Amazing Peace By Dr. Maya Angelou

Dr. Angelou was on the Today Show this morning and recited this, it was so lovely I wanted to be sure to have it somewhere I could find it again.

Amazing Peace By Dr. Maya Angelou

Thunder rumbles in the mountain passes
And lightning rattles the eaves of our houses.
Flood waters await us in our avenues.

Snow falls upon snow, falls upon snow to avalanche
Over unprotected villages.
The sky slips low and grey and threatening.

We question ourselves.
What have we done to so affront nature?
We worry God.
Are you there? Are you there really?
Does the covenant you made with us still hold?

Into this climate of fear and apprehension, Christmas enters,
Streaming lights of joy, ringing bells of hope
And singing carols of forgiveness high up in the bright air.
The world is encouraged to come away from rancor,
Come the way of friendship.

It is the Glad Season.
Thunder ebbs to silence and lightning sleeps quietly in the corner.
Flood waters recede into memory.
Snow becomes a yielding cushion to aid us
As we make our way to higher ground.

Hope is born again in the faces of children
It rides on the shoulders of our aged as they walk into their sunsets.
Hope spreads around the earth. Brightening all things,
Even hate which crouches breeding in dark corridors.

In our joy, we think we hear a whisper.
At first it is too soft. Then only half heard.
We listen carefully as it gathers strength.
We hear a sweetness.
The word is Peace.
It is loud now. It is louder.
Louder than the explosion of bombs.

We tremble at the sound. We are thrilled by its presence.
It is what we have hungered for.
Not just the absence of war. But, true Peace.
A harmony of spirit, a comfort of courtesies.
Security for our beloveds and their beloveds.

We clap hands and welcome the Peace of Christmas.
We beckon this good season to wait a while with us.
We, Baptist and Buddhist, Methodist and Muslim, say come.
Peace.
Come and fill us and our world with your majesty.
We, the Jew and the Jainist, the Catholic and the Confucian,
Implore you, to stay a while with us.
So we may learn by your shimmering light
How to look beyond complexion and see community.

It is Christmas time, a halting of hate time.

On this platform of peace, we can create a language
To translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other.

At this Holy Instant, we celebrate the Birth of Jesus Christ
Into the great religions of the world.
We jubilate the precious advent of trust.
We shout with glorious tongues at the coming of hope.
All the earth's tribes loosen their voices
To celebrate the promise of Peace.

We, Angels and Mortal's, Believers and Non-Believers,
Look heavenward and speak the word aloud.
Peace. We look at our world and speak the word aloud.
Peace. We look at each other, then into ourselves
And we say without shyness or apology or hesitation.

Peace, My Brother.
Peace, My Sister.
Peace, My Soul.

IUD out, not pregnant

Well, I had my Mirena IUD taken out on Friday since Garvin had a half-day and the OB my doctor recommended had an openning.  For those who didn't know, I had the IUD placed when Liam was 5 weeks old because of how easily I concieved Liam - I didn't want to risk getting pregnant again too quickly.  I had it taken out because, in addition to the oopsie in August issues, I still hadn't had a period and wanted to know if that was because of the IUD (that brand has that nice side effect) or because of the breastfeeding, since my cycles were irregular before pregnancy and I want to know what my body is doing - we want to concieve our next child in August so that it's born around Liam's 3rd birthday.

Well, the doctor did another pregnancy test just to be sure before removing the IUD and it was negative.  Everything went smoothly - took like 30 seconds to remove the thing and all I felt was a little tug, very minor cramping afterwards which may have actually been because I was hungry.  Doctor warned me that I could ovulate again within the next two weeks if it was the IUD and not just breastfeeding that had my cycles stopped.

Well, last night my period started right before going to bed.  I'd been feeling a little crampy off and on for a while.  Right now, soon after waking up, I'm still not convinced that my pregnancy symptoms in August/September were wrong.  I'm wondering now if I was, indeed, pregnant and miscarried but the IUD may have delayed the flushing of everything.  My body really seemed to believe it was pregnant.  Or was it because of the little bit of hormone in the IUD tricking it into that, in combination with other stuff going on with my post-pregnancy body?

Given all the details of my life and hopes/plans for the future, I don't plan on getting another IUD after the next baby - I'm actually hoping to have at least 3 kids (up to 5, if finances and family can work it out), and being that I'll be 29 in less than a month, I want the rest of them a little closer in age (2 years apart instead of 3).  Even if the HMO we have at those times will pay for it, it just doesn't seem worth the bother to have it placed for that short of a time since I'd want it out at least 5-6mo before trying to concieve to see what my body is up to naturally (and lots of my breastfeeding mom friends don't have their first periods much longer than that anyway).  I might get another one when the last baby is a newborn, it depends on the available options at that time.  I didn't have a bad experience with it at all, even with this wondering if I was pregnant or not in the last few months.

sorrow for another's loss

Sabrina just called to say her friend who concieved by surprise after being told for a long time that she was infertile has lost the pregnancy.  She was very early on - less than 10 weeks - but it had become real for her.  Sabrina had said that her friend was looking for any positive energy anyone could offer when she found out she was pregnant, due to being high-risk by default, and I'd taken some extra yarn I had from an old project and started making a "healthy pregnancy, happy baby" blanket (it's hunter green, so most people wouldn't really think of it as a "baby blanket").  I had just put the final stitches on it and was getting ready to do the last finishing touches of weaving in the ends of the yarn when Sabrina called to tell me about her friend's loss.  Liam is laying half-asleep with the blanket right now, he's been playing with the squares the whole time I've been working on it (it's made up of 9 gigantic "granny squares").  I can only begin to feel what this woman I've never met must be going through as I look at my healthy, happy toddler.  I was just telling Garvin last night how sometimes it hits me exactly how blessed I am when I look at Liam, how the knowledge that other women do not concieve as easily as we did, go through pregnancies as relatively uneventful and birth so "easily", and even if they do how lucky we are to have such an easy-going (even though "high need") child as Liam is.  It's quite likely we were having that discussion as this other woman was in the progress of miscarrying.

I'm holding this dear friend of a dear friend in my thoughts today, wishing the joy I have in motherhood to be a bond she and I share some day.

 

Unpacking

It's our anniversary weekend, and what's the best gift I could possibly hope for? An organized home! So we're working on it (actually, as I type, Garvin appears to be cleaning the cat box from the sounds coming from the Blue Room). 

I unpacked my Tarot collection and took a quick inventory.  I have 23 actual distinct "real" Tarot decks total.  I am only counting in that number the ones that have a full minor arcana, so the Cat Tarot isn't included (only a Major Arcana), nor is the LoTR Oracle or the other such things that do not have approximately 72 cards.  I have five sets that fall into that category, and an intentional duplicate deck (I love the Robin Wood deck so much I had to have two, as I was doing too much damage to the deck I play with and wanted one in good condition for my "collection" set... tho they've both gotten a bit beat up now so I think I need a third one LOL).  I've got all the decks and books displayed now on a bookshelf in my dining room and that makes me happy (tho the bookshelf does need to be secured to the wall for my SANITY with little mister monkey around).

My birthday is coming up in little more than a month, I wouldn't mind more decks (I really like it when it comes with a book, but that's just gravy) if anyone feels like getting me a sub-$20 gift.  I don't even care if they're used as long as they're not horribly beat up.  I don't use them for readings or anything like that, they are just artistic inspiration for me when I get creater's block (they work well for writing as well as visual arts, you see).  I'll be posting a full catalog of what I own on Squirreal sometime soon, I swear.  I also want to be working on the Total Lego Tarot more in the coming cold months (getting organized is the first step, you see), so I'll be needing to update Squirreal with the new images.  My friend Serena has been suggesting that she'd be willing to help with web graphics (she's doing an independant study art class at the moment, so it would count as class credit for her), so hopefully that will actually get me off my duff and doing something with it.

But not in November.  That's going to have to wait a little.  I'm participating in National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo) and things will be rather tied up between that and Liam.  I'm a little paranoid about the subject matter I'm writing about, worried that I'll be getting hate mail, so I'm keeping my pen name and my real life identity fairly separate.  If you're really open minded about religious issues and want to read my original fiction, send me an email and I'll send you the link to my author page as well as the writing blog I've set up for that pen name.  The writing blog will continue on past November and have updates on other stories I may write.  My NaNo novel is not the novel I've been working on for a few years now, but it's very related.  The Nano one is actually a collection of short stories, so easier for folks to follow along.  The other novel isn't being written in a linear fashion so it's rather hard to share with folks (I write scenes when they come to me, then organize them with where they fit in the timeline, then later I'll go through and stitch it all together).

Well, time to get back off my duff. More later.

Breastfeeding Witch Causing Stir In Vermont

oh my gods, this is just too funny. hope the video stays up!

what is it?

it is available on eBay, of course... naughty, bad eBay that didn't take their deaf and hard of hearing users into account with their new media blitz. The whole "whatis-it.com" website is entirely audio dependant, something that doesn't really impact me personally too hard (well, I would have been able to hear it, if I'd muted the TV and had the adapter block for the speakers plugged in)... but considering what technophiles the Deaf community tend to be, and how much easier online shopping is for someone who isn't confident in their ability to communicate verbally, it's not the smartest move on eBay's part. The interesting part is... will they notice?

Miner's "Body Ritual among the Nacirema"

Very interesting old article... let me know what you think. Found it while looking up information on Klingon Religions, tho it is completely unrelated to Star Trek. And I went and checked, it is actually something that was published by the American Anthropological Assosiation.

Miner's "Body Ritual among the Nacirema"

.......oopsie.......

I've been debating about weither to say anything about this anywhere, and Serena and Sabrina both already know so this is mostly just an entry for my own brain.  Garvin and I finally managed to have some "adult" time and there was a bit of a contraceptive mishap, resulting in the very slight but statistically significant chance that a conception may have occurred (or be in process of occuring).  Given that I'm having the little twingies that I used to associate with ovulating when I didn't have an IUD in and wasn't on the pill, I'm slightly unnerved.  I've not had an actual menstral cycle since the one before Liam was concieved (which is probably a combination of the breastfeeding and the IUD), there's no way of knowing if I am/was mid-cycle or anything like that (and not that it seemed to matter with Liam's conception because I was technically a WEEK past mid-cycle by the time he was concieved - and given events around his conception, such as my recovering from two herniated lumbar discs, we KNOW conception didn't happen earlier.  Apparently I have the ability to ovulate on cue... only makes sense that my ovaries wouldn't have any more concept of linear time than the rest of my body does).

So, next month some time I need to remember to take a pregnancy test.  With Liam, I *knew* I was pregnant before I missed a period.  Garvin and I have already discussed the "what ifs" regarding this, if I did manage to concieve against all these barriers (we WERE using two methods!), the IUD comes out ASAP and if that doesn't trigger a miscarriage (which is a risk), then we welcome a new addition to the family right around Liam's second birthday instead of third as planned, and we make sure every daughter we ever have knows EXACTLY how fertile we are so that they can take that into concideration when they become sexually active.  If a conception happened but having the IUD taken out causes a miscarriage, then it stays out and we be extra careful with the condomage until this time next year.  If no conception happened, we thank our lucky stars and try not to feel disappointed ;)

The question becomes, how many negative pregnancy tests will it take me to be convinced THIS time, since it wasn't until the 4th test and 10 days past missed period that Liam was confirmed?  This has the potential to be greatly annoying.

On another note, notice that I've added a subscribe to this blog link in the right hand section of this page.  I'm trying to convince Garvin to do the same on his blog.  Sabrina, I'd love to see one of these on your blog ;)  Great for folks who WANT to keep up with others but forget/neglect checking pages who have a history of not updating daily *whistles nonchalantly*

So THAT'S where you plug in the laptop while camping...

Just couldn't resist sharing this... cracks me up. I'm one of those "campers" whose first question is "where do I plug in my laptop" (followed closely, in this heat, with "and how do you run the AC?"). Very cool, in such a geeky way.

(note: this is one of the few times that the title of my post is a link... just went to view the post and realised it made no sense!)

Attachment Parenting Sanity Check

OK... I know not many people read this thing, and the one person I know does read it regularly doesn't yet have a kiddo of her own, but I think she's got enough experience with AP-style parents to be a reliable check-in on this.

So anyway, I've found out about a Harry Potter "organization" that is Ohio-specific.  I'm very interested, being a complete and total Potterhead and loving to discuss all things in the Potterverse for hours at a stretch.  Here's the catch.  They're exclusively 18 and up, as in not even allowed to bring a nursling (and yes, Liam's still nursing every few hours, even tho he'll eat any solid food that stays in his reach long enough - he'll eat a stomach full of solid foods, then want mama for desert, so he's still nursing at least 6 times a day, from my estimates of actual nursings, not just quick sips.  Oh, and yes, he'll drink water or any other liquid too, but that doesn't make him want to nurse less either.  I'm not exactly trying to push him away from the breast tho, it doesn't bother me one whit that he wants to keep nursing so much, though it does make it difficult to be out and about with him as my back can't tollerate nursing him in a sling anymore, I only use carriers that go over both shoulders now).  To put a cherry on top of their "absolutely no one under 18" stance, none of their gatherings scheduled through the rest of the year are any closer than Columbus (which is 2 hours' drive away, meaning a minimum of 4 hours spent away from Liam just *driving* to and from the event, in addition to spending enough time at the event to make a drive that long feel "worth it"). 

When I've tried to inquire about how hard-set this policy is, I've been informed by the moderators that it's pretty much a hard-and-fast rule (while I've also noticed that more than 80% of the moderators are too young to remember the Smurfs) and the reaction of other parents on the forum has been of the lines of "I need a place where I can get away from my kid(s)" and implying a feeling that something is "wrong" with me that I don't feel this need to be away from my child.  I have no knowledge regarding the nursing status of the other small children in the families involved, much less their parenting style (tho I have specified that we practice attachment parenting).  Especially with Garvin working such long hours, I have ZERO desire for any social time that does not include him, and he doesn't have a desire to have social time that doesn't involve Liam since he's already missed so much time with him thanks to not having an assistant manager and getting sucked into working 50-60 hour weeks just to keep the grouphome running.  And, add to that that we're planning to try to concieve kid #2 around this time next year, which means small bladder while pregnant making long trips annoying, not being a good idea to travel that far in later pregnancy, and then dealing with a newborn exclusively nursing (and the next one I think I'm just going to not bother with ANY bottles at ALL unless one of us winds up hospitalized or something... just really wasn't worth the bother with Liam and it just seemed to annoy him anyway...  I give people the analogy of having a wonderful lasagna - would you rather eat it off of fine china plates, sitting at a table surrounded by the people you love best.... or standing up off of a flimsy paper plate from the dollar store?  That seems to be about the degree of comparision my son would make between breastmilk from the source or from ANY other container.)... I'm feeling a fairly strong urge to just be a bit pissy and go off and create a group that trusts parents to know their children's interests, attention spans, and ability to annoy the crap out of other people well enough to determine if they should come to a Harry Potter discussion group, and that trusts that anyone READING a BOOK MARKETED TO CHILDREN doesn't hate being AROUND children!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

sorry for all the caps... feeling a bit annoyed about this.

So, the question is... am I nuts that I don't feel the need to be away from my almost 15 month old son for more than a couple hours at a stretch?  Am I being overly and unhealthily attached that the idea of being away from him for more than the length of a movie is a bit... disturbing for lack of a better word?  I've left him with Garvin or my mother or another friend for various periods of time to go run errands and such, indeed I was away from him for almost 3 hours tonight for a worship associate meeting at church (Garvin watched him).  I made sure my cell phone was charged and in my pocket, but I didn't even call to tell him I was on my way home (even tho last night Liam went into a screaming fit after a diaper change and refused to be calmed by Daddy, calming to hiccupping sobs as soon as I took him in my arms).  It's not a matter of distrust in others to take care of the kid (tho I am nervous about him at my mom's for extended periods because he's such a climber and gets into EVERYTHING and her place is FAR from even the basics of babyproofing), as long as there isn't another kid around for him to bite (yes, he's still a little vampire, tho he's learned not to bite adults as much... I'm reluctant to have him around other people's kids as he's gone to bite every time except once recently).  It's really a matter of just not feeling *right* when I'm away from him for more than a few hours.  The longest we've been apart since he was born was for about 5 hours, a couple months ago, when he was in the care of Garvin while I went to a worship associate training thing and there was a communications breakdown with Garvin running errands and not realizing that I was home in some discomfort from mild engorgement.  That definately felt like "too long" then, and I think it still would now. I'm getting to the point where I wouldn't mind a "date" with my husband, without the kid, but it's definately not a need to be away from Liam so much as a desire to focus on us for a bit.  Tho what we'd actually do with ourselves, I'm not sure right now (don't really want to be spending money on frivalities, I'm not physically up to just going to the park or something else "free").

So, am I weird even by AP standards?  Or is my impression that this is a cultural construct of our society, creating artificial and unhealthy distance between family members by emphasis on our "needs" to be "apart" a sane thought to have?

body worlds

I don't know why I'm so bothered by this exhibit.  I've been downright avoidant of it, especially after my friends who went mentioned how fascinating it was partially because of the body of a pregnant woman being included.  Garvin is at work doing a med-pass this morning and I'm watching the Today Show for the first time in eons and the local segment is about to talk about it... I'm trying to force myself to watch it to see if I can deal with it.  I understand the need to study anatomy and the value of the technique used, but somehow to exhibit the bodies in poses such as if they're playing baseball just feels... exploitive to me, not to mention morbid.  Tomorrow's church service is about it, and I'm planning to skip church specifically because of this (not that I don't have other things to be doing at home, like working on Garvin's Dumbledore costume - if I don't get it done today - unpacking, other sewing, etc, plus a friend's birthday party on the other side of town if I can stand the forecasted 86 degree heat).

I feel vaguely ashamed of myself for being so nauseated by this topic.  I've made my desire to be an organ donor known, I think the human body is a wonderful and beautiful thing... I just really don't like contemplating how it all functions on a physical level.  I can spend hours on end contemplating how our minds work and trying to understand how other people view the world, but remind me that there's a skeleton under there and I... withdraw I guess is the best way to describe it. 

The segment is on now and they're talking about people coming to the exhibit on FIRST DATES... woah, that'd be a LAST date for me...

The anchor even said he finds it unsettling... the woman on site says that it feels like they're models, that they're not real and she's suspended the thought that these are real people.  I find that attitude unsettling, that she can forget that these are REAL PEOPLE, most likely very thoughtful, loving people that they made the conscious decision to donate their bodies to science... I think that's a big part of my problem with it, it's dead bodies taken out of context, removed from their stories (at least in the bits I've seen, but I'd think it's most likely the exhibits don't say much about the individual person's life, to protect anonymity).  My mind wants to know WHY there are healthy bodies available to compare to the diseased ones, why did these people in perfectly good health die? Did the ones who were suffering with disease suffer terribly? Were their families there to ease their passing?  The website for the exhibit mentions how the donors are consulted while they're still alive (or maybe they mean their families - the website itself is very difficult for me to deal with, what with the seemingly ever-present image of a man wearing nothing but his musculature, holding his own full amount of skin in his hand *shudder*).

It doesn't help matters that I've been having weird dreams lately - from dreaming that one of my mom's friends committed suicide, to something about Liam having been switched with another baby (and something about twins), and then this morning I was dreaming that I was talking to someone about my daughters but didn't mention my son... which have me waking up in a weird mood almost all this week.  I guess I'm just really not in need of further reminders of our mortality right now.

commonly confused words test

another unsurprising result I guess - from looking at the answer key (available on the author's blog), I see what I got incorrect (a couple of the words I thought were just misspelled, didn't realize that there were actual different spellings for some of the synonyms, they're only one letter off and it's one of the letters toward the end of the word so my brain must just stop reading the word before I get there since I'd actually NEVER noticed the different spellings in writing I knew to be properly spelled before *shrug*).

English Genius You scored 100% Beginner, 100% Intermediate, 86% Advanced, and 80% Expert!

You did so extremely well, even I can't find a word to describe your excellence! You have the uncommon intelligence necessary to understand things that most people don't. You have an extensive vocabulary, and you're not afraid to use it properly! Way to go! Thank you so much for taking my test. I hope you enjoyed it! For the complete Answer Key, visit my blog: http://shortredhead78.blogspot.com/.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 60% on Beginner You scored higher than 56% on Intermediate You scored higher than 18% on Advanced You scored higher than 72% on Expert

Link: The Commonly Confused Words Test written by shortredhead78 on Ok Cupid

Liam's eatting some fried up egg yolks (keeping him away from egg whites still, just being mildly paranoid about food allergens, even though there's not a family history or anything, but the yolks are a good source of easily-absorbed iron, which helps a little with my lead paint concerns since iorn helps block the absorbtion of lead). He looks at me and says "mua mua mua" which sounds a bit different than his "mama," but I'm not sure if he's saying "more" or "mooch" (but in our house, it's basically the same thing since when he's eating solids it's usually mooching).


brain's melted, going to try to see if he'll let me clean a little more if I can keep from having dizzy spells like I was having earlier...

taking quizzes with fussy babe in arms

my friend Aibhinn had a test on her LJ blog about where you fall on the sexual orientation spectrum (I scored a 7, with -52 being completely gay, 52 being completely straight, and 0 being bisexual). No big surprise there since I've been saying for years that love has more to do with what happens between the ears, not between the legs. Though Garvin is definately woman enough for me... I've not really ever found a woman whom I was both attracted to, and could see living with for the rest of my life without seriously contemplating homocide.

So the baby was wanting to be held, and websites that only require mouse usage help with keeping my sanity, so I headed over to okcupid.com again to see what other tests were there and lo and behold, a decent Harry Potter test...

Hermione Quills down! You scored 96%!

You know damn near every word of every book. You are among the brightest witches (or wizards) of your age, and you will go far. Just watch out you don't get points off for being an insufferable know-it-all.

My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 91% on potterpoints You scored higher than 96% on RandHness

Link: The Harry Potter Test written by dantesian on Ok Cupid

yet another shocking test result, no?

Here's something really shocking... Liam was getting to be too much in my arms (he was thrashing around to the point I was worried about him hurting himself) so I set him down on the couch (which has his play fence around it as we're still working on getting the rest of the room "monkey proof")... well, I had Star Trek TNG on for noise, after screeching at me and seeing it was getting nowhere for a minute or so, he sat down in the corner of the sofa and was watching the show and then FELL ASLEEP! I'm talking about the kid who next to never falls asleep without someone interacting him to sleep (nursing him, holding him, wearing him, or at the very least laying down with him). This is about the 5th time he's fallen asleep on his own... but what makes this one really amusing is he's sleeping sitting up!... I took a couple pictures with my Clie (not sure where I put my little digicam at the moment and don't feel like dragging out the SLR)... I'll edit this post to include one of them when I figure out where I put the stupid hotsync cable. In other news, we've actually got furniture in our blue bedroom now that's intended to be in there, such as our big black desk (and a bed, imagine that), and we're moving the main computer in there (it's been in the dining room for the last month and a half - there will still be a computer in there, but a desktop model instead of a minitower - makes it easier to keep a little someone from pushing the power button or feeding fingerfoods to the DVD drive).

*sigh* my baby's growing up. now I should clean while the possible, quite likely he'll only nap a few more minutes with my luck.

feeling blue, but in a good way

yes, I'm awake at 2am... I couldn't help but want to clean up after we actually finished painting the other bedroom in our "new" apartment.  We finished painting the first bedroom (our family bedroom) over the weekend (that room took FOREVER, it was really annoying to live here for a month and a half in essence in one bedroom with that one empty as we tried to get rid of the prior tenant's cat's pee smell, wait for the landlord to install new carpet after ripping out the old, then pick a paint color that didn't clash with the new carpet... then try to arrange help to paint).  Our friends Carol and Heidi helped with the painting after I did almost all the taping and such. Stupid tape wouldn't stick to the stupid trim in some places so the pre-existing white trim got blue paint on it in many spots, but I was able to clean it off with a solution of dishwasher detergent in water (Dr. Sears' website says to wash suspected lead paint window sills with that, and I was going to do that anyway so decided to try it on the mislaid paint and it worked! YAY!).  The blue is this gorgeous perfect-sky blue.... not the light blue of a cloudless day, but the deeper blue that you can only appreciate with a good scattering of cumulous clouds to show off the contrast.  Just looking at the walls makes me happy.  Of course, after living in rentals that we didn't have the balls to paint for the last 15 years, anything other than a very light shade of beige would have been a major improvement (ok, well, maybe not pink...). Oh, the family bedroom is a medium sage green, for those who care.  Matches our green flannel sheets well, I'm planning to do blue-ish purple window treatments and wall-to-wall padded headboard (gods I love HGTV).  It'll match the rest of our linens... last task after that and building the babywings for the bed (Liam is SUCH a bedhog, he needs a cosleeper space... I'm getting tired of getting kicked in the eyeball).

I'm just so happy to know that the #@$(*&ing bedroom and office furniture that's been sitting in various states of assembly in our living and dining rooms will be moving into their proper room in the next 24 hours.  I'm tired of feeling like I live in a refuge camp already!

If my inlaws decide to move to Cleveland next summer when our lease is up here, I may just cry... then make THEM tape up the walls before painting our new home.

AP-Friendly lullaby from the UU Hymnal

I love my church... stumble upon some really neat things in the hymnal sometimes, this included... I came across it a couple months ago when I was looking for songs for one of the services (didn't wind up using it that time tho), and it's been stuck in my head (already knew the melody - it's one Holtz sings on "Angel").  I like the UU hymnal lyrics (from "Singing the Living Tradition) better than the traditional ones, being a heathen and all...

putting it here so I can find it again later, since I'm not sure if anyone is actually reading this barely-ever-updated-pathetic-excuse-for-a-blog...

The words were adapted by Alicia S. Carpenter and (c)1990.

Sleep, My Child
Sleep, my child and peace attend you
all through the night
I who love you shall be near you
all through the night
Soft the drowsy hours are creeping
hill and vale in slumber sleeping
I my loving vigil keeping
all through the night

Mother, I can feel you near me
all through the night
Father, I know you can hear me
all through the night
and when I am your age nearly
still I will remember clearly
how you sang and held me dearly
all through the night

While the moon her watch is keeping
all through the night
while one-half the world is sleeping
all through the night
Even while the sun comes stealing
visions of the day revealing
breathes a pure and holy feeling
all through the night


So much more pleasant to sing to your baby as s/he nurses to sleep than "Rock-A-Bye Baby"

bored

don't know what's going on with me today... I'm very rarely bored, but I'm very blah today. it's overcast, warm, and a bit humid, which i think is contributing to the mild achiness (rheumatic conditions are a joy), but i'm having a hard time being "mom" today instead of "blob." i think it's more irritation at not being physically able to complete tasks i want DONE WEEKS AGO that's getting to me, along with liam being little-mister-hold-me-constantly (i'm standing at the computer typing this with him in a backpack carrier while waiting for some eggs to get sunny-side-up crispy on the stove a couple feet away... eggs sometimes help when my brain's being like this)

now the little monkey's trying to climb my back... urg. we had an interesting weekend (aside from the vampire incident) and there are pictures to prove it, hopefully i'll get them online someday but i can't bend over to get the camera out of the diaperbag with him on my back *sigh* urg.

my child is a vampire

I feel so guilty!  Today was the first day that Liam was left in the nursery at church even though both Garvin and I were there (I was a part of the service in my role as Worship Associate so I couldn't tend to him, Garvin was trying to take pictures of the service since we were in costumes - Harry Potter themed service - and trying to take pictures while wearing Liam on his back was just too much for him).  Well, since Liam is rarely taken care of by anyone but Garvin or I, and the few people who HAVE watched him didn't have other children to tend to, neither one of us has enough practice at leaving him to remember to warn his caretakers that... well... Liam hasn't quite learned that "kisses don't use teeth" yet.  He's a very affectionate child, very outgoing and loves being around new people (of all ages, though he seems especially fascinated by other children).  And he's a kisser of late.  But he's also getting his first cuspid tooth and this type of tooth seems to be much more painful to grow in than the first eight.  I'm convinced that evolution knew what it was doing when it set the average age of this tooth coming in at around 16-17 months, when children are a bit more able to express themselves verbally.  My son isn't even 13 months old yet and this tooth has been trying to come in for going on two weeks now (I can see the white spot on his gum and feel the raised bump, but it still hasn't broken through the gum).  We are going through a LOT of tylenol and camomile tea (the tylenol makes less of a mess since he'll only take the tea from a cup or sport's bottle - tried it in a baby bottle several times, he rejects the bottle in preference to having the ability to spit mass quantities of liquid down his front when he drinks out of a straw instead).

Anyway, he actually MADE THIS POOR OTHER BABY BLEED! Liam bit his cheek and his nose.  I guess I should at least be thankful that the other baby is not a firstborn, the parents may have freaked more if he was (*I* would have freaked if I'd seen Liam looking like he'd just battled Mike Tyson, which is the appearance this poor kid has - BIG bite bruise on nose and cheek).  The other kid's father is a pediatrician so he's tending to him and they're not mad at us or anything, but I'm goingg to be really reluctant to leave Liam in the nursery again now.  I've been reluctant for a while and the staff kept thinking it was because I'm a nervous first-time mom that has separation issues from the baby (instead of him having separation issues from me), but seriously, it's always been because my kid is STRONG, determined and tends to be underestimated.  I've been worried something like this might happen if he wasn't getting one-on-one care, and it looks like today the nursery was quite full since we don't have Religious Education classes in the summer months, so they had all the younger kids, toddlers, and babies in one room with two teenagers and a couple other adults coming in when they weren't busy running things in the service.

I think I am going to keep an eye open for a couple more baby backpacks at the trift stores and such to donate to the church.  Because of renovations, we're not going to have Sunday School in the fall either (the santuary and classrooms are all being renovated - for the first time in like 40 years, so a lot of work).  Those nursery workers are going to have their hands full!

arguing with song lyrics

man, I must be a little too sleep deprived with the teething.  I just got into an argument with the song "The Rose" (yes, the one sung by Bette Midler, I sang and signed it in 2nd grade or so and the darn thing has never left my head).  The last part of the song bugs me... "when the night has been too lonely and the road has been too long, and you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong, just remember in the winter far beneath the bitter snows lies the -->SEED<-- that with the sun's love in the spring becomes the rose".

Funny thing, the majority of consumer roses grown in this country are grown from cuttings, not seeds.  Yes, roses have seeds and yes, plants can be grown from them, but that again brings up another problem... a young perenial bush like a rose bush is unlikely to produce much in the way of flowers in it's first several years, much less in the SPRING right after a bitter winter.  Heck, the seeds take 3 months to germinate and are a real pain to get to do so.  If it was a repeat blooming rose, it MIGHT bloom after 2 additional months (which gets us into... oh... around July... definately no longer SPRING), if it's a once-blooming variety, it'll take a few YEARS.  (information from gardenweb.com's faq section - http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/rosespro/ ). 

OK, so the songwriter didn't have access to the internet (considering I was singing the song in elementary school and I'm 28 years old)... still... Take a look around your average nursery.. how often are they selling rose SEEDS?!? 

Guess it just wouldn't have been as moving a song if after the bitter winter the sun's love grew a frickin' daisy, eh?

Man I suck at updating

the whole move thing is sorta done (we're back to renting, couldn't find a place in our price range that would do for more than a couple years, and we didn't want to lose money on the whole process of buying and selling a house if we had to resell it two or three years down the line).  still have stuff in storage at our friend Jenny's house (where we were staying for the two months we were effectively homeless), my mom's apartment, and my uncle's basement, but we're getting it all together slowly but surely.  Liam's been teething almost non-stop which hasn't helped my sanity at all - he cut his four upper front teeth all at the same time, right in the middle of our ex-upstairs neighbors threatening to have the Hell's Angels on our front lawn and such, got two more lower ones coming in right on the heels of those, and now appears to be cutting his lower left cuspid already, even tho the 8th tooth to appear isn't fully lined up with the 3 next to it yet.  He's still an incredibly sweet little boy, loves recieving and giving kisses (tho sometimes he forgets that kisses don't use teeth), and has this really sweet look he gets on his face when he wants to steal something you're eating (we play a lot of "Smootch the Mooch" - trying to teach him at least to not just grab the food off our plates/bowls/hands, but to get/give a kiss for it first... makes it seem slightly less obnoxious we think).

So... waht's going on now? not much aside from dealing with the mountains of boxes and trying to get rooms painted so they can actually have FURNITURE in them (I refuse to live in a home with off-white walls any longer, I've been staring at off-white walls for FIFTEEN YEARS now and I'm sick of it!).  We started moving at the beginning of May, but the room that is to be our bedroom stunk of cat pee from the prior tenants, the landlord wound up ripping up the carpet and replacing it (which took him like 3 weeks), and we just FINALLY got permission to paint the bedrooms this past Sunday afternoon (he's a bit rententive about stuff, insisted on documenting the condition of the rooms before we painted them... then of course he wrote down that the walls were "OK" and everything on his little form, I went to prep the room for painting and tried to remove a LITTLE loose paint from the baseboards and it turns out ALL the trim paint was loose - some genius in the past painted a satin finish paint over a GLOSS paint without even washing the gloss first, much less deglossing and priming it, so about 70% of the trim paint came off with just my fingers working... where Garvin tried to scrape it actually didn't come off as well.  Hopefully that bedroom will be painted today or tomorrow.


Liam's wanting my attention, that's all I can write for now.

reasons we may not be "nice people"

this message was poorly formated, long, and way rantish so I deleted it... if anyone REALLY wants to read it I have it saved on my computer somewhere. Moving on....

hmm.. that actually worked, does this?

not only did it actually post that time (must have entered the email address wrong the last time I tried it), it actually retained formatting! woo hoo! maybe I'll actually do this occasionally then ;)

Let's see if it'll post a picture...

["Sleepy Symbiosis" - photo by Garvin]

test blog-by-email

I'm still trying to get my act together with everything (story of my life, for sure) and now that Liam is pretty much moble and always heading straight for something I don't want him to have, life has been entertaining to say the least.  If I can get this thing to enter text via email, it would make things a bit easier, so let's see if this works.