of course we could have told a more interesting story

These accident-explanatory slings might have been useful when A broke her arm, but I'm not sure whether an illustration of a child tripping over nothing and falling on the grass would have kept people from asking questions anyway.

forts, junk, and muscles

C has been spending a lot of time lately building forts inside. He’s renovated a niche in our upstairs hallway with a mini-futon and plants and he keeps on stealing couch cushions to build tunnels. I’m wanting to snag discarded furniture and give him some tools to make something outside, but Dan is less than enthusiastic about the junkyard aesthetic that would lend to our property.

He doesn’t really have a leg to stand on though. It was his idea to grab the discarded wooden utility spools; we made a family fun trip across the railroad track to get them, and attracted some attention as we rolled them home. Even less attractively, we salvaged a metal futon frame he hopes to turn into a utility trailer for his bicycle. We were careful to put it where our bad neighbor would have a nice view of it, which is also where we keep our stack of reclaimed fencing/ pallets.

Unrelated:
To keep from going numb during my work days I occasionally get up and do modified push-ups, leaning against a railing in the hall. This is somewhat less awkward than doing push-ups on the floor in public, though I still get funny looks. Over the weekend I was curious to see how many real push-ups I could do. (12; I have no idea if that is above or below average.) Interestingly, the limiting factor wasn’t my arms (though they were almost there) but my abs. And three days later my stomach STILL hurts. I’m clearly not getting enough general exercise. I suppose that’s not too big a surprise, since most of my non-work hours are spent lying down, trying to catch up on some of the rest that insomnia steals from me.

head wounds bleed a lot

C just walked into my room with blood dripping in his face. He'd hit his head on the corner of the medicine cabinet. Tiny cut, he's not in pain or even as stressed out as he normally is over these things. But feigning calm when your kid's head is COVERED IN BLOOD is really really hard.

And I don't know how to put a Band-Aid on when there's hair in the way.

Orin Scrivello is looking attractive right now

Dan’s been having trouble with his teeth for a year or so and decided to go to the dentist. I suggested he make appointments for all of us, since the kids have never gone and the grown-ups haven’t since living in Seattle. (We’ve tried but had administrative issues at several different offices.) It was a several-month wait before anyone could fit us in but he got appointments for us all for this morning.

A, C, and I were all supposed to be seen simultaneously. We checked with C to make sure he was okay being on his own, so Dan could stay with A, and he said it was fine. We foolishly believed him. Apparently the hygienist said something about him “missing” teeth, perhaps referring to some permanent teeth that haven’t come in yet, and he got scared and freaked out. Even after Dan tried to soothe him, the dentist was unwilling to make any effort to work with him and gave up.

I was unaware of this because I was being tortured by an X-ray machine for 45 minutes. In the past when I’ve gotten X-rays they put small pieces of plastic in my mouth and take a few shots. This involved moving a large uncomfortable metal contraption around my mouth for each of about 20 takes. The hygienist commented on how small my mouth was. I could not reply because there was metal digging into the roof of my mouth.

Apparently I desperately need a cleaning and have a few small cavities. I have to make another appointment for the cleaning and a third for the cavities, however. Because why get everything done at once when they can charge for three visits? (Seriously, why couldn’t they do a cleaning today?)

A was happy enough with her dad and actually got a cleaning, but the dentist claimed that her teeth were too close together and she was going to need all sorts of work done and blah blah blah bad stuff. I suspect exaggeration.

Dan was supposed to have his appointment when I was done. But they told him, “Oh, we’re running behind, so we’ll have to schedule you for another time. We might have some openings in March.” What? Someone comes in for an appointment and you say “oops, sorry, just kidding?” Dan, you may recall, was the one who actually needed to go to the dentist in the first place.

This is why we avoid doctors.

No, not crying....

Whatever I'm allergic to seems to be reaching its peak. Fall is my favorite season, but this is not its best aspect.

Thanks American medical system!

Dan and A have been in the ER for six hours now trying to figure out whether she broke her arm yesterday. (Minor fall, major reaction that's unlike her, and still hurts today). He just called and they're pretty sure now that they have the THIRD set of x-rays done (go radiation!) that it's not broken.

(This is why I sent Dan instead of taking her myself- I'd be throwing so many fits by now they'd have kicked me out.)

I participate in a strange shadow economy

We just traded a chicken pox exposure "opportunity" for a pint of homemade maple syrup.

benefit of insomnia

Changing the clocks makes no difference! I'm no more tired than usual!

But loving the later daylight-
and signs of spring-
like the neighbor's lilacs budding-
Paco spending hours in the yard-
our basement flooding-
I'm going to try planting some peas this week; they probably won't make it but it's worth a shot.

why don't gypsies buy kids anymore?

A week of school vacation followed by Dan going away for four days followed by me succumbing to a really nasty cold and pinkeye is now topped off by C getting the chicken pox. He'll be feeling miserable and wreaking havoc on our work schedules for yet another week, presumably to be followed by A breaking out in spots. I'd been looking forward to a return to normalcy, but alas....

Our weights may be naturally fixed within a 10-20 pound range. While it's possible to use diet and exercise to move above or below that range, it's really really hard. This doesn't surprise me too much based on my own experience (my own weight doesn't vary more than 20 pounds outside of pregnancy, though over the past couple years it has responded more to winter lethargy/ junk food) but it defies most of our cultural assumptions about fat. (via Shapely Prose)

I’m feeling better than I have in almost a week, but the first five people I saw at work all mentioned that I look awful. Should take that as a blow to my ego or a sign that I should still be in bed?

I’ve managed to persuade all of my study sites that we really don’t have to give out Wal-Mart gift cards as participant incentives. We’re instead going to distribute cards from stores headquartered in New York. Two of the sites were really receptive to the idea, one was less-than-enthused but willing to give it a try, and two didn’t seem to care much either way. My boss is going to roll her eyes when she finds out, but I’m hoping that now that I’ve managed to navigate the headaches of ordering cards from multiple stores that I’ll be able to convince my coworkers of the merits of the idea so they’ll do the same for future studies. Wal-Mart is a convenient choice because it’s accessible from most locations; I need to purchase and track cards from four different companies, two of which are not local to me. But at least some of my coworkers are thoughtful enough to go to the trouble, and the others may be convinced if I make it easy for them and play up the benefits of fostering a sense of local connection among participants.

I should know better than to read popular magazines. Alas, the mindless allure of "Real Simple" was too hard to resist in my flu-induced delirium. Most egregious article: "Together for life: honest, intimate snapshots of what makes marriage work." The common theme among all five couples profiled? There's a problem, the woman changes. One gave up her catering business because the work was impinging on their Saturday night dates. "As much as I enjoyed my work, my family's happiness was more important to me. I learned then that marriage is really about compromise." One isn't really interested in sex (can't imagine why, after having three children in three years) but she bears it anyway because she "wants to be respectful of his needs." One worked a crappy job for ten years because her husband couldn't find a job in his field- it seems surprisingly common for women to support their families with whatever work they can find, while their husbands won't compromise their standards and take crappy jobs themselves.

It's entirely possible that these folks have fairly egalitarian marriages and that the writer focused on the wives' compromises because of the composition of their readership. Certainly a number of choices that Dan and I have made would appear anti-feminist in isolation. But the editorial implication that women alone are responsible for accommodating their families is infuriating. Why not include a man who waitered to support his wife through law school, or a couple that decided to move to a small town when they couldn't agree on an urban or rural area?

(Dan took advantage of my weakened anti-bad-media defenses by putting on a James Bond movie. We only got ten minutes into it, but in that time 007 added a surfboard and a hovercraft to his transportation repertoire, so I guess it was almost worth it. I was surprised at its PG-13 rating though- have rating standards eroded, or am I just hypersensitive? I'd expect any James Bond flick to be a lot more graphic than Young Sherlock Holmes.)

My unfortunate emergency dental visit yesterday (to fix my ever-chipping front tooth) exposed me to not only this song, which is so wrong on so many levels it makes me a little queasy, but to a guitar rendition of the Carol of the Bells which sounded ominous enough to show up on a thrash metal compilation. It must have been the Bad Christmas Music All The Time station, because I was also treated to the Chipmunks song with the hula hoop and Feliz Navidad.

This explains why I left without asking the dentist to grind down the back of the tooth a bit more, because the reconstruction is slightly too large. Hopefully I’ll get used to it.

Not everyone wears long johns?

Last night I went out with a group that included a recent transplant from Texas, who’s trying to adapt to the whole winter-weather-world. After everyone discussed cold weather car maintenance issues (which frankly, we’ve never really paid attention to), I wanted to ensure she knew about the really important day-to-day stuff, and asked if she had long underwear. She did, and we hiked up our pant legs to compare her cotton to my synthetic silk, while half of the rest of the group looked on in disbelief. A long-term resident (who had been complaining about always feeling cold) said in surprise, “I never wear long underwear.” She had some for camping, but that was it.

I’d been thinking that pulling on long underwear nearly every day was just a standard part of life in the Northeast, but remembered that I didn’t really start wearing it until college, when it was necessary because of the amount of time I spent walking outside. (Unless I wore my flannel-lined jeans instead.) After getting in the habit, I just kind of figured everyone did.

I've been getting five hours of sleep most nights now, and (sadly) it's made a pretty big difference. I don't know whether the improvement is from weather changes, decreased daylight, magnesium supplements, or just chance, but I'm hoping it continues. And is not totally derailed by Dan's absence this week- since I need to deal with the kids' nightwakings, I usually get much less sleep when he's gone.

I met a woman at a meeting on Tuesday who'd had gastric bypass surgery. I'd heard of it before but never thought much about how it worked. It sounded like while the surgery reduces the body's ability to absorb food, the main reason it's effective for weight loss is because it makes people stop eating. They get so sick if they eat more than tiny amounts of food at a time that they give up.

If someone's desperate enough to be willing to so radically change their relationship with food, I'm surprised there's not a way of doing so that's less drastic. (This woman was in the hospital for five days, and now, two years later, she's still barely able to eat.) Never having had a major weight problem, I can't speak to that experience, but it seems like there should be some other way....

The meeting was held in a large white windowless room. There is no clock. Its sole features are a projection screen and a Big Brother-ish poster of an eye that reads, "HPO WATCH: WE SUPPORT LEADERSHIP FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE." It's the only formal meeting I've ever been to where attendees were expected to pony up cash for the mediocre lunch provided. One thing PRA knew how to do well was run meetings- everyone's happier and more productive in pleasant environs with lots of good food.

(I realized afterward that I hadn't sized up my competition- in this case, I knew my precise location in the organizational hierarchy before I even went, so it wasn't necessary. I didn't need to jockey for position.)

and less sleep-

Two hours. And today I need to work, put in hours at the co-op, pack everything for the weekend, and drive to Twin Trees. Not even catnap time in there. Maybe it's time to find better drugs....

more sleep

Per request- I tried the stay-up-'til-3 plan on Saturday night, but unfortunately it didn't enable me to sleep until 7- A needed help at 5, so that was it for me. I've tried Ambien before, and it effectively puts me to sleep when that's the problem, but it only works for two hours. (When I tried taking it after waking at 4, I felt dazed all morning; not sure if it was related to the drug or not, but I don't want to take anything when I'm the only adult in the house anyway.) Changes in diet, exercise, and evening routines seem to make no difference.

no sleep-

After seven years of child-induced sleep interruptions, I should finally be well-rested. Over the summer, A started sleeping pretty consistently between midnight and 7 a.m. (She's in bed from 9 p.m. 'til 8 a.m.-ish.) She fusses a lot at night, but puts herself back to sleep fairly quickly and quietly, so that's only a real problem when we have to share a room with her or when Dan is away and I feel the need to have the monitor on at night because of my poor hearing.

But my insomnia, which has been a significant issue ever since C was born and I spent every night unable to sleep in anticipation of him waking up every 30-45 minutes, is worse than ever. I now can not sleep more than four hours a night. Since we usually go to bed around midnight, and I was waking up around 4, I was thinking it was largely caused by the sun rising/ birds/ etc. But with Dan gone, I've been better able to get to sleep early, but that's just meant that I wake up earlier.

So I've been up since 3 a.m. and am completely exhausted. (Maybe I'd be better off staying up 'til 2 or so; then at least I'd sleep 'til 6.) I won't be able to get the kids to bed until 8:30 at the earliest; by 5 I am going to be less than pleasant for them to be around. And since I need to eliminate A's naps immediately now in anticipation of preschool, I can expect to lose even the four hours I can usually count on- that kind of change in routine historically ruins her regular sleep patterns, and if I'm woken up, it's unlikely I'll be able to fall asleep again for the rest of the night.

When Dan's home, I can usually catch a ten-minute catnap at some point, which helps a lot. But that ain't happening this week....

Looking up, looking down

4/26/05

Despite all the truth behind the popular conception that parenthood can leave you in a constant mental fog, only capable of functioning at the intellectual level of a head of baby bok choy (well perhaps less, when we sleep less than a cabbage gets to), there’s also nothing like parenthood to help you take notice of things.

Like how many seconds your infant can sit up by herself now, balanced on pudgy forearms like a potato- shaped motorcycle with missing wheels, before tottering over…Or how noisy the world is during the day when your baby is trying to nap (and how eerily quiet in the house at night, except for the dogs heavy sighs, as you pace back and forth, back and forth)…

I’m also still re-learning to see the world through C's 4.75 year-old eyes—view from 36 inches I’ve been calling it (though his eyes may be farther off the ground than that at this point). The hundreds of digital photos he’s taken since getting the camera the Christmas before last illustrate this well—dog butts; a dozen seemingly identical pictures looking straight across at the top of a block tower; automobiles looming large, shot while passing, as if with a fish eye lens; adults faces from underneath, peering down like parade puppets.

But it’s his fascination with money (and occasionally noticing a track) that has reminded me to look down, and look well. There are a surprising number of coins to be found when you’re that low to the ground, and more than a few bills as well. Although I usually notice other treasures. Today it's amongst the flotsam in the little strip of green space next to A's doctor’s office parking lot.

Even the trash has meaning of course, though. Take the styrofoam coffee cups and takeout plates and discarded car air fresheners, and the solar calculator I tried, just to be sure it didn’t work. These are signals from folks who didn’t take the time, or care enough to bring a travel mug for their cup of Jo, or to find a trash can. I’ve always struggled to understand just when it became OK to cast our garbage to the wind. Sure litter has been around since kids threw clay tablets with their old homework assignments into the pit by the road, but mass roadside litter-storms probably coincide with the period when automobiles started appearing everywhere like dandelions in the spring. I just can’t picture people throwing a pop can from a bicycle very often, or a crumpled piece of paper from a horse-drawn buggy—these modes of transport would put you too close to the offending object, and your guilt, for too long (and again when you passed by on the way home). And if you drove the only car in town, I’d think you’d want to show it off and honk and wave to everyone in passing—"ah-wooooo-ga!"—not be known as the fast and fearless littering roadster).

But when I’m done pondering this and look past the mound of cigarette butts, I see nature(remarkably) in our midst. It takes a moment to register, but those clumps of gray fuzz mean we’re standing below an owls dining room. Below—that means there’s something above—and only then do I look up and notice the great old (and half-dead) tree with no leaves to shade with yet this spring. A relic no-doubt overlooked by those that tidy up nature for us and make sure all those dead trees are removed post-haste (afterall, this thing could fall on your car, or several; though it will most likely come down in a storm, when no one’s likely to be parked at the far end of this big lot).

But I’m glad it’s been overlooked for now (they must not have been looking down closely enough to notice it); and I can picture the owl with a midnight snack, and almost hear it as clearly as the redwing blackbirds are calling right now—telling me it’s spring, and that at night there are also frogs to be heard in the marshy area back there. Maybe I’ll see if A's doctor has night time appointments…

-Dan