Park, Beach, Missed Dad

We decided to meet up with ~L~ and crew for some glorious-day fun yesterday. We went to the park!

(where's your nose, toddlerness?)

We went to the beach!

He's so excited he's LEVITATING!!! OK, so seriously, I did not edit this photo. Click for larger version.


We went to the zoo (and didn't take any pictures!)

And I missed my dad being in Seattle, 'cause I wasn't expecting him to be available and I'd just driven an hour and a half and didn't think it would be quite fair to load the kids back up in the car for another long trip, especially as they'd just started to have fun with their friends. That was a bummer, but at least we didn't misconnect and then have a shitty day or something. It was an awesome, glorious day. And hopefully my dad (and the rest of my family - I miss them all) will be able to come and spend a couple of glorious, awesome days with us soon.

Today is another lovely day. We've already done some beading (Becca and Naomi) and reading (me - "Healing Passage, a Midwife's Guide to the Care and Repair of the Tissues Involved in Birth" - a book which curiously combines the clearest advice I've read so far with a tendency to use words like "yoni" rather than "vagina" and, particularly snort-inducingly, "clitorotomy" instead of "episiotomy"). More fun to come, I'm sure.

Cool Stuff...

http://science.discovery.com/fansites/howitsmade/videogallery/videogallery.html

http://www.howstuffworks.com

Wild Toddler Spotting (and other pictures)

We spotted a wild toddler through the window:

While the kids put together a LEGO RC car.

View from just outside my front door, the garden in front of the house (Tomato, cabbages, a couple kinds of lettuce, broccoli, onion - that's the blank-looking area - and you can kinda see the apple/nutmeg scented geranium at the bottom):

Even the storm wreckage looks pretty:


Boyness goofs off:

OK, so it doesn't look pretty, but I SWEAR that letting the chickweed grow around the tomato and pepper plants - once the plants are taller than the chickweed will get - keeps the ground from drying out. And I SWEAR that there are tomato and pepper plants in there. And in the second partition, there are strawberries (there I don't let the chickweed grow). In the round thing on the right, there is a ton-ish volume of mint.

Girliness:

Toddlerness:

I swear there's a garden in there, just have to pull it out...there are beds around the edges, and I planted in them (lavender, curry, oregano, basil, rosemary, thyme, potato, cantaloupe, watermellon, cucumber, squash, pumpkin, onion) but they're hiding behind the summer overgrowth of the regular forest-clearing flora.

Holiday Weekends SUCK

Fran had Friday off. Great, I thought, there are a billion things we can go do!! Um, no. The rest of the world had the day off too.

I love going places while nobody else is there (or relatively few anybody-elses are). Antisocial, whatever, I just don't like dealing with the masses. I'll take that parking spot right next to the zoo entrance and the picnic lawn to myself, thankyouverymuch.

Anyway, I felt grounded this weekend. We went off to have some fun with M and her family, and helped friends move, and I misconnected with Aimee (which I feel really bad about, my fault for not calling early enough). And I'm still grounded today. Suckage.

Meanwhile, I have been procrastinating my schoolwork, and then Fran reformatted the computer and now I can't finish it off and turn it in. It's there, I just can't open it until he figures out office - but with all the friend-moving and such this weekend, and dinner scheduled with his mom tonight, it is not getting done. I am not fond of writing assignments in Notepad. And can't get the half-done ones open anyhow.

Whine, whine, whine!

But on a much, much happier note, I was semi-awakened (we were laying around in bed half-awake) by a very happy, very newborn-inspired phone call this morning. YAY new babies! I can't wait for the whole story :). OK, I can. Enjoy that babymoon, mama :)

A House For Toddlerness

Well, she calls it her house anyway. This is what we did with the space underneath the bunk. Toddlerness is pretty much beside herself. She understands that the big kids get to sit in there too, but has decided that since her bed is under there, it is HER territory.

Not that she'll sleep on her bed or anything.

And yes, that big ugly thing on the wall is a heater. A gargantuan, ancient heater. Inside, it has, like, a toaster element that had a pituitary tumor and grew to unweildy proportions. If you actually run it, it smells precisely like what you might imagine a toaster element that had a pituitary tumor and grew to unweildy proportions would smell if you stuck it in painted sheet metal, left it unused for 5 years, knocked into it a few times, and then decided, on a whim, to see whether it worked. It blows hot air, all right. But if you have to open all the windows to get the god-awful smell out of your nose, how much good does THAT do?

Rambleness

On Thursday, Fran had to work after all. Surprise! They called him as he was getting ready to go and asked him to go to a different store for the day. Despite the fact that he has been a humongous stress-case about starting the new job, he actually managed to take the change of plans really, really well.

I gathered up random stray children that were wandering around my house (I just happened to have grabbed ones that I gave birth to, what are the odds?), boiled eggs, steamed artichokes, packed a cooler, and headed off to Luther Burbank Park on Mercer Island (ok, this park rocks, go there people-who-are-nearby). We spent 6 hours at the park. Only the first hour and a half or so was spent at the playground-kinda-thingy (all 80s looking and cool). The rest we spent exploring - rolling down the hills, walking the trails, checking out the old dairy barn...we even managed to fit in some swimming! As we were leaving, toddlerness gave me a handful of yellow flowers and toddler-ran off, turning to say, "mama, I a happy face!" Everyone was tired and ready to go at the end of that 6 hours, but still happy. Summer-day-at-the-part UTOPIA! I didn't get any pictures because I couldn't find the camera. Until we got home. When I found it in the bag I'd been lugging around all day. Crap.

We came home sunburnt and tired (ok, I was tired - the kids had slept in the car and were ready for round 2, of course) just as Fran was starting in on the dinner project. Awesome.

Today, we had a big fire, and burned a lot of the stuff that was blocking the path to the 'clear play area' thing on the far side of the driveway. Not all, but a lot. When Toddlerness fell asleep for her nap, I grabbed Girliness and we headed off for some us time. Soft pretzels on a picnic bench, Starbucks in Target, way too many purchases on Girliness-discretion...including an inflatable pool with inflatable slide that the kids spent much of the afternoon on. Fran made pizza over a wood fire on his grill, and it is coming out pretty well. I'll have to encourage this him-making-dinner thing, because we'd fallen into a rhythm where I was doing it most of the time and I kinda like this him-doing-it version better.

Oh, Stubborn Toddlerness!

It seems like her express purpose in life is to annoy me.

Clothes? We don't need no fucking clothes! Who wants to wear a diaper?! Who CARES how long the car ride will be, or whether I'm scared to death of public toilets? What gives? Can't I just wear my little sundress? Yeah, 50 degrees, whatever. I was made in Washington, remember mama? Cold? I laugh at your concept of cold. Silly you, trying to get the house up to 70.

NOOOOOOO I can't wear that shirt. It isn't "princess" enough.

Or that one. "don't likeit the square ona front"

THAT DRESS, IT BURNS US!!!!! I can't wear THAT one!!! Can't you TELL I can't wear that one, mama!!! OWWWWW, it BURNS US, GET IT OFF, GET IT OFF!!!!

Oh for fucksakes, just get some damn clothes on so we can go to the store. Drama queen.

Not that we go to the store well, either. Because apparently, it is ALSO boyness' express purpose in life to annoy me. It is apparently HILLARIOUS to run around like a little madman in Trader Joes, because mama doesn't like yelling in the store so we can get away with a little more. OMG I was ready to strangle him. If thoughts could kill, there would be a chalk outline on the floor of TJs right this moment.

At the same time, Toddlerness is heavily invested in trying to escape the cart. And Girliness is asking me a ZILLION AND ONE QUESTIONS and begging to be given cash so that she can pay for our groceries.

Hu-yup, Fran will be doing the grocery shopping for a few months, or hanging with the kids while I do. Not that this will fix the fact that I can't keep clothing on Toddlerness for more than 15 seconds (unless of course that particular outfit was entirely her own idea, which of course never happens when I want to leave the house, and if it does it involves a little sundress and coincides with 40 degrees and rain). It seems to work to wait until everyone else is ready, speed-dress her, and strap her into her carseat before she can take anything off (she can't get clothing off around the carseat straps).

*ugh*

In other news, the Trader Joes brand whole wheat pasta agrees nicely with Fran's blood and insulin and shit (ok, not sure about the shit...), which is great because it is also quite cheap and tastes quite good, without that cardboard feel that you get off of some other whole wheat pastas. Big thumbs up on that one. Yay for small changes making big differences.

Triple bunk

I decided to triple bunk the beds. Yesterday I pulled half of creation apart (ok, so I just moved beds around, but that is one hell of a job in my house - anyone who has been here knows that there is no simple way to do it). There was a surprising amount of shit underneath the bunk, including a couple of banana peels, one of them stuck to the wall. Yeah, the kids aren't supposed to eat in that room. Ew.

Anyway, I got the bottom bunk moved to the middle position, and then we realized what a truly rockin' clubhouse we had on the bottom - Toddlerness can walk right under there without even ducking. Toddlerness is honestly not showing any inclinations towards WANTING to move out of my bed, and we might be able to get a toddler mattress in there sideways and still have room for a rug and a lamp, which might be really cool. We'll see. I know that I am NOT going to put the full-sized mattress under there the way I intended.

I'm cold.

I need to study for an exam and really don't want to. Anemia. You'd think it would be relatively simple, but noooooo, it has been tougher for me to understand than anything else we've covered so far. Maybe it is the fact that so much of it is about numbers. I can manipulate numbers pretty well, but suck at memorizing them. Example - I got through physics because if I understood a concept I could make up a formula. I'm not sure I ever flat-out memorized a formula.

Untended

I think I left that last post untended for too long.

I am not despairing my abilities as a parent. Nor do I think that if Fran had primary kid-ing responsibilities he would keep up the pace of last week. Or maybe he would. He kept up a ridiculous pace while I was in my 13 weeks of morning sickness and he was also still working. 13 weeks is a pretty long time. I am not talking "I'm 13 weeks gestation today!" I'm talking he spent an actual 13 week time frame running the kids all over creation as well as making breakfast, lunch, and dinner (because I was useless, he'd premake stuff for our day so that everyone still got fed).



You know how there is a "weekend schedule?" The way the house runs when both parents are home/it is break time/whatever - when you are doing minimal house upkeep and maximal fun. This didn't feel like that. He cleaned under the couch. There was no kid-hand-off when I got home. You know what I mean, right? Most SAHM have experienced this. You have a "mama day out" or whatever, and when you get home it's "thank god you're back, here, have a kid, what's for dinner?" Didn't happen.

But anyway, I think I'm a perfectly decent parent. Maybe better than "perfectly decent." I feel pretty good about how well things hold together under the strains we've got (my school, homeschool, my internet addiction, you know, strains). And yeah, it takes a couple of years after a new kid to get up to what, in my mind, is complete dad-ability, cause he lacks boobs. Well, not entirely. He lacks FUNCTIONAL boobs? Something like that. I'm sad about not being able to rearrange things the way he would like, despite the fact that I think he really would make a capable SAHD. But I'm not, like, depressive about it, or thinking that I'm a less suitable stay-at-home-parent.

Fran started his new job yesterday. He looks good in all black (new uniform) with real dress shoes (also new), even though the dress shoes are pretty damned uncomfortable. He's been doing minor exercises every morning and I think it shows in his posture, if not yet in his weight.

Anywho, some pictures from while I was at onsite and Fran took the kids everywhere:

Bloody blog, House Husband, SAD

Onsite is over again. I've got a million and one thoughts rattling through my brain, so I'm just going to ramble a bit. I know that there is at least one person reading this who has needle issues, so I'm going to block-quote until I'm done with the needle talk (just skip down to where the margin shifts back to normal...)

I started IVs today. And at last onsite. These seem easy to me. There is something about the feel of it. About how you can just FEEL when you have gotten to the right spot and you're (almost) home free from there. I'm still a little messy about it, but I picked up a great tip from the RN in the group about how to keep things a little neater. On the other hand, I seem to be non-competant at drawing blood. I am not sure why I find the IV *cannula in particular* so easy to feel, but have no similar "just feel it" going on with the blood drawing. My instructors think that this is peculiar (not the instructors for this particular course, who are wisely -IMO- not critiquing this disconnect just yet), as not only are the ideas so similar but most people have it the other way 'round.

I have a bruise on my hand that is there by no fault of my classmate. I am mightily impressed that she got an IV running on the back of my hand, in a vein that looked and felt to me little larger than the IV cannula itself. I got saline and electrolytes. My dehydrated body loves you, Classmate.

We also took a look at some real lab slips, and that was awesome. The learning had been ridiculously abstract.

I still don't have a preceptor and am feeling...irritated. I am essentially in home turf for SMS, and them asking me for a list of midwives in my area makes me feel...how shall I put this nicely...oh I can't...like they're fucking with me. *breathe out* *release tension in shoulder muscles* *you didn't want a clinical placement yet anyway, you TOLD them you wanted to ease into it slowly and that delayed was OK, it is unfair of you to freak out about it now*

*sigh*

In other news, my husband has been having a grand time with the kids this week. They have met up with other papas, they've met up with his brother, they've gone to the zoo, and to the park. He has kept them clean and fed, bathed and played and happy. He CLEANED. The house is far cleaner right now than it normally is while I'm watching them.

He shows no signs of being stressed out about all of this. When I got home at 10 last night, he was putting the polish on a full day and totally happy about it. This reminds me of those times when I have been forced (not in a prying-it-out-of-my-hands kind of way, but in a "I can't jump in and just do it" way) to hand over large chunks of parental responsibility in order to preserve my personal integrity in the face of hyperemesis (morning sickness) or early postpartum. My husband has by and large simply jumped in and taken up the vast majority of what REALLY comprises the heart and soul of parenting. The tear-wiping, the park-going, the storm-drain-watching, the patient teaching, the kid-nurturing HEART of parenting. I've never needed to ask him to do any of these things, he has just seen the kids' needs and filled them.

He wants another baby.

I think that *he* could handle another baby with the way we live. But I don't think that I could. It makes me sad to tell him that I can't do it now, it really does, because of all the things that midwifery school has caused us to give up, this is the biggest saddest one. Not that we are giving up having another baby entirely, but that it feels so unfair to ask my husband to make all these huge sacrifices and contributions to something that is essentially all about *me*...and then I am, on top of that, telling him that while I can hear him and feel his pain and longing for another child, I just can't do it. And it is largely a CHOICE, a lifestyle CHOICE that I made when I decided that now was the time to do this crazy midwifery education thing. A choice that was all about me. I am important. It is my body, and my life that is overrun for the first good-long-while of a new child's life. So I stand rather comfortably by that choice as the best one all around. But it hurts to see my husband hurt, and to know that what I have chosen has largely caused that. Not that he doesn't have choices, too, and not that his hurt is ruining or overshadowing our relationship/family/whatever. Not that he is perfect and such a stellar person and father that I feel like I'm denying him this one-last-piece to his perfect life. It is simply a sad, sad thing.

But I am also, simultaneously, realizing that I suffer from some variation on SAD (seasonal affective disorder) that is kind of like a Seasonal Kinesthetic Disorder or something. My mood does not become depressed, but my body does. I was sick on and off all winter, and got so tired so easily and for so long. When the days are longer and I am spending time in the sun, I can get far less sleep and still be happy and healthy about it. I do think that there was something chemically, physically different about my body this winter, and I do think that it is because of the weather. What to do about that, if anything, is a different question entirely. At the moment I am simply relieved that I'm not feeling the 7 consecutive nights of less than 6 hours of sleep in the same way that I would have a two months ago. When we get around to next winter, perhaps I will devise some sort of management plan...even if that plan is simply to be aware of the fact that my body has set these limitations, and in order not to drive myself into sickness, I need to accept them.

Out of Context?

You guys are just going to trust that the context surrounding this quote was exactly what logic leads you to think it is, because you're almost certainly right.

I have to rest in the fact that my husband will seek God for council and then answer to God for his decisions. I will answer to God for how I submitted to my husband.

This has been bugging me since I first read it, plucked from a homeschooling discussion board, about 5 days ago. Bugging me in a "does not compute" kind of way.

Marriage is not a free pass out of hell. Christianity (you'll have to trust that's the context of this, 'cause it is) is not about passing off your own responsibility. It is really about some curious mixture between personal accountability and Jesus, in most versions of the religion.

And frankly, it scares me that there is even one woman out there who hangs her hopes of eternal salvation on how well she submits to her husband. That's not Christianity, that is husband-worship. I've read the Bible through and through no few times, and I've never seen THAT advocated. It could also be, in my opinion, a rather cowardly attempt to assign blame for one's own damnation on another human being. Isn't your soul worth more than that to you?

*Phew* monkey off my chest, I do hope.

Ahhhhh

So, yes while I am in a state of generalized consternation about the origins of Mothers' Day and the current form in which we celebrate it...the kids are too damned cute. And I do love my mom and did give her a call today.

And I have a rockin' husband who doesn't expect me to be housekeeper-then-wife-then-mother-THEN-person. See? And yeah, he did invite his mom over this afternoon. But we had a pretty decent time of it. She actually seemed to LIKE helping the kids make "leaf soup" in their humongous stump aka "the house."

Fran did something else that rocked today, too. He and Girliness continued their togetherness kick by cooking together - while Toddlerness took her nap they prepared the teriyaki marinade. As usual, Fran was far more patient than I usually am and by this evening - after several more daddy/daughter learning experiences - I overheard Girliness telling him "Some kids learn in school. And some kids have home school. And some kids learn because they do things every day and their brains work and they figure things out." Followed by a lengthy listing of things she'd learned today (everything from dividing a recipe to figuring out which sticks are dry enough to start a fire).

So this evening I am experiencing a more-than-anticipated warmth and happiness with my family.

I still think the holiday is a sham. And if we have to pretend that it's about celebrating our mothers, I'd much rather have done it with my own than with Fran's. And I do have flowers slowly withering and dying on my kitchen counter, courtesy of MIL. *Sigh* at least they're pretty. I wonder how many tons of glass make it into the landfill courtesy of Mother's Day vases, though.

Happy Mothers' Day?

It seems odd that I, a mother, dislike Mothers' Day (and yes, the apostrophe IS supposed to be after the "s").

Some history, may I? Under the guise of legitimizing what is basically a holiday intended to celebrate women who have remained happily in "their place," numerous versions of the history of mothers' day exist.

In my personal favorite fiction, Mother's Day has been celebrated since before recorded history, in the guise of worship of feminine mother-deities. Sorry, no. While such deities have certainly been celebrated, it's a pretty awesome stretch to say that mothers were thus celebrated and therefore we need to buy things from Hallmark. There is no straight line (nor even a curvy dashed one) between the two.

Mothers' Day Proclamation - 1870
by Julia Ward Howe

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

And yet, it is the saccharine Anna Jervis version (a pale shadow of the Mothers' Work Days that her mother, Anna Reeves Jervis, promoted and celebrated) of the holiday that made it into the hearts of the (male, durh) lawmakers. By the time Mother's Day had (apostrophe appropriately moved) made it just a few years, even Anna Jervis who said: "I wanted it to be a day of sentiment, not profit," was more than a little sickened by what was developing. Which isn't even why I dislike Mother's Day (although I certainly don't like the commercialism).

So why do I dislike Mother's Day? I dislike the celebration of ideal-woman-as-domestic. I am passionate about the FACT that women deserve respect. How is this respect? This tradition of a pat on the head and a few flowers and a "job well done!" congratulations for "all that woman-type work" we do?

Well, damn, I'd rather have my husband hand me a martini on the way in the door every evening. And keep the kids quiet...I've worked hard and need my rest, after all. Dinner should be warm too, in appreciation of the hard work I've done.

You see? SEE how it comes down? Men get this respect. Women get a breakfast in bed once a year. Little hand-scrawl-imitation greeting cards showing stick women with vaccuum cleaners. And doesn't every woman love watching flowers slowly wither and die in a vase on the kitchen counter?

Give me a fucking break.

~L~ Made Me a Pretty

Nature Toddler

The big kids spent the morning planting with me. Becca planted all of her flowers all by herself, after I showed her how to do the first one :). She even came up, on her own, with a method of measuring the distance between them using a long stick so that they are now spaced evenly and take up the whole border of our longest planting bed. I planted the other lovelies I got from Molbaks, and the flowers from my MIL. The big kids ran off to play on the waterslide again, and I got to follow her royal toddlerness around with a camera as she got progressively dirtier and more tired.

The Day Was Fun (But Toddlers Still Suck and Bugs Can Hurt)

Yesterday, on the way to meet a newly-van-endowed ~L~ at Molbaks (great place!), I decided to stop for crackers and cookies for the little buggers. Um, bad idea? Holy shit, the bad behavior! And Toddlerness at the head of the group! Stay in the cart? Oh HELL NO. She can undo the strappies...and cast herself right on out of that seat. Yes, cast. Or climb. And if she's not busy doing that, she's busy taking stuff off the shelves. Never fear, if I let her out, she just grabs more stuff from lower shelves. As she runs out of my range. With reckless abandon. Into the paths of other carts.

The whole grocery store shenanigan took over 30 minutes. To get two bags of groceries worth less than $20. I left my house when ~L~ left Fife, and she BEAT ME TO WOODINVILLE. What the hell.

Molbaks was a similar toddler-chasing shitstorm. Got out of there for $20-something, (oooh, maybe less, because I had to go back and get refunded for an overcharge), especially remarkable considering the whole tray of flowers I got *just for Becca* (who was very thrilled with that whole idea).

~L~s family then came to my house, where kids played and had fun with surprisingly few incidents, and mamas drank coffee and watched kids flow in and out with surprisingly few incidents. At 6 I suddenly realized it was, well, 6, and started making dinner. As I was completing that prep, GirlieG (Girliness' similar-age bud) came SCREAMING up the hill.

Of course I immediately blamed Boyness (in my brain), but the true culprit was yellow jackets...and that had hurt so much she'd gone barelling straight into the stinging nettles. Poor girlie! A bath, lots of vit. c (she chewed the not-chewable tablets! And didn't even complain! Like a particularly reliable message board participant had said, they know when they need it and just eat it, even though it's nasty), some salve, and she was well enough to sit and eat dinner. Which surprised the crap out of me, because she'd been stung on the lip. And it was quite swollen. I do believe I'd have been curled up in my bed with a handful of ice, clothed full body to keep from irritating the nettle stings, feeling sorry for myself.

Boyness got stung too, on his chest, and some sting gel seemed to help him enough that he forgot about it rather promptly. This is a relief, since the gel doesn't work worth shit on nettle stings, so it's good to know it is useful for something.

The Diabetic Husband

So Fran has been diagnosed with diabetes. We were going to hold off until he had insurance with his new job, but he talked to his doctor's office about it and they pushed through all the fun stuff he'd have gotten then anyway. He's got the monitors and the strips (free, no payment portion for us, cool eh?) and since he's off the plan shortly, they gave him a boatload of strips. They told us that this wouldn't be a problem with his new insurance unless he was going to go self-employed; any employer plan would cover him, and the stuff they'd balk at getting him was what the office gave him yesterday. So yeah, they'd better be right about that.

He was feeling rather depressive about all of it on Tuesday, after talking on the phone with the nurse there about his test results, but after his half-day appointment/counseling/etc session yesterday is actually feeling really good about everything. He had nothing but glowing, wonderful things to say about the nurse that did his counseling, actually. I was kinda worried about the poor soul who would have that task. Fran tells me that she reminded him strongly of my own mom, because she has an issue (my mom's is breastfeeding, this nurse's was dietary control of diabetes), and simply knows everything about it and tells you exactly what you need to hear about.

So anyway, if I knew who this mysterious nurse was (and she was the touchy-feely sort), there would be many hugs and kisses and expressions of utmost gratitude. Because I sure as hell don't have it in me to be any sort of inspirational or uplifting or anysuchshit, and he is taking this so very well after that talk.

His doctor thinks that the nurse (another one) rather overstated the severity of his disease over the phone, and it is highly likely that he has many more years of small dietary changes being plenty, and may never actually need to be on insulin. Given that he has several uncles, an aunt, and a grandmother on insulin, and that he has already exhibited peripheral neuropathy, I was surprised to hear this, but his doctor seems to think that the problem is not hugely abnormal blood sugar readings so much as minimally abnormal readings over a long period of time.

I was also relieved to hear that he won't need to make a huge overhaul, at least not at first. I'll change some of what I buy and make, of course, but the doctor doesn't seem to think that he needs to take such extreme measures as not eating bread or rice any more (as was the case with his grandma) - just switch to the whole grain (I'd already started this) and halve the carb portions and see what happens first. This is a whole lot more palatable to me than the diet I've seen his other family members on.

So we'll see, eh?

Nettles, Waterslides, and Tricycles

This is what it looks like on both sides of the path down to the neighbor's house. Cute, eh? In case you don't recognize it, that is stinging nettle. These, erm, lovely plants hold acid on the undersides of their leaves. Acid that they fling at anything that happens to touch (brush against, think about) them. The kids refer to them unaffectionately as "the stingies." They feel like some mesh between a bee sting and a burn. I have just decided that the next unwary friend to come to my house will find her children covered head to toe and battling the nettles. I have some uses for the plants, but not for that many. Luckily, they don't just compost "well," they are stellar composters, actually heating up the compost mixture (speeding the process).

Here are some kids going down the "watersliderslipper" (term courtesy of some random neighborfamily kid), which - yes - consists of a kiddie slide and about 40 feet of plastic sheeting - and OMG the fun. Yes, that is Naomi climbing the slide at the top of the photo, and yes, she thought it was GREAT. After a few rides down the hill she decided she was sooooo cold, but wasn't willing to come home with me for new clothes/towels, and curled up on a piece of sun-warmed plastic until she got bored and went to ride her tricycle in the driveway with the other too-cold children. Becca, of course, milked every last second out of the availability of the waterslide coolness, and came home with a sore rear end long after the other two had given it up.

And here are a few photos of the warmer-in-the-driveway fun:

Playing, Barbeque, and Baking Happiness

Yesterday was glorious. By 10am, we'd hit 60 (and when our little shaded spot here hits 60 that early, you know the rest of the world is having a nice warm day). So I threw some beef ribs in a marinade (prep for dinner - go me!), fed the children, and off we ran to Pine Lake Park. We spent 6 lovely hours there (wow, the 6 hour theme! That must be my kids' wide-barrel attention span or something). The kids spent entirely too much time quizzing the people on the dock about all things fishing-related (except for the older couple from Belarus who couldn't understand the kids too well, they all seemed happy with the curious kids).
We ended up meeting the neighbor kids there entirely by accident in the last hour we were there. This could not have thrilled the little buggers more...but there were 8 kids altogether and I'm afraid they descended back upon the playground, newly excited, like a plague of overlarge locusts. When the neighbor family had to take a bathroom break, I seized the opportunity afforded by the temporary friendlessness of my children, gathered up my (thank GOD it's only three) little monsters and ran for it.
The park was entirely too pretty yesterday. So was our own "yard," though. When Fran came home I set him to the grilling and the kid-supervising, and worked on my own half-finished baking projects. And cleaning projects. Because thanks to Toddlerness, the house smelled like fennel. A lot of fennel. Underfoot, it crushes a little like dried lavender - not in that it smells at all the same, but in that as you step on it and grind it into the carpet it creates a smell-aura. Added to the heat of the day finally catching up with my (very insulated) house, it was actually pretty hot. Pretty hot plus fennel-mess. Ew.
Anywho, they played outside and barbequed ribs and I did all my baking (and a goodish volume of school reading and carpet vacuuming), until Fran poked his head in the door "hey Niki?" "yeah?" "is it really 8:10?" "errr...YES! Yikes!" "Ok, we're coming in!" And this is when I admit to rambling a bit so that the pictures fit into the blog better. I'm tired of rambling now and hopefully have filled enough space for it not to look funky on your screen. So I'll talk about bread now.

Last week I did an experiment, making a dough with half white/half whole wheat flour...and then leaving it to rise until it collapsed. I wanted to see just how far I could push it, you know? At the end of the experiment (it collapsed between 4 and 5 hours) I had some yummy, but very dense, sourdough bread. So yesterday I made the same recipe, this time with maximum rise in mind. It worked! I mean, not that you can really tell in the picture or anything. But it is light and fluffy and wonderful inside. Just like my previous attempts at whole wheat/blended bread haven't been. We ate it with soft cheese, along with our (very messy) barbeque ribs.

I also made angel food cake. I lacked quite a few necessary implements, though. No beaters (not even hand-cranked ones!), no sifter, no tube pan. No "cake flour." Thank goodness for healthy local chickens making healthy eggs with hard-to-break yolks, because my first egg separation ever came off perfectly. The cake was a little too dense, as I simply didn't have any more whisking in me by the time I got to "ok it's kind of making a peak," but it was of recognizeable taste and texture and was excellent with strawberries and ice cream. And yes, that is a picture of the inside of my oven.

By the time we had eaten barbeque ribs, bread with cheese, peas, and then our strawberry "shortcake" kinda thing, it was 10. At 10:30 I read stories to the kids. And now at 8:30 this morning, it is looking like another glorious day and the big ones are still sleeping. On the list for today? Laundry, a decidedly indoor task. Damn.

I Bought TIME!

Ok, well, just as good!



I've been wanting to get a marble run for a long time. For a while I was stuck on the really expensive wooden ones, but this fantastic set was just $15 at Target, so I broke down and bought it. I was gratified to find, once I got home, that I simply couldn't have gotten the same set online for any less, although the same company makes a really cool transparent set as well as a humongous set, both of which are on the future-purchase-or-present list.



And yesterday, for 6 GLORIOUS hours, I did homework and studied and Fran caught up on his sleep, all to the wonderful clack-clack-clack-bump and vocal quietude of happy-busy kids.

In Which the Kids Have Way Too Much Fun

Birthday party at Odyssey 1 in Tacoma. Pretty much the awesomest place ever for kids. All three of them had a BLAST.

Toddler, Toddler, Toddler

You may have to dig to find posts about anything but my toddler.

At it again...she was up way too late last night. And the night before. It has been a struggle, this past week, to get her to GO TO SLEEP. And no, I don't mean to get her to go to sleep on her own or without nursing or in her own bed or whatever other nice progress-in-development kind of thing. A struggle to get her to go to sleep in her usual cuddled-up-with-mama, nursing, book-reading kind of way.

This is simply NOT COOL in the world of the already-too-little-time Niki. I don't want to spend two hours getting my toddler to sleep. Do you have any idea what I could get accomplished in those two hours? You know, if I was being forced not to sleep anyway.

And on the subject of irritating toddler, GIRL would you PLEASE let me put a sweater on you? PLEASE? It wouldn't kill you, I PROMISE, and it was like 40 degrees out there with daddy last night. You were freezing. I know it because you tried to remedy that by curling up against my belly. COLDCOLDCOLDCOLDCOLD. But no sweater, jacket, anything. Must only have ONE LAYER of clothing, eh? And it HAS to be THAT SHIRT that you chose today, eh?

Well, freeze then.

What Toddlerness Is Made Of

So this morning, just after Toddlerness finished her "wake up nummies," she informed me:

"Mama, I made of nummies. And a french fries."

"oh, nummies and french fries?"

"yeah, and some a whip cream."

Good to know.

Gardening Semi-Success

A semi-success, because I don't know yet if it will actually result in an actual garden with actual thriving vegetables.

I've spent entirely too much time over the last week preparing the beds and planting my plants, and now I have just a smallish lineup of seedlings on my windowsill - I have reclaimed my living room! We ate at the table last night!

Anyway, I've got a lot of little bitty plant babies in the ground outside right now. Last year I had near-zero success with direct seeding, so I've only got three things I'm going to direct seed (and honestly it is a little depressing that I have MORE beds to prep).

MIL reframe success (or some similar title)

I have more than one family member who doesn't seem to understand homeschooling as anything other than school at home. Or at least, didn't. The last straw (so to speak) with my MIL came about two weeks ago, when she sent me a packet of interesting unit-study type stuff for the kidlets and "slipped in" a several-page piece on classroom management. I hadn't realized until that point just how badly she didn't get it. I wonder if there was a picture in her mind of me setting Girliness down at the table, fending off the younger two, and filling her head with the all-powerful schooly-type KNOWLEDGE day after day.

So I went a-searching for stuff to counter that (because what I SAY never seems to really sink in...oh, she is great about not challenging us, but it is like she doesn't REALLY believe it until it comes from somewhere else too). Wound up with Dumbing Us Down and Teach Your Own. Broke as I am, I borrowed them from the library and passed them off to MIL with attempted sensitivity "I don't think we're thinking of the same thing when we think of homeschooling - I brought these over so you can take a look and maybe we will be speaking the same language in the future. Take a look, you can return them at your library when you're done, let me know if you'd like more than 3 weeks, blah blah blah."

And much to my surprise, a few days later she wrote back with happy reviews, told me about how she's seen some of this in the classrooms when she subs, and is purchasing these books and a few others to add to her own collection. This is simply beyond my expectation (I was merely hoping for a little reprieve from the school-at-home mindset).

Procrastination Rant

So amidst my blog-reading procrastination attempts (there's a clinical skills worksheet due this evening) I found something over on Sage Femme's blog, and started to comment only to find a whole post coming out.

The growth chart issue is one of those that will just about send me into a head-against-wall pose, just about every time.

With the same customary logic that had people commenting that my (100% breastfed) son was so big that I MUST need to supplement to keep him happy (huh?), woman after woman after woman is told that their breastfed baby is "too small."

Too small compared to WHAT? Compared to the - dare I say it - infant-version-of-obese babies that are fed formula? There's no doubt now about the correlation later on. But what if, just what if (come on now people, it isn't really THAT much of a stretch) what we are seeing on the growth charts ISN'T NATURAL. What if it leads to a whole LIFETIME of NOT NATURAL? Nobody really knows what an obese infant looks like. And I'm just going to be horrifically insensitive and say that just as it isn't natural for an infant to be fed formula, it isn't natural for an infant to be obese, and feeding our kids formula is giving their bodies that first taste of that unnatural growth - and we already know that our bodies imprint this and tend to go back to it later.

Why on earth would we want to compare our breastfed babies to THAT?

In classic American style, what we're really worried about is winning. What are we winning? IS there a big mama race for the biggest/best/most normal/most advanced baby? Are we really after bragging rights? After a dainty little below-the-average pocket-sized girl? A BIG HUGE my-penis-is-bigger-than-yours boy? Well, yes, actually, I think there is, just like there's a big mama race for the most advanced toddler, best preschooler, honor-child elementary student, AP academic high schooler (who lettered in Football, to boot!). I can see no other reason for moms to get together and proudly flaunt their childrens' positions on the growth curve or whisper in that horrified drawing-people-in kind of way about how the doctor said their baby just wasn't up to par.

What if we applied it to adults? I have failure to thrive because I'm only 5'2" - it must be my mom's fault for not giving me formula. Only, wait a second, I was a big kid. That must be my mom's fault for not giving me formula. Oh, wait, I'm an average-sized adult. It must have happened DESPITE the fact that my mom didn't give me formula, because everyone knows that the only RELIABLE way to keep to "normal" is formula. It has an ingredient list and comes with a measuring spoon, after all.

It drives me, in case you couldn't tell, fucking batty.

(This post courtesy of Ross Laboratories.)

Why I Love Online Exams

So I could complain (and complain and complain and complain) about the Midwifery Care exam I took this morning, but I'm taking a different tact. Instead of dwelling on the substance, I'm going to dwell on the process.

I love online exams.

I woke up this morning at about 6:30, brewed my coffee, put on an undershirt, started up the computer, and opened my exam (7am). I sat in my very comfy chair and read/clicked away. About 20 mintues in I ran out of coffee, so I got up and made myself some more and went back to my test. At about 40 minutes in, I had to go to the bathroom, so I did.

Can I just say, as someone with an insanely small bladder, bathroom-anytime-priviledges are awfully nice.

When I was done with the damned thing, I clicked "submit" or whatever similar thing there is on that particular form, and opened my email.

So yes, I love the online test-taking thing.

I would love it even more if I found out I passed this exam.

Why I Blog

I've been tagged by Louisa...

So I had to think about this for a bit. I still don't really know why I blog, so I'll just ramble along on the subject.

I guess I've always been fascinated with the idea of a journal, and I have tried a few times to start one without ever getting past the first couple of entries (literal - 2-3 days). I never really knew what to write in a journal, anyway. The idea of just keeping writing appealed to me, but the secrecy really didn't. Having this sort of open journal that my friends and family can read and sometimes enjoy is a sort of positive reinforcement for my efforts. At the same time, it gives these people insight into who I am and what our family is. When we interact with other people, it is almost never in a vaccuum. There is the background and the nuance, and in a way the blog informs that. Teaching friends to speak my language (and I've learned a lot about them, in turn, from their own blogs) enriches those interactions.

Corollary to that: I there are bits of me that just don't come out while I'm in the mother-role or the student-role, and all of my friends see me in one or the other of those virtually 100% of the time. For a while my blog was very vent-heavy, a sort of backlash from that supressed and angry part of me that got stuffed down under "mom." It was never a very big part of my personality, as those who know me well understand - I'm easygoing simply by nature. But "mom" can't really scream "MOTHERFUCKING BASTARD" at her 5 year old when he wacks her with a stick (by accident), or crush the 2yo, and for a while the built-up energy hit the blog full force.

So yeah, it is also a venting space, and not just for anger. It spares my children the force of my irritation on at least a weekly basis. I can get the feeling (usually frustration) out just by writing it down: I can do it and feel that it has been utterly spent. I rarely hold on to it after I've hit that "publish" button. For some reason, this is a very different feeling than journalling it privately would be. I know that this is something that not everyone who blogs/journals/whatevers holds in common with me, but it is the reason blogging can be a very healthy therapeutic release in my case.

Sometimes my blog simply chronicles our adventures, like the series I did from our trip to Hawaii in July 2006. There are a LOT of these. It is nice to be able to go back and see the pictures along with their stories, and I'm going to have to take care to keep them for the future. When Fran's grandpa died, he left behind many carefully-kept photo albums. They're wonderful and all, but nobody knows who is in those photos, or what was going on. The photos I've placed on the blog are often some of my most favorite, and they all have some level of backstory and context and who-is-who written into the text and labelling surrounding them. I have no grand plan for my blog, I don't intend to live beyond my years through it or anything. But it lays life out in neat little packages, and I like that.

I have an easy time rambling around in my writings and could probably do this all day. But I think that's the core of it, so I'll leave it here.

I'm tagging Lory (if you've done it before, link it) and in an effort to get her to write a little more (because she is an excellent writer with a lot of good things to say), Aimee.

Onsite - accomplished

It is the day after onsite. I discussed GBS treatment practicalities, scared some freshwomen-to-be, inserted some IVs, resuscitated some plastic dummies, and actually found this to be one of the most practically helpful onsites I've had so far.

And now I am home and it STINKS. I've learned, I think, that after onsite I want to either be with my family or go home and get stuff done without them...doesn't matter which, really, as long as it isn't BOTH, which just plain sucks. Oh, not that I don't want to see my family until the next day, but a couple of hours to get my stuff put away and the clothing off the floor and dinner started before dealing with attention-starved children...that would be good.

On Weds, Boyness got dairy (mostly DH's fault but it was innocent, I'll spare the details) and turned into the full dairy monster, waking up in the middle of the night yelling about nothing and everything. His hearing is obviously affected still, or at least it was last night when I needed to speak far too loud for the situation and when we read aloud from Harry Potter, he moved to within a couple feet of me because he just couldn't hear me where he was (usually they lounge on their beds).

Anyway, the house is a wreck, the yard is a wreck, the brick path needs to be completed, the seedlings need planting, my dad is visiting tomorrow and I can't pull out the futon until I've planted the seedlings and removed the extra table from the living room, I need to return school materials, I have a midwifery care exam...busy, busy, busy.

Teething!!

Toddlerness is teething again. And she's actually doing it somewhat gracefully. I didn't even notice it, in fact, until ~l~ mentioned that her toddler was teething and I thought "hmm, Toddlerness has been a tad contrary this past week." I thought it was pretty normal toddler behavior, actually. For Toddlerness, who has always treated teething as a full-contact sport, the very fact that her molars coming in could escape my notice is absolutely stunning. By the time ~l~'s observations prompted my little adventure into toddler mouth spelunking, Toddlerness had sprouted two new bottom teeth and the top ones were pressing their way out of her gums.

Now, not all of my children have been as dramatic as toddlerness. In fact, the only way I could ever tell Boyness was teething was that my nipples would hurt a little as his latch would change. Girliness was the model of stoicism. Nevermind teething, you couldn't tell she was sick until you touched her and your hands blistered. No worries, she's grown out of that.

Anywho...it was this teething thing that had us sleeping, me on my side with toddlerness reclined against my belly, Fran on his back with toddlerness' feet wedged under his arm, for most of the night last night. Apparently it isn't bad enough that she'll yell about it (I'd give her motrin for that) but she DID cast herself all over the damn bed every couple of hours trying to get comfy (which looked suspiciously like "uncomfy" from my point of view, but whatever, she was sleeping).

Toddlerism

"Nomi, what a big pee you're making!" (as toddlerness proves she has the bladder of steel by filling her potty....)
"No!" - looks horrified - "no BIG pee!"
"OK hon, that's a cute little pee you made this morning!"
"yeah, yeah cute pee yeah."

Oh, the princessness of it all...

Day in Pictures

Becca making dandelion cookies:



Contrast from the sunlight:





The new desk:



Using the new desk:




Much to my surprise, Toddlerness was able to thread this whole strand by herself (she did complete it, but decided to put the beads back before I could get a picture).

Wednesday Fun

That was my Toddlerness, 5 minutes after leaving ~l~'s house yesterday. Yah, I was driving, not the best pic ever, but you get the idea. Crash city. Even after being generously dosed with sugar - because ~l~ is truly evil: she gave my children two purple peeps each as they entered the van. Luckily the little purple peeple eaters had so much fun at her house that they dropped like flies in a freezer - the car starts, and eyelids start drooping, and before you know it, I'm driving along with nobody but the radio for company. By the time we got home, the older two were in a great mood, but Toddlerness had decided that she would DIE ON THE SPOT if she didn't get nummies in bed (maynownies - short for "lay-down-have-nummies"), peep stickiness and backyard grime and all. It was an unpleasant bath but um, no girlie. She still sleeps in my bed. I don't think so.

Toddlerness learned about fair trades. ~l~'s toddler is now in very proud posession of a pair of pink Dora boots, and my Toddlerness can hardly believe her luck, as she came home with the covetted green froggy rainboots.

In other news, this morning, Boyness found the condom stash and decided that they would be fun to play with. No open packaging, he just used them as frisbees...oh the fun I'm having finding them scattered around the living room. Tell me again why the packages are shiny? At least it's handy when you're searching for them amidst the kid art supply mess.

Beany Addendum

DH has decided that dried beans are MUCH better in chili than canned ones. Went all raving about it.

So, add another meal to the list of meals I need to plan IN ADVANCE. Why does "good" have to be such a PITA!? Yes, I hear you now, dried-bean-lovers, "it's not so much work." The point isn't the volume of work, it's the fact it needs to be planned and I'm plan phobic.

Mmmmm, Beany

So I didn't fuck up beans. The chili came out great, the kids love it (bonus, they helped sort the beans and Toddlerness is now reminiscing as she eats them...with enthusiasm).

We went to IKEA today and the kids nearly got into a fist fight about what color their new desk would be. And I nearly strangled Toddlerness after about the (oh, let's seee...) 500th or some-odd iteration of "sit DOWN [Toddlerness]". It was not the most relaxing trip to IKEA that has ever been taken. But we got what we needed.

I spent most of the afternoon putting all the due dates for the quarter on one of those desk-sized calendars that I've always wondered WTF could possibly be used for...apparently, for stuff like this. First quarter I kept everything online and it got frustrating turning back and forth and wondering which version was correct. Second quarter I put it all in a binder and never used it. So gigantic calendar it is. I am really liking it so far. Guess how long it took Toddlerness to scribble on it? Yeah, I had only finished writing in the dates for one course.

Incidentally, I have a massive set of Learning Objectives (individualized assignments) due on the 7th. About subject material we're supposed to cover starting the 9th. Tell me again how this is supposed to make sense? How I'm supposed to hang on to my sanity? Um, no, it isn't working. First day of the quarter and I'm confused already.

Fuck.

Oh, wait, let's end this post on a good note. I've got planty-type things growing in my living room. On purpose. In egg cartons. They're doing nicely. I should have given the broccoli more room, as ALL of it is sprouting and growing nicely but I'm going to have to thin it down a LOT. And I need to move the tomato plants on up to something with a little more growing room. But yes, having them actually GROW is a nice turn of events after the too-late planting fiasco that occured last year.

Break - Over

So tomorrow (Monday) marks the start of another quarter. And how would I *really* know this, except that one textbook failed to arrive, one textbook failed to SHIP (that's what I get for buying used through Amazon, eh?), and one class book list updated too late to buy the frigging thing in time anyway.

We celebrated the end of break in style at the D.Family house (I need to come up with a nickname for you guys...) with kid crafts, rotisserie chicken, movies, and strawberry shortcake. Ah, fun.

But I'm tired just THINKING about starting another school cycle. *Sigh* and I don't even have a practicum site set up yet (waiting on the school).

In other news, I am going to try, for the first time EVER, to cook using dried beans. Getting them ready to make chili tomorrow. I'm skeert. This sounds like the kind of easy thing I could fuck up and not know why...ever. Like how some people just *can't* make bread, no matter how *right* they seem to make it (I can, incidentally, make bread just fine...but am scared of beans forsomeoddreason).