Another idea shamelessly nicked from Kelly so that I can survive NaBloPoMo next month...
1. I was disappointed to find out that there was only Baby Mozart and Baby Bach in the Baby Einstein DVD series, and that there was no Baby R. Strauss, Baby Saint-Saens, or Baby Vaughn-Williams.
2. I am a champion napper. True naps are those that are at least three hours long and do not involve alarm clocks or other sleep-interrupting devices.
3. The burnt part is the best part of the food. Same deal with crusts and caramelized things.
4. There are few things better than making other people laugh. Or entrancing them by your performance.
5. Taking long drives in pensive, thoughtful silence is a great way to travel. Really. Talking just interrupts the excellent daydreaming.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
adventures in poo
My brother Don is all about being ecologically friendly. He is even more all about spoiling his nephew. And when he gets to combine the two, well, there's no stopping that man.
Long after I'd thrown my hands up and said that cloth diapering was too hard, not for me, etc., he shows up to babysit Aidan with three cloth diapers. Not the traditional squares of cloth you have to fold and do all sorts of crazy maneuvering with (but they make AWESOME burp cloths, yo), but these babies:
Three. A red, a white, and a blue. (Yes, he's quite patriotic.)
These are like disposables, except instead of folding them and stuffing them down the diaper genie, you rinse off the poo and wash them in the washing machine. Aidan is at that wonderful point - thank you, formula - where his poo is mostly solid, so it's pretty easy to take care of. They even make these liner things where you put it in the diaper, the baby poos, and you just whisk the liner (and accompanying poo) away into the toilet.
I got frustrated the last time I tried all this, though, but I decided to give it another shot, just trying out the three Don got us. I put the red one on Aidan first. SO CUTE. (No, I forgot to take a picture. Sorry.) But then three hours later, when it was time to change him again, he had a huge wet spot up the back of his pajamas. Uh, turns out I'd forgotten to wash the diaper first so it can actually absorb stuff and not just transfer it out of the diaper.
I was tempted to take the pee flood as a bad sign that I should not do this. But no, I will persist. I love disposables but those things are getting expensive, so for economy's sake, at least, I'm giving it another shot. You know, so I can stop stabbing the earth. And my wallet.
I'll let you know how it goes...
Long after I'd thrown my hands up and said that cloth diapering was too hard, not for me, etc., he shows up to babysit Aidan with three cloth diapers. Not the traditional squares of cloth you have to fold and do all sorts of crazy maneuvering with (but they make AWESOME burp cloths, yo), but these babies:
Three. A red, a white, and a blue. (Yes, he's quite patriotic.)
These are like disposables, except instead of folding them and stuffing them down the diaper genie, you rinse off the poo and wash them in the washing machine. Aidan is at that wonderful point - thank you, formula - where his poo is mostly solid, so it's pretty easy to take care of. They even make these liner things where you put it in the diaper, the baby poos, and you just whisk the liner (and accompanying poo) away into the toilet.
I got frustrated the last time I tried all this, though, but I decided to give it another shot, just trying out the three Don got us. I put the red one on Aidan first. SO CUTE. (No, I forgot to take a picture. Sorry.) But then three hours later, when it was time to change him again, he had a huge wet spot up the back of his pajamas. Uh, turns out I'd forgotten to wash the diaper first so it can actually absorb stuff and not just transfer it out of the diaper.
I was tempted to take the pee flood as a bad sign that I should not do this. But no, I will persist. I love disposables but those things are getting expensive, so for economy's sake, at least, I'm giving it another shot. You know, so I can stop stabbing the earth. And my wallet.
I'll let you know how it goes...
Monday, October 20, 2008
the chronicles of slavia, part one
I used to live in a suburb of Orlando called Oviedo, in a little enclave of Oviedo called Slavia. Sounds exotic, but Slavia was pretty much a couple of streets: one that had some farms and a 70-year-old house with "SLAVIA" painted in big letters in front, and another that had a Christian school, a plant nursery, and an apartment complex, where I lived with my friend Katie. I've known Katie for over 13 years now, and she's still one of my best friends. However, we only lived in Slavia a couple of years together before she moved out to get married and I moved out to (unknowingly) meet my future husband one month later.
But we collected many a tale while we were there, and since I'm staring down the face of another yearly installment of NaBloPoMo next month, I thought I'd attempt another Monday regular feature: The Chronicles of Slavia.
Part One: The Geezer, The Survivor, and The Kamikaze Kid
Katie and I ended up with three goldfish one day. My memory is hazy as to how we ended up with three goldfish (Katie, I know you're reading, help me out here!), but there we were, two women with three goldfish.
Little did we know we truly had our hands full.
Things started out positive enough. We had three very cute goldfish. They were orange, they were little, they swam around in circles. We needed to name them. Being a Disney fan, I suggested that two of them be named "Nutsy" and "Trigger", in honor of the two goofball vultures from Disney's Robin Hood.
For whatever reason, we never came to the obvious conclusion of naming the third fish "Sheriff". Or any other Robin Hood-related name, and there were many of those options, too: Little John, Marian, Sir Hiss, Prince John, Friar Tuck. Instead, Katie's future-husband-then-boyfriend Kyle thought we ought to name the third goldfish Peter O'Toole.
Yes. PETER O'TOOLE.
Kyle thought it was a funny name. He thought it sounded like a porno star's name. And I can kinda give him that one, but now I'm wondering, doesn't Prince John - or, you could be all deep and paradoxical, Little John - qualify for that honor, too?
No. Not as much as PETER O'TOOLE.
All arguments about how Peter O'Toole, the human one (Kyle is now laughing), the non-porn-star one, was in fact SIR Peter O'Toole (even harder laughter - porn star with British accent visions) and was also in fact a very respected, decorated thespian (hysterics at this point - I gave up) with a long line of theatrical achievements (continued hysterics) were promptly ignored. And the laughter proved to be very contagious, so in the end, our third fish inherited the dubious honor of being named Peter O'Toole. It was also decreed that when referring to him, this fish would always be called by his full name, Peter O'Toole, because it was funnier that way.
Secretly, I called him Pete. I think he respected me for that.
We had Nutsy, Trigger, and Peter O'Toole in their separate little bowls, swimming around contentedly. In fact, for a while there, we couldn't remember which fish we'd named what, because they all looked the same after about ten minutes. And anyway, we also figured they would only live about a week, because our prior collective track records with fish were not terribly impressive.
A week later, they were still alive. Go figure.
Not too long after we started congratulating ourselves on our impressive fish-raising skillz, we had a floater. One of the fish had moved on to bigger and better vistas. We still didn't remember which name went with what fish, but we concluded that it must have been Peter O'Toole: being the elderly thespian (*snort, giggle*) that he was, he would probably be the first to kick the fishbowl. Poor Peter (*chortle*). Down the Porcelain Express he went.
Nutsy and Trigger continued to thrive. Or at least, they didn't die. "Thriving" and "not dying" look pretty much the same when you're a fish.
Eventually, it got into our heads that perhaps Nutsy and Trigger were lonely, and maybe they should share a bowl. Nutsy and Trigger promptly became roommates, another little bowl was emptied and cleaned, and there was much swimming in circles.
We thought they might be a bit crowded, so a shallow floating-candle bowl was cleaned and the brothers transferred to a new home. They swam in more circles. They continued to, er, thrive, long past our expectations. We congratulated ourselves more. They swam in more circles. A gripping life we led, no?
Little did we know the trouble that lay ahead.
We found out that perhaps there was trouble in paradise, and that maybe all those swam circles were, in fact, a desperate cry for help. We thought they were happy, but I guess we were wrong, or at least half wrong, because one morning, I stumbled out of bed, out to the living room to feed Nutsy and Trigger, and there swam Nutsy, solo, in the bowl. I blinked a few times before it occurred to me to look around for Trigger, that it was improbable that Nutsy devoured his own kin. And there was Trigger, still in the hush of death, lying on the carpet. Trigger had jumped to his death, right out of his shallow little fish condominium.
Here's where I show my true colors: I left him there. I did. I was traumatized, I didn't know how to get him off the floor, and it was really early in the morning and I just couldn't handle it. Yes, it's true: I left him there and went back into my room and pretended I never saw it all. Because, you know, ignoring something will always make it go away.
Twenty minutes later, I hear Katie come out of her room. Yes, that's right! I left Trigger there for her to find, okay? Go ahead and judge me! Argh!
So, okay, Katie came out of her room, and I hear her go, "Uh-oh." And she comes and gets me out of my room to see the carnage, and I was all wow! and surprised and I-never-thought-this-would-happen-how-sad. And even worse than me leaving him there the first time, both of us stand over him and just sort of stare at him. We then argue over who's going to be the brave one: "You pick him up." "No, YOU pick him up. This is creepy." "Hey, this is creepy for me, too - YOU do it."
And we continued on like this for several moments... and then we saw it: the wiggle. Trigger MOVED.
We both gasped. We continued to argue, more fervently now, over who would pick him up and put him back in the fishbowl (instead of the toilet). I think eventually Katie - clearly the better roommate, be quiet, okay? - picked him up and dropped him back into the bowl.
It was pathetic. Truly pathetic.
First, he wasn't quite dead. Dead fish are usually upside down or completely on their sides, and fish who are not dead are upright, swimming vigorously. Trigger, however, was positioned at a 45-degree angle. Not quite dead, not quite alive. He waved his fins every couple of seconds in a futile effort to move his body around, only he never worked up enough force to actually do so. He just sort of floated there at that weird angle.
Second, he was this ghastly grayish-orange color, instead of the bright orange he used to be. A piece of fuzz from the carpet stuck to his gills. And his eyes sort of bugged out, more than usual.
The worst part, though, was Nutsy. Imagine you're swimming around at home, minding your own business, occasionally stopping to eat the food that magically falls from above, and then your roommate leaps to his death in front of your eyes. Only maybe you weren't paying full attention and just thought he'd gone out for some potato chips or something, and just as you were thinking, man, he's been gone for a while... he drops back in, half-dead, a strange color, permanently tilted, with unnatural fuzz stuck to his sides. You would probably be swimming around frantically, freaking out, much like Nutsy. We were convinced that he would make a similar kamikaze leap, he was so spazzed out. But there wasn't anything we could do: we both had to leave for work. We mentally prepared ourselves to come home to one, possibly two, dead fish. It was a miracle that Trigger had any life left in him after at least twenty minutes outside of the water, and we didn't want to press our luck by hoping for recovery. We left the apartment.
We came back about the same time that night, and we were STUNNED: Both fish were still there. Nutsy had not leapt to his death. And Trigger was not only alive, but he was swimming around just as vigorously as before that morning's death leap. He was still a little pale, and the carpet piece was still stuck to his side, but there he was, quite alive. We were stunned.
And alive he stayed, along with Nutsy, for several more months, in fact. We moved them to a special fish tank, complete with a roof and a water filter and some fake fish habitat props. They thrived.
They continued to thrive after Katie and I moved out when she married Kyle, the infamous name suggester previously mentioned. They came in their fish tank with me to a different apartment, kept swimming around contentedly. They met Jason. We got engaged (Jason and I, not the fish and I). Eventually, they hit the goldfish jackpot and retired to a friend's fish pond, where they tripled in size and lived for another year before joining Pete(r O'Toole) in fish heaven.
Funny enough, even when he was at his biggest size, Trigger never regained his full color back. These are the scars we must bear, I suppose.
RIP, Pete, Nutsy, and Trigger. I hope heaven is deep, well-aerated, and full of floating food bits for you.
But we collected many a tale while we were there, and since I'm staring down the face of another yearly installment of NaBloPoMo next month, I thought I'd attempt another Monday regular feature: The Chronicles of Slavia.
Part One: The Geezer, The Survivor, and The Kamikaze Kid
Katie and I ended up with three goldfish one day. My memory is hazy as to how we ended up with three goldfish (Katie, I know you're reading, help me out here!), but there we were, two women with three goldfish.
Little did we know we truly had our hands full.
Things started out positive enough. We had three very cute goldfish. They were orange, they were little, they swam around in circles. We needed to name them. Being a Disney fan, I suggested that two of them be named "Nutsy" and "Trigger", in honor of the two goofball vultures from Disney's Robin Hood.
For whatever reason, we never came to the obvious conclusion of naming the third fish "Sheriff". Or any other Robin Hood-related name, and there were many of those options, too: Little John, Marian, Sir Hiss, Prince John, Friar Tuck. Instead, Katie's future-husband-then-boyfriend Kyle thought we ought to name the third goldfish Peter O'Toole.
Yes. PETER O'TOOLE.
Kyle thought it was a funny name. He thought it sounded like a porno star's name. And I can kinda give him that one, but now I'm wondering, doesn't Prince John - or, you could be all deep and paradoxical, Little John - qualify for that honor, too?
No. Not as much as PETER O'TOOLE.
All arguments about how Peter O'Toole, the human one (Kyle is now laughing), the non-porn-star one, was in fact SIR Peter O'Toole (even harder laughter - porn star with British accent visions) and was also in fact a very respected, decorated thespian (hysterics at this point - I gave up) with a long line of theatrical achievements (continued hysterics) were promptly ignored. And the laughter proved to be very contagious, so in the end, our third fish inherited the dubious honor of being named Peter O'Toole. It was also decreed that when referring to him, this fish would always be called by his full name, Peter O'Toole, because it was funnier that way.
Secretly, I called him Pete. I think he respected me for that.
We had Nutsy, Trigger, and Peter O'Toole in their separate little bowls, swimming around contentedly. In fact, for a while there, we couldn't remember which fish we'd named what, because they all looked the same after about ten minutes. And anyway, we also figured they would only live about a week, because our prior collective track records with fish were not terribly impressive.
A week later, they were still alive. Go figure.
Not too long after we started congratulating ourselves on our impressive fish-raising skillz, we had a floater. One of the fish had moved on to bigger and better vistas. We still didn't remember which name went with what fish, but we concluded that it must have been Peter O'Toole: being the elderly thespian (*snort, giggle*) that he was, he would probably be the first to kick the fishbowl. Poor Peter (*chortle*). Down the Porcelain Express he went.
Nutsy and Trigger continued to thrive. Or at least, they didn't die. "Thriving" and "not dying" look pretty much the same when you're a fish.
Eventually, it got into our heads that perhaps Nutsy and Trigger were lonely, and maybe they should share a bowl. Nutsy and Trigger promptly became roommates, another little bowl was emptied and cleaned, and there was much swimming in circles.
We thought they might be a bit crowded, so a shallow floating-candle bowl was cleaned and the brothers transferred to a new home. They swam in more circles. They continued to, er, thrive, long past our expectations. We congratulated ourselves more. They swam in more circles. A gripping life we led, no?
Little did we know the trouble that lay ahead.
We found out that perhaps there was trouble in paradise, and that maybe all those swam circles were, in fact, a desperate cry for help. We thought they were happy, but I guess we were wrong, or at least half wrong, because one morning, I stumbled out of bed, out to the living room to feed Nutsy and Trigger, and there swam Nutsy, solo, in the bowl. I blinked a few times before it occurred to me to look around for Trigger, that it was improbable that Nutsy devoured his own kin. And there was Trigger, still in the hush of death, lying on the carpet. Trigger had jumped to his death, right out of his shallow little fish condominium.
Here's where I show my true colors: I left him there. I did. I was traumatized, I didn't know how to get him off the floor, and it was really early in the morning and I just couldn't handle it. Yes, it's true: I left him there and went back into my room and pretended I never saw it all. Because, you know, ignoring something will always make it go away.
Twenty minutes later, I hear Katie come out of her room. Yes, that's right! I left Trigger there for her to find, okay? Go ahead and judge me! Argh!
So, okay, Katie came out of her room, and I hear her go, "Uh-oh." And she comes and gets me out of my room to see the carnage, and I was all wow! and surprised and I-never-thought-this-would-happen-how-sad. And even worse than me leaving him there the first time, both of us stand over him and just sort of stare at him. We then argue over who's going to be the brave one: "You pick him up." "No, YOU pick him up. This is creepy." "Hey, this is creepy for me, too - YOU do it."
And we continued on like this for several moments... and then we saw it: the wiggle. Trigger MOVED.
We both gasped. We continued to argue, more fervently now, over who would pick him up and put him back in the fishbowl (instead of the toilet). I think eventually Katie - clearly the better roommate, be quiet, okay? - picked him up and dropped him back into the bowl.
It was pathetic. Truly pathetic.
First, he wasn't quite dead. Dead fish are usually upside down or completely on their sides, and fish who are not dead are upright, swimming vigorously. Trigger, however, was positioned at a 45-degree angle. Not quite dead, not quite alive. He waved his fins every couple of seconds in a futile effort to move his body around, only he never worked up enough force to actually do so. He just sort of floated there at that weird angle.
Second, he was this ghastly grayish-orange color, instead of the bright orange he used to be. A piece of fuzz from the carpet stuck to his gills. And his eyes sort of bugged out, more than usual.
The worst part, though, was Nutsy. Imagine you're swimming around at home, minding your own business, occasionally stopping to eat the food that magically falls from above, and then your roommate leaps to his death in front of your eyes. Only maybe you weren't paying full attention and just thought he'd gone out for some potato chips or something, and just as you were thinking, man, he's been gone for a while... he drops back in, half-dead, a strange color, permanently tilted, with unnatural fuzz stuck to his sides. You would probably be swimming around frantically, freaking out, much like Nutsy. We were convinced that he would make a similar kamikaze leap, he was so spazzed out. But there wasn't anything we could do: we both had to leave for work. We mentally prepared ourselves to come home to one, possibly two, dead fish. It was a miracle that Trigger had any life left in him after at least twenty minutes outside of the water, and we didn't want to press our luck by hoping for recovery. We left the apartment.
We came back about the same time that night, and we were STUNNED: Both fish were still there. Nutsy had not leapt to his death. And Trigger was not only alive, but he was swimming around just as vigorously as before that morning's death leap. He was still a little pale, and the carpet piece was still stuck to his side, but there he was, quite alive. We were stunned.
And alive he stayed, along with Nutsy, for several more months, in fact. We moved them to a special fish tank, complete with a roof and a water filter and some fake fish habitat props. They thrived.
They continued to thrive after Katie and I moved out when she married Kyle, the infamous name suggester previously mentioned. They came in their fish tank with me to a different apartment, kept swimming around contentedly. They met Jason. We got engaged (Jason and I, not the fish and I). Eventually, they hit the goldfish jackpot and retired to a friend's fish pond, where they tripled in size and lived for another year before joining Pete(r O'Toole) in fish heaven.
Funny enough, even when he was at his biggest size, Trigger never regained his full color back. These are the scars we must bear, I suppose.
RIP, Pete, Nutsy, and Trigger. I hope heaven is deep, well-aerated, and full of floating food bits for you.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
a stolen meme
I can't concentrate long enough to write a thoughtful post because Aidan is in front of me being so incredibly adorable - I keep giggling every time he does, which is often - so here's a meme I considerately nicked from Carissa. Have fun learning a little more about me:
I AM… (I'll just leave it at that: "I am".)
I WANT… a Dyson vacuum cleaner. A pink one, preferably.
I HAVE… a perfectly good vacuum cleaner, and a bad case of I-want-itis, apparently.
I KEEP... too much stuff. But I love making my twice-yearly trips to Goodwill to clean it all out - so therapeutic!
I WISH I COULD… redo some major decision/turning points in my life with the perspective I have now.
I HATE... cilantro. (I've said that many times, but so strong is my hatred, it bears repeating.)
I FEAR... something happening to either or both of my men.
I HEAR... Bach's Brandenburg Concerto, my husband's car pulling into the driveway, and Aidan's giggling. Awesome.
I DON’T THINK... it's right that political campaigns spend more time bashing the other candidate rather than truthfully present their proposed plan of action. It makes me not want to vote at all, really.
I REGRET... writing off so many people in school because I assumed they wouldn't like me.
I LOVE… cooler weather, and that some of it has arrived today.
I AM NOT... overspending this Christmas season.
I DANCE... like the stiff white woman that I am.
I SING… all. the. time. Love it.
I NEVER... sleep on my back.
I RARELY… watch scary movies. I don't like 99% of them.
I CRY WHEN I WATCH… Monsters Inc. When Sulley has to leave Boo behind in her room at the end, or when he roars and makes her cry - ugh. Big nasty tears.
I AM NOT ALWAYS... weepy when I watch Pixar films.
I HATE THAT... drivers are so bad around here.
I’M CONFUSED ABOUT… uh, pretty much everything.
I NEED... a nap. Oh pretty please?
I SHOULD… stop using the word "should" in so many sentences about myself.
I AM… (I'll just leave it at that: "I am".)
I WANT… a Dyson vacuum cleaner. A pink one, preferably.
I HAVE… a perfectly good vacuum cleaner, and a bad case of I-want-itis, apparently.
I KEEP... too much stuff. But I love making my twice-yearly trips to Goodwill to clean it all out - so therapeutic!
I WISH I COULD… redo some major decision/turning points in my life with the perspective I have now.
I HATE... cilantro. (I've said that many times, but so strong is my hatred, it bears repeating.)
I FEAR... something happening to either or both of my men.
I HEAR... Bach's Brandenburg Concerto, my husband's car pulling into the driveway, and Aidan's giggling. Awesome.
I DON’T THINK... it's right that political campaigns spend more time bashing the other candidate rather than truthfully present their proposed plan of action. It makes me not want to vote at all, really.
I REGRET... writing off so many people in school because I assumed they wouldn't like me.
I LOVE… cooler weather, and that some of it has arrived today.
I AM NOT... overspending this Christmas season.
I DANCE... like the stiff white woman that I am.
I SING… all. the. time. Love it.
I NEVER... sleep on my back.
I RARELY… watch scary movies. I don't like 99% of them.
I CRY WHEN I WATCH… Monsters Inc. When Sulley has to leave Boo behind in her room at the end, or when he roars and makes her cry - ugh. Big nasty tears.
I AM NOT ALWAYS... weepy when I watch Pixar films.
I HATE THAT... drivers are so bad around here.
I’M CONFUSED ABOUT… uh, pretty much everything.
I NEED... a nap. Oh pretty please?
I SHOULD… stop using the word "should" in so many sentences about myself.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
TV fast: the outcome
I totally forgot to tell you guys about this - so sorry. Parenthood distracts you like that sometimes.
So, we went a whole week without TV, no cheating. No movies on the DVD. No reruns during the day. No TV on the Internet. Not even any Baby Einstein for my little munchkin, although we played Baby Bach for him yesterday, and I have never seen a two-month-old so transfixed in all my life. He was completely mesmerized.
(I know, I know. I'm completely setting myself up for a bazillion TV-is-baaaad-for-kids comments. He only watches it for a few minutes a day, I promise. Leave me alone.)
Okay, so back to the original idea: no TV for a week. It was interesting, to say the least.
I did get some good reading done, just like I had wanted. Among some other books, I read The Kite Runner, which was totally awesome and made me bawl lots of therapeutic tears.
I didn't spend too much time online, either, even though I'm mad guilty of that most of the time. I knew that would be just as useless as sitting in front of the TV all day, so I tried to reign myself in a bit.
I did get some nice time in with Aidan, and I even took some pictures of my little Sweet Pea that I'm really proud of. They are, of course, still stuck on the camera. I mean, I didn't get that productive, people.
What I was most looking forward to was the QT I would spend with Jason. All that uninterrupted quality time with no distracting elements.
Uh HUH.
It turned out that we did spend a lot of time together, but it was mostly silent. Is that so sad? We didn't talk a whole lot. In fact, I spent a lot of those meals - that were meant to be intimate reconnections - sulking or eating in stony silence. I didn't overdo it on the Internet overall... but in the evenings when we were at home together, yeah, we were sitting in the same room, TV off but completely absorbed in our own laptops. This was NOT the outcome I had wanted.
Apparently, turning the TV off meant dealing with a lot of crap we'd both either ignored, suppressed, or completely missed altogether. And maybe we weren't so good at that. I wasn't, at least. I'd had a lot of frustration about being a new mom, feeling lonely (gee, wonder why?) and sleep-deprived and left to do a lot of the parenting while Jason got to go to work and live his pre-baby life relatively uninterrupted. I should have talked with him about it, but I hadn't, not before that week. Maybe all those moments with the TV blocked it all out, I don't know. But during the TV fast week, it all came bubbling to the surface.
We really didn't talk about it all, actually, until Friday night when we were supposed to meet our friends for a night at Disney. We were headed down the road, all was good, I was feeling fine, and then... blaggggghhhh. It all came out. I'll spare you most of the gory details, but suffice to say, by the time we were in the parking lot at EPCOT, I was in tears and demanded to be brought home. Spent that night and most of the next day trying to run away from pressures that felt too overwhelming.
We talked that weekend and got everything out in the open, healed some sore spots, reconnected, snuggled a lot. It's all okay now, really. I'm not trying to run away anymore. And the TV fast turned out to be a really powerful lesson for us both, that we need more than just a week to pour the best parts of our days into each other instead of wasting them, so that when those critical moments happen, it isn't akin to a bullet train hitting us both in the heart. That we're not staring at each other, silent, wondering how to communicate when we don't have the constant drone of the TV to distract us. That we love each other, and love each other WELL, instead of loving our technology a little too much.
So, we went a whole week without TV, no cheating. No movies on the DVD. No reruns during the day. No TV on the Internet. Not even any Baby Einstein for my little munchkin, although we played Baby Bach for him yesterday, and I have never seen a two-month-old so transfixed in all my life. He was completely mesmerized.
(I know, I know. I'm completely setting myself up for a bazillion TV-is-baaaad-for-kids comments. He only watches it for a few minutes a day, I promise. Leave me alone.)
Okay, so back to the original idea: no TV for a week. It was interesting, to say the least.
I did get some good reading done, just like I had wanted. Among some other books, I read The Kite Runner, which was totally awesome and made me bawl lots of therapeutic tears.
I didn't spend too much time online, either, even though I'm mad guilty of that most of the time. I knew that would be just as useless as sitting in front of the TV all day, so I tried to reign myself in a bit.
I did get some nice time in with Aidan, and I even took some pictures of my little Sweet Pea that I'm really proud of. They are, of course, still stuck on the camera. I mean, I didn't get that productive, people.
What I was most looking forward to was the QT I would spend with Jason. All that uninterrupted quality time with no distracting elements.
Uh HUH.
It turned out that we did spend a lot of time together, but it was mostly silent. Is that so sad? We didn't talk a whole lot. In fact, I spent a lot of those meals - that were meant to be intimate reconnections - sulking or eating in stony silence. I didn't overdo it on the Internet overall... but in the evenings when we were at home together, yeah, we were sitting in the same room, TV off but completely absorbed in our own laptops. This was NOT the outcome I had wanted.
Apparently, turning the TV off meant dealing with a lot of crap we'd both either ignored, suppressed, or completely missed altogether. And maybe we weren't so good at that. I wasn't, at least. I'd had a lot of frustration about being a new mom, feeling lonely (gee, wonder why?) and sleep-deprived and left to do a lot of the parenting while Jason got to go to work and live his pre-baby life relatively uninterrupted. I should have talked with him about it, but I hadn't, not before that week. Maybe all those moments with the TV blocked it all out, I don't know. But during the TV fast week, it all came bubbling to the surface.
We really didn't talk about it all, actually, until Friday night when we were supposed to meet our friends for a night at Disney. We were headed down the road, all was good, I was feeling fine, and then... blaggggghhhh. It all came out. I'll spare you most of the gory details, but suffice to say, by the time we were in the parking lot at EPCOT, I was in tears and demanded to be brought home. Spent that night and most of the next day trying to run away from pressures that felt too overwhelming.
We talked that weekend and got everything out in the open, healed some sore spots, reconnected, snuggled a lot. It's all okay now, really. I'm not trying to run away anymore. And the TV fast turned out to be a really powerful lesson for us both, that we need more than just a week to pour the best parts of our days into each other instead of wasting them, so that when those critical moments happen, it isn't akin to a bullet train hitting us both in the heart. That we're not staring at each other, silent, wondering how to communicate when we don't have the constant drone of the TV to distract us. That we love each other, and love each other WELL, instead of loving our technology a little too much.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
kids make liars out of you: the sequel
...and Aidan did NOT sleep through the night last night.
Maybe he'll prove me wrong tonight... and sleep until 7am?
Hmmmmm...
Maybe he'll prove me wrong tonight... and sleep until 7am?
Hmmmmm...
Monday, October 13, 2008
kids make liars out of you
Remember my last post? About how it was so hard to find joy at 4am?
Not 24 hours after I posted that, I found it. At 4 am. As I slept blissfully because - shock of all shocks - SO WAS AIDAN.
That's right. My little boy slept through the night last night, and I could not be prouder to be proven wrong about his sleeping habits.
We fed him a a big bottle at 10:15pm, got him all fed, burped, changed, and wrapped up in his swaddler (aka the Baby Strait Jacket), and put him down at 11pm. His eyelids were barely open, and he was ready for bed. 3:30 came along, I hear him fuss a little bit over the monitor, so I go in to pop his binky back in his mouth. It's been our routine, this binky-popping in the middle of the night. He'd fuss, I'd put the binky back in, then 15 minutes later, he'd fuss again, I'd get out of bed... you get the picture. Sort of like hitting the snooze button on my son. It's my way of trying to delay a feeding I don't really want to do, and lately, he'd only been taking 1 or 2 ounces anyway.
So, I popped the binky back in. Went back to bed. Next thing I know, Jason's getting up, and it's 5:30. The monitor is silent, but I'm too groggy to make a big deal about it. Maybe Jason fed him, I thought groggily. Back to sleep.
I wake up, no alarm, no sound over the monitor, at 7:15am. I had about 3 seconds of feeling well-rested before the panic set in: why didn't he wake up for his bottle? I threw myself out of bed, horror scenes flying through my brain, and ran into his nursery. And there he was, still swaddled, binky firmly planted between his lips, sleeping peacefully.
Friends, it was the parting of the clouds, the light shining from heaven, the angels singing sweet melodies. Oh, glorious moment that I realized my son slept through the night! All morning, I kept squeezing him, hugging him, saying "Good boy!", and Aidan gave me these withering looks like I was mentally unbalanced.
That's okay. I'm just grateful Aidan has joined his parents in a long family line of champion sleepers. Good boy!
Not 24 hours after I posted that, I found it. At 4 am. As I slept blissfully because - shock of all shocks - SO WAS AIDAN.
That's right. My little boy slept through the night last night, and I could not be prouder to be proven wrong about his sleeping habits.
We fed him a a big bottle at 10:15pm, got him all fed, burped, changed, and wrapped up in his swaddler (aka the Baby Strait Jacket), and put him down at 11pm. His eyelids were barely open, and he was ready for bed. 3:30 came along, I hear him fuss a little bit over the monitor, so I go in to pop his binky back in his mouth. It's been our routine, this binky-popping in the middle of the night. He'd fuss, I'd put the binky back in, then 15 minutes later, he'd fuss again, I'd get out of bed... you get the picture. Sort of like hitting the snooze button on my son. It's my way of trying to delay a feeding I don't really want to do, and lately, he'd only been taking 1 or 2 ounces anyway.
So, I popped the binky back in. Went back to bed. Next thing I know, Jason's getting up, and it's 5:30. The monitor is silent, but I'm too groggy to make a big deal about it. Maybe Jason fed him, I thought groggily. Back to sleep.
I wake up, no alarm, no sound over the monitor, at 7:15am. I had about 3 seconds of feeling well-rested before the panic set in: why didn't he wake up for his bottle? I threw myself out of bed, horror scenes flying through my brain, and ran into his nursery. And there he was, still swaddled, binky firmly planted between his lips, sleeping peacefully.
Friends, it was the parting of the clouds, the light shining from heaven, the angels singing sweet melodies. Oh, glorious moment that I realized my son slept through the night! All morning, I kept squeezing him, hugging him, saying "Good boy!", and Aidan gave me these withering looks like I was mentally unbalanced.
That's okay. I'm just grateful Aidan has joined his parents in a long family line of champion sleepers. Good boy!
Sunday, October 12, 2008
finding joy...
...is a little hard to do at 4 in the morning, after just a few hours sleep. I think I dropped it somewhere in the dark, along with Aidan's binky.
Forgive me if I take tacit, bleary-eyed acceptance instead. Whoever coined the phrase "sleeping like a baby" never met my talkative, grunting, squirmy worm. Love him, but sheesh...
Forgive me if I take tacit, bleary-eyed acceptance instead. Whoever coined the phrase "sleeping like a baby" never met my talkative, grunting, squirmy worm. Love him, but sheesh...
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
loved and forgiven
Shortly before I left work to go on maternity leave, I cared for a patient who had been the victim of a horrible accident. He was about my age, and one night, in a not-so-safe part of town, another person decided to run over my patient - repeatedly - with his car. It left him with brain injuries and swelling so severe that even some of our most calloused, experienced staff were open-mouthed at the CT scans of his head. He actually came into the hospital somewhat conscious and alert, nodding his head to questions, but within the night, the bleeding and swelling in his brain turned him completely unresponsive, and he never again acknowledged anyone's presence, not even his mother's.
He came to our unit a very, very broken man. A part of his skull needed to be removed because of the massive swelling, and the left side of his head bulged under the skin. We cared for him, treated his fevers, his erratic heart rate, bathed him, turned him so that he wouldn't get bedsores, fed him through a tube, and monitored his oxygen levels as a respirator kept his lungs going. The chances of recovery were nil. Doctors broke the news to his mother, first gently, then bluntly, as she refused to believe her son was really gone even though his heart was still beating. A hospital ethics committee wanted to end life support, and his mother adamantly refused. He was still there when I left for maternity leave, and the last news I'd heard was that he was moved to a nursing home. I thought perhaps he'd made some miraculous improvement, though I knew the quality of life after such an accident was bound to be poor.
Today, I read that he passed away this past Wednesday. He was 34 years old.
I'd seen a lot of patients like him in the year I worked in my burn/trauma unit. Their injuries are severe, their prognoses grim, but they start to blur together after a while. Maybe it's the brain's way of protecting you from the reality of so many hurt people, I don't know. But I don't remember all of them. You give the best nursing care you are capable of, and then you try to leave their stories and faces at the hospital and go home to be with your family.
This patient, however, is one I will never forget.
He was a career criminal, purportedly one of the biggest drug dealers in my city. He had a rap sheet a mile long, I was told - possession of narcotics, robbery, assault, etc. He was outside a nightclub when someone, clearly set to kill him, ran over him repeatedly with his car. Police had to use their own vehicles to barricade this guy from continuing to run my patient over, and the scene was reportedly so "unstable" (dangerous, I presume) that it took paramedics a full hour just to reach my patient. When news of his injuries broke and the newspaper published the story online, comments came flying in from all over, some mentioning the bravery of the officer who risked his own life to stop the other guy's car, but most saying that our city and the world in general would be better places because this guy was critically injured, off the streets, and would hopefully die. They used words like "scum" and "trash" and a few others that are too offensive for me to mention. People seemed pretty content that justice had been served to this guy, who, as one person wrote online, "got what was coming to him."
What people didn't see, or at least care to remember, was that my patient, however heinous the crimes he committed, was someone's son and father.
His room was full of bright posters and funny little crayon drawings from his son. A picture of a bright-faced little boy in a baseball uniform hung under the dry-erase board. Get-well cards and balloons were stashed in a corner of his room to make way for all the medical equipment to keep his body alive.
His mother came to visit her son every single day. She was a kind lady, strong and fairly stoic about the whole situation, given the gravity of her son's condition, though her eyes told me she was feeling every bit of pain that comes with seeing your son lying gravely ill in a hospital. She worked at the hospital in a different unit, and when she was at his side, she always helped the staff to care for him. She spoke to him, talked to him about his son, told him how much she loved him, asked him to move something - anything - or at least turn his glassy-eyed, blank gaze to her in recognition, which he never did.
This past weekend, she had to bury her son. No parent should ever have to go through such hell, burying their child. And though he may have been what many would call a bad person, a criminal, a detriment to society, he was still, after all, her son. Loved. Forgiven.
And I am reminded again and again, when I think of him, that no matter what I do or what other people think of me, or how many times I screw up, even when I screw up in huge, messy ways, that I, too, am always loved. Forgiven. Not just by my very awesome parents, but even more by my Papa in heaven. He comes to visit me every day, too, waiting for me to look His way and talk to Him.
He came to our unit a very, very broken man. A part of his skull needed to be removed because of the massive swelling, and the left side of his head bulged under the skin. We cared for him, treated his fevers, his erratic heart rate, bathed him, turned him so that he wouldn't get bedsores, fed him through a tube, and monitored his oxygen levels as a respirator kept his lungs going. The chances of recovery were nil. Doctors broke the news to his mother, first gently, then bluntly, as she refused to believe her son was really gone even though his heart was still beating. A hospital ethics committee wanted to end life support, and his mother adamantly refused. He was still there when I left for maternity leave, and the last news I'd heard was that he was moved to a nursing home. I thought perhaps he'd made some miraculous improvement, though I knew the quality of life after such an accident was bound to be poor.
Today, I read that he passed away this past Wednesday. He was 34 years old.
I'd seen a lot of patients like him in the year I worked in my burn/trauma unit. Their injuries are severe, their prognoses grim, but they start to blur together after a while. Maybe it's the brain's way of protecting you from the reality of so many hurt people, I don't know. But I don't remember all of them. You give the best nursing care you are capable of, and then you try to leave their stories and faces at the hospital and go home to be with your family.
This patient, however, is one I will never forget.
He was a career criminal, purportedly one of the biggest drug dealers in my city. He had a rap sheet a mile long, I was told - possession of narcotics, robbery, assault, etc. He was outside a nightclub when someone, clearly set to kill him, ran over him repeatedly with his car. Police had to use their own vehicles to barricade this guy from continuing to run my patient over, and the scene was reportedly so "unstable" (dangerous, I presume) that it took paramedics a full hour just to reach my patient. When news of his injuries broke and the newspaper published the story online, comments came flying in from all over, some mentioning the bravery of the officer who risked his own life to stop the other guy's car, but most saying that our city and the world in general would be better places because this guy was critically injured, off the streets, and would hopefully die. They used words like "scum" and "trash" and a few others that are too offensive for me to mention. People seemed pretty content that justice had been served to this guy, who, as one person wrote online, "got what was coming to him."
What people didn't see, or at least care to remember, was that my patient, however heinous the crimes he committed, was someone's son and father.
His room was full of bright posters and funny little crayon drawings from his son. A picture of a bright-faced little boy in a baseball uniform hung under the dry-erase board. Get-well cards and balloons were stashed in a corner of his room to make way for all the medical equipment to keep his body alive.
His mother came to visit her son every single day. She was a kind lady, strong and fairly stoic about the whole situation, given the gravity of her son's condition, though her eyes told me she was feeling every bit of pain that comes with seeing your son lying gravely ill in a hospital. She worked at the hospital in a different unit, and when she was at his side, she always helped the staff to care for him. She spoke to him, talked to him about his son, told him how much she loved him, asked him to move something - anything - or at least turn his glassy-eyed, blank gaze to her in recognition, which he never did.
This past weekend, she had to bury her son. No parent should ever have to go through such hell, burying their child. And though he may have been what many would call a bad person, a criminal, a detriment to society, he was still, after all, her son. Loved. Forgiven.
And I am reminded again and again, when I think of him, that no matter what I do or what other people think of me, or how many times I screw up, even when I screw up in huge, messy ways, that I, too, am always loved. Forgiven. Not just by my very awesome parents, but even more by my Papa in heaven. He comes to visit me every day, too, waiting for me to look His way and talk to Him.
Monday, October 6, 2008
falling in love... again
Welcome to the world, Kathryn Grace Vercillo! She's the beautiful new daughter of my awesome cousin Jen - born October 4, weighing in at 6 lbs, 12 oz, and 19 inches long.
Jason, Aidan, and I are sending buckets of love out to the proud parents and sweet-pea Kathryn - don't they look awesome?
(And she had a C-section, too. It should be criminal to look that good after major abdominal surgery.)
We love you!
Jason, Aidan, and I are sending buckets of love out to the proud parents and sweet-pea Kathryn - don't they look awesome?
(And she had a C-section, too. It should be criminal to look that good after major abdominal surgery.)
We love you!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)