The Creature/Yoda/my little sweeties First Day of Kindergarten

He started kindergarten today and so far, so good!
His teachers seem awesome, seasoned veterans both.
He is finally at the same school with his brother, Yay!

Summer's End

Usually we go earlier, but this year we spent the very last week of summer (school started today) at Lake Winnipesaukee. It was a gorgeous and very relaxing week after a very ugly and stressful month of August. All 3 boys were super sick for 4 weeks and I wasn't feeling well either. My brother and I celebrated our birthdays together with some friends and that was a bright spot, but the rest of the month was Rough.

Today was my oldest boy's first day of 3rd grade and the Creature (now responds only to Yoda) has his first day of kindergarten tomorrow. I can't believe it! I am so happy with the school, the kids are very sweet to each other for the most part---old friends hugged my 8 yr old and a new friend put his arm around Yoda as we waited to pick up his brother. So... I kind of miss summer, had it been more like July was, bu I am happy to get back into the rhythm too.

There is a great post here, http://ebeth.typepad.com/reallearning/ on how the life of a mom is really not simple at all. I don't have 9 kids like she does, but I try to follow the plan God has for my life. The hardest thing for me is managing my time well and staying organized. I am building myself an office on my stair-landing, its going to be weird but I think I'll like it.

I've been listening to XM radio's 30 days of Coldplay while I do my domestic stuff around the house. I remember listening to them since the beginning of my mama life, when my first was born, it was "Yellow" and then when I lost Alistair, it was "The Scientist" and a many other good songs along the way. I'm not a huge fan but I do find them hard not to like, all the songs are calming to me--even the sad ones.
This is the part that reminds me of Alistair in "the Scientist,"


I was just guessing at numbers and figures
Pulling the puzzles apart
Questions of science, science and progress
Do not speak as loud as my heart
And tell me you love me, come back and haunt me
Oh and I rush to the start
Running in circles, chasing tails
Coming back as we are

Nobody said it was easy
Oh it's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be so hard
I'm going back to the start

I'm grateful for a great weekend at the reunion for my dad's company in Vietnam, The Delta Raiders. There were some soldiers there that he had served with and some that had come before him, some after. I got to meet 2 widows of Medal of Honor winners, here is the story of one of them, http://www.mishalov.com/Sims.html

I remember going with my dad to his very first reunion, back in 1983. I was 10 and it was just the two of us, we camped in a tent. When we got to Brown County state park in Indiana my dad disappeared to talk to his fellow soldiers and I saw him only briefly after that. I would try to sit and listen and some of the stories were very intense. My dad was lost in conversation the whole time, and its still like that now, 25 years later.

I grew up military and I rebelled, I was a teen hippie. A total pacifist animal rights type of chick. My dad was patient with me, but that must have been very annoying for him. When he gave a speech last night at the banquet, he explained the war and all of the men's place in it so well. I don't have the kind of eloquence my father does, but every single soldier there was important.

On Friday night there was a chorus of young soldiers from the base we were staying at. (Ft. Eustis). They were very talented and the sang a version of "American Soldier" by Toby Keith that was extremely emotional. One of the men came over to me and said, "You know, this is your dad's song." I was just thinking the same thing, it was also my family's life, my entire childhood. I didn't have a lot of respect for the military when I was growing up, but I do now and I am so proud of my Dad and all of the soldiers who fought and had to come home to such an unwelcoming country.

Its a real bummer not having a camera anymore! I feel like I am talking too much on here, :) So, an update on my ridiculous kidney stones. I saw the urologist today, my second one--the first was nice but extremely paternalistic and treated every patient the same in terms of treatment. The good news is all the stones are small enough to come out on their own and with a little narcotic help--that should work out fine. More later...

A Horrible Amount of Kidney Stones

I was thinking about re-naming the blog "A Horrible Amount of Kidney Stones," but I thought that might be weird & I am trying to keep this blog positive. This phrase is what a doctor in the ER said to me late last Friday night. After going in with a ton of pain (it was not the Worst pain though) and worrying it could be ectopic or possibly appendecitis, it was discovered through a cat scan that I have a whole lotta kidney stones. Luckily they appear small. I have to hydrate myself to another level, avoid extra salt ( I love salt!) chill on the xtra vitamin C & avoid dairy & meat in big portions. It definitely could be worse. I am actually enjoying the extra energy I am feeling from being super hydrated. Next week I go to a real urologist and get the lowdown on my plan of attack--probably just wait for pain & take drugs---but I'm looking into the homeopathic route too.

Its funny the difference one day can make.

My new neighbors actually seem really cool. I talked to both the mom & the dad, in the parking lot and on the playground. They are super nice, young and their kids are very friendly and sweet.

After a day where every mom I met seemed mean, today all the moms were really nice around here. The Creature happily made a friend at his Nature Camp so I stayed behind to meet his mom at pick up. I wanted to exchange numbers so they can play this summer. She turned out to be such a nice woman. She's Mexican, married to a New Zealander and they have lived in NZ, Mexico, CA & here together. She was a med student who dropped out and stayed home when her kids were born. She had 2 super high risk pregnancies and so we have a lot to talk about. :)

Then on the playground I met a brand new mama, also from Mexico, with a precious 2 month old girl. She asked me in Spanish if she could come over and hang out in the mornings. That will be nice too, I always wanted a coffee friend in the neighborhood.

I was scared yesterday about being a stay at home mama with the whole summer in front of me. Today I feel better about it & I plan on doing it one minute at a time.

I saw this on a mom's post on a message board & I couldn't resist.

I have to add that I'm very cautious about what I put here and I don't want to offend anyone. I don't judge parents who chose this surgery for their sons without having all the facts. Its only recently that this operation became standard, in the last century, and all of the information put out was strictly pro-circ, by doctors, the media etc.

If you look at the history of circ in the US this is a surgery that took hold in our culture as a "cure" for various diseases and disorders. Yet, a century later, every single "benefit" of circumcison has been disproven. The latest is HIV, 3 studies from Africa show that performing circs on adults can lower their chance of HIV transmission by 50%. If you take the time to read each study its obvious how flawed each one was and they are a little unethical too. The cut guys were home healing while the intact men were out on the town. Would an American man ever trust his circed status as his only protection against HIV? Why are Africans treated like idiots?


Circumcision is still a "cure" looking for a disease. The complications from this surgery, especially on a tiny newborn, far outweigh the complications of keeping the body the way it was designed. The adhesion rate alone is 70%!


More and more people are leaving their kids intact now, the rate in the US today is 50%--so locker room issues are not a good reason anymore. Because of problems our generation had with tighter circs, they are now cut extremely loose--to retain some of the frenulum (b/c the foreskin is a body part with parts & purposes like any other) so looking like Dad is not even possible. Who sits around comparing genitals anyway? :)

I think its important to be able to talk openly about things that are just nuts in the medical world. There are many examples of things that have been done throughout modern medicine's history that have been totally bananas--bloodletting, giving women big doses of hormones they aren't supposed to have in abundance anymore & then not expecting cancer. How about doctors in the 1940's putting women into twilight sleep to give birth? Routine, non-religious circ was first pushed in the era of bloodletting.

Nowadays an OB that does one circ a day can make more than $34,000 extra every year. The pressure to do it in the hospital can be pretty intense--I've dealt with it 4 times. The funny thing is that once I said no--the doctors and nurses thanked me for choosing not to. When else are you solicited for surgery on someone who can't consent? I can almost guarantee this surgery (for newborns) will be gone in 10 years. The other countries that once did it routinely dropped it once universal health care became standard---Australia, Canada, England. The human body is perfect and amazing in its design and it is totally unnatural to bring home a hurting wounded baby just because he's a boy in America.

Random thoughts

I don't have the energy or wherewithall for a normal post, plus my camera is sadly kaput--so a few things I'm thinking about today:

Why are people so scared of bugs that they will spray poison around their kids? Why would they spray the whole back of their house, isn't that the bugs world? So bizarre. My new neighbors are here and I'm not that excited so far...

Lil Wayne is oddly fascinating. His music is super cheesy but he has a certain appeal.

What is up with suburban moms being so unfriendly today? I had to ask 2 different moms if I could borrow sunscreen at my sweet Creature's nature camp and you would think I was asking for a pint of their children's blood. They seemed so shocked that I would ask. Then I went to Trader Joe's and was almost crashed into by about 6 different moms, I smiled--they scowled.

I had a huge uphill battle with my almost 5 year old today, my sanity was frayed and I was about to run out the door to freedom--but I got a grip and so did he. We worked together and he worked hard on helping himself become happy and he had a great day at Nature Camp.

This is a vision of Sunday brunch at Cindi's---mimosas for adults and mock-mini-mimosas for kids. Afterwards we went to the small Ren fest and it was a beautiful drive and a great hot day for it. The boys met the Queen and then came back, knighted, and met her again. It was lots of fun, with bawdy songs and many nice people.

This article makes some very good points about the 2 candidates and life issues.
http://ncregister.com/site/article/14981/

Improvement

Things are much better, I had my doctor check to see if I was healing well and I am. Sunday, the swelling went down a lot and now its almost gone. I did my usual Memorial Day thing of opening up a watermelon, crushing up the fruit and pouring in a bottle of Prosecco, a little citron rum, pink lemonade and an orange cut up. I bring this to a party and voila, its yummy and fun!

Surgery!

I got cut open yesterday afternoon, all along the inside of my cheek. I have had a lump in my cheek for a long time, but was only aware of it some of the time. It was spotted on a cat scan and then again in all of its glory on an MRI. My ENt Dr. got me thoroughly freaked out that it could be salivary gland cancer. Luckily, it turned out to be a benign hemangioma.

The nurses were all cool and the anestheseologist was a jokester, like most of them are whenever I am in the hospital. I have no memory of being put to sleep, I was having great dreams of cuddling with my youngest boy, and then I woke up abruptly and asked them when they were getting started. They had already finished! Getting cut into is never fun, but I am feeling very good that it was no big deal and I am concentrating on healing, taking my vicodin and trying to stay away from beer with vicodin. I hope everyone has a fabulous Memorial Day and be thankful that you don't have one big chipmunk cheek like me. :)

The last week has been a wild one. The gnarly picture you see below are the praying mantis eggs I hatched last Wednesday. These eggs sat quietly in my kitchen for 2 weeks, and then I came downstairs feeling the odd sensation of movement in the room, but not knowing where. I saw the wall absolutely covered with teeny mantis babies! At least 50 were on the wall, another 50 + on the floor and more babies were rapidly pouring out of the sides of the egg. Who knew my unruly Creature would be such a great mantis midwife? He safely carried every single mantis he saw on the floor outside while I worked the wall. Not even one leg was broken in the process and now all of them are happily growing and munching in the yard. I know they are insects but I am oddly attached to them, I'm hyped about my green gardening!

I cut my hair before the oldest childs First Communion and this is the only photo I have right now. The boys are all healthy and mostly happy(er) and its been a great May so far.

6

My second son, Alistair, would have been 6 today. I can't believe how much time has passed, it sounds so cliche--but sometimes it seems like yesterday and sometimes it seems like another person's life. The older boys stayed home from school and we took everyone to the cemetery and released balloons. This year we didn't plant flowers because they just get mowed down ayway. We had 6 balloons, but each small kid held onto their balloon until the last minute and one balloon got away from us in the car. So, it hasn't been a very perfect day, but that's OK. I'm grateful that 6 years ago I became the mother to this precious little soul. I can only hope to see him again one day.

Politics

This is a touchy subject these days of course, and there are big issues like the War and life issues that are so divisive---but I've been reading about Obama & McCain and there are lots of good things about both of them. I don't talk about who I vote for, b/c I find the whole thing so frustrating, I believe in voting Catholic but I am a Democrat for the most part.

Anyway, for the people who think McCain is too old--that man is fierce beyond belief! I think he might be invincible. He has been in 3 plane crashes, 1 power line collison, and then he was in a huge plane fire and explosion & badly injured. That was all before he was a POW for 5 years, according to wikipedia, "He was flying his 23rd bombing mission over North Vietnam, when his A-4E Skyhawk was shot down by a missile over Hanoi.[36][37][38][39] McCain fractured both arms and a leg,[40] and then nearly drowned when he parachuted into Truc Bach Lake in Hanoi.[36] After he regained consciousness, a mob attacked him,[41] crushed his shoulder with a rifle butt, and bayoneted him; he was then transported to Hanoi's main Hoa Loa Prison, nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton"." And he was tortured and held for 5 years!

What a tough guy! Whether or not you agree with his politics, this man is strong, and if he does have a temper, who could blame him? If you really look at the types of things (outside of military issues) that he and Obama vote for, they have a lot in common. McCain also came out and said he had lost faith in Rumsfeld a year ago. Here is one last thing I admire about McCain,"McCain made attacking the corrupting influence of large-scale contributions — from corporations, labor unions, other organizations, and wealthy individuals — on American politics his signature issue." That doesn't sound very Republican to me.

I hope whoever we end up with that universal health care becomes a reality in a way that's favorable to everyone, with the best possible health care easy to access for all Americans and immigrants.

I have another blog

that's all about breastfeeding. I'm drawing from my other life as a volunteer lactation consultant and trying to share what makes breastfeeding easier. http://www.breastfeedingiscute.blogspot.com/

I am forcing myself to write something. I wish I had a new picture to post, but I screwed up my computer and now I can't access my photos.

I have been enjoying this song lately, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpVwc0kS1Dw&feature=related Ever since Chile I love Enrique Iglesias, I never even noticed his songs before. I had only heard the English versions, but hearing him in Spanish is so much better! All of a sudden, I am loving the energy of his music, he is so earnest and sad, yet hopeful in all of his songs. When I am on one of my many challenging drives around town, I crank my boy Enrique and feel a lot better about life.

Its been hard lately, I don't even really want to be around people that much, I don't want to talk about it--I am not entirely loving my mom life these days and its rough. I'm not going to feel sorry for myself, I have a lot of blessings, but I need lots of sleep and lots of exercise to manage these days. I am going to take charge of the things I can control and let go of the things I can't control and hopefully that will help.

I apologize if this is boring...

but, as the trip fades a little into the background, I want to jot some of my impressions of Chile:

-Rastafari is pretty big with young people (don't I sound old saying that?)
I saw many dreadlocked teens waiting for buses, walking down the streets etc. I love dreaded people, I had Rasta roommates in college and I did have dreads for awhile too.

-The food, all whole foods, nothing processed where we stayed. All of the vegetables and fruits taste so much better than here.

-The wine is mad fruity and strong. The young stuff stays in Chile mostly and the rest is exported. Compared to Italian young wine, the Chilean wine is really flavorful.

-They love babies there. Pregnant ladies everywhere, everybody holding babies in their arms, not in buckets as much as you see here. Public breastfeeding is normal and attitudes are relaxed.

-Credit is really pushed on folks in Chile. Every store has a credit card and everyone around us in line at the mall, at the grocery store--were all using credit. I bought a $12 camisole and was asked how many payments did I want to make.

-Chilean Spanish is not easy to understand, it flows fast and letters are dropped off of words where you least expect it, making your head spin if you happen to be a "Gringita" like me.

That's all for tonight!

Highlights

First, the Cathedral of Santiago. Then, days later, a vineyard right in the city limits, Cousino Macul. The wine samples are not the teeny drops you get in a winery here, but a big full glass of wine x2. We were the only ones with kids on the tour and that made the tour guide give us more and more wine, which was pretty funny when you saw the other people's faces.

Are boys born defective? Only in America...

http://addwriteblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/fighting-for-foreskin.html

This is a great blog post about a man who keeps his son in one piece even after his OB's office actually made him and his wife listen to a sales pitch about cutting up their baby. Circumcision is such a business in this country that getting the real facts about how unnecessary and harmful it is, is really hard to do here. Chile is one of the many countries that doesn't cut their babies and I think its pretty weird that its considered normal and routine here.

We went out to eat in Santiago one night, to meet my newly married Godmother's daughter and her husband. We had a plan to sit outside and live it up with lots of good food and Chilean wine. I was still not 100% well, but we went anyway and had a great time. The funny thing is that we found the only Chilean vegetarian restaurant, totally by accident because I stopped in to use the bathroom and the kids thought it looked cool. We had fabulous food there and a band randomly set up across the street and played, the baby danced. Those 2 handsome men are my husband's oldest friends and our hosts.

More scenes from our trip

Easter Sunday in the Andes. A Chilean style cook out, kids playing in the fountain and a little human fussboll.

http://www.cfhusband.blogspot.com/

Tricia, the new mom of the sweetest preemie little girl, who has CF and was awaiting a lung transplant... has gotten her new lungs! Please keep her in your prayers as she heals. http://www.cfhusband.blogspot.com/

We survived! We're back...

Here are some photos of the house up above Santiago:

I worried about getting sick here and I tried to prepare myself for the possibility, and I got sick and it was worse than I imagined. But.. I got to try all kinds of alternative Chilean medicine and so that was cool, ha ha. Charcoal tablets and sulfur & nasty homeopathic drops.

Today I made my sickly weak self rally and go out. We were very late for church, but the crowd was out the door and in the street anyway. It was a beautiful and joyful Easter Sunday. We drove way up in the mountains ( when i figure out how to post pics down here it will be awesome!) and had a classic Chilean barbeque with salads, rice, meat, bread, loads of red wine. I ate very lightly, but it smelled great. We are back in our mountainside home now, with the stunning views of Santiago all lit up. Tomorrow, if all are well, we plan to hit a winery...

I'm sitting here at a table across from a huge bowl of avocados and olive oil, butter , fresh rolls and wine. We are visiting the condo of the husband's oldest friend. Earlier, at lunch we went to the Mercado Central and had a huge bowl of seafood soup. It was delicious, but... it had things in there I had never seen before and I had to lay down when we first got back to the condo. They warned me that the seafood here was really strong and would knock me out for awhile, but I thought I could handle it. Now, I feel much better and am enjoying the company and this amazing place on Good Friday.

I am in South America! I can even blog here, its amazing. This is a totally different world, but I could stay here for a long time. Chile agrees with us. Nobody is sick ( so far) the weather is 80 and sunny, the house we are in has verandas all the way around, with one side facing the Andes and the other side has an unbelievable view of Santiago. There are lemon, lime, avocado & apple trees. 7 adorable puppies and their parents are outside. The actual city is really intense, more later...

Internationally anxiety free

I was having a horrible morning, then it was a great morning, friendly people were everywhere, the sun was beaming & I liked my new drastic haircut for the first time. Then I had a great, peaceful lunch with my 2 youngest guys. It was a horrible afternoon, I actually had to pull over the car and try not to lose my mind I was so mad at the Creature for smacking the oldest. Now its not too shabby again. That's why with kids, its always a minute at a time, not a good day or a bad day, maybe a good hour or a bad hour. But for the first time, I also feel less worried about our big trip. I am thinking we might survive and we might have fun.

I love babywearing dads!

This is my favorite celeb family, they always look happy and they are all so good looking too. I love the way they seem to fit little Kingston in and he doesn't seem to be raised by a team of nannies(although a team of nannies sounds pretty darn good to me sometimes :)

Check out the most precious preemie ...

Little Gwyneth is now 2 months old, still just under 2 lbs and is doing amazingly well. I've written about this young family before and I was thrilled when Gwyneth's dad was finally able to hold her. Please look at the link and at the end of the video is the most amazing sight, her beautiful mama finally holding her too! What a great week for them. They are never far from our thoughts even though we've never met. http://www.cfhusband.blogspot.com/

11 days...

I love my life most of the time. The Creature is being very sweet lately, I am using what I learned in my "positive discipline" class. I went down to the basement a minute ago and got a fresh beer out of the keg, a Belgian Wit that is out of this world. I opened the storage room and found a box of wooden beads and string that I knew would delight the little guy that was on my hip this whole time. I love my husband and today, he was hurt ( by a nerf dart in the eye) and I enjoyed being with him in the ER as I read out loud to him from Mother Jones and the Frommer's guide to Chile, unencumbered by small people as my mom was watching the little guys and My Friendly Neighbor had the big boy. It was a good, relaxing day.

In the midst of this peace I do stop and realize I will never get used to the idea of one of my kids not being here. Its not self pity, it just is. I will always parent the one boy who is not here, as much as I do the other ones. I am starting to carry him in a different place, but he will always be carried along with us. There's not much else to say, because that's how it is; have fun, stop,think , go back to fun, and remember that its different here.

2 weeks from today!

We had our long and intense conference today with the teacher and the principal of the preschool. We are keeping him there for now anyway. We all have about the same approach, although they may be a little nicer than me when the Creature starts calling people names and telling his teacher to "shut up!" I think they know that we try to always speak kindly to each other but anything negative this child has ever heard, he remembers and always uses it properly in a sentence. The teacher told me things he has told her, things that we did, outings we had, some of those things happened when he was under 2 years old. Never think your child won't remember stuff that happens when they are a baby. We have no way of knowing who will remember what. I have a really challenging little kid, but God decided he's my kid and I'm learning a lot about patience and a lot about being open to the big plan for me--that I obviously have no control over.

I think my Creature's preschool teacher hates me. She used to like us, but now she seems to enjoy telling me every single annoying thing he does in class. She is very short with me whenever she talks to me. I'm wondering why I spend $225 a month to feel like crap when I pick my kid up. I think he's going to have an early summer vacation soon.

My precious little cousin.

All jacked up...

Cruising around in the temporary car

February

The list of crappy things that have happened in the last 2 + weeks is long. I don't know if everything is just harder because the man-of-the-house is working nights, but its been rough! I've tried to keep this blog positive and to celebrate the life of a stay at home mama, but its definitely not all fun. I've gotten way too busy lately, going from school to school, thing to thing. And I don't even have kids in 8 million different suburban sports so I don't even know how I'm so scattered. I am going to lay low and hibernate as much as I can before we leave for Chile in less than a month. Lent is often like this for me, rough and uncomfortable. Instead of venting here about how I totaled my car this week, or how we seem to get every sickness this winter, or how my preschooler has been sent to the principal's office twice last week, I will try to focus on the few good things that happened, like;

I saw a bald eagle flying over McDonalds. I parked and he flew lower so I could really watch him for awhile.

My awesome cousin and her precious baby came to visit and we had lots of fun.:)

There is some really good fresh beer in my house right now.

Valentine's Day we always have lobster and steak, this year my cousin and brother were with us which made it even better.

Nobody got hurt when my car crashed.

And that's all I can think of right now. :)

This was a little of Saturday night and a little of Sunday night. The last weekend together before the man of the house starts his crazy schedule for the next month, where we won't see much of him.

The little guy loves to jump on the bed and repeatedly get himself into a weird airplane pose. I will miss this a lot when he stops doing it! Its really funny to watch and his brothers love to do it with him.

We wanted to party for the Superbowl, but we don't have too many sporty friends, so we kept it simple, a fire, the TV on, all of us having a picnic of tacos and nachos in the basement. Homebrew for the adults, soda treat for the kids. The little Teeny sat in a basket and read a book during our little party. Now, the hectic week is here and I have to get in bed! It is becoming harder and harder to get out of bed in the morning.

http://www.cfhusband.blogspot.com/

Go see the most amazing and beautiful sight, the new father I mentioned last week finally gets to hold and cuddle his tiny daughter for the first time.

Kangaroo care is the most amazing thing, it makes so much sense how much skin to skin contact helps premature or sick babies. As soon as you hold the baby you can look at their computer and see all of their stats change to normal. They just settle, its a very powerful thing to witness. I've been praying for this family to be able to get to the point where they'd be able to do it.