February 2006 Archives

One of my favorite things about blogging is getting a comment from someone new and being blown away by their writing or art or other talents.  Case in point.

Did anyone else who listened to Duran Duran back in the eighties notice that today is a new moon on monday?  I need to get a hobby.  Another hobby.  Something.

lemonade!

• put 2 cups sugar and two cups water in a saucepan on medium heat
• stir until the sugar is totally dissolved (doesn't take more than four or five minutes, or less, even)
• put 1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice, 1/2 cup of the sugar syrup (or to taste) and 3 cups water in a pitcher. 

I added a bunch of fresh rosemary tied with twine to one pitcher, and it's also really good with fresh mint, or pureed raspberries or cranberry juice. The sugar syrup will keep in the fridge for a week or so.

And, here's a photo of Willow's cake.  I'll be back to tell the tale of the scary chuckie cheeze party.

Sometimes I do understand, just a little, the point of view of people who are against abortion.  Life IS precious and we do only get one chance at it.  But I will never understand people who not only want to outlaw abortion, but want to force rape and incest victims to bear children conceived by such abhorrent, violent ways and then give parental rights to the rapist.  (!!!???!!!)

What.  The.  FUCK??!!

This is such a scary turn of events.  And, if it were to pass, and if it were to become law throughout the country, how does a doctor decide if a pregnancy is endangering the mother's life??  I very nearly died while I was pregnant with Willow.  I was gravely ill when I was 26 weeks pregnant, and an induction was started to keep me alive.  The doctors said that she had a 50/50 chance of surviving, and that if she survived, her chances of having severe complications were really high.  But.  But.  But.  I got better enough so that my life was no longer in immediate danger.  Inexplicably.  Amazingly.  And they never did figure out what was wrong with me. 

I was discussing abortion recently with two close family members who are very much anti-choice.  I told them that if I found myself pregnant again, I would seriously consider ending the pregnancy.  Would it completely break my heart to do so?  Yes.  Would I ever really forgive myself?  Probably not.  But, I have four children who really need their mom, and they are here, now.  They are more alive.  They have more rights to have me healthy.  And these family members agreed with me, that, yes, I would be justified in aborting if I found myself pregnant.  But, I said to them, how do you ever really know that the pregnancy could be fatal?  You cannot predict those things with absolute certainty.  And, I said, what about the woman who is in danger of being murdered when she happens to find herself pregnant?  Because whether by a natural course of events or at the hands of angry relatives, pregnancy can be life threatening for many, many women.  Are there women who use abortion as birth control?  I would think not too many, given that it is not easy, ever.  Is it something that most women struggle with and agonize over?  I believe so.  Is it ever going to make sense to let someone else decide what choice is right for me?  No.  The decision to end a pregnancy is up to one person and one person only.  The woman who is pregnant.  Her reasons are her own business.  Our business, as a society, is to see that she has a clean, safe, supportive and expertly staffed place to go when she needs to end a pregnancy.  Our responsibility as a society is to teach sex education in schools and everywhere else and to prevent unwanted pregnancies instead of pretending that teenagers don't have sex.  Our duty is to face reality rather than pretend things are all neat and clean and how we think they should be. 

I really need to sleep.  I am so tired I am not sure if my rant made sense, even.  But, really.  This is the most frightening thing I have read in a long time.  It makes me sick. 

I am getting ready for Willow's party, and I made a decision to be NOT STRESSED.  Which, hmmm, is a little difficult when at nearly 11 pm I broke her birthday cake into a few pieces, one of which landed on the floor.  Let me back up.  I made her a heart-shaped chocolate chip cookie cake, which (dumbass move #1) I have never made before.  Things were fabulous until the part about unmolding the cake and letting it cool on a wire rack.  It had already been cooling for about fifteen minutes, but I noticed that the bottom was sinking into the wire rack and it looked like it was going to sink so far that it would be ruined.  So I took the initiative and wrecked it myself palmed it and flipped the rack upside down, thinking I'd put the cake on a big plate to cool.  Because, you know, it is a cake, so it should stay in one piece after being out of the oven for so long.  HOWEVER, a cookie cake will break into seventeen pieces and leave you with burning chocolate chips on your sad little outstretched palm.

But remember!!  I decided NO STRESS around this party.  The second cake is baking, and we are making lemonade from the Meyer lemons that grow in the back yard.  It's really super-martha lemonade; I made a sugar syrup so all the sugar will mix in and not be silty on the bottom of the pitcher, and I'm going to put a bunch of rosemary in it. 

Not stressing.  NOT STRESSING.  (but I will brag, I made mayo today.  My house is messy as hell, but I made mayo.)  Time to go check the cake.  I don't want to make another one.

The little things have ganged up on me.  I don't usually have anysinglething at all in common with Gulliver, but this week I feel like all my responsibilities are Lilliputians and they have me hog-tied.  Today I will be babysitting FOUR children in addition to my FOUR children. 

help. me.

I'm joking.  The kids who are coming over are all older, except for the angelic BabyO, who is welcome anytime.  So, it just sounds really difficult.  Our only problem will be that there is not much to eat.  I could send them into the yard to chomp sourgrass. 

Willow turns three tomorrow.  Today we have to go back to the awful toy store to get her "hay plouse."  (playhouse)  Turns out that those plastic hay plouses are really expensive, so this year we made it a group effort between Willow's grandparents, one of her uncles and us.  GREAT idea for us, since we are above maximum capacity in the toy department.  And, at TEN IN THE MORNING, (I'm already cringing) we will go to chuckk ee cheeze's for her party.  I waited too long to book it and we had to pick between ten in the morning and eight at night.  I am wishing that the cheeze served bloody marys, truth be told. 

Tomorrow evening we will have the local family over for dinner.  I anticipate missing my brother and his girlfriend very much.  Since he moved I talk to him as much as ever, and I have even seen him, so it hasn't been too much like he's far away.  But, when everyone else is here and they aren't, I know that I'm going to feel it. 

I suppose I ought to get moving.  I have so much to do today my head is already spinning.  Tomorrow before we go to the pizza thing, we have to hit the local big trash haul day.  We have so much stuff that needs to go to the dump it isn't imaginable.  Then, between Willow's two parties, I am taking Sophie to her favorite friend's birthday party.  Of course, I still need to pick up that gift and then I need to go to the. .  . (you get the idea)

This colander is hanging up in the window in Grace's kitchen, which was the best place to be during WoolfCamp.  I said I'd write about what I learned this weekend, so let me try.

• If you have really seen the ocean, then it's always there for you as a backdrop when you need it.  Even if you are surrounded by cement rather than water.  (Trust me.)
• Grace's house has the best painted wooden floor and bathroom tiles on the planet.  Also, if you visit her, take a shower in the upstairs bathroom where you can be naked in the forest but still inside, safe from all the things that want to bite you.
• You are brilliant and beautiful, and so am I.  (This is one of my hardest lessons, and I'm still working on it. The me part, not the you part.)
• There exists such a thing as bacon cookies.  I didn't eat one, but I met someone who made them.
• I am not kidding.
• Sometimes lost keys and flat tires can turn out to be good things.  But, I knew that already.
• I also already knew, but was reminded, that the best conversations happen in the kitchen.
• I will never be a tech geek.  Ever.  Router?  I think of woodworking tools. . .
• Furl is really cool.  If only I could finish figuring it out.
• Ads on blogs are okie dokie.  (just watch this space. . . )
• Feminism is constantly evolving.  Both in concept and participants.
• I sometimes forget that I'm not one of the twenty-three year old college students.
• If a girl doesn't want to be called the f-word, she can call her betrothed the prince consort.
• The lines around writing for yourself and your audience or what you think your audience is or what they may want are nearly too fuzzy to describe. 
• The small gifts of interesting coincidence and simpatico are some of the most fulfilling.

Well, then.  Totally not what I intended to say.  I think I need to write down all the mundane things I need to do so that I can free up some space in my brain to sort my experiences.

Sleep is sounding good.  Just drifted off a little and nearly drooled right on the keyboard.

I am really wanting to describe my weekend at WoolfCamp, but I cannot seem to do it.  Here is the group blog, which is very good, but I am thinking the "you had to be there" ness factor is high enough to keep the indescribable coolness from making itself truly known.  Yeah.  THAT didn't even sound right.  I have attempted in a few conversations to talk about it, and I listen to myself and realize, no, that isn't quite it but the it is forever in the corner of my vision.  I will come back later and tell what I learned over the weekend, and hey!  here's some flickr in case you want the visual aide. Search under tags for "woolfcamp" and you will see many more.  I need to go put the cubs to bed.  They are cranky.

This morning I was giving the boys a once-over before I sent them out the door to school.  I always check their fingernails, and today Nate's were dirty.  "Go scrub with the nail brush," I told him, "don'tcha know that no girl will be your girlfriend if you have dirty fingernails?  In fact, clean hands in general are what we look for in a guy."

"Oh," he said, "I thought it would be clean lips."  He puckered up.  "I'm gonna put blood all over my lips.  I don't need a girlfriend."

Once they were gone, and the sleeping baby O was dropped off, I started baking.  I'm bringing the baked goods to WoolfCamp this weekend, I am.  I still have a couple more things to do, but I'm ahead of schedule so I am expecting some sort of major disaster to make up for that. 

I will try and post from camp, if I can mooch off someone else's computer.  I haven't got a laptop.  Yet. 

It's garbage night.  All the boys are gone until a little later, so the girls and I went out as it was getting dark and got everything sorted and to the curb.  It's cold again (for northern CA, at any rate), and they had on fuzzy jackets and hats.  They ran all over the front yard, looking at stars and jumping off the tree stump.  I heard Sophie making wishes like, "Dear Star; I wish, I wish I could hold you in my own hand."  And Willow was pointing at all the lights in the sky and telling me "star!" or "ayepane!" 

I was f r e e z i n g and kept trying to get them to come inside without a battle, but they just wanted to stay out.  "I pay gas!!"  Willow yelled, which means I play on the grass.  Finally, I told them that I would take a bath, with them, and they sprinted to the front door.  We are out of bubble bath, so I let them pick from my bath salts.  Sophie picked the sandalwood/jasmine/rose one, which has dried roses in it, and we filled up the tub with hot water and jumped in.  Willow carefully picked all the rose bits out of the water and put them on the side of the tub.  For a girl who likes to hold bugs and stomp in the mud, she is particular about the state of her bathwater.  Sophie started to ask me AGAIN about dying and what happens and where we go.  Once I made the awful mistake of trying to teach Lex about different beliefs around the life/afterlife thing, and I told him that some people believe in something called reincarnation.  I explained it to him as well as I could and trying to move off the death subject, I asked him what sort of animal or plant he'd like to be.  I don't remember what he said, but I said that I think it would be really pretty cool to come back as a redwood tree.  Wrong thing to tell your preschooler.  Very, very wrong.  He was freaked out for months that I was suddenly going to disappear and turn into a tree somewhere far, far away. 

I was being deliberately vague with Sophie, I just said that when we die we go to a new world.  I told her that when she was a tiny little bean, before she was born, she could not possibly imagine the world that she'd be born into.  I told her that she had a tiny idea about who I was, but that she didn't really know anything about me other than my voice.  And the same goes with dying; (my own opinions here, DUH) we have an idea about part of what that next world will have in it, but we can't really imagine it. 

She looked at me and said, "I KNOW, Mom.  When we die, we go to the dentist.  And he just fixes us all up.  Let's not wash my hair this time, okay?"

Okay.

I am so easily amused. 

While Nate took his bath, Willow slept, and Lex and Sophie played video games, I FIXED THE SINK!  I feel like such a rock star.  It's been draining so slowly for so long, and I have tried before to get it working better.  Tonight I just had a feeling I ought to give it one more try.  And now, when the kids brush their teeth, the sink doesn't flood onto the floor.  YAY!! 

I have no earthly idea how I fixed it because I did exactly what I did the last few times.  I do know better than to question my success. 

And, also here is a picture (not so great, I took it myself) of my snapshirt. 

I like it, but I'm afraid that the decal isn't going to wear too well.  Overall, I'd have to recommend the Fussy shirt. (scroll down, you will know it when you see it)   It is to shirts what the wonderbra is to bras. 

Yesterday I baked and baked and baked.  And I have pictures to prove it.

I am so flattered to be nominated for any sort of award!  I do think it's funny, though, that I'm in the category called "Makes Me Want To Have Kids." 

I'm off to the fabric store, all by myself, as soon as I finish cleaning up in the boys' room.  Happy Sunday.

The Mommybloggers have a Valentine's Day party going on.  Here's my two cents.

Answering the boys' questions about S-E-X was a cakewalk compared to the ones I've been getting (mostly from Lex) lately. 

• During supper, with everyone at the table, "MOM, what's a hooker?"
• Whispered in my ear while I made lunch, "MOM, what's crack?"
• Shouted to me while walking home from school today (I was several paces ahead because Lex was wearing heelies, eating a popsicle, and wearing a box on his head),  "MOM!!  What's a eunuch?" to which I managed to hem and haw something about a eunuch being a servant and how is that popsicle? it sure looks good!  Lex then yelled back, "SO, a servant who isn't allowed to get married?"  YES!  EXACTLY!! 
• And from Sophie, "I'm gonna die someday, right?" 

Jeez, children, give your poor mother a break and get interested in kid stuff for awhile, okay?

Willow is really snotty and feverish and in the middle of a nasty ear infection.  She keeps taking off her clothes because she is hot, and then she comes to me in her diaper (still working on that. . . ) and her care bearz cropped tank top and says, "Wanna bwankwet.  I feeeee-zing."  Right now she's bundled up on the couch watching a busytown video, which she calls "Wicherd Scawwy."  (Richard Scarry writes the busytown books, and how she connected that, I do not know.  She also looked at the door of the exam room we sat in at the county clinic last night and said, "Three!"  which was the number on the door.  She seems to be scary smart.)

Edited to add:  I'm closing comments because this one entry seems to be attracting tons of spam.

Lexy went on a field trip to Monterrey today and the whole third grade rode on chartered buses.  When I picked him up from school, he was telling me all about the bus (the aquarium paled in comparison, I suppose) and how it had:

• individual seats!
• a television monitor and videos!!!!
• a bathroom!

Here, I interrupted him and asked him if he peed in the bathroom.  "YES!"  he said.  And we high-fived.   

Last week we were driving to get Sophie from preschool.  The drive is a bit of a hike for the boys, who are just wanting to go home and veg after a long day of the rigors of elementary school.  To make things fun, I turned to Lexy, riding in the passenger seat, when we were on a straightaway and I said, "Let's see how fast this baby can go!" and I floored it.  His eyes got really wide.  "Mom!" he hissed at me, "I think you are breaking the speed limit."  So I slowed down. 

And today, when we went to pick up our little buddy C from play practice, a Led Zeppelin song came on the radio.  Without any prompting, the girls broke into full-on headbanger carseat dances.  I wept, I was so proud.

Be very jealous.  It is beautiful here and we drove with the windows down and have the front door and windows open at home.  I know it won't last, but it's really perfect right. now.

Lisa tagged me for the most popular meme in memetory.  Mine is fairly dull, but here it is:

FOUR JOBS I HAVE HAD

1. waitress
2. barrista (in the pre-starrbux days)
3. frame shop clerk
4. secretary in a neurosurgery office

FOUR MOVIES I CAN WATCH OVER AND OVER

1. Funny Face
2. Young Frankenstein
3. The Nightmare Before Christmas (Jack Skellington is my boyfriend)
4. Rivers and Tides

FOUR PLACES I HAVE LIVED

1. Richardson, TX
2. Silicon Valley, CA

FOUR TV SHOWS I LOVE

1. Six Feet Under (I dream about it still. . .)
2. The Sopranos
3. King of the Hill
4. ER (1990's)

FOUR PLACES I HAVE VACATIONED

1. Toronto
2. Portland
3. Big Sur (camping trips)
4. I need more vacations

FOUR OF MY FAVORITE THINGS TO EAT

1. Toast with smashed avocado and rock salt
2. Hummus and corn chips
3. Tangerines
4. Fried okra

FOUR SITES I VISIT DAILY

1. Overheard in New York
2. Go Fug Yourself
3. Flickr
4. Yahoo!

I'm not tagging anyone, because I think everyone who wants to has done it.  But, if you are inclined and haven't consider yourself tagged. 

lookit my cute girls

  Colorful Bits of Plastic 
  Originally uploaded by Corbie.

John sure is making it easy for me to post.  He took the girls and the camera to the park today.  You can see more on flickr. 

I am going to go bathe the girls and clean up the kitchen.  Because my life, it is VERY exciting.  Maybe I'll stay up late and watch Corpse Bride.  That would be exciting.  Right?

Am I ever getting some link love!  Just in time for Valentine's Day, too. 

And I guess I might as well just start a wish list in the side bar, because I keep finding things I want. . .

The photo has nothing to do with anything, it just made me laugh.

Last night I had a delightfully strange and vivid dream.  DON'T WORRY!  I know that telling odd dreams in detail is, generally speaking, the kiss of yawning, boring death for an entry.  But, I did learn that my whole world, it is held together by tiny, not-so-well-tied knots in skinny nylon ropes.  Also, if you run over a bunch of whales with your big boat, the whale dogs will come. 

Yesterday I had one of those moments where I was really thankful for my little blog.  Without going into details, because a) that might come back to bite me in the ass, and b) it's a specific example of a generic problem I have, I will say that I met someone, another mother, and I tried to be friendly and share something that was helpful.  (but in a very "this works great for me, I know there are lots of other solutions, but here is something to ponder and I am NOT telling you what to do, and here is one other thing to consider" kind of way) I didn't just volunteer the information, she was describing a problem she was having.  She listened to me, and smiled, and then turned to another mother, someone she already knew, and loudly whispered "Well, I just don't believe in that."  And, I wanted to back away from the situation, but I was stuck, so I had to just sit there and feel like an outsider.

And I do feel like an outsider in a majority of the social situations I find myself in.  Except here.  So, uh, thanks, my online peer group, for being so lovely that when I find myself wanting to go hide in the bushes, I can just laugh it off and wish that the ability to delete comments could somehow extend to real live situations. 

If I don't go do laundry now, everyone will be naked tomorrow. 

Damn, I want this.  Link courtesy of Not Martha. 

Read this.  Please.

Willow is standing next to me, with nothing at all on.  She is jumping and wow! is her stomach ever sloshing around.  It's cracking her up and she's saying as she hops "I am jumping!!  Jumping bubbles!!" 

My mom (happy birthday today to my mom!) took the boys to see this last night.  They came home really late and awfully tired, but their eyes were so wide and they were so in awe, that I got them to bed and to sleep without any resistance. 

Now I need to get the girls bathed and to bed so that the boys and their friend can watch a scary movie while I make them some chocolate chip cookies.  Enjoy your weekend.

I used to be an employed mother. 

I took four months off when Lexy was born, but only six weeks when Nate came along.  By the time Nate was four months old, my child care situation (the best child care EVER) had changed and our financial situation had changed, and I quit my job. 

And, I honestly thought (and promised my former husband) that I would have time to Do It All.  I would make him breakfast and starch and iron his work shirts.  I'd do all the shopping and laundry and cooking and cleaning and child-tending, because, HEY! I was going to be at home, and after having mostly worked all of my vast two and a half years as a mother, one thing I knew was that stay at home (i hate that term, too) moms had all the time in the world and there was truly NO REASON that they should not Do It All, very well, and in a timely fashion to boot. 

Yeah.  So, the first week at home radically changed my mind about that. 

And now, nearly eight years later, I still haven't gotten a grip and whipped my house and kids and garden and everything else into shape.  Far far from it. 

Yesterday morning I had to get up and get the kids fed, dressed, combed, shod and out the door in time for Grace to pick me up to attend a grown up function held in a conference room.   Which meant that I also had to dress, comb, shoe and makeup myself.  (There was no time to eat.  Plus, I was hoping to magically lose fifteen pounds on the drive over.)  I got the girls dropped off with K (thanks again!) but not before they managed to do a search and destroy on the scarf I am making for a friend.  The destroy part entailed unrolling a whole, new ball of yarn around the kitchen table, through the kitchen and front room, around the train table, through the hall and back into the kitchen.  About, uh, fifty times.  After the girls were settled in, I took the ream of paperwork to the child care center I'd arranged for the boys to go to after school (fifty bux for two little guys for three hours.  yikes!), and got home nearly on time.  Grace was waiting for me, and off we went. 

We had our day, and then she brought me home.  I picked up the girls,

picked up the boys and got everyone home.  I changed into my usual clothes (old jeans, old shirt, sox, cause it was a cold, empty house!) and barked at the kids:

• BOYS!  Put on a movie for the girls so I can start dinner!  And do your homework. 
• TURN OFF THE GAMECUBE
• Girls.  Girls!  GIRLS!!  Put the butter down.  NOW
• ALEX!!!  Do you have any pants in your drawer for tomorrow or do I need to start laundry?
• Don't forget to feed the crayfish.
• SHIT I burned the chicken.  Do you want it anyway?

That kind of thing.  And we were rushed and stressed and there was no time for dishes because I had to do I don't remember, but OTHER things, and there was no time for baths because it was bedtime and I had to read from the Lemony Snicket book because MOM!  we still haven't read it and we met him like, LAST YEAR. And there was outright lying and then crying about the tooth brushing and and and

I kept thinking, "oh my god.  how did I ever used to do this all the time?  I am so glad I don't have to do this all the time."

And really, I don't have a point here.  I just want it to be the case that the stay home moms and the employed moms, they just acknowledge and respect one another.  Because it is never ever easy, this mothering gig, whether you have one really well behaved little angel child, or several demonic spaz cases who you are certain saw the horns off their foreheads every morning before you see them. 

A couple of weeks back, my mom and I went to Texas to visit family.  I was at my father's mother's house one afternoon and I got to see my cousin, M.  We were first introduced when we were about two years old, and her mom was engaged to my dad's brother.  The story that I hear says that we looked at each other from across the room for a minute or so, and then we simultaneously started to giggle.  We have been best friends ever since.  We spent a lot of time together growing up and were generally in trouble with our parents the entire time.  I have lots of favorite stories that have to do with her.  They range from sneaking off to meet the cute boys at the campground bathrooms at 4 a.m. during one of our (always camping) huge family reunions and listening to her say, "It's FOUR O'CLOCK in the morning," over and over and over, to the time when we were sneaking some Bluebell (you live in Texas?  you know what I'm talking about) Cookies and Cream ice cream from our grandma's freezer in the middle of the night and my dad coming into the kitchen and her opening one of the high-up cabinet doors and helplessly trying to hide herself behind it, while I ran away and my dad saying, in his sternest, most disbelieving voice, "RUN???????AND GIGGLE?????" 

We STILL say that to each other every time we are together. 

This time when we saw each other, it had been over two years.  No letters or phone calls.  Not even an email.  But, once we are together again everything is like it always was and there is never any weirdness about the non-contact.  This time, when we got to see each other, I was all hot to show her my Flickr page.  So, you know, I could show off my kids and everything. 

Now, I thought that my grandmother had been on my flickr page before, but I think (looking back) that really all the photos she'd seen were ones that I'd emailed her.  I love that I email with my grandmother, and that reminds me, I owe her one.  Anyhow, I went up to the little bar and typed in "fli" and waited for the machine to do my work for me.  Nothing.  So, I thought, okay, then, I'll just go log into my account.  I typed in "flickEr dot com"  (not really with a capital E, that was to show you the moment where things went horribly wrong)

Oh shit. 

There, on MY GRANDMOTHER'S computer, was a page that ought not to have been on her computer or the computer of anyone she knows and loves.  I almost died right there.  And we looked at each other, my cousin and I, and we just cracked up.  And I was whispering in that loud, desperate way you do when you are trying to be quiet while totally freaking right out.   "OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH NONONONONO!!!  MAKE IT GO AWAY!  HELP ME!!!"  Once we stopped laughing, I got to the right page and showed her my cute kids, which, frankly was sort of a let down after all the drama.  Then, we cleared every imaginable thing from her computer.  It probably doesn't even work anymore.

And, honestly, I'm still a little afraid to call my grandmother or email her back.  Cause, what if she knows???