An Educational Post

I'm still blogging at my new site, but I'm also finishing my masters degree, so I needed to update this site for a class on Google apps. So here's an update!

The last time I wrote a long post here, we had been matched with a sibling group that we hoped to adopt. We were able to finalize in December 2011. Here's a photo taken just after we saw the judge.

You might notice there are 5 kids in this picture, instead of the 4 we knew about when I last updated. The week after our middle three moved in with us, I found out I was pregnant. Surprise! Collin joined us in October 2011.

Here's a picture of the whole crowd at Easter this year. I can't believe how much they've grown!

On the left is Grant (8), then Collin (2), Maya (13), Hannah (11), and Levi (9). I knew our lives would get a lot busier, but I had no idea just how wild this ride would be. My days are filled with kid schoolwork, toddler chasing, sports practices, shoe and jeans buying (seriously, how do they need new shoes and jeans every week?), and LAUNDRY. My nights are spent writing and doing my own homework. Exhausting as it is, I'm also incredibly happy. I always pictured us having a big family. Now that we do, I wouldn't want it any other way.

Collin will read you a bedtime story now.

Here are the photos before I edited them in Picasa. I changed the color settings on the first one and added a glow filter to the second.

The New Not-So-Simple Life

Take a walk with me! Just around the corner there's a sweet new space, and I'm moving in. ThisNotSoSimpleLife.com

Some Exciting Stuff Happened

The latter half of 2010 was mostly normal. On the adoption front, we finished our homestudy, got set up with the state for foster adoption, and started working with a very small, private adoption agency. We didn't know what would happen or when, so I nobly spared you those details. Do you remember when David Letterman had "Oprah Watch" on his show? Dozens of nights in a row, he'd say, "Oprah Winfrey did not call today." That's how the waiting game is in adoption. The agency did not call today.

And so it went, from midyear, when all of our paperwork and fingerprints and medicals and whatnot were complete, until September, when our state social worker sent us some preliminary files on a group of 3 kids. "They look scary on paper," she said. "But give them a chance. I think they might be a good match for you." In this group was H, an 8-year-old girl, and her brothers L and G, who are 5 and 4. We read files, looked at pictures and did a lot of thinking and praying. A few other kids' files came along in that time, too. We heard nothing more until mid-November.

Our state social worker called to ask whether I wanted our homestudy considered at the best interest staffing, or not. It was time to stop floating along on a cloud of indecision, but actually making a solid decision suddenly paralyzed me in fear. More prayers ensued. I begged for some kind of solid indication from the almighty powers of the universe. We finally decided that we couldn't say no at this point, so we'd allow the homestudy to be submitted, and take it as a good sign if the kids' team chose us as the best fit.

The date for the best interest staffing came and went. Our social worker said it would be a week or so before she knew which family was chosen. That extra week also came and went. Not meant to be, I decided.

On a Monday morning, more than a month after the best interest staffing, our social worker called. "I just heard that SRS approved you as a match for these kids. Congratulations! I'm sure you're nervous, but I hope you're also excited." I think I was mostly in shock. I called G at work, then called my mom. Suddenly, in the midst of telling my friends that we were matched, I started to feel the absolute assurance that this was right. Finally! The excitement and love from my friends pulled me from my overwhelmed and shocked state, and put me squarely into thrilled territory. With a side of absolute terror, of course. I'm about to be a mom of four. Hold me!

Later that week, we drove 2 hours to an SRS office to read files on the kids. The information in the files was as heartbreaking as we expected it to be. It was a little scary, too, but mostly it strengthened our desire to give these kids the love and peace and stability that they've been denied for too long. After the file reading, we finally got to meet the kids!

We saw them in the hall on the way to the conference room where we were supposed to hang out and play. The oldest, H, kept stealing glances back at us, and I heard her asking her social worker "who are they?" I smiled at her, and she gave me a hesitant smile in return. She's a pretty kid anyway, but when she smiles? Watch out, world.

We played for a while in the conference room, chatting about our likes and dislikes. The boys made Play-Doh mustaches. It was an incredibly strange time, but oddly comforting, too. What do you say when meeting your kids for the first time? We managed, and by the time we left, I was hopelessly in love with all of them.

Two days before Christmas, we learned that we'd be able to have the kids with us for the whole weekend. So exciting! Except, omg. I have no gifts for three extra kids! Or clothes for the Christmas Eve service! Never doubt that I love my children, internet, because I drove to the city and went to approximately 28 stores in a quest to acquire last-minute gifts and attire. I had to go to Walmart. Two days before Christmas. In the toy section. Yeah, I love these kids.

Christmas was an absolute joy with a suddenly bigger family. Our extended family also rushed to get gifts to include all of the kids in the festivities, and embraced all of them instantly. We had a short break just after the holiday, and then the kids came back to our house to finish up their school break. We'll have them every weekend from now until the state decides they can move in forever.

So there you have it. 2010 went out with a bang in our household, with our family size doubling overnight. I predict that 2011 will bring Sam's Club memberships, basement renovations and four times the excitement of the previous year!

Stampede!

Let's get this out of the way before I start, OK? I will no longer be pretending that I feel some massive level of guilt for not blogging on a regular basis. There are approximately three of you who read this blog, and at least two of you also have access to my antics on Facebook. It's pretty much the same antics. There. Now I won't need to start my 2011 yearly post with an apology.

This morning, M pressed her ear to the living room carpet and called me over in an excited whisper. "There's a stampede coming," she said. "Oh my," I answered. "A stampede of what?" She gave me a look that suggested I am not very smart, and said "stampedes are bulls, mom." Right. Silly me. "How long do you think we have until it gets here?" I asked her. She thought maybe 20 minutes. 30 max. "What should we do, then?" I asked in a faux-alarmed tone. "Well, you should probably gather all of your jewelry," she answered, "and meet me in the basement."

I may be squashed flat by the bulls falling into my basement, but dammit, I will be covered in shiny baubles when I go.

Much Needed Laughter

The other day, I had to be fingerprinted, TB-tested, hepatitis-tested, HIV-tested and drug-tested for clearance with various agencies that work with kids in our state. It was... exhausting. And not very much fun. On the up-side, I think my daughter may have an interesting story based on the fact that Mommy had to go into the booking area of the jail and later had to pee in a cup, but somehow I don't think her version of that tale is going to cast me in the best light.

I was at the point where I needed to find the humor in this process. My friend Jill was one of our references for our homestudy. I saw her tonight, and she brought a copy of the reference form with her. She thought I might want to see what she said, maybe even read it aloud to the group we were with. What follows is Jill's handiwork.

How long have you known this couple?

I met Heather during my incarceration, which was about 6 months ago. Heather and I served time together for tax evasion.

How would you describe their character?

G's character: Peter Griffin, the father from The Family Guy. Like Peter, G is irresponsible, a heavy drinker, and has an IQ that is borderline at best.

Heather's character: Nemo. She often seems "lost," but is also a fantastic swimmer.

How would you describe their parenting ability?

With the help of SRS, I think they have the potential to become great parents. It may be too late for poor M, though.

Would you recommend them to adopt a child?

Yes. The tax breaks that additional children bring to the family help people like Heather and myself stay honest and up-to-date on our taxes.

Additional comments?

Please don't hold Heather's illegal alien status against her. She's still a wonderful person.

Busy, Busy

As usual, right?

I'm about a week away from the end of the semester, and I just need to assemble my final project for the one class I'm taking. That shouldn't take long. However, I'm really irked because we had one group assignment during the semester and neither of my group members did their work. Yes, I got two duds in my group. Ugh. So, I am lacking some feedback that is supposed to be included in my final project. It's bad enough when group members don't pull their weight, but even worse when you can't really make up for it. I'm going to try, but I don't have high hopes for getting full points on my project. Boooo.

We met with our social worker about our homestudy last week. We have to fill out all of our initial paperwork again because of some crazy issue with the notarization. The paperwork is perfectly fine, mind you. We just have to copy over all of the info and have it re-notarized. Argh.

In addition, we have to go get fingerprinted and come up with statements on letterhead to verify our employment. None of these things are terribly difficult, but after so many papers and hoops and such, I do start to feel a little bit sad that no one has to check these things before you take a biological baby home from the hospital. Yes, I want them to know that I am a fit mother. It's just that I feel like I am so much more than an income statement.

Currently, I'm baking some parmesan fish that smells so amazing, I can't wait for lunch. My friend Alison sent me a recipe for parmesan chicken that is really easy and yummy. Just throw some mayo and parmesan on top of the chicken, smear around, and toss some bread crumbs on top before baking. I decided to adapt it a wee bit for the fish I had in the freezer. If it tastes as good as it smells, this adaptation was an excellent idea.

Welcome to My Brain

Yes, it's been a while. I have missed you, my little ducks.

Some stuff has happened between now and 80 million years ago when I last updated this joint. I will not go into all of it. Most of it is incredibly boring. The highlights: I still hurt myself constantly (am currently limping thanks to a softball injury, sporting a bandage on one hand due to a tragic interlude with an orange peeler, and nursing one arm because I apparently scrub my shower far too vigorously); I have the adult ADD; and we are working on a homestudy, which means I have to demonstrate my adequate parenting skills to someone else and hope that they are sufficiently adequate. I have high hopes that the social worker will base most of the homestudy on the most excellent and sparkly state of my shower.

Oh, I started grad school, too. Please don't ask me when I intend to graduate. I'm holding out at least until I know which doctoral program I want to move on to.

The ADD thing... kind of huge. After the diagnosis, I read a couple of books about adult ADD, and I found within them my life story. No one ever noticed that it was hard for me to focus on so many things because I was very good at hiding it. Sure, they noticed that it takes heroic effort for me to be on time for anything, and that I procrastinate, and that I'm impulsive, and that it's amusing that I can change conversational topics 27 times within the same paragraph. What wasn't so obvious was that the constant influx of new and exciting thoughts spinning around in my brain made me feel like my entire life was a house of cards trying to stand up to a Wizard of Oz-level wind storm.

So now I'm learning to deal with it. I'm making schedules (my mom just fainted when she read that). I'm learning that "clean the house" is an impossibly overwhelming idea that I will never be able to start on, but that "scrub the shower and then sweep and mop the floor" is a reasonably good place to begin for one morning. I have not yet figured out how the space/time continuum seems to disrupt itself between the time when I walk out of my front door and actually make it to the car, but I am working on that, too. I will conquer time. I will.

My doctor gave me some drugs, which is awesome and helpful. I was previously unaware that ADD drugs often bring with them a sudden increase in physical coordination. It makes sense, I suppose. It caught me off guard when I turned up for softball practice just after starting the meds and suddenly understood very clearly what it meant to keep one's eye on the ball. No kidding, that phrase never made sense to me before. Of course, I always tried to have a general sense of where the ball was. That's sort of the point, right? Before, though, it was like the ball donned an invisibility cloak just before it crossed the plate, and I would have to swing blindly at it and pray that I might at least come close to hitting it. Now? I have the Marauder's Map for softball, and that invisibility cloak is toast.

The downside to trying to drug myself into somewhat normal behavior is insomnia. Really bad insomnia. Not being able to sleep does tend to give me lots of time to think, though, so that's kind of nice. I'll close with a small sampling of my after-midnight brain activity.

Thoughts I Had Between 2:13 and 2:54 a.m.

• There is really no point to having a large bed if your husband is a snuggler. Fifty percent or more of the bed will nearly always remain unused, and you will never be able to claim any more bed space than is required for you to lay rigidly on your side in a perfectly straight line. If you jump over the snuggling husband and try to use the other side of the bed, you will only end up in the same rigid line position but facing the opposite direction.
• Is Julia Child's Boef Bourguignon really so amazing? Isn't it just beef stew? With wine? I guess it must be pretty fab if they made a movie about beef stew.
• If I were a cat with a cast on my leg, I would not go up and down the stairs constantly, particularly since there is absolutely nothing in the basement that I truly need.
• I should try to draw out the bed situation in stick figure diagrams for my husband so he can understand why I make pitiful sounds when he wants to snuggle up to me. Although I love his bulging biceps, one of them is now covering 3/4s of my pillow, and his elbow is in my eye socket.
• Every dollhouse I've ever seen either has no stairs, or the stairs go through one of the bedrooms. That would be awkward.
• I want this. But it's expensive. And pretty. Logically, I should get this, because, you know, storage space and changing table, etc. But the other one is so pretty.
• Being snuggled in this manner feels dangerous. I'm supposed to like this. But I can't move my arms. One of my legs is now dangling off the side of the bed. If I fall, I won't even be able to flail my arms dramatically while plunging to the floor.
• The cat gets the last laugh, because it hurts when she walks on my legs with her cast.
• Irises are gorgeous, but I hate the way they smell.

Friends, Roofies and Blaming the Victim a.k.a. Would You Pick Me Up in the ER?

The level of disagreement I feel over DoubleX columnist Lucinda Rosenfeld's "Friend or Foe" advice regarding roofies, friendship, alcohol and the emergency room is without measure. If I had to put it simply, I'd say, "I couldn't disagree more." But specifically, I feel like her advice is wrong on so many levels that I can't quite wrap my mind around it.

Little known fact about me: When I was in college, someone drugged me. That event not only shapes my trust or distrust of others, it shapes my opinion of people who shift the blame for such incidents from where it belongs, squarely on the shoulders of the person who did the drugging, to the victim. Most people seem to understand nowadays that it isn't OK to echo the old "she deserved it" line when it comes to sexual assault. Why, then, do so many people still cling to that ridiculous notion when it comes to violating someone by drugging them? What is the main reason that someone would drug another person? Oh. Right. To subdue them, likely so that they can't/won't fight off a sexual attack. Do they deserve that part, too? Did I deserve it?

Regarding Rosenfeld's terrible advice, it's an insult to almost anyone that she assumes people don't care enough about their friends to get up and go to the emergency room if they are in need. Are you kidding? If I got a call in the middle of the night from a friend in the ER, I'd be out the door before I even hung up the phone. This woman in the article was talking about close friends whom she had known for 10 years. Really? Ten years of friendship and they leave her in the bar, ignore her when she frantically calls for help while almost passed out on a sidewalk, and then get grouchy with her when she needs assistance leaving the hospital? A follow-up letter indicates that her friends ignored her hysterical call for help because, in her drugged state, she danced with a guy one of her friends had a crush on. Those, in my opinion, are not friends at all. I would do better for a complete stranger. Hell, I'd not leave someone I actively disliked passed out on a sidewalk in the middle of the night. This isn't even so much a friendship issue as a "here's what decent humans do" issue.

Rosenfeld argues that there is a limit to what you can expect your friends to do for you. I agree with that statement, taken alone. But she goes on to say that friends are really only good for chats about boyfriends or pets, and if you want someone who will actually be there for you in an emergency, you need to either be having sex with them or they should be related to you. That's a bit silly, don't you think? You can only expect decent treatment if you have a partner or live really close to your parents?

Even worse, though, is that the entire advice piece reads like an indictment of this woman's life and choices. She may have been drinking or (gasp) drunk. She might have engaged in ye olde flirting and dancing with men! Maybe she was doing lines in the club bathroom. It's possible that she had called her friends for help before. But.... none of those things excuse her "friends" for leaving her at a club and then ignoring her requests for help. None.

Even in Rosenfeld's apology, she says she just didn't believe this woman's story. That may very well be the most genuine sentiment in the whole shebang. I did drink a bit in college, but I'd say I probably drank less than many of my classmates. I didn't regularly call for help or end up in compromising situations. In fact, I can't think of a single time that I called someone to pick me up in the middle of the night, for any reason. However, when I told a few of my friends that a young man at a party had drugged me, I got the same treatment as the woman in Rosenfeld's column. They didn't believe me. It took me a few years to really get mad about this. Full understanding of the situation came with age and more realization of just how awful and potentially dangerous that situation was. I do know this, though. That very same guy I tried to warn people about drugged and raped another young woman a few months later. She never even attempted to press charges. Why? She "knew no one would believe her."

My question is this: Would you pick me up from the ER? Would you show compassion to another human being who is clearly in a terrible and scary situation, or would you cast aspersions on their honesty and actions? Is it too much to expect your friend to give you their life savings? Probably. Is it too much to expect that your friend won't leave you for dead on a sidewalk somewhere? Uhh. No.

• Salon - Did Someone Slip DoubleX's Columnist a Mickey?
• Jezebel - Relying On Friends: How Much Is Too Much?
• Newsweek - Hazy Memories, Moral Clarity
• DoubleX Editor - Friend or Foe Column Takes a Blame the Victim Approach to Being Drugged
• Jezebel - Advice Columnist Doesn't Know What Roofies Are For
  

Facebook - It's Not Really About The Icon

I recently read an article that condemned women who use pics of their kids as Facebook icons as boring has-beens who now dominate dinner party conversation with discussions of strollers and school lunches. Interesting. I don't use my daughter's picture as my Facebook identity, but it seems a bit off to me to make a sweeping judgment about that many women based on... well, Facebook.

Is Facebook that ingrained in our lives now that we can judge a person's whole life by the photo they put by their name? If so, I suppose I should try to check this monumentally important account more often. Frankly, I'm far more likely to make snap judgments based on the annoyingness of the games and apps and quizzes a person spews onto my wall than I am to care what photo they choose. My friend Alison has a cartoon character. Dare I contemplate what that says about her? Facebook is a tool with which you can find out more about a person's world. Let's not mistake it as their entire world.

If I did choose to put a picture of my daughter up to represent me for a day, I'd do so because I'm proud to have achieved a reasonable level of career success while maintaining some hobbies and a sort of clean house, spending a lot of time volunteering, having an active social life, *and* raising a daughter who is funny, well-rounded and well-behaved. Whether or not that meets anyone else's definition of the healthy, modern woman matters to me about as much as their choice of Facebook photo.

What about those creepy people whose pics show them turned to the side, or with a hand near their face, or even a stray lock of hair falling over one eye? They're obviously ashamed of themselves, hiding their lack of contribution to the world, and should possibly re-consider even being on Facebook at all. It's gotta be a full-on shot of your face, or you're just plain doing it wrong.

At the end of the day, though, if you find yourself obsessively characterizing your Facebook contacts based on the photo they choose as their icon, perhaps it's time to take a little break? Besides, as far the dinner party conversation issue goes, I can't say I'd enjoy someone who wanted to talk smack about other people's Facebook choices any more than a parenting-only conversation. At least the stroller convo might have some useful real-life applications....

A Day With The Soybean Queen

When you work from home, it's a tricky thing. I love that I have the freedom to set my own schedule, and I can usually bail on work and go have lunch or go to my daughter's school activities, and finish up my work at 2 a.m. or whenever my next free moment comes along. The problems with working from home are two-fold, though.

First, I never leave my work behind at the office, because my office is handily contained in my laptop, which always seems to be nearby. And I love it. I start to get a wee bit twitchy without it, in fact. Yesterday, I went to town without my laptop (normal) but I also forgot my phone (not normal), and I had to quell a rising panic when I realized that I couldn't spend the hour of wait time between my daughter's sporting events checking email, playing on Twitter, surfing the web or catching up on work. Gah! OK, so it really wasn't that hard to stop the panic. I marched my little one off for a mom/daughter dinner and laughed at her restaurant antics (wouldn't mommy like a kiss after EVERY bite of food???). No prob, Bob.

However, when it's ten o'clock and I'm exhausted but I know I could crank out just one.more.thing before bed? It would be handy to be able to leave the office somewhere else. Perhaps I need a time-sensitive lock box for my laptop. This laptop may not be used between the hours of 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. Of course, then there would be a tornado or something at 1 a.m. and I'd have to gnaw through the lock to check the weather. OK, maybe no lock on the laptop. Whatever.

The second problem with working from home is that everyone else forgets that I work. At all. Well, except my editor. She *always* remembers. :) Even my husband, when he's home during the day, will ask, "what are you going to do today?" Ummm.... well... they actually won't pay me if I don't do work at some point, so I think I'm going to work! Sound good? Yay! Other times I'm working along, typing intently, brow furrowed with the effort (note to self - get Neutrogena to sponsor blog with anti-wrinkle cream for brow furrow), and my husband suddenly decides that he really and truly needs help holding a tape measure or a level or pushing some sort of button on a piece of farm equipment RIGHT THEN. And suddenly I am an unpaid farm hand with a mangled manicure.

Even my mother asks me what I'm doing when she calls me during the day. *sigh* I think part of the problem is that for people who live in my little town, what I do is less visible than, say, someone who assembles things or farms or works in a store or teaches children. Being a writer seems nebulous and unofficial. Being a writer on the internet, even more so. Once, upon hearing that I was a freelance writer, someone said to me, "doesn't that just mean that you don't have a job right now?" Ha. Ha. Ha.

Today's schedule is pretty standard, except that I don't have to go to town for anything. Whew. I'll spend about 4 hours of my day writing things that pay the bills. I might spend 30 minutes to an hour writing things for fun, like this blog (shocker - it doesn't pay the bills! Sure would like some of that anti-wrinkle cream, though). Then I get to do the random stuff that fills up every mom's day.

I need to call the car dealership to find out what options they can get for me on an '09 Ford Flex. I think we're going to (FINALLY) buy one within the next couple of weeks, and I don't want to order one. So, the dealer is looking for one that has most of what I want. As usual, I have very expensive tastes and I am forcing myself to reign it in a bit. Do I really need that Panoramic Vista Roof? Probably not. But I waaaaant it. So badly. Frankly, the light-up cupholders also appeal to me, but I suspect that it would actually send my husband into some sort of catatonic state if I spent money on lights in cupholders, so I'm avoiding that. You can CHOOSE the COLOR of your CUPHOLDERS! Daily! I know.... I'm stopping now.

After I try not to kill my husband with vehicle upgrades, it's off to the garden for a while, where I must plant one Cleveland pear, four heirloom tomatoes (Mr. Stripeys and Brandywines), four columbine, two purple nettles and three yews. Then I need to weed. A lot.

When the wee one returns home from school, it's homework time. Then we play ball in the yard. I claim this is for her benefit, but after my showing at my own softball practice last weekend, I think she knows it's actually for me. While I'm making dinner later, I'll check in with my fake internet girlfriends to see what madness they're up to today. I confess, that's one of my favorite parts of the day.

The evening is usually spent trying to get my child to not use the living room as a toy box and laundry receptacle, being grossed out while she and my husband watch Andrew Zimmern and discuss actually eating the bizarre foods he's sampling, chasing the kiddo off to bed, doing a little more writing, and collapsing into an exhausted (but still really sexy) heap after making some attempt to clean my kitchen and scale Mount St. Laundry.

And that, my friends, is why, when you call and ask me what I'm doing, I say, laughing, "oh, nothing."

Still Aliiiive. Barely.

My poor, neglected little blog. :( I had surgery in mid-February, and boy, did I underestimate the time it would take to feel human again. I think I'm nearly there, two and a half months later. Let this be a lesson to you, surgery-getters. Take whatever recovery time your doctor gives you and double it.

Allegedly, I should have been able to go back to work 2 weeks post-op, if I worked outside the house. Two weeks after my surgery, I was still sleeping in the guest room so that no one stood a chance of accidentally touching me, I could barely stay awake for more than three hours at a time, and I still wasn't driving myself anywhere because I couldn't wear a seatbelt unless I also put a pillow underneath it. No, that wouldn't attract the attention of the local law enforcement at all! And I'm sure my employer would have loved finding me face-down on my desk every few minutes, too.

Luckily, I have mostly recovered just in time for softball season here in the Midwest. As you may know, we sometimes lack recreational options out here in the sticks, and hence, softball is HUGE during the summer. The little one has coach-pitch practices already, and my husband and I have practice for beer-league softball in another town. It's a good thing I can drive without that pillow now, because I rarely see the outside of my truck unless I'm standing in a ball field somewhere.

I'm not that great at softball on a good day, so getting ready to play after having surgery is humiliating at times. Swinging a bat with 35 inches worth of relatively fresh scars around one's chest/midsection? Ow. It still kind of hurts to raise my arms very far, which makes it really interesting trying to throw a softball very far. The good news is that my performance at practice means they'll be less likely to put me in to play very many games, thus reducing my overall humiliation.

After all of the driving to practices and running after softballs and batting until my arms might fall off means that the small amounts of post-op energy I've regained go away pretty fast. So, if I don't blog again for another 48 years, I'm probably napping. All sayings involving sleeping animals and how you should let them remain asleep apply here.

A New Country

Tonight, on the way into town for gymnastics....

Kid: I wonder when there will be a new country?
Me: (laughing) I don't know. Maybe it will just be a surprise?
Husband: (puzzled) What do you mean? Like, where?
Kid: I mean, like, next to Missouri.
Husband: Well, Arkansas is kind of its own country.
Me: (laughing very hard)
Husband: Wait. Pretend I didn't say that. It would definitely be wrong on your geography test.

Scene From The Living Room

During the morning hair-combing ritual....
Me: Tomorrow, some friends of mommy and daddy are coming over. You probably don't remember them, but you've met them before. I think you'll like them. Mr. Dave was the best man at mommy and daddy's wedding!
Maya: You mean he sat still?

The Holidays.... They Are Over

And I am on my way to China. Yeah, it was a little random. :) More to come on that later. Let me tell you about Christmas.

Maya wanted a Barbie dog, and a Ken doll. No problem, I thought. Oh, how arrogant of me. That thought is the downfall of parents everywhere around Christmastime. I also waited until just before the actual holiday to do my shopping. In retrospect, that may have had something to do with it.

I arrive at the store and look for a Barbie dog. There are none that do not also come with a Barbie. Oh well, Maya will love an additional Barbie. Bonus! I pick one up. She looks great. All blonde and fabulous. I nearly throw her in the cart when I do a double take, curious what that pink stick is that Barbie is holding in her hand. And then I recoil in horror. It's a poop scoop. And then I see them. The tiny brown plastic pellets. Yes. I have very nearly purchased plastic Barbie dog crap. This is... unacceptable to me, to say the least. This Barbie dog has a strategically placed hole in its backside. Barbie feeds it the plastic pellets (yes, those same ones) and then they come out of that hole in some sort of twisted perpetual Barbie recycling program, and Barbie happily picks them up with her pink, plastic scoop, her perfect smile still painted on her face. It's just a little too much for me. I can't buy plastic poo.

There was one other choice in Barbie plus Barbie dog. This set had a mama dog and several puppies. I breathed a sigh of relief and picked up that box. Oh, look! They have cute magnetic noses and can give little eskimo kisses! How sweet. And they have little plastic bottles and you can bottle feed the puppies with real water! ...... Wait a minute. What's that little pad over there in the corner of the box? Are you kidding me? The ONLY Barbies with dogs in this whole store BOTH involve some sort of bodily function? Well, I'm not proud, but I bought the peeing Barbie puppies. It seemed slightly more dignified than the recycled foodpoo.

I still needed to find a Ken doll. Surprisingly, there were only two options for him, as well. One was a beach-theme Ken. His clothes were normal, but his hair was somewhat like a 1970s disco Ken with a heavy dose of shellac. He could surf all day and that hair wasn't going to move. Barbie was not going to be happy looking at that hair after a long day of cleaning up puppy pee.

The other Ken had stylish clothes, very nice hair, a handsome face and a really sweet messenger bag. He was entirely too well put together, actually. I'm not really sure if he was the right Ken for Barbie, either. At the very least, though, he doesn't over-use the hair products, and they can enjoy many hours of shopping for swell clothes and accessories together. Maya loved both of them. And their incontinent little dogs.

Sometimes I Rant About Car Seats

Being involved in parenting forums has its ups and downs. On one hand, hilarity and support await for the gal who lives in the middle of nowhere and doesn't see a lot of other non-family adults on a daily basis. On the other hand, I sometimes feel like banging my head against a brick wall when people argue with me about car seat safety. The following message was my frustrated attempt to explain why I just.can't.let.it.go when people challenge me on car seat issues. The discussion was about expired car seats (yes, they expire), but it has applications to other safety issues, as well.

There are many good reasons for replacing a safety device before it's absolutely on it's last unsafe breath.

The thing that gets me is this. Vehicle crashes are still the leading cause of death for kids overall (there is a window for newborns when congenital problems are a bigger risk). I'm going to be harsh for a moment here, not because I intend to sound cruel, but because there aren't many other ways to say it. We know that a lot of kids are still dying in vehicle crashes. We also know that a great many parents are using their car seats incorrectly in some way, or many ways, including using them past the expiration date. I did that, too, before I knew better. But now that I know? I will do everything in my power to shield my child from this one thing that I have the ability to provide significant protection against. If people would argue less over what CPSTs and car seat safety organizations are saying, and instead put that energy into following the advice, it's highly likely that we would see a reduction in the numbers of children who are seriously hurt or killed in vehicle crashes.

People get hypervigilant about their child's online safety, or whether or not to vaccinate, or whether or not to send them to public school, or whether or not to let them watch TV, or any number of other issues. And it's not that those things aren't important. They are. But why do people get so excited over those issues and then argue over a car seat expiration date when statistically, their child is far more likely to be affected by its safety than any of those other things? To me, it's like ignoring the elephant in the room in favor of screaming at the mice.

Scenes From Early Thanksgiving With My Family

My parents are heading to Florida for Thanksgiving this year, so they wanted the fam to gather early to eat turkey and be merry. We arrived earlier this evening and had dinner just a little while ago. Verrrry tasty. The following are excerpts from the evening's conversations.

*Scene* My very pregnant sister, Deb, and her husband are arriving.
Dad: (leaning out the front door) Hey! I opened the garage door. It might be easier for you to get in that way!
Deb: (coming in through the garage) We're not even carrying any suitcases. Why did he want us to come in the garage? Are we too embarrassing to use the front door now?
Me: Uh, Deb? I think he was suggesting that your current girth might make it difficult to *use* the front door.
Deb: Oh.

*Scene* Getting ready to sit down at the table for dinner.
Dad: The chair on the right side in the middle has a structural problem that I haven't been able to fix yet. So, Deb, you probably won't want to sit there.
Deb: Dad! Jeez.
Dad: (laughing) What? You can sit next to me this way!
Me: If she sits next to you, it will be so she can stab you with her fork.

*Scene* Mom is outlining drink options.
Mom: OK, I have Diet Pepsi, Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi, Coke, Caffeine Free Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, root beer, Dr. Pepper, Diet Dr. Pepper, orange soda, milk, water, tea, coffee, Capri Suns, orange juice and Kool-Aid.
Everyone: .........
G: (laughing) Could you repeat that?
Mom: I'll repeat that you can go to the fridge and see for yourself.

*Scene* The food is being passed around.
Mom: There are two types of butter on the table. I know that one person (looking at my husband) requires real butter. There is tub butter for....
Grandma: The tubby people?
(everyone looks at Deb)
Deb: I'm going to leave. Right after you pass the turkey. I would leave now, but it's for the baby.

*Scene* Maya is eating pie and drops a big chunk on her pants.
G: Let me help you with that. (picks up the pie and puts it on his plate)
Maya: Hey! Dad! Don't take my pie! I was still gonna eat that! (reaches over and steals back the dropped pie)

My Kid is Country, Y'all

Maya is reading and writing like crazy lately, as kids are known to do in first grade. She is encouraged to sound out words and write them down as she thinks they might be if it's not a word they've covered in class yet. She's pretty good at it most of the time! The other day I was looking at some of her school papers and reading some of the cute little stories she wrote, and I kept coming across a word that she spelled as "theon." I was confused. This is not a word I am familiar with, and my vocabulary is probably above average. Trying to understand it, I said the word aloud. And it hit me. "Theon" is how you might write down the word "then" if you're a little girl with bit of a drawl. Two syllables. Oh my.

Tonight as we settled down to read a few books together before bedtime, she decided that mama needed a special bedtime hair-do. "What a great idea," I said, and handed her the comb. She reached for the detangling spray, too, naturally. It's just not as much fun to comb your mother's hair without loading it up with so much detangler that it runs down her scalp and requires her to take a shower once you're solidly asleep. She sprayed and combed. And sprayed and combed more. She put a hair tie in my hair and commanded me to just try not to cry if it hurt too much. She gave me permission to touch my head if it hurt, to help with the pain. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth and said, "this is fun! You're doing such a good job." I could hear some of my hair snapping off. My stylist will wonder what on Earth happened to me.

After studying her work, she took the hair tie out and started combing again. Added a little more detangler. As she combed, she said, "you're going to have something like a ponytail, only messier." I thought that would be just fine for the bedtime stories. Then she said, "Mom, this is just like when you do my hair! Only I do it neater and better. And it hurts less."

Heaven help that child if what I do in the mornings hurts more than what was happening on my head tonight. My ponytail-but-messier is pretty fab, though, which is good, because the detangler overload has dried into a stiff, glue-like substance and I fear the hair tie may never come out.

Strangers! On the Internets!

It used to be that the internet seemed so big and scary to almost everyone. Today it almost seems cozy to me. Friends can be found almost anywhere, and the few jerks I've encountered haven't made it worth it to give up on all of the wonderful things this huge web-world has to offer.

I love the connections that people feel to one another via the 'net. Members of the same forum. Bloggers and readers. Social networkers. Love matches. Isn't it amazing that in a few short years we've moved from "SCARY!" to "be careful, but have fun"?

I used the internet mostly for email and research prior to my pregnancy in 2001. Then I found a group of other moms-to-be who shared my love of self-mockery and silliness, who would pull together for an incredible support system when one of the group required it. Over the last seven years the group has changed a bit, people have come and gone, and we've moved to meeting beyond the internet as often as possible with this many kids and schedules. I used to call these women my fake internet friends. Recently, one of the women in the group decided that wasn't a good enough name. We were sister friends, she said. I like that. Without the internet, I would never have met any of them.

I was thinking about how powerfully we can feel connections even with people we've never met after reading at Dooce that she's pregnant. She has posted about her previous losses, something that I've experienced, too, so when I read that she recently saw her baby moving on the U/S screen, I cried. I'm about to cry now. I can only imagine the joy and relief, and I found myself silently cheering her on the same way I would a close friend. Amazing, isn't it?

The 'net provides me with quite a bit of entertainment. I live in the country, y'all. Nightlife and museums and book clubs? Those things aren't so much available here. But I think it's not the fun factor that keeps me coming back here. It's the other humans behind the screens. It's the unexpected things we find in common, and the ways we connect to one another.

A New Twitter Storm? Toys for Tots

Just when I thought no one else really cared about turning the Motrin Moms Twitter buzz engine into something positive, tweets are starting to appear asking people to rally around Toys for Tots to truly make a big difference this holiday season. If you're not familiar with the organization, Toys for Tots takes donations of new, unwrapped toys and distributes them so that kids don't have empty hands on Christmas morning.

Can you imagine wanting to get your child some small gift for the holidays, but having to choose between that and food or rent? As a mother, my heart breaks a little bit imagining that feeling. We all know that the food, shelter, safety and love are the most important things to give our kids. But being able to give them just a little bit more, and to see their smiles in return - that's important, too. Toys for Tots helps thousands of parents do just that on Christmas.

In the aftermath of the Motrin craziness, there were plenty of people who criticized the moms who were offended by the ad. Too much time on their hands, they said. Need to focus on bigger issues and really make a difference. If you felt it important enough to call others out on what they were doing to change the world, I hope you don't consider yourself immune from your responsibility to help fuel a more important Twitter fire. Less talk, more action, folks.

Sheryl at All About Health, Family & Fun suggests using #TFC to tag your tweets so that everyone can see them in search.

Tell your friends. Link them to the Toys for Tots site. Buy some extra toys when you're out and about and find a Toys for Tots drop-off location via the search form right on the front page of their web site. Can't donate toys? Donate money via credit card on the Toys for Tots website! Can't do that? Donate a little bit of your time by tweeting this, posting it to Facebook, blogging it, telling your friends about it, calling your mom, asking your employer about possible gift drives and company gift matching, or see if you can find a way to volunteer some time to the organization.

So, come on Internet! You're a great big, fabulous place. I love you, even when you're being grumpy and foaming at the mouth over pain relievers. Please don't let me, or Toys for Tots, down on this.

The Buzz Works. Now What?

This weekend's Motrin Moms fiasco certainly showed that mom bloggers and others involved in social media can create a big stir when they want to. The website was pulled, an apology was issued, and the buzz is slowly simmering to a dull roar (save the last few sad people who are still slinging the same tired insults that have been around since internet communication began). Soon the critics will tire of screaming that real moms don't have time for the internet or that mothers don't have any real pull on purchases (that dude seriously needs to do some homework before tweeting again) or that everyone was wasting their time by even caring about something that was less than a global issue.

One point that came from the critics is valid, though, in my opinion. Why isn't this much 'net activity and passion wasn't happening for other issues? The Motrin ad was annoying and was fascinating to watch from a media/marketing perspective, but no one was truly hurt by it.

I know that many of the people who weighed in on MotrinGate do care deeply about bigger causes. Many are active in blogging about them or work to raise money for them or volunteer time in their communities to make a difference. The problem is that those things don't show up on the internet. One blogger's Saturday at a soup kitchen won't get her a top spot in Google results or more than a thousand tweets in a few hours.

The other thing that makes visibility of causes difficult is that we all have different pet causes that we're passionate about. I blog, write, preach, discuss, scream, whisper, tweet and teach car seat safety because vehicle crashes are the number one killer of children of kids under age 14 in the U.S. and therefore I feel it's worth some attention. Others don't feel the same passion for it, so it doesn't create a giant storm of internet craziness. The Motrin fiasco did so largely because it called on one thing that most of the commenters do share and feel passionately about: motherhood.

So, the question is: how do we keep the ball rolling? We know that it's possible to create big buzz and get people talking (mostly) thoughtfully about an issue. How do we get everyone talking about the same cause at the same time? There are hundreds of charities and issues and personal cases that involve children or motherhood. The passion is there. How can we use it effectively and collectively?