Back the Truck Up

My dad called today to say he was buying plane tickets for us.

For us? I said. For where?

Hawaii.

Um, I thought we hadn't settled on a date for Hawaii...had we?

Well, apparently everyone else had. Now, ordinarily when someone gives you an all-expense paid trip to Hawaii, you gulp dramatically and say, "I'll race you to the airport!" But I am feeling...not quite like that.

I am struggling to lay my finger on how I feel. And let me say right off the bat that this has nothing to do with my parents' generosity and everything to do with my (and my husband's) general approach to life.

See, I am a reactor. I roll along, having a hard time with decisions, until something happens and I react. I spent many years being dragged into things against my will until I learned the power and the beauty of the word "No." And while that has been very freeing, I still often roll along without really deciding in advance where I want to go. Sometimes I am waiting for God to tip His hand, sometimes I am attempting to avoid going off half-cocked (or fully cocked, whatever) before I really know what I'm doing, sometimes I am waiting for my husband to make a decision. This last bit is where I get into trouble.

My hubby is a roller, too. He sometimes waits for me to decide and then events overtake us and we have to react -- react, instead of proact. We are being acted upon, rather than stepping out boldly and decisively, knowing what it is we're aiming for.

So the Hawaii thing overtook us in the midst of waiting -- in this case, waiting for God's will to become crystal clear regarding adoption. Like, engraved-invitation-clear. Or neon-sign-clear. Or walk-this-way-clear, thankyouverymuch Arrowsmith.

The problem is, if we go to Hawaii for 10 days as planned, my hubby will have used up most of his vacation for the year. You know -- the year in which we would possibly, maybe be travelling for an adoption. The year in which two weeks of vacation might be critical. Or not. Remember -- we're still waiting on the not-sure-what-to-do train.

I am tired of being flattened by my life. And even more tired that the good things can flatten me almost as effectively as the bad.

Why "I Are Unhappy" is not an Excuse to Go Off on Anyone

Let's catch up, shall we?

I was having this difficult week....with a difficult person....who I usually ignore...but who was all up in my bidness and not going away....and I was mad.

Although I really wanted to have a little temper tantrum, or a little confrontation, or a little something in which my feelings were allowed some aeration, I did not give in to temptation. This is somewhat remarkable because when I feel like I'm gonna blow, I usually do. However, I was able to LET IT GO.

When next I saw this person, I was calm, gracious, understated. It didn't hurt that I was suffering from a massive head cold and felt like death warmed over. Nothing like a little illness to mute your more strident personality facets.

And now.....oh, now....I am so glad I did what I did. Because do you know what I found out? This person, the one who occasionally drives me straight to the edge of a cliff, was operating under some very similar demons. In fact, this whole shebang turns out to be not this person's fault at all.

Now what would have happened if I'd gone all medieval on someone? I would be a supreme jerk, that's what. And let's be clear here -- sometimes I am a supreme jerk. I have the robe and everything. But this time I LET IT GO. And beyond the satisfaction of being a grown up about something, I got the further satisfaction of discovering that being a grown up saved my heinie.

Turns out that The Person was being driven straight up the crazy tree by an ultra-controlling parent. And we all know that some parents can get involved in things that are none of their business and really mess them up. And that was the case here. All the fol-de-rol-lol was due to some extreme parental immaturity and meddling.

So here's the whole thing in a nutshell: I did the right thing and everyone benefitted.

Cue the angels singing, please....

I Are Unhappy

I am having one of those days when everything ticks me off. I can't seem to achieve any kind of zen to my day -- it's all a swirling morass of yuckiness.

There is this person in my life, someone that I can't ever really get away from, who used to drive me utterly crazy. Pull-your-hair-out-foam-at-the-mouth crazy. For many many years I was a slave to this emotional response. This person was an absolute genius at picking just the right set of circumstances and then pulling the one string that would make everyone involved come completely unglued. I finally reached a point -- I'd like to think it was maturity, but let's not get all cuckoo here -- where I just decided I was not going to react to this person's shennanigans anymore. I completely disassociated and it turned out to be a very successful technique. I grew calmer, refused to be drawn into conversations about this person by others who needed to vent, and developed a sublime indifference to whatever chaos this individual chose to create.

And then I lived happily ever after....until today.

The chaos is back and I am struggling with how to respond. My normal decision to opt out is not an option this time...I have to respond. And it makes me mad that this person has found a way to subvert my indifference, to force me to interact when I would really just prefer not to. I am very comfortable with the "you go your way, I'll go mine" lifestyle we've been leading and this all-up-in-yo-face tactic has me really annoyed.

See, I don't want to care but this person is really really good at making caring unavaoidable.

I hate when that happens.

Maybe I am approaching this all wrong. Maybe the truth here is that the whole thing is a tempest in a teapot. If I take a little time today and do some deep breathing and visualize world peace and center my chakra (? okay, I admit, I don't know what this is) then the sturm und drang will die down. Maybe it's only a problem if I let it be a problem. Maybe this whole thing just wormed its way through a chink in my armor because I'm tired and flustered about other stuff.

Hmmmm. I think I may be on to something here.

A Passing

My grandmother passed away last night. She was 90.

It's not like this was wholly unexpected, yet I find myself sad today. She was very much the grandma of my childhood -- she delighted in small children, in the funny things they said and did, in their emerging personalities. She was less comfortable with us when we grew up and had opinions of our own, particularly if those opinions didn't mesh with her own.

I have so many memories of her from when I was little. Trips to Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farm, Magic Mountain, the beach...she was forever taking us places like that, places kids love and seldom get to visit. She always kept excellent treats around like WonderBread, which we thought was manna from heaven, and store-bought cookies of the chocolately kind, and cheetos, which she knew we loved. She took us to movies and to play mini-golf. She rode the Ferris Wheel with us when she thought it might be too scary and came along with us when we drove Tin Lizzies -- the kind that were really just fancy golf carts on rails so kids could drive them and not get hurt.

She loved stories and she could remember all sorts of little incidents from our babyhood. She told us our own stories and laughed about them all over again. She was our number one fan -- nothing we did could ever be wrong and she'd knock down anyone who said it was. In fact, she couldn't bear any of us to be criticized and when we were older and did things that deserved criticism, she would still take the head off anyone who dared to do it, even someone in the family. Even us.

Her life was touched by sorrow. She'd lost a sister in a fire and a baby brother to illness. She lost all her older brothers to alcoholism. Her father died in his 50's of a heart attack. She married my grandfather in 1938 and got pregnant on her wedding night. She had her first child at the age of 19. By age 23 she had 3 children and her husband enlisted in the Marine Corps (he is still living. He's 93 and in the VA hospital, mind as clear as a bell). He was sent to the South Pacific and she moved next door to her mother to have some help with the kids. She lived to see one of her sons divorce 3 times, her daughter divorce once, and 4 of her eight grandchildren divorce 6 times. Just before her 80th birthday, in what would be the last lucid year of her life, her middle son died of liver cancer.

Parts of her life read like a scene from a movie. Her sister Clarice was married to an abusive husband, so she and my grandfather helped Clarice move out, and activity which ended with my grandpa beating up his brother-in-law and his brother-in-law's brothers. Seems like that should be played by Marlon Brando, trailing a cigarette from one curling lip.

Other parts read like a comic novel. When she gave birth to my dad in 1938, she was given the first episiotomy the hospital had ever done. Consequently, the entire surgical and obstetric staff came by to see her stitches. Mortifying for a 19 year-old Catholic girl. Another time, she tied my 3 year-old uncle to the clothesline outside to keep him from wandering away while she went to get another load of wash to hang. When she came back, his overalls were hanging from the line and he was wandering around downtown, naked as the day he was born.

She kept secrets, and I think this is what really shaped the second half of her life. Her middle son, my uncle, was a stinker as a child, but as an adult he dabbled in more than his fair share of shady enterprises, finally landing in prison for a while. That was something we were never allowed to speak of. Her daughter got pregnant and had to get married. Her middle son abandoned his first family. One of my cousins had a drinking problem. Another did drugs. Her daughter had an affair that ended her marriage. All very hush hush. I think the strain of keeping it all in and trying to keep straight what lie she'd told to whom to cover it all up made her touchy beyond belief. She liked to be the spider in the center of the web, but it was a role that was too much for her in the end.

She has been lost to me for the last 10 years, slipping into that hazy half-world that some older people inhabit. She hasn't recognized anyone in 5 years, hasn't been able to speak for 2. It's a release, I suppose. And yet, I would have her back, selfishly, because for all her frustrating ways, I knew without a doubt that she loved me.

I am spending today wrapped in my memories, dabbing at the odd tear, wishing I could see her just once more and tell her that without a doubt, I loved her too.

Mid-Week Musings

Every morning, I am treated to Dinosaur Train. I love Dinosaur Train -- it's the main reason my hair looks okay and I have a little color to my face. Without it, I'd be a lot messier.



But while I am watching it, I can't stop my mind from turning over a few issues that it raises for me. Like, what will the Pteranodon family do when Buddy grows up and eats them?

I mean, I'd be a little worried if I were them.


I find it funny, the way the series soft-pedals the whole carnivore-thing. Buddy's favorite food is "carrion" with no clear explanation that carrion isn't just random meat lying around in the primeval forest like so much cafeteria fare. "Buddy, do you want the carrion or the jello salad?"


It's hard to make velociraptors cute and cuddly, but Dinosaur Train does it. However, I can't escape the layering of Jurassic Park images on top of the friendly little dinosaurs tripping off to the Dinosaur Train; there's always a little voice in my mind saying "Clever girl!" followed by a shrieking crescendo of death-wails.



Sometimes my thoughts go in a completely different direction. See Don, on the far right? My mom brain looks at him and says "Whoa, look at that underbite! That kid is going to need serious dental work, maybe some jaw surgery...wouldn't want the bill for that."


I'm just sayin'.

Other times I wonder why Don and Shiny don't get to ride the train as often as Buddy and Tiny do...I worry that their emotional health isn't really considered here.


I mean, you know...in cartoon land.


It's very weird in my head.

I Buy Books

I would buy more, but my husband insists that we have money for silly stuff like food and gas and house payments. Sheesh.

Right now, I've got a shopping cart full to the brim at Amazon.com with kids books. These are really my weak spot. I love full color illustrations -- some of the most brilliant artists are those working in children's lit. And I am a sucker for science-y sorts of books, the kinds of books where you learn a little something in the midst of all the great pictures. Books like Emperor's Egg, and One Night in the Coral Sea, and Actual Size, and Amazing Sharks. My goodness, I could go on and on about cool kids books.

I think I will.

Over in the Ocean, One Tiny Turtle (I'm on an ocean kick), Big Blue Whale, Sea Otter Inlet, Three Little Rigs, Sweet Dream Pie, The Great Gracie Chase, Rain, Rain, Rain Forest, One Nighttime Sea, the list is almost endless. So many wonderful books, it makes my head spin.

My children each have a bookshelf and all three shelf units are overflowing with books. I almost never refuse a request to buy a book -- Scholastic Book Orders is making a mint off our family. We have them in piles next to our beds, great tottering towers of books that we can't bear to put away or that we're meaning to get to as soon as we finish some other book that's grabbed our attention for the moment.

They are a huge source of clutter and they're a storage problem; if we weren't readers, the house would be a lot emptier, but then we would be a lot emptier, too. I love that my children feel they must own books. They like the library, but they love Barnes and Noble.

What would I take to a desert island? Ooooooo. Certainly I couldn't live without Pride and Prejudice and my other Jane Austens (Emma, Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion); likewise my Margaret of Ashbury novels A Vision of Light and The Search for the Green Lion. Then there's Harry Potter. And Narnia. And all my Georgette Heyer books. And The Little White Horse and Linnets and Valerians. Brother Cadfael too, I think. Wives and Daughters might have to go in there as well. Those are the ones I read over and over again; they're like stepping into other worlds, grown familiar and beloved from long experience.

New stuff I love: Gregor the Overlander, City of Ember, Holes (not really new but so dang good) The Goose Girl and Enna Burning. My nephew tells me the Alex Rider books are good, so I am adding them to my list of books to try. My 10 year old niece Elea recommended The Unicorn Chronicles and I liked it almost against my will. I mean really...Unicorns? I had flashbacks to a lot of bad decor from the early 80s, but it was actually a good read. More than that; a very good read. The first three Princess Diaries books cracked me up -- what a shame that the cigarrette-smoking, Sidecar-drinking, tatooed eyeliner Grandmere became Julie Andrews in the movie. Another great literary character left in the dust.

I love good young adult lit.

I have whittled my Amazon order down to about $70. Tim said, why don't you take that money and buy clothes? And he's right, I certainly need the clothes, especially since Maggie came along and blew my figure to smithereens. But books are just better than clothes. Hands down. I'll buy clothes next month.

Bad Tuesday

Not to be confused with Fat Tuesday, though we do have a lot of cheap, shiny necklaces laying around.

Maggie won't sleep today. This is a continuation of Maggie Won't Sleep Monday and Maggie Won't Sleep Sunday. It's a trilogy of sleeplessness and I lay it all at the doorstep of church.

Were I an atheist or a pagan, I suppose I would stay home Sunday morning watching real estate shows and NASCAR on TV. Instead, we haul our little brood to church each week, where the littlest one refuses to sleep. Church occurs about 30 minutes into when she would normally be napping, and that nap is usually 90 minutes long, so this is a pretty big interruption of sleep for her. Generally she takes 3 naps a day, but on Sunday she only takes 2, an early afternoon and a late afternoon one. She has been taking 3 naps for quite some time now, but this week she finally decided to give up that 3rd nap, so on this particular Sunday she took only one nap. ONE. This was not enough and despite my rigid adherance to her nap schedule on Monday, she is now veeerrrrrry overtired and napping like caca. It will take until Wednesday, at least, to get her back on track, and she won't really be back in her groove until Friday. Just in time for church to roll around again on Sunday.

This is where I would like to address the people who told me that the third baby is so mellow, so 'along for the ride.' Bull. She is the least flexible baby I've ever produced; not especially tolerant, not happy to be carted around wherever we go. She naps in her crib -- that's it. Nowhere else. She hates being along for the ride, i.e. in the van, and since she has recently discovered screaming, we are all aware of her displeasure. Three quarters of any car trip involve cringing as the screaming crescendos to almost unbearable decible levels.

The only place she has shown any degree of flexibility is in the church nursery, where she is delighted to be left. We think this is because the kids there are gentler than her siblings and she probably feels safer there than in our living room.

Of course, since she was in the nursery 48 hours ago, she now has a cold.

I am typing this, listening to her howl through the monitor because she's had so little sleep today. I am also periodically telling my other two to be quiet, be quiet! BE QUIET!!. It's not really a relaxing place to be today, our house. Thank God they've finally agreed to watch Peter Pan and give me 77 minutes of peace.

How come, if God wants us to go to Church, He doesn't make the way there smoother?

Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge, Say No More..

My hubby dropped off his fifth "test" sample today, in hopes of finally being declared sperm-free after his vasectomy. A vasectomy which occurred more than a year ago. A vasectomy which was supposed to make our lives more carefree -- or at least as carefree as we can be with 3 kids all sleeping within 12 feet of our bedroom.

The first few times he was tested, the paperwork necessary for dropping off the sample brought him up short. Particularly the little space on the form which asked "How was the sample obtained?"

What are you supposed to write there? As if standing there with a cup of semen isn't humiliating enough, now you have to discuss how you got it? The only thing I can compare this to is when I was having one of my c-sections and the nurse made me carry around a cup of my own urine for 10 minutes before deciding that they did not, in fact, need it at all. Then they just left it sitting on a table top in my room for about 5 hours. It did add a certain je ne sais quoi to the otherwise boring hospital room, but it didn't improve my mood one bit.

So this time, magic number 5, I told him to go right up to the desk and boldly write "PORN" in that little space and then wink at the clerk when he hands over the cup.

'How was the sample obtained', indeed. Sheesh.

Go get 'em baby!

Making a Splash

I'm sure everyone wants to make their first blog post a real zinger. What to write about? What intellectual or cultural subjects to plumb? What aspects of the universal psyche shall we address?

Baby Alive.

Yep. That's my springboard to the web. Baby Alive. This was the hot item for Christmas 2006. It was also the only really significant thing on our 5 year old's list. Every store in the city was sold out. We trolled ebay, but couldn't bring ourselves to pay the extortionate prices. So like many other parents, my husband and I sweated bullets wondering if Toys R Us would get one in before the 24th. They did, and my husband abruptly left work at 10 in the morning to race over and plunk down $50 for what has to be one of the oddest looking dolls ever (and in one of those gosh-I-wish-I'd-been-there moments, he said he walked in, found the first person he could with a name tag and said "take me to Baby Alive.")

We debated whether Santa would bring Baby Alive on Christmas morning, but ultimately we decided that since we'd gone to so much effort procuring said baby, we ought to get the credit. And it was good credit...the kind of credit usually reserved for grandparents and wealthy aunts.

So now my daughter's childhood dream is fulfilled. Baby Alive lives, eats, drinks and poops at our house. And in one of life's little ironies, my daughter is freaked out by the green poopy diapers, so I get to change Baby Alive in addition to the real live (and often poopy) baby we already have. My darling girlfriend, Angie, said "and that's why Kaitlyn didn't get Baby Alive. I am not changing a doll's diapers."

I know. It's dumb. Why would I, already responsible for the wiping of several assorted bottoms, take on another source of poo? It's simple: because I never got a Baby Alive when I was a kid. And I really wanted one.

No doubt this will come back to bite me in the butt, but just last week my daughter said "Thanks mom for getting me Baby Alive. She's the best baby ever!" The credit just keeps rollin' in.