Weird religion stuff // influences
A lot of time in my life I have wondered why it is that things have gone right for me (us; the ‘I’ in this is very fluid).
I mean a lot has gone badly: sexually & emotionally abused as a kid by various people, some of it in a cult-y context maybe-sorta-possibly (I hang onto my denial) and Emily’s death top the list, although I’d throw in a gang rape at university too, particularly as we stand at the entrance of October again. Focusing on the child-stuff though, I often really have wondered why it is that things went right too. And a lot of it was that there were people to stand in our life as “enlightened witnesses.”
One of the stranger set of witnesses were literally that - Jehovah’s Witnesses, Carrie and Alan. I don’t know what the impulse was that led my mother, Presbyterian by breeding and United Church going at the time, to engage in bible study with two JWs and, more importantly for me, send me off with them once or twice a week for at least a year (I think more because we went to two annual meetings). And if you asked me what the result of that was I would have said until lately it was:
1. An abiding love of maple-frosted doughnuts, perhaps an unusual choice for the clean-bodied JWs as bribe of choice to my 10 year old self
2. A lasting suspicion of anyone that tells you God doesn’t want you to have Easter eggs or a birthday party (No one ever bought into that aspect of the JW faith)
3. Yet Another Contribution to the child prodigy aspect of my youth: not only were the JWs fascinated by my 10 year old ability to read and interpret the Bible in two official languages (I think Lynn may have been floating around here), but this was during the time that Quebec had just de-criminalized JW as a religion (yes, it was illegal) and so there was a sense that anyone that could witness in French was on a fast track to saving the world, or whatever.
Lately - remember we had some JWs come to the door and Lynn had a snippy encounter with them and in fact, they came back with a pretty good answer (God can’t be a terrorist ’cause he’s the government - the George W. Bush defense, really)? Well they have kept coming.
And Lyria welcomed them which is typical Lyria - show up anywhere near my house and it radiates herbal tea and cookies, on the right days anyway. And so they’ve kept coming and actually…
… I think I’m kind of glad. And so are other people, or at least, other people participate.
You may be surprised. But let me continue.
I don’t know if all JWs are like Carrie and Alan and these two women. But given how awful so many fundamentalists are I have to kind of explain why these are not.
Today I said point blank that I didn’t see why God would care if people were gay or not, and in fact I believe that if there is a God he made them that way, and that I didn’t want to discuss it because it would just make me frustrated and angry with JWs for their prejudices and is one of the reasons I find it hard to respect their literature, and that was - fine with the JWs in my living room.
Whatever training the JWs get they come to some almost Buddhist-like state - I think it is how they emulate the Jesus they believe in actually. They don’t back down and pretend something’s okay if they don’t think so. They just drop it. But they drop it in the nicest possible way, respectfully, like a yoga instructor admiring your form in a Pilates pose or something.
It’s hard to explain but for me, it’s made the whole experience of choosing to talk religion with these particular people okay. We don’t all agree, and that’s actually okay.
Lynn enjoys them I think because she is having a religious/existential crisis. After all, she loves Noah in her own way and that brings a whole lot of things to a head. It’s one thing to believe in eternal damnation for herself, but what about Noah? And she’s done enough therapy to agree that raising Noah in a fairly normal way - you know, to basically be on the side of God and good and all that - is How Things Will Be. But she isn’t sure if she believes that and how to implement it either way.
I wouldn’t say she is looking to the JWs for an answer. If anything, Lynn can out-Bible them any time. But she is studying the actual women who come quite intently, and it’s not in a mean way (in fact, she has become rather solicitous of their mental health and if she says something disturbing, often gives them a way out… like today she pointed out that Lucifer does what God asks in tempting Job -after- Satan lures Eve out of the Garden of Eden, and that confused things for a while until Lynn allowed that Lucifer might obey God for his own evil ends, or something like that. I lost the thread of it but I saw the relief happen, in the two women.)
I can’t really say what Lynn’s learning, but I think I’m glad she’s having some space to do it anyway. I really haven’t felt ready to try to find her the right people to talk to (whoever that would be). But in the meantime it has been very convenient to have some kind of religious um - instruction? - show up at the door.
But Lyria’s surprised me until today when I realized that the JWs are pretty much the granola Christian cult: they have to take care of their bodies because they will be resurrected in them and God therefore wants them to respect them, and so they don’t consume any drugs (including, MY GOD, caffeine) and the two JWs who come to see us, anyway, say in great innocence things like “well you know how fruits and vegetables don’t have good vitamins in them any more? Well imagine how healthy they were when Adam and Eve ate them! And when God brings paradise on Earth they will be that healthy again!” (And then have a whole digression about figs in a certain area of the former Yugoslavia, now Croatia.)
And although my fae Lyria thinks the idea of God Almighty, you know, Mr. You’d-Better-Shape-Up-God is pretty funny, she is totally down with a future that involves healthier fruit.
So on that level I see why we’re enjoying it.
There’s also the spiritual elephant in the room all the time, of course, which is Emily. It’s one thing to be living with Noah and wondering how to raise him with respect to spirituality and to wonder if we should baptize him or attend a church with him or do a comparative religion thing with him and basically how to shape his moral development.
But it’s an even bigger thing to wonder not only how say, God could have let my baby Emily suffer and die but also to wonder - well - did she have a soul and if so, where is it? Reincarnated? Frolicking? (One of the more horrible episodes with the kinderlynn that has rolled through over and over during since March of 2004 is whether there might be a general sort of afterlife and if so, what if my (abusive) grandfather is there with Emily and if so would he be being nice or being a shit? Because we aren’t there yet to protect her.)
And in the midst of all that - I don’t know.
As a faith itself, I am somewhat uncomfortable with Christianity in general and “young” Christian faiths - faiths that have not, say, had hundreds of years to be corrupt and go on stupid crusades and totally fuck up and have to deal with that a little - kind of make me feel like I’m watching Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure as a serious attempt at world history.
Do they really expect me to believe that the prophets wrote down the mind of God that was translated accurately and can be understood in words? Dude!
JWs are kind of a far out branch of this innocence. They commit some of the usual err “sins” of fundamentalism - gays bad, marriage good, Catholics icon worshippers, everyone else wrong.
They also have this (to me) touching and childlike belief that what God wants for us all is to return everyone that’s died onto the Earth into their bodies, but better ones really, and all the animals get along (and the lion shall lie down with the lamb) and there to be no sickness and death or anything - on Earth - and for God to have his council of Really Special Snowflake People (I think this is what keeps a lot of JW psyches going) and run things right. And then we’ll spend our days frolicking about and eating really good fruit and be like Adam and Eve before Eve messed up.
And soon; any day now; in fact the deadline was misunderstood twice I think.
I don’t know what quirk it is in my nature but to me this just about goes along with the whole Wish Foundation sending dying kids off to Disneyland. It’s lovely and you can see that it would really make some people (people less perverse than I) happy. But MY GOD WHY DO KIDS HAVE CANCER! You know?
I just don’t see at all how this can possibly relate to either any understanding I have of human nature, where I think people would immediately start to argue over whose apple was bigger, After Death or No After Death, or the God of the Bible (locusts, etc.) or any God I might care to conceptualize for myself. Etc. ad nauseum.
So for me exploring the JW faith -itself- is kind of like reading light chick lit, where buying shoes and meeting the right man makes you happy. It’s nice to visit for a couple of hours but it in no way relates much to my life except you know, that I think about it and enjoy it and might like shoes a bit myself and it says a little bit about people but not always very much.
And yet.
And yet, and yet, and yet.
I suddenly see how Carrie and Alan, who were gentle and kind and loving and really, despite the whole birthday party thing, amazing Christians - in the sense of hanging out, talking about God and Jesus politely and rationally, and not say -raping- you or even making you feel any less than special - may have helped us keep a concept of a benevolent universe going.
And that the Bible was involved probably helped promote some internal communication between Lynn and us, without which we would have been sunk later on. And bingo, perhaps some of the body-respecting stuff that kept us out of the darkest of self-destruction and mostly thanks to Lyria, came partly out of that. (Although I still think Lyr is just plugged into something totally else and cool.)
It has not escaped my notice that the JWs happen to have shown up on the doorstep right when we may have needed to start to reconnect a bit with spirituality. And that this is not the first time in our collective life that two kind people identifying themselves as Jehovah’s Witnesses have shown up at the door when, perhaps, we could use a little bit of innocence and a trip to Disneyland.
All of which is to say that if there is a benevolent universe - Goddess - God - trinity - AllThing - flow - it certainly works in mysterious ways.
Random notes from a life
Word on the Street was not as much fun this year as it has been in years past. I think that is partly because it’s moved to Queen’s Park and is one day instead of two and that made it feel really congested, to me, as well as cut off from the vibrancy that is to be found in its previous section of Queen St. West.
But it was also because writer-me was saddled with mummy-me and so I would dart up to a small independent feminist press booth and almost initiate a conversation before wondering “where’s Carl and the stroller and my baby!” and then I would take the stroller and think about breaching the crowds of crazed alpha-parents and their Bugaboos at the Scholastic booth and my writer brain would chime in that it’s insane to trample parents and children to save a dollar or two on books that are to be had all the time via various bookstores. So it was neither a Writer Event nor a Child Literacy Event.
Nonetheless it was good to be out and about and in fact I think I am getting a proposal together this month for a book we’ve talked about writing forever (and which is more than enough written for a proposal) because someone was interested in it. And because I can actually see putting a proposal together while Noah’s awake because it does not occupy the same space that causes me to forget time, child, etc. like fiction writing does )and which means I cannot write fiction while being responsible for small bodies).
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Speaking of small bodies I am reading the very excellent Protecting the Gift (same author as The Gift of Fear) and it is really helping me as I prepare to look through my 21 responses to my babysitter ad. I also especially like how it talks about kids needing to learn to talk to strangers - be rude - and have a chance to exercise their “people-sense” rather than isolating them out of fear and that is - so hugely true; a big component in our abuse was definitely that we were brought up to be good and to be fearful. So thumbs up for this book.
It’s also reminded me to ask myself the question: what are you NOT seeing while you worry about a babysitter? and the answer is a few childproofing things we have procrastinated on that Noah is now tall enough/agile enough to need to have fixed. So we will be doing that this weekend if not before.
Also that I have taken on a fair amount - the baby, the house, and part-time work - and as we hit the toddler stage it will be really important for me and the system to monitor our stress levels and ask for help when we need it.
I tried to talk to my mother about this book too, and boy did that go over like a lead balloon. I guess I was sort of hoping that even if we can never rewrite the past or her or my dad’s personalities, that maybe referring to an outside expert would open room for why Noah doesn’t have to kiss her, go to her if he’s feeling strange, etc. But it didn’t, and it was a good reminder of the “pass the cheese dip” philosophy of family communication which is, “oh and Noah is still nursing, and he doesn’t have to kiss people he doesn’t want to, pass the cheese dip please.” (Rather than trying to, you know, convert people to a particular point of view. He’s my kid; this is how it is, kthxbye as the kids say these days.)
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On the note of my mother though I have to say that she has been way more wildly supportive of me and loving of Noah than I ever imagined was possible.
It doesn’t mean there still isn’t a gap there and I remain acutely aware that it is my responsibility to protect Noah from certain distant possibilities and not get sucked into anything that could make a dangerous situation. But both are true. And Noah adores her and my dad, and they adore him and it is very neat to see how grandparents and grandchildren can be together. And really there have been days when my parents’ support was something I needed and wanted and it ended up being there which is kind of healing, in a way. Even if it creates a lot of cognitive dissonance.
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This week is a week without deadlines at my work (although work to do! I’m doing two phone interviews Fri!); probably the last such week for the next several months so I’m trying to set myself up for success by getting a lot of home organization stuff done as well as get a freaking babysitter. Today was buy whatever we need for fall day and as the local Value Village had failed me I went to the Old Navy outlet and bought a few things new, and also found him a hat and mittens at the Roots outlet.
It felt very decadent, since my philosophy on every day baby clothes has largely been to make do with gifts, hand me downs, and second-hand, since they go through them so fast and do not care what they are wearing as long as it fits and is comfy. But he’s slowing down in his growth, and so has every other kid at that age, and so a lot of the stuff for resale is actually showing holes and stuff.
Anyways the point was that I had consumer fun filling in his wardrobe, but also a bit of sadness about Emily, for whom I actually shopped while I was pregnant. It never ever goes away, it seems. And the girl clothes really are cuter. I wanted to buy Noah a “I want to be a cowgirl” shirt but it seemed like something that might come up in therapy later… his therapy, that is. :-)
Okay time’s up. I have 1165 new msgs in my Hotmail account, if anyone is wondering, but today I started sorting them and tomorrow I will start answering some and in the meantime I apologize stupidly as I see I have Missed Things some people who read this have sent me. I don’t know why I put this here except I know it will still take a few days.
Babysitter soap opera continued!
I posted an ad today at the local university campus (online), because although I felt ok with the sitter-shared-with-other-mum, I think the schedule will not work out. And I merely felt okay and not great and I’m reading “Protecting the Gift” and suddenly I want my intuition to go “wow GREAT” and not “eh, she won’t kill him or molest him.” Although the second is clearly reasonable.
Here’s the ad I wanted to post:
US: We are a creative, granola/goth/GBLT/Catholic/vegan/carnivore friendly work environment/home with a whole whack of books and toys. And we are really nice, but not so nice that we are pushovers.
THE JOB: Caring for the single most important human being ever (ever!!), my son. No cleaning or anything like that, just making sure my son is safe, secure, loved, and appreciated every moment while providing good boundaries, fun, learning experiences, and giggles.
YOU: Are a saint, have worked with kids since you were 12 because you adore small human beings, have studied to be a paramedic, you have 10 references I can call who will drive to my home to show me their kids stayed with you are and totally and completely fine in every way, and you are always patient and gentle and kind and you won’t snicker at my house if you show up 15 minutes early and the used cat litter is still on the front doorstep en route to the green bin. Although you can snicker if you really are just that excellent with kids.
A doll, a doll, William wants a doll…
Thanks everyone for comments & email about biting, and about playgroups. If you have more thoughts keep ‘em coming, if you like. I called the mum whose son was bit but only got her voice mail; I’m going to just proceed as usual until I hear differently with playgroup; and we’re working to teach Noah to do something else instead, although - he is still only 13 months.
Something else that happened at playgroup on Friday before the big bite was that Noah found a doll and he was really into exploring it - the eyes, the hands, the ears, etc. It suddenly occured to me that he doesn’t own a doll. I’d kind of assumed he wouldn’t find one that interesting yet, is part of the reason. The other is that a lot of his toys have come from gifts and - surprise, surprise - no one seems to have given my son a doll, probably because the whole boy, doll thing is apparently still touchy in our society.
How touchy? I was about to find out. Because, woe is me, I decided to go buy Noah a doll. My mistake was to value efficiency over thoughtfulness, and I hit a local small mall for a couple of errands and go to the evil but sometimes necessary Toys R Us. Although I know this will happen again because it is dreadfully convenient and there is a serious dearth of independent toy stores anywhere close to me, keep thinking ‘evil’ as I go on.
First I checked the (co-ed) baby area for dolls that are, you know, safe for babies. There were none resembling actual human beings in the slightest, and I skipped the Dora aisles too. I knew what I was going to find but I still went through backwards and started with the “blue” area of the store - you know, the one with the action figures, building toys, and swords. Nope, not a doll without guns or capes to be found. So then I hit the “pink” area of the store.
This is in a very mixed area of Scarborough, by the way, and this is what I found. Rows and rows of pink boxes, many of them referring to “Little Mommy” (this is actually a label in fact), and all of them - Cabbage Patch, blah blah blah - containing white girl-dolls in dresses, or pink onesies. Around the corner as it turned out there were a few select boxes of more normal looking unisex dolls in navy blue - 4 boxes, in fact - but they all cost over $50 ’cause they came in car seats with strollers or something like that, and weren’t rated for kids under 3 ’cause of choking hazards.
So back to the sea of pink and mommy labels I went and finally unearthed a box of “twin newborns” that had a girl twin and a boy twin and were rated for 18 months, which after close examination of the parts I decided was ok for 13. Which is good. Because that was the only boy doll in the place. (I thought Cabbage Patch dolls came in both, but the ones they had were all bow-bedecked.) Apparently boy baby dolls only come with twin sisters.
And yes, Noah could certainly have a girl baby doll but I was kind of on a mission at this point and feeling a little oppositional defiant and had settled on a boy - plus - why is Dora the only doll of colour??? In Scarborough??? And I don’t think they were sold out of all the dolls of colour either. I did a little stroll through the Barbie aisle and although they did, yes, have Bratz oversexed dolls in various skin tones they seemed not to have ordered in any Barbies of colour, unless you count brunettes that way.
!!
Back to the doll aisle. Of course the /box/ for the twin newborns was in fact the Little Mommy box and I only noticed once I got home that the newborns themselves, who are permanently dressed, have “little mommy” stamped on their clothes!!
Grr! What about the little daddies!!! Err not that Noah can read.
But the whole experience Irked me. What the fuck? Boys roleplay too, you know, and they like to be the daddies and it is 2006 why oh why oh why is “good marketing” to have the “girl toys” segregated from the “boy toys” and there to be no male dolls in the world (or at least dolls without dresses and bows; I did not look under the dresses so perhaps I am not progressive enough?) never mind /marketing/ the dolls /to boys/. Why do dolls come with toy strollers and toy bottles but not toy trucks or something? I’m sure they do in better toy stores and on the Internet and I should never, ever have gone to Toys R Us. But regardless -
Please don’t tell me “Free to Be You and Me” is still radical.
That’s what I was fuming as I pressed past all the movie tie-ins in a feminist snit to purchase my Little Mommy Twin Newborns and get the fuck out of there and return to the sanity of Internet shopping where I may have to wait two weeks and pay duty, but I’m sure if I look hard enough I can find little boy dolls certified to have come only from lesbian-of-colour egg donors implanted into surrogate mothers in order to have them adopted by bi-racial married gay men, which also have removable parts in case of gender reassignment surgery, so there you freaking Toys R Us (or at the very least I could have perhaps decided to try Uglydolls or something).
Anyways, here is my fine moment of parental gratitude coming up to offset the snitty consumer fit: so we get the dolls home and unwrap them and bemoan the little mommy printed bits and then show Noah and he, confronted with an object representing a small baby…
leaned over and patted its head and snuggled it. Just like both his parents do.
Awwwwww.
I also held the doll up to my chest and Noah signed “nurse” quite happily and today has brought a doll to me once to “nurse” the doll. Which kind of floored me; I knew he was making truck sounds for his trucks but I wasn’t really aware that err, imagination was actually, you know, starting.
Let’s hope for a world where his imagination doesn’t get too truncated by the need to conform to all this bullshit sexist freaking nonsense from the local Toys R Us. Next time, we head downtown to the insanely expensive stores.
Embarassment & shame, past and present
I took this shot at the playground yesterday. Noah and I are really enjoying the slide, swings, and bouncy things there. Unfortunately I got the bright idea to take him down the big big slide on my lap and forgot to check the top of the slide - resulting in a wet butt.
It’s been 25 years since I tied my jacket around my waist to hide a wet-slide-butt, but I did, with all the feelings of 10 year old shame coming back: recesses spent scraping dog poo off my shoe prior to notes going around about the smell. I had a rush of little system-kids through my brain, all babbling about their bad playground memories. It’s really the first time that anything we’ve done with Noah has triggered that kind of thing - the past rising up into the present in such a visceral way, wet jeans and checking my shoes a few times. And it was fine. I just sat on a bench and let it happen before parcelling Noah up and continuing to the library.
Because I figured as a mum, wet jeans were like a badge of involvement, if not foresight. :) I shared this story with my playgroup today and we laughed and laughed.
And then Noah bit (!! he hasn’t done that in ages) a kid, enough that one tooth went through the skin. I felt awful and then the real shame and embarassment hit and we left pretty fast.
I’m not sure I handled it well; in fact I’m pretty sure I didn’t - I scooped up the other kid and fussed and helped wash his arm (lifeguard on deck), but I didn’t reprimand Noah right then, and thus lost the moment. It simply wasn’t where my mind was at, at all. I think that may have bothered the other mums, but I’m not sure. We don’t have the group next week, so I’ll find out the week after (although I’ll call the kid’s mum that Noah bit, to check up on him.)
I did know Noah was tired, grumpy, and teething, but he was also playing pretty happily. From what I saw he didn’t bite out of frustration but just because a yummy looking arm came into view, but who knows what was going on in his mind? Next time even if I am having the mental break/fun of a lifetime (which I was, after this hellish week) I’ll just leave a little earlier. Because that was what would have prevented it, I think - when he gets tired right now because of those molars, he does start sinking his teeth into inanimate things. I just didn’t think he’d pick an arm.
And of course I’ll also keep working with him when he does bite, if he does, but I’m still a little stumped. This is a hard age that way: he needs redirection and some good boundaries and an alternative to biting (one of the other kids hugs agressively and kisses *hard*), but other than that kind of shaping I don’t have a lot in my bag of tricks.
I don’t believe in hitting or biting him; I don’t believe he would absorb much from a time out (and although I think time outs are good to calm down and for some specific things, and this one might qualify later one, I don’t really believe in them as a discpline-of-all-things despite all the Nanny-whatever shows). I know there’s no way to reason with him. I do wish I’d told him no severely right there though, because he does absorb it. I taught him to stop biting me in a day and he hasn’t bitten me since, but I can’t really borrow a kid for the same purpose.
Anyways then I left playgroup and he fell asleep in the car in about three minutes, so I drove through a drive-through for coffee and then over to visit with Emily. I find that is often my touchstone about parenting: it’s kind of an instant perspective-shifter, for me. Not in the sense of “oh I should let this biting thing go because at least Noah’s not dead” - I don’t think that does anyone a service - but in terms of remembering what’s important. It may be that I get kicked out of playgroup, but it’s not about me, not that way anyway. At the end of the day (I’m going to get kicked for using this phrase ;)) the question is did I do my best for Noah and for me and for people around us. I think my response was less than ideal active parenting, but good modelling - if someone’s hurt, help them! And that is me. I’m not someone who’s ever going to discipline first if blood is on the ground. I think it’ll be okay.
But it shocked me how shamed I felt by something Noah did (or rather, to be brutally honest, how it reflected on me as a mother). I have been the eccentric one almost my whole life, and I really thought that when it came to parenting I would at least have that going for me, a certain amount of fuck you around which to raise ramparts against that weird thing where mums treat their kids like they are proof of their goodness or hard work or something. Where I’d be able to laugh off the crazy things kids do (’cause they do) and not get my ego involved, and then leave that space for Noah. I do think part of my job is to keep him safe, help him develop empathy and respect for others, and steward him such that he develops true discipline - a moral compass for himself. And to socialize him on weird cultural quirks like salad forks and napkins and things. But for him, not to prevent embarassment for me.
I suppose I have an ideal in my mind that if embarassment were the price for something that is right for Noah, I would just sail through it.
I should have seen that this hasn’t been the case all along - joining playgroups, getting into the right classes, etc. - but the depth of my - well - stupid high-school level embarassment and concern that the other mums won’t like me anymore, like I dated the wrong boy or something - embarasses me. Because it was exactly that feeling that Noah bit and boo hoo now I’m the outsider.
But standing in the cemetary I saw that yes, that’s me. But if I breathe and centre I can be both that me - the one that is probably going to do backflips to try to stay in the playgroup - and the one that doesn’t then do something to Noah just for show, like a smack or a bite.
(One of the other mums did actually suggest biting him instead; apparently this works really well. I’m sure it does but it doesn’t meet my criteria of “leaving my dignity and the child’s dignity intact” - a philosophy cribbed from Barbara Coloroso and which I would violate if I were, say, teaching Noah not to run in the road in front of cars, but I can’t see doing as a lesson in not biting people.)
And now, here is the weird part. I think I mentioned before (I am too tired to go look and link) that I had put a little gong-thing over Emily’s grave so it would be there to ring. It’s stayed all summer, to my surprise ’cause it’s sort of one of those really stealable items. But I guess the lawnmower got too close to it at some point recently because when I got there today it looked like this. (I took this picture just now, cause I brought it home)
Bite marks and all.
gah, part whatever
Soon my posts will become more positive, really.
Yesterday I had a Pretty Smart idea and took my still not feeling well but well enough to want stimulation baby to the mall - the zoo lost out ’cause of lousy weather. We visited the pet store instead and had snacks and looked at other babies and he slept in the stroller for a while, and I had a coffee and a bit of a mental break looking for Hallowe’en costumes.
So things had improved a lot and he was feeling much better and we stopped at the playground and he had energy! and he came home and played really nicely with me and I was looking forward to a normal night.
And then Carl came home and took him for their reconnection routine which involves playing on the bed and Carl changing into regular clothes from his dry clean only work apparel and (you can probably see this one coming)…
Noah fell off the bed.
!!!
He was fine, wailed for about 3 minutes and then calmed down. He pretty much landed on a throw pillow that had been thrown on the floor. But of course we were both freaked (I was in the kitchen and honestly don’t know how I got from there to the bedroom) and of course…
… we had to do the wake him up every couple of hours all night.
Sigh. I’m tired. And getting a cold. And he’s right back to the transition to one nap, which creates cranky mornings!
On the plus (?) side this morning, Noah has never shown much interest in the stairs going from the basement rec room up to the first floor. Until today when he scaled the whole flight (crawling) in one go (I was right there, of course… we have a gate but have been leaving it while paying close attention, to see if he would in fact take the stairs). Anyone know how to teach them to go down on their tummies? :-)
Life: one; me: zero
I got most of my work done this weekend but damn I wish I’d gotten all of it done.
Because life has kicked my ass the past two days. Remember the inoculations Noah got last week? Well he’s got either measles or the mumps (very very mild cases) this week! And he has fever! Up to 102! And sore throat! And rashy bottom! And he cannot nap because even with Tylenol it makes him feel like crap, and he didn’t sleep midnight-four last night. And he’s sort of hyper alert so I’m watching for for the 1 in 100,000 or 1,000,000 (depending on whose stats) chance he gets meningitis from the shot. Which, I know, he won’t. But after Emily all these things make me a little freaky.
Oh and it gets better… I sort of think I broke my foot. Well I did something and I blithely ignored it ’cause it only hurt if I put weight on the top of my foot, like if I was kneeling and leaned on it or something. Until Carl noticed and said that wasn’t good and then I said hmm, you know, it is looking kind of funky. And I have intended to go in to get it looked at this week, except, see above.
So today I tried to get Noah to nap and I was cursed. Dogs barked at key moments. The phone rang. The workmen across the street dropped something huge. 2 pm and no nap! And no sleep last night! And deadline tomorrow! So I put Noah in the car, the sure-fire nap maker. And he was quiet for 15 minutes. And then he screamed bloody murder so I headed for home. And a police car pulled up beside me on that side and then dropped back and pulled us over - not for any violations but he checked the car seat and, more to the point I think, checked that we were both ok. Which, I intellectually appreciate but just wanted to get home. Plus Noah cried the whole time and the whole way home which is about the most he’s ever cried, ever. Certainly the most he’s ever cried not in someone’s arms.
Got home and called for backup because I was just getting spent, so my mother came over to play with Noah while I chilled out and sort of worked on my article (although with my mum I sort of have to be mostly around) and Noah slept for a whole 20 min.
And then… I got down on the floor and played with Noah and, guess what? Leaned on my foot and really fucked something up. The kind of pain that makes your lunch come up fuck up. And now it’s not so bad except for the first time it is hurting when I walk, and that scared me a bit ’cause I don’t want to be walking Noah around (the only thing that makes him happy) and go down.
Plus, ok, I’d been ignoring it in a kind of dissociative way (bad! I know) and so it suddenly occured to me it might be, you know, messed up and in need of attention. You start to see why as a teenager I was never sick until I was so sick I passed out, because I just ignored things. My only excuse lately is that I’ve been really busy and focused on Noah. I mean at least I didn’t do what Jen did over at MUBAR (but I’m scared to link to her twice in a row ’cause it might be, I don’t know, comment whoring or something. This whole thing about commenting to get traffic, etc., has me freaked out ’cause I comment willy-nilly and it probably looks weird, now. Or something. It’s like being in the 80s and wearing the wrong rubber jelly bracelets!)
So then I called Carl, who’d left at 6 am and is in the midst of his own work crisis and I said: please come home, please, please. So he did, and got home at 6:30! Which is amazing for days he is downtown.
And now he is walking Noah and I’m contemplating whether to go to the after hours clinic now or wait for tomorrow morning. I’m leaning to waiting because although I don’t like bringing Noah in the germs a) if he’s still sick I’d want him looked at anyway and b) all day he has screamed like a banshee if he gets it in his head to nurse and boobs are not forthcoming and leaving for hours seems like a kind of a bad idea.
So I think I’ll finish up this article and get it in and order *gasp* pizza.
Thank you blog for being here for the dump ’cause I have just had it, today.
Still never once have felt like yelling at Noah or anything similar. Like quitting my nascent job, a little, except… I like it. But that is another post.
Quickies
- I have been avoiding comments, email, and voice mail for days now (I read my official email but I have not opened my Hotmail box in some time. Eek.) I’m not sure why the sudden isolating but it’s on my must-get-over list for Monday. Which includes phoning the potential babysitter about potential schedules.
- My schedule is still kicking my ass, the working and baby and house and family and life thing. But in a good way. More on this later though.
- I have read some blogs and even commented, as a means of procrastination for work/bill paying/etc. Jen over at MUBAR mused on the commercial shift in mommy blogs. I have to say that one of the dis/advantages of being openly abnormal/crazy is that generally Wal-Mart does not invite you to their dos. Well, also not being very popular, something I have a love/hate relationship with. I love to have readers. I hate to have people I might want to meet as a regular person know that I’m multiple before I meet them (unless they’re specifically seeking multiples and not just, you know, cruising mommy blogs). Sometimes I leave my blog as a link and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I’m embarassed to be open about my/our multiplicity and wish I’d never done it, and sometimes I feel on a little mental health education crusade. All of which is to say, in this overlong bullet point, that AT LEAST I don’t have to worry about the ethics of being asked to hawk merchandise!
- Noah and I have had our first sign language argument and it was entirely my fault. We were out and he pointed out a bird and I showed him what I thought was the sign for bird (I think I confused it with chicken, but now it means bird in our house) - two fingers and a thumb at your lips like a little beak open and shut. So he laughed and kicked his legs and then about ten minutes later he did the sign for nurse, sort of, with his hand up out of the carrier. So I sat on a bench and took him out of the Ergo, and he got really mad. So I signed (and said) “no nurse?” and he said “nurse! nurse!” and I said “all gone nurse?” and he said “nurse! nurse!” and I tried moving him into a nurse position and he flipped out so I held him up and said, “what do you want?” and he signed “nurse,” and then scowled at me and then finally signed “more” and pointed up. There were more birds up there. What I’d thought was a ‘nurse’ sign was, in fact, sideways and his attempt at a beak, albeit a full-handed one. Poor kid has such a stupid mother. We did laugh quite a bit at those birds though.
The babysitter…
She is here, out in the living room with Noah, and I am in my office trying not to throw up. It’s rather ridiculous, but I really am in my office trying not to throw up. She does seem completely honest, experienced, and calm, all of which are important to me.
Still, I’m not sure she will work out for actual legitimate reasons. Partly scheduling, and partly that she’s very not attachment parenting friendly and I am suddenly realizing how AP our life is. I mean I don’t drop Noah in his crib for a nap and walk away. She doesn’t seem to have heard of any other method.
But we’ll see; I think at one year old he can probably handle someone handling him differently. I’m just not sure I feel okay with it. I’m not sure whether this is just my usual trust in the universe issues or whether it really is a deal-breaking style difference.
Man this is harder than I ever really thought it would be, on so many different levels.
Update: So I came out of my office to find that Noah was almost asleep in her arms (if I hadn’t come out right then, he would have been asleep in her arms). So much for concerns about style differences - they worked it out.
Now it’s just regular old concerns, and the scheduling issue. Well, we’ll see.
Fly me to the…
Today I sent in another 5500 words of the 11,000+ I will have written for work in the last three weeks. Just a few words more to go, which would have been already in had an interview not fallen through. Damn. I picked and chose which articles to interview for because I didn’t really have time to nail interviews for any of them, and then the one I put the time into is the one I now have to rewrite based on other research. Bah humbug. Although honestly I’m not sure anyone at the other end cares… but I do.
Then it settles down to a more normal pace. My brain is fried, fried, fried. On a positive note, payroll got in touch with me today so I am actually going to be compensated. Whee.
Noah kept trying to tell me something today. “Mmmm-no” “mmmmmum!UM!” “mmmmap!” “mmmmmm, mmmmm, mmmmmm.” Finally the poor boy was reduced to going and getting a block and bringing it to me and pointing at it, “Mmmmm!”
It was a picture of the moon. And he wanted a book read to him that has a moon prominently featured (not Goodnight Moon), which had been accidentally put out of reach. That was a little scary, the whole intellectual communicative process it took to get there. I feel like getting one of those boards they give to gorillas with the pictures. And I feel really kind of proud. And scared. He would have done this all morning because he obsesses over that which he wants. At 12 months. Yup, really need one of those boards.
Tomorrow the potential babysitter comes for a few hours to see how we all get along. Lynn already is not getting along with her (quietly) for no reason other than that Lynn is Lynn. I feel nervous and anal about my house, which is still a little trashed. And sure that a mere babysitter will never track down the moon for my son.
Today is San and Magdalynn’s 4th anniversary. Yay them! Yay all of us.