The Boyz Christmas photo. If all hell wasn't breaking loose over here, I would have mailed out more cards!

Here's a good article about why GenX'ers like me are largely to blame for the current housing foreclosure drama, http://www.babble.com/Generation-X-nesting-to-blame-for-the-economy-housing-crash/

Sorry, you have to cut & paste, blogger won't let me link properly!


I have always found it weird that my generation expects to live at their parents level of affluence--same size house, same kind of cars etc, right away, with the very first kid. Even before the wedding, my peers are buying houses they can barely afford to be at their folks level right out of the starting gate of adulthood. Yet... their parents took sometimes decades to get to that size house, car etc. and we often forget that.

Christmas Eve

and I'm thankful to be at home. I have been in the hospital since Saturday, home for Sunday night & admitted again on Monday, finally released today.

I try to keep it positive on this blog, but I am a pregnant chick with problems right now! I have known I have kidney stones since last June, and I've had a few come through without problems.

Unfortunately I had the most unbelievably hellish experience with passing a stone starting on Saturday. I was given Demerol, percosets & flexeril in the hospital. None of them worked much, but I was able to sleep and then released in the morning. The next day the pain came back in the afternoon, but my prescriptions were sort-of working so I was able to fall asleep. At 3 in the morning I woke up thinking I was dying, I can't even describe the pain. Its kind of like somebody ripping your back open and then individually ripping each muscle in half, without a break, or any rest at all. It took another 12 hours before I got relief, in the form of being in-patient with a PCA pump full of morphine that I hit every 15 minutes for 2 hours before I could even speak. I have had natural childbirth twice for a total of 80 hours of labor, but it honestly does not compare. I used to think people who described kidney stones as worse than labor were wrong, I had had both & the stones weren't that big of a deal. This time I found out it really is was way worse than labor to have a stone!

So.. I was scheduled for surgery in the morning of Tuesday the 23rd, where the urologist would go in with a laser, blast the stone and then retrieve it out of the ureter --tube that runs from kidney to bladder. Then they would put in a stent that would keep the tube from collapsing after all of the trauma & I would have to keep it in for the rest of the pregnancy.

The good news is I avoided the stent surgery, the stone moved on its own, IV hydration & morphine helped it stop blocking the ureter and the pain is gone. I am just nervous now of its possible return with a future stone & nervous about possibly having the stent placed in the future. Can you believe the drugs you are allowed to take while pregnant? I am not so worried about a little wine here and there after hours and hours of morphine. Believe it or not, its safe & my little guy was checked every hour & he is fine.

I am happy to be here and grateful that it wasn't worse.

Yesterday I was in the ER, again. I'm fine but I was ruling out an infection after some typical symptoms. Anyway, there is no privacy with just curtains between you and the next patient. So I lounged under my warm blanket and listened to the saga next to me. The woman was 94, she lives independently with her 95 year old husband. He is taken care of completely by her, although they just hired an aide recently. She deals with catheters, wheelchairs his meds. She cooks 3 meals a day for him.

She was there because she had a dizzy spell with some chest pains. They ordered an EKG & a cat scan to check for risk of stroke & put an IV in for blood tests and drugs. She told the nurse she had never had an IV in her life. She had the cutest voice too. The most amazing thing was that she told everyone the only time in her entire life she had been a patient was when her daughter was born. Her daghter was with her and vouched for the truth of that statement. This lady was unbelievable, I would love to be her at that age, what a woman!

Its that time where you get Christmas cards & letters that detail every perfect moment of people's lives. I don't begrudge them the right to show all the good of the past year, I totally get it--I try to blog mostly positive--but it would be fun to get a more realistic Christmas letter. I'll do a brief one that I would never mail:

-bad bad preschooler yells the F word in music class and spends most of the rest of his school year in the principal's office.

-we take a very intense, very fun trip to Chile. OF course mom has to get super sick, but the kids had a blast, except on the plane, where every single passenger hoped we would get sucked out the window b/c the preschooler was being very BAD..

-bad bad 20 yr old stepson of husband's oldest friend moves in and manages to screw up every thing we ask of him, including the dishes, so he lays down on the sofa and stays there for a month, while scary religious cults work hard to recruit him.

-oldest boy had his First Holy Communion, which was an amazing day and a perfect occasion, except for 2 things,1. we roasted a pig in the ground which scarred our 5 year old for life. He still remembers ever single person's name who ate the pig & every person's name who did not. The other thing won't be mentioned, it was real bad.

-summer came and things looked up, preschooler made it without being expelled (that would happen in the fall), but then mom, found out she is riddled with kidney stones.

-pertussis happened. Half of July, all of August & most of September lost to the whooping cough that all 3 guys contracted thanks to a summer camp at a park in Northern Va.. Poor little preschooler coughed until he threw up all day for 30 days.

-surprise! New baby on the way. Which is awesome, except it would have been nice to get through the kidney stone and bladder drama before facing another pregnancy. But, still, we are very grateful for the miracle of another unique person joining our family.

-School in the fall, hard for the 3rd grader with tons of homework, absolutely brutal for the kindergartener who is too young to face all day school. So we try his old school's half day k program, but he (I ) am expelled after 2 weeks of the principal harassing mom for no reason. When mom told her to ease up, 5 yr old is kicked out. So, now, he is unschooled at home.

-Its been bad, its been good, it hasn't been the worst year ever, by far, but it has been challenging in all new ways. Yet, we have each other, and that's enough.

---about the bad bad folks mentioned above, including my own child--there's no such thing as a bad person, just bad actions, but it was fun to call them bad for a minute.



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http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/family/11/21/baby.buggies/index.html

This is a link to a study that says that strollers facing away from the parent stress the baby. Did it really take a study to figure this out?

It seems like it would be fun for a little baby to be pushed around, looking at it from an adult perspective. But as a baby, I think it would be a little frightening, you have no frame of reference and you can't see any familiar faces facing forward. In the stroller the world is coming at you fast. I think human babies are made to be held and it is such a short time in the big picture that its even possible. I know its not for everyone, but I love wearing the baby and keeping them close when they are tiny.

Hard Stuff

When my second son was born and died, after living for 7 weeks, I wrote in a journal/word doc on the computer almost every day. I kept it up for 2 years, with bigger and bigger spaces between postings (this was pre-blog days) and then the computer crashed and I lost the whole thing.

Last night my awesome better half fixed the computer after it crashed again & found my old journal. It is very very hard to read. I am just not "there" anymore, thank God.

I was very lucky, I had lots of signs sent from my baby and I wrote each one down. I also wrote down every time one of my friends was insensitive or mean, which wasn't good of me to chronicle, since I had forgotten about most of it.

I remember one of the many hard parts was feeling socially inept. I had no use for small talk back then. I felt like I had just come back from a horrific battle and felt horrible guilt for surviving it. It wasn't another soldier, somebody's baby--it was my baby. There is pride in surviving all kinds of tragedies, but not losing your child. There's no pride in that, its just surviving, remembering, feeling & suffering & then hopefully, finding some joy again--but never in the same way. Which is not necessarily a bad thing.

All boy mama

Its been a crummy week so far, I caught some kind of flu-like nightmare on Saturday and still feel bad. Homeschool hasn't happened and I needed a replacement for my meeting tonight.

But... the big ultrasound was today, this morning we looked at baby's heart, brain, limbs, stomach, bones, palate & all looks good. I'm relieved because I took a bunch of medicine for the kidneys last summer before I knew about Chunky #5. And Chunky # 5? Surprise, surprise! Another BOY! For a long minute there, we thought we were all seeing girl parts, but then baby changed position and we saw the boy baby in all his glory. So here we go again, same clothes, easy sleeping arrangements. I'm not complaining.

When I can get a real working link to the video, I will post it. I apologize for the tininess of the picture too, but if you look closely it is amazing! The kiteboarder is right on top of the whale!

A sweetheart meme

Exciting! I got tagged by my friend Erin at Breathe, Just Breathe

Here's more than you wanted to know about my better half:

Husband's Name: Larry

How long we've been married: coming up on 10
years

How long we dated: Dated 1 year & 1/2 & were engaged 6 months.

How old is he? 39

Taller: Him, by 3 or so inches.

Who can sing best? Him.

Smarter? That's a toss up. I know lots of random facts but he can fix anything and I am useless around the house.

Laundry: Both of us, I am very very bad at it. Luckily, he is man enough to wear his newly pink underpants though.

Paying bills: Me, I'm not much better with $$.

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Him

Mows the lawn? We ditched our tiny lawn and covered it with pavers after we killed it.

Cooks dinner: He is a great cook, but I do 90% of cooking.

Who's the first to admit when they're wrong? Hard to say, probably him, hahah.

Who kissed first? Him

Who wears the pants? Probably him. He's classic alpha male, not metro, not new age.

Good things about being pregnant

--In your 30's it seems like the years fly by in such a hurry, but pregnancy slows down time for me to a snail's pace. When its over though, the baby is a toddler in no time!

--Once I get past being sick, where I hate music, food, and anything enjoyable, all of a sudden...music sounds incredible and everything else improves too.

--My Creature has decided he is having a sister and so he constantly shows me toys he wants to buy for his sister. Sharing all of this with the kids is really fun.

--I feel less fashion pressure while pregnant, I am going to be big and enjoy it as much as I can.

I have to admit, I haven't been a huge, enormous fan of Barack Obama, like what seems like the rest of my generation. I just have a hard time in general, voting as a consistent-life-ethic Democrat, but also I get suspicious anytime big groups of people start thinking alike. In my area it was almost like Obama mind control, the ads were so constant, so extreme and so absolutely relentless, I just couldn't get on board. Ditching the funding that he and McCain agreed on & then grossly outspending McCain rubbed me the wrong way too.

I see all politicians as human and not entirely reliable, basically, just like the rest of us. I think McCain made a lot of mistakes in his campaign, but I have always admired him and I know he's a good guy from hearing about him from all the years my Dad worked in the Senate (my Dad worked for Democrats). I know he is open minded and works well with everybody, I haven't seen Obama work well with too many Republicans. The extreme bipartisanship is one of the most depressing things in America to me. I am very hopeful that that will change though.

I don't absolutely love and devote myself to McCain though & I think that's why Obama won, the utter devotion of his supporters. I do think there are some huge positives in Obama winning. Like my Dad said, it was another peaceful revolution in America. And that is really awesome. The people have spoken and I think it is infectious to see all the joy in his supporters this week. I also am hyped to see a young family in the White House. I am excited that the rest of the world seems happy about our new President elect also.

Rachel Campos-Duffy, who was on the Real World San Fran, writes a column for blogging baby & she had this to say (which I really liked :)
As a mom, I am thrilled by the possibility that Malia and Sasha, may replace Hannah Montana and other teen starlets as girlhood role models.

I'm equally hopeful that Malia and Sasha's beautiful dresses will inspire a national trend toward more age-appropriate clothing for girls and away from the sexy clothes currently being marketed to them. Though twelve year-old Malia will be 16 at the end of her father's first term, it's hard to imagine that Michelle and Barack would approve of her wearing the sleazy attire pushed by today's young celebrities or seen on MTV and BET. That will be good for girls and parents!

In fact, Barack Obama has not been shy about promoting clean fashion. On MTV, the always sharply dressed Obama, admonished "brothers" for showing their underwear and told them to "pull up their pants." Amen to that. If only Barack had been pro-life, his very sensible position on hanging off-the-butt pants might have been enough to win me over. In any case, it's safe to say that Barack may be the only president cool enough to convince teenage boys to clean up their fashion act.


more on consistent-life-ethic
Notable exponents, according to the Consistent Life organisation, include actor Martin Sheen, novelist Wendell Berry, the current Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, and Village Voice columnist Nat Hentoff.[5]

In 1971, Roman Catholic pacifist Eileen Egan used St. John the Apostle's phrase the seamless garment, referring to to describe a holistic reverence for life. "The protection of life," said Egan, "is a seamless garment. You can't protect some life and not others." Her words were meant to challenge members of the pro-life movement, as well as those who are in favor of capital punishment, to adopt a consistent life ethic. Egan's view was that there is a unity of Catholic teaching when it comes to human life.

the boy in a basket

the boy in a blue slide

the morning primp, where I wrestle makeup away from my little friend

So, I haven't been in a very reflective place lately, more like action-mode. I am homeschooling the Creature and its taking a lot of time and energy. I am a totally reluctant homeschooler, but I realize I have to really work with him and develop my patience to get him to a point where he will be successful in school. Homeschooling can be good for kids but it can really develop character in the parents. I think homeschooling can be awful too, like in a family that punishes the kids for not learning the way the parents hoped they would. I try hard to keep it positive, but the fact remains that I am home working every day with my MOST challenging child. I do already see some improvements in his maturity so I am going to hope for the best, even though this morning at breakfast I was already so fed up I almost turned into the Hulk.

October, my favorite month...

So, we've done the pumpkin patches & are finally decorating for Halloween. Our neighbor's annual Hallowwen party is this weekend. The big thing we look forward to in October though is the darling husband's birthday weekend. He took off work, we took our oldest out of school and went to the very edge of Virginia, to the empty police camp with our friend ( & Joaquin's godmother) Brunie--the same place we celebrated the birthday last year.

We fished and and my oldest caught the big one that we ate for breakfast, we had a huge Bday German dinner with real wurst from the German Gourmet in Falls Church. The man in my life brewed an Oktoberfest brew for the occasion, he brought the whole keg. Since I am expecting, I only had a few sips, but it was a great beer! The breakfasts were huge, we went to a couple of wineries and we hit a Scottish festival. The kids played with other kids, Brunie invited friends that brought their grandkids.

Here are some highlights: I relaxed, Joaquin experienced his first moon bounce in the capable hands of his godmother, the little guy loved riding across the camp field in a truck and my Creature--fun loving as always.

This was a question on Babble.com today.


"Why don't pediatricians, and OB-GYNs for that matter, get educated about breastfeeding?! Mine promote the heck out of it, congratulate me for keeping up with it, and were quick to criticize me at the mere mention of weaning before my daughter turns one, yet can't hold an intelligent conversation about it, let alone answer questions. And I was shocked by the question you ran a couple of weeks ago about a doctor who criticized the "richness" of a mother's milk. Is there any movement within the medical community to get doctors up to speed? I thank my lucky stars that my community has an amazing lactation consultant who provides her services at no charge. But she'd have a lot more free time if there'd been someone in the hospital after delivery to give me some proper training. — 4 Out of 5 Doctors Don't Have a Clue!"

This is why we have La Leche League.

Yoda the cookie, well, I tried...





After the Chilean Independece Day festival

Brothers hangin out on the deck

My cute cousin sent me this article by Camille Paglia today and wow, I think it makes some great points about Sarah Palin and the entire presidential race at the moment. I find myself fascinated by Ms. Palin and the notion that she is a mom to many and a hard working public servant.

I don't agree with Ms. Paglia or Ms. Palin either completely, but there are some deep thoughts in here we could all learn from. Its the close-mindedness of both parties that hurts us all. I am still sad about losing one of my oldest mama friends to this presidential race only b/c we couldn't civilly discuss both candidates equally. I hope she returns one day, but I am not holding my breath. People have forgotten that we can have conversations without always "campaigning."

Here is the article, sorry, blogger won't do links--you'll have to cut & paste:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/09/10/palin/index3.html

Here are 2 great excerpts:

"But the pro-life position, whether or not it is based on religious orthodoxy, is more ethically highly evolved than my own tenet of unconstrained access to abortion on demand. My argument (as in my first book, "Sexual Personae,") has always been that nature has a master plan pushing every species toward procreation and that it is our right and even obligation as rational human beings to defy nature's fascism. Nature herself is a mass murderer, making casual, cruel experiments and condemning 10,000 to die so that one more fit will live and thrive.

Hence I have always frankly admitted that abortion is murder, the extermination of the powerless by the powerful. Liberals for the most part have shrunk from facing the ethical consequences of their embrace of abortion, which results in the annihilation of concrete individuals and not just clumps of insensate tissue. The state in my view has no authority whatever to intervene in the biological processes of any woman's body, which nature has implanted there before birth and hence before that woman's entrance into society and citizenship.

On the other hand, I support the death penalty for atrocious crimes (such as rape-murder or the murder of children). I have never understood the standard Democratic combo of support for abortion and yet opposition to the death penalty. Surely it is the guilty rather than the innocent who deserve execution? "

and this:
"Over the Labor Day weekend, with most of the big enchiladas of the major media on vacation, the vacuum was filled with a hallucinatory hurricane in the leftist blogosphere, which unleashed a grotesquely lurid series of allegations, fantasies, half-truths and outright lies about Palin. What a tacky low in American politics -- which has already caused a backlash that could damage Obama's campaign. When liberals come off as childish, raving loonies, the right wing gains. I am still waiting for substantive evidence that Sarah Palin is a dangerous extremist. I am perfectly willing to be convinced, but right now, she seems to be merely an optimistic pragmatist like Ronald Reagan, someone who pays lip service to religious piety without being in the least wedded to it. I don't see her arrival as portending the end of civil liberties or life as we know it."

Little Teeny is 2, not teeny no more

I try not to ever make this blog political, my goal was always to keep it positive and show that being a stay at home parent can be fun and rewarding. I do see good things about both teams of candidates, but this last week both sides have been doing stupid things too--they're only human. I admire Sarah Palin for challenging my own views on working moms, and how parents really can be equal. Nobody questioned whether Joe Biden was up to the task of being a Senator with his wife and daughter recently killed and 2 sons still in the hospital. Yet, her problems are minor in comparison and people are concerned about her "balancing it all.

Anyway... the media is busy finding things out about Palin's record that may discredit her big stance on ethics. I feel for her, I'd feel the same way if it was Biden. If I ran for office they would find some bad things about me too. And that's why you'd never catch me running for office.

And a few more things I would never do:

Skydive (I once wanted to, but I don't trust those punk rock instructors to check the equipment!)
Fly in any small plane (they crash every day!)
Get a pet with small kids (I can't take any more bodily fluids in this house)
Pierce anything (almost did my nose in Chile, but I like tattoos better)
Be a dentist (teeth give me the creeps)
Go in a Hot air balloon (I hate fire, I hate heights--both in one place, no thanks!)