Dear grumpy old male customer at Best Buy

I don't know what it was about me that made you feel entitled to interfere in my interaction with my four year old child while he was trying to figure out a game on an iPad. Perhaps it was simply because I'm female and you feel entitled to criticize anything any female does. Perhaps it was my attire (jean shorts, a Toy Story t-shirt, and sandals) that had you make assumptions about my social class, education level, church-going habits (we had attended a service on bullying at our church just a few hours before this, ironically), or marital status (tho the simple gold band around my left ring finger should have been a giveaway there). Perhaps it was my disability since I had positioned my mobility scooter in such a way as to shielding my child who was seated on the floor from becoming a tripping hazard - maybe you even assumed he wasn't mine since I am not able-bodied.

Whatever your "logic" was for stepping in to criticize my child and me for his sitting on the floor playing a game on the iPad, it was flawed. The fact that you were clearly a bully used to getting your way when you go to boss someone around was revealed in your refusal to back off and mind your own business after my REPEATED requests that you do so. That you then felt the desire to call in other authority figures - first suggesting the manager of the store, then even the POLICE, over a simple matter of a four year old playing with a floor model iPad in a place of public accommodation, revealed you to be not just an asshat, but a proud wearer of a scrotal necktie. The store staff was NOT thrilled with having to intervene and TELL you to mind your own business and look at a (GASP) different iPad, seeing as there were THREE on display. Your little stalker behavior of coming across the parking lot as we were loading my scooter and children into the minivan (yes, I saw you coming, and yes, the cell phone in my hand had 911 dialed with my thumb under the "call" button) was a total dumbass move and you're lucky I had the restraint not to throw the van into reverse and run your ass over, since it had taken quite a bit of restraint earlier in the store to keep from running your feet over with my scooter or braining you with my cane (though it seems like the tissue in that cranium might have been soft enough to not be much effected by the level of blow my limited arm strength is capable of delivering, so it wouldn't have really been worth the paperwork involved).

You should also count yourself lucky that I didn't video your ass and post you on YouTube, you twit. I refrained from even taking a picture of you to post here on my blog & Facebook feed.

Instead, you sarcastically wished us a nice day and I wished you a good life. Elsewhere. Preferably measured in air miles. And hopefully you'll think twice (or, heck, maybe even think FIRST) before harassing anyone who matches any of my demographic characteristics again. Because if you keep it up, sir, SOMEONE is gonna open a can of whoopass on you that your old brittle bones won't be liking. And of you invade someone's space the way you did mine, they well might be able to justify doing such to a jury, depending on who witnesses it.

Just sayin'.

Sincerely,

The DragonMama

On my 7th World Breastfeeding Week as a lactivist

I type this with my 14mo asleep across my lap, nuzzled up to my breast while his father snuggles the older two into unconsciousness. I'm exhausted but felt the need to post something, this may be rambling nonsense so preemptive apologies if it gets too tangenty.

It's been a wild seven years since my first, first week of August(aka World Breastfeeding Week) as a breastfeeding mother in 2004. Back then, my state didn't recognize the legal right of my baby to eat wherever he was when he happened to be hungry and I could have been asked to leave a store for feeding him. Now, I still might get hassled for it but at least there's a law in place (thanks in very small part to Liam and I going down to our state capital to testify for the legislation). Teeth to it would be nice sometimes.

We just got back from an exhausting trip to NYC (whose state law does, incidentally, have "teeth" - there's at least a stated fine for harassing people for breastfeeding) where we stayed with my bro-in-law, visited with my mom-in-law's friends (NOT my idea of a great time after driving 500 miles in 11 hours with 3 young children, to have to then drive MORE to sit around a table for more than an hour while people socialized in a language I can't understand... but... whatever. I got to see the Harry Potter exhibition with my kids before it leaves the continent so I can't complain TOO much, right?). The baby H.A.T.E.S. his carseat, and is only somewhat mullified by playing music (when I want to be listening to audiobooks, of course). I had just got a new cell phone (my first Android, because my 2.5yr old Blackberry was dying), and had a new stereo installed in the van so I could do hands-free calling, and wound up streaming music from my phone through the stereo via bluetooth since it was easier to switch back to the audiobook if Little Bear allowed me to. Luckily my kids don't insist on listening to "kids music" (Liam's favorite song is by Dave Stewart from the Eurythmics, Del's current favorite song is by Alanis Morrissette, and Col tends to want Take to the Sky by Tori Amos, which is a b-side from Little Earthquakes and my "theme song"). I wasn't even sure what was ON my cell phone's memory card, I'd just copied everything over from the Blackberry since I used some of them as ringtones. Turned out to have some stuff that made me sentimental, and brought out a little of the militant lactivist/DragonMama in me, possibly to the chagrin of some of the other people in the restaurants we dined in bwahahahaha (no you obnoxious Jersey Shore types, I'm NOT interested in your parenting advice as your inappropriately dressed teens act like total cretins in public, thankyouverymuch).

The music pulls me back to my younger, more-steamroller-than-diplomat days (err... yes... I *have* gotten better about it, believe it or not). I find that I've needed to find a balance point between the assertive no-I'm-going-to-do-what's-right-up-yours-if-you're-gonna-try-to-oppress-me attitude (tho yeah, that still comes out... pretty much daily, to be honest) and the let's-see-if-we-can-find-a-win-win-compromise-that-doesn't-make-me-want-to-vomit-from-compromising-my-integrity end that I fear I may have to cultivate if I ever want to be a college professor. Motherhood has really helped me learn to SEEK that balance point more, even if I still tip to the former quite often.

I had Tori's From the Choirgirl Hotel album playing today while running errands. The album was written after the musician had a miscarriage. I don't think I've listened to it beginning-to-end since becoming a mother myself. I almost started crying during Playboy Mommy. It hit me hard when I first heard it, years before Liam was conceived, but now it reminds me of how very blessed I am to have had uneventful pregnancies and healthy children (especially since we had a friend's 4 year old daughter in the van with us - the friend is newly pregnant again currently, had miscarried a very wanted child shortly before I conceived Col then got pregnant again, the new baby will be less than 2 years younger than that baby). It made me think of the bonds motherhood has formed between me and other women, both child-bearers and not, and how much it has made my maternal line mean to me.

This has also been on my mind today because my mother forwarded to me an article written about my grand-uncle (maternal grandmother's brother, my grandmother is the only one of her siblings to ever marry, her siblings were like additional grandparents to me), which deeply touched me that my uncle's work has survived to be appreciated more than two decades after his death. I wonder what kind of ripples my own life's work will have. If long after I'm gone someone has such kind words to say about me that my descendants can come across, that will tell them that my life was well-lived. I wish I knew more about Uncle Norvin, I hope that my descendants will know more about me (and that I'll live long enough to know more about them... he was only in his mid-60s when he died, I was in kindergarten).

The milk of human kindness flows in many ways, but our babies deserve it first from their mother's breasts. How, in this scary economy, can we make that possible for more women? I am blessed to have had the privilege to breastfeed my children full-term (biologically - other mammals do not wean their young before they have enough teeth to eat a full adult diet... ponder that the next time you hear someone say "that baby is too old to be breastfed". If they're still young enough to have jars of baby food marketed to them, they're still young enough to be fed the way they were born expecting to be nourished). How can we be more kind in a meaningful manner, with mothers who have so many barriers to the way they might want to live? How can we make it possible for the cashier at the grocery store (who mentioned that she is hoping to have another child while commenting on the coolness of the baby carrier - a traditional Chinese style one - we had with us) to breastfeed her own for as long as she might like to, without making her feel like we have no understanding of the complexities of her life that just BEGIN with the chaos of her work schedule? Meaningful, PAID parental leave when a child is born would be part of it, but making breastfeeding mothers feel welcome and accepted in public places instead of abiding the mentality of the few that breastfeeding should only be done at home, behind closed doors - that'd be a start, I think. We've got such a long way to go. I hope that we get there before I'm a memory like my uncle.

should I "journal" for class here?

OK, I'm taking an Oppression and Social Justice class this fall (I'm in graduate school part-time at Case Western Reserve University's Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences working on a Master of Science in Social Administration, Community and Social Development focus - or "at CWRU's MSASS for an MSSA in the CSD track" for the alphabet soup fans - in case anyone who reads this has missed the "Ahmie went back to school" news last academic year). One of the main assignments for class is to keep a journal, writing at least one page per week. I suck at journaling on a regular basis as anyone following my blog knows well, but the length ain't an issue AT ALL... I plan to blog my journal entries instead of just writing them privately because I love having others on the journey with me (especially when I'm finding the journey annoying and obnoxious like I feel being TOLD to keep a weekly journal is, expect snarkiness). My question is, should I blog here (on my dragonmama.blogspot.com blog that cross-posts to FB), should I just post them as FB notes, or should I post them on a separate blog (I have a separate tumble-blog that I could use) so folks are only seeing the posts if they specifically want to see it? If no one gives feedback asking me to do otherwise, I'll probably post to Blogger with auto-cross-posting to FB since I find it easier to find my older posts (to later copy-and-paste them into the format the professor wants handed in). I'm also trying to decide if I *should* be doing this in a semi-public blog (you can find this one on Blogger by searching for my name or primary email address, but not my school email address). Other option is to do the blogging under my pen name (which I'm mildly protective of and only a few people know that's me - if you're a blog follower or FB friend and want to know then ask and I'll tell you privately). Already have a blog, website, FB account, etc under that one and can do similar linking/cross-posting, but might be a little more protection of the innocent so to speak.

Oh, and as for my writing, I finished the first draft of my novel last summer just before getting pregnant with Col. I haven't finished the first edit yet so I haven't let anyone else read it (tho there are a few trusted folks I'm thinking of just giving up on trying to edit it before showing it to - basically, people who I consider close family regardless of lack of DNA-sharing). I have two other very fleshed out stories in that same universe planned out, a few short stories planned in that universe (a few characters from the 1st one appearing in the others, but different main characters), and another storyline that is compatible with the universe of the first group but seems to want to be its own series that has been growing like a freaking wildflower in primo compost in my brain for the last month or so (that's the vampire one for those who know about it).

Baby Col is 3 months old as of yesterday, doing wonderful, very sweet-tempered baby even with some reflux issues (he doesn't spit up but I'm nearly positive it's partway up when he gets hiccups after nursing, as he REALLY gets unhappy when he has the hiccups). Big brothers are being wonderful to him but not always wonderful to each other (mostly fighting over time/space with the baby, ironically) and the biggest problem I'm having with sibling issues is keeping 6yr old from picking 3mo up off the floor when I set him down for a little tummy time. Baby spends most of his time in adult arms/babywearing just to keep from having him constantly poked by his brothers.

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....

VP Pelosi?

So Pelosi was speaking today and saying "Democrats will have a Dream Ticket" but said it won't be Obama/Clinton or Clinton/Obama. The woman had a total cat-who-ate-the-canary grin on her face while saying it. I'd be willing to bet dollars to cents that she's been tapped to be Obama's VP, and she'd be a much better VP than Hillary (Pelosi has been in the US House of Representatives since 1987, Minority Whip, then Minority Leader, now Speaker of the House, opposed the war from the start, matches Barack's record very well in most areas from what I got scanning through her Wikipedia entry). That would work very well, as it totally undermines the support base behind Hillary without having the divisiveness Hillary brings to the VP slot - Pelosi is another woman "of a certain age" BUT she's got REAL national government level experience that she EARNED FOR HERSELF (and nicely she's seemed to "grow a pair" recently in arguing with Bush, she's been a bit too polite to him for my taste since becoming Speaker). If it really is about it being "a woman's turn" to Hillary's supporters, Pelosi is also a woman so that argument loses steam, and asking Pelosi over Hillary is easily explained because Hillary made the argument for it - Pelosi has more security experience, more experience PERIOD, and brings the "big state that Barack lost" of California legitimately (instead of the "big state" of NY as a carpetbagger).


Garvin saw the video too and agrees with me - she was just smiling WAY to big for it to be someone else who has been tapped. Watch for it. I don't think he'll announce anything of the sort before he's officially the nominee delegate-wise, but if you start seeing a sudden large number of superdelegates announcing support for him, it's been announced behind the scenes. Mark my words.

For those who still aren't feeling too terribly committed one way or the other, a graphic I made for you:
(that's formated 6x4 if anyone wants to print it out, I'm planning to print one and stick it in a magnetic 4x6 holder to stick on my van)

In other news, Del finally had his two bottom teeth pop through the gum line in the last few days. He seems really less than thrilled with the two weird, hard, sharp things in his mouth that he can't get out. NOt been doing good things to my mental funcitoning, lack of sleep combined with fibromyalgia flaring up (which it has been, off and on, since October - I haven't been at my normal energy levels since then) and I'm a bit off my game to say the least.

Bebe Gras

So I've had this image in my head for a while and haven't found time to track down another mom to pose for me and wanted to just do it, so I had Garvin take this picture of me on January 27th to commemorate 7 months of nursing Del:



The beads are actually from New Orlean's Mardi Gras 2005, 2nd hand from one of Garvin's coworkers that year that earned them "the old fashioned way". I made the mask.

If anyone wants to model for a reshoot of this image with their own baby, I'd be happy to oblige - wound up doing a lot of cropping and the lighting wasn't to my liking because I couldn't exactly set it up properly before the picture was taken... as it is I'm sitting on Liam's sidecar bed, that's the bedroom wall behind me, so not too shabby of a picture after some photoshopping ;) I would have liked to have had more of Del's legs in the shot - he's got such lovely chunky thighs, at least you can see one, but his chubby little feet are so sweet! Ah, well, here's a picture with his foot (as well as mine and Liam's), the title of this one is "Our Best Feet Forward"




Speaking of feet, John Edwards, the candidate I was supporting the most whole-heartedly, has stepped off the campaign trail. Obama was always a close second to me, rising more every time I heard him actually speak about issues (instead of just vague ideas like "hope" which, while I appreciate, I need something more concrete from a candidate). I'm now joining Liam in his support of Obama.

Del's a growing boy

Garvin's got a bad cold (most likely viral according to the doctor) and asked me to make him an appointment. I tagged along with Del so we could weigh him since I haven't bothered to make his 6mo well-baby checkup since he's doing fine and we're delaying vaccinations, so a $15 copay seems a bit of a waste just to weigh and measure the kid and chat with the doctor (who I really like and enjoy spending time with outside the office - we're both Potterheads). They don't mind me coming in and weighing Del on my own and mark in his chart how much he weighs when I do that. I usually forget to measure him, but he's growing out of his clothes so I'm pretty sure his growth isn't stunted or anything (he's currently wearing a lot of 9-12mo stuff, generally fits his torso length and has long enough legs to keep from riding up enough to expose bare flesh to the cold weather while being carried about). So, Del's gained about a pound since I last weighed him between Xmas and New Years (I *think* it was the day he was 6mo), when he weighed 18lbs 2oz. He weighed 19lbs 2oz today and was 26.24 inches long (took the time to measure him on the exam table between when the nurse did Garvin's intake and when the doctor came in to see him since I knew where she keeps the measuring tape). According to the WHO breastfed baby boys chart, he's about a standard deviation above the mean in weight. All the stupid online calculators that give you percentages seem to be using the CDC ones that are primarily formula fed babies so they aren't giving an accurate percentile (saying 49th percentile I think). Del is also working hard on learning to crawl, he gets up on all fours and rocks back and forth, sometimes intentionally lurching face-first to the floor repeatedly to propel himself forward inchworm-style. He's very good at maintaining a sitting position and has been since around New Years (was sitting up before then but leaning on his hands). Now he's also working on trying to get from a laying down position to a sitting position - if he's semi-reclined (say, leaning back on the boppy or my arm) he can usually get up to sitting by himself, and he rolls to the side and tries to push himself up but hasn't quite managed it yet.

Just wanted to make sure I remembered to record this SOMEWHERE since I'm horrible at remembering to record things where I'll find them again. Clare, looks like borrowing the carrier carseats from us will be NO PROBLEM - they only go up to 20lbs, at this rate Del will grow out of them well before Monkeypuzzle arrives.

I keep wanting to post but not getting to it...

For the last week and a half or so I've been fibro-flaring and the kids extra demanding (probably because I'm not giving them enough positive attention - I've been a bit of a snappish momster for some points). My birthday happened, I've uploaded pictures of it (as well as November - the pictures website is actually up to date through this afternoon right now - the new profile picture here on Blogger was taken today). However I've already been interrupted 5 times in trying to get THIS blog post written so little wonder the long one I wanted to do for my birthday (which was Monday, it is now Friday) hasn't been done. Garvin just interrupted me for the 4th time this paragraph, it's not just the kids. I'd throw a pillow at his head RIGHT NOW if he wasn't carrying the baby. I'm feeling rather grumpy and behind on a lot of stuff including emails.

Anyway, what I HOPE to post about in the next 24-48 hours are my new year resolutions. I've decided it makes more sense to do those on my birthday instead of on some arbitrary date on the calendar (which January 1 is - *I* didn't set that date as important, did you?). I have several, they're not so much resolutions as goals for the year I am 31, and I've started on them even if I haven't been able to commit them to my freaking blog. Seeing as two of them directly relate to writing, this is rather ironic and ominous.

Time for another cup of coffee before I start screaming again. Both kids are pulling the "I'm not napping unless in physical contact with Mama" routine which does NOT work well with fibromyaglia trigger points. Oh, and Garvin just dropped the f-bomb over something in the other room, should probably find out why, but he's holding the baby and I can see the baby and the baby is not crying so I'm not feeling entirely concerned at the moment aside from wanting to wash his mouth out with soap since Liam is conscious and in earshot. *sigh*

3 Years, 1 Month, 1 Week, and 2 Days with Two Treehuggers (take 3)

Well, we re-shot the pictures of Del (twice, actually - I didn't like the way the ones I took Monday afternoon came out so we redid it Tuesday afternoon with Liam running around... bet the daycare folks are just LOVING us now). Here's the final image (at least, I think it's the final image... ;) )... formatted for 8x10 printing so don't go trying to print it at 4x6 or it'll crop their heads off.
And for those trying to do a careful facial feature comparison, here's a close-up of their faces (note that Del is 9 days older than Liam was when his part of the picture was taken):

Yes, they look like brothers, but they are far from identical. Liam's mouth isn't nearly as wide as Del's, Del's eyes are also wider-spaced and lighter in color than Liam's, Del's ears stick out a bit more than Liam's (as do mine), their eyebrows are different, Del has a more pronounced chin whereas Liam's jawline is more rounded like his daddy's... both have fairly full lips like both of their parents (but shaped more like mine)... they MAY have the same nose shape when they grow up but that's hard to determine as there is much less nose shape variety among babies than there is among adults (Liz I believe will concede that fact?).

Garvin's baby pictures are all in the house, I'm going to ask my mom to bring mine over so I can scan them in and compare them to the way the boys look as babies. I do think Del resembles me more than Garvin from the few baby pictures of myself that I have. Liam's been "mini-Garvin" in appearance pretty much all along (but he's "mini-Ahmie" in personality). I'm suspecting Del is the reverse - looks more like mama but personality more like daddy, especially anytime we've been someplace where people Del's never met before want to hold him. Liam was always pretty happy with that idea, would happily coo if we were playing "pass the baby" before we even got our coats off. Del takes longer to warm up to people and "come out of his shell" (my sweet little turtle baby), if we try to let others hold him too soon he cries and if we wait a bit so he can warm up to them he will still glance around to reassure himself that mama is within a few feet every 30sec or so.

They're such wonderfully different little people!

3 Years 1 Month 1 Week With 2 Treehuggers

Had to share, life's been crazy and as it is I'm typing this with a fussy Del in my arms....



That's Del on the left and Liam on the right (exactly one week younger when the picture was taken). Del's picture's not so good because it was taken with my cellphone camera, the Kodak isn't working for some reason (thought it was that our battery charger went fubar but we went and got "for digital cameras" alkaline batteries just to take the picture and it still won't turn on *sigh* testing a bit more with rechargables from a different charger before contacting Kodak - at least it's still under warranty but CRAP right at the holiday season is NOT when I'm most patient about this!).

People keep telling me how much the boys look alike. Neener neener, no they DON'T!

Oh, and behind Del is the new RE wing of our church (construction was completed just before he was concieved), behind Liam is the old RE wing of our church. I'm not sure if it's the same tree or not, there were two trees in front of the building before construction, one is now gone and I can't remember which one I took Liam's picture in front of 3 years ago.

home again home again

Wow, did that "Comfort" Hotel wind up SUCKING ANAL CAVITIES. We lasted until Tuesday there before we just couldn't take it anymore. Advice to anyone reading this: avoid Comfort Hotel Airport North (near the western edge of Toronto) . I was ready to do inappropriate things to the general manager with my cane by the time I walked out the door, even tho he had comped our entire stay at that point (which only happened because he was stupid enough to deal with a customer he already knew was dissatisfied in the lobby during check-in when other customers were right there, instead of having enough braincells to realize that talking to someone who is pissed off is better done OUT of the earshot and visual range of people about to give you money. Duh, you have an office with a door on it for a reason, moron. Give me an audience that I know will increase my chances of getting my way and I'm GOING to make a scene as it's the fastest way to get out of there.).

The hotel chain's policy is that if they can't improve a situation that is their fault (such as the room having no AC, and the first of four rooms with two beds each that I could find that WASN'T like sitting on a trampoline - out of 8 beds, ONE had a box spring in good enough condition to not to continue bouncing for 30 seconds if I sat on the side of the bed - one bed out of 8, and the room it was in the AC didn't work... it was cool enough at night with the window open but we had to vacate the room by about 10am or suffer in a sauna, we wound up wandering a mall 2 days in a row to try to let Liam spend some energy before going to elderly auntie's house). Saturday the front desk morons (who couldn't figure out how to get extra pillows without help from housekeeping who wouldn't be back until morning, mind you) promised me that the AC would be fixed on Sunday. Sunday evening, AC still not working and no sign anyone had even been in the room. Complaint, offer to switch rooms yet again (yeah, after the hassle of getting the kids set up in the rooms to begin with - I'd unpacked and settled into that room on the promise that the AC would be fixed! Del's co-sleeper is a PAIN to set up with getting the security strap between the matress and box spring). They promised it'd be fixed Monday. Monday night was a repeat of Sunday - didn't even look like anyone had been in the room, AC still not working. They promised it'd be fixed Tuesday (and still didn't offer to comp the room per their own policy). I checked with the front desk girl on Monday at noon, she said she'd just spoken to the repair guy and he was on his way. The last straw was they had posted that there was hallway renovation going on for the 3 floors above us (which I ASKED meant noise for where we were since I'd specifically requested a QUIET area for the children when I made the reservation), then without warning they were hammering on the wall NEXT TO THE DOOR OF OUR SUITE while we were trying to get Liam to take a nap. Garvin complained, I waited a little bit then pulled out the video camera (it'll be on YouTube soon, I promise) and filmed the jerks working in the hallway right outside our door then took the camera down and showed the front desk lady to ask if that fit her definition of a "quiet room"... she told me the GM had ALREADY TOLD THEM they couldn't work on that floor since the guests hadn't been warned. I went back upstairs and the people doing the work had heard no such thing (and were also using words I'd rather not have my 3yo start repeating, such as calling each other "retard" - I'd actually rather he says "shit" and "damn" than "retard" given our family's history and where my mom works). We left a little before 3pm.

Oh, and top that off with the fact that the pool and hot tub advertised were closed until sometime Monday (we got there Saturday).

The housekeeper was lovely though, a very considerate lady with a Jamaican melodic accent I could have listened to for an hour happily.

When sleeping on an old full-sized sofabed mattress on the floor is preferable to staying two more nights in a hotel room, you know it's bad, right?

Contrast that with the Sheridan in downtown Toronto, where our beds were actually smaller (the Discomfort Hotel had 2 queen sized beds, Sheridan was 2 fulls), not actually any more comfortable aside from not being trampoline impersonators, but the staff was WONDERFUL. Every single person in any way connected with the hotel was a absolute pleasure to deal with, from the bellmen to the registration people to the servers. Absolutely fantastic service (though significantly more expensive, especially when you add in the $35/day parking - but it's downtown Toronto where parking is horrendous and connected via ACed underground to the biggest tourist attraction in the city - Eaton Centre - so not a big suprise). I wish I could afford to stay there when we're in Toronto visiting family, tho it's horribly inconvenient to where Garvin's family lives - it's only about 15 miles away but takes 45min to drive when traffic is minimal, which isn't the case during most of the day. Two of Garvin's extended family members have offered to let us stay with them in the future (which I wish Garvin had ignored his mother and asked in the first place instead of winding up staying with someone in an emergency situation instead), including the family that put us up while there, so hopefully we won't have a repeat of this with another hotel anyway. Last time we were up there, family members/friends (can't keep relations straight on his side sometimes) lived in the next building over from the Auntie G's parents were staying with and their building had a "guest suite" that we stayed in with Liam but they've since moved, unfortunately. Basically it's hotel-like rooms in the same building as their condo, complete with the other amenities found at most hotels such as a business centre and concierge service.

The conference was amazing (though spending 3 hours per day with Garvin in transit for childcare really dampered it for us, I'm strongly encouraging HPEF to try to find a way to facilitate on-site childcare for future conferences, even if it's just pointing parents to an online forum area for them to make their own arrangements for care-sharing or whatever). Steve Vander Ark's presentations were worth the cost of admission alone to me (we went to all 4 hours he presented and video recorded them thankfully because there is no way the audio will capture the majority of the presentation - he's a very kinetic speaker). Other presentations were wonderful too and I got to meet a lot of interesting people (and my screenname was recognized by a few even tho I've been absent from online fandom for the better part of a year now). Oh, and Ali who I made the Chudley Cannons stuff for was there WEARING IT!!! That was totally cool to see my creations being worn by someone I'd only corresponded with online. We literally kept bumping into her (bapping her with the borrowed wheelchair when we turned around several times). We bought the audio recordings of all the presentations because there were so many that we either couldn't get to because they were at the same time as others, or that were so good we wanted to be able to hear them again (as well as being able to share some of this information with church folks so they can get an idea of what I'd like to see us accomplish on a smaller scale - I really think Symposiums are the UU equivalent of the standard "cultural festival" hosted by other churches like the Greek Orthodox ones). Now I just gotta find out what Steve's speaker fee would be.... ;) I *think* he said he's in Grand Rapids, MI which Google thinks is a 4.5hr drive...

Plotting plotting...

Oh, and I got my HP personal fansite "decorated" finally before heading up to Toronto... I'm trying to sepearate it out from my real life/mommy stuff so people who aren't really all that interested in my HP fanaticism don't get inundated with it so much here (tho this is my primary blog so it'll still be here, sorry ;) )... if you want to see more of my Potterheadedness and read my fics, head over to www.astartesfire.com for links to those.

traveling to Toronto

Blarg. Hotels are not fun with two small children. The drive up was OK though each stop, of course, took almost twice as long as when it was just Garvin and me - left the house around 11am, got to Garvin's aunt's condo at about 6pm, so not really bad time considering last summer when we made the drive we hit traffic from hell, total stop for extended periods of time, and it took probably just as long even tho we made the rest stops as brief as possible. This is only the 3rd time we've driven to Toronto from Cleveland, so not a lot to compare it to, but the time we drove up while we were in college (for Garvin's cousin's wedding - my first time meeting the extended Yeung family and it had Karioke involved - fun story for another time) it only took 5 hours. I'm not so much about the journey when there are people waiting for us to get somewhere.

Liam and Del both did well in the rented minivan (which, weirdly, has a DVD entertainment system but manual windows and doorlocks), we wound up stopping 3x I think, maybe only twice, to feed Del and streetch and potty. Liam made it the whole way in a dry pull-up (aka "buzz") then wound up wetting the bed this morning. Nice to let someone else change the sheets.

The hotel we're staying in is OK. Took a while to find an acceptable room as for some reason when they went bed shopping for the place they went to the trampoline store instead, to the point that the first room we were in I laid down to nurse Del and the amount of bouncing from just HIS little movements and mine was enough to make me motion sick. No good. Took trying 4 different rooms, 3 of them had trampoline-like beds and the one we wound up picking instead (less bouncy bed) the AC isn't working. But it's on the 10th floor and has a window that isn't low enough for Liam to climb out of easily (he'd have to at least move the chair over) so we opened the window. As much of an environmentalist as I am, I really don't trust the damn screen window to keep my climbing toddler from his doom so I'm really hoping they get the damn AC fixed today like they said they wood (it's noon and no sign of the repair guy yet so I'm feeling a it pessimistic).

Email reply from Prophecy, Liam's not even allowed to go to the wizard rock concert. Good thing he's too young to be disappointed. Garvin doesn't seem to actually enjoy the wrock that much so I may actually leave him in the hotel room with both boys, take my cell with me so he can call me if Del needs me, and go by myself (or take Del in the sling with earplugs). Or, as I suggested to Garvin, maybe Nai-Nai can watch Liam at the hotel at least one day and he can drive her back to Auntie's condo in the evening. I'm really looking forward to the conference, just wish childcare wasn't such a hassle. If I'm ever part of planning one of these, I'm going to insist that they investigate on-site childcare options. There are enough HP fans that are parents with children too young for a conference, time to be inclusive people!!!

Well, I think everyone's ready to head out now so that's it for now. Hotel has free wifi so that's cool at least.