. High 87. Low 77. Every single day.
No, sorry, don't miss it. Do you see those windows? They are 80 years old and they leak like they are not even there. I miss people though. I miss you!! You are worth every flake and shovel and shiver.One of my favorite things about the holidays is how sentimental I get. Matt might call it annoying and weepy. Everything brings tears to my eyes. That commercial with the runaway teen calling home for Christmas should be banned. That causes the full, sobbing hysterical cry. I love things like that, that stir you deep inside and make you think and feel and be more fully invested in life.
It's often little things that twist your heart the hardest. I fight tears every single time one of the kids drops their food on the floor and I tell them sharply "no, yucky, dirty, I'll get you another one." I'm reminded that in Haiti, where my daughter was born, mothers are sometimes forced to feed their children mud cakes. They form small patties of the clay-like mud and fry them, hoping the scant minerals and filler will sustain their babies until circumstances change or aid arrives.
Sometimes, I close my eyes and try to imagine it. Try to put myself, beaten and beyond hope, bent under the baking sun, there in the reddish mud, forming little cakes of dirt. I picture my hands, covered in mud-like dough frying the cakes over an open fire pit. But, when it comes to handing the dirt to my children, my pudgy, spoiled children who routinely refuse the most tempting of foods, cheese, rosy apples, black beans, crisp carrots, when I try to imagine handing them dirt to eat, my mind fails. The image dissolves. I can't fathom it. My life experience leaves my unable to wrap my mind around such desperation.
I end up wondering if we really live in the same world. Is that the same world where I can stand at the peak of this island and see the Pacific stretch in every direction, impossible turquoise fading to sapphire, fading to deep midnight blue? Where bananas grow wild by the side of the road? The same world where I've stood in awe before Angkor Wat and the Taj Mahal? The same world I live in, where we throw away food because it touches the ground, where we wash dishes and clothes in water clean enough to drink.
That is true luxury. Cranberry cashmere throw blanket, bottomless Godiva chocolates, William Sonoma espresso machine and a Tiffany's diamond necklace for Christmas luxury. Fifty presents for every child luxury.
I am so very, very lucky. (Also, picture proof that I have had the holiday spirit in the past. Um, lots of proof. Got carried away. Sorry. Also, sobbed openly in a coffee shop because HOLY CHRISTMAS SPIRIT, my kids are cute...and so little...hiccup.)
Holiday Fun 2006 - 14 and 16 months old!
Holiday Fun 2007 - 26, 28 and 5 months old!
Happy Hanukkah! Merry Christmas! Wishing you all, each and every one of you, the luxury of love and friends and family this joyful season. Love, the AnyFamily, Stacey, Matt, Garrett, Saige and Quinn.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Misery Loves...Absolutely Nothing
So this was a fun week, glad that's over, don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.
All three kids were sick all freaking week long. I feel like nauseous road kill and the entire island's internet seemed to go down on Monday, for permanents. Don't laugh, I think that last one is what did me in. Since Marinka and I are having a bloggy best friend love fest this week, I am going to copy her week in review.
Monday. Take Ess and Gee to preschool even though I absolutely know they are coming down with Cue's horrific cold and should not go. I am so completely that mother. I'm sorry universe and all other mothers. But, come on, that's where they picked up this tropical plague. Curse our defunct internet connection during Cue's nap time. Worry about how I would post on Wednesday for our bloggy exchange. Attempt time change math. Give up and nap myself.
Tuesday. All kids have to stay home. The horror. Still stressing about getting guest post scheduled for Wednesday. Matt unsympathetic. Gives me sarcastic shit along the lines of 'oh no, your blog post won't post, what will you do, how will the blog world survive??' Consider poison, but discard because someone else must take whiny, snotty, coughing children away from me. Take all kids to local coffee shop with excellent internet connection and somehow schedule post while feeding them oatmeal raisin cookies. Two glasses are broken in the completion of this project. We leave quickly in disgrace and probably cannot return. Ever. But, really that was the coffee girl's fault. Why did she bring us glass glasses of water?
Wednesday. I can't remember. I've blocked it. All kids still sick. Apartment is a disgusting petry dish of germiness. Am descending into madness, intermittently barking 'COVER YOUR MOUTHS' at kids and sometimes the walls. After bedtime, I drive to an Exxon with wireless to check that I executed my post exchange mission. I did. That was fun, briefly.
Thursday. Matt's birthday. Needs to be carved from history and exterminated. He doesn't need to be thirty-six anyway. I vomit twice before eight in the morning. Take Ess and Gee to preschool despite clear signs that I should not do so, with eye on the prize of putting Cue down for a six-hour nap and wallowing in my misery on the couch. Horrible call. It's Christmas program practice day.
"Excuse me? It's what?"
"We need you to drive them to the resort where we are holding the program tonight."
"They won't be attending the program tonight."
Shocked, surely you are the most uncaring mother in the universe look. "Well, everyone has to go to the practice today."
"I really can't drive them. I might die."
"You didn't help with the driving for the last field trip."
I know! Because on preschool days, I don't want them in my car! ? Seriously? These lovely, energetic, Seventh Day Adventist ladies are under the misimpression that my children are attending their preschool so that they will learn something. Their letters or colors, Christ's life on earth. Wrong. I am Jewish. I like twinkle lights and Santa and pagan trees decorated with lights on the darkest day of the year as much as the next person, but my children attend this preschool for one reason and one reason only: When they are at preschool, they are not with me. I am not with them. We are not with each other.
This purpose is completely subverted if I must drop them at preschool at 8:30 a.m., pick them up at 9:30 a.m., drive them to their Christmas program practice, sit around for ninety minutes while they pretend to be sheep, poorly, come back at 11:00 a.m. and drive them back to preschool for four hours when I have to pick them up again. On time. Because it's an early out day.
Um, bah humbug, a pox on Christmas and its ridiculous programs. And anyway, there were like forty three and four-year-olds. It sucked. I watched the whole practice because, tell me, what the hell else I was going to do. No wait, I endured the entire practice while entertaining Cue. During his nap time. I've never seen anything like this before, but is this typical? Forty toddlers on risers, picking their noses and chewing on their shirts (mine) and crying and holding their various private parts while a lovely energetic teacher reads a simplistic nativity tale and they occasionally are supposed to stomp their feet, or say 'baby Jesus' or sing something. Wearing sheep ears. In theory, except that those sheep ears were anywhere but on their heads. I can tell you where I wanted to put them.
Wow. Do I sound anti-Christmas? I totally am not. I love Christmas. Twinkle lights. Trees. Good will towards all. Giving. Love it. But, I discovered that I am VERY VERY anti-program involving-small-children-that-I-have-to-attend-and/or-be-involved-with-in-any-way. Programs should be reserved until children reach an age when they can stand still for fifteen minutes without touching themselves.
The torture finally ends and I drive them back to preschool. A five minute ride that involves this enlightening conversation.
Gee: Christmas is Jesus' birthday.
Me: Who's Jesus?
Gee: I don't know.
Ess: He's a reindeer.
Me: (well, that's the best moment we've had all day, but....) No. He's a man that lived a very long time ago.
Gee: His birthday is Christmas.
Me: His birthday is celebrated on Christmas Day. Historically, he was probably born in the spring.
Gee: Oh. And he's a lamb.
Me: (day getting better and better) Sometimes, he's called the lamb of God.
Gee: Oh. Why?
Me: Because a lot of people believe he's the son of God, sent to earth.
Gee: Is he a reindeer? Reindeers fly to earth. Rudolph flies to earth.
Me: Yes, yes he is. Brother of Rudolph. Son of Donner. Or possibly Blitzen.
I drop my sick, snotty children off for the last four hours of Christian preschool.
Friday. Hmmmm. All kids with me all day after night of spiking fevers, making me feel like the mother of the century for taking them to preschool, I mean program practice, the day before. We snarl at each other all morning in our very small apartment. I give up and let them watch Rudolph, the red-nosed brother of Jesus, three times in a row all afternoon.
Saturday. Matt has to work. I have all three sick children all day long. Wait. Are you seeing a pattern here? But, we move into our friends' gorgeous, many bedroomed house with lots of toys and excellent internet connection. They are candidates for sainthood. We are taking care of their dog while they are in Hawaii. Or maybe they just sensed my end-of-rope desperation.
Sunday. Seriously, evil week from hell, see ya.
That was merry and bright. I pledge to do one more post this week. A cheerful one. With thankfulness and Hanukkah and Christmas and Holiday spirit. Really. I think I can. As long as there are no programs with sheep-like toddlers involved.
All three kids were sick all freaking week long. I feel like nauseous road kill and the entire island's internet seemed to go down on Monday, for permanents. Don't laugh, I think that last one is what did me in. Since Marinka and I are having a bloggy best friend love fest this week, I am going to copy her week in review.
Monday. Take Ess and Gee to preschool even though I absolutely know they are coming down with Cue's horrific cold and should not go. I am so completely that mother. I'm sorry universe and all other mothers. But, come on, that's where they picked up this tropical plague. Curse our defunct internet connection during Cue's nap time. Worry about how I would post on Wednesday for our bloggy exchange. Attempt time change math. Give up and nap myself.
Tuesday. All kids have to stay home. The horror. Still stressing about getting guest post scheduled for Wednesday. Matt unsympathetic. Gives me sarcastic shit along the lines of 'oh no, your blog post won't post, what will you do, how will the blog world survive??' Consider poison, but discard because someone else must take whiny, snotty, coughing children away from me. Take all kids to local coffee shop with excellent internet connection and somehow schedule post while feeding them oatmeal raisin cookies. Two glasses are broken in the completion of this project. We leave quickly in disgrace and probably cannot return. Ever. But, really that was the coffee girl's fault. Why did she bring us glass glasses of water?
Wednesday. I can't remember. I've blocked it. All kids still sick. Apartment is a disgusting petry dish of germiness. Am descending into madness, intermittently barking 'COVER YOUR MOUTHS' at kids and sometimes the walls. After bedtime, I drive to an Exxon with wireless to check that I executed my post exchange mission. I did. That was fun, briefly.
Thursday. Matt's birthday. Needs to be carved from history and exterminated. He doesn't need to be thirty-six anyway. I vomit twice before eight in the morning. Take Ess and Gee to preschool despite clear signs that I should not do so, with eye on the prize of putting Cue down for a six-hour nap and wallowing in my misery on the couch. Horrible call. It's Christmas program practice day.
"Excuse me? It's what?"
"We need you to drive them to the resort where we are holding the program tonight."
"They won't be attending the program tonight."
Shocked, surely you are the most uncaring mother in the universe look. "Well, everyone has to go to the practice today."
"I really can't drive them. I might die."
"You didn't help with the driving for the last field trip."
I know! Because on preschool days, I don't want them in my car! ? Seriously? These lovely, energetic, Seventh Day Adventist ladies are under the misimpression that my children are attending their preschool so that they will learn something. Their letters or colors, Christ's life on earth. Wrong. I am Jewish. I like twinkle lights and Santa and pagan trees decorated with lights on the darkest day of the year as much as the next person, but my children attend this preschool for one reason and one reason only: When they are at preschool, they are not with me. I am not with them. We are not with each other.
This purpose is completely subverted if I must drop them at preschool at 8:30 a.m., pick them up at 9:30 a.m., drive them to their Christmas program practice, sit around for ninety minutes while they pretend to be sheep, poorly, come back at 11:00 a.m. and drive them back to preschool for four hours when I have to pick them up again. On time. Because it's an early out day.
Um, bah humbug, a pox on Christmas and its ridiculous programs. And anyway, there were like forty three and four-year-olds. It sucked. I watched the whole practice because, tell me, what the hell else I was going to do. No wait, I endured the entire practice while entertaining Cue. During his nap time. I've never seen anything like this before, but is this typical? Forty toddlers on risers, picking their noses and chewing on their shirts (mine) and crying and holding their various private parts while a lovely energetic teacher reads a simplistic nativity tale and they occasionally are supposed to stomp their feet, or say 'baby Jesus' or sing something. Wearing sheep ears. In theory, except that those sheep ears were anywhere but on their heads. I can tell you where I wanted to put them.
Wow. Do I sound anti-Christmas? I totally am not. I love Christmas. Twinkle lights. Trees. Good will towards all. Giving. Love it. But, I discovered that I am VERY VERY anti-program involving-small-children-that-I-have-to-attend-and/or-be-involved-with-in-any-way. Programs should be reserved until children reach an age when they can stand still for fifteen minutes without touching themselves.
The torture finally ends and I drive them back to preschool. A five minute ride that involves this enlightening conversation.
Gee: Christmas is Jesus' birthday.
Me: Who's Jesus?
Gee: I don't know.
Ess: He's a reindeer.
Me: (well, that's the best moment we've had all day, but....) No. He's a man that lived a very long time ago.
Gee: His birthday is Christmas.
Me: His birthday is celebrated on Christmas Day. Historically, he was probably born in the spring.
Gee: Oh. And he's a lamb.
Me: (day getting better and better) Sometimes, he's called the lamb of God.
Gee: Oh. Why?
Me: Because a lot of people believe he's the son of God, sent to earth.
Gee: Is he a reindeer? Reindeers fly to earth. Rudolph flies to earth.
Me: Yes, yes he is. Brother of Rudolph. Son of Donner. Or possibly Blitzen.
I drop my sick, snotty children off for the last four hours of Christian preschool.
Friday. Hmmmm. All kids with me all day after night of spiking fevers, making me feel like the mother of the century for taking them to preschool, I mean program practice, the day before. We snarl at each other all morning in our very small apartment. I give up and let them watch Rudolph, the red-nosed brother of Jesus, three times in a row all afternoon.
Saturday. Matt has to work. I have all three sick children all day long. Wait. Are you seeing a pattern here? But, we move into our friends' gorgeous, many bedroomed house with lots of toys and excellent internet connection. They are candidates for sainthood. We are taking care of their dog while they are in Hawaii. Or maybe they just sensed my end-of-rope desperation.
Sunday. Seriously, evil week from hell, see ya.
That was merry and bright. I pledge to do one more post this week. A cheerful one. With thankfulness and Hanukkah and Christmas and Holiday spirit. Really. I think I can. As long as there are no programs with sheep-like toddlers involved.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Of Lice and (Wo)Men
Would it be embarrassing if I told you that I almost peed my pants with excitement when Marinka said she would write a post for my blog? And then, I did pee my pants, laughing uncontrollably, when I read this post in my email. I've been stalking Marinka, in a very friendly way, from very early on in my blogging life. So read this, you might want to run to the bathroom first, and leave her a comment about how awesome she is. Then, run over to Motherhood in NYC because - (you won't believe this) - she actually let me post over there too! Leave me a pity comment, I'm a little nervous to be playing with the big boys and girls.
PS to Marinka - I tried really hard with the synchronized posting thing, but it was fraught with difficulties. A restaurant. Three toddlers. Math. I'm in Chamarro Standard Time. You're in Eastern Standard Time. My blog counts in Pacific Standard Time. Do we really need this many times on this planet?
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I am pretty sure that when Joe Biden said "It is patriotic to pay higher taxes," he was in a middle of a conversation with my mother. Because she can make people say inane things. The other day, for example, I told her, in a high pitched voice, that it was an honor to get lice.
Mama, born and bred in the former Soviet Union, knows a lot about the way that things ought to be and she is happy to share that information, absolutely free of charge. When I told her that several of my son's classmates had lice, she became extremely animated.
"I didn't want to upset you," she told me, "But a few weeks ago, your son had lice."
If there is ever a phrase that will make your hair's life flash before your eyes, it's that one.
"What do you mean my son had lice? And what do you mean you didn't want to upset me ?!" Apparently, the only phrase that I understood was "a few weeks ago."
"I saw something white, so I cut off that piece of hair and brought it to your father, to look under microscope," she explained. "But lice flew away, because he didn't see anything."
You know how doctors recommend doing kegels during pregnancy so that you don't become incontinent once the baby is born? Well, I often practice mental kegels when talking to mama. It involves biting my tongue until I choke on my own blood so that I don't scream "ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND?" This keeps me in her Will and subsequent codicils.
"If he has lice, he needs to be treated," I explained.
"Oh, please. He just has to wash hair," she looked at me carefully, "But, whatever happens, you must make sure that your daughter never gets lice. Because that is shame on whole family. Shame. Shame and filth. "
"I read that lice is more drawn to clean hair than dirty," I offered.
"Yes," she said, "you must be right. People who are too clean get lice. I don't know why I never thought of that. Howard Hughes - covered with lice."
"That's what all the articles say," I tell her.
"Oh please, every idiot in Russia knew that lice came from dirt. Here, everyone is so sensitive, nobody wants to traumatize child. It's not your fault, they say. 'Everyone gets lice'. Lice is pet and friend."
"Yes, everyone in Soviet Russia is a genius. It's amazing more people don't want to move there!"
"I love this country," she tells me. "But people have no common sense. I read article about saving money. Article says 'bring lunch from home and don't buy'. Why people need article? No common sense. Same with lice. You wash hair, you don't get lice. Simple. I know it's fashionable to be democrat now and blame society, but wash your children's hair. No lice."
And that's when I lost it. "That makes no sense!" I shouted. "Everyone gets lice! It's perfectly normal and healthy! It's practically a rite of passage and an honor!"
"You never have lice! I'm sorry I deprive you of a happy childhood with lice. But be a guest of mine, have lice with your children!"
It really is a testament to my restraint that I didn't scream "I think I will!!" Nor did I order a dozen eggs from Lice R Us.
PS to Marinka - I tried really hard with the synchronized posting thing, but it was fraught with difficulties. A restaurant. Three toddlers. Math. I'm in Chamarro Standard Time. You're in Eastern Standard Time. My blog counts in Pacific Standard Time. Do we really need this many times on this planet?
**************************************
I am pretty sure that when Joe Biden said "It is patriotic to pay higher taxes," he was in a middle of a conversation with my mother. Because she can make people say inane things. The other day, for example, I told her, in a high pitched voice, that it was an honor to get lice.
Mama, born and bred in the former Soviet Union, knows a lot about the way that things ought to be and she is happy to share that information, absolutely free of charge. When I told her that several of my son's classmates had lice, she became extremely animated.
"I didn't want to upset you," she told me, "But a few weeks ago, your son had lice."
If there is ever a phrase that will make your hair's life flash before your eyes, it's that one.
"What do you mean my son had lice? And what do you mean you didn't want to upset me ?!" Apparently, the only phrase that I understood was "a few weeks ago."
"I saw something white, so I cut off that piece of hair and brought it to your father, to look under microscope," she explained. "But lice flew away, because he didn't see anything."
You know how doctors recommend doing kegels during pregnancy so that you don't become incontinent once the baby is born? Well, I often practice mental kegels when talking to mama. It involves biting my tongue until I choke on my own blood so that I don't scream "ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND?" This keeps me in her Will and subsequent codicils.
"If he has lice, he needs to be treated," I explained.
"Oh, please. He just has to wash hair," she looked at me carefully, "But, whatever happens, you must make sure that your daughter never gets lice. Because that is shame on whole family. Shame. Shame and filth. "
"I read that lice is more drawn to clean hair than dirty," I offered.
"Yes," she said, "you must be right. People who are too clean get lice. I don't know why I never thought of that. Howard Hughes - covered with lice."
"That's what all the articles say," I tell her.
"Oh please, every idiot in Russia knew that lice came from dirt. Here, everyone is so sensitive, nobody wants to traumatize child. It's not your fault, they say. 'Everyone gets lice'. Lice is pet and friend."
"Yes, everyone in Soviet Russia is a genius. It's amazing more people don't want to move there!"
"I love this country," she tells me. "But people have no common sense. I read article about saving money. Article says 'bring lunch from home and don't buy'. Why people need article? No common sense. Same with lice. You wash hair, you don't get lice. Simple. I know it's fashionable to be democrat now and blame society, but wash your children's hair. No lice."
And that's when I lost it. "That makes no sense!" I shouted. "Everyone gets lice! It's perfectly normal and healthy! It's practically a rite of passage and an honor!"
"You never have lice! I'm sorry I deprive you of a happy childhood with lice. But be a guest of mine, have lice with your children!"
It really is a testament to my restraint that I didn't scream "I think I will!!" Nor did I order a dozen eggs from Lice R Us.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
This one time, on Saipan
Matt tried to kill me with a kayak. I kid you not. I'm having flashbacks, so I'm going to tell you all about it.
You know we lived here years ago, before we had kids, and we had lots free time that I liked to spend reading or drinking tropical drinks. He liked to kayak. I don't mind reading and/or drinking in a kayak, but there was all of this preparation before the floating and drinking that vaguely resembled work. Also, I like the tropics, but I don't particularly like the ocean. At least the part of it where it is 'fun' to kayak. It's very, very deep and things with teeth live in it that could conceivably eat me.
On kayak days, I would have to get up early and help him load the kayak on top of our rusty Jeep Cherokee. While the early morning breeze and soft tropical sunlight was soothing, the swearing at each other was not. We firmly hated each other by the time we got the kayak secured to the top of the Jeep.
On this particular day, we were going to Managaha, a small island about 3/4 of a mile off of the coast of Saipan. I liked this trip because it did not involve crossing the reef line. Crossing the reef line in a kayak is something like torturing yourself before committing suicide. Exactly. Why? The 'good' snorkeling is on the other side of the reef, on the reef wall. But, do you know what happens on a reef line? Do you? I'll tell you. HUGE waves break. The reason that huge waves do not break on Saipan's beaches is that they are protected by a coral reef where the waves break quite spectacularly. If you don't time your reef crossing right, or if you let the kayak be pushed sideways, perpendicular to the waves, then they happily smash you and your puny, pathetic boatlike structure into the coral reef. Coral reef is a synonym for VERY SHARP ROCK WALL.
But we didn't have to do that because Managaha is inside the reef. Happy day. We set out, with our snorkel gear and our cooler full of beer tied between us. Matt forgot to mention one thing. While we didn't have to cross the reef, we had to cross the shipping lane into Saipan harbor. That is the freaking ship highway. Not like motor boat ships. Like cargo ships. Ferries. Occasionally even Navy ships. It's not a big harbor, he told me, there's hardly ever any ships.
That's Managaha today.
There's a view of the shipping lane and the harbor, with a massive cargo ship conveniently parked for effect.
Another shot, despite my poor photography skills, I think you can tell how large those ships are? I am three hundred feet above sea level taking these pictures. If you click on these pictures and look at the huge version, you can even see the navigational buoys.
So yeah, hardly ever. Except the Tinian Ferry every single day. And the massive cargo ships on some kind of regular schedule unknown to Matt. Oh, and the fuel ships. Other than that, hardly ever.
It's marked by buoys, the ship interstate, so we clearly knew when we were entering the zone of death. After we passed the green buoy, we paddled madly for about ten minutes and we were within sight of the red buoy marking our exit from the oceanic interstate when the lid blew off of our cooler. I paddled for safety helplessly while Matt deftly turned the kayak around and headed back into the middle of the killing fields after it.
Me: What are you doing??
Matt: I'm going for the lid.
Me: No!
Matt: Yes.
Me: We don't need it!
Matt: Yes, we do, our beer will get hot.
Right. Of course. How could I be so stupid? Everyone knows it is better to be squashed like a bug on the windshield of a massive cargo ship then to suffer the horrible fate of spending a day on a beautiful tropical island with warm beer.
I lost the pointless argument about which way to paddle because I am half his weight and I have the arm strength of a flea. We retrieved the lid and survived. But I'm still bitter. I have post kayak stress disorder.
For any of you that are thinking, good call, dude, warm beer sucks, I am mentally killing you right now. With a kayak. And then tying your dead body to the kayak and sending you over the reef.
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Some other things to share.
Run, don't walk to One Ping Only where Maura is helping hungry people and giving away Starbucks gift cards! All you have to do is leave a comment. Maura's donating a dollar for every comment to Second Harvest Food Bank. Plus, you're entered in the giveaway! It doesn't get any better than that. No wait. It does. If you mention you came from here (anymommy) then I get a special entry for some kind of grand pooh bah SB thing. That makes me massively happy because I am experiencing severe SB withdrawal and I am going to need large, expensive doses of SB when I return to civilization.
Our internet connection is defunct and it is driving me insane. Today, the entire island's internet is patchy and I am at my third restaurant trying to post this post. Which makes me remember a special report I watched the other night about internet addiction and I think, go and play with your children. So, I play with them for about twenty minutes and then I remember how boring it is long term and think that the people who made that special must not have small children, because if they did, they would not be mocking people with internet addictions. It's all good. Cue and I are sharing a mango smoothie and he is playing with floor grime. Boosts immunity.
I finally have the packages all ready to ship to Psychmamma and For Myself! That only took me two weeks. It's worth it though because I found these miniature prints of my very favorite painting by my very favorite local artist. I'm so excited. I could not find crunchy spicy peas though. I looked every where. I failed. Sorry. I came through on the mangoes.
Yesterday, I threw up in the McDonald's Drive Thru. There are so many things wrong with that statement that I don't even know what else to say. Cue laughed at me, outright baby chortled at my misery. He'll be going on a kayak trip with his father.
You know we lived here years ago, before we had kids, and we had lots free time that I liked to spend reading or drinking tropical drinks. He liked to kayak. I don't mind reading and/or drinking in a kayak, but there was all of this preparation before the floating and drinking that vaguely resembled work. Also, I like the tropics, but I don't particularly like the ocean. At least the part of it where it is 'fun' to kayak. It's very, very deep and things with teeth live in it that could conceivably eat me.
On kayak days, I would have to get up early and help him load the kayak on top of our rusty Jeep Cherokee. While the early morning breeze and soft tropical sunlight was soothing, the swearing at each other was not. We firmly hated each other by the time we got the kayak secured to the top of the Jeep.
On this particular day, we were going to Managaha, a small island about 3/4 of a mile off of the coast of Saipan. I liked this trip because it did not involve crossing the reef line. Crossing the reef line in a kayak is something like torturing yourself before committing suicide. Exactly. Why? The 'good' snorkeling is on the other side of the reef, on the reef wall. But, do you know what happens on a reef line? Do you? I'll tell you. HUGE waves break. The reason that huge waves do not break on Saipan's beaches is that they are protected by a coral reef where the waves break quite spectacularly. If you don't time your reef crossing right, or if you let the kayak be pushed sideways, perpendicular to the waves, then they happily smash you and your puny, pathetic boatlike structure into the coral reef. Coral reef is a synonym for VERY SHARP ROCK WALL.
But we didn't have to do that because Managaha is inside the reef. Happy day. We set out, with our snorkel gear and our cooler full of beer tied between us. Matt forgot to mention one thing. While we didn't have to cross the reef, we had to cross the shipping lane into Saipan harbor. That is the freaking ship highway. Not like motor boat ships. Like cargo ships. Ferries. Occasionally even Navy ships. It's not a big harbor, he told me, there's hardly ever any ships.
That's Managaha today.
There's a view of the shipping lane and the harbor, with a massive cargo ship conveniently parked for effect.
Another shot, despite my poor photography skills, I think you can tell how large those ships are? I am three hundred feet above sea level taking these pictures. If you click on these pictures and look at the huge version, you can even see the navigational buoys.
So yeah, hardly ever. Except the Tinian Ferry every single day. And the massive cargo ships on some kind of regular schedule unknown to Matt. Oh, and the fuel ships. Other than that, hardly ever.
It's marked by buoys, the ship interstate, so we clearly knew when we were entering the zone of death. After we passed the green buoy, we paddled madly for about ten minutes and we were within sight of the red buoy marking our exit from the oceanic interstate when the lid blew off of our cooler. I paddled for safety helplessly while Matt deftly turned the kayak around and headed back into the middle of the killing fields after it.
Me: What are you doing??
Matt: I'm going for the lid.
Me: No!
Matt: Yes.
Me: We don't need it!
Matt: Yes, we do, our beer will get hot.
Right. Of course. How could I be so stupid? Everyone knows it is better to be squashed like a bug on the windshield of a massive cargo ship then to suffer the horrible fate of spending a day on a beautiful tropical island with warm beer.
I lost the pointless argument about which way to paddle because I am half his weight and I have the arm strength of a flea. We retrieved the lid and survived. But I'm still bitter. I have post kayak stress disorder.
For any of you that are thinking, good call, dude, warm beer sucks, I am mentally killing you right now. With a kayak. And then tying your dead body to the kayak and sending you over the reef.
****************************************************
Some other things to share.
Run, don't walk to One Ping Only where Maura is helping hungry people and giving away Starbucks gift cards! All you have to do is leave a comment. Maura's donating a dollar for every comment to Second Harvest Food Bank. Plus, you're entered in the giveaway! It doesn't get any better than that. No wait. It does. If you mention you came from here (anymommy) then I get a special entry for some kind of grand pooh bah SB thing. That makes me massively happy because I am experiencing severe SB withdrawal and I am going to need large, expensive doses of SB when I return to civilization.
Our internet connection is defunct and it is driving me insane. Today, the entire island's internet is patchy and I am at my third restaurant trying to post this post. Which makes me remember a special report I watched the other night about internet addiction and I think, go and play with your children. So, I play with them for about twenty minutes and then I remember how boring it is long term and think that the people who made that special must not have small children, because if they did, they would not be mocking people with internet addictions. It's all good. Cue and I are sharing a mango smoothie and he is playing with floor grime. Boosts immunity.
I finally have the packages all ready to ship to Psychmamma and For Myself! That only took me two weeks. It's worth it though because I found these miniature prints of my very favorite painting by my very favorite local artist. I'm so excited. I could not find crunchy spicy peas though. I looked every where. I failed. Sorry. I came through on the mangoes.
Yesterday, I threw up in the McDonald's Drive Thru. There are so many things wrong with that statement that I don't even know what else to say. Cue laughed at me, outright baby chortled at my misery. He'll be going on a kayak trip with his father.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
We're Having A(nother) Baby
Just one beautiful baby. We had our ultrasound on Tuesday. Little Baby b is gone. Well, not gone, still fully there actually, which is a little disconcerting, but cosmically gone. His little heart isn't beating and may never have.
I keep waiting to feel really sad, but I don't. I hope that isn't horrible to admit. Maybe we had already accepted his loss over the last few weeks, or maybe twins never seemed all that real in the first place. Or maybe it's just plain impossible to feel anything but joyful and happy and overwhelmed with thankfulness when your baby, your very last, gorgeous, right on track baby is turning somersaults and waving his little arms and doing his very best to get your attention. Like he knows something and he's saying, look at me, I'm here for you, I'm here!
Maybe I just don't want to feel sad because this is my very last time for this part of motherhood and, even with all the (ahem) issues and stomach vileness, I want to savor the experience. I want to tip the cup all the way up and sip every last drop of joy out of it. Taste it fully because I know how quickly it will fade into preschool and then grade school, field trips and soccer games and best friends and cell phones and suddenly they will all be dancing their own dances, beyond the reach of my arms.
What I want to do right now, for the very last time, because I haven't even really done it yet, is this: We're having a baby!! Our fourth and final baby!! ETA July 4.
I feel like hell and it's just wonderful.
I keep waiting to feel really sad, but I don't. I hope that isn't horrible to admit. Maybe we had already accepted his loss over the last few weeks, or maybe twins never seemed all that real in the first place. Or maybe it's just plain impossible to feel anything but joyful and happy and overwhelmed with thankfulness when your baby, your very last, gorgeous, right on track baby is turning somersaults and waving his little arms and doing his very best to get your attention. Like he knows something and he's saying, look at me, I'm here for you, I'm here!
Maybe I just don't want to feel sad because this is my very last time for this part of motherhood and, even with all the (ahem) issues and stomach vileness, I want to savor the experience. I want to tip the cup all the way up and sip every last drop of joy out of it. Taste it fully because I know how quickly it will fade into preschool and then grade school, field trips and soccer games and best friends and cell phones and suddenly they will all be dancing their own dances, beyond the reach of my arms.
What I want to do right now, for the very last time, because I haven't even really done it yet, is this: We're having a baby!! Our fourth and final baby!! ETA July 4.
I feel like hell and it's just wonderful.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Too Much Information
I'm not kidding. If you are one of my brother-in-laws, or my father, or an uncle, or for any of many excellent reasons that I can think of, you would prefer not to become intimate with the inner workings of my digestive system, you might want to move on. Try Marinka, or Vodka Mom, or Backpacking Dad or the Norwindians or Steenky Bee. They are really funny and not currently as obsessed with poop as I am. I don't think.
Biology lesson. You know how when you're pregnant (I know a lot of you know, the rest of you really ought to think about skipping this one), your whole digestive system slows down? Every thing is sluggish and painful and uncomfortable as your body apparently attempts to wring every last possible ounce of nutrition from your cup o'noodles and pepsi. No easy task. Some women get very constipated. Not me, I remain very regular, I just get Old Man Syndrome. Where you have to sit on the pot forever feeling shaky and sick and sweaty until finally things move along (as I'm sure some of you are now doing).
I haven't taken a shit by myself in about three years. Under normal circumstances, I don't care that much. I'm in, I'm out. If they join me, there's not much time for wreaking havoc and if they sit outside the door crying and asking me pressing, cannot wait another second questions, it's short lived.
At the moment, I'd really like a little privacy. Yesterday, feeling particularly nasty, I put Ess and Gee in front of a movie at a strategic time, got Cue a huge sippy cup of milk and went for the solo bathroom mission. FAIL. The movie worked, but the milk lasted all of about three minutes and then Cue rammed the door full steam ahead. His wrath that it did not admit him immediately knew no bounds.
Cue: Momma!! Momma!!
Me: Drink your milk baby, I'll be right out.
Cue: MOMMA!!MOMMA!!MOMMA!!
I put my head in my hands and tried to ignore him. He continued to pound the door with his furious little body. I tried not to cry or shout obscenities at him.
Cue: MOMMA!! MOMMA!! MOMMA!!MOMMA!!MOMMMMMMMAAAAAAAA!!
Me: Cue, listen, it's okay, I'll....
Cue: MOMMA!!!MOMMMMMAAAAAAA!!MOOOOOMMMMMAAAAA!!!!
He started to pound his head against the door as a symbol of his distress and growing desperation.
"Cue...Cue." I considered ignoring him, I even wondered about the odds that he would knock himself out without seriously damaging his brain, but he already appears to have a significant speech delay, so allowing him to give himself a concussion is probably not the best parenting plan. In resignation, I reached over without raising my head from my other hand and opened the door.
He spilled into the bathroom, eyes puffy, face blotchy red with outraged fury. He buried his face in my lap and sobbed for a few minutes at the indignity of being excluded from the bathroom.
Yes, my child, I know a little something about indignity.
Fully recovered, pathos reduced to a few hiccups, he smiled at me and toddled over to the bathtub where he immediately found an interesting bar of soap and started tunneling deep furrows of soap onto his finger nail. He held them up to show me with a happy gurgle. I thought about the fact that I had not bought that soap, had no idea of its origins, but decided to be comforted by the fact that soap is fairly clean, right, and surrendered fully. I put my head back down on my arms and tried to ignore him and the full movie report floating in from the other room.
Gee: MOMMAA???!!!
Me: Yes.
Gee: MOMMMMAAAAA????!!!!!
Me: Yes.
Gee: The grasshoppers are angry.
Me: Really?
Gee: Yes, yes they are.
Me: Great.
I glanced back at Cue. He had discovered the perfect place for his soap furrow shavings in the space created between my ass and the back of the toilet when I leaned forward a little to put my aching head on my arms. He held each one up to show me, proudly, before he dropped it into the water.
Gee: MOMMMMAAAAAA????!!!!!!! MOOOOOMMMMMAAAAAA?????
Cue: Plop! Ah-ah-Ah.
Ess: (arriving in the doorway) Momma! The ants are making a bird.
Me: Fabulous. Please. Go. And. Watch. Them.
Gee: MOOOOMMMAAAAAAAA??????
Me: Yes, Gee?
Cue: Plop! Ah-ah-ah-ah-Ahhhh!
Gee: The ants are going to get angry at the grasshoppers.
Me: Really? I can't imagine how they feel.
PLOP!!!!! SPLASH!!! I didn't even have to look. I knew it was the whole effing bar of soap. Which my darling baby immediately wanted BACK because that was the most satisfying plop in the history of plops. Was I Hitler in a past life? Did I torture baby kittens? Because I'm fairly certain I haven't done anything in this life to warrant this level of humiliation.
I finished my business while straight arming the whirling dervish of wrath formally known as my baby boy to keep him from diving into the toilet after the soap bar or alternatively dropping every single thing he could get his little hands on into the toilet. So yeah, that was a really fun twenty minutes of my life that can never be regained. And, in case you're curious, yes, yes you can flush a toilet with a bar of soap in it and the soap bar remains in the bowl. At least for the first flush.
On the rest of the shit front:
1) Gee has put every single bit of his poop in the potty for four consecutive days. I cried a little this morning in gratitude.
2) There are gecko droppings in my cereal cupboard. I don't mind geckos and their droppings are small and easy to clean up, but they are skeevy in my cereal cupboard.
3) A bird pooped on me in the tropical gardens at the Hyatt the other day. And it was red. From berries. That you could see. Shit is raining down on me from the skys.
4) Ess would like you to know that SHE always puts her poo poo in the potty. She does. It's wonderful. Thank you beautiful.
I think that sums it up. This is AnyMommy, reporting on AnyFamily crap since November, 2007.
Biology lesson. You know how when you're pregnant (I know a lot of you know, the rest of you really ought to think about skipping this one), your whole digestive system slows down? Every thing is sluggish and painful and uncomfortable as your body apparently attempts to wring every last possible ounce of nutrition from your cup o'noodles and pepsi. No easy task. Some women get very constipated. Not me, I remain very regular, I just get Old Man Syndrome. Where you have to sit on the pot forever feeling shaky and sick and sweaty until finally things move along (as I'm sure some of you are now doing).
I haven't taken a shit by myself in about three years. Under normal circumstances, I don't care that much. I'm in, I'm out. If they join me, there's not much time for wreaking havoc and if they sit outside the door crying and asking me pressing, cannot wait another second questions, it's short lived.
At the moment, I'd really like a little privacy. Yesterday, feeling particularly nasty, I put Ess and Gee in front of a movie at a strategic time, got Cue a huge sippy cup of milk and went for the solo bathroom mission. FAIL. The movie worked, but the milk lasted all of about three minutes and then Cue rammed the door full steam ahead. His wrath that it did not admit him immediately knew no bounds.
Cue: Momma!! Momma!!
Me: Drink your milk baby, I'll be right out.
Cue: MOMMA!!MOMMA!!MOMMA!!
I put my head in my hands and tried to ignore him. He continued to pound the door with his furious little body. I tried not to cry or shout obscenities at him.
Cue: MOMMA!! MOMMA!! MOMMA!!MOMMA!!MOMMMMMMMAAAAAAAA!!
Me: Cue, listen, it's okay, I'll....
Cue: MOMMA!!!MOMMMMMAAAAAAA!!MOOOOOMMMMMAAAAA!!!!
He started to pound his head against the door as a symbol of his distress and growing desperation.
"Cue...Cue." I considered ignoring him, I even wondered about the odds that he would knock himself out without seriously damaging his brain, but he already appears to have a significant speech delay, so allowing him to give himself a concussion is probably not the best parenting plan. In resignation, I reached over without raising my head from my other hand and opened the door.
He spilled into the bathroom, eyes puffy, face blotchy red with outraged fury. He buried his face in my lap and sobbed for a few minutes at the indignity of being excluded from the bathroom.
Yes, my child, I know a little something about indignity.
Fully recovered, pathos reduced to a few hiccups, he smiled at me and toddled over to the bathtub where he immediately found an interesting bar of soap and started tunneling deep furrows of soap onto his finger nail. He held them up to show me with a happy gurgle. I thought about the fact that I had not bought that soap, had no idea of its origins, but decided to be comforted by the fact that soap is fairly clean, right, and surrendered fully. I put my head back down on my arms and tried to ignore him and the full movie report floating in from the other room.
Gee: MOMMAA???!!!
Me: Yes.
Gee: MOMMMMAAAAA????!!!!!
Me: Yes.
Gee: The grasshoppers are angry.
Me: Really?
Gee: Yes, yes they are.
Me: Great.
I glanced back at Cue. He had discovered the perfect place for his soap furrow shavings in the space created between my ass and the back of the toilet when I leaned forward a little to put my aching head on my arms. He held each one up to show me, proudly, before he dropped it into the water.
Gee: MOMMMMAAAAAA????!!!!!!! MOOOOOMMMMMAAAAAA?????
Cue: Plop! Ah-ah-Ah.
Ess: (arriving in the doorway) Momma! The ants are making a bird.
Me: Fabulous. Please. Go. And. Watch. Them.
Gee: MOOOOMMMAAAAAAAA??????
Me: Yes, Gee?
Cue: Plop! Ah-ah-ah-ah-Ahhhh!
Gee: The ants are going to get angry at the grasshoppers.
Me: Really? I can't imagine how they feel.
PLOP!!!!! SPLASH!!! I didn't even have to look. I knew it was the whole effing bar of soap. Which my darling baby immediately wanted BACK because that was the most satisfying plop in the history of plops. Was I Hitler in a past life? Did I torture baby kittens? Because I'm fairly certain I haven't done anything in this life to warrant this level of humiliation.
I finished my business while straight arming the whirling dervish of wrath formally known as my baby boy to keep him from diving into the toilet after the soap bar or alternatively dropping every single thing he could get his little hands on into the toilet. So yeah, that was a really fun twenty minutes of my life that can never be regained. And, in case you're curious, yes, yes you can flush a toilet with a bar of soap in it and the soap bar remains in the bowl. At least for the first flush.
On the rest of the shit front:
1) Gee has put every single bit of his poop in the potty for four consecutive days. I cried a little this morning in gratitude.
2) There are gecko droppings in my cereal cupboard. I don't mind geckos and their droppings are small and easy to clean up, but they are skeevy in my cereal cupboard.
3) A bird pooped on me in the tropical gardens at the Hyatt the other day. And it was red. From berries. That you could see. Shit is raining down on me from the skys.
4) Ess would like you to know that SHE always puts her poo poo in the potty. She does. It's wonderful. Thank you beautiful.
I think that sums it up. This is AnyMommy, reporting on AnyFamily crap since November, 2007.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
A Bagel Is a Dietary Staple
Slackeration, slackerama, slackapalooza. Lord, I suck. I slack. Actually, what I do is lay around on the floor a lot wishing that my children were more considerate. When one of them starts screaming their I've-just-had-an-arm-brutally-detached-by-a-sibling scream, it would really help me if they would do it in my vicinity so that I could avoid getting up and dragging myself to the other room to survey the damage. Really? This is a two room apartment. Is that so much to ask?
In the midst of my floor wallowing, I have managed, finally, to perform the very official drawing ceremony for the second Saipan package. The first one, of course, goes to Psychmamma, whose trivia prowess cannot be denied or rivaled. The very official drawing ceremony involved a bowl and some little scraps of paper on which I wrote all of the commenters' names. I gave you a second entry if you had points on the scoreboard!
Cue, whose credentials and impartiality are above reproach, drew the winning name. He was clearly qualified by the obvious fact that he was far more interested in eating the piece of paper than in who was going to be the winner of the Saipan package. Kickbacks mean nothing to this moral little man. Unless by kickbacks you mean that you'll hold his older brother down while he kicks him back. In that case, he's all over it.
He chose.....For Myself. He only chewed on it a little bit and the ink was completely legible. His second choice was Pam. I guess that doesn't mean anything (sorry Pam) unless Psychmamma or For Myself refuse to send me their emails. In that case, the package is yours! To everyone else, especially Kym and Vodka Mom who played so hard and with such good humor, thanks! That was fun. I might even do it again sometime.
In case you are feeling cheated or smell a rat or something, it's probably Gee, who continues to taunt me by pooping pretty much anywhere except the one location which would not involve me scrubbing poop. No, don't blame Cue. I was the weak link in the process because my handwriting is atrocious and since I both wrote the entries and read the winner, there was some room for error, or even fraud. Let's not go there, shall we. Let's all be bigger than that and move on, it's over, the best blogger won, the bowl and Cue have spoken, don't we all just want to forget our differences and heal? Besides, it's just a package of my favorite Asian junk food with a few island baubles thrown in, is it really worth any strife? Actually, I've bought dried sugared mangoes and I might raise a stink if someone snatched my mangoes. They are that good. Also, spicy, crunchy peas. Now that I think about it, some of you might want to register a complaint. This is really good stuff.
I'll alert the election commission. Maybe Congress. They aren't busy. They're just rearranging chairs over there. And I think arguing about how much to make us pay for cars we already can't afford. And won't receive. But, we can go and pet the cars we already paid for on pretty lots. And, if we really like them, the car people will loan us our money that Congress gave them, for loans and stuff, so that the car people could afford to loan us our money so that we could buy cars that we can't afford but already paid for. See how that works. It's a credit crisis and a car crisis. That's where Congress takes our money and gives a bunch of it to credit companies and then buys cars with the rest so that the credit companies will feel confident loaning our money back to us to pay for cars that we already own. Only nine percent interest. Act fast.
So, yeah, where was I? Psychmamma and For Myself. Hurray! Congratulations!! I need addresses. Email me. I am going to send you peas and mangoes!!! Not cars, don't get confused. I know. You can thank me later.
In other nonsense, I am addicted to cup o'noodles and pepsi. I seem to remember, many moons ago, back when I was young and innocent and all dewy eyed, and pregnant for the first time, that I owned some books about early pregnancy. I vaguely recall some menus and charts and being actually concerned about and on top of my intake of things like vitamins and proteins and, oh I don't know, the occasional vegetable, because my body was a lovely temple-like vessel, a house for my growing child. This time, I would just like as many of us involved as possible to survive the experience. I include all present children in that request. In particular, whichever one is screaming bloody murder at the moment. Preferably with as little vomiting as possible. While I drink pepsi and eat cup o'noodles.
I really don't ask that much. I don't know what happened to all those books. I know I read them obsessively three years ago. Okay, I know what happened to What to Expect When You're Expecting. I burned it. Those bitches called a bagel an 'occasional treat.' A cheesecake is an occasional treat. A bagel is a dietary staple. Now you know.
In the midst of my floor wallowing, I have managed, finally, to perform the very official drawing ceremony for the second Saipan package. The first one, of course, goes to Psychmamma, whose trivia prowess cannot be denied or rivaled. The very official drawing ceremony involved a bowl and some little scraps of paper on which I wrote all of the commenters' names. I gave you a second entry if you had points on the scoreboard!
Cue, whose credentials and impartiality are above reproach, drew the winning name. He was clearly qualified by the obvious fact that he was far more interested in eating the piece of paper than in who was going to be the winner of the Saipan package. Kickbacks mean nothing to this moral little man. Unless by kickbacks you mean that you'll hold his older brother down while he kicks him back. In that case, he's all over it.
He chose.....For Myself. He only chewed on it a little bit and the ink was completely legible. His second choice was Pam. I guess that doesn't mean anything (sorry Pam) unless Psychmamma or For Myself refuse to send me their emails. In that case, the package is yours! To everyone else, especially Kym and Vodka Mom who played so hard and with such good humor, thanks! That was fun. I might even do it again sometime.
In case you are feeling cheated or smell a rat or something, it's probably Gee, who continues to taunt me by pooping pretty much anywhere except the one location which would not involve me scrubbing poop. No, don't blame Cue. I was the weak link in the process because my handwriting is atrocious and since I both wrote the entries and read the winner, there was some room for error, or even fraud. Let's not go there, shall we. Let's all be bigger than that and move on, it's over, the best blogger won, the bowl and Cue have spoken, don't we all just want to forget our differences and heal? Besides, it's just a package of my favorite Asian junk food with a few island baubles thrown in, is it really worth any strife? Actually, I've bought dried sugared mangoes and I might raise a stink if someone snatched my mangoes. They are that good. Also, spicy, crunchy peas. Now that I think about it, some of you might want to register a complaint. This is really good stuff.
I'll alert the election commission. Maybe Congress. They aren't busy. They're just rearranging chairs over there. And I think arguing about how much to make us pay for cars we already can't afford. And won't receive. But, we can go and pet the cars we already paid for on pretty lots. And, if we really like them, the car people will loan us our money that Congress gave them, for loans and stuff, so that the car people could afford to loan us our money so that we could buy cars that we can't afford but already paid for. See how that works. It's a credit crisis and a car crisis. That's where Congress takes our money and gives a bunch of it to credit companies and then buys cars with the rest so that the credit companies will feel confident loaning our money back to us to pay for cars that we already own. Only nine percent interest. Act fast.
So, yeah, where was I? Psychmamma and For Myself. Hurray! Congratulations!! I need addresses. Email me. I am going to send you peas and mangoes!!! Not cars, don't get confused. I know. You can thank me later.
In other nonsense, I am addicted to cup o'noodles and pepsi. I seem to remember, many moons ago, back when I was young and innocent and all dewy eyed, and pregnant for the first time, that I owned some books about early pregnancy. I vaguely recall some menus and charts and being actually concerned about and on top of my intake of things like vitamins and proteins and, oh I don't know, the occasional vegetable, because my body was a lovely temple-like vessel, a house for my growing child. This time, I would just like as many of us involved as possible to survive the experience. I include all present children in that request. In particular, whichever one is screaming bloody murder at the moment. Preferably with as little vomiting as possible. While I drink pepsi and eat cup o'noodles.
I really don't ask that much. I don't know what happened to all those books. I know I read them obsessively three years ago. Okay, I know what happened to What to Expect When You're Expecting. I burned it. Those bitches called a bagel an 'occasional treat.' A cheesecake is an occasional treat. A bagel is a dietary staple. Now you know.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Life Goes On
I don't have any words for how all of your comments and emails made me feel. Lighter, easier, less alone. Responding has me baffled. I started to email each of you, but you don't all leave your email. Then, I decided to respond in the comments, but I worry that you don't have time to go back and check old comments. I'm settling for this: Thank you.
There's really no way to follow that except with something completely trivial and inane. A few nights ago, Matt and I were in bed at our usual 9:30 bed time. Sad, I know. Weird noises started above our heads. Bumps and squeaks and drags all overlaid with a constant, annoying whine. Apartments are revealing, but apparently our above-our-heads neighbors are nearly as boring as we are.
Me: What is that? I don't feel well. (Is anyone tired of hearing about how sick I feel, because Matt is tired of hearing it.) What are they doing? (Imagine a very whiny voice, I'm whiny, I admit it.)
Pause.
Matt: They're vacuuming. That's why it sounds foreign to you.
Pause.
Me: You really don't ever want to have sex again do you?
Matt: I didn't know it was option. And even if it is an option, I've got weeks of this first trimester crap left to redeem myself.
Approaching ten years of marriage, four or more kids, 9:30 bedtime and weeks mean nothing to our amorous relations. Aw, true love.
**********************************
Happy Thanksgiving. I hope the day was full of family and friends, good conversation and excellent wine. Drink a glass of wine for me?
I'm grateful for so many things, but in the world of blogs, I'm grateful for all of the loving, incredible people who have reached out to me, in fun and friendship and on serious topics. (Reach out and touch faith....song and late eighties alternative band for five points.) (Five points if you can guess the first concert I ever attended, in the same genre. Huge hint: My girlfriend, she's at the end, she is starting to cry...) (Five more for my second concert. Hint: If you believe, there's nothing out there to see, and nothing is new...) (Five more for the cheesiest fake concert I've ever attended. Hint: Like sunshine and rain...) (Last one, five points for the concert at which my sixteen year old self was most likely to be sexually assaulted. Hint: Party all night!!!! Sleep all day!!!!! (screamed, painfully, in full make up.))
Seriously, I am amazed to know women like Denene, who writes the perceptive and fascinating My Brown Baby. She's a professional writer (scary professional, books, magazines, editorships, oh my!) whose attention and sometimes praise leaves me flying high. Thank you for this lovely award. (I'm going to acknowledge the other one separately.)
And Pam of You're Gonna Miss This, an adoptive mom and, after months of reading each other's stories, a friend. We have the bond of shared experiences and shared challenges. Her faith, perseverance and strength awe me every day. Thank you!
And Mom24, who writes 4ever Mom. Mother, new grandmother, extraordinary meal planner. I'm getting to know her better as I read and it's a pleasure. Thank you so much for this award (the Spanish name of which, I will not even attempt to spell), but more so, thank you for the incredibly kind words you wrote in that post so many moons ago. (Hangs head in shame at tardiness.)
And Dysfunctional Mom, whose compassion for her kids, her dogs, her dog rescue calling and life in general keep me coming back again and again. She made this darling little button herself too, which involves computer savvy about which I can only dream. Thank you. I'll keep visiting, and not just for the cute puppies.
There's just something about friendships, about girlfriends, (although the same type of friendship and support can come from men), that fulfills and uplifts and buoys, across country, across oceans, across the wires and mother boards and whatever magical genies connect us all by computer. It's not just these thoughtful baubles (and the thought behind them), it's also the emails, the quick notes, the DMs and instant messages and comments connecting a whole (yeah, I'm going to say it, I'm feeling grateful, sue me) community.
Thanks for letting me be a part of it.
*******************************
We had a delightful Thanksgiving dinner with friends, which was only slightly marred by my constant nausea. I totally ate it anyway. Not that I'm complaining or anything. Matt. Turkey was perfect (awesome job D), best sweet potatoes I've ever had (thanks S) and, of course, the company was ideal.
This post is the official end of the get a package from AnyMommy in Saipan contest. Whoever is in the lead after these points are doled is going to win! AND, because I'm feeling all specially good and grateful and un-nauseous right now, I'm going to pick another package recipient randomly from the comments. Um, tell me your favorite TG moments. I'll give you TWO AnyFamily holiday classics. First, a few years ago when my grandmother got really, really drunk and fell over backward in her chair. (Sorry, Dad, but she was uninjured and it was damn funny.) Is it really a holiday until someone can't sit up straight in their seat? Not in my Jewish/pagan family.
Second, the last two years, because we've had gaggles of toddlers at our TG feasts, the moment when we serve dessert. There's this sudden, delightful, unbelievable silence in the midst of the noise and the chaos and the laughter and the whining. It reverberates through my soul and brings tears to my eyes. All of them, so quiet, so happy. Behold, the power of sugar.
There's really no way to follow that except with something completely trivial and inane. A few nights ago, Matt and I were in bed at our usual 9:30 bed time. Sad, I know. Weird noises started above our heads. Bumps and squeaks and drags all overlaid with a constant, annoying whine. Apartments are revealing, but apparently our above-our-heads neighbors are nearly as boring as we are.
Me: What is that? I don't feel well. (Is anyone tired of hearing about how sick I feel, because Matt is tired of hearing it.) What are they doing? (Imagine a very whiny voice, I'm whiny, I admit it.)
Pause.
Matt: They're vacuuming. That's why it sounds foreign to you.
Pause.
Me: You really don't ever want to have sex again do you?
Matt: I didn't know it was option. And even if it is an option, I've got weeks of this first trimester crap left to redeem myself.
Approaching ten years of marriage, four or more kids, 9:30 bedtime and weeks mean nothing to our amorous relations. Aw, true love.
**********************************
Happy Thanksgiving. I hope the day was full of family and friends, good conversation and excellent wine. Drink a glass of wine for me?
I'm grateful for so many things, but in the world of blogs, I'm grateful for all of the loving, incredible people who have reached out to me, in fun and friendship and on serious topics. (Reach out and touch faith....song and late eighties alternative band for five points.) (Five points if you can guess the first concert I ever attended, in the same genre. Huge hint: My girlfriend, she's at the end, she is starting to cry...) (Five more for my second concert. Hint: If you believe, there's nothing out there to see, and nothing is new...) (Five more for the cheesiest fake concert I've ever attended. Hint: Like sunshine and rain...) (Last one, five points for the concert at which my sixteen year old self was most likely to be sexually assaulted. Hint: Party all night!!!! Sleep all day!!!!! (screamed, painfully, in full make up.))
Seriously, I am amazed to know women like Denene, who writes the perceptive and fascinating My Brown Baby. She's a professional writer (scary professional, books, magazines, editorships, oh my!) whose attention and sometimes praise leaves me flying high. Thank you for this lovely award. (I'm going to acknowledge the other one separately.)
And Pam of You're Gonna Miss This, an adoptive mom and, after months of reading each other's stories, a friend. We have the bond of shared experiences and shared challenges. Her faith, perseverance and strength awe me every day. Thank you!
And Mom24, who writes 4ever Mom. Mother, new grandmother, extraordinary meal planner. I'm getting to know her better as I read and it's a pleasure. Thank you so much for this award (the Spanish name of which, I will not even attempt to spell), but more so, thank you for the incredibly kind words you wrote in that post so many moons ago. (Hangs head in shame at tardiness.)
And Dysfunctional Mom, whose compassion for her kids, her dogs, her dog rescue calling and life in general keep me coming back again and again. She made this darling little button herself too, which involves computer savvy about which I can only dream. Thank you. I'll keep visiting, and not just for the cute puppies.There's just something about friendships, about girlfriends, (although the same type of friendship and support can come from men), that fulfills and uplifts and buoys, across country, across oceans, across the wires and mother boards and whatever magical genies connect us all by computer. It's not just these thoughtful baubles (and the thought behind them), it's also the emails, the quick notes, the DMs and instant messages and comments connecting a whole (yeah, I'm going to say it, I'm feeling grateful, sue me) community.
Thanks for letting me be a part of it.
*******************************
We had a delightful Thanksgiving dinner with friends, which was only slightly marred by my constant nausea. I totally ate it anyway. Not that I'm complaining or anything. Matt. Turkey was perfect (awesome job D), best sweet potatoes I've ever had (thanks S) and, of course, the company was ideal.
This post is the official end of the get a package from AnyMommy in Saipan contest. Whoever is in the lead after these points are doled is going to win! AND, because I'm feeling all specially good and grateful and un-nauseous right now, I'm going to pick another package recipient randomly from the comments. Um, tell me your favorite TG moments. I'll give you TWO AnyFamily holiday classics. First, a few years ago when my grandmother got really, really drunk and fell over backward in her chair. (Sorry, Dad, but she was uninjured and it was damn funny.) Is it really a holiday until someone can't sit up straight in their seat? Not in my Jewish/pagan family.
Second, the last two years, because we've had gaggles of toddlers at our TG feasts, the moment when we serve dessert. There's this sudden, delightful, unbelievable silence in the midst of the noise and the chaos and the laughter and the whining. It reverberates through my soul and brings tears to my eyes. All of them, so quiet, so happy. Behold, the power of sugar.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Hope Floats
(I had decided not to publish this one. I was unsure and I couldn't get it right. Then, I hit publish instead of save and didn't notice for five hours. I'm going to take it as a sign. I pulled it for a while, thinking, but I only added a few pictures.)
Early the other morning, before the sun reached its full strength, we packed everyone into the car and took them to our favorite beach. It is hard to reach, at the end of long, poorly maintained coral pack road, pitted with deep potholes and rutted by runoff. Lush tropical vegetation encroaches on both sides. The jungle is not deep, really, with the beach barely 200 yards off the left side and a main island road 700 yards to the right, but it looks impenetrable.
As we bounced down the track, I glimpsed a foot and half long lizard, so motionless on a palm tree that I mistook it for a hump in the bark at first, a part of the tree itself. There is an illusion of isolation and desertedness that delights. The feeling of finding a spot, a sparkling stretch of white sand framed by the lagoon and reef break in a graceful curving bay, unknown to all but a few is irresistible.
It was ours and ours alone at that early hour of the morning. The children threw themselves into crab hunting with squeals of joy. Their cries, 'here's one!' 'he's moving' and 'no Daddy don't pick it up' pierced the Robinson Caruso quiet. The targets of their affection hunkered down in horror to hide, but sand crabs have short memories and they could not be still long enough to evade our little flock of hawks.
I settled my back against the shady side of a huge rock with my camera and my thoughts. The beach is called Wing Beach, because, not so many years ago, it's defining feature was a WWII airplane wing washed up on the shore. A relict of the Allied Pacific Forces' horrifically difficult capture of Saipan from the Japanese. The wing itself is gone now. Unable to hold out against the onslaught of the wind and the tide and the rot that pervades the tropics, it has faded into the sand. Vanished. All that remains of it is the name of the beach and the long memories of the islanders.
I wonder if it is a sign. I am always looking for signs lately.
Since Tuesday, when I dragged my self to the doctor for my first ultrasound. I told her I was twice as tired and twice as sick as I can remember being for my past pregnancies and I have three times as many children at home and it sucks. In a good way, sucks, because I wanted to be pregnant and I want the baby, but sucks nonetheless.
She said, "huh, well there's twice the babies." Twins. Except not exciting, look-at-your-beautiful-twins, twins like you would hope for in a moment like that. Instead, twins right now, but baby b isn't developing as fast as he should and is way behind baby a and most likely won't live passed the next week or so. Which feels cosmically downright mean because there's not yay (twins!) or wow (twins!) or even holyshitwtfdowedonowthat'swaitihavetocountonetwothreefourfivebabiesunderfour. No, it's more uncertain, more mixed, full of possibilities for hope and joy and grief and hurt. Kind of like life itself.
Do we hope? Do we let go of an idea we barely held? Are we just grateful for one healthy baby? This is where medical science fails and we enter the realm of miracles, no explanations, no guarantees. Sometimes, the smaller baby catches up and thrives, more often, he miscarries and fades quietly away like he was never there. In two weeks, we'll do another ultrasound and know the answer.
In the meantime, I look for signs. It feels wrong that I don't know, that I have to wait for technology to tell me. It feels like the shadowy place where mother's intuition should take over. I ought to be able to put my hands on my abdomen and just know. An inkling of the answer ought to bubble into my mind. But, it doesn't.
Funnily enough, if someone asked me six months ago, before Matt and I smiled at each other one night and I asked him, "are you really up for a fourth and final." Before the miscarriage two months ago and this amazingly quick second pregnancy. Before any of that if you had asked me would you like to have twins, I would have laughed out loud. Unkindly.
Twins? Aha. No. We'd like a fourth. And final. Amen and pass the vasectomy.
But it's too late now. I've seen those two tiny bugs cuddled close on that fuzzy screen. It's too late not to want to know them both and hold them both and love them both.
I wonder whether writing about it is a good idea. If it would be better if we didn't know. But, if I didn't know, or if I never mentioned it, it wouldn't mean he never was. I saw him. He's there right now. His little miraculous workings haven't even told my endocrine system to stop cranking out double hormones yet.
Vanishing twin syndrome. If he doesn't grow, he will fade away, vanish, like the wing, reabsorbed by nature. Will there even be a name left behind, to prick our memories? Later, after bedtime, I type the name we have treasured for months into the computer. It's a boy's name. We always imagine our babies as boys. It means sorrow. My breath catches. A sign? A name tinged with sadness for a child that lost his brother so early. Tentatively, almost furtively, I type a second name, one that has been playing at the edges of my thoughts. Dark. I like that. Dark, like a dark horse, someone that comes from behind to win, unexpected, out of the blue.
That's the thing about signs. It's all in how you read them.
Cue sits on my knees facing me, bouncing, and I hold up one finger of my left hand and two fingers of my right. Will you have one brother or two, I ask him, jiggling my knees. He grasps for my two fingers for balance, but then let's go and grasps the other hand. It is a silly, desperate thing to do. He doesn't know, he's just a happy, clueless gap tooth baby, but still I ask him. It's no sillier than asking stars, or tea leaves or crystal balls.
Would it be easier if I could press my legs into the sand and my back into the warm rock, bring myself in tune with the waves and the sea and the sky and divine the answer? Would it be more comforting to learn that way? If the crabs and the dolphins whispered it in my ear would it hurt less?
I don't know. I don't want to know. For now, for these weeks, he is mine. I am going to lie very still on my spun glass raft of hope, close my eyes and float quietly with the sun on my face. If I move, if I ask, the delicate filigree will splinter into a million shards that bite and pierce and burn my skin. Technology will crush it to glass dust soon enough. Today, hope is briefly, beautifully whole.
Early the other morning, before the sun reached its full strength, we packed everyone into the car and took them to our favorite beach. It is hard to reach, at the end of long, poorly maintained coral pack road, pitted with deep potholes and rutted by runoff. Lush tropical vegetation encroaches on both sides. The jungle is not deep, really, with the beach barely 200 yards off the left side and a main island road 700 yards to the right, but it looks impenetrable.
As we bounced down the track, I glimpsed a foot and half long lizard, so motionless on a palm tree that I mistook it for a hump in the bark at first, a part of the tree itself. There is an illusion of isolation and desertedness that delights. The feeling of finding a spot, a sparkling stretch of white sand framed by the lagoon and reef break in a graceful curving bay, unknown to all but a few is irresistible.
It was ours and ours alone at that early hour of the morning. The children threw themselves into crab hunting with squeals of joy. Their cries, 'here's one!' 'he's moving' and 'no Daddy don't pick it up' pierced the Robinson Caruso quiet. The targets of their affection hunkered down in horror to hide, but sand crabs have short memories and they could not be still long enough to evade our little flock of hawks.
I settled my back against the shady side of a huge rock with my camera and my thoughts. The beach is called Wing Beach, because, not so many years ago, it's defining feature was a WWII airplane wing washed up on the shore. A relict of the Allied Pacific Forces' horrifically difficult capture of Saipan from the Japanese. The wing itself is gone now. Unable to hold out against the onslaught of the wind and the tide and the rot that pervades the tropics, it has faded into the sand. Vanished. All that remains of it is the name of the beach and the long memories of the islanders.
I wonder if it is a sign. I am always looking for signs lately.
Since Tuesday, when I dragged my self to the doctor for my first ultrasound. I told her I was twice as tired and twice as sick as I can remember being for my past pregnancies and I have three times as many children at home and it sucks. In a good way, sucks, because I wanted to be pregnant and I want the baby, but sucks nonetheless.
She said, "huh, well there's twice the babies." Twins. Except not exciting, look-at-your-beautiful-twins, twins like you would hope for in a moment like that. Instead, twins right now, but baby b isn't developing as fast as he should and is way behind baby a and most likely won't live passed the next week or so. Which feels cosmically downright mean because there's not yay (twins!) or wow (twins!) or even holyshitwtfdowedonowthat'swaitihavetocountonetwothreefourfivebabiesunderfour. No, it's more uncertain, more mixed, full of possibilities for hope and joy and grief and hurt. Kind of like life itself.
Do we hope? Do we let go of an idea we barely held? Are we just grateful for one healthy baby? This is where medical science fails and we enter the realm of miracles, no explanations, no guarantees. Sometimes, the smaller baby catches up and thrives, more often, he miscarries and fades quietly away like he was never there. In two weeks, we'll do another ultrasound and know the answer.
In the meantime, I look for signs. It feels wrong that I don't know, that I have to wait for technology to tell me. It feels like the shadowy place where mother's intuition should take over. I ought to be able to put my hands on my abdomen and just know. An inkling of the answer ought to bubble into my mind. But, it doesn't.
Funnily enough, if someone asked me six months ago, before Matt and I smiled at each other one night and I asked him, "are you really up for a fourth and final." Before the miscarriage two months ago and this amazingly quick second pregnancy. Before any of that if you had asked me would you like to have twins, I would have laughed out loud. Unkindly.
Twins? Aha. No. We'd like a fourth. And final. Amen and pass the vasectomy.
But it's too late now. I've seen those two tiny bugs cuddled close on that fuzzy screen. It's too late not to want to know them both and hold them both and love them both.
I wonder whether writing about it is a good idea. If it would be better if we didn't know. But, if I didn't know, or if I never mentioned it, it wouldn't mean he never was. I saw him. He's there right now. His little miraculous workings haven't even told my endocrine system to stop cranking out double hormones yet.
Vanishing twin syndrome. If he doesn't grow, he will fade away, vanish, like the wing, reabsorbed by nature. Will there even be a name left behind, to prick our memories? Later, after bedtime, I type the name we have treasured for months into the computer. It's a boy's name. We always imagine our babies as boys. It means sorrow. My breath catches. A sign? A name tinged with sadness for a child that lost his brother so early. Tentatively, almost furtively, I type a second name, one that has been playing at the edges of my thoughts. Dark. I like that. Dark, like a dark horse, someone that comes from behind to win, unexpected, out of the blue.
That's the thing about signs. It's all in how you read them.
Cue sits on my knees facing me, bouncing, and I hold up one finger of my left hand and two fingers of my right. Will you have one brother or two, I ask him, jiggling my knees. He grasps for my two fingers for balance, but then let's go and grasps the other hand. It is a silly, desperate thing to do. He doesn't know, he's just a happy, clueless gap tooth baby, but still I ask him. It's no sillier than asking stars, or tea leaves or crystal balls.
Would it be easier if I could press my legs into the sand and my back into the warm rock, bring myself in tune with the waves and the sea and the sky and divine the answer? Would it be more comforting to learn that way? If the crabs and the dolphins whispered it in my ear would it hurt less?
I don't know. I don't want to know. For now, for these weeks, he is mine. I am going to lie very still on my spun glass raft of hope, close my eyes and float quietly with the sun on my face. If I move, if I ask, the delicate filigree will splinter into a million shards that bite and pierce and burn my skin. Technology will crush it to glass dust soon enough. Today, hope is briefly, beautifully whole.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Dog Tired
I'm tired. Too tired to form coherent thoughts and work them into organized posts with pretty themes. Maybe you'll forgive me for this one disjointed, unpretty post? There's lots of points, if you like musicals.
(I feel pretty, oh so pretty, that the city should give me it's key....five points!)
Cue has ringworms, which oddly enough are not worms at all, but rather a skin fungus. Cue has a fungus ring, kind of like a mushroom ring, except ON HIS SKIN. Things grow in the tropics. Beautiful things, like flame trees and banana trees and bougainvillea, but also nasty things like, (wince), skin fungus. On my baby.
Gee insists on crapping in his pants. He did it at the park yesterday and I figured it out when we acquired our own swarm of flies. Then, he pooped in the fancy pool this morning after repeated attempts to get him to go in the potty and warnings that any poop in the pool would result in possibly permanent revocation of pool privileges. In one ear and out his ass into the pool. Caused a complete closure. I had to fish the turd in front of skads (SKADS) of horrified Japanese tourist mommies and daddies. We left the pool in disgrace. Hours and hundreds of washings later I swear I still smell shit on my left hand.
(Whenever I feel afraid, I hold my head erect, and whistle a happy tune...five points!)
I'm strongly considering just not cleaning this apartment for the entire three months we're here. They have to clean it when we leave anyway. Is that wrong? I wipe. I sweep. It's surface clean.
(But any task you undertake, becomes a piece of cake, a lark, a spree, it's very clear to me...five points!)
Matt's feeling like a hero because two nights ago I couldn't sleep. The entire apartment smelled like tuna fish and it was making me nauseous. After much bitching and moaning on my part he took the trash down to the dumpster, making him like husband of the year or something in his eyes. Except that it was his tuna fish can in the trash.
(If ever I would leave you, it wouldn't be in springtime, knowing how in spring I'm bewitched by you so.....five points!)
Speaking of Matt, I made a little car faux pas that has Matt all up in my business. He threatened to post himself if I don't retract my statement that the car we are driving is a Ford Escort. I'm sure you all remember that, right? No? It's a Toyota Echo. Whatever. Who cares. Why am I boring you with this? Matt had a dream as a teenager that he would die in a Ford Escort. He takes this dream very seriously and refuses to ride in a Ford Escort for any reason. Except that now, I've gone and messed him all up by calling our borrowed Toyota Echo a Ford Escort.
Me: It's still a Toyota Echo, I don't have super powers. I can't make it into a Ford Escort by calling it that.
Him: I don't like it. Why did you call it that anyway? They're two totally different cars.
Me: Small. Roundish. Escort. Echo. Totally different is a stretch.
Him: They stopped making Ford Escorts like eight years ago. Why would you even think of the name?
Me: ? Because it sticks in my mind because you're a freak about them?
His distress is bizarre, but real, so here is my official retraction. The car is a Toyota Echo. Any and all references to it being a Ford Escort were made in error and should be disregarded. Are we all happy now?
(Always look on the bright side of life, da, doo, da, do, da, do, da, do...five points!)
I'm happy. And have I mentioned tired? Where did the expression dog tired come from because every dog I've ever had has more energy than a fully loaded freight train. It should be sloth tired. Or what about panda tired? That fits. Whenever we trek to the National Zoo to see the famous _ing _ing of the day, he/she is always lazing around on its back crunching bamboo.
That's what I want to do. Just for a few days, I want to lay on my back and crunch something. Pringles. Maybe ice cream. M&Ms.
(Lots of chocolate for me to eat, lots of coal making lots of 'eat. Warm face, warm 'ands, warm feet, oh wouldn't it be lov-e-ly...five points!)
The thought, each morning, of getting them organized and packed and dressed and sunscreened and into shoes and out the door and down the balcony and down the steps and past the pool and down the other steps and to the car and 'do not touch the mangy dogs' and 'do not touch the rat infested dumpster' and I'm drenched in sweat and Gee, the three-year-old, pants-soiling prima donna is yelling about the freaking air.
TURN THE AIR ON MOMMA, I'M HOT.
YES NORDIC GIRLY BOY, I KNOW. I carried Cue because I don't want him to fall down concrete steps or play in rat droppings or pick up more fungus. I am also hot. It's hot here, that's why we love it so and why there are so many great pools for you to poop in.
I'm doing it, don't get me wrong, we are only here for this short time and I want them to experience it and love it. But the thought of all of that, setting out each morning, par for the course really, no matter where we are, makes me cry just a little bit, some days.
Meanwhile there's some stuff going on here in my real world. Isn't there always stuff going on, for all of us, behind the blog so to speak? So if you have any positive energy or prayers or good thoughts to spare, I could really use them. It might not help, I know, but it can't hurt.
Okay, name that musical. There's a lot of points at stake in this one. Thanksgiving and the end of the contest approach. Plus, it will amuse and distract me and we all know it's all about me.
(I feel pretty, oh so pretty, that the city should give me it's key....five points!)
Cue has ringworms, which oddly enough are not worms at all, but rather a skin fungus. Cue has a fungus ring, kind of like a mushroom ring, except ON HIS SKIN. Things grow in the tropics. Beautiful things, like flame trees and banana trees and bougainvillea, but also nasty things like, (wince), skin fungus. On my baby.
Gee insists on crapping in his pants. He did it at the park yesterday and I figured it out when we acquired our own swarm of flies. Then, he pooped in the fancy pool this morning after repeated attempts to get him to go in the potty and warnings that any poop in the pool would result in possibly permanent revocation of pool privileges. In one ear and out his ass into the pool. Caused a complete closure. I had to fish the turd in front of skads (SKADS) of horrified Japanese tourist mommies and daddies. We left the pool in disgrace. Hours and hundreds of washings later I swear I still smell shit on my left hand.
(Whenever I feel afraid, I hold my head erect, and whistle a happy tune...five points!)
I'm strongly considering just not cleaning this apartment for the entire three months we're here. They have to clean it when we leave anyway. Is that wrong? I wipe. I sweep. It's surface clean.
(But any task you undertake, becomes a piece of cake, a lark, a spree, it's very clear to me...five points!)
Matt's feeling like a hero because two nights ago I couldn't sleep. The entire apartment smelled like tuna fish and it was making me nauseous. After much bitching and moaning on my part he took the trash down to the dumpster, making him like husband of the year or something in his eyes. Except that it was his tuna fish can in the trash.
(If ever I would leave you, it wouldn't be in springtime, knowing how in spring I'm bewitched by you so.....five points!)
Speaking of Matt, I made a little car faux pas that has Matt all up in my business. He threatened to post himself if I don't retract my statement that the car we are driving is a Ford Escort. I'm sure you all remember that, right? No? It's a Toyota Echo. Whatever. Who cares. Why am I boring you with this? Matt had a dream as a teenager that he would die in a Ford Escort. He takes this dream very seriously and refuses to ride in a Ford Escort for any reason. Except that now, I've gone and messed him all up by calling our borrowed Toyota Echo a Ford Escort.
Me: It's still a Toyota Echo, I don't have super powers. I can't make it into a Ford Escort by calling it that.
Him: I don't like it. Why did you call it that anyway? They're two totally different cars.
Me: Small. Roundish. Escort. Echo. Totally different is a stretch.
Him: They stopped making Ford Escorts like eight years ago. Why would you even think of the name?
Me: ? Because it sticks in my mind because you're a freak about them?
His distress is bizarre, but real, so here is my official retraction. The car is a Toyota Echo. Any and all references to it being a Ford Escort were made in error and should be disregarded. Are we all happy now?
(Always look on the bright side of life, da, doo, da, do, da, do, da, do...five points!)
I'm happy. And have I mentioned tired? Where did the expression dog tired come from because every dog I've ever had has more energy than a fully loaded freight train. It should be sloth tired. Or what about panda tired? That fits. Whenever we trek to the National Zoo to see the famous _ing _ing of the day, he/she is always lazing around on its back crunching bamboo.
That's what I want to do. Just for a few days, I want to lay on my back and crunch something. Pringles. Maybe ice cream. M&Ms.
(Lots of chocolate for me to eat, lots of coal making lots of 'eat. Warm face, warm 'ands, warm feet, oh wouldn't it be lov-e-ly...five points!)
The thought, each morning, of getting them organized and packed and dressed and sunscreened and into shoes and out the door and down the balcony and down the steps and past the pool and down the other steps and to the car and 'do not touch the mangy dogs' and 'do not touch the rat infested dumpster' and I'm drenched in sweat and Gee, the three-year-old, pants-soiling prima donna is yelling about the freaking air.
TURN THE AIR ON MOMMA, I'M HOT.
YES NORDIC GIRLY BOY, I KNOW. I carried Cue because I don't want him to fall down concrete steps or play in rat droppings or pick up more fungus. I am also hot. It's hot here, that's why we love it so and why there are so many great pools for you to poop in.
I'm doing it, don't get me wrong, we are only here for this short time and I want them to experience it and love it. But the thought of all of that, setting out each morning, par for the course really, no matter where we are, makes me cry just a little bit, some days.
Meanwhile there's some stuff going on here in my real world. Isn't there always stuff going on, for all of us, behind the blog so to speak? So if you have any positive energy or prayers or good thoughts to spare, I could really use them. It might not help, I know, but it can't hurt.
Okay, name that musical. There's a lot of points at stake in this one. Thanksgiving and the end of the contest approach. Plus, it will amuse and distract me and we all know it's all about me.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
The Fisher of the Turds
I've had quite a few titles in my life. Daughter, sister, best friend. Law student, wife, lawyer, associate, assistant attorney general. Staff attorney, independent contractor. Mother. Miss, Ms., Mrs., Esq. They all mean very little in terms of who we really are. Empty labels without the background.
I think cultures with more descriptive monikers are onto something. There's something so special about a name or a title that tries to get at a person's essence. Like Chief Sitting Bull. When I read that I feel like I know something about the man, though obviously, not having invented a time machine, I've never met him. I sense his essence in those words. Stubborn. Larger than life. Unwilling to be moved from his position easily. Because, come on, who can budge a bull if it wants to be sitting. Who would want to?
If I did have a such a title right now, however, I fear it would not be so grand. My days are consumed with the trivia and tedium of life with three small children. I am the diaper changer. The butt wiper. The Queen of Shit. Empress of Poo Poo.
Maybe I'm just bitter because we're trying to potty train Gee again. Yes, this is the second time. If you missed the first go around, about six months ago, it was really, really fun, what with him peeing on the baby and me answering the door in my bra and the baby eating shit and all. It went really well. We decided to go around a second time starting the day after we arrived in the tropics. We took off his diaper, put him in pants and asked him to please not pee or poop on himself. He's like 3 1/2, he ought to be able to understand simple instruction like, for the love of all that is holy, little man, put your stinking excrement in the specially designed receptacle, please.
I faced it with dread. I couldn't even amuse myself with an island version of the Messter Map because my lovely scanner does not take well to being packed and shipped half way across the world. But, surprisingly, minus a few small accidents and the fact that there seems to be a powerful magnet between his hands and his newly accessible penis, all goes well. He is (whispering) potty trained. (Knocking on wood, throwing salt over shoulder.) Correction. He is pee pee trained. Although, given the level of my involvement, I don't really get the benefit over diapers.
He does tell me, 'my penis has pee pee in it and I'm gonna put it in the potty and get a treat.' Fabulous. Except that if I would like any pee pee to actually make it into the potty (versus, the floor, the rim, the walls, the bathtub), I have to help. First, complete pants removal. There is no pee pee without complete nakedness. Don't ask me, I'm just the Assistant Director of the Pee Pee.
He stands on the stool and waggles it in the general direction of the toilet. Sadly, he's easily distracted. If he were a NASA scientist, satellites would be crashing into each other and plummeting to earth. Unless I am directly involved in the aiming process (I'll leave directly to your imagination), the toilet might as well not be there, for all the urine that lands inside of it.
I have accepted, without good grace, any hope of getting all or even most of the stream into the toilet. Not on me is now my main goal. Why must I state the obvious? Gee, please don't put your knee into the pee pee stream.
Why?
Why? Why? Because it rickashays up into my face, that's why. It's disgusting. Do I look like the Drinker of the Pee Pee? No. I am not. It is not a title to which I aspire, even if I were paid a lot of money and let's say filmed.
So, I know you are wondering what worked. By what magic of motherhood did I convince this stalwart, stubborn boy, Mr. Sitting I Won't Put My PeePee in the Potty But Rather on Your Floor, to use the facilities. Simple. We told him, from day one here on Gilligan's Island, no pee pee in the general vicinity of the potty, no POOL.
GASP.
I know. Wicked Mother of the So Far West We Are Practically East. And your little dog too...
We made him sit on the side. We told him that boys that pee in their pants could not put their bottoms in the pool. We lied. The ocean, I let him have - hey back off greenies, whales piss in there, my toddlers' pee pee isn't making an appreciable contribution to the urine content of the briny blue. But no pool, and especially, no fancy pool with the slides and the teeter totter.
It took two days for pee pee success. Poop was happening in his night time diaper and you know what, whatever. Little Pick Your Battles, that's my name.
After two whole days of complete pee pee in the vicinity of the potty success, I took them all down, on my own, to the little pool at our apartment. Call me Crazy Mother, or perhaps, Running Away Brain. Sitting Dumb Ass?
We were swimming not fifteen minutes, and by swimming I mean I was running around behind Cue like Mama Runs In Circles, trying to make sure he didn't launch himself into the water, confident of my ability to be underneath him, no matter how far away I might physically be at time of launch, by the time he landed, while keeping a wild eye on the toddlers for any slipping under or imminent drowning, when He Who Shall Not Be Named but is generally called GEE shat in the damn pool.
Old Clueless Water Running Over Tired Rocks here didn't catch on at first.
Me: Did you throw something into the pool?
Ess: No.
Gee: No.
Cue: GAH! Leap. Splash.
Me: (while baby fishing) What is that?
Ess: Nothing.
Gee: I don't know. (??????)
Cue: GAH! Splash. Leap. GAH!!
Me: Is that a rock? Did you throw a rock into the pool? Where did you get a ro...
Well, shit. Literally. Not rock. Princess Shit For Brains. Not scissors. Not Paper.
Log.
I felt a brief flash of an intense emotion that I'm not going to describe as hate for my baby boy, whom I love with all my heart, but certainly for his errant excrement, now sitting innocently on the ledge seat of the smaller, jacuzzi-like pool. I ran through my options and they were few. The turd needed to be retrieved quickly before it fell off the ledge to the bottom, disintegrated into many small pieces, or got noticed by someone else, the most likely candidate being the maintenance guy who cleans the pool with religious fervor and would most likely ban us for life. I had nothing to use for retrieval operations and running to the apartment for tools, like Tupperware for instance or a plastic bag, would take too long. I had to take my entire entourage or risk a child drowning because I was squeamish about a turd in the pool.
Was I Mother or Tiny Squeaking Mouse? I went in, bare-handed. It was a perfectly executed one scoop extraction WITH squirming fifteen month old baby on my hip. I managed to dump it into the pool toilet (thank you, gods, for the pool toilet) and wash my hands seventeen times still clutching the unhappy baby. I earned my new title, is what I am telling you, in a trial by water. Crap infested water.
And then, the triumphant Fisher of the Turds surveyed her unhappy tribe.
Ess: Can we swim now?
Gee: I all done, momma. Can I swim too?
Cue: GAH!!
I let them swim in the water Gee had just used as his personal toilet bowl. For almost another hour. Fecal coliform is good for you. What was that about worms?
That is how I earned my title: The Fisher of the Turds.
Finally, about this whole title thing. There's a reason that we don't do this in English speaking cultures. Descriptive titles are uglier in English than in other languages. Take Chamarro, for example, the local language here on Saipan. In Chamarro, Turd Fisher is Taki Peskadot.
Pretty. Melodic. You can call me AnyMommyTaki.
I think cultures with more descriptive monikers are onto something. There's something so special about a name or a title that tries to get at a person's essence. Like Chief Sitting Bull. When I read that I feel like I know something about the man, though obviously, not having invented a time machine, I've never met him. I sense his essence in those words. Stubborn. Larger than life. Unwilling to be moved from his position easily. Because, come on, who can budge a bull if it wants to be sitting. Who would want to?
If I did have a such a title right now, however, I fear it would not be so grand. My days are consumed with the trivia and tedium of life with three small children. I am the diaper changer. The butt wiper. The Queen of Shit. Empress of Poo Poo.
Maybe I'm just bitter because we're trying to potty train Gee again. Yes, this is the second time. If you missed the first go around, about six months ago, it was really, really fun, what with him peeing on the baby and me answering the door in my bra and the baby eating shit and all. It went really well. We decided to go around a second time starting the day after we arrived in the tropics. We took off his diaper, put him in pants and asked him to please not pee or poop on himself. He's like 3 1/2, he ought to be able to understand simple instruction like, for the love of all that is holy, little man, put your stinking excrement in the specially designed receptacle, please.
I faced it with dread. I couldn't even amuse myself with an island version of the Messter Map because my lovely scanner does not take well to being packed and shipped half way across the world. But, surprisingly, minus a few small accidents and the fact that there seems to be a powerful magnet between his hands and his newly accessible penis, all goes well. He is (whispering) potty trained. (Knocking on wood, throwing salt over shoulder.) Correction. He is pee pee trained. Although, given the level of my involvement, I don't really get the benefit over diapers.
He does tell me, 'my penis has pee pee in it and I'm gonna put it in the potty and get a treat.' Fabulous. Except that if I would like any pee pee to actually make it into the potty (versus, the floor, the rim, the walls, the bathtub), I have to help. First, complete pants removal. There is no pee pee without complete nakedness. Don't ask me, I'm just the Assistant Director of the Pee Pee.
He stands on the stool and waggles it in the general direction of the toilet. Sadly, he's easily distracted. If he were a NASA scientist, satellites would be crashing into each other and plummeting to earth. Unless I am directly involved in the aiming process (I'll leave directly to your imagination), the toilet might as well not be there, for all the urine that lands inside of it.
I have accepted, without good grace, any hope of getting all or even most of the stream into the toilet. Not on me is now my main goal. Why must I state the obvious? Gee, please don't put your knee into the pee pee stream.
Why?
Why? Why? Because it rickashays up into my face, that's why. It's disgusting. Do I look like the Drinker of the Pee Pee? No. I am not. It is not a title to which I aspire, even if I were paid a lot of money and let's say filmed.
So, I know you are wondering what worked. By what magic of motherhood did I convince this stalwart, stubborn boy, Mr. Sitting I Won't Put My PeePee in the Potty But Rather on Your Floor, to use the facilities. Simple. We told him, from day one here on Gilligan's Island, no pee pee in the general vicinity of the potty, no POOL.
GASP.
I know. Wicked Mother of the So Far West We Are Practically East. And your little dog too...
We made him sit on the side. We told him that boys that pee in their pants could not put their bottoms in the pool. We lied. The ocean, I let him have - hey back off greenies, whales piss in there, my toddlers' pee pee isn't making an appreciable contribution to the urine content of the briny blue. But no pool, and especially, no fancy pool with the slides and the teeter totter.
It took two days for pee pee success. Poop was happening in his night time diaper and you know what, whatever. Little Pick Your Battles, that's my name.
After two whole days of complete pee pee in the vicinity of the potty success, I took them all down, on my own, to the little pool at our apartment. Call me Crazy Mother, or perhaps, Running Away Brain. Sitting Dumb Ass?
We were swimming not fifteen minutes, and by swimming I mean I was running around behind Cue like Mama Runs In Circles, trying to make sure he didn't launch himself into the water, confident of my ability to be underneath him, no matter how far away I might physically be at time of launch, by the time he landed, while keeping a wild eye on the toddlers for any slipping under or imminent drowning, when He Who Shall Not Be Named but is generally called GEE shat in the damn pool.
Old Clueless Water Running Over Tired Rocks here didn't catch on at first.
Me: Did you throw something into the pool?
Ess: No.
Gee: No.
Cue: GAH! Leap. Splash.
Me: (while baby fishing) What is that?
Ess: Nothing.
Gee: I don't know. (??????)
Cue: GAH! Splash. Leap. GAH!!
Me: Is that a rock? Did you throw a rock into the pool? Where did you get a ro...
Well, shit. Literally. Not rock. Princess Shit For Brains. Not scissors. Not Paper.
Log.
I felt a brief flash of an intense emotion that I'm not going to describe as hate for my baby boy, whom I love with all my heart, but certainly for his errant excrement, now sitting innocently on the ledge seat of the smaller, jacuzzi-like pool. I ran through my options and they were few. The turd needed to be retrieved quickly before it fell off the ledge to the bottom, disintegrated into many small pieces, or got noticed by someone else, the most likely candidate being the maintenance guy who cleans the pool with religious fervor and would most likely ban us for life. I had nothing to use for retrieval operations and running to the apartment for tools, like Tupperware for instance or a plastic bag, would take too long. I had to take my entire entourage or risk a child drowning because I was squeamish about a turd in the pool.
Was I Mother or Tiny Squeaking Mouse? I went in, bare-handed. It was a perfectly executed one scoop extraction WITH squirming fifteen month old baby on my hip. I managed to dump it into the pool toilet (thank you, gods, for the pool toilet) and wash my hands seventeen times still clutching the unhappy baby. I earned my new title, is what I am telling you, in a trial by water. Crap infested water.
And then, the triumphant Fisher of the Turds surveyed her unhappy tribe.
Ess: Can we swim now?
Gee: I all done, momma. Can I swim too?
Cue: GAH!!
I let them swim in the water Gee had just used as his personal toilet bowl. For almost another hour. Fecal coliform is good for you. What was that about worms?
That is how I earned my title: The Fisher of the Turds.
Finally, about this whole title thing. There's a reason that we don't do this in English speaking cultures. Descriptive titles are uglier in English than in other languages. Take Chamarro, for example, the local language here on Saipan. In Chamarro, Turd Fisher is Taki Peskadot.
Pretty. Melodic. You can call me AnyMommyTaki.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
High Tide
My thoughts are a log jam. Like a panicked stampede at an oversold concert, all crushing toward the same door, trampling over each other and shoving each other aside in their eager rush to reach the exit. I have so much to tell, the words tumble over each other and fly passed me and are lost.
I want to write about the intense azure blue of the lagoon that looks like a surreal painting on the horizon as I crest the hill to Mt. Tapachaou, not the real, honest to goodness colors of my world. I want to write about what it's like to be back here, in the place where Matt and I were free, unbound by small needs and big responsibilities. About what it's like to visit the beaches where we roamed, hand in hand, feet bare, sipping beers at sunset and then climbed into our 4-W drive SUV and bounced home, laughing, for a late take-out dinner, on our own, free of anyone's schedule.
Now, encumbered, happily, contentedly encumbered, but tied down nonetheless, the beach has an element of chore. The sand-covered bodies, the sand-covered tongues that induce helpless tears, the happy chasing of the waves that requires us to chase, to watch, to be always alert. There is no room for restful contemplation of the beauty, quiet enjoyment of the steady crash of the waves. They hold joy and beauty still, but also fear. Every so often, one is larger than the the others, and we have to be ready. Ready for the moment when little feet are swept out from under unexpectedly, when sand shifts unsteadily beneath them and they are disoriented and scared.
Our time, as plentiful as it is, is not our own. It is theirs. They love the beach, but the schedule is tight. Before we go, the sun must be passed its burning zenith and on the way down, its intensity softened by the turn of the earth and the low horizon clouds. After an hour, maybe an hour and a half, we have to leave. They must be rinsed of sand, dried and clothed in soft, clean clothes. They must be fed. They are tired and cranky. The decisions we once made, to ignore our hunger and light a small fire and watch the brilliant stars map the sky over the Pacific, to sit in quiet companionship with our bottles and our love and the sea, are no longer ours to make.
There is some sense of loss. A feeling of longing lurks between the coconut palms and skitters across the sand with the tiny crabs. Some echo of the people we were lingers, the possibilities, not better, not worse, just different. Then, the coin of life flips, glinting in the sun, and there on the reverse, is the gain. Their laughter as the surf breaks and foams over little toes, over and over, an endless amusement. The perfect little footprints in the sand, formed and washed and reformed in tidal cycles. The shrieks of joy over seashells found, waiting, wet and pearly, tiny treasures half buried by nature, turned to shrieks of terror when one small spiral house still contains its original owner. The wonder, the curiosity, the energy, the pure new-minted enjoyment that only children possess.
They are like the tide. They wash me clean, leave me bare and raw and ready for each new day. I have always loved the ocean, the smell of salt and life and power. Nature at its strongest. Life's cycles evident in each breaking wave. It's their smell, their power, their pull. I love it even more now, with my little merbabies as guides.
Beach pictures, as promised. Next up, turd fishing. Sphincter say wha?? Aha, five points if you know that one, and my undying love because you are as old as I am. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
I want to write about the intense azure blue of the lagoon that looks like a surreal painting on the horizon as I crest the hill to Mt. Tapachaou, not the real, honest to goodness colors of my world. I want to write about what it's like to be back here, in the place where Matt and I were free, unbound by small needs and big responsibilities. About what it's like to visit the beaches where we roamed, hand in hand, feet bare, sipping beers at sunset and then climbed into our 4-W drive SUV and bounced home, laughing, for a late take-out dinner, on our own, free of anyone's schedule.
Now, encumbered, happily, contentedly encumbered, but tied down nonetheless, the beach has an element of chore. The sand-covered bodies, the sand-covered tongues that induce helpless tears, the happy chasing of the waves that requires us to chase, to watch, to be always alert. There is no room for restful contemplation of the beauty, quiet enjoyment of the steady crash of the waves. They hold joy and beauty still, but also fear. Every so often, one is larger than the the others, and we have to be ready. Ready for the moment when little feet are swept out from under unexpectedly, when sand shifts unsteadily beneath them and they are disoriented and scared.
Our time, as plentiful as it is, is not our own. It is theirs. They love the beach, but the schedule is tight. Before we go, the sun must be passed its burning zenith and on the way down, its intensity softened by the turn of the earth and the low horizon clouds. After an hour, maybe an hour and a half, we have to leave. They must be rinsed of sand, dried and clothed in soft, clean clothes. They must be fed. They are tired and cranky. The decisions we once made, to ignore our hunger and light a small fire and watch the brilliant stars map the sky over the Pacific, to sit in quiet companionship with our bottles and our love and the sea, are no longer ours to make.
There is some sense of loss. A feeling of longing lurks between the coconut palms and skitters across the sand with the tiny crabs. Some echo of the people we were lingers, the possibilities, not better, not worse, just different. Then, the coin of life flips, glinting in the sun, and there on the reverse, is the gain. Their laughter as the surf breaks and foams over little toes, over and over, an endless amusement. The perfect little footprints in the sand, formed and washed and reformed in tidal cycles. The shrieks of joy over seashells found, waiting, wet and pearly, tiny treasures half buried by nature, turned to shrieks of terror when one small spiral house still contains its original owner. The wonder, the curiosity, the energy, the pure new-minted enjoyment that only children possess.
They are like the tide. They wash me clean, leave me bare and raw and ready for each new day. I have always loved the ocean, the smell of salt and life and power. Nature at its strongest. Life's cycles evident in each breaking wave. It's their smell, their power, their pull. I love it even more now, with my little merbabies as guides.
Beach pictures, as promised. Next up, turd fishing. Sphincter say wha?? Aha, five points if you know that one, and my undying love because you are as old as I am. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
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