paisleysea

Remember the good ol' days...

2011-07-17T19:24:00.000-07:00

when I used to blog frequently? I've missed my blog. Really, really missed it. I thought if I stopped blogging then all that writer-ly energy I put into my blog could go instead into writing better stuff. You know, less bloggy stuff. And I have been writing. But what I've found is that I pull material from my old blog posts and then dress it up fancier and take it out on the town. I need those old blog posts to feed my current writing.

So I'm starting it back up on a trial basis. This may be the beginning of something beautiful or it may be the end.

Watch it. Love it. Spread it.

2008-09-19T09:22:00.000-07:00

PASS IT ON!

Warning: political post - but very important

2008-09-18T10:16:00.000-07:00

I didn't want to get all political on my blog especially after being MIA for some time, but this is just too important to stay quiet about. There's been so much talk lately about what Sarah Palin can bring to the White House as a woman, a mother and the mother of a child with special needs. I implore you to please look past the pretty packaging and the sentimentality to the actual issues. I'm not a one-issue voter but I'm choosing to focus here on the issue of people with disabilities because of Palin's comment during her speech at the RNC. Palin said, "To the families of special-needs children all across this country, I have a message for you: For years, you've sought to make America a more welcoming place for your sons and daughters. And I pledge to you that, if we're elected, you will have a friend and advocate in the White House." But she never explained how she will befriend and advocate. She really sought to win over the emotions of Americans with children with disabilities. But what does the McCain/Palin plan say about specific actions they're going to take? And what does the Obama/Biden plan say? You can see Obama's plan for yourself here:
Obama's Plan to Empower Americans with Disabilities
And you'll have to search McCain's website for his particular stance. Let me know if you find anything.
McCain's site
But if you don't have time for what may be a fruitless search here's an article that will help explain it all. Please, if you have a child with special needs, know someone with special needs or just give a damn then please take a few minutes to read this insightful, comprehensive article written by a professor of history and director of the Institute on Disability. And then go out and vote for Obama!

An open letter to disability rights constituency

Pass it on!

A Day in the Life

2008-07-18T18:40:00.000-07:00

Inspired by a friend who did this for a online board we're both members of, I took some photos throughout our day yesterday and put them together with some comments so you could get a peak into our life.

A Day in the Life of Mindy

Crap!

2008-07-07T19:57:00.001-07:00

I totally forgot I had a blog.

Not really. But it sure seems like it lately, eh?

And I really used to like pesto

2008-04-01T04:42:00.000-07:00

Last night after I had gone to sleep I woke to hear Clara whimpering. I reached over to soothe her and my hand landed in a warm, chunky pile of vomit. Ain't parenthood grand?

We had had spinach and cheese raviolis in pesto sauce for dinner so there was an abundance of green. And the smell was the same as dinner had smelled 6 hours earlier, except with a side of rancid.

This morning Clara asked for something to eat and I offered up benign foods free of color and strong odors such as bananas and shredded wheat. But she asked for an egg.

Her highchair still had remnants of the pesto from dinner last night and seeing that made my stomach seize. I was reminded of the time in junior high science class when I dissected an oyster and was disturbed to find the digested green algae in its stomach resembled pesto. I wouldn't eat pesto for years following.

Spring break on the NC coast

2008-03-31T05:28:00.000-07:00

(Pssst... photos of the vacation in the Flickr badge to the left)

Taking a vacation with young children is not a vacation in the true sense; the word “vacation” conjures up feelings up rest and relaxation but if you put the word “family” before the word “vacation” you get a completely different feelings about the whole thing. Really, a family vacation for us is just moving our whole, crazy routine to a different location and calling it a success if we make it through without any casualties.

Recently we decided to uproot our family and temporarily relocate to a tiny, oceanfront condo about 3 hours away. The fact that we had to bring along so much stuff for Sam, including his beanbag, wheelchair and jog stroller, and were forced to climb over furniture and various children to move about the condo did not diminish our enthusiasm. Nor did we allow the strong winds, which picked up the sand and hurled millions of grainy bits at our exposed skin, to prevent us from enjoying the beach. And when Clara attempted to stick her head through the widely spaced bars of the balcony railing to peer down at the beach 3 stories below we simply put an end to family time on the balcony because, though the her head was just big enough to not fit through, she found the table and chairs perfect for climbing on to peer over the balcony rail.

Still, we were not discouraged and we took several little trips to surrounding towns to visit the various attractions. One of these trips included a visit to Wilmington where we toured the USS North Carolina Battleship. I’d never been on a battleship so I wasn’t sure what to expect. The boat was moored on the Cape Fear River and we crossed a bridge to board the top deck of the ship. I had Clara running free hoping she would tire soon and fall asleep in the backpack child carrier I had brought with us on board. But, see, being from California where everyone is afraid of lawsuits, we were used to the California standards of safety; if this battleship had been located in the Golden State we wouldn’t have been able to get within five feet of the boat’s edge. And, surely, there would have been a metal gate in front of a plexiglass barrier protecting us from falling down to the mesh netting that any good California company would have constructed below. But we’re in North Carolina now. And safety either just hasn’t caught on yet or there’s a lot more faith out here in people’s ability to take care of themselves. Because the only thing separating us from the murky waters far below was some low mesh fencing that began about a foot above the deck. And being much closer to the ground than an adult, a small child is surely going to see that whole foot as an incredible opportunity. There were also raised platforms on the ship that extended to the edge and if you stood up on the platform and walked to the edge like any self-respecting child would, then you only got protection from the top 2 feet of the mesh fence. So I started wondering how many little ones had gone over. There were lots of signs on deck about the battles and the number of men who had died on the ship back during the war. But I couldn’t find anything about tourist fatalities. I had already chased Clara away from edge several times and been over it in my mind how the whole tragic fall might go down and how I would have to jump in after her. Of course, I had no idea how deep the water was. If it was too shallow then we could get seriously injured in the fall. But if the water was too deep then there’d be no way I’d be able to find her in the muddy water.

About this time David and Jackson decided they wanted to explore the inner belly of the ship. Since Sam’s wheelchair could not go down I had decided to stay above deck with him and Clara. But Clara had other plans. The metal stairs leading down into the ship were narrow and almost completely vertical; in other words, they were treacherous. And to an adventurous toddler such objects of peril were irresistible. Unfortunately, she refused to go down without me. So down Jackson, Clara and I went into the ship, leaving David and Sam above, completely unaware of the extensive labyrinth we were entering. Clara was following her bliss up and down the metal stairs that were unbelievably abundant throughout while I held tightly to her hand and followed along. There were arrows with the word “tour” placed throughout the boat but at some spots there was more than one choice and not once did we see an exit sign. After about ½ of an hour it was becoming clear to me that this tour had no end and Clara was starting to get loopy as her naptime had long passed. Unfortunately, I had left the baby carrier above and was left with the options of either chasing her through the ship or carrying a squirming toddler up and down the dangerous stairs as we tried to fight our way through the other tourists back up to the surface. There were many dangerous areas where the floor was made of a metal grate with gapes and holes large enough to swallow up a wayward toddler. More horrifying was the possibility that one of Clara’s shoes might find its way down one of these holes and become lost forever because THAT was unimaginable to my little shoeophile.

Eventually we caught a glimpse of daylight and emerged from the steel maze to find David and Sam waiting for us above. Now in between freaking out about Clara’s safety and freaking out about being lost inside the ship I did take in enough of the tour to realize what a fascinating vessel it was and how interesting the lives of the men were who had served on it. So I urged David to leave the kids with me and go down to have a look. While we were talking I was trying to prevent Sam’s wheelchair from rolling away on the uneven deck and chase down Clara who was making a break for the side of the boat. I decided to put her in the carrier for safety and so she could catch a nap while David explored below.

By then I was feeling pretty good that we had averted all tragedy and I was heading up to the front of the ship. An older man sitting several feet away waved us over to have a look at something he apparently thought we should see. As I approached he pointed down over the boat where the water met some marsh land. I saw a blue heron there wading in the water but then the man said, “No, look there on land.” A few feet away I saw a very large, life-sized replica of an alligator. Except, see here again, I had forgotten we weren’t in California any more and that alligator was no statue. It was real and it had a name: Charlie. According to the sign on the ship that I had somehow missed while averting various perils, Charlie wasn’t the only alligator that lived in those waters. So then I had to recreate all those various rescue scenarios I had already worked out when I envisioned Clara going over the edge to include the possibility of a giant, hungry alligator. And from what I’ve learned watching nature shows once an alligator bites down on you he’s not letting go. After showing Jackson the alligator he informed me that, “Actually, Mom, if you shove your thumbs into the alligator’s eyes then it’ll let go.” So maybe there was still hope for little Clara.

As I relaxed a little with Clara safely in the carrier on my back, we explored the upper deck a bit more and Clara drifted off to sleep. Deciding to take in some more of the boat side scenery I walked over to the edge and stood looking out past Charlie. At this time one of Clara’s arms dropped loose by her side and the tiny baby doll that she had been carrying fell down from her arm. I watched as it tumbled under the mesh fence and stopped just inches short of falling into the murky waters below.

Mindy's lawn care guide to better living

2008-03-20T18:17:00.000-07:00

So we had the new aide come this afternoon for Sam (more about that later) and I spent the first few hours going over stuff and that's when I realized how much stuff there really is to do for Sam. I mean, like seriously, I started wondering how anybody could possibly remember all this stuff. So I finally just shut up and figured it was going to be sink or swim for this new aide. So then she took him out for a walk and I was like, shit, now what do I do? I decided to take the other two outside and do some raking so we could mow before we leave on our trip since the grass has been growing so fast lately. But I'm out there with the wind blowing, leaves flying around feeling a little futile and realizing that raking takes a long time. What doesn't take as long is one of those smelly, obnoxiously loud leaf blowers that all our neighbors seem to use. Then I started thinking, if I had a leaf blower out here I wouldn't want the kids out with me 'cause it's too loud for their ears and I wouldn't be able to keep very good track of them. Also, I wouldn't be getting nearly as much exercise. And there was kind of a zen to the whole raking. Plus, the kids have their own smaller rakes to help.

I started realizing how *really* leaf blowers are actually more a waste of time because while I raked: 1) I enjoyed family time with my kids 2) I got exercise 3) it was peaceful and therapeutic. Basically I got more bang for my buck with the raking. Had I had a leaf blower out there I would have had to carve out separate time for the other 3 things and possibly spend money on such things as therapy for the stress inducing noise of the leaf blower. Or, if I paid someone to come do my yard, then David would have to work an extra job to afford it.

This can be applied to the mowing of the lawn too because while everyone else is paying to have their lawn mowed or sitting atop an expensive, loud ride-on mower, we're out there taking turns with our non-motorized push mower.

So either our lawn care routine is the cure to all of society's ills or I'm just trying to justify all the hard work.

And don't you even go there about how it would be better for all if we had no lawn at all because I know that, okay?!

Photos for peace - well, except for those first three

2008-03-01T11:18:00.000-08:00

This is how we have fun on Friday nights around here.

Place the baby's pacifier inside the ball.

Watch as she struggles to get it out.

Laugh and say "how cute" when she fails at the impossible task and resigns to sucking on the pacifier through the ball.

*******************

How to find an hour of peace: take 2 cranky kids, a bunch of toys, some bath bubbles and insert them into the bath tub. Now turn on the jets. Ahhh.... gives a whole new meaning to "Calgon, take me away."

*******************

More tips on how to achieve peace: give your kids a shopping cart and access to the pantry.

*******************

And this... this is what I get to crawl in to bed with at night. Those parents who maintain that a child's rightful nighttime place is in the crib are just missing the point completely.

Guess what's in Mindy's fridge?

2008-02-12T18:03:00.000-08:00

So I made up some of that thickener for Sam's liquids and it works great. The thing is it's kind of a gross looking substance. The product sold in stores is a smooth, clear gel. But the stuff I made is neither smooth nor clear. It's gelatinous, all right, but it's kind of milky in color and resembles something that you most definitely would not want to put into your drink, if you know what I mean. And if you don't know what I mean then good for you... or maybe how sad. I'm not sure. Anyway, having that substance in our refrigerator is a nice companion to the frozen placenta from Clara's birth that we still keep in the freezer.

At this point some of you may be thinking, "But Clara was born in California and you're in North Carolina now... so how...?" And I'll tell you how. We packed up that placenta, put it on dry ice and shipped it across the country to a woman I barely knew here in NC. We labeled the contents as "meat." Very expensive meat. The woman to whom I shipped it was someone I had met on my visit to NC and we had spoken via the internet on a parenting type board. She had kind of offered when hearing about my placental dilemma, telling me she had a freezer in the garage with ample room for placentas and various body parts. So I took her up on the offer. When we arrived in NC I contacted her to try to pick it up but had a hard time getting a hold of her. Turns out her mom was in town so she had been busy but she later confessed that she had gotten a secret thrill by grossing her mom out with the information that she had another woman's placenta stored in her freezer.

Now you might be wondering why I've held on to the placenta for so long. And I'll tell you what I told the nice young gal at the UPS Store. "Let me lead off with this information: some people save the placenta to eat it. But not me. No, I just want to save it so I can bury it in my yard under a tree that we've planted. See? Not that weird in comparison."

But I have no explanation for that bottle of ~~semen~~ thickener in my fridge.

Victory!

2008-02-11T13:20:00.000-08:00

Just got a call from Sam's case manager. We got Medicaid! What this means is that we have 4 hours a day of assistance during the week by a nurse and 32 hours per month of respite care. It also means that Sam's medications, Pediasure and diapers are paid for. It will also serve as supplemental insurance for any equipment Sam may need.

Maybe the universe isn't conspiring against our move to North Carolina after all.

Dysphagia is just a fancy way of saying "Oh crap!"

2008-02-11T04:51:00.000-08:00

After all the stress was over with the Medicaid trial and the California tenant mess subsided everyone except David came down with a nasty cold that is still lingering on. Because we wouldn't want to actually enjoy the relative peace and calm. And I say relative because we're still under the influence of 3 mostly unreasonable little people, one of whom continually keeps us on our toes. Usually just when things seem to settle down with Sam he finds new ways to remind us that we can never let our guard down.

Last week Sam had an appointment for an upper GI and a modified barium swallow study. What these tests look for is not as important as what they found. First of all, Sam did awesome! That kid continues to amaze me. One of the things he had to do was drink some nasty, chalky liquid on command from a straw while lying on his back. Even I would have a hard time doing that but Sam did great. Anyway, they immediately saw that Sam refluxes (food and stomach acid come back up into his esophagus). We knew this but have never actually seen it on xray. The unfortunate thing is that Sam is already on the highest dose of reflux meds. The other finding is that Sam aspirates liquids (some liquid goes down his airway). This puts him at risk of pneumonia. Sam has had this test before as an infant and no aspiration was found so this was new to us. Fortunately, Sam has never had pneumonia.

We go back to the doctor soon for a follow-up and will hopefully get some better ideas for these issues. Right now we've altered his reflux med schedule a bit so he gets two smaller doses instead of one big one and we're thickening all of his liquids so they go down the right hole. The most convenient and least nasty thickening agent out there is very pricey and would cost us over $100 per month. A friend of mine suggested I try making my own thickening formula (other than using baby rice cereal which makes the liquid chunky and frothy - yuck! and can contribute to Sam's constipation issues). At first I thought, "yeah right like I have time to figure that out." But I was compelled to google and immediately found a recipe for that pricey gold standard of thickening agents. The main ingredient is xanthan gum which, turns out, is sold at Whole Foods for a fraction of the cost of the thickener itself.

So today's project is thickening agent production. Yay.

An update

2008-02-01T15:10:00.000-08:00

The appeal hearing went well today. The hearing officer was a very nice, down to earth and intelligent woman who let us know at the end of the hearing that she would overturn the decision based on the reasons given. But this doesn't mean that Sam gets the services. All this means is that the basis of their denial was found to be false but they could still potentially find other reasons to deny the services.

This particular CAP program is intended to serve children with a medical diagnosis as opposed to a behavioral or developmental diagnosis. The basis of their argument was that Sam had a primary diagnosis of "mental retardation." Yeah, I know, some people haven't evolved in their nomenclature like the rest of us. But nowhere in any of the records that I sent them did it indicate anything but a primary diagnosis of Joubert Syndrome which is a brain malformation, thus a medical diagnosis. So we had to go in there and show that, despite the fact that Sam may be cognitively impaired (though he's never been tested because you try administering an IQ test to a child who is functionally blind, ataxic, hypotonic and cannot communicate due to his, oh, I don't know... SEVERELY MALFORMED BRAIN!), his primary diagnosis is still a medical one.

Now go back up and re-read my description about the hearing officer because as much as I would like to write the same about the nurse who was responsible for the original denial... well, I just can't. I had had the ill-fortune of conversing with her over the phone when we first received the denial back in November. And she was at the hearing today. She began the meeting first by asking the hearing officer if the children's presence would cause problems. We had brought Sam thinking that they might actually want to meet the child about which they're making the decision. We also brought Clara just 'cause she's so cute. Bonus points, you know? Fortunately, the hearing officer seemed to really like kids, had no problem with their presence and told the nurse as much.

So now we wait. And if we are denied again then Disability Rights North Carolina, a non-profit organization in Raleigh, has already told us they will send an attorney with us to court to fight it. But I really don't want to have to do that.

A plea for positive thoughts

2008-01-31T04:43:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow at 11:30am (EST) we have an appeal hearing scheduled with North Carolina's Division of Social Services to request that they overturn their decision to deny Sam Medicaid benefits through their Community Alternatives Program. A Community Alternatives Program (CAP) is one which waves the parents' income and bases eligibility instead on the needs of the child; the goal is to offer support to the family so that the child's needs can be safely met in the home and the community, as opposed to in a hospital or institution. It's a win/win situation in that the parents do not have to shoulder the entire costly and physically and emotionally taxing load of caring for a child with a severe disability, and the state does not have to pay for the total care of a child who has been put into an institution because his parents couldn't handle the job, had become hopeless drug addicts just to cope, or were out whoring their bodies on the street just to cover the medical costs. See. Win/win.

But Sam was denied these services. Services that he received from a very similar program in California. Now anyone who has met Sam knows that his daily care is total and exhausting, that his inability to take care of even his most basic needs is due to a medical condition which affects several parts of his brain. According to the NC CAP program, Sam is exactly the type of child for which this program was intended. But, you see, the people who made the decision to deny him services have never actually met Sam. So, tomorrow, armed with 5 years worth of medical records, a nurse, a legal aide, letters from doctors, and our own statement we will go into the appeal hearing and formally introduce them to Samuel.

Wish us luck.

Yosemite Sam

2008-01-27T19:10:00.000-08:00

You may remember reading about a road trip to Santa Cruz that I took with Jackson and Clara well over a year ago. During this time David took Sam to Yosemite. Separate vacations because, really, 3 kids and "fun family trip" is wishful thinking. Anyway, David began a blog about the trip shortly after returning.... and he just finished. Yes, that is how quickly projects get done around here if I leave it up to him. And I wouldn't be complaining were it not for the fact that he's been nagging me about linking to the blog ever since he finished it. Just to clarify: David and Sam went to Yosemite in September of 2006; David completed the blog entry about the trip on January 10, 2008 - 15 months later. Now can anyone explain why I'm being given grief for letting 2 weeks go by without mentioning the forgotten trip?

So here's the link to David's blog about the trip to Yosemite where he shows us some pretty pictures, talks about the new jog stroller he bought for the trip, and shows video of the jog stroller in action because that's what guys do... they obsess over new toys. What he doesn't talk about is how intense and lonely it was with just Sam because that's what women do... we obsess over feelings and emotions.

New photos posted

2008-01-19T19:57:00.000-08:00

Cute kids in the leaves, in the snow and at Christmas.

And if you know of anyone who wants to buy a house in California I can hook you up with one. I'll refrain from commenting on our current situation with our tenant until we get a rational explanation... or really, any explanation at all.

The Stanley Milgram monitor

2008-01-14T17:23:00.000-08:00

It's been a rough day. It's been a rough week. Things barely kept together starting to crumble. Maybe someday soon I'll have the energy to get into the details of all that is sinister in our lives right now. But not tonight. Because tonight I was reminded of how we've moved so far from appreciating the true beauty of having a special child like Sam.

Tonight, after nearly 8 months of negotiations and appeals Sam's new SleepSafe bed was finally delivered. It was delivered much later than we had scheduled it and the delivery driver was not allowed to help us carry it into the house. So out in the cold, dark night David and I went and carried each over-sized, unwieldy piece into the house while Clara screamed from inside. We had already moved Sam's old bed (aka the futon) out of his room to make room for the new bed. But with bedtime fast approaching there was no time to assemble the contraption so we placed Sam's play pad (aka memory foam) on the floor of his room to serve as a makeshift bed. During all the furniture moving I had had to unplug Sam's apnea monitor (yes, the kid still stops breathing at night) and this must have done something wonky to the insides because when David went to turn it on the alarm beeped and the lights flashed with wild abandon. In other words, it couldn't be trusted to monitor Sam's vital signs. I was up putting Clara to bed at this time so David fiddled with the monitor for awhile until I was able to find the manual for him. The manual told us which secret series of buttons to push and to which gods to offer our sacrifices. Once we got it working again David apologized to Sam for delaying his bedtime for so long but then told me that Sam actually seemed to be kind of amused by the whole beeping blunder. I joked to David that maybe the electrodes from the monitor that were attached to Sam's chest gave out a series of electric shocks during the whole fiasco and that's why Sam was "amused." And this is when David reminded me of how much more we used to be able to appreciate life with a special needs child. Because when we would go out in public with itty, bitty newborn Sam hooked up to the apnea monitor and well-intentioned people would ask what it was and how it worked we'd tell them that when Sam stopped breathing it delivered a series of electric shocks through those electrodes until he started breathing again. Most people had no other choice but to believe us. And we would get our amusement for the day at the expense of poor little Sam. Good times those were.

Four adults to 3 children was about the right ratio

2008-01-08T10:12:00.000-08:00

My parents moved out on Monday. I think leaving after a 2 month stay qualifies as moving out, right? It really was a nice visit we had with them. The kids loved having their grandparents here. The first thing Jackson said when he got off the bus after school was "I wish Grammie and Gramps were still here." And Clara has walked into the room in which they stayed several times since they've left with her palms face-up by her ears uttering a questioning "hmmm?" sound. It's as if she's saying, "What has happened to those two magnificent people who used to live in this room for, oh, as far back as I can remember? They slept right here in this bed and they used to kiss me goodnight every night, greet me after my naps, take me outside for walks, share their blueberries with me in the mornings, eat lunch with me on the back porch, read me lots of books, sing ring around the rosie and fall down, hold my hand in the car, grant my endless requests for crushed ice from the freezer, humor me my 'need' for lotion and chapstick, and basically just adore me. But now this room is empty. Where did they go?"

Knowing my dad I'm kind of surprised he didn't construct a life-sized cardboard cut-out of himself to leave in the bedroom.

Happy 5th birthday, little man!

2007-12-18T08:52:00.000-08:00

Thinking back on these last 5 years I just can't believe the roller coaster ride we've all been on. To celebrate we'll have chocolate cupcakes and mint chip ice cream (your favorite) with your friends at school. Later on we'll celebrate some more and open presents with Grammie and Gramps. Then, after you're all tucked into bed Daddy and I are going down to the local bar to drink... a lot.

Santa's call

2007-12-16T19:07:00.000-08:00

Jackson received a call from Santa the other night. This was something I had arranged through our county’s parks and recreation department. Parks and rec provides you with an online form to fill out with information about your child and a time you’ll be home. Then on the chosen night a woman calls, identifying herself as an operator from the North Pole, and says she has Santa on the phone for your child.

A form must be filled out for each child; I only filled out one for Jackson that just happened to include the names and ages of his siblings. But after speaking to Jackson for a few minutes Santa asked if he could speak with Sam. Because, to Santa, Clara at the age of one and a half was too young to talk on the phone but, clearly, an almost 5 year old would be jumping at the chance. So dutifully, with phone in hand, Jackson began walking over to Sam, who was busy yelling and growling in typical Sam fashion. The impending scene began to play out in my head. Jackson holds the phone up to Sam’s ear, Santa begins a conversation and Sam growls deafeningly into the phone. The jolly old man, alarmed by the satanic sounds coming through the phone, clutches his chest while falling to the floor and we’ve just ruined Christmas for children everywhere.

“Wait, Jackson,” I call. “Just tell Santa that Sam can’t talk right now.”

Jackson does as he’s told and the conversation with Santa is wrapped up soon after.

When he’s off the phone Jackson excitedly recounts all the details of his chat with Santa.

“He also told me not to pick on Clara anymore.”

“Really,” I say trying to sound surprised since that was info I had included on the form.

“And to remember to pick my clothes up off the floor and put them in my hamper.”

“Huh. Well, it sounds like that Santa knows what he’s talking about.” I say.

“Yeah, it’s just too bad Sam couldn’t talk to him,” Jackson says with such a deep disappointment that I’m silenced for a few moments.

I pull him close to me for a hug and at that point I’m not sure who is comforting whom. I manage my own sadness over Sam pretty well on a daily basis, but I’m still not very good at managing my sadness over Jackson’s sadness of his brother and all the typical stuff that Sam misses out on. And one day soon Clara may start realizing that Sam has a much harder life than the rest of us and she will probably be sad, too. And this thought makes me very, very sad.

Soon after the event I realize what I should have done when Santa asked to speak to Sam. I should have gotten on the phone myself just to give Santa a heads up before letting him wish Sam a very merry Christmas. But I’m still learning how to be the parent of a special needs child. Next Christmas I’ll do better.

Genitals and religion

2007-12-14T16:40:00.000-08:00

While changing Clara's poopy diaper tonight David was complaining about all the hidden crevices.

"Hold on, Clara. You've got poop all over your vagina."

"It's her vulva. The labia majora, labia minora... all the external stuff. The vagina is the internal part."

"Whatever. Can't we just call it a hoo-ha?"

Jackson peeks up from his reading...

"Wait! Did you just say 'minora'? That's what they light for Hanukkah."

Updates

2007-11-25T18:49:00.001-08:00

Does that last post really say October 24th? Has it really been so long? I knew I was slacking but, sheesh. Actually I've joined a writing group here and so most of my creative energies have been going in to producing material for that. But tonight as I sit here at my laptop trying to work on a piece I've just not been feeling it. I couldn't come up with anything of quality. So I decided to come here. Because here I can get away with writing complete crap. But just so I can't be accused of writing about absolutely nothing I'll give a few updates:
We got our lawn put in. It's lovely. I'll post pics soon.
The leaves have all turned colors and are falling like crazy. It's lovely. I'll post pics soon.
I have a room of my own finally and it's all set up. It's where I'm sitting now. It's lovely. I'll post pics soon.
My parents are here visiting now through Christmas. It's lovely. I'll post pics soon.
Sam's been having what seem to be headaches so we had another brain MRI done just to be safe. Got the results. It's lovely. I'll post pics.... well, I actually could since I've got the images on disc, but nah... I'll spare you that one.

If all you know is sunny and beautiful, sunny and beautiful, sunny and beautiful

2007-10-24T19:17:00.000-07:00

The drought has been a big topic of conversation here in NC. But today we got rain. Lots of glorious rain. And thunder and lightning. As I type this I'm sitting on the back porch listening to the rain pour down through the trees in my yard. Now that may seem like a perfectly normal way to appreciate mother nature but some of the people here take their appreciation to a whole other level. I've been reading some conversations on a local board about the recent rains and I've included some of the best for your reading pleasure:

okay..if your car needs washing .. here's what you do.
put a hat on - big garbage bag over your clothes...empty bucket with rag and little soap...and wash your car!! I just did it and it was really fun . . . and I'll have a clean car..
how's that for water conservation??
oh, and try not to get electrocuted.....

Beautiful Rain!
My Rain Barrel Runneth Over!

I went and reseeded the yard during a break in the storm... I hope the off & on rain over the next few days will keep the birds away from the seed, & that it stays warm enough for it to germinate, so I will keep my fingers crossed.

Being from Vegas , this is the first really real rain I have seen in almost 7 years and it is wonderful..simply wonderful . I didn't wash the car but I did put out a few buckets and an old aluminum washtub to catch the water , so that I can use it to water a bush that I started from a limb( dont laugh ) and will be putting in the ground soon.
My hometown is Gene Kelly's hometown and we know his famous song." I'm singing in the rain"

This isn't the only drought related discussion going on on this board. But being from California what has really surprised me is that when water is scarce here in NC people actually stop watering their lawns! They conserve. They save their bath water to water their plants. They shower every other day. There would be an uprising in southern California if such suggestions were even hinted at.

And then, when the first good rain comes, these people don't just resume normal activity... they celebrate! We weren't the only ones outside on our street tonight marveling at the storm. It's lovely to be amongst people who take the time to notice and appreciate the weather.

Back porch living

2007-10-07T18:21:00.000-07:00

I'm typing this while sitting on my screened in back porch, drinking a beer and listening to the cicadas and crickets in the trees. This morning on the porch we enjoyed coffee and breakfast (which was brought over by our new neighbor...seriously) and watched as a family of deer traipsed through our yard.

How awesome is that?

Home, sweet home

2007-10-06T18:37:00.000-07:00

We're all moved in. Nothing is unpacked or put away but all 3 kids are freshly bathed and tucked into their beds asleep. David and I are on the couch enjoying the complete quiet and a couple of beers. It's really lovely here. I'll try to put up some photos soon.

And someday we'll be able to afford to furnish it

2007-09-29T07:26:00.000-07:00

This is our new house. We just closed on it yesterday despite the fact that our home in California is still on the market. We're still not sure what kind of fuzzy math the mortgage company used to determine that we could actually afford this place. But it's pretty, isn't it? The lawn will be put in in a few weeks once the weather cools off more.

And it will provide milk and cheese for our family

2007-09-26T19:17:00.000-07:00

"I know how to solve the poison ivy problem in our yard."

"Oh, yeah? How?"

"We'll get a goat."

"Well then how will we solve our goat problem?"

"Chupacabra!"

We must be doing something right

2007-09-26T16:57:00.000-07:00

Today we received Jackson's first progress report from school. What I mean by that is that this is the first time he's received a report from a school that actually quantifies his progress in simple language. His old school would send home a report at the end of the year written in calligraphy on handmade hemp paper that smelled of patchouli and included such phrases as "Jackson has a rich interior life" and "he embraces the routines of the season."

His new school's report evaluated a child on a scale of 1-4 in 5 different areas: science, math, reading, writing and social studies. Our little academic scored 3s (meeting requirement) in 3 of the subjects and 4s (exceeding requirements) in reading and math. I haven't really seen any of the science or social studies work they've been doing since the bulk of the work is reading, writing and math. And Jackson's writing is pretty damn sloppy but I believe this to be not the result of an inadequacy in his writing abilities, but rather due to the fact that he's just plain lazy.

There was also a place for the teacher to check off problems the child is having that needed further attention and, possibly, required a conference. There was nothing checked for Jackson, not even that he has an intense obsession with Pokemon that borders on psychosis. Don't know how she missed that one.

The brother we never told you about

2007-09-19T20:07:00.001-07:00

Last night after dinner we were sitting around the table and Clara was being extraordinarily cute.

"She is so dang cute. I'm so glad I had all cute kids."

"Yeah, they're pretty cute... well, except for that one ugly one we have..."

"Who? Which one of us is the ugly one? Is it Sam?"

"No, not Sam."

"Then is it Clara?"

"Nope. It's not Clara either."

"Oh, man..."

"Yep, it's Joe."

This is where all kidding ends and Jackson's face and tone of voice become solemn.

"Who's Joe?"

Southern pests

2007-09-13T19:03:00.000-07:00

I've made mention here before of the hippie school that Jackson attended in Kindergarten and 1st grade. Well, thanks to the wonders of YouTube you can experience some of the magic yourself.

The difference between this school and a typical public school have been becoming very obvious to me as Jackson completes his second week at a public school. One of the main unfortunate differences is that Jackson has been coming home from school with chigger bites. That's CH-igger. But, yeah, we worried about that, too.

I'm kidding.

Diversion

2007-09-12T17:45:00.000-07:00

David's away for the week. He had to go back to California for work, leaving me with 3 kids during this rocky start to our new life here in NC. All I can say is that it's been the best of times, it's been the worst of times. But more on that in another post. For now let me leave you with this photo I took downtown. You can probably read the large sign that says "Elsewhere". But look closely and you might see that other sign that reads "Closed". Such is life lately.

I'm surprised he didn't ask for us to remove his shackles

2007-09-08T17:52:00.001-07:00

Sometimes Jackson gets sent to his room. Some days he gets sent to his room a lot. Like a few weeks ago when we were having a heat wave and couldn't go outside for more than 6 seconds (I timed it) before breaking out in a soul-drenching sweat. Being cooped up in an apartment for several days brings out the worst in everyone. And if you're wondering why we didn't go to the mall or a movie or something then let me remind you. So, anyway, Jackson spent quite a bit of time in his room before the school year started and, one day, I guess he'd had enough because he wrote this and slipped it out his door:

When I'm reminded of the sensitive man I married

2007-09-05T19:10:00.000-07:00

David and I were discussing Sam's undesirable behaviors and how we're just not trained how to deal with them.

"We just need someone to come into our home and fix all his behavioral problems."

"We need Super Retard Nanny."

Listen and enjoy

2007-09-03T11:11:00.000-07:00

Turn your sound up really loud and have a listen.

That is the sound of our sweet Sam yelling. Yelling is something he does a lot. Now some of the loveliness is lost in the recording but you can probably get the idea that this is not something you want to listen to everyday. But we, as his lucky family, do get to listen to this every damn day.

Here's what I want you to do. I want you to put this onto your iPod or other inferior portable MP3 player. Plug this into some portable speakers, put it on loop and turn it up loud. Now make a really important phone call.

Did you lock yourself in the bathroom so you could hear the other person on the phone? Fine, how about this: tenderly pick up the MP3 player and speakers. Is it bucking, kicking and scratching while yelling? No? Well, count yourself lucky. Now place it in a stroller or some other wheeled contraption and take it for a walk through a quiet neighborhood.

Still doing okay? Put it in the car and drive it to the nearest indoor shopping center. The echo is quite an enhancement and there are more people there to gape in horror.

Feeling a little hungry? Feeling a little brave? You go right ahead and take that thing into a restaurant.

Don't forget to keep it on at full volume for the car ride home. Are your ears bleeding yet?

Okay, last assignment: set it down in a room adjacent to two other rooms containing a man working from his home office in one and a teething and irritable toddler who just went down for a nap in the other.

How ya doing? Still sober?

Okay, then let's do this again tomorrow.

Bedtime brilliance

2007-09-01T20:24:00.000-07:00

I had a brilliant thing to write about on my blog last night. I was in bed composing in my head a piece of writing that would have truly blown your mind (I can safely say this because, just wait, you'll see that you'll never actually get to read it). Immediately before I drift off to sleep is when I do my best writing. My mind seems to be a bit looser. I can usually have something laid out start to finish in my mind and all that is required is that I get out of bed and quickly jot it down before it slips away. But I was tired last night. I convinced myself that I would remember it in the morning. I didn't. Nothing. And I blame the children. They are the reason I am so tired at night. The fucking irony is the children are often the inspiration for my writing.

Saxapahaw-haw-haw!

2007-08-11T20:07:00.000-07:00

This is one of the reasons we moved to NC. A laid back summer evening with a little something for everyone. Food, wine and music for the adults. And, as David put it, sanctioned chaos for the kiddos. No rules. No crowds. No cover charge.

Saxapahaw Summer Fun from Melinda Shelton and Vimeo.

Jackson started a blog

2007-08-08T17:35:00.000-07:00

He wrote a kick-ass poem the other day and it's posted on his blog. You have to go check it out!

A Boy and his Blog

In case you were wondering how we've been doing

2007-08-07T19:46:00.000-07:00

Felt like throwing in the towel today. The fantasy of walking away from it all was just sitting there occupying a space in my mind I feared going to. We're in a new town and have been stuck in an apartment with a very energetic 7 year old, a 4 year old who has a yell/growl/call of satan (seriously, I'm going to record it one of these days and loop it on my blog so people will truly understand what it feels like to want to bash your own head against the wall just to make the sound stop), a very sick 1 year old, and a husband who needs quiet because he's working from home. It's about 98 degrees outside with a butt load of humidity on top of that which makes for a real feel of 400 degrees so we can't even just step outside the door for a change of scenery. The doctor's office was our only respite; but even that was short lived as Clara had a knock down drag 'em out tantrum right there in the office because she's sick. Before the dr. helped me put together all the symptoms to come up with a viral infection I was seriously worried that Clara was undergoing some permanent personality change due to the stress of the move and because she missed home and hated NC so far. Or maybe I was just projecting. When we got home Clara was crashed out from the car ride and Sam was happily watching a video so I had some peace with only Elmo's squeeky voice singing in the background. I also had an escape to look forward to because last night as I was lying with a writhing, kicking, screaming toddler at bedtime I had the clarity of mind to realize that my problems didn't have to be solved by finding a new mommy for my children; maybe I could just try exercise instead. So I signed up with a gym and had my first little consult with them this afternoon. I didn't care that Clara would wake up screaming from her nap and David would be the one wondering why we didn't bring all our liquor along with us on the move.

So I got out... without children. And the sun shone and the birds sang. I met Sandy who lives near us and has a sister who lives in the neighborhood we're going to move to. She caught me up on some of the town happenings and filled me in on the (two) coffeehouses in Hillsborough (neither of which is a Starbucks, btw). Then I chatted with a young lad who has a lawn mowing business with his younger brother in our new neighborhood. I got his business card and then drove by our beautiful home under construction, which is surprisingly slated to be finished on time. I also picked up a six pack of some of our favorite beer and it was on sale!

Then I came home. Sam was yelling. And Clara had shut herself in our bedroom because she didn't want David to come near her. And David reminded me of the down side of our home being completed on time: we have no money for a down payment as our house in CA still has not sold.

Ah, but tomorrow is another day full of wonder and hell. Right?

Serving up some guilt and photos

2007-07-29T19:50:00.000-07:00

We're in Knoxville, TN tonight and have a big day tomorrow but I wanted to post a few pics for those of you who may not have seen the kids in awhile (like my parents who decided that taking off for 4 months to Alaska, while both their children and all of their grandchildren moved either out of state or out of the country, was a good idea). Okay, dad's probably chuckling a bit after reading that and mom has just been hit with an incredible wave of mother guilt. And mother guilt just sucks so let me just clarify by saying that I harbor no bad feelings toward them about their ill-timed trip. I'm a big girl now and can handle things on my own... unlike when I was accepted into a high school honors program for a summer at UC Davis and had to drive myself to a new town while my parents were off on some vacation somewhere, and there was a family picnic held the first day for the students and their parents but I just stayed in my dorm room.... That's enough, right? Suffice it to say that I'm chock full of character.

Here are the pics to leave you with a smile, Mom.

This first pic requires some explanation: While in Memphis Clara insisted on holding Sam's hand and riding next to him. We weren't able to capture the true sweetness of the event on camera, though.

Remember: you are your child's first teacher

2007-07-26T17:18:00.001-07:00

We arrived in Memphis, Tennessee today. And what an improvement over Little Rock, Arkansas. I'm certainly not an authority when it comes to comparing these two cities, but I can say that our 3.5 hours spent in Memphis has already totally outshined the 20 hours we spent in Little Rock. When we got to our hotel today Jackson noticed a bible sitting out on the bedside table. It wasn't hidden away in the drawer like at most hotels, just waiting to be discovered. It was just out there not even pretending that there might be hotel guests who may not be interested in taking comfort in its pages. As if.

"They have a bible here?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"They want you to read it."

"The whole thing? Why"

"So you'll be saved and go to Heaven."

"Saved from who?"

"Yourself."

Teachable moments. See how well I exploited that one? Now before you start sending me hate mail and damning me to Hell I should explain that it's been a long trip and I didn't have the energy to go into any further detail at that moment. And Jackson and I have been having some pretty meaningful talks on religion lately. That just wasn't one of them.

In Jackson's "What Your First Grader Should Know" they have several chapters on the major religions. And the reason we're reading this book is because the hippie school that we sent Jackson to for 2 years hasn't done much to prepare him for the harsh reality of public education. I bet your thinking this is a bad thing..... Anyway, we read about Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Hinduism and Buddhism are discussed in the subsequent second grade book because those are for the more advanced reader. Crap. I didn't really mean that. But the Eastern religions are what all the cool kids are into these days. Anyway, after our reading we had a nice discussion about Jesus. Now I'm not a big subscriber to any one religion but I do take interest in Jesus as an historical figure. But that whole son of God, died for our sins stuff is where I draw the line. Seriously, why did people have to take a perfectly nice man with a pretty fucking profound message and make him such a point of contention? So I talked with Jackson about loving the sinner not the sin blah blah blah.... and a few days later we were making a list of friends he could invite to the waterpark in our old town as a sort of going away thing. He mentioned a couple of children who he has always complained about. One in particular was a bit of a bully so I told Jackson not to invite him because then it wouldn't be fun for anyone. Jackson came right back at me with Jesus' message of love for everyone. And that, my 5 loyal readers, is how I was put in my place by my 7 year old son. We ended up not inviting the bully and probably made Jesus cry.

Hangin' in the OKC

2007-07-24T19:57:00.001-07:00

We arrived in Oklahoma City last night and spent the day seeing some sights, including the local WalMart. Not something I need to do again.

But we did go to a place called Myriad Gardens and Crystal Bridge. Photos below.

The theme was Hawaii

The elusive Jackson Monkey

Such beautiful smiles

Who knew such beauty existed in Oklahoma City

The gang

The Great Escape

2007-07-22T21:53:00.000-07:00

We finished packing up the house on Saturday and hit the road late afternoon. We made it to Kingman, AZ the first night. Tonight we're in Albuquerque, NM. Tomorrow we hope to make it to Oklahoma City. After that we'll slow it down a bit and see some sights. It's been a speedy trip through the west since we've already seen so much out this way on past trips. Once we get a minute we'll try to take some photos and post.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Hillsborough, NC

2007-07-11T22:49:00.000-07:00

Some woman on a North Carolina message board I frequent posted an awesome photo tour of the town we're moving to. She included lots of descriptions and links to more info. It's more than I've even seen of the town and now I'm more excited than ever to move there. And at the end there are even some pictures of our neighborhood, Churton Grove.

Hillsborough, NC Photo Tour

Framed!

2007-07-07T20:26:00.001-07:00

Our soon-to-be new home in North Carolina.

How we like to kick off summer at our house

2007-06-21T10:29:00.000-07:00

Jackson likes to rot his brain playing computer games

Sam prefers to greet the new season with a nap (in his defense he's been sick)

And Clara kicks back on the couch with no pants and an oven mitt

And it's not even noon yet.

Happy 1st Birthday My Sweet Girl!

2007-06-17T21:56:00.000-07:00

But I didn't... because she's only in 1st grade.

2007-06-07T08:56:00.001-07:00

This morning I pulled up in front of Jackson's school to drop him off. When I opened the door there was a little girl from his class standing outside who saw that Jackson still uses a booster seat and she said, "Oh my god, you still ride in a booster?! I don't have to use one of those anymore. I can sit in an adult seat. I can't believe you still ride in a booster!"

By law Jackson is not required to ride in a booster, but sometimes we have to look past what the law requires to see what is actually safest. Age and weight just don't seem like the best standards by which to measure a child's readiness to move out of a booster. There could be a really short, fat 6 year old who meets both the age and weight requirements yet still needs a booster so the seatbelt doesn't cut across his neck. Four feet nine inches seems to be the consensus on when a child can safely be in a shoulder/lap belt only. There are diagrams on the web showing exactly where the the seatbelt should be positioned, how the knees should bend over the seat, etc. And, yes, I have consulted these diagrams because I am just that anal about my children's safety.

So when the little girl, who was clearly under 4'9", mocked my son for being in a booster this morning it was all I could do to not roll down my window and say to her, "That's because your mommy doesn't love you as much."

We may be in trouble

2007-06-05T20:59:00.000-07:00

Today a package arrived from a kids' gear store. Inside were a pair of water shoes like these I had ordered for Clara so her tender little feet would be protected when we go to the water park and pool this summer. When I opened the package and pulled out the shoes, Clara got silent. Mesmerized by the glorious beauty of the rubber and mesh she sat down on the floor facing me and stuck her tiny pink feet out in front of her. I handed her the water shoes, she gave them the once-over and then grunted at me while she shoved them back into my hands. Her request to me was clear and simple: put these magical slippers on her feet. I acquiesced and she stood up to take them for a test run. Strutting around the house, she kept her gaze always on the shoes. When one would fall off she would return to me and shove the aberrant shoe into my hand so that I could quickly restore it to its rightful place on her foot.

When David arrived home from work she was barefoot again and I handed her one of the water shoes, telling her to go show daddy. She dutifully took it over to him and then shoved it into his hand while grunting her request that he please put it on her foot. We eventually had to hide them so she would leave us alone.

This is all so incredibly cute until you realize that she is only 11 months old! I mean, what kind of shoe budget are we going to have to set for her when she can actually talk?

The wonders of children

2007-06-04T21:45:00.000-07:00

David's ~~life line~~ cell phone went missing tonight. He didn't go anywhere today other than work, which is literally 3 minutes from home. So we knew it had to be here, there or somewhere in between. Shortly after dinner he began looking for it as he was going to go out for awhile. He used the land line to call his cell so that he could follow the ring to its location. But first he had to find the land line. I had just used the home phone and told him exactly where to find a handset. He grumbled that there were no handsets to be seen. I rolled my eyes at his complete ineptitude. And Jackson saved the evening and produced a handset.

"Where'd you find it?"

"Uh, I saw it under Sam's bed."

Odd place but it didn't surprise me since we have a grand total of 4 handsets and a petite, blue-eyed thief so they do sometimes find their way into obscure places. But after David had gone back into work to look for his phone and still couldn't find it then we started to wonder what was going on. So I told him to take my cell phone out to the parking lot of his work and try calling it from there. That was the only place we hadn't checked so surely it had to be there. I reached into my purse to get my cell phone but it wasn't there. I had made a call from my car earlier that day so I checked for it in the van. Cue the Twilight Zone music; my phone, too, was missing. David, clutching the only remaining phone, dialed my cell number and a glorious melody floated down from above. I followed the sound up the stairs and into Jackson's bedroom where it was dark and he was sleeping. David came in behind me, turned on the light and pulled my phone along with his phone and two of the home phones out from underneath Jackson's dresser. Clara misplaces things; she does not purposely hide things as had clearly been done with these phones. Sam can be ruled out pretty easily. So we knew who the culprit was. And it was very disturbing. Jackson just doesn't do things like that. And the kid can't lie very well, either... usually. He's just always been one of those kids who you can trust not to get into trouble. He's not typically the mischievous type. But, here's the thing, he lulls you into a false sense of security then... WHAMMO!... he'll go and hide all the phones. Or eat a tube of toothpaste. Or pee in the bathroom trash. Those other two things took me by surprise, too. At least David and I have until morning to exact some form of revenge, like sewing closed the leg-holes of all his pants.

Little Miss Clara's first steps

2007-04-20T20:28:00.000-07:00

Well she's gone and done it. Clara decided it was time she started walking upright. It started on Sunday with a push toy and by Thursday we found the push toy out at the curb with a sign taped to it that read "FREE." Gotta teach that girl how to use craigslist.

Here's some video of her progress. Please ignore the yelling, neglected four year old in the back ground and my commands that the 7 year old get out of the way. They both had their time in the spotlight.

Oh, and excuse my gleeful shrieking. It's been awhile since we've had a child learn to walk at our house.

The real monkeys of the OC

2007-04-06T21:18:00.000-07:00

It's official. Our house is up for grabs. Of course, you can only grab it if you give us a small fortune in return. I'm talking about an amount of money that to part with it will sear your very soul. Fortunately for us, most of the inhabitants of Orange County lost their soul long ago so the transaction should be painless.

David and I have been doing everything ourselves, from prepping the house for sale to writing the ad, taking the pictures and listing it. It's been a mad couple of weeks and we kind of lost track of our ~~two~~ three children for awhile... Clara has taken to eating the carpet pad... but I'm pretty sure she would have done that even if I had been offering her real food. Suffice to say that it's been a bit crazy around here, but oddly fulfilling, and now we just hope someone buys this place.

And since I've been horribly neglecting this blog I thought I'd give you all a little something that should carry you through for weeks. But I must warn you first that this is highly inappropriate material yet funny as hell. Seriously, if you're someone who isn't into animal porn (and, really, who isn't) then do not click the link below. I'm thinking if you're, say... my mother-in-law then you should run away now. And, grandma... you're hip and you may think you can handle it but I'm going to say that there are probably more meaningful ways to spend your time. Mom. Dad. Oh hell, I get my sense of humor from the two of you so I'm going to let you decide.

Don't be a hater. Be a lover... a monkey lover.

I have taught him well

2007-03-23T16:24:00.000-07:00

I heard a story about Jackson today - a story I was apparently the last one to hear - and was told I should blog about it. Because a story is just not a story until I put my spin on it. But first let me start with how this story was brought to me because that's almost as entertaining as the story itself.

Picking up Jackson from school yesterday afternoon a mom of one of Jackson's classmates approached. Earlier that week her son had informed me that the baby his mom is expecting is a girl. Since she already has two boys I thought I'd congratulate her on finally getting it right this time.

"I heard it's a girl."

"Yeah, now I know what 'v' stands for."

"What?"

"Vagina" This was followed by, what seemed at the moment, inappropriate laughter. But this mom marches to the beat of her own violin, if you know what I mean (Hi Erika!), so I just tried to go with it.

"Or.... 'v' for .... victory," I offered.

"Oh, yeah, that's good, too... but 'v' for vagina. Get it" More laughter.

Now I get that the word vagina begins with 'v'. And the word loony begins with 'l' but I didn't feel the need to share that at the moment.

"No, I'm not sure...."

"Oh, you haven't heard?!"

Now the conversations seems to be gaining some direction which might end in an explanation. I'm feeling some relief at this because her son and Jackson play together at school and I didn't want to have to put an end to that.

The story is that Jackson's teacher was asking his first grade class which words begin with the letter 'v'. You see where this is going, right? Do I really need to explain how my child unabashedly offered up the word vagina? And how he wrote it in his class book as part of the assignment so that we may embarrass him with it when he's a teenager? His teacher handled it very gracefully asking that the children not use private parts. I'm really hoping I don't have to explain that in this family, where Jackson has been a part of both of his siblings births in some manner and at the tender age of 2 jumped off his father's lap in the exam room so he could "see the baby" while the midwife was examining me with my legs up in stirrups, the vagina is not necessarily a private part.

It was pointed out that this little incident was far better to happen on a day with the letter 'v' than with the letter 'c'. And, interestingly, penis was never mentioned by any of the children on 'p' day. I guess vaginas simply hold more prominence. And this secretly makes me happy.

Because we still make each other laugh

2007-03-02T19:25:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about our huge yard that we're going to have in North Carolina and how we're going to take care of it. I'm one of those weirdos who has a problem pouring poison anywhere in or around a home my children and I reside in. I know. It can't be explained. I'm just kooky that way. So I heard that molasses not only helps grass grow but keeps the ants away. I hadn't told David about this marvelous use for molasses when we started a conversation about gardening in North Carolina. They have fire ants there and, as you may know, fire ants are vile creatures that hate the human race and search us out to destroy us. Anyway, I was in the middle of painting an idyllic picture for David of how I will tend our little garden while Jackson helps and Clara and Sam enjoy our magnificent yard, when David quickly utters,"Fire ants!"
To which I reply with equal quickness, "Molasses!"
"Chicken wire!" he shouts back because he has no idea what I'm talking about and so why not chicken wire.
And the obvious answer to this was, "Ben Gay!"

This is where the conversation ends because David and I are both laughing uncontrollably.

And this, my loyal readers, is the secret to our long lasting marriage.

Dookie discord at Disney

2007-02-15T10:02:00.000-08:00

What I should have done is open the restroom door and confronted the impatient woman with a stack of baby wipes telling her she could either get in there and help me clean up Clara's explosive poop or wait her damn turn while refraining from banging on the bathroom door because THAT was only pissing me off.

It was one large, crowded restaurant with a one-hole bathroom and a baby covered in poop. What the hell was I supposed to do? With the first knock I apologetically replied that it was going to be awhile and she might want to find another bathroom. But once the door rattling began and the suggestions that we finish up our messy business outside of the bathroom then it just got ridiculous. We were in a restaurant at Downtown Disney for fuck's sake. There's a bathroom every 50 feet and a nice, if not freakishly large, mouse to show you the way. Difficult for me to take a poop soaked baby in search of a larger bathroom but not for an incredibly rude woman with bladder control issues.

Once I finished smearing the toilet seat with baby poop and writing stinky, brown words of hate on the walls we exited the bathroom just as another woman was leaving the men's restroom. She shot me a caustic glance and said, "Some of us had to use the men's room." I smiled sweetly and replied, "Good for you." That's the kind of thinking-outside-the-box problem solving I like to see.

The escape

2007-02-10T06:05:00.000-08:00

We're moving to North Carolina. Orange County has worn us thin and we're looking for a way out. North Carolina seems far enough... okay, it's a bit too far... like far enough to make my stomach feel all twisty and sick when I think about moving there. But I'm excited, nonetheless.

We've found a lovely little town there nestled in trees which is removed enough from the hustle and bustle of a big city yet close enough to a big city to ensure we won't go into complete culture shock. And the housing prices are just dreamy compared to what we're used to. We'll finally be able to afford a house big enough so that everyone in our family will have their own space and we'll never have to interact with each other again. Yes, the size of our new home will be shameful. But remember that Sam needs his own room and bathroom on the first floor for wheelchair access and because he yells at 3 am and nobody wants to sleep with him. Clara and Jackson will eventually want separate bedrooms and David needs a home office since he will be able to keep his current job and work from home. We'll also need that walk in pantry to store our emergency stockpile of food in case of a hurricane. The bedroom sized walk-in closets will be necessary for all the seasonal clothes we'll need in a place that has actual weather changes. The sitting room will be necessary for mommy and daddy to maintain their sanity, in theory. We'll have a bonus room to ensure that our guests from so far away will have a place to stay. And the 3 car garage... well, that's just for kicks. And this is one of the smaller houses we had to choose from.

The move won't happen until this summer; we're having a home built which enables us to customize some things for Sam. This also gives us time to prepare this home for sale and begin the enormous task of transferring all of Sam's services to another state across the country. Looking forward to it.

Why haven't I been posting much lately?

2007-01-29T16:59:00.000-08:00

She actually got her knee up there but I wasn't quick enough to catch it on film before she lost her balance and fell back.

Children cure puking

2007-01-07T20:49:00.000-08:00

The day was going along fine. We had just returned from a walk and all the kids were cheery despite that two of them were suffering from a bad cold. Clara, one of the cold sufferers, had developed a fever the day before and had had a horrible night's sleep but was holding it together quite nicely. Her fever had broken earlier in the afternoon and I was hoping for a better sleep for both of us tonight. The hour was approaching dinner time and having nothing planned I asked David to go out and pick us up some Chinese food while I bathed Clara and put her to sleep. Emerging clean from her bath, I dressed her in warm pj's and together we settled into the glider. Suddenly a great thirst came over me and I willed Clara to sleep so I could get back downstairs and get some water. And then a headache came. Right on the heels of the headache came some slight nausea. I attributed these symptoms to being overly tired from the previous night's lack of sleep and also to not eating enough before our walk. I vowed to stuff my face full of Chinese food and get to bed early... if only Clara would go to sleep. But it soon became obvious that I wasn't going to make it much longer so I took Clara downstairs, handed her off to David and went and puked in the bathroom. And the last thing I ate was unfortunately not waffles with strawberries. It was actually some eggnog followed by Odwalla's Superfood - Micronutrient Fruit Juice Drink. Great green garden of puke. Don't ask why.

Feeling much better I returned to the family room and guzzled a glass of water. This, in hindsight, was a big mistake because about 5 minutes later I was back in the bathroom puking up the water. During all the up-chucking I was thinking that I might have one of the stomach bugs going around that lasts like 2-3 days. And, while the thought of vomiting for 3 days straight is unappealing, I have been wanting to lose some of this post-pregnancy weight. This may be a hell of a way to do it but... hey, silver lining, you know? But I was also thinking that if this agony is going to go on for 3 days just take me to the hospital now, knock me out and hook me up to an IV.

At this point in the evening all 3 kids are still awake and I'm in no condition to help any of them get to bed. After another 5 minutes pass, and another vomiting event, David bravely declares that he will rock Clara to sleep. Up the stairs the two of them go and over the baby monitor I hear her agonizing screams. Realizing I probably have at least 2 minutes until I puke again I start up the stairs thinking I can at least sing to her while David rocks her. But as soon as I start up Jackson yells from the kitchen, "Mom! I've got a bloody nose and it's really bad!" Oh, for fuck's sake. Really? Let's see how many gross body fluids we've covered today: Clara's diaper leaked poop on the carpet this morning; Clara wiped green snot on me in the afternoon; I've got the puke thing covered. Have we not hit our daily maximum? Bloody nose, really?! So I choked back the urge to puke and dealt with the blood.

Now Clara is still screaming upstairs and it's ripping my heart apart to not comfort her. But when I finally do take her from David she is so worked up that she can't stop crying to go to sleep. So I hit the baby reset button... which for Clara means that I just have to take her to watch her silly brothers. So we hang out with the boys while they prepare for a bath, me leaning against the wall holding Clara with my mouth tightly closed. Then I smell poop. Because you just can't finish the day without coming full circle back to the poop. The diaper stash upstairs is completely depleted but I know that as faint as I'm feeling I can't make the trek downstairs with Clara in arms. I set her down in Sam's room where David is wrestling with Sam to put his pajamas on. I make it halfway down the stairs before I hear David say, "Oooh, ouch," and then Clara's scream. Clara has just recently learned to crawl but has not yet mastered the skill. She bonks her head into things all the time and I assumed that's what had happened. Back up the stairs I went, retrieved Clara and staggered back down.

By the time I've finished changing her diaper she's really tired and sad and I'm really feeling weak from all the puking. But I can't just let my baby cry so I carried her back upstairs while singing "You are my sunshine." Wise to my attempts to get her back to sleep she refused to lay in my arms so I sat her on my lap and rocked until she leaned her head back against me and it slowly dropped to the side. Finally! Now I could go puke. But I didn't feel the need anymore. As a matter of fact I was feeling a bit hungry. So I fixed myself a flour tortilla, the only simple carbohydrate I could find in the kitchen, and sat down to type this up.

Seriously. When people say that moms aren't allowed time to be sick they mean it. In this case I was glad, even though now I'm actually going to have to exercise to lose this weight.

Merry photos

2006-12-27T08:15:00.000-08:00

Some Christmas photos for those of you who were not here with us to celebrate.

Waiting for Santa

A hard way to learn that mommy's better

2006-12-15T16:36:00.000-08:00

Last night I was in our bedroom rocking Clara to sleep while David bathed the boys. Since Sam has a built in locating siren (the kid yells constantly) I could hear that David had already finished with Sam and taken him into his room to get him ready for bed. Clara had finally fallen asleep and a few peaceful minutes later I heard a heart-stopping thud in the tub and then Jackson screaming. Since he was screaming, thus clearly conscious, I decided to let David handle things and not risk waking Clara, who had miraculously slept through the screaming like a good baby should. I trusted that David would come into the room and tell me if it was a true emergency; though, the standards by which our family measures a true emergency have undoubtedly been skewed by the numerous times we've had to resuscitate Sam.

In hindsight I should have never trusted David to fill a mommy's role. Several minutes after the initial screaming Jackson started up again. I was to soon find out that the second round of screaming was daddy induced. The story goes that Jackson was trying to stand up in the tub and, in the process, gouged out a 2-inch long strip of skin from his back on the tub faucet. David went to the first aid kit to find supplies with which to properly cleanse and dress the wound. He found a package of something called "sting relief." Jackson had told him that it was stinging so David wiped away... with a pad containing a solution of 60% alcohol and explicit instructions stating to not use on broken skin. Jackson protested loudly. Why David passed over the antiseptic "sting free" pads in the first aid kit, one will never know.

David never fessed up to Jackson that he totally mucked that one up. Love just hurts, kiddo.

Little sisters get no respect

2006-12-11T21:04:00.000-08:00

A little girl in Jackson's class brought her pet hamster... or guinea pig... hell, it may have been a rat....but the point is that she brought it to share with the class on share day. Jackson thought this was pretty nifty and asked if he could bring Clara to share. We don't have any pets so I guess the next best thing is a baby sister. I didn't see a problem with this and told him he could.

"Oh, cool! I can bring Clara to share."
"Really? I can bring Clara to share?"

"Sure. I'll talk to your teacher and find out what time so I can bring her."

"Can't she just come in the morning?"

"No. We can't stay all day. I'll just bring her during the sharing time."

Silence. And a puzzled look on Jackson's face.

And the lightbulb moment:
"Ohhhhhh, I thought I could just bring her to school with me and stick her in my cubby until sharing."

Picture time, picture time...

2006-11-16T20:24:00.000-08:00

My blog updates seem to be becoming fewer and farther between. It's not that I don't have anything to say... I always have something to say. But, hey, here are some pictures to enjoy.

Sam boarding "the short bus."

Apparently super parents breed super kids.

Jackson's finally earning his keep.

Baby meets T-Rex

Baby eats T-Rex

And no one heard at all, not even the chair

2006-11-04T11:54:00.000-08:00

Sweet Clarabel. Good times never seemed so good.
I'd be inclined to believe they never would.
But now I look at the night and it don't seem so lonely
We fill it up with only two
And when I hurt hurtin' rolls of my shoulder
How can I hurt when holdin' you

Hands.... touchin' hands
Reachin' out
Touchin' me
Touchin' you

Sweet Clarabel. Good times never seemed so good.

If you're cool like me then you recognize the above lyrics from Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline." And if you don't then get thee to iTunes and download some songs from the man with the sexiest voice evah! Whenever I sing this song to Clara when she's upset I try to channel Neil and sing it with as much gusto as possible. This took me down a notch in Jackson's eyes, from cool mom to total weirdo. But eventually he saw the enormous grins the song elicits from Clara and, being tightly wound around her tiny finger, he now sings this song to her daily. Several times a day really. Now I get to call him weirdo.

Thank you taxpayers!

2006-10-24T22:14:00.000-07:00

We received a pretty hefty check the other day from the local school district. The money we received was for DRIVING OUR OWN CHILD TO SCHOOL. You see, back in January when Sam began attending preschool we passed on the opportunity to have him ride the school bus. Our reason was that he frequently stops breathing and the school had no aide to ride the bus with him to ensure that he survived the 12 minute ride between school and home. I suppose since Sam is unable to attend the school right around the corner from us that there are extra funds available to have him bussed to a facility which can meet his needs. Of course, if he is not riding that bus then what's the prudent thing for a school district struggling financially to do? Give the money to the parents of course. When I opened up the envelope containing that check I felt like a bona fide working woman. I had, after all, been earning money driving my child to and from school each day.

The check arrived only weeks after Sam began riding the school bus to and from school. Sure the breathing, or lack thereof, is still an issue.... but we have 3 kids now and have had to lower our standards a bit. But since seeing the check and calculating the daily wage I have seriously considered driving him myself again. It feels a little dirty knowing that the money comes from the taxpayers but does it really matter whether it goes into the pocket of Steve the bus driver or mine? If you're reading this then you probably know me better than Steve and I'm more likely to thank you by taking you out to coffee with your hard earned money.

Little star

2006-10-23T10:08:00.000-07:00

What you are looking at is Clara's belly button. Do you see the perfect little star? Now some might point out (ahem *cough* David *cough* *cough*) that the star is inverted clearly making her the devil's child. But if you just tilt your head a bit to the left then it's all good.

Why I shouldn't write when I'm delusionally tired

2006-10-16T21:34:00.000-07:00

I've neglected my blog. Oh, how I've neglected my blog. And do you know why? It's because I have 3 kids now. Holy donkey balls! That's a lot of kids. And it is these kids that have contributed to my extreme fatigue which has caused me to neglect this blog.

For the past week or so David and I have been trying out a new routine to allow more time for him to spend with the kids after work. It starts with David and I waking up at an ungodly hour, David leaving at half past an ungodly hour and then I get myself and all 3 kids ready by the time the sun comes up. That's a lot of kids to get ready in the morning... by myself. Now I could sleep in a bit later and skip my shower; after all, once I get Sam on the bus and take Jackson to school I can usually come back home to shower if needed. But a shower is how I must begin the day. Actually, a shower and coffee are how I must begin my day. If I could have my coffee in the shower that would be fanfuckingtastic, but I usually can't make it downstairs to the coffee maker before first coming to a semi-lucid state in the shower. That semi-lucid state is crucial to my children's well-being. None of them are capable of getting themselves ready in the morning without my help or direct supervision. Even the 6 year old has been known to get into the car with neither his lunch nor his shoes. "I forgot" is his mantra. I'm so looking forward to the day that he forgets his pants, and I know it's going to happen. Unbeknownst to him I'll sneak an extra pair into the car and when he realizes half way to school I'll simply commiserate with him about his sure to be embarrassing predicament. He'll whine and cry the whole way there, begging me to turn back. Once we arrive at school I'll save the day by pulling out his pants that I've hidden and say, "Huh, I guess I had an extra pair in here all along. I forgot."

So the whole point of this was really just to say that by 9am I'm already pretty spent so the thought of trying to write something after the kids go to bed is very unappealing. And when I do, what you get is a bit too stream-of-conscious and sometimes hostile and inappropriate. Eh, it's just a blog.

Parallelism

2006-09-28T22:34:00.000-07:00

David's watching a nature program. On it is a fish. The male of the species attaches itself to the female and stays there... permanently. She is responsible for keeping this male alive. She does everything for him. Her very blood courses through his body. His only job is to stay put and pump her full of sperm.

Can any of you relate?

Trippin'

2006-09-24T22:00:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago David announced he was going to take Sam camping in Yosemite. Faced with the unexpected freedom of having to care for only 2 children I decided to drive 6 1/2 hours north to visit my parents. The drive up was quite surprisingly... not horrible. The visit itself was great. But the drive home had me mustering all of my good sense to not drive off the embankment. Clara did not want to be in the car. Actually, she wouldn't have minded the car if she could only have been in my arms; but this is illegal as you know. So I stopped several times to calmly ease her into sleep in my arms. But as soon as her sweet tush hit the car seat she would wake up and scream. After one such attempt we hit an unfortunate strip of highway which had no hospitable exits. So Clara cried. Despite attempts from "the Binkifier" (Jackson's self-appointed moniker) to soothe her and replace her binky from his place next to her in the car, she cried. Despite me singing to her, she cried. Thoughts of the studies on how continuous crying can detrimentally alter a baby's brain, mixed with flashes of news stories on families abducted while parked on the sides of highways. I couldn't decide what horrible fate to choose. So I did what any good mother would do when faced with such a stressful situation: I turned up the music really loud. There was no hope for Clara in either of the two possible scenarios, but my sanity could still be saved. So with Blondie belting it out on my car stereo I went to my happy place and Clara soon fell asleep. That's not entirely true. First she stopped crying and went completely catatonic as if her unanswered cries had caused her very soul to be wrenched from her tiny body. Then she fell asleep.

And now here are some pictures taken shortly before that catastrophic car ride.

And a few pics from the Yosemite trip that David was kind enough to share.

Music and rebellion

2006-09-18T21:26:00.000-07:00

I thought that life would slow down once the boys started back to school... but it hasn't. Not only is it busier but it's more scheduled and routine. I dislike schedules and routine. I still have a lot of stuff to do but now there are certain times and places in which these things must get done. So I've been slacking on this blog because, well, that's one thing that I still have control over. I don't have to write anything. What I have been doing instead is reading the blogs of other people and thinking about how I should really update mine. Then I get a little bit of satisfaction when I shut down the computer after ignoring my blog for yet another day. Sometimes it just feels good to defy my own authority.

I've also been exploring some new music. Having thoroughly burned out on "Bananaphone" and "Froggie went a courtin'" I decided it was time to take some steps towards bringing quality, grown-up music back into my life. Pandora Internet Radio is a website I've been visiting a lot lately. It's kind of a no-brainer, passive way of discovering new music. Basically you put in a song or an artist that you like and then the magic web gods play songs that are similar. You can then let it be known whether you like the song or never want to hear it again. It's fun and free. I'm currently listening to some of the music right now which is why this entry is a bit uninteresting. I used to be able to listen to music while I wrote but something terrible happened to my brain after I had children.

It really is an alternative school

2006-09-09T22:17:00.000-07:00

During the time we were hard at work trying to unlock the mystery of Sam, I bought some cheap memo recorders from Radio Shack that could record and playback a message of up to 10 seconds. The device was simple and had one very large button to press to play back the message. The idea was that we could record two different choices for Sam on two different recorders. For example, when pressed one may say "eat" and the other may say "drink." We'd let Sam listen to each message first by having him press the button with either his right or left hand and then we'd ask him to make a choice and press the corresponding recorder button. Brilliant, right? Sam didn't think so. He refused to use our ad hoc communication device. Jackson, on the other hand, loved these things and would frequently steal them from his brother to record messages for David and me. Usually he'd set the recorder near me or David while we were in the middle of a conversation, press the button and then run away. See, we're always getting on his case about interrupting us and with his ~~stubborn~~ innovative little personality I shouldn't be surprised that he found a way to interrupt without actually being there himself. So I did not miss the recorders when he finally grew tired of them... or maybe I hid them; I can't quite remember. But yesterday they made a re-appearance. Jackson had a friend over and the two of them were playing with these recorders up in Jackson's room. His friend brought one of them down to me and said, "You gotta listen to this." I pressed play and heard my little boy saying, "I have a girlfriend. She's pretty great. Her name is Natalie and I kissed her at school." Now I know about Natalie and it's always been pretty obvious that she has a crush on Jackson. But the two of them are friends and I always just assumed Jackson hadn't gotten into that whole boy/girl dynamic yet. So I was a little surprised to hear him speak of her as his girlfriend. And I realized my 6 year old has important secrets from me. It was during this revelation that the friend said, "Yeah, Jackson said the girls are really flexible at his school," and this is where the panic set in because his friend's speech was painfully slow, "and they let him..." Oh speak faster child! What do these flexible hussies let my baby do? "Um, they let him kiss them..." Where? Damn it! WHERE? "... on the lips." And I saw that the clock said 5:00 so I poured myself a drink.

You know you're living in Orange County when...

2006-09-01T15:26:00.000-07:00

The woman who cleans my house was not able to come last week because she was recovering... from a tummy tuck. Apparently this was not her first surgical enhancement. She must be working her ass off saving up for her surgeries. Or is she paying a surgeon to do that, too?

Flummoxed

2006-08-28T22:32:00.000-07:00

Jackson picked up Sam's toy drum the other day and looked through the clear, plastic top to the small colorful balls that rattle when you shake it. He saw that many of the balls hovered in mid-air within their plastic confines due to static electricity.

"Huh. When they made this drum they didn't put any gravity inside."

And at that moment I felt my brain twitch.

I was not strong

2006-08-27T15:34:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago while we were in Borders books two adolescent boys took note of Sam as David pushed him past in his wheelchair. Sam had his head hanging sideways and was vocalizing loudly, so it was hard not to take notice of him. But after David and Sam passed the boys began laughing and one said to the other, "He's retarded." Now I don't usually take issue with the word retarded itself, but when it is said in a mocking tone by two twits who don't know the first thing about Sam then I take issue.

"Excuse me boys but you really should be careful with your words. When you use a word like retarded you can really hurt somebody's feelings. And that little boy you called retarded... that little boy is my son."

Red faced the boy apologized and I caught up with David and my sweet, yet kooky, Sam. That day I was strong.

Yesterday we went to a museum in L.A. where there was going to be an outdoor concert for kids. We thought we'd take in some of the exhibits before the concert began, but Sam had other plans. He had woken up at 4am and was very tired which made him very vocal. He also stubbornly refused to keep his head up in his wheelchair opting to view the world sideways instead. Rather than subject the other museum visitors to his yelling, I sat outside with Sam while David viewed some nature photography he was interested in. It was a busy day at the museum and people were pouring in and out of the exhibit hall we sat outside of. And lots of people took notice of Sam. Yelling, mouth hanging open, head hanging to the side he was quite a sight. And lots of people stared. After a few minutes of this I grew uncomfortable. Usually I easily shrug off others' ignorance when it comes to Sam. But yesterday it stung. I was not feeling strong enough to deal with rude people. And I cried. I just wanted to go home. Yesterday I was not strong.

Joseph Smith was on to something

2006-08-15T22:19:00.001-07:00

Sam has this month off of school. So I've had a 6 year old, an infant and a Sam to take care of, which is why I have not been writing much here lately. I wish I had something witty to say but I'm afraid I'm completely drained. Posting may be sporadic until Sam and Jackson return to school in September. Oh, sweet September. Or until we make that move to Utah where David can take on a second wife to shoulder some of the responsibilities. What? I really think I could be okay with it if it meant that I could actually go poop without a baby strapped to me.

He's a keeper

2006-08-07T21:57:00.000-07:00

If the Invisible Man was a six-year old

2006-08-02T21:21:00.000-07:00

Over dinner last night we were discussing the news about the future possibility of becoming invisible. Usually David and I talk about random stuff at dinner and Jackson sits at the table with us and appears to be listening. I might be relaying some info to David about something Jackson did in swim lessons earlier that day and Jackson will come into the conversation with, "And dad..." Obviously I think he is planning on expanding on the story and so David and I turn to him eager to hear his perspective.... "And dad, if I was a plant-eating dinosaur and I was being chased by a meat-eater but I was like two thousand feet tall, I could so totally just stomp on the meat-eater. That would be so cool!" And David and I search our memories for when this was pertinent to any past conversations we may have had with him. Because sometimes it is. Sometimes Jackson picks up a conversation we left off 3 days ago.

But during this particular conversation about invisibility Jackson was paying attention and living in the moment with us. So when he spoke up he actually had something relevant to say, "Oh man... if I was invisible I would like crawl under the table at school and untie everyone's shoe laces. Or if there was a bad guy I could just go up to him and like poke him and he wouldn't know who did it because I'd be invisible. That would be so cool!" I'm sure when the scientists were considering all the powerful uses for their invention they had these fantastic possibilities in mind.

Urine a lot of trouble (just couldn't resist that one)

2006-08-01T16:55:00.000-07:00

After swim lessons today Jackson got out of the pool and began hopping up and down.

"Mom, I have to go to the bathroom."

"Go ahead and use the bathroom and then we need to go home."

"No. No! NO!! NOOOOOO!!!!!"

Whose demon child was this that had emerged from the depths of the neighborhood pool? Because I had brought a sweet and compliant child and watched as that child got into the pool. But this child did look vaguely familiar as his body convulsed and he barked his protests at me.

"Just go pee."

"Ohohoh, ooookaaaay!"

Mere seconds later he reappeared, apparently having practiced for the fastest whiz in the west.

"I'm sorry for yelling at you, Mom. Could you please tie my bathing suit for me?"

Either the malicious alien had been hiding Jackson in the bathroom all along (because, really, nobody can pee that fast) or Jackson's urine contains personality altering neuro-toxins which can build to destructive levels if his bladder is not emptied frequently.

3 winning pictures

2006-07-27T16:24:00.000-07:00

I have 60 or so photos of Clara within the last week. Of those 60 about 2 are good and one is of mild interest.

The smile. She's been charming us with her smile for weeks now and I finally snapped a decent photo of her smiling. It's not visible in this pic but she has a single, adorable dimple on her left cheek.

The red blob above Clara is Sam's swing that hangs in our kitchen entry way. It caught Clara's attention once after it had been set in motion and it quickly replaced the ceiling fan in the category of "coolest mundane household item in motion EVER!"

And this is her just looking cute.

The amazing, vanishing Sam

2006-07-24T17:18:00.000-07:00

Sam fell out of bed the other night. Actually it might be more appropriate to say that he slid out since there was no thud, at least not that I heard. David had gone into work to fix some computer problem, so I was alone with all 3 kids. Jackson was asleep upstairs, Clara was asleep on the couch next to me and Sam was yangling in bed. You had to go back and read that last part again, didn't you? The word yangle comes compliments of my granny. I can't give an exact definition of the word but I know yangling when I hear it, and since Sam has no discernable words he yangles. After about an hour Sam got really quiet and I thought to check on him to make sure he was still alive. You see, Sam still has frequent apnea episodes while he sleeps and sometimes (and when I say "sometimes" I mean several times a month) we plug him into his monitor and then forget to turn the monitor on (and when I say "we" I mean David). This may sound horrifying, but really, it's not like we actually do anything when the apnea monitor alarms. If we're downstairs and the monitor alarms it usually stops (meaning Sam resumes breathing) by the time we get to the top of the stairs; so why bother getting off the couch, right? And if we're sleeping we usually don't hear it. Oh c'mon, how many of you sleep through the beeping of your alarm clocks? It's the same thing. But I always like to make sure the monitor is at least turned on; you can't accuse me of neglect. So I left Clara sleeping on the couch while I went upstairs to Sam's room. There was only a small amount of light from the hallway but it was enough to see that Sam was not in his bed. Well, what the hell? It's not like Sam can climb out of bed and walk away. I looked under the blankets and the many ~~suffocation hazards~~ pillows in his bed. What? His own brain fails to signal him to breathe - a few fluffy pillows are not a big threat in comparison. The pillows are there to prevent him from banging into the wall or the bed rail. And the bed rail is clearly supposed to prevent him from falling out of bed. It still hadn't occurred to me to look for him on the floor. I did, however, think to check his apnea monitor. The monitor was turned on and the display showed active heart rate and respiration so I knew Sam was somewhere in the room at the end of the long monitor cord. Then next to the monitor, hooked through the bed rail that was supposed to keep Sam in bed, I saw a foot. Sam's foot. And attached to that foot was Sam, upside down with the upper half of his body on the floor and lower half up against the bed. I quickly scooped him up into my arms and felt a mix of relief and absolute horror. I have no idea how long he was like that and, although he didn't seem upset or hurt, I felt like the shittiest mom to have allowed that to happen to my sweet boy. I held him for a long time and hugged him and kissed him and told him how sorry I was. I felt awful that not only had we failed to secure his bed for him but that he, this pure and completely dependent child, had to lay on the floor waiting for his mommy to get a clue and help him back into bed. Once I got him tucked into bed again I went back downstairs and ignored the beeping apnea monitor some more.

Rock, bounce, pat

2006-07-20T21:37:00.000-07:00

Not to be confused with rock, paper, scissors which is inarguably a much more enjoyable game than rock, bounce, pat. Rock, bounce, pat is a tiresome game consisting of rocking the baby in my arms while bouncing her vigorously and patting her bottom all in an effort to induce sleep. How these 3 things work together to put her to sleep I have no idea. I can only guess that the chaotic combination scrambles her little brain enough to drown out the boisterous yells of Sam, the constant chatter of Jackson and deludes her into feeling like she's back in the safety of my womb. All I can say for sure is that within minutes of beginning this little routine her eyes roll back into her head and she quickly drops into a deep slumber. Which is really weird because if someone tried all these things with me I don't think I would feel like sleeping; no, I'm pretty sure I'd want to slap the person. Anyway, with all the rocking, bouncing and patting going on at our house I haven't had as much time for my blog. But I'm trying.

The happiest place on earth to die

2006-07-18T21:01:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning newspaper story:

"Crap. Some 12 year old boy died while riding a roller coaster at Disneyland."

"How the hell does that happen?"

"Says he had some congenital heart abnormality."

"Random."

"Oh, well, the family is from Kentucky."

"That explains it."

"If you're going to have a medical emergency Disney's the place to be; it only took 6 minutes for paramedics to arrive."

"Get this: he was pronounced dead at..... Celebration Hospital."

Attack of the giant lizards

2006-07-07T13:27:00.000-07:00

We have ants

We bought some ant stakes that kill the ants and their entire colony when they take the bait back to their home. This is how we get rid of ants...

... and this is how Jackson gets rid of ants...

Holding out for the big bucks

2006-07-04T09:30:00.000-07:00

Jackson lost his first tooth the other night. It had been loose for several weeks and he began complaining that it was so loose now that it bothered him. I jokingly suggested that he pull it out so it would stop bothering him... so he did.

Later that night I found the special tooth fairy pillowcase which has a picture of a fairy and a special pocket sewn on for the tooth. We placed Jackson's tiny baby tooth into the pocket as Jackson began trying to determine how the tooth fairy was going to get into our house. He pretty quickly concluded that our house was impermeable and it must be the parents that take the tooth and leave the money. Because the idea that a lithe, winged fairy could get into our house is ridiculous but he can totally understand a big, orange pumpkin stealthily gaining entrance. I just shrugged my shoulders and told him to say goodbye to his little tooth. Then I began thinking about how sad it was that this tooth had been a part of him for 6 years and now he was going to just hand it over to some mystical pixie with a tooth fetish... and for mere pocket change. As if reading my mind, Jackson suddenly began to cry.

"I don't want to put my tooth in the pocket."

No, Jackson. Don't give in to the duplicitous enterprise of the tooth fairy. TAKE YOUR TOOTH AND RUN! RUN I SAY! HOLD ON TO YOUR SWEET TOKEN OF CHILDHOOD!

"It's okay sweetie. You don't have to put your tooth in the pocket. You can keep it if you'd like."

So we still have Jackson's tooth and it's not looking good for the tooth fairy. Jackson's plan is to keep each tooth he loses and individually wrap them so that we can indicate in which order they were lost. These are the moments in which it is revealed that children really are smarter than adults.

Clara's birth story

2006-06-26T21:10:00.000-07:00

This is the story of Clara Margaret's birth - my 3rd, final and by far biggest baby. This is also the story of the birth experience of which I have always dreamed.

The story begins a few days prior to her birth when I began feeling what I thought could be my body's final preparations for labor. It was Thursday and Jackson had his last day of Kindergarten on Friday. I began thinking about what we would do if I went into labor that night or the following morning. Jackson's kindergarten class was holding a very special ceremony for those moving on to first grade and I felt it was important for him to be there even if I was at home birthing his baby sister. I remember at some point having a little talk with the baby and telling her that there was still some business to finish up and Friday night would be a good night to arrive. That night I went to bed and experienced several runs of pretty decent, but not yet painful, contractions. The next morning I awoke still pregnant. So at 11am on Friday morning I was able to attend Jackson's kindergarten ceremony. Although I had had some contractions in the earlier morning they pretty much stopped during the ceremony, only to resume again shortly afterward.

The ceremony was a tear jerker for me, the day was gorgeous, Jackson and his friends were adorable... what a great way to kick off labor.

After the ceremony, David went back to work and my parents, Jackson and I went out to lunch. I ordered a very tasty blackened shrimp nacho salad and, with the return of the contractions, thought I'd better eat as much as I could since I wasn't sure I'd be eating dinner later that night. After lunch I went to pick up Sam from school. His teacher was very disappointed to see me since she had been hoping I'd have had the baby. I told her I didn't think she'd be seeing me on Monday. And on the way home I had my first contraction that actually got my attention. I called David on the way home and told him he should make sure to tie up any loose ends at work. Then I went home and just hung out with my parents and my boys.

Sam must have sensed that things were going to get intense because he checked out early.

David arrived home from work around 5pm. I had just been relaxing on the couch and goofing off on the computer while I continued to have mild contractions. At some point between 5 and 7 we decided to see how long the contractions were actually lasting. I wasn't too convinced that anything was going to happen soon since the contractions still didn't require my full attention and felt like they were only about 20 seconds long. I was a bit surprised when David timed a few and reported they were more like 50 seconds long. Not only were they longer than I thought but they were much closer together - only 3.5 minutes apart. Now I have no idea how long things had been going on like this since my sense of time was clearly skewed. But before long we felt the time was ripe to call Lorri, the midwife, and ask her to come on over.

By this time - 9pm or so - David had filled the birthing pool and I was in bed relaxing through the contractions. I still thought I was in pretty early labor since the contractions were not painful and I was always able to just keep on top of them by relaxing. I was also doing a lot of visualizing at this point just for the fun of it. Most of the visions were of various types of flowers opening up. I tried out some other imagery but the flowers were working out fine. David had put on a cd of ocean sounds with soft music and the lights were turned way down low.

I was still relaxing in bed when Lorri floated in. She sat with me for awhile before checking my cervix and reporting that I was 9cm and fully effaced. HOLY SHIT! I'm going to have a baby... TONIGHT! Oooh conTRACtion... relax.... I decided to get into the tub and fast.

We ran out of hot water before the tub was full enough to cover my belly. So while my dad boiled pots of water in the kitchen, David poured water over my belly during contractions. This felt really damn good. While this was going on Lorri and the birth assistants were hanging out in the hallway, checking in every once in awhile to monitor me or the baby. This meant that David and I were alone together... with candlelight and soft music it was the most romantic evening we've had in a long time. The contractions were still intense but never entirely unwelcome; and the breaks in between served as short interludes for conversation. During one such break I noticed the video camera perched on the tripod and, not realizing it was recording, commented to David that maybe we should turn it on and I'd start thrashing around while screaming in mock agony just to make the video interesting.

At some point the contractions started getting harder to relax through and that's when I realized that maybe these aren't meant to be relaxed through; maybe these are meant to be pushed through. Only the desire wasn't yet strong enough for me to want to waste the energy.... just yet. But Lorri noticed the difference in the contractions by the new sound I was making with each one and she kept her ear much closer to the door. A few more of these contractions and my water broke. This is one of the best feelings because so much pressure is suddenly relieved; but then the next contraction comes. And now it's no longer a soft, cushiony bag of water pushing against your cervix - it's the baby's hard head. And suddenly pushing felt very right.

I was having a little bit of back pain and Lorri thought the baby might be posterior, meaning her face was facing up which is not the most comfortable or ideal way for a baby to come out. So she suggested I turn on my side to help the baby rotate. I started feeling a very full and familiar sensation in my nether region and, before anyone watching could even comment on how close I was to meeting my baby, I knew I was going to get to hold her after just another push or two. By this time I had only been pushing for 15 or 20 minutes and the time was approaching 1am.

With a few more pushes she slid out and I reached down into the water, putting my hands around her little body and brought her to my chest. Warm, squishy body. Soft, moist, velvety skin.

This moment.

This moment I had imagined so many times in the last few weeks. The sight of her. The smell. And the feel of her in my arms for the first time. This was the moment.

But then there was this moment, too.

This is when she lifted her head off my chest, moved it back and opened her eyes to look right at me and David as if just checking to make sure she was with the right people.

Sam performed beautifully throughout the entire labor and slept soundly. Jackson woke up right when Clara made her entrance.

We sat like this for a long time:

Then David cut the cord.

We got to snuggle in bed after we got out of the pool.

Finally we weighed her to find she was a whopping 9lbs 2oz!

Jackson stayed up for several more hours just to gaze at his new little sister.

And that's it. Clara's birth was just as beautiful and peaceful as she is.

She's here....

2006-06-21T12:29:00.000-07:00

Check out photos of our newest addition here.

We're busy babymooning but I'll post the story of her beautiful birth when I have more than one hand available with which to type :-)

In case you were wondering... I'm still pregnant

2006-06-12T21:39:00.000-07:00

It's looking like my due date is going to pass with no baby to show for it. Tomorrow is the day our once-every-other-week housecleaners come which means that I have to make sure the house is picked up tonight. This is probably the most disappointing thing about not having the baby - not having the excuse to cancel the cleaners and just sit around on my ass in a messy house.

The final days

2006-06-07T20:00:00.000-07:00

I got hennaed. Over the weekend, instead of having a baby shower, my dear friend Autumn, held a Blessingway for me. Eight wise and wonderful women helped me to celebrate my upcoming transition into becoming a mother to my baby girl. At the end of the Blessingway everyone added her own part to the big design on my belly. It looks great now but I don't even want to imagine what it's going to look like after the baby is born. Thank goodness it's just temporary.

Primitive fear

2006-05-25T15:33:00.000-07:00

Today I encountered one of these in my clean dishes. Actually Jackson and I had seen the creature scaling our living room wall yesterday but I chose to ignore it hoping that it would soon find its way outside or underneath someone's shoe. See, I'm not a big fan of spiders, especially the big meaty ones. My blood pressure increases exponentially with the size of the spider. It doesn't even have to be in the same room to have this effect. While I was searching for pictures of jumping spiders on the web to post here I found one that was much more graphic than the image I linked to, but I couldn't bear to look at it long enough to copy the link. Heebie jeebies is the best term I have to describe the feeling I got just looking at the picture. So you can imagine my complete horror when I picked up a dish from our dish rack with my BARE HANDS and saw the spider, which I knew to be a jumping spider and this fact only increased the intensity of my reaction and necessity of my ensuing actions. I screamed. I screamed more than once. Even after I hurling the plastic dish and spider violently to the floor, I screamed and did that little dance people do when they've just encountered some sort of creepy crawly. Like they're trying to shake the thing off of their body while moving their legs up and down fast enough to prevent the creature from crawling back up. But this spider was nowhere near me. Yet I danced. Nine months pregnant, screaming like a little girl, shaking and dancing and hurling dishes across the floor. I noticed my sliding glass door was open and thought, shit, I hope the neighbors didn't just see all that. Meanwhile, there's a very stunned jumping spider on my kitchen floor. Thinking quickly I grabbed the can of all natural ant spray, which contains some very pleasant smelling peppermint oil, in a cabinet nearby hoping to buy myself some time while I figured out what else to do and maybe stymie the spider's jumping ability at the same time. I decided on the vacuum method and retrieved the dust buster from the garage. I sucked up the well oiled spider letting its big, hairy body whirl around inside while I carried it back out to the garage, turning the power off the vacuum only when it had safely been returned to its charger. Then I quickly got the hell out of the garage.

Now I think of myself as a pretty strong, competent woman who can calmly resuscitate a child or even impregnate herself. But those stupid spiders have me beat.

In some countries it's a sign of courtship

2006-05-23T20:43:00.000-07:00

Today when I picked Sam up from school his head was wet. Actually it was just one side of his head where he had been licked by one of his classmates. Apparently the little girl was sitting next to Sam and licked his hair, found it to be quite satisfying and went back for more. Sam, always in the mood for a good head massage, leaned his head towards her and enjoyed the tongue bath for awhile until the teacher's caught sight of what was going on and put an end to it. I showed up just moments after this event to a very wet headed, but happy, Sam. It's the special moments like this one that make raising a child with a disability so entertaining.

Intellectually checked-out

2006-05-20T16:41:00.000-07:00

Checking out at the grocery store today the young man behind the counter asks me, "Do you know the rules of my line?"

"No, I've never been in your line before and I'm guessing that maybe I should be looking for another right now."

"Each person who comes through my line needs to tell me a cultural, scientific, historical, or geographical fact from a foreign country they've visited."

"You realize you're asking a very pregnant mom of two to think up something on the spot?"

"I'm feeling brave today."

"I got nothing."

"How about a joke? A joke will work, too."

"Okay.... knock knock....."

And it became painfully obvious to me that the more children you have the more your brain turns to mush.

Strip malls rule

2006-05-18T19:54:00.000-07:00

Wanna hear about the highlight of a busy mom's day? I've been cleaning, organizing, running various errands all in preparation for this baby's birth. Since we're having a homebirth there is a bit more involved than simply packing a bag for the hospital. Part of the preparation involves acquiring all the necessary items for a waterbirth. You might think "You've got a tub. What more do you need?" Oh much much more my naive friend. I tried the tub when I was in labor with Sam and me and my enormous, un-immersible belly did not last 5 minutes in that hard, fiberglass bucket. So this time we're going the route of the oversized kiddie pool. Most of the items for this birth one can find at that magical place Target, but there were two items on my list that I still needed: a pool thermometer and a fish net. The pool thermometer is used to make sure the pool water stays a comfortable, yet safe temperature for mom and baby. The fish net is used to... well, to fish stuff out of the pool in case any of this stuff, which shall remain nameless, should somehow enter the pool. And by "somehow enter" I mean in a manner that I refuse to discuss in this blog.

So I had just dropped David off at the car dealership to pick up our other car after an oil change and I was running about 10 minutes early to pick up Sam from his school just a few miles away. En route I saw a shopping center and thought I'd kill some time checking to see if there were any stores there that might have some stuff I needed for the birth. What I found brought tears of joy to my eyes. It was like some form of divine intervention had brought me to this place with only the smallest amount of time to spare. For what I saw was a pet store right next door to a pool supply store. Now if you don't know me then you don't know what an efficiency junkie I am. Finding these two unrelated stores right next to each other in a block of time I was afraid was going to go to waste was euphoric. And... AND I found a parking spot right out front that had a time limit of 10 minutes.... 10 MINUTES! I accepted the challenge, completed my mission and had to call David immediately after to share my immense joy.

Indecent composure

2006-05-16T22:06:00.000-07:00

The other day in the car we had a children's cd playing for Sam. Jackson, who is very familiar with the cd, was singing along with one of the choruses that repeated the line "I was running down the hill." But Jackson has taken after his father in a way that has made David very proud. David has a passion for changing or embellishing the lyrics of even the most innocent song and causing it to become quite inappropriate. So on this particular day, Mother's Day, we hear Jackson's voice from the back of the van singing sweetly along with the children's singer, "I was running down the hill..." and then he improvised in such a way that proves I was only the vessel for David's progeny "...with no pants on."

Deeply dessert

2006-05-10T20:17:00.000-07:00

The other night I was indulging in one of my guilty pregnancy pleasures, vanilla ice cream atop half of a mini chocolate bundt cake from Trader Joe's, when I realized that I had been going about eating it in the wrong manner. The enjoyment of each bite relies on the perfect balance of ice cream to cake. This is quite easily achieved until the end of the dessert is reached; you may be left with too much or too little of one of the tasty components which makes the ending to such an otherwise decadent experience quite anti-climactic. So to prevent this tragic ending I had been carefully planning out each bite to achieve the desired final ratio. Sometimes this meant that I might have to construct a few subpar spoonfuls in order to ensure that my last bite was perfect. The problem was that I stopped enjoying all the bites leading up to the grand finale and sacrificed so much enjoyment for one final moment. Not a great way to eat cake and ice cream. Now you might think that there's some great life lesson to be learned here, and maybe there is. But what I'm taking away from this is to quit planning 'cause there's always more cake and ice cream in the kitchen if I need to balance the ratio in the end.

Zim must have had a twisted sense of humor

2006-04-30T20:35:00.000-07:00

My parents have been here this weekend helping me out with the boys while David is having one last pre-baby hurrah at the Coachella music festival. In the bathroom they're using are all sorts of interesting toiletries that they have brought with them spread out on the counter. One of these items looked particularly interesting and I asked my mom what it was.

"Oh, that's my crack cream."

Excuse me?

Sure enough the little bottle was called "Zim's Crack Cream." Dry skin can result in small cracks on hands and feet, right? And surely these were the cracks this cream was meant for. But c'mon....

"I never leave home without my crack cream."

"That Zim really knows how to fill my crack."

"My crack cream is the only thing that brings me relief."

And for some reason this cream comes in a small spray bottle, maybe for those people who have a really hard to reach crack.

My hands are happily full, thank you.

2006-04-27T15:05:00.000-07:00

Today I was walking across Jackson's school to pick him up from the office after receiving a call that he wasn't feeling well and wanted to come home. I was carrying Sam on my hip next to my gargantuan belly, since you have to descend a flight of stairs to Jackson's school and I couldn't manage a stroller up and down those stairs. As I approached the office a woman came out and said, "Boy, you have your hands full." No kidding? What gave it away? Was it the way I precariously balanced my huge protrusion out front with the 30 lb flopping child on my hip who prefers to view the world sideways or upside down? Could you have maybe come up with something a little less obvious to comment on? How about commending me on my stellar balance?

I get this "hands full" comment from strangers so often and I can't figure out why they feel the need to make it. What's the point in stating the obvious? And despite the frequency with which I hear this I never have a clever comeback ready. I don't wish to say anything mean because I know these people aren't being rude; plus, I have lots of sarcastic replies handy I just choose not to use them. I just don't get why people feel the need to say anything at all. And they make the same comment whether I have one child or both with me. What's going to happen when this 3rd one pops out? Maybe then I'll start hearing something original or at least get some ghastly stares.

Photo fun

2006-04-24T20:14:00.000-07:00

A few pictures for your viewing pleasure:

He's so much more fun after knocking back a few beers during our Friday night happy hour.

Wearily emerging from the jungle having escaped their captors...

... the small humans scale the wall back into suburbia.

Spring break in Arizona

2006-04-19T18:33:00.000-07:00

So I promised an update and pictures from our Arizona trip a while ago. But Jackson got a stomach bug the last day of our trip, David got it as soon as we returned home, then our crazy busy week began and my ankles have been swollen since Tucson. Pregnancy isn't always pretty. I sit here now on the couch with my feet elevated and I plan on making good on my promise.

You can click on any of the photos for a larger view.

This was from our first stop in Yuma to see my grandparents. We've given up on all the complexly crafted special needs equipment and have opted for 2 boppy pillows to assist Sam with his sitting. This works great unless Sam happens to be sitting up in a chair and his big brother is asked to watch him for 2 seconds while you step away and Sam decides to play one of his favorite games where he throws himself forward and then pops back up again... only he didn't pop back up again. Unfortunately, this is the only Yuma picture I have since the few with my grandparents in them mysteriously disappeared from our camera.

Here's David and his mini-me at Saguaro National Park. I think they were looking for birds because really if you've seen one saguaro cactus you've seen them all.

These are the actors who played the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday in the gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone. Sam enjoyed himself at this show. The first loud shot was met with only a mildly annoyed grunt from Sam and then he tolerated the rest. But the best part was when one of the actors was trying to shush the audience's laughter after a mishap at his expense. Right after he said, "It wasn't that funny," Sam decided it would be a good time to give one of his very contrived everyone-else-was-laughing-so-I-want-to-join-in loud laughs to follow up... and we were sitting in the front row. Ah, life with Sam.

This is taken just outside the OK Corral.

Our future paleontologist digging for fossils at the Desert Museum in Tucson. This is a wonderful museum that is mainly outdoors and requires more than a day to fully explore all of its glory.

Our little drummer boy in his high-tech seating contraption at our hotel in Tucson. This time he's safely on the floor.

The view from the van as we drove into Sedona.

The view inside the van. Notice all the stuff crammed into the van behind Jackson? Notice how it doesn't even reach the window? We had a lot of crap back there including a jog stroller and a week's worth of food for Sam. I love my mini-van more and more each day.

After breezing through Sedona, stopping only for dinner, we ended up in Flagstaff. From here we took a day trip to Petrified Forest National Park. Here we sit in front of this desolate landscape which is part of the Painted Desert and it really made me wish we had spent more time in Sedona instead.

Most of the places we visited had some tie-in with dinosaurs, which pleased our little dino to no end.

And, finally, a family photo from our trip to the Grand Canyon. We're all laughing because of the way David has included himself in the photo he's taking. Sam's laughing because he finds the word "cheese" to be one of the funniest things ever spoken; this works out well for us during photo shoots.

Hello from Arizona

2006-04-14T22:24:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted anything in awhile because we've been in Arizona since last weekend. Internet has been slow and sketchy at best and the few moments I have at the end of the day to post I'm too tired. But we've had many adventures and I will have plenty of pictures to post early next week once we return and settle back in.

Sound parenting advice can be found on network television

2006-04-04T09:27:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was an exercise in parental control. What I'm trying to say is that Jackson was such a little shit that it took all the restraint in the world not to beat the crap out of him. I'm really not sure what caused his undesirable behavior as it always seemed to follow a period of fun. We'd be having a good time as a family, it would approach the time to end the fun and then Jackson's head would start spinning around as he shot lasers out of his eyes and spewed words of hatred. I was very proud of how calmly David and I handled these outbursts; though, on more than one occasion I found myself saying, "I'm walking away now," which was more of an instruction to myself to step away from the child before anything ugly and illegal went down than it was information for Jackson. During one of his more lucid moments I asked Jackson why he behaved that way and he responded that he didn't want the fun to end. Six year old logic: have a good time with mom and dad and then when it's over yell violently at them so that maybe they'll want to keep having fun with you.

After a few days of this I began wondering what we were doing wrong as parents to have raised such a spiteful little child. There are plenty of books out there that give quality advice on such behavior issues; some of these books are even sitting collecting dust on my book shelf. I considered looking through one of these books. Instead I found myself on the couch last night in front of the television thinking, "what would Supernanny do?" I haven't ever actually watched a complete episode of Supernanny but I've heard she has some pretty sound advice. I realized I didn't need her advice after watching about 10 minutes of the family featured last night. The kids were somewhat out-of-control on a daily basis but the parents were complete morons when it came to handling the behaviors. This family would go out to a restaurant and their 5 year old would stand on a chair yelling "I want desssseeeeerrrt!" This was not an isolated event and the parents didn't seem to have any consequences for this type of thing. And rather than ordering in from restaurants to avoid the disgruntled looks from the other diners, they ate out on average 3 times per week! Why put yourself through that torture? Morons. Supernanny wisely suggested they bring along some activities to keep their 2 young boys occupied during dinner. After instigating this plan with successful results the parents bowed down at Supernanny's feet extolling her unprecedented genius. This was all it took for me to realize that our family doesn't have problems. At least David and I seem to have the basic parenting skills down. We just may have to accept that sometimes Jackson's body is switched out with that of a malevolent imp who bears a striking resemblance to our sweet 6 year old.

Never underestimate the power of a good foot rub

2006-03-30T20:09:00.000-08:00

I was awake at 2am this morning. Not because of pregnancy heartburn, difficulty finding a comfortable sleeping position, or the tiny, nocturnal kick-boxer taking up temporary residence within my uterus. No, I can sleep through all that. But what I can't seem to sleep through is my 3 year old yelling with all his might for someone to come and get him from his crib. I also have a hard time sleeping through this same child kicking with great fury at a musical toy attached to the side of his crib. Since Sam has no intelligible words he simply increases his vocalizations until someone responds. And since his coordination could use a lot of fine tuning he completely side steps any attempt at precision when trying to activate a musical toy, instead choosing to whack aimlessly with arms or legs at any object until the desired effect is attained. So all of this was going on... at 2am... in Sam's crib... which is located right next to my bed.

By the time my alarm had gone off this morning (which it really had no need to since I had been awake since 2am... did I mention that?) I had devised a plan. I would get devil child up, feed him breakfast, deposit the older child at school, return home and fall into a deep sleep with the younger spawn who would surely be tired by that time. But he wasn't tired. He wasn't even grumpy. He was downright fucking cheery. By the time he was ready to nap it was time to go get the older one from school and I'd given up hope for recovering any sleep for myself.

This story could have ended in a very ugly way had it not been for the nice woman I paid to rub my feet tonight and paint my toes an uplifting sunny yellow. Thank you, Julie. And thank you Happy Nails.

Born again disabled

2006-03-28T11:05:00.000-08:00

Recently a very wise friend and I were discussing Christianity and its views on particular life matters. I mentioned how I really had a hard time with some of the perspectives on disability that come from my Christian friends. I've been told by many of these well-meaning individuals that Sam is here for a reason and that by allowing Sam's disability God has meant for me to learn a valuable lesson. I'm not sure if each individual has their own tailor made lesson to learn but there appears to be a broader goal of learning to trust in God's glory. From my own limited reading on the matter it would seem that disability exists because a long, long time ago in a lush garden two foliage clad humans got hungry and ate something they weren't supposed to and now we all must endure suffering for their sin. So now we've got pain, hunger, etc. And we've got these people with disabilities. But basically it's all okay because we've also got this dude, God, who can make it all better. Now he may choose to make it better by healing the individual with the disability or he may not. The suffering may just have to be endured until death. But it's still okay because there remains a chance for salvation after death. You just have to trust this unseen entity or have.... what's that word.... faith. Let me break it down as I see it: two people I've never met fucked up, wreaking havoc for our world, causing God to "allow" my child to be born disabled so that I, and anyone else who cares to benefit from my child's suffering, may learn how to kiss God's ass while waiting for a miracle cure or maybe just die first. And you wonder why I'm not a Christian.

So this wise friend says to me, "Has anyone ever proposed to you the idea that maybe Sam, himself, chose this path for his life's experience?" Well, no. This seems to presuppose the idea that Sam was sentient prior to conception. And it suggests that Sam is not here merely for my own selfish gain or to stroke the ego of some supreme being. This hints of Eastern religion. And I like it. "So this resonates with you?" my friend asked. I guess if I couldn't just accept Mindy and David's philosophy appropriately called "Shit Happens" and I needed a reason to explain Sam's disability then, yes; the idea that maybe there was something Sam needed to get out of this earthly experience and chose his disabled body accordingly, resonates with me. How can it not when Sam fought so hard in his first year of life just to be here? It is not by the glory of God that he is still with us despite his challenges. Give the kid some credit. Sam is here because he's fought hard for this life. And is there a lesson in this? Maybe. While Sam is here pursuing his own experience we may be able to open ourselves up enough to glean something of our own from knowing Sam. Maybe this child, with his spirit unfettered by the ego defenses most of us carry around, allows us much closer contact with the essence of who he is and a clearer reflection of who we are. Maybe it's in this way that Sam truly is a blessing. This comes not from what he has brought to teach us, but rather from how we may choose to enhance our own experience with lessons learned from such an open soul.