Twinkle Little Star

Another Post Wherein I Bitch and You All Die of Boredom

I know. I've been a bad blogger, lately.

Mostly because the past few weeks have been very busy. The good news is, I raised over $600 selling stuff. The bad news is, my kids have some kind of weird stomach virus that causes fever and mass amounts of diarrhea. Since we have a lack of furniture during this transitional time, I am sleeping with them and I have had more than one incidence where I wake up covered in baby poop. They are really irritable, too. I think part of it is because I'm changing a lot of stuff on them with selling the crib and other furniture and basically moving all diapering ops into the bathroom. Part of it is this mystery illness. They go back and forth between seeming fine and being really miserably ill. I'm at that point where I'm having to decide whether to actually take them to the doctor. This has been going on for four days now. If I do take them, I will pay $200 for him to say, "Plenty of fluids, and it will just work out on its own." If I don't take them, it will turn into something serious that requires an ER visit. I keep thinking they are getting better. Aaron actually hasn't had a fever in two days. Naim had a fever today, but his diarrhea is not as bad. I feel for them, but they are driving me batty. And sharing a bathroom with diapered toddlers with the runs is just about as fun and glamorous as it sounds.

And my dad is here for his summer two month visit. And he is driving me nuts. We usually have a bad first week. He has to get acclimated to how it is to be in this household. In Kansas, it is just him and my sister in a bigger house and my sister works all day and is out of town often. They basically co-exist separately. He also has more recreational stuff to do and contacts there. Here, this house is small and noisy and busy with a lot of people coming in and out and people with a lot of different needs that have to be met. Most of which are, quite frankly, more important than his needs. The kids need to be fed, D needs medical assistance, I need help hearing. My dad's need to sit on the couch with the TV on and the laptop on his lap without being bothered just doesn't quite stack up.

But the last couple of visits, he has been fine within a week, and we had a nice time. I have to give him the speech EVERY TIME HE COMES about how there are a lot of people in a small house and how we all have to cooperate and work together and how we are all equal in importance and no one is the boss and no one is better or more important than anyone else and I will NOT be bullied with his crap. Usually, this works. This visit, he is being much more stubborn. We have Abbey, my mom's dog, this time. Which always adds to the stress level because she is very undisciplined and he pays absolutely no attention to her nor makes any effort to manage her behavior. So basically, I either have to adopt her as my third twin or she poops, pees, and climbs on the table and eats everything and barks. She is not all that hard to take care of with a little effort on his part, but since I have to do it ALL, it gets on my nerves.

Also, his Arthur Murray dance instructor, some 26 year-old sweet thang that he had a crush on out here, quit since he's been gone, so he isn't out dancing and socializing as much as he used to. And then he's got someone of interest (I'm not sure that I would call it dating, yet) back in Kansas that he talks to on the phone a bit. So I don't know if that has anything to do with it. But he's being a total grumpy old man. And he's being a bully.

I have these conversations with him that sometimes make me stop in the middle of them and say to myself, "I can't believe I am in this conversation. I can't believe I have to spend mental and physical energy on this bullshit." Here are some examples:

About a week ago, he suddenly decided to buy all these glass beer mugs. Like a dozen. So he came home and threw out a bunch of my cups, just threw them in the trash. Not like mine were precious china or anything, but he was throwing some away that had specific purposes. Like some that go with my blender that you can just pop on the blender and make a shake and I use those all the time. I rescued those, but still. I have to watch everything he does when he gets a bug up his ass about something. So then he decides that the beer mugs aren't as big as he thought they were. They look like they hold a lot, but the glass is so thick they only hold about a cup or so. So he went out and bought a couple of gihugic YELLOW coffee mugs (to go along with the purple ones he already had.) Now, I am not ALLOWED to use the purple mugs, and in general I don't. But I didn't know there was a restriction on the new mugs. So he gets mad at me and I am like, So, how many coffee mugs do you need a day? You throw out all my cups and then I have to remember a whole new set of rules for the new cups? Um, I'm not wasting brain space on this.

Then, he says this to me: Okay, well first, some excruciatingly dull background. I can't drive. So I can't get to the store every other day like he does. So when I am here alone, I order groceries (or go with D) once a week. I plan exactly what we need and budget everything. I buy 2 gallons of whole milk for the kids. One gallon of skim for me, and also usually make some kind of juice for the kids to drink as well. That lasts us the whole week and takes the whole top shelf of the fridge. When he comes, he has to have his own everything. His own juice, his own pop, his own water bottle kept in the fridge all the time. We have a real fridge space problem. So, I have only been able to keep like one or two gallons of milk in there and no juice at all. He will occasionally buy the kids a gallon of milk, but that is because he uses their milk. He also eats each week, my crackers, my tortilla chips, my produce, and anything I cook for family meals, he usually eats, too. Leaving no leftovers for D to take home on the days I don't cook for him. So, I don't mind sharing and cooking for him. Fine by me. But you'd think he would reciprocate? I gave the kids some of "his" orange juice, and he actually said, "Those kids don't need to drink juice! They can't drink my juice anymore. What do they need juice for anyway? I have to have it. They don't." Um? No he isn't on a special diet or anything. And yes, there was still juice left for him to drink. Since there is not enough room for us to keep two of everything in the fridge, the logical and reasonable and mature thing to do is for us to share. And when it is gone--get more. He goes to the store like EVERY OTHER DAY. It isn't hard. I mean, this is just normal stuff that every normal person in America has figured out, no?

My apologies for the utter dullness of this. But here is another one:

The ongoing TV battle.

I will be the first to admit that I like to relax in front of the TV and rest my back for an hour or so after the kids go to bed. I also freely admit to using the TV as a babysitter. But I try to keep it under some kind of reasonable control. They get about a half hour mid day and a half hour before bed. They usually get commercial free kids shows that I have screened for at least some quality. Or they get signing time videos or my Boys Town Publishing videos where they read books in ASL. But I also cringe monthly at my cable bill and think quite often about kicking cable altogether. My dad's utter need for TV is one of the main things stopping me.

I hate Hate HATE the ugly ass monstrosity that sits as the focal point in my living room. It is a horrid huge TV. We have limited space, it is an eyesore, it is loud, and it pretty much shows the kids what is the most important thing to my dad. Not the kids toys, which are barely allowed. Not books, which there is hardly any room for, not even themselves, who my dad can't interact with for more than five minutes on his own without putting them in front of a TV program, it is TV. It is on even when there is an infomercial on and he is surfing the net.

I have laid down rules about this. No TV while eating at the table. No TV after six. No more than a half hour of kids programing during the day. But it takes effort to constantly reinforce this. We have DVR, he can record anything he wants to watch it later after the kids go to bed. But he just likes it to be on. Keeps him from having to do anything real, I guess?

So, I have a little TV in my room that is over 20 years old. And it is going out. This is the only TV I can see and put closed captioning on. It is the only TV I watch, and usually just an hour or so after the kids are in bed. My dad has a $3000 flat-screen in his room that he has never watched in the 3 years we've lived here. It also has a cable box that I pay like $5/month for. He has since said that he regrets buying it because he never uses it. He said my sister wanted it and he was going to ship it back to Kansas for her.

But here is the deal. In that Kansas house, they have like 6, count 'em, 6 TVs. My sister can see and watch every one of them. Maybe one of the TVs went out and thats why she wanted this one, I'm not sure. But she makes something like 80K a year and probably has about a quarter mil in savings and has almost no expenses. And I doubt she cares that it is a $3000 flat screen. She could easily go out and buy a new TV for a couple hundred bucks. Besides, the price of shipping that thing back there would be ridiculous. So, I tell him that I am going to sell my old TV at the garage sale and take that one and get rid of the cable expense for it. He does not object. I sell my TV for $10 bucks. I take that TV upstairs, I pack up the cable box for it with the intent to give it back to Dish network and save myself $5 a month.

All the sudden, he who has not turned on that TV in his room for three years, has to have a TV in his room. So, and this is just great, because I am trying to save money (hence selling everything I own) to buy the kids new furniture. I spent $176 on advertising for the neighborhood garage sale. The HOA reimbursed me with a check in the mail. My dad took this check without my knowledge and deposited it in his own account. (It just happened to be written out to both of us since that is how we are listed in the HOA). I wouldn't have even known about it but he mentioned that he got it a few days later. I told him that it is my check from the garage sale. He said he would pay me back. Fine. No big deal.

Then, he tells me that he has a GREAT DEAL for me. He is going to SELL me that TV that he was going to pay to ship to my sister for the $176 he owes me. That is a great deal on a $3000 TV!!! (Which is now worth much less than that. That was the ridiculous early adopter price that no one but stupid people pay.) Um, no. You can have that TV back. I'm not BUYING that fucking TV from you. Furthermore, I'll ditch the cable before I spend one more penny on TV stuff. So, he doesn't say anything and leaves.

Three hours later he comes back. And what does he have with him but a very generously sized flat screen HDTV wall mount TV for his room, and a new DVD player for his room. D says it is probably a couple grand in media equipment there. WHAT!!! FUCKING!!! EVER!!!!

My consolation is that now he is all into the novelty of the new TV and he stays in his room quite often now.

My dad and I are in different socioeconomic stratospheres. And I'm fine with that. He is older, he and my mom worked all their lives and saved for retirement, the fact that my disability negatively impacts my earning power so much is not his fault. That I picked a career in a low paying field was my own decision. I don't ask him for money. I don't say anything when he wallpapers his room in flat screen TVs. Or buys $1000 suits or whatever. Its his money, fine. I have to respect that and I do. But he doesn't respect my situation. He is reckless with my things, breaking things and not replacing them. Taking my food and not replacing it and then bitching when I or the kids eat his food. No sensitivity whatsoever to my situation. On the same day he bought all that stuff, I asked him if he could pay for the carpets to be cleaned now that a lot of the furniture is out of there. You know since it is HIS DOG that peed all over the carpet. I'm talking $200 here. I said I would make all the arrangements if he would pay. You'd never heard anyone bitch and whine so much. I think he is going to do it, but god I get sick of the effort it takes to get him to do anything.

My family is so financially defensive it is hilarious. Now I don't think that kids should just count on their parents to support them for the rest of their lives. And since I am the less financially wealthy in this relationship, I think the notion is that I want all his money or something. I truly don't. My mom once said that she didn't want me and my sister to just be interested in a relationship with her for her inheritance (which I don't think either of us ever had that motivation whatsoever.) But in my head, I snorted back, "Well, if all you value is money, then what do you expect other people to value about you?" This was an extreme moment of snark and not really what I think about my mother. I think there was much more geniuneness in our relationship than that. But the best way to make the relationship genuine is to make it be about other values that are above money. I think my family has struggled with that sometimes. I will ALWAYS, ALWAYS be less of a valuable, capable, competent, and especially hard working person in their eyes because my net worth isn't what theirs is. It doesn't matter how hard I work, how much volunteer work I do, how deep of relationships I have, how much I have really helped people and changed their lives, how much advocacy I do for some of the disability issues and health insurance issues that hold me back financially, they always will see me as not quite worth what they are worth. Every time I ever told them about any of the work I did, volunteer or paid or whatever...the first question was immediately "How much do you get paid for that?" And motherhood? Not worth a damned thing. I honestly think my dad doesn't see what I do with the kids as being any different than the two times a day he feeds the dog.

This woman that is interested in him...my sister and I are just kind of sitting back with the microwave popcorn on this whole dating stuff. It is hilarious. First of all, I will say that I only know of this woman through my sister. My dad says very little about her. So all of this is third-hand and speculative at best. I'm sure she is a nice woman, but I think that she is in for a rude awakening. I think she sees my dad as someone that he is just not.

She called the other night, and after my dad was done talking to her and had walked off, I noticed that he put the phone on hold instead of hanging up. So I hung up the phone. And right after I did, she called back. Later, I asked him if he put her on hold and then I hung up on her so she called back. He said, no, she just didn't like the way he said 'goodbye' to her. I think she is all "love you" to him. And if she expects to get that back, well, it may be a long wait. The last time I heard my dad say I love you to anyone was...well...never.

I know people are different around different people, so maybe I'm wrong about this, but I am afraid that my dad is not just emotionally available in a way that she might want him to be. But who knows. Maybe someone will  "change" him. I keep thinking that if he finds someone back in Kansas to date, maybe he won't visit here so much.

Which isn't totally fair of me. It goes without saying that people have many elements to their personality and no one is all good or all bad. My dad does have some good points. He makes the kids laugh. I do know that he cares about them. He can be empathetic if you sit him down and explain him the deal in a way he can relate to. Usually, reason and logic will win out with him eventually, you just have to push him past his own selfish bastardness. We do have a good time on his visits many times. I just get tired of pushing so hard for him to act like a reasonable human being. (He did eventually pay back my HOA money.) It takes energy I have better uses for. And having him and the dog here does make my job of caring for twins and a quadriplegic turn into caring for triplets, a quadriplegic and a belligerent teenage boy.

I honestly don't know how my mom could stand it and this is SO SO SO why I'm not married. I'm exhausted.

So that is why I'm a bad blogger. And if I can get him whipped into shape here soon, I can turn my focus on to other more interesting and intellectually stimulating matters.

1976

Found in the whole garage sale super cleanathon. This is my kindergarten class pic. Groovy glasses, eh?

$222.22

That's how much money I made at the garage sale. Funny, since I have 2 kids and had 2 of a lot of items. We didn't do too badly considering it rained off and on and so I had to herd folks to the back of my house to the garage.

Getting rid of some of the stuff was hard. I was telling people they had to buy it because it needed to be ripped off like a band-aid. So, I sold the big stuff that would have been a pain in the ass to get out of here. The crib is gone. (The kids are still in pack-n-plays temporarily as I have not purchased the Big Beds yet.) The changing table is gone, so we are on the floor doing the stand up method to change diapers. This inconvenience will probably motivate me to get on the stick about potty training, soon. The mobile, the crib bumper, the baby swings, the exersaucer, all gone gone gone. Babyhood. Gone.

So, I still have a lot left. Four car seats and some toys and a lot of cloth diapers. I emailed my foster care contact and the rest will go to her if she wants it. After that, the fun part. I get to purchase their new furniture and get their room ready for the next ten plus years of their lives. I'm sure their might be another bit of revision during the teen years.

The garage sale was kinda fun. I met a lot of people from the neighborhood that NEVER talk to me. I'm kind of the weird one on the block that no one can figure out, I think. There is a car parked in my garage that I never drive. Only the old guy who comes a few months out of the year drives it. I'm always hauling kids behind me with groceries or whatever. The quadriplegic comes by several times a week. Who knows what's up with me, right? I kept a pad of paper next to me and just was like, if I can't hear them, we'll have to write it out. Which I did a few times. And D came over and helped with some of the communication stuff. My dad even helped for a while and helped me sell an old stereo to a very particular customer. As usual, I did better communicating with the Spanish speaking folks than the English as first language speakers because the ESL folks are used to trying harder. But I think I got some "Aha!" reactions from the neighbors. Like so now they understand what my problem is that they could never figure out before. There is an explanation to why she is so strange?? So, I'm glad I did it. And I organized it for the whole neighborhood as well, so they got to have garage sales and I got free advertising through the home owner's association.

I'll write something more coherent and intelligent, soon. I have just been busy and tired with too much domesticity lately. I slept for like 11 hours yesterday and took another nap this afternoon.

I've been taking the kids swimming one day a week this summer. (rotating kids each week as I can't handle them both at the same time in the pool.) That is going really well. Naim used to cry and scream and now he is enjoying himself, although he still stays pretty glued to me. Aaron is a dare devil and I really have to watch him because he will just jump into the pool and think he will float. He will be swimming laps in about two more weeks, I think. Anyway, I skipped out last week so I'm going to try to get some extra sleep tonight and take Naim early tomorrow morning.

Enjoy all your Harry Potter books. I know I'm the only human on the planet who hasn't read a single one. I plan to some day. Maybe when the kids are old enough to do read alouds.

Found it.

This is just to fulfill a request for assistance from Kim, to continue the DD fest we seem to have going on around here. Ya'll the rest of you can disregard, unless you want to see "Ordinary World" from Live Earth. Which I forgot is a pretty damned good song. I remember when I used to hear it, it reminded me of that expression about able bodied people having ordinary lives and trying to make them extraordinary, whereas disabled people have extraordinary lives that they strive to make ordinary. Anyhoo, as for how they look now, Kim...I'd still do 'em. And I still would put Simon first in line (because, of course, they would be lining right up for me) even if the guitarists AND ROGER (goddess) are better looking. But that's just my quirky tastes, not because I can't see well...hmph.

I think if you down arrow after this paragraph and press return to select the video application then tab twice and then space bar once to select it you'll be able to hear it. It first says play, but tab past that and it goes to the buttons on the bottom of the video screen and you have to hit that one. For me, it is reading this button as "button: right arrow" but it is also play. When you push it, it will say, "button: pause" but don't push that, just wait a few seconds and it should load. Did that make any sense whatsoever? Let me know it this works. Sorry, RSS folks, for all the edits. I kept screwing up the directions. Go now Go:

A Post To Tide You Over...Now with EXTRA Nostalgia!

I probably won't be writing much for another week or so because I'm getting ready for a big neighborhood garage sale that I organized and am participating in. I am going through the house and getting rid of stuff. Mostly it is baby stuff, and it is really hard to do. I knew when I had these kids that all of their firsts would also be my lasts. Even if I adopt, I very much doubt I will adopt a newborn or infant. With twins, you have to get doubles of so much stuff, and I just don't have room for it if I am to get their big boy beds in (which is coming up soon.) Every thing I pick up brings back memories that were just two years ago but seems so far away. Like I can't remember how small they were. Yet I pick up these little preemie things and remember how they drowned in them. How they fit in my hand. And I found Naim's Haberman Bottle, and remembered the constant torture that feeding him was, and now he eats and eats and eats. But it must go. I hope to earn a little money for it and then what is left over is going to foster care.

Incidentally, if you are local and are interested in coming out to a neighborhood sale with a lot of people that are much richer than me who need to get rid of the crap they bought with all that disposable income,  email me and I will give you the details. There should be some good stuff there.

So, Retired Waif, who incidentally has a really good blog that I didn't pay enough attention to until recently, has tagged me for a meme. Now I think I've been tagged for this 8 Facts meme a few times before, but I drew a blank when coming up with 8 quirky facts about me. And also, wasn't it six? This is what I get for not doing it when it was six and I had the chance. Now it is up to eight. Ugh.

So, I don't know, lets see:

1. I once sat next to Kareem Abdul Jabbar on a plane trip where we were bumped to first class.
2. In college, I had a friend who worked at Victoria's Secret and got me good discounts and so all of my bras and panties matched for a couple of years.
3. I've been to 48 states. I have not been to Alaska or North Dakota.
4. In college, I once paid a girl 20 bucks to go out and jump in puddles and dance in pouring down rain with me. She had so much fun, she gave me my money back.
5. Along those weird lines, D once dared me to run naked down to the lake that was several hundred feet behind his parents house and back. It was like, 3 in the morning and there was no one around so I did it, but I didn't quite make it all the way to the lake because I couldn't see anything and got disoriented and so just ran back.
6. I have a tattoo of a white winged dove on my lower back. The guy who gave it to me had a shop where he sold elaborately painted coffins.
7. I've been to 6 Stevie Nicks/Fleetwood Mac Concerts. I never get good seats though. Incidentally, the best seats I ever had for a concert I got when I was 12 years old and my sister and I camped out at 6am to get Rick Springfield tickets. Yeah, but he was hot! Tee Hee. We got 2nd row-center. It was great. I think he dripped some sweat on me.
8. I hardly learned anything in any math class I ever took and I had to find someone to teach me long division as an adult because I had to teach it to fourth graders the next day. Which I did. But I think I forgot it right away and still don't know how to do long division the paper and pencil way, though I can figure out a lot of that stuff in my head.

Okay, so is that what I'm supposed to do? I'm not going to tag anyone though because I can't remember who has tagged me for this and I also am too lazy to go link to all of your URLs.

Also wanted to note that someone asked me a while back to write about 'cultural competencies' for people in the medical field to have when dealing with disabled patients. I have not forgotten this. I've been thinking on it and asking around about it. So it is still in my head to write about.

Oh! Lastly, Susan emailed me with the "How much can you see?" question. I occasionally get this from time to time. It is here. I probably need a little side bar of posts that answer FAQs. I'll get right on that...someday.

Okay, back to garage salin'...

ETA:
Bwahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!! Hell yes! I've seen this before! But not for years and years.

This was e-ed to me by buddy, S. who doesn't realize that circa 1982, I analyzed every frame of this video about 4 billion times and even remember that it was the second video played in an HBO video show after Billy Joel and before Supertramp. He had my body dancing tango in 3/4 time!?!? Um, yeah. And yeah, I'd forgotten about the half-shirt! Enjoy.

EETA:

Okay now S. and I are just wasting the night away trading 80's videos that we used to push pause on. (Hey, I'm folding towels and toddler clothes at 1:00am, this is as good as it gets right now.) Which reminded me of this one, my favorite Duran Duran song. (She paused on John Taylor, I paused on Simon leBon)

Oh, remember "Save a Prayer"? I used to use that song to practice Moves-in-the-Field in figure skating. It has such an interesting rhythm line. Yes, I will go to bed soon.

Luckily, This Happened a Day Before my Dad Would Have Seen This and Sold My Kids on Ebay

I call this photograph, "Two Minutes Too Long in the Bathroom."

My couch with kids clothes on it absolutely covered with fine, brown powder. And this doesn't even show half of it.

And then, after ...

• 2 dis-clothing of kids in an attempt to not spill all of the 3 pints of this stuff that was down their diapers
• 2 screaming kid hose downs (which included having to get this stuff out from under their scrotums and between their butt cheeks)
• 2 early naps under protest
• 5 passes with the vacuum
• 3 passes with the broom
• 1 couch dismantling
• 15 observations that, "SHIT, this crap is sticky!"
• (It's a whole vat of Carnation Instant Breakfast Drink, in case you were wondering...)
• 6 sneezes and curses about how it must suck to be a coke addict and snort powder up your nose
• 2 couch and couch component wipe-downs
• 4 attempts to wash my feet so I wouldn't spread it everywhere
• 463 exclamations of, "Fucking Little Hellions!"
• 2 passes with the mop
• 1 trip to the washing machine
• 1 hands-and-knees style mop
• and 1 aching back

... I get to this picture, which I entitle, "I'll Laugh About this Later On, Right?"

Picture of my couch from same angle, this time relatively all cleaned up.

Various Updates on Things...

The Party

The kid party went well. Every one except one person that I invited came. I am a nervous host when people come to my house. I just want people to walk in and plop down on my couch and if they're hungry, go get themselves a snack and if they're thirsty, head for the fridge and get a drink. I love it when things get to that point where people can just make themselves at home and you aren't self conscious about your cooking or your dirty rug or whatever. But I don't like the parts where you have to structure things more when people don't know you well. I wish I could get to point B without having to do point A, but that's the way it goes, so I have been forcing myself to entertain more.

But a kid party is pretty easy and laid back by nature, and it was fun. The first hour or so was a bit nerve-wracking because both my kids decided to be traumatized by the onslaught of kids that descended upon their stuff. So, I was trying to keep track of everything while I had Aaron permanently affixed to my arm, Naim sulking and crying with D and wanting me, and trying to make sure everyone was comfortable. At one point, I had to get food for D, Aaron, and Naim who were demanding to eat and sit in their high chairs, and for about 15 minutes there I had no clue what the other folks were doing. They seemed to just make their way okay, so I was glad. I set up our coffee table for the little kids, but I only had four little chairs. So I just figured that I would hold Aaron on my lap and Naim never sits anyway. But instead, they wanted high chairs across the room. So be it. But I have some cute pictures of the kids eating at the table and my kids aren't even there.

This is a pic of my coffee table with a baby einstein table cloth and hats and balloons on it. It has four little kid chairs around it. I took it early in the morning before anyone came.

Things got a lot more fun, for me anyway, when we all headed out to the back yard. My kids seemed to relax out there. I think they are used to playing with other kids outside, but we really haven't had that many (any?) kids in the house except for a couple of babies who were too young to intimidate them, I guess. All the kids outside playing with the bubbles were really cute, so that was fun. I even got to talk to a few of the adults, which I figured I wouldn't really be able to do with that many people and kids. I tell D that he needs to handle the socializing. I'll just smile and nod and then he can give me a debriefing when its over. Which he did. I found out from him that one of the moms lives just a few blocks from us, so that was cool. I walk by her place probably once a week or so on the way to the store.

So I would post pics but they all have the other kids in them and I don't post other kids without permission and I forgot to ask and I can't mosaic them anyways. I think I like this "half-birthday" thing. I like that I can have it in the summer and be flexible about the date. I like that it takes the pressure and expectation off as far as gifts are concerned. The whole thing cost me around, oh, 75 bucks. Most of that  was food and we had at least a days worth of leftovers for all of us afterwords. If I made more of the food myself, I could even cut the price down even more, but I got store-bought cake and cupcakes. When comparing that to the amount some others spend on birthday parties, I don't think it is so bad. So, it might be a tradition worth keeping.

This is one of the few pics with no other kids in it. It is me sitting on a patio chair with Aaron on my lap. You know? I've lost over thirty pounds on WW but it sure doesn't look it in this picture. But Aaron is cute, though.

UU GA

One of you asked if I got to go to the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly that was held in Portland last week. In a word, No. And D and I are a bit pissed about it.

I love a lot of things about UU's, but they have a knack of making you not feel welcome if your aren't the typical white, educated, middle class, bohemian type. The worse part about that is that they think they do accept everyone and they totally don't and don't even get that they don't.

I have never been to a religious general assembly, so I have no experience and did not know what to expect. But it was in my hometown and what other opportunity was I ever going to have to go? Also, a UU minister woman I was corresponding with and wanted to meet with was there and had a panel discussion I would have liked to heard, along with many others that D and I were interested in, and I lost that opportunity as well.

A list of why we didn't go:

1. The accessibility information was vague (in a 'maybe, sorta, possibly we can kinda provide some accomodations' way) and indicated that you had to pay at least part of your accommodations. D would have been fine as he didn't need a hotel room and the convention center is accessible. I however, would have needed some stuff in order to get anything out of the sessions. I would have needed an amplification system of some kind, a way to read the written materials, possibly help navigating the place, and possibly a need to talk to presenters beforehand to explain the ropes. I could not pay for these, for one. And secondly, I couldn't even request them because the accommodations request form was in pdf and I can't fill out a form like that by myself.
2. Furthermore, in order to get info on what accommodations you might need like knowing which events you want to attend and when, you would have needed to see a program guide before the deadline for accommodations. It was not made available till after the deadline for accommodations AND after the deadline to register for early bird rates.
3. The program guide, when available, was also in badly formed pdf. You can read some pdf with a screen reader, but not a 128 page document that has no tabs or formatting or bookmarks. D even had trouble with it because he uses as little keystrokes as possible on the computer and the thing required a lot of navigating.
4. We had a child care issue, of course. And I was trying to decide if I could get a babysitter and when I could do the most things in the least amount of time. THEN, I find out that they provide childcare (at a cost I am unaware of) but that you had to register your children before this all magic deadline that they set for everything prior to putting out the information in a barely accessible format that told you you had to register prior.
5. Finally, we decided that we would go down for just my friend's presentation and maybe look around the exhibit hall a little. We would take the kids and lots of stuff for them to play with, and D would watch them out in the hall nearby while I went to the presentation. Then, D wanted to go the next day on his own to some other events. Well, we searched and searched for the price of going for a day, thinking it would be around $20-30 or so, and found out it was $115 dollars A DAY. That would have been $230 for both of us to go to one 45 minute presentation and maybe look around at some t-shirts and bumper stickers? And would the kids be free? We didn't even know. It would have taken us an hour to get there on the train and we didn't even know if we could get our kids in...OR if I would be able to hear the presentation. At that price, it was SO not worth it.

Basically, I guess they only wanted rich, able-bodied people with no kids there. They probably didn't do this intentionally, but that is sure how it felt. I don't know what other churches do for General Assemblies or whatever, but this is what I think of when  I think of this:

My father was raised Jehovah's Witness and came from a poor family with seven kids. They still managed a trip to New York for the big JW conferences. How? Because they were FREE. I guess I thought it would be something not quite free, but on the order of not very much money.

Also, I think of one time when D and I went out to a little tiny church in the backwoods of Kansas in God Knows Where County because D had a high school friend who worked there. This church was the size of the Little House on the Prairie Church and had maybe 50 people in attendance. There were several steps up to the front door. This church installed an elevator. They also had large print programs, and informed me that if I needed it they would provide Braille and sign interpreting for free, with only ONE WEEK's advance notice. Okay, you guys know that churches aren't mandated under the ADA to do ANYTHING for the disabled, right? Anything they do is voluntary. This Podunk church could do this and the whole National General Assembly of a upper middle class constituency can't knock out a few accommodations and a decent conference fee? Okay. Whatever.

So we missed it. I missed my buddy's presentation, which ironically was about the "real lives of the disabled" or something like that. I'm just conflicted about UUism. They do some damned good things and have so much potential, but they have a weird thing about disabled, racial minorities, and working class folks. They accept seem to accept us in a way that gives them points for doing charity work for us, but not in a way that includes us as equals. I talked to a UU minister recently about this, and she totally got what I was saying, which was such a relief. She said that the UU's on a national level, are just now starting to admit that they are a bunch of spoilt, rich, overeducated white folks who don't have a clue. The door is opening a crack for some real discourse on this, but they just aren't quite there, yet. Maybe there is some hope, we shall see.

Now don't email me and tell me you are a UU and you aren't a rich, spoilt, overeducated white folk. I realize that that is a gross over-generalization and there are differences among and within congregations. Even within my own little church. I had that awful experience with the minister that made me feel like an alien and told me I shouldn't get my kids dedicated there if I hated the church so much, when ALL I wanted to do was talk about how the church could do a few easy things to give us more access to its services--like remembering to unlock the doors to the accessible entrances and such. Then the next minister totally got me, was more than willing to work on these issues, and could see the problem for herself. Also, this year I have moved from teaching Sunday school to being on the religious education committee. I've only gone to one meeting, but I can already tell that this is a special group. I might have chucked this whole church thing if it wasn't for the RE staff always bending over backwards to help me participate. They make me feel like they want me there and that I am important and that I contribute. And that even though they have to do some probably inconvenient things to help me participate, they feel they are worth it to have me there. So, yes, pockets of real commitment and effort on that first "worth and dignity of every person" principle. But over all problems. I don't know, that might be the way it works in every church.

Naim's Speech

Naim is getting some mad speech and language skillz. I have worked with him and worked with him and at some point during the last couple of months, he has turned a corner. There is still a lot of muddled sentences that I don't understand, and his speech is not near as clear as Aaron's, but he is saying sentences, he is repeating things that I say, he is talking as well as signing. I think he is starting to be more confident with talking. He tells me little stories, he tells me what he wants and what he is doing. He is a language fool. I know that I understand him better than a stranger would and he still has a ways to go to catch up, but the improvement over the last few weeks has been remarkable.

The two main things I did that I think really helped were to use music and to get Aaron away from me for a while. Naim really has a thing for music. He plays imaginary piano, he sings songs and keeps a beat. He can change his pitch and speed if you ask him, too. He hums and sings songs all the time. I really see potential for him to get involved in music in some way later on down the line. Whether it be an instrument or singing or dance or composition or something, I think he is very musical. So we used songs to practice phonemes and to slow down his cadence so that he concentrates more on each sound instead of running them all together. Then we would speed up the song so fast that our words blended together. I think when he saw how I did this, and that if I sang too fast, you couldn't understand me anymore, and then when I sang slow the same song, you could, I think he started to realize that he needs to slow down and concentrate on the sounds he is making.

He might be a bit like me. I have have discovered through observation over the years, that I think at an incredibly fast rate of speed. Well, except for math, then everything slows down to a grinding halt. But I think faster than I can get it out and sometimes that makes my conversation not particularly graceful. People ask me how I can write so much and how long does it take me. Um, not long at all. I cannot type near as fast as I think-write. A long post here might take 45 minutes to an hour. If I bothered to proofread, I would clean it up more than it is and I would probably tack on another half-hour to that. D gets irritated with me because I present a problem to him and find 5 solutions in the time it took me to explain the problem and he doesn't even have time to digest it and make a decision. I'm all the time very impatient with him and am all, "speed it up, kid! Coke or Sprite? HOW LONG CAN IT POSSIBLY TAKE YOU TO CONSIDER THE OPTIONS!!! GEEZ! YOU'RE GETTING COKE!" I am very impatient. But he is very slow to make decisions sometimes.

Anyway, back to Naim. My second thing I have decided to do is to be more assertive with Aaron that I need to spend time with Naim. Aaron is a mom hog. And he wants me all the time. And I feel bad telling him to get lost. But I just had to commit to the reality that I am cheating Naim if I can't say no to Aaron. Naim will rarely "fight for me." If Aaron is hogging me, Naim just goes off and does his own thing. And even when they are together with me, Aaron does all the talking and answers all the questions. So, I had to commit to making Aaron go away and do something else and just set aside time every day to just sit there and talk with Naim about whatever he is doing. This caused major drama for Aaron at first, but he is getting better at accepting it. And now when I ask Naim a question, I'll say, "This question is for NAIM to answer." If Aaron answers it, I ignore and ask Naim again until he answers it. Aaron is starting to get it. He will even say, "Naim answer the question." So, Naim has improved a lot.

Cute Aaron Conversation:

Me: What is your name?

A: I don't know.

Me: You don't know your name? Is it Naim?

A: No

Is it Orion?

No

Is it Julie?

No.

Is it Scrapper?

No.

Is it Aaron?

No.

Your name is NO?

No! No! No!

Well, it's nice to meet you, No! No! No! Do you know what my name is?

Your name is Yes! Yes! Yes!, mama.

For the Record

Often people email me and ask if they can copy/link to/quote some part of my writing on this blog. And I never answer them because basically I'm a lazy slacker sometimes who can't seem to answer all my emails (but I do read and appreciate them all, even when you tell me I suck). So here is my blanket policy on the subject of my copy rights.

Basically, yeah. Go ahead. I reserve the copyright on all my writing. However, you may link/quote/copy me as long as you give me credit. The best way to give me credit is simply by linking back to the actual post you are grabbing, rather than just a general link to the site. In this way, people who want to investigate further and read more of whatever crazy ideas I've come up with and argue with me about how stupid I am or tell me how great I am can do so with an informed critique because they have had an opportunity to read the blurb in context.

So, that, and don't use my writing for profit without my permission. That's it, go crazy and spread my incomparable, sage-like wisdom throughout the land. In short, some rights reserved...but not that many.