Is There Any Mommy Out There?

Can I Bitch Now?

noreply@blogger.com (anymommy) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 02:50:00 +0000

Saturday, 10:30 a.m.

Seated in the fifth row of carefully aligned chairs at a funeral home in Sandusky, Ohio, surrounded by my cousins and my mother's family, contemplating my grandmother's still form, i held tight the only one of my babies that she ever met. The serene gray-haired minister raised her hands at her sides in a beseeching "w," turned her face to heaven and began gravely, her eyes falling to meet my mother's eyes, "we are here today to commit Helen to peace ever-lasting."

My grandmother's name was Beth. The woman committed to peace everlasting on the previous day was Helen. Surely, a higher power has it all straight.

Sunday 12:30 a.m.

In a classic, unfortunate lapse in judgement, I was still drinking with my cousins in a dungeon-like side room of an ancient Sandusky restaurant called the Rathskellar. They taught me the word "fupa." If you would like to make a classic, unfortunate lapse in judgment of your own, you could google that.

Sunday, 5:00 p.m.

After several hours with Nate in the Akron airport with little to do but eat and stare at each other, we visited the restroom one last time before our flight home. I wheeled him into the larger stall, finished, flushed, washed my hands, fixed my hair, felt like I was forgetting something. I had my backpack. Still felt like my hands were too free, looked around, realized I left my baby in the handicap stall, retrieved stroller and baby, tucked tail between my legs and busted my ass out of there.

Monday, 1:00 a.m.

After a long day of travel alone with Nate, nearly abandoning him in a small airport restroom, unloading our tired butts from the last airplane, hauling ourselves out to the car, loading the car, driving home, unloading the car, and putting Nate to bed, I had to clean the kitchen and the dining room.

No, there's nothing funny about that. Matt.

Matt cleaned out my entire filthy minivan. I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere about differing priorities and men v. women, mars, venus, blah, blah. I'm not to the humor in this one yet.

Monday, 9:00 a.m.

Preschool. With all four children. It was a laugh a minute, let me tell you.

Monday, 10:30 a.m. (while at preschool with all four children while I'm supposed to be working)

My cell phone rang which never, ever happens because everyone who knows me knows that I never have my cell phone with me; if I do have it with me, it's dead or I don't hear it; if I do hear it I don't realize it's mine; if I do hear it and realize it's mine I'm dealing with my 101 dalchildren and I don't feel like answering it. It wad Cruella De Ville wanting to buy a child or two and I gladly...no wait, it was the local news! They wanted to cover hArt for Haiti on their morning show from 5-7 Tuesday morning. Could I please be at Kid Sports at 4:45 a.m., ready to be interviewed every 25 minutes or so for two hours?

Sure, I could. Matt would absolutely love to cover everything all day Tuesday while I pretended I was a real person with things to do and stuff.

Monday, 11:30 a.m.

Errands. With all four children. The hilarity continued.

Monday, 3:00 p.m.

Waxing of bakini area and brows. Otherwise known as ripping hair from delicate regions with tape. Seriously? This is the shit I pay a babysitter for?

Monday, 6:00 p.m.

Preschool board meeting. The fate of the new blinds in the Rainbow Room hung in the balance. You want my life. Admit it.

Monday, 8:30 p.m.

My friend, Elise, who has been trained in TV appearances for real purposes, because she is an expert in protecting women in refugee camps, and because she is awesome and because I am an absolute basket case because OMIGOD did I just agree to be on TV at 5:00 in the morning? turned her expertise on my "three point message" for hArt for Haiti. 1) Come 2) to Kid Sports 3) for Haiti. We practiced. I was capable of spitting out my three word message.

Monday, 11:00 p.m.

I finished all the stuff I had to do and took a shower.

Tuesday, 12:00 a.m. - 4:00 a.m.

I failed to sleep.

Tuesday, 4:00 a.m.

Alarm. I may have fallen asleep five minutes ago. With heart pounding, I dressed and primped for my TV debut.

Tuesday, 4:40 a.m.

As I grabbed my keys, the phone rang. There had been a stabbing. Could we make it 6:00?

Tuesday, 4:50 a.m.

The stabbing was nothing, could I be there by 5:30?

Tuesday, 5:30 a.m.

I was there. I may pass out from nervousness and hunger.

Tuesday, 6:00 a.m.

The were finally about to cut to us. I stood on the fake grass of the indoor playing field with a huge bouncy castle behind me, a very, very sweet, supportive reporter standing inches from my face, and a blinding light in my eyes. I felt kind of dizzy. I croaked out that I wad really nervous. Erik told me not to worry, no one watches the morning show. No, really, he assured me, we have tons of stats on it, alot of people listen to it, but they're busy getting ready for their day and they aren't watching. I felt strangely better.

I spat out my message. I didn't pass out.

Tuesday, 6:30 a.m.

This is actually kind of fun.

Tuesday, 7:00 a.m.

I am rocking the two minute interviews.

Tuesday, 7:30 a.m.

I should have been a TV reporter.

Tuesday, 7:45 a.m.

At home, helping with breakfast. Could it really possibly be only 8 o'clock in the morning?

Tuesday, 9:25 a.m. - 2:30 p.m.

hArt for Haiti. It was amazing.

Tuesday, 3:00 p.m.

Total quadruple children melt down. I put on a movie and collapsed on the couch. I should be packing.

Tuesday, 5:00 p.m.

Saw myself on the evening news. I wad pale. I moved my head funnily when I talked. Strike all above regarding my new career in broadcasting. Saige looked adorable. Brat.

Tuesday, 6:30 p.m.

All children in bed. I should be packing, but I'm playing on line.

Tuesday, 8:55 p.m.

Chocolate chip mint ice cream with hot fudge sauce. I should be packing, but I'm playing on line.

Wednesday, 7:00 p.m.

Children in bed. Finally packing.

Thursday, 4:00 a.m.

Woke children and head for airport. O. N. E. Checked bag. Six people. Four children. One checked bag. Am most awesome packer in the universe.

Thursday, 5:30 a.m.

Security. Four children. Deep regret of one checked bag has set in.

Thursday, 6:30 a.m.

Boarding plane to mexico. Six hours and two planes of entertaining my children. Someone kill me now.

Thursday, 7:30 a.m.

Frontier airlines stewardess activated our t v s for free. She was angel on earth. Commence Dora marathon.

Thursday, 9:30 a.m.

There is no Starbucks in the Denver airport. THERE IS NO STARBUCKS IN THE DENVER AIRPORT! Alert the media. Mother of four goes insane in Denver airport from chai withdrawal.

Thursday, 3:00 p.m.

The warmth. The sun. The breeze. The two hour drive with four exhausted cranky children.

Thursday, 6:00 p.m. - ??

Mexico. Waves crashing. Breeze blowing. Drunk blogging.

See you soon, but not too soon.

XOXO, stacey

hArt for Haiti; The Day After

noreply@blogger.com (anymommy) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 22:48:00 +0000

They say community is important. Cultivate a community. Give to your community.

I was always pretty happy with Matt and our little family.

Now, I know differently.

The community that we have built in this small town that I mock so mercilessly on the border of Idaho helped us raise $1474.03 for God's Littlest Angels Orphanage in Haiti. (Make that 1499.03, thank you, Casey!!)

Communities really do give back what you put into them and more.

The astonishing community of Manito Cooperative Preschool turned up in mass to play and show their support and donate to our cause.

The tight community of close friends that I have somehow been lucky enough to find circled around us and helped us with every detail.

Meggan turned beautiful hand prints into works of art.

Elise handled details for the day and thought of things that I didn't even know I needed.

Amy and Kristina arranged for donations of treats and snacks.

Then, they all paid and/or begged someone else to deal with their kids so that they could be there with me for the entire four hours.

New friends gave their talents freely.

Meghan M. poured her endless energy into leading the dancing and music for the entire day.

Lisa M. made stunning cards with a heart theme for us to sell.

Brenda B. made pretzel rods dipped in chocolate with hearts on them.

Marietta E., our preschool teacher, designed and carried out the gorgeous art project that the kids did especially for our event.

Max and Ben L. donated all of the change in their piggy bank - $12.03 - to GLA.

Christy F., a blog reader, sent a donation from Colorado.

Lisa G. drove to my house to drop off a grocery gift card so that we could buy snacks and water.

Laurie C. helped so much, donated to GLA, and donated five dozen gorgeous pink heart-shaped cookies.

The wider community responded to hArt for Haiti, to God's Littlest Angels, and to Saige with generosity. Great Harvest Bread Company, Costco, Safeway, and Albertson's donated food and drinks to our event. Kid Sports donated time and expertise and helped us get the word out. Erik Loney and KXLY News featured the event and told our story.

Theresa, the general manager of Kid Sports got up at 4:00 in the morning to open the facility and let them film the interviews. She stayed all day, she put our event on their web page and sent emails to all of their contact list.

Friends and friends of friends and family of friends and strangers who are now friends came with their kids and donated to GLA. They jumped. They danced. We had a blast.

Margaret F., Ben L., Richard & Virginia B., Max L., Randi & Cody F.

Megan R., Basil & Gail L., Amy & Kathleen & Leo S., Jarod & Rachel D.

Elise R., Hayden & Zeni G., Kassio & Dylan & William S.

Patrick & Meghan M., Paula & Andrew A., Steven & Jane & Luke S.

Betsy P., Ivory & Ella & Alice C., Lynn T. of Premonitions

Jennifer T., Lisa M., Kerry & Justin & Liam R., K. Thomas & Laurie C.

Christi, Lucas & Mikey, Leigh B., RaeAnn & Faith & Aaron N.

Noah & Yvette M., Pamela G., Kristina M., Linnea & Ty & Nari K.

James & Patricia C., Ann & Perry & Reese C., Christy S.,

Thyra & Teagan & Grayden, Amy & Brian & Kendal & Kai W.

Janet F., Heidi & Wilson H., Nancy & Dr. Robert B., Rich & Jacob W.

Michele D., Rachel D., Action Moving Services, Ashley B., Daniel H.

Jenny & Emilia D., Maureen & Sam S., John, Sara, Lily & Kylie J.

Amy & Abby K., Melissa & Abby G., Mark B., Randi & Ty F.

Lisa & Isabella & Sophia R., Marietta E., Teri T., Hayden & Owen A.

Lukas & Erik L., Meggan & Ralph & River H., Lisa & Paige G.

Northwest Business Development Assoc.

Thank you to everyone who helped. To everyone who came. Thank you for all your donations, for your time, for your enthusiasm. I realized yesterday that we don't just have a community in Sp****e, we have an extended family. I am so grateful to be a part of it.

Tight hugs, many kisses, with tears in my eyes,
Stacey, Matt, Saige, Garrett, Quinn & Nate

Hart for Haiti Event

noreply@blogger.com (anymommy) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 08:21:00 +0000

This is a sticky post. That means it sticks at the top of my blog until after February 2. I totally did just learn that term. Scroll down for new posts.

If you are visiting Any Mommy Out There for information on the Hart for Haiti preschool dance and art sale on February 2, 2010, click here.

For all who read, but don't live here on the border of Idaho with us, Saige and her brothers and I are organizing a preschool dance and art sale to raise money for God’s Littlest Angels in Haiti, the orphanage where she lived for the first fourteen months of her life. It’s called Hart for Haiti because the kids and their friends and classmates are creating all of the artwork for the sale. (I know, Matt hates it, he says it just looks like I can’t spell heart. I can spell heart, Matt, it’s clever, it’s a play on words.)

If you do live out here on the border of Idaho with us in Sp----e (Matt’s going to kill me) and you want to help, email me at anymommyoutthere@gmail.com. If you agree with Matt that Hart for Haiti looks like I can’t spell heart, don’t email me. I’m nervous enough.

To read about GLA and the work they do in Haiti and to donate directly to God’s Littlest Angels visit their website.

THANK YOU!!! To some amazing people that have already helped SO much with this endeavor:

Kid Sports
MommyGeekology – She made that darling "hart" graphic for me and for Haiti.
Ann of Ann’s Rants – Check out how she helped GLA.

Eleven More Random Things That Are Really Just Excuses for Not Writing Real Posts

noreply@blogger.com (anymommy) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 08:20:00 +0000

1) I spent last weekend in Portland with four girlfriends and my mind melted into a little puddle of delighted happiness at how much fun it was and how much sleep I got between midnight and nine in the morning. You can't see me, but I'm doing an annoying little dance right now about sleeping until nine in the morning three - (!!) - mornings in a row.
1a) We ate the best cupcakes ever created in the history of the world. There were cupcakes filled with cookie dough. I know. And that's not even the flavor I bought because there was a better cupcake flavor than cookie dough filled. It makes me cry a little too.
1b) My children and my house survived my absence with the following important exceptions:
1.b.A. The upstairs toilet seat is covered in what I thought was a ball point pen scribble drawing, until it turned out to be a scribble drawing actually carved into the finish of the toilet seat with a sharp object. Upon thorough cross-examination of my children, it became clear to me that Cue was the artiste in question. Upon thorough cross-examination of Matt, it is still unclear to me when and why Cue had access to a sharp object and when and why he would be alone upstairs in the bathroom with possession of said sharp object. It looks like it may become a cold case.
1.b.B. The wall beside the basement closet is devoid, in large chunks, of the dark red paint that I selected. This, it would seem, is another of Cue's special projects. You will all be relieved to know that he never had access to an actual hammer. He is quite capable of hammering the shit out of a wall with a puzzle piece shaped like a hammer.
1.b.C. Nate has his first tooth. He rewarded my diligent pumping, lovingly intended to maintain my milk supply throughout the weekend so that we could continue to bond and nuzzle in mommy/baby bliss, by rejecting my left boob with a vampirish vengeance when it was unable to pour milk into his mouth like the plastic nipples of happiness that Daddy provided all weekend. My right boob continues to be acceptable to him. We are 1 1/2 days into this bizarre right sided preference and my right boob is already at least three times larger than my left. I think my left boob has weaned. Is that possible? Why is this weird shit not in the breastfeeding books?
1.b.D. Cue has what looks like a Hobo spider bite. Hobos are one of those spiders whose venom can necrotize the skin around the bite wound. Lovely, I know. Wait! Good news! No necrotizing as of yet and it usually happens in the first 24 hours.
1c) The entire trip to Portland came out of my line item budget, but I'll be damned if the replacement toilet seat isn't coming out of Matt's line item budget.

2) I'd feel more self-righteous about the toilet seat if Cue hadn't put several pennies, nickels and possibly a quarter into his "piggy bank" this morning on my watch. Where "piggy bank" = the tape deck in our minivan.

3) hArt for Haiti. It's next Tuesday. I'm scared people will come. I'm scared people won't come. I'm lucky Matt didn't enroll us in the blogger protection program for revealing our super duper top secret location.

4) I'm flying to Ohio early Friday morning to attend my Grandmother's funeral. Thank you in advance for your sweet thoughts. It is sad and my heart hurts for my mother and my family, but she lived a long, incredible life and I am so unbelievably grateful that I traveled to Texas before Christmas and saw her one last time. Now, let's see how many ways I can make my grandma's funeral about me:
3a) It is butt crack cold in Ohio this weekend.
3b) I'm taking my left-nipple hating baby. Yay. Security with a stroller. Again.
3c) My cousins can drink me under the table.
3d) hArt for Haiti is the day after I get back and then we have another huge thing going on two days later.

5) I was going to type about that other huge thing going on after hArt for Haiti, but I would like to stay married. Can I say that it involves more airplanes and all of our children? Lord help us. (Also, we have a huge dog and a crazy man with a shot gun lives above our garage.)

6) Cue was a penguin in a former life. The kid is obsessed with eggs. He has a whole stash of eggs that he shepherds around the house, moves from box to box, carries around, etc. He loves them and pets them and calls them George. First thing out of his mouth in the morning? Where mine eggs? Last thing we did last night? Convince his screaming, furious toddler ass to put his eggs to bed in a box for the night. It's kind of creepy.

7) I have amazing friends, online and right here in Arkansas. (Where we live. Aha.) Thank you for all your support and for holding my hand. Especially you and you because you're doing double duty.

8) I am taking way more than I'm giving this month, online and right here in Arkansas. I plan to change that in two weeks when this craziness is over.

9) My house must weather another weekend without me. Please pray for the hardwood floors and the kitchen cabinets. They're my two favorite things. I mean beside my children. And my husband. Generally, unless my husband is letting my children take puzzle piece hammers to my hardwoods or my cabinets and then NOT MY FAVORITE things. Not at all.

10) People, I kid you not, in Portland, Oregon, there is a cupcake shop that sells a better flavored cupcake than chocolate chip cookie dough filled. It bore repeating.

11) To recap, I'll be traveling. I'm stressed. My left nipple hurts. My grandma died. I feel badly because I'm a sucky friend and a terrible citizen-o-the-blogosphere. On the bright side, Nate is sleeping through the night, hArt for Haiti might get a fabulous turn out, I'll be drinking with all my cousins Friday night and last Monday evening, when I pulled up in front of our house after three days in Portland, Ess, Gee and Cue ran out onto the front porch. They screeched "mommy, mommy, mommy" and talked so fast about everything they had done with their Dad that I couldn't understand a word they said. The very best part about going away is coming home.

Breastfeeding Rules and Regulations

noreply@blogger.com (anymommy) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 01:43:00 +0000

Nate, now that you are over six months old, it is time to review the AnyMommy guidelines for older child breastfeeding. Please read them carefully, ignorance of the rules is not a defense in this family.

Breastfeeding Rules and Regulations
for the
Older Baby

Part 100 - Definitions

Sec. 101 - Breastfeeding - Providing milk for nutritional purposes to the older baby via the mother's nipple.

Sec. 102 - Googly eyes - Trying to get the attention of others with eye-contact while smiling, cooing or otherwise acting adorably.

Sec. 103 - Kneading hand - The hand belonging to the older baby that is not pinned beneath the baby when the baby breastfeeds.

Sec. 104 - Misuse of the nipple - Breastfeeding behavior prohibited or deemed inappropriate by these regulations.

Sec 105 - Mother - The woman that bore the older baby and nourishes him with her delicate, nerve-filled breasts.

Sec. 106 - Nipple - Fleshy protuberance that is placed in the baby's mouth and delivers the milk.

Sec. 107 - Nursing - See breastfeeding.

Sec. 108 - Older baby - A baby six months of age or older.

Sec. 109 - Pinchy face - A mean expression made seconds before the baby bites or pinches the nipple with his gums.

Sec. 110 - Siblings - Older children belonging to the mother.

Sec. 111 - Spare nipple - The nipple that is not being used for milk acquisition when the older child breastfeeds.

Part 200 - Appropriate Breastfeeding Behavior

Sec. 201 - Goal

The goal of breastfeeding at this point in the older baby's life should be nutrition and hunger abatement. Boredom, soothing, the need to fall asleep and a general liking for something in your mouth are not acceptable reasons for production of the nipple.

Sec. 202 - Use of Nipple

(a) The only acceptable use of the nipple is sucking to acquire milk. All other behavior is considered misuse of the nipple.

(b) Misuse of the nipple as described in these regulations indicates to the mother that the nipple is being used for purposes other than nutrition or hunger abatement and shall result in appropriate penalties as set forth herein and determined by the mother.

Part 300 - Breastfeeding Prohibitions

Sec. 301 - The Prairie Dog

(a) The term prairie dog describes behavior wherein the older baby repeatedly turns his head away from the nipple to survey the room, observe siblings or other children, watch interesting events or investigate interesting sounds and then turns back to the nipple for a drink.

(b) The prairie dog is prohibited in public venues.

(c) In private, the prairie dog may be allowed at the mother's discretion, especially in cases where the siblings are interesting or distracting.

(d) Although some allowance may be made for extremely interesting moments, public prairie dog is grounds for use of the blanket or other covering equipment or temporary covering of the nipple as set forth in part 400 of these rules and regulations.

(e) Any prairie dog maneuver performed without letting go of the nipple is misuse of the nipple and will result in immediate ejection from the breast for a period of at least one hour.

Sec. 302 - Biting

(a) Any biting, that includes, clamping, mashing, clenching or pinching between gums of any sort intended to cause, or causing, pain to the nipple, is misuse of the nipple and is prohibited. Such misuse will result in immediate ejection from the nipple for a period of at least one hour.

(b) The pinchy face as defined in sec. 109 shall be considered a precursor to biting and may result in a warning or may be penalized in the same manner as biting.

Sec. 303 - Flirting

(a) Flirting while breastfeeding shall be permitted only with the mother. All other flirting while breastfeeding is prohibited.

(b) Flirting at any other time between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. is permitted and encouraged.

(c) Flirting includes, but is not limited to, smiling, giggling, making googly eyes or otherwise engaging others in any manner.

(d) Flirting while breastfeeding is grounds for use of the blanket or other covering equipment or temporary covering of the nipple as set forth in part 400 of these rules and regulations.

Sec. 304 - The Kneading Hand

The kneading hand must avoid touching the belly rolls and the spare nipple at all times. If the kneading hand can not control itself, it will be held by the mother's hand. Any frustrated clamping or biting as a result of restriction of the kneading hand will result in ejection from the nipple.

Part 400 - Penalties

Sec. 401 - The Blanket

(a) The blanket may be used at the discretion of the mother to cover the older baby's head to prevent prairie dog or flirting as defined in sections 301 and 303 of these rules and regulations.

(b) Any frustrated clamping or biting as a result of use of the blanket will result in ejection from the nipple.

Sec. 402 - Covering the Nipple

The mother may cover the nipple and prevent access by the older baby at any time as a penalty for prohibited breastfeeding behavior.

Sec. 403 - Ejection from the Nipple

(a) Ejection from the nipple is the gentle, but forcible removal of the nipple from the baby's mouth and withholding of the nipple for a proscribed period of time as determined by the mother.

(b) Biting as defined in sec. 302(a) or any other behavior intended to cause, or causing, pain to the nipple shall result in ejection from the nipple.

Part 500 - Weaning

Sec. 501 - Definition

Weaning is permanent withdrawal of access to the nipple and all associated milky goodness.

Sec. 502 - Limited Use

Weaning shall be considered a last resort until the baby reaches eight months of age. After that time, weaning may be instituted at the discretion of the mother.

Sec. 503 - Exception

Two instances of biting with use of teeth in the period of one week shall result in weaning regardless of the age of the baby.

Sec. 504 - Substitution of Nutrition

Whenever the mother institutes weaning she shall provide an appropriate hunger abatement substitute.

Part 600 - Appeal

All decisions of the mother are final. There is no higher power than the mother.

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

I know. It's a damned breastfeeding dictatorship.

At first glance, you wouldn't imagine a limitless capacity for evil, would you?

Why yes, I did edit regulations for five years of my life. Can you tell?

I know this is a frivolous follow up to the previous two posts. There really wasn't an unfrivolous way to move on. Haiti is still very much in our hearts and minds.

In other frivolous, fun news, thank you to the sweetheart that put my name on this list. It was such a trill to see it there, however silly that is. (I'm way down, keep scrolling. Still. Fun.) And also, thank you, Amelia. I have no way to respond to your comment directly, but it made my day. That's one of my favorites too.

Haiti

noreply@blogger.com (anymommy) — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 02:52:00 +0000

I don't know what to say. I have no real connections in Haiti, no close friends, only acquaintances. I have the same horror and grief that I know every single person feels when they watch the news or click on the images. That and this terrified reevaluation of the future as I imagined it. The loss of important people that I haven't met and most likely would never have known.

The careful scene that replays in my mind at some vague date in my daughter's early teens is forever changed. Can we go there? Yes, we can. Could we find her? It's possible. We have her name, her picture, some information, I know there are people that help adoptees find information about their birth families. What is the answer now? I don't know. So many people lost. So many relocated. Records lost. Families and neighbors scattered.

Tragedies on this scale always create gripping human stories. Heros. Heartbreak. Hope and hopelessness. If you want to follow and support people on the ground, helping all they can, may I introduce Troy Livesay and his family and Dixie and John Bickel who run God's Littlest Angels orphanage in Petionville, Haiti. Both have been able to keep their blogs fairly current and Troy is twittering regular updates as of today.

If you have a child "in process" for adoption in Haiti and for some reason you haven't seen this information elsewhere, READ THIS.

If you want to donate, you probably already have and the Red Cross is an amazing first responder. If you want a long-standing, incredibly well-run organization that has been on the ground with Haiti's children for decades, give to God's Littlest Angels. Truth be told, I should have asked you to give to GLA two years ago. They do astonishing work. They cared for my daughter and for the little boy that was briefly ours for over a year. I lived there for three weeks in January 2005 as a volunteer and witnessed the hard work they do.

I didn't ask because I imagined that we all have our own causes, but now as the world focuses on Haiti, I am shamelessly making my suggestion. GLA was caring for 150 children in a difficult, unstable environment on Monday and their job is infinitely harder today. They have the experience, they have the resources, they are accepting cash donations and they are also accepting supplies at their Colorado Springs office. They have brought containers into Haiti many times in the past and whenever that becomes a viable option, they will do it again. Until they can bring in supplies, I know funds will be vital as available supplies in Haiti become even more expensive, processing adoptions are halted and children orphaned or displaced in the earthquake arrive at their gates.

The world has a huge heart, I know. The response to this kind of humanitarian disaster always humbles me. We do care. That doesn't change the fact that children were starving to death in Haiti on Monday. I am guilty of being willing to forget that knowledge, submerge it in the details of my every day life. All I can think is that if, after the rubble has been cleared and the injured aided and the dead buried and the water delivered, after the world's attention has shifted and the organizations that settle in for the long haul have hunkered down to rebuild, if this brief spotlight can have one tiny, positive outcome, let it be that an organization like GLA has the resources to continue caring for fragile children for two more decades and beyond.

******************************************
I've been looking through the album of my weeks as a volunteer. These are some of my favorites. I don't know why, just thought you might like to look with me.

Comfort. Stacey and Rosie 2005.

Anticipation under the orphanage gate 2005.

Crooked Presidential Palace 2005 (I have horizon issues).

Delivering rice with "the brothers" 2005.

Rice lines 2005.

Rice lines 2005.

Tugging heartstrings under the orphanage gate 2005.

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

Untold Stories

noreply@blogger.com (anymommy) — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 07:40:00 +0000

It's almost midnight and I have a pounding headache and I'm awake. I'm a chronic insomniac, so that's not surprising, but oh god, it pisses me off. It makes me so mad when all four children are sleeping and my mind races and my heart pounds over little things that never even cross my mind during my busy days. It makes me so mad that I will never get to sleep if I don't let it go and think of something else.

I think of earthquakes. I think of a frail, thin, now twenty-four-year-old woman, a birth mother, and where she is tonight.

Seconds later, selfishly, I think of the church that is paving our back yard. I look out the back windows of our dream house and my heart is a lead fishing weight that sinks to the slimy, heavy metal contaminated bottom of a silty, polluted river and gets eaten by a tumor-ridden catfish. The large church two blocks away, facing away from us, fronting a commercially zoned, arterial street, bought up the properties behind us to expand their parking lot. The two adorable little homes directly behind our house, which had been two homes on a residential street, two homes that backed up to the church parking lot, but buffered us and our neighbors and the whole street. They are gone. Knocked down. Nothing left but a huge hole and an empty fight before the zoning board about whether they really will allow it all to be paved.

They probably will. Most days, we soldier on. It's okay. It's not that bad. Every once in a while, our wide, fear-filled eyes meet and I know we are both thinking it at once. Oh god (aha), we've saved and planned. We poured our heart into it - we poured our money into it. Will our home, this character of a house that we bought when it was falling apart and nursed and patched and remodeled back to health, will it be worth anything? Will it be worth even a fraction of what we've invested in it? It doesn't matter, we tell ourselves. It doesn't matter because we love it and that is what matters. The blood, the sweat, the tears, they are still here, the work is still ours and the result is still beautiful.

It isn't fair! I want to scream it to the congregation on Sundays. I want to scream it to our neighbors and then I laugh. Because yeah. Right. Exactly. Life isn't fair. Ask the people at the bottom of rubble heaps that used to be buildings in Haiti. Life is craggy and complicated and bedazzling and joyful and rich and varied, but it is not fair.

Can we really ever know anyone's story? We judge based on snapshots that we take, moments that we witness out of context of the whole. We never really know what kept them up all night. When you see that tired mother at the grocery store tomorrow with her out of control kids. Or you hear the sharp word that starts the crying that could have been avoided. When we think, I would never, I can't believe, why doesn't she, do we ever pause to consider the story? Maybe her cherished grandfather is dying. Maybe she just lived every mother's worst fear. Maybe her precious baby brother is in a lot of trouble.

Maybe it's trivial. As trivial as an unexpected zoning change.

I trace my finger over the only picture we have of Saige's mother and I wonder if she is in pain. Is she trapped? Is she safe? In shock listening to the pain around her? Does she take any comfort from the fact that her little girl is as far from disaster and aftershocks and UN intervention as a child can possibly be, safely asleep in her own little bed with three blankets in a restored house two blocks from a huge city park on a quiet residential street?

I think, who am I? Who am I to lay here - in my structurally sound, three bedroom, two bathroom house with cupboards full of food and clean running water and the thermostat set at 68 degrees - and cry because a big ass church is paving my backyard.

Who are you to judge me?

Ten Reasons I Haven't Posted Serious Stuff Like I Said I Would

noreply@blogger.com (anymommy) — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 05:11:00 +0000

1) We abandoned our four crib system and Ess, Gee and Cue are now all in toddler beds. In the same room. This involved changing the furniture in their room and you all know how I feel about change. (Post(s) I should have written: (1) There is Life and Sleep After Cribs; (2) I Promise They Are All Still Alive.)

2) Nate's car seat has been moved into his crib. In the nursery. (Post I should have written: Why Didn't I Do This Two Months Ago?)

3) We are on our fifth night - our fifth night - of ten hours of sleep. Consecutive sleep. (Post I should have written: There Is a God and She Loves Me.)

4) Cue ate tinfoil. Then, he split his lip open. The two incidents are unrelated unless you count the day (yesterday) or the state of my mind (absent). (Post(s) I should have written: (1) I don't know, but it would have been funny. YES, that's right mean commenter, I find it funny when my kid eats tinfoil. Because it's over and he's all right and life is funny; (2) I Have to Look for the Tinfoil Where Now? (3) Needing to Be Somewhere by 9:00 Practically Guarantees Blood Before 8:00.)

5) Nate held his own bottle and I enjoyed a peaceful (?) dinner with Ess, Gee and Cue. Sob. (Post I Should have written: Sob. Practically Driving. Last Baby. Sobbbbbbb.)

6) Matt initiated a budget system that involves categories and writing shit down and oh I don't know actually being responsible for a budget. (Post I should have written: I Have to Write Down What I Spend Money On and It Is Seriously Killing My Chai Habit.)

7) My face broke out horribly. (Post(s) I should have written: (1) Oh, Hello Hormones I Haven't Seen in Five Years; (2) Honey, Maybe We Should Discuss Birth Control; (3) I Ate Too Much Chocolate over the Holidays; (4) It's Probably Expensive Caffeine Withdrawal; (5) No, Your Nasty Brewed Coffee Is Not "Just the Same.")

8) Matt bought a bottle of tequila and margarita mix. (Post(s) I Should Have Written: (1) See Above Re: Birth Control; (2) Also, Not the Same and Not Really Appropriate at 7:00 A.M.)

9) I had two blissful wine nights with the women I could not live without. One involved my first hangover in five years. (Post(s) I Should Have Written: (1) Zzzzzzzzzzzzz; (2) I May Have Caved on the Chai.)

10) My children had to write their thank you notes. By "write" I mean color the front of the damn cards. (Post(s) I Should Have Written: (1) OMIGOD, Just Color the Front of the Damn Cards!!; (2) My Children Are Never Getting Presents Ever Again; (3) Are the Holidays Over? I Think the Holidays Are Over.

Secret Garden

noreply@blogger.com (anymommy) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 00:24:00 +0000

In my memories, it is huge and wild. I'm sure they aren't accurate. I'm sure they make the mistakes of scale that all childhood memories make. I wouldn't care to go back and see it as it is. I like the pictures when I close my eyes. The overgrown rose bushes, the carefully laid out, formal paths overgrown and shabby, the hidden pockets of bare space tucked among seldom-tended, sculptured hedges. The grotto, or was it a cave? Truth be told, it was most likely a caved in bomb shelter. Grass grew on its roof, I remember that. Its bones were cold, damp rock walls. You entered through its sagging mouth, a small step down to a dirt floor and you were underground and yet, not, looking out through its collapsed side at the expansive, formal gardens of a once-grand English manor house turned RAF Officers' Club.

It was where the fairies lived.

No, I wouldn't want to go back and see it. I wouldn't want to stand at its edge and note the buildings close by, the easy view from the big house, where watchful eyes most likely supervised our ramblings more closely than I'd like to admit. I wouldn't want to understand, through my adult eyes, how tame and domestic it was.

To me, to my sisters and I and our two small English girlfriends, it was wild and magic and as removed from our parents as if the back of that shelter kept going forever, into Narnia and beyond. In those gardens, I was different. I wasn't a ragged ten-year-old, awkward with my own body, unsure, in faded pants and an ill-fitting t-shirt. I wore layers of cream and rose tulle beneath my sparkle-dusted wings. In those gardens, my lank hair didn't straggle around my narrow face, it bounced with my steps in pretty curls that never needed any brushing or washing.

That is the magic of secret gardens and deserted bomb shelters and little girls.

I doubt it was perfectly safe. I doubt our parents were far, but they were inside, no question. Any blood required a desperate dash for the big house, the injured fairy trailing along behind, sobbing. I think, if I remember right, there was access to the sea, though I can't remember braving the beach on our own. Perhaps we actually listened. Perhaps we were too enamored of our fairy games to wander.

I know that that same year, when I was maybe ten and my sisters were seven and four, I often watched them alone in our tiny English hamlet and we commonly walked to the sea. About a mile from our village, on one-lane roads that ran along side windy, deserted hay fields. On the beach, we wandered around and looked for rocks that the fairies had carved into hearts because those rocks were wishes. On the way home, we stood on the big retaining wall and threw our wishes into the waves. Big, crashing, white-capped waves swirled with gray and green and deep, deep blue. North Sea waves. I don't know what would have happened if one of us had fallen. Or maybe I do. Those waves were hungry for children.

Can you see the headline? American Child Drowns at Bawdsey Beach. Would you know about it now? No. Only we would know, our own private grief, though the village might remember, there might have been a cold stone plaque in the 600-year-old cemetery of the 15th century church. Commemorating the tragic accident. Or was it shameful neglect? Criminal negligence?

I had an incredible childhood. I knew fairies. I conversed with hungry waves. I hunted wishes.

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

Sometimes, I wonder, could I ever give my children the same? Have we analyzed and judged and safety-strapped and recalled and litigated the living stuffing out of childhood?

You don't have to answer that. Just tell me you believe in fairies. I'm working on my answer, which seems to consist mostly of more questions. I'll try to put it up tomorrow.

Split Personality

noreply@blogger.com (anymommy) — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 05:58:00 +0000

Last week went by so fast, but that isn't why I haven't written. Brain block was the culprit. I sat, sluggish and fat on cookies and fun, and tired from constant motion. In these last hours of 2009, with a layer of white snow softening my window view and all four of my kids tucked up in their beds for the last time this year, my desire to share sweet thoughts about the holidays wars with the pull to end with a funny story.

I bring you both.

Hope your 2009 ends with a quiet snuggle and your 2010 is filled with hilarity and love. I hope any griefs this new year holds are tempered by joy. That's all we can really ask. Happy New Year.

Sleep Science

noreply@blogger.com (anymommy) — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 05:52:00 +0000

Nate is a very light, very finicky sleeper. It's an anomaly. As I've said before, my kids sleep well. They're in bed by 6:45 p.m., asleep by 7:15 p.m., and I don't hear from them again until some time in the sixes, preferably late sixes, the next morning.

It's not because I'm an awesome parent or because I've found the ultimate answer to the age old question - how the hell do I get these kids to stay in their damn beds all night because I'm old and tired and I hate under eye bags? It's because I'm mean and I don't care if my kids cry.

Whoa, Tonto, put down the phone, no need to call DYS yet. Of course, I care if they cry if it's important. If they're sick or in pain or terrified of the ceiling (? IT'S JUST A CEILING, THERE'S NOTHING THERE BUT PAINT). But, thirsty? Not tired? Itchy? Blankets on wrong? Hair rubbed the wrong way? Favorite sock/PJs/toy/animal/blanket/pillow/paraphernalia of any sort missing?

I. don't. care.

I had to walk up here to tell you how much I don't care? You owe me fifteen minutes in your bed in the morning. While we eat breakfast. Which means you eat a plain waffle for breakfast on the way to where ever I'm going.

That kind of includes my older babies, I admit. I hit a brick wall with "OH MY GOD I AM SO DONE WITH THIS NURSING OVERNIGHT THING, I AM SO TIRED, YOU ARE JUST PLAYING, I DON'T LIKE YOU AT 2:00, 3:00, 4:00 OR EVEN 5:00 A.M." written all over it in huge, bubble graffiti at approximately nine (Gee), okay seven (Cue), okay six (Nate) months and I let my babies cry it out.

Gasp. I know. The C. I. O. words. So blase. So years beginning of time through 1990. So cruel and heartless. Dude. Comere. Closer. Closer. Divulging parenting secret the experts won't tell you. (Whispering) it totally works.

It generally takes about forty-five minutes the first night, less from there, and after four days, with all three boys, it's been over and my life has returned to blissful well-restedness.

I'm not advocating crying it out. I'm not judging anyone who responds to every whimper until their kid is five. I don't think you are a bad parent if you absolutely can not bear the crying and you respond. I don't think you are a bad parent if you think it's important to comfort children to sleep and you nurse your three-year-old at 2:00 a.m./let your kids sleep in your bed/sleep in your kids' beds/hang upside down from your kids' ceiling until they fall asleep.

I am NOT judging sleep choices.

Flip side is: you don't get to judge me either. Yep. I let them cry. And it's not because I love my kids less than you do. It's not because my kids are less precious than yours. It's not because I'm a hard ass or I don't have feelings or I think it's fun to listen to a baby wail for forty-five minutes.

I just don't think whether or not we respond to kids at night determines outcomes. I don't think it matters, particularly, where you are on the spectrum of child raising from the most attachmenty of attachment parents all the way down the continuum to what some might call, ahem, drill sargenty. I don't think my kids will end up ruling the world because we all slept 10 hours a night and your kids will end up in jail. I don't think my kids will end up in jail because I was mean about bedtime and your kids will have six Ph.Ds. If consistency and love are there, I think it's kind of a crap shoot. Scary, I know.

Also, I am selfish and I consider sleep probably one of the top three most important things in my life along with hot showers and chocolate chip mint ice cream. I rank my sleep above causing my children mild upset/distress/discomfort. I don't put it above their health, safety or reasonable well being. I do consider it more valuable than avoiding forty-five minutes of crying at six-months-old. That's just me.

Enter Nate. Delightful, flirty Nate of the sinfully cute smiles. At three in the morning. Gah. I gave myself a concussion on that wall the week before Christmas at about three a.m. while he was gnawing on my nipple purely for entertainment and companionship and not at all for nutrition or because he intended to soothe himself back to dreamland in any kind of appropriately prompt manner and I let him cry himself to sleep three nights in a row. I nursed him down in my arms, ignored the fact that he transfers from arms to rigged chair/bassinet contraption like a hungry polar bear with a toothache, let him cry himself to sleep and then ignored his fussing/cooing/smiling ass until 6:00 a.m.

It worked. He slept better. Until he got a really bad cold the day after Christmas and yes, even heartless wicked witch me can not leave a baby wailing in his rigged bassinet when he can not breathe through his nose. I caved and now that he can breathe I'm going to have to start all the damn way over again.

I know that this second go around should involve his crib, but I don't want to make the switch because he sleeps so well in that car seat when he sleeps. I absolutely do recommend the car seat in bassinet sleeping system for small babies. They breathe better when they are upright like that and they are all snuggly in there.

Behold, the car seat/bassinet contraption of sleepfulness.

And. Bonus. For that tricky transition from arms to car seat/bassinet? I can nurse him in the car seat. That's right. I can set him in the car seat and still nurse him. I have really talented nipples.

I absolutely am. My left nipple is in his mouth. You can see his wee toes on the bottom left. I have crazy nursing multitasking skills. In just a moment, I can pop it out and leave him cashed out in the chair. Where he'll stay, sleeping peacefully for two or three hours. Unless it's the middle of the night and I'm actually trying to sleep, at which point, I give him fifteen minutes.

Nate and I went to his six month well baby check on Tuesday and my pediatrician, who has been through four babies with me and knows me well, asked me casually if he was still sleeping in his car seat.

Me: Uh huh.
Dr. Sarah: You should probably start thinking about transitioning to a crib. Or a flat surface of any sort.
Me: Uh huh. I know. I will. It's just, he's kind of a light sleeper and we just did the crying thing and then he slept through the night for like two days and then he got an awful cold, so you know. But, I will. I know I need to do it. He's starting to sit up and he's going to roll himself right out of that seat and hit the floor.

She laughed because she's awesome and relaxed like that.

Dr. Sarah: Well he'll be fine as long as it's on carpet.

Aha. It totally is. Now.

Mine Love You Too

noreply@blogger.com (anymommy) — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 05:50:00 +0000

"Is today a special day, mommy?" Garrett asked me at the breakfast table the fourth day after Christmas.

We had a lot of special days in a row. A cookie decorating party. An ornament making party. Grandparents. Swimming. Special PJs for Santa. Santa's big arrival.

"No," I told him. "Every day can't be special. Today is just an ordinary day."

Remember my post about delighting in my children? I still make that a goal every day. I forget. I still yell. I still get impatient and overwhelmed, but I have started and stuck with one new daily practice. Right before I sing their lullabies each night, when I give each of them a tight hug and smell their yummy baby hair, I tell them something that delighted me that day. I keep it simple so that I don't get angsty about it.

You delighted me today when you told Miss K thank you.
I loved it when you cleaned up without whining.
I loved how patient you were with your picture drawing.
You delighted me today when you kissed baby Nate when he cried.

I thought it was no big deal until I forgot it one night and they all protested in their loud, whiny protest voices. "You didn't tell us what we did, you didn't say what you loved today."

On the fourth day after Christmas, at bedtime, I hugged them all tight and I said one thing that I loved that day. Garret said, "I love you, twinklelopalotus," and Saige said, "I love you mommysapasourus," because they think that is hilarious.

My dear little Quinn, he kept it simple. "Mine love you too," he replied.

He isn't going to say "mine" instead of "I" much longer.

As sappy and corny as it is, I fought tears and I said, "today was a special day, Garrett, because I got to spend it with all of you."

If I have one hope for myself in 2010, one prayer for my family for this new year and one wish for all of you, it's that. That you spend your days with the people that make them special.

And if I have one resolution, it's that I remember that every day is a special day.

Happy New Year, everyone. Thanks for being part of my life in 2009. I have very high hopes for 2010.

Sexiest Man Alive

noreply@blogger.com (anymommy) — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 22:49:00 +0000

There might be just a smidgen of bias.

Maybe he's not Brad Pitt, but doesn't he accessorize well? Babynater ala five year old bjorn. All the cool kids are wearing them.

Happy Birthday, my love. I didn't post this on your real birthday because I know how freaky you are about my imaginary friends in my internet world. That is how much I love you. Now please stop hyperventilating about the holiday cards. They are from people I have met. In real life. They were lovely and have families of their own and everything.

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

Tying up a few loose ends. December is kicking my butt and my parents get here tomorrow and my sister comes on Wednesday and then ohmigoditsxmas and we've got I think a bajillion fun kid activities next week that all involve horrendous amounts of sugar and sticky things that children are supposed to touch like cookie decorating and ornament making. You'll be able to find me huddled in the corner, rocking, clutching a container of wet wipes. In between crafting and bread baking (I made another batch of challah and braided it into mini-loaves for preschool and I KNOW, it was briefly like I was the most collected, together, organized SAHM ev-ah and then in between dropping off the mini loaves at Ess and Gee's preschool and taking the rest of the mini loaves to Cue's preschool I called a complete stranger a b-i-t-c-h in a grocery store parking lot. In my defense, she totally was, but that does not really excuse my behavior.) and managing to get a few cards sent out and oh yeah (!) spending a little time with my children, I haven't been able to do much more on line than fly by twitter occasionally.

But. Tomorrow. Ess and Gee go to all day preschool camp. Just say it out loud with me. All.day.preschool.camp. Isn't it beautiful? Like a full orchestra playing Pachabel's Canon in D. My to do list shall be conquered.

And it's all good. It really is. This is the part of the holidays I love. We don't do a lot of presents. Santa brings only one gift to our house, something bulky for all the kids (this year a play kitchen, shhhh ;-) and Matt and I give each of the kids one present and fill their stockings. I love the going, the getting together, the making, the candle lighting, the baking, the note writing, the singing, the eating (oh, the eating, hello grandma's cherry cookies), the decorating. I love the traditions. Yesterday, the kids wore antler headbands and we danced in front of the finally decorated tree for an hour and I took one of those deep, warm breaths to stop the happiness from spilling right out of my eyes as silly, sappy tears.

All of that to say that there are two really important things I want to tell you in case I don't get back on the computer again until, oh I don't know, March. First, your comments on the Matching post were awesome. I loved them because so many of you identified with the issue and had dealt with it in some way even if you are not an adoptive family. Second, thank you for helping us with our holiday card question. We went with "another year, another Rudolf." I do believe I was slightly ahead in the voting (not that I counted), but Matt really liked it and as Andrea rightly pointed out, that may not, okay, most likely won't, all right, all right, probably most definitely won't ever work again.

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

Updated P.S. This post makes me sound like an ass. Of course there are three very important things that I want to tell you. The most important being a wish for the merriest and busiest and traditioniest of weeks for all of you. I planned to say that in a separate post. That I totally intend to publish before March. XO.

Holiday Infection, Er, Spirit

noreply@blogger.com (anymommy) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 07:04:00 +0000

I'm working on holiday cards tonight. Making them.

I also baked challah for Hanukkah on Friday and I'm deeply immersed in a little crafting project for the kids of some close friends.

That is bread that I made. From a recipe. With yeast and everything. I only had to call my mom like four times and it was all in the first hour while I was hyperventilating over the failure of my yeast to breathe or grow or whatever it needs to do to make the dough rise. Turns out it is too cold in my house for yeast to work. I hear you, yeast, I often complain to the management as well. Maybe I should refuse to rise.

Anyway, crafting, creating, baking. I'm thinking brain tumor. Actually, it's a spirit-of-the-season brain infection. Totally curable by dark, cold, gloomy January. For now, I'm looking through "twinkle yights" colored glasses.

And finally, after failing miserably to produce any holiday cards last year, I get to participate in Meghan's Bloggy Holiday Card Exchange. Behold, the front of our holiday card.

I can't show you the back because the message is a topic of debate.

Matt's pick is: "Another year, another Rudolf. (Dear Santa, if it's foggy, call me. I'll make you a deal.)"

I like: "I'm Rudolf! No! I'm Rudolf! Mine Rudolf! (Dear Santa, if it's foggy, call me. I'll make you a deal.)"

What thinkest thou? That's Shakespeare for which one do you like? Matt is currently winning on twitter. Not that it's a competition or anything. It is cute and his birthday is this week.

Hope the magic of the holidays has infected all your brains and you are seeing twinkle light colored spots every where you look.

Matching

noreply@blogger.com (anymommy) — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 06:20:00 +0000

"Almost all the kids match," Gee declared.

I tensed a little in my miniature chair, wrapped both hands more tightly around my chai and waited to see if he would pursue it. Fourteen munchkins arrayed around the preschool snack table gave him varying levels of non-attention, fixated mostly on their little hoards of raisins and wheat crackers.

Vaguely, it occurred to me that "almost all" was a complicated concept. Their brains develop so fast. They inhale sophistication. I can watch their thinking process grow and change like bread rising.

"Almost all the kids are peach momma. We match. And Ess matches Teacher Miscilla."

Ess barked, a second after I predict it in my mind, "I match mommy's eyes."

This is a recurrent theme in our house for the last month or two. As their minds become aware of color. Of features. Of alike and not alike. Their brains breathe in, breathe out, puzzling it. Our skin is different. Our eyes are the same. Ess has a tummy mommy. I do not.

I'm torn by her desire to match me. We have worked so hard for three long years to attach as a family. My emotional identity as her mother is strong, but they are young, simple, physical beings still. She wants the hard evidence. She wants to belong to me in fibers and colors and names and skin. Words are not satisfactory. Love. Bond. Concepts can't be touched. They want to see and hold. Gee's hair matches Daddy's hair. Ess' eyes match Mommy's eyes.

I encourage it gently and hide my reservations. My fears are adult fears. I know that she needs an identity as she grows that includes her Haitian heritage and her brown skin. I know that someday soon a desire to match her white mother and not her African American teacher could mean that I have failed to combat the pervasive message in our society that white is beautiful. That princesses are blond. That different is bad.

Not yet though. I feel fairly confident of that. She tells me she is pretty. She smiles when I do her hair and asks if she can see it. Oh, she primps, it's beautiful. This four-year-old year, I see only a child exploring the ways she belongs in her family, not a child rejecting the way she looks.

The preschoolers looked to me, sticky handfuls of raisins half way to their mouths.

"I don't match," I reminded Gee, "my skin is olive. Ess' eyes match mine but her skin is chocolate like Teacher Priscilla. We are all unique. Who else has brown eyes?"

Four small hands went up. "I have blue eyes," an adorable little blond piped.

"You do. Who else has blue eyes?" More comparing. Liam has green eyes like Gee.

"But you're the only one with red hair," I told Gee, "we're all different and we all match."

Just as suddenly as it began, it's over. Their fickle attention shifted to something else, a spilled water cup, their dwindling raisins. Teacher Marietta directed them to the Rainbow Room where Ryan's Grandpa, an entomologist, is ready to show them his Australian leaf bugs. They are huge! They are interesting! The biggest one laid an egg on his hand! We talk about bugs and only bugs for days, but I know it will come back up. I know it's on their minds because of the way it surfaces and sinks and resurfaces in our conversations. Matching. Our skin. Our eyes.

This round is easy because they are easily satisfied. The hard questions wait for us around the corner.

I want to pour my heart into her. You are stunning. You are gorgeous. You are unique. Don't cave to them, with their airbrushes and their chemical treatments and their make believe women in their make believe lives. Don't think that pretty and picture perfect are equal. Don't think that there is a look, a hair color, a weight, a wardrobe that brings happiness. Happiness is a family that loves you. Happiness is friends to giggle with you all night. Happiness is wine night every Thursday. It's finding a passion. It's tracing 1000 year old carvings with your finger. It is pouring your heart into something and coming in second. It's in a hug. It is seeing your grandmother's eyes light up when she meets your baby boy.

It is inconstant. It takes effort.

If you try to bleach or tan or sleep or puke or buy or exercise or read or drug your way to it, it will always elude you.

She is too small. I know. She is too small for all these words. So, I put them here for her for someday. You can not know the weight of someone's heart by looking at them, darling. There are plenty of tiny blonds that cry themselves to sleep at night. There are redheads the world over that starve themselves in the name of a warped concept of beauty.

We are all different. We are all the same.

Health and Safety

noreply@blogger.com (anymommy) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 05:46:00 +0000

I'm flying to Dallas tomorrow to visit my grandmother. That makes today pretty much the most insane day ever. Nater helpfully stayed up all night last night so that he could sleep, like a little sleeping angel, from 7:00 a.m. until I woke him up - I am not kidding, there is absolutely no kidding in this entire post - until I woke him up at 11:15 a.m.

I woke him up because I needed a few items and Ess and Gee and Cue and I were tired of grouching at each other while I tried to get a million and one things done for my trip, so I decided to break up the day by going to Wal.mart. Will I never learn?

We ate packed lunches in the parking lot of Walm.art because we are ca-lass-sy like that. I called my sister and my mother to let them know that I was hanging out in my used minivan in the Wal.mart parking lot nursing my baby while my three other toddlers ate goldfish crackers and a man in full camo, I mean full camo, head to toe, loaded some kind of herd animal food into his truck. They like it when I give them these little visuals of my life on the border of Idaho.

When everyone was full and relatively non-grumpy, I assembled my little procession. Nater sat in his pumpkin seat on his stroller frame, Ess held the left hand side of the stroller, Gee held the right hand side and Cue "helped" me push the stroller. No, there is no where for me stand. Also, I was wearing a tacky red backpack. (In case you are visualizing.)

I neglected to fasten the strap that secures the car seat onto the stroller frame. That becomes important in a moment. (Matt never forgets that freaking strap and he is rolling his eyes at my trials and tribulations as I type this.)

The kids each had something that we needed to "find" in the store. That keeps them busy. Gee had his little magnifying glass because he thinks "finding" something at the store is like Blue's Clues and he needs it to look for clues. Click! I don't know what Click! had to do with anything but I assume it's an annoying Blue's Clues thing because we all have to say it as we walk through the store. Click! Click!

We made it halfway down the first aisle. Half way down. No kidding in this post. At all. Cue kept hanging from the stroller handle and I kept asking him, ineffectively, not to hang from the stroller handle and then my phone rang. I thought. I didn't actually ring. No one ever calls me because I never have my freaking phone, but I thought it rang and I put my ugly red back pack down to find it. In doing so, I let go of the stroller.

So you know what happened then right?

Cue tried to hang from the handle again and the entire stroller flipped over on top of him and the unsecured back of the car seat let go so that it too flipped over. I couldn't see them, but I imagine that he and Nate lay there, suddenly eye to eye, wondering what the hell just happened.

Right at that moment, as I lunged for my upside down baby and pinned toddler in a blind panic, a man walking passed us commented, without stopping to help, "that doesn't look safe."

You think? Well I'll be a camouflaged deer-feed buying Walm.art shopper. You must be some kind of safety engineer. What tipped you off, Einstein? The upside down baby? The toddler laying flat on his back with forty pounds of stroller and upside down baby on his chest? I wanted to retort something obnoxious and clever like that, but unfortunately at that exact moment, I was grovelling on the floor of Wal.mart trying to rescue my two small children from what was, in all fairness, an unsafe situation of my own making. So yeah. I had to eat the Wal.mart shopper parenting commentary. Bummer.

I righted the baby and stroller. Cue lay there looking utterly shell-shocked. Nater never took his fingers out of his mouth, but his expression was all "what's with the loop-de-loops, milk lady, I just ate? And whoa! It's bright here! Is this Disney World?" Thank all that is holy that he was secured in the actual car seat.

Then, Gee screamed, "A CLUE! A CLUE!" Because enough people weren't looking at us already and I'm like, "WHAT MFING CLUE?!!"

I need a clue. Here's a clue, dumbass, stop taking four kids under the age of five out in public. He pointed at the large puddle on the floor by Cue's head. The large puddle of my expensive, precious chai latte, which I bought because I drove to Wal.mart, where things are cheap and made in China. Oh. Okay. Sure. A clue. Investigate while I pick up your brother and make sure I haven't permanently damaged him in front of like 200 witnesses.

Cue seemed fine. I reassembled our procession, wiped up the chai with a wet wipe, scraped my last vestiges of pride off of the cold, gray tile Wal.mart floor, and we carried on following CLUES! to the MILK! Click! Click?

Nate fell asleep again in the car on the way home. He had slept six hours already by 2:00 p.m. today. He wants to make sure that he is very well rested so that he can keep me up all night and we won't miss our 6:00 a.m. flight tomorrow morning.

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

It's 9:30. I think it felt good to write that out. Takes the sting out. A little. Wish me luck, I'm off to Texas in a few hours. I'll be handling only one child for the weekend, so with any luck I will be able to properly orient him with the earth at all times.

(E, K, A and M, that title is for you. I'll miss you. Any chance we could start taking shopping trips as a group? Apparently, I'm a danger to myself and others and I need better supervision.)

Batting 1000

noreply@blogger.com (anymommy) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 02:19:00 +0000

Tuesdays are crazy. Matt needs to leave the house with Ess and Gee close to eight in order to maximize preschool time. Technically, drop off is between eight and eight thirty, but in my opinion dropping them off at any time after about eight-oh-two is a waste of a perfectly beautiful half an hour when there could be two less kids in my house.

Since we all - and by we all I absolutely do mean Matt and I - don't roll out of bed until seven most mornings, it can be tight. I don't know why I do that. Stay in bed until seven. It's mostly miserable after six thirty. Ess and Gee and Cue are wrestling or licking through the safe paint on the walls in order to access the lead paint or dropping books down the heating vent in their bedroom. Nate is usually chewing on my nipple like it's an Olympic sport. I'm completely, uselessly awake and yet I can't bring myself to apply cold, bare foot to freezing floor until the clock says seven.

It just is. I entered their room already feeling a bit behind and they sensed my hurry with their little toddler-preschooler-shark hurry sensors. Instantly, they hit irritatingly slow and uncooperative mode. Where normally we would just get dressed, once they sensed hurry, Gee had his underwear on his head and Ess whinged because her arm wouldn't go into her sleeve and Cue screamed because I had the unbelievable audacity to fetch a clean diaper myself after he ignored my repeated requests that he please do so.

We made it through cereal only because Matt went down and got everything ready while I cracked the whip over getting dressed. I popped waffles in the toaster (because for some reason we have this pattern that they eat waffles after they eat a full bowl of cereal in the morning). As I re-entered the dining room, I caught Gee twirling his mostly empty cereal bowl around in a circle with his finger so that it resembled an old fashion record player except that instead of music pouring forth, milk streamed, in a perfect spiral, from the bowl and decorated my dining room.

"NO!! That's it!! You. are. finished. Get down. Go get your shoes on for school."

"But I want my waffle."

"No. No waffle. If you play with your food, you're done. Those are the rules."

"WAHAHAHAHAHAH! WAHHHHAAAAAAAHHHHHAAAA!! (incoherent screaming/sobbing) WAHAHHHNT my WAAAAFFFFLLLEEEEE!! (incoherent snot bubbling)."

"GO! NOW! SHOES! I AM FINISHED WITH THIS BEHAVIOR."

He went amid regularly timed screams and dripping snot and heartbroken pleas for "hi-hi-hisssss wa-wa-wa-wa-ffle."

I was unmoved. This consequence is well-established in our house. Many, many children have left the table for playing with food. It is so expected that I am surprised he didn't pick up his bowl himself when I walked into the room.

My irritation grew as his drama continued and his shoes remained off. It was eight-oh-four. The great waffle scream fest was tragically cutting into preschool-children-are-not-here time.

He shuffled into the mudroom where his sister was ready to go and stood there sobbing. Matt sat on the bench, putting on his shoes. I could see the scene through the kitchen window that used to look out into the backyard and now looks down into the mudroom, like a movie, the volume muffled, the emotions taken out of me, removed. My sympathy returned, watching him cry. He is so little still.

"You are not getting your waffle, buddy, you know the rules," Matt told him in a calm, regulated voice. It was a statement of fact. He was not angry or irritated or hurried. "You can't play with your food. We still love you though, we always love you."

It is something I say often, but I had not said it that morning.

Gee's face crumpled and he cuddled into his Daddy's shoulder, sobbing. Oh. So then. Not the expected consequence at all. Not the waffle so much. Rather, the harshness in my tone, the impatience, the hard set of my face. My tired, understandable desire to have them gone for a few hours, even though I'll be there at noon, eager to get them back.

I am so thankful to have Matt on my team. Just when I am about to strike out, he hits it out of the park.

(Eight-oh-eight, the silence of one two-year-old with all the toys to himself. Coffee with cream and sugar. Sigh.)

Thank You

noreply@blogger.com (anymommy) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 06:53:00 +0000

I've tried to write a few different things for this last post of my thirty post marathon. Nothing is working. It feels like it should be good. Momentous. I have some big adoption posts I've been writing and rewriting. The kids are always doing things that I could talk about. Matt has washed his thirty-six year old truck like eight times in the last three weeks and that's just kind of hilarious.

Instead I'll say what's on my mind. Thanks. I enjoyed this month. Thanks for not getting completely bored of me and disappearing. Thanks for the encouragement. Thanks for the emails. I love your suggestions. I am totally putting vick's vapor rub on the soles of Nater's feet. I will absolutely sit and memorize every detail of the last time I nurse him. Thank you for commenting so lovingly on our swing victory.

Thanks Gayle and Maura for your hilarious daily thoughts. Thanks Mommy Geekology for reading chapter 1, page 1 and not laughing in my virtual face. Thanks Jessica Bern for being inspired and posting every day with me (no thanks for being way funnier than me though).

It feels good to have finished this without cheating or missing. It feels good to be done. I'll be back very soon, but definitely not tomorrow!

E&E Tally: 21768 words
Blog posts: 30/30

Cheap Bone's Connected to the...

noreply@blogger.com (anymommy) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 05:24:00 +0000

Speaking of Cos.tco, yes we were at the end of that last post there, I bought underwear at the big mecca of all things super-sized the other day. For me, not the kids. It did seem very weird if you want to know the truth, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I have had laundry crisis after laundry crisis lately and I decided it wasn't the result of any laundry slackerdom on my part, I just don't own enough pairs of pan.ties. (That was for Marinka, she hates the word pant.ies. Also for my mother, she is dying right now. "Stacey Kathleen O'Roarke (I made those last two up), are you now discussing your unmentionables on the internet?" Hi mom! Yes, I totally am.)

It was weird to throw the underwear right on into the cart (it'll hold four kids, three pounds of cheese and a fully assembled tool shed...go on, ten points, you know it!) with the life's supply of string cheese and cheap Italian restaurant quantities of pasta sauce (which, hmmmm, maybe the Cost.co people were wondering what I was up to with my underwear). Not that I'm a underwear snob. At one time I was a VS girl, but I downgraded to Tar-shay long ago. Co.stco though. Wow. Next, I'll sew my own underwear from old onsies.

That night, needing some affirmation, I told Matt while I scooped my bowl of chocolate chip mint ice cream (hands down the best flavor, there is no competition). I figured he would be behind me. He loves Cos.tco. If Cos.tco had existed when he proposed to me, I guarantee you I would be sporting a bright, shiny Cost.co special sparkly right now. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Me: I bought underwear at Cost.co today.
Him: (shocked look) The romance is truly dead.

Imagine my surprise.

Me: They were $9.99 for seven pairs.
Him: I love it when you talk all se.xy.

That's what I thought.

(Let's make my mom really squirm. Hey mom, know what the dots are for in se.xy and pant.ies? So some gross internet perv can't put "kids in se.xy cheese pasta pan.ties" into google and get your adorable grandchildren as their number one search result. I know. What is this world coming to? You can't even shop for pant.ies at Cost.co and tell the whole internet about it without putting little anti-search dots in the key words. It's a sad, sad state of affairs.)

(Are you all thinking, sheesh, good thing tomorrow is the final day of November because Stacey is slipping. Oh yeah? Well, where do you buy your underwear? Just kidding, me too.)

E&E Tally: 20620 words (working on it, the baby will not sleep)
Blog posts: 29/30

Flopping Fish Brain

noreply@blogger.com (anymommy) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 06:40:00 +0000

I passed 20,000 words today in the saga of Emily and Eddie, which is nowhere close to 50,000 words, but, considering the distractions I have in my days, is pretty darn good. I'm pleased. It's a whole hell of a lot better than nothing and that is exactly what I had at the start of November. The best part is that I am only just now half way through my outline. The plot is more complicated in the second half, so if I continue, I ought to be able to reach between 50,000 and 70,000 words easily and that is, well, fun. It's fun. We'll leave it at that for now.

There are only two days left of posting every day. I have things to say. Half formed blog posts sift through the holes in my mind. I can't hold them. I am tired and the points and themes and images get clogged in the gears. I'll let this one jump and flip and reverse like my flopping fish out of water brain.

We did a craft. With acrylic paint. In my living room. Right? Matt was all, who are you and where is my severely craft-averse anal retentive wife? Recall, I need therapy to let my children eat popsicles. It gets better. I painted their little hands with honest-to-goodness, doesn't-wash-off-easily paint and we printed projects. They are going to be the kids' presents to aunties and grandparents for the holidays, so I can't get specific and give it all away, but they turned out downright adorable.

In case you fear my blog (or my body) has been taken over by aliens, no, no, it's me. I yelled at Cue so loudly while his little hand was covered in lemon yellow acrylic paint that he sat down on his bottom and did the open mouth, someone-killed-my-puppy cry. That would be me. His mother. I killed his puppy. For revenge, while I had the baby's entire hand painted bright green, he insisted on covering the wet canvasses with his nanny blanket so that they could "go nigh-nigh."

My crafty quota is filled for the century.

ALSO, because I don't have enough misery going on at night, Gee is sleep walking. Actually, he is sleep pee-pee dancing all around the upstairs. He's sort of looking for the toilet, but if one of us doesn't get there fast enough and aim him in the right direction, he'll pee on whatever is handy. He favors the step stool, which is like three freaking inches from the toilet.

Finally, I took all the kids to a large box bookstore because something is wrong with my brain. Reference above, re: non-water based paints. It was packed. The aisles were so narrow. Our little procession involving stroller and kids holding stroller on both sides and Cue "pushing" stroller (oh my god, Cue, there is no where for ME to stand when you "push" the stroller) did not fit. I failed to hit the eject button and bail before we were well and truly into the store and COULD NOT TURN AROUND.

I have new appreciation for Cos.tco and its wide enough for the pallet trolley aisles. Those are my people. The pallet trolley people (thumps chest above heart while flashing cost.co spelled in a bizarre gang-sign-esque configuration of my fingers).

I'm closing my comments for most of the month of November while I participate in National Novel Writing Month and National Blog Posting Month. I can't ask you to talk to me every freaking day for thirty days. That's cruel and usual punishment. My email is always open - anymommyoutthere@gmail.com.

E&E Tally: 20620 words
Blog posts: 28/30

Small Prayers

noreply@blogger.com (anymommy) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 05:59:00 +0000

Nate's not sleeping. It's horrible and exhausting and frustrating. And temporary. I'll say it three times so I remember and believe: temporary, temporary, temporary. It feels like it will never end, but it has only been four or five nights and I know, from experience, I know, it will end. He is teething and he has a terrible cold. Between the snot and his obsession with gnawing on his fists, he can easily waste the better part of our ten at night to six in the morning sleep routine.

The pattern of this week is not an easy one. I finally get him to sleep in his rigged car seat/bassinet contraption (patent pending) around eleven and at one thirty he is gnawing and fussing and making my heart pound by choking briefly on snot and just generally keeping me awake with his annoyingness. We nurse until two thirty, he sleeps until three thirty; we nurse until four thirty, he sleeps until five thirty; we nurse until six or so and he starts smiling and giggling and playing with my nipple.

I kick his snoring father and blurt out something borderline abusive and frightening and incoherent like 'take baby, might kill it, am dying.' Matt gets up and takes him away, blissfully far away, out of my earshot away, and lets him coo and smile and drip snot while he drinks a pot of coffee and reads the paper. I get a precious forty-five minutes to an hour of sleep before the rest of our merry gang wake exuberant for their day.

Most mornings, Nate falls back into a dead to the world, nothing will wake me, mouth open sleep between seven and eight and I can put him pretty much anywhere for the next three hours. I have had to wake him up to go to preschool.

I mean seriously, fates? Up yours. My fourth baby likes a bit of a lie in? My fourth baby. You find that funny, don't you? I might hate you just a little bit.

When he wakes naturally, he wakes happy and then comes my very, very favorite part of my day, week, possibly life right now. He coos, or sits contentedly in his old, recalled car seat set in his bassinet and looks around. He hardly ever cries. He just waits until I eventually get to a natural pause in breakfast, or dressing or another routine morning chore and scamper up the stairs to check on him.

When I see him awake through the door, I pause because the moment when he spots me fills my heart up to the very tippy top and overflows it all over the floor. The joy runs down the stairs and splatters all over my other kids. I step into the room and he sees me and he sparkles with happiness. His whole body wags. His smile cracks his cheeks and dribbles sprinkly bits of loveliness down his chin. (Or, yes, okay, that might be drool and snot, but it looks like sprinkly bits of happiness to me and I am temporarily sleep deprived.)

It is the most affirming thing. It causes such an answering pull in my heart. My own smile cracks my cheeks, my mood soars. It's almost enough to make me forgive him for the teeth and the snot and the whole 'I'd like to play at 6:00 a.m. routine.' Almost.

Please, please, gods of sleep and quiet and sanity. The teeth: let them break the surface. The snot: make it be gone. Grant me five consecutive hours. In the meantime, I can not be held responsible for my SB chai consumption.

I'm closing my comments for most of the month of November while I participate in National Novel Writing Month and National Blog Posting Month. I can't ask you to talk to me every freaking day for thirty days. That's cruel and usual punishment. My email is always open - anymommyoutthere@gmail.com.

E&E Tally: 19690 words (breath of life)
Blog posts: 27/30

To Life

noreply@blogger.com (anymommy) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 03:58:00 +0000

When we were little kids, my Dad called the goop inside of a pumpkin the "pumpkin poop." Is that common? No? My family was weird? Shocking. At Halloween, he'd get all gleeful and tell us it was "time to scoop the pumpkin poop."

Matt tells our kids it's spaghetti. Because he had a normal, decent childhood. My sisters and I never had a chance. We think it's hilarious to sing the most annoying songs in the history of the universe on long car rides or all day hikes so that they get stuck in other people's heads. We laughed until we cried when Dee recounted a NPR special about sexing turkeys at one memorable Thanksgiving feast.

Because my sisters and I inherited my Dad's bizarre sense of humor, my youngest sister sent me an email the other day entitled, "It's true." I knew it was going to be good...and it was.

Bestill my heart. Someone out there in the world shares my family's penchant for pumpkin potty humor.

I wish I could say that we are all together today, three glasses in and laughing our asses off, but they have gathered in the Lonestar state and Matt and I have decided that a kajillion children (or four) and holiday travel do not mix. So, we are here laughing our asses off with friends who are family, raising our third glasses (or fourth, who's counting? yes, Cue, you may have a sixth cupcake) to loved ones, near and far, to friends that get us through our days, to cupcakes, to pumpkin poop pie.

L'chaim, blog people, to life!

(Oh, you are totally going to have that song stuck in your head for days. I know you are reading this in Texas. I win.)

(What, what's that? It's sixty there? Low blow. You win. Love you.)

I'm closing my comments for most of the month of November while I participate in National Novel Writing Month and National Blog Posting Month. I can't ask you to talk to me every freaking day for thirty days. That's cruel and usual punishment. My email is always open - anymommyoutthere@gmail.com.

E&E Tally: 17735 words (finishing weak, so true to form)
Blog posts: 26/30

Grateful

noreply@blogger.com (anymommy) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 04:10:00 +0000

Once, I sat on the roof of an absolutely disgusting six-story hostel in the middle of the pocked, crumbling maze of antiquity that is Istanbul and looked out over the rooftops and minaret spires and lights. Beside me in a circle of students and travelers and wanderers, sat a Danish boy named Soren. That "O" has a weird line through it and it makes a vowel sound that my brain does not recognize. He laughed at me, drunk and giddy on beer and height, as he tried to shape my unwilling tongue around the sound. Around us, that filthy ancient city twinkled and sprawled and managed to look both exotic and beautiful.

Once, I leaped, brave beyond reason from adventure and youth, from stone steps carved into a cliff on the side of the island of Capri into the churning, crashing waves of the Mediterranean Sea and swam fighting the push-me-pull-me swells through a narrow cave entrance. There, I tread water with four or five other ignorantly-brave kids and watched the microorganisms that live in that dark space sparkle and blaze in neon and diamond, jewels beyond counting.

Once, I galloped on an agile, sure-footed stallion named Kirhan, across the rock-strewn high plains of the Atlas Mountains. I laughed, laughed out loud in blind joy, at the rocks and my bare head and the risk and the world and danger and fate, at falls and concussions and medical evacuations by helicopter. I laughed and I gambled without counting the costs of loss and I won.

Once, I clung to the back of a rusty truck, on a mountain of rice, baked and windswept and thirsty, and listened to Haitian teenagers scream songs to Jesus all the way up a dry, littered riverbed into the heart of starvation's furious maw. My heart pounded and my dry throat went drier at the sight of hundreds of people sitting in two painfully long lines. I moved down the left hand line at a speed that left no room for breathing, shoving bag after bag of rice from a wagon, into the hands of another volunteer, who threw it into hungry lap after hungry lap. A whistle blew when the rice ran out and we dropped everything, sacks, makeshift wagons, dignity and pride and ran back to the already moving truck, where hands waited to pull us up, out of harm's way, away from the tide of frustration that occasionally became a riot.

Once, I slipped, in a bikini and a snorkel, into the still, green waters of Palau's lagoon and watched, in frightened delight as two silver and steel dolphins swam quiet circles around me. Dive down, their keeper called, they like to play. I sank down towards the warped mirage of the bottom sand and the larger one, the male, sank with me, face to face. He nodded and smiled and clicked his encouragement and I reached out in wonder, thinking I am the lesser creature here. We surfaced together, him beside me, and the keeper called, grab him, he's offering, but I only vaguely heard because the female was on my other side, her soft-but-steel gray muscles against my body, and they took me for a short ride together. A gift.

Once, I quivered, doubled over with misery and terror, on a train stopped in no-man's-land between Romania and Bulgaria. My passport was gone, stolen by the friendly girls who had shared our compartment, and I understood, briefly, facing the machine-gun-armed teenagers on the station platform, what it meant not to be a citizen of a powerful, first-world country in this enormous world.

More than once, I have wept at sights too awe-inspiring for words, experiences too intense to explain.

I would trade it all, every moment, every memory, every single bit of it for my right now. My family. Matt. My children. My friends, near and far. That's how grateful I am. I am equally grateful that I don't have to bargain.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all. May your cup overflow.

If you aren't too busy cooking, tell me a memory you treasure from your time before children.

E&E Tally: 17735 words (holidays don't count, right?)
Blog posts: 25/30

Brothers and Sisters

noreply@blogger.com (anymommy) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 05:14:00 +0000

I've wanted to do this for a while. This is the perfect time, in the midst of all the holiday preparations and craziness.

Gee at five months.

Cue at five months.

Nate at five months.

Think they're related? (Oh and yes, I absolutely did have hundreds of pictures to choose from in a folder entitled "Gee - Five Months," followed by a pretty good selection entitled "December 2007," followed by pulling the most recent pictures off of my camera, realizing there was only one of Nater and none of him smiling and then using a picture my friend emailed me last week. No wonder youngest children have issues.)

Also, my kids have crazy hair.

Not to leave anyone out, here's my beautiful daughter at five months. We received monthly updates from the orphanage with one or two pictures. At the time, it felt like so little and now I'm beyond grateful to have them.

I'm closing my comments for most of the month of November while I participate in National Novel Writing Month and National Blog Posting Month. I can't ask you to talk to me every freaking day for thirty days. That's cruel and usual punishment. My email is always open - anymommyoutthere@gmail.com.

E&E Tally: 17735 words
Blog posts: 24/30

Story Time

noreply@blogger.com (anymommy) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 06:07:00 +0000

Someone asked in a comment many posts ago if we read to our kids and how we managed the crowd control. I read them books if they bring them to me throughout the day, but we have a formal story time as a part of our bedtime routine. They each get to pick one book when they are completely ready for bed and we all sit and read them together in our queen-sized bed.

It's funny. A long, long time ago, when I was pregnant with Gee and watching my two other children grow in an orphanage a thousand miles away, I had a fantasy I would replay often in my head. It was an idyllic picture of early mornings with a large family. I would wake up and hug each child drowsily as they crawled into our huge bed with spotless white sheets. We would snuggle, giggle, say good morning and then fall back to sleep for an hour or so, all curled together like puppies, until sunlight filled the room and the clock reached a decent time.

I think in my dream world, we all smelled vaguely of coconut and lemons and sunshine.

We definitely didn't smell like pee. In my real world, my kids reek of pee in the early morning. The night-trained one misses and the other two are wearing diapers so huge and swollen that I actually wrinkle my nose in disgust when I catch a whiff. They could never sneak in and wake me up by snuggling because I would smell them when they crossed the thresh hold of our room and about that time I would call, firmly, "the sun is not on, the clock does not say seven, back to your bed."

Truth is, I hate kids in our bed in the morning, in the night, pretty much at any time. I tolerate them as babies and then I want them to get out and stay out.

Further fantasy fallacies abound.

Our sheets are not clean. Even if they were when the night started, by the morning, the baby has puked on them.

There is nothing snuggly about small children sleeping. They are all knees and elbows and grabby little hands.

There is nothing decent about the time that our gaggle awakes for the day, nor would they be inclined to go back to sleep for an hour or so unless I hit them over the head with something heavy. Don't think I haven't considered it.

The window is more likely to let bleak, gray, winter light leak into our freezing cold room than buttery sunshine.

Some dreams never have a chance to get off of the ground. But, sometimes you can find their solid, golden core, if you are willing to allow the wrapping to look a little less perfect than you imagined.

I'm closing my comments for most of the month of November while I participate in National Novel Writing Month and National Blog Posting Month. I can't ask you to talk to me every freaking day for thirty days. That's cruel and usual punishment. My email is always open - anymommyoutthere@gmail.com.

E&E Tally: 16636 words
Blog posts: 23/30