Minivan MacGyver

i would like a prescription for an internal numbing cream, please

2012-01-26T23:24:00.000-05:00

Today is DAY 10 of fever. I think she topped out at 100.6 today so they're going down... she usually has a lower temp than 98.6, though.

So while her fevers are improving, I do not think her health is. She perked up a little yesterday morning at the dr., until her blood draw. Since then she's been down again. She laid around all yesterday and fell asleep on the sofa around 7:30. Tonight she fell asleep at 5:30, slept until Jason woke her at 7:15, ate two waffles, and asked to go back to bed. And she did, by about 7:45.

She also looks like hell.

I called our regular pediatrician because I had the thought that even though her lengthy fever and abnormal blood work are linked in my mind, maybe no one else is paying attention. She didn't have a real fever at the specialist's office yesterday, and for all I know her pediatrician is done with us now that he's passed us along. So I called and the nurse agreed she needed to be seen again, so we go in at 10 tomorrow morning.

I am still clinging to some rare gene mutation or something being the cause of all this, but in innocently trying to look up how one treats a condition of being unable to metabolize B12, I found an abstract from an article published in a medical journal that said B12 levels above a certain threshold, more than 95% of the time, are because of something scary and cancer-y. And Miss A's levels are well above that threshold. But as I told Jason, our new rallying cry is WE ARE THE <5%!

I felt calm and fine today during the day, but once the kids and I got home from speech I suddenly felt very alone and uncomfortable. There's no one I can talk to about this. I can't sit around researching stuff all the time. I am distracted enough that it's hard for me to be patient when dealing with important problems like, "He looked at me," and "He farted and it smells," and "She thinks she's older than us." I'm forced to just sit with this and I don't like it.

Where is my mfing blood work? Why is it that Dr. House never has to wait a week for lab work? He can analyze every blip of a person's DNA from the smell of their pee or the way they blink. Where is my TV super-doc? Why can't I have a human laboratory at my disposal?

i'm living on adrenaline and gummi bears and it's working for me!

2012-01-25T22:50:00.000-05:00

What's up, bitches! I am flying high tonight for no reason other than a calm and soothing pediatric hematologist. I woke up this morning and made responsible phone calls to insurance and looked up pediatric hematology. Then I made the realization that all these pediatric hematologists are actually pediatric hematologists-slash-oncologists.

Ohhhh.

I called and they didn't have anything until February, then I told them today is Miss A's 9th yes NINTH day of fever, and they made us an emergency appointment at 10:30.

Oh. Again.

By the time we arrived at the hospital I was fighting off a panic attack. Luckily the staff in a pediatric hematology-slash-oncology department are clearly well trained in bedside manner, because everyone was ridiculously nice and I want to be friends with them. But only outside of work.

The doctor himself soothingly told me that there are some rare metabolic disorders that affect the way B12 is synthesized, so he first wants to test those metabolites. (Or something.) Then if that comes back looking normal, we will check her blood every so often for a while to see if things even out. Then if they don't, we do a bone marrow test just to rule out myeloproliferative disorders, which are pre-leukemia conditions. He said this all so reassuringly that I felt calm and awesome and not at all like, "Wait if the metabolic disorders are so rare that there's little on Google about them but leukemia isn't especially rare, what do those stats look like for us?" And "But what if we can't rule them out? And where did you go to PR school because you are amazing!" I didn't feel those things until later. But I feel pretty sure the metabolic disorder is going to be a win. And I am assuming it is easy to treat and fix, and therefore feeling pretty good.

Then the nurses there applied numbing cream to Miss A's forearms so she wouldn't feel them collecting her blood. Blogworld, this is a minor miracle. Miss A did not do well with her first blood draw, since her lack of contact with reality gives her superhuman strength. It's like finding yourself on another planet with less gravity, so you're like a superhero. That's Miss A, except substitute "reality" for both "planet" and "gravity."

Then after her second blood draw she started to pass out in the parking lot and Jason had to carry her to the car, and she's talked about it every 15 minutes since. So the prospect of a third blood draw wasn't appealing to anyone. But oh my gosh this numbing cream!! The nurse said I can ask my primary care guy to write us a prescription for it and then apply it myself at home. If only I had easy access to my brain. Anyway, the needle didn't hurt but Miss A got woozy afterward anyway for about an hour.

The nurse also said no news is good news, which was soothing indeed since I was supposed to get a call about some of the blood work today (and didn't) and other tests are supposed to take up to a week. Sigh. So, now we wait.

breaking news: at least one of my girls is not [necessarily] malnourished

2012-01-24T22:00:00.000-05:00

The pediatrician called this evening with the results of Miss A's follow-up blood work. Important to note when reading this post is that Miss A first spiked a fever last Tuesday night, and she still has a high fever. Today was the 8th day of it and she fell asleep very early so I imagine tomorrow she'll be sick again too. We took her to the dr. Monday, they thought it might be the flu and did her follow-up blood draw to check B12 and folate levels. And now you're up to date.

Miss A's B12 levels are not low. In fact, they're twice the normal level. Her folate levels are also high. Her red blood cells are still enlarged. Her dr. doesn't know what to make of this combination of results, so he's referred us to a pediatric hematologist.

Naturally I consulted Google. I prefer to have more information than less, so the frightening aspects of Google don't bother me. What does bother me is when I find almost nothing, despite using all sorts of scientifical terms like "cobalamin" and "macrocytosis" and "haptocorrin" and "serum" and other words that contain multiple instances of every vowel, including Y. The other problem is that when people talk all scientifical that is almost as boring as when people use marketing lingo, so I find myself zoning out partway through the articles I actually paid to download because I was desperate for anything that didn't point me to a page all about leukemia.

Basically the blood work is telling me Miss A has the body chemistry of a lifelong alcoholic.

Those of you who work at hospitals or smarty-pants schools or departments of health, or those of you who just know anything about blood work or science or Google or pediatric alcoholism or excessive vowel use, feel free to weigh in on my blood work conundrum.

i fear the state may be underwhelmed by my parenting skills

2012-01-18T22:37:00.000-05:00

Howdy, blogworld! I wanted to give you an extra day to let it sink in that I have possibly starved to death several hamsters and a school of fish, and I have a child with Failure to Thrive, and another child who is so severely malnourished that she is experiencing neurological symptoms along with stunted growth. HOLY CRAP! I seriously thought I was reasonably good at the very basics of parenting, like feeding and bathing and clothing and whatnot. Apparently that was a delusion (vitamin B12 deficiency?) and I super-suck at all of this! And while the boys are reasonably good-sized, they probably have some food allergy that causes the dark circles under their eyes. And P has the most godawful gas if he has regular dairy products, so I buy him lactose-free milk but all our other dairy stuff is just regular.

Sigh.

So anyway, I withdrew Miss A from her regular school today. I wanted to write to you about my impressions of the charter school when I enrolled her there last week.

The school is in an old building. The kind of building I went to high school in before a school split and new building my senior year. It was built in the late 1940s, and has lots of cinder block. It feels homey and, to me, like a school ought to feel.

When they buzzed me in, a swarm of kids about Miss A's age were running down the stairs, arguing about something that had happened in gym class. There weren't any teachers. If you have spent much time in an elementary school lately you'll get how weird those two sentences are.

At our local elementary school, classes are escorted by a teacher at all times. There are multiple pep talks before, during, and after any trip through the halls, about being quiet and holding a bubble in one's mouth. As a person with a very small pack of kids, I really get why it has to be this way. But I liked that the charter school kids were trusted to move through the building without an escort, and I liked that they didn't have to be quiet.

Kids were in and out of their classrooms, too. As the admissions coordinator gave me a tour, kids would yell, "Hi Mrs. C!" and come out of their classes to hug her. No one yelled for them to come back, and all of them seemed to go right back. That was also a big difference from our local school.

I got to see the art room, which was being used for a violin lesson at the time. Four kids of different ages played a simple piece on the violin, very badly. I was relieved to see that Miss A will still be allowed to suck at things she's only beginning to learn. I guess I had a small worry these would all be super-geniuses who've been playing concert violin since age 2. I want her to be challenged, I guess, but I don't want her to be intimidated. Actually, I don't even care about her being challenged. I want her to be happy. If challenging work accomplishes that, fantastic. If sucking at the violin does that, super. If homeschooling does it, that's great. If being tranquilized so she can receive B12 injections does it, that's acceptable too. I worry that we're getting to a point where she needs to pull out of this, or it will become who she is.

I know none of us is locked into being a certain way, but I'd love to see her functional sooner rather than later.

In other news, Miss A auditioned for another musical and got a part -- a bit bigger than the role she got last time. Last time was good for her -- I forget if I ever managed to write about it but I could see her expand over the three months of practices. It was interesting to watch.

She was home sick today -- legitimately sick, with a high fever -- on her last day of classes at the local school. She wasn't bothered by having to miss her last day. She's, unfortunately, missing her transition day at the charter school tomorrow, but they said I can stay with her the first hour or so on Monday to ease her in. I'm excited to see where this and some B12 shots take us.

i am about to usher in world peace with my recent discovery

2012-01-16T22:40:00.000-05:00

So blogworld, after a series of phone calls and approximately 40 minutes (total) spent on hold, I was able to get Miss A's blood test results (that I was supposed to get on Thursday).

The only thing that was abnormal in her results is that her red blood cells are enlarged. Her dr. wants her to come back for another blood test, to check B12 and folate levels.

Naturally I googled, and OH MY GOSH MY DAUGHTER MIGHT NOT BE CRAZY AFTER ALL!

Miss A's diet: crappy
Miss A's favorite vegetable: iceberg lettuce
Miss A's typical daily caloric intake: negligible
Miss A's preferred foods: unknown

Symptoms of B12 deficiency:

delusions
paranoia
headaches
problems with impulse control
depression
mental confusion
nausea
loss of appetite
weight loss
diarrhea
constipation
fatigue
very pale skin

DING DING DING! She is delusional at times (and not in the way all kids are delusional and believe they are princesses or superheroes), and extremely paranoid. She's been complaining of headaches and stomach aches for a couple years. She has a lot of GI issues and is pale like Snow White (Maybe the Evil Queen wasn't trying to kill her after all! Maybe she was B12 deficient and paranoid!) and complains of being tired and needing to rest during the school day. And her explosions are an impulse control thing, for sure.

Symptoms of folate deficiency:

loss of appetite, weight loss
mood disorders
irritability
GI problems
behavioral disorders
slowed or stunted growth
fatigue
headache
difficulty concentrating

Again, ding ding ding.

One of the sites I read noted that folate deficiency is commonly found in manic-depressive patients. Jason and I talked this weekend about whether Miss A might have bipolar disorder, because she definitely has manic or hypomanic episodes in between her rages or meltdowns.

Another note: B12 deficiency is common in people who've taken heartburn medications long-term, because they cause problems with B12 absorption. I don't know what "long-term" is, but Miss A took medication for acid reflux daily for the first year and change of her life.

I cannot wait to get Miss A back in for this blood test. She is less enthusiastic, and might in fact need to be tranquilized. She is becoming more like a young preschooler or a toddler during her meltdowns; we sometimes have to pick her up and move her to where we tell her to go, like a toddler who goes limp when he doesn't get his way. She doesn't say words, just, "Nnnuh! Nnnuh!" and weird grunts... She wigged out today when she asked to get on the computer, we said we'd set her up as soon as we finished lunch, and she got extremely agitated and said, "But I want to do it NOW!!!!" Um, hello toddler stage!

Oh also I can't shower anymore when Jason is not here because I'm back to worrying someone will kill or maim someone else during that 10 minutes. I'm back to where I was when she was 4 and 5.

So my big dream is that we can fix her with vitamin supplements (that are hopefully not injections because of the aforementioned anxiety-induced Hulk strength) and long battles over eating at mealtimes, and I will have my daughter back! Or even a glimmer of her. And maybe she'll start to grow again and avoid "severe deformity," one of the less-awesome side effects of folate deficiency.

IN MY DEFENSE:

we only eat wheat bread
I bake with whole wheat flour, to the detriment of my baked goods
we have a lot of vegetables around
we don't do iceberg lettuce
I make her eat a piece of whatever vegetable is for dinner
ketchup counts as a vegetable
so does pizza

I'll let you know how it all shakes out!

preliminary data on blood-letting looked promising enough

2012-01-12T22:51:00.001-05:00

On Tuesday morning Miss A had blood drawn so her pediatrician can test to see wtf. Miss A did NOT like that. She hasn't had shots in several years, and her last blood draw was before she can remember. A nurse and I had to restrain her.

Tuesday evening she said, "Mom, do you know why I've been nicer since my dr appointment?"

I thought to myself, "Because it was only 10 hours ago and most of that time you were at school?" But I said, "No, why?"

And she said it was because she didn't want to have to get blood drawn again.

Hmm! The doctor/barbers of old might have been onto something! Perhaps the blood draw had leeched out her bad humours!

Miss A continued to keep it together last night, and then completely lost her shit tonight. First I asked everyone to get their jammies on right after dinner, but instead everyone chose to take everything in the boys' room and pile it in front of their door as part of some complicated game. Then I told her she had to help them clean their room if she wanted to watch "House of Anubis" at 7. That upset her, because she didn't feel she deserved to have to help with the clean up. She began to throw a screaming/kicking/stomping/throwing/slamming fit in the hall.

I forget what happened next -- I think I told her she could clean up her room instead, and that made her even angrier. So then I said she was out of luck and should just get her pajamas on and climb into bed.

Enraged, Miss A intensified her screaming/throwing/stomping/kicking. All the while, the boys and Haney are cheerfully cleaning up the mess all four of them made. Because Miss A can't calm down on her own, I suggested she take a bath, and after that she was calmer.

Until Jason got home. And I don't know what all happened then, except she didn't want to go to bed, and then Haney was talking or singing to herself which interfered with Miss A singing to herself, so Miss A came down from her bunkbed to thrash her. Jason stopped her three times, and finally she was set off into another sobbing and screaming fit that lasted until about 9:45, when Jason went upstairs and got her calmed down while I worked.

So she spent most of three hours having a fit. It exhausts me just dealing with her, so I can't imagine how exhausted she must be. And Miss A's new school will have her out the door an hour or more earlier than she leaves now, so we have to figure out a new afternoon and evening schedule. Forbidding her to play with neighborhood friends would allow us to get things done at a comfortable pace, but I feel like she needs that free play time. Then when she and any of her siblings place nicely together, I don't want to disturb that -- that's pretty much what I live for. Aside from those things we need to fit in homework (emotionally charged and requiring my undivided attention), dinner prep, eating, kitchen clean-up and baths, and somehow a two-hour period of time for Miss A to unwind before going to sleep. There aren't enough hours in the day!

Tomorrow I go to officially enroll Miss A at her new school -- I'm very excited. And very hopeful this will bring some sort of positive change.

speaking of sartre, have you been watching "the secret circle?" OMG!

2012-01-11T23:14:00.000-05:00

The admissions director of the charter school called today. They had one opening left for this school year, and it was in 3rd grade.

She wanted Miss A's IQ test results. I don't have anything like that, but I emailed over her standardized test scores and hoped for the best. The lady called me back an hour or so later and said Miss A qualified for the school, and if we wanted the spot it was ours. Oh snap!

So here we are again. Last year we pulled Miss A out of school in February; this year it will be January. I'm really hoping this place works out, because frankly this is way too much paperwork for me. I'm all nervous about dealing with the secretaries at our current school, because they don't like people transferring.

Still, too, I feel like a jackass. The school is for "gifted" students. I feel like a jackass, as though I'm saying Miss A is just too smart for normal school. That's not it -- maybe I'm wrong but I don't think she's a Mensa candidate. I'm just hoping that my reasonably smart kid can benefit from a place where they're used to kids who are all stressed and spazzy. And who are hypersensitive to every freaking thing. But also if this school is as great as it seems, I'm going to be working on flashcards 24/7 with my other kids so maybe they'll qualify too. And we'll be that "I Am Sam" family. All the teachers and other parents will wonder why Jason and I have kids at that school, because when they want to talk about politics or philosophy I'll wander away and Jason will try to change the subject to the spring line-up on the CW.

Sample conversation:

RANDOM DAD AT THE SCHOOL: Oh, I used to teach at the university level but I've taken some time off for research. What do you do?
ME: I don't know, that's boring. Is there a Target around here?
RANDOM DAD: Oh! Um, a Target? Uh, well, I guess there might be one over on--
ME: Blah blah blah this is taking too long! I don't care anymore! Dammit, why is my Bug Village taking so long to load?!

Maybe we are what is wrong with Miss A.

Nah.

Anyway, we are in like Flynn and Miss A is happy and excited about it, so now to begin the awkwardness of transferring her out of the school and filling out lots of paperwork.

you know you've hit a new low when you're hoping for abnormal blood work

2012-01-10T22:18:00.000-05:00

Today Miss A had her appointment with her pediatrician to talk about what the heck is going on. I love her pediatrician, for a few reasons:

He's not all, "Hmm, let's watch this and then in a few days if it's not better we'll talk." No. He values my time and understands that if I managed to drag the kids to the office, something is up. Then he prescribes us some freaking antibiotics and doesn't beat around the bush.
He has four kids too, which I think has something to do with his comfort level with handing out antibiotics, and with butt strep. I think it also contributes to his lack of excitement when Miss A says that the reason she's acting out is that she needs her own room.

Through the avalanche of BS she funneled his way about how sharing a bedroom interrupts her tantrums (seriously) and how the boys and Haney annoy her, her pediatrician decided there isn't anything really wrong except that she needs to figure out how to deal with stress and irritation and anxiety. It was very reassuring, the way he said it. He referred us for a psych consult and ordered blood work because her weight has fallen off her steady 5th percentile curve. I've been worrying about her growth for a while since she's the oldest kid in her grade, as well as the smallest. He ordered thyroid tests and a test for Celiac and stuff to check her kidney and liver function and whatnot.

I'm hoping the results come back saying she has Celiac and therefore if we just stop eating wheat she'll be able to control herself. That would feel magical!

everything is a pea under miss a's mattress

2012-01-09T12:23:00.000-05:00

As I type to you, Miss A is up in her room rather than at school. She woke up crying, then grew increasingly upset as I dragged her through the process of getting ready for school this morning. She had a headache. She thought she might have a fever. (Nope.) Her tummy hurt. She thought she might throw up. She had gym class today. If we let her stay home she would stay in her room and work on math all day long.

Eventually Jason took pity on her and let her stay home, telling her he'd take her to school this afternoon. He went up a few minutes ago and she tearfully begged him to let her stay home all day.

This weekend I had a handful of realizations about Miss A. I can't remember all of them because I'm so tired. But she likes school less all the time, she used to love gym and math and now they're her least favorite parts of the day, she is making herself sick worrying about school, she genuinely can't shake off stuff other people can, like being singled out for talking when she was answering comments or questions from other people. If I look at her insane behavior as a symptom of a disability (and I feel ridiculous using that term when she is able-bodied and able to control herself in public and able to perform at school, etc.) it is a lot easier to be patient and compassionate. But then sometimes I also feel like JUST FREAKING GET DRESSED AND GO TO SCHOOL BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT PEOPLE DO!

Yesterday we went to an open house at a charter school here. They have social and emotional counseling for emotionally sensitive children. Using the word "sensitive" makes me feel like I'm saying Miss A is the most compassionate person ever and woodland creatures flock to her as if she was Snow White. This is not the case. She's sensitive in the sense of "The Princess and the Pea."

The school seemed amazing aside from the counseling aspect, so we're applying for enrollment. Miss A started chattering about switching in the middle of this year. That surprised us, because we thought her attachment to current teachers and school friends would be too strong. Apparently not.

Tomorrow morning we have an appointment with her pediatrician to talk about what the heck we're supposed to do to help her. I'm hoping he can help us figure out what to do, or refer me to one of the exactly two pediatric behavioral health specialists in my insurance network (one of whom graduated from medical school in 1967 so he has to be around 70, right?).

I feel nervous about potentially sending Miss A to this amazing (and tuition-free) charter school, as if she is so incredibly special she needs a special school filled with other special people. She is special, of course, in the way people are special, but I don't know how to say to people, "It's not that she's so smart, it's that we're so desperate." And apparently charter schools are another thing, like "red-shirting" your kindergartener, that are a big hot button for people who are not me. So I worry I am offending Miss A's teachers or putting them in a bad position by asking them to write referrals for her application. And I'm almost over this one but I still have a slight feeling of, "Can't it just be easy?" Can't they all just go to the same school and ride the bus and come home and do homework and do activities that are not speech therapy?

But yesterday the pastor at our church gave a well-timed talk on how important it is to reflect on what is good before moving forward, so here's what's good:

The pain and discomfort I dealt with during childhood now has a purpose that I can see, and it helps me have compassion for Miss A.
God works miracles, and I can have hope for Miss A despite the failures of the schools, her doctors, and her parents.
My boys don't seem to care or notice that people can't understand them well.
The boys seem to get that something is amiss with Miss A and they want to help her.
The boys have a great teacher this year and I don't have to worry about them.
We have options about where we can send Miss A to school.
We have the option to home school her.
We make enough money that we can even consider stuff like sending the kids to therapy.
I am able to work from home so we don't have to send them to school no matter what.
Jason and I like each other and can laugh about this stuff together.
Had we continued to have babies (like I wanted), I would not be able to attend to Miss A like I can now.
A handful of you guys have written me about school stuff and I like getting that insight from other people.
Life is full of surprises. Which I sort of like and sort of don't, but I think it's good for me.

i must issue a new edict on hair styling etiquette

2012-01-06T22:54:00.000-05:00

This morning Miss A was peeved before she even rolled out of bed. I hurried downstairs to sit beside her and manage her snarling during breakfast so she wouldn't destroy us all. I couldn't allow her to get out of control, because tonight we had tickets to see the Disney princesses ice skate. Once a few years ago we had tickets to see princess Jasmine in a musical, and Miss A was awful so we didn't go, and I've regretted it ever since. So I didn't want to add more pain to my life by missing yet another opportunity with the princesses.

After school we drove the boys to Jason's work and then my phone guided me through the projects to Quicken Loans Arena. It was a stressful drive. Miss A was asking, "Mom, is this the right way? Mom, why are all those people standing around outside at night? Mom, why are all the windows boarded up in that building?" And I was like, "YES I'M SURE THIS IS THE RIGHT WAY NOW SHUT UP I'M TRYING TO HELP US NOT DIE!!"

Like any life-threatening experience, our scenic tour of downtown was a bonding experience and we had a great time with the princesses.

However. The people in front of us included a grandma, mom, and a few kids. The mom had ENORMOUS hair. The grandma was a close runner-up. The mom's hair took me back to the early 1990s, hair-wise. There was this girl named Jen Leverenz in the grade ahead of me, and her hair was a sight to behold. The most exceptional part of it was that her bangs made a straight 3-4 inch wall up from her forehead, with just a little curl at the top. It was like this hairstyle, except her bangs weren't teased. They were a smooth wall with clean lines stretching to the very top, where they were crowned with a decorative cornice.

Anyway the mom's hair wasn't that spectacular, but it was curled and teased out and sprayed then curled again then sprayed again. It was a solid, immovable mass, like a curly blonde helmet. And it was big. When she and her mother sat down, both of the girls started squirming around trying to get even a glimpse of the ice through the cumulus clouds of hair in row 6.

Do you really tease your hair before you go to a show where you'll be sitting in front of little kids? I don't, but that's because I tease my hair about once a year and it's before I'm going to be getting drunk enough that I won't mind how my hair feels the next day. I call this celebration, "Halloween." But from now on I've pledged to keep my hair slicked to my head with hair gel and mousse whenever I might be in front of a little kid at a movie/play/concert/show. That will also help prevent me catching lice, which I am pretty sure I caught tonight while trying to scrunch low in my seat so the kid behind me could see.

blah blah school blah blah weeping blah wailing and gnashing of teeth. you know, the usual.

2012-01-05T22:38:00.001-05:00

Because I like to show my face at the kids' school on a regular basis to keep the staff on their toes, I volunteer in the boys' class once a week. They have the same teacher Miss A had for first grade, and I love him. He is funny and gentle with the kids' feelings, and doesn't make a big deal out of things that aren't a big deal. Like sloppy handwriting, for example. Sloppy handwriting is an epidemic in our household.

Today the kids were learning about place value, using little cubes and sticks to represent ones and tens. "How many cubes can I have in the ones column," asked Mr. K.

"TEN!" shouted one little girl. I agreed with her but that was the wrong answer. The answer is nine, because if you get to 10 you have to trade out your cubes for a stick. Whoops.

"The answer is nine," said Mr. K. "But that's all right, I love that you took a risk and gave an answer!" This kid with the wrong answer was beaming.

Later they worked on telling time. They played Around the World, which is a game I didn't know except to vaguely associate it with some kickball-related trauma from my youth. Two kids face off, and Mr. K holds up a clock and the first kid to say what time it is wins. Mr. K wanted me to lead the Around the World game but when I went into a gym-related flashback triggered stupor, he gave up trying to explain it to me. One thing I did catch, because it was antithetical to my kickball memories, was this gem:

"No one has to race. If they don't want to I just make them tell me the time, then go onto the next set of kids who want to race each other."

***

Miss A had a math worksheet for homework today. It was four division word problems, and they had to write number models. Miss A started wigging out because she says she doesn't "get" division and multiplication. She said she is even slower at it than the kids who aren't in the "gifted" pull-out group. The horror! Oh, how my flashbacks intensified!

As a 3rd grader, I was in the "gifted" pull-out group. Our group was placed in a 4th grade class for the year. Somehow everyone understood multiplication well enough that they didn't have to memorize times tables, except for me! And sometimes my friend Alicia, but I think she was playing dumb to make me feel better.

Every day at math time I got pulled out into the hall to work with an aide or spare teacher or someone on math. And every day I felt like the dumbest dumbass in the whole world, when really I was just struggling most out of the top 10-12 kids in the entire 3rd grade. My dad made me an elaborate set of flash cards, and we worked on them all the freaking time, and now I'm faster at simple multiplication and division than math-wizard Jason, because I've got them all memorized. And math almost had a happy ending for me, except for fractions in 4th grade and algebra in 8th grade and some sort of enriched college-credit calculus I took for a few weeks in high school, until I wised up.

Anyway, I told Miss A the abridged version of this story and assured her that it is okay to struggle the most, because school is about learning how to solve problems, and not about already knowing the answers.

I'll let you all drink that in a moment because I was so proud of myself for thinking of that at the right moment. Unfortunately it went unappreciated because Miss A has other problems, namely that in her class they also have to do oral math "races" and she sucks at them. Between not using paper, and everyone staring at her, and being under a time constraint, and competing against someone else, Miss A can never come up with an answer. Before I could assure her that I've never had to complete a math problem under such circumstances in my life, she said:

"I was praying so hard asking God if it could be an easy one..."

Ohhhh, I hate school. I hate that my kid, who is incredibly intelligent, is sweating her math class because she has to figure out the problem rather than having the answer memorized. I get that the games are supposed to make it fun -- and probably do for many kids -- but having the answers memorized isn't really what it's about, is it? It's handy and fast but it doesn't teach you to think.

By this time she was crying, and said that at another time the teacher asked the class a math question and everyone called out their answers. "I said my answer really loud but it was wrong and then everyone looked at me and people said, 'Why did you say that?'"

So I have my 99th percentile 3rd grader weeping because she keeps getting embarrassed in math class. But a few hours earlier I watched this little 1st grader give a wrong answer, and get praised for taking a risk. And she volunteered again, and she seemed happy and not at all embarrassed.

I pondered these things and realized I was looking at a comparison of two different education models: one of competition, and one of collaboration. Being in a creative field, collaboration, risk-taking, and problem-solving are much better skills to develop. Maybe in other fields being super-fast and competitive as an individual is more useful.

I like Miss A's teacher, based on the exactly three very brief interactions I've had with her. But Miss A's school experience is sucking and she's not the most stable person to begin with. I'm wishing she was spending more time working out math problems in whatever way works for her, and less time praying to God that she'll get easy questions.

my skill at macgyvering has rubbed off on my children

2012-01-04T23:01:00.002-05:00

A few weeks ago my poor G had a bad sore where he'd bitten the inside of his lip, and continued to bite it. I have a lot of sympathy for people with canker sores or whatever one would call this type of wound, because OH MY GOSH it hurts so much. So if you ever have a canker sore and everyone else is like, "Yeah? That's sad for you. Now shut up about it," then you can feel free to email me and I promise I will feel very sorry for you. They're awful.

Anyway, one morning I asked G if he'd brushed his teeth yet, and he said no, his mouth hurt too much. I expressed my sincere sympathies, but said he still needed to brush. He burst into tears and wailed, "Can't you just give me some gum instead? It's the same thing!"

At the time, Jason and I told him it was not quite the same thing, and we had a good laugh. Jason and I, that is. G went to the bathroom and cried while the acid toothpaste ate away at the exposed nerve endings in his cheek. But since then, I've been led to reconsider G's theory.

First off, I've been surrounded by minty candies for the last 6 weeks. Candy canes, those weird sticky candies with a Christmas tree shape in the middle... Maybe that's about it but it feels like a lot of minty candies.

Second, we've been traveling. There is always a significant lag between when we return home from a trip, and when we find our toothbrushes again. I think it has to do with the toothbrushes being the last things left out when we're getting ready on the last morning of our visit... or maybe it has to do with the fact that things are always ridiculously disordered on our family visits. Everyone's sleeping in crazy places, there's a ridiculous number of kids running around, people are peeing their pants left and right (that's me) and if I happen to see one of my kids at the same time as the bathroom is open and I know where that kid's toothbrush is, it is a chilly day in hell.

Third, the holidays and school vacation combined with Haney being "Star Student" on the first day back, led to a perfect storm of disorganization. The Star Student is responsible for bringing a healthy, pre-packaged snack and drink, along with any plates, napkins and cups necessary, for the entire class. Such a racket. Anyway, I'd noted Haney's Star Student status on my calendar, but forgot about getting snacks. Jason remembered at 12:10, and preschool starts at 12:30.

At 12:10, Haney was dressed, eating her balanced lunch of Ruffles and French onion dip, Doritos, and Papa John's breadsticks with garlic butter dipping sauce. When you capitalize that many words in a menu description, you'd better be speaking German or hiring a dietitian ASAP. Let's pretend I was speaking German. Anyway, her hair was not brushed, and by "not brushed" I mean it was doing that insane thing kid hair does in the back where it stands straight out and up and has kinks in odd places and is perfectly straight in others. No amount of brushing will help that, unless you douse the kid's head with water or detangler and even then, you can't fully comb the oddly placed kinks out.

Also not brushed: her teeth. And I try to take extra care to make her brush, because 1) she talks so quietly that you have to get up in her face to hear her, and 2) her steady diet of Doritos, French onion dip, and garlic butter dipping sauce means that her breath could be used as a malodorant weapon. I told her she needed to run up and brush her teeth, but Jason said it would have to wait! They were already running too late! Jason's timely arrival at work depends on Haney being dropped off at school on time.

We remembered that I had a couple of the mint chocolate things they give you at Olive Garden when you pay your bill. I dug them out of my purse, and we fed them to Haney as they ran out the door to purchase a healthy, pre-packaged snack for 24. I don't imagine they made a dent in Haney's demonic breath, but I felt better.

And now I have a use for the 97 candy canes in assorted sizes that I accrued over the Christmas season. I'm loading them into the glove compartment of my minivan, for occasions just like today. I laugh heartily at the weird pre-loaded single-use toothbrushes [mean] people give out at Halloween. Ha! Ha ha! Candy canes allow me the same-ish fresh breath, without cluttering up our landfills with non-biodegradable toothbrushes. I really try to do all I can to protect the environment, and this is but a small sacrifice.

i boost my parenting skills by +10 experience points, earning a +25 acorn bonus

2012-01-03T22:32:00.001-05:00

As established, neither parenting nor pet ownership seem to be my "thing." I am pretty sure my thing is watching "Hoarders," awash in relief over how I still compare favorably to the show's subjects in some (but not all) areas. But I seem to be locked into parenting. And I have managed to have my one cat for more than 13 years and he is still alive, so I'm realizing larger pets aren't as easy to kill through benign neglect. [Aside: My kids and cats cry for food every morning. The hamsters and fish did not. You do the math.]

Because, obviously, I strive for excellence in all that I undertake, I want to hone my caregiving skills. As I frantically scoured the Android market for parenting tools while the kids watched Nickelodeon and ate Cheetos, I stumbled upon Bug Village.

You guys, I can nurture the hell out of these ants and bees. I am attentive to their every need. So far I have only starved them once, but just enough that they quit working. I didn't kill them. That's basically just a crash diet before swimsuit season -- no biggie.

I am devoted to making this Bug Village thrive, for the sake of my parenting skills. As I tell the kids when I shoo them away, it takes a lot of sacrifice for Mommy to practice her parenting on these bugs, but practice makes perfect. And I am doing it all for them.

My extensive research into Bug Village has taught me that my bugs can make the most acorns by completing many short tasks, rather than fewer lengthy tasks. Therefore, I model good stewardship and the value of hard work for the children by setting my ants to complete tasks on a one minute cycle. This takes a lot of dedication from me, because by the time I am finished assigning a task to the last ant, the first ant has finished his job again and it's time for the harvest. It gets exhausting, but as I remind the kids, a little hard work never hurt anyone.

"Get off your butts and clean up this dump!" I gently admonish them. "You think I'm going to work my fingers to the bone for acorns so these ants can eat, while you sit here watching iCarly? I don't think so!"

And they're all, "Mommy, when can we have lunch?" and I'm like, "Lunch? Ha! It's 5:30! That's not lunchtime! You kids need to learn to tell time! Sheesh."

They have no appreciation for the sacrifices I'm making, for the betterment of my parenting.

please note that my 2012 resolution didn't have anything to do with my parenting skillz

2012-01-02T22:05:00.001-05:00

On New Years' Eve our dear friends were here visiting. Everything was going well. The kids were in their jammies, being cute and looking adorable. The big girls were going to stay up til midnight for the very first time. The adults were enjoying some champagne, when the relative calm was shattered by Miss A's wails.

Blogworld, our worst fears have been realized: Oscar the hamster has passed on to that great Rubbermaid container in the sky.

Somehow I have managed to kill off two hamsters and a handful of goldfish in less than a year. I tried to float the idea that my friend's preschoolers had killed Oscar with their bare hands, but no one seemed to buy it. I probably starved him to death or something. But in my defense, he was really peppy just the day before and I assumed everything was awesome. Sorry, Oscar. Rest in peace.

In possibly related news, Jason plays World of Warcraft. The boys play it too, sort of. They make characters and run around, and sometimes they can do very simple quests that require little to no reading. After Jason went to work today the boys stayed on the game, rotating turns every 20 minutes. I was in an endless loop of helping the girls in and out of their snow gear. G asked me how to spell "following" at one point.

Later I heard them cackling and asked what was going on. They stumbled over each other telling me they told "some guy" they were 27 and something else I forgot in the ensuing freak out of realizing they were actually chatting with a live human. I had no idea that 1) they knew how to access that function or 2) they could spell/read/type well enough to chat. I mean, I text G on his iPod and he never writes me back. I now realize that says less about his reading level and more about his desire to chat with me.

I raced over to the computer in fear that they were being propositioned by some perv, but in fact it was the other way around. The transcript read something like,
BOYS: I AM FOLLOWING YOU
Dude: I know.
Dude: lol
BOYS: YOU WAN A DATE
Dude: nope, i'm married.
Dude: How old are you
BOYS: 27
Dude: more like 7
[Me: HA!!!!!]
BOYS: I SEE YOU
Dude: leave me alone
Dude: I'm married
BOYS: WAN A DATE
Dude: i told you, i'm married. i am a dude.
Dude: leave me alone! i have a %^(#!

G & P, trolling for some strange

[Jason has a language filter on, fortunately]

I can only imagine that in between typing the boys were stripping their character down to his skivvies and making him dance.

I quickly messaged the guy that they were 7 and I was so sorry and had no idea they could chat, and he replied, "that's okay, kinda funny, lol," so I can only assume all is forgiven. Then I told the boys no more chatting. If day 2 of 2012 has my 7-year-old barely literate sons sexually harassing a married man over the internet, I can only imagine the wonders the rest of the year has in store!

"YOU WAN A DATE?"

happy 2012!

2012-01-01T21:30:00.001-05:00

Being the Negative Nelly that I am, I'm always overjoyed to kick another year to the curb. Or maybe I should spin that as me being so positive and hopeful for the future. Anyway, peace out, 2011. Don't let the screen door hit ya.

I haven't started my crazytown blog yet but I will share this ~~no-brainer~~ gem with you all: Miss A's ability to deal with her psychosis [not the technical term] is closely tied to my ability to deal with it at any given time. Meaning, if I have slept and have maintained my blood sugar and have recently peed, and if I have tomato-staked her*, I can talk Miss A down from her ledge almost as quickly as she can leap onto it.

Ah, the glorious parenting we'd do if life were one long best-case scenario! I can control my blood sugar and my poor forsaken bladder. I can try my best to get the 7.5 hours of sleep I need to parent like the wind. I can stalk Miss A around the house, attending closely to her every gesture, inflection, and breath. And if I do all of these things, I can catch the warning signs of a meltdown before we reach the point of no return.

And if she was an only child and I didn't have to work and she was homeschooled, I would be all over that.

So far I have found ways I can deal with meltdowns in progress, and ways I can stop them quickly and quietly, but I haven't found anyone giving advice about how to teach her to deal with frustration/disappointment/being too hot/hungry/uncomfortable. Anyone? Bueller? Will she eventually just develop this skill without intervention?

The one book I read likened her problem to a learning disability, except rather than in an academic area it is in the area of appropriately dealing with frustration. I am trying to think of it the same way I think of the boys' speech issues, which are apparently not delays or disabilities but are definitely not going well. However, the boys' speech *issues* are really pretty cute and do not cause them to lash out violently. Otherwise, though, I have the same feeling of all professionals being on one side of a wall and me and my kids being on the other. The professionals do not understand my questions so they give me answers to other questions, ones I'm not asking. And I don't understand their answers or if/how they pertain to my questions, so we're stuck in this eternal, circular, increasingly frustrating dialogue that's really just unrelated strings of words called back and forth at random.

But that's about to change, y'all. One of my New Year's resolutions, made while I was a bit tipsy, was "to MacGyver the New Year." If that means I have to take an apple, a paper clip, and a bottle of Scrubbing Bubbles to my meetings with speech clinicians and pediatricians, so be it. I will set those things out on the table and they will see I mean business. I will wear a t-shirt that says, "I AM SAM" to remind them to dumb it down. And if they try to rush me out of the office, which they always do because I always still have more questions because I never understand, I will brandish my Scrubbing Bubbles and they'll know: this is the year of the

MacGyver Mother!

*I'm playing fast and loose with this term and it should not be assumed that Mrs. L. Elizabeth Krueger would allow her children to play with mine under any circumstance.

merry christmas, blogworld!

2011-12-25T23:00:00.000-05:00

Wednesday, when I last wrote, was the last day of school. Miss A had a rough day.

When she is very worked up, and most of the time actually, it takes forever for her to fall asleep. She didn't get a lot of sleep Wednesday night, but Thursday she was wonderful. She played with the kids all day and hatched a scheme for all four of them to sleep in her closet on the floor. (?) And they did. And she ended up next to P, who apparently cannot sleep if he and G aren't facing each other, so she voluntarily slept curled up with him with their heads pressed together. This is huge, because she can't stand sharing a bed or sleeping on the floor, yet she slept smooshed up against P on the wood floor all night.

Friday, on very little sleep, she was good. Saturday she started to get a little sketchy. It took enormous amounts of effort and energy but I was able to keep her contained all day. But when she started freaking out just before we left for church Saturday evening, I was tired and didn't catch her in time. She had a series of mini freak outs over the rest of the evening, and after that I did okay managing her.

She couldn't fall asleep until nearly midnight. She woke up this morning at 4:50. We still had a very good day today.

So although her routine and eating habits and sleep schedule have been disrupted quite a bit by winter break, she's done a lot better at dealing with frustration. She went from multiple daily tantrums to fewer than one snit or upset per day. Again: is it school?

We talked about whether the stress of school and the pressure to keep it together pushes her past her tipping point. I think that makes a lot of sense. Right now, though, Jason is very opposed to the idea of homeschooling her or enrolling her in an online school. I'm hoping we can push through this year and reassess the situation over the summer.

We did a bunch of things in the last week that I want to write about. We went to the mall to see Santa (not awesome) and ate at a fancy restaurant (surprisingly awesome) and tried to see a movie (disaster) and ate at Olive Garden (success!). I realized that Miss A is hard pressed to deal with any situation where her expectations are not met. If she thinks she's going to put three candy canes in that gift bag and someone drops in a 4th, that pretty much shatters her worldview. I'm realizing that I need to start making decisions around her coping abilities. Being a bit like Miss A myself, I really like to sort things and coming to terms with whatever is up with her is a giant shuffling and I am pretty flustered trying to sort things out again in a way that makes sense.

won't you take me to / crazytown?

2011-12-21T21:53:00.000-05:00

Blogworld, first item on our agenda is that I'm going to have to start a new blog about Miss A's mental issues. Because too many people I know in real life read this one and I feel like it's not fair to her for me to detail all of this here. Maybe it's not even the readers I already know, but the fear that other local people might find it and I don't do a very good job of concealing who we are. Anyway, if you have a kid who is bona fide crazy, hit me up and I'll let you know when I eventually get this other blog going.

Is it school? Is that why she's flipping out again? Because I only blogged 4x last December, I don't know what was going on then. But I do know we decided to pull her out in mid-January, so things can't have been too delightful.

I read some book about dealing with your explosive child. Blogworld, I have a reasonably high IQ, or I did back in elementary school when they tested that sort of thing. I have a college education, in English of all things. But this book was written over my head or actually it felt more like it was around my head. I could see it all going past me but I couldn't absorb most of it or apply it to my own life. The author gave some good strategies for dealing with explosions in progress, and for avoiding explosions that are predictable, but most of it felt like placating the child. The author's theory was that children do well and behave well when they are able to. I agree with that, or at least I do in theory, but when we're in the moment I feel:

1) like every bit of order in our lives (which is in short supply) depends on "what I say goes." So if I allow a 9 year old to scream me out of what I say, that doesn't bode well for the next 10-15 years, and

2) like it's very unfair to my obedient children if they obey even if they don't want to, then there is no consequence for disobeying, and in fact the disobedient child gets her own way anyhow.

I downloaded another book and maybe it will help more once I get to read it.

The author of the first book also said to keep a journal for a week, documenting every explosion and what sparked it. But half the time I have no idea and can't even identify what the hell happened, and neither can she. She lists imagined slights and the stated "cause" of her upset changes from moment to moment. She is entirely unable to take any responsibility for her actions/situation/reactions.

By now the other kids can identify that there is something wrong with her. Both boys, at different times today, asked me why couldn't we put her back in a play, because she was nicer when she was in the play. And that's awesomesauce and a better parent would get her in a play, pronto, but that's several hundred dollars and it kills any semblance of routine and is a logistical challenge since Jason isn't home in the evenings to do any of the driving. And while she did okay with the late practices over the summer and while doing online school, I don't know if it would work as well when she has a real school to attend all day.

So. Documentation:

Big explosion tonight over ??? Not being allowed to kick her brother? When she calmed down some she started talking about people at school making fun of her (as she perceives it) and getting in trouble for talking when her seatmate is doing the chatting, but her teacher says her seatmate "isn't a talker" so only Miss A gets in trouble. That does sound like serious BS but the seatmate is my friend's daughter so I don't want to do anything that might upset my friend or seem like I'm trying to get her daughter into trouble... I don't actually care if Miss A gets in trouble for talking. I told Miss A that, but she is too worried about everyone else judging her for getting a card change.

Miss A doesn't freak out at school. Some of her teachers have seen her come in after being upset in the morning, and she's talked to them about her freak outs, but our families and friends and school community don't see this side of her. Which is great, because I don't have to worry much about her being loud when we're in public. (She's quietly nasty but won't tantrum.) But most everyone we talk to seems to think we're exaggerating "normal" 8- or 9-year-old girl behavior or just need to give more positive reinforcement. I wish this was just something we're exaggerating. Positive reinforcement doesn't make any difference -- she's going to behave how she's going to behave, sweet or nasty, and there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. She's not as bad as she was 18 months ago, though. She hasn't broken anything but pencils, that I know of.

I'm so tired. And I guess I felt like after doing 4 kids in 4 years and twins and solo parenting and all of that, I was in for an easy stretch. I keep thinking I have no idea how parents who have kids with "real" problems or disabilities can manage this. Then I have this yucky realization that I might be getting ready to find out.

i feel like life is getting away from me.

2011-12-07T21:25:00.000-05:00

If you're a long-term reader of my riveting blog, you might be thinking I haven't updated because I abandoned my December activities habit. In previous years I've usually given up by now. But this year I'm still going strong, mostly because the kids force me through it.

On the 5th, I made them write letters to Santa. They protested because they don't know what they want yet, but I insisted because Santa doesn't want to pay for expedited shipping. They asked for super-cute stuff like a stuffed Puss in Boots and a stuffed Rudolph, then they drew pictures for Santa and wrote notes professing their love for him.

On the 6th, Haney learned about St. Nicholas at preschool. And in fact, St. Nicholas visited the preschool and left candy in the children's shoes while they were on the carpet! She came home very excited about St. Nicholas, and upset that I hadn't told her to put her shoes out. This must be how Jewish people feel at Christmastime, except they don't also have a belief in Hanukkah Harry to uphold. It was a tricky situation. And also, I don't understand the lore of St. Nicholas. Is he Santa, giving a preview visit? Is he Santa's helper? Is he a separate guy who is very similar? Our exposure to St. Nicholas has been when studying him as a historical figure when I was attempting to homeschool Miss A during preschool, and I had elevated him to a higher status than just "Santa's helper," so I don't know how to work this. Catholics? Any help?

Anyway, Haney was in a tizzy telling the older kids about it. So, I said they should leave their shoes out and maybe he would come after all. The older kids asked if it would really be me, and I said yes, but then they seemed to forget that and got way into St. Nicholas and when he would arrive and how great he is.

Tonight we were going to decoupage wrapping paper onto styrofoam balls, and make ornaments. It was one of the worst craft fails I've ever had (because I don't do a lot of crafts). But before that, I got on the phone with my sister and when I got off and went to summon they kids, they were building Santa's workshop in the boys' room. They'd made construction paper elf hats for their animals and Haney, and they'd seated the animals at the train table and scotch-taped hammers to their paws. They'd harnessed three reindeer (I was a little surprised to realize we have three stuffed reindeer) with a tinsel garland and tied them to the boys' bunkbed. P had stuffed his shirt with a pillow and was wearing a Santa hat and fretting about how to make a beard.

Miss A is starting to lose her shit again more frequently, after a long period of calm. And I'm stressing about how G is really hard to know, in a way. And in everything I do I have the sense that things are getting away from me, which is so hard because I desperately want to control everything. I'm back to showering only every other day, and I have no excuse not to be showering daily! I can't even describe what's going on, except to say that time is whipping by and I am dizzy.

advent, a time to reflect on the therapy our children will need in the future

2011-12-04T21:09:00.000-05:00

As you know, I celebrate Advent by dramatically over-reaching and planning a craft or activity with the kids each day.

On the 1st, I tore construction paper into strips and asked the kids to take turns naming people we care about, so we could pray for them or do something nice for them. It was a lovely thought. The kids were excited to show their love for the people they care about... like Rudolph, Blitzen and Comet, our cats, and Santa. They listed one grandmother, then got in a hurry and listed, "Grandmas, all except Nana" on another paper. Attention to detail, folks. It's what we teach here.

On the 2nd, I managed to find the Elf on the Shelf book and doll at Hallmark and broke that out. They were pants-pissingly excited. It was really cute... but has since backfired because they want to build shoebox houses and leave food offerings for the elf, so there are bits of bacon and toast and green apple Nerds in little containers all over the dining room floor.

On the 3rd, we had a holiday festival and parade and whatnot. The kids took turns being angry and bitter. The parade was followed by a spectacular fireworks display, shot off from the top of a 3-4 story building in our little downtown. It was awesome. I have a theory that our town's pyrotechnics manager (or whatever that job is called officially) was fired by a neighboring town, and replaced by someone he disliked. Then he was hired by our town, and since then every fireworks-worthy occasion has been part of his pissing contest with this neighboring town. It's only a theory, but I'm just saying, our fireworks displays are off the hizzy.

Today we made gingerbread cookies. Holy crap, everything is so stressful. They're all angry about someone else getting to crack the eggs or getting to lick the beater with the green tip. I hate that I'm so stressed out when we do stuff like this. I know it rubs off on them -- I can already see it in Miss A, how she has to control EVERYTHING all the time or she wigs out. And the worst part is that this is me doing well. I am on a medicine that helps a lot. I feel like I am at my baseline, like this is how I with my personality can function effectively. I'm not manic, I'm not depressed, I'm nice and normal. But I would love it if my personality included the ability to bake cookies with the kids without Lamaze breathing.

"In a catastrophic emergency, you're taking giant panicked breaths. Suddenly you become euphoric, docile. You accept your fate. It's all right here. Emergency water landing - 600 miles an hour. Blank faces, calm as Hindu cows." -- Fight Club

Unfortunately Lamaze breathing is not enough to bring me to euphoria or acceptance. However,the parallels between gingerbread cookie-baking and a plane crash are uncanny.

like the ya-ya sisterhood, but without the drinking and child abuse

2011-11-30T21:37:00.000-05:00

So I sort of sucked it at blogging daily this month.

Stuff I should note for my future self:

It snowed for the 2nd time of the season this morning.
I did pretty well cooking Thanksgiving dinner. It was tasty. Miss A was sick and throwing up much of the day, so she couldn't enjoy it.
On Friday Miss A was still a little sick, and Haney threw up a couple times.
On Saturday morning I woke up feeling fine, until I walked downstairs. Then I started to feel sick, but I thought it was because Miss A had made me a bagel and wanted me to eat it and the thought of eating food made by children without my guidance and supervision nauseates me. But it quickly became clear that it was more than the thought-bagel making me ill.
On Sunday I felt better. We went to church with our best friends, and I struggled to control my ugly crying because they were moving away the next day.
On Monday our best friends moved away.

So we've had this storybook thing going the last month, especially. My buddy Allison's husband works in a city a couple hours away and stayed there during the week. Jason isn't home until after the kids' bedtime. Our oldest girls are best friends. Haney and her younger daughter are super-close. Our boys all enjoy a brotherly relationship. Allison and I started having dinner together with the kids more and more, almost every day. I started going to their church and really like it, which is saying something because generally speaking I hate church. The girls liked it, then one weekend Jason and the boys came too and they all liked it. Then we started all going together every Sunday, and getting together afterward for lunch and spending all afternoon together. They're people who are kind, and funny, and easy to be around, and our personalities just kind of meshed.

Basically, it was familyriffic. It was like living a sitcom. It was like the Ya-ya Sisterhood, complete with communal clothing for the children, but without the drinking and child abuse.

It was really hard for me to have them leave. But my friend and her husband are really cute together and they are going to be so happy seeing each other daily, so I guess I can sacrifice my daily dinners with her so her husband can have them instead.

But the last two nights as I've dealt with the suckitude that is dinner time, I've found myself thinking things like, "Why is this so awful? It hasn't been this awful in a long time!" and then I remember that's because we had 7 kids here and in the chaos it was easy to ignore how awful dinner is because my friend was here too.

when it's really not okay

2011-11-22T22:10:00.000-05:00

Our meeting went well. I prayed about it a lot last night and this morning, because I didn't want to make things worse or aggrieve this woman who just lost her father, but I also didn't want hear myself saying, "Oh, that's okay."

I had this epiphany last night that I've been saying "that's okay" a lot since the boys became involved in the school system here.

When I applied for speech assessment for my sons, you misfiled their paperwork as though we'd declined services? Oh, that's okay.

Their teacher confused their assessments and put them in the wrong reading groups for 4 months? Oh, that's okay.

You somehow misfiled my sons' speech paperwork again, so they weren't picked up for services until I asked about it? Oh, that's okay.

And then there's all the more "normal" stuff, like them getting picked on or getting hurt on the playground or having teachers who think it's hilarious that they can't tell them apart. And not getting to meet the kids' teachers until the 2nd week of school. And no one ever noticing when they pee their pants, when it's 10 degrees outside. Oh. That's okay.

But it's not.

Their speech is improving but where would we be now if they'd received services for that extra year before kindergarten?

G thinks he's stupid. He didn't think that before kindergarten or even the first month or so. But after four months in a reading group way over his head he decided he was stupid, and almost a year later he still thinks so.

When I tell these people it's okay, I'm trying to be reasonable and acknowledge that they are just people. They're going to mess up. Mistakes happen.

But I realized last night I need to stop saying that, because it isn't my place to brush it off as no big deal. I'm not speaking for me in these cases. I'm speaking for my kids, and for all I know it is not okay.

I knew what I needed to say about the book, but as I thought about what I wanted to say about how the librarian spoke to me on Wednesday, I felt like I ought to tell her that I'm just trying to do my job just like she's trying to do hers. It is my job to call the librarian if I feel the material my child is reading could harm her. And it is her job to receive that information, consider it, and act on it. There isn't any room for either of us to get nasty with each other, if we're to have a working relationship.

But in the end I didn't mention that. I don't know why. Maybe God answered my prayers by shutting me up! The librarian seemed to think we wanted her to search the library for all offensive material... then she thought we wanted her to control what our kids check out... Then she thought we thought she should have known that material was in the book... (which she inherited from another building when we consolidated schools this fall.) Once she understood that all we wanted was for this particular book to be removed, she relaxed. I'd sent over scans of the pages I linked in yesterday's post, and she and the principal seemed to have already agreed that the book should be passed up to the 5th-8th grade building. (Sorry, parents of 5th-8th graders!)

I appreciate all of your encouragement. I'm glad we ended on a positive note. But I'm going to be working on stopping myself from telling people that it's okay when they mess up things to do with my kids, because it is a big deal. And maybe once they realize I'm that mom who always makes a big deal out of everything, they'll take more care to avoid situations where they'll have to deal with me. Being nice and being a "team player" isn't working, maybe because I'm trying to play on the administration's team, and that's not the same team my kids are on.

more about why i hate school, and how i'm apparently all about censorship on the elementary school level

2011-11-21T14:05:00.001-05:00

Hello blog friends.

Today I am sick with nervousness over my meeting tomorrow at school. As you may recall, last week Miss A brought home a library book I found appalling. She goes to a school that includes preschool through 4th grade, so the oldest kids served by the library are 10 (or have the approximate mental age of 10).

Below, please find some fine selections from "The Very Scary Almanac" by Eric Elfman. If you are a sensitive person you might want to skip this post.

So anyway. What caught my eye about this book was that a blurb on the back cover touted it as "a trivia treat for the occult-minded." Because I grew up in a church where having a fecal occult blood screening meant they were testing your poop for the presence of demons, I started flipping though the book.

Most of it was stuff about Godzilla and Bigfoot, zombies and vampires, ghosts, superstitions, etc. There was some benign stuff about witchcraft, then it went into the torture devices and methods used on accused witches -- thumbscrews, eyegougers, cutting off fingers and hands, cutting out the tongue, etc. Before I had kids I was not bothered by reading about this kind of stuff but since having kids, I find it deeply upsetting and I started to feel ill.

So I flipped through some more, and found the section on "Horrible Humans." Nice detailed description of how to kill someone via impalement Vlad the Impaler-style. Cute side note about how one time he had these guys' turbans nailed to their heads since they hadn't removed them when they encountered him. Great tidbit about some guy in Wisconsin in the 1980s, who made belts and lampshades from human skin. Then some info on Jack the Ripper and the ax murders of Lizzie Borden's father and step-mother. It's all presented in this lighthearted way.

On Monday, I called the school to tell the librarian about it. I assumed no one had ever read the book all the way through. The school secretary said the librarian was out. She took my info and said the librarian would call me back Tuesday.

No one called on Tuesday, or on Wednesday morning, so I called Wednesday afternoon. The secretary was surprised the librarian hadn't called me back, and transferred my call to the library.

Apparently calling the library is WAY the wrong move. I said why I was calling, that I wanted to talk about this book. The librarian was way flustered and said she was between classes. I asked if she'd like to call me back. She said yes, but sounded angry, and then started in about how she couldn't possibly call me back until next week because she had THIRTEEN classes -- THIRTEEN! -- on Thursday and she's at a different school Friday and anyway I need to send the book back before she can talk to me.

I asked if I could just bring the book in and talk to her then. She was increasingly angry-sounding or agitated as the conversation went on. She started in about her 13 classes again, and I said, "I'm only calling because I left a message on Monday and they said you'd call me back Tuesday."

She said, "Well, I wouldn't even have GOTTEN the message until Tuesday MORNING!" But it was Wednesday afternoon... A simple, "I'm sorry, I've been so busy and I'm just getting caught up!" would have been fine.

I hadn't even expected this conversation to be confrontational. I actually expected the response to be something like, "Oh dear! Thank you for telling me!"

She continued getting super-bitchy and finally ended with scheduling a meeting with me for tomorrow morning at 8:30. Because I am 6, I cried off and on all day because she was so nasty and these are the people I'm sending my kids off to every day and I was just trying to look out for my kids and other kids but she's acting like I'm a giant pain in the ass for even calling... bleh. And I posted about it on Facebook, but I didn't even share my true feelings about the librarian because of course it's a public forum. But I guess one of my acquaintances who helps in the library shared how upset I was, because I got a call from the principal Friday night saying the librarian had asked her to be involved in our meeting. So I decided to involve Jason in our meeting too. And she also said there's a two page form I need to have filled out before our meeting.

Apparently the librarian was out the previous week because her dad died, which is awful and explains why she was such a bitch. So I felt bad for being upset with her for a minute, until my friend reminded me that I shouldn't need to know what's going on in her personal life in order to have a very simple phone call. And she could have taken me up on my offer to just call me back and discuss it at a better time.

Almost any involvement I have with the office staff makes me feel like I'm intruding, or like I'm inconveniencing them. The classroom teachers aren't like that, and the other specials teachers I've met aren't like that, but this librarian definitely made me feel like I was incredibly rude for intruding on her day with my phone call. I deal with the school's MANY requests to join fundraisers and fill out the same 20 pages of forms each year for each kid even though nothing has changed, but if I have a concern about their actual business -- my kids' education -- they (not classroom teachers) act like I'm out of my mind for bothering them.

i think all identical twins should come with expandable hospital ID bracelets

2011-11-16T14:37:00.000-05:00

I posted this morning at HDYDI, about our still-developing efforts to tell the boys apart from a distance when they are dressed alike.

miss a's worst moments were actually part of an internship for her future career in counseling

2011-11-15T21:51:00.000-05:00

I have to go off-task from telling you about either my sad attempts at spending meaningful time with my kids, or about my WTF?? conversation with the librarian about the book Miss A brought home. The librarian hasn't called me back yet. I'm sure answering parent complaints about books is a high priority for her. She probably has to allow at least 24 hours for her anti-eye rolling meds to kick in.

Instead, I have to brag on Miss A.

She came home from school growling and irritable. At dinner, I expected her to be rude and dismissive when I asked what the best part of her day had been.

A boy in her class, whom I will call Tom, has a hard time controlling himself. I only know about him through what Miss A tells me, but I know he has an aide part of the time and I know he often has to be removed from class so he can calm down. At least once, the rest of the children had to be moved to a different classroom while the principal, assistant principal, teacher, aide, etc. worked to calm him.

At dinner, Miss A told us Tom had had a bad day, so she made him a card. This isn't the first time she's done that, and I wondered if she relates to him somewhat because of her own struggles. She described how she tried to sneak the card onto his desk when he wasn't paying attention so he wouldn't yell at her -- if people look at him when he's upset he yells, "DON'T LOOK AT ME!"

After Tom was removed from the classroom today, Miss A's teacher took her aside and told her Tom keeps all of Miss A's notes in a pocket in his back pack, because they make him feel better.

Miss A told her teacher that she used to get upset like Tom, and she went to see a counselor. Her teacher asked if she had any advice, and Miss A told her that the counselor said that when she feels like she's about to lose control, she should go somewhere where she can be alone. So Miss A and her teacher scouted out a tucked-away spot in the classroom and they're going to make a quiet, calming-down space.

She told me this like it was just any old thing that happened. She wasn't super-proud of herself. But I was blown away that she was able to connect Tom's situation to her own, because she tends to believe she is the one flawless human on the planet. And I loved seeing that empathy in her, and love that perseveres even in the face of rejection. Sometimes she is just awesome.

saturday morning: i start strong but end with a whimper because this library book was too scary

2011-11-14T14:33:00.000-05:00

I started strong Saturday morning in my quest to spent serious quality time with the kids. In the 8 o'clock hour I went to the boys' room with G and we talked about little guys (action figures).

We reminisced about our very first set of little guys, and I told him the tale of a dark and stormy night in early 2006, when we found ourselves in our fly minivan near a Once Upon A Child resale shop. I asked Jason if he would be willing to sit in the car with a 3-year-old and two 1-year-olds while I ran inside in search of some elusive piece of baby equipment. For whatever reason, he agreed.

As I was leaving the store, this fantastic castle (pictured below) caught my eye. It was paired with a bag of knights and skeleton soldiers and the like, and a horse-drawn cart. I snapped it up, and the moment we set it on the floor at home it was an instant favorite with the boys and Miss A.

Ah, what a merry tale.

In the 9 o'clock hour I played Starfall with Haney, and in the 10 o'clock hour I neglected the children but attended to my personal hygiene.

Then in the 11 o'clock hour I had a conversation with Miss A about the book she brought home from the elementary school library, which includes graphic (but perky) descriptions of medieval torture methods, as well as detailed summaries of modern serial killers' and mass murderers' methods. SERIOUSLY? And that will be the topic of my next post.

friday score: my good intentions 2, real life 17

2011-11-13T20:49:00.000-05:00

As promised, I tried to be intentional about spending time with the kids this weekend. As predicted, I failed.

In the 3 o'clock hour Friday afternoon, I spent some time with my Haney. We cuddled and took pictures with my phone so she could look at them,

and she enjoyed the panda cupcakes my friend Allison made for her the day before.

In the 4 o'clock hour, the big kids got home and I talked with Miss A about her day and held and cuddled G for a bit. I was two hours in and doing great. Then 5 o'clock hit and it all fell apart.

I had to fill in my timesheet for this new job assignment -- I work through a temp agency. I was supposed to submit it by close of business on Friday. As I worked my way through the instructions, I discovered I am supposed to print the document, sign it, and then fax it somewhere. Seriously? Who has a fax machine? And why? We don't even have a land line. I'm sure there's some way to fax a file via email but I couldn't figure it out because my children leveraged my distraction to start a loud chasing and wrestling game. My printer ran out of black ink about halfway down the page. I signed it anyway, scanned it, and emailed it to someone just so it would seem like I was a problem-solver. (I'm not.)

After that it was pretty much over for me and meaningful time with my children. I made the regrettable decision to let Miss A sleep over at her friend's house, and to let the other three have a sleep over in the living room. Haney cried [loudly] for Miss A for several hours. I longed for meaningful time with our DVR and a bottle of wine.

i prefer time with my children to be calorie-dense and rich in fiber

2011-11-11T13:57:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was Haney's 5th birthday, and I skipped out on posting because I was so tired and fell asleep on the couch before 9:45.

The other day I was thinking about her birthday and how 5 feels like such a big milestone. I realized I feel like I've only just caught my breath, and here she is 5 years old. For the last decade I've been just trying to catch my breath. It goes by in a flash.

The long days of breastfeeding on the hour, cleaning up potty training messes, breaking up fights, and non-stop crying are gone. I have only the vaguest of memories of those days. Thank God I started blogging or I'd have nothing from the kids' babyhood.

I spent much of the last decade thinking about how I would be able to do different things once the kids got older, once things got easier. I didn't have lofty goals; I was thinking of things like grocery shopping with the kids, sleeping through the night, taking them to the zoo, leaving the house at all, showering regularly... And things *are* easier now and I can do all of those things, but it gives me pause to realize how quickly the time goes. When I find myself thinking, "In another two years I can homeschool the kids and spend more time with them," it makes me uneasy knowing how fast that time will go. Another two years will be gone before I know it.

This week, as the situation with Jason's union at work and his holiday time has developed, we realized that he will be working every holiday from now on. He will not be able to schedule vacation during school breaks. By the time he has the seniority within this union to take holidays or summer vacations, our kids will be grown. Because he sees the kids about an hour each day, from when they wake up to when he drops them off at school, we really hold onto our family time. We rarely make weekend social plans unless they include the whole family. The week off during the summer and the long holiday weekends are our chance to make up for all the weekday evenings we miss out on throughout the year.

I'm seeing how I have great intentions but, if I'm being realistic, following through on those intentions will just cause a lot of stress and weeping and gnashing of teeth and bed wetting and fighting, so I tell myself, "We'll do that when they're older." But 1) When they're older they might not want to do dumb crafts with me, and 2) I'm going to have such a backlog of things to do that we'll never get to them all.

I want to be purposeful in how I spend these next few precious years. In just 14 years all my kids will have graduated high school. That seems like plenty of time until I figure in the busy teen years, and how quickly the last decade has gone. It's not easy to be purposeful, though, when we're struggling to get from point A to point B in a short amount of time, and still work in homework and dinner and baths... I can spend an entire evening with my kids doing those things, without having a real conversation with any of them.

What do you do to work in those moments of real connection? This weekend I'm going to try to make a real connection with at least one of my kids each hour that they're awake. They will probably be creeped out and feel like I'm stalking them. I will document my inevitable failure for you here.

fulfilling my obligation

2011-11-09T22:42:00.002-05:00

Haney's 5th bday is tomorrow. I'm exhausted from festooning and my stomach is sick. Possibly because this is my last day of having a 4-year-old, and 4 is the last age you can still sort of pretend qualifies as "baby."

no offense, unions. please don't burn my house down.

2011-11-08T22:06:00.000-05:00

Oh my gosh, I'm so tired! This Election Day no-school nonsense is more than I can take. And coupled with the recent time change, this was the longest day of my life. This morning I thought it was probably almost lunchtime, but when I checked the clock it was 9:40.

This isn't a good day to be anti-union in Ohio, but today I sure am. Jason was forced to join the union in order to accept this job. Today we found out that the time he requested off in December was viewed as a signal that he wasn't needed in his department, so instead he gets to shoot news. He doesn't get time off; instead he gets to slog around in the snow hunting down the parents of recent shooting victims in some of Cleveland's most pleasant neighborhoods to get an interview. Shooting news is awful. He did it 10 years ago and then worked hard to get a different job, so he wouldn't have to do it anymore.

Basically this is like if you request a day off and arrange for your work to be done ahead of time, etc., then someone says, "Oh, you don't need to do your job that day? Okay. Well, I've got a cashier at Wendy's who has been in that job a really long time. You go do her job and she'll take the holiday."

So we are bummed.

on trying to be seen as adequate

2011-11-07T22:52:00.000-05:00

Miss A has maintained pretty decent behavior for a few months now, but she is losing her mind again. She's super-nasty to everyone, can't remember why she's in trouble even 5 minutes later, denies things she said and major conversations we've had even just sentences later... I wish I could describe it better but it's weird and borderline creepy and basically she's every creepy little kid in every scary movie that features a creepy little kid.

She is 9. Staring down the barrel of the teenage years, this is scary and depressing. One or both of us needs serious medication.

I had her parent-teacher conference tonight and I decided I really like her teacher. Miss A is as gifted in academic as she is in emotional abuse and manipulation, and the teacher's only concern is in how to inspire Miss A to be neater without crushing her sensitive spirit. Her teacher told me intensity is a common trait of gifted children. I silently prayed that my other children are not gifted. Miss A's teacher also told me she was 17 months old when her mother had twins, and she already had two older siblings. At that point, her mother had 5 children 5 and under. According to family lore, Miss A's teacher said no words except, "Me too" until she turned 3.

This morning Miss A screamed about the house being too cold, and berated us for our stupid suggestions and our failure to produce her robe from thin air. Mercifully, she was out of the house all day because of school and conferences. Tonight when we got home, she screamed at us because she dropped a quarter in the toilet and we refused to reach in and fish it out. Then she screamed at Haney for being in the bathroom. Then she complained about P screaming. There was so much more snotting and screaming but I'm tired.

I need some sort of support community. Is there one, blog world? In my conversation with Miss A's teacher I heard her little girl self, needing to be seen and held and babied and heard. I see that she's always dressed perfectly, with her hair and make-up done perfectly. She has the one child, which could be an accident just as my having four children is an accident, but it could also be the result of planning carefully for a neat and manageable life. Her communications home certainly show that she values neatness and careful planning.

I am so insecure around people like her, who seem to have it all together and have all the answers. I get that their answers aren't mine, but I spend a stupid amount of time wondering whether they know that. Why should it matter? I just want to measure up.

In the last year or two I've made some really good friends here. Over and over I see in myself or hear from other women about the worry that we don't measure up. If I put forth this confident persona, someone else sees it and feels crappy about herself or her children. Two of my close friends here intimidated the heck out of me when I met them, because they didn't seem overwhelmed by their children. Now that mine are a little older I think I manage to look that way too, sometimes. But at the time I felt like I must just be an awful parent, because my kids were so overwhelming we rarely left the house.

It makes me sad to think of Miss A growing up and working very hard to have a quiet and well controlled life. It makes me sad to think of her teacher as a little girl, yearning to be included with the "big kids," or the babies, or anyone. It makes me sad that so many of our interactions are overshadowed or underpinned by a longing to be seen as worthy, or equal, or good enough. I wish I understood how to get the message across to Miss A that she is good enough, more than enough, not lacking. She doesn't need to be defensive or to make a preemptive strike. She can relax into who she is and float along without the need to blow anyone else out of the water. But I think the problem is deeper and broader than Miss A's specific issues with being usurped by twin siblings at a tender age. I don't know how to let her or anyone else know that they are *already* seen and accepted.

it's almost like fishing turds out of the bathtub is my destiny

2011-11-06T21:33:00.000-05:00

Again, or still, I have this post I have been meaning to write about the concept of servant leadership and how it relates to parenting and how I suck at both and whatnot, but everything I do has to be in a hurry right now! I even have to relax in a hurry!

I got a new contract gig or temp job or something. Merely doing the on-boarding paperwork for this job has been more work than I like to do in a week. I start tomorrow morning at 8:30. I am intimidated by having a set clock-in time. I am excited about the work because I've done it before and I'm good at it and I will be helping someone and it will be easy-peasy lemon squeezy. But I want to know exactly how my time will look in every week going forward from now until the year 2150, so I feel uncomfortable with anything new.

Also this job is going to be awesome because holy crap we need money, what with Christmas and taxes and debt and future homeschooling. But what I really want to be doing is cleaning cat fur off the floors and baking and building fires (in the fireplace) and volunteering at school and helping kids open their yogurts.

We went to church today and the sermon was about dreams (waking dreams) and pursuing them. I know what I'm good at: writing. I know what I want to do: take care of my kids and family. But I had to really think about what my dream is. And I was surprised when I realized that this is it. Not exactly as I've been doing it, but writing to other parents or caregivers and normalizing some of the feelings and experiences people don't talk much about, is what I would choose to do for fun. Encouraging other parents through the sucktastic times that are an important part of this nutritious child-rearing is something I feel called to do, and I feel like I'm doing a disservice to everyone if I act like everything about this is great or rewarding or feels worthwhile.

But even though I love writing to this specific audience and about this specific topic, I feel selfish doing it so I don't make it a priority. The pastor's point this morning was that if we can spread love by following our dreams, we should view them as something God has written on our hearts, and as something we are meant to do. It's an interesting new way to view a hobby.

i do not appreciate the strong arm tactics being employed by the committee for good schools

2011-11-05T23:10:00.000-04:00

Today P is seriously on the mend. He has moved all the way from comatose into cracked-out kitten. Our house was SO LOUD this morning, and I guess I hadn't realized how quiet it was all week. Haney didn't really talk from Sunday afternoon until Wednesday, and P has mostly laid on the couch and/or cried since Sunday morning.

Miss A has a school choir concert tomorrow morning. It's at the fundraising pancake breakfast for the Committee for Good Schools. Is that a racket, or what? So each of us has to pay $7 for pancakes, OR we can be the a-holes who don't bother going to their kid's concert. Although I actually attended the concert when it was held the first time, sometime during the last week. So we [geez, I say "so" a lot] have to get up and dressed and out the door by 7:45ish so we can get to this dumb thing and get good seats and pay $25 (family maximum) for a bunch of soggy pancakes, and for the pleasure of cleaning syrup off our three younger children and, subsequently, ourselves.

if you really think about it, there's a reason they don't make pork-and-cabbage scented candles

2011-11-04T22:59:00.000-04:00

Last night P was up again, a lot, crying. Then he finally thew up again this morning. He still has diarrhea like a river. But he started perking up this afternoon, after his 3rd dose of antibiotic. He is still sleepy and sick and crying from stomach cramps, but I think he is turning the corner. I am really hoping for a full night of sleep tonight. I am so, so so tired. No wonder I was edgy all the time when the kids were babies. I'm beginning to think another term for "postpartum anxiety and depression" is "breastfeeding mother to twins."

In developing news possibly related to P's stomach distress, our living room smells like spring rolls. It's REALLY strong. We haven't had spring rolls here, ever, so the odor is probably non-pork and cabbage related. What is it? Where is it? And do you know anyplace that makes really good spring rolls? Right now I'm just pretending the smell is spring roll related.

the underpants gnomes now engage in biological warfare to achieve their nefarious goals

2011-11-03T21:45:00.000-04:00

P was up much of the night last night, crying from his stomach cramps and then vomiting. I finally took him downstairs at 5:30 in the hopes that the rest of the family could sleep. That sounds admirable and self-sacrificing but I was groggy and confused and going on that very base instinct of making everyone shut up so the baby can sleep. I think I had forgotten I don't have an actual baby!

Today was not glamorous. You know how if you pour water into a thin cotton towel, it soaks through to whatever is beneath it? That was demonstrated for me so many times today, except not a towel and not water.

At 11:15 P and Haney and I went to the dr. He tested positive for strep. HOLLA! However, the pediatrician doesn't think strep should be causing the X-Treme sort of diarrhea he's having, so maybe he's dealing with layers of illness. He was prescribed antibiotics, which should help with the strep but potentially make the diarrhea worse... which I'm not sure is possible, really...

Because of intestinal distress, three of the children are running out of underwear at an alarming rate. I have temporarily reversed my policy on dealing with soiled drawers, and am now keeping rather than tossing them because of our shortage. And even worse, we bought Haney a new pack of undies last weekend and they don't fit. They are size 4, and they are HUGE. They might be too big for Miss A, who is 9. According to the chart on the back of the package, Haney was in the size 4 weight range by a few pounds. And the size 2T/3T undies were twice as much money per pair, so we went for it... and now have wasted $8.99.

I believe it's possible we've been poisoned, by some evil entity set on amassing a large collection of underpants. Because including the new package, we've probably had to retire 20-25 pairs in the last two weeks. Something is up.

Tomorrow: Another school absence for Mr. P.

introducing an exciting new blog feature for the month of november

2011-11-02T22:47:00.000-04:00

Blogworld, early last week I breezily told someone I was hoping we could get through the end of October without getting sick again. I was saying it purely for effect.

But alas, it was not to be. Illness has attacked our household ruthlessly, and I can't even keep track anymore of who all has been absent how many times and when. So for the next month, we shall track school attendance and illness, and you can see how healthy your household is by comparison.

Last Monday G and Haney were home sick, and I can't remember if G was back in school Tuesday, but on Friday I kept Haney home because she cried bitterly about how much she hates school and how mean all the other kids are, and I didn't have it in me to send her. So I will start with Friday, 10/28, just because I can.

Tomorrow P and Haney will be home again. Miss A has some concert in the evening which could be kind of iffy. Jason won't be home in time to attend or to stay with the kids... all of my friends also have kids performing in the concert... I'm just hoping the kids make a sudden recovery or Miss A doesn't want to go when it comes right down to it.

W 11/2 - all absent (reasons: P & Hanes - fever, stomach cramping, diarrhea, vomiting; Miss A - lice; G - not feeling it)
T 11/1 - P and Haney absent (reasons: fever, stomach cramping, diarrhea)
M 10/31 - P and Haney absent (reasons: P - fever, stomach cramping, diarrhea; H - vomiting)
S 10/30 - P and Haney not feeling well
S 10/29 - nothing memorable
F 10/28 - Haney absent (reason: tears because of mean kids and hatred of school)

Our school attendance is yet another argument for homeschooling.

blogworld, your time is running out

2011-11-02T16:20:00.000-04:00

I was searching for a Christmas gift for my little chef-to-be and happened upon this blog running a giveaway that ENDS TONIGHT.

While I selfishly want you to not enter the contest, because the prize would be the ideal gift for my little chef, and would fit in our Christmas budget of, um, not much, I have to share the joy with you in order to get more entries.

The prize:
http://www.headchefs.com/Cooking-Adventures-Cookbook-Santas-Favorite-Cookie-P112.aspx

Oh my gosh, so cute. And their other stuff is cute too. They have cooking tools and whatnot that are designed to fit kids' squishy little hands. I am so excited over how wild Mr. P would go for this.

I would like to do a better post on this, but my future chef is still in major intestinal distress so he needs me.

Anyway, visit KiddiesCornerDeals.com and enter by 10 p.m. tonight, and also go check out Headchefs.com for the serious cuteness. If you have a kid who likes to cook and aspires to culinary excellence, this site is for you.

it's the first day of the rest of my life, and i hope this isn't a trend

2011-11-01T22:01:00.000-04:00

It's November, it's the month when I try to post every day, and by golly I'm gonna do it.

P was sick on Sunday, and he and G and Jason and I were up a LOT during the night dealing with his uncontrollable fever.

Monday morning Haney sat down at the breakfast table and began to cry almost immediately. I went out to see what was wrong and found she'd thrown up right on top of the table. It was awesome. So Haney and P missed their Halloween parties at school.

My friend brought me an emergency dose of ibuprofen to piggy back with our acetaminophen, and that brought P's fever down enough that he felt he could trick-or-treat. Since his costume was the equivalent of a hospital mask and since we really wanted that candy, we decided to let him. I hurried to slap together some dinner for my Jawa, Batman, and vampire. Haney came in whimpering, and I picked her up, and she threw up a little in my hair. Then she ran to her bowl and threw up some more.

Because I was crunched for time, I put up my hair in a clip and kept working on dinner.

P lasted less than an hour, and came back to sit with me and Haney. This morning both of them were still sick. Haney, whose BMI was already about half the lowest number on the growth chart graph, is starting to look a little thin. Both of them just lay around and don't even have the energy to fight.

Tonight at bedtime we discovered an overnight pull-up full of liquid poo under Haney's bed. It says something about the stuffiness of my nose or the normal baseline stench of my house that we didn't find it for more than 12 hours.

And the kicker? I fear Miss A has another case of lice. If this were the same case the lice would be huge and everywhere, right? How is this happening? If I make her wear her hair up every day, will that prevent her from getting lice from classmates? What if I slather her hair in gel or leave-in conditioner every day? Tomorrow we are getting up early to apply a thick coat of Cetaphil -- thanks, Suburban Correspondent, for the tip!

On top of all this I got a large-ish contract job and it involves a dizzying amount of paperwork and getting things notarized and overnighting things. I have handled the paperwork and am comfortable with the notary at our bank, so I feel okay about everything except overnighting papers via UPS. Why? I don't like UPS. I don't like having to go to their weird store. I want to go to the post office and make them take care of it.

So, to recap, tomorrow morning I am getting up early to work out with Jillian Michaels, then treating my daughter for lice which involves blow-drying her hair for an hour, then probably cleaning up some poop or puke somewhere, then leaving the house for the bank and UPS, then coming back to work. Which means that by the time I've been up 5 hours I'll have done at least 7 things I hate. I will keep you and the internet at large up to date on my progress through this terrifying day, with probably a lot more detail than you'd like. But that's what November means around here, internet.

the universe uses a snickering teen with a sharpie to reveal an important message

2011-10-26T14:30:00.002-04:00

Over the last 24 hours, the universe has been working very hard to send me a message.

It started yesterday when I got the children's conference forms home in their bookbags. Miss A's conference was Monday night at 4:15. G & P's were Tuesday at 4:45 and 5. Sigh. Since I finally have friends here and the kids are getting older, this isn't the life-altering catastrophe it would have been two years ago, but lining up childcare two days in a row is still not great.

One should note here that I was at the height of my PMS yesterday, so it was not a terrific day. Where the conference snafu should have mildly irritated me, it instead really pissed me off. I called the school and left what I intended as a polite message, asking whether this was a mistake and calling their attention to the challenge of scheduling childcare two days in a row. It's possible the "polite" part didn't come through.

By this morning I had mellowed a bit. I came downstairs while the boys were telling Jason about how they and their friends are solving a mystery on the playground. Someone is writing messages to them on the playground equipment. Someone named C [heart] J. They believe C [heart] J (pronounced "CJ") has traveled back in time. I don't know where that idea came from because moments later I was distracted when they pointed out that CJ is not very good at spelling. They know this because, as P said,

"He meant to write 'COOK' but he wrote 'COCK.'"

Oh wow! I was not expecting to hear my first grader say "COCK!" They have written the word plenty, when they were exploring the -ock word family in kindergarten, before they were able to hear or pronounce the L in CLOCK. But once they mastered that CL blend last year, I've heard nary a "cock" out of either of them.

Jason and I avoided eye contact and busied ourselves with breakfast tasks until we could control our laughter. Under his breath, Jason whispered, "PULL 'EM OUT!"

It's our rallying cry for homeschooling.

A bit later, Miss A shared a story about how a 5-year-old on her friend's bus got beat up and the bus driver said if it happens again they'll find out who did it and that person will go to jail. There are several things wrong with that sentence and I'll assume I don't need to spell them out, but Jason again said, "PULL 'EM OUT!" and this time he made the lasso hand motion above his head that we use to signal when a hasty exit is needed.

A bit later the school called. It was the speech therapy lady (different one from last year). I had become aware that my boys weren't getting pulled out for speech, so yesterday I asked about it and she had checked into it. Their paperwork had been misfiled. I can't find where I blogged about it but their paperwork had also been misfiled when I first requested services for them, causing a delay of about a year in their receiving services. Seems like there is a filing problem in the speech intervention department.

Anyhoo, everyone on an IEP had automatically been transferred to the new speech person's caseload, but everyone who is on RTI which apparently means "Response to Intervention" was not transferred. So the boys and everyone else in their category had been left off the caseload until this mistake was discovered yesterday because I asked.

I am so not on top of things so when I am the one who discovers a mistake that's a bad sign.

I relayed this to Jason. He yelled, "PULL 'EM OUT!!"

Haney was at my friend Allison's house, so we had a lunch date. It was wonderful. And as we enjoyed the peace and quiet, we realized we've been misinterpreting the universe's messages. Instead of thinking that it's bad that the boys are reading profanity on the playground, we should be focusing on how great it is that the learning goes on all day. Instead of worrying about bus violence, we should be thankful that our kids can learn self-defense without us having to pay for classes. Instead of being concerned about how my boys keep slipping through the cracks, I should be grateful because speech homework is a pain anyway. The universe isn't telling us to pull 'em out -- no, it is telling us to keep our eyes on the prize because next year EVERY SINGLE DAY will be a giant peaceful lunch date! Quiet... with sandwiches...

So when the universe said, "COCK," what it really meant was "Hang in there, friend. Peace is before you. Shalom." Thank you, universe. That's one to grow on.

basically i want the school day to be about 3 hours long, 3 days a week

2011-10-25T14:10:00.000-04:00

Today everyone was back at school, so after I dropped Haney off for preschool I met Miss A for lunch in the cafeteria.

I miss having them all home, so much. Those early years were so intense and a lot of it was just awful, but I miss the leaf-collection walks and the woods exploration and the library story times, and the art projects and play dough... I clicked over to some blog about art projects for preschoolers today and was all excited about the projects there until I realized I'm really done with that phase. My final preschooler is going to be 5 in a couple weeks. And with three bigger siblings, she's far too sophisticated for "baby" projects.

Part of my nostalgia is because of selective memory. I can enjoy the memory of that one walk we took, and I can stop playback on that memory just before the walk turns ugly because a terrifying tiny poodle looked at us, requiring me to lug home 50 lbs of squirming, screaming, snotting toddler boys while pushing a stroller and corralling a preschooler. I can remember how we used to love throwing bird seed and peanuts out the front door and watching the birds and squirrels, without having to live through the stress of worrying that I was getting a work email and I should be at my desk because being able to work from home hinged on being available every minute of the day.

But I am conscious now of how fast the time blows by. I reassure myself by saying they are still so little, and we will bring them home in a year or so, blah blah blah... but really I know they are not so little because in 10 years, which will feel like tomorrow, I will be marveling at how the time went by without my feeling it. It's like water pouring into my hands. I can't gather or contain it, so the best I can do is to soak in it. I think I need them home to do that.

We have instituted "family time" on Sunday afternoons, starting at 4. We've watched movies, played games, and made crafts. Miss A asked me if we could have family time more than once a week. We're limited, because Jason gets home right around their bedtime most nights, but I thought it was sweet that she asked given that she's very into her friends right now.

I want to be more deliberate in spending time just being with them, but I am stressed by messes and disorganization (both of which abound here) and between housework, their friends, their independent play together, and school/work time, we spend so little time together -- or at least it feels that way.

Anyone else feel like this? How do you get your family time on? I know many of you are still in the really intense days -- please keep that in mind and remember that how I'm feeling now is more like you might feel down the road. How I was feeling back in the more intense days of ages just-6, not-quite-4 (x2), and 20 months was a lot uglier than how I feel now.

(Most days.)

health and finances: neither going especially well

2011-10-24T14:33:00.000-04:00

Today G is home with stomach flu and Haney is home with some vague something that is partly related to me not wanting to drag G out of the house to pick her up from preschool. But her other symptoms include lethargy and cough. G isn't vomiting so you don't have to feel too sorry for me. (Thanks anyway though.) Just bad stomach cramps yesterday, a fever Saturday and Sunday, and a nasty case of the runs. Also one of his eyes is red. Is that a common symptom of stomach flu? Or is it possible he's also getting pinkeye at the same time?

I have to update you guys related to our finances. I still haven't gotten paid and I suppose I probably won't anytime soon. HOWEVER. After I learned that my $3k is well out of my grasp, I contacted another of my slower-paying clients to ask if she could please process my outstanding invoice and explained why. She processed BOTH of my more recent invoices and put a rush on them and sent me a nice email. I still haven't received payment but the email was nice and at least I have hope the check will arrive this week.

My fast-paying client's payment could arrive soon too.

We have plenty of groceries so I did a $45 stock-up trip, which included lots of medications for various and sundry ailments, and we should be fine for this week.

And THEN, I took a bin of clothes to the resale place, and in my wildest fantasies I hoped we might get $20. (Yes, this is really one of my wildest fantasies. It's good to dream big.) But instead, I got $28! And she rejected two cute outfits that still fit Miss A, so Miss A can eat next week AND have clothes that match!

So all of that makes me feel really lucky. And the upside of not getting paid is that I won't be accepting any assignments from this one client anytime soon, which opens up my schedule a bit. You know, in the way that getting laid off opens up one's schedule a bit.

Now, onto Christmas. I'm planning marshmallow guns for the boys. Preferably some that fire by pump-action rather than by blowing into them. Anyone made such a thing?

i've been thinking about my doorbell, and when you're going to ring it

2011-10-20T14:45:00.000-04:00

Last night my friend Allison came over for dinner, and over the course of a couple hours we fed our 7 children and they ran and screamed and build haunted houses and battled each other with swords and maces. During that time, the doorbell rang. It was a hippie from Ohio Citizen Action. They want me to sign their petition and give them money and sometimes they ask me to write letters for them, so I knew I needed to nip this interaction in the bud.

"It's not a good time," I told the hippie.

"Okay, cool, I can keep it under 37 seconds," she boasted. I bid her go ahead while I signed her dumb petition that I imagine accomplishes nothing except making these particular hippies feel useful, this far from Wall Street. Then she shamed me into giving her a dollar by telling me her smallest contribution had been a quarter from a 3rd grader. I should have asked her how many dependents that 3rd grader has.

And hour or so later, the doorbell rang again. By this time it was quite dark, and we'd just put the kids to bed. It was 8:40. Jason answered the door, and I heard a different hippie begin on the same spiel. Jason hadn't been home for the first visit, so I joined him at the door.

"Someone's already been here," I said. "And it's late to be ringing our doorbell."

"Okay, it's not late, it's just dark," she corrected me. "And we do this from 4 to 9--"

Okay. Let's take a moment for me to analyze this situation.

First, WTF? If you come to my door and I tell you it's late? The correct response is, "Okay, sorry." You don't tell me it's not late when you're trying to get me to do something for you.

Second, your "work" hours are irrelevant to me. Ohio will still have mountaintop drilling and coal emissions or something at a more reasonable time. It's like if I worked at Wendy's, and I called your house bothering you about why you aren't at Wendy's, and when you said, "I don't eat dinner at 10 p.m.," I responded with outrage, "Well, I work until midnight!!" It doesn't matter.

"It is late for us, because we have little kids," I said. "And someone has already been here."

"Okay, cool," she told me, her laid back hippie demeanor ruffled by my pissed off tone. She gave us the "rock on" hand gesture as she took her clipboard to the next house.

Thank you, hippie activist. I will rock on, but I will do it before 7:30 or nightfall, after which I expect my doorbell to remain unrung until at least 9:30 the following morning.

financial problems make me want to bake cookies

2011-10-19T22:33:00.001-04:00

So, I've been busy with work, which has kept me from my blogging. I am entering the time of the year when income taxes are looming. Yes, tax day is 6 months off. It's a long time to worry because it is a lot to worry about. Oh, I miss the days when my taxes and Social Security and whatnot were withheld by my employer.

This year, as always, we begin the financial death march toward Christmas at the same time as we are supposed to be socking away probably half of each of my checks for taxes. But the problem is that my checks, once they arrive, go for bills and groceries and gas. They don't stretch enough for either Christmas or taxes.

As a freelancer, I've been really lucky to have steady clients who are financially stable and able to pay on time. I've only had one a-hole client who didn't pay me.

As a freelancer, if I take on a client that isn't a Fortune 500 company, I'm particularly vulnerable to the trickle down disaster of cash flow problems. You don't learn a client is having cash flow problems until they're several months and several thousand dollars behind. And here we are.

I feel defeated. I'm so tired. I don't want to work this much -- and it really isn't that much in terms of hours in the office, but it's every spare minute. If I do have to work this much, I want to not have to worry about how we're going to buy groceries next week.

We cancelled Haney's birthday party. It was supposed to be her first birthday party for friends. She seemed like she didn't mind but I'm not sure she understood what we were saying. It's a small thing but I feel bad about it.

Whatever Christmas budget we are able to scrape together by the end of the year will be divided among the kids, and our parents are looking at a lot of homemade gifts. I'm not sure how much our parents love homemade gifts, given that we aren't especially fantastic at anything that can be given as a gift. I think probably a little goes a long way when we're talking soup-in-a-jar and hot cocoa mix.

My next money-making scheme is to sell the kids' clothes. I went through and gathered up everything they own that's marked with any recognizable brand name, and I'm going to see what I can score at the resale shop. I also have my eye on some of their toys. This is my plan for funding our grocery purchases for the next couple weeks if no payments arrive, or for funding Christmas if I do get paid. Then in January I'll sell their Christmas presents to get money to pay my taxes.

state of the undies address: an update on incontinence

2011-10-10T13:00:00.000-04:00

Citizens of the internet, we are a great nation. We have accomplished great things in recent months, and yet we still have much work to do. So much work.

First, the good news. One of my older three was still in pull-ups at night, until one night about two weeks ago when we realized at bedtime that we were out of them. The child managed to pull out a win and stay dry, and has every night since. We don't even need to awaken the child for a last pee before we go to bed. This progress represents a savings of about $25/month in pull-ups, not to mention the additional water, power and detergent costs from our many overflows. This is awesome!

Now, the bad news. Haney, who is 4 [pictured below],

age 4

...has decided she is too good for toilets. She has been pooping her pants with reckless abandon for the last week or two. Jason thinks it is because of school starting -- she holds it at school, gets constipated, then there is the disgusting leakage problem... Enjoy your afternoon snack, by the way.

Anyway, Jason is able to be gracious about this but I am not. I am so tired of poop. And we are running out of underwear.

Haney is also still solidly in pull-ups at night. I know this because I tried to make her go without one last night, and apparently she wet the bed and woke Jason up and he helped her change and she spent the rest of the night in bed with us. I slept through this flurry of activity in the wee hours. Wee hours. Heh. Get it?

my paradigm shifted like a used sauder bookshelf

2011-10-06T21:45:00.000-04:00

If you've never moved cheap "engineered wood" furniture multiple times in a decade, I'll spell it out for you: I think my paradigm is about to fall over.

Suburban Correspondent, I think manipulation is the best tool I have available as a parent. But I guess I am too selfish to sacrifice in order to teach my kids a lesson. Would I keep them home from church because of poor behavior the previous week? Oh yes I would. And I have. I don't like church, is why, so I'm not going to put forth effort to do something that's a pain in my ass, AND suffer through their sleep-deprived insanity the next day because church keeps them out until 9.

But them liking to do things I've paid money for is a real novelty to me. G's tee ball experience last summer was the first thing one of them has done and not hated. They both did tee ball this year and enjoyed it. Football was another thing I forced them into, but they quickly fell in love with it. So I've paid my kajillion dollars for this and invested a significant amount of emotional energy in getting them to like it. Now is the easy part, where I can coast and just enjoy socializing during practices and games. I cannot afford to lose momentum in the boys-liking-things department.

Also I see every missed practice or game as money out of my pocket. And I'm cheap. How do you overcome these feelings? And don't you feel bad about absences that affect other members of a team?

In this specific situation, with their post-practice shenanigans, I'll probably go with a stern pep-talk in the car on the way to practice next week. They usually do well if I remember to give them a pep talk outlining my expectations very specifically. Unfortunately, sometimes it's hard to anticipate what all of my expectations will be. (Tricycle jousting is a good example.) Then if my pep talk fails to motivate them I'll be forced to sacrifice my own happiness and withhold football from them.

i experience a paradigm shift

2011-10-05T22:14:00.001-04:00

This evening I tried to cope with the pain of having to make dinner by checking blog comments on my phone. See? See how important it is that you comment?

Anyway, one of the emails held Suburban Correspondent's comment:

Do the boys like football? Can't you make them skip a practice because they didn't get in the van when you asked? Or am I being too Pollyanna-ish about this?
That's totally what I would do, though. Sports are a privilege and they have to cooperate in order to participate. No reason for me to go to all the effort to take them if they aren't going to be helpful. But I'm selfish, that way.

And just like that, my mind was blown.

Blog world, since the boys were old enough to protest, I have been dragging them kicking and screaming through everything. Church. Birthday parties. Games at family functions. Swimming lessons. Preschool. Kindergarten. Freaking flag football just two months ago.

I am so used to them hating everything that I want them to do, that it has never occurred to me that I could threaten to withhold football. I am still thinking my way through this.

Could it backfire on me? What if they change their minds and then don't want to go to football anymore? Sometimes I say stuff to the kids like, "You made a commitment to your team and you need to be there/do your best/wash the boogers off your cheek." What if they realize that if they don't want to go, all they have to do is be awful? I really need to think this through. How do you use this type of threat? Have you ever used it for something you actually want your kids to do? Talk me through it.

more and more, i am tempted to raise my children in an isolated desert compound

2011-10-05T14:15:00.000-04:00

So far the lice menace still seems to be under control, but my head is so very itchy at odd intervals that I spend a lot of time running a lice comb through my hair. How is it that I never had lice as a child, nor did either of my siblings, and now my kids have had it 3x already? Probably because we are dirty people. Sigh.

Last night the boys had flag football practice. It lasts until 7:30 and of course it is nearly dark by then and sometimes quite chilly. And the fields are boggy so there are mosquitoes EVERYWHERE. Once practice ends (frequently closer to 8) I have to get the kids home, untie the knotted laces on the boys' muddy cleats (usually while other children knock into me and fight and clamor for my help), get at least the boys through the shower, and clean up the dinner mess left when we rush out the door at 5:45. On these nights, Jason's arrival home is heralded as if he were a champion come to slay the dragon of bedtime.

But before any of that can take place, I have to get the kids into the minivan to head home.

Last night Haney peed her pants during practice [standard] and changed into a pair of Miss A's undies that she found in my patented Minivan MacGyver bin. She wrapped her peed-in Elmo panties in a McDonald's napkin, and neatly placed them on the passenger seat for me. Because she disliked wearing Miss A's undies, she was in a great hurry to get home and was happy to get in the car and stay there.

The other children were more interested in climbing trees. Every time I managed to nab one or two of them, I'd go to collect the third and at least one of the ones in the car would escape. This went on for a long time, and I was cold, and it was miserable. And I couldn't go yelling at them, because the boys were in Twin Mode, and when they're in Twin Mode they do not give a fig about me or getting in trouble or losing privileges or anything except cracking the other one up. When they are like this I have to play it cool or risk making a total ass of myself in front of the children, and then they'll know I am powerless over them. They are not ready for this knowledge.

So the clown car thing went on for a while and finally I had Miss A and G in the van. I had to shove them in and slam the door, then the kept trying to open the door and get back out. It was ridiculous. Then I started counting for P and he finally came, thank goodness, because it was a huge gamble.

Once we got in the car to drive home, he was mad at me. He wouldn't tell me why. We drove home while he attempted snide comments (unsuccessfully; he's 7) and I wished Jason would magically be home when we got there. He wasn't. I wrestled off the boys' muddy shoes and exhorted Miss A to complete her homework and listened to Haney cry about why she didn't get to take a bath first, all while P wandered through the house complaining.

Blogworld, I cannot wait for flag football and cheer to end. Then we'll only have to leave the house for speech therapy once a week. Getting the kids in and out of the car to go places is the bane of my existence. I plan to spend the winter all cozy and warm inside the house every evening. It will be wonderful! Remind me of that when it's time to sign up for basketball.

maybe my ocd demonstrates that i am more highly evolved

2011-10-04T13:05:00.000-04:00

Back to inconsequential topics, and maybe things that will make you laugh [at me].

Saturday morning Miss A was to cheer at a football game. It was 38 degrees here Saturday morning, with strong winds and a steady rain. Super-pleasant.

As I brushed her hair up into the requisite ponytail, a small bug scuttled across the neckline of her sweatshirt. Because I still have post-traumatic stress disorder from our bout with head lice in January 2006, I pounced on it, carried it downstairs, and locked it in a ziploc baggie for further investigation. Then I began to paw through Miss A's very thick hair.

Sure enough, mutha-effing head lice.

Oh my hell.

My de-lousing frenzy made us late for cheer, and I failed to realize just how wintry the weather was until we were there. She had a sweatshirt and an insulated raincoat, and that was it. No gloves. No slicker. Miss A is 49 lbs of failure to regulate her body temperature, so we were in for it. Before half-time, I excused us and we headed home.

We spent Saturday evening watching "House of Anubis" while I meticulously went through her hair, millimeters at a time. I can't kill spiders, houseflies, bees, wasps, etc., but I will admit I took pleasure in ending the lives of the lice and louse nymphs, and of stripping their carefully laid eggs from Miss A's hair shafts. Infestations get my OCD revved up, but because of my OCD I am uniquely equipped to de-louse hair. Add this to the list of things I am good at.

I checked the other kids: clean. I texted and emailed classmates' and friends' parents: They claim their kids are clean. I obsessively ran a lice comb through my hair until my scalp was sore, but found no freeloaders.

I repeated this process on Sunday. Everyone came out clean.

Last night, I felt an odd tickly sensation on my scalp. Oh, hell no. Sure enough, my louse comb yielded one filthy little louse trying to set up housekeeping on my head. I'm pretty sure I made my scalp bleed last night. The kids were all still clean.

This morning, I called the school nurse to notify her. Miss A was having some giant statewide testing thing this morning and she's been all stressed about it. The nurse has to pull her out of class to check her noggin... but they don't check anyone else. ?? WHY? So I'm worried Miss A is going to be traumatized/embarrassed, plus I'm still on high alert and mostly want to shave all our heads and the cats and remove all soft surfaces from our home including bedding, upholstered furniture, rugs, curtains, etc. However, I haven't had any heart palpitations, which proves my Wellbutrin is still highly effective.

My take-away from this: One more reason to home school.

clay

2011-10-03T14:37:00.001-04:00

Ah, blog friends.

My sweet friend Christy's oldest son died Saturday morning. Some of you know Christy from blogland, at the blog linked above or one of her others.

Christy's son, Clay, was injured at birth and never got the chance to walk or run or awkwardly kick a soccer ball on a cold spring morning, or hit a home run at tee ball, or try out for a team and worry to his parents about whether he would make it. He didn't get a chance to come home with a smiley face on his spelling test or a 9 out of 10 on his math quiz. He didn't get the chance to destroy Christy's house or sword-fight his brothers or Sharpie on the walls.

He did get to do a lot of cool stuff: He got to ride horses and swim with dolphins, and he got to be loved by a lot of people, and he got to change the lives of even more. I believe Clay in his not quite 15 years of quietness said more to people than I have in my 37 years of speech.

I don't believe that this -- what we live here on earth -- is the end. I believe that Clay is healthy and happy and restored, and perhaps making up for lost time doing the fun stuff he couldn't when he was confined to the body he had here on earth.

Christy, I love you. Thank you for sharing sweet Clay with the world. May your grief be eased and your heart be lightened.

Clay, thank you for being here. See you soon.

important thoughts about google, life before photoshop, and various infirmities

2011-09-30T23:03:00.000-04:00

1. I hate Google+. I'm sorry, world. I don't see the value in it. I also hate Twitter. In fact, I hate Twitter even more. I think it's because I'm aware that I should be using these as work/networking tools, but I don't have the attention span for that. Do I care about health? Heck yeah. But only when it's interesting. Do I care about writing? Yes, but sometimes writers who write about writing use a lot of big words and tend to write on for hundreds and hundreds of words. Unlike me. I am always very concise.

2. My blog is very popular on Google when people want to see what meth sores look like. I thought this was funny when I ranked #9 and #10 on Google for that inquiry, but now I rank #4 and it's gotten serious. All these people searching for pictures of meth sores so they can go all tough-love on their meth-addicted loved ones, or so they can weigh the wonders of meth against their desire to have clear skin, are finding pictures of me with my horrifying facial bug bites. What if my parents want to know what meth sores look like one day? That is a huge freaking problem for me:

First, my mom will totally assume I use meth. One time she saw a poster a coworker had made, with my head pasted on this guy's body (this was pre-Photoshop) and in that photo he had a cigarette in his hand.

Gene Moore, photo by Will Holub

Despite the fact that I was 22 and this guy was old and veiny and liver-spotted, by mom got really upset with me about my smoking habit. I told her it wasn't me and tried to show her the very obvious lines where my head had been cut from another photo with an exacto knife, but she didn't buy it. She stayed mad and brought it up over and over again for years as evidence that I lied to her. This was years before I'd ever touched a cigarette in my life.

So there's no way she will believe those are bug bites and not meth sores.

The good news is that when my parents wonder something and I suggest they Google it, I then have to tell them exactly the search terms I would use and they act like they're impressed. So I'm hoping that's genuine and they aren't really Google people. Because obviously the other bad part of them finding my blog via a Google search for meth sores would be the part about them finding my blog. Man, I thought I had nothing to say the other day? Having my parents reading would be even more uncomfortable than when my ex-husband's wife was an avid reader.

(And that was pretty uncomfortable.)

3. Thinking about that painful time reminded me of a few nights ago when I was trying to explain to a new acquaintance about what happened that made us decide to take Miss A out of school last year. Unfortunately this makes my throat close up. Not with a tightness like I am going to cry, although I can usually get started, but it's a tightness lower down, between my larynx and my collarbone, and it feels like someone is strangling me. When I inhale it makes a funny sound and it is really hard to get enough air to continue talking, so I have to take breaths every few words, and the whole time I'm a little worried that I'm about to asphyxiate on my own throat membranes.

Is this possible, blog world? I know some of you are nurse-type people.

I assume this is some sort of PTSD-related response but why? Miss A is really quite calm and manageable now. She is -- dare I say it? -- very pleasant to be around most of the time. In fact I could -- and should and will -- devote an entire post to singing her praises. So why am I strangling from the inside when I try to give a bare-bones account of what was going on up through last February?

ILLNESS UPDATE: Our coughs are epic. We're also supposed to do two football games tomorrow, and the forecast is rain and a high of 48 degrees. (That's Fahrenheit. It's cold.) Once, years ago, my mom broke her own ribs coughing. I think there is rib-cracking potential for us this weekend.

i think we've all learned some important lessons, about caffeine and shutting up

2011-09-30T14:22:00.000-04:00

Blog world, thank you for being my doulas last night as I attempted to give birth to slumber. It was a long, painful labor, but I'm happy to say sleep eventually made its glorious entrance into my brain sometime before 4 this morning. Then Jason let me sleep until almost 8.

I am grateful for the knowledge that my homemade brownies were a serious stimulant. That will come in handy some morning when I'm out of coffee.

So Alicia, in my sleep-deprived state this morning I got really enraged at your coworker with the adult step-children who wants to tell you how hard it is. HA! HAHAHAHA! That is awesome.

I don't doubt that having kids of any age is hard. Everyone says it is, so I believe it. But 1) how much work, exactly, did this step-mother have to do when acquiring two "children" around age 18? Does the dad have primary physical custody? Is their mother dead/in prison/on drugs? Do they have special needs? Is their dad senile? If there aren't at least two of those factors in play, I'm going to have to call bullshit. Because otherwise, I can't really imagine the new wife doing a lot of parenting of kids that old, so early in the relationship/marriage.

(Step-mothers please note: This is a very specific situation and does not apply to your situation. The three of you who I know read my blog are all in situations where you're more a mother stand-in, and less "my dad's wife.")

This brings me to the broader pet peeve of people who see you with your babies and want to tell you, "It only gets harder!" What??! In what way is that helpful? Or true? Granted, I have only 9.5 years of experience in parenting. However, I can say without hesitation that their baby years were infinitely harder than this is. There were some bumpy toddler/preschooler years (when the twins were 3 and 4, those years were pretty horrid for everyone) but still those years did not compare to around the clock feedings and getting a baby collection from point A to point B without letting the wolf eat the cow or the cow eat the hay...

I just realized I might have gone off on a little tangent that makes sense only in my head. Sorry. Anyway the point is that so far, 9.5 years in, I'm gonna have to say no it does not get harder, at least not yet. And whenever I annoyingly approach people who are just trying to get their shopping done with their small twins, I tell them it gets easier. And they nod politely and think, "It would get easier even faster if you would leave me alone, Mrs. Crazy." And then I walk away glowing with pride over how I helped them, and spread a little joy around the check-out area at Aldi. It almost brings tears to my eyes.

there's something about insomnia that drives me crazy

2011-09-30T01:23:00.000-04:00

As a person with some sort of mood-slash-brain chemical imbalance, I am pretty particular about my sleep. Seriously, if I still have any readers with a slew of little children, and you feel like you might have postpartum depression and you can't enjoy your children or your life and you feel terrible about it? 90% of that is because you don't get any sleep. There. I diagnosed it. I have a medical degree from the school of LIFE, yo! But seriously seek meds or whatever but don't despair that it will be forever, because once they FINALLY start letting you sleep [youngest approaching age 5] you'll find life infinitely more manageable.

Anyway, I like to sleep 10:30-6 or 11:30-7ish, somewhere in that range. So being up at 12:57 a.m. is very distressing to me. I am freaking out because I am old now and no longer able to handle life on fewer than 6 hours of sleep. It's okay, moms with a slew of little children, you can mock me. I deserve it. But I am 37 and just wait until you are old like me. It's ugly.

So Jason is sick. We all are sick, really. Remember how last Saturday P got sick, followed by Miss A, followed by everyone else? And all the kids were home on Monday? It was a riveting tale so I'm sure you recall it. But I sent them all back to school on Tuesday because they were fever-free and had enough energy to fight all day Monday, so I figured let the school deal with 'em.

Wednesday Jason stayed home sick. When he first pitched the idea of staying home late Wednesday morning, I thought he felt a tiny bit sick but mostly saw this as a good excuse to use one of his sick days. If he doesn't use them by the end of the year he loses them. So I thought that was super. Then the next time I emerged from my office he seemed much sicker. I assumed this was a case of guilt-induced mansickness exacerbating his genuine respiratory virus. As I tried to work (deadlines) and deal with getting the kids and snacks and dinner and what have you, I became annoyed with him for sleeping on the sofa, because I had not yet recognized that his symptoms had actually worsened. I thought he was just napping.

Last night was a blur of Jason coughing and wheezing and moaning in his sleep, and I was awakened to the fact that he was truly ill. In addition to just being awakened, in general. I eventually dug out some squishy gel ear plugs. They were not at all comfortable, and my hair kept getting stuck in them, but they drowned out the noise and I slept, fitfully.

Today Jason went to work, then P got sent home with a fever close to 102. That is genuine fever territory for me. The worst part was that I had my phone on vibrate and it was on the sofa, so I never heard the school calling, or Jason calling... so P sat in the office for an hour and Jason had to leave work very very early to pick him up.

Now it's 1:10 a.m. I tried to sleep in our bed but Jason is even more coughy and wheezy and restless than he was last night. The ear plugs were too uncomfortable to try again. I moved to the sofa in the back room, but Oscar the hamster is training for his hamster marathon and his wheel is noisy. I moved to the sofa in the front room, but the dazzling, colorful flashing lights coming from the array of electronics out there is truly breathtaking. Also the blinds in the front don't adequately block the light from our charming street lamps.

I weighed my options. Haney is in a toddler bed and it's not very comfortable for two people. Miss A is in a twin bed on the top bunk. I worry our combined weight could be enough to collapse it onto Haney. The boys have an open twin bed on their top bunk, but 1) it is very loud when a person climbs up there and 2) I will need to turn out the lights, and the boys will get upset and cry if they wake up and it is dark and no parent is in bed with them. (We are working through this. Slowly.)

I decided to climb in bed with the boys. They have a double bed, but they share it with a battalion of stuffed animals and two giant body pillows. One of the boys has terrible gas. I tried sleeping the opposite way, with my head at the foot of their bed. There was no place for my knees to go. I started to freak out.

I am acutely aware of how well air is flowing through my nose (not very) and how scratchy my chest is and how much my hair is touching me. Everything is driving me crazy. I am beginning to wonder if there is caffeine in cocoa like one uses to make brownies. Because I may or may not have made and eaten brownies tonight.

So now I am camped out on the sofa in the back room, having moved my marathoner-in-training, Oscar, to the bathroom. I am sure I am about to get comfortable and fall asleep at any moment, as soon as I can breathe. It's totally about to happen. I'm not at all wigged out about this.

a line i won't cross in my profession

2011-09-29T14:14:00.001-04:00

Because I feel like blogging is good for me personally (remembering family events, feeling my feelings) and professionally (the more you write, the better you are at it), I am trying to get back into the rhythm of posting daily. It isn't easy. Right now, blog world, I feel as though we're old friends who've fallen out of touch with one another. We're in a surface-level small-talk phase, trying to get warmed up enough that we can dip into deeper waters. That's no problem if I have something remotely funny to share, but right now I don't. So I sought help from a writing prompt website.

The prompt for today was, "Write about a line you won't cross in your profession." That's a tough one. I won't use anything posted on about.com as a source. That's the only hard and fast ruling I've been forced to make.

As I stared at the monitor, struggling to come up with other professional lines I won't cross, a pretty ad with stylized pink and purple flowers caught my eye. The top said "Summer's Eve" and I snorted, thinking someone had made an unfortunate naming or branding choice, not realizing the association of "Summer's Eve" with feminine hygiene.

I scrolled down. Ohmygosh. The next few lines said,

VTalk

Frank, Fearless and Fun.

Shut. Up.

I rolled over the ad and it popped out and the extended copy read,

Yeah, we're going there!

Vagina Grooming Mishaps

by Anne Nahm

Immediately I became acutely aware of a professional line I will not cross. I will not attach my real name to writings about vagina grooming mishaps. I have my standards. I write about sexually transmitted infections with reckless abandon, but those are published under my client's branding, and my name is nowhere to be found.

I googled Anne Nahm to see if she is a real person. She is. She has a kick-ass blog, based on the three posts I skimmed. I clicked on the ad, so I could kick it with my BlogHer bitchez an' hoz, rappin' 'bout vaginaz. Her post is funny. The VTalk branding is unfortunate. I can see the marketing team at Summer's Eve thinking they are really onto something. "No more mother-daughter pairs walking on the beach. No, it's time for something HIP! Let's help women take back their vaginas! We'll call it VTalk! For Vagina Talk! So women can really get to know their vaginas, and figure out where to put our products!"

Kudos, Anne Nahm. You are a braver woman than I. I have no doubt you deserve a lot more than what the VTalk team is paying you. If you ever want to rap about our vaginas, hit me up.

i learn an important lesson about fitness and the great outdoors

2011-09-27T21:53:00.000-04:00

Oh blog world, I so desperately want to post something for you but I'm exhausted. Exhausted. Part of it is my lady moon time, and part of it is that I was seized with a brilliant idea today, and that idea was that I should walk to school to pick up Haney.

School is only a mile away, but given that Haney is 4 (and a half) and that even walking up a flight of stairs is too much for her to do without crying, we always drive. But this morning I hit snooze five times and slept in rather than keeping my date with Tony Horton, and I told myself I could make up for it with a brisk walk to and from school.

Jason made me get rid of my strollers, and this is one of the 15-20 days each year that I really resent him for that. I have a bike trailer that doubles as a stroller, but I wasn't sure where the push bar was, and the garage is really gross so I didn't want to look too hard. Plus one tire always goes flat and I have to stop and try to pump it on the go, and that's typically hot, frustrating work.

My other alternative was the enormous John Deere industrial-strength wagon. It was all dirty and covered in fleas and mouse poop and raccoon dandruff, disguised as dust. I brushed it off and started on my way. I felt sort of stupid pulling a gigantic wagon without a kid in it.

Two blocks later, I became aware of how heavy the wagon is. And how warm it was outside. I stopped to take off my jacket and ran the wagon into my leg. I totally meant to do that, though, old guy who stopped gardening to look at me stumbling around on the sidewalk.

After one more block, a chain link fence separated me from a dog who is always in his back yard. The dog was very excited to see me. The yard was flooded and very muddy, especially along the fence. The dog was so wet and gross that I could smell him from the sidewalk. He started running back and forth, barking like a maniac, splashing muddy water four feet to either side of him. The water was undoubtedly riddled with his nasty dog feces, runny from eating garbage, rotting squirrels and his own poop. I tried my best to dodge it.

After that, I reached the terrain outside of where the city cares about level sidewalks. The wagon's suspension is surprisingly rigid. The wheels banged loudly over every seam between slabs of sidewalk. But that's how I roll, lady who was staring at me from your screened in front porch. And your cat, too.

By the time I got to school I was all sweaty. "Did you WALK?" Haney's teacher asked. Oh yeah, no big deal. Can I borrow your inhaler? And would it be cool if I use your car's air conditioning for just a few minutes?

I think somewhere, Tony Horton is high-fiving people because I will never again plan an afternoon wagon ride in lieu of a workout.

cracked-out kitten disease, and how to treat a fever

2011-09-25T23:29:00.000-04:00

As we have established before (in posts that aren't especially exciting so I won't bother linking), P suffers from cracked-out kitten disease. The disease can lie dormant for months at a time, only to rear its fuzzy, kitteny head when P is exposed to one of two stressors: illness, or the start of a new school year. Either of these stressors can flip him into a frenzy of wild behavior, until he closely resembles a kitten chasing a laser pointer.

The last three years, the start of the school year prods P into committing violence against his brother, taking ridiculous risks, breaking lots of stuff, and joyfully disobeying in general. Fortunately I've seen that it wears off after a while so this year I'm less concerned with treating cracked-out kitten disease. I can ride it out.

P started complaining Friday night that he didn't feel well, and sometime overnight he woke up sobbing about his head hurting. This is par for the course when he is ill. However, I was so tired and his was just one of 3-4 wakings Friday night, so I guess I filed it away in the "dream" category of my memory bank.

Saturday morning we went to one of Miss A's football games for which she cheers. From now on I'll call them "cheer events." And I'll refer to her team/squad as the cheer contingent.

Anyway P seemed fine at this event, and he'd been invited to his friend Craig's birthday party Saturday afternoon, and indeed one of the awakenings I'd suffered in the wee hours of Saturday morning was to establish that it was about 12 more hours until Craig's party. So he was jazzed.

But when I picked the boys up at the end of the party, it was clear something was amiss. He whined to me that he wanted to go home instead of eat cake and ice cream. He wanted me to carry him to the car. He didn't want to play football Saturday night. His temperature was in the 102 range. Sorry, everyone at Craig's party!

By last night, Miss A was complaining of a sore throat. This morning P was doing his usual cracked-out kitten thing, and Miss A huddled under a blanket on the couch all day. By bedtime they both had 101-102 fevers, and Haney fell asleep on the floor at 6:30.

Tomorrow Miss A will be home exhausted and fussy, and P will be home bouncing off the walls and leaping over furniture, and I don't foresee this going well for any of us. I almost hope Haney is sick too so she can stay home and entertain him.

I'm chalking our constant sickness up to someone starting at a new school or job annually since 2007. Next year is gonna be our year! I'm sure of it!

But for now, let's take a poll. What do you consider to be a legit fever? What about a "high" fever? Do you give your kids medicine at a certain temperature or only based on how they're acting?

My kids get high fevers so I hardly count anything below 102. Last time Miss A was sick (shout-out to strep!) the urgent care nurse freaked out and made her lay on a slew of ice packs for a temp just above 102. I guess I always thought if you don't need to give medication to lower a fever (for example, if the kid isn't uncomfortable), all the better because the higher body temperature would kill off the funk sooner. Is that some crazy thing I made up?

yesterday was a case study in how pride goeth before a fall

2011-09-22T13:32:00.000-04:00

In the last several months, I've had several occasions to remark to Jason about how proud I am of our children because of:

their respect for adults who are not us
their common sense, which occasionally seems to exceed that of their peers
their decent behavior (mostly in settings outside of our house)

Yesterday the boys' buddy Sam came over after school. Unsurprisingly, the boys ran through the house and jumped on and over the furniture and screamed and wielded weapons in nearly every room that holds breakable objects, but not in the ~~pit~~ room set up entirely for epic battles: the basement.

During dinner my four children enjoyed themselves immensely, while Sam displayed good manners and ate quietly and didn't get up from his seat at all and didn't spill stuff everywhere.

After dinner Sam's mom came to get him, and the children spirited Sam off to some hidey-hole and proceeded to build a barricade at the top of the basement steps, constructed of hockey sticks, swords, Nerf maces, light sabers, and green lego base pieces. Sam's mom and I chatted for a bit, and then she was ready to collect her son. After repeated requests for Sam to come out of hiding, Mrs. Sam determined she had to go in after him.

The doorway was impassable. We had to remove a few pieces of the barricade, then Sam's mom climbed through and carefully headed down the stairs, picking her way through the other lego pieces, bits of torn cardboard, shoe boxes, dress-up clothes, and towels with which the kids had littered the stairs. My shame and I decided to remain at the top of the steps and dismantle the barricade, which I removed to the living room. As I did this I heard Sam's mom trying to sound kind and patient while talking to the kids about why Sam couldn't spend the night. P insisted he could.

As I returned to the stairs again, Sam and his mom were at the bottom of the steps, with Mrs. Sam gently stating that, no, Sam could not spend the night. P had apparently armed himself with several of those stuffed vinyl balls, because he then reared back and winged one at her, from 3-4 feet away. The ball made contact, with a loud THWAP! P reloaded and threw again. THWAP! Mrs. Sam was cowering against the wall, her arm raised to protect her face. P grabbed a third ball and raised his arm.

Blogworld, this was mind-blowing. Would my children do this to me? Hell yes! Would they do it to an uncle, or a teenage babysitter? Yes. But this isn't a woman they know well -- they've never been to her house, we haven't spent time together as families, and they've only met her a handful of times.

I bellowed at P to stop, and apologized to Mrs. Sam. "That's okay," she said. "My kids have done it too..."

"Really?" I asked. "Your kids have dodge-balled one of your guests?"

She smiled weakly.

They came upstairs and grabbed Sam's shoes. His mother struggled to untie them, finally giving up and telling him to walk to the car barefoot. Then we realized one of the shoes had disappeared. G had snatched it and hidden it. I ordered him to fetch it, which he did, then walked into the room and tossed the shoe in Mrs. Sam's general direction.

Seriously???

I'm going to blame this appalling behavior on school or something.

After we finally got them put to bed, I realized I hadn't peed in about 12 hours -- I can't pee while other children are over because of the likelihood that something or someone will be broken or otherwise destroyed. Fortunately my years of having a handful of babies prepared my bladder for cluster-peeing, where I manage to urinate twice in the morning and twice in the evening, and the rest is strictly optional. So anyway I went to the bathroom and realized there was something brown smeared on the wall by the toilet. And I couldn't be certain what it was, but if there's anything the last 7-8 years has taught me it's that if there is something brown smeared on the bathroom wall, there is a decent chance that it is poop. In fact I have a photo somewhere of a turd stuck to the wall above our toilet.

So, all of this is to say that it's apparently too early to congratulate myself on how my children have turned out.

more school and twins stuff

2011-09-21T09:25:00.000-04:00

Hellooo! I see you were all too scared to comment on the story of Doggy Baker. Well, you should be scared.

Yesterday I posted at HDYDI.com about my attempts to prevent last year's twin mix-ups from happening again. Please check it out and share your opinion.

the legend of doggy baker

2011-09-19T22:49:00.000-04:00

Gather 'round, friends, and I shall tell you the chilling tale of one Doggy Baker.

I first learned of the legend long ago, in the early summer. But I felt fear's cold fingers closing around my neck every time I gave the legend more than a passing thought, so I put it out of my mind. That is, until today...

This morning dawned cold and damp, with gusts of wind that blew the autumn air through the tops of the trees with a rushing that sounded like the sea. As we waited at the bus stop, Haney drew closer to me.

"A strong wind means the Doggy Baker is coming," she said, her eyes large with trepidation. The sudden memory chilled me more than the winds swirling around us.

"Doggy Baker?" laughed Jason, ignorant of the terror he was about to unleash. "Who is Doggy Baker?"

"He's a doggy and he bakes!" squeaked Haney's 4-year-old voice. Jason laughed, like she was telling a cute story. But I knew better.

"What does he bake?" I prompted.

"People!" she squeaked again.

Yes: Doggy Baker. The dog who bakes people.

The Doggy Baker lives in the woods behind our house. The neighborhood children once played there happily, building forts and "safety homes" with fallen tree limbs. But their carefree days of pretend ended in horror, when they awakened the Doggy Baker.

"He is all green and his fur looks like leaves," Haney told us. "So if you see grass and leaves that have eyes, that's Doggy Baker."

source: demonml.deviantart.com/art/Scrunt-212719764

I immediately thought of the Scrunt from Lady in the Water.

The Doggy Baker preys on children who go into the woods alone. When the wind blows, signaling that the Doggy Baker has awakened, the children run as fast as they can out of the trees and into a clearing. They feel the hot, wet breath of the Doggy Baker on their necks, like a freshly disturbed pile of rotting grass clippings. Heaven help a child who is too slow or small to keep up, or who becomes ensnared in the underbrush. They will become a delicious feast for the ravenous Doggy Baker.

So beware, o weary traveler who seeks respite in the woods, pausing to sit on a once-mighty elm, now fallen. The same winds that rustle the leaves and toss the branches high above you also stir the scruff on the Doggy Baker's neck, and he bristles with anticipation of the chase, the catch, the meal!

my trust in the school nurse, previously valued at $50, is shattered

2011-09-14T10:22:00.000-04:00

I know my family's cold symptoms make for a riveting read, so grab yourself a drink and a snack and let's enjoy some quality time together, shall we?

As established, my attempts at super-parenting are thwarted at every turn, and P had fallen ill after receiving the nasal flu vaccine. Over the weekend everyone seemed fine. Monday night G complained a little about not feeling well, but given the vigor with which he destroyed his siblings and the house, I assumed it was just his school allergy flaring up. Tuesday morning he cheerfully got ready for school while P and Miss A expressed their loathing for school, me, Jason, wearing clothes, brushing their hair, and breathing.

At 10:26, the school called. He was in the nurse's office with a fever and a "very red" throat. The nurse went on and on about how red his throat was. I asked what was the meaning of this throat-redness emphasis, and she said she thought I should have him seen. Assuming she, as a school nurse, knows more about sick kids than I do, I called the pediatrician. They couldn't see him til 6 p.m., at which time I would have to bring at least the girls with me. I decided we'd try the MinuteClinic after Haney went to preschool. In the meantime G cried and appeared miserable.

When we arrived at the MinuteClinic, I discovered there was an anticipated 167-minute wait time. G was crying about his misery, Haney needed to be picked up from preschool in 120 minutes, and I had already cancelled our 6 p.m. pediatrician visit. I started to search for the next nearest MinuteClinic on my phone, when G started crying even harder and said he couldn't swallow and felt like his throat was swelling. I looked in his mouth. To me his tonsils were indeed very swollen, and his whole throat was very red, but I don't know a lot about what a normal 7-year-old-sized throat looks like.

I started to worry a little, though, and thought maybe I ought to take him to urgent care.

A $50 copay later (have I mentioned we're on a cash budget system and also that I worked about 10 hours in the last 5 weeks and we are strapped?), we were sent home and told to see our pediatrician ($25 copay) in the morning. Negative rapid strep test, and nothing special I should do for him. The urgent care doctor was not at all impressed by his symptoms or his throat redness.

With my lack of medical expertise, there is no one for me to blame except the school nurse. If his throat wasn't excitingly red to the urgent care doc or nurse, it shouldn't have excited the school nurse, should it have? And now she has breached my trust in her medical skillz. Later this year when she calls to tell me my kids have head lice or impetigo or pink eye, I'm going to assume she's overreacting and send them back to school in 24 hours regardless of the pestilence they will unleash upon the rest of the elementary school.

breaking news: local boy says homework is stupid, dumb, fat

2011-09-13T09:35:00.002-04:00

I'm not kidding around when I say P is not a fan of homework. And I should point out that we haven't started speech therapy through the school, yet, so we don't even have that to contend with.

Pretty much P hates everything about school except gym ("Jim," according to the paper he filled out on Meet the Teacher night. I was like, "Who is Jim? How have I never heard of this kid before?") and his teacher. He also likes getting home from school, and cites that as the best thing that happened to him all day every night at dinner.

Last night he had reading homework, which was very easy for him. He had to write his spelling words, which was also easy. But then he had to 1) draw a picture of himself playing with shapes (because he said that was his favorite part of math exploration) and 2) find thermometers around the house. And that pissed him off.

I do the boys' homework separately in most cases, otherwise G tries to copy off P but doesn't usually copy successfully and it's just a mess. But on things like "find clocks around your house!" or "find calendars!" or "find thermometers!" I take them on a walk through the house and play warmer/colder until they find some clocks/calendars/thermometers, or until I start having stroke-like symptoms.

Any night that I attempt homework is 60-90 minutes of dragging the kids through their very simple assignments. We aren't writing research papers here, people. We are copying spelling words, counting the number of dots on a domino, and describing what kind of cat Sam is. (A good cat. The boys were irritated by that question because they took it to mean the breed of cat. I kind of agree with them.)

P's latest insult is "fat." This is probably my fault because I'm a little spazzy about the word "fat" to describe people. So once again my efforts have backfired, and all the words we've spent the last 7 years forbidding are now on P's hot list. Stupid, dumb, fat, butt, and fart are now his absolute favorites. He throws fat around to describe all kinds of things that cannot in fact be fat, though, like homework, bedtime, school, and using a car seat. I think this is 94% annoying as hell, 6% funny. But this is probably how "gay" took off as a very catchy insult, so I should instead aim for 92% troubling, 8% sad.

2011-12 parent-teacher relations take another hit

2011-09-12T13:58:00.001-04:00

As I mentioned, I'd never seen or met Miss A's teacher before Meet the Teacher night, which was a week after school started. Therefore, I was forced to create an entire life story for her based solely on the tone of the letter she sent home the first day of school.

It seems third grade is the big league. In stark contrast to the warm and friendly letter from the boys' 1st grade teacher addressed to "First Grade Friends and Families," Mrs. Grade 3's letter was terse and focused on the consequences of misbehaving in class, along with not doing one's homework and failing to have one's parents sign off on one's assignment book. Miss A controls herself in class but the stuff that has something to do with me isn't our area of excellence.

For example, I've spent the last three school years establishing a habit of doing homework sporadically three weeks out of every month, then blowing it off entirely for a week, then rushing to make it up on that month's three-day weekend. This is how we roll. But should I continue to roll in that manner, Miss A will spend every recess doing her homework because she's not allowed to go out to play unless it is done. While this seems like a reasonable real-world consequence, it is a giant pain in the ass for me.

Anyway, from this letter I created a back story for Mrs. Grade 3, in which she is the mother to only one child, a girl. This girl has a tidy bedroom, the focal point of which is a large white Pottery Barn Kids desk. The desk is neatly organized and not besmirched by marker, pen, paints, or stickers. The girl possibly does ballet and her name may or may not be Emily. That's as far as I got with the back story before I was interrupted by my children fighting and yelling and my boys wrestling and cackling and breaking things.*

Now, it's very difficult for me to appear to have it together to parents with only 1-2 children, particularly if those children are girls. I do much better looking on top of things to parents of 3-year-old quadruplet boys, and I make every attempt to surround myself with such people, but it's difficult because most people in my target demographic don't leave the house. Unfortunately, no one in Miss A's class has 3-year-old male quadruplets, so I have to work very hard to seem like a mother who can foster her child's academic growth.

On Friday I cleaned out Miss A's "Friday Folder," as instructed, and found that Miss A is already trying to sabotage my attempts!

Look at that! Not a single word that would instill confidence in the mother of a singleton girl! I composed a letter to the teacher defending my parenting and my household on each of these points (except the terrified screaming face) and would have sent it in today except one of the boys drew a crayon picture of a colorful decapitation scene on the back, so I have to rewrite it.

*At Meet the Teacher I was able to confirm that she has only one child, and that child is a girl. No word on that girl's bedroom decor or extracurricular activities, yet.

part 2, and a reader poll on leaving kids at home alone

2011-09-09T11:45:00.000-04:00

Where we left off, I was feeling responsible for having had my boys immunized against the seasonal flu.

By Wednesday evening, P was complaining about not feeling well. I thought this was just his school allergy flaring up, but I took his temperature and he did have a fever. Thursday morning it was even higher. I kept him home, and he spent the day alternating between crying and leaping around like a maniac. His symptoms match the sheet on "mild reactions to the live attenuated influenza vaccine" perfectly.

Unfortunately his sick day coincided with the first time I'm actually had work in about 5 weeks, so I tried to ignore his whimpers so we can eat this month. I dragged him out at 3 to pick Haney up from preschool, and then the boys' speech therapy was scheduled for 5. We waited in the car and watched Phineas & Ferb on my phone. He laid in the reclined passenger's seat and moaned.

At 6:30 it was time to take Miss A to cheer practice. She's on a cheer squad or team or whatever you call it, for a youth football league. P wasn't feeling good at all, and wasn't happy about the idea of leaving the couch, but I couldn't think of anyone who could come sit with him at that hour. I left the kids in the car and walked Miss A in to her practice.

When I came out, the boys' had spotted a kindergarten classmate and her mom. The excitement popped P out of his misery and into leaping maniac mode. The boys had pounded on the car windows and yelled until they attracted the classmate's and her mom's attention, making me look like a real winner for having left my three little kids in the car. I tried to assure her it was only because P was sick, but she didn't seem like she believed me, maybe because of his minivan gymnastics.

Jason took pity on me and came home early so he could pick up Miss A and spare us another trip out. I tried to manage my feelings of shame by scrubbing the window of my oven with baking soda. Trust me -- it was penance.

P's home again today and doing worse, and we have more of the same running around picking up and dropping off people. He's too scared to be left at home alone for even a few minutes, and I guess I don't trust his judgement enough to leave him. He just turned 7. The first time I left Miss A at home alone she was 8.5 -- I've done it twice for 10-15 minutes and I was nervous each time, but I felt a lot more confident that she wouldn't do anything stupid.

What's your guideline on when you let your kids stay home alone? For our purposes, let's say you would be gone about 15 minutes.

let me tell you about my last 36 hours, part 1

2011-09-08T21:30:00.000-04:00

After lunch on Wednesday I dropped Haney off at preschool and picked up the boys for their 7 year well check. For the first time since birth (as far as I remember), G is heavier than P (by a couple ounces). They are the same height. P is in the midst of his beginning of the school year insanity (aka "cracked-out kitten syndrome" -- a ribbon is forthcoming) so he flung himself around the exam room, rolled around on the floor, hid behind the table and trash can, tried to reach inside the sharps bin, etc. The doctor tried to ask me questions about his behavior and if he had trouble at school. No stranger to questions that mean "is s/he always like this...?" I dodged and weaved and assured him P is never in trouble at school and no, he is not always like this. Where were you and your ADHD meds two years ago, buddy?

When the boys were instructed to disrobe I had another flashback. The good news is, I don't have to worry about the boys unwittingly falling prey to an acquaintance who wants to take creepy pictures or anything. They both flipped out, big time. They cried big fat tears and from their big red faces and they climbed under the chairs to hide. It took me back to age 3.

Eventually I talked them into their gowns, but the doctor was very busy and kept having to leave our room for long periods of time. During his absences P did a lot of standing on the exam table and leaping off. I was worried about his safety, but the alternative seemed to be a punching and wrestling fight with G that got quite loud so I decided the large muscle activities were better. At one point he had to use the bathroom down the hall, and another doctor told me he had 4-year-old twin boys at home, and this was giving him a taste of what his future would be like. I felt really bad. I wanted to reassure him that it gets better, but at that moment my boys weren't a shining example of "better."

After the bathroom the boys went to punching and wrestling, then G pulled his knees up into his gown so he could perch like a bird on the edge of the chair, and P climbed the table and jumped off. Suddenly there was all this screaming, but to my surprise it wasn't from P. G had rolled forward while trying to smack my phone out of my hands, and landed right on his big forehead. Which has had a rough year already. Sure enough, it swelled up into a nice goose egg.

I went to look for a doctor or nurse, but given that I was in an actual doctors' office, I was surprised at how impossible it was to find a medical professional. I expected the screaming to attract some help, but they are surprisingly numb to blood-curdling screams at the pediatricians' offices. It was a while before I managed to track down a nurse, and everyone seemed confused about how he injured the top of his forehead in a little 5'x10' exam room. They probably thought I finally snapped and beaned him with a reflex hammer, but he's always been an over-achiever when it comes to head injuries.

After a quick check for concussion symptoms, we were cleared for take-off and the boys were given their nasal flu vaccine, and I felt like a real go-getter, seeking preventive care for my children, for about 3 hours. Which takes us to part 2.

twins in school update

2011-09-07T16:36:00.000-04:00

Hello all! I wrote an update and posted at HDYDI. I will blather on about my feelings here later, probably in a bajillion different posts.

i've unwittingly dealt a heavy blow to 2011-12 parent-teacher relations

2011-08-31T22:39:00.001-04:00

Let's talk about meet the teacher night, shall we? Do you have this in your district? When is it typically held?

Growing up, I think we always had Open House the night before the first day of school. With my kids, "Meet the Teacher" night has always been scheduled the week prior to the start of school, or at least a few days in advance. This year we scheduled our vacation for earlier than usual so we wouldn't miss it, as we did last year. As always, I'm trying to start the school year strong and get the teachers to like me so it takes them a few months to realize what a slacker I am.

This year even though we moved to an entirely new building, combining 4-5 elementary schools, and even though the school has been open for 3 weeks and the teachers have been there even longer unpacking their stuff, there was no Meet the Teacher night prior to the start of school. The teachers officially started last Tuesday, the kids started last Wednesday, and Meet the Teacher night is tomorrow.

So for a week and a day my daughter has been spending 6.5 hours a day with someone I've never met or even seen. The boys have Miss A's 1st grade teacher and he's great.

Last night at a football practice a woman came up to talk to my friend about something scheduled for tomorrow night, and of course I butted right on into that conversation and voiced my valuable opinion about how it's ridiculous that we don't get to meet the teacher until more than a week after school starts. The woman commented that the staff didn't want to do it, and I said that didn't seem like it should be a choice. She said something to the effect that their contract didn't say they had to do it, and they already had to come in early to unpack, and they weren't getting paid... And I obliviously pressed on and said that "Meet the Teacher" night seems like a part of the job, and one might not like it, but it's just part of being a teacher.

Then there was a pause in the conversation, and then she went back to her original topic with my friend, and then I realized she is the wife of one of the teachers. And so I might have already blown my shot at making the teachers like me this year.

school: the first 5 days

2011-08-30T14:30:00.000-04:00

For years I thought I was a Mommy Blogger but now it is clear that I'm actually a school blogger. I have so much to say that it would take at least 10 posts and now Haney will be in school every afternoon and I will have time to blog all day!!! Because I've worked maybe 10 hours this month and I feel sick to my stomach thinking about what a lean month September will be and what if they don't hire me anymore and what if all my clients are conspiring against me and they hate me and--

So you see I've been busy being nervous.

The kids all seem to like school, basically, which is why it puzzled me last night when all three of the big kids asked about home schooling. Separately.

Miss A says she doesn't like going to school, and by the time she feels like going it's the last day of school and time for summer break again.

P says he misses me, and why can't we start home schooling now?

When I remind the kids that Daddy and I are trying to work a lot and make lots of moolah this year, so we can move the girls into the attic and use their room for school and I won't have to work so much, G says, "But we can do it this year, right?"

Last Friday was a crummy day. One of my little men misunderstood his teacher's directions about when the best time to use the bathroom is. At the fancy new school, bathrooms are down the hall instead of off each classroom. The teacher suggested the kids try to go when it is not "teaching time," so they won't have to interrupt teaching time. My guy said teaching time just kept going and he had to go so bad and finally he couldn't hold it and it started coming out and he was so embarrassed. And I could feel his shame in that moment, as he recounted the story later. He said he had to wipe up some drips that ran on the floor, with his shoe.

Then the guidance counselor (who we all love) came into the room to read the class a story about being kind, and she reminded my little one of me, and he got homesick and started to cry. The counselor and the teacher got the assistant principal to come escort my boy to the counselor's office, where he could look at her pet turtle and calm down. He wouldn't tell anyone what was wrong, except that he missed me, and no one noticed his shorts were wet.

When he got home he berated me for not having packed his bag of extra clothes! I told him they only do that for kindergarten and preschool. He was enraged. I packed a change of clothes in his backpack for any future mishaps, but I know he won't use them anyway. He could have told someone what happened and they would have called me to bring him clothes, but he didn't. Last year the boys knew they had extra clothes available, but they still wouldn't tell anyone when they peed their pants. They are just too ashamed, even though their classmates pee themselves regularly.

Jason and I are trying to come up with a plan B. I want them to be able to go to school for the next year or two. It would be so nice to be out of debt and in solid financial shape and able to devote all my time to the kids' education... but once again, ideal might not be realistic.

stuff that happened the first day of school

2011-08-25T22:33:00.000-04:00

Some of you might be asking how the first day of school went. I'm sure you've been waiting to hear all about it... but it was just like your kids' first days of school, I think. Seriously, I probably know more about how your kids' first days went than about how my kids' went, because of m-fing preschool orientation.

Preschool orientation was clearly scheduled by someone who has never had a child, because we had to be there at 9 a.m., which happens to be when the first bell rings on the very first day of school for all older children. The first day of school is always a clusterfuck, but this was the first day of school in a brand new building, AND they failed to schedule a meet the teacher or back to school night until next week sometime. So no one knows what's happening.

Add to that that we scored a set of bus cards this year. This was a small miracle, because the brand new building is built on the site of the building where Miss A attended kindergarten, which was too close for us to get a bus ride. This miracle is life-changing for many reasons and if you're curious about them I'll explain it later in a riveting post. But for the purpose of this post the main idea of this paragraph is that on the first day of school the buses are usually verrrrrry late.

So we scooted our kids onto the bus and rushed to the school and hunted for a parking spot and ran inside, and there was no chance to meet our kids' bus and take pictures of them, which is sort of our thing.

The preschool teacher is about 12, and she is a person who talks with her eyes closed a lot. I mean, to an extreme degree. A dad asked her a question and she shut her eyes and started answering, and then her answer and eyes-closedness went on so long that I worried she was having a muscle cramp or something. (She seems sweet though.) I think the eyes-closing thing might have to do with nervousness, because she forgot to introduce herself to the kids in any way or even speak to them. So the parents (minus Jason) sat around the teeny table and the kids played (and Haney clung to Jason).

In addition to paying $175/month in tuition for this program, we actually got a supply list! Have you ever heard of such a thing? I'm really asking, because I've only sent kids to one preschool but we didn't have to buy supplies. Nor did we have to buy snacks, and here we are to send a healthy (but pre-packaged and not homemade) and balanced and USDA compliant (or something) snack for the entire class once a month. Including paper products.

What the WHAT??

I am cheap, yo. I did some calculating as the teacher went over the kinds of snacks we have to provide (with her eyes closed) and I determined it will cost me at least $25 each time I need to send in a snack. And you know what? Preschool is 12:30-3. Even Haney, who has a stomach the size of a cherry, does not need to eat that soon after lunch.

Anyway, the big kids' bus was supposed to drop them off at 3:45. It finally rolled up around 4:20, and Miss A was in tears because she had gotten confused and thought she was a car rider, and couldn't find the boys (because they went with the bus riders) and thought they were lost and worried they wouldn't be able to find their way home, and the boys climbed all over me because they missed me all day, and the reported they aren't allowed to run on the playground and P was depressed about it and wanted to start homeschooling immediately, and G said he doesn't want to homeschool OR go to school. So we are off to a good start!

an update on school supplies

2011-08-23T22:35:00.000-04:00

So today I set about organizing the kids' school supplies. Miss A needed 50 #2 pencils, and they must be sharpened. FIFTY. The kids seem to attend school for about 36 weeks. I know some of you are itching to do that math so I'll let you, but they seem to anticipate that 3rd graders are going to be tearing through more than one pencil each week.

Is that even possible?

I don't know how many kids are in her class, but let's just say 20. So they seriously need 1000 sharpened #2 pencils to come into the classroom tomorrow?

It's important to note that all of the kids' teachers, individually, have been very reasonable about supply lists. Somehow the National Association of Third Grades or whatever comes up with this shenanigous list and the teachers just have to hand it out and we have to purchase and send it all in.

The boys each need to bring in 24 sharpened pencils. So this morning I realized I needed to sharpen 98 pencils today, and I don't have a proper pencil sharpener. I opened the boys' new pencil sharpeners for school ("shavings MUST be contained") and Miss A and I got started. Well, I think I wore out the boys' new sharpeners. Between the cheap pencils I bought Miss A because grade 3 didn't specify Dixon Ticonderoga (and by the way, today I discovered there IS a difference) and the cheap pencil sharpeners and the sheer volume of pencils being sharpened, I think the boys might be disappointed in the performance of their sharpeners this year. Fortunately their new school is fitted with real sharpeners in each room.

If you are asking why I need to sharpen a year's worth of pencils when there are sharpeners in the classrooms, so am I.

Miss A is already wigging out about how she never has free time and can't finish her work, and our district has cut gifted funding so I anticipate even more keep-'em-busy worksheets than last year. The system is somehow really broken, because we have amazing teachers who really care a lot, and we have amazing facilities and equipment, and everyone's all worried about how we're falling behind China and what have you, but our district sent a letter this week that basically told us that unless a child has an IQ around 160 or above, their enrichment will be accomplished by worksheets. I could be wrong but I am pretty sure Miss A is in worksheet range, and also that worksheets are one of the least enriching things around.

So in a few years I will be servings Miss A's enrichment needs by keeping her home and stimulating her brain with hours of colorful television and engaging video games, punctuated by long periods of reading and/or being locked outside and ordered to, "I don't know, just figure out something to play! When I was a kid we didn't have to be told what to play, we just played!"

[We totally did beg to be told what to play, but she will feed her kids the same line of crap when she's a mother so I think it's fair.]

Boy, I am bummed about summer ending.

things that are not cool

2011-08-22T22:09:00.000-04:00

Do I have pinkeye again? I might or might not so I am treating my eye pain with pinkeye medicine just in case.
Why have I been sick all summer? Srsly.
I spent $150 in school supplies and I'm not even done yet.
Annoying supplies #1: Miss A needed "a cosmetics bag -- NOT a pencil pouch or supply/pencil box." WTF? What is it for?? Cosmetics bags come in so many shapes and sizes -- ask Vera Bradley! I need more information, such as a suggested size or an explanation for why a large pencil pouch will not suffice. Should I just send an overnight bag? Help.
Annoying supplies #2: The boys need 6" x 8" pencil boxes. What the what? Last year they needed 4x8 and that was ridiculous and difficult. Can we just get on the same page here, teachers? Why do I have 5 gently used pencil boxes in assorted sizes at home, but none of them can be used by any of my three schoolchildren this year?

let's explore my ambivalence about school

2011-08-18T15:29:00.001-04:00

Stacey, in answer to your question about whether I've decided to home school everyone:

Not right now. The short answer is that we've decided to work hard to pay down debt during the next two years, with the goal of bringing Miss A (at least) home before she would start middle school (grade 5 here). She wanted to go back to school this year, so I feel good about the decision for now.

Haney starts a 5 day/week preK program on the 29th, and she's very excited. The boys are excited about starting 1st grade with the awesome teacher Miss A had. So for now everyone is happy.

Let's hone in on this post's key message:

I AM GOING TO BE ALONE EVERY DAY FROM 12:15 UNTIL 3:30.

If it sounds like I'm shouting, that's because I am. The amount of work I can finished in 3 uninterrupted hours is about what I got done on a highly productive 8-hour day in the office during my "real job" days. My productivity is going to soar! I hope my workload soars with it so we can afford to pay my taxes and hack away at our debt and get the attic finished so the girls' tiny bedroom can become a school room. I am hoping to accomplish all of this without having to resort to using Angel Food Ministries to meet our grocery budget but the thought has been haunting me and they have somehow gotten my phone number and keep leaving messages on my voice mail so they might have caught wind of my long-term financial goals.

it's the last week of summer vacation

2011-08-17T07:48:00.000-04:00

...which sucks it.

My head is playing, "Touch Me In the Morning," except the words go, "Blogging in the morning..." I am dead tired by the end of the day and have fallen asleep watching tv on several recent occasions. I considered morning blogging but felt too guilty about cutting into my work time. Then this morning a simple thing happened that made me change my mind:

The boys burst into our room at 7:19 to ask whether they could go to the basement to get weapons for the game they were playing. They needed lightsabers because they were playing Star Wars with Haney. And Jingles, our little white cat, was R2D2.

I'm never going to remember that in a year if I don't write it down. So, it's time for a realignment of priorities.

what is the movie where the guy has to keep shocking himself to stay alive?*

2011-08-02T23:14:00.000-04:00

FINALLY, people, I have finished the projects that were oppressing me. I have written so many thousands of eloquent** words and none of them were about health care or quoting the CDC and that is so hard for me, blogworld. So hard.

So Miss A was in the play. It was a good experience for her. However, I think it nearly killed me. Starting last Thursdayish I started having heart palpitations, which reached a discomfort nadir on Friday afternoon. I literally thought I was going to die. And I'm not using "literally" in the figurative sense.

But because I am no stranger to panic attacks, I realized that "I think I'm going to die" is to panic attack as "I can't do this anymore" is to transition during labor. So I tried to talk myself out of my panic but pretty much I felt like hell. My body was really tired, my chest hurt and felt weird, my heart was beating really fast, I felt surges of adrenaline that would speed my heart up even more for a few seconds, and these happened multiple times/minute, I felt dizzy and/or like I was about to lose consciousness, and I felt like my eyes weren't working right. I also couldn't eat more than a few bites of anything without feeling like it was just sitting, disgustingly, in my mouth and I couldn't swallow it.

After Miss A's performance Friday night, I magically felt a lot better. I was able to eat. I decided I had been nervous on her behalf and I was all better, until Saturday. Then I went back to feeling like I was about to die.

About this same time, I had cracked a tooth or filling -- probably from the intense but comforting tooth-grinding sessions I use to soothe myself every night. The tooth started to hurt. By Saturday night it just sort of hurt all the time. I raided Jason's extensive narcotics stash (because he can't tolerate them, not because he's a dealer -- but he could be!) and discovered that whatever narcotic I took makes me very chatty and delightfully sleepy, although it didn't entirely take care of the pain. But oh, how I have missed a nice drugged sleep! There is nothing like it.

On Monday morning, bright and early, I had to go to the dentist to have my filling replaced.

Going to the dentist terrifies me.
I apparently require some unusual amount of pain relief: This time it took four shots to numb me. FOUR SHOTS. The last one only burned deep in my jaw bone, though, so it was better than the other three.
Four shots of things that end in -ocaine will keep your mouth ridiculously numb for 6 hours or so. So I was hungry, and also couldn't make any phone calls (for one of my assignments) until late afternoon.

So today, even though I finished all my stuff and should feel AWESOME, my heart is still all screwy and my left hand is a little numb and I still feel dizzy/black-out-y/panicky and the weirdness in my chest makes me feel like I need to cough but coughing doesn't help. So yeah, I am feeling certain that my death is imminent and therefore I should have enjoyed taking the kids to the grocery store tonight, but I most certainly did not.

*"Crank." I Googled "movie where the guy has to shock himself to stay alive."
**Debatable.

the issues that are shaping my world

2011-07-27T07:30:00.000-04:00

I'm so disappointed in myself, blogworld. There are only 28 days of summer vacation remaining and I've barely written anything, despite having a lot to say. I've had (and continue to have) way too much work, but that is good in keeping with our long-term goal of paying down any and all debt so I can work less and homeschool the kids.

Did I write about that? Oh yes, I see I did.

Other things I'm not sure I mentioned, that are worth mentioning, but I don't have time to write about in-depth now because I should really be working:

Miss A auditioned for her first play/musical and got a small part in a youth production of "Sleeping Beauty." Performances are this weekend. Her director is 19 and, as such, ridiculous, and she insists on keeping the kids until 10:30 p.m. or later at each rehearsal this week.
Surprisingly, Miss A has been very kind and non-violent this week despite her late schedule.
P decided to join G in playing T-ball this year -- oh, an inquiry into whether it is "T-ball" or "tee ball" brought me to the page of the T-Ball Association, where they refer to it as "tee ball" everyplace except when referring to their organization. Sigh. Okay. The boys played tee ball this year and they are phenomenal.
P, in particular, is a phenomenal hitter. G has the same accuracy but doesn't swing for the fences. I think that made G feel bad since it was his 2nd year. We had a sad episode in the final game when G got out for the first time and it was devastating, in some part because they only started getting people "out" about two games prior.
We signed the boys up for flag football, because my lifelong lack of athleticism has led me to fear that if they don't learn how to play some sports now, later it will be too late to pick them up because everyone else magically already knows this stuff. That made them mad. P wanted to be enrolled in chef school instead, and G was just mad in general.
After some clinics, P LOVES football. G claims to hate it but is apparently a little better at it than P. Practices start tonight.
Miss A is going to cheer for the tackle teams in the boys' football league. This is travel, which I somehow didn't realize until long after I signed her up. Not far travel, but a 10 minute drive reaches the outer limits of where I want to be on any given weekend. Sadly, for her, she has one day off between play-related stuff until she starts a 3-day-long cheer clinic. It is only evenings, but I think she's ready to have her evenings back. And after the cheer clinic ends we leave on vacation.
The boys have been very naughty lately, since returning from my parents' house. Which is tough because with so much going on we need to take them out in public quite a bit.
P is doing so well in speech therapy that his therapists/technicians/whatever they are reassessed him and I'll get the results next week. That is great, except he only makes the sounds carefully and properly during speech therapy, and in about 2% of his other conversations. Poor G is still just a mess.
G learned to ride his bike before P did last spring, but otherwise this summer has been full of wins for P, and G feels like a LOSAH. G is actually better at a lot of things, but he doesn't see it and is unwilling to try at other things because he thinks he won't do well.
G is left-handed for some things and right-handed for others. I'm not sure we've ironed out which hand is best in every situation. P is right-handed for everything.
Haney has learned to swim very well and I can't wait to take her on vacation and see how well she does.

Time to get cracking on work! I'm so busy that I'm wasting two summer afternoons keeping the kids here with a babysitter -- something I hate doing. I'm telling myself that I just have to get through next Thursday, then we leave to go on vacation, and my deadlines will have passed and everything will be better.

no good can come from long-term indulgence of my children

2011-07-17T22:19:00.000-04:00

Blogworld, when last we met it was Tuesday and my children were gone. On Wednesday and Thursday I did a lot of drinkin', eatin', baby-makin', and house cleanin'. Or at least three of those. On Friday morning I headed down I-71 to collect my brood, my heart brimming over with love and adoration for them.

Within 10 minutes of my arrival at the Donatos where we had lunch, Miss A was snotting at me and I was threatening to put her on yellow. (We have a new color-change system, like at school.) She then sulked in a corner for a while. The good part was that my parents were so worn down by the shenanigans of 7 kids ages 4-11 that neither of them went over to comfort her and eventually she got over herself.

Within an hour, P seemed to experience a recurrence of cracked out kitten syndrome, and I started to feel very sorry for my mom and dad.

The whole drive home they fought and cried and annoyed me. I was glad to have them back, though.

This weekend was full, with football and play practice and t-ball and a birthday party. I have to report to you about all of it except the play practice, because of various ridiculous situations, but pretty much my mom and dad broke my kids. I sent them well behaved children and they sent me back a pack of wild jackals.

i envision a world where we are all making breastmilk smoothies for our highschoolers

2011-07-12T23:57:00.000-04:00

I'm feeling better now, blogworld, and thank you for your kind thoughts. We had a fun dinner out with our friends last night, and then tonight we ate at a Mexican restaurant that served me a jumbo sized frozen margarita. I don't think I've had one before. It was delicious.

And now for comment replies.

Kimmie said:

I remember sitting at my oldest daughters graduation and thinking "who the fuck is still lactating at their kids HS graduation?"

I want to know what kind of mother is not still lactating at her kid's high school graduation. Don't you want your children to be smart? Don't you want them to be slender and un-diabetic?Aren't we all still pumping several times a day and making our children breast milk smoothies?

No?

Hm. Apparently I have been wasting a lot of my time.

Sara said:

I totally believe the key ingredient is the youngest child being 5 years old.

Yeah, I think the youngest child's age is the key to ease of child-rearing. Haney is only 4.5 and she can only go to play around the neighborhood when she's escorted by the older kids, but that frees me up from having to listen to her cry all day about when does she get to play with friends.

But I do remember upswings even in those rougher ages... summer usually sort of sucked it because of the increased activity coupled with windows being open (so the neighbors could hear all the yelling, which stressed me out) but there were some harmonious times during the cooler months.

I don't want to make any of you feel sad about easier times being years off, according to my estimations. I just wanted to say that, when people stop you at the grocery store to tell you that this is the best time of your life, and your kids are screaming and you are sweating through your shirt and you are also trying to do math in your head to make sure you have enough cash to pay for your stuff at check out time, that there's nothing wrong with you if you aren't feeling it. You don't have to wonder if you have an attachment disorder or need medication or institutionalization (as soothing as that might sound). It's just that those people are slightly off on their timing, and your *best time* is coming, but has not arrived yet.

i cannot be pleased, part 187

2011-07-11T17:04:00.000-04:00

Blogworld. The last few years my parents have taken the older children for 5 days each summer, and they send them to a VBS program in my parents' town so my parents can maintain some sanity.

This is the first year Haney has been old enough to attend.

As you know, Jason and I have spent fewer than 5 nights without children in the last 9 years. All of a sudden, we are going to spend 5 nights in a row without children!!!!

The irony is that when I really needed a break because the kids required so much work, they were too little to be away from me. And now that they're big enough to be away, they are so easy and fun...

Last night I was mostly excited as we drove north on 71 as fast as our law-abiding natures would allow. It's been 24 hours now...

...and I feel awful. Awful. Depressed and heavy and dark and craptacular.

I can't start crying because we are about to go out to dinner with friends and I have high hopes I will feel cheery after that. But God knew what He was doing when he gave me four kids in four years, 75% of them without any planning on my part. I need to be too-busy to keep from getting all mopey and glum. And making meals and snacks every two hours is an important part of being too busy.

I get them back on Friday. Until then I have an extensive to-do list and a lot of work assignments and a heck of a lot of eating out to do. I hope that will keep me busy.

take heart, young parents! this is a post about how easy things have gotten.

2011-07-07T23:21:00.000-04:00

Seriously, blogworld, I know how hard it is. You have little kids, approximately 27 of them, and they are really awful and you love them so much except sometimes they're really REALLY awful and you just don't. You wish you did. But instead you want someone else to deal with their shenanigans while you visit a very quiet tropical island paradise with fruity drinks that magically appear and no cabana boys, because you really don't want human interaction, you want blessed quiet.

I have a few words for you. First, I love getting your emails and seeing your ghostly visits on my StatCounter, but you should actually go ahead and comment. For one thing, I love comments. But for another thing, maybe you'd feel less alone. You might feel weird and isolated in your community with your large number of children or what you perceive as your inability to manage as well as everyone else does, but here on the internet you among friends.

Second, don't despair, because it is about to get so much easier. I promise.

Let's review, shall we?

Last summer, when my kids were 8/5/5/3, we suffered from excessive mealtime mess-making and lengthy bedtime stalling. Also Miss A was kuh-razy, but that might not happen to you, so don't be worried about it.
The summer before, ages 7/4/4/2, we had made great progress and Jason and I were able to eat together at a cookout at the same time. Also I composed a hit song about where pee and poopoo should go, and pretty much things were just hard. Oh, and here is how bike-riding was going.
When they were 6/3/3/1, this was the best I could do. Just click and look at the picture. And at the time I seriously was feeling pretty okay about this. Also there was this awfulness and swimming lessons... yeah, pretty much just-6, 3.5/3.5 and 20 months was the worst.
And before that, when Miss A was not quite 5, and the boys were 2 and Haney was just a few months old, was obviously rough and labor-intensive.

But today? Today, my younger three played at our friends' house around the corner for hours, while Miss A and her neighborhood friend played quietly in Miss A's room. Then the boys escorted Haney home when she asked to come back. Then they ate lunch and got a little wild and were sent to the basement... but then they all went out in the woods and were joined by most of the neighborhood kids, and spent the afternoon out there without fighting or injuries or crying. Then after dinner they went back out again and didn't fight until about 8:30 when P punched Miss A and she shoved him to the ground.

I am in the best part -- the part your grandma and random old people tell you about when they stop you in stores and your kids are being awful. When they say, "Enjoy every minute of it," or "This is the best part," don't despair. They don't really mean the stage your kids are in *now* when they scream and throw things all the time. They mean this stage, when your youngest is close to 5 and your oldest is 9 and the neighborhood has opened up to them, but not yet the whole world.

So hang in there, parents. It is getting better and soon you will be able to spend the entire day cleaning your house or reading a book or pruning the overgrown hedges in your backyard or whatever it is that floats your boat. And somehow you will only have to break up the one fight this entire day! It will be magical.

the 2011 state of incontinence address

2011-07-06T22:45:00.001-04:00

I realized I haven't reported much on the state of incontinence, summer 2011. Blogworld, that is not for lack of movement. (Do you see what I just did there? Gold.)

While incontinence and I have been uncomfortable bedfellows (sometimes literally) since 2002, which OH MY GOSH IS ALMOST A DECADE, I feel like I am close to bidding it farewell. (But not so close that I have stopped carrying a bin of spare clothing in my vehicle.) However, summer presents its own challenges, like one piece bathing suits and gross bathrooms and exciting activities and the need for hydration.

Things that have happened of late:

a certain four-year-old took off her bathing suit at the end of a pool day, and a bunch of rabbit turds rolled out of it onto the floor. Except I am unaware of any incidents involving a rabbit being smuggled in her bathing suit.
a certain four-year-old had to use the gross pool bathroom. I escorted her and uttered my classic line,
"This had better be pee," as I held her bathing suit crotch to one side of her teeny patoot. And then I realized it was not pee and I'd made a gross miscalculation and now had a whole handful of problems, all of them disgusting.
a certain four-year-old revealed to me that she had "appsuhdentally" had an "appsuhdent" in her bathing suit, but she revealed this as she was sitting bare-assed on the hall carpet, and her bathing suit was full o' crap.

The good news is that these incidents only involve my four-year-old, and that two of the incidents involve the upstairs hall carpet, which I'd like to rip out. Jason doesn't want to, but even he has a limit on how much shit he can take and we have to be getting close.

once again, the elements prove to be too much for me

2011-07-05T23:12:00.000-04:00

Blogworld, I have so many agenda items to discuss.

Casey Anthony verdict: WTF?
4th of July: Thankful for a bunch of things.
Spanx bathing suit: FTW!
Speech therapy
Return to old fashioned family values: just remind me to tell you about that later.

But for tonight we'll talk about our ill-fated camping trip on Saturday night.

Our town has a cute little festival and the last two years they've offered camping beside a teeny little lake by the pool. Last year we didn't make it, so this year we pounced on the camping sign-up, dragging two other families in with us.

We staked out our spot and assembled our tents, or really everyone else pitched tents (heh) while I stood around looking useless. I think I could put up our tent by myself, but Jason has done it a few times before and it was hot and I was pretty sure I would annoy him if I was in the way and touching the pieces he needed while I tried to figure out what to do. So instead I held the camera and watched everyone else make our cozy little campsite.

We went swimming. We visited the campfire and ate s'mores and popcorn and listened to a guy soulfully play "House of the Rising Sun," which was the perfect song to set the mood at a family-oriented community event on 4th of July weekend. Then we visited the carnival and rode the rides and enjoyed the lights and ate cotton candy. It was nearly 11 p.m. when we headed back to our tents.

As I grabbed an assortment of little girls to head to the bathroom, a strong, cool wind whipped across the ~~parking lot~~ campground. It felt great, like we were in for perfect sleeping weather.

While I was in the bathroom, the cool wind got stronger and blew over some of the carnies' stands and tents. The rides were shut down.

When I came back from the bathroom Jason was consulting some sort of triple Doppler radar app on his phone. I insisted we should stay and it would be a fun adventure. Which it was, for about 45 seconds until another giant gust of wind blew through and flattened our tent. The children inside our tent changing their clothes were not amused, even as I tried to hold it up from the inside.

After this happened a few more times, several of the children were hysterical with fear. Two of the several children were mine, despite the fact that many of the children camping with us were younger than mine. And in fact Miss A was the second oldest child in our group, but in the running for most hysterically afraid of wind.

Jason decided it was time to call it a night, and we hastily packed up our junk. The kids and I booked it for the car, the girls howling the entire way. It started raining just before we reached the shelter of the minivan. Jason tossed our air mattress into our friends' tent (suckers), balled up our tent, and ran through the torrential downpour to meet us. Three members of our 16-person party camped; the rest of us took home our crying (for various reasons) children and put them to bed just before midnight.

Jason has since declared camping to be for chumps. He has decreed that we will follow through on a previous camping commitment -- our 2nd annual backyard camp out -- and afterward he will throw the tent in our friends' garbage. (I will not allow him to do that because I feel certain another job loss is inevitable and then we might need that tent for shelter.) He says we will do nothing more rustic than cabin camping from here on out.

We successfully braved the elements from our friends' suburban backyard last summer. Our second camping trip resulted in a bad case of meth sores and a lot of hateful comments from readers who found my blog by googling "meth sores" and failed to catch the "bug bites" references. My page ranks #10 on Google for that query, according to StatCounter, but it looks like #9 to me! Proud.

Anyway, our third camping trip was blown off by a freak storm undoubtedly conjured up by the carnies, and I can't wait to see what our friends' backyard has in store for us. Probably a venomous snake that will attack me and necessitate a limb amputation. I look forward to it.

july 1: the day i discovered spanx swimwear, and life changed forever

2011-07-01T22:31:00.000-04:00

Hello, blogworld! I should clarify that the mom in question yesterday did leave her baby in my care. She just didn't really run that by me first. She said, "I'll go with the older kids" as she walked away, leaving me with her baby who was sitting on the ground... but my older kids don't need watching so I was a somewhat reluctant baby-minder. Hmm... read a book for the first time since 2002? Or watch a baby... like I've been doing every summer since 2002? No matter how cute the baby is, the book is going to win.*

Because of the following:

my kids' failure to thrive/grow
my paltry clothing budget
my penchant for buying things second-hand
our daily pool habit of late

my kids' swimsuit/rash guards have rotted. The boys' rash guards (aka swim shirts so I don't have to put sunblock on their upper halves) have given up the ghost (if the ghost=elastic) and now fit like dresses. The girls swimsuits gaped out in front, exposing their not-boobies to the world. This necessitated a trip to Old Navy and Target this afternoon pre-pool.

As I anticipated, the trip was painful. Because my children are seldom exposed to retail environments as a group, they find the racks of clothing irresistibly versatile. They can be the backdrop for a puppet show! A tent! A curtain on a stage! A hiding place! It's all so magical. All the grabbing and chasing and cackling was stressful. But this marks a big upswing in my mobility from even a year or two ago, when I wouldn't have attempted such an outing!

After finding suits and shirts for all the kids, something caught my eye. A display... a display of bathing suits made by Spanx. And one of the bottoms had a little skirt that looked like it would come below my ass. Naturally, I bought it.

Blogworld, I am here to testify that Spanx is fuh real, yo. It smooshed my butt into a reasonable shape, and the skirt covered the most appalling section of my thighs. Target had Spanx tops that claimed to accentuate your curves while minimizing your midsection. I'd like to see how they do that, since my curves IS my midsection if you know what I'm saying! But I'm so impressed with the bottom that I have to try on a top and see if it turns me into a C cup. If it does, I'm sold.

*We all understand I'm mostly joking with most of the things I post here, right? So if we were at the pool together and you needed to go to the bathroom or you were too hot and wanted to get in the pool, I would happily watch your baby. And I would not allow it to eat trash or lick strangers' water bottles or fall headlong into the pool.

last day of june

2011-06-30T21:59:00.000-04:00

The last day of June coincided with a rare day of having nothing scheduled in the afternoon or evening. I decided it was time to fulfill my summer fantasy of closing down the pool.

Unfortunately, apparently Thursdays are daycare and summer camp day at the pool. There were so many little kids there that I think I could have walked from one side of the pool to another on top of their little noggins, like they were stepping stones. Really whiny, wiggly stepping stones.

But I did not step on any little kids.

Let me tell you how awesome and easy this stage of kid-having is, blog world. I can sit at the pool and read. Lifeguards ensure my children do not drown, but the older three are very good swimmers. Haney is decent and can swim in the corner of the deep end or all over the 3 foot area while I do nothing but sit there and send low-level wishing powers in her direction. But even better is when she comes to the baby pool, and I can ignore her entirely.

As previously mentioned, this is a novelty because I've spent the last eight summers actively preventing drownings.

Somehow this afternoon I ended up in charge of someone else's 1-year-old. I was initially forced to stop her from licking an unknown person's water bottle. Then I had to stop her from crawling headlong into the 2 foot "deep end" of the baby pool. Then I decided to give in to my role as de facto babysitter, and I walked her into the pool and prevented her from drowning in there for a while. Eventually I started to wonder wtf I was doing escorting this baby around and wrestling trash out of her hands when I could be sitting on my towel reading. And I wondered when her mom might come back. Then I started to worry her mom had left me there with her two non-swimming kids, and that I was doomed to spend the rest of my summers preventing drownings instead of reading.

Eventually she came back, and I realized I had to step up my defense by reading even more aggressively, so all the parents around me realize I couldn't possibly be trusted to prevent babies and toddlers from drowning because I am so engrossed in my reading material.

I read so aggressively for the next hour or two that I didn't realize the sun was shining -- very aggressively in its own right -- on my left side. When I finally came up for air (because a pool-puking incident led to an extended rest period and the girls forced me to judge their beach towel fashion show) I realized I was a little pink and also had a headache and my eyes were so very tired and I was irritable.

But I pressed on toward our goal of pool closing time! And when that bell rang at 7:50 I was overjoyed and also didn't want to hear little kid voices anymore for a while.

more about bedtime and other aspects of parenting that make us swear in our heads

2011-06-29T23:16:00.001-04:00

Jayme said:

My twins turned 2 on the 14th. They woke up 3 times last night. That's a typical night for us.

Yes! My boys slept through for the first time at 18 months. Still, though, most nights the were up at least once after that. Between my four, even now, I am excited if I only have to wake up enough to address problems once or twice each night from my bed rather than getting out of bed and doing any number of errands and tasks. And Jayme, I know, has a whole bunch o' kids.

Anonymous said:

Bedtime is stressful, but for us bathtime is more stressful, most likely because it precedes bedtime. Naptime is also stressful, meals suck too. We love our kids, but my husband told me the other day that if parenting was a video game, he would have turned the difficulty level down by now. (We have two boys, 3.5 and 2.) My husband wants to try for a girl, but I seriously feel no desire for any more children in the near future and screw my OB who said children 18 months apart was a good idea, the bitch probably had a nanny.

Oh Anonymous, I hear ya. I gave up on naps because the pain of hoping they'd go to sleep and being consistently disappointed was worse than no naps at all. And meals were soul-crushing for a while... and still can be sometimes.

I feel like I want to reassure all of you with kids younger than mine that it gets so much better. I am worried, though, that I will depress you even more because my kids are quite a bit older. The are 9, almost-7, and 4.5, and things have gotten a lot better in the last few months. A lot easier. Part of that is Jason being home around bedtime or shortly after, so I don't have to bear all of the kids' trips down the stairs to whine about imaginary problems by myself. But they are finally a little bit reasonable.

I swear to you, in a few years you are going to be able to enjoy your children and your everyday life consistently. It might be cold comfort now, but just know that it will get better.

Also your comment about your OB and her nanny was hilarious.

Cristal said:

And here I thought I was doing something wrong!
I remember this as a child, my Mom would say "Time for bed girls" and my sister and I would brush our teeth, usually, and then head to our room and get in bed. The end. Seriously. No bedtime story, last drink of water or coming out a million and one times. My parents weren't abusive or neglectful although we were a little bit of afraid of pissing them off and it wasn't so long ago either. We're talking early 1980s! Have things changed so much since then? Am I that much of a crappy parent that I can't get my kids to stay in their damn rooms at night? I mean seriously! What should I do? Lock them in there?

Seriously!! Yes! I remember pulling some "I can't sleep" crap and my parents were very annoyed to see me back downstairs (but not unkind). And yes, when I was a small kid they weren't abusive or at all neglectful but I was a little bit afraid of them. And why in the world aren't my kids afraid of me?

Blogworld, Miss A threatened to call the police on me last night, when I put my hands on her shoulders and turned her around to look at me as I told her to stop shoving and kicking her brother. The sad part is that I spent a few seconds worrying about it because I live in fear that some overzealous agent of the state of Ohio is going to remove my children from our home because the girls are apparently malnourished and/or because I am so mean.

But then I pulled myself together and told her if she spoke to me again that way, I would in fact spank her and then ground her to her room for two days, and she could feel free to call the police and they'd probably say, "This girl's mother should have gotten the spanking train rolling a few years ago." Because I have put up with a lot of *suck* in my life but I'll be damned if I'm going to let a bratty little 9-year-old dictate my parenting and terrorize the entire family.

Then Miss A said, "I'm sorry, Mom. I wasn't thinking." And I was like Whaaa? but I played it off like that was exactly the reaction I expected all along and claimed it as a parenting victory.

chicken tenders are not delicious

2011-06-28T23:40:00.001-04:00

stickman500

Tomorrows opinion piece: Chicken Tenders are not Delicious.

Initially, I thought they were delicious. Then I realized that they contributed to obesity in some cases, and that is no laughing matter. Think of the problems our society suffers from obesity. Now, how can you, in good conscience, enjoy that chicken tender?

We all know the children's book "Go the F*** to Sleep." Right? I haven't read it yet but I fully intend to and I feel sure I will enjoy it. After all, I had 6-7 years of no one sleeping ever, during which time I composed many profanity-laden lullabies in my head while:

pacing the floor for hours upon hours with a baby with reflux (Miss A) (It was 10 steps in each direction across our apartment's living room floor.)
sitting on the floor nursing twins multiple times each night for a year and a half until they slept through the night for the very first time.
sleeping on the floor in various rooms of my own home, while a crying baby occupied my bedroom because she refused to sleep through the night. (Haney. For several months. Until she was 14 months or so.)

I ran across this opinion piece about how the book is awful and much like the oppression of Jews, blacks, Muslims, and Latinos. Well, of course the book is awful. If the book's concept was mediocre would we be talking about it? "Sometimes I get a titch frustrated entering the 2nd hour of walking my baby between the hours of 2:30 and 5 a.m., and I feel really bad about it." That's not a book; that's a conversation you have with someone you barely know.

So as I was reading through the comments I found the one at the top of this post. And I laughed and laughed. And then I saw that the writer of the opinion piece is also writing a book about a murdered 3-year-old, so I imagine she's coming from a bit of a different place right now.

But you know who's not stressed out by kids' bedtime shenanigans? For-shit parents, that's who. Because their older kids can stay up as late as they want doing whatever they want, such as playing video games in their bedrooms until 2 a.m. In fact that is better, because then their kids sleep in.* Their babies' crying is not a problem for them, because they dumped those babies in their cribs and started "sleep training" when they returned from the hospital, and didn't go back in until 3 hours later or morning, depending on how they were feeling.

For everyone else -- or at least everyone else I know -- bedtime is one of the most stressful times of the day. And reading bedtime stories, contrary to the opinions of people who may not have ever had children, is not relaxing. Well, maybe if you only have one kid. With any more than that, you risk fighting over the story, and you guarantee fighting over your prime lap real estate.

Tired kids + tired parents + all kids together at the same time + pressure to tie a bow on the day + kids' natural bedtime resistance = parents thinking angry thoughts and/or swearing in their heads, and possibly yelling. Quickly followed by parents going downstairs and bingeing on their children's cold, picked over chicken tenders.

*Why does it work that way for those parents and not for me?

at the pool, i am forced to confront an evil from my past

2011-06-27T23:46:00.000-04:00

After a weekend of grocery shopping (feels like it takes an entire day) and the MinuteClinic (pink eye and strep outbreak -- I waited more than two hours) and working on Sunday afternoon, I needed a summer recharge. So this afternoon, we hit the pool.

Naturally this involved a lot of the kids getting ready in 5 seconds and then asking me when I would be done every minute for the next half hour, while I packed a cooler and searched for towels. I applied sunscreen to the children. I packed the car. I threatened to abandon the whole trip if anyone fought one more time, knowing full well I would never abandon the trip because at the pool they don't fight. They're too busy getting beat up by the preschoolers in the baby pool.

One preschooler, in particular. I don't know his name, so let's call him Ethan, just because I can sort of imagine his mom yelling that at him and there's a chance I'm right.

Interestingly enough, maybe-Ethan's mother is April or Charity from this post from January 2009. April or Charity is not especially interested in Ethan's shenanigans. I don't know where she usually is when they're at the pool. But Ethan is usually grabbing other kids' toys and then beating the other kids about the head and face with those toys once he obtains them.

Ethan even has a reputation with the lifeguards.

Today Miss A, who is more than twice Ethan's age, came to report that a child had grabbed her head when she was underwater, banged her head repeatedly against the bottom of the pool, and wouldn't let her up. At first I was alarmed, assuming it was an older kid. I asked her where he was, and she said, "I think he's up there under the mushroom."

Then I rolled my eyes. If the kid is playing under the mushroom sprinkler, he has to be a baby. But Miss A continued to insist that she was upset and because my friend was there witnessing the whole thing I felt I ought to make it look like I was interested in getting to the bottom of my 9-year-old's near drowning at the hands of a toddler in the baby pool. I told her to show me the kid.

I couldn't see diddly squat because I was contact lens-less due to pink eye. But as we neared the mushroom, I recognized those Elmo swim shorts -- when we'd arrived at the pool Ethan had invaded my personal space by grabbing my leg and asking me why I was going to go swimming. His mother didn't react. Usually if I see my kid grabbing some lady's bare thigh I try to put the kibosh on that, but as we've established I'm uncomfortable in my own skin.

Sure enough, Ethan was the kid who beat up my 9-year-old. I have to nip this feud in the bud before it affects future generations, but April or Charity is a difficult person to confront. Later I had to get Ethan's hand off me as he sidled over and tried to grab P's toys out of my hands on off my lap. And I was wearing a bathing suit! I'm practically naked and my lap is practically my vagina! Somehow I need to establish some boundaries between my family and maybe-Ethan and April or Charity, but I don't know how to broach the topic of, "Your toddler is beating up my 9-year-old" with a person who may or may not be mentally or intellectually challenged. I could write an entire post listing reasons she might or might not be challenged in some brain-related way. And I might if this conflict continues. The baby pool is our battlefield. The MacGyvers are taking back the mushroom!

regular oreos are a universal signal of contempt for a person or situation

2011-06-26T23:11:00.000-04:00

Blogworld, I had this epiphany last week, partway through my second package of Double Stuft Oreos.

I was thinking about how I really like the cookie part of Oreos, so maybe I should go for regular next time. But then I remembered how I had fallen prey to this lie just a few short months ago, and regretted skimping on the regular Oreos. Then I spent a lot of time thinking about the subtle nuances of both kinds of Oreos as well as many types of social situations. I could have been using this time to work, spend time with my children, do laundry, or even shovel more Oreos into my mouth, but formulating this theory required my full focus. Which, as you might recall, is not great.

In nearly every social situation in which you'd be required to bring a food item or serve cookies, regular Oreos are a slap in the face of their intended recipients. Is it your office July 4th party that you're required to attend from 4:30-6 on Friday, July 1st? And you're supposed to bring food? And you hate all those a-holes? I've got one word for you (nestled within a 500-word post): Oreos.

Some of you think you've got me here, I know. You're thinking, "Ha HA! No, when I really hate a meeting/party/host/coworker, I bring sugar wafers.
Well, that's a mistake. Because while they're the cheapest cookie, they're delicious even in generic brands. They're colorful, and an offbeat and exciting choice. So, epic contempt FAIL. Sorry.

The only cookie that can convey less respect for a social gathering is generic Oreos.

But then you're moving into open aggression, which most of us do not want to show at a social gathering we're being forced to attend. We want passive aggression. We're going for disdain, not open warfare.

Why regular Oreos, you might ask? Well, just think about it! How would you feel if someone showed up at your potluck with regular Oreos? You'd think, "Geez, they're not even trying." And you would be correct! While no more effort is required to bring Double Stuft Oreos, it's the thought that counts. Double Stuft Oreos get an "MMMM!" reaction from hosts and those assigned to arrange the potluck food. Regular Oreos get "Hm. Thanks."

Mock me now, but you'll think about this at your next department-wide "party" or extended family potluck. Then get back to me.

a disgusting post not intended for men

2011-06-25T21:47:00.000-04:00

Blogworld, I'm warning you in advance about the grossness of this post. Seriously.

Okay. So, it's my moontime. I'm feeling super one-with-the-world and mystical and stuff, I guess. Whatever. Anyway, basically I'm celebrating my womanly empowerment by having acne and diarrhea, and by being tethered to the bathroom due to the excessive horsepower of my womb in its race to be done with this already.

Because being a family of 6 seems to be the perfect size to have someone sick 80% of the time, I also have a wicked case of pink eye. Want to borrow my laptop? My cell phone? My contact lenses? No? Hm.

Over the course of 3 hours this evening I went from feeling all right-ish, to precipitating from more pores and ducts than I have since immediately following childbirth. I am gross, and I can't do anything about it until the CVS MinuteClinic opens tomorrow at 10. To console myself I ate a Rolo McFlurry and a pack of Double Stuft Oreos. Which brings me to my next post:

Non-Double Stuft Oreos are a universal signal of contempt.

days 13 and 14: success!

2011-06-23T13:53:00.000-04:00

As I dreamed, the last 24 hours have brought a return to "real" summer. I worked yesterday morning and caught up on some projects. Then, after lunch, we went to the pool.

Ahh, the pool. After spending the last 8 summers frantically trying to keep people from drowning, I had forgotten how relaxing the pool can be. My big kids are strong swimmers now, and Haney is getting pretty good. She's also finally tall enough that she can keep her face out of the water in the large 3-foot area. Then she gets tired and is happy to come back to the baby pool, which is huge and deep enough that she can practice her own flailing take on the front crawl. At one point yesterday I laid back on a deck chair and Haney flopped in the baby pool under the lifeguard's watchful eye, and the other three cheered each other on as they jumped off the diving board, and for about 20 minutes I was not needed. And it was like a vacation.

Today is Miss A's 9th birthday. I can't express to you, dear internets, how old 9 sounds to me, and how young 9 actually *is*. We gave her a bike, and Squinkies, and an Aqua Pet, and an iTunes gift card. She saved up her birthday money and purchased a used iPod Touch. It has yet to arrive. I think she has visions of full internet capability as well as nationwide texting. Nine is not, in fact, a texting- or free range internet-appropriate age, but she is pretty sure it is the freedom equivalent of 18.

Yesterday she used one of her five remaining birthday dollars and bought a pack of cookies from the pool vending machine. She handed out one to each of her friends and their assorted little siblings, and her own little siblings, and offered one to my friend, who declined. Miss A made her way over to me and was so excited to tell me, "That turned out perfectly that Mrs. C didn't want one, because now there is one left for me!" Although we often see a less flattering side of her, and focus on that because we 1) recognize our own failings in her and 2) need to correct some of these behaviors and attributes, she is such a sweet and generous kid.

She is learning to dive at swimming lessons. She demonstrated for me at the pool yesterday and she dives beautifully. Diving has brought her love of swimming to another level, and now she's actually excited to wake up and get in the pool at 8 a.m. And it's cold out at 8 a.m.

Today we celebrated with Chinese food for lunch, and later we'll go for ice cream. After swimming lessons (which Jason handles) we had no commitments today. Miss A is playing with her friends and riding her new bike. The little three all fell asleep -- the first large-scale nap we've had here in years, I think. For the rest of the day I have no responsibilities aside from being their mom. Jason installed our new microwave. And it's pretty much a perfect day.

summer is terrible for my blood pressure.

2011-06-21T22:45:00.001-04:00

Despite my plan to make this the summer o' fun, so far I have failed miserably. We've had house guests/swimming lessons/holidays/speech therapy/play practice/T-ball/football/dentist appointments/birthdays/illnesses/etc. every day.

I sort of remember this from last year. The last two weeks of school with all of their parties and field trips coincides with my workload picking up for the summer, so I have more work but less time. Then we move right into summer events that conflict with my already limited work hours. Then I freak the hell out.

I determined a couple things during my prolonged freak-out.

I can comfortably achieve just one objective per day when it's just me and the kids. Objectives are errands such as a quick trip to the store, tidying up the house, or getting everyone through the shower. Only one of these can happen on any given day without a complete meltdown, if Jason is not here to help with any part of the objective.
The longer I am around people during my freak out, the longer I need to be alone in order to recover from the most acute anxiety associated with said freak out. At this point I think I'm looking at full recovery sometime in mid-August.

Summer, day 9: Football skills clinic, T-ball game, play practice cancelled at the last minute -- have I blogged about the play practices? Because they are at the level of the Girl Scouts Association and the Fortune 500 Room Mother in the category of things that mess with my [insert hippie word here. Should it be "zen?" My "chi?" I think it's chi.]. We briefly considered catching up with some beloved friends... but by the end of T-ball P was very ill and we went home and he was miserable all night. G fell ill later and also was up during the night.

Summer, day 10: Father's Day. We had breakfast, I made strawberry shortcake, then Jason left for a camping and canoeing manventure. The kids and I went to JCPenney in the mall; in the preceding clause I listed six major stressors. Can you find them all?

Summer, day 11: I was too scared to sleep Sunday night so I was on two days of low sleep by Monday morning, and I was feeling it. Epiphany: No wonder I didn't enjoy much of the first 6 years of baby-having! It took that long to get everyone down to brief wakings only a few times a week. Sleep is the key, people. It will all feel so much better once you can sleep.

So Monday I was very irritable. We planned to clean out Jason's car as our Father's Day love offering to him. Between all the "help" I had and two sessions of swimming lessons, that took from 8 until 3. G sprayed about half a bottle of Pledge multi-surface foaming spray onto the car door and into the speaker. P had a giant meltdown about going into swimming lessons and sobbed until it was halfway over. He only got into the water because I said he'd lose video games for 10 days or longer (depending on weather and weekend plans) if he didn't. Then he stuck his tongue out at me whenever he saw me, and lost video games until Saturday afternoon anyway.

Then my parents were coming to watch the boys' T-ball game that night, and I hadn't showered, and the house was filthy, and I hadn't gotten my dad a present, and I got a call from a client with a high-stakes last-minute project and the kids were yelling and squeezing squeaky toys the entire call... Then dinner took longer to cook than I'd planned and Miss A had to eat in the car on her way to play practice and there wasn't enough and basically it was all just awful. The game was cute though.

Then today was the longest day of the year and I really wanted to make it fun and special for the kids since I've been sucking so much, but instead I was freaked out over work projects that needed to be completed this morning, and all the work that needs to be done in the four work days I have left this month, and they fought and I tried to put them to bed early (they need it) but we had a loud storm and they were still up well past 10.

And we haven't been to the pool once since school ended.

Summer, come on. Throw me a mix tape and a lazy day of doing nothing. Or an afternoon at the pool that stretches into evening, and an insulated mug of cheap wine. Bake the viral infections out of my kids. Quit with the commitments and constant busy-ness and activities. I'll give you day 12 as a turning point, in the hope that tomorrow day 13 will dawn calmer.

on the 8th day of summer, i'm forced to consider a tough love approach with all my virtual mentors

2011-06-17T22:33:00.000-04:00

For summer, day 8, Helena got sick and stayed on the couch all day watching Yo Gabba Gabba. We watched all 20 episodes that are available on Netflix. She lay on the couch with her mouth open and her eyes glazed over, and looked as though she would fall asleep any moment, until her brothers yelled or jumped down half a flight of stairs or threw something, and then she would be startled back into miserable wakefulness. This happened about a dozen times. She wants to know why she is so cold and her froat huts.

The boys are at an Indians game with Jason, so he bears responsibility for salvaging the summery goodness of day 8.

In FlyLady news, I have backslidden. It has been more than a week since I got up before 6 to work out, shower, apply my make-up, and put on lace-up shoes before my family is awake. I sort of see the FlyLady's point, though. Maybe I wouldn't have had my control-related freak out early this week if I had been on top of my control routines or whatever they're called in FlyLady talk. And everything is a total disaster. The bathrooms, the laundry, my office, my bedroom, the boys' room, the hallway, the basement... Everything. But I am trying to make fat cash so I worked the afternoons this week that I wasn't playdating or strawberry picking. And this weekend is booked with football camp and t-ball and play practice and cheer uniform fitting and Father's Day festivities. We are in a desperate situation. I had to drag a feverish 4-year-old to the grocery store with me tonight so I could provide snacks to the t-ball team and a delicious breakfast to Jason. [Sorry about that, other grocery store patrons. She was too sick to try touching anything though.]

Anyway, one day the FlyLady, Tony Horton, Dave Ramsey and I are going to have to come to some kind of agreement. And that day is fast approaching.

days 4, 5, 6, and 7: ice cream? check. daily mini-stroke? check.

2011-06-16T22:31:00.000-04:00

This week was a roughie-toughie*, blogworld.

Monday, my mother-in-law took all the children to a beach nearby. I knew she was going to be in over her head taking five children, but apparently she had expected to be able to sit on the beach and watch the kids, but the lifeguard expected her to be within arm's reach of the kids at all times. She wasn't dressed for that, and there were five children, and the whole experience pissed her off. Then three of the kids threw sand or did something unacceptable with the sand, so everyone had to come home.

That was the special summerific thing the children did on Monday. I worked a lot (good) and had a weird atypical migraine thing where I feel as though I've completely lost my balance. It's like getting hit by a wave from the side, and you swirl over sideways and then feel dizzy in your head and unsure which way is up. I haven't had this since 9-10 years ago when I was working at an awful job I hated. Most of Monday my heart raced madly, and I thought if I have a stroke will I poop my pants in front of my mother-in-law?

On Tuesday my mother-in-law and nephew left early in the morning. I ran errands while Miss A had swimming lessons, then came home and worked (good) and then a playdate was supposed to come at 1 but showed up at 12:40 and we were still in the middle of lunch but of course no one can eat once company arrives and OH MY GOSH I just need control over my life again!

And I think playing with friends has to count as the fun thing the kids did on Tuesday, because then we rushed off to speech, which I'd forgotten, and then I got home and saw the house post-playdate and OH MY GOSH I had a bona fide mini stroke and told the kids I couldn't make them anything to eat until I picked up the pieces of marble track that had been carried into every room of our house, including my bedroom (I am about to black out!) and the bathrooms and across three stories of house. What can eight children need with so much marble track?! Although my boys demonstrated that some had been formed into elaborate weapons, including a shoulder rocket launcher.

So then I declared that I needed 24 hours of solitude, and I would not leave the house/answer the phone/allow any friends to come play until T-ball on Wednesday night. I went to bed early on Tuesday, felt fantastic Wednesday morning, wavered on my no friends inside declaration and nearly had another mini-stroke over some craft-related shenanigans on the part of Miss A, her buddy, and Haney. Finally I pulled myself together and lived it up at T-ball. Sadly, T-ball/Wednesday night church or playing with friends has to count for Wednesday's summer fun.

But today! Today on day 7 of summer I salvaged my summertastic goals! My friend and I took our children to pick strawberries. It wasn't too hot, the strawberries weren't too ripe, we got a bunch before it started raining, and then we took the kids for ice cream. (Note: I neglected my goals for summer but not my local dairy farmer during my period of duress.) Then we sliced a thousand strawberries together and chatted. It seemed like something that would happen in a tv show or movie, except they'd be shelling peas/beans/whatever you shell on the front porch, in rocking chairs. Instead, we were standing in my gross kitchen.

68 days left. Depressing. But tomorrow the boys are going to an Indians game with Jason, and I have a lot of ice cream in my future.

Let's see how I'm doing with my summer themes:

Incontinence. Changes in routine AND exciting trips away from the house? Oh yes, we have incontinence in spades.
Family Fun plans. Well, today was a family fun plan. But I was so worn down by house-sharing awkwardness that I didn't make any plans this weekend except the meals, which were not eaten by anyone besides Jason and me. Defeat.
Lots of snot and crying. Miss A, Haney, and G have been sick, and P started feeling bad tonight. We have snot covered. They've also cried a lot about swimming lessons -- it's been cold here. And tonight Miss A cried out of disappointment, which is the kind of crying we're really looking for.
Ice cream. Daily. Usually twice a day. Otherwise I might give in to my instinct to buy an insulated Big Gulp and fill it with the $5.99 Moscato I bought at CVS, and carry it with me everywhere.

*Phrase courtesy of Miss A's British former babysitter

evening all afternoon

2011-06-12T22:48:00.000-04:00

Today, the sun filtered weak grey light through thick clouds until evening. It stayed cool -- 50s and 60s -- after last week's days of 90+ heat. Breakfast time drifted into mid-morning as the kids meandered aimlessly through the house, unable to find anything to do.

I felt the same. With house guests, I feel as though I should sit with them and do what they're doing. But my mother-in-law isn't chatty and I all but exhausted my list of conversation topics on Saturday afternoon. We looked through the ads in the Sunday paper. We watched Phineas & Ferb and Good Luck Charlie. Had I felt relaxed, I could have enjoyed a day of low-key family time and junk tv. As it was I felt tense, and bored.

Boredom is the steep and slippery bank beside depression's deep waters. The day, and something about the light, began to feel heavy.

We made a trip to a candy store, and the kids had a great time. We allowed each of our kids to spend $5, and they worked hard to get the most for their money. It was a good learning exercise for them, I think, to grasp the different costs of things and to weigh the value versus the price of each item. They were cute. I rode with the girls in the back seat of the van, and it was warm and cozy... then we got home and it felt very cold outside... then inside our house felt warm again, and I was sleepy.

Jason let me take a nap. I laid down and hid my face under the covers and turned on the fans for white noise and enjoyed the alone-ness. I fell asleep for about 15 minutes then woke up with my mind racing, but I felt better and no longer depressed. I think I needed some down time. As much as I enjoy people and try to be sociable and friendly, I am so solidly an introvert.

Yesterday we went to the boys' T-ball game, which was so cute. G & P are the fastest runners on their team. P is amazing at batting, even though this is his first year. They look SO HAPPY on the field. I love seeing them excel, and I love that their coaches learned who wears which color of shoes, and make sure to call the boys by name.

On our date last night, Jason and I went to a sushi restaurant and failed to notice that we were seated in a section where patrons were expected to remove their shoes, so I clomped over to my seat in my ill-fitting wedge heel sandals (now I remember why I never wear them) and probably mortified everyone and made a complete ass of myself. But really, wouldn't that be a health code violation in any other restaurant? And shouldn't the person who seated us have said, "You can leave your shoes here," and gestured to an appropriate storage area, to cue people like me as to the proper protocol? So anyway, if any of you are like me and wouldn't have known that this was the one restaurant where it was appropriate to remove your shoes, now you know. You're welcome.

That about sums up days 2 and 3 of summer. Only 72 days remaining. Use them wisely, people!

summer, day 1 of 75

2011-06-11T00:04:00.000-04:00

As mentioned previously, my sister and her kids came up from the day. We attempted to discuss the Casey Anthony trial, but our conversations went a lot like this:

ME: Oh! I saw that the prosecution said that she'd searched about chloroform 84 times.
HER: Yes! And did you read that--
Kid: whine whine need something whine
ME: No, not right now, maybe in a little bit.
HER: Yeah. What were were saying?
ME: I don't--
Kid: cry whine whine need something
HER: Can you just let him play?
ME: Yeah guys, can you include everyone?
ME: So...
HER: Um...
Kid: whine cry whine cry
ME: Okay, let's get a bandaid.
Kid: whine cry crash thud need something
HER: How did you get all muddy?!?!
Kid: need something need need neeeeeeeeed
ME: Fine. You can have popsicles. Just eat them outside.
HER: Hmm...
ME: I can't remember...

So that's how that went. We did eat ice cream, in the form of popsicles. I'm not sure any of the potty trained kids had accidents today, although we had a wet bed overnight... "We" as in our household, not Jason and me. There were many tears and lots of snot, particularly from Miss A who had a crazy meltdown this morning over having to put away her laundry, because her arms were tired.

This evening after my sister left, my mother-in-law and nephew arrived. Then we found out they're staying til Tuesday. Again, potential blog gold. My nephew loves to recite television commercials and scenes from movies, or tell us blow-by-blow what happened on a given level of a video game he played. One time I decided to see how long he'd keep talking if I didn't try to cut him off, and he talked to me about a video game for more than 20 minutes. And not about the merits of the video game, it was a synopsis of everything that happened the last time he'd played.

That was a long 20 minutes.

Tomorrow we'll enjoy Day 2 of summer with T-ball team pictures at 9 a.m., a game at 10, play practice at 1, and a heckuva lot of Family Fun in between. Finally, Jason and I get to go out to dinner and to our friends' house afterwards!

great expectations

2011-06-09T23:02:00.001-04:00

Ah, blogfriends. In my quest to create the perfect summer I counted and we only have 75 days of summer vacation, as opposed to Phineas and Ferb's 104. That is such crap. I need to maximize these 75 days so they feel like 104... Wait. Maybe that's not what I'm going for.

Anyway. Yesterday was a kajillion degrees and my city opened the pool early. To be summertastic, I gathered up our stuff and got snacks and even bought the kids their very own 20 oz pops, and my plan was that as soon as the boys got off the bus they'd change clothes and we'd roll out.

Instead, learning of my plan made G collapse to the floor and writhe with discontent while whining about how he JUST wanted to be HOME and PLAY!

Hint: This is foreshadowing.

Today it was the last day of school. Because I gave up on school a couple weeks ago, my kids have been up well after 9 every night for the last week, and I haven't read any of the thousand pieces of paper they've brought home. That caused me to miss an important missive from the F5RM, requesting that my children wear swimsuits and sunscreen and bring towels and water bottles today. Oh, also I was supposed to send in money to offset her out of pocket costs. Instead I sent in napkins, potato chips, and two un-sunscreened kids in their street clothes.

Later, the boys freaked out when their classmates disrobed to run through the sprinkler. They tried to climb me like when they were toddlers and a dog ran at us. They hid their faces and begged to go home. The boys do not care for costume changes.

The girls and I decorated the minivan before we drove over to the school. It was epic. I got the idea from Family Fun magazine, but it didn't turn out as promised because my children were NOT happy and excited about my vehicle decoration efforts. [Foreshadowing.] Again, G broke into tears because he had not gotten to decorate the car. (In G's defense, he has been ill this week.)

In the meantime, Miss A had a ridiculous emotional meltdown, sobbing and snotting everywhere over saying goodbye to the classmates she didn't miss at all during the 4 months she was home. If God could bolster my ability to empathize with her, that would probably be good.

Haney also had a pee or poop accident/small disaster in public each day. Neither my minivan nor my wonder bag have been appropriately stocked for these crises.

So I'm seeing the following themes this summer:

Incontinence, naturally
Great, Family Fun-style plans from me
Tears and mucous from my children
Ice cream (because I have to cope somehow)

The good news is that it should prove good blog fodder, if I can muster the energy to post.

Tomorrow is summer vacation, Day 1, and my sister and her kids are coming up for the day and we will relax and discuss the Casey Anthony court proceedings while our children play nicely.

i get misty-eyed over how much this school year needs to just end already

2011-06-03T11:03:00.001-04:00

Because of my devotion to the Holy ~~Cult~~ Church of Flylady, I use the Cozi calendar and To-Do lists. Today when I logged in I saw that Cozi wanted me to know ways to make the last day of school more fun, and how to create a summer schedule that works. When I read these things, tears sprang to my eyes because I am So. Done. with school this year.

Is it possible to have post-traumatic stress from kindergarten? What if you are a particularly jumpy person? Still no? Okay. Well, I'm just ready for school to be finished.

Because I enjoy taking on way too much, and because I hate school, and because summer slipped by last year and it was late July before I even felt relaxed, I am going to try to do something summertastic (or summerrific? which is better?) every day this summer. Not crafts. No. Because I'm only that crazy in December. But something fabulous. Inevitably, my attempts will be met with the same rate of success as the F5RM's kindergarten crafts. And it will be hilarious and great blog fodder, like the time I tried to copy Jodie in 2008.

more about F5RM, the Fortune 500 Room Mother

2011-06-02T22:00:00.000-04:00

The F5RM has sent about 10 emails in the last few days about the End of Year party next week. Because I like to exaggerate, you might assume she's actually sent 2-3. But no, I don't think I'm far off the target when I say 10.

When I revisited her blog while conducting research for this post, I found that she'd updated in November, after the ill-fated Halloween party. Yes, she mentioned the party and that she was responsible for it. No, she did not mention the details I thrive on, like craft fails and kid breakdowns, which are pretty much what make life interesting, don't you think?

Anyway, during my stalking-via-blog, I discovered that she has what would be, for me, a really stressful situation going on at home. Sort of a Jane Eyre scenario. Basically, she has a crazy wife locked up in a spare bedroom of her house.* So once I got that bit of info it all clicked into place for me. I get why she has to plan and control the hell out of all of the kindergarten parties. And to her I say, if running the kindergarten parties like they are the business dealings of a Fortune 500 company is what gets you through the day, then so be it. I shall put forth "Among the Best"-level effort to ensure that our kindergarten class is the most profitable kindergarten in school history, by leveraging synergies across reading groups and by fostering a proactive, integrated culture among parent helpers.

Initially, we were instructed to send in white t-shirts for a craft. They were due Tuesday. Because white t-shirts last through exactly one wearing on my sons, we didn't have any in stock. I took a strategic, logic-based opportunity to procure some at a local discount retailer this weekend, and I sent my deliverables in on Tuesday.

Tuesday afternoon my deliverables returned home in the boys' backpacks, so I sent them back on Wednesday. On Wednesday they returned once more, with a note that said something to the effect of, "We're incredibly lucky to have the surprise opportunity to have a clown at the party, so we won't have a craft. Here's your t-shirt back."

Mm. A clown. Won't that be nice. Also? I bought those t-shirts for $.99 each at Marc's, and they are see thru and have cap sleeves and appear to be cut for very small women. But because I anticipated the craft looking like ~~crap~~ my sons made it, I bought these shirts rather than driving all the way to wherever to buy a 3-pack of Hanes. So now I'm stuck with these tiny sheer lady shirts, and I'm out $2 which we totally need right now because oh my gosh could my client go ahead and pay me already so we have more than $8 to our names?

With $10 we could do so much more.

Anyway, back to the parties. My client had better pay me quick, because I got roped into sending in napkins and chips for next Thursday. But for the Alphabet party tomorrow I had to send in 12 juice boxes, and even though I'm going to be there tomorrow she wanted them today and I was supposed to send them in with my sons. I opted not to and I imagine that has caused no small amount of consternation, but they're sort of heavy for little guys and really, I'm going to be there tomorrow. I'll try to have a good post for you, blogworld.

*She does not have a crazy wife locked up in a spare bedroom of her house.

a look under my fridge

2011-06-02T17:42:00.001-04:00

I also found a large pinecone.

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it is never too early to nip a blossoming romance in the bud

2011-05-28T23:09:00.001-04:00

I'm sorry I haven't blogged, internet. There was a power outage and a day off school and I had an extra kid here (could I be a mother to 5? oh yes I could! WIN!) and pretty much that's all I've got.

But this morning G had a meltdown over something I no longer remember, and he was so sad and couldn't calm himself. I shadowed him around the house but he was not receptive to my conversation starters such as, "What's goin' on, buddy?" and "Can I help you?"

Observations: I have a lot more patience for the boys' emotional freak outs than I have for Miss A's. Is this because:
a) she's the oldest and therefore I remain 94% convinced she is a very tiny 25-year-old?
b) they are younger and therefore my "babies?"
c) she's a girl and it seems that the mother-daughter relationship is fraught with more conflict than mother-son?
d) she reminds me of myself and sparks my self-loathing?
e) she is even more dramatic than they are/she's been doing this longer and by the time they are 8 I will be over their freak outs too?

Anyway. As I observed G's freak out he made eye contact and I could see him trapped in his little freaking out body, desperate and scared. I asked whether he'd like to spend some time with just me today. His freak out stopped almost instantly, and after a few minutes to pull himself together he was ready to be a normal kid again.

So for our "date," we ran a couple errands and stopped at the Target snack bar. He is very difficult for me to understand, and it is nice to be alone with him so I have time (and quiet) to stop what I'm doing and have him repeat what he's said when I can watch his face and make sure I get it. I hate that I miss a lot of what he says -- and he'll give up after saying something 2-3 times if I still don't get it.

He's so funny, and so smart, and I hate it for him that people miss that because his speech is garbled. While he can produce most sounds (with some effort) when we work one-on-one, most of that hasn't translated to his everyday speech. I didn't see anything near the improvement I'd hoped for this year with school therapy (close to worthless) plus private therapy, but I guess it isn't hurting him socially because at Field Day yesterday Emma told me (but swore me to secrecy) that the Fortune 500 room mother's daughter with the perfect handwriting has a crush on G. OH YEAH! (And on P. I foresee a decade or two of awkwardness.)

After Target we went to the playground and played hide and seek. As we've established, I hate playing with children. But playing with just one child isn't so bad. Especially when we're not playing babies. It was nice to be able to play with him, without worrying about how I'd have to spend an equal amount of time playing whatever asinine game each other child had in mind for me.

Then we went to the dollar store so he could buy himself a patriotic balloon, to ~~which~~ whom he fed dinner and in whose honor he composed lengthy ballads, once we returned home.

We are in the final two weeks of school, and F5RM is vibrating with party-planning anxiety because we have an Alphabet Party and a last day of school party, in addition to 47 field trips. F5RM has invited us all to a planning meeting at her home. I will not be attending. Can you imagine what she will be like planning her daughter's wedding? Hmm. I hereby withdraw my endorsement of the really cute and fine motor skilled daughter of F5RM.

believe it or not, i've been thinking about this for a long time

2011-05-21T23:28:00.000-04:00

Friends, today let's discuss an issue that has troubled me for many years: disposable food storage container etiquette.

I'm talking about this kind of thing:

In my view, these disposable containers are like the bikes in a free bike share program, without the central storage location. You give out leftovers after a meal, and your friend takes home a container, and you don't think anything else about it because eventually one of two things will happen:

You'll eat a meal at your friend's house and you'll get to bring home a container of leftovers, or
You'll eat at another friend's house and come home with a container of leftovers, and thus the circle of life continues.

But I notice that a segment of the disposable food storage container using population does not ascribe to the circle of life system. They are conscientious about washing and promptly returning my poor man's Tupperware. I can get behind this if it is a particularly large or exciting container -- maybe it has a holiday themed design or it is enormous enough to hold more than a dozen cookies without smashing them. But I don't need my 2-cup TakeAlongs back. That's just the cost of doing business, right? Just like I don't expect my neighbor to pay me back 17 cents for the popsicle I gave her kid. Eventually someone will give my kid a popsicle or I'll get a container of fudge, and balance will be restored to the universe.

What is your take, O blogworld? How do you feel when parting with your disposable food storage containers? Do your feelings change with certain containers that are large, holiday themed, or have twist-on lids? Do you expect or hope to see most of your containers again? Do your friends and family members usually return them to you? What is the proper way to handle this situation? Either system can work, but we all need to be on board with it. We all must work together to maintain appropriate disposable food storage container levels in every household.

hark! i have more school stuff to tell you

2011-05-21T18:55:00.001-04:00

We've had a hard time deciding what to do with our kids next year. We've considered everything from homeschooling on a compound in a remote location, to sending them to boarding school, depending on where they were on the continuum of insanity. We polled the children:

A didn't know
G wanted to go to school
P wanted to stay home
G revised his decision to do whatever P wanted
P said it was up to G
H was angry when I even suggested she might stay home

In the last week, Miss A's school started an irritating pop-up ad campaign reminding parents that it's time for re-enrollment. Then the boys' kindergarten teacher emailed to ask whether we wanted to keep the boys together next year. On Haney's* last day of preschool, Jason and I summoned Miss A for a meeting. She said she would like to try the new school next year -- our district is combining some schools and moving into one gigantic new elementary school next year. The playground is of the utmost importance to my children.

Well, that sealed the deal. We decided we would send them all to school next year. I kept my composure until Miss A was once again distracted, then I spent some time demonstrating for Jason how my Tony Horton workouts have enabled me to click my heels. Blogworld, EVERY SINGLE DAY I will be alone from 12:30-3. Can you imagine? Right now I am alone for about an hour each week, broken into 10-15 minute segments, as I drive between stores doing our grocery shopping. And that is an upgrade.

I emailed the boys' teacher that we would like them to be placed together, and that we're hoping they'll have Miss A's awesome grade 1 teacher. And I picked up a registration packet for Miss A, and all the office staff celebrated loudly and I think she was flattered and happy.

Then I received the boys' progress reports and YET AGAIN there is even more confirmation that they were switched in the beginning of the year, and every time one of us reads with G it is even more apparent how far behind he is, and if their teacher would have ever, even once, said, "Yeah, I think they got mixed up -- I'm sorry! I'll work with G to get him caught up," I wouldn't be upset. But when it's clear something has happened but we're all pretending nothing did, I'm not good at that or comfortable with it.

This week my sister and I were talking about the benefits of home or online school. Work is done by early afternoon, and that's if your kid goofs off all morning. Then you have all evening for sports, activities, or just play. You regain a nice chunk of your family time. And you aren't spending your evenings dealing with the fallout of feelings hurt by kids at school, or your mornings cajoling your tearful child into getting ready for school.

I am excited about the peace and quiet in the afternoons. I look forward to working more and paying down debt, so educating the kids at home is easier a year or so down the road. However, I think I'll regret this decision my mid-September, when I'm juggling three kids' worth of real (not kindergarten-level) homework and school projects that are clearly meant to be done by a parent**, and speech homework for my boys who show great improvement when they have a model but almost no improvement in regular conversation, and Miss A's moods which I imagine will make a terrifying comeback once school starts, plus sports and activities and whatever else the next year has in store.

But I have BIG plans for those 12.5 hours each week, and even bigger plans for what those 12.5 hours each week will mean for our future, which includes a secluded compound and homeschooling the kids until age 24.

*Haney recently became irritated at me calling her "Haney," although she doesn't mind the kids calling her that. She insisted I call her by her full name, "Helena V__." It is a mouthful. Now she's relaxed it to where I am allowed to call her simply "Helena."

**Another topic about which I need to vent.