New Years Blah Blah Blah

Tonight is New Year's Eve, officially the worst holiday ever.  The only positive memories I have of this day are from my tween years, before the adult illusions of a spectacular evening had set in. My sister and I would go to my grandma's house and enjoy a corny evening of Dick Clark, make party hats out of tin foil, and if we were lucky, get a shot of Grandma's homemade kalua. In our hearts we knew we were just biding our time until the really fun years would begin.

From that point on, New Year's Eve has always been a holiday of great disappointment; of nothing to do, of reservations forgotten, of wrong shoes and wrong dresses in awkwardly wrong evenings.  Nothing has ever been as magical as a movie.  By this point in my life, I realize that I avoid celebrating New Year's at all.  I hate resolutions because I never keep them, I hate having any kind of expectations for an evening, because I'm always disappointed. Okay, I'll admit that celebrating 2000 nine hours ahead of my fear-mongering countrymen was somewhat enjoyable.  When I could call my mom after midnight and say "see mom, the phones are still working," it was a pretty satisfying moment.  But then my husband insisted on going to downtown Nantes to watch fireworks or something festive and cold, and I just wanted to snuggle up with my baby in my jammies and celebrate by mentally savoring my life.
I'm so thankful. I want to expect nothing and be thankful for everything. Tonight I danced with my kids in the kitchen to the Black Eyed Peas, drank champagne in the crystal flutes from my wedding, played wii in my Christmas jammies with my baby on my lap and my new dog at my feet.  It's 10 o'clock and I'm not staying up until midnight. Good night 2010.

Little Orphan Annie

When you meet a child who is homeless or severely neglected, they often have a very un-childlike quality about them.  They are somber little adults, with big adult thoughts of survival and mortality in their heads.  When I adopted Belle, a seven month-old puppy from the pound, I was expecting a fair amount of puppy behavior like chewing, and romping.  After now three days of care, play and good food, she is finally starting to behave a little like the child she is and actually playing with her toys.  She was so mellow that first night that I was actually starting to worry about her health, and now seeing her grab one of my bras and wrestle it to the ground like the beast that it is, I'm relieved.  She is so thin that her hip bones and should blades stick out through her fur.  This mama started feeding her pretty aggressively from the moment she crossed our threshold, and paid the price in piles of steamy badness in my living room.  I think we've got the food and poop situation under control now, and she is about the sweetest, dreamiest dog I've ever met.  Who could have not wanted this being?  Why would anyone neglect and abandon this amazing, sweet, intelligent dog.  All I know is I'm glad she's now ours, steamy piles, chewed bras and all.

A Face Only a Mama Could Love

Here she is folks, my new baby. This isn't the one I posted a picture of yesterday...  I drove 30 minutes tonight to see her with my children, the empty tank light taunting me and the rush hour traffic encroaching upon me.  When we arrived, they told me she couldn't be seen because she had just returned from the vet where she spent the night after being spayed.  I was fairly persistent, and they let me go out to the kennels to look at her.  After passing ten anxious, barking, crazy pitbull terriers, there was Bell, anxiously barking and running all over her kennel.  We went back in and asked again if we could just pet her, we had driven 30 minutes to see her.  Finally, a nice young man relented and walked us out there, explaining that she was very thin and very neglected and really needed a good home.  I could tell that she had a bond with the guy, as she kept hiding under his arm and leaning against him.  When she saw that I was on her side, she leaned into me to, craving protection.  Her face is wirey, but her body is soft and fluffy.  Her big feet reveal another facet of her genetic makeup beyond terrier and spaniel.  I think we're going to have a sort of big dog on our hands, but a gentle, sweet one. She still needs to rest up from her surgery and finish her medication, but in a few days she'll be home with us. Thank you, Petfinder.com for making a great way to match animals with their people.

Doggy Jail

This is my current obsession.  Not this particular dog, but finding a dog to adopt for Christmas.  This little guy is named Lenny, and I just saw him on Petfinder this morning.  Is he the cutest thing ever?  I say obsession because when I decide to do something, it sort of consumes me.  Only the enjoyable things.  I'm sure my husband wishes that house cleaning consumed me, but alas, notsomuch.
On Saturday we met a sweet dog at Petco named Louie, a short fat rat terrier who wanted to play with my kids so badly he was going nuts.  When we went to the shelter to see him again, he was all over the place, and so hyper I didn't think I could manage him.  That same day I met Rudi, a gorgeous little Japanese Chin, who was mellow and delicate, and let me walk him around the yard---but what would my bruiser toddler do to delicate Rudi?  Another neighboring shelter has some puppies that just arrived, so I made myself read about life with a puppy to see if that is even something I can fathom right now.  I have been trolling Craigslist for dogs, and almost drove 2 hours away yesterday to rescue a gorgeous untrained golden retriever .
Why am I even contemplating another responsibility so badly right now?  It almost feels like a cosmic overthrowing of my better judgement. There is an animal that needs us this Christmas, and I need to find him.

Laughing is my Favorite

Sometimes I get very discouraged by the group of people I'm affiliated with---and we're not just affiliated; if you're a Christian, no matter the denomination, you are my brother or sister in Christ.  We're spending ETERNITY together.  I'll be honest, there are many Christians that I hope are busy enjoying a different part of heaven when I get there, because they bum me out.  My passion for my people has recently be reignited by a guy I've never met nor side hugged and a great little book and blog called Stuff Christians Like.  Jon Acuff, your musings tickle my funny bone like nothing has in a very long time, and I really needed it during an election year.

Why do we take ourselves so seriously?  We are a strange bunch.  Admitting this doesn't make God any less amazing or loving; it is really more amazing that he still loves us despite our shenanigans.  I'd like to pick out a couple of examples from the book, but for some reason the intense humor gets lost in translation. This weekend my husband and I were giggling at the Ninjas, Half and Halves, and Pound Cakes at our worship service and counting how many times God's favorite word was used in prayer. You just have to check it out for yourself.   

Wanderlust

Back in 1987, which feels like both yesterday and another lifetime altogether, I spent a year abroad in Belgium as a foreign exchange student.  Something took hold of me a few years before, when I was pretty deeply entrenched in teen angst and rebellion, a wanderlust that I have been unable to shake even to this day.  I had always been one of those people who wanted to be somewhere else, live a different life, experience something entirely new.  How many middle schoolers beg their mothers to move to another city?  Well that was me, and by 15 I had just enough French under my belt at school to know that I was wired for languages---I wanted to travel the globe.  Belgium was my first taste of the expatriate experience. It was both a transformational trial by fire and a gift.  Belgium stripped away my persona and its costume and left me to search for true identity and meaning.


Here is what I love the most about the interweb.  I have started to craft a memoir about my year in Belgium, and I can look up pictures to jog my memory.  This is Tavier, the first village I lived in.  How far away from high desert Nevada could you get?  Within the first few days, I had already attended a wedding reception inside the walls of a centuries old dairy and eaten Saturday supper with a group of the villagers.  It was an amazing year. My sister joked that I am trying to single-handedly destroy the foreign exchange program when I told her a couple of the things that happened to me that year. I guess it's weird that there are things I've never told anyone--not her, not my parents or my husband even. As I think about it, I believe that I returned home so entirely different that I had to work really hard to pretend I was still the same.  But I never was.  I was totally "Exchanged". 

The Gang's All Here

It's amazing that I can still eat after what I had to clean up this morning, and yet here I am, chowing on my cold cereal, ignoring briefly the screaming toddler at my feet.  I swear, I'm not cut out for this. But when I think about all the little crises I deal with on a daily basis and realize that we're all still alive, especially these little people God mistakenly entrusted to me, I think that maybe I could do anything.  I could climb Mt. Everest, except for the freezing my butt off and the lack of oxygen.
I know that my kids are destined to do great things in this world, because God took a young woman with no desire whatsoever for motherhood, and gave her such a yearning that she could not let it go until each one of these people was birthed on the planet.  You may look at me with my 5 kids, one carried kangaroo style and one looking like she could be the mom, and think "that poor woman."  She must be Catholic, or crazy or Mormon, or stupid, or too lazy to use birth control.  The truth is that I had to pray and wait for each of these blessings, and lose a couple on the way.  Each time we integrated another person into our family, I just felt that the picture wasn't complete.  

They are all here now, and the fog has lifted.  I now clearly see the challenge set out for me and it is terrifying and exhilarating.  Dealing with all of these bodily fluids is the easy part---we're moving into crushes and peer influence, and I'm facing the ghosts of my adolescent past.  How much do I share?  How soon?  Already my eldest is amazingly brighter, prettier, stronger, wiser than I was at that age. But I've got boys riding past our house on their bikes, texing, and requesting friendship on Facebook.  I need another cup of coffee.

Poopscepade

It all began so innocently.  After being up with Juju at 3am, I just wanted to grab a couple of extra minutes of sleep.  He crawled out of my bed and started toddling around the kitchen.  I could hear him in there talking to himself and calling out to siblings to wake up.  My body was in one of those uber relaxed sleepy states, and I told myself, "he's fine, he'll find the legos on the floor and play for a little bit.  A few minutes later he came back to the bedside and tried to climb up.  Having some difficulty, he said "Uh oh."  I took pity on him,  leaned over to pull him up, and got an armful of nasty stinky poo.  Holy crap, indeed...it was everywhere.  All over him, all over the sheets (because apparently this is why he crawled out of bed in the first place), tracked through the house.  With no coffee on board, I was at a total disadvantage.

Game plan: throw baby in bath, brew coffee, strip sheets, do detail.  I thought I had it all under control, when I came around a corner and found it smeared on the floor and my treadmill.  I think my husband put him up to this. At this point, I just want my mommy, but if I called her she'd just laugh and remind me of the time I did the same but worse.  Moral of the story? Don't sweat the small stuff.

The Boy

I questioned whether to write about this or not, but thinking of another brave mom who writes about it all, I'm forging ahead.  I want any mom out there to know that her instincts are the best source of understanding for her individual child--as long as she's not smoking meth or spaced out on the disco biscuits.  For months I've been angsting over the state of my son's brain, educational health, emotional development, etc.  I'm no stranger to highly spirited children, for all of mine appear to fall somewhere in that category, but I am a mom of 3 girls before my boy, so I was never sure if I was dealing with issues of gender or true developmental delay.  And I'll go ahead and say it, even though the big boys don't want to hear it, you are all a little delayed.  That was just for me so I could chuckle.

When I put my little man in preschool this year, it was with a certain amount of urgency as he was talking much less at 3 than my daughters had.  All year I kept taking his educational pulse with his teachers, and he made huge strides.  But here we have arrived at the end of the year, and I find myself still struggling to get him to follow simple directions.  It's as if he has ear plugs in, or he seriously cannot pull his attention away from anything that he's focusing on or he will die.  And if we do pull him away, it's full melt down mode, and my husband is all with the tough love and time out in the corner.  Something just doesn't seem right though, and everyone is telling me it's just a "boy thing".  I don't want to be the ostrich mom with her head firmly planted in the sand, wearing a big blinged out necklace that says "boy thing".  After a recent birthday party where all the other boys managed to eat their cake at the table without screaming about sitting in one certain seat, and where the other boys didn't have melt downs because they couldn't open the present they were giving to the birthday boy, I decided that I was going to have my son evaluated.  I put it on my "to do" list, and promptly procrastinated.  One month later God arranged for the school district to provide free early childhood screening at my daughters' school, so I had to go.  I seriously almost turned the car around. None of us wants to admit that there might be something wrong with our child.  Further proof of this is that during this 4 hour window of opportunity, only 3 or 4 other parents arrived at the screening, all with their adorable quirky boys in tow. Sigh.

My son demonstrated his "self directed" behavior very clearly at the screening and had a great time lining up a bin of cars according to color while I talked to an angel of an autism specialist for our school district.  Both the psychologist and the speech/language therapist agreed that if they could only get him to respond to the questions, they knew he would score higher.  They assure me that there are no short buses in Douglas county, but I'm still crying at the thought of putting him on the bus at all. I still haven't even had the IEP meeting to discuss what my son might need to get him ready for kindergarten, but I'm always one to run in front of the horse I'm supposed to be riding.

Seventeen Years of Wedded Life

There's this person in my life,
who's always reaching, kissing, enjoying me.
Filling me with joy, and likewise anger.
There's this person, my love for whom
I can't explain.  He came upon me suddenly.
He came and would not leave.
My love showed me what never leaving felt like.  What clinging tight to love might bring.
My love is now my husband,
here to stay, forever holding, cherishing,
fighting for me.
My husband, one I never thought would come,
happened on me suddenly, and here he will stay.

"Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy as unyeilding as the grave.  It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame.  Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away." (Song of Songs 8:6-7)

I wrote this poem for my husband when we wed...it's rough, and so were we.  I think we are a testament to what tenacity in a marriage can bring.  

Say it Ain't So

She's far away, yet I feel her in my heart right now, right up in my throat actually. He's practically a stranger to me, the great guy I chatted with at our 20th reunion who bought me beer and even glasses of water that I didn't ask for but he knew I wanted.  His name is Bob, and he is battling lymphoma, a battle I NEVER thought he wasn't going to win when I first read about it on her blog.  Her name is Leah, a friend from school; the friend who brought a jello salad spiked with vodka to the 8th grade picnic.  Who knew vodka messed with how jello set up?  Leah threw up all over me in the upper bunk of her parents trailer days later from a continuation of the same shenanigans we were dabbling in.  I've got more on her, but that's for another time.  Outside of a strange 3-way call a mutual friend set up and surprised me with around 2001, we had no contact until we were helping plan our 20th high school reunion.  Since then we've connected through the usual means of the new millenium--Facebook, e-mail, blogging.  And her blog has been amazing and painful to read these past several months as her husband was diagnosed with lymphoma, treated, in remission, sick again, seaking a risky transplant, and now given weeks to live.  This just isn't how it was supposed to play out, yet she continues to write and let us into her most vulnerable places.  We're all still hoping he is going to beat this thing....we're rallying, we're hoping, we're praying, we're sending positive vibes, whatever.  But last night's post was the one that sent us all to our collective knees.  The image of her curled up miserably on her "chofa" at his hospital bedside contemplating--preparing for--the reality that he was leaving this planet and she was staying here alone.  Just typing the words makes my whole body churn.  Did I mention THIS ISN'T HOW THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO GO?  I feel us all crowded in her hospital room with her, we're shoulder to shoulder, butt to butt watching, aching as we watch, and unable to change the outcome or lift the burden from her.  If I could but carry her pain and sorrow for her one hour right now, I would gladly.  I can't do very much, but I can stand in the gap praying for an 11th hour miracle, pray for whatever the future holds for this family and my dear friend, pray that she would have a peace in her heart right now that only God can provide.
If you're reading this, please keep praying for Bob.  It's not over until you know who sings.

My GAD is acting up

It's that gnawing, anxious sensation, just below the surface of emotion.  That feeling like something terrible is about to happen, or I've done something, somehow, that I need to make right---but I have no idea what.  It's a feeling of dread. It's not something I can tell people is going on, because it almost like it's imaginary, or not linked to reality.  When I try to tell my husband it's happening, I get the rolling of the eyes or on a good day I get his best stab at encouragement. He's used to hearing the phrase, "if I should die in the night, " or "do you think someone at the Del Taco could have poisoned us?"
  When I was a kid, I remember telling my dad about it and explaining how I just had this awful feeling about something bad, and like any good Catholic father, he told me it was my guilty conscience and I probably did something wrong.  In high school when I medicated myself with cannabis, I remember looking out my window thinking that the world would end at any minute.  And I felt very alone.
I'm not alone anymore, in fact I'm surrounded by people all of the time, people who want and need things from me, which makes the GAD act up.  I also have lots of commitments, ones I made when I felt fine, but now they make me want to crawl in bed.  And that is one thing that eases it for a while.  A good nap and a do-over.  I think my GAD is hormonally driven, so I guess as long as I'm still a girl I'll be battling this on some level.  One of my biggest fears is that my daughters will/have inherited this, and sometimes I see shadows.
So here's my "mantra":  "Do not be anxious about anything.   But in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God, .  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."  Phil 4:6.

Third Time's a Charm

I learned a great lesson from my baby this morning.  He's hit that great phase where rifling through drawers brings hours of entertainment.  I figure it's worth it to allow him to explore the bathroom drawer (with all safe contents, people) while I take a long-deserved and necessary shower.  After a few rounds of "coucou" through the glass, he set about the business of opening the drawer and playing with the 10 containers of dental floss (ask Hubs about this one) and multi-pack of tooth brushes.  He successfully opened the drawer, then moments later shut it on his precious, chubby baby finger.  Not a lot of crying, but a look of distress, before he managed to pull his finger out.  Immediately, he set about trying to shut his finger in the door again.  Seriously? I tried talking him through it, then  sort of chuckled to myself, wondering how many times he would do this before he figured out where he shouldn't be putting his fingers while playing with the door.  The third time it was a little harder for him to dislodge his finger, and then after that I noticed he didn't do it again.  Hmmm, so maybe there is something to the saying "The third time is a charm".  Are we wired by the Great Creator  to need a little finger slamming to get the picture?  What have I been slamming my fingers in lately?  What have you been slamming your fingers in lately?

In Loving Memory

Too many times I have words I desire to speak and write and I wait too long, the moment passes, and life moves on.  Never again.  Life is too short to not say the good things you know you ought to say, even if you're not sure people are listening.
Twenty years ago my dear Aunt Carole took me out for pizza and a conversation I'll never forget--and I'm eternally grateful.  I can't say that she led me to Christ right then and there, but she definitely put some bread crumbs down for me to make my way out of the thick, dark, woods of my life. A few months later, after I had asked Christ into my life, God answered a prayer through her by bringing a most precious gift to me, my first Bible.  I had not asked her, but I had asked God, and Carole had so lovingly picked out the most beautiful pink leather Bible with my name engraved on the front.  She told me how to pray each time I sat down to read it, and soon I was spending entire days in my pajamas devouring everything I could from that book.
Although Carole had always been my aunt, and going to her house as a kid in the summer was always an extra special treat, it was our relationship as Christian sisters that developed in my adulthood that I will cherish always. When I stayed with her in Denver, we could be saying goodnight to one another and end up talking about Jesus until midnight. And when she wasn't talking about Jesus, she was making me laugh until I thought I'd pee my pants. Oh how I'm going to miss hearing that laugh and seeing her smile at me like I was one of her own.
My sweet aunt went to Heaven two weeks ago.  We buried her on a snowy morning, each of us placing a red carnation on her casket. As I laid that flower down, I thanked God for letting me have Aunt Carole in my life.  I want to gather up everything both amazing and plain about her, like a bouquet of flowers, and keep it in a snapshot I can look at.  She was both bossy and humble; she was a great force with an amazing gentleness.  With a multitude of friends, she made each one of them feel very special and loved. As my Uncle Ben said, she had a lot of favorites. Carole was very human and real, but she was also a life completely transformed by Christ.  

Seven Habits of Highly Ineffective People

I think I've found how I'm going to earn my millions...

Habit 1: Don't do anything at all until you've had at least one cup of coffee.  Sit and stare at the table if you have to.

Habit 2: Be sure to start off your day by checking your e-mail and updating your Facebook status.

Habit 3:  Whenever on Facebook, take the time to peruse the family pictures of at least one person you never talk to, maybe don't even know.  If you're the gaming type, take some quizzes and work on your farm.

Habit 4:  Make a list of projects you need to do around the house.  Start some of them, and then go run some errands.

Habit 5:  Take time throughout the day to look at your "to do" list, make note of what still needs to be done, then make yourself a snack.  While you're eating, check your e-mail and everyone's Facebook status.

Habit 6:  Keep your laundry moving.  Wash it, fold it, and then place it on every available flat space in the house.  While placing your laundry, look at any half-done projects and make plans to finish them later.

Habit 7:  When you feel utterly overwhelmed with everything you need to do and the people needing you to do it, make every attempt possible to take a nap and drink another cup of coffee.

Revolution

My only New Year's revolution (misspelling intended) this year was to focus more on my writing, blog more, make money writing somehow, etc.  So I guess it  all works itself out that in the New Year of 2010 I have something more to write about than my life as mom to some extremely interesting children.  This year I get to write about thyroid cancer treatment and how it impacts me and my extremely interesting children.
I've had a lot to say this week, but lacked the mental clarity (thank you lortab elixir).