Merry Christmas To Me!

Ahhh, that was fun!

I had a merry Christmas, but I tell ya it was a close one. Christmas Eve were to have a little party at our house, and in the days preceding, I was more than a little stressed at preparing the house for guests. This being no easy feat of cleaning, and balancing the not cleaning yet, of stuff that life and the Chaos Girls will trash between then and the party regardless. Saturday found me tense and unkind, unhappy with the season and finding fault with my beloved and children.

sigh...

It never helps that I am conflicted with the timing of Christmas (not that I am in any way shuffling off the responsibility for my crusty behavior... it's mine and I was a grouch). The whole business about most of the "symbols" of Christ in the season actually being co-opted Pagan Midwinter hoodie-doo. The part about how this ain't even close to the date when Jesus was actually born... whatever. When did I become an intellectual purist?

Besides... if I wanted to get all theologically technical? All things point to Christ anyway.... and the Pagan stuff was itself, a corrupted form of eternal truths. So what does it matter how we get there? For some reason it matters to me, just enough to throw me off my stride... that and the lying about Santa bit.

The fact that scholars and revelation agree that the Savior was born in the springtime? When did I get so picky? My fifteenth birthday was set back an entire month so that our family could celebrate the marriage of my oldest sister. Believe me, I wasn't all that bugged by the delay or the fact that my "birthday cake" was a resuscitated half a frozen sheet cake from her wedding reception. Instead, I parlayed the shifting of my birthday celebration into my first ever "friends" birthday party complete with Domino's Pizza, drinks and a rented video showing of Repo Man.

Comically, that was 1984, the year that the movie Sixteen Candles came out. I never did understand why the crap the main character hadn't given her whole family a heads up at least two weeks in advance to remind them of her upcoming birthday. I guess coming from a family of six kids is a titch different than three. I never assumed that my folks would remember too much of anything!

I, of all people, should relax about a little fudging in dates.

That wasn't the problem. I was the problem. Nothing that a little bit of prayer and meditation couldn't fix. Looking back on Christmas, I am shocked to see that this Christmas was perfect. It was so perfect that I couldn't even see it because I was so busy living it.

Everything was present. Warm and comfortable home, healthy children, family and friends, love, food and gifts...

We made and delivered treats to neighbors, made ornaments for the tree, a gingerbread house, parties, kept it all relatively Christ focused and even had a particularly touching and wonderful opportunity to do service for someone who had a need this season. It's good to be useful to another, and to teach our sweet girls that service and charity is an essential part of celebrating Christmas.

Sweetest of all...

All year Birdie has wanted a My Little Pony Butterfly Island from Santa Clause. She has been scheming and hoping and drooling over the fun she will have. In the meantime LaLa has developed a deep love for her all time favorite pony... Hona-Lu-Lu. It is her "whay-vwit." When Santa went online to purchase the Island and a few other pony essentials, he was nonplussed to find that Hona-Lu-Lu was not in the Hasbro pantheon of ponys for sale. Imagine Santa's surprise and discomfort when the UPS dude delivered the Island and sundries, and he got a good look at the Pony Island set. It comes with Hona-Lu-Lu.

Santa said... "Oh, crap!" Serious as a heart attack, that's what came out of his jolly mouth! He thought long and hard about simply having the set out and assembled, and putting the Hona-Lu-Lu pony in with LaLa's stuff. In the end he decided against it because that Birdie is one sharp cookie. She probably is perfectly aware of every last bit of plastic hoopty-doo that is included in with the Butterfly Island.

Christmas morning, and the box containing the Island is being ripped into like a terrier rips into a fresh rat hole. Birdie finds the Hona-Lu-Lu pony and says, "Oh! LaLa, it's Hona-Lu-Lu! Your favorite... here." Whereupon she hands her sister the pony, and that was that.

I tell you, it was a perfect Christmas.

Ssssslacker

It's not that I am overwhelmed. I'm always overwhelmed...

It's not all the extra medical stuff going on, what with two pennies for Pearl and the dental horrors being perpetrated on my mouth. Don't think it's the busyness of the season, after all, I have planted my can in front of the computer several times to write a post. My heart is not in it.

There is this reservoir that I have near my heart, it is full of tales and stories. It's the place that my laughter comes from and the place that my tears start. Right now I am a little congested in my reservoir with a troublesome knot of fear and sorrow that I am really not in a place to talk about. It's not my tale to tell, not one side of it or the other side....

Really... I am not trying to be all mysterioso, does this never happen to you? You can't write about a thing that seems so glaring and big to your heart, and so your ability to write just dries up altogether? Just me?

Huh.

I'm gonna post this pathetic bit of introspection in an attempt to break this I-can't-write cycle, bear with me... good stuff is to come.

Have a funny picture.

Resolutions

I don't do New Year's resolutions... they just don't make much sense to me. I have recently resolved to do better in the two following areas, and I am not waiting till the first of January to start.

1. I will stop swearing. This includes the swearing I do in my heart, which is where most of my cussing stays. But, little by little, bits of NaNa words are leaving my heart and re-entering my speech... and I won't stand for it. I control what I think and say.

2. I will make sure and shut the bathroom door when I do my business. I am an adult, and my kids can wait three seconds (i pee fast) to have access to me. I will lock the door if I must. After three girls, and the attendant separation anxiety of a simple potty break, I have become uncouth and I won't stand for it.

On a side note....
Pearl has another/continuance of her double ear infection. Impressive considering the high levels of antibiotics she has been pumped full of. Tubes will be put in on Thursday the 28th by the ENT. This means another trip to same day surgery and a general anesthetic, but barring her hoarking down a few more pennies, it should be uneventful.

SWEEEEEEEET!

He is of the opinion that the tubes will help to improve her breathing thingy as well. He is also of the opinion that she will grow out of the whole thing. I am of the opinion that I really like his opinion. I have heard, and continue to hear stellar reports of his medical prowess. Sooo....Yay!

Also, the ENT was able to clear up the placement of popcorn kernal chunk that was removed last week. It was in her hypowhatsis, a small area above both her food and wind pipes... soooo, not her lungs at all. The ENT was of the opinion that is got lodged there after the pennies cut off the downspout for food. She still ain't touching popcorn for a long time.

Grin and Bear It

Huh, apparently I have been decompressing. Apparently, also; I cannot decompress and write at the same time. Witness recent lack of post.

It has not helped matters that the wee sore throat that started for Dadguy during the Hospital-Two-Penny incident turned into a full blown sick. Plus a continuance of my tummy distresses and Pearl also has not exactly normalized. Her schedule is off, and she now feels so good that even when she IS tired, she doesn't want to waste it on sleep.

Yesterday we finished decorating a graham cracker gingerbread house, one of four that were started on a Sunday a few weeks back. Also last night I made each of the girls a new bed-buddy out of unused portions of a quilt I made a few months back. For those of you who do not know what a bed-buddy is, it's a fabric pillow thing that is full of grain instead of stuffing. Toss the thing in a microwave for a minute or two, and voila! Better than a hot water bottle or electric heating pad, and safer too. They are especially wonderful when kids feel sick in their tummy's. We tend to have a hard time keeping track of them in this house, so the more that exist, the better. Like fingernail clippers. I have discovered that once I had saturated the household with approximately ten pair, I can usually find one pair within a one minute search.

Speaking of fingernail clippers... I have been meaning to document the following:

In order to get the girls to sit still for the weekly clip, I whump them on my lap and sing them the following song:

Snip snap snooper
Poop-ed as a looper
Snip snap snooper
Bippity bappity bop

As a result of this, LaLa calls all nail clippers... snip-snaps, only she pronounces it "nip-naps." I'm fairly certain that she knows the real name for this tool, as I KNOW for a fact she knows what the heck a ball point pen is called.... yet today she asked for a purple, sparkely pen by requesting her "pockelly draw-draw."

Ummm... any way, I'll be giving them each a new bed-buddy for Christmas.

I don't think that I have mentioned lately how much I love my neighbors. Last week on the evening before the initial procedure that sparked a hospital half-marathon, I had reached my full level of freak-out stress. Dadguy noticed I was not at my... ummm... best, and ordered me out of the house, suggesting that I take myself out to eat. I walked two doors down and knocked on my friend K's door.
I may have said something like..."I have been kicked out, can you talk?"
She looked at me and said, "I'll get my car. Meet you in the driveway."

We got Chinese and talked for an hour and a half even though she had just that day gotten on antibiotics for a monster sinus infection. Y'all, I have great friends. This is to say nothing about all the neighbors who took my girls while Pearl and I hit the ENT's office on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then for a while after that, just because they thought Birdie and LaLa could use some fun time away, and I could use some quiet. My neighbor from two doors down the other direction brought dinner to my MIL and the girls while we were gone. Heck... my MIL who took two days off in a row to stay with the girls while getting by on sketchy, scary half updates from a bad cell phone connection. My big sis waiting in the wings to take up any slack.

How do folks do this kind of thing with no back-up?

There's one interesting tidbit I have learned from this though. When it looked like it was the worst possible diagnosis... it was bearable. I have long worried about what would I ever do if one of my girls was hurt or even killed. Would I survive that kind of pain? How would I hold up, would I fold or would I be there for my kids? Here is the interesting part... you bear it. You walk through it. Maybe it's easy for me to say because we did walk away unscathed (relatively), but I have an inkling now of how parents do it. Parents of children who do not dodge the bullet... MS, Leukemia, catastrophic birth defects, car accidents.... you bear it because you must, and then you find a safe place and cry your guts out, wipe the tears and go back to bearing it.

Much Better, Thanks

I Luuuuuve balloons!

These are so shiny!

Oh. The bear!

....aaaand a perfect photo op.

Now I want my balloons back. Fetch woman.




*edited to add... the offenders

Ruminations on Fish

The day after Thanksgiving we put up the Christmas decorations. This meant that the usual clutter of "hands off" stuff that we keep at the top of our tall shelf in the kitchen had to get shifted to make room for garland and candles. I'm decorative like that, call me Martha. On of the items that got moved was a small jar full of pennies. Everything got put in the cupboard under the shelf, we have a baby proof lock on the doors. At some point I can only assume that I left the door to the cupboard unlocked and the jar of pennies was lifted. The first I knew of this was when I entered the girls room to check-up on a ten minute period of relative quiet. The two older girls had spread my blue denim blanket on the floor and scattered the pennies about. I was informed that they were gold fish in the pond. Pearl had a "fish" in her yap, whereupon I freaked and fished it out. All pennies were then confiscated and put away.

Perhaps not all. Perhaps she had already swallowed two "fish" only they were not turned to a position of blockage. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. I refuse to allow fear to rule me as a mother. The shame and horror that I feel, knowing that this happened because of my Mama-losership? Let me say right now...yes, this happened BUT, I refuse to be an absolute freak.
Will my cleaning in every single nook and cranny tighten up? Yes.
Will my vigilance level be raised? Yes.
Will my baby be allowed to get near popcorn until she is at least two and has a full bank of teethies? Yes. Because on that point? Mea Culpa. I have allowed her to eat popcorn in the past. No more.

Sigh... but I still feel like crap.

On a happier note, these showed up today! GranPa was here and almost sent the delivery girl away.

"Pearl XXXXX? There's no Pearl XXXXX that lives here?" He said.

He's aware of the bloggity, but is not an actual reader... he has no idea the pseudonyms we operate under. It was extra funny when I poked my head out and saw the stuffed bear with three get well balloons and squeed "OH! I bet that's from NOBODY!" The gal handed it over with a veeery skeptical look on her face!

Sure enough, on top of the Pinball DVD that showed up for Dadguy from Nobody earlier this week, the Mr. and Mrs. Nobody's sent over this gift and well wish. Thank You, Thank YOU! She loves plushies and balloons!

The little sweety is tired and sore. She has various pokes, bruises, scabs and a fat lip from all the medical whatsit, along with sticky places from sundry sticky things they taped to her body. She still has her usual rattly breathing and a sore throat... but she is home. She is getting better.

Her Two Cents Worth

Well.
Hm.
It's a very long and tangled story of a narrow miss, lots of frightening diagnosis, waiting, pain and a very wide network of concern and love. Not sure I am up to telling the whole story that I told around twenty seven times yesterday, to an even greater number of medical professionals.

But.

Here is the short story; we dodged the bullet. There was, in the end, no Vascular Ring, no swollen artery and no cancerous growth. There was only my sweet Pearl getting her two cents in. Literally. There was a period of four days between Tuesday Nov 28th when she got her chest x-rayed, and Sunday morning when we first became aware that she could no longer swallow solid food, that she ate two pennies, and they became lodged in her esophagus. Swelling ensued and started pressing in on her trachea, cutting down her airway to less than a pencil's thickness and closing. After a second CT scan and some very quality medical interpretation finally ruled out some scary potentialities, they operated on her last night and removed the pennies. Also they checked out her lungs closer and found...stuff, among which was a small bit of popcorn kernel that she had at some point inhaled. She has a respiratory condition that has a long name but falls under the catchall diagnosis of "asthma" and we will be pursuing that. From home. Which is where we are now.

I have alot to do, I have alot to process. A night spent on the PICU (intensive care) floor in Primary Children's Hospital is a humbling experience for the mama of the healthiest child there. We shared a room with a five month old baby girl named, of all things Purl (same real life name as my baby only spelled different). The road ahead of her and her mama... well, it will be longer and harder than "asthma." Just to walk from making a phone call in the waiting room back to the room where Pearl was, was to walk a gauntlet of the pain and suffering of the sickest and most catastrophically injured of children, and their families.

I am grateful. I am tired. I am home.

Thank you.

whats happening

Dear The Mama readers:
This is mama's big sister posting from my own computer, I hope this works! Just wanted to update, so that nobody would be too worried. Big doings though, I'm afraid. During the "procedure" this morning, the ent found the swelling was very bad and getting worse, and little Pearl was in actual danger, (a swelling aorta was involved!) so an ambulance trip was ordered up to Primary Children's hospital in Salt Lake City. Tests showed that something (probably metal) was lodged in her esophogus, and she's in surgery now again as I type. Thanks to modern medicine, God's providence, and Bon's persistence with the medical types, she should be just fine.
Well, I could have the details mangled, because their cell phone connection from the hospital is mighty bad, but Bonnie will probably be back tommorow or Saturday, and she can set the record right. Let's all keep her in our prayers/meditations/thoughts - take your pick!

Update

We went to the ENT. He asked the questions, he looked in the ears and he stuffed the wee scope up her nose and checked out her throat as far as her voice box (ummm, not a happy baby). Saw a thing or two, but it appears that she has Subglottal Stenosis. This means... below-the-voice-box-swelling. Why this is, we do not know. My vote is congenital, but it could be lesions of some sort.

We will know more on Thursday after exploratory "not-exactly-surgery" when she goes under anesthesia so they can get a look past her vocal chords. Dadguy is taking the day off work and his mom is coming to stay with the two older girls. I will be staying away from google because... well, it's telling me nothing I want to know.

Really, everything will be fine, but prayers and happy vibes are welcome for the wee Pearly girl.

ENT Today

Tip toeing along the very freaking edge of freaking out. I have my "things" but I am generally not an alarmist when it comes to my kids health. Of course we have been lucky and very blessed where that's concerned. Other than the finger smashing incident a few months ago in Shopko, we have managed to keep out of emergency rooms. I'm liking life like this.

Pearl had her appointment with the ENT on the 15th, but they graciously moved it up to this afternoon. Her crunchy, grind-y, gurgle-y breathing is about the same... but she has not been able to get solid food down her throat since Saturday night. At least the first I became aware of the problem was when she gagged and choked on the wee piece of white bread from the sacrament tray on Sunday morning. As far as I can tell, the only thing that has made it past the... whatever it is that does not allow even baby cereal to get by... is rice milk, water and juice.

Thankfully, she is relatively chipper. Except for the sleeping bit. She's not too hip on sleeping. Oh, and the clinging part... I'm not allowed to put her down.

I am not yet freaking out. I am just "stressing out." Yeah, that's what it is... stressing.

Hold This Please

The debacle of potty training LaLa continues. Like her older sister, she "gets" the poo portion of potty training... the peeing business has her stymied. Perhaps "stymied" is the wrong word, it implies some sort of effort on her part.

For the last month or so, every time she sits on the toilet I have to "hold" her tail so that it does not fall into the toilet water. She is a pony, you see. Sometimes her name is Hona-lu-lu, sometimes she is Flowertop. One way or another, I know I am her mother... who the heck else would hold her imaginary tail and wipe her not-so-imaginary bum?

Thirty... finally!

Last day of insanity... I am here to tell you that I am FOR SURE not a daily posting-type blogger. After the past thirty days, I'm not so very sure that posting ever again is for me, but I guess I kinda have to. To, y'know... have a blog. I think the only reason I completed the whole month is pure muleheadedness. I said I was gonna, by cracky!

I will take a couple of days off of posting and catch up on all of my correspondence... for some reason I seem to have only just so much stamina for writing. If I post? No emails. If I email? No post.

It all boils down to crappy typing skills.

We have put up our Christmas decorations. All except for the lighted ceramic Christmas Village that Dadguy and I love so much, and therefore don't feel bad that we will not be laying it about for the demolishment- I mean ENJOYMENT of the girls. Really, there is no place to put it. All full up, no room in the inn. It's time to get on the finishing of that basement. Except we won't be getting on anything till the start of next year. We also have not put out any lights on the house, although we have been promising our kids and ourselves that this would be the year. We bought the lights (not enough), and the spiffy plastic hanger doo-dads (not enough), borrowed a ladder (too short) and got out there only to realise that someone would have to actually get up on top of our roof... to hang those things, and the lights etc....

Ahem... acrophobia, two solid doses of it. The crap! Do I look like a monkey?

Don't answer that. No, really.... anyone makes any stupid monkey jokes in the comments and I'll be hitting delete button.

So we will be putting up lights if I can find some teenager willing to do it for a pittance. To be frank, the whole "light yer house" gig has lost it's luster for me. I'd much rather strap the girls into their car seats and drive around admiring the fruits of YOUR labors! Because, hey! Kids... strapped down! That's a basic ingredient for fun in my book!

Twenty-nine

Last night as I was yukking it up over the grossly misnamed "Daddy Pizza," Dadguy was in fact cooking himself a nasty-ghastly with cheese. The thing about these pizzas... apparently you are supposed to just chuck them in the oven, the bottom of the food item resting directly on the rack. Dadguy claims this makes the crust too crunchy and prefers them to be cooked to a state of melty overdone-ness on a cookie sheet. My issue with this method it it leaves a carbonized ring of cement-a-crud that requires two days of soaking and three S.O.S. pads to remove from the sheet.

This is only a slight exaggeration.

A few months ago I invested in a roll of parchment paper, the kind that hoity-toity chefs use under their cookies to keep them from sticking. Dadguy razzed me about the purchase a little... But I figure that $1.89 purchase will save me at least it's own cost in scrubbing pads, to say nothing of having scabby cookie sheets laying about my kitchen for twelve hours at a shot, whilst soaking in preparation for their scrubbing. Not to mention the actual scrubbing.

Well, apparently Dadguy remembered the parchment. The cookie sheet? Sparkly clean, and this is reason #2097 why I love that man.

Twenty-eight

My baby.... my poor, poor baby.

Pearl has the ear infection double whammy going... again. She has had a cold for a week, then last night she started digging at and yanking on her ears... and crying. Great big croupy sobs that could only be soothed by sitting on Daddy's lap so she can watch while his Night Elf fights enormous, nasty spider things. Gives me the willies, but it's mother's milk to her. Makes it fair, in my mind, that the girls call those cardboard cheese Totino's "pizzas": Daddy Pizza. You have to understand that Dadguy is the snootiest pizza gourmand I know. It's double funny because he hates frozen pizza of any ilk, but since Totino's tastes nothing like pizza, he's chill with them and wants to eat one occasionally. And so they call it DADDY PIZZA! Snerk... mmmphf! WAHahahahahahaaa!

On the flip side? They call Tums, "Mama Candy."

So today was a saga what with the snow, and the doctor's office waiting room, and the hospital Radiology waiting room, and the waiting, and the crusty trio of snot encrusted Crash Girls... waiting. The upshot is, contrary to what she sounds like, Pearl does not have walking pneumonia (would that be crawling pneumonia in her case?), nor scar tissue on her lungs or trachea. We don't know what's going on... but it's not that. We go to see an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist on the 15th... we hope that an ENT will have the answers for us. Serious... this poor kids breathing is so raspy and gurgling loud that she has to hold her breath to listen. I'm not talking "sick Pearl"... this is "every day Pearl" that sound like this. The other good news is that this is all "free" since we have finally hit our massive, freaking deductible for health insurance. Yay. Go us.

Insurance.

BAH!

Twenty-seven

This is what I, the bon mama would like for Christmas. Pictures are mostly to give an idea of what I would like...

Except for the ChanelNo.5, it must be Chanel and it must be No.5. I am good with a bottle or a set or whatever. I'm not even too picky if it is the eau de parfume, parfume, or eau de toilette... just Chanel No.5.

Dadguy has sworn on his monthly dues in "World of Guildcraft Hammers" that he will supply this goody.






I would like a nice pair of gloves. I am leaning toward dead animal skin gloves of one type or another.... with or with out tasteful embellishment.

I could go for fabric or knit of some sort... just they would need to be fingerless, for driving. I wear size large or XL .














I would love to have a dressy scarf, silk or otherwise. I fell in love with this one at Lane Bryant, but I think red is lovely too.






I'd like a durable Advent Calender... something that will withstand the love of my three lovely Crash Girls.

I like warm, soft socks. Apparently I have Cankles, so nothing too tight.

I like pretty smelling lotions.

If y'all are feeling posh? You could run down and pick me up a GPS, or a Nintendo Wii.


What do you want for Christmas? No fair with the "world peace" stuff.

Twenty-six

Sunday Cringe time folks!


Dry

Anticipating
desert extremes.
The dry cleasing heat
of day,
dry numbing chill
of night.
Without the taste of gasoline
a mellow stink on my tounge
in my nostrils.
Instead
I would that I smell
mesquite smoke
and sage.
A session time with my Maker.

Craving
sharp mornings,
kicking through canyons
sneezing my brains out,
eyes leaking and
I
desire
the desert.

To shed my clothing
run naked and hungry,
howling at sister
Moon.
To desert-starve the toxic waste
of self
and partake of
nothing but canteen,
Sun,
Moon and my Maker.

Enough space to not
to hear myself think.

I
desire
the desert.

Twenty-five

Ha ha, oops!

Here we are, nearing the tale end of this adventure in excessive posting and I darn near forgot to post.

So... at what point in my buggery head did housework and mothering become synonymous? I just bring this up, because I realized the other day... I am not a particularly gifted housekeeper. Don't get me wrong, the house is more or less clean... there are underpants tumbling about in the dryer downstairs as we speak. We eat pretty good considering the dietary parameters of the eaters we have 'round these parts. The household in general runs like a slightly gimpy station wagon... but it runs and it gets us where we are going.

This is just remarkable in that I am a relatively competitive person PLUS... I like to be right and I like to be good at what I do. Well this is what I do, yet I'm not very good at it. It could be said that I am homemakingly challenged. It could also be said that I despise this part of my job description.

Yeah, yeah Flylady... blah. blah. blah. RANT!

I resent the space that my day-to-day takes up in my head. I HATE sweeping and mopping, and I do a distressing amount of it just to maintain the "somewhat grimy" look I have going in my kitchen.

Two days ago LaLa had herself a party involving the foaming soap dispenser and her new Barbie Sleepover Toothbrush all over the bathroom mirror. Still there. I try not to use that bathroom, or if I do? I don't look in the mirror because it makes me dizzy. I have not washed the outside of our windows in the entire five years we have lived here, and this list could go on and on.

Sometimes when I complete a particularly onerous or menial nit-pickity type task, I have a little fantasy of some inspector idiot, coming to my house to inspect. The anal and hyper-achieving inspector person finds that particular task I have just finished in such a beauteous state that they just declare my skilz a success.

Say it with me kids... I. HAVE. NO. LIFE.

...and look! Y'all are spared the yawn of listening to more housework ranting because I am a crappy blogkeeper too! Out of time.

LA!

Twenty-four

Belated and truncated list of things that I am grateful for.

• My parents... they put up with alot of heartbreaking crap from yours truly. Plus, having energetic floor monkeys of my own, I am further aware of the love they have for me and HAD TO have for me just to tolerate my survival.
• My darling Mr. Dadguy...and every time he apologizes to me for being"so crusty" or "grumpy" that day. Sure, if you know him you might notice a bit of the old taciturn about him... and he might yell at the girls if they kick him directly in the chin, but that's about all you'd notice of his taking out his "bad mood" on the world. He feels, don't get me wrong... he just tempers his output.
• My darling Mr. Dadguy...and the fact that he still thinks I'm hott... at least he acts like it, and that's what counts!
• My darling girlees... they keep me on my toes while wearing away any excess brain cells I have kicking around the old cranium. It's pretty tidy up there nowadays. Sparse anyhows.
• A great house. Sure there are things that I'd love to change about it, but it's relatively clean, warm and dry... plus it has several features to it that are very beautiful. Soon it will be even bigger once we finish the basement.
• Nice toys. We have all of our needs filled and several of our fun-funs. Most notable is the Twilight Zone pinball machine that we got a couple of months ago. I say "we" because although it started out as Dadguy's baby... that pinball has become a way of life in this household. We all play. Even me! Serious... occasionally I'll go and turn that bad boy on and have fun all by my lonesome till I get kicked off. Every night after dinner we head into the front room for pinball until it's time for baths.
• Freedom. I am grateful for my freedom and those who work to protect that freedom. Especially I am grateful for those who have died and are willing to die for this country. For me. I hope I can manage to do some thing good with this freedom I have been given.

Finally, I don't discuss this much... but I am so grateful for my Father in Heaven. Thankful to Him for all of His gifts and wonders.... but more than anything I am thankful He sent His Son. There are certain words and especially phases that can be a complete turn-off to folks who are religion sensitive... but I don't know how to say what I need to say about my feelings with out employing them. I feel very tenderly toward Jesus because of what he has done for me.

I have always wished that I just loved Him for who He was and that is all, but the fact is, He loved me first and He loved me best. He has nourished me. With Him, I can never be alone in my weakness or sorrow for He knows me and has healed my hurts. He knows my pains and frailties... and He loves me still. How can I not return this love? Yet I wished that I was a good enough person to simply love my Jesus. Don't try and correct me or temper what I have said, I know it for a simple and gut truth. Maybe it's just the way of it, but I know to my core that He loved me first. He still loves me more than I can ever love Him ...and there it is.

Twenty-three

Gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble!

Too stupid to post today... but
Happy Thanksgiving!

Twenty-two

Subjecting teh internets to a re-telling of what you dreamt last night is a blogging kiss-o-death. This is what I have been told and I believe it, I do. Therefore, I won't regale you with the dreadful details of the dream, but I will say that the upshot was that I was given a baby boy. I DID share the particulars with Dadguy who hooted and started accusing me of being baby hungry.

Not really. But I am pretty giddy about the idea of someone (especially a family member) just handing me a four day old sweet and healthy boy because HELLO, no pregnancy! So the kid was the size of a yam, kids grow ya know?

On the way to the bank this morning, Birdie started sharing about her dream from last night... it involved an evil sorcerer and Birdie-as-a-pony-who-was-a-princess and her Crown of Power. At least it sounded like Crown of Power was capitalized. LaLa shared her dream about the monster behind the white door that tried to GET her! I thought it only fair to share a bit of my dream.

The girls were ecstatic. They began thinking of names, and Birdie thought that Ashlynn would make a great name for their new baby brother. She didn't miss a beat when I informed her that Ashlynn was a girl's name, and decided that Ashton would work great as well. Both girls informed Pearl, at loud volumes, how much fun she would have with her very own baby brother to play with, and assured her that they would play and play ALL THE TIME! Then Birdie wanted to know who was going to babysit them while I went to the hospital. That was when I had to remind them that this was just a dream... not sure they believed me.

Sigh.

Last night while cooking dinner I was accosted by two little girls wearing their father's black Sunday socks on their hands and arms. As they were hissing at me I assumed they were snakes. Not such a far leap since I will occasionally pull a sock on my hand and chase the girls around hissing and trying to bite them with my "snake."

This was not the case.

"We are the evil NINJAS!" Shouted the larger one. "We will fight you and make you CRY!"

"CWY!" echo's the smaller ninja as she begans to pinwheel her black "ninja arms."

"Well I'm the rotten Ninja Mama!" I hollered back. "We will all fight and take over the WORLD!"

"Noooooo! You not a INJA MAMA!" yellsed the littlest ninja, "WE da INJA!"

I'm pretty sure that was when they went into matching "Trinity" style leaps, and the room spun on it's axis around them. Much karate kicking and air punching ensued, then we set the table and sat down for dinner.

Most of all of that really happened. Good times I tell ya, good times.

Twenty One

Blogging is weird, no joke.

There are people who read my blog that I rarely, if ever hear back from. I'm not just talking about comments here... I am talking about friends, family, and even some strangers that are getting a solid dose of my daily life while I know little if any of theirs. You are aware of some of my intimate thoughts. Obviously I am ok with this... I keep blogging. But it is unnerving though.

I keep blogging, and sometime I'm not really sure why. A certain amount of exhibitionism that keeps me coming back for more? Exhibitionism that may or may not be healthy, yet I justify giving in to it, because it DOES keep me writing, and I see writing as a positive thing. Already I look back in my archives and say "Oh, yeah... I forgot that!" Already I can feel that my braincells are stronger and more connected from this exercise, and it is a legacy for my babies. Not just the physical (can a website be described as physical?)existence of this chronicle, but the fact that they have a mom who keeps herself sharp. They have a mom who WRITES!

I don't want to get all meta-pated about this, but it is weird. This weirdness has recently been ramped up by one of the comments I received on my last post. Not a huge deal, but it was a comment from one of the first bloggers I ever read. I met Mama D via a comment to one of her posts, and you know how I feel about Mama D (hug hug kiss kiss). I read this blogger back in the day when she was Very Mom, I waited with everyone while she had her hiatus, and was even surprisingly timely about updating my linky-dinky-doos when she switched to Kerflop. So it's kinda odd to me, that this person that I feel I "know" on a blogging level, who doesn't really "know" me.... dropped by and had herself a little read. I'm sure that she visited via the randomizer set up for NaBloPoMo and was cool enough to leave a comment. It's likely she will not be back as a regular participant in Crash Girl fun (but hey Jessica, if you are reading this, welcome back... would you care for an organic, no-sugar snack?) but still... how fun to have her drop by. And how odd.

Twenty

Got hit with a meme a la Blogarita. In the month of November, you can bet I won't be passing THIS one up. As a matter of fact, Nobody hit me with a meme a few months ago that I never actually did anything with. I may dig it up and ressurect that bit of blogvirus for Blopping purposes. HA! Sux 2 B U!


1. If I had to do it all over again differently, I would not change a darn thing. Really. I have thought about this extensively and cannot come up with a reasonable way to change any of my vast and stoopidly twitbrained mistakes and still end up where I am, married to my true love and mom to my Crash Girls. The timing of everything is too precarious, I would utterly refuse the fix if it were offered.

2. I wanted to be a(n) artist when I grew up. Well, I am raising artists, but m'self? I am more of a Mom that does art stuff. I am not being self-deprecating here... I ceased to think of myself as an artist in most of the senses of the word years ago. University pretty much killed it for me. Then about eight years total working at a large art supply store helping artists did the embalming and said the eulogy. Really, most artists that I would care to spend time with define themselves in much broader strokes than "artist." Semantics, I know... I just can't get past it.

3. If I were ten years younger, I'd wait at least three more years before trying for my next baby, then I might just try for another two years after THAT one was born. I would love a large family, time is against me. C'est la vie.

4. I am horribly dippy nowadays. I think my ditzy puppy-dog act is getting old, but I hold onto it because I don't know how not to offend the people I am around, and still say/do what need saying/doing. A trade-off, my dignity for a little behavioral freedom. I also talk way to much. Often, I find myself wishing I could retract the last forty five seconds of a conversation... when it's really bad, I feel like crying as my %$#$ mouth is still going. I have always been this way to varying degrees, but I no longer can use my sailor-mouthed, punk chick persona to blunder past my own glaring social ineptness. Hello dribbling puppy persona. Bad dog... no, no.

5. My biggest fear is... someone hurting my children. Actually, if you know me in RL, you know that I have a huge hang-up about anyone hurting any child. I can NOT deal with it. I will NOT talk about it past generalities. My love of the TV show "Law and Order" doesn't extend to their SVU version. I am perfectly aware of what goes on in the world every day, and some day I may be called on to get past this glitch I have. Until then my mind does not take those paths. Ever. THE END.

This is a meme, this is only a meme. If this had been an actual post you would have been entertained or uplifted.

Hm. Put that way, I think my actual posts may be few and far between. Once again... c'set la vie, and sux 2 B U. As far as tagging anyone else? Meme if ya got 'em, sez I.

Nineteen

Today, being the Sabbath... it is a Cringe day.

This is true, straight-up Cringe too. Written circa 1985, this is written... gasp! For a boy. Here is the pathetic and cringe-ity-doo-dah part (because I still think it's a good poem), I told the dipstick boy I had truly written it for, that I wrote it with his current love interest (read beautiful bee-hatch) in mind, for what she was putting him through. The dipstick I and I were "friends" and I may have even half-believed it at the time.

Yikes.
Cringe.
Bleah.



Crocodile Tears

Your crocodile tears touch me,
and I'm
flattered that you'd care enough
to pretend to an emotion.

Eighteen

I think I should not wait till the girls go down to write my posts... I am soooo wasted.

Part of the problem is, LaLa is at the end of her napping and this means a rearrangement of MY time, as in... I haven't figured out how to get some time I can call mine. This, this is wearing on me.

So I am almost to my Sunday Cringe, but I'm not there yet. Casting around for things to write about I ask Dadguy if he had any bright ideas about topics. I have a cache of ideas, but they all require actual sustained writing with an actual sustained brain for twenty minutes or more. Time I have, but brain power? Not so much.

"Well..." he said in his best I'm-thinking-really-hard-really-I-am voice. "You could always post about your love/hate relationship with your breasts."

I look at him, roll my eyes and shake my head. "What, you mean how I hate 'em and you love 'em?"

"Exactly."

I sigh my exasperation while he giggles.

"Admit it," he laughs. "You are thinking of posting about it now!"

Piffle.
Stupid boobs.

Seventeen

Midmonth blogging lethargy setting in... moving slowwwwwww. Can't think, nothing to say. Yeaaargh!

Well, I guess this sucker ain't gonna write itself, so here goes...

Dadguy and I are teaching the girls how to pray, specifically how to pray from the heart. There are a few basic guidelines... like a formal greeting and closure for the prayer. We like to tell our Heavenly Father what we are thankful for first, requests later. Birdie is at the point where she "gets" the request part now...LaLa, she is just grateful. She is grateful in this order.

"Deah Hebbinly Paddah,
gweat a be
great a hoah-shieth (horsies)
great a ponieth inna meadow
gweat a daddy come home
gweat a mama
gweat a Birdie, anna Pearl-mooah
gweat a food to eat
(pause followed by Dadguy or I interjecting a whispered "in the name of...")

Jethuth Chwith-t.. AMEN!

I THAID JETHUTH CHWITH-T!"

Sixteen...

...the loser post.

Look, I got a haircut and a new color! It's too bad that I couldn't shoot y'all out a picture complete with the so-cute way that my stylist styled me. But I also got my eyebrows waxed, and that's never a pretty picture for the first 36 hours or so.

Fifteen

I snapped.

I cannot listen to any more of the kid playlist on my iPod. I just can't. My girls are getting used to sharing the ride with me... usually on the way to a place, I get my music, and they get theirs on the way back. Unless they don't say anything, then it's my tunes on the way back as well.

Birdie always wants to know the titles and artists who do the songs that she likes, and this afternoon she took a liking to a Foo Fighters song and asked to have it louder.

"Loud and loud, " she said

Halfway through the song she started talking, it was so loud I couldn't understand her but assumed she was asking the songs title so I turned the volume down and started to tell her the name of the song.

"NO! Mama, I was telling you that I had a dream that the Ninja Turtles were singing this song!"

"A dream?"

"Yes, the turtle with the blue ribbon on his head was singing and they all were dancing."

"Did you dream this last night?" I asked.

"No mama, I dreamed it right now and I can see them!"

This kinda stuff is a real kick in my pants, I love it! I am so enamored of my girls. I love these insights into the way their heads work and the ways they are developing. I am googly, head-over-heels with wanting to know every little thing about them, what they love, what makes them tick. As their mom I think that I have some special insights by simple virtue of having the most time invested and here's where it gets a little bit creepy for me...

MY mom? She likes to read a comic strip named "Agnes." She likes to read it expressly because the title character reminds her so much of me. I try not to get too wierded out by this... but I have started reading it too, and that girl is a freak! Like, waaay too smart and as socially off-kilter as a naked Scotsman. Sometimes insight is not all that it is cracked up to be.

Fourteen

People... we got a blogger down. Nobody, of My Blog Is About Nothing is in the hospital for the next while and looking at being there for a while. The doctor's have decreed NO COMPUTER for him, so he is languishing. At least I assume he's languishing anyhow's, I would be without my fix (slaps crook of arm repeatedly to get vein to pop). Please send some happyhappies his way, and if you are of the praying sort, he won't be turning that down. It's my understanding that he's on enough quality medication to be pretty chill with anything being offered.

Dude, they've got him eating jello.

Thirteen

Today I'm gettin' a little help from my friends. My buddy has come up with a new meme for bloggers and NaBloppers alike. It is the Ice cream/Naked Dance meme. Really, it is. All decency demands that I not go into the "peacock dance" a la Micheal Myers that my first husband once gleefully executed for me (while not averse to presenting my ex in a laughable forum, I'd rather just not give him any more play than he's had {but I WILL let drop that it involved several trailing lengths of toilet paper tucked between the butt-cheeks, and much prancing of the willy-nilly sort})... I will tell you a story of childhood trauma involving ice cream. Apparently all women have one. This is according to Anne Nahm, and I have to give it to her, it holds true in my case.

There have been many happy ice cream stories from my childhood, not the least of which involve the Orange-Chocolate-Chip-Chocolate cones from Swensen's, the chocolate dipped cones from DQ, and various incarnations of Pralines and Cream that are to be found the world over. Obviously the most traumatic ice cream tale is from my adulthood, starting around age twenty three.

Two words; Lactose intolerance.

From my childhood, picture a time so freaking far back in the day, that Baskin Robbins didn't even have those cute little pink spoons to give free nibbles of product. Picture a little girl who is thrilled to be getting a scoop, it's the highlight of her little girl day. Picture the pale and rarefied beauty of the palest green ice cream... it's almost not green it is so delicate a hue. It looks exquisite and french. The name of it sounds French; Daiquiri Ice. Ooooo, say that out loud, it sounds so good. I have a vague memory of my parents trying to talk me out of my choice, but I had to have it. Plus, how could ice cream ever taste bad?

It tasted worse than bad. It was sour, and not in a good way, it tasted rancid. They wouldn't take it back, and so that 31 Flavors trip...I got nothing. I remember scraping the scoop of melting nastiness into the garbage can and wiping the cone down so I could at least eat the cone.

I feel so bad for my childhood self that I think I'm gonna go take two lactaid tablets and eat some ice cream right now, consequences be darned. Dadguy, this is my apology in advance for the results, lactaid notwithstanding.

Twelve

More Sunday Cringe for your reading pleasure...


strung

strung so tightly
if someone lifted a finger
to touch the tension
the string of my being
oh...!
that resultant sound
an electric whine of feedback
&
untuned
unlovely
to any ear
I keep getting tighter
tolerance thinner
with every turning
of the earth
fear casting shadows
thick like razors
almost touching the
string of my being

Eleven

Yesterday as I was leaving the local video store with the first two discs of season four of my latest addiction... "24", and LaLa with her copy of Bambi clutched in her her hot little paws, I noticed a woman walking into the store. I noticed her because she had about the same number and ages of kiddos with her that I usually do. I also noticed that as they were walking the short stretch of parking lot to get to the store that she said nothing to her passel of rugrats running figure eights and loopity-loop patterns like rabbits ahead of her. She was just tooling along with her baby on her hip, chill as can be. Don't get me wrong... you could see clearly that there were no cars coming, it was an area of parking lot that was impossible for cars to go even medium fast through, and the gamboling children really weren't more than three or four yards ahead of her...

Still.

You will never see me lax about parking lots. Ever. For me the parking lot, any parking lot, be it ever so small and innocuous, will never be a place I can relax with kids. I have in my head a loop of mental video of a driver just not being as careful as they could, and little babies like squished grapes in front of me. My girls and I will probably always navigate parking lots like they were Bosnian minefields. I am aware that this is not so much about my babies or safety, as it is just the thing I have chosen to be a freak about. My brain-freak.

I am still the woman who feeds popcorn to her baby. Yeah, I know... I KNOW! I don't hand it to her and just walk away. Noooo.... I make sure to be there to watch and encourage her to cough up that hard bit of hull, and to wipe away the nasty, slug sized goober off her chin when she does manage to hack it out.

I am still the mom who will stand there and chat with you as her baby kicks it on the play area wood chips, shoving in the pieces like they were off a chocolate sampler tray. I see you cringing, I am aware of what's going on... she has yet to swallow any, she just wants a taste.

Really, I'm a great mom.

Ten

The more that think about my post the other day, the more I gotta wonder if I have just forgotten what life was really like before I had kids. I think I have this screwy picture of being all intellectually stimulated, passionate and creative in my job and personal life. Not that I wasn't... I just wasn't on this high of coolness and productivity every waking moment. I wasn't necessarily rolling in all this time to do "my own thing" either.

Fact is... I'm a little bit of a hypocrite.

Huge chunks of my life as a SAHM are semi-discretionary. Take yesterday, I coulda taken the girls to the mall and shopped my brains out. We could have planted our sorry cans in front of the tube and zoned the day away. Could have bundled everyone up and walked to the park and had a picnic. Could have cleaned the house from the baseboards up (maybe should have)...

Instead, we did what we did and the bulk of it was stuff that I am passionate about; my girls, parties, art, food and fun.

More hypocrisy? I blog and quilt... I have good friends who live right on this street. I live within a half hour drive from a bunch of my family. I have people who love and need me. If I am living on auto pilot, it is because I choose it. It was pointed out to me last night that maybe I am living it up more than I think I am. Plus, I realised that I still have some great big old opinions... I am still PUNK ROCK, BABY!

Yup, here's me, living on the raggedy edge.

Last night my little sis and I hit the local Albertson's grocery store for a toothbrush and a beverage. As I am going through the line, the checker asked me if I had an "Albertson's" card... one of those things where you give them your personal information and then they give you a card so you can have their "special" prices. I inspected my key chain, but I knew the little Albertson's tag thingy had fallen off months ago, as well as the Smiths grocery tag. After asking for my phone number so she could access my "savers" account, I just broke down and told the gal that my phone number wouldn't do any good, because I always put down a fake number when I fill the paperwork out. She was kinda taken aback, but the bagger at the end of the check out counter seemed to be getting a kick out the the crazy old lady and her edgy ideas. I said half to her, and half to the bagboy that I didn't care to have my purchasing history tracked or sold.

I don't. You might ask who cares?... and you would have a point.... everything I buy, I put on my Discover card, so that information IS being tracked and possibly sold. Fine. I just object to some overpriced grocery store forcing my name and number out of me for the privilege of tracking me. BAH! So I lie, and I have BEEN lying right from the start. I will most likely lie to these scammers of info till the day I die. When I no longer have small children with me I will start back with my habit of getting a NEW card every time I have an extra three minutes to give these folks some NEW misinformation... I have a dream, I do my part to break this sick system.... I will take down the man. One three dollar purchase at a time.

Nine

My darling Pearl had herself a birthday today... this "Mom" gig is really starting to zip along. Year one is down and a lifetime of cuteness to come. She got some fun gifts... but I think her favorite was the bunch of helium balloons we got this morning.

I changed my mind about the blanket for her birthday... I thought this new one I made was too high-larious to let go of, so she got it instead of "plan A" quilt. The border is slinky and grassy and makes me laugh.

Birdie and LaLa helped me make this beauty... it is the "Ponies in the Meadow" cake. The "trees" are sprigs of rosemary, and those are actual edible flowers. Each girl got to claim a pony for their own when we cut the cake.

She said a new word... "wow!" She had just grabbed her first chunk of cake in her chubby little fist, her whole face just had this expression of awe, so I said "wow!" and she repeated it... several times. Then she dropped most of it and leaned over and said "uhhho!"

We were also privileged to have our dear Aunt T'Amy with us... she is my younger sister who lives on the East Coast. Flights are almost double the cost around Thanksgiving, so she's making the rounds now. When it comes to her nieces and nephews she feels it her calling... nay, duty! to teach kids the "seafood" shtick. You know the one I mean... SEE FOOD! With a gaping maw of half chewed food.

I plan on returning the favor once she starts having kids.

She also has the ever popular bit where she will flick water from her freshly washed hands upon a child while yelling "Ahhhh-CHOOOO!" It gets them every time.

Eight

Thanks for the input on blogging options. All that, and I'll probably stick with same-old-same-old Blogger hud till I am forced to move my business to the new Blogger version that's is just finishing Beta testing. I think I suffer from perfectionism. If I can't be the Uberblogger I will stay bland and get by. I want to be a cool, Zootesque or Kerfloppish blogger who cranks out gorgeous templates, and swell sites. I want to have my own domain. But when am I gonna get the time to learn how to be that cool? Plus?

HERE IS THE HORRIFYING RUB...

I have become little miss safey-safe. I play it safe all the way down the crapping line nowadays. Take this blog for instance... I don't talk about anything controversial, you will rarely hear my opinion on anything other than crock pot recipes. I dress for comfort and safety, my haircut is safe... neutral colors for make-up. I have gone from punk to passive in ten short years.

The reality is that I am still passionate and off-beat. Loud even. Not sure you can tell it from here. HA! it's day eight of the Blopping and already an epiphany... this blog is tapioca, it's Cream o' Wheat, white toast. So much of my existence has the flavor and consistency of the baby cereal I feed to Pearl, when I want to stretch and reach.

Last night Dadguy, who has no love for the "raggedy" style of quilts that I have been making... something about them not being practical. Whatever. Anyway he suggested that I make these quilts just because I know how. I took what he said and added "easy" and "safe" and ran away crying. Hey, I have never claimed to be logical or sane! In any case, this has started a thought process. How much of what I do and my daily choices are based on what is comfortable and familiar?

If I am choosing "safe" for the sake of "safe" (and by safe I don't mean stuff like "look both ways"... I mean "life on autopilot") then am I cheating myself? Maybe right now it's good to leave some things up to knee-jerk response. Maybe I have...

Did I just say that?

Because I don't believe that for a second. I don't believe that I am doing anyone a favor or accomplishing anything of good report by subsuming my whole being into a role/job/title. I am more than "Mama". My kids? They need to have a mama who rocks! They need a whole and real person.

A real person who right now has some very foul swears in her heart and a sinkful of dirty dishes... laundry souring in the washer, and kids playing loud sqawping pony games in the front room. Dude, I gotta think about this.

Edited to add: this doesn't mean that I think you are on autopilot just because you dress normal. I'm saying that I bore myself.

Seven

For all Americans...

You KNOW what today is, right? You have either already gone or you are going.... RIGHT?!

I did. I voted, and that's all I'm gonna say on the politics tip. I ain't tellin', I ain't fighten', I ain't sayin'. This blog is my "happy place." Just have a look at my super-dee-dooper cheerful flowers.

Have you voted yet?

For all my geekity friends...

I'm not in love with Blogger, shocking I know. Blogsome, Wordpress, TypePad.... I'm not against putting a little $$ down on this blogging thing. Y'all have any opinions? Be warned, I don't have the geek-spertise to run my own domain, and Dadguy is not amped about being my defacto tech support on a venture that demanding so I have to rely on a standard blog platfomitything. Something a sleep deprived monkey could run- that's about the speed I'm looking for.

Six

Heh... it's funny, Friday as I was typing up the very minimal text for my quilting post, I had in the back of my mind the work of my buddy who lives just down the street. Last year she completed the most amazing quilt evah! The top was pieced together deep colors of inch and a half squares that as you step back a yard or two becomes the image of the Savior. Around the border of this masterpiece are beaded grape vines and wheat, symbolizing the body and the blood, as well as embroidered scripture verses. Stunning. Just... stunning.

and she painted this sucker for me.

As it turns out, she has entered the blogosphere! We have talked about this, and now she has done it! Granted... she started TWO WEEKS ago, and has just barely let me know.... but better late than never. She homeschools, an activity that both horrifies and fascinates me. After talking with her about how it's working for their family, the horror level has gone down some.

Her name for the purposes of posting, is "Mom," and she is a funny, smart and talented lady... I highly recommend you go take a look-see. Welcome to Mom and Pop Home School!

Question... does anyone know how to turn off comments on an individual post in Blogger?

Five

Since it actually is the Sabbath, a day of rest, I thought I'd cop out and ransack what little I have from back in the day. Truly, some Cringe-worthy poetry. Some of it not, some written as a 20 year old, therefore technically past Cringing over. But some of it still resonates with me.

I came across this old poem from my first public poetry reading at Salt Of The Earth Bookstore in Albuquerque, NM. It makes me cringe, only in a different way.

When I was twenty, I was an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Specifically the Young People's groups of AA. I was a part of the committee that started NMCYPAA ("nim-kee-pah" New Mexico Conference of Young People in AA). This high level of involvement brought me into contact with all sorts of new flavors of living and dying.

There were two sister's who ran in a sub circle to the group I hung out with. I was aware of them and their mother, a junkie in who had racked up a very respectable amount of clean time. Only she wasn't all the way there. She wasn't crazy, she just couldn't put everything together to function in life. She had barely a home to offer those girls, and then something happened, I never did learn what, and she went into some sort of Women's Shelter. This shelter? Apparently, it didn't take kids. The older girl, S was able to get a place at the home of a girlfriend. B was on her own. She was twelve.

This hurts way more than I thought it ever could. Still.

She was a beautiful girl, physically perfect. She had already couch surfed for a few weeks before she came to my attention. Things had already gone pretty bad for her in the surfing, and she had ended up in a bed or two along the way. I took her in and saw her through six months of hell, all while trying to keep my scholarship at UNM. Somehow we got into contact with her mom who got me in touch with their father (they were not allowed to have direct contact with him... he had a new and respectable family). He started paying me his version of "Child Support," a hundred fifty bucks a month, and as I was not yet twenty one and could not be a guardian in the state of NM... he signed over Power of Attorney. He gave me an health insurance card for her, at least he had her covered. School, then Alternative School, suicide attempts and drug rehab... I was there for it all. I thought I could do it.

By the time she got out of rehab, the winter/spring semester was ending and her mother was graduating from the shelter. She graciously agreed to take of custody of her youngest daughter who was now officially a teen. B never forgave me for "giving up" on her. Never spoke to me again, and left with her mother to California within the month. Last I had heard, she was a mother twice over at seventeen. This is the poem I wrote for B.

Kid

She's an offspring
of the Me
generation
running wild in the streets
shoving gutter-dust
up her arms, nose...
she's been smoking it.
(...talking 'bout my generation?...)

Well it's no damn wonder.

Sisters got her high
when she was three.
Herb stolen
from Moms top drawer.
Five and she was doing for herself.
Take a toke
lean down,
blow spirits
in baby's face
Sold, in so many words
at nine
for an eightball
Mama's habit.
Mama got sober after she lost
all her teeth to cola and smack,
but little girl's still crazy.
Wonder is,
anyone expects her sane.


Did I give up? I don't know exactly.

I do know that there was nothing more that I could do for this girl, nothing else I could have done. I was young and alone in more ways than one, and this child came with a cornicopia of broken-ness. But there it is, and here I am...

...with three girls all my own and a slightly pre-smashed heart.

Four

Dadguy's work has provided him with a very swell Ti-book. It has played a key role in my blogging habit for the past year or so. While he plays "Wars of Guildcraft World" on our home computer, I kick it on the bed a few feet away and surf teh internets. I don't actually write many posts using the laptop, cuz when I do I still have to do the actual publishing from our computer. For some reason gmail (which I compose in [hello, auto-save feature,spellcheck etc!]) has no editing options like spell check, italics, links, boldface etc. when accessed through his laptop.... Blogger either.

Not that I have EVER gotten Blogger's spell check function to work.

We have tried going through a number of different browsers, no luck... Dadguy says it's probably some obscure setting and the he could probably fix it. Not that it matters now.

It is time for Dadguy's work to upgrade, and this time he gets a new desktop style. His choice. He said he's going for faster/bigger/better. Whatever. I can recognise an attempt to curtail my addiction, and that's exactly what this IS! And in the middle of my Blop(NaBloPoMo) attempt too. BAH!

Speaking of Blop.... please to notice my spiffy new Blop badge on the right, courtesy of lectico.ca. It was love at first geek when I clapped eyes on it, whilst surfing the NaBloPoMo randomizer last night (on Dadguy's work laptop).

Make your time!

Three

Look Ma! It's a craft blawwwg!

Pearls birthday is coming up, one year old ACK! I still hadn't finished the raggedy edge quilt that I had started for her, so I figured I'd just finish that puppy up and call it a birthday gift. Slacker, I know. Y'all got to see it's resurrection, and here is the finished product. Flannel 55"x41".



I got so excited I went to the store, and got some fabric for another one (the cutest one I've done so far!). It's 30"x34" flannel. That's a chenille fabric on the border there, and I was so tickled with the effect...


...I thought I'd experiment with this fun "furry fleece" that I found. Here is the next one in raw form. The green grassy stuff is soft and those are individual fibers that kind of float and move like something Dr. Seussish... I find it quite hilarious.


and the next. It's as close as I'm gonna be getting to "fine art" right now. Mmmmmm, juicy textiles! That black stuff is softer than rabbit's fur.

Two

Bedtime is not my favorite time of day. It's this huge rush of activity to prepare for something the girls don't want to do. We have tried all sorts of combinations and sequences... it's all chaos.

I should say... it's all relative chaos. I have heard from other mom's that my girls go down pretty easy, and that I don't have it so bad. I'll buy that. But once again? It's all relative. By eight o'clock at night I. Am. DONE. I am ready for some free time, play time, sleep time, ME time.

Not every night, but about three nights a week the girls will pull the "I'm scared" card. They don't have any answer if you ask them what they are scared of.... even "the dark" is a bit concrete for what seems to ail them. Birdie is the biggest "I'm scared-er" and when she says it, she's looking for a very specific reply from me.

The "I'm scared" routine...
The room is dark, the books are read, drinks drunk, teeth brushed, prayers said, hugs hugged and kisses administered... as I am walking out the door I hear a suspiciously meek voice.

"Mama, I'm scared," says Birdie.
"Honey, there's no reason to be scared." Fine, there IS actually a good reason to be scared of me if you don't cut the crap kiddo.
"But I'm scared!" she is starting to lay it on thick, she is waiting for it... she wants to hear it verbatim.

"Sweetheart, there is no reason to be scared. This house is full of love, and joy and peace."
"And laughter and merriment, mama." No joke... if I leave any of this out she will correct me.
"Yes, and laughter and merriment. The Holy Spirit abides here, especially when we are kind to each other. Your Daddy holds the Holy Priesthood, and I will protect you forever and ever." If I am feeling particularly close to postal I will amend the last part with, "...and I am scarier than anything else that could be out there!" This apparently is an acceptable variation to The Answer.

It's possible that I have been a little too free with letting them choose Scooby Doo videos at the Movie Store. A few nights ago as the routine started up, Birdie added her own variation.

"Mama?"
"What?"
"I'm scared that the Army of the Undead is in the house!"
"The what?"
"The Army of the Undead, mama! They are here and I'm scared."
"Honey, that's impossible," I said. "I am the Queen of This House and I have the power. They can't come in unless I say and I say they have to go home."
"Oh, okay. Goodnight mama."

One

Yesterday I dressed up in all black, did my hair with lots of hairspray, wore my contact lenses and black eyeliner and buckets of makeup. I was inspired by Mama D to resurrect my cool fangs, wore a black cape and a witches hat. All this effort, and I was too tired to take off the make-up last night, this morning I woke up looking scarier than I did all Halloween. Boo.

So today is day one of NaBloPoMo, and I like to tell you that you are in for a real treat. Heh, not sure I can say you are... just more of the same from me. I have a couple of posts kicking around in my head, but I have to warn you...some of it's really introspective stuff. Some of it is stuff I have learned (relearned) from this experience. It has to do with this credo that I have apparently forgotten. Again.

Credo: She who takes offence, when no offence is intended? Is an idiot. She who takes offence when offence IS intended? Well, she's an idiot too.

Especially if that person is an addict in recovery. Which I am.

I didn't tell y'all, I didn't celebrate it.... I let it pass with no freaking notice whatsoever. October eighth marked my ten year birthday of sobriety... clean and clear. That I let it pass by, that I am giving myself permission to get all het up on resentment? Bad. It's very bad.

Thankfully I get to teach a spiritual lesson to my women's church group once a month. In October my turn came up just days after having written about the offence I took (and trust me, I kept the bulk of my bile OUT of the post and focused on the higher ground of what was going through my heart). The subject of the lesson? The talk given by Elder Bednar just weeks before, entitled "And Nothing Shall Offend Them." It was a very instructive lesson... for me. A lesson about how much my Father in Heaven loves me, and that love is personal and specific to me. A lesson about how He wants me to grow up.

And by the way? If there is any question (and there was) I am in no way comparing the person who questioned my family planning, to my vile and abusive ex-husband. The story about my leaving Mr. Thatguy was just to illustrate that I have had a relationship with my children and have been acting as a mother to them long before they were here in any mortal form. Just clarifying here.

So. It's not gonna all be this serious. Promise.