Hospital Gifts

Let's say that, to entice women to give birth at a specific hospital, the hospital started giving away really nice baby sleeping device to every family that birthed there. While the mom and baby were at the hospital, the baby would become accustomed to the sleeping aid, which would serve to sooth the newborn to sleep quickly and keep them asleep longer. Some were concerned that there could be potential negative side effects - such as newborns not gaining weight appropriately due to not waking often enough to feed - but the manufacturer, hospital, and society in general assured the new mothers that the device was a godsend and would help them get that thing they were constantly being told they'd long for in the coming months: a decent night's sleep.

There's one drawback to this "free" sleep device, though. It only comes with a starter battery that will last for less than a week after discharge, then the replacement batteries cost about $150 per month. And the babies have been trained to really want the device in order to go to sleep by the time it leaves the hospital, so much so that it will reject (with very loud screams) any other method used to try to get them to sleep.

Mothers are pressured - subtlety and not-so-subtlety - to use the device, in some cases being called names if they chose other methods to get their newborns to sleep and willingly "suffer" through the many night-wakings. More hospitals start feeling market pressured to provide this wonderful "free" gift to new families and institute them, until almost every baby born in the country spends their first few unconscious spans of post-birth life in one of the sleep devices.

A few hospitals start to rebel against this trend, instead teaching new parents how to sooth their newborns to sleep in their own arms, only to be criticized for not giving a nice "free" gift to new mothers who live in poverty.

Think this sounds surreal? Guess what... it's what we've been doing as a country for decades, only with infant formula/breastmilk instead of sleep device/mother's arms. And yes, people raise a rukus when hospitals stop giving away the "free" formula samples to new families, even though "free" breastfeeding education, training, and support would save the families more than a THOUSAND DOLLARS in just the first year of the child's life on groceries alone. But we tax-payers get to pay for a lot of that formula instead. Where's the ruckus to do what's right for babies and poor families from the start? Some WIC agencies will provide a breastpump for new moms if they ask for one, but from what I've heard it's a LOT easier to get the "free" formula than the breastpump, and many times the pumps given are inadequate and inefficient (which results in the moms falling back to using formula instead out of frustration).

Can this situation be changed? Only if more of us demand better for American families and stand up to support them instead of looking the other way - or worse, harrassing the new moms who DO try to breastfeed when that happens to be in the presence of others.

Do your part, for us.

Handicap-accessible bathroom stalls

So my twittering/Facebooking about my annoyance with an OBVIOUSLY able-bodied tween using the only handicap-accessible bathroom stall out of 7 stalls (5 of which were empty) at Cedar Point has a fellow UU accusing me of being closed-minded because maybe the young lady (who, I must first inform you, SKIPPED out of the stall past me without so much as an "oops, sorry!" as she headed back out toward the middle of CEDAR POINT - where a disabled person would have needed some assistance - cane, wheelchair, scooter, something - to get to from either entrance) had an "invisible disability" that lead to her needing the hand rails, thus excusing her making an actually, obviously disabled person wait to use the ONE toilet that was safely usable. The fact that the person having this discussion with me is able-bodied enough to vend at various events and is calling me out on behalf of her "disabled friends" and because she took some "Right Relations" seminars at our denomination's annual conference is irritating me a bit (I've been in chronic, daily pain since I was 10 years old - 2/3rds of my life - and have actually done advocacy work with various disabled populations since I was a child, up to and including this week when I've been interfacing with my local school district on behalf of another disabled mother and her child, who lived with us for a week earlier this month).

So, I've decided that I will make a little list of who it doesn't irritate me, personally, as a disabled person, to see coming out of a handicap-accessible stall when I've had to wait with my legs crossed to keep from making a mess on the floor when there are other stalls available for people who don't need the rails.

• Other disabled people who use some kind of assistance to move (cane, wheelchair, etc)
• People with small child(ren) in the stall with them (I totally understand not wanting/being able to squeeze into the regular stalls)
• People changing a baby's diaper (tho it annoys me greatly when the establishment puts the diaper changing station inside the accesible stall, it's obvious that sometimes they don't have any other place to put it safely because of traffic flow)
• People who are in pain (as someone who regularly tries to hide the amount of physical pain I'm in, I can tell when someone has a sore back and needs to use the rails even if they're only temporarily disabled and don't need a walking assistance tool)
• Pregnant women (the body dynamics of pregnancy make it hard for many women to stand up without something to leaver on)
• Obese people who can't get the door of a regular inward-opening stall closed around themselves
• Able-bodied people who take the accessible stall because all the regular stalls are already in use

Those are the ones that come immediately to my mind, there are probably others. Now for the list of people who get the hairy stink eye when I see them coming out of a handicap-accessible stall:

• unattended kids who skip/run out of the stall without so much as an "oops, I probably shouldn't have used that one" when they see a disabled person waiting
• teenage girls in groups who go into the handicap-accessible stall for more than just a pee
• mothers who let themselves be bullied by society into breastfeeding in the stall (I swear I'm filing an ADA complaint against a store if I ever get delayed using the toilet because of this - just hasn't happened yet tho I hear from plenty of women who are told that's where they should nurse their baby if the need arises in a public place, and I did have my local YMCA tell me last winter that I should have gone to the family changing room/bathroom to feed D after someone complained about me nursing him in the WOMEN'S locker room)
• women in heels so high there's no way they'd be able to walk if they actually had knee/hip problems

Those are pretty much the only ones that I actually give stinky-eye to (well, I wouldn't give stink-eye to the nursing mom, I'd give her some contacts for learning her and her baby's rights and offer to help her become more comfortable nursing in public - tip #1 try nursing in front of a mirror to see how little is actually visible, even without a blanket/cape/whatever.). Having been "invisibly disabled" for over a decade before I started needing a cane (and still getting comments from people occasionally when I park in a handicap-accessible parking space because apparently even when I'm dressed in a grubby t-shirt and sweatpants, the cane looks like a fashion accessory) I'm actually pretty likely to assume that the other person has an actual need for the stall's handrails or width. However, there have been several times (including last week at MSASS orientation) where the person coming out of the accessible stall to see me waiting there has actually apologized for their thoughtlessness in using that stall when regular ones were available. Some people really do just use them because they have a preference for them, not a need for them, tho I don't really get that (maybe it's the shiney of the metal hand rails?), without even thinking for a second that other people have a greater need for that stall than they do (at least, until visibly confronted with the evidence of their thoughtlessness). Thoughtlessness and lack of courtesy is pretty epidemic in our society at times, and this isn't exactly an issue people talk about, even when they're discussing manners and courtesy. This is also evidenced by how many times I've been (or seen some else obviously disabled - cane, walker, wheelchair, etc) in a women's restroom line and how rarely the person(s) in front of the disabled person will let the disabled person "skip" in line if the handicap-accessible stall comes available. At least 80% of the time (yes, this is something I'd actually like to quanifiably research), the safe-to-assume-able-bodied person walks right into the handicap-accessible stall and the handicapped person has to let people skip in front of THEM as the regular stalls come available while they wait for the able-bodied person to be done in the ONE stall the handicapped person can use. This isn't because there are so many "invisible disabilities" out there, the numbers just don't work out for how often this kind of thing happens. This is a factor of the me-first, oblivious to the actual needs of strangers around us, mentality of our culture (which, in addition to various other places, I've also encountered as a breastfeeding advocate - the "wants" of non-breastfeeders to not have to see "that" in public are assumed to be more important than the NEED of a baby to eat when it's hungry. The emotional discomfort/squeemishness of an adult who could walk away or look somewhere else are often given higher priority than the physical discomfort and basic need of a baby unable to help themselves). Personally, I refuse to excuse and enable thoughtlessness and discourtesy in our society by not offering any rebuke when someone crosses the line like this. And give me a break, it's just the freakin' stink eye! I don't even say anything to the "offending" party, and for all I know they're mildly Autistic and don't recognize the facial expression anyway (to be clear: mild autism is not generally a disability that requires the accessible stall - I know enough people with mild autism to know that as many cases as otherwise able people, they can use a stall without the rails... moderate/severe autism is of course another story). I'm not verbally confronting people as they come out of toilet stalls, I do have better things to do with my time (usually, at that moment, it's taking a pee).

What I'd really love to see is a world where ALL public restroom stalls have hand rails for people who need them. A lot of people who need the accessible stall would be able to use the other stalls with just that one little addition, the extra space isn't actually needed in many cases. My church has gone partway there - there are two stalls with rails in the women's bathroom, one that is large enough to easily maneuver a wheelchair/scooter and one that's standard stall size, and the changing table is not in a stall, plus there are two other family restrooms. Not sure how the accessibility is in the men's room but I know they've got a diaper changing station in there and I'm pretty sure it's not in a stall either.

Until then, it'd be nice if people would reserve the accessible stalls for people (such as those in my first list above) who actually need them.

Sweat (Original poem)

Pouring panting plaything of the gods

Body tossed with time and tension swollen with life

Melting point breaking point weighing the odds

To stay or go, beads break through & leak my internal strife

Time to fill know the drill

different every time

Head back one more lap

before holding what is mine

Now the real work begins

IT'S A LIVE!!! ALIVE!!!

OK, yeah, I've done it again - gone on over a month without an update. It's been a hectic month, to say the least.

On May 5th I became co-chair of the Lakewood City Schools Phase III Construction Project District Configuration Sub-Committee. Yes, this was something I volunteered to do, it was (is - the last meeting of the subcommittee is tomorrow) annoying as hell at times, but I really do feel like it was the most important thing I've done outside of the creation and well-being of my little family. Lakewood City Schools is reducing from 7 elementary schools down to 6 due to lowered enrollment and Ohio not giving us as much funding (Ohio says we only need 6 elementary schools so they'll only contribute toward the cost of 6 elementary schools). 4 of the 7 existing schools have already been remodeled in the last couple years, so that left 3 to look at to figure out which one(s) to close (there was a proposal to close two of them and open a new school geographically between them where there is currently a city park smooshed between the train tracks and a strip mall - I don't think I need to tell the reader exactly how popular THAT idea was with everyone aside from the person proposing it ). If current decision making process that I was being strongly encouraged (almost to the point of arm bending, but not quite) to use is any indicator, the decision making process for the prior remodels/renovations was rather flawed - as evidenced by two of the schools already done having DRASTICALLY lower percentages of households with enrolled children in them than the other two (one has 4.1% of households in its boundary line having enrolled children, the other has 6.9%, the average for the district as a whole is 9.4% and all 5 of the other schools in the current configuration are at or above that average, with those two removed the average for the remaining 5 schools is 10.9%). There are certain powers within this city who would really like to see one of the schools in particular (the one in the highest-child-density district, ironically) closed, bulldozed, and redeveloped as commercial property. This seemed like a rather bad long-term plan to me, so I went in search of data months before becoming co-chair to check my gut reaction to that plan. What I found demonstrated that it wasn't just a bad idea, it also could potentially wreck our happy little you-better-walk-cuz-there-ain't-enough-parking already existing commercial district if it encouraged families to move to the perimeter of the town to be closer to the elementary schools, reducing foot traffic to the shops (and also discouraging them to keep their spending in Lakewood, since if they live in the perimeter in all but one of the other elementary school boundaries, they've got really easy access to Big Box stores just across the town's boarders - and most parents with little ones, if they're going to have to load up the car anyway, they're going to go where they can park ONCE and get the majority of what they need without having to go inside and outside repeatedly in likely inclement weather). So I went in search of hard data, got access to the census data and a lovely person at the county auditor's office who crunched data in highly sophisticated mapping software that I didn't have time to learn to use (tho apparently there's some decent stuff available open-source), I learned Google Earth to a fairly high level of proficency and counted LOTS of expanding dots (dots representing enrolled children, geocoded into Google Earth so if I went over them with a mouse they expanded so I could get an accurate head count). I also found out that Mandell School of Applied Social Sciences aka MSASS (at Case Western Reserve University, aka CWRU, my alma mater) turns out not just social workers of the knock-on-doors or therapy kind, but also of the policy wonk kind. We'll see tomorrow and in August/September what others make of the data I've gathered and crunched, but the MSASS saga continues in the next paragraph in a life of its own.

So, the dean of MSASS, Gover "Cleve" Gilmore, was my undergrad prof for both statistics (a challenging class since I wasn't aware that I have mild dyscalculia - you mean EVERYONE doesn't have to do every equation on the calculator 3 or 4 times to get the same result twice???) and research design (which I totally rocked, thankyouverymuch). He and I had been in occasional contact in the time in between and he very much still remembered me when I asked him if he could put me in touch with someone who could help with the census access stuff I was seeking for the above project. As I think I mentioned earlier in this blog, I'd applied to CWRU's Sociology graduate program (or did most of the application, at least - never took the stinking, time-wasting, back-throwing-out GRE) but was not hearing anything encouraging on the funding for part-time study so kinda let it drop (there's no way with my fatigue, physical disabilities, and family I could manage full-time study, a fellowship, AND not be a danger on the roads and/or zombie mommy, so the being safe on the roads and human with my family won). Cleve encouraged me to apply to MSASS, pointing me toward their Community and Social Development degree (policy wonk heaven I think, if only I could manage to do the dual degree with the law school at the same time *sigh* yeah, that's not gonna happen). Deadline for the Sociology program for fall admission was back in April so it never occured to me that MSASS's deadline would be so late - TOMORROW, JUNE 30TH! Sooo... I've got most of my application completed, just need to spend some time today updating my resume (which I haven't done since sometime around 2001, so, yeah, WAY out of date - nothing I've been doing in the interum has required a resume so I hadn't bothered to keep it up-to-date). I've also gotten 3 spiffy new recommendation forms filled out, and I'm planning to hand-deliver everything non-digital today. It'll be nice to finally meet Churyl, the lovely admissions lady I've been emailing back and forth and apparently sending into bouts of active laughter in the office with my weird sense of humor (which I see no need to hide from anyone, even someone responsible for helping decide if I get into grad school or not). I'm getting everything in on time for consideration for fall admission, though if the funding isn't there for me to go part-time (I *might* try full-time study if there's scholarship/work-from home fellowship promised, just can't deal with communting and family safely on top of ~40hrs outside the house). If funding looks more promising for starting in January (aka "spring" semester), then I'll do that instead.

In addition to all that, we've also celebrated Liam's 5th and Delano's 2nd birthdays and gone to Cedar Point twice and Kalahari Indoor Waterpark-Resort-and-Spa once (the 3 night stay at Kalahari was paid for by Garvin's work's sponsors or something, he was at a conference there while the kids and I were playing in the water). And I got myself a new laptop that I'd been drooling over for over a year (HP TouchSmart tx2) which I'm typing this up on (the keyboard is very nice, the tablet conversion with multi-touch will come in more handy while reading massive amounts of hopefully online journals for grad school, and it's small -but not too-and light and has decent battery life).

I will make another post with links to kids birthday party pictures soon. Haven't had time to organize and upload anything for ages.

OH, and if you're seeing this on Facebook and waiting for a response from me I haven't been ignoring you - I've not logged in to FB since around Easter, everything on my profile there has been posted via conduits (aka my cell phone, cross-posted by Twitter, or from this blog). I'm going to try to make some serious time to work on my novel in the next month (I want to complete it before the end of July) after getting this grad application finished, plus spend time with my family, plus sometimes post on my blog, Facebook priority comes in around this slot. I'll be back eventually.

May Day 2009

Wrote this at a Beltaine (Celtic May Day) celebration today. I've known a good number of the folks there since 1994 (if my calculations are correct - end of my junior year of high school I think but due to medical problems I had back then my memory is poor so may have been 1993). The first time I went to one of these, my mom and then-just-turning-5 brother were with me, and it really struck me that now my own firstborn is roughly the same age my brother was then. That is a major part of the inspiration for this poem. First draft, unedited, written aroung 5:30pm today.

Half a life ago
or maybe two
Under a sky
Almost blue
Clothed in time
And ribbon
We danced the
Summer in
Young without
And within
We help the
World begin again
Faces new and
habitual
Essential parts of
ritual
Bellies filled with
Divinity
Have waxed and waned
repeatedly
The earth dances
round the sun
Lives ending
and begun
We gather here
Rain and shine
To be blessed
and our selves divined
As long as
memory lasts
our futures
will adorn our past

This pic of D reminds me of my dad

Just took this, not exactly sure why, but something about the look on his face reminds me of my dad. I think it's in the eye expression.

Instigator (another original "poem")

When I was young
the great big They
called me an Instigator
slur-like and slanderous
as if I would amount to
Nothing
and there was w real problem with that.

I have grown beyond them
And embrace my instigation
personification
arms thrown open to the universe
I let myself in
and stir up trouble that needs some stirring.
I am the Official Nobody
and gleefully fulfill my role.

I have found
Everything Essential
in my Nothingness.
Perhaps not comfort for myself
(and surely discomforting for others)
but always
Instigating
Progressing

And that ain't Nothing.

(written on my bberry during the sermon at WSUUC)

Urg.

So today is one of the every-other-Fridays that Liam doesn't have school in his pre-k program. Usually I'm having to drag him out of bed at 7:45 to get dressed and fed before I drag D out of bed at 8am to change his diaper and let him get his favorite "stick cheese" (aka string cheese) out of the fridge on the way out to the van to get Liam to school at 8:30. Today? No school, Liam was up past bedtime yesterday with no nap, and still the little bugger wakes up at 7:10 AND proceeds to wake his little brother up for a rousing game of tickle-wrestling on the bed around Mama trying to figure out where the kids' snooze buttons are (why doesn't that Vulcan trick work in real life, dammit!?!). I had just been contemplating sneakily getting up and trying to get some writing done when Liam head-butted his brother awake. And they're both in a very rough-and-tumble mood today, which isn't doing good things to my Fibromyalgia trigger points that they keep bumping into (because, you see, they're also both in a very SNUGGLY mood, so they're squirm snuggling which is driving me insane, I keep yelping when they knee/elbow/head-butt one of my trigger points).

In other news, my in-laws made it home safely from their month in China yesterday evening. I skipped my last Migun visit (I'd paid for a month of unlimited visits) to go pick them up at the airport (which is also why I'm not so well physically today, that thing really does improve my physical function pretty drastically - we're planning on purchasing one shortly, hopefully in the next week. G and I need to set up the space where it will "live" first and make sure that spot actually has an electric outlet). Hopefully the whole family will use it as my MIL is developing a bit of a hump-back from bending over a sewing machine daily for 30+ years, my FIL has bad knees from standing at a garment press for a decade (and being nearly 70), Garvin's been complaining of upper back complaints, and then there's me. Visitors will also be welcome to use the bed if they'd like. Reminds me, I need to search for one of their centers in the DC area to visit while I'm down there so that my mobility stays as good as possible while traveling.

OH! and while my in-laws were in China they got me something that I've been wanting from there for AGES. Harry Potter in Chinese. Entire series in a very nice box. I didn't ask if it's traditional Chinese instead of simplified (I had specifically asked for Traditional, Simplified I could actually have gotten myself from Amazon for a reasonable price, but they sent a cousin to get it so I'm not positive). Much joy there. I'm going to try to set my FIL up with a voice recorder (likely one of our Sandisk Sansas that has been seeing much less use since the BlackBerries got here and I found media player software that's audiobook friendly for mine), and ask him to read the books in Cantonese for us. Yes, he knows it's primarily for me (I'm hoping to use it as a language learning tool - I still have less than 50 words in Cantonese after nearly 13 years of knowing Garvin), but they also want the boys to learn Cantonese, not just Mandarin (which is all that is taught locally - there are a couple Chinese School - weekend class things - around, but they're Mandarin and while my in-laws speak it, they are primarily Cantonese speakers and Garvin speaks almost no Mandarin, his Chinglish is Cantonese-English). I'm going to try hard not to press the point that by the time the boys are actually old enough to enjoy the story and it's nuances, he may no longer be around to read it to them. I think the helping out with his own mother-in-law's declining health (which is what they were in China for - she had surgery and isn't doing too well) likely has his own mortality on his mind enough that I don't need to say anything. Certainly has his mortality on MY mind enough, at least. His sibling group has been fairly long-lived, but I also get the sense that the others lived less hard lives than he has. He still has several older siblings living (he's 9th youngest out of 10, numbers 6-10 are all still alive, 2 died a few years ago and I think 1 died last year, 5 died I think when I was pregnant with Liam - at least I think I'm keeping the time straight. I know one of them died when we were still living in the first place in Cleveland when Liam was tiny, maybe that was 5? All three of these were brothers, for what it's worth - I met 5 who lived in California and I can't remember his English name, I called him the Cantonese version of "Father's Older Brother #5" which is what Garvin calls him, uncle 2 was Uncle Joseph who lived in Toronto and reminded everyone strongly of my own paternal grandfather in appearance when we watched our wedding video with them - and my own grandfather is named Joseph too so it was rather erie. Uncle 1 I never met, he lived in China or Hong Kong still). I just realized I think he only has one older brother living now tho - Uncle Peter (Uncle #7), who is in New York and was a doctor until retiring about a decade ago. Very social and vivacious man, which adds to his life expectancy. He actually comes across as younger than my FIL by several years, at least to my impressions. My FIL has at least two older sisters still living (6 and 8, both in Toronto), I can't remember if there's another older sibling I'm forgetting about, and Uncle 10 (Uncle Kevin) is still in very good health in California (retired school teacher, also very outgoing and seems much more than 2-3 years younger than my FIL) My FIL is very much an introvert - to the point if it wasn't for the language/culture barrier I suspect he'd be diagnosed with some variant of social anxiety disorder, he tends to go into his shell and hide from new people/situations for a while. It's bad enough that sometimes I think that his marriage may have been semi-arranged or at least very heavily nudged by other family members - my in-laws are distant cousins, she's told me something about going to live with his mother to help out with things when she was a teenager, might have been when she attended seamstress school I'm not sure - she's rather vauge with the details, I think she thinks I'd not understand as a westerner but I really do want to know and understand so I can share that part of the family history with the kids.

Woah, what I have time to reread of that is REALLY rambling and probably hard for anyone else to follow but the kids have been climbing all over me and bumping keyboard buttons that have almost resulted in losing this post a couple times, so I can't reread/reorganize it to make it more sensible at this moment. Welcome to the way my brain works.

Easter Egg Roll WOOT!

So my obsessive-compulsive... er... PERSISTENT... button mashing finally yeilded results. I don't know who the moron was who decided that releasing tickets to an event geared toward elementary school aged children ON A SCHOOL/WORK DAY was a good idea (hint guys, there's a reason that these have traditionally been released the Saturday before) but after feeling a little forlorn about my chances of scoring any tickets at all when I realized at 8:05am this morning that they'd been released (and snatched up rapidly) at 8am (while I was dealing with an extra kid, one of Liam's classmates' moms had a substituting job this morning and her hubby is out of town, so I said I'd take him to school for her, I've been carpooling him to his grandmother's house after school this week - yes, those of you who knew me in high school reading this, I'm still the queen of the carpools, tho I make sure there are enough seatbelts and booster seats for my passengers now). Anyway, after obsessively checking the site throughout the day, I happened to hit it at just the right time and scored tickets for the 4 of us to the Group D (1:15-3:15 I think) section. I'd been putting off making firmer travel arrangments (and plans for other things to do while in the area) until after I was sure we'd have the tickets to get in - if we hadn't, we still would have come down but I was thinking of maybe coming for the following weekend as a long weekend instead.

Now we need to figure out where we're spending Easter Day, up here in Cleveland or down in the DC burbs with our old friends who haven't seen Liam since he was a month old and have yet to meet D (err... some of them might not even know he exists as I'm rather bad at sending out the holiday cards... as in, 2008s are still mostly sitting around here somewhere, not quite sure where I stuck them but I guess I'll mail them out now with this news LOL).

Here's the screen cap so you know I'm not foolin' - I "redacted" the order number and my email address so someone doesn't try to steal my hard-won tickets.


Note to any administration folks who might stumble upon this - next year, do a lottery. Allow submissions online and via regular mail so that people without internet access aren't cut out (er... classism anyone?). Require that they send in a picture of all the people who will be attending (photocopies accepted) to limit scalping potential and visually verify there are children at least of approximately appropriate age in the picture since there allegedly has to be a child under 10 in each group.

Now I need to pester them even more about the handicap accessibility issues... wheelchair + lawn area + two small children = this should be interesting....

Driven by the Past (original poem)

To a place I never drove before I feel driven
by the blood in my veins
Pulled by bones set in space
Ages ago in a place
All I wanted to do was leave
When there
The air was stiffling
Of all I longed to be
But my memory
Is foggy with
Years and maturity
I chauffeur myself with passenger-eyes
Back into a past I thought
Long suppressed
If not healed.
Before I only approached
Under duress
In distress
Of what might come.
Now I will myself forward
Into this past
So much less intimidating
With years and grown inches
On my side
The child I was peeks out
From where she hides
Quietly in my soul
It's all so much
less
than I remembered it.

2009.3.24.11.55

(this was written after stopping by to look at the house my dad bought after divorcing my mom when I was 2. The novel I'm writing takes place about 1/4th mile east of that area, from my distance estimating abilities. Suffice to say I didn't enjoy the time spent with him during his court-determined visitations and don't remember much of that time very fondly.)

Found the digital things

Well, after searching both desktop hard drives and the laptop earlier, I thought I'd lost the notes and early writings I'd done on my novel. Then it occured to me to check the NAS (network attached storage) drive and lo and behold, there they were - and in the documents folder with my name on it none the less (which is separate from the one the whole family has stuff stored in and one just for Garvin). None of my other writings (poetry, fanfiction, old short stories, etc) was in there (tho all that was in other places where I *thought* I'd also had my novel's notes). Very strange. Turns out the character that was bugging me so much for a name had never actually been named in the first place (tho her mother had). I spent the time at church today borrowing the computer of one of the staff members (couldn't get wifi working on my bberry there, need to ask if there's a network key or something, or I would have tried to search for names on it instead). Decided on a name for the daughter and her mother, and the new name fits the mother better than the one I had intended to use. So now the characters aren't shouting "YO! Beeautch! Wha's ma name?" in my head anymore at least (my characters insult me on a regular basis, but in a friendly familial way I promise. And they don't actually talk with such coarse language in the novel. They are not gangsta, just playin).

Anyway, while searching for the stuff from my novel I found this very short story that I wrote sometime in high school (guessing probably senior year - 1994-1995 - due to the mention of Woodstock '94, and Garvin is sure that I wrote it before we met in early 1996 as it wasn't familiar and I generally force him to listen to listen to me read any new writings aloud). It made me laugh to read and thought it might give others a chuckle too. Please note that, dispite being a retelling of a fairytale, it is NOT suitable for children!


Rapunzel Gets a Makover
Ahmie Polak (my maiden name)

No, it didn't happen "once upon a time." That is too kind for the characters of this story. To me, this story begins "once upon a 1970's..."

There was a couple, I won't say man and wife, because that would have angered the wife, a woman's lib fanatic, made her feel that I was insinuating she was less than the man in some way. This couple had been together for some years, and had decided that the time was right in their carreers for them to have a child. Unfortunately, nature didn't agree, and they had trouble concieving. The problem seemed to lie in the man's underpants, and possibly in the fact that he was a little too, shall we say, generous, with the contents therein. He had a low sperm count, partially from overuse, which wasn't always with said female half of the couple. And it also bears relavent that Belinda, the woman with whom the man was wasting his limited excesses with, was barren. Belinda, while not a witch by modern standards, was a bit on the psycotic side, given to fits of insane, jealous rage. When she learned that "her" man was trying to have a child with the "other" woman, she, to put it nicely, became quite irrate. Actually.... she threw herself, kicking and screaming, on the floor at the man's feet and swore, if he didn't give her the child his wife would soon carry, that she would tell the dear woman everything and help her sue him for every penny he had. Considering the man had been in the Senate for a number of years, this amounted to much more than he cared for the public to know about. Petrified of the consequinces of a scandle, expecially since it was an election year, he promised that he would somehow give the child to Belinda after it was born.

It came to pass that the woman gave birth to a baby girl, but she never knew any more than that about the child. The senator calmly and smoothly had arranged that shortly after the child's birth, the mother would be told that it had been stillborn, and the child would be delivered to Belinda. The woman wept and tore her hair, nearly distroying a few hours' work from the beauty parlor, when she heard that her child was dead. We must remember, nazi-feminists do have feelings too. The man comforted her and promised they would try again, but of course, the woman refused. She looked at him with tear-stained eyes, black splotches of mascara running down her face, and exclaimed "Can't we just adopt???"

After seeing that the woman was properly and completely sedated with rather stronger-than-nessissary medications, the man went and spoke to Belinda.

"You've got what you've wanted. Now get out of here, and never come near me again, or I'll make you the sorriest woman on the face of the planet."

"Of course. What more could I possibly want? Except some money to raise this child with," she said, with a rather frightening smile.

Digging into his pockets, the senator took out his checkbook and wrote her a check for five hundred thousand dollars [editing note: back then, that was a lot of money, right?].

"And don't come looking for any more than that, unless the kid wants to go to college or something."

***

Belinda raised the child as her own, claiming to have given birth to her at home. Since she was a loner and rarely came out of her house, even less so during the nine month period when the other woman had been pregnant, no one had noticed that she had not gained an ounce during that interum. The child was named Rochelle and raised as if she were the queen of the world, until, spoiled and ignorant, she actually believed it.

Rochelle was perfect, at least in her own and Belinda's eyes. She always had all the solos in choir (more because the choir teacher was terrified of Belinda than any actual talent on Rochelle's part) and the leads in the school play. She had long, thick hair that Belinda let her start dying blonde and perming when she was only four years old. She was quite stunning, in a self-centered, completely unnatural, early 1980's sort of way. And it came to pass that, as she grew older, Rochelle became quite the little snob, eventually having no friends at all - which she blamed on their "imperfections" - and wound up spending a great deal of her time in their penthouse apartment watching MTV and trying to dress like Madonna. Nothing could have made Belinda happier.

Things went on like this for, sadly, an extremely long time, and it wasn't until around 1992 that things started to change. This was the year that Rochelle entered high school, and one of the most miserable years of her life. Rochelle discovered boys, and it didn't start with just any dweeblie boy. It started with the guy who played center for the school's boy soccer team. To say this guy was hot would be like saying that Bevis and Butthead are idiotic. This guy defined the word hot, but in a different way than the guy Belinda would have approved of. This boy, who's name (as if it were important) I might add was John, was the head-freak of the school. He started wearing grunge clothes before everyone else started to and sporting long, dark purple hair. While this may not sound too great looking to someone over the age of twenty-eight, he was also blessed with a body that would have put a young Hulk Holgan to shame and a face with a close resemblance to Keanu Reeves. Rochelle actually swooned the first time she saw him look right through her.

John didn't go for girls like Rochelle, ones that still made love to their hairspray bottles for forty-five minutes each morning and only wore clothes from the GAP. He perfered girls who didn't bother much with grooming (though he would turn and bolt if they didn't brush their hair and teeth and at least bath occassionally), and liked the look of girls who shopped mostly at thrift stores. Now, Rochelle may not have been the brightest girl in her classes, but every female of every species quickly adapts and learns how to lure and snare the males in elaborate courtship rituals, sublte and demure or agressive and deadly, and Rochelle was no different. She noticed which girls in the hallway John would notice, what they wore, how they did their hair, and soon began emulating it, much to Belinda's horror and dismay. Rochelle went grunge. She had her overly-permed hair straightened and dyed black, and stopped her thrice weekly trips to the tanning parlor, opting instead to hide in dark rooms to achieve the death-palor look of the girls that John aproached. She started giving her clothes to the Salvation Army, then shopping there for hours at a time when Belinda thought she was at the mall. Basically, Rochelle started to look like a rag-a-muffin. And she started to go by the name "Roach" to the people who suddenly started speaking to her. Belinda was stunned. Belinda tried grounding her. John noticed "Roach" and started hanging around her. Rochelle was on cloud nine.

One Friday it so happened that John's scheduled date became ill, and so he asked "Roach" if she would like to accompany him to the poetry reading he was going to. Rochelle, eager to get her claws into the delicious John, quickly accepted, and blew off Belinda's attempts to keep her at home. When John arrived on his Harley, Rochelle swung her leg over the back, held on tight with one arm, and waved goodbye to Belinda. Belinda knew then that she had lost her little fluffchick forever.

In the days and weeks that came after, John took to the task of expanding and enlightening Rochelle's horribly crippled and empty mind. He showed her local bands and helped her understand the lyrics. He took her to the art museum. He took her other places and did other things with her that I don't think it would be appropriate to mention here, using certain other objects that are just as unappropriate to mention. Let me just say that certain companies of certain products not advertised on most public telivision made quite a few dollars off of John and Rochelle at that time. Rochelle became a new person, interesting and intellegent, and actually won John's heart. Finally, John asked Rochelle to run away with him and elope. Rochelle agreed, and they left that night, taking little more than a change of clothes and a Harley that was in desperate need of a tune-up. Last time they were heard from, someone who had gone to school with them saw them at Woodstock '94, bickering and fighting over the screams of a small baby that Rochelle was trying to breastfeed.


[wow, I was a big fan of the word "and" in high school. Sorry for the typos, this was a plain text/Notepad document and I didn't run it through a spellcheck, and cut-and-pasting seems to have FireFox ignoring the errors in it - I did catch a few.]

Cute or ....?

Garvin thinks this Domo thing is "horribly cute" and especially so in costume. I think it looks like a nightmarish anthropomorphized lump of feces with sharp, nasty teeth that appears here to be laying a trap for the poor unsuspecting Easter Bunny. What do you think?

Now I'm blogging at Target. Help. Me.

URG! Misplaced digital things

Well, since I've actually been working on my novel again recently, I went looking to find the files of stuff I'd already written on it a while ago (possibly two years ago now, can't remember if I've written any text of it since D was born... primarily just doing plot planning and research since it takes place in Cleveland). Thank goodness I set up a blog under my pen name and posted the stuff I wasn't horrified by the quality of there, so I can retrieve it. I've been working on a scene with two strong secondary characters (next door neighbors of the principle character with frequent interactions with her) and I can't remember what I had decided to name them, and it's bugging the heck out of me. Getting really tired of calling them "woman/mother" and "girl" and I'm getting to the point in the text when they should really introduce themselves by name to my principle character. Urg. Off to my tumbleblog to see if I can dredge anything up there, and my two favorite name meaning websites (behindthename.com and thinkbabynames.com). If you're curious about what I'm writing, I'm really only willing to share details with people I know in real life. Contact me via my primary email address and I'll give you access to where I'm keeping an online repository of it. If you don't know my primary email address, you don't know me well enough to read it anyway, sorry.

I have a feeling I'm going to be writing on my bberry instead of paying attention to the sermon at church today. Sorry Rev. Kathleen, I'm sure it'll be a lovely service! But since I woke up and wrote a poem as soon as my eyes were able to focus, seems like it's a writing day today not a sit-and-listen day.

Their Feet (original poem)

New
Tiny, curling
In constant motion
They hike their wiggles
into my heart's deepest spot

Growing
now running
Circles and cycles
Flying so fast ahead
I struggle to keep up

Gangly
Shy stumbling
Testing new ground
Still twirling and whirling
But to catch another's eye

Sure
Steady grace
Distance is growing
At an unbearable pace
They move forward into history.

2009.3.22.8.05

(for Gabrielle and Beverly, and their parents, in honor of their 14th birthday. Look, Mike! No rhyming couplets!)

I needed to hear that...

A local friend who is also a FaceBook friend took one of those FaceBook quiz things, this one about "what is your theme song" and got a resulting song she was unfamiliar with but I know well - Natasha Bedingfield's "Unwritten".  I heard it on the radio the summer before D was conceived, and it quickly became one of my favorite songs. I hadn't listened to it in ages, but looked up the YouTube link to forward on to my friend and rewatched the music video for the first time in ages. I really like the video, and the song's lyrics really put my current situation in perspective, and the music is very uplifting to me (and makes me dance even when I don't really intend to, which is not a bad thing).  For those unfamiliar, here's the link:

YouTube - Natasha Bedingfield - Unwritten

Teaching the interplay of SES and life

So i've been thinking about teaching and missing it, which has me thinking up random lesson plans on various topics I how SOMEDAY to have the qualifications to teach classes in (sociology and edging into social psychology). One of my undergrad profs used Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in sociology methods class, which is a bit of the inspiration for this idea. The book just couldn't hold my attention at that time for some reason - I actually found the standard course textbook much more engaging (I think I just didn't mesh, at least at the time, with the author's narrative style - I'm generally much more tollerant of different writing voices in non-fiction than fiction, I'm a very picky fiction reader and it's hard to predict what I will or won't like at any given point, and a book I can't stand at one point can wind up being one I reread several times later)

So I was thinking about how much more I might have gotten out of a lesson that involved fictional characters I actually cared about and that sparked an idea for a lesson on how demographic characteristics shape the options people are presented with in life and the choices that they are likely to make given those options. What I would do is allow students to pick any work of fiction they were familiar with, as long as at least one classmate was also familiar with the piece (and they could be movies, TV or books, or even very involved video games for all I care, though the character picked has to have a very developed 'canon' backstory, and no religious texts so as to avoid letting the subject get THAT potentially explosive) so that their peer can help verify their interpretation (especially for pieces that I am unfamiliar with). They are then to describe the character's background demographics and explain how that interplayed with a major choice/decision/pivotal interaction in the story. Then they are to give examples of how the options the character was presented with may have been different if single background details (of the student's choice) were changed. Then if several were changed but they still had the original plot option presented, how may they have reacted differently?

Now describe yourself the same way, pick a pivotal moment in your own life, and analyze how your background set you up to be presented with that option. How might you have reacted differently if a few of your own background variables were changed? What background characteristics in your life made the option even possible? How many of your background traits do you think you could change and still have the option presented at all?

This is a 'game' I play with myself (and fiction characters I care about - this is why I write and enjoy Harry Potter fanfiction so much!) and feel free to try it yourself. I'd love to read what you come up with even if you don't consider yourself a social scientist.

To Fly or Stand (another original poem)

I need a wing to be taken under
I desperately want to learn to fly
It's not fear I feel of distant thunder
But a longing to undestand why

I need a source to draw upon
That will flow unerringly
When my strength is nearly gone
Something, somehow - carry me

I need to stand firm on my own
As the ground shifts below my feet
I need to know that I have flown
Whatever future I may greet.

(my brain seems to be trying to work things out in rhyming couplets lately, not exactly sure why buy that is how things are coming out. I *have* written plenty of non-rhyming poems in the past. Maybe it's the Migun bed - you guessed it, i've written this one on it too!)

The Whos and the Whats

So I'm still struggling with the idea of grad school and, per my nature, am sitting around thinking and rethinking about it (no, I don't think I'm *overthinking*!) because I still don't feel like I have enough information to really decide if now is the right time or not. Delano doesn't make the best conversation partner for sussing this stuff out, I'm too distracted to really think about it while alone with both kids and too exhausted by the time at least Liam is asleep so Garvin can help me sort it out in my head (he is usually exceptionally good at that, which is one of the top ten reasons I married him. His listening skills, when he puts them to fill use, are downright sexy). So here I am, sitting in the middle seat of the minivan w D while waiting for Liam to get out of class, blogging about it on my blackberry.

I think most of what it boils down to is figuring out if getting the PhD is part of who I am or what I am, and it's feeling like a very borderline issue at the moment.

The who parts are the parts that would essentially destroy me (at least mentally for an extended period of time) if I were to lose them, or in some cases even just lessen their role in my life below a certain threshold. At this point in my life, the most obvious and primary of these is my role as parent. There is a definite minimum threshold of time I must spend with my children to maintain basic sanity (tho I am also very aware that there is a maximum too, but since I'm still nursing there's a time limit of physical comfort away from the nursling, about 6 hours at this point. Pumping doesn't help because for me it's a combined physical/mental/emotional thing once it kicks in I get very single-minded about *needing* to be with my baby). Being married to Garvin falls into this category too, as do my spiritual beliefs, ability to think to a certain depth, and take care of the most basic of my own physical needs (I found the lower limits of that one when I herniated the lumbar discs before getting preg w Liam - being unable to handle my own toileting independently for an extended period of time did BAD things to me mentally). Basically those components, when added to the basic needs of food and shelter, are needed for me to feel like *me* . They are essential to WHO I am.

Other characteristics - gender, sexual orientation, physical dis/abilities, class, race, politics, college graduate - these are fundamental aspects of WHAT I am, but if any one or several, even maybe all, were flipped somehow, I think I would still be essentially the same 'who' (that is, if somehow those changes happened now - I recognize how much many of those attributes have shaped who I have become through their constant presence growing up, just that the loss of any of them would not be devistating to me and lacking a few of them I think I could have developed as much as I am at this point, though it may have taken longer! The physical disabilities have been particularly potent teachers).

So, the question I'm still trying to figure out is: is the PhD a who or a what? One of my undergrad profs pulled me aside toward the end of my education and told me something along the lines of "people think you earn a PhD. They're wrong. You *become* a PhD. It generally takes years of graduate training to teach students to think like a PhD. You already think that way, getting a PhD will primarily be a matter of paperwork for you.". That was back in the spring of 1999. It's now 10 years later and I definately haven't stopped thinking that way - in fact it has just become more intense and pervasive. Back then I had to intentionally turn it on, now it's my default setting - I look at everything around me as data to be analyzed and interpreted, as often waking up needing to jot down a research idea as a writing or photography project one (and I've been writing and taking photographs longer than I can remember - started both before I was out of single digits age-wise, fiction and non-fiction writing, wrote first poem I think when I was 10 but I could be forgetting an earlier one, the first one I remember was about my sister who was born that year). My ability to communicate visually (which encompasses both writing and photography, and other tangental primarily visual arts I partake in) is closer to a who than a what, though I'm not sure if it's a who component because I've never had to test it - writing tools are always readily available (though I get pretty frustrated pretty fast if I have to handwrite things, my handwriting is attrociously bad because my hands cramp up, to the point I have trouble decifering it myself after a few paragraphs, and I can already type faster on my bberry than I can handwrite legibility). Photography-wise, I get grumpy without easy, ready access to a digital camera (I am very spoiled in this aspect, next month marks the 10th anniversary of the purchase of my first digital camera, and the thought of even going back to film, much less hand-drawing, is enough to make me feel slightly queasy right now). I think those aspects of my life, if suddenly made even less accessible, would at least throw me into a deep depression (as anyone who had to put up with the fallout from the hard drive crash in our main computer in October 2007 could probably tell you - I dropped out of a lot of online activities for a while then because I was just too emotionally devistated from the loss of some of the digital photographs on that drive that I hadn't had time to back up yet before the sudden crash - specifically D's church dedication and G & I renewing our vows, both a month before the crash - to the point it set off a major Fibromyalgia flare from the stress and I couldn't deal with any issues outside my household for a few months from the bad health spiral - didn't help that G was also stressed from grad classes he was taking and the developmental points the kids were at and lots of other mental and physical stressers).

I also have always committed myself to living a life I won't regret later. A big part of this is from spending so much of my childhood with mysterious medical symptoms that were not clearly diagnosed and a mother who tended to catastrophize the symptoms in front of me enough that I did sometimes wonder if it might be something terminal. Since the doctors took years to figure it out (the full puzzle as I now understand it wasn't put together until I was a few years out of college when a physiatrist off-handedly mentioned that I was clearly hypermobile and that the body mechanics involved were triggering myofascial pain, which was likely more of what I was dealing with that Fibromyalgia per se, so we finally worked out that the hypermobility, which I was born with, set me up for fascia and muscle issues, which triggered the Fibromyalgia, which triggered the chronic fatigue, which triggered the immune issues, which doesn't help the ear infection issues, which triggers the audio processing issues - elegant how it all works together, eh?) I came to the decision when I was in my early teens that I wasn't going to waste my limited energy living life in a way that I might regret later, so I've had the thought of "how would I likely feel about this decision on my deathbed?" as a guide much longer than your average never-terminally-ill 30-something (to the point I sometimes get mistaken for a senior citizen online), and it's the first thought I have about any decision that will have obvious ramifications lasting beyond the next moment. Not that I don't sometimes still make bad decisions, but at least they're not made lightly so I forgive myself for them ;) one regret at this point is that I didn't go straight into head school from undergrad, but then G might not have become a teacher and that is so clearly his calling that it lessens the regret I have about not earning my advanced degree already.

So, on my deathbed, will I regret if I never earn a PhD? Due to the lack of ability to conduct some of the research in my head that I think has significant potential to better the lives of many people and lessen suffering, yes. I think I would. However, that still doesn't answer if NOW is the right time to start, as the timing affects my children and they are too young to voice their opinion (and, I definately feel that I WOULD regret not having at least one more child, likely more - I somehow feel like I am "supposed" to have two daughters, to the point that it feels almost like they're missing sometimes because they're not conceived yet). I haven't been able to get clear answers/ideas of how much on-campus time will be involved (I know full-time is 3, 3 credit hour courses plus a 1hr/wk seminar, but there is also a fellowship involved to have tuition covered in full and I don't know anything about that beyond the expectation of 20hrs/wk of work -don't know if the hours are flexible, if telecommuting is possible, etc, which makes it difficult for me to figure out if my health can tolerate it with the added demands of mothering small children, and that gets me right back to the only part that REALLY scares me, that I might drop the ball as a mother by pursuing the degree now). I inquired about going part-time at least to start, to make sure my health can tolerate it beforre jumping to full-time, but the answer I got was that would have to be entirely self-funded and that's just not an option (unless some independantly wealthy person I'm unaware of is reading this and wants to find my degree), on a teacher's salary and with the extra classes G has had to take for licensure, we're still paying on existing student loans and can't take on more, especially ones that don't immediately increase job security or employability (I haven't the foggiest clue as to my chances of earning enough to pay back the loans upon completion, especially being totally unwilling to relocate - which plays large in my lack of interest in tenure track. All I really want us to be affilliated enough to do my research and teach some - I really do love teaching and miss it - I don't really care about much beyond that, and if I can hook up with other researchers at more prestigious universities for that part, I'd likely be quite happy teaching at a community college. Not against the idea of some public speaking gigs either as I rather enjoy public speaking - one of my other anomalies is a total lack of fear of public speaking).

Anyway, I'm still feeling very conflicted about this and have no idea how to sort it all out beyond writing it here so I can examine it more outside my head. If anyone has any advice/input/perspective to share, please comment. Maybe there are other options that just aren't occurring to me because my brain is set on this one path, I'm willing to be re-routed! This post has taken all day and at least 3 sittings to write, so it's a bit disjointed. Hopefully I've caught all the SureType typing prediction oddities.

Overwhelmed Juggler (original poem)

I have too many balls in the air
and no idea how to juggle
more like I'm playing dodge ball with myself
Hands over head, don't I even bother to struggle
As another ball pelts and makes a welt.

(Another one written on my bberry while on a Migun bed. No I am NOT bipolar)

Having a bad day

D was up every 2 hours last night so I slept like crap. Then woke up to find the stiffly nose from yesterday had morphed into a sinus cavity full of bloody snot. Yum. Not moving around so well from sleeping poorly so barely got self & kids out of the house in time to get L to school, thank goodness no call for carpoolling the other kid this morning. Drank a cup of coffee at home then got a medium McDonald's coffer, now sipping on a tall mocha espresso from Starbucks trying to stay conscious until L is out of school (t minus 15 minutes, I'm sitting in the van in the school parking lot typing this on my bberry). Sinus pain is worse to me than labor pain (but then again, so is about 80% of the pain I experience on a weekly basis). Am very grumpy. D passed out in his carseat about 10min ago just before I determined Starbucks was needed.

I'm frustrarted by how little got done around the house this weekend. The place is rarely tidy - I'd love it to be but just don't have the physical stamina and refuse to constantly clean up after my husband, especially because I don't want my sons to grow up expecting a woman to clean up after them. Then when I think like that I gett really grouchy at my MIL for fosyreing that unconscious expectation in my hubby (she still does it, then criticizes me for not cleaning like she does).

I decided I need to do something proactive about getting more organized because the chaos is just stressing me out too much, so I'm listening to David Allen's "Getting Things Done" on the speaker of my phone while writing this. I think a good plan might be to listen to it again after every other audiobook I listen to so as to get more constant reminders. And/or I might just make myself (and hubby) listen to it at night (I do not sleep well in too quite environments - too much time in bad neighborhoods as a kid gets my brain to interpret every little sound as a possible intruder, trying to wean off TV on all night and can't sleep with music on either as it just makes me twitchy). Garvin can use the tips too anyway.

Kids coming out of school more later.

My Own Midwife (original poem)

I will midwife my self
Reach inside and bring a new me to birth
Shape my own world so different from Earth
With eyes open wide and glowing with worth
Life flowing on with rapturous mirth

I will find sustainance within my own breast
Rise above the sludge that mires the rest
I'll filter the toxic and consume the best
Always preparing for what will come next

(composed on my BlackBerry while using a Migun
thermo-massage bed after putting an audiobook
on pause first - I am the queen of multitasking!
This IS how I relax.)

Accomplishing something

Not feeling well and thought creating something might improve my mood. Had yarn handy so made.this Ravenclaw intarsia crochet thing (it's sideways in the picture unless I figure out how to rotate it on the phone). Pattern from Leaky. Thought I'd make a cell phone cozy out of it but it's a bit too big so no idea what I'll wind up doing with it. But I did something today, right?

Test mobile post

Blogger FINALLY responded to my mobile register attempts so this is a test post from my bberry. Not sure how it will show up as author, if it will mark these as mobile posts at all, but the predictive writing software on the bberry can make some amusing errors sometimes (as demonstrated on my twitter feed) and I'm usually splitting my attention so I don't always catch the errors to correct them - can't exactly touch type on this thing to watch what is showing up on the screen & often need to switch to kid monitoring mid-word so can't reread before sending to catch the errors.

These are sent via mms so I may post pictures tha way also. Hopefully it'll allow me to blog a little more regularly by freeing me from needing to be at a desk/computer to post (I spend a lot of time sitting in my van with D sleeping in the back seat while L is at school in the mornings, then they are energetic together in the afternoons and need closer supervision now that L doesn't nap most days, so I'm pretty zonked by the time G gets home and/or desperately want to be out of the house since I can't really manage both kids alone in unconfined areas with my physical limitations. I get really starved for adult conversation/interactions when D has napped several mornings in a row. When he stays awake I often hang out in one of the motorized carts at Target with him in a front carrier just to be out around adults, but he's getting too heavy for my back to tolerate carrying him and too curious to appreciate being restrained).

Not sure if there is a character count limit on mms messages like there is on txt messages so this is kinda testing that too I guess.

Yes, I'm still alive

OK, so it's been ages and ages since I've updated this thing. My hands have been rather full with the kids and other offline stuff (as well as other online distractions) and I haven't felt motivated to blog. I got a BlackBerry Flip a week and a half ago, which prompted me to finally sign up for a unlimited messaging plan (I've had a cell phone since 1999 but I can count on one hand how many txt messages I sent before 10 days ago). Since I tend to be out of the house with D while Liam's in Pre-K in the mornings (which is also why I've been too exhausted to blog - being out with a mobile toddler is a lot of stress for my back so I've been pretty zonked out when I get home, then tending both kids prevents much blogging). I've been using Twitter heavily since getting the BlackBerry, I much prefer typing on it to typing on a standard phone keyboard (my brain thinks in QWERTY not ABC1 DEF2 from being a very fast touch typist for more than half my life). I've just installed the widget on this blog (to your right on the screen) so that my Twitter updates will appear here, and you can follow me directly on there (as well as see the various things I've tweeted in the last 10 days - all 80+ things I've tweeted in the last 10 days *blush*). http://twitter.com/dragonmama (same username, convenient, eh?).

I've got a draft of a post for here that has details of what I've been up to for the last year, including pictures, but I'm getting significant glances from D right now so don't dare try to work on that. Tried to just snap a picture of D's significant look but he reaches for the camera (aka my bberry in this case) instead of giving me the same look again. Not as easy to be stealthy with the cell as it is with the regular camera for some reason.