ode to the red sox

Oh, my Sox, I’m loathe to say,

Have broken my heart another day.

2011 season’s sudden and bitter fall,

In all estimation, is the worst of baseball.

The Spring, per usual, was lacking grace,

But fortitude steeled upon every fan’s face.

Papi’s homers sang past the Green Monster

And Gonzalez surprised with his hutzpah.

Pedroia and Ellsbury, ah my boys, are

The hardest working players in pro ball.

The beauty plays it as an art.

The littlest player pumps the biggest heart.

I love the rest of the guys, too,

But here’s the thing, you know it’s true:

As much as our team plays as a team like no other

These two play as determined brothers.

For most of the season we were number one

Then September stole all the fun,

With so many of our players on the DL

What could we do? What the hell?

Three weeks of watching torture,

The Yankees circled like vultures

And right at season’s end,

We began to rise, a bit slowly, but rise again.

Terry Francona chewed his gum,

He chewed and chewed until we won.

Extra innings lay in Papalbon’s hand.

Then we tied and lost again.

And then that Tampa Bay,

Who are these guys anyway?

I couldn’t watch, my husband yelled

How on earth? Again, I ask: What. The. Hell?

We rollercoastered our way through the final few.

The Yankees were rough, Tampa Bay, too

We took both series’ last games, and didn’t whine.

Then we lost to the Orioles in the bottom of the ninth.

A short season this year, tis true,

Maybe I’ll cower with the flu.

While other teams’ fans raise up cheers

I’ll stay away from October play, cause:

THERE’S ALWAYS NEXT YEAR.

anatomy of ankleland

Some of you may recall this story from about a year ago:

You can click the picture for a link if you haven't heard the tale, but about a year ago, I hurt my ankle pretty badly. I haven't really recovered. In fact, from favoring the initial ligature/tendon injury which was never properly diagnosed, I developed tarsal tunnel syndrome.

Click pic to read about it.

Then from not dealing with the tarsal tunnel syndrome, I developed tendonitis on the posterior blah blah, a tendon sheathe along a muscle that runs from the knee down behind the calf muscle, close to the tibia. I lost track when the doctor was talking yesterday as he gave me a cortisone injection for tarsal tunnel syndrome. I left the doctor's office and drove in circles (yes folks, it is my driving ankle) to find the place where I was supposed to pick up a boot to wear for the next month, and found it just time for it to be closed, thanks to it's lack of signage. By the time I got home, my foot was on fire up to my knee, and felt dead and asleep, like it was trying to wake up, but never did except partially sometime around five o'clock this morning. Needless to say, it was a sleepless night.  Before I went to bed, I asked a medical friend if my foot/ankle/leg should still feel like this several hours after injection, and she replied that it sounds like I had a classic steroid flare. Yay me and my weird anatomy.

So this morning, I got to drive all the way back across Newport News to find this boot place again and now my fashion statement is this:

May I pass this lesson onto you?

Listen to your body when it is giving you clear signals to see a doctor and take care of yourself, for goodness sake, because if you don't put yourself high 'on the list', this is the sort of thing that can happen to you.

Ironically, in the waiting room, my reading was Hot (Sweaty) Mamas, by Kara Douglas Thom and Laurie Lethert Kocanda, an enthusiastic book about making personal fitness a priority in your hectic life as a mother.

I neglected to mention previously that this book was a win from Kate Hopper's blog, Mother Words:Mothers Who Write. I am incredibly grateful, Kate, thank you. Once I can get back on both feet, I am so on this!

In fact, even before I am back on both feet, I am starting a belly dancing class next Monday. :)

excerpts from both ends of a candle

Friday:
Teen Lock-in in Richmond.
Good youth, good combined fellowships
games, conference, identity discussion, chaperoned
yes I'm crazy and incredibly sleep deprived.

Saturday:
Commute back to Hampton Roads,
drop off someone else's young person,
home to empty house, worn out teen and me.
Shower, near tears tired,
buy present, go to housewarming,
hug people, leave before utter collapse.
amuse friends with wild hair and falling out eyeballs.
home, old twilight episodes viewed through napping ears,
odd dream narrated by Rod Serling
rest of family returns from Busch Gardens,
Honey and I have a date night,
Eight years since our first date.

Dinner out, epic fail, every point of service missed,
given wrong food, missed romantic comedy showing
so we watched a later showing of 3D Thor instead, fun
home, collapse, 6 hours later:

Sunday:
mother's day begun in annoyance, I was first up
except Mr. 6am - Captain Comic.
All three kids, highly uncooperative.
Child Dedication service for Toots

tears, weepy from 3 weeks of sleep deprivation.
Thank goodness I didn't have to sing with the choir.
Go to Lowes, find potted plants for grandma and rose bush for me to plant
Mr. Cynic helped while Honey waited in car with other two who were NOT
getting along.
Catch up with friends and driiiiiive to go
strawberry picking -
perfect, beautiful afternoon, sunripe strawberries
bursting with flavor, friends, kids, homemade strawberry ice cream
Captain Comic hurdled the rows of groundling berries,
Toots ran and ran and ran,
Mr. Cynic ate the best strawberry of his entire life
mutant, twoheaded thing he picked,
kids still arguing on car ride home.
It had been a long ride to Surrey.
Long ride home.

Captain Comic swore he was not going to pick any, do you hear me, mom? None. ha. 

There was more, I just can't recall it all. My brain has leaked out of my ears. And today is my second day of dental work this week. I am not a fan.

But yesterday?  My muse let me grab a comet by the tail. It was a surprising and excellent ride. Gave depth to a critical scene in the manuscript. Yea me!

There's more, plenty more, including gardening and job prospects, but I'm still trying to recover from weeks of go go go. Maybe tonight I'll go to bed early. Please remind me.

slow down

Is that even possible?

At the moment it doesn't seem so.

Case in point: in the midst of this completely overscheduled weekend (is that three in a row? more, less? I can't even conceive of my past few weeks at the moment), I showed up at a housewarming. My friend whose new home we were warming, took one look at me and laughed in that Aw, are you okay, you look pathetic way. Then I walked into the house and saw a couple of other friends. One took one look at me, threw her arms around me and said, "Are you okay? What happened?!"

I turned to everyone and said, "I made it here, but if I don't go home now and lie down, I won't make it through the rest of the weekend."

Okay, moms who have given birth, especially naturally, you know that point you reach when you've been in labor for hours and you know you don't have it in you to push that one more time, but then the urge comes, and you feel like dying would be so much easier than to do that one more push and you're too tired even to cry, though you feel like that's all you want to do, and you can feel yourself slipping practically into unconsciousness?

That's how tired (minus the painful labor) I felt standing in my friends new home, surrounded by caring women. Thank goodness. They got it and said, It's okay, go home and rest. Hugs, and I was gone. I pseudo napped for a couple of hours with Mr. Cynic on the opposite sofa, old Twilight Zone episodes - funny, huh? - in front of us. And then the rest of the family came home and it was time to go go go to the next events of the evening, and I'll tell you more about everything as soon as I have really recouped and can find pictures, etc. For now, I need to get ready to go to the dentist. again. Wish me luck.

welcome the jungle

Whoa is me, I've had an emotional week, a lack of sleep throughout it and my weekend, once again, is packed to the gills.

Wah, Wah, Wah, I hate whining.

Mr. Cynic's concert was incredible. His Jazz Choir is better even than my bragging about it. Toots bounced around her seat and between Honey's lap and mine. Captain Comic had a sensory issue as the audience began to fill the front section around us. An old man kept looking at me like "Why can't you discipline your kid?" So after a few attempts, I decided to let Capt. Comic do what his instincts dictated, and let him have a seat all the way in the back center of the auditorium rather than fight it. I went up to blackmail inspire him to not move from his chosen seat with a threat that if he did so, he would lose all access to screens for a solid week. He stayed put. I turned around to check periodically throughout all three choirs' numbers. As long as I saw his knees hanging over the seat in front of him, all was good. Mr. Cynic's Jazz Choir was on last. During the second to last number - after the Hanna- Barbera Spiderman theme, of course - I felt a tap on my shoulder. and a whisper right in my ear:

Captain Comic: Mom. I need a drink.
Mom:  Go.

The choices we mothers make. I went with finish watching one son as he excels and trust the one to worry about will be okay on his own to find a drinking fountain and not get into trouble. And guess what?  It worked out. I sent Honey to collect him while I took Toots with me to go find Mr. Sparkly Red Vest. It only took a moment before I spotted Honey with Captain Comic in the hall with all of the singers before I even had a chance to hug my singer. Captain Comic beat me to it, literally, with a not so stealth pounce and grab knockdown tackle hug that took down all three siblings, and nearly me as well, as I had nearly reached hug contact with my eldest when he was hug attacked.

Honey took this phone pic of a mom and her progeny after the attack hug. It's really the perfect shot of us all, exhausted and proud mom with her eyes closed, sleepy Toots, grinning from his performance Mr. Cynic, and goofball Captain Comic.

Life is good. Hug your kids, if you've got 'em. Happy Mother's Day.

weepy

I'm having a weird week. I wake up every morning feeling very weepy. I want to put it down to exhaustion and possible perimenopausal stuff.  It's odd, like a biological impulse to cry. I don't feel sad or anything, just as if I will burst into tears over the slightest thing.

Then there was Toots's Preschool Art Show this morning and "Muffins with Mom" event, where I received a bunch of little hand and footprints accompanied by sweet little rhymes.  I swear they're trying to kill me with the cute. I couldn't even read the I leave my Handprints everywhere out loud for Toots when I unwrapped it, without catching a lump in my throat and my eyes becoming inexplicable fountains.

Tonight is Mr. Cynic's high school jazz choir - the one that was Grand Champion in the Myrtle Beach regional competition - Spring Concert.

Help.

I will need a large box of tissues.  I couldn't even make it through my niece's dance recitals over the years. I suppose I can just bring Captain Comic and Toots and go into parental management mode. Nah, it'll never work. Not this week. I think I will just let the tears roll.

Happy Mother's Day to the other weepers out there.

yes, even this

Poor Toots yakked her way through last night, poor iddo thing.

Honey took care of the bulk of flying her to the toilet and changing out pjs and sheets.

Even as I was aware of the events of the night, through sheer pushing through the stomach bug (i didn't yak) and overscheduled prior several days, last night I couldn't move as quickly as the yaks occurred.

I cuddled her while he changed sheets, he cuddled her a lot more, took temps gave meds, and generally took excellent care of her.  I've been through plenty of nights like this when the boys were little, and not so little, but this was Honey's first go with having a sick all night kid. 

And I have to say, he was a natural.  He cuddled her sweetly. Her complete trust of him was beyond evident, as was his love for her.

This is why I married him.  I knew he had this in him. He's not the most demonstrative guy in the world, but when it really counts, nobody cuddles better.

And now he's off to work, where a big and urgent project awaits....what a trooper.

of rainy nights and whatnot

My writing group met yesterday, and though we got off to a late start, I was surprisingly productive on the manuscript.

Not the edits I intended, I seemed to dig a little deeper into the new beginning and edit out a bunch of unnecessary phrases and wrote in a new scene that seemed to take care of some other awkward aspects mentioned in my critiques.

Otherwise yesterday seemed to be kind of awash in just bonechilling dank which was demotivational the rest of the day. But I felt good about what I accomplished at the writing group.

Then it rained last night, hard, and dripped from the overfull gutters onto the awning case for the deck - right outside our bedroom wall, and is still rather drippy, so I am out of it today. Seriously interrupted night. 

This morning I had a meeting with some friends, and we had a very interestingly deep conversation even though we all expressed feeling really out of it with the rain and cold. I was glad for it. I think it made us all feel a little closer.

It's a weird week, the boys have half days all week and I strangely have more appointments than usual.



Anyway, just a little something when I don't have much else to say. Some days are just like that.

Life is good. Watch for robins. I've seen a bunch this week!

Japanese Maple buds, today about 1pm.

new favorite thing

Please forgive me if my sentences make no sense today. I had a cahrazy weekend, which included Honey's birthday, on which I barely saw him.  It was a good weekend, a celebratory weekend, but I have been having a cold coming on for a few days, and I think it hit me full force today, when I can finally rest, while catching up and critiquing two manuscripts for tomorrow's writing group, that is. How's that for a run-on?

Oh, and for some unknown reason, Captain Comic has decided that somewhere between 3am and 4:30am is primo wakeup and run back and forth with lights on and doors slamming time.

Anyway, in time for the December challenge, one of my old writing friends from my Boston days turned me on to a new writing tool. It works like Julie Cameron's Morning Pages from The Artist's Way, but it's online. It's typed.  It's private, and you can let your mind wander for 750 words, the equivalent of three pages. And you don't have to find that notebook or pen. I think most of us are sitting in front of a screen these days anyway, right? And it gives me a community of people who are also writing, whether or not I make any more of a connection beyond just knowing they are out there somewhere doing the same thing.

http://750words.com/

I am a horrible typist.  It takes me about twenty minutes per day to meet the 750, averaging about 35-40 words a minute. all typos are left in place.  I try not to go back and correct. I don't think about what I'm writing, I just let the garbage fall out of my brain through my fingers tips and up onto the screen.

Usually about three quarters of the way in, I hit my stride and there's at least a phrase if not an idea that I like or that I can work with in something else, later.

Here's the thing:

When the boys were younger, and I was single and working three part time jobs to support them, when I woke up in the morning, I put the baby gate across the kitchen doorway of our little condo, got the coffee started, and while it brewed, I started my morning pages with pen and notebook amidst the dulcet tones of Captain Comic hanging on the opposite side of the gate, rattling it and screaming for my attention, Mr. Cynic momming me, and the themes of Blues Clues or Bob the Builder running from the tv in the background.  After a few months, they got that I was not going to give them the time of day during "Mommy's morning pages"

And that's when I started writing my almost finished editing this draft manuscript - later in the day, somewhere between job number one and the first school bus arrival, I had thirty minutes  in which I wrote the first thirty or so pages of this book. But I was only productive on that if I had been productive earlier by getting through the mess of my daily concerns to hit the subconscious, where the better writing sprung from, like an underground spring of fresh water.  First I had to clear away the mud.

So why have I not been writing or editing what I really want to be working on lately?

I think the key is in these morning pages. I think it's in getting the garbage out of my head. It only takes me twenty minutes, so why not?  Here I am, doing it online.  And this site has some interesting tools to help you see what mood you're writing in, for instance.  Or what words you repeat, or what senses you are using, and how dominantly you write in one over another. It also has a healthy dose of competition that fuels some of us to write. For me it's much needed accountability.

I highly recommend it.

http://750words.com/

C'mon....you know you want to.

rainy day

Okay, first I was going to post about the shower that was taken by Captain Comic at 5:30am, because last night when he reappeared for the 18th time, well past his bedtime, and he still had not showered, I told him to take it when he wakes at 6am; and the importance of keeping regular routines, especially for kids who have Asperger's Syndrome....and the fact that after that 5:30am shower, because he was too anxious about it to wait until his usual wakeup time of 6am, so when I came downstairs at 7am, Mr.Cynic was already gone, and all the lights and TV were off so I said to myself:

What is wrong with this picture?  Then groggily walked back up the stairs to find Captain Comic asleep in bed.  He is supposed to be outside waiting for his bus by 7:15, with breakfast eaten, and lunch made.   He made it out there, without socks, but with rain coat, and  dare I ask if he even considered brushing his teeth?  By the time I brought a pair of socks for him, he was gone.

But I couldn't make much sense of it beyond the above horrendous sentence structure, etc.  So I said, ah, forget it, and hit delete.

Then I remembered that Toots made a funny segue from a knock-knock joke to an entirely different joke during dinner last night and after a brief and unusually silent pause at our usually rambunctious dinner table, we all cracked up.  Then she told it again.

So I started to type out:

Dinner convo with Toots last night:

Toots: Knock-Knock!
Mom: Who's there?

And I couldn't for the life of me remember the rest of what she said.  I called Honey at work, and he said, I don't know....ask her.

I tried, and she fell back on her old reliable Knock-knock which is not what she said last night.

Toots:Knock-knock!
Mom: Who's there?
Toots: [Toots] the Windowwasher!

Don't ask me how she came up with that one.  I think Honey helped her come up with it a while back.  Clearly he is not the writer in the family.  Stick to design, Hon. That's where you excel. Love ya.

So, between the achy muscles from yesterday's yoga class, the 5:30am shower alarm and the rain we haven't had all summer and are getting now, I can't rub two halves of a thought together, so this is what you get.

Hope it made any kind of sense at all.


Some days are just like this.  Now you may have a partial picture of what it's like in my head.  Trains of thought are often derailed.  I'd like to go back to bed now.

not to be outdone...

....by the previous two sleepless nights, last night's adventures included:


Babette the ghetto queen, luxurious long haired tabby, who slept on my bed for 14 years, but who in recent months has decided her preferred sleeping arrangement is on the driveway under my van, came back. Walked around.  Licked my face. Purred in my ear.  Walked on my head.  Walked on Honey's belly.  Stuck her paw in my mouth.

Then long about 5am, while I was enjoying a rather surreal dream, she dumped my glass of water right on my face.

When did she acquire thumbs?

dunce day

Someone please pass me a pointy cone hat and a seat in a corner.  That is likely the best place for me today.

Sunday night, Toots was having sleep issues, and her crib is in with us until Mr. Cynic goes to college.  Her night talk and cries, etc kept us up for much of the night, and Lucy unlocked her crate and made a bed for herself under ours, with periodic shakes of her jangly collar.

Last night, around two to three in the morning, a domestic dispute occurred outside of our house, making all the neighborhood barkers pipe up, especially ours, who was in her crate downstairs. Amidst the barks, toward the end of things I heard an angry, "If you want me to take you home, then I'll take you home!"  Then things began to quiet down.  Shortly after, I heard the whoosh of a speeding car out of the subdivision and onto the highway that runs behind our house.  I thought things were over.  I was wrong.

I held off calling 911, but someone else in the neighborhood apparently called.  I heard huge sirens and then it got quiet again, seemed like they sped down the highway, not into the neighborhood. I was wrong.

Suddenly, with dogs still barking madly across the neighborhood and  in our home,  someone leans heavily and repeatedly on our doorbell.   I wasn't certain whether it was police or someone seeking refuge.  I didn't want to go downstairs, but they obviously weren't letting up until someone did, so like the good wife I am, I verbally shoved a very sleepy Honey out of bed to check. 

Thankfully, it was the police.  Honey was not as coherent as I was to answer any questions of what we heard, so I joined them on the porch and told the freshly scrubbed teen looking deputy what I've mentioned above.

There's obviously more to this story that involves a couple of broken bottles and a bloody rag in front of our house in the street, and who knows what else. 

But my main concern, is that it looks to be a rainy day, I have three kids of varying ages and interests likely stuck in the house, and a few projects waiting for me to work on them, and I have no brain to come up with any ideas for any of these situations due to serious lack of sleep. 

Oh and the dulcet beeps, clangs, etc of heavy equipment working on the same highway behind our house again.  What ever it is they are doing out there has sincerely become an Syssiphian exercise in local bureaucratic roadworks.  Work has been going on for the entire time we have lived in this house.  As soon as they seem to finish, they tear it up and start again.

Where's a good book and an escape route?

Calgon, take me away!

tired and travel photo

I am exhausted. I think I crashed long after our whirlwind trip.  I haven't been able to muster musings of the trip, though it was jampacked with visits with friends and family, a foot led wander of my favorite city, Boston.

Here is an iconic tourist shot of Copley Square: Trinity Church reflected in the Hancock Tower.  I even captured a Duck Tour in it.  Toots was enthralled with the fountain and chasing pigeons as the adults who walked around with her wanted to collapse in the grass and shade, which we did, taking turns keeping her out of the fountain and off of Boylston Street.

The above photo is one I never would have been caught dead taking when I lived there.  Although, secretly, even then, I loved the juxtaposition of the old gothic revival stone church reflected in the modern blue glass and steel structure.  The difference now, is that I can't just walk into Copley any old time I want and see the changing light of day and season.  That's why I took the photo, because I always did love this particular aspect of Boston, the blend of the classic and modern architecture.  The Victorian flavor of remembrance of things past while looking to the future that is still very much a part of the general character of the city and its populace.  Boston is simultaneously, continuously Colonial through Current, old ships and new museums.

Since I've been back, I have not gone to bed at a decent hour, and not for any good reason. I have been doing heavy gardening and yardwork manual labor, which has been very satisfying, but exhausting, especially in the heat.  I have tried doing things useful and fun with the kids, but not too far reaching.  Before the trip, we had visitors, while wonderful to see, little Baby G did not sleep much during the night, and Little M was a nearly 4 year old ball of energy.  During the trip, Honey and I definitely ran ourselves down, and exhausted Toots, too, by packing too much into too little time.  We tried to not be too ambitious, but, honestly, the trip itself was darned ambitious. The day we left our friends' place in Cambridge for Connecticut, and picking up the boys, poor Toots was wailing protest over everything, very uncharacteristic behavior for her. 

I am past wailing protest tired at this point.  Now I just want to curl up with a good book and escape the world a bit.  I am absolutely grateful to have the boys back home and am enjoying them, but after the current load of laundry finishes, and after doing quite a bit more weeding out back by the broccoli and pepper plants before it gets too hot and muggy, I may just curl up with the book I am currently reading, and disappear into its Belizean rain forest.  It's time for the vacation from the vacation.

happy crabby

I had a busy and ultimately great weekend, capped by spending some really meaningful time with a group of women, most of whom, I really didn't know.  As soon as we sat together, it became obvious, that these are people I am meant to know.

It's been a long time since I intentionally sought out and planned a deeper level of communication.  It was truly an enriching experience, and a lot of fun getting to know these women. 

I think it is particularly important for woman to set aside time with each other in the midst of our lives, take time out for self and sharing our stories. It's too easy to forget about this kind of taking care of ourselves in our daily this, that and everything else.

I think I'm at a particularly happy time in my life:  I am back working on the manuscript, I have plenty of evidence that I am doing a good job raising my kids, I am still healing from my big surgery in February, but there is a long term feeling of getting better overall.  I keep meeting others who have had the same surgery, and they assure me that it takes a good long time to heal and I should just keep that in mind. 

I don't feel like I have to be in control of everything and force my way through life.  That is a big leap for me.  It brings a level of contentment where I previously had a general sense of agitation.

The crabby part is small.  I ovescheduled myself last week and weekend, and I contracted the cold the rest of my family had last week.  It's just annoying really, but I was on such an upswing, that I feel somewhat thwarted.  I know it's just my body telling me I need to rest. 

And as much as I love a good storm, or cloudy rainy days, the last few nights have been rather sleepless due to huge thunderstorms, and today, when I feel like the best thing for me would be to lie in the sun and read a good book, and the weather is not cooperating. It's wet and grey.  Normally I do love this sort of day, but I really wanted a good dose of vitamin D and sunshine for my irritated throat and ears and stuffy sinuses.


And as much as I enjoyed my busy weekend, I missed my kids.  Mr. Cynic was away on retreat. I was out and about quite a bit, and only saw Captain Comic and Toots in small doses.  I kept thinking I'd rather be at the beach with all of them than what I was doing, even as I enjoyed, getting my hair cut, and meeting new friends Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon.

So I'm already looking forward to next weekend and the hope for fun in the sun with my family.

HHHmmm...what is scheduled? 

For starters, Friday afternoon, I have an IEP Transition meeting for Captain Comic to move into middle school in September. This is the first meeting that we are including him in the process, too.  He is already anxious about the changes to come with middle school. 

Ah, no wonder I feel crabby....but mostly it's the cold.   'Sok, It shouldn't last too long.

Busy weekend, not much sleep

I'm not complaining, but this state of mind is leaving me rather cotton-stuffed between the ears.  So not much to say.  I have things I'm thinking of and a big week ahead, so possibly I will post better in the coming days.  Wednesday should have a big one. 

I was so tired, I found myself blubbering this Sunday about how on Wednesday, "the child who made me a mother turns 15."  As I said it, and as I blubbered, in my head I was thinking, "where on Earth is this coming from?"  and laughing at myself for it.  And then I remembered, "Oh yea, I didn't sleep at all last night!  It's sleep deprivation!"

I have a lot of experience in this department.

Crash and randoms for Friday

I think I may have overdone it at the writers' retreat. I haven't written anything else in the book all week since.

Toots has been Sleeping through the night since I left last Thursday morning, and in her crib. Two miracles in my book. Previously she was still waking to nurse during the night. I mentioned something about being grateful that she is sleeping through the night now and lo and behold:

Last night she wouldn't sleep until 11pm and then was solidly awake from 2:30-5:30am. Wanted to party and dance with the two giant slugs in bed with her: Mommy and Daddy."Hi Daddy! Hi Daddy! Hi Daddy! Mom-Mom-mommy!" is not nearly as cute at 4am as 4 pm.

Lord have mercy upon my sleep deprived soul. Goddess have mercy. Somebody out there, please help this girl sleep before I die from sleep deprivation before she reaches kindergarten.

I'm kidding. I won't die from it. I am a lifetime practitioner of the science of sleep deprivation, and so are all my kids. But a few nights of sleep at the retreat and a few nights of it at home all in a row made me realize what I've been missing all this time.

Mr. Cynic is a pretty good sleeper now. But he's a teen. It was bound to happen.

Speaking of Mr. Cynic, I wish I could recall what was so funny one night this week, but I said it and he and I both absolutely collapsed in laughter. It's good to laugh with your teen; they don't seem to resent your existence on earth nearly so much.

Captain Comic's quote of the week comes to us from last night's dinner table conversation.

"Mom? Is 'Egad!' French for 'Oh no!'?"

Please forgive my punctuation above, I am very sleep deprived and punctuationally flummoxed.

Enjoy your weekend. I have a haircut scheduled with my new cutie pie stylist, who is way too young, and I'm way too married, and he's also way too engaged...but a girl can look, right? Especially when his tight black t-shirt clad bicep is flexing 2 inches from eyes. That's right, I found the one straight male stylist in a 2000 mile radius. And he's a magician with a razor. Nobody seems to want to cut hair with a razor anymore, and that's exactly what works best for my wave.

Toots has been invited to her first birthday party.

I really want to take down my Christmas decorations. Really I do. But I think I'd rather spend the weekend in bed, doing the most thrilling thing to me in the world as I write this: sleeping - or cuddling with Honey who has been terribly sick this week and is feeling much better.

I guess I'll see what happens.

And most of all I am thinking of the people of Haiti.

The end of an era

Toots is twenty-one months old. I have long term nursed her until now, as I did my boys so long ago.

I really struggled about going to the retreat because I was torn about ending nursing. In all this time with Toots, I have only used the $250 Medela pump three times. Otherwise, it's all been naturale. Mother and child, the old way, the real way, as it should be, and as no other relationship on earth.

I knew the time was coming, but I didn't want to cut her off. I knew the time was coming, I was worn out, I have surgery scheduled in a couple of weeks, and I really didn't want to end nursing. Toots is clearly the last child I will do this with. A part of my life that is full of meaning and feminine divinity, and empowerment and ferality and sweetness and life is over. It's over for her and it's over for me.

While I effectively made a clear decision about it by going away for four nights, I was heartstrung about it. A lot in my life is so up in the air all the time, come what may, but loving and nursing my children has been one of those things I never doubted and was really good at.

I've mourned it twice already, with Mr Cynic, after which I was almost immediately pregnant again with Captain Comic...between the two of them I was pregnant and nursing for seven years straight. I was pretty darned sure after Captain Comic stopped, that he was my last and I mourned the finality of it then.

Then ten years later I had Toots. And now twenty-one months later, here I am grieving the passage of my life as a mother to babies for the second time. That closeness. That ineffable thing artists have been portraying in holy light for centuries. The most basic mammalian function, providing the ultimate nourishment to offspring.

She asked and whined a little about wanting to after I came back on Sunday. Asked a couple of times since, but with sweet talk of her being a big girl now, she was easily soothed and diverted.

She followed Grandma upstairs to bed tonight. I miss her. One week ago tonight was the last time we nursed.

Inspiration deferred

Last night I was popping with Ideas. They were magical, they were inspirational, they were....last night and I didn't write them down.

During the night a stuffy Baby C had to cuddle. Through the night she began to resemble a hot water bottle..which slowly heated itself more and more until she was a wiggly fussy constantly nursing very hot water bottle.

Needless to say, I have not slept. I feel like a wad of cotton has replaced my brain. C's pediatric appointment is scheduled for later this afternoon and with the exhaustion I slipped my disc first thing this morning.

This is what happens when I complain that it is too quiet now that the boys are with their father for the rest of the school break until we get on the road for the long haul to retrieve them halfway up the East Coast from here next Saturday.


C'est la vie. Maybe she'll nap off of me long before her appointment. Though I won't count on it. At least the sense of writing remains. Maybe tomorrow, a poem, something to do with opening my ribcage to find the starry skies within pouring out.

Moms who blog

It sounds like a support group for mother's who can't help themselves from blogging, a twelve-step program.

But it's a growing population of those of us who need to tell our stories, lament the woes and record the triumphs of our day in and day out, a way to be creative when we feel we have no mental space for thinking more deeply in order to write our great american novels or capture the image of our masterpieces, like in the days before we had children and we still had brains capable of more than routine tasks and singing Old MacDonald for the 300,000th time, or reading Tikki-Tikki-Tembo until we are blue in the face.

It seems from where I sit anyway, that there are more of us in the blogosphere than most, and father's too, recording the amazing and most common thing humanity shares, the raising of our children.

Some of us are special needs moms, some are moms of teens, tweens or small children, some moms of blended families, some young moms, some who waited until later in life, and some of us are all of the above. And yes, I am talking about me in that last group. :)

We share a lot, with each other and of ourselves with the world at large. I think, besides the outlet for creativity, we do so to say, like the Whos on Horton's dustpeck, We are here! We are here! We are here! To say, we matter, I am doing something with my life, and it's important. We do it to say, I am not alone, are you out there, can you hear me? I want to hear your story, too!

The old trotted out line that it takes a village to raise a child is very true, and one of those reasons is to keep the mother who is caring for her kids from feelings of desperate isolation. It may be the mother who is running from work to home and racing to the store for dinner in between, who is lacking a serious connection with her friends she used to see all the time or stay up all night talking on the phone. It may be the mother who is going mental thinking the last time she had a conversation that didn't involve diapers and their contents in graphic detail was she can't remember when. It may be the mother who seems to have moments of sheer joy at the developmental milestone her child just sailed past, who wants to call out, Hey! Did you see that?! It may be the mother who found a moment of quiet and beauty with her child that cracked her open like an egg to the wonders of the universe.

Some people, even in this day and age, still have their coffee klatches and playdates, some of us don't. In the twenty-first century, we have our blogs. Our neighborhood is the whole world and whoever happens to click in and say hello, I see you, and that sounds just like me! Sometimes readers click in, and if you use a tracker on your blog, you can see them and know you've been visited from Brazil, Ireland, Russian, Japan, or across the the US or even from the next town. I feel validated when I see my tracker or when people, I still haven't met but who feel like friends comment. I feel like what I'm doing matters. That sometimes talking about the tougher stuff helps someone else, or sharing a joy lifts someone's spirit. But mostly I feel like the fact that I am parenting matters. That I'm not doing it in a void. That doing what I can for my kids is the best thing I can do.

I'll just write the great american novel later. When I've had some more sleep.

Uninspired

I don’t know if it’s because I’m still waiting for some feedback on my manuscript, or because of the weather and time of year, or because I recently completed my first larger scale writing project since my thesis in college about 20 years ago, but for a couple months now, I have felt completely uninspired to write.

In the past, when I have felt this uninspired, I generally have felt depressed or frustrated by the absolute emptiness of my head. This time around I just feel pooped which can be attributed to the lack of sleep with a toddler who still wakes three times a night at least. The other feeling I have is vaguely satisfied, generally upbeat. Now, again, I’m not sure if this has anything to do with the manuscript or just maturity level over aged forty.

It’s summer and all the kids are as around as a teen can be when all his friends are back from their extended vacations that did not coincide with his visit to his father the previous month. S is always around, hovering upstairs drawing and reading or tapping me on the shoulder and Momming me repeatedly; and of course, Baby C is generally underfoot, when she’s not on top of something like Honey’s closed laptop on his desk. So, for me to sit in front of the computer is generally a continuously interrupted thing to do times three. During the school year, I generally have the mornings to myself, with my mother-in-law out doing her exercise thing (which is better than I can say for myself in that arena), and of course, C is still with me constantly.

I think some of this lack of inspiration is just the simple down time from writing something that was a huge deal for me to finish, so to speak. A first draft is a first draft, after all, and I am very aware that what I wrote is not a completed novel. But I wrote the story from beginning to end over one hundred pages. To me, that’s a big deal, not the page number, but the story arc, the things that the main character, who felt like one of my own kids, underwent and his growth and transformation.

I think this month especially has been one of considerable downtime, maybe a fallow field. Usually, when I lived in New England, anyway, the inspiration really starts popping like corn as soon as the first hint of autumn is in the air. So I wonder if some of this is just the dog days of a hot, humid August for me.

S’s eleventh birthday is on the 26th. This and K’s advancement to high school and C’s toddlerdom have really had me considering the constant mutability of time. It seems not so long ago that my boys were C’s age, reaching those initial milestones. Time is simultaneously standing still and speeding by for me. I am constantly considering what is important to pay attention to in the long run, as my children are representing three distinct developmental stages.

I am also in the process of applying for positions outside of my home after a considerable amount of time in which I focused on my kids, my recovery after bedrest pregnancy and my manuscript. In some ways it was a necessary luxury, as Kelly mentioned in comments on Brittany’s recent post at Creative Construction ,that must end. I took offense to the term luxury when Kelly used it, but I can see now is that it is a luxury to be able to be home, to be available to see the magic daily that is the kids growing and changing before my very eyes. Maybe some of the lack of inspiration can be attributed to refocusing on the outside world after being very insular for a long time.

While I have been very philosophically minded, I have not felt the urgency to write that has largely defined my life. This is the first time that to be so uninspired feels like a good thing.