So Lucky

I sometimes take my childhood for granted. I often forget how lucky I am.

Tonight I went to the grocery store after Paul and Ellie went to sleep. This was a mid-week run for things we are out of, like milk; luxury items I wanted, like the brand of disposable diapers that hold in Ellie's antibiotics-related diarrhea; and expensive, brand-name packaged foods that tempted me. Pickles? How about crisp dill Claussens from the cooler? Yummmmmm.

It was 10:30 on a school night, and I was surprised by the number of children there. There were a lot of children there.

I know that dealing with 3 young children, limited funds, and a workaholic husband was not easy for my mother. But she kept us on a regular schedule and we had predictable, ordered lives. We were always well-rested and fed for school in the morning, whether we wanted to be or not.

How might my experience have been different if I had been going to school after spending a good portion of my should-have-been-sleeping hours out running errands? Waking up with cartoons and junk food? I can imagine. And it makes me feel a bit less proud of my accomplishments: I had a huge leg up.

In the checkout line, the young Asian man two people behind me was nervously buying a corkscrew and two long-stemmed light pink roses. The middle-aged blond man in a gray Nike t-shirt just behind me was picking up Soap Opera Digest.

And the woman just in front of me, shopping with her two-year-old, used her bank card to buy a single sippy cup. She had to run her card through several times, watching the screen oh-so-closely to see the "Approved" pop up. Then she had the cashier ring through the rest of her order separately: 5 cans of formula with a WIC certificate casually lying on top.

I had been smiling at the mom and waving to the little girl. After I noticed what they were buying, my eyes kept straying back to the huge pile of packaged, brand-name foods on my side of the little plastic bar.

Physical pain.

So often, I think of the things that I want but don't have.

So often, I intellectualize poverty, or try to forget it altogether for a while.

Because thinking about it, really thinking about it, and thinking about how I myself benefit from it and contribute to it, hurts really badly.

If Only I Watched the News

Paul, Ellie, and I were almost part of a speed-limit car chase on Monday. We were heading south on Interstate 270, going home after dinner. As light, Memorial Day traffic from Interstate 40 merged with us, we noticed a police car. He seemed to be following another car that was merging, and shortly thereafter he turned on his lights and sirens.

The driver ignored the cop.

For several miles.

The cop pulled up next to the coy driver a couple of times. It was impossible that the driver just didn't notice the police car. He seemed to be a big black guy, a little older than me, driving a white, late model Chrysler 300.

As we approached the Manchester exit, the Chrysler pulled over into the exit lane. The cop got behind him. Then the car moved back into the right-most lane of continuing traffic. That happened a couple of times.

Not that there was any traffic. None of us wanted to *pass* so there was a small cluster of cars hanging behind, enjoying the show.

At no time during the "pursuit" did the Chrysler exceed the speed limit.

Eventually, we were going so slowly that Paul felt like he had to pass, so he moved over to the far left lane and did so. At about this time he started entertaining fantasies about doing something to "help" the cop, but he was easily dissuaded.

We continued on past our exit, watching our rear-view mirrors. What entertainment!

Then, shortly before the interchange with Interstate 44, the cop turned off his lights and sirens. Paul was dejected and took the exit, to wend our way back home.

Too soon! What happened next? Was there a roadblock ahead? Had the Des Peres cop who was following the Chrysler called ahead for County cops to take over the chase once he was outside his jurisdiction? Had the driver of the Chrysler called in to explain that he was an off-duty cop - or a judge - and was just waiting for the message to be passed to the officer in lukewarm pursuit? Did he just give up? Is this a reasonable way to get out of a speeding ticket?

April Showers Bring

May Pneumonia.

Poor Ellie. The cold, the coughing, the intermittent low-grade fever. It is pneumonia. We treated her pneumonia with care: regular doses of Tylenol and/or PediaCare Cold. Delsym every 12 hours so that we could get short episodes of sleep. Snuggles. And a busy schedule including:

• School Monday, Wednesday, and Friday last week
  
• Several play dates last week and over the weekend
  
• Quite a few meals out
  
• Guests in town for the weekend (my wonderful youngest sister and her equally wonderful fiance)
  
• A trip to the Ren Faire in 90+ degree heat
  
• A party with 25 of our nearest and dearest for Daddy's (belated) birthday
  
• Church (including time in the nursery)
  
• Swimming
  
• A busy Memorial Day afternoon spent visiting at least 6 different furniture stores and climbing on their wares
  
• A boring Tuesday afternoon and evening spent in the doctor's office and the C.A.R.E.S. Clinic at St. Louis Children's Hospital.

Poor, sweet little one.

And, to the parents of all the other kiddos we might have inadvertently exposed to this bug, I am very, very sorry.

The Other Kind of Nursing

With my nearest and dearest, I don't always have the best bedside manner.

Oh, I was great with my sister during her brain tumor hospitalization. I was thoughtful and entertaining. I told her funny stories of the day she went to the hospital, making her laugh. She never remembered the stories when I began them again a few hours later, so I really had my routine down pat and customized to feature her favorite bits. I solicited the nurses for what she thought she needed (even when it turned out that she was regularly being given baths and clothing changes, she just couldn't remember them).

But when Paul has a cold, I stay as far away from him as possible. I can smell the mucus and sick on him, and I don't like it. I have always quietly rationalized this to myself as a sort of primitive concern about an illness in my big man.

But I'm not great with Ellie's colds either. I think she'll eventually smell like her daddy when she's sick. But I find myself acutely physically uncomfortable when I'm holding her and she's struggling to breathe through her stuffy little nose.

Then I realize that I'm holding my breath in sympathy with her labored breathing.

Or I'm clenching my teeth so tightly that my jaw aches.

Or her restless physical discomfort is causing her to repeatedly kick at me with her sharp little heels and pinch at me with her little fingers.

But the worst is when I hear her repetitive coughs or quiet fussings from her bed and know that there's nothing, nothing, nothing I can do that will make either of us feel any better.

Thank heavens Paul is coming back from his 5 day/6 night business trip tonight. He's better with the colds than I am. He'd just better be healthy.

Epidemic

37% of Americans believe that they can get HIV through kissing.

Yet we should not discuss condoms in school.

16% of Americans believe that they can catch HIV from toilet seats.

Yet we should not discuss condoms in school.

Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, has repeatedly said that the HIV can "easily pass through" condoms. He's not been publicly reprimanded or contradicted by the Roman Catholic Church.

Yet we should not discuss condoms in school.

13% of Americans are African-American. 51% of new American HIV diagnoses are of African-Americans.

Yet we should not discuss condoms in school.

Do we (quietly) think that we know how to avoid getting it, so we can (quietly) keep our loved ones safe from HIV/AIDS, and that's why we (quietly) don't care about this epidemic? It's not people like us who are dying. Is that why there's still reluctance to do what's necessary to stop the spread of this disease? Do we still, after all this time, wait to hear how someone was infected before (quietly) deciding whether or not they deserved to get HIV/AIDS? Do we (quietly) think that this is a Darwinian plague?

We should all be ashamed. We are not doing enough. We could be be doing much, much better.

Peer Group Diversity

Applying to college was a multi-year experience for me. I can't remember a time when I didn't think I would go to college, and when I didn't think about where I'd go. My mom's oldest brother has something like 7 kids (2 by birth, one adopted at birth, and at least 4 foster "kids" with whom he and his wife maintain a life-long relationship). His philosophy about paying for college was, "Sign every piece of paper they put in front of you, and it will all work out somehow."

My parents' philosophy about paying for college was sort of similar - don't talk about it. Perhaps they talked between themselves, but they encouraged us girls to make our decisions without worrying too much about the price tag. We all went to private colleges, we all had scholarships, we all came out with hefty student loans that we might never pay off, and our parents remortgaged the house. It all worked out.

Since I wasn't paying much attention to tuition costs, that freed me up to focus on other criteria.

I looked closely at national ranking, of course. And some of the Fisk quality-of-life type ratings. I also looked very closely at what percentage of the student body lived on campus (high was desirable) and what percentage of the student body was Greek (low was desirable). And I paid a lot of attention to sex and race ratios. I wanted to go to a school that had a good amount of diversity.

I'd grown up in a community where "minorities" were the majority. Late in my sophomore year of high school, we moved to an extremely white and (upper) middle class community where there was very little diversity of any kind.

A high school friend of mine worked with a black guy from a neighboring community. His co-worker came to pick him up one day, in their job's van. He got a little lost. A black guy in a van driving around the block a couple of times in broad daylight? Someone called the cops. That's the kind of community where I finished high school.

But it's hard to tell a lot about a school from rankings and rating and guidebooks and brief campus visits.

Wash U has a lot of racial, ethnic, and religious diversity. But, at least at the time I went there, it wasn't very well integrated. My dorms, most of my classes, my co-ed service fraternity, my friends - mostly white.

Then I graduated and got a job in the community. Almost all of my coworkers are white.

My husband and I drove around town and visited lots of communities. We saw one that looked perfect, and seemed to be pretty nicely integrated. We bought a house. It's a lovely community. Very poorly integrated. The many students of color in the local schools are part of an active bussing program from the inner city.

In short, most of the people at our jobs, our church, or neighborhood, and our peer group look just like us.

Laziness helped this to happen. Going along with the flow, choosing an easy path and not stretching out of our comfort zone. Periodically, Paul and I discuss finding ways to fix this, but we don't know where to begin.

Last night, I was humbled to have a discussion with a friend who's found herself in a similar situation. She sits down a couple of times a year to try to figure out ways to break through the way that this community tends to segregate itself.

She has signed her three-year-old up for classes at public parks in parts of the city that have higher populations of African Americans and other racial and ethnic groups. She's made an effort to take her child places on the bus, when their own car would be more far convenient.

And they do a lot of volunteering, but that's what's really bothering her lately. Most of the people of color who her young son sees are people he's helping, not friends of his parents. And she's very concerned about the message that's sending.

This is someone who's making a real effort. She's a great friend, a great person, and a new role model for me.

Thrilled!

I've been accepted into the Summer Writers Institute at Washington University in St. Louis! Hooray!

Now I just have to go about arranging child care and time off work . . .

And I'm thinking - just thinking, mind you - of growing this experience into an application to the MFA program at The University of Missouri - St. Louis.

Paul, it looks like that new computer you bought me is going to be even more expensive than you thought. He's hoping it starts giving something back someday. In the meantime, I've decided not to name this one "Nerd" like its older sibling.

Friday Science Jokes

Scene: a scientist is writing her thesis ("fruksis") to finish up her PhD. It's down to the wire and stress is high.

Astrocytes are Insensitive

I'm losing it. I just wrote "astrocytes are insensitive" in my fruksis and now I can't stop laughing. It's funny...really.

First response in comments: It's just nerves.


HAH HAH HAH! I thought this was so funny that I had to tell Paul right away. He had to immediately call and share with his sister, a high school chemistry teacher.

She responded,

A physicist, a biologist and a chemist are all walking at the beach.

The physicist is observing the waves. Water moving back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth. She decides that it's time to do some fluid dynamics experiments with this very interesting new liquid, so she goes into the water - and drowns.

Meanwhile, the biologist is in awe with all the aquatic animals and the algae and all the biodiversity around him, so he decides to go explore the ocean. As he's never been to the beach before either, he drowns also.

The chemist, who has been sitting on the sand nearby, has been observing what the biologist and the physicist were doing, and how they disappeared into the water. The chemist then takes out a notepad and writes down one single observation:

"Physicists and biologists are soluble in ocean water"

Discipline

I know that I was over-protective when Ellie was an infant. I'd read that perfumes could irritate a newborn, so I immediately stopped wearing anything with scent and implored my cologne-loving inlaws to do the same. I insisted that everyone wash their hands before holding her. I kept her home a lot.

In my defense, she did have a serious heart defect, and I was given to understand that it was imperative that she not get sick her first winter. And it worked; we made it through. Ellie caught her first cold over an April Easter weekend, when she was 6 months old, a safe 3 months after her heart surgery.

Discipline and protectiveness are a balancing act for new parents.

About a month after I started taking Ellie out of the house, we went to a playgroup for kids with Down syndrome. It was held in the gym of what's now Ellie's school. The bigger kids ran around and played with the equipment, while the parents and babies clustered on the mats at one end of the room.

There was a 2-year-old named Phoebe (not really; I was just watching Charmed) at the playgroup that first time we went. At this point, while I loved my daughter deeply and passionately, I was still dealing with a little bit of discomfort about Down syndrome as a large, monolithic, scary thing (was?!).

And Phoebe horrified me. She looked really disabled. And she acted, oh, she acted so horribly. She was sitting with the mamas and babies, but she was in no way careful of the babies around her. When she was frustrated or bored, she'd throw herself down and kick with abandon. And those heavy, leather shoes-over-orthotics seemed monstrously huge to me. When she was thirsty, she'd grab another child's sippy cup and drink. When she wanted a toy - even one of Ellie's specially clean ones that we'd brought from home - she'd grab that toy right out of another child's hands.

And her mother did very little about all this. Mainly, mom seemed to really enjoy relaxing and chatting with the other parents. In retrospect, this isn't so horrific for me, but at the time I was stunned. I didn't go back to that playgroup for a long, long time. It seemed to me that this mom had given up on her daughter ever learning discipline and appropriate behavior and was using her disability as an excuse not to try to teach her.

But now I understand that it was probably a relief for this mom to be in a place where her child wasn't expected to be normal. It was probably a rare occasion for her to get to sit down and talk to other moms who get it.

But at the time, I was scared to death of that child. I didn't want her scary, rough, germy self anywhere near my child, and I didn't want my child to be anything like her.

Of course, as these things go, some others are bound to see Phoebe when they look at Eleanor.

Several months later, we were at a party with friends. One family brought their little girl, who was about 5 months old at the time. Like most babies, Ellie was (and still is!) fascinated by other babies. We had been working on "gentle touch" and she knew better than to hit, bite, or scratch a little baby.

She just wanted to look at this lovely little creature on the floor next to her, and I was keeping a close eye out to make sure that Ellie didn't actually touch the little girl.

But her mama whisked that baby away from Ellie anyway, just as though Ellie were Phoebe.

Ouch.

Don't Overdo

Ellie and I had the best day today. We didn't do a darn thing. She woke up early with daddy, then went back to sleep. Once she woke up for good, I was ensconced on the couch, where I spent much of the day. Angry Housewife Eating Bon Bons, without the angry or the eating. Or the housewife.

I can't remember the last weekday I just stayed home all day. Sure, I made a couple of calls. But we had no activities, no appointments, no field trips, no productivity. It was awesome! But I don't think I'd like to do it very often.

Ellie was totally cute though. I love that she's at the age where I can say things like,

"Oh, my feet are just hanging off the edge of the bed, totally vulnerable. I sure hope nobody tickles my feet!"

And know that my feet will be tickled immediately. And effectively!

I also love that I can say things like,

"Ellie, go get a diaper," or, "Ellie, take your water out to the car with you so that we can meet Daddy at Bread Co. for supper," and have a reasonable expectation that these things might happen!

So cool. I know I say this at every stage, but I do love this age. It's the best one yet.

That said, some of the differences are becoming more pronounced too. There are some things that other kids her age do, but Ellie has real troubles with. And not just gross and fine motor activities, but also cognitive skills. And there are behaviors she exhibits that are different from most typically developing kids too. Sometimes she gets so excited that she roars, and I can totally identify. I know exactly what that emotion feels like. I also know, like most typically developing kids learn very early on, that we don't just roar as a relief valve when we're excited.

We learn to stifle our excitement and keep it shoved down so deep inside that we can release it in smaller, more socially acceptable ways. And we can be much cooler. So I don't really discourage the roar yet. I still love its honesty and innocence.

Niece. Or Nephew.

My sister, who's been trying to conceive for two years, is pregnant. She's due in mid-January, assuming that all goes well. It's early days yet, of course. But it seems to me that those who have such a hard time getting pregnant deserve stress- and drama-free pregnancies and childbirth experiences. If only life worked on "fair" more often.

I hope it's true in my sister's case, even though she's carelessly stomping on my plans to host Christmas here at my home this year.

But life isn't fair to my middle sister. She jokes that she's been smited because she has no morals. I won't comment on that, except to say that she could certainly be a much worse person than she is.

But she seems to be oddly susceptible to cancer. She's 28 years old. She's had "irregular" cells removed from her cervix, and from the bottom of her foot. Oh, and there was that little incident with the brain tumor. So of course it makes me anxious that she used Clomid to conceive, even though there's no hard science to prove a link between the drug and ovarian cancer. It could be that the "evidence" is circumstantial, or correlation rather than causation. I hope so. But who develops skin cancer-like cells on the sole of her foot? And what must it be like to live in her head?

Congrats, little sis. I worry about you. And I wish you all the best. I want you to grow old and fat and happy with many grandbabies.

Gee! Haw!

This week, I lost my last grandparent. It seems that I should be sad, but I'm not. Perhaps it will hit me later. But in reality, it seems that I lost my grandfather long ago, when my grandmother died. I defined my grandfather so much by his relationship with my grandmother, and so did he. I was 13 when she died, and we've been saying a long, slow, painful goodbye ever since. The last couple of years, there was no hint left of the man I remember. It should never be like that for anyone.

My grandfather was born in 1908. When he was a serious little boy, his father bought a brand new Model T Ford. My great grandfather was a farmer, and he worked all day every day with mules. Mules pulled the plows and did most of the heavy farm labor. On Sunday mornings, they'd ride into town to church in horse drawn wagon. Can you imagine? My grandfather remembers with fondness hitching a ride on my grandmother's family wagon. They were such a big family - 2 parents and 6 kids - that their wagon had several benches, like pews.

Anyway, on this particular day, Young Grandpa was out taking a ride in the Model T with his dad. They came to a bend in the road.

"Haw! Haw!" called my great-grandfather.

The car went straight - off the road and into the ditch.

"You'd better drive this thing on home," my great-grandfather said to his very young son. And he never drove that car again.

My grandfather, on the other hand, had many, many funny driving stories. Sometime I'll tell you the one about my grandmother, the dip in the road, and the cigar.

Self Control

I might be off for a couple of days, funeral-going and whatnot. But I have a new laptop and the hotel has free wi-fi, so many things are possible!

***

I tend to be pretty sympathetic with people I know. But with people I don't know - people who aren't always as real to me . . .

I tend to be most judgmental of others in areas where I'm most judgmental of myself. I assume that's pretty typical.

I suppose it makes sense, then, that my mother often teaches me things then chastises me for them.

Like sanitizing her hands at the door before leaving a visit with my grandfather and then washing thoroughly with soap and water immediately upon arrival at home. And never sitting on the blue chair in his room. But chastising me for being "compulsive" as opposed to "careful" when I exhibit some of the same behaviors.

To my surprise, I really enjoyed Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression, my book club's selection from last month. Not once did I think: Snap out of it! Stop whining! Just get out of bed and live your life. And I don't even know the essay authors. That's a testament to their very, very good writing.

Compulsions, Depression, Eating: when it's about me, it all comes down to self control, really.

Beastly is the New Black

Have I mentioned how much I enjoy the women in my book club? And how great it is to meet with these intelligent women who have different tastes than I have, to read things that I would never otherwise have read? Oh. Well, now I've mentioned it again.

Tonight we discussed Bitter is the New Black, by Jen Lancaster.

Bitter is the New Black : Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass,Or, Why You Should Never Carry A Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office:

Mine is the story of how a former haughty ex-sorority girl went from having a household income of almost a quarter million dollars to being evicted from a ghetto apartment...

My life's a modern Greek Tragedy, as defined by Roger Dunkle in The Classical Origins of Western Culture: a story in which "the central character, called a tragic protagonist or hero, suffers some serious misfortune which is not accidental and therefore meaningless, but is significant in that the misfortune is logically connected."

In other words? The bitch had it coming.

And I am that bitch.

Right. Well, there's certainly truth in advertising here. My favorite part was the line at the end where she says, "I think it's obvious at this point that I haven't learned a damn thing."

That's true too!

Jen Lancaster is funny. Her book is well-paced and interesting. She's incredibly shallow and mean and utterly lacks compassion for others, and she's OK with that.

Personally, I think we've got too much of that in our society as it is, and yet another book suggesting that it's OK to be that way, well, I have a hard time getting on board with that.

I did laugh some when I read it.

But not at the (many! many!) "retard" jokes. Hah hah hah.

I think everyone else in my bookclub liked the book a whole lot more than I did.

The woman who hosted tonight's gathering (lovely woman!) recently moved. It's been said, and it's very true, that St. Louis is a community of neighborhoods. We have many, many suburbs (the city itself is relatively small) and each suburb has a unique vibe. Tonight's hostess and her husband had a huge house in Best Suburb. They sold it and built a new home in nearby Very Nice Suburb.

There's a road named after Best Suburb and the neighborhoods immediately off this road are very nice neighborhoods indeed, as one might expect.

When tonight's hostess gives directions to her new house (gorgeous house!) she always gives them as if one is coming from Best Suburb Road, and as if her home is just off this road. When, in actuality, her house is about 2 blocks from Another, Larger Road and is over a mile from the smaller, wholly residential Best Suburb Road.

But it sounds so nice to live off Best Suburb Road, you know?

Where's your secret Jen Lancaster?

Elemeno

When I was in first grade, I thought that "elemeno" was an adjective to describe the very special letter "P." I didn't know what "elemeno" meant, and I didn't know why "P" was so special, but I was 6 and there were lots of words I didn't know yet. I was used to that.

I knew how to read, of course. But I can't remember a time when I didn't read whole words. The Alphabet Song was a song to me. I got that it was about letters and letters made words, but it's not like I was singing The Alphabet Song while sight-reading in first grade.

I still remember the feeling of incredible confusion followed by clarity and embarrassment when it all became clear. I was working on an alphabetizing exercise and trying to figure out where to place a word that started with L, M, N, or O, and using The Alphabet Song to help me. I ran through the song several times in my head, then decided to "cheat" by looking up at the alphabet posted above the chalkboard. Lightbulb!

***

I'm applying for the Summer Writers Institute at Washington University this summer. In Creative NonFiction/Memoir. I'm late to this decision, and late to the application process, though I'm told that the Institute isn't full and they're still accepting applicants. I don't know how hard it is to get in. I do know that my sample piece is very new and very rough. But I really, really want to do this. So maybe they'll want my money enough to take me anyway.

Paul's reading my sample right now. He's laughing aloud and riding some emotional waves, but he's not exactly an objective reader. After all, he's reading something that he actually lived, so he's tapping into memories.

Come to think of it, if I can get him to access his memories, most of which he keeps buried somewhere deep in his subconscious or lower, then perhaps I am doing something right after all.

Fingers crossed.

There's No Good Time to Die

My parents called early last week to tell me that it was time for my grandfather to move into hospice. They'd had a long conversation with his doctor, and although it's been years since my grandfather was the same person I remember from my childhood, it was the first time that the word "Alzheimer's" was mentioned. My grandfather always expected - and wanted - to "go" first. Ever since my grandmother died in 1987, he's been talking to her picture daily and telling us goodbye at regular intervals.

But he's remarkably healthy and he hasn't died. He turned 98 last month, but this isn't a glad circumstance. My grandfather has always been a strong, intelligent, and incredibly dignified man. Over the past 10 years or so, he's gradually lost all of that. He would have been devastated to see how he's ended up. And he's outlived nearly everyone he knew. My father visits his dad daily - the nursing home is blocks from my parents house - and I know that this is incredibly hard on him, too.

But on Thursday, Grandpa "failed" his hospice test. You can only be in hospice care for a maximum of 18 months. Thursday was a "good" day, and there was no guarantee at that time that he had only 18 months yet to live. Reprieve.

Then, early Saturday morning, my dad got a call from the nursing home. My grandfather hadn't eaten or had anything to drink since that good spell on Thursday. He was unresponsive. He was agitated. He was moving to hospice immediately. So quickly!

One of his legs and his "good" hand were mottled and purple. They put him on a morphine patch to make him comfortable and ease his agitation. They offer food and water, but he's not "with-it" enough to take any. Now they're talking hours, or days. After so long, suddenly it's all happening so fast!

I don't know if I should go home or not.

On Saturday afternoon, when I got the call, I was on my way to a baby shower. Then there was a BBQ with friends that night. Today I have a meeting at work and had already arranged childcare for Ellie. Tuesday will bring our end of the year party for the bible study I attend and Ellie's last MusicGarten class of the season, as well as my book club. Thursday we have two therapy sessions and I have a night out with friends planned . . .

Of course it's not convenient. It's never convenient to make last minute schedule changes. And he won't know if I'm there or not. Would it be helpful to my parents if I'm there? Or will it be the added stress of company when they're dealing with this on their own, together?

My father would like to have my grandfather cremated, and schedule a memorial service and burial later, when it's more convenient. My grandfather currently lives up near my parents, but he will be buried where he used to live, closer to here.

Death isn't supposed to be convenient. One of the best things about a funeral is that it's always within a certain small window after someone dies. Everyone understands: you drop everything and you go.

If we don't do this now, right after he dies, when will we get around to it? I know my family. Organization and planning are not our strong suits as a group, and there *is* no such thing as a convenient time for all of us to get together.

Also, although I know it's silly and sentimental, I don't like the idea of my grandfather being cremated when my grandmother was not. Togetherness is what's always been most important to him, to both of them, and he would hate this. But it's not my decision, and it's not my father who's dying.

I just don't know if I should go home.

****

Update. It's all moot now. I'm fresh out of grandparents; my parents are the front-line generation now.

Like hitting "Publish" was a catalyst, my grandfather died moments ago. The funeral will be on Friday.

Well, She Married Well!

Surprise! This isn't a feminist rant.

Actually, it's an accolade for my cousin's husband, Tim, who's just awesome in a number of ways. My cousin is brilliant and awesome herself, of course.

But I think it's especially neat that Tim got his own Yahoo! news bullet and was published in Nature . . . again.

My favorite quote from the article:

To put the trained starlings' grammar skills in perspective, Gentner said they don't match up to either of his sons, ages 2 and 9 months.

Here's a 2004 picture of Ellie with her second cousin the grammarian, and parts of their smartie-pants daddies.

Reproduction

Congratulations to all this week's new mamas!

Andi
Crazy Cat Woman
Fernham

And also to the woman who confessed her secret pregnancy to me. I will not tell until you begin to show! Then all bets are off.

And now I'm off to clean my new desk. Then the bathrooms. For superstitious reasons.

Does anyone know where I could get a chef's uniform cheaply and quickly? Like, tomorrow?

Contrast

Taking Ellie to school this morning, I saw several lessons in contrast.

I saw a sign advertising a boxing event called "Superbrawl" at the Family Arena next weekend.

I saw a woman pulling away from Ellie's school in her minivan, frantically puffing on a freshly lit cigarette.

I parked next to a shiny, beautiful red Corvette . . . with an infant seat riding shotgun.

Then, back out on the main road, I saw the most honest bumper sticker statement I've ever seen. On the left of the pick-up-truck's rear window was a bright, new-looking W'04 sticker. On the right side of the rear window, battered and looking as though someone had tried to peel it off in little pieces, was an American Flag sticker.

So true.

Don't Choke!

I made a low-carb chicken pot pie for dinner tonight. Ellie enthusiastically stabbed a mushroom slice with her fork . . . and choked on it.

"Are you choking?" asked Paul.

[Silence]

As if we practice this nightly, I stood up and moved behind Ellie in one smooth motion. I picked her up while pressing firmly against her stomach, and out popped the mushroom before I even had her out of her booster seat. It was so fast, she didn't even have time to get scared. Disaster averted!

***

Also, I didn't realize that Ellie had the fine motor coordination to do threading yet. It turns out that she does; she threaded her own DAFO this morning!

What a Weekend

Friday evening we had dinner with friends, then cajoled the kids into sleeping while we watched the "season premier" of Alias.

Saturday morning, Paul, Ellie, and I went to the Moolah Shrine Circus. Ellie rode a pony! That afternoon/evening, we went to see Disney's The Wild.

Sunday morning was church, where Ellie performed wonderfully and didn't seem to think it at all strange that she should be doing so in front of hundreds of people. Then, in the afternoon, a good friend of mine (both a good friend and a good friend) took me to the Cardinals game. Yeah, that's right. At the new Busch Stadium. Where seats are almost impossible to come by. And she had tickets for the Cardinals Club section. And it was a great game.

Then we all had dinner over at our minister's lovely home with her husband and two young children.

Awesome weekend. Now I need a weekend so that I can recover!

***

When I'm thinking about people I like, I play this little game. I pretend that I have a huge pile of money and I can use it to buy things for people. I'm not talking about ending world poverty here, just nice things that I'd like to do for people.

I'd like to buy my mom a new Prius. Like, immediately.

And while I'm thinking of it, my mother-in-law has always dreamed of having a Mustang convertible.

And I'd really really love to pay for a friend of mine to have as many cycles of IVF as she wants.

Now you go.

At-Home Thursday

Ellie didn't sleep much last night. For the last couple of days, she's been ranging farther afield and playing more independently while awake, but wanting to be held and cuddled constantly at naptime and at night. Preferably with deep eye contact and intermittent but priceless smiles. Smiles is too dim a word; it's pure love beaming from her beautiful little face. It's precious; it's wonderful; it's completely understandable. It's also a little hard to see the forest for the trees in the middle of the second night of interrupted sleep.

This morning started early, especially for Paul. He got up with Ellie to let me "sleep in," which, as is usually the case, was not very effective but I appreciate it very much anyway.

He left for work, and we got ready for the day. Ellie's Developmental Therapist ("Special Instruction," special ed for the under-3 set, Parents As Teachers Parent-Educator x 10, school diagnostician, etc.) arrived at 8:30 for a productive hour-long session.

After she left, Ellie went potty and we had a talk about the merits of sleep versus library story time given the previous night's lack of rest. She chose sleep, but fewer than 10 minutes into the warm-up, she looked up at me mischievously and said, "Potty?" Unlikely to be true so soon after an extended session on that throne, but an effective stalling technique.

We gave up on an early nap and went to story time. This was perhaps a bad idea, but it was definitely a better idea than both of us being home and cranky. There was a minor injury (mom's fault) and some fussing (the exhaustion's fault) and we ended up leaving story time a little early.

We went to Creve Coeur Park to swing for a little while, in an attempt to stay on a normal schedule. By this time it was nearly 11:00. We swang and sang and explored (tiny pebbles! dandelions!) for half an hour or so, then loaded back into the car.

We headed over to daddy's office and picked him up for lunch. Super cool daddy even changed a diaper before heading back in to the daily grind.

Ellie fell asleep on the way home, then slept in her own bed for about 45 minutes. When she woke up, sort of, I brought her into bed with me and we cuddled until she fell asleep again. Eventually I got up and took care of stuff, like the surveyor coming out to mark our property line in preparation for a potential backyard fence.

Ellie continued to sleep. I straightened up the living room. Had some yogurt and read a little. And curled back up around her in bed just before she started to wake up, so that I was there when she opened her eyes. She grinned and closed them again for a little while so that I could watch her chest rise and fall.

We got up, went potty, and she had a snack while I started a pot of chili for dinner. Then we went outside to play, shortly before daddy came home.

Mommy and daddy caught up while pushing Ellie on her new swing (more on that as soon as I remember to take a camera outside with me!) then Ellie got chili while I headed off to yoga.

Ellie and daddy followed along to The Lodge and played in the pool while I moaned through a less-than-total-relaxation yoga class. As always, it ended well.

When I got home, Ellie was nearly asleep. I did get a brief turn with her to remind her that I love her, then it was Sarahlynn and Paul - not mommy and daddy - time.

We ate chili and veggies and watched a Daily Show. Then we drank caffeine- and sugar-free cafe mochas and watched House while sorting mail and folding laundry (washed by daddy!). Paul was passing out by this time, so he headed off to bed.

I finished the weekly menu and grocery list and blogged for a while, before curling up in bed with my book. OK, that last bit was speculative fiction. But I plan to do it soon!

Kids are Cruel

This isn't specifically about having a child with special needs, although that serves as a megaphone to amplify the situation.

Often when I go to pick Ellie up from school on Wednesday afternoons, she's playing by herself. The kids are usually on the playground or in the gym, and her gross motor skills are less developed than those of her peers, so she often sits alone and worn out at the end of a long day while they still have energy to run and climb. Every day, she gets stronger. I know this is true because they tell me so, and because I see it. Every day she has more energy, moves more, does more, lasts longer, wakes earlier, you name it. But still, Ellie is in a class of 2- and 3-year olds, most of whom are older and bigger than she is. And are boys.

I was thrilled when I got to school today and saw Ellie with a group of kids on the playground. They were playing in a little plastic house.

As I got closer, I noticed that she was not happy. In fact, she was alternately fussing in frustration and doing a great job using her signs and words, which were being ignored.

"Hulp! Hulp!" she cried. "Open." She'd pause from signing her version of "help" to tug on the doorknob, which stayed stubbornly shut.

Because a big 3-year-old boy was holding it closed from inside, locking Ellie out. In fact, about three kids were inside that little plastic house. Ellie was looking in through the open window in the side, crying plaintively (and asking nicely!) to be let in. And they were ignoring her.

Heartbreaking for any parent to watch. It's probably not the first time. It certainly won't be the last.

Trustee

I'm a subdivision trustee, but I'm not great at it. In fact, I'm having serious doubts about the whole system.

Sure, I get that it's nice to have a community association that plans neighborhood events, writes a newsletter, and manages the maintenance of signage and common spaces.

I might even concede that it's pleasant to have some standards, like no chain link fences in front yards. And I admit that I experienced a small amount of ugly glee when someone called the county on the conservative Republicans around the block, who somehow found time to plant Bush signs in their yard, but never to do any sort of property upkeep.

But that's getting into really dangerous territory.

One of the other trustees (there are only 3 of us) called me yesterday to talk about his neighbor. It's true that this yard is in desperate need of a cut. And apparently there's a pile of branches somewhere. A sagging swimming pool tarp that might encourage the breeding of mosquitoes. Etc.

So this trustee called St. Louis County to complain. An inspector showed up the next day, and since the trustee was watching out his window, he was right there to pop out and talk with the inspector. The negligent homeowners were charged with 6 violations (long grass, weeds, wood pile, that sort of thing). They have to go to court and they're required to fix all the identified problems within 2 days.

You know, I understand that it's neighborly to keep your yard nice. And I sure like looking at people's nice yards.

But I hate yard work. And, sometimes life gets busy. Sometimes things don't look all that perfect around here either. I know that people don't like the weeds under our mailbox (but I hate pulling them because they're covered with the pee of all of the neighborhood's dogs). I bet that our (temporary! I promise!) pile of dead branches isn't a community hit. And sometimes the yard doesn't get mowed quite as often as it should. Should we expect a visit from the county inspector?

See, I think that while it's nice to keep up appearances, it shouldn't be required. What it comes down to, in the end, is that we are homeowners. This is our property. And I know that I sound all libertarian when I say this, but really, I do feel like it's sort of my business what I do on my property.

To some extent. And drawing that line is where the trouble starts. How many feet from the back of the house is that garden shed? Is that new picket fence in your backyard vinyl or wood? Precisely how many inches tall is your lawn? Have you done enough to beautify your mailbox area?

Frankly, I just don't care. And that's why I'm a lousy trustee. I don't like noticing that the pile of soil these folks have had delivered has been in their driveway so long that it's starting to sprout grass, or that the garden tools are visible through the missing door of that shed.

But it's slightly nicer to be in the meetings where this sort of thing is discussed, rather than finding out that there are problems later, and in an ugly manner. I wish that we could all just laugh about it. Surely there are more important uses for our energy, our passion?

A Joyful Noise

Last week, I had so many things to blog that I was restraining myself from blogging twice a day or more. Now I can actually get to my computer again, after nearly a week away, and I've got nothing.

Well, not quite nothing. I've got bloggy happiness to report. Paul decided that this whole computer-in-the-guestroom thing isn't working out much better than the computer-on-the-kitchen-table thing (which I also disliked, though for somewhat different reasons). So he decided to buy me a new computer! A laptop! And a new desk upon which to keep it, something simple that will look OK in the front room, against the windows that invite beautiful, glorious sunlight into our home every afternoon.

I am ecstatic! I'm a little confused about why "my" new computer needs a dual DVD burner, but I'm not looking this gift horse in the mouth and I'll try to look the other way whenever he borrows it. As long as he doesn't clutter my desktop with icons. One column is plenty, people! That's why folders were invented!

Actually, we had a very nice week and weekend. And it's also nice to be home alone again. Ellie went down quickly and easily tonight, and then Paul and I celebrated our first quiet evening in a long time by watching TV. Sadly, we're still about two weeks behind on most of our shows, but we're staying just ahead of the TiVo auto-delete (as our hard drive fills) and plan to finish April sweeps before fall premiers.

The APO Alumni Banquet was lovely last night, and the 12-year-old babysitter did wonderfully with Ellie. She even had time to study for today's math test, after Ellie went to sleep.

"What kind of math are you taking?" I asked. Then a slow suspicion began to grow in my mind.

"Oh, it's not my best subject right now. We're learning to multiply and divide fractions and decimals."

Yes, that is hard. But when I first asked the question, it hadn't occurred to me that she is only in 6th grade and therefore not in a math class that has a specific name yet. Presumably, pre-algebra doesn't even start until next year. Wow. But she's awesome and Ellie loves her.

Everything else is fun and lovely and wonderful, and hardly worth mentioning now. I'm so excited to be heading off to bed soon! But first I will mention that Ellie's "choir" will be "performing" in church next Sunday. Oh, yes. The 18- to 35-month olds will be making a joyful noise to the Lord.

We hope. Because if they don't, it will just be the moms/dads/grandmas/grandpas who usually accompany the kids to class who will be carrying the tune. And, especially in my case, this is not a lovely sound at all. Luckily for everyone, I don't video or audio blog! Sleep well.

Busy

As those who regularly cruise our street and assess our driveway traffic situation are well aware, we've got an out-of-town guest this week/end. Since she's staying in the guest room, along with "my" computer, I'm away from the blog. Except for this brief surely-not-from-work note!

I should be back on Monday. Until then, please enjoy those many pictures of Ellie when you stop by.

And if you know what "Alpha Phi Chapter of Alpha Phi Omega" means, I hope to see you on Sunday night!

Snapshots

Ellie loves sidewalk chalk


Ellie, Lizzi, and Dora lounge


Ellie is a terrific tutor/role model


Ellie expresses her patriotism


And serious reservations about her government

Pet Peeves

I was at a meeting this morning. It was a (completely voluntary! supposedly fun!) meeting at church, not at work, so there's no lawsuit to file.

We were sharing concerns and one woman was talking about her troubled relationship with her mother. This grew into a larger discussion of the way that women interact, and culminated in this woman saying, "And we wonder why people hire men over women!"

Because, you know, women are always so sensitive, and we take everything out of context, and we spend so much time dealing with personal issues instead of getting the job done, and, really, it's so much easier to deal with men. !!!

Now, my response was not nearly as smooth as I wish it could have been, but I did make it clear that I thought that these over-generalizations were ludicrous and offensive. We moved on.

Afterwards, she tried to apologize. Fortunately, Ellie was ready to go and interrupted her rather uncomfortable and rambling apology before that part at the end where I would be socially required to say, "It's OK."

Because it isn't. And I wouldn't say it. Who needs Men's Rights Activists when a group of women can run ourselves down without any outside assistance? Completely aside from the fact that all women and all men aren't cut from gender-appropriate-behavior cookie cutters, and completely aside from the fact that most of these gender-specific manners of relating are socialized, not genetic:

Let's not forget the fact that women, in general, are often considerate of others in work situations. And that women, in general, are often considered to be "good team players," an apparent workplace benefit.

And, besides, if we hired more men than women, who'd book the conference rooms, make sure that the coffee is fresh, and bring baked goods on people's birthdays? And women's work apparel livens up a conference room. So there's that.

In honor of my frustration, this is a Pet Peeves discussion. Here are a few of mine. Please share some of your own!

• When my mother-in-law sends package after package of season-specific really big clothes for Ellie. It always seems like a comment on my growing a puny child or something.
  
• The way that Paul always thinks I'm staring at him whenever I glance out of a window on "his" side of the car
  
• The way people pile up in the left of two left-turn lanes onto the highway, blocking traffic and making me late
  
• People who stop their cars when they should be merging
  
• When Ellie whines and whines and whines and whines
  
• Disability-first language (e.g. "Down's baby," which I hear a lot)
  
• When Paul falls asleep while we're watching TV
  
• Feet touching me

OK, now you go!

Home, Sweet Home

Or, Going Home: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

I have no problem using "home" interchangeably to refer to both where I live with Paul and Ellie and where my parents live.

Home is definitely St. Louis. But there are some things about my parents' place that still feel like home too. Like the incomparable Indiana Dunes State Park/National Lakeshore. And the atmosphere.

"Home" at Mom and Dad's is where I can act like a lazy bump on a log, hiding my nose in a book for hours if I can find a good spot to do so: quiet and out of the way enough to read in peace, but close enough to keep up with what's going on. In practice, this is a fruitless pursuit. You're either secreted upstairs in your bedroom with the door closed, or pretty soon someone's handing you something to do.

And "home" at Mom & Dad's is where we revert to our old resentments and patterns of interacting.

Paul, Ellie, and I arrived on Friday night, and I was keyed up from the long drive. Unfortunately, everyone else was exhausted and ready for bed. This limited Super Fun Family Time to just Saturday plus Sunday morning.

Saturday night, after dinner, is prime family time. I'm known for pushing board games, so I consciously dialed it back this trip. I am, however, the only firstborn child in the bunch, so I have to take the lead or we spin our wheels endlessly.

I suggested a card game we've all enjoyed. Two family-favorite TV shows we have brought on DVD. A movie of the three they rented for the weekend. And, as always, a board game.

Nobody moved. I brought out a board game we've laughed at before and started rereading the directions. Middle Sister turned on the movie she'd started earlier in the day and people watched the rest of it.

This happened to be the one movie they rented that I was not interested in seeing, and certainly wasn't interested in starting in the middle of.

I stuck it out for a while, as people drifted in and out, snacking, and eventually I gave it up and went to read in another room.

Later, as I was heading up to bed, the movie ended. "I guess we should appease Sarahlynn and play a bored game," Middle Sister said. Gee, thanks.

This is the way it always goes. Middle Sister is not malicious, but she looks after herself first. And everyone goes along with it.

Such a small thing. But the one true family night of our all-too-rare time together was spent watching parts of a movie that only Middle Sister had followed from the beginning.

If I complain, I am petty and just trying to get my own way - even if "my own way" is that we all do something - almost anything! - that we agree upon together.

Best of all, I feel petty and childish and surly about the whole thing, which is so much fun. Flashback.

I love my family. I love spending time with them. They're smart, and funny. We have a lot in common: we have similar politics, we all love NPR, we enjoy (mostly) similar TV shows. But we all know different stuff, so we have great discussions.

But it always seems to come down to me wanting to get everyone together, wanting to do something fun, just plain wanting and needing more.

And no one likes to be in that position.

Happy Easter!

First, a clarification. Because we talk about things like this, my dad said that "Maundy" is from the Latin "to wash," referring to Christ washing the feet of the disciples.

As Jesus washed the disciples' feet, he talked of the importance of serving one another. [Faith, without works, is nothing, after all.] And from there, John writes of the new commandment Jesus gave to the disciples:

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.

Now that that's cleared up, moving right along.

We had a lovely Easter at my parents' house in Northwest Indiana, where, surprisingly, it was warm and even sunny. Ellie did fantastically throughout the 14+ hours she spent in the car this weekend.

She loved hunting for plastic Easter eggs:


She also had an absolutely fabulous time at the beach on Saturday:


And while I'm in a picture posting mood, here's a "before" picture of me, and a "during" picture. (We're not quite to "after" yet!)


Here's hoping this serves as motivation for me! I've had a weekend off, and now I'm back on the (sugarless) wagon.

Love One Another

8:15 am
Edited to add: She slept through the night! Wahoo!

8 Hours Earlier:

It's late and I'm headed off to bed (like, an hour ago!) so no new creativity tonight. But I did add a few link backs, so if you link to me please look for yourself at right. And if you're not there, please let me know!

Also, I got a great Save the Date! card today. My youngest sister is getting married this summer. It's going to be an incredible wedding - beautiful and fun. The dress will be formal, but we'll be outdoors at an alpaca farm. And one of the wedding colors is chocolate brown. Her inspiration piece is a picture from an African banquet. I can't wait!

Here's hoping that I can get in at least an hour of sleep before Ellie wakes up. And that I don't hate myself in the morning for putting off so many things until I have more energy. When have I ever had more energy in the morning? Never, that's when.

So, just one thought for tonight, before my brain peters out. Today (or yesterday, as the case may be) was the Thursday before Easter, Maundy Thursday.

The word "maundy" comes from the command given by Christ at the Last Supper, that we should love one another.

It's now Good Friday, so I should put on my solemn and tone down the exclamation points. I'll be back again on Monday.

Yawn, Growl

This doesn't feel like one of Ellie's sleep diets, but my exhaustion and lack of patience are certainly the same.

Sunday was an overwhelming day and Ellie slept hard that night. Monday afternoon to Tuesday afternoon, she ran a low-grade fever. Monday night she couldn't sleep until we gave her some Tylenol; then she slept like a log. Tuesday night she was not running a fever anymore, so no Tylenol. And no sleep.

Paul and I tried to take turns but were so groggy that we couldn't even do that effectively. I would be surprised if any of us got 2 hours of consecutive sleep all night. I had an all-day meeting at work on Wednesday and by Wednesday night, all three of us were toast.

Ellie went down quickly last night and slept hard until 1:48 am. I remember the time because it took me a long, long time to realize that it was the actual time. I pulled Ellie up into our bed when she came in, babbling happily, and took my basal body temperature. I started to record the temp and the time and realized that something didn't make sense.

I tried to explain what was going on to Paul, who was ambulating about, but he was too asleep to comprehend what I was saying. He took Ellie out to her potty to start the morning routine, and kept staring at the clock on the VCR thinking that it must be on, with the timer set almost 2 hours into a movie. Finally, he realized that it was 1:something am and not morning after all.

(As you can see, we're not used to a happy, chattering toddler waking us up in the middle of the night.)

But Ellie wouldn't go back to sleep. Nor would she stay in her bed. Or even in her bedroom. No amount of cuddling, loving, firm speech, or bribery could convince her to play or sleep quietly. And whenever we brought her into bed with us - often a wonderful way to extend naptime - she had boundless energy and would alternately kick us and bounce on us while chattering in a very high-pitched manner. Shutting her into her bedroom produced screams and very real tears.

And we were just too tired to think clearly enough to come up with anything else. She screamed and then collapsed limply in our arms when either of us would snuggle her up and go into her room. So we took turns sitting in the rocking chair with her most of the night for the last two nights.

What's worst is that this is mostly between 2:00 am and 6:00 am, my critical sleeping time.

And I don't know why it's happening so I don't know how to fix it or when it might stop on its own.

But I am so tired. I hope for an afternoon nap, send grateful thanks to whomever discovered caffeine, and hope that this "phase," like others that have preceded it, will be over soon.

Two-and-a-Half

Three years ago, I was in the middle of two back-to-back business trips, to be followed by an amazing Hawaiian vacation. Ahhhh. Of course, I was carrying my Paul-made portable "morning" sickness bag with me everywhere I went and collapsing on the couch from exhaustion every evening. But I tried not to let it show!

This year, Ellie's two and a half today. Here are some recent shots to mark the occasion:

I call this the Grover series, for obvious reasons:


Here she is, as toddler model and businesswoman:


And, finally, doing serious work with The Map:

Body and Blood

I prefer the waxing moon. The waning moon reminds me of the new moon to come, and it depresses me a little bit each time I notice it. This is odd, because I'm not really much into moon cycles and all that stuff. I never remember whether the black dot or the white dot on the calendar denotes the full moon. But the waxing moon makes me think of excitement building and good things to come, while the waning moon feels like the morning after Christmas. What's to look forward to now?

While I'm thinking of bodies, and having recently written about my weight loss, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Paul. Although Paul started exercising well after I did, and he doesn't usually work out for quite as long as I do, he has lost considerably more weight than I have. Despite popular opinion on the matter, this is not because he had more weight to lose. In fact, he's looking pretty good. I'm trying to be supportive of and happy for him. Not bitter or jealous. Not me. No way.

I did notice the bones in my wrists last night. They're pretty. I like seeing them again, no longer softened into such gentle contours.

Just as interesting are the backs of my hands. After working out last night and tonight, I noticed the veins on the back of my hands. They're not exactly bulging, but I can see them more than normal. I wonder - is this how it begins? First appearing just after exercise then fading more and more slowly until one day I realize that I have visible, ropy veins on the backs of my hands at all times? I loved them on my grandmother. I'm not ready for them on me.

Kind of like the ungraceful way my dark brown hair is starting to change. I do like the shocking white it will become. I'm just not ready for it yet. And the transition will not be subtle.

But this isn't all about age. I have had what I not-so-affectionately refer to as the "Snot Clot" in the back of my throat for many months. It waxes and wanes, but never disappears entirely for long. It's worse when I lie down. Although it doesn't really impede my airway, I tend to feel like I'm suffocating. I think it's leftover from a cold that won't go away. Or it's a tumor.

But there are some things that my body does very well. Like expelling the lining of my uterus each month, right on schedule. I have always had cramps with my period, but only since having been through labor have I really understood them. Before Ellie, there was monthly pain. Now, while the cramps are just as strong as ever, I mind them less.

This is because I feel what they're doing. I understand what's going on. I have a strong muscle memory and I can conceptualize it all more easily. This is not just amorphous pain. This is rhythmic, constructive, effective. It's amazing. I'm not crazy; I don't enjoy the pain. I wish I could curl up in bed and sleep until Cycle Day 3 or so. But I understand it and I respect it.

***

Please admire my restraint above. I stopped after the period bit and - with some effort - restrained myself from pounding the cyclical/moon/wax/wane/aging body thing home with some nice tidal imagery or something. Perhaps I should have just inserted an image of a sledge hammer for subtlety while I was at it.

Many thanks to Raw Bananny for coming to visit this weekend! I had such a good time! And I love how much Ellie loves you both. And you picked up all the sticks and branches from the yard! You deserve a medal! Ellie has a fever tonight. I hope you're well.

Paul did our taxes tonight. Itemized. In about an hour and a half! Amazing. And we get money back! My first thought was - vacation with Jessica and Scott! Getting to see SBFH! My second thought was - ooooh, the new front porch. We shall see. More fiscally responsible thoughts ran a distant third and below.

Think Partnered Parenting Is Hard?

As I was driving home from work last Wednesday, Ellie allowed me a few minutes of NPR. I'm always glad to catch All Things Considered, and I often enjoy the essays they feature. But the one I heard last week really pissed me off.

Think Partnered Parenting Is Hard? Try Going Solo.

At face value, it seems to make sense. I mean, of course solo parenting is hard. I can't imagine it, myself. I'd have to move to be near family, at least while the child(ren) are too young to help out much.

But single mom Lori Gottlieb went way beyond anecdotes about the challenges she faces and jumped straight into dissing partnered parents. To be more specific, she has it in for married mothers.

I say "married," not "partnered," because the stories she relates don't sound like healthy partnerships to me.

My husband never lifts a finger to help out around the house or with the kids unless I specifically ask him to do a task.

My husband refuses to change a diaper.

My husband will watch the kids so that I can go out from time to time, but he calls it "babysitting" and acts like he's doing me a big favor.

That sort of thing.

You don't know how lucky you are to have a man do anything at all, Gottlieb suggests. When these "great catches" divorce their whiny, harping wives, she'll be there to snatch them up in an instant. No, sadly I am not exaggerating.

Here's the thing, Lori. You went into this parenting thing as a single parent. But a married woman in the 21st Century has a more reasonable expectation of a true partnership, where men aren't "babysitting" or "helping out" with their own homes and children. Men today can be - and should be - full participants rather than spectators in their own home lives.

It's one thing to feel bitter about doing chores when there's no one else around to do them. But it's quite another thing when you're running around the house trying to take care of the child and do everything else while a large lump snores on the sofa.

I get that Gottlieb was trying to be funny. Hah hah. Perhaps she wouldn't have sounded like such a jackass if she could have been clever enough to write a pithy piece about the difficulties of single parenthood without lambasting women who expect partnerships with their husbands and exonerating men who are just flat-out lazy and inconsiderate.

This passes for feminism today?

Bluster

Some poor woman who was just doing her job called me this evening. She was from Charter Communications and at first I was very excited to hear from her. Then I realized that she was trying to sell me on VOIP.

"This is a very bad time. You don't want to talk to me about this right now. See, my cable has been out for almost 4 days. I am absolutely not interested in any additional services from Charter at this time."

"Oh! I'm sorry. Have you tried to call-"

"I've tried to call everywhere. I can't get a live person. I can't get an estimate of when they expect the service to be restored. I feel sorry for you having to call people in this area tonight."

It turns out that the cable came back this evening before Lost, and Paul has had good luck finding the Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday shows we watch online. But this is April sweeps; a very bad time to be without TV with no warning. I would have been fine if it had been at the end of the week, but we typically record our favorite shows early in the week and stretch them out all week long. The third to last episode of The West Wing ever. Gray's Anatomy. 24. House. Good stuff.

What happened is this. On Sunday afternoon, after I awoke in a panic, I harried everyone out the door and into the car for an emergency trip to Target to pick up a present. It was beautiful outside: sunny and in the low 80's, with just enough breeze to keep things pleasant.

I knew exactly what I wanted in Target and we broke records getting into and out of the store. We exited into a strong wind from the west and an ominously black horizon. "Wow, that storm is coming up quickly," Paul said.

We drove a few blocks to Ellie's friend's house, and parked at the corner to sign the gift cards. Tree branches started whipping around and the first drops of rain started to fall. We pulled up to the house, where festive balloons danced gaily, tied to the picket fence. Then they fell. I looked at the car's thermometer and saw that the temperature had dropped 30 degrees, right along with the barometric pressure.

I ran to the house to drop off the present in a downpour and had a hard time opening and closing my car door. Moving boxes and new leaves were blowing everywhere.

When I got back into the car, we switched from toddler tunes to NPR, often a controversial move. We learned that a thunderstorm with "extremely strong rotation" was in Valley Park, the suburb just southwest of us, moving northeast at 55 mph.

We decided to drive into it and head on home. Home is only a 4 minute drive from Ellie's friend's house, or it should have been. Paul managed to run us into a couple of dead ends and strange meanders. He never quite approached the speed limit. I was about to push down the gas pedal myself with the wrapping paper roll.

When we got home, the sun was coming back out; the storm had passed us on the road. And we'd missed the worst of it.

If we'd been at home, we would have been down in the basement like sane people. We wouldn't have noticed right away that the wall on our neighbor's garage - just 15 feet or so from our carport (the only place where our house is close to a neighbor's) had pulled away from the rest of the structure.

The "strong rotation" had ripped the whole wall out a bit and strewn contents of their garage over our back yard. Amazing. We were very lucky. But somehow the weather announcer's suggestion that we hop out of our car - in the downpour and with tree branches flying all around - and lie in a ditch with our 2-year-old until the storm passed over us just didn't sound very appealing. I figured we had a better chance in the steel Passatt with its safety glass and 8 airbags.

I bet Paul doesn't groan at me so loudly the next time I wake everyone up to go downstairs when the sirens go off. I used to live in Kansas, where they take tornados very seriously. In Missouri they seem to like crying wolf with the sirens. Fortunately, we have a poofy couch and cable in our basement - most of the time, anyway.

Sweating Up a Storm

My feet hurt. For many years, I've gotten intense pain in the soles of my feet when I'm rollerblading, playing beach volleyball, kickboxing, standing for a long time in pretty shoes, or squatting.

I toughed it out, stopping to stretch my soles over a coke can like I was taught in ballet class years ago. But I wasn't having cramps. My arches were falling and my tough gal routine was not helping them at all.

So about 5-1/2 years ago, I pretty much stopped doing those things that hurt. I did not, however, stop eating. And since inline hockey and kickboxing were my major forms of exercise, and my life was getting increasingly sedentary and stressful, it's no surprise that I started to gain weight.

5-1/2 years ago, I got married. Soon thereafter, my sister had her brain tumor crisis. Then I started a stressful - but fun! - new job. We got a dog. Bought a house. And Paul left to work in Michigan for 10 months, home only on weekends. I kept eating. And not exercising. Everything hurt my feet. And I was too busy, anyway.

For the last 5-1/2 years, I've gained more than 10 pounds per year.

I'm a big believer in exercise over diet. Eating's just too darn fun to quit. Lots of people pledge to lose weight, but get sidetracked along the way. I always felt that I'd start losing weight as soon as I was really ready, and that I'd be successful. It turns out that I wasn't wrong.

In early January of this year, I started doing the South Beach Diet. No sugar, no white starches (white potatoes, white rice, white bread, white pasta, etc.). I knew that it would hurt for a while: Kriegers fries! Yummy sweet baked goods! Easy Mac! Bagel Bites! But eventually it got to the point where being me, and being fat, was even more painful. And the thought of a year on a diet was less painful than the thought of years ahead of me as I was.

My increased weight was affecting my energy. It wasn't helping my poor feet. My blood pressure was still good, but it was higher. I wasn't falling pregnant easily. I wasn't feeling very sexy, either. I knew that I was not being healthy. I missed my strong, healthy body. I decided that it was time to get it back.

South Beach wasn't the immediate miracle for me that it's supposed to be. The weight didn't trip over itself in its hurry to leap from my body in Phase I, as it was supposed to. After a couple of weeks, I transitioned to the more comfortable Phase II, and I began to exercise. I have a cross-trainer in the basement and I worked my way through Sex and the City on DVD.

As I'd hoped, exercise was the golden bullet. I started seeing great results. So I relaxed the diet a tiny bit - once a month I'm allowed a meal out that's not entirely within the diet, though I'm still not bingeing. And I increased the exercise. 20 minute workouts became 30 minute workouts became 45 minute workouts most nights of the week. An episode of Gilmore Girls is 45 minutes including the credits, and I'm zooming through Season I on DVD.

In well under 3 months I've lost more than 30 pounds.

I carried a heavy bag around today, and it occurred to me that just weeks ago, I was carrying that much extra weight with me everywhere I went. Amazing.

I still have about 40 pounds that I'd like to lose, and things are going very well. I'm going to keep doing a general South Beach-like diet until I have retrained my body to stop at enough and not crave the binge. The more I exercise, the more I see that line clearly. I'm loving the way the exercise makes me feel, though I still find the act itself boring and the sweat distasteful.

And the silver lining to the whole not-pregnant thing is that every month I test negative, that's one more month I have to concentrate on getting back into shape before I have to start moderating my diet and exercise to safely incubate a small life.

Recognizance

Here in St. Louis we have a very cool (free!) alternative paper called The Riverfront Times (RFT). Each week, they highlight a "blog of the week," and a couple of weeks ago it was me. They highlighted my Parenting Olympics post (which, I might add, did not translate well onto newsprint without the HTML formatting).

I thought this was pretty cool, so I wore my super phat Snapshirts t-shirt everywhere I went for a week to see if I'd get recognized. (Not really. But I did wear it to the library for Story Time.)

I found out that I was featured because a friend of a friend read it and told him and he called Paul and, well, you see. Anyway, I went along in my way, always a little surprised when I start to tell a story to someone and they've already read it here. In fact, today I got a wonderful surprise hug at work from someone who read my last post (though obviously not at work! who would do that?) and thought I could use it.

But today for the first time I got recognized. And that was interesting. I mean, it wasn't a true stranger recognition. I worked near this person years ago and she read about "Sarahlynn" and thought, gee, I don't know too many "Sarahlynns." But until I post a picture of me that's not two years old, with me hiding behind my daughter, I'm not likely to be truly recognized in public by the multitudes.

So, anyway. I see that the snapshirts link doesn't really work. That's too bad. I totally love my shirt and want to order another one someday. Like, a smaller one. Yay! But more on that tomorrow.

In the meantime, about my constant companion, anxiety. I'm starting my first ever yoga class on Thursday, with a friend so I know that I absolutely have to go. This is good. I signed up for a yoga class once before. I consider it a charitable donation since I didn't attend a single class. But this time, I'll be downward facing dogging on a weekly basis. And then perhaps this knot formerly known as my stomach will relax occasionally.

You know what? I think maybe sometimes it feels good to just be just a little bit unravelly.

I Am So Sorry

I have been off my game for a while. I've never been the most organized person in the world, though I have my spurts. And I work best on a tight deadline, so I often pull it off at the 11th hour, keeping up appearances. But lately . . .

It's easy to blame it on anything else. Paul was gone for 8 days and I was focused on the house/Ellie/everything else. My toddler picks up everything I set down and hides it. My house is too small/doesn't have an office so that I can keep things organized.

But the truth is that I've been stuck in my own head for a long time. A few years, maybe. And while I have periods where I have everything, everything, everything under control, when I am a thoughtful friend, when I am ORGANIZED, well, there are far more times when I'm so turned inward and paralyzed that I can't see beyond the tip of my own nose.

And a prodigious nose it is, too.

Last weekend I didn't RSVP for a baby shower until the night before, although I already had a present. Today I missed the tea party in celebration of the second birthday of one of Ellie's friends.



I don't know how many other children were invited. I do know that I was looking forward to it. I know that our absence must have been notable. I know that I feel like throwing up. I know that - for once in my life - I have no excuse. And this was something that might effect *Ellie* and one of her important relationships in the years to come.

I need to keep the house cleaner. I need to keep on top of the paperwork. I need to find someplace to file things. I need to finish the basement playroom so that we can relocate some toys and actually walk around our house again. I need to be more focused at work. I need to continue losing weight. I need to work on my book(s) so that we can have money to pay down our debt and continue our home improvement projects - including my dream office. I need to be pregnant. I need to be pregnant. I want to be pregnant. I'm scared to be pregnant.

***

Update: I'm feeling better about this afternoon, and I think it all worked out OK. I talked to Ellie's friend's mom, and she was amazingly cool. The early afternoon tea party birthday party was a real success. We took the little girl's present over this evening (during a surprise tornado!) then went out to dinner with them. Afterwards, we went back to their house for a reprisal tea party with just the two girls, and we all had cake. It was lovely to visit, and the girls both really enjoyed their "pearls," white straw hats, feather boas, and tiny plastic tea set. So cute.

8 Days

I don't think this will be too difficult in a few years. Sure, a lot of it will stay the same. Ellie is already sure of what she wants and when, so that part is not likely to change much. We already have a busy schedule and drive hither and yon all day. There are other things to worry about with older children, of course, but I'll be worrying about them regardless of whether or not Paul's home.

And let's be honest. Dealing with issues like Transition to the School District and IEP and Service Coordination isn't exactly relaxing.

But in a few years, my child will be able to dress herself, to get herself a drink and a snack, to not need me to get up with her every time she needs to potty . . . and sit with her reading books and singing songs for however long that takes.

I love the alone time together. I love doing stuff and talking and sharing experiences. But the increasing self-sufficiency is awesome.

On a related note, in response to everyone who said, "Be careful what you wish for" with the walking, well, Ellie's been walking all over the place for months now. And it's better than I dared hope. I have never, ever, not even once wished to have her weak-legged again.

Not when she's walking off the mark at the photographer's over and over again, not when she plops down in goose poop in the school parking lot, and certainly not when she runs down the driveway, stopping right at the edge of the street, then leans out a little further and shouts, "No!"

Other amusing Ellie anecdotes.

On our way to this morning's playdate, Ellie's one toy to take with us in the car was Backpack. On our way to tonight's dinner out with friends, her one toy was a paper grocery bag from Whole Foods.

Ellie is so empathetic. She doesn't like to be left alone at the table to eat (which occasionally happens, like when I'm still cooking the side dishes or pouring drinks). She assumes that Lizzi must feel the same way, so she likes to sit on the floor right beside Lizzi while Lizzi's eating her dinner. Sometimes she reaches out to touch her gently. Fortunately, Lizzi doesn't mind this from Ellie. Priceless.

I wish I'd taken a picture of that, and one of Ellie looking melancholily and contemplatively out the car window while listening to Simon & Garfunkel this evening. I would have given anything to know what she was thinking.

Hey! Paul will be home soon!

The Glass Pane

When I was young, we lived in a gorgeous old manse(2). One of its many charming details was a glass door in place of a screen one, complete with individual panes.

We loved running around that old place. One summer day when I was about 6-1/2 and my sister Jessica was about 4, she was chasing me around. I wanted to run outside, so I headed for the front door. The heavy, wooden inner door was standing wide open and I ran for the glass door with one hand extended, straight out in front of me. I hit the handle perfectly and continued on across the porch and down the front steps.

Jessica mimicked me exactly, but several inches shorter.

Her extended right hand went straight through the glass pane.

My mother assessed everything quickly from the kitchen, where she was washing dishes. Quicker than humanly possible, she grabbed a retired cloth diaper from the plastic bin under the sink. Still holding her dish towel, she ran to Jessica almost before the glass finished falling. She grabbed Jessica's arm and wrapped her hand in the towel and diaper, then herded all three of us - Grace would have been 1 at the time - into the old green van parked at the curb.

Oh, that van. Three tones of green on the outside, with shag carpeting and wood paneling on the inside. Gorgeous.

Before you could say, "Bob's Your Uncle" we were off for our pediatrician's office up at the hospital. We were all jammed into an exam room with the old doc and his wife, the nurse, before I fully registered what was going on.

They removed the wound's dressing. There was no blood.

We have some dispute on the details here. My mother insists that the skin must have been broken because they gave Jessica a tetanus shot. I believe that they did so to humor my mother; my sister was only gently scratched.

Regardless, it is hilarious in retrospect and at family gatherings into perpetuity. And if it happened today, we never would have made it to the doctor. At the end of the business day, my poor mom would have been still out at the curb trying to secure 3 lively young children into safety seats in that van.

Pause. Slam.

It was one of those moments where time stood still. I felt like I had all the time in the world to see what was happening and prepare for it. I had run through the sequence of events dozens of times and knew exactly what movements to make to resolve the situation quickly, but it was only a fraction of a second.

Ellie and I were headed out to run a couple of errands and have her bangs trimmed. I was putting the little potty chair into the trunk, chatting with her all the while. I reached up and pushed the trunk lid down. Then she shot out her little hand and rested it on the back of the car, right in harm's way.

I saw it coming and I just had to wait. There was a moment of silence after the big bang, while she looked up at me, right into my eyes. Then she started screaming. I didn't waste a movement. My hand was in my pocket pressing the trunk release button on the key fob almost before she started screaming. I was swearing and clutching her to my chest while running for the house as the tears started to come. I was cuddling her on the couch with the phone in one hand and a bag of frozen peas over her fingers in the other hand just seconds after it happened.

My mother was away from her cell phone. Paul was unreachable, en route to Mississippi. I had to wait an unusually long time to get through to a nurse at Ellie's doctor's office.

But within 2 or three minutes, she had stopped crying. She allowed me to pull on each of her three smashed fingers (middle, ring, and pinkie on the left hand). She opened and closed her fist for me. She gripped my finger firmly, and held the peas to her own hand, very seriously (missing the injured spot, but solemn all the same).

The nurse said that at this age, little finger bones are harder to break than they will be in just a few short years' time. My mom pointed out that Ellie's natural joint flexibility (looser tendons and ligaments) meant that her hand bent back further, minimizing damage to the bones.

Within minutes, the only sign of any drama was a slight redness from the cold peas, and a tiny bruise at the base of the middle and ring fingers.

We made the hair appointment, ran our errand, and played at the park on the way home. A few days later, she still seems perfectly fine. Whew.

While we were out, I bought her a pair of crocs - pics to come shortly. As you see, I've laid the groundwork for a reward system that's sure to cause both of us much grief in the short, medium, and long term. But I slammed her tiny hand in the trunk.

Blue Decorator

Blogger Housekeeping
I'm sorry that the viewing and commenting functionality here has been so . . . temperamental. Hopefully Blogger will fix itself soon. Also, Paul is going away for 8 long days. That means that my guestroom will be getting a work out - hear that, you violent creepy Internet lunatics? I won't be here alone! - and since the computer is currently in the guest room, blogging might be a little spotty for a while. But now on to the chatty stuff.

One of Earnest's suitemates was a very good friend of mine. This guy - let's call him Randy - never did anything wrong. He was a squeaky clean future politician, but he still somehow managed to be fun. I spent most of one school year on the foot of his bed, playing Super Nintendo. Maybe my standards were low.

One unusual thing about Randy is that he had a long distance girlfriend. This girl was his date to the junior prom, and stuck with him through four years away at college while she went to the Big U in their home state.

Every year, she'd come to visit during her spring break and clean Randy's entire room, including washing and ironing all of his laundry.

I kid you not. I liked the girlfriend just fine (well, eventually) but I thought this was a little weird. I also happened to know that their relationship was . . . er, uh . . . they weren't doing the nasty.

I liked to help my buddy Randy prepare for his girlfriend's visits. Like one year, when he went to the airport to pick her up, I decorated his bedroom.

I draped lingerie around his suite, especially in his room. And I'm not talking about plain cotton panties. I put condoms under his pillow and porn peeking out from under his mattress. Bras shoved under furniture where she'd find them when she dusted and strip poker cards (illustrated!) placed hither and yon - I had a blast.

I thought I was really really funny. I can't believe she asked me to be a bridesmaid at their wedding; she's definitely a better woman than I.

I never got those poker cards back, either.