Bouncy Bitchy Bullet Blogging

• Ebbs and Flows. The first six months of parenting were torture, the next year and a half was relatively smooth sailing, the last six months have sucked ass, but I think the tide is receding and it is getting fun (and slightly less messy) again. I have a feeling this will be the pattern for the next 20 years.
• His and Hers surgeries. D and I are both up for surgeries in the near future. D is having his next Tuesday. He is getting his medtronic infusion pump replaced before he starts beeping (literally, it beeps after seven years and if you don't replace it, you just have a beep emanating from your stomach. It is a little hard to explain to airport security.) I have the return of my friend, the kidney stone. The same one they couldn't get to seven years ago (seven again. A pattern?). They removed the big ping pong ball one and said to come back when this one reached ping pong ball sized. I think we are on the verge. The challenge? Can I figure out what to do with my kids before I keel over in pain? Right now the pain is livable and comes and goes, but it is increasing. The race is on! But I hope to make it until after Christmas. Who wants to come stay with my kids for a week? Anyone? Anyone? I have a fast Internet connection and cable! And I promise you'll probably only have to clean up two or three disastrous messes in any given week. Huh? The Northwest in January? The cold and stormy gray Pacific? Doesn't that sound inviting?
• Belated Trick or Treat. I forgot to blog about Halloween. We had a fun week. Naim was a Thomas Train (or was it Aaron?) and the other one? was a firetruck. We went to two Halloween parties that were okay, but trick-or-treating was really fun. I didn't think they would get into it and I thought they'd be shy, but after they figured out the pattern (pattern = talking to strangers will get you candy) they loved it. Naim talked up a storm to every one we met. We only went to about 10 houses before I lost my motivation to walk at twin speed and they had enough candy, but next year I'm sure we will be able to go longer.
• Antecedent ->Behavior->Consequence. If I could figure out how to do it, I would give D a big box of foresight for Christmas...because he has none. None. No ability to estimate how long something might take, what contingencies may occur, and what consequences will happen when you choose to do Choice A as opposed to Choice B or C. It is seriously like that part of your brain that monitors time is missing. And that part of your brain that can foresee what will happen next? Gone. I don't know what happened to it. Was it ever there? Did it get knocked out of him in the accident? He will seriously sit there and tell me at 4:30 that yes, he is coming over at 5:30 after he makes three phone calls, puts up a sale on ebay, has his bath aide come over and help him shower, feeds the cat, charge his wheelchair, and waits for his dad to drop something off. Like in all seriousness. He seems to have no clue that he just promised to do 3 and a half hours worth of stuff in under an hour. He seems to have no means to guide him to reality in what he can actually commit to. And don't get me started on the pictures. The professional pictures he wanted to take this summer, but when I made the appointment (for two weeks later) he seemed startled that I had done it when it came upon him, before he got his hair cut, got new glasses, and cleaned up his wheelchair. So we went by ourselves and I got pictures of the kids. He wanted to try again, so I said, ok, made the appointment again. Got mine and the kids' hair cut, gave everyone baths and washed the nice matching clothes for everyone. Including D. I asked him 2 weeks ago if the pants he was going to wear fit over his prosthetic leg. Yes. You've worn them? Yes. Do you want me to help you try them on? No. They are big enough, he says. Until 15 minutes until we are supposed to leave. He calls me. Uh, they don't fit. He is stuck in them and can't get them off and has no other pairs clean to wear. We end up having to cancel. After I got everyone up early and bathed and cleaned and shiny and even (gasp!) straightened my hair and put on make-up. Made sure the kids didn't get food or god knows what on their clothes. Does he know how hard it is to get the stars and planets to align to make that happen? And can he align a few stars for himself? Not a clue.
• That's way too long of a bullet point. So I'll say it again. Foresight. Is that bottled somewhere? Can I get it at Walmart? Amazon? Really. How does one live without it? Okay, I'm done with that, now.
• More than being a man in a skirt.When I was young, my mother used to use the line, "just wait until you have children..." And she was right. I do understand a lot of things better now that I have children. And one of the things I am discovering is that 75% of what I learned from her about women's issues and feminism is entirely false. Not in a "She was so wrong" way. More in a "Our understanding of how the patriarchy works has evolved a lot from back then when she was forced to "pass" to get a shot at a career." But that is a post I've got percolating in my head that won't take to bullet points.
• Points. Points. Points. Here I come. I blew WW for the last several weeks. I've started again.
• Dioramaggedon. My webuddy, John Scalzi, is killing me this week with a funny post about the Creation Museum. Several months ago, someone dared him to go visit it because it is a few hours drive from where he lives. He didn't want to go. So people offered to pay him. Then he said he'd go but only if people donated a collective total of $500 to an organization that supported separation of church and state. He ended up getting over $5000 in donations. (He has just a few more readers than I do, I'm sure.) So he went, and made a slide show and a post about it, but best of all...now he is having a lolcat photo captioning contest about it that is just cracking D and I up. Go check it out if you're bored.
• I Could Respond If My Head Weren't Exploding. This is not directed at anyone here or online, but I just have to get this off my chest. If you are going to compare homeschoolers joking around about snarky comments they dream of saying to strangers who make judgmental drive-by comments about homeschooling with being white and not having a safe place to make black jokes? Even if it was "just a metaphor" and not what you truly believe? Then I cannot even form words to even respond to that it is so asinine. The stupid? It burns.
• Big Misogyny, Small.... And another thing that has to escape my mind into the ether that is not directed at anyone here. If you are going to mock some courageous and hard-working women who you saw training in Marine boot camp on TV, imitating their high-pitched hoorahs and how funny their little delicate bodies look while they hold their big, manly guns? Well, then I don't think you really understand the principles on which this country is founded that your precious marines purport to defend. And the follow-up with the backhanded compliment about how now that there is a woman space shuttle pilot so we can't make fun of women drivers anymore? I know you mean well, but just give yourself a little nudge, a teeny weeny push into the 21st century. Read a book by a woman instead of misogynistic overzealous military generals. Look around and see that women have been basically kicking the asses of men for the last 20 years in education, salary increases, upward mobility, etc. while still being forced to raise the next generation and clean up after the menz. You should be on your knees, thanking those women marines for being willing to serve and basically volunteer to help clean up this mess that all the rich white dudes created. That is all.
• Noodlebugs. God! Blogs are for Bitchin' aren't they? I'm just spewing all over the place here. I need a bucket and a mop! That wasn't my intention. My intention was to say, hey! Despite these annoyances, things are better! The kids are happy and fun and doing great. I do feel like we are perhaps moving into a bit of an easier patch where we have a good routine down and have balanced my changing the environment to them following the rules. The work is exhausting still and I am still perpetually behind, but I really enjoy my kids every day. They are so funny! Every morning, Naim has to get his sillies out. He runs all over and wriggles around like a nutball and then he suddenly freezes. I have to ask him, "Are you all out of sillies? I think I see some more!" This causes him to wiggle into a fit of giggles and start running around and wiggling all over again. We have to do that about 10 times. Aaron is all into space shuttles and space ships and rockets and UFOs. Anything, and I mean ANYTHING, turns into a rocket that has to count down and be blasted off. They say rockets and dinosaurs and vehicles are the gateway drugs to science careers. He obsesses over all three so perhaps he will really get into science. We'll see. He is getting so fun to talk to, now. He even is telling me things that I don't know. Today he told me he played with dominoes with Jose. This was from the gym daycare. He told me a thing that happened in the past, while I wasn't there. I didn't even know he knew what dominoes are. We don't have any here. When I went to pick them up, they were both in full conversation mode with the daycare folks. Just chatting about all kinds of things. I think it is so cool that they have relationships outside of me. They are expanding their world.
• No white, english speaking, middle class, christian, average-acheiving male Child Left Behind. I read an article in US News about NCLB. It was the stupidest article ever. It was like, with a straight journalisticy reporty face, all "gee, kids who don't speak native English are not doing well on English standardized tests. All the schools with  a predominant ESL population are not meeting the NCLB standards. What SHOOOOOUUUUULD be done? Oh, perhaps punishing the schools and teachers with more negative consequences will help. Yeah! Lets take their funding, their special programs for ESL kids, and their autonomy away and replace it with a standardized English/eurocentric national curriculum. That will teach those ESL kids to do better on those English Anglo-Saxon luvin' standardized tests!" That article was like reading about how to fix your air conditioning by bludgeoning it repeatedly with a sledgehammer, then when that doesn't work--your next big idea is to go turn up your furnace.
• ¿Lengua materna? ¿Sabe usted Cherokee? Okay, now I quickly reverted to bitchy-spewy mode, didn't I? But that reminds me of another thing. A couple of weeks ago D got one of those stupid forwarded email things from the Relative-Who-Shall-Remain-Nameless-But-Who-Has-Violently-Different-Views-than-He-Does. The email itself was praising some jackass that was having a hissy fit because some Mexican restaurant owner had a flag-pole and dared to put the Mexican Flag above the American one. Well, that was bad enough, but what really got me wasn't the main gist of the email, it was the senders forwarding comment. It said something to the effect of, "This reminds me of how annoyed I get when I have to push "1" on the ATM for English (as opposed to Spanish)." I shouldn't be shocked about this kind of stuff, but I always am. Someone is such a hater, such a petty person, such a small-minded individual that pushing "1" for English is bothersome? Really? Is it so hard? Is it such an affront to your white American ass? I had never, ever thought about ATMs having Spanish and pushing 1 for English except to say, cool. Spanish for Spanish speakers. You know, the Latinos that have been here since before the 1400s? The ones who were here before the Europeans? The ones who owned Most of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California before we destroyed them? And their progeny who come up here and who work their asses off doing all of our crap work? Yeah, those people shouldn't be able to deposit their paycheck. uh uh. Again, the stupid? It burns and burns and burns.
• Welbutrin: $50, Psychotherapy: $150, Surgery to reconstruct imploding head: $500,000, Blogging: Priceless. Okay, so there seems to be a theme here. Which is, in between surgeries and having fun with my kids and totally loving homeschooling and laughing my ass off at the creation museum and all the other fun stuff we are doing...I've dealt with several incidences of assholery this week. But the good news is, I didn't even go off on them and lose my temper and tact! I just politely stated my opinion or in some instances, just left the situation. And thought to myself, oh! but this is all gettin' blogged. That's the only way I can pull off nice sometimes, is to blog it later on. I know, I should pay all of you a therapy fee for reading this.

Comments

[Skye]

1. This post ROCKED.

2. If I thought I could handle my 9-week old and your 2 kids simultaneously, I would be on a plane in two seconds to babysit.

3. I have a friend who lives in D's world as far as time estimates. It's endlessly frustrating.

[Lantana]

I live in the Pacific Northwest! "Raising hand". I am a professional!

[gypsygrrl]

i'd be there in a heartbeat... do you think i can get nursing school credit for my pediatrics class for helping with your little monsters, er....ummmm, i mean your kiddos? ;P