clickmom

Matt is 13 today

Happy Birthday to my first baby.   I can't believe my little baby is 13!    He's a  teenager.   In my mind, he is always my little baby.

I can't believe how much my baby has changed in this past year alone.  A year ago my baby was so scared he was frozen.  Today my baby is a confident young man.  A year ago my baby still had a baby face, today he has a young man's face.  He has the first hints of a mustache, an occasional tiny little pimple and even his eye brows are becoming manly.  Baby's voice changed, baby's hands are bigger than mine, as are his feet, as is he.  I held my breath and waited almost 13 years for this to happen, cause I knew it would, and now I have to look up at baby, which is strange when I am saying something like "Yes, you HAVE to eat your string beans." but it is good, because growing up is the goal and it's my job to make that happen.  That is what I tell myself when I long for the little baby he used to be , the one I could carry around all day in the baby carrier.  Sometimes I look at my big baby and long to snuggle up to that little baby, just for another day or two, or even just for a few hours.

My baby makes me smile all the time.  He gives me so much joy.  I love the way he makes me laugh, seeing the humor in every day life.  When we are driving down the street and we get to giggling sometimes I want to freeze the moment, I want to slice off a little piece of time, hang it up to dry,  and put it in an envelope so I can pull it out again one day when he is far away and I can't just call down stairs for him or jump into the car and pick him up.  I treasure the time I have with him.  Sometimes I feel guilty when I want to keep my baby all to myself.  I'd like to keep him home from school, and drink coffee with him and chat and laugh.  I  feel good when I am  around baby.  My baby makes a good friend. 

He'd write a great blog one day.  He is a real life observer.   A minute with my baby will prove to you that he is a deep thinker and very spiritual being.  I love to eavesdrop when baby is talking philosophy with his hebrew teacher.  She asks him questions in an attempt to make him think and Baby always comes out with a real jaw dropping answer, the kind that makes one wonder exactly how old the guy in the kid costume really is.  Baby is more in touch with the ways of the world, or with what it is that makes people do what they do than most deep thinking adults.  One day Baby's teacher remarked that if only she was 25 years younger.... and I knew just what she meant.  Baby is really amazing.  He was always like that, full of a thoughtful kind of old soul wisdom.  I see that wise old man when I look into his blue eyes.  They look out at me from under his dark fringe of hair and they glow.  Baby's eyes can say it all to me, they say he cares, they say he does or doesn't believe, they say he questions what he sees, and they say he understands it all.

My Baby is kind and sweet.  Children love him.  Other Moms love him.  His brothers absolutely adore him.  I love him.  Happy birthday baby.

Love, Mom

why co-sleeping kids don't always wake up refreshed

fun with pilates

Pilates is just a new adventure every time I do it. I went yesterday and I am happy to say that my Tower of Power has finally emerged from it's deep restful sleep to aid me in an occasional Pilates move. My instructor interprets these little tiny advances my previously non existent abdominal muscles as excuses to add new and even more difficult exercises to my routine. Normally I say "Bring it on baby!" and pretend like I am really tough or something, but yesterday, I think I instinctively knew I was in trouble when she laid down on the torture device called the reformer to demonstrate what I would be doing next. A light bead of sweat broke out on my upper lip as I prepared to watch her go through the moves.

Imagine the look on my face when I saw this: First she laid down on her back and brought her knees up to her chest. Easy enough, right? Then she grabbed the straps that are over her head and attached to springs down by the feet and pullled up on them to loop them over her feet. Are you with me? On her back, knees up, straps that go over her head and the back down towards her feet into springs are looped around her feet. Then she talks the move through for me, hands down by the side, check, and then extend the legs into the air. So far so good. I can do this. Then bring the straight legs up, lift up the butt and lower back, and fold in half so that the only part of me that is resting on the reformer was my upper back and arms. Hahahaha. Knees are somewhere around the ears and feet are beyond the head. Hahaha again. Then, legs go back up and push through the heels, to roll the back down and return to the original postion of lying flat on my back, feet in the straps, with my knees drawn up towards my chest. Yeah, right!! She did the move twice, explaining herself as she went along, and then she turned to look at me. She cracked up. She can read every thought I have on my face, and the thoughts were going something like: "If I make a run for the car, headstart, fifth spot down the second aisle, my keys are handy...." and mostly "Is she smoking crack?" and "Lift my WHAT in the air?" But I was at pilates, where I pretend to be real tough and I said, "If you say so..." got onto the reformer, assumed position and secretly wondered what part of me she was going to have to yank on to get my butt off the reformer. I wondered if I would liable if she threw her back out trying to make this happen. I wondered if I would be the first to fall off of the reformer. She slips the straps around my feet and what do you know? I did it!! And aside from suffocating under my massive bossom and barrel type belly while all bent over upside down , I could have stayed there forever just enjoying the lower back stretch.

Being one to hold a grudge, I did get back at her 5 minutes later while on the tower, I let one slip while she was right in my personal firing line, (seriously- it was an accident!!) but then she paid me back for that with some ring of fire inner thigh torture.

All in all it was a good session.

a little bit of Evan

Typically I try to grocery shop with as few kids along as possible. Occasionally I have to have my two in part time school along with me. In those emergency situations Matt can always hang out at the tables and snack with Josh while I run quickly through the store tossing groceries into the cart. The other day I shopped with Evan. Oh Evan, how I love Evan. Evan loves to eat. He loves to eat all kinds of food. He feels sad when offered a paltry sandwich, he would much prefer something like hot Indian food in his lunch box. I thought I would share with you some of the items I come home with after shopping with Evan, items that I would not necessarily have in my cart on any other given day: dates, quiche, black pepper coated salami, pomegranite juice, california rolls, coconuts, and any other interesting novel new fruit that happens to be on display, and most off all, any and every single flavor of all natural toothpaste available for purchase.

Seriously, I can't wait to see this kid grown up.

waiting for King Chuck

treat treat treat

When we took Devil Dog to the local dog training school, the philosophy was clear. Give the dog a treat, treat, treat every time they do what you ask them to do. Later on we were suposed to be able to wean the dogs off of the treat, treat, treat. Sometimes, after a long and difficult evening with the Devil Dog I have a little PTSD and can actually swear I hear the instructor saying "Good Dog, treat, treat, treat." in her animated goo goo baby dog voice. shudder. I pretty knew from the get go that this approach wasn't going to work for Devil Dog. Pretty much she was only going to do something if she wanted to do it and there would be no fooling her with a treat, treat, treat. Eventually the night before dog school became steak night in this house because if I brought a bag of chopped up steak and cheese to dog training school I had a slim chance of making the Devil Dog perform. I hated dog school.

Fast forward a year and a half and sure enough Devil Dog, who has the whole family wrapped around her dew claws, still expects a treat, treat, treat for doing all the routine things in life that we were supposed to be able to wean her off the treats for doing. Every night when we crate her we toss a treat in as we happily chirp "Crate time" because if we just say "Crate time" and have no treat action she will approach the crate, sniff the air for treat residue and give us the look which says "Not a chance I am going in there without my treat you big treat dispensers". So, we toss.

One of Devil Dogs other endearing traits is her unwillingness to enter the house without being bribed with a treat. When she didn't automatically come when we called her in from the yard, a well meaning friend with a well behaved dog suggested we say "Devil Dog want a treat?" and that way she would come. It worked like magic. Now the Devil Dog is old enough to ask, beg, scratch, and bark to go in or out by herself, and when she decides she wants to come back into the house she will bark or scratch and then stand at the open door until we offer up the treat, even though we haven't called her in and coming in is her own idea. Eventually she'll just relax into a sit or a lie and calmly wait us out. When she has the munchies she likes to go in and out a lot. It gets kind of old after a while so sometimes I leave the door open and try to ignore her for as long as possible. This would be fine if we lived in a temperate bug free climate, but we don't. Sometimes the icy air flowing over my naked toes is all I can take before I go berserk. Soon, we'll be trying to defend ourselves from all the mosquitoes. This is what the Devil Dog looks like as she settles down and waits for her treat treat treat.

venting

Warning: My feelings about the health and well being of friends and family will be discussed in the following post. This blog is a place for me to write about my feelings. I own these feelings, I am entitled to these feelings and they are not open for discussion. If it might bother you to read about my feelings just stop reading now.

You have been warned.

All is not well here in Stepford.

My SIL is continuing to recover from her brain surgery and has regained a small amount of feeling on her side. She has returned to work part time. She needs to work. Too much of her identity is wrapped up in her work. Her illness and my lack of response to her illness has put an obvious strain on our already strained relationship. Truthfully, I don't give a damn about having a relationship with her, it just makes pretending harder. That is what we do, we get together and do a pretend thing, and then we don't see each other for a while, and then we pretend again, etc.... I still worry about her kids, and that one day they will end up orphans. Did I ever mention that her husband isn't entirely healthy either? When she married him 8 years ago he was a chain-smoking diabetic with high cholesterol who needed a pace maker. Now he is a chain-smoking diabetic with high cholesterol who has a pace maker. See why I worry?

I am still worried about the mysterious spots they saw in my little sisters head. I think about them maybe being MS all the time. Really, the last thing she needs is MS. (As if any one needs a diagnosis like that!) She is healing well from her butt surgery. She had to take a lot of pain killers though, and I am thinking that I will suffer for a long time before I ever go down that route. My Grandma is as confused as ever, and when we visit her she no longer remembers that we were just there, even on the same day, and I get angry that I make the effort even though the kids hate visiting her and then I get no credit for it. Grandma is in such psychic pain that it hurts just to see her.  I feel guilty for vowing never to become her.

Boops is maybe the only one around her that I am worrying less about, she is slowly but surely regaining some of the self esteem that her husband managed to chip away over the years. I hear it in the way she is beginning to handle him and see through some of the head games he tries to play on her. He is one crazy piece of work, and she is better off with out him. I'd still love to introduce him to my baseball bat though, I mean, don't mess with my babes, y'know? A lot of anger still happening there.

I do still worry about B. She is out and about, I see her walking around my neighborhood all the time, but I am haunted by what happened to her. Maybe it was because she reached out to me and leaned on me a little during her illness, but I just feel like I want to wrap her up in a blanket and take care of her.

And now for the two more complicated illnesses that are on my mind... Peanut's lumpectomy was not as cut and dry as just a lumpectomy. They found more microscopic cancer cells and are doing a mastectomy next week. It isn't the cancer that has me so upset here, I feel confident that it will be removed and she will be fine, It is the way she chooses share or not share the details of her illness. In a nut shell, my feelings are hurt. Peanut told me that she is afraid that I am going to fall to pieces and she doesn't want me to. So she is avoiding me. She let's me know what her plans are, but she isn't sharing her feelings with me. Now, I know she is going through something that I have no idea how difficult it might be, but she is closing me out and my feelings are hurt. This is bothering me a whole lot. I happen to think I am a very good listener, and want to be there to support my friend. Peanut's biggest fear is that I'll try to visit her in the hospital. Hurt, confused, I feel it all, but I just can't say anything because every one knows that in the game of life cancer trumps feelings and for the moment here it is not all about me, it is about her.  It just isn't the way I would handle things if I were sick.

My Mom is the new biggest concern in my life. If you read the post below you will know that there were cancer cells in what was removed ( she can't remember which part of what they removed). I just can't even barely think of what to say about this because really, I am not sure how to spell a primal scream. Just imagine me primal screaming, over and over.

SO, I am sitting here thinking about all of the above and who do I reach out to? My old friends cocoa bean and sugar. I ate so much last night that I still felt sick this morning. And you what? The food just wasn't doing it for me. No matter how much I ate the feelings were still there and I was still anxious. I wanted the nice drugged out feeling I used to be able to get from food, but instead ended up with a racing heart from the all sugar. No matter how much I tried to slow down and enjoy what I was doing, I wanted that sensuous food experience to happen to me,  I just couldn't. It was yummy in a quick and easy kind of way but there was no comforting or nurturing going on by the food. The food abandoned me!! Really, aside from ending up nauseous witha an aching stomach I got nothing from the food. In one way a total disappointment, but in a much healthier way a lesson I need to take to heart about finding a new and helpful way to handle my overwhelming emotions. I need to find a non-oral way of handling stress. Now I have to get my food act back together again today, and it is worse because what I really need to do is add some more restrictions to my diet and get off all white and refined foods, at least for a month or so. I have to kick this yeast thing I am battling, you know the condition that causes me to crave all the sugar in the first place! The timing sucks over here.

bad news

So, it turns out that when they removed the "mass" from my mother, it was sent off to a highly regarded hospital for biopsy. Mom told me yesterday that the biopsy did find cancerous cells. Mom's doctor suggested more treatment might be necessary. Mom's surgeon insists that there was no cancer and that the lab is confusing the infection and inflamation for more than what it was. I asked Mom to get another opinion, she said she liked what the surgeon said.

I am struggling with the realization that my Mom might just prefer to ignore the lab results and take a chance with her life than go to one more doctor and find out some bad news.

entertaining the little guys

We had Josh's birthday party this evening.  (Yes, it's  a month late)   I had left EVERYTHING for the last minute.   When I picked Matt up from school I asked him to help me come up with some games for the kids to play.  Matt, being a fun loving kind of guy who is really nice to little kids, designed a variety of Bat-Man themed games just for Josh and his friends to play.  Matt made his own "Pin the bat-a-rang on the Joker" game, as well as a pillowed version of musical chairs, another game which involved tossing beanie babies into baskets, among others.  As the guests arrived, it became clear that the young boys had way more energy than what was required to play these games.  The rambunctious young men just wouldn't listen to my sweet thoughtful preteen, who was trying with all might to entertain them.  They did how ever listen to big brother Evan, who amused them for a good 30 minutes by screaming "Dog pile on Evan!" and allowing them to jump on his prone body.  They had a good time.

clickmom conquers clutter (almost)

I did a stupid thing today. I have had to do a year or so of cleaning in the past few days because Josh is having a birthday party here tomorrow. One of the scarier aspects of my home is the kid's playroom. It is inconveniently located behind the garage on the bottom floor. This means that I never have to accidentally see it and that I can completely ignore the tornado effect my kids have on their toys. That is precisely what I have been doing for a long long time. But, Josh thinks having his party down there is a great idea. I was forced to confront the demon. It wasn't easy. I had to pretend to have an invisible prison guard with a bully club behind me forcing me to throw things away. Typically I feel the need to sort. I hear myself thinking things like: "These are quality toys, someone could love and appreciate them." or "I know the kids would have fun with this one if only I could find all the pieces and put them in a big rubbermaid container, and always make sure they get returned to their special place on the shelf..." You know, the things that are never going to happen around here.

NOT TODAY, today I shoveled, well, I would have shovelled but my garage is in chaos competition with the playroom and I can't find the shovel, so I dust panned the toys up, picking out only a few really exceptional kinds of toy and threw the rest away. The kids will never know!! As of this morning I had 3 contractor bags full of garbage from the playroom. I had just finished loading up the fourth bag and was running, well I couldn't actually run due to the amount of stuff a contractor bag can hold, so I was slowly dragging the contractor bag (and my camera) down the driveway only to discover that the garbage men showed up 2 hours early and I couldn't visually record my victory over stuff. Bummer.

But that didn't stop me, oh no, this time I was determined. Oh praise the power of potential humiliation. For honestly, the playroom was part of the reason I am totally lame about asking friends of my kids over for playdates. It had gotten BAD down there. Once I had rediscovered the carpet and there were only a few more shovel/dust pans full of clutter on the floor, I attempted to dislodge some stuff from under the treadmill. This is when Evan sugested I get on the treadmill and put it up on an incline so the crap underneath it would be more acceptable. I thought "What a good idea!" hopped right on , raised it up, and realized that I didn't want the kids reaching underneath. SO I asked Evan to get on the treadmill while I cleaned out the area underneath. I am not sure when Evan got off the treadmill, but when 20 minutes later I attempted to stand on it in order to reach something it was still moving and I ended up flat on the belt smashed between the treadmill and the wall, screaming "Turn it off, turn it off!!" That is when I knew I was way too tired, well that and when I put my favorite pan on the stove to warm it up and forgot about it, and needed to take a break.

Tomorrow is the party and I still have to figure out what I am going to do to entertain the kids until the pizza comes. I guess I can always get out my balloon animals.