My Name is Mommy

Oyster Nightmare

OMG!  This night has been crazy.  Dean and the girls ate a bunch of oysters out of a jar he bought at an asian market.  If I'd known I would have stopped it.  Turns out the oysters were RAW, in a jar with no preservatives or anything.  Dean thought it would be fine, cause, you know, people eat raw oysters. 

Ave ate half of one, Vi ate two and Dean had a bunch.  Anyhow, I made both the girls drink a huge glass of water, stick their fingers down their throats and vomit. Rinse. Repeat.  It was a barf-fest.  Barfatorium.  They were both troopers about it.

I majored in microbiology so I know that you can get Vibrio or even Noro from raw oysters and just what we need are a couple of kids going to the hospital with sepsis from eating a vibrio-laced oyster. 

Gave them an absolute ton of water after and then had them take fiber and probiotics.  Hopefully, this will clear their system and if they end up with food poisoning, maybe it won't be as bad.  Vibrio is a bad bug, though, and those who get sick from it... well, there's a 40% mortality.  That is HIGH.

Please say a little prayer for us that they won't get infected.  Dean also got the treatment, but he's got the stomach of steel.  Our kids do not, however.

I am so glad I can't even eat shellfish.

Don't eat raw oysters!  They can kill you!  Soaking them in lime juice or hot sauce will not kill the bacteria they might contain(seriously, some people think that is the case)

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Going Post-al

Alright, I have about 15 minutes scheduled in here to update the old blog.  Hi blog.  I don't know how long it has been since I've written you last, but I miss you.  Good things have been happening.

Foxy is starting to get a little attention and the farrier finally took drastic measures and got Shadow's feet done really, really well.  If you live is the East Bay and need a FANTASTIC farrier, give Nathan Mott a call- you can probably find his info on Bay Area Equestrian.  He is very gentle and kind and literally saved Shadow's life as we thought we were going to have to put him down.  Now, he's been given a reprieve and it's not like we didn't try before- so kudos to Nate for his tenacity with our old guy.  I know it is another mouth to feed but he is such an awesome horse, especially for little kids, it was eating me from the inside out to think of having to put him down.  Cosette is putting on weight and getting sassy and she's looking pretty happy these days, too.

I've still been busy with doctors appointments and getting my blood drawn regularly and infusions but it is becoming routine and that's just the way it goes.  That's all I'm going to say on that right now.

I've been reviewing a ton of books which I love and I'm doing a little freelance editing and copy writing.

I'm doing yoga.  Viola is going to start going with me.  It's the hot kind and 90 minutes long so I'm also drinking like 2 gallons of water a day.

The girls are all signed up for camps this summer.  Ave is off to San Francisco Girls Chorus camp for 10 days plus a week at Girl Scout camp.  Vi is going to the Gillie's program at Girl Scout camp again this year where they hike out to their campsite and have to build their own tree beds and shelters.  We have one gracing the front of our house these days where the kids like to hang out and read(It's kind of like a hammock only Vi made it from some pieces of wood, a bunch of sisal rope and a slew of special knots she learned at scout camp.  Vi's going to do an intensive program at ACT's Youth Conservatory in SF this summer and she is excited for that.

Both girls are singing their hearts out.  Vi is taking private lessons with one of the SFGC private instructors(Audrey is AMAZING)- Viola can hit the highest notes and they sound pure and ethereal with quite a bit of power behind them.  My hopes of her turning out to be an amazing coloratura soprano might just happen.  Ave is up for promotion but she may do another year as a second level in the SF Girls Chorus as she is still pretty young.  She has learned so much and we are coming up on the final concert of the year at the performance center at the Mormon Temple and then she'll be out for the summer(except for camp).  She has a performance for the outreach program this week.  

AND swim team has started.  We're sticking with the Barracudas- even though we live in Glenmoor, we love the coaches at Mission Valley Swim Team and the team came in second at championships last year- Ave got ribbons for her freestyle and butterfly(Vi was still recovery from scootering down the side of a mountain and wiping out and having to have a bunch of stitches across her kneecap).  Swim team is a huge commitment but the girls love it.

Ave's doing gymnastics and it just so happens that she's actually good at it and has been progressing rapidly.  She's doing 2 90 minute classes a week and I think we're going to have a coach work with her privately over the summer.  On one day she goes straight from swim team to gymnastics, the other straight from chorus to gymnastics.  But it is all her.  I haven't encouraged it because I don't like how dangerous gymnastics can be but secretly, I'm rooting for her because this might just be her sport.  She's amazing, doing cartwheels on the high beam, working on her handsprings and crazy press handstands.  She's just this little ball of muscle now.

Finally, cause this is all I have time for today... I dyed my hair back as close to my natural color as I could get it.  I'm over the whole highlight thing.  They might look great on other people but it isn't worth it to me to waste three hours of my day and god knows how much money to get highlights only to have roots that make me insane a few weeks later.  See, hair, when you get to be too high maintenance, you get the smack down.  So, it may be dull and boring but I'm back to brown and so it goes.  Do have to say, I loved the Feria product I used.  It covered my hair really evenly even thought the bottom was really blond from all the highlighting.  Oh yeah, and I'm going to let it grow out.  I figure with getting older and all, this might be my last shot at having hair that is actually longer than shoulder-length...

Who knew?

I'm looking at a rack of shelves across from where I am sitting typing this and I see so clearly how the shelves are made to fit in the grooves that have been etched to hold them.

Dean told me a story.  He swims at Master's every morning at our pool.  I should but I'm too lazy.  No, really, I've gotten lazy.  He was talking to a woman there the other day who witnessed a drowning at Half Moon Bay.  We go to the beach there all the time.  We go all up and down the coast in the area to wade and swim and explore.  

This woman, the day she was there, an 11 year old girl got swept off the shore- knocked down by a wave and pulled out by the force of the water.  We joke about the undertow but if you've never been knocked down, not sure which way is up, feeling like the whole ocean is trying to suck you out and drag you down... Well, I am always on my kids about turning their back to the ocean, wading out too far, not paying attention...

Anyhow, in this story this girl's mother went after her.  She got pulled into a rip current (some people call it a rip or a rip tide- but it isn't really a tide).  From my lifeguarding days, when Dean said that, I had a feeling how the story was going to end- even a real athlete, even a mother pumped up on adrenaline trying to save her child, well, getting caught by a rip is a good way of getting killed- especially if you don't know what to do.  The daughter was rescued by helicopter.  The mother died.  The woman telling my husband this at the pool is apparently a strong swimmer and she had a hand on the woman's wrist but she had already gone unconscious and couldn't quite get her without getting in trouble herself.  And that is the crux of it- most people drown trying to help other people which is a bummer.  I hope my kids get the whole, 'respect the ocean' lesson out of that.

My public service message here: as with any emergency(someone choking, something's on fire, someone's bleeding, someone's drowning)- alert the professionals first and then don't do anything to make it worse if you can. And as far as the ocean goes- if you do ever happen to get caught in the rip, don't fight it, don't panic- keep your head above water.  If you can, swim parallel to shore.

But that story got me thinking about a woman on the shore with her 11 year old daughter.  And everyone wonders why I stay back and take pictures when we go to the ocean(even if I wasn't anemic nd freezing all the time anyway). Ha.  Someone has to be there to call for help.  Oh, I mean, I would probably do the exact same thing that mother did and just hope I got lucky.  I guess if I had to choose a way to go out.. after the horses, it'd probably be the ocean.  Statistics say car accident, cancer or heart disease.  If I get cancer or heart disease, you'll probably find me at the ocean alot.  Riding the horses at the ocean.  You know, they can actually swim pretty well.  I'm not sure how far they can swim, though- I've only put it to test across a river or two.

I was talking to my friend Joannie the other day and trying to explain to her how different my life has been from what I thought it would be but how it is a good thing in ways.  One of those is like those shelves I was talking about earlier.

I remember being about twelve years old and sitting out on the roof of our house in Kennydale, watching the sun set over Lake Washington.  The wind was just right, the temperature was just right and I can still feel the grittiness of the shingles under my palms and that brilliant red-orange color flooding the whole sky as the sun dipped down behind the hills across the lake.  There were a few minutes there where I could just see it all- I felt like I could understand the world, my purpose, life, the point, GOD, THE UNIVERSE. I could see The Big Picture and it was Okay.  Everything slipped into this groove, that groove that... it's just being there.  BEING THERE.  For those few moments I was just there.

And I guess, even though my life has not been what I thought it would be- I've been taught things about life and love and meaning by people from which I never thought I had anything to learn.  Those moments come more often when you are ready for them, open to them.  They come more often when you are not distracted so much by the small stuff that you miss the real stuff, which might happen to be small stuff, too.  I mean, a sunset, right?  A shelf, fitting in a groove?  The sun sets every day and that is what a shelf is and does.  But then I think maybe there will come a day where the sun will not set.  I think a day will come where I will not be here to see the sun set.  

This is it.  Who knew?

 

 

A new project: find the beauty

I've decided to do something for myself.  And hopefully, someday, when my girls are old enough to read this.. for them, as well.

I've been feeling restless and malcontent staying at home, living the suburban life, ferrying the kids around, yada yada.  I've been reading a great deal lately and am, for the time being, inspired to be aware, be deliberate.  I love photography- looking at it, experiencing it, working at it... I'm going to try to take 5 pictures a day to show, primarily, how beautiful my life is and secondarily, to challenge myself to find and define and capture that beauty (think plastic bag a la American Beauty). 

I haven't been paying as close attention as I should be lately.  I think this will help.

Guilty Pleasure: Movies & Books

So, my definition of a guilty pleasure is something like a book I'd hide away if one of my colleagues sat down next to me on a plane- or being caught embarrassed at a movie showing.

Since I've made a little niche job for myself reviewing and editing books, I've been focusing on the Young Adult segment because I have a precocious(as far as reading goes) 13-year-old and want to be able to nay or yay her choices in books.  Scary thing is... romance is almost always a major component in YA fiction- lots of coming of age stuff.  I am ADDICTED.  And I love it when I find a good one.

Confession: Read the Hunger Games trilogy in 3 days and then took the girls to the midnight showing the night before/early-early morning the Thursday that The Hunger Games was released.  Theboht had to read the bok first. Mother bragging rights invoked: I couldn't beliee how quicly Avery read that  book and is now on the third in the series.  I love that at leat one of my kids takes after my bookworm gene.

But back to Guilty Pleasures...

Yeah.  And you know what else?  I watch Glee! Ha!  And I watch the Vampire Diaries! Double ha! mostly because they have an extremely attractive cast and I love bad-boy-vampire Damon, played by Ian Somerhalder.  My shame comes in here when I realize all those fansites out there are being read by and posted to by teenaged girls.  Ugh.  Maybe I am a pedophile?  I mean, I'm probably old enough to have birthed most of the characters on the shows I like.

I blame it on going to an all-girls boarding school and not getting to experience the full high school experience(for better or worse I dunno but sounds logical to me).

Grey's Anatomy has jumped the shark as far as I'm concerned. I know there are faithful viewers out there but it has so turned into General Hospital.  The only time I watch it is when I need something to distract me from puking my guts out after an iron infusion.

House has completely gone to the dogs.  I think they must have lost their medical advisor because the 'team' keeps brainstorming all the same ideas over and over.  I cannot even begin to remember how many episodes where they suspect x disease or y disorder.  Same sh*t different episode.  Anyhow... bored...

Finally, probably my worst guilty pleasure?

Glitter eyeshadow.  Oh, and high heels, of course.  At least when I was working in an office I had an excuse. *sigh*

Someday I will wear sexy shoes again instead of my Privo's or slip on Reports that go with my 'Mommy Wear'.

Sad.  I do try to take my favorite shoes for a spin  when we go to Davie's or down to see a Broadway show in LA, etc. 

No, this week, instead of spending $500 on shoes(not that I probably would) I spent it on our refrigerator.  Yes, the nice man from GE came out and repaired our fridge for ONLY $500.  

Yehaa, fridge grama is over and it was a good opportunity to purge. I'm a condiment collector, or so my husband always bitches at me about that but.. but... yeah.

Glad to have you back ya ol' fickle fridge of mine.  If they couldn't fix it, I was totally going to just through it on our-still-to-be-landscaped ptches of dirt out in the front yard and just leave it there.  Whee hoo would that cause a stink with the homeowner's association.  Gotta love it.

Another guilty pleasure: being willfully oppositional to the homeowner's society.  Just sayin'.

Don't worry, I'll say ten Hail Marys and get myself right with the lord. Peace out.

 

Wonderland was truly wonderful!

Every year Viola's elementary school puts on a full musical production. They are amazingly professional and all the kids work incredibly hard.  It all happens through teachers and parents and kids volunteering to do everything from painting sets to painting faces to holding choir practice and multiple rehearsals.  This year, they did one called Wonderland based on 'Through the Looking Glass'.  Viola played the part of the Red Queen and she was just fabulous.  I know I shouldn't brag but I was swamped by people telling me how wonderful she was.  And she was.  She was entertaining, she was bold, she was funny- mostly, she was just Sassy with a capital S!  I'm just so impressed with how much she has accomplished this year already and this was the cherry on top.

We found her voice this year.  We never thought she was much of a singer or even interested in singing but started to see we needed to do something with her in that area if she was going to pursue the acting that she loves.  Turns out that she has this big, beautiful, HIGH voice and she just needed the right person to pull it out of her.  Now she is working on material from The Sound of Music and the like with one of the voice instructors that teaches alot of the girls from SF Girls Chorus(Audrey is really extraordinary).

She took an acting workshop at ACT in the city and got an excellent review from her teacher, especially on her final piece which was humorous and, again, SaSSy.  She loves to make people laugh and doing that through theater and drama is such an amazing thing for her.  

Anyhow, her very biased mother felt like she totally stole the show!

One of my contributions to the play this year, and in several years past was to be the photographer.  I feel lucky to have been allowed to capture a little piece of the magic that these kids (and teachers and lots of helpful parents) made.  Slide show coming soon, but for now a quick peek- through the looking glass... *wink*

 

 

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Sometimes it is difficult to believe that I have been blessed to be the mother of such an amazing and vibrant daughter.  All I can think right now is that it is going by far too quickly for my taste and I want to savor every fabulous moment.

 

 

Enthusiasm.

I like the quotation by Bruce Barton: "If you can give your child only one gift, let it be enthusiasm."  That's it.  It's like parenting 101, 102 and 103 summed up in one sentence.

The tricky part is teaching them to find their enthusiasm in places they least expect it.

When I'm dead and gone, I hope that Vi and Ave will tell stories about Dean and I and our enthusiasm, our enthusiasm as a family.  I hope they look back and say "Jeez, our front yard always looked like shit but man, we had fun, didn't we?"

I want them to remember that we made music together.  That we would sing off-key and laugh hysterically like Dean and I did this afternoon while the girls were at school.  

When people get engaged, they worry about the diamond-  is it big enough?  is it pure enough? is it better than so-and-so's? will I ever be able to pay it off?

Diamonds are beautiful and sparkly and nice.  I have a nice little diamond wedding ring.

The true gems, though, tumbled down around us like raindrops and in so many colors.  

So, Laugh.  Be silly.  Sing off-key.  Dance.  Live your life with enthusiasm.  That's where you'll find joy.  And that's what I want for my girls.  I want them to be who they are, even if it means being off key sometimes or lots of time.  

Call me silly but if you aren't going to make the most of it, why bother at all?  

And we so easily fail to notice the sparking gems all around us, our ruby slippers, our sapphire-covered path, the iridescence that covers us all like diamond dust- simply because we are alive.

Loss and so on.

"It's the little things that count."

How many bazillion times have I heard that?  How many times have I heard that applied from dieting to gift-giving to living?  Well I am here to attest to the fact that I experience how much the small things count almost every day.  They are the things tht keep me going, keep me drawing breath when I think of the grand futility of us, of the human race, this mess we've made on our planet, of where we are headed.

But if it all so futile, then why is there so much joy and so much pain?  Another argument for the journey and not the destination.

Teddy died this morning.  Our little teddy bear hamster who was notorious for running so long and fast on his wheel that it would start to squeak and one of us would have to get up in the middle of the night to put a drop of vegetable oil on it with a paintbrush stolen from the kids art supplies. ( "No, honey, I have no idea why your watercolor painting turned out like that." *cough* *ahem*)  It wasn't too bad this time because we knew it was coming.  Teddy died of old age.  We thought he was really in dire straights aroound Vi's birthday and I was smacking my head against the wall because that's all you need to have happen on your kid's birthday is for one of the beloved family pets to die.  So, I covered his cage with a towel- not completely but enough to protect him from any drafts and put his cage on a heating pad.  He stopped fussing so uch with his nest and bedding and would just curl up cosy and happy in a little hollow in his warm bedding where he mostly stayed except to come out and eat the occasional treats and drink his water.  I woul often stop and offer him water so he woudn't have to get up.  We left him alone for the most part because even though hamsters are cute and fuzzy, they are not the most partial to be held and snuggled unless you did that alot with them.

I did that alot with Maddie, so it only seemed fitting that she died snuggled up in my hands, against my chest as I dozed off after a long vigil.  Maddy was hard for me because there was just something about her- she would always come out to greet me, liked to hang with me, liked listening to my boring epidemiology lectures with me.  And she did not go easy into that good night, no she didn't.

Teddy, though, it was clear he was ready so we just made him as comfortable as possible.  When I found him, his eyes were closed, so I don't think he even saw it coming.  I hope it was not painful for him.

You might think me silly for being sad over a hamster or two, especially when the world is filled with atrocities.

We love who and what we love, though.  I think we are better for it.  Having pets is a blessing because it teaches us about unconditional love.  For some people, I think it teaches them how to love, period.  And the loss... well... we all inevitably learn about loss but I guess the moral of the whole story is that love always outweighs the loss.  Almost always.

Living a life without regrets is an awesome idea- I think certainly one to shoot for- but we all become hypocites at some point in our live as we change our minds and grow in different directions than our younger selves.  Do I regret loving? No.  Do I regret loving these delicate little creatures who live such short lives?  The pain of it makes me want to but somehow I know that my pain makes Teddy's life or whomever, whatever else, more.  I believe that all living things have intrinsic value unto themselves- unrelated to the uses and acknowledgement of The Great Humn Being (detect my sarcasm here, pls).  

But when I loved Teddy, when the girls loved him, when Dean would wrinkle up his nose and make that affectionate little chucking noise when a hamster was thrust in his face by one of our kids, Teddy became more than just Teddy-unto-himself.  He had a family.  He had a family who cared for him- not always perfectly, but well.  And he had a family that loved him, not always well, but perfectly.  And that means something, at least to me.  And maybe somewhere in his little rodent brain, it meant something to him, too.

I'll tell you one thing.  Death sucks.  

And so now, Teddy's body rests.  I'm okay with that.  Part of what makes life so interesting and meaningful is that it doesn't, isn't meant to, last forever.  And I like to think a little piece of my soul broke off and he took it with him, maybe packed safely in one of his cheek pouches as he headed into the great beyond where our other beloved ones await. 

That circle of life stuff is total crock of BS.  It doesn't come round like a circle but stretches into eternity- a chain of love that holds us all together, however tenuously, bound by hope.

I like to sleep like Kitteh.

I don't know what is up with Kitteh, but man, she can sleep through anything.  She will not be the one waking us all up to save us from the fire.  She'll wait until the last second and stroll out the front door as the smoke billows out above her, plop down on the front mat and start licking herself.  She'll have that pissed off, "What is this shit?" look on her face as a fireman tries to drag a hose in through said front door.  Yeah.  I can see it all now.

Okay, so lets just hope the house doesn't burn down.

I'm helping with the Brownie Meeting today.  Yay!  If you thought there were office politics- go join a scout troop, then you'll really see the claws come out.

Hunger Games tomorrow night at 12:01!!!  We'll be there to see it!  Both the girls have read the books now.  I still can't believe how glued Avery was to them cosidering she's only in 3rd grade.  Yeah, yeah, I know, she's probably scarred for life but it actually led to some really good conversations on dystopic societies and how governments control their people by force, by propoganda, with fear and lies.  We talked alot about television and what *appears* to be important (having a big house, nicer cars, every electronic gizmo on the market and how the shows we watch and commercials we see reinforce those ideas over and over) versus what is really important.  I'm not telling her what to think is important, but to just consider the question and think about what is really important to her. 

I'm excited to see the movie though!  I love that we have this little tradition in our family to go to the midnight, opening show at our theater when something we've been looking forward to is coming out.  We did it with most of the Harry Potter movies, the Twilight movies(not that they're so great but it is a good carrot to get the girls to read), a couple others I can't remember right now...  Anyhow, so yes, we're keeping out kids out until two am on a school night.  Whip me, beat me, but it'll be great, even if the next day will SUCK.

OK- half hour to Brownie time, must go get ready.  I slept in like Kitteh this morning so... yeah.  It's just been so cold and the electric blankie is so warm... mmm...

(One of the few pictures of Kitteh NOT sleeping).

 

Awe.

No matter if the entire world is going into the crapper, no matter... well, anything.  I still get to marvel at this moment snuggled up on my bed with Avery and Kitteh.  Avery looks so young and vulnerable as she sleeps, hair slightly damp against her forehead from earlier, before she threw the covers off.  Kitteh just looks lazy and hedonistic, but I love that she makes those little noises in her sleep like she is dreming of birds outside the window.

Tonight does not feel alone, rather quiet, muffled instead- like the streets after a good snow.  I can hear the train in the distance.  Tonight, even this house feels alive, creaking and ticking clocks and the fountain burbling.

I love how she reaches out unconsciously to hold my hand or grab my arm in her sleep.  Her fingernails still seem so tiny.  That was something I noticed right after she was born were her tiny hands and feet.  She seemed so breakable then but in some ways she seems even more breakable now.  Sometimes I still cannot resist the urge to smell the top of her head like I did when she was a baby.  She doesn't smell the same now- I can smell the scent of her shampoo, and the the smell of outside and sunlight.

Ask me now if I believe in miracles.  In a word:

Yes, they live.