Friends, Fun

Marie and her crew came over today. I ditched them for a couple hours to go to a home visit, and then M and her hubby ditched me for a few hours while they went to spend some time eating and shopping sans children.

The six kids that were here today flowed in and out of the house, doing assorted kid things, and having a wonderful time.

Boyness was exposed to dairy yesterday, in one of those freaky "aw crap, oops" kinda things. Marie has recently figured out that her kids can have casein but not whey, and she grabbed a product she knows is safe for them (which has always in the past meant it would be ok for Boyness) and he got some swallowed before we got to it. So Boyness had a series of grouchy and slightly out of control episodes.

Despite that, it was a fun day. It feels good to have friends over for once.

The kids ignore the fact that we've got a lot of stuff to explore out there until friends come over, so it is really nice they've been re-inspired that way.

I am officially out of brainpower, and this post shall remain disjointed. I am off to get the kids abed at a slightly more reasonable hour tonight, with high hopes for a good sleep for myself.

Senior, BAYBAY

Provided, of course, that I actually pass the rather grueling test I just took. Haven't failed one yet, so the chances are good...still, this is a rough exam and the pass/fail mark is 80%.

There are some major things that need doing before graduation, but I am assured that I am DONE writing learning objectives.

Spent the night before last in a bitty apartment that was very cute and warm and artistic and welcoming. It is so interesting when you get to the home of someone you've seen in clinic and suddenly see a whole new "them." Her home was lovely. We draped ourselves on various surfaces and slept in turns and between contractions as she labored through the night.

Did my first newborn exam yesterday afternoon. It was one of those schizophrenic different-preceptor issues, where my previous preceptor always gave me "mom duty" and the current ones tend to give you "baby duty" first, so my experience-lag was irritatingly large there (I have a level of competence with the mom stuff that would tend to make these particular preceptors think I should know what I'm doing with the baby stuff, when I don't).

I am tired. I look at my schedule and I don't see where I'm going to catch a decent night of sleep in the next three days. I've reintroduced caffeine into my life, just by needing an extra nudge into awareness too many times in the last couple weeks, and I'm pretty sure my dependence is ramped up to the withdrawal-headache level again.

So Close...

I'm so close to the end of quarter I can smell it. One more assignment. One more test. And then I'm done with Junior year.

I still have 2/3 of my practicum requirements ahead of me. Ouch.

Interviewing next week to do some labor assisting (read - extra) work with a midwife that is technically in Lewis County. Contemplating (like calling rental agencies) a move to Gig Harbor. And yes, both my current (in Seattle) and probable future preceptors (Olympia) are ok with that. I'm not sure what the future holds in terms of moving to my next really full-time placement (Olympia), since I've all but set a date for starting but I'm still uneasy about fitting well with the practice. All of this takes mental energy that I don't have right now.

Since this time last week, I discovered that it was indeed possible to put 1000 miles on a car in a week without going on a road trip. I saw someone with her arm in a uterus up past her elbow...we called 911, but by the time the medics arrived the placenta had finally delivered, we'd cleaned up, and the baby was nursing. I saw two amazing women give birth to big hunks of babies in their homes and lay down in their own beds to hurse, happy happy happy.

I am somewhat eager to see a third, for whom I've developed a strange liking almost despite myself. It is odd how you feel more attached to some women than others. And I know that it is true in reverse; there are a few women who have specifically asked for me in labor, and others that couldn't care less whether I was there.

Somewhere in this full time unpaid midwifery student work out of home madness, I need to finish the quarter in the next few days. It will be nice to put away the binders for a few weeks. Almost forever. This was the last quarter of the rather intense Midwifery Care courses, and next year I'll see a far lighter didactic load. So close.

Non-Apocalyptic Day at Clinic

And yes, there was a question about the apocalyptic-or-not nature of my day. I took the kids with me to (a half day of) clinic, you see. They did completely fine. No barging in at inopportune moments (or any moments). No fires. No damaged property. We even got some time in the sun when I took them across the street to the park during a break.

Girliness has been acting downright hormonal today. "Mama," she asked me, "do you ever feel all irritated and frustrated for no reason?" "Yes, hon, sometimes I do. Lots of people do." "Well what do you do about it?" We discussed the merits of long showers, walks, talking to friends on the phone, and books in bed. I think she feels slightly less like snapping her brother's head off at the moment, but damn. She was, quite frankly, a bitch to her brother today whenever he came anywhere near her, although he avoided her nicely for the most part. Clear some space around the crazy 8yo girl, eh? I thought I had some time before this...

On Friends, Friendship, and the Internet

Oh, the random musings. I listened to great music while I folded laundry. If my thoughts were fish, they didn't so much scatter as lay lazily beneath the surface; like those mall-walkway koi that just kind of SIT there, all ornamental like, they moved sluggishly and without purpose. I attempted to reign them in and failed, so there will be no coherent post. What follows is the random post-feeding-frenzy koi-like movement of my thoughts.

I have a new friend. It is a curious thing, making a friend in a time when I am so needy. But I suppose we have that in common, this new friend and I, since she has moved - newly single - across the country with her two children and is feeling adrift and rootless. I'm adrift in my own, less tangible way. Gestating my own midwife-self. I've become quite insane of late, not quite grounded to my sense of self in the same way I see so many pregnant women teetering between two selves. All that garble aside, I have this new friend and I've taken her into my inner circle with a rapidity that I found astounding. She's the first of my close friends (the other two being Marie and ~L~) that I've met online. Which is not to say that we had an online-relationship-catalyzed blind date, but that realization struck me the other day as I drove home from her house. The reality is, of course, much more complex than that. I don't exactly troll the internet looking for friends, and neither does she, so a certain kismet (albeit a strange electronic and entirely verbal one) drew us through several groups and into a newer, tighter arrangement that happens to include all of my real-live-in-the-flesh friends.

I repaid her for a grueling day of babysitting - and bonus homecooked dinner - by obliterating her wooden gatepost with the back of my van (also somewhat obliterated). Shit.

I'm feeling like I'm asking a lot of my friends lately, without being able to return much except my thoughts and affection. They are wonderful, wonderful people.

Interesting?

It's been a while. Perhaps my longest blog break since I started this crazy thing, although I am not sure about that and am not about to dig back and figure it out.

It isn't like I've got anything particularly interesting to say. I've been busy. I'm adjusting to the slower pace of clinic days and the less intense personalities in the new placement. Some of the things that sounded really daunting are turning out not to be, and vice versa. The sheer time-volume demand is draining.

The kids stayed the night last night with my mother-in-law. All three of them. BittyPrincess did fine, I'm told, and is up for a semi-planned ("we'll see how the first night goes") second night tonight. Fran and I had an in-house date night last night, and a very late morning this morning.

I couldn't think of anything that I *really* wanted to do without my kids, except fill a gap in my wardrobe (having put a hole in yet another pair of pants, need to stop doing that...I'm almost as bad as the kids with the knees, I swear). Clothing shopping with kids bites large.

I kept my promise not to even look at anything for anyone but myself.

In a melancholy mood on the drive home in the drizzle (where the fuck is summer?), I stopped at the falls. In an odd moment of impulse/whimsy/whatever, I hiked down to the base of the falls, clogs and inappropriate clothing and all.

I arrived in one piece at the bottom of the falls, and stood for quite some time at the lookout (you cannot approach the falls closely this time of year). I was, apparently, the only being fool enough to come down on a day like this.

The waterfall was violent today. I watched the water hasten over the ledge, hitting the pool with vigor and sending blossoming plume-ghosts far into the air, exploding into the mist and roiling into the greater river. Violent, angry, beautiful. The roar of the water and the verbal clatter of my internal monologue rushed in my ears. It was probably the longest chunk of time I've spent unguiltily just-for-me in a year or more.

I passed several small groupings of people on my way back up. I am not sure why the universe thought I deserved that time alone, but obviously it did.

My friends deserve a post of their own, and I'll write it my head while I fold laundry and come back with it later.

Free Obama Stickers

If you are so inclined:

https://pol.moveon.org/obamastickers/?id=12807-9190652-6pNio6&t=6

He's not perfect (and I don't agree with everything at moveon.org), but the idea of a McCain presidency scares me.

Sold Anyone Lately?

As an interesting side note, when I signed the birth center's statement that says (among many other things) that I have never sold a child, I simply had to laugh. Damn good thing they weren't asking me to swear that I'd never been *tempted* to sell a child.

Time Flies When You're Not On Call

I had my first day at a new clinic yesterday. No, I'm not on call yet, but that will soon follow.

This would be so much easier if I was filthy stinkin rich. Or had family nearby. Or both.

I Hate It

When my house gets so messy that I look around and don't know where to start, and do some stupid unnecessary thing instead. Like today I got rid of an old couch and prepped the garden beds, but didn't put away all the crap crowding out the couch, which really, should have been the priority.

Ugh.

Picture Time!

To Marie's on Tuesday for a little vegging:
(not sure why this won't rotate, it is horizontal before I upload it!)


And a little playing:



BittyPrincess rockin' her new trike:



Fran was off yesterday, so after a leisurely breakfast (completed at noon...VERY leisurely), we packed up the kids and the bikes and headed off to Lake Sammamish State Park. The whole crew:



The big two and I took our bikes and some snacks and headed off on the trails. Mud, water, sand; it was fun. It would have been cool to get pictures of that, but it was also a very messy ride and I'm not sure I would have thought to take photos anyway. We were TIRED by the time we loaded back up at 7:30pm. It was good fun and we'll be doing it again.

Test Those Homeschoolers!

In the state of Washington, there is a requirement that all school aged children (meaning grade 3 and above, the way the law is written) undergo some sort of evaluation. The law, as far as it goes, is pretty easy to comply with. This year, we chose to take the test that our virtual academy "sold" us. My children took the same tests that ~L~ talks about here: http://mama-hobbit.blogspot.com/.

I sent a somewhat angry letter to the virtual academy. My children were not as distressed as hers were over the test, and for them it was just an oddity. But it was a really shitty test, honestly.

That said, their results came in today and both of the children are in the 99th percentile for their grades on both segments of their exams. What that MEANS I don't know. Here's what I sent to the academy:

I am writing to express my dissapointment re: the MAP test. My daughter's reading/language test never once tested her reading abilities, instead focussing on syllables; this is a testing focus which I find bizarre and unlikely to yield accurate results concerning my daughter's actual english/language arts comprehension or capabilities. Both of my children encountered a question regarding school vacations, which is something entirely foreign to them and an unfair question, particularly considering that it was one of only a couple of its type. My son's mathematics test, supposedly at kindergarden level, skipped quickly from "click three elephants" to a division problem without manipulatives or illustrations.

This test at first struck me as simply bizarre. The more I think about it, however, the more unhappy I am with it. There is little positive to be said for this test and how it played out for my children. It seemed to have little to do with what they know or what they are capable of, and "adaptive" it is most certainly not. I cannot see how this test would in any way tell us anything concrete about my children and their academic progress, having covered extensively such oddities as "which has three syllables" but never testing any reading ability whatsoever.

We are through this hurdle and then some, but I'm pissed that this test was sold to us as being a decent option. It isn't. It took my son just over 30 minutes to complete, and my daughter just over an hour. Convenient, yes. Easy to take, not so much. A valid measure of my childrens' progress? Even if I take off my "tests are almost universally flawed because they test only a few of the many dimensions of learning" hat, I can't see how this would be a valid measure of my childrens' progress. A valid comparison with other children, perhaps. But it doesn't tell me anything useful; I still don't know what my kids' strengths and weaknesses are, or where they have gaps in their learning/understanding. I just know they spanked other kids their age on the same question set. But...so? What do I do with that knowledge?

My kids, for what it's worth, were underwhelmed by their 99th percentile scores and the "super job!" post-it note attached to their score sheets.

This is entirely cool

http://stemcells.alphamedpress.org/cgi/content/abstract/2007-0826v1

In this study, volunteers collected their own menstrual blood, which was then put in culture with rat heart cells, and spontaneously began to beat and form heart tissue sheets. While only 20% of the collected cells successfully made this conversion, this is 10-20 times the success rate seen with human embryonic stem cells.

Why do I think this is cool? Because someday, your menstrual blood may be "recycled" into new heart tissue that is entirely your own genetically. Such a tidy (genetically, medically, immunologically, ethically) solution!

(My apologies if this has been all over the news the last week...I don't do TV anymore...)

Spring, Spring, SPRING!!!

I think spring is finally actually here. There are baby birds in the bluebird nest, the tomato plants may just be safe to put outside now, and I can leave a window open without freezing to death. We haven't turned the heater on in a week! YAY spring!

Yesterday I took the two big kids out biking and we had a BLAST. And, um, today we bought padded bike shorts. Ouch.

It is also obvious now that Boyness needs a new bike as well *sigh* because he just can't keep up with those little tires, and really he had about outgrown the bike anyway. I feel like we're bleeding money over this venture.

In other news, neither of the kids has brought up the whole sex talk thing again, and neither of them is showing any evidence any stress-out or of it being anything other than just some strange new information. Phew.

Bikes Accomplished!

I did finally manage to pick up our new bikes (mine and Becca's). "Fully assembled," they said. I kind of expected that this would mean they'd check the brakes, at least. I guess not. And my bike has some strange allen key thing that I don't have a tool for. So this is not quite over yet. I was able to get Becca's brakes reassembled and properly adjusted, and she is thrilled.

Drink your Coffee - A Scattered Post

"Mama," says BittyPrincess as we are driving, "you need to drink some coffee. So you can stop talking."

Discount Tire, or the one in Bellevue anyway, has my enthusiastic endorsement. The first time we bought tires there I wasn't sure we'd gotten the best deal in the world (I was sure it wasn't BAD...), but it turned out that the real savings comes when you trade in your old tires for new. And today, when I brought in the van for a slow leak in one tire, they found the leak and repaired the tire, rebalanced, all that fun stuff, for the awesome price of FREE. Exactly as advertised, no strings attached, no sales pushed, nothing. And they didn't even act like they were totally put out or anything.

The other day I TRIED to buy Girliness a new bike. It was a lovely bike. 18 speed, hand brakes, 24 inch wheels, a big grown-up sorta bike. We got it unassembled because I couldn't wait around at the time, and then when I got around to putting it together, there were damaged parts. FUCK. Took it back to the store and, oh, well darn, they're out of stock now. Well, that one backfired. At least I have a few extra days to hunt down a bike rack for the van, since this bike is NOT going to fit in the trunk.

The Folly of Placing Pain Meds and Rubs Up High

Becomes painfully obvious once your knee is injured and you require a two-step stool to get at the aforementioned pain meds and topical creams.

New Frontier

Almost entitled this one "learning adventures in the Kama Sutra," but decided the better of it.

Earlier this week, while at ~L~s house, her 3yo found the highly-buried-in-an-off-limits-location Kama Sutra book, and proceeded to giggle his little self silly and show it to the other kids. He didn't know what on earth he was seeing, really, but the bigger ones had a much better clue. Girliness quickly absconded the book into the smaller bedroom, which was further out of view of the clueless parents. She legitimately wasn't trying to hide anything and TOLD us she was reading a book when we asked what she was doing; we'd also seen the initial book transfer without knowing WHICH book it was. She and the other three older children were discovered on a routine child check about 3 minutes later, huddled around this strange new book. Of course I removed the offending object, but the damage had been done. "Did you SEE that?" complete with anatomically appropriate descriptions. Oh, holy hell. Fuck, fuck, fuck (no pun intended).

I really don't know exactly what ~L~ told her children. But my Girliness, at eight years old and approaching the very beginnings of puberty, was going to require a more comprehensive sex talk soon anyway, and Boyness (I figured) had seen the same things and was using the same descriptors, so he listened in too. The kids have known for a long time about how babies are made, but they were missing a crucial piece of the puzzle - HOW it was that sperm and egg came to meet, together, in a woman's uterus (necessary oversimplification in my opinion).

Girliness had questions. She had many, many questions. Everything from "why would people need a book?" to "what do people do to not get pregnant when they don't want a baby?" to "if the penis needs to be hard, and the vagina needs to be ready, how do the penis and the vagina know to get ready to have sex?"

Don't worry folks, I injected a hearty helping of "but you're not ready for that yet," in pretty much as many ways as I could think of to say it; from the very sensible "your vagina is not a grown woman's vagina, and can't do that yet" to the much less concrete "with the right person" stuff. And I think that because her puberty hormones haven't kicked in yet, it was a great academic discussion that she'll have in her background knowledge, rather than something I am foisting on her in the wash of new hormones and curiosities (the more I think about it, the stupider that timing - during puberty - seems).

Boyness had no questions, but he listened to the whole exchange attentively.

I've identified myself, and myself alone, as their go-to person for sex questions, a move that I hope will prevent them from going off and sharing their newfound knowledge and million questions with everyone else on the planet. I can just imagine my mother-in-law's mortification at having any one of Girliness' questions directed at her (although "why can't I ask Nana? She must have sex too and she would know" did come up). Oh, that lovely homeschooler curiousity. It is part of the homeschooler mentality that you find someone that would know about what you're interested in, corner that person (nicely) and ask away. Want to know how to grow flowers in our living room, well, that is why Molbaks has a wandering help staff. Want to know about sex? Well wow, look at all these people we know that have done that and would know about it! And they probably all have different things to tell us, too!

ACK!

I think the identifying myself as the go-to person seems to be working so far. And since the kids are NOT awash in pubescent hormones yet, they aren't obsessed or anything (although Girliness did have some follow-up questions after our initial talk, which I am very happy she brought to ME).

I was not intially happy about the finding of the Kama Sutra. In fact, I was initially quite upset. But the more I think about it the better I think this is going to wind up being. Disaster averted, for now.

Snowmen and Flower Shops

Another BittyPrincess quote: "Mama, boys can not make snowmen by themselves. But girls can do it."

So, a little more than a week ago Girliness decided that she wants to open up a flower shop. Oh, but it wasn't a passing fancy; or at least, not a quickly passing one. She's trying to figure out her business plan and everything. Today she wants me to take her to Molbaks so she can purchase some seeds. Last week she wanted to recruit Boyness (and his $14) as her business partner, but he's not so interested. She said she could still pay him to do some of the work. She is still not sure about the physical location of her flower shop, but she knows that she will charge $1.10 for a flower and more than that for an arrangement or for a live plant.

This should be interesting. Probably not profitable, but interesting.

Spring? Who said it was spring?

Still on the ground today. Hello, nature, it's Niki, can you please cut it out with this cold-and-dreary shit? It's been spring for a month, get with the program.