Statement of intent!
I intend to do this NaPoBloMo thing, but with a twist of my own: I’m going to try to post every day about something I really enjoy or something gratitude-worthy.
This is a hard time of year for me, and I’m sure there will be other types of posts as well, but that’s my goal: one post, per day, on nice things.
Today is the Hallowe’en rape anniversary for me. Oh right that also is in the d-x archives. No one needs a summary except I will note that it sometimes it is a little shocking what lengths a multiple system will go to to ensure the ’status quo’ is maintained. Even if that includes despositing one’s self/body in the middle of a bunch of drunken university guys.
But today is also a day of quite a lot of good cheer, this year.
When I find the camera cable I will download some Noah pics. He had quite the fancy dinosaur costume that my parents bought last year… that he refused to put on. So I stapled construction paper ears to a hat and drew whiskers on his face: voila! The all-purpose cat costume! He meowed as he left. (ETA: There we go!)
trying it out // trying
I’m just trying this template on for a bit. It doesn’t have the back/forwards buttons (I agree more nav is good) but it does at least have the recent posts down the side.
In other news, sometimes it is hard to be dyslexic. I was embarassed in a meeting last week when I conferenced my boss in wrong twice. (Going from a written phone number to the dial pad is especially bad for me.) Then today I discovered I tranposed the same numbers again when entering it into my cell phone.
(I think the story of my dyslexia is still lost in my d-x archives (really do need to get my husband to sort that database thing out for me so I can install them here). In brief, hit my head as a teenager & managed to shake up that part of the brain, to the excitement of local neuroscientists. Still cannot tell my left from my right and have a devil of a time spelling anything I couldn’t spell prior to that, transpose numbers, and so on. The best is if you ever catch me without my wedding rings on trying to figure out which hand is supposed to hold the pen.)
Conversations (the sun rises and sets upon…)
Yes I’m still working on a redesign. But life and work keep interfering! Although today some of my project team was fired and my boss did not sound completely sure this did not mean my project was summarily cancelled, so soon I may have way too much time on my hands, esp. since Montessori is paid to the end of Dec.
While my head implodes here are a few snippets of conversation. Brought to you by “my training session finished early; I did not plan to have time to do any more, yet I sit at my desk” and the number 7.
~~~
(My FIL flew into town for a conference, and then afterwards, graced us with a visit. Carl and Noah picked him up at the hotel)
Noah: Papa S(name) is HERE
Me: Yes, he came to visit us. On an airplane.
Noah: no plane!
Me: He didn’t come on an airplane?
Noah: Daddy FOUND Papa S.
Me: Daddy found Papa S?
Noah: On the GROUND
~~~
Noah: WHY dark?
Me: Why do you think it’s dark?
Noah: Sun in BED
Me: That’s right.
Noah: Why sun in bed?
Me: Why do you think?
Noah: Mummy made sun put jamas on!
Ah the power.
Work peep of dismay
… the analyst I’m working with is more dissociative than I am, I am sure. At least he never seems to design things as discussed.
weird memories
Carl is at home with the babe; he has done the heavy lifting on this one. I am at work torn to shreds about the need to be at meetings but also to be at home. It sucks.
Meanwhile, flicking around the ‘net in frustration while waiting for the meeting to start, I have been fascinated by a discussion over at Ask Moxie around a parent who found out a mysterious something about another parent and now doesn’t want her child over there.
It opened up a whole string of memories for me. The top weird one that’s fit for public consumption (if just barely) was being at a cocktail party when I was oh, about 8, judging from the pants in the memory, and being left, as us “good kids” often were, to hang out in one of the rooms - this one a rec room down in a basement that had a walkout to a backyard that overlooked the ravine. There was an exercise bike in the room which was a big excitement and also a shelf of books - sort of light birch, modern. That kind of home.
And I remember picking out The Story of O (I mean it has a great title) and reading it there, pretty much cover to cover. I just remember the sort of shock and shame of it, and that my parents came in to check up on me and were glad I was reading without checking out what I was reading, and went on to party. I remember hiding the book while going to get cocktail wieners and some kind of puff pastry thing and then coming back and reading some more, all totally red cheeked. And I vaguely kind of remember a sense that those things did happen to other people and that they were in books. Some kind of mixed confirmation that they were okay but shameful, or something.
I remember slipping the book back into its low-lying spot on the shelf. I don’t think I had gotten to the end and knew that she died; I reread it later on in my twenties and I didn’t remember having read it before, just that it was familiar, and I do remember hurling it against the wall and being enraged for no really good reason.
I wanted to record that and might pick up on it later.
Sick sick sickity sick
Noah’s sick again (hello, first fall in group care) and so Carl and I are discovering how poor our backup plans are for sick babies. (V. at other family’s house; my dad is having surgery next week so neither he nor my mother can be exposed to bugs.) Other than post-vaccination sick this is the first time he’s had a fever for more than 24 hrs (since Mon night, in this case). Telehealth said to just give Tylenol/Motrin and wait and see, but I took him down to the doctor anyway… who said to just give him Tylenol/Motril and wait and see. After having to wait for an hour.
Noah was pretty good about the whole “doc” thing, although he announced loudly in the waiting room about 2343 times “no doc’ my go home now mummy.” But he even said ‘ah’ and stuck his tongue out. I personally thank Caillou for this feat, since Caillou sticks his tongue out and says ah in “Caillou visits the doctor.” Which we also read 2343 times.
Still, it is something to see him grow up like that.
Any time Noah is sick with something new though, I do get really flipped out - the kind of background flipping out that makes small organizational challenges hard. Like I left $16 worth of both Tylenol and Motrin at the drugstore (but I did bring home the milk and the dishwashing detergent! :P)
With this fever comes a cough and a runny nose and at night he sputters and his nose occasionally rattles and whistles a bit and it’s the whistling that really wakes me up with That Sound in my head again, the sound of Emily’s breathing after we took her off the ventilator. What I think, after the adrenaline subsides a bit and I have fought down the urge to wake Noah up and prove to myself that he’s okay, and used the flashlight to check that his fingertips are not blue, is I’m never going to get over this, am I?
Probably not.
When I was SAHM or WAHM, it was okay to have these freakouts and get no sleep whatsoever and be disorganized and a mess. But now that I am in a key phase of my project and being a good 40 hr a week employee, the cracks feel gaping. Especially since I now work with people who have no clue about Emily (other than the vacation ask) and couldn’t care less. Yesterday I had to cancel meetings (never good when you are still freelance) and then talk on the phone with Noah playing, and I felt really lost and stupid.
It has actually been a while since I felt too messed up to join the Real World(tm). Or, just maybe, sort of wished I hadn’t. Why again did I choose excitement and ambition and financial solvency?
I realize some of this is growing pains too, around parenting and working. Probably almost all of it. But inside, I still have that jolt of fear that all the non-normality and dysfunction will suddenly become visible. And then, of course, the world will end.
National coming out day (US)
It’s national coming out day in the US so I thought I would mentional I’m bisexual.
We have most colours of the rainbow in our system. :)
Still reading the suggestions, and some moments
See below. :)
But while I am working behind the scenes, here are some moments - funny, and awkward.
The scene: inside our local public school. Carl and I taking turns voting, with some fanfare, and then we are all going to get doughnuts. Carl was mocking the doughnuts and I said “in the traditional Jewish cycle of life, when young boys study the Torah for the first time, they are given some sugar, to make it sweet for them. In our family the same thing goes for the political process.” So yes, we were talking it up. Carl votes. I vote. We go to leave.
Noah: “MY vote!” (”my” is Noah’s all-purpose first person pronoun)
Me: “Oh no, honey, you have to be 18 to vote. How old are you?”
Noah: “Eighteen!”
I laughed so hard.
Later, in the drive-through:
Noah: “DoughNUT!”
Me, kind of ignoring him and talking to Carl in the front seat: blah blah blah Canadian political system blah blah
Noah, louder: TIMS!
Me: Tims, what?
Noah: Tims HORTONs
oh my god… I’ve created a Canadian monster [for you Americans, Tim Hortons is sort of the Canadian fast-food experience in the way McDonalds stands for American globalization]
~~~
Today’s weirdness: the holiday schedule for some of 2008 is being put together. I still don’t know what my vacation accrual will look like once I am officially on staff, but I had to request Emily’s week off anyway. I went with the direct approach, but it feels really awkward… like I’m asking for something special or to jump the queue because my daughter died. But… I kind of am. I don’t think anyone would want me around that week working really. I get very weird and touchy. I couldn’t on very short notice (due this morning) come up with anything better than the truth.
I need to revamp my site and my blog
I just found a comment about where does the “contact” email go and eeek, it goes somewhere I never look. Because of all the exorcism spam.
This brings up the fact that I need to revamp the blog and my website. Also Use the Tags. I keep meaning to have a massive tag-fest and then never leave everything in “ramblings” again. Ha ha.
Anyways, dear readers. Anything you would like to see more of, see addressed in the changes, any wicked cool graphics or templates? Comment at will.
Thanksgiving
Yesterday was Thanksgiving, at least up here, and we had Carl’s mum here for the weekend and many delicious reasons for giving thanks.
We actually had the big meal on Sunday, because my rule of three day weekends attached to big-meal holidays is that you should have a day to restore peace to the kitchen. I served ham (it is easier, although less healthy), roasted sweet potatoes, baked beans, maple-roasted brussel sprouts with almonds, and balsamic-roasted italian vegetables (onion, zucchini, red pepper). In other words I threw everything into the oven. It all came out well. The brussel sprouts were a new recipe and it was quite delicious.
Noah is starting to get the hang of holidays, so he sang happy birthday to himself about 12 times. I mean there can be no other reason for celebrating, although he was grossly disappointed that there was pie and no CAKE. It is quite incredible to be getting to hear what goes on inside his head.
He makes jokes and calls them funny, right now, so if you follow him around you can hear something like: (points to hippo) “That cat! no, that no cat! FUNNY!”
Today though, he’s sick, and I am “working” from home. I got everything essential done and now I’m kind of stuck in a post-holiday, don’t-have-all-my-stuff fog. I am the poster child for why telecomuting may not always work. I am trying not to feel like crap about it, but we’ll see.
He really is sick though: fever of 100.5 (for Noah that is high) and he put himself down for a nap at 10:30, which is the really apocalyptic sign. This brings up so much fear in me and that’s the real root of the lack of work. I wish I had sick days so I could just use one.