My Little Sister's Getting MARRIED!!!

She called me about 20 minutes after he proposed to her last night :). I'm so, so happy for them :). How wonderful!! Here's what she wrote in an email this morning:

Our friend [M] took the three pics of us after the proposal had already taken place and there were ample hugs and celebrating. There are some people in the background, but there were more there when he asked! I was soooo surprised, he did a great job!

The ring is .55 carat, hearts on fire, perfect cut. It's set in a solitaire tiffany setting, and the pictures hardly do it justice!

I'm so happy to be engaged to [O], he's perfect, and more than that, he's perfect for me.

Hope to hear from you soon!
[B]

She sounded so happy on the phone last night. Oh, I'm so happy for her!!!

Co-ops and MDC

I ran co-ops at MDC for a while. The new co-op rules SUCK so I haven't since they closed and reopened the boards...I've been using a Yahoo group. Most of the moms on that Yahoo group are from MDC, but not all of them, nor have I ever advertised it on MDC. In fact, I've stopped going to MDC, haven't been on in quite a while, and probably last posted over a month ago.

This is way long, important phrases are bolded. LOL there are only three or so bolded phrases LOL.

So here goes:

Co-op member gets her order, is missing an item. I state I don't have it, send out a special notice for everyone to take a look at their orders to see if they do. Meanwhile, orders ship slowly because I'm having a busy two weeks and people are paying slowly, but nobody's order sits for more than 4 days at my house after they've paid. So even now, not everyone has received their order, there are still a few that aren't paid up. Co-op member sends a couple messages to the group, spaced several days apart, really reasonable "check your boxes please" kinds of messages, and then drops THIS on me last night:

hi there. my last message was ignored again. do you have ANY updates on the status of my missing KK? what is going to happen? will i get a refund? will i get new ones for the ones that i never received? please reply back with something so i know this message was at least seen! its been a long time since i got my package now. thanks, co-op member

OK nothing was addressed directly to me in the previous messages, so as busy as I was I didn't respond, but whatever. I write back:

Hello co-op member,

Like I said, I do not have it here. I was really hoping that with that last round of shipping, SOMEBODY would turn up with the extras. It doesn't seem to be happening.

I cannot credit you, I don't make money off these things. Yes, I'm serious. I don't. And I am absolutely certain at this point that your missing items are not just sitting here in my house.

I can take up a collection to pay for your missing items (worth $5) or ask for minor donations for the next KK co-op so that you can get them. It is looking like KK will be run again soon. I wasn't expecting the 12oz KKs to be so handy and would like a couple more myself, so it's cool with me that it is the firm leader in the "what to do next" poll. So I guess it depends on which of those things you'd like to do.

Niki

Lookie what I got in the email this morning:

I have honestly never heard of such a thing and I have been a part of many co-op groups over the past year and 1/2.so basically you're saying 'so sorry, thanks for playing, better luck next time?' That's crap. If you took an inventory of all the KK items when they arrived then that means my missing items arrived AOK and got lost somewhere in your possesion. So b/c they got lost in your possesion I LOSE OUT ON MY ITEMS AND MY MONEY?!?! how is this fair?!?!? EVERY co-op I have ever been in,if there is a missing item the person running the co-op(and none of them make money off of the co-ops either)re-ordereds that item for the person OR they give them their money back. I don't mean to be rude here but this situation is beyond ridiculous. $5 may not seem like a lot to you but it's a lot to me and I can not just throw it down the toilet. Please either purchase the items for me again or give me a refund or I will be forced to report you and take further action. I'm sorry ,I really don't want to but you've pushed me this far. I never knew fellow MDC mamas could be this way :(

My answer?

You know what?

1) I am not running these on MDC anymore. Go ahead, report me. I'll tell them right where to shove it.

2) I told you I'd get you the money or get it reordered, you just had to tell me which. Did you even read that far? All I meant by "I can't refund you" is that I can't just flat-out send back money to people all the time...I just want that understood. I offered later in the email to get you your money back. ALL I MEANT was that I can't just shoot off money the second something turns up missing. Your items are obviously long missing and you won't end up paying for them...but I didn't refund you right when you first noticed missing items because if I made that a policy, it would be a mess.

3) If other co-op organizers are paying people back out of pocket, I have to wonder why the hell they've even kept running co-ops. I've done DOZENS of co-ops spanning over four years and I would have burned out a long time ago if I had to pay money out of pocket. Hence the collection. This is more a strategy thing on my part and maybe I shouldn't have mentioned it, since it obviously is beyond YOUR understanding.

4) I inventoried. You don't have your items. This doesn't meant that I have them. It does mean that SOMEONE has them, and not everyone even has their order yet. What with all this "I've been ignored, I've been ignored" whining, did you even NOTICE that I've repeatedly asked people if they looked for extras?

5) I am living below the poverty line. Don't pull that "5 dollars may not be a lot to you" shit with me.

I obviously needed to be clearer in my original email and for that I apologize. If you understand the above, feel free to tell me what you'd like. That was what I was after in the original - money back, or reorder?

I am quite sick and last week was the week from HELL, and have been tending this co-op the best I can during it. Excuse me for not venting my issues all over the group, but if I had been you'd all be surprised I was shipping at all last week, much less paying any attention at all to the group messages.

Niki

So we'll see, eh?

I can't believe I was threatened with MDC. "I'll tell on youuuuuu...." OMG, how old are we?

UPDATE: She wrote me back saying to give her the money and she'll leave the group. Saves me the trouble, I was going to kick her out...holy fly off the handle batman. I think I need some be-super-direct lessons from Angela. This is precisely why I didn't vent all my issues of the last two weeks on the group...the second I whine about something it gets misinterpretted, or I get judged about just how hard my life is (my IRL friends would agree I was HASHED last week, I didn't really have any business bothering to ship the 40-odd packages I managed to get out that week). I think it takes running a co-op to realize just how much work it is to, well, run a co-op. When you have 50 orders to deal with, it isn't just a matter of throwing them in a box and taping on a label, you know?

FURTHER UPDATE: She then posted a pity-me, make-Niki-look-like-an-asshole MDC thread. I couldn't let it go. I did a straight cut-and-paste of the blog right up to where it says "update". Yes, the whole thing. It got locked and removed almost as fast as I could blink.

Random Things to be Happy About

I am sure anyone who reads my blog knows I usually only post when I'm pissed at something. I've had a fairly smooth, if stressful (in an expected sort of way) past several weeks, so there has been no posting. In the name of updates, I am grateful for the following things:

1) My friends rock. They just do.
2) My school is a shitload of work but everything is going smoothly, including finding care for my kids while I'm there (Fran has gotten paid vacation for the onsites so far)
3) My son has not been fed dairy in over a month
4) I got good food at Ginos for free the other night
5) The woodstove is working perfectly and keeping my house warm and cozy
6) There are preggo people to obsess quietly over

Oh, I think there's a bunch more but you get the idea. Nothing to blog home about and all ;) but things were more or less going smoothly. Or maybe I just lacked the energy to blog about irritations that were, all in all, pretty petty.

I mean, really, I could fill a full-page censor-black-box with my rant on my washing machine (high maintainence piece of shit, its off balance buzzer is going right now...). But nah, that would require energy. Energy that I am conserving. Just wait for the PMS show...come to think of it, are my entries that predictably cyclical? Holy cow, the SECRET to vent-based blogging. Just don't even bother when you're not PMSing.

Random Vent at my Husband

Just HOW FUCKING HARD would it be to close the fucking door when you brush your teeth in the morning? How fucking hard?! That's two mornings in a row you woke me up before the kids got up. FUCKING DAMNIT. I'm so tired, and tonight when I crash and the baby is still doing hyperactive helicopter-armed circles around the living room and YOU wanted to sleep "early" because you have to get up "early," I am SO JUST GOING TO SLEEP AND LETTING YOU DEAL WITH IT.

RUDE, RUDE, RUDE!!!

SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS

PMS just sucks.

I always procrastinate more when I have PMS.

And I'm a procrastinator by nature.

So yeah, I have a problem. I have hardly read a word of my assignments for this week's classes. I need to go into the shed and get out the baby carriers for one of my assignments. I need to make fliers. I need to print out articles. I need to...

Go to the discussion boards and forget about anything that I need to do, that's what I need to do. Or so it would seem by my actions.

Now, my friends know that if you need an internet rant directed at someone, and Niki is PMSing, yup, I got your back. I am SUCH. A. BITCH.

Oh ladies that met me at the zoo yesterday...love you all :). You are awesome. You made me forget that I had started in on a PMSfest. What a rockin' time that was! I have friends! Yay! They know I go on bitchy PMS rampages and they like me anyway!! What's up with THAT?

But right now I want my house clean and I want it clean LAST WEEK, and the kids went to put stuffed animals in a bucket and ended up taking out the legos. NOT CLEANING, kids, that is SO NOT CLEANING.

It is totally a hormonal shitfest and I KNOW it. But I so can't fix it.

Fun! Nondestruction! L's House!

Yesterday morning, when I announced to the kids we were heading to ~L~s place, I got an unexpected number of groans.

Groans?

WTF?

I dragged out explanations and found that yeah, the last time we went there, they didn't have such a hot time. Well, I had been pretty focused on Tony having an absolutely shit-tastic ~L~ house experience, but it was because he'd had dairy and was completely and totally MISERABLE (and apparently, didn't have any qualms about letting the rest of us know that...with his fists). Well before *I* was ready to leave, Tony was begging to go home and looking so horribly miserable that I decided we'd just go. He apparently left poor LittleBoyN with the impression that he was unliked. Not that I blame him :(. Tony was acting like a violent drunk. Who would enjoy THAT?

Becca, in the meantime, had been braving a sick and surly GirlieG. And while I knew they weren't getting along with their usual happily-superglued girliegetherness, I certainly didn't think she'd had such a bad time of it that she didn't want to go over again.

But yeah.

Tony was not dairyboy. GirlieG was well (or very close to it...she'd had a cold but meh, not nearly the misery she was in last time).

The track in the garage is such a completely COOL idea. The schoolroom looks AWESOME.

The kids had a blast and cried when it was time to leave. Yes, even the 6yo. Oh, so happy to have cute paired-off kidgetherness again.

I drove home with coffee and stayed up until 2am absolutely wired. Note to self: no more caffeine so late in the day. Self, if you think you'll fall asleep driving...maybe go for a half-dose next time.

Random Pelvic Thought

Wow that title sounds weird. But I realized that lately, my titles have nothing to do with the subject matter. My blog and all, but even I don't know what they're about, so, yeah, that's no good.

Anyhow, I was driving along yesterday and it hit me, a *random pelvic thought.* And here is how it went:

So, we did pelvics during our first week at SMS.

I, as someone who was even contemplating going UC with my third, have a pretty hearty objection to routine pelvic exams being done at all, much less in labor.

Am I being brainwashed? Did we start up so early so that we could be brainwashed into the hearty belief that *this is how it is done?* That is certainly, I believe, why doctors do some of the insane-stupid things they do; they were brainwashed early on and unremittingly from that point to believe these things, until they parrot them and believe them for absolute fact ("of COURSE vaccines are safe!" "yes, you DO need milk!"). Is SMS really so nefarious that they are brainwashing us to believe that the pelvic exam is just-something-you-do?

Or, as I originally believed, are we simply starting out with the things that need the most practice, so that by the time we have actual patient contact it is second-nature enough that we don't scare the living shit out of them with our deer-in-the-headlights stares, and actually *gasp* stand some chance of understanding what we are doing and feeling.

Gawd, maybe it is all the same thing. I guess it all hinges on their intent, 'cause the method would be the same either way. Or maybe it hinges on MY intent. I dunno.

So, yeah, my random pelvic thought for the day.

Freedom

Yes, I realize now, making this blog private is giving me all kinds of freedom. Sure, I don't have 150 hits a day anymore, but I also don't have to worry about offending random people who wander in. Like how apparently my clutterpartment posts were offensive to hoarders...I'm supposed to be gentler. Holy hell ladies, it was how I FELT. Point of the blog. Don't internalize it like that...it was all about my MIL nailing me with all her shit. It wasn't about being apalled by your apartment. For crapsake, I don't care if your apartment looks like that, I'll even come to visit. But that was supposed to be MY HOME. It wasn't even MY stuff! I didn't like that! So sue me. I don't recall ever actually insulting YOU.

Anyway...just an example.

I can now be the biggest fucking whiny PMSy bitchwoman on the face of the earth. And nobody but my little group of favorites will know about it. (Hi little group of favorites, love ya! You were the only folk who ever left me comments anyway!)

So, well, I get to tell you sensitive things that would get me crucified on MDC. Like *I HATE MY TODDLER RIGHT NOW*. She is worlds of demanding the last couple of days. She tanked the math unit I was trying to do with Becca, kept running over and jumping on her manipulatives (no matter how much fun the alternate activity I gave her was). And goddamnit, I was so mad at her. SO mad. She is a toddler! You aren't SUPPOSED to be *that* kind of *mad* at a toddler! You're supposed to do happy little hippie things like redirect, redirect, redirect, give her the attention she wants, blah, blah, blah. I just wanted to stick her in a baby cage and throw her a cookie and be over with it. But alas, good AP parent that I am, I own no such baby cage (she could probably escape it anyway, monkey child that she is).

And this morning I find myself resenting her. Of COURSE I love her. But I want her to dissappear for a day. I'm just upset with how much of my attention she demands. I told Fran last night and he said "I'm sorry, it's my fault." WTF? And HOW is it fucking YOUR fault? He apparently has decided that because he had given her a TON of one-on-one time last week (he didn't have any projects...just played with the kids all week), she's stepped up what she believes the baseline acceptable is. He showed me an example. He dumped some of the unfolded laundry onto the bed, and she started throwing it around. He called her over and showed her how to fold underwear. She happily folded underwear with him as long as he stood there folding with her and talking to her and praising her. But the SECOND he stopped paying 100% attention to her she started throwing the clothing around again. Like *snap* she's the whirlwind troublechild again.

It was a fun little exercise because:

1) OK, now I know that she isn't just a freaking out-of-control hellchild entirely and irreversibly by nature.
2) I can't give her that kind of attention anyway, so it was pretty pointless. I mean, sure, I can direct her to an activity, but if she'll only do it while I'm with her, it is pointless. I can't give her something to do and go work with Becca. There are a lot of activities in this house that I can involve her in (I've heard of this kind of child before and always thought gloatingly "DAMN I'm glad not to have one." FUCKING KARMA), but also a ton that I simply can't. At some point I need her to do her own thing so that Becca can be doing her school work and I can be doing MY school work and she can be, well, somewhere other than ripping the skins off the pockets in the DVD folder or tearing apart books or seeing whether her stuffed animals will float in the (scummy because I'm soaking pots in it) sink or climbing on top of the woodstove to hurl pieces of banana at the TV (that was...fun...to clean up).

I hate my toddler right now :(.

I don't like hating my todder, but there you are. She's driving me fucking bonkers.

Random Things I'd Like to Tell My Co-op Members but Can't

NO you CAN'T fucking delete your order now!!! We're in FILLS! The CLOSE DATE is the CLOSE DATE for PRECISELY THIS REASON! You're supposed to have your shit figured out by THAT date...not "oh you know I just can't swing it" or any other assorted fucking lame-ass excuse for FUCKING UP MY NUMBERS.

So...let's say you order 2 of thelistsfavoritepuppet and then, when the fills list comes out, you see that we need 5 of thelistsfavoritepuppet to fill a pack of six. The thing to do about this is NOT to broadcast a panic-stricken whiny-ass post to the list. YES I tallied your 2 thelistsfavoritepuppets correctly. YES there are 5 more to fill a case. This would be because there were TWENTY-FIVE thelistsfavoritepuppet ordered. Of course you can't do the math, or maybe YOU could be co-op organizer. You are now officially off the list of people-I'd-ever-buy-anything-from. Of course I'm not a fucking retard, and of course I can fucking tally the number of puppets everyone ordered (not that tallying 300 puppets is EASY...) and of course I can divide that number into the number of puppets per case and get an accurate remainder. This was, last I checked, 4th grade math.

CHECK THE FUCKING DATABASE. Don't know if I got your order? CHECK THE FUCKING DATABASE. Don't know if I got your order RIGHT? CHECK THE FUCKING DATABASE. Don't know if you got those minis you wanted? CHECK THE FUCKING DATABASE. Don't know your total? CHECK. THE. FUCKING. DATABASE. DAMNIT.

More on that...

So of course, as was my biggest anxiety, I was paired with someone who was incredibly horribly anxious about doing the pelvic exams. I was, in turn, incredibly horribly anxious about hurting her, missing some crutial cue, overstepping some bound, you know...causing permanent psychological damage on top of the history she already had.

This is of course a hugely difficult place to be in.

And, to clarify, they have told us TIME AND AGAIN that we did not have to do this. We need, for our own education, to DO the examining, but we do not need to be examined ourselves. It is, of course, far easier for everyone involved if everyone consents to be examined. And the program is set up to make that pretty much the default. But there is more than enough room for someone, especially someone like my partner who had blanched and been unable to even TALK about being the subject of this exercise, to decline altogether.

Knowing that she decided to go forth anyway, after I had made it clear in a way that I think she really believed that I would not in any way even think of holding it against her or think badly of her for declining and would go about my merry way being examined twice to keep the balance, really really really really (can I say that enough times) helped my nerves. At that point I felt like I had 'cleaned house' and gotten off my chest the idea that *I* was somehow responsible for bringing her into this situation. I was not. The situation was there and she made it clear to me and to our instructor (these sessions take place in groups of three students and one instructor) that she wanted to go forward.

I do not know whether the experience was healing for her. It isn't like birth that way, where you can have healing from a former violence to the genitals simply by having someone be gentle. But I was excrutiatingly careful to get explicit consent for every single action, down to movements and motions, and to by eye contact make as sure as I possibly could that she was doing OK with everything.

She did not, as another student did, DANCE (literally) into the review room afterwards so happy about her experience. But she did tell me that she felt like she was so much closer to her own personal recovery and comfortability in her own body than she had been the day before. Which is, I think, monumental. I don't think that I had much of a part to play in that at all. I was simply the person that was there, accessory to the psychological battle she'd fought and won over the course of this week.

This is, I think, an important lesson for me to learn. I have been worried, awfully worried, about the statistics of abuse and the probability of dealing with women who are, to varying degrees, fragile because of this. The position of midwife is one of immense responsibility in this regard. It is right up there in my top worries about my future as a practicing midwife. And seeing that all it took was my INTENT not to hurt her and my care in checking in with her to achieve the end-result of her not feeling hurt is simply earth-shattering in importance to me.

There are a lot of things to process from this week but this is the one that I have taken with me in the hour and a half of drive-time each way on my commute each day this week.

Pelvics!

I am still mid-day here but yeah...

It was a non-event. Totally, completely, non-event. Everyone was great, did great, etc. We SHOULD have trusted the staff knew what they were doing (what the heck else did we enroll here for?). A lot of "we should have done that twice today" and teachers saying "we will at EVERY onsite from here on out..." but the fear didn't come to anything.

OK, back to class and all.

SMS - the beginning

This is a post I have trouble writing. Not "trouble" like emotionally gut-wrenching trouble, just...it is tough to pull words from the fog of this week.

You hear all through admissions to this school that "onsite weeks will be tough!" But the reality of it all is that we are thrown into some pretty heady shit really fast, and it was tough in an unexpected kind of way. We have done breast exams already and our first round of pelvics are tomorrow. Pelvics. First week. Holy shit.

This isn't just "holy shit" in terms of a lot of material. We are really heartily supported by the faculty here. But I feel for my classmates with sexual abuse histories. I feel like they've been shoved into a place they don't belong yet. I don't think they're ready. My concerns are diminishingly small compared to theirs.

I think we are all coming to terms with how fast we are tackling physical skills in our own ways. We eased through breast exams so easily, we were so heartily prepped for it, that it felt like we were examining each others' elbows. It does not hurt that there is not a single person here that I believe should not be in this class. I will be heartily glad to see each and every one of these people as midwives.

Myself, I am just plain TIRED. To get here at 8am I leave home at 6:45. After a day that ends at 7:30, I get home at 8:30. We subsist on coffee; there is a full pot of the stuff in the corner all the time. Class literally comes to a halt so that it can be refilled if it runs out.

This is a venting place and I think that it is going to become rather more private than my blog has been to date. So I'm taking it off the MDC links.

NEW!

Well it has been a while, eh? I still can't bring myself to write about anything meaningful, so here 'ya go, a cut-and-paste from MDC:

So Naomi has been reporting what my milk tastes like. The other day it was "Gagic!" and yesterday it was "a...hot!" (spicy). It doesn't seem to be stopping her from nursing though.

In the store today, she picked up a toy and told me "baby!". I pointed to her and said "baby?" and she said "no." "You aren't a baby." "No baby." "Are you a big girl then?" "Kay...big."

Sigh. They do get big so fast.

Balance

I feel the need to move that very depressing last post out from the top of my blog.

So I'm going to talk about *something*. And that *something* is, for lack of ability to think of anything else to talk about right now, how off-kilter the balance of me vs. kid time is.

We hear it a lot; you need some time for yourself, some time away from the kids, blah, blah, blah. The fact is, I damn near NEVER get that. The proof of that is everywhere; Fran says "do you want a recording of this radio program I liked," I say, "is it kid friendly," "no," "well then when would I listen to it?"

If I can't fucking listen to a cd recording of a radio program he liked, what does that mean?

I don't have ANY time without the kids anymore. ANYTHING! I go to sleep when the baby goes to sleep at night, and wake up when one of the kids wakes up in the morning. I slink into the kitchen like some half-made mama prototype ("coffeeeee, must have coffeeeeee"), pour cereal or throw fruit at the kids to get them off my back, and carve myself an hour of "me" time drinking coffee and staring at the computer.

Can I even CALL it me time when I'm still the ONLY person in the house with the mental capacity to realize that scissors + outlet = bad idea?

It isn't that Fran is not GIVING me free time, it is that I have, at this point, found "me" so completely subsumed by my kids that I don't even know what I'd do with it if I asked him for it. And he doesn't see the point either...what would be better than all going out and doing something together? Isn't anything else really a waste of precious time?

Well, no.

But I have lost my balance so badly that I've fallen almost entirely on the kids-are-my-life side of the fence. It is pathetic. OK, so maybe I jump up and down and *LOOK* at the "me" side of the fence every now and then. But nah, I'm not walking that line in a healthy kind of way.

I'm hoping that starting in at school will help me to reclaim the "me" out of this. And that is pretty pathetic too, is it not? That I expect some external thing to force me from the funk?

And Then Daddy Died...

This seems a recurring theme in the kids' make-believe play of late. It bothers me for two big reasons (as well as the, er, general unsettlingness of the kids pretending someone is dying outside the context of dealing with anyone we know of dying...).

1) The play almost always centers around mama-reads-book-to-baby, daddy-goes-off-battles-dragon-and-dies. Gender stereotypes much?

2) I've been dwelling in my own little way on the probability of Fran dying before I do just because he is darned unhealthy and has family history working against him. He's nearing 30, the age when people just mysteriously keel over with the "OMG I can't believe he had a heart attack, he's only 30!" except, well, we can't say it was unforseen for him. His dad had one in HIS early 30s. And while the kids get to jump up and head off for round 2, I might not get that. The thought of raising these kids without him is completely terrifying, but I keep poking at the idea with my brain, as if it were some sort of wound I needed to examine thoroughly to determine just how bad it is. "If Fran were to die tomorrow," says my brain, "it would be for Naomi like a bad joke gone on far too long: cut it out already and just give me my dada!" These thoughts HURT me physically but are difficult to banish, particularly with the kids playing "and then daddy died" every couple of hours.

*Sigh* this is a real downer of a post, I know. Nobody wants to think about their husband dying, right? To wonder about whether they even COULD keep it somewhat together for their kids if it happened. But these are the thoughts rolling around in my head and I want them out.

Amazing Eating Machine

Toddlerness has been awake for three hours. She has eaten:

10 graham crackers (yeah, the whole, rectangular ones)
1/2c tomato soup
8 saltine crackers
12 macadamia nuts
3 1/2" cubes of cheese
1 plum
1 banana
and she has nursed approximately 1 million times (OK more like 8 times but still).

OMG I can't keep up! She HEAD-BUTTED me when I couldn't peel the banana fast enough for her!

As if that wasn't enough, she is sitting on my lap right now and JUST asked for a BURGER!!! "BURGAH? Burgah? BURGAH!!!! BURGUUUUUUUURRRRHHHHH!!!!!!! WAHACHU?" (where are you).

What. The. Fuck.

She is NOT a teenager. She is a toddler. OMG she is driving me nuts.

I woke up this morning looking like the living dead and sooooo terribly hungry, because she'd nursed all night.

She has not given up on the burger. *Sigh* maybe I really will make her one.

She is now standing on a stool watching her burger cook.

AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH

More Thoughts on Boy

I thought that Tony's dairy allergy was fairly recent, but more and more I'm finding that I was actually pretty obtuse about realizing there was anything wrong at all.

While we were on vacation, my mom and I got to talking about Tony's allergy. See, I still held that while he had some symptoms coming on before I recognized it, it wasn't that bad nor was it for that long. But she reminded me about Tony's "chocolate dance." After he ate chocolate, he would go running and dancing around the room in this insanely funny routine that we actually named "the chocolate dance," it was so predictable. I always thought that it was just a kid quirk, because I mean really, sounds like fun, eh? And he wasn't hurting anything or looking all that upset himself. I'd forgotten about it entirely, actually, until my mom mentioned it. And then suddenly, the going-off about chocolate but not about other forms of sugar MADE SENSE.

And then it was one of those "come to think of it..." kinds of things...followed by another "come to think of it..." and another...as I realized, he's been congested most of his life, ear infection after ear infection, he was a trouble toddler and this was probably WHY. His allergy manifests for him mainly in a general level of pissed-offedness, hyperactiveness, and lack of impulse control that is only a little beyond the 'crazy toddler' level, so I thought he was just, well, harder to deal with than his big sister (who admittedly, was a PERFECT toddler).

And now I'm bummed that it took me so frigging long to realize that there was anything wrong AT ALL. Not so much that it took so long to figure out the allergy thing, I'm not beating myself up over that, I'm just upset that I lalalalalala'd my way through so many signs that there was SOMETHING up, and even after we had that SOMETHING pinned down, I didn't just trace it all the way back to toddlerhood in one "aha" moment.

I'm just feeling slow about it all.

OMG GROSS

While we were gone, the washing machine broke...or so DH thought. He didn't have enough duct tape to patch the hose he thought was leaking, so when I got back I bought some while he was at work and went ahead and did it. Turned on the washing machine...WATER EVERYWHERE. It was backing up from the pipe that carries water away from the washer, not the hose.

Got liquid plumber. Two applications. No luck.

Couldn't locate a place to disassemble the pipe. Went down to ask NeighborB if he had a plumbing snake. He did but it was broken...he came up to take a look anyway (he is the landlord after all...) and found a joint he could take apart near where the pipe entered the house. A joint I had neglected even looking at because I figured it was too far from where I thought the blockage would be.

Takes it apart, sees something. Asks for some pliers to take it out, so I run to the shed to oblidge, and come back like 30 seconds later to find him pulling it out with a stick (he's just impatient like that). And then yelling "AAAH, I CAN'T BELIEVE I TOUCHED THAT, AAAAAH...can you get me plastic bags *cough* *cough* *sputter*" as he pulls out...a squirrel. Looking none the better for the liquid plumber and a week in the pipe.

As I ran to get the bags I heard something that sounded a little like someone vomitting...

"OMG," he tells me as I come back, "I can't believe I TOUCHED it...I was thinking...what is this, it is kind of smooth, a little squishy...and then I smelled it."

Fran tells me later "thank GOD it was Bernie, that must have SUCKED! I would have lost my lunch!" Er, Fran, so did he, so did he.

And yes, we did secure a screen over the pipe it probably came in through, an air venting pipe that was just open before.

Leaving/Coming Home

We spent our last Hawaii day as busily as possible. We went to the aquarium in the AM, the tide pools in the afternoon. I got one last snorkelling trip in (even though the ocean was VERY rough that day) and a turtle let me touch it. We brought very tired kids back to my parents' in time to pack, and then left Hawaii as the sun was setting.

The kids slept through the flight, with the exception of the 20 minutes Naomi spent SCREAMING HER FUCKING HEAD OFF on descent. She was congested and it must have hurt; she was inconsolable. She is also a wimp, so whatever, she's not permanently damaged, although I'm not sure about the eardrums of the passengers around us (who were surprisingly good about it, I got way more sympathy than irritation).

And we arrived in Seattle as the sun was rising.

We got home and slept for hours, went to MIL's for dinner, went home and slept again.

We are SO, SO very happy to be home. I knew it as soon as we got here from the airport, but with even more certainty when I stepped in my house. I remember that we used to feel something of a let-down when we got home from vacations, a sense of "aw, man, now we're back in our lives..." but this time it was "YAY, back in OUR LIVES!" And I feel absolutely GREAT about that!

Hawaii Day 11 - Pali, Makapuu Lighthouse

Today we were going to go to the tide pools that the kids love so much again. So after a pretty leisurely morning, we packed up and headed out at about 10am. On the way up the Pali I noticed it was pretty windy, so we decided to stop. Yes, it was the VERY BEST time to go. The wind was fierce but steady, there was no rain to pelt us (as usually happens when the wind is really strong) and the kids LOOVED it. In the photo you can see some idiot young adults trying to climb the fence but no worries, they could have jumped and the wind would have pushed them back (it happens). They weren't brave enough to try.

After the fence it is just a DROP; sources disagree but the standard measure is between 985 feet (counting only the vertical drop itself) and 1400 feet (counting the vertical drop and the steep slope to the valley floor that comes afterwards). Legend has it that King Kamehameha I, the monarch who unified the islands under his control (before this each isle was under the control of its own chief), forced his opponents up to the cliffs here and decided his victory by pushing them over. The photo shows the area we lived in before we moved from the islands (not the area my parents live in). This is a favorite view because the panorama continues on either side. And, oh yeah, there's a parking lot 100 feet behind where I took the photo. It is probably the most effortless mountain view on the island.

We headed out to hike the trail to the Makapuu lighthouse, which clings halfway down a slender and very tall strip of mountain that thrusts itself into the sea. The hike was HOT. The CACTI were withering and dying. But the views were incredible:













After all that...when we got to the beach the tide pools were entirely submerged and waves were actually breaking on the shore, something that none of us had ever seen before. We headed a couple miles down the road to watch people boogie board in some REALLY big waves, then when the kids fell asleep in the car decided that what the heck, it was already 4pm...we just went on back to swim in the pool and eat shave ice at the neighborhood store.