Adventures in Sprouting

Getting over It

2012-01-21T21:24:00.001-06:00

Last weekend was bad. Really bad. And still, it could have been so very much worse. I shiver at the thought of how much worse it could have been. It was time for my regular MRI scans. Relax everybody, the results were fine. Awesome in fact. I guess that’s something of a spoiler for the rest of this post, huh? So much for my career as a suspense writer. Most everybody has had an MRI in this day and age, and it doesn’t sound that bad, does it? And I’m not even claustrophobic, so I don’t have that fear to worry about. I am trypanophobic, which is an intense fear of medical needles, and no, I did not know the medical name for it before looking it up. After a gazillion operations, you’d think I’d be used to needles, but here’s the thing, all those operations have taken a toll on my veins, which weren’t award-winning veins to begin with. This time, I was stuck five times, in both hands and both wrists, before the specialist who was called in from I.V. therapy finally got a vein. In my shoulder. How weird is that? After the wrist thing though, it was nothing. Then there’s the lying flat for hours. And hours. And hours. Because they scan my brain and entire spine, it’s like having four MRIs all at once. Just how you’d want to spend your Saturday, right? Yes, I had to do it on Saturday because they didn’t have a block of time that large through the week. So the MRI and its associated needle drama lasted seven hours. Then I had to go back to Vanderbilt on Monday to get the results. Which were good, as I said. And that bears repeating because really, how often has that happened? Rarely.

So that’s me whining. Last weekend had me out of sorts all week. Whenever these appointments come up, well it’s just terrifying. I tell myself not to worry about it because I know worrying will do no good, but then I’ll be holding my children and think what they’re lives will be like if the brain tumor that will finally get me is already there, just waiting to be found, craving an audience to start reeking its havoc. Sound crazy? Well, just let me know how you handle the news of your brain tumor. Or your second. Or your ninth. You do that, then we’ll talk crazy. For more than a year now, I’ve been able, for the most part, to forget the VHL and surgeries and tumors. It’s been blissful. But this past weekend, it was all VHL all the time. These check-ups, though only annual and much easier than my prior week-long trips to Bethesda, Maryland, are still able to steal my bliss, if only for a while.

I realize that I don’t sound particularly grateful just now, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. I am grateful. I’m on-my-knees, tears-of-joy grateful. I am grateful for the good report. Grateful for my awesome neurosurgeon who hugged me before leaving the room. Grateful that I have top notch medical care so nearby. Grateful for a whole year that I don’t have to think about this. Grateful for my husband, who held my hand through the whole ordeal. Grateful for my family, who babysat my children so we wouldn’t have that added stress last weekend. And my children, Oh my God am I grateful for my children. I fear every minute that somebody will figure out that I got more than my fair share of blessings and decide that I have to pay up, because trypanophobia, brain tumors and all, I am still one seriously lucky chick.

I realized today that I hadn’t written about last weekend. So this is me, writing out my stress. Michael will have to post it because Blogger no longer supports the outdated version of my browser. Clearly, Blogger does not realize how little time I have for its crap. Of course, if I’d just finally learn to use my most awesome MacBook, this wouldn’t be a problem. But that can be tomorrows stress. Today, I’ll just try to bask in the blessings.

The Food Tease

2012-01-08T18:14:00.000-06:00

It seems that after reading my last post, some of my faithful readers, all six of you, were anticipating a recipe, where in you might have for yourself a crock pot full of the yummy concoction which I so convincingly blathered on about, and were disappointed when the much anticipated recipe was not forthcoming. Sorry about that. But since I aim to deliver, here you go.
If this dish had a name, Liz didn’t tell it to me, so let it be called henceforth – drum roll please – Liz’s crock pot full of Mexican Yumminess. If you can come up with a better name, (and really, how could you not?) then leave it in the comments. We’ll do a giveaway! Except, that you know, I won’t actually be giving anything away and there’s no prestige whatsoever attached to winning. Still, it’d be fun, right? So here ya go:

1 bag (2.5 – 3 lbs.) frozen chicken breast
8 oz. cream cheese
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can whole kernel corn, drained
1 can RO*TEL

Line bottom of crock pot with frozen chicken. Put cream cheese on top of that, then add rest of ingredients. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours, stirring every two hours. Turn off crock pot and let stand for 30 minutes to thicken. Serve over rice, which you do not let a blind woman cook
Where recipes are concerned, I never do leave well enough alone. Were I to make this myself, I would probably ad in some queso cheese, just a little, like maybe a gob or so. Why would I do this? Because I add extra cheese to everything. Really I do. But if you don’t want to do that, the recipe was great without it. Enjoy.

Adventures in Blind Cooking

2012-01-05T10:16:00.001-06:00

I love to cook. Not for any desire for creative expression or wholesome living, but because, quite simply, I love to eat. I have a friend, let’s call her Liz – let’s do that because that’s her name – who also likes to cook. Both of us are stay at home moms who find that even the promise of an awesome meal out is not worth the trouble of bundling up a three year old and an infant and risking the threat of public humiliation that an outing with children, unpredictable little darlings that they are, always entails. That’s not to mention the expense involved in eating out. So we cook at home. Yesterday, Liz was here for our weekly playdate, wherein our boys fight over toys, our girls make their usual constant demands of feed me, change me, repeat, and Liz and I try to have five minutes of uninterrupted adult conversation. Liz had called yesterday morning to say she was bringing lunch. Hooray! I do love it when lunch shows up at my door, don’t you? What, your friends don’t bring you lunch? Well find you some friends that do is all I’m saying.
So she brought this yummy Mexican dish that had cream cheese, chicken, beans, and all manner of yumminess. I was sold at the cream cheese part. Even better, she cooked the whole thing in the crock pot. If I wrote poetry, I would totally write an ode to my crock pot. Better still, Liz gave me the recipe for this culinary marvel. Hooray again! When Liz called, she asked if I had rice. Do I have rice? My rice cooker is one of the best appliances in my kitchen appliance arsenal, and that’s something because I dearly love kitchen appliances and gadgetry. So I told Liz to rest easy, the rice was covered.
So Liz got here, and after we had finished off the leftover New Year’s Eve candy and put a sizeable dent in my stash of smoke Gouda, we thought it might be time for a little lunch. I think this was around 10:45. So, it was time to start the rice. I proudly – okay arrogantly – got out my rice cooker. I also got out the plug adapter thingy because – here’s the thing about my rice cooker – it’s Japanese. I mean really, Michael got it for $5 from a Japanese guy he used to work with who was selling off all his stuff before returning home to Japan. Who knows more about making rice than the Japanese, I ask you? So I plugged the thingy into the wall and plugged the rice cooker into the thingy, all of this I assume is so the difference in volts or amps or whatsits won’t blow up my house. I measured out the rice, measured out the water, then told Liz to go ahead and start it up.
“What buttons do I push,” she asked, not illogically.
“I dunno. What does it look like you push?”
“Are you kidding me? This is in Japanese. How should I know?”
After making a smart ass comment along the lines of “welcome to my world, I did what I always do in these situations, I called Michael. I call Michael a lot, bless his heart. Everything was fine, Michael said, he had written instructions, complete with a diagram, and they were on a sheet of paper in the cabinet. See, it’s all fine. So we found the paper, which Liz studied.
Okay, here’s the thing. Michael is a computer techy analyst systems engineer support type person. You know the manuals and instructions that come with your electronic devices? Yeah, people like Michael write those instructions. So as it turns out, Liz found the Japanese writing on the cooker of more use than she found Michael’s instructions. So after employing my “push a bunch of buttons and see what happens” method, which resulted in hot, crunchy rice soup, we decided to go to plan B. Never fear, I am a woman with a long history of Plan Bs. I had Minute Rice. Of course, I don’t actually eat Minute Rice, oh God no. I’m not in any way a food snob, but Minute Rice is just not for human consumption. I have a big Sam’s Club container of it for Sprout to play with. Everybody knows the basics of Minute Rice, equal parts water and rice and microwave until done. A monkey could do it.
Turns out, the monkeys maybe have something on me. Five minutes, the rice wasn’t done. Two more minutes, the rice wasn’t done. More water and two more minutes, the rice still wasn’t done. And then in one of those forehead slapping moments of clarity, I realized the problem. I hadn’t in fact used the Minute Rice. Flustered by the rice cooker debacle, I had used regular rice. Now it all makes sense. To Liz’s credit, she was undaunted, or maybe she’s just got used to this kind of thing from me, either way, she diligently kept microwaving the rice until finally, we had edible, non-crunchy rice. Yummy. Delicious, in fact.
“You know,” Liz said, “you really should write about the stuff that happens to you in the kitchen.”
And a blog post was born. Thanks Liz – for lunch, for the idea, and for your patience.

Normal Day

2012-01-03T06:37:00.000-06:00

For good or for ill, the holidays are over. The insanity is over for another year. The shopping, cooking, planning, fretting, visiting, gifting, indulging, and merry holiday cheer are over for another year. That makes January either a blessed relief or a depressing let down. I share with you the snippet below about the grace of a normal day to remind us all that normal days are blessings in themselves. I, and I’m sure we all, have had those days where normality falls victim, with lightening speed, to the unthinkable. I often read this to remind myself just what a blessing a normal day is.

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, savor you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it will not always be so. One day, I shall dig my nails into the earth or bury my face in the pillow or stretch myself out or raise my hands to the sky and want more than all the world your return.

The above is titled, “Let Me Hold You While I May,” by Mary Jean Irion. I came across it in “The Sweet Potato Queen’s Wedding Planner/Divorce Guide” by Jill Conner Browne, a book which I highly, highly recommend.
Happy January 3rd everybody.

The Rosebud Year in Revew

2012-01-02T12:22:00.000-06:00

Dear Rosebud,
The year of your birth has come and gone. It seems mere seconds since I held you for the first time. Now, you are rolling over, smiling, and laughing out loud. You are the happiest, most delightful baby I have ever had the pleasure to know. And you are mine. That’s the amazing part. This wonderful little creature whose joyous giggles cause strangers to turn and smile is mine. No matter what gifts await me in 2012 or in my entire future, I am blessed because I have you and Big Brother.
You are using your hands now, grabbing everything. And your favorite things to grab are your own toes. Oh the sheer triumph and joy you showed when you could finally grab hold of your own toes. Well, it was something to witness. You also love baths, and are an ace when it comes to sleeping and nursing. You, like Big Brother, hate tummy time. And I should document here that at three months, you said your first word. Much to your Daddy’s consternation, that first word was … “Granny.” Not Mama, not Dada, not even Bubby, but Granny. Granny stood over your crib talking to you, telling you to say hi to Granny. In Granny’s defense, she didn’t actually expect you to say it, and certainly wasn’t actually trying to get you to, although your Daddy might not ever believe that. And you said it, Granny, plain as day. Then you said it two more times that day. The effort must have plumb tuckered out your talking muscles though, because you haven’t said any words since. I fancy that sometimes “Ama,” is Mama, but I know that’s a stretch.
You are growing like the proverbial weed. At your four month check up, you weighed in at eleven pounds, thirteen ounces, which seems big to me, but is really low on the percentiles chart. Although what you might lack in stature, you make up for in personality. Your hair is a beautiful red, although a different red from your brother’s hair. Your eye color, well that’s up for debate. Some people say blue, some say grey. Aunt Jana says they are exactly like her eyes. What is undisputed is that they are beautiful. Especially since they are almost always accompanying that wide, open mouth grin you have. You’re perfect is what you are.
When you’re older, you’ll know doubt chide me for not recording your every accomplishment as diligently as I recorded your brother’s. It’s true, I’m guilty. But it’s not due to any comparative lack of interest on my part, not at all. It’s just that with two kids, there is exponentially more work to do. And when free time does mercifully present itself, I usually find myself spending it just snuggling with my two babies.
In the year to come, my sweet girl, you will walk, talk, crawl, and perform heretofore unimagined miraculous feats. I’m looking forward to every moment, even as I treasure the moments of this past year, moments of so many firsts—first smiles, first cuddles, first kisses. Everyday, I offer up a prayer of thanksgiving for you, my darling baby girl.

My Love Always,
Mommy

New Year's Resolutions

2012-01-01T08:11:00.000-06:00

I know, I know—nobody makes resolutions anymore. It’s just setting yourself up for failure, yadda, yadda. And that’s true, mostly. I think it depends entirely on your willingness to look at your life and yourself with a critical eye and be honest about what things you’d like to change. For example, I need to lose weight. I do. It’s true. But I also know that right now, I do not have the time or mental energy to devote to what experience has taught me will be a time and energy intensive undertaking. So yeah, I need to lose weight, but no, I do not possess the resolve to do it just now. What I like about New Year’s is that it is, or at least can be, such a time of clear-eyed optimism. Once one has been alive for more than a day, there’s really no such thing as a clean slate, but on January 1st, the Christmas and all its associated mayhem is over, and there’s room in one’s life to take that much needed deep breath. It’s just the perfect time to gather in one’s thoughts and plot a course of sorts for the next 365 days.
My number one goal for 2012 is to embrace the chaos. When you live in a house with two small children, chaos is the order of the day. Rather than ruminating on the things I’d do if I didn’t have all this chaos, I want to embrace the chaos, dig in my heels, and find a way to get done those things that I want to get done in spite of the chaos. Because honestly, I love the chaos. Oh sure, not every second of every day, but I wouldn’t change it for anything. If chaos is the price for the blessings I have been given, then I’ll gladly pay it a thousand times over.
I want to be healthier. I want to exercise, which might mean riding the stationary bike a few times a week or taking a walk when the weather is nice. No, that won’t lose me any weight, but it’ll be activity that I can feel good about. Also, I resolve to make healthier food choices. Not all the time necessarily, and I don’t mean I’ll be regularly ordering salad with only lemon juice for dressing, but you know, maybe have the grilled veggie sandwich instead of the bacon cheeseburger. That’s entirely doable. Will I cut out sweets? Oh no. Oh hell no. But I can cut back sweets to, say, twice a week. Wait, maybe three times is more doable.
Writing. Oh God. For more than a decade now, regular writing has been on my New Year’s Resolutions list, and I have rarely if ever managed to make it happen. Right now, I still don’t have a plan for it. What I know is that I love to write, want to write, and want to be a published author. As for having a roadmap to make that happen, I got nothing. But the dream is alive, still alive. Maybe that’ll be my resolution, to foster that dream whenever I can, however I can. So maybe at the end of each week, I will look back and ask, did I foster my dream this week? Did I write on my novel, my nonfiction work? Did I research agents for the completed manuscript? Did I spend some time in an online writing community? Yes, I think that’ll do as a resolution for now. To foster my writing dream whenever and however I can.
In 2011 I resolved to cultivate new friendships. With the exception of the birth of my daughter, the successful follow-through of that resolution as been the brightest spot in a brilliant year. I have met friends, Betties, through my participation in a fabulous online group. I have reconnected with some old friends, and have developed a meaningful and deep friendship with someone who was until recently just a friend-of-a-friend type of acquaintance. So see, resolutions can pay off. I resolve to value and continue those friendships in 2012.
Finally, but hardly of least importance, I resolve to spend more quality time with my best friend, my husband. Most days, we don’t have any time alone together until both kids are asleep at night, and then we’re both so exhausted we usually both fall asleep in the living room. It’s the glamorous life here, folks. But I want to spend more time with him. I want to have actual conversations that don’t occur while both of us have a lapful of offspring. I’m not sure how that can happen, but I resolve to make the effort. Maybe it means we each get up an hour earlier in the morning to have time to talk over our morning coffee. Or maybe we each need to do better about finding babysitting help. I don’t know how it is to happen, but I resolve to give more time and attention to the most important relationship in my life.
So that’s a good start for 2012, I think. There are the usual suspects as well—knit more, learn to bake bread, finally—but you know, I’ll get to those as I can. Primarily, I want to enjoy every day to the fullest. What about you?

Santa's Elf I Ain't

2011-12-09T08:30:00.000-06:00

There is only one reason that I wrap Christmas presents, and that is because I was unable to convince Mom to do it for me. My only goal when I am forced to wrap presents is coverage. I have enough experience with this to know that beauty, or even presentability for that matter, is an unattainable goal. I only intend to get the gift covered. To that end, do not be surprised if you ever get a gift from me wrapped in the plastic bag the store put it in. Don’t feel slighted. Don’t judge a book by its cover and all that. Just trust me, it’s better this way.
Over the years, Michael and I have devised something of a system for gift wrapping because-- I swear to God-- he’s not any better at it than I am. First, we get all the gifts and gift boxes out. My job here is to remind Michael who got what gift. He’ll say something like, “Who gets the Polar Fleece house slippers?” Well duh. We have got his mother some form of fleece something or other every year that we’ve been married. I mean seriously. Then he’ll say, “Who gets the Kevlar gloves?” If you know my dad, that’s funny. He has managed to cut off not one, not two, but three of his fingers. Who else would need Kevlar gloves for crying out loud? What I’m saying here is that my presence for the gift wrapping extravaganza might seem extraneous, but really, I am the brains behind the operation.
So once gifts are boxed, they go on to be wrapped. It’s the cutting-the-paper part that really gets me. Michael does that. As I understand it “straight” is fairly important when cutting wrapping paper. In my world, straight is entirely relative. So Michael cuts the paper. Then the package comes to me. Now see, I can fold and tape with the best of them. During the process though, I will place strips of tape all over my person because I can never find the dispenser when I’m ready for it. So I fold, tape, fold, tape, fold, tape. While I do this, Michael will fill out the written gift tag. Then I’ll place the bow—nothing fancy here, just a pre-made, store bought bow and you’d better be grateful for that—and voila! A perfectly covered package. How’s that for teamwork? Then I, triumphant and sticky, slide the package over to Michael.
“What was in this package again?” he’ll ask.
Blank looks all around. Then we unwrap and start all over.

Hide and Seek, Sprout Style

2011-12-01T18:44:00.000-06:00

As Sprout gets older, I worry about being able to fully interact with him in a way that is meaningful to him. There are so many games that I can’t play with him. Candyland is completely visual. Anything involving a ball has high injury potential for us both. Coloring and drawing are sure to convince him well before the teenage years that Mommy really doesn’t know how to do anything. So all things considered, I could do worse than hide and seek. As it happens though, I needn’t have worried.
For one thing, Sprout hides in the exact same place every time. Clearly, he hasn’t yet grasped the finer points of the game. On the singular occasion that Sprout hid somewhere new, his giggles at his own cleverness gave away his location. What follows is a typical game of hide and seek, Sprout style:

Sprout: “Mommy, you count to ten while I hide.”
Me: Resigned sigh, then begins counting. Finishes counting and walks around the room sounding perplexed. “Hmmm. I wonder where Sprout is hiding.”
Sprout: After no hesitation at all. “Here I am!”
Me: “You’re supposed to stay hidden until I find you.”
Sprout: “Okay. Can you find me now?”
Me: Pretends to be excited over finding him.
Sprout: “Now you hide, Mommy.”
Then I hide. After a while, I get bored because he only ever looks for me in his own hiding place. Then I go hunt him down.
Sprout: “There you are Mommy! I found you! Now it’s my turn to hide.”
And it begins again.

Apple Cranberry Muffins

2011-11-29T17:22:00.000-06:00

I love breakfast. Love it. What are we having for dinner tonight? Scrambled eggs and bacon, that’s what. I think I’ll even try my hand at making chocolate gravy. Chocolate and gravy? How could it get better, I ask you. I like to cook. Not an elaborate meal for, say, a mid-week dinner, but I love to put out a big feast for special occasions. Naturally, given these two passions, it stands to reason that a tradition of special breakfasts would emerge. On Christmas morning, our cherry almond coffee cake must be present before Christmas can truly begin. Michael and I have been known to stay up late on Christmas Eve making it. We love nothing so much as being in the kitchen, working together to make a meal for our family and friends. This Thanksgiving, I wanted to do something similar, and since I do adore a good muffin, that’s the direction I chose. I had a recipe for an apple raisin muffin. I don’t know why I have this recipe, seeing as how Michael hates raisins. I swear, it’s like cooking for an extra child. But I had a bunch of dried cranberries in the cabinet. Instant substitution. The recipe below was the result. They were darned tasty if I do say so myself.
In a large bowl, combine three and a half cups of flour, two teaspoons baking soda, and one cup of nuts. I used pecans. Now, in a good size saucepan, put two sticks of butter -- yes really, two cups of grated apples, two cups of sugar, two cups of dried cranberries, one cup of water, and three teaspoons of cinnamon. Bring all that to a boil, stirring often, then remove from the heat. Let it cool all the way. I got busy with the kids so it was many hours before I got back to this, and even then I had to wait a little longer for it to completely cool. Then put the cooled mixture into the flour mixture and combine. The rule with muffins is not to over stir, your muffins will get too heavy if you do. Once the flour is incorporated, spoon the batter into greased muffin cups. Bake at 350 degrees for fifteen minutes. I got one dozen Texas size muffins and eight mini loaves out of this, but I suspect next time, I’ll get something different. Consistency in the kitchen is not my thing. Think “blind woman filling muffin cups” and you’ll understand why. Normally, I liberally sprinkle muffins with sugar before baking, but these are plenty sweet without it. Trust me, I’d tell you if they weren’t. Enjoy.

Not So Very Crafty

2011-10-03T09:26:00.000-05:00

Last week, I decided that Sprout had been watching entirely too much TV, and we needed to do something together. Something fun and constructive. I’m working hard not to beat myself up over the TV thing. I mean I did just have a baby and major surgery after all. I always know I’m healing when guilt starts to creep in, trying to convince me that unless I am lying lifeless on the floor, I really should be scrubbing the grout in the bathrooms, baking bread from whole wheat, organic flour, telling my children elaborate stories featuring sock puppets, making hand-made thank you cards, etc. You get the idea. Guilt is an entirely useless emotion. On a purely cerebral level, I know this, but it’s also a very powerful, useless emotion. Anyway, back to fun and constructive.
I got a book full of craft projects for preschoolers that makes use of common household items. What a boon! I believe I’ll pass on the sculpture made from dryer lint (No, I am not kidding), but I found lots of other good ideas. I decided on making flowers from coffee filters and drinking straws. I made one, showed it to Sprout, and he pronounced it “cool.” So we sat down at his little table to make them. The gist is that you color a coffee filter, then twist the bottom to a point, which you then shove into a drinking straw, and Voila! There’s also a vase made from an empty juice concentrate container and dried beans. I was envisioning kid art decorating our whole house, which, though not high style, would be more than the décor in our house now, which is none. So Sprout and I colored (hard to say who’s worse at that), we twisted the filters, and assembled the flowers. It was all going great until the Scotch tape came out. My son is totally bonkers over Scotch tape. He thinks tape is just a big, long, clear sticker. Our fun, constructive activity devolved from there. What’s worse, the tape I had was double-sided tape, so when it sticks, it really sticks. For the rest of the day, I kept sticking to the kitchen floor. Eventually, I just gave up on constructive and stuck the straws up my nose, always a hit with three-year-old boys. Goo goo g’joob.
So now I have a dilemma that my faithful blog readers can help me with. I’m wondering if it’s time to get Sprout into a pre-pre-school program. Is it better for him to be home with Mommy, who is often busy with the new baby, or be away from mommy, with other kids his own age doing fun and constructive activities led by people who, presumably, will not end up with drinking straws up their noses. Your thoughts?

Family Fun

2011-09-27T08:22:00.000-05:00

On Saturday, we set out on our first outing as a family of four. Sure, we’ve been to relatives’ houses, and even went to Toys R’ Us a time or two, but venturing out with a newborn and a three year old whose potty habits are still somewhat unpredictable is a daunting proposition. Poor Michael. Can you imagine shepherding the caravan that includes a blind woman, wailing infant, and an adventurous little boy? He really is a patient man, not to mention an absolutely wonderful husband and father. Armed with such patience and a resolve born of housebound boredom on my part, we ventured forth, beginning our day at the local Bob Evans restaurant. Cue 2001 A Space Odyssey theme here.
It was a surprisingly blissful day. We completed an entire meal with no screaming meltdowns from either child. Some might call that a miracle. Some would be right. Michael and I even had an actual conversation. Sure, it was mostly about the kids and was interrupted frequently by one of us having to dive under the table to retrieve dropped crayons or matchbox cars, but still, we conversed without having to yell to be heard over crying, so I call it a victory. I was positively giddy as we left the restaurant. Next, we went to Barnes and Noble, which is Sprout’s most favorite place in the world next to Toys ‘R’ Us. He played with trains and looked at books while we shopped for birthday gifts for our niece and nephew. Things were going so well, that I even nursed Rosebud back in the kid’s section. I would never have felt comfortable enough with Sprout to breastfeed in public. I was just so insecure back then, but Rosebud and I managed just fine on Saturday. I had a drape to cover us, and it worked surprisingly well. After that, it was time for a family potty break. Michael chose Rosebud and I took Sprout. I dearly love Barnes and Noble for having a changing table in the men’s restroom. Sprout and I managed the bathroom without incident. Public restrooms are a nightmare for the blind. Having to take my very mobile son into a public restroom has always been a fear of mine, but we did just fine. Michael faired less well. As I understand it, many paper towels were required during the clean up. But that aside, the adventure remained a success. So much so that we decided to extend the outing to include a trip to the park, where Sprout played and Rosebud slept. We ended our wonderful day with Sprout napping in the van on our way home. Of course, that’s when Rosebud decided to wake up. Loudly. But hey, better in the car on the way home than while we were in public.
I am in love with my little family.

Loveletter

2011-09-26T08:52:00.001-05:00

Dear Rosebud,
My baby girl, you are six weeks old now. So many times, I have planned on writing this letter to you, but every time, I chose to keep on holding you instead. The only reason this letter is getting written now is that I got a new wrap carrier that allows me to both snuggle with you and write. So what do I have to say in this, my first written words to you? It all boils down to this; you are perfect. When you get older and you doubt that, just read this and know that to me, you are still perfect. In you now is my precious baby girl, but also all the things you are meant to be – the adventurous toddler, the confident preschooler, the rebellious teenager, the compassionate woman. If someday you look at yourself and do not see all of those things, then read this, and let my words call forth the you that’s hiding or has been pushed into the background. You are her. She is there. If love has the power of miracles – and I believe it does - then she will always be there, clear for all to see. Clear for you to see.
At six weeks, you are smiling now, my baby girl. It is a wide, open- mouthed smile that melts my heart. You are perfect. Whenever you cry, you usually need only for mommy to pick you up and all is made right. Or at least, most is made right. May it always be so. You are so curious already. You lift up your little head in an effort to look at the world around you. You are growing so fast, so very fast. You are already noticeably different from the teensy baby we brought home from the hospital. There is a whole lifetime’s worth of joyous change in every day I spend with you. You are in turn fascinated by and annoyed with your big brother, but cut him some slack, my little one, it was he who taught me about mothering, and you are the beneficiary of the lessons I learned from him.
If success is measured by how much one is loved, then you came into this world a winner already.

My love always,
Mommy

A letter to my little Rosebud

2011-08-25T16:14:00.004-05:00

Dear Rosebud,

I want to welcome you to our wonderful little family and our boundless love. You have done more than just increase our family by one but you have expanded our hearts with love. I was so happy to hear that I was going to get a daughter and that everything looked and sounded so healthy that I was overflowing with excitement.

I am writing so that I can mark the beginning of your life within the pages of our family blog and history. This letter is also a pledge to you that I will love you with all my heart and soul, to protect you with all my might and to help guide you through all of life’s twists and turns. I know we will have lots of fun discovering the world together no matter how old you get.

You just turned two weeks old and already you twist me around your little finger. You are so pretty and cuddly that I cannot believe our luck in getting another perfect buddle of joy. Your brother was just as cute and healthy and I think you have copied your brother’s red hair, only time will tell if the hair stays that way. I will speak for our Sprout, that he really loves his little sister, even if he is confused about your specific purpose.

I want you to always remember that your Daddy will always love his little Rosebud. I look forward to seeing you grow up to be a strong and caring just like your Mommy.

Love you

Daddy

Pictures of a beautiful baby Rosebud

2011-08-18T10:47:00.005-05:00

9 hours old, wide eyed and alert

Baby Rosebud and Mommy sharing a moment together

Time to go home, Rosebud is sporting a lovely hat knitted by her Mommy.

Big Brother Sprout hold his new little sister, Rosebud

Rosebud trying out her crib. Not sure about the crib.

It's not really about ice cream

2011-08-09T18:03:00.000-05:00

Nothing makes my little heart go pitter patter like a good book. Finding a new (to me) author who gives me a compelling story with realistic characters in a setting I can vividly imagine—well, that’s what my friend Molly refers to as “chocolate orgasms under the Christmas tree.” I happen to have found just such an author in Susan Gregg Gilmore.
Gilmore’s first book, Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen, published by Shaye Areheart Books/Crown in 2008, is the story of Catherine Grace Cline, a teenager in rural Georgia in the 1970’s, who wants nothing so much as to escape her everybody-knows-everybody, small town life. The first half of the book is a series of snapshot events that explain Catherine Grace’s desire to leave her hometown, a rescue that she prays to God for every night. After the drowning death of her mother, Catherine Grace is raised by her Baptist preacher father, a man idolized by his congregation, which happens to be the entire town. Being both motherless and the preacher’s daughter places her in the limelight, when what she really wants is to fade into the shadows. We see Catherine Grace torn between trusting in and being angry with God, nurturing maternal bonds between herself and her sister, falling in unlikely love with the captain of the football team, and ultimately leaving them all behind to follow the dream that has sustained her throughout her life.
Once she does leave for Atlanta, the book becomes more narrative in structure, following the chain of events that bring Katherine Grace back to Ringgold and call into question everything she thought she knew about her family, her town, and herself.
Being hugely pregnant as I am, I’m finding reading something of a challenge these days. I can’t get comfortable, I fall asleep anytime I lie down anywhere - except of course in bed, and Reading for pleasure makes me feel guilt that I’m not slogging through yet another baby or parenting book. Honestly, it was the thought of ice cream more than anything that interested me in Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen. Turns out though, that the Dairy Queen is just where Katherine Grace does her ruminating on small town life and makes her plans for her escape from it. There are a fair amount of dilly bars in the book, but there’s hardly more than a scene or two that actually takes place at the Dairy Queen.
I get the majority of my reading material from the Braille and Audio Reading Download, BARD, website of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. Gilmore’s first novel did such a fine job of captivating me in the face of unlikely odds that I’ll be purchasing the audio version of her next offering, The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove.
I must confess here that I love books set in the South and written by Southern authors. Since I’m not one to pass up offering book recommendations, here are a few of my favorite Southern authors:

Pat Conroy: Honestly, the man needs no introduction. A Pat Conroy novel is what happens when heartbreakingly beautiful language falls into the hands of a master storyteller.
Jill Conner Browne: She writes the Sweet Potato Queen books, which are simply some of the funniest things I have ever read. Start at the beginning with The Sweet Potato Queen’s Book of Love if you want, but the Sweet Potato Queen’s Guide to Raising Children for Fun and Profit and the Marriage Planner Divorce Guide are my favorites. Oh, and all the books have recipes – yummy, Southern recipes – the kind you eat with a spoon straight from the pan and would never admit to even knowing about, let alone actually cooking yourownself.
Patti Callahan Henry: Her characters could be people you know from your own life, or even you. Her characters are realistically flawed without being tortured. My first introduction to Patti Callahan Henry was Driftwood Summer, and I followed that up with Losing the Moon. Both stories grabbed me and pulled me in from the very beginning.

Leave it to me to issue a summer reading list at the end of summer. So any other good book recommendations out there?

Familiar

2011-08-09T10:38:00.000-05:00

I remember this feeling. I’ve been here before. A little over three years ago in fact. All the scrambling to get ready for the new baby is done. A stash of meals is in the freezer, the nursery is as put together as it’s going to get, the blankie is knitted, the bag is packed. The only thing left to do is wait. And worry. I think this particular anxiety comes with knowing exactly when the new baby will arrive. If I wasn’t having a scheduled C-section, I’d be waddling around moaning and complaining (not that I’m not still doing that), and feeling like this ordeal will never end. But I know it will end. It will end less than two days from now.
I am thrilled at the prospect of meeting my baby girl, even as I’m a little weepy that today will be the last day that it’ll be just me and Sprout at home, the way it’s been for three years. I’m glad that soon I won’t be pregnant anymore, but I’m anxious about that whole cutting me open thing. I’m in love with the idea of having two kids, even as I worry about how in the world I’ll care for both of them. I’ve said here before that “bittersweet” is a term that must have been coined by a mother. Every milestone, every event, is just that, bittersweet.
The first thing I’m doing once I have this baby is sending out for Starbuck’s. Well, Molly made me swear that the very first thing will be to text her some photos. Roger that. Sending out photos, then coffee. The coffee though, just the thought of it, that’s really the prize that’s getting me through this. Well sure, the darling baby too. As for right now, there’s a little boy with a stack of matchbox cars who wants my attention, and just now, I’m more than happy to give it to him.

Family Training

2011-08-04T10:36:00.001-05:00

I realize I’m tempting fate here, but I think we’ve turned a corner on this potty training thing. At least where Sprout is concerned. Accidents are the exception rather than the rule these days. Now, if I could only train my husband.
No, not to use the potty. He does just fine with that. It was kind of a prerequisite for marriage for me. He even puts down both toilet seat and lid. Does it get more perfect? But all wives know that keeping a husband fit for indoor living is a constant battle of training and retraining. Admittedly, Michael faces unusual challenges, living with a blind woman as he does. For the most part, he has mastered the nuances. But sometimes, he forgets.
Michael was cleaning out the closet in the nursery. Well, that’s what he appeared to be doing until you went into our utility room. Then, you’d realize that he wasn’t so much cleaning out as just transferring junk from one room to another. That’s fine. I understand the need for a junk staging area. But the junk remained in the utility room. For days. And days. And eventually, inevitably, Sprout decided to investigate all this cool new junk. One of the items of junk was the potty chair that Sprout hated and wouldn’t use, but I, having paid $40 for the darned thing, refused to just toss it. It’s true, Sprout hated the potty chair. Note the past tense “hated.” Apparently, on this particular day, that potty chair looked just right for the peeing in. Let me interject here that I had no idea precisely what items of junk were in the utility room. I just knew it was a lot of stuff that I didn’t want to deal with, so I stepped cautiously around it on my way to and from the washer and dryer.
I heard Sprout talking about going pee pee. Thinking he was finally getting the hang of telling me he needed to go BEFORE going, I excitedly escorted him to our bathroom, the one he’s been using for weeks now. I helped him down with his pants and prepared to be amazed.
“But I don’t have any pee pee,” he said.
“But you said you needed to go pee pee.”
“I already did go pee pee.”
Say huh? “You did? Where?”
“In the living room, in the potty chair. Now can I pick out a present?”
I don’t know how to wean him from a present every time he pees, but that wasn’t my major concern at that time. Clearly, I had to scout out a puddle of pee. I looked in the usual places – down the hall, behind the recliner, in the corner. No pee. So there was nothing for it but to get down on hands and knees and search out this mystery pee puddle. Have I mentioned being nine months pregnant? So what I found was the never used (until now) potty chair, in the middle of the living room, facing the television. Again, there was nothing for it but to plunge right in. Yes, the bowl attachment was securely under the chair, and yes, the bowl was full of pee. Bless Sprout’s little heart, he had even gone for toilet paper to wipe up the splatters. So I emptied and washed the bowl, cleaned up the carpet splatters, then called my husband and let fly with the biggest, meanest fit a 9-months pregnant woman can muster up. I must say, it was an impressive tirade.
So to update, Sprout is doing great with the pottying, and Michael now knows the wrath of a very pregnant Kimberly. Let’s not have to repeat these lessons, ‘kay?

A Sprout Update

2011-07-28T07:33:00.000-05:00

As I use this blog as a kind of scrapbook of Sprout’s life, I thought I’d take time to jot down a few things I want to remember. Sprout had his three year check up on Monday. He weighs thirty pounds and is thirty-seven inches tall. Michael pointed out that such numbers are likely the result of my Irish heritage. He claims that my family must be descended from Leprechauns. It’s true, our little boy with his red curly hair could probably pass for one of the little folk. Sprout is on target with all his developmental milestones, which apparently consist of knowing his name and being able to say whether he is a boy or a girl. That’s setting the bar a little low in my opinion, but what do I know. Daily, my little man says something precious, amazing, or just hilarious. I’ve decided to start jotting those things down in this blog. Here’s a sampling of recent Sproutisms.

Calling over his shoulder as he runs away with my iPhone: “I’m just trying to get on the network.” What the--? Or sometimes he says, “I’m just checking my Email.” A touch screen is his idea of nirvana.
“Mommy, get my boogies.” I am seriously considering teaching the child how to pick his own nose.
“I’m just cool,” said in response to me telling him he is cute. Apparently, he has outgrown cute and has progressed to cool. Call him anything, and he’ll correct you with, “I’m just cool.”
“It’s not fair!” This is his go-to phrase every time he is denied something he thinks he simply must have. And “fair” is said in that two-syllable way that will leave no one in doubt that my son’s origins are below the Mason-Dixon Line.
“Best Buy.” This is Sprout’s answer to the question, what would you like to do. He says he wants to go to Best Buy to “look at the wall of TVs.” Good grief. He is his father’s son. I have a feeling I’ll be shipping the two of them off to Best Buy a lot after the baby comes.

As readers of this blog know, I’m fairly convinced that my son’s genius is unmatched in the annals of human history. As if to prove it, Sprout put together an entire 24-piece puzzle all by himself. Well, I think I put a few of the pieces together, but honestly, puzzles? How much help do you really think I was? I took a picture of this miracle and sent it to Michael and my mom. Both were sufficiently awed. “Boy genius,” was Michael’s declaration. But then, an hour later, I sent another text informing the proud papa that our boy genius had just pooped his pants. “I hear Einstein did that a lot,” was Michael’s response. Clearly, we are completely monkey-brains in love with this child.

Adventures in Potty Training

2011-07-25T08:35:00.000-05:00

Nothing has ever made me feel as dumb as having a child. And just when I thought I couldn’t get any dumber, it’s time for potty training. My stupidity on this matter is epic. I mean, I know how the end result gets done, but conveying that information to a less than enthusiastic three year old… Well I’m clueless. Nonetheless, over the past few weeks, it is into the world of potty training we ventured.
It is presumptuous to talk about how I potty trained Sprout, as we certainly haven’t crossed that finish line yet. But while I’m still here in the trenches, I decided to share some of our experiences. Why now? Because I am convinced that once the deed gets done and the ordeal is behind you, a defense mechanism kicks in that keeps parents from remembering the details. I believe this because every time I ask a mom about potty training, I sense a shiver pass through them, and their only reply is, “It’s hard. It’s really hard.” Having a few weeks of PT under my belt, I totally understand their reaction. But ya’ll know how I love to share the less than appealing details of parenthood, so here goes.
In typical Kimberly fashion, when I suspected potty training might be drawing nigh, I turned to that trustiest of resources – the internet. The internet, also in typical fashion, gave me a lot of useful advice mixed with a lot of theoretical hogwash. What the internet did not give me was any real instruction on how this potty training business gets done. So I took my collection of informational tidbits and set off with the naïve hope unique to first time parents. Ah, but ignorance is bliss.
We already had made a few forays into this new adventure, and had learned a few things. First, that the cute little potty chairs were not for Sprout. That little wee wee guard thing? That was removed and used as a toy, which left it incapable of serving any useful purpose whatsoever. We also learned that if we waited for our kid to be “ready” we’d have the first college graduate sporting Pull-Ups.
A few weeks ago, we embarked on an intensive “all potty, all the time” weekend. We coupled that with the kitchen sink approach to potty training. What methods did we employ? What methods DIDN’T we employ? We bribed, we did naked time, we set timers, we threw crackers in the toilet for him to shoot at, we read books, we encouraged outdoor peeing – you name it, we did it. And I have to say, it worked. Sort of. What I have since learned is that potty training is not a linear process. There are starts and stops, good days and bad days, successes and failures. Here, a few weeks in, is an example of the most common scenario you’d encounter at our house:

Me: “Do you need to go potty?”
Sprout: “Noooooo!”
Me, after another fifteen minutes: “Do you need to go potty now?”
Sprout: “Noooo!” Runs and hides.
Me, after another ten minutes: “Are you ready to go potty now?”
Sprout: Really, you know what’s coming, right?
So I chase down my child, throw him over my shoulder, and pack him off to the potty.
Sprout: “But I don’t need to potty.”
Me: “That’s fine. You don’t have to potty, but you do have to try.”
Sprout: “But I don’t have any pee,” as he starts to pee. Everywhere.
Now, here’s something I didn’t reckon on. My aim in this matter is not one little bit better than Sprout’s. At the end of a successful pee pee, we have managed to hose down the floor, the shower curtain, and the wall. There’s pee pretty much everywhere except in the toilet. But you know what? He didn’t pee in his training pants, so I call victory. Once I dress Sprout, he says, “Now I get a present,” which indeed he does because we are still using bribery to get the job done. So he picks a toy from the goody bag and scampers off to enjoy his new prize. Meanwhile, I’m in the bathroom, wiping up pee, calculating the cost of bribery vs. diapers, and setting the timer for forty-five minutes, at which time we will begin the whole dance again. Tell me again why I ever thought this potty training business was a good idea?

Mama said there'd be days like this

2011-06-30T09:56:00.001-05:00

Oh how I would love to get in a car and just drive. Maybe down a country road, maybe to a park, or maybe just to Sonic for a sweet tea. This is my longing, my forever unsatisfied need. We all need to get away. The freedom to go where there are people, new things, new scenery - that to me seems like a balm for the soul. But then, I wouldn’t really know, would I?
One of my escapes from the invisible bonds of blindness has always been writing. In my fiction, I always have characters driving. It is my own need for freedom spilling onto the page. But my current work in progress isn’t fiction. I’m writing about my experiences as a blind parent. No driving, no escapism there. My intent was for it to be an informative yet humorous look at how I overcame my challenges. But right now, I’m not feeling the overcoming part. So the book, it’s not really going anywhere. I’m not writing. The few regular readers of this blog will not be surprised. No writing means no escapism. I’m here. Right here. Always here.
Yesterday was one of those “walls closing in” kind of days. I recognized the boredom, the loneliness, the sucking sense of stagnation. I wanted to get. Out. Of. This. House. But alas, it was not to be. So Sprout and I decided to play outside. Our backyard is completely childproof. Unfortunately, it is not always completely blindproof. In anticipation of the mowers coming, Michael had moved all the yard toys onto the deck. Fine, except that one of the yard toys was a new kiddie pool. And it had rained. So there was a big pool of dirty water in the middle of the deck. I steered Sprout toward his water table, which he loves, instead. Inexplicably, the water table was completely empty of water. Well hell. So I traipsed through the jungle that is our yard (the mowers had not come after all) to find the water hose, the very long water hose, which I had to thread through my hands for an interminable length of time until I found its end. Did I mention it was also muddy? So mud-stained and annoyed, I did manage to fill up Sprout’s water table. Point Kimberly. Except that apparently, Sprout has two water tables, and the one he likes was not the one I had filled up. Frustration mounted. Okay, how about let’s play bubbles instead? So I searched around for bubbles. No bubbles. At this point, I was running on sheer determination. I went back in the house. I knew Sprout had got some bubbles for his birthday. His birthday gifts were in the closet of his new big boy room, the room that is presently being painted. Irritated at my own incompetence to even get some damn bubbles for my kid, I charged into the room, tripping over paint cans and God only knows what all. The universe finally decided to have mercy on me, and none of the paint cans were open, and the paint on the walls had dried. And I found the freakin’ bubbles! Score! So back outside with bubbles. And the fun lasted about two minutes until Sprout wanted to do something else. I’ll spare you the rest. Suffice it to say that it would have made for excellent slapstick. Except that I wasn’t finding the humor in it. In fact, after another twenty minutes I was sobbing uncontrollably, and Sprout was singing me a lullaby, which is the only thing he knows to do to comfort somebody who is crying. Some days, I can’t help thinking that my precious boy deserves better.
No one wants negativity. Everybody wants an inspiring story of how people struggle nobly and overcome obstacles. But you know what, it ain’t all rainbows and lollypops, folks. It’s hard. Sometimes, it is really hard. And sometimes, I feel like dropping the persona and just spilling the truth of how hard it is right onto the page. And since this is my blog…
Sometimes I just want to get in the car and leave it behind, if only for a few minutes. I am an eternal fifteen year old, craving the wheels the cool kids have. I can’t drive that car. I can only write. And sometimes, the places I’ll take you won’t be sunny and bright.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Sprout

2011-06-19T10:07:00.000-05:00

Dear Sprout,
You are three years old today. I stand at the end of the three most wonderful and challenging years of my life. You have taught me, inspired me, thrilled me, terrified me, frustrated me, and amazed me over the last three years. “The days are long, but the years are short,” is said of parenting, and I find it absolutely true. You are without a doubt a big boy now. Your legs are long and straight, no more the chubby curls that they once were. You’re long and lean and getting longer and leaner everyday. Sometimes, like when you’re sleeping or fresh from a bath and all warm and rosy skinned, I see the baby you once were, and I hold you close against me in a vain attempt to hold the moment forever. Just as often these days, I see glimpses of the man you’ll become, still sensitive and loving, but also driven and sharp-eyed. Do not blame me, my son, that I grieve just a bit for the baby you were. I am in gleeful awe at your every achievement, but I also feel the pangs of your success because every step takes you further from the baby boy you were. Even as I am saddened, I am joyous too. This, I always think, this is the best age. But then you grow and I revise. No, this, this is the best age. Because each age is wonderful, because they are all you, my precious boy. They are all you and for whatever reason - a gift from God or a cosmic alignment - I was chosen to get the best seat in the house to watch your journey, sometimes helping, sometimes directing, sometimes just cheering you on. This journey that you’re on, it’s my journey too, and more than anything else in my life, I am honored to share it with you.
I treasure these present days because you tell me everything you are thinking. for so long, I had to wonder about your thoughts, never knowing for sure, and someday all too soon, you’ll guard your inner landscape from me, each tidbit of information a carefully weighed and examined morsel before being given to me. But right now, right now I am your best friend. Not perhaps your entire world anymore, but certainly still the center of it. Despite the demands of that role, there is nowhere I’d rather be. You are such a big talker. Your imagination is awesome. You and I spend hours a day in games of pretend. “You be Rosie and I’ll be Thomas,” you’ll say, handing me the purple wooden choo choo train that will be my persona for the next hour. I am convinced that you are simply the smartest, most perfect little boy in the whole world.
The next year will challenge both of us. Your baby sister will be arriving in August. It’ll be an adjustment for both of us, another journey we’ll take together. Be patient with me, my little man. Know that my love for you is infinite. You might have to share my time and attention, but you’ll never have to settle for a diminished portion of my love. My heart has no bounds where you are concerned. You will be a wonderful big brother. Your baby sister will shower you with more love than you’ll be able to handle. I’m sure that sometimes, that love will irritate you beyond bearing. Just hang in there. You and I will be in it together.
You are my beautiful boy. People assume that it makes me sad that I can’t see you. What they don’t realize is that I do see you. I see you with a mother’s heart. I know what the top of your head smells like when you sleep, what the curve of your cheek, still chubby, feels like, the indescribable way your arms feel around my neck. I know, in that way exclusive to mommies, and maybe daddies, the brightness of your soul. I know what you look like better than any person ever will know it. I knew you when you were nothing but a fluttering in my womb. There was no seeing you then, but I knew you. Your brilliant beauty can never be understood by sight alone. It is a brilliance that I am blessed to know every second of every day. Right now, you’re starting to understand that Mommy is different. Before, you used to just put things in everybody’s hands for them to see, but now, I can tell that you notice a difference between Mommy and other people. It’s no wonder. You are such a smart little boy. I still make like I can see things – your pretty new train, the card you made me for Mother’s Day, etc. These are small untruths, ones that I hope you never hold against me. The time for such minor deception is drawing to a close, I know. Soon, you and I will have to have the discussion, the hard discussion, about how Mommy can’t see. No, not the train, not the card, not your smile. Do not blame me, dear boy, for postponing that as long as possible. Once you understand the reality of it all, I fear I will never be the same in your eyes. Please, do not blame me for wanting this time, just as it is, for as long as I can have it.
You are able to tell me when you are scared or unsure now. I hold you close and tell you that Mommy and Daddy will never ever let anything hurt you. I pray that such will be true forever, but I know it will not be. But you don’t know it. You still don’t know that life will get harder, harder than anything Mommy and Daddy’s will alone can overcome. But I believe you will be better able to face those hardships if you have a grounding in the fierce love and security that we can give you only now, while you’re this little. Forgive us that we want to shelter you from every unpleasantness, even if sometimes, that sheltering means that we aren’t entirely forthcoming with the hard truths. There is a time for complete honesty. I feel that time approaching ever faster. But it is not here yet. No, not yet.
Happy Birthday my sweet, sweet boy. I love you with all my heart, a heart that was born into being three years ago today.

My love always,
Mommy

On Couponing Part II

2011-06-02T17:31:00.001-05:00

Few people keep track of their every expenditure. When most of us set a budget, there’s more estimation than hard numbers involved. That’s why I think most people don’t realize just how much money they spend on dining out. In our house, we are well aware of how much of our money goes to restaurants. This is not due to any diligence, thriftiness, or financial conscientiousness on my part. Trust me, I’m not patting myself on the back here. No, the reason we know is because Michael has a computer program that tells us. Nothing makes my husbands little heart go pitter patter like a program that can do something with minimal effort from him. So I always know if, let’s say, my monthly smoothie or DQ blizzard expenditure, is in the high range. Give me another month of pregnancy and that helpful little informational tidbit likely will get him a broken nose. Suffice it to say, our household is likely not the norm when it comes to accounting.
Let’s say you go to a restaurant and order your usual. It’s $6.99. You think that you can’t even buy a meal’s worth of groceries for that cheap. I’d question that, but let’s examine just how much you’re really spending on that dinner out. That $6.99 does not include your drink. If you order anything but water from the tap, you’re paying extra, and soft drinks can be as much as nearly three dollars. Plus, if you’re eating out with your spouse, you also have to figure in their order. That’s probably at least $6.99 times two. Oh yeah, and an additional drink. Then let’s say your finished with your meal and you notice the dessert card on the table. Now you’re tempted. Even if you and your spouse split dessert, you’re still probably talking another seven dollars. And then, you’ve got to add at least fifteen percent to your total bill for the tip. If you add all that up, it comes to a lot more than $6.99. And let me assure you, you can make dinner at home for cheaper than what that meal cost you.
Now let’s be clear, I’m not knocking dining out. Michael and I probably eat out at least twice a week, some weeks more than that. And then there’s the afore mentioned smoothie or ice cream runs. But there are some ways to economize even when eating out. Perhaps surprisingly, I don’t put coupons in this list. I have found restaurant coupons to be of very little help in lowering my bottom line cost. They are almost always restrictive in terms of the days, times, or dishes applicable, and there’s almost always some catch. Free appetizer, then in smaller print, “with the purchase of any meal over $12.99.” No thank you. But there are other ways to save money at restaurants. Ordering water is one way. Another way is to eat at restaurants that don’t require a server. In Bowling Green, Michael and I like Panera, Griff’s Deli, Baker Bros. Cafe, and Buckhead café. You’re guaranteed to save fifteen percent by eating out this way. Another way to save, which I admit I have not made full use of, is to eat at places where kids eat free. Some places have kids-eat-free nights through the week. This is great for us since we foolishly continue to order food for Sprout in full knowledge that he won’t eat a bite of it. Still, it seems wrong somehow not to feed him. Sometimes we just let him eat off our plates, which saves money too. When you do eat out, make sure to bring home leftovers for lunch the next day. You paid a pretty penny for that meal after all. Might as well get your money’s worth. Leftovers in general are my best money and time saving advice.
My next money-saving tip is to cut down on the amount of household cleansers you use. I hear my mother gasping in horror already. Did you know that most ammonia-based cleaners call for no more than a capful of cleaner per gallon of water? I’m pretty sure I never saw my mother pour in less than a full cup in my entire life. And I did the same for a long time, but no more. Really, it’s ammonia, a capful is plenty. Also, since it is ammonia, generic will do just as well. If you really want the lemon scent, add some lemon essential oil. It’s the same thing, and the generic is ridiculously cheap. If you have the time, you can make your own cleansers from common household products. Those have the benefit of not only being economical, but also environmentally friendly. The one thing everyone should have in their household cleaning arsenal is a plastic coated sponge. With one of these and just a little determination, one can cut back drastically on the cleansers. That scouring pad will cut through more grease than Dawn ever dreamed of. The plastic coated ones are safe for almost all surfaces or cookware. I use them on dishes, countertops, and in the bathrooms. Never underestimate the cleaning power of water. Water is a mild acid after all. When coupled with a scouring pad and just a little bit of cleanser, the result can shock you. Using more than the recommended amount of cleanser does not get your house or clothes cleaner. In fact, it weakens the fabric by causing a build up of residue. Trust me here, and adopt a “less is more” approach.
I am not anti-coupon. I find some coupons to be very helpful. I just made out like a bandit at Toys R Us for Sprout’s birthday with the help of store coupons. I also use coupons from places I regularly go, namely Kroger and Target. Kroger allows you to go online and add coupons digitally to your membership card. We’ve found this very helpful when coupled with a thoroughly planned weekly menu. And I do keep an ear out for sales. I recently got an Oreck steam mop for sixty-nine dollars. It works great, is more convenient than mopping, and uses no cleansers whatever. A win all around. If you have other suggestions for saving money, feel free to share them in the comments. Talking with others is hands down the best way I’ve found to identify money saving opportunities.

On Couponing

2011-06-01T09:58:00.001-05:00

As a stay at home mom, I consider one of my duties to be economizing our household expenditures. I must tell you now that I am a words person, not a numbers person. Anything dealing with money makes me anxious. At restaurants, I break out in a sweat just trying to calculate the tip. So it’s no surprise that I try to keep my money saving methods as simple as possible. I don’t use spread sheets, flow charts, or even a calculator. My goal is simple: Just try and keep the bottom line as low as possible. To that end, I recently embarked on a couponing experiment. The results? Mixed, at best.
I have always been, let’s call it suspicious, of the benefits of coupons. The goal of a coupon after all is to get you into a particular store for the sole purpose of relieving you of your money. It has the appearance of being beneficial to the consumer, kind of in the same way that credit cards have the appearance of being generous to the card holder. But with the cost of everything going up, I figured coupons were worth a try.
And I did try. I joined Facebook groups, signed up for Email alerts, and subscribed to online couponing sites. Obviously, perusing the Sunday paper is not an option for me, so I had to begin elsewhere. There were challenges unique to me in that many of the coupon Emails are just scanned images of a print coupon. Not helpful in the slightest. I was a little disheartened, but I soldiered on just the same. Then I found another unique to me challenge, although with the price of gas climbing ever higher, it may not be a problem exclusive to non-driving consumers. I found that the phrase “bargain hunting” is an apt one in that one does have to actively hunt, often driving all over a city, to redeem the best coupons. I’m thinking that what one gains in savings, one has already lost in gasoline and that not insubstantial commodity, time. Needless to say, I didn’t go in for the cross town coupon scavenger hunt, so I can’t speak to the effectiveness of the method, but I suspect it would go something like this:
You have a coupon for $1.50 off brand name make-up remover wipes. You don’t use said wipes and have been doing just fine with soap and water, but you have the coupon, so what the hell. You drive to Walgreens to redeem your coupon. No, you have no other reason for going to Walgreens, but hey, a dollar fifty is a dollar fifty. So you proudly carry your coupon into Walgreens. Now, if you’re a stay at home mom with a small child, you’re also dragging your child into Walgreens. There is an odd phenomenon that I have observed in drug stores. It doesn’t matter what you have to buy in the store, you inevitably have to walk through the toy aisle to get there. If you have a toddler in tow, you’re going to spend more time and money in that aisle than you bargained for. So once you finally have your child quiet, pacified with some overpriced piece of Chinese-made plastic crap, then you can proceed to the make-up section. Then you find your wipes, for which you have the all important coupon. But then you notice next to the wipes a new product. I don’t know, let’s say it’s the latest guaranteed anti-wrinkle cream. You are given to believe that this stuff must have been engineered by NASA. Or maybe by garden fairies. Lo and behold there’s a mirror hanging from the rack. How helpful. You take a look. There you are-- ratty ponytail, no make up, stained T-shirt, and all of it illuminated by the glow of fluorescent lights. You are totally going home with that wrinkle cream. So you get to the counter. Your make-up remover wipes, with your $1.50 off coupon has cost you $37.63.
I’d like to share a few of the money saving tips that I’ve learned. I hope you find them helpful. I’ll never be one of those women who leaves the grocery store with two loaded down carts for which she paid only six dollars, but these are tips that fit into my lifestyle with it’s time, vehicular mobility, and third trimester-energy constraints. Use or disregard as your own lifestyle demands.
Let’s talk groceries. The best way to save money at the grocery store is simply not to buy non-essentials. Sure, Diet Coke might be on sale, but water is free and has no calories. Invest in a good water filter, either a pitcher filter or one for your fridge’s water dispenser. You don’t like the taste of water? Well, get used to it. Drinking water is simply a habit that you develop over time. Try adding lemon or cucumber slices for a little flavor if you really have to. Cut out snack foods, or at least cut back on them. Potato chips and snack cakes are expensive. Honestly, you don’t need them. Cut them out. Sure, we occasionally buy a bag of chips as a side for sandwiches, but it’s not a regular purchase. It’s true that healthy food is more expensive, but cutting out nutrition-lite snack foods is good for both health and wallet. The second most important tip for grocery shopping is to buy generic. We typically shop at Kroger, and find the Kroger brand to be as good as if not better than the higher priced brand name varieties. We buy Kroger brand organic vegetables for the same price as non-organic brand vegetables. Sure, everybody has brands they are loyal too, a loyalty built over years of trial and error, and I’m not saying you should abandon your darlings (I’m thinking toilet paper specifically here), but if you haven’t already, give the generic brands a try. You can always go back to your old faithfuls. You’ll learn where to stay true and where to stray from your own beaten path. Here’s another important tip: Never go to the grocery store without a list. That way, you can plan meals for both nutritional balance and economy. For example, if I’m planning to make homemade pizza, which I usually make with homemade pesto sauce, then you can bet that in the same week, we’ll be having some kind of pasta with pesto sauce. I’ll have the pesto sauce already made for the pizza, so this is a savings of both time and money. Same thing with hamburger buns. If we’re having burgers, we’ll probably be having fish stick sandwiches to utilize the remaining buns. Admittedly, the nutritional value of fish sticks is suspect, but hey, I’m not about to make a big meal to-do every night.
Since this post is getting a little long, I’ll leave you with those thoughts for now. Come back tomorrow and we’ll talk about dining out, reducing the amount of household cleansers you use, and the few ways I have actually made coupons work for me.

Easter Pictures of Sprout at Daddy's work.

2011-05-03T23:34:00.004-05:00

Sprout is giving the Easter Bunny high five.

Closeup of Sprout sitting on the Easter Bunny's lap.

A good wide angle of Sprout on the Easter Bunny's lap

My little big leaguer

2011-03-29T10:29:00.001-05:00

- Posted by Michael

Wherein I discuss the really important things... My hair

2011-03-24T11:32:00.001-05:00

I blame it on the eighties. Actually, I blame it on the seventies, because really, can’t everything, at its origin, be blamed on the seventies? But I only lived through half of that infamous decade and during those years I wasn’t in a decision-making capacity, so I’ll have to blame the eighties. So what precisely am I blaming on an entire decade? My hair, of course. Isn’t it always about my hair? The eighties was the big hair decade, for both men and women. One’s success in a myriad of industries – rock ‘n’ roll, stage and screen, modeling, etc. – was in direct proportion to the size of one’s coiffure. This worked for me. You see, I matured early. Unfortunately, my ass just kept right on maturing while the rest of me, brains included, stopped. So even in high school, I packed a lot of junk in my trunk. The big hair balanced me out. When that wasn’t enough, enter linebacker shoulder pads, a la Joan Collins. But being in high school where a T-shirt and jeans was the established uniform, shoulder pads weren’t entirely practical, although certainly not unheard-of. But this isn’t about shoulder pads, this is a discussion about hair. Specifically, my hair. Because as previously stated, everything pretty much is. So, I had big hair: winged out, blown back, gelled up big hair. And damn did I look good. My big hair coupled with my Guess jeans which had those tiny pockets in the back that made even the biggest of butts look small, or at least normal sized, and I was killer. I even wore make-up back then. Oh, the energy of youth.
Then came the nineties. Dressing down was in. Naturale was the look. It was a horrifying decade for us Southern girls, I can tell you. We didn’t do natural. Not in Kentucky. We concealed, rouged, shadowed, lengthened, lifted, and separated. We didn’t think much of nature when it came to personal beauty. I was in college in the nineties. Just as the fashions changed for me, the boys too changed. In high school, the more work you put in, the more you were rewarded with the attentions of the opposite sex. Coming to school clean faced and in sweats was akin to showing up in a nun’s habbit in terms of garnering male attentions. In college though, it was like the less you tried, the more guys took notice. Apparently, aloof was the buzz word for sexual relations for Gen X-ers. It took me until junior year to catch onto this sea change. Old habits die hard I guess. For two years, I religiously blow dried and made up, ridiculous given that I lived in an unair-conditioned dorm. By the time my second class rolled around I looked like nothing so much as an oil slick with a cheap wig. It all changed during junior year. During junior year, my suitemate was from Michigan. Michiganders, apparently, were not raised to worship at the altar of Paul Mitchell and Max Factor. Molly was the embodiment of the natural movement. She came all the way from Michigan with just the clothes that could fit in her Mom’s car. That’s it! I, on the other hand, hauled a carload of crap back to the dorm every Sunday afternoon. And Molly got guys. Molly got a lot of guys. So, I thought, let me get this straight. Molly does little more than crawl out of bed and throw on a cap, and guys just can’t get enough of her. Well, Mama didn’t raise no dummy, and I had two years of fine public postsecondary education under my belt. I ditched the make-up, ditched the tights (yes, I was still wearing tights in 1995) and set forth into the world in Levi’s and a ball cap. And whadoyaknow? Guys started paying attention to me. The less interested I seemed, the more they showed up. Well hell!
Now at thirty-five and happily married for nearly fourteen years, getting a guy bears no weight in my hairdo decisions. As long as Michael doesn’t have to dodge flying brushes or flat irons, he’s not all that concerned with my hair. Nowadays, with a toddler in the house and another baby on the way, my hair decisions are based on one thing and one thing alone: Ease. What is the absolute minimum amount of work I’ll have to do to look presentable on the off chance that an opportunity to leave the house presents itself? That’s the style for me. I couldn’t care less about whether it accentuates my eyes, flatters my bone structure, or hints at the latest celebrity style. And I certainly don’t expect a hairstyle to make my ass look smaller. Honestly, that ship has sailed. I just want to be able to leave the house and not be mistaken for an escapee from the “Home.”
People, those with a death wish, like to point out to me that there are strands of grey showing at my temples. Honestly, Being able to successfully delude one’s self about the existence of grey hair and fine lines is pretty much the only upside to being blind. Really, and I mean this in all honesty, it is not information that I need to know. If there’s spinach in my teeth – sure, tell me that. Toilet paper stuck to my shoe? Absolutely, I’d love to know about it. My socks don’t match? Feel free to tell me, although I probably already know and don’t care. But grey hair and wrinkles? Just keep that information to yourself thanks. As obsessed as I often am about my hair, particularly in regard to what torture methods to employ to make it conform to my will, I am not so obsessed, nor so vain, nor so interested in what others think to invest the vast sums of time and money required to fool absolutely no one into believing that I am younger than I actually am. Especially when you consider that I won’t even get to enjoy the fruits of those tortuous labors, being entirely visual as they are. It’s maybe cliché, but I did in fact earn every one of those grey hairs. They are the product of surviving many a brain surgery, enduring frequent nights holding my beloved but sleep apathetic child, and of being thirty-five years old and pregnant. Those grey hairs are my battle scars from wars well fought and won.
If you know me, know of me, or have even passed by me in a hall somewhere, you are aware that a fashionista I am most certainly not. So from whence comes this hair obsession? Being blind leaves one in a desert wasteland of style and fashion. 1989 was the last year in my sight memory; thus, I will forever harbor an unnatural fondness for tight-rolled, stone-washed jeans and electric blue eye liner. See the problem? Unless I want to rely on my husband or my mother for style advice (and who would want that?) hassling my friends, blog readers, and Facebook pals about modern fashion is pretty much the only way I can get the information. So, my friends, I implore you to patience. You can rest assured that you are free from my incessant questions for the time being at least. I have reached the blissful state of having hair long enough to wear in a ponytail. That, coupled with the pending new baby’s arrival, and does anybody have a doubt as to how I’ll be wearing my hair for approximately the next year? I’d ask if ponytails are “in,” but honestly, I don’t care. If they’re not, and I break down and ask – as you know I am wont to do – then please, just lie to me.

Sleeping Sprout

2011-03-19T21:13:00.001-05:00

This is What Passes for Exciting in My Life

2011-03-14T08:46:00.001-05:00

I love going to the grocery store on Saturday mornings. It’s crowded, sure, but there’s a sense of optimism to the crowd. We have an entire weekend ahead of us. The possibilities seem endless. I love the commradery, like all us shoppers are in it together, working toward the common goal of feeding our families. It’s different from the mood of, say, a Thursday night. Thursday nights are crowded, but the crowd is different. We’re all tired from the events of the day. We’d all really rather be at home, or anywhere really. Saturday morning is a hopeful time. Sure, let’s go ahead and get that rack of lamb. There’s plenty of time to learn how to cook it between now and Sunday dinner. And just think of the leftovers. Ahh, what sweet optimism is Saturday morning.
The beauty of this past weekend’s grocery outing begins before I have even entered the bakery-scented doorway of our local Kroger. Standing outside, fresh faced and eager, are none other than the Girl Scouts of America. And bless their darling little hearts, they want nothing more in the world than to offer me cookies. Would that everyone I encountered in daily life be so accommodating. Michael rushes us past as if we were fleeing a burning building. This could be because I have already threatened to buy a dozen boxes of Tagalongs and consume them all in the car on the way home.
So into the grocery store we rush. When you think of it, the grocery store really is an embarrassment of riches. I sometimes feel guilty about how easy it is for us Americans to get food. There are places in the world where people have to beg, steal, or even kill for food. It’s a sobering thought. I make yet another mental note to donate to some international food bank, but then proceed to assuage my guilt with Cadbury eggs. Have I mentioned how much I do love March? Girl Scout Cookies and Cadbury eggs. Could life get any better?
Of course, grocery shopping is always a more pleasant experience sans the two year old. He brings an element of unpredictability to the venture that is unsettling at best, and can be outright embarrassing at worst. Then there are those times where Michael and I tend to disagree over food choices. This is most starkly illustrated in the cereal aisle. My husband loves cereal. I mean, he could eat it everyday. Sure, I like cereal. Cereal is fine. But I sometimes like to get wild and crazy and mix it up a bit. Say, have a bagel for breakfast. Or even more scandalous, a muffin. But it’s not even that Michael loves cereal. It’s that he loves boring cereal. When I say he could eat cereal everyday, I mean he could eat Corn Flakes everyday. Or Shredded Wheat. Or some other high fiber horror. I mean, with all the vast, nearly endless, cereal choices – Lucky Charms, Cocoa Puffs, Frosted Flakes, Honey Smacks – why in the world would you choose Corn Flakes? I don’t know, but that’s just what Michael does. Then I get his silent disapproval when I pick Count Chocula. This has really become a problem lately when, due to the high cost of food, we have to eat the same cereal. Honestly, I’d rather share a toothbrush than eat his cereal.
So once the cereal debacle is over, my euphoria in the grocery outing is vastly diminished. By the time we get to the dairy case, my good mood has vanished altogether. Here’s something else about my husband: He can read on the grocery list: cream cheese, sour cream, whipping cream, and creamer - and it all registers as the same thing to him. If those four items are on the grocery list, I’ll get home to find that I have four containers of just one of those. Four sour cream tubs for example. Or four cartons of whipping cream. And you know, I’m already pissed off over the cereal selection, so this dairy product SNAFU never helps my mood. Lately, my mood has also fallen prey to the rising price of groceries. I’m not one of those people who believes that food should be cheap. I know what goes into the growing, making, and transporting of our food supply. But as a stay at home mom, I consider one of my primary duties to be planning healthy meals for my family while remaining within the limits of a budget. When the weekly grocery bill continues to register in the triple digits, I can’t help feeling like I’ve failed somehow.
I think it is unfair that once the groceries have been bought and paid for, one still has ahead of her the putting away of said groceries, which inevitably necessitates the cleaning out of cabinets and the refrigerator. There are few things in life I enjoy less than cleaning out the fridge. Being blind lends an element of surprise to the contents of food storage containers. These surprises are never pleasant. ‘Nuff said?
Even though I know how the grocery errand will play out, I still get a thrill every time we pull into Kroger on Saturday mornings, especially on a sunny March morning.

Villagers One and All

2011-03-10T10:13:00.000-06:00

I was reading a collection of articles from the Oprah magazine yesterday. One of the articles was an interview Oprah did with a mother of nine kids. What struck me about the article wasn’t how the woman did it, or how she managed to find any time for herself, or how she kept her figure. No, I was struck that there was no mention of the woman’s support network. The woman said how great her husband was, but she didn’t mention the support or help she got from family members, friends, community or church groups. Maybe during the course of the interview this woman gushed at length about how awesome her mother has been about helping, or how much she appreciates the local mom’s group, but those comments didn’t make it into the final interview, and I have my suspicions about why that is.
We are living in a time of epidemic perfection. Unless you are a reality TV star, you are supposed to exude confidence, poise, contentment, and self-possession. Absolutely no negativity allowed. In short, you are supposed to be perfect. Oh sure, everybody knows you’re not, but there is no excuse for not keeping up the pretense. This seems especially true for women. My own peer group being moms (and there was a time I’d have cringed at the thought of ever writing that sentence) I see it mostly in that group. Our children are perfect. Our husbands are perfect. Our dinners are perfect. Our homes are perfect. Our sex lives are perfect. It’s just us Stepfords here, hanging out, being perfect. Well ladies, I’m about to crash the party.
I have been laboring under a semi-serious depression for about six months now. You cannot imagine how hard it was for me to write that sentence. For twenty years now, I have styled myself as the epitome of independence. I was like the terminator of achievement. Give me a goal and watch me obliterate it. I eat goals for breakfast. Grrrr. When I lost my sight, I heard nothing but “can’t.” You can’t do this. She’ll never do that. So I, unwittingly, set out to prove the world wrong. I’ve only recently realized that the world really doesn’t care what I do. But still, old habits die hard. I carried this perfection mania into my life as a mother. I would not only manage to be a mother, and a blind mother at that, I was going to be the best mother ever. I would know everything and do everything. Sleep was for wusses. Honestly, I don’t think I fooled anybody, but that didn’t stop me trying. My delicate house of cards started to slant, then crash right about the time Sprout turned two. He needed to be around other kids. He needed new experiences. I couldn’t give him that. I couldn’t drive him to play groups. I couldn’t take him on educational outings. I couldn’t even play match-the-color games with him. Depression doesn’t often jump out at you from behind doors or ambush you in dark alleys. It creeps in when you’re safe behind locked doors. It’s like a slow drip, eating away at your defenses little by little. That’s the way it was for me. I was trucking along, Ms. Perfection atop my homemade parade float, waving to the crowd. Yes, it’s me, managing to do it all and love it. Then we hit heavy traffic. My float stalled. Then the rains came. Then I was just trying to hide from onlookers underneath the ruins of the tissue-thin facade I’d built.
This is the part where I tell you what turned it all around for me, where I recount the story that brought me to the point of self love. Except I’m not there yet. Every day is a struggle with my own emotions, with my feelings of inadequacy, with my guilt over not being over-the-moon joyous at this awesome life I have. Because don’t get me wrong, mine is an awesome life. It is possible to know that on a cerebral level and not feel it in the soul.
Continuing with the honesty, I started this blog as a way to show everybody that a blind woman could do it all. I wanted to share my struggles, but more honestly still, I wanted to share my triumphs. Triumphs were what I was used to. But I’m tired of faking it. I’m tired of this perfection game that nobody, not me, not you, not any of the moms who appear to have it all wins. I’ve had to reassess who I am these last few months, and frankly, I’m still not sure I know. But then, I’m not sure we ever know. The very act of self examination changes who we are. All we can ever hope for, all we should strive for, is self acceptance. That means acceptance of our lives, our weaknesses, and our own emotions. It’s okay not to be perfect. It’s okay.
I write this for myself. It’s something I needed to say. But I hope other women will benefit from it too. It’s not my place to tell you you’re not perfect. Hell, up until a few months ago I thought you were. But I’ve taken a long look at my own charade, and I think I see the signs of similar pantomimes in yours.
I think it must have been the Mommy Wars, the stay at home moms vs. the outside the home moms, that forced women to feel like they had to choose sides in a battle that most of us think is ridiculous and care not a wit about, but having chosen a side, we had to play hard for our team lest we be blamed for the loss. Whether your work is primarily inside the home or you spend much of your day outside your home, raising kids is hard work, physically and emotionally. I don’t know everything, but one thing I do know is that nobody raises a kid alone, and you sure as shit don’t raise nine alone. If that’s your propaganda, you’re hurting yourself, but more importantly, you’re hurting your daughters.

Maternity

2011-03-09T09:21:00.000-06:00

I am seeing a pattern to my food cravings. As with my first pregnancy, I am craving dairy products, smoothies, Big Macs, and blueberries. The last two are significant because I don’t even like Big Macs or blueberries. I mean, my craving for Girl Scout cookies and Cadbury eggs is completely understandable. I’d be craving those pregnant or not, but Big Macs and blueberries? How strange. One big difference from my first pregnancy is that I’m not craving meat. Actually, I can’t even stand to eat much meat this time. With Sprout, I’d have sausage for breakfast, a chili dog for lunch, and barbecue for dinner. Michael began to wonder if we’d have to become ranchers just to keep me in beef. I think he’s a little relieved that the meat craving is absent this time, excepting the Big Macs.
There are other differences between this pregnancy and the first one too. I’m more emotional this time. Way more emotional. Yesterday, I cried all day. Apparently, just because it was Tuesday. With Sprout, I’d cry over commercials, or songs, or movies (Michael absolutely forbid me from watching Steel Magnolias), but this time I just cry for no discernable reason. Frankly, I’d rather have the meat craving. I’m also a lot bigger than I was at this point in my first pregnancy. It’s like my body said hey, I remember this, and in classic overachiever mode, began enlarging to support the ninth month. Problem is, I am only four months pregnant. It’s going to be a long five months.
One thing that hasn’t changed is the horror that is maternity clothes. They come in either two styles: tent or tramp. I prefer the tent, although I reserve the right to change my mind if this summer is miserably hot. I know, right? It’ll be August in Kentucky, of course it’ll be miserably hot. Well let me just tell you now that I will be purchasing that maternity spaghetti strap top and Daisy Dukes for those dog days. But I assure you, I won’t leave the house so clad. Except maybe to venture into the backyard to have Michael spray me down with the garden hose. Actually, maybe I’ll just lie around in Sprout’s kiddie pool. Either way, we have a tall backyard fence, so it’s all fine. Speaking of maternity tramp, I really don’t care how cute some 18-year old size 2’s baby belly is, I think I speak for most everybody when I say, we don’t want to see it. You can just keep that belly all good and covered up sweetie pie. But apparently, maternity slut is just all the rage when it comes to fashion. That’s right up there with the bodysuit and short sleeve sweaters in terms of ridiculousness, I’m thinking. But then, my phone isn’t ringing off the hook from all the people wanting fashion advice from me, so there you go. ‘Sokay, I’ll console myself with a blueberry smoothie.

Product Review SweetPea3

2011-02-24T11:49:00.000-06:00

Sprout has always loved music. His first favorite toy was a Baby Einstein music player that played the Baby Einstein versions of Mozart, Beethoven, Vivaldi, etc. with the touch of one big button, which Sprout made extensive use of. That toy is now tucked lovingly away in the keepsakes box. After that, he moved on to the radio that accompanied a Wiggles book. That set us on our path into all things Wiggles. But now Sprout’s tastes have become more sophisticated. He’s no longer content with all Wiggles all the time. Hallelujah! So at Christmas, Michael, Santa, and I looked high and low for a new radio type thing for Sprout. Our search led us to the SweetPea3, and we could not be happier.
The SweetPea3 is an MP3 player that is both small enough and large enough for little hands, made of durable food grade rubber (I didn’t even know there was such a thing), and has only three buttons for ease of use by both children and parents. It is listed for ages 0-6 and is one of those rare toys that I believe can live up to the wide age designation. Sprout at 2.5 years has picked up its usage quickly. It has volume and shut-off time settings that are accessible by adults but not the kids. I’m a fan of any toy with a parents-only volume setting: There are so few of them. It plays MP3, Windows Media Player, and iTunes formats, and even plays audible.com files, which is the part we love best. It comes with the USB cord to transfer files from the computer to the SweetPea3.
The product complies with the latest safety standards of the Consumer Products Safety Commission. Though manufactured in a Chinese factory (what isn’t these days?), that factory has been certified to employ only workers over the age of eighteen. Would that all toy manufacturers would be so responsable.
The SweetPea3 comes loaded with a variety of music, both upbeat, which Sprout calls happy music, and lullabies, in addition to complete voice narrated stories like The “Tortoise and the Hare” and “The Little Red Hen,” as well as a sampling of offerings from the Audible.com website.
Sprout’s new bedtime routine involves bedtime stories, not my strong suit unless I make them up, which my pregnant self does not always feel up to. Now, we just cue up a story on the SweetPea3 and everybody is happy. Each night, Sprout drifts off to dreamland with his radio beside him, lullabies playing softly. Now, if they could only make a toy that could get him to eat.
My only quibble with the product is that to cycle through the menus, one must hold down the left and right arrow buttons simultaneously for a reported six seconds. This ensures that your child can’t change, say, that ever important volume setting. That’s great, but the six seconds is an optimistic estimation. It’s more like twenty seconds, and a slow twenty seconds at that. It’s a small complaint, but an important one when your sleepy, cranky Sprout wants to hear Bitsy Bitsy (Itsy Bitsy Spider) and wants to hear it right now.
For more information, visit SweetPea3.com and Audible.com

Trial and Error, and Error, and Error

2011-02-17T11:27:00.000-06:00

Discipline is tricky business no matter how old the child is, but discipline for a two year old seems particularly challenging. This is not a discussion about spanking. Everybody has an opinion on that and for the most part, nobody else cares what that opinion is. Every kid, every parent, and every situation is different. Some days are a struggle just to keep one’s head above water. I know that. Who am I, and who is anybody, to judge what keeps somebody afloat in the ever-changing tides of behavior problems? I know that the important thing in disciplining a child is to be consistent. But we’ve recently found ourselves in situations where what we were doing was consistently not working. Uh oh.
Sprout has taken to “sshh-ing” people. This is not cool. Last week, he even went so far as to tell me to shut up. There are few things in the world I hate more than hearing a kid sass a parent like that. So what did I do? I went all Angry Mommy – mad face, deep voice, pointed finger, swooping down like Batman on a bad guy – and sat his little hind end right in time out. There. That’ll show him. As it turns out, time out is the only time and place wherein my child can effectively entertain himself. He counted his fingers, sang songs, and in general had a grand old time. What should I have done in that situation? I should have ignored it. Had I ignored the “shut Up,” he’d not have known that he’d hit on a mommy hot button. Now, when Sprout is feeling bored, Angry Mommy is an entertaining show, and a good sshh-ing is the best way to bring out Angry Mommy. Okay, so that failed miserably.
In general, I find parenting books to be the height of stupidity. But in desperation, I turned to one such book for help. The book said to calmly tell your child that his behavior was bad and let him know how that behavior made you feel. Sure, sounds reasonable. I’ll try it. So the next time Sprout sshh-ed me, I did just that. I sat him down, told him it was wrong to sshh people, and told him that it made me very sad when he did it. Then I told him he was in time out, and of course he started with the singing and partying, all the while adhering to the no-getting-up-while-in-time-out rule. Well, so I had executed the book advice to the letter. Go me. Later that day, Sprout wanted some chocolate milk. I told him he’d have to wait until after dinner. We have this same conversation every day. So Sprout began his usual whining, then said in the most pitiful voice, “Mommy, you make me sad when you don’t give me chocolate milk.” FYI: Parenting books are the height of stupidity.
In that same parenting book, I learned about bargaining with kids to get them to eat. It goes like this: Just eat and then you can go play. Okay, just eat half your food. Okay, you win, just eat three bites. The idea being that your kid feels like he is winning and will eventually eat something, which is really a victory for you. I was dubious about this one, but willing to try anything because my kid does not eat. Of course, the bargaining didn’t work. Let me clarify: It didn’t work for me. Sprout has found the technique useful for getting more gummy bears out of Mommy. I guess I just don’t have his tenacity.

Another Adventure in Sprouting

2011-01-16T17:03:00.000-06:00

Those of you who have followed this blog faithfully from the beginning, let me say thank you. This next bit of news might come as a surprise to you. Reading those early blog entries, the barely coherent, clearly sleep deprived ones, you might have thought it was a sure bet that Kimberly and Michael would not dare to venture down that newborn path again. But that is just where we find ourselves. Sprout 2.0 is due in mid August.

I am not looking forward to having another newborn in the house. They are precious, but also demanding and defy all logic. But I am looking forward to having a baby and not being as unbelievably stupid as I was the first time around. Please God, let me not be so stupid. There will be the challenge of having both a three year old and a newborn in the house, and all I can say to that is if life has taught me nothing else, it has taught me that sanity is often overrated.

There are other changes afoot in our little corner of the blogosphere. I will continue to blog here about Sprout, parenting, pregnancy, and our lives in general, but I have created another blog as well, one where I’ll talk about other things that tickle my fancy: books, politics, writing, current events, whatever. More news on that will be forthcoming. I invite yall to drop in there from time to time. I hope to do some product reviews, book reviews, and have some guest bloggers for your enjoyment. I’m very excited by the new blog, if for no other reason than it’s something new and shiny, and I do love new and shiny. I’ll surely be posting some parenting entries there, and I’ll likely cross post those here as well, but it will in no way be just a duplicate blog. The new space will be more me, less baby. As there will soon be two of the latter, I feel I need something to hold onto for myself, lest I get lost in the piles of toys and diapers.

So there are big changes for all of us these days. It has been an honor and a joy to me that so many readers have followed us on our journey this far. I hope you’ll continue to follow and offer encouragement and advice as we travel down this new path.

Post-Christmas Round up

2010-12-29T14:26:00.001-06:00

Christmas was what Christmas usually is here – lots of presents, too much food, great times with family, and the inevitable holiday illness. On Christmas Eve, right at bedtime, Sprout started projectile vomiting. Honestly, I wasn’t all that surprised. He’d been fine all day, but our family has a history of Yuletide ailments. Sprout’s first Christmas was accompanied by antibiotics for a double ear infection and breathing treatments. Last year, Michael developed that mystery rash that had us spending untold hours in UrgentCare, so I was on the lookout for this year’s sickness. Sprout threw up the entire night. We all slept in the living room so Michael and I could take turns holding Sprout. This we did in complete darkness as Santa had already visited and we hoped to wait until morning for Sprout to see his presents. Granted, the dark was no big deal for me, but I think Michael found it challenging. Sprout, poor baby, was just miserable. We should have … ahem … instructed Santa to just come the next night, but frankly, we were excited and hoped Sprout would feel better by morning. He was a trooper, and he did love his train set, fire truck, Buzz Lightyear, and numerous other gifts, but the little guy was just exhausted.
The week before Christmas, two big things happened for Sprout. First, he transitioned to his big boy bed, which is a Thomas the Train toddler bed, and I have to admit it is pretty awesome. He does great in it at nighttime, but naps are harder. Second, Sprout has gone cold turkey with the pacy. He was only having it for naps and bedtime as it was, but now he’s totally pacy-less. One day, he just didn’t ask for it for his nap, and I decided that was as good a time as any. We didn’t make a big deal out of it, we just tried to vary his routine so he wouldn’t notice the lack of it so much. He asked for it a time or two, but was easily distracted from it. So my little man is a big boy now. I do miss the baby he once was, but it’s hard to dwell on that when everyday, he impresses me, amazes me, touches me, makes me laugh, and makes me fall a little bit more in love with him. It’s hard to miss what he was, when what he is now is so incredibly wonderful.
May you all be as blessed in the new year as our family has been in 2010. Peace and Love.

Little Mr. Clean

2010-12-14T15:08:00.000-06:00

It was inevitable that Sprout would grow into a neat freak. I, though hardly a fanatic when it comes to housecleaning, am sort of tyrannical about clutter, or rather the total eradication thereof. And then there’s Michael… Let me just note here that the Mr. Clean in the title has nothing to do with Michael’s bald head and earring. Well, not much to do with it. My husband is a neat freak. As in, somebody find the man a twelve-step program. I can only imagine the toll that having a toddler has taken on his psyche. But it is starting to look like Michael has a convert in Sprout.
Sprout now has to have a napkin “nikkin” beside him at the table when he eats. If dinner has high mess potential, then Sprout demands that a wet rag be within reach. His new favorite thing is to throw stuff away for us. Wrappers, packaging, loose threads, lint, whatever – just give it to Sprout and he’ll discard it for you. Unfortunately, this obsession has extended to things that you don’t want him to throw away. Just this morning he walked through the kitchen in a very purposeful way. When I asked what he was doing, he said, “throwing something away,” and then sighed loudly because clearly, a toddler’s work is never done.
“What are you throwing away?”
“All gone,” was his only response.
I did a quick swipe of the garbage can, but honestly, my heart wasn’t in it. So I went through the house. Iphone was in its place. Audio book reader was safely out of Sprout’s reach. Same for the remote control. All the things that usually capture Sprout’s attention were accounted for. Only later in the day did I discover that the item in question was most likely stitch markers that I use in knitting. He wouldn’t have known what to call those, so it makes sense that he didn’t answer me about what he was throwing away. Stitch markers, for the non-knitterly among you, are little and round. Think small washers like are used in plumbing. Or maybe they aren’t used in plumbing. How would I know? Anyway, I had left two stitch markers laying on the end table last night after finishing Sprout’s Christmas stocking, and now they’re gone. I’m no Sherlock Holmes, but the mystery seems pretty well solved to me. When Sprout was younger, I worried constantly that I’d lose a stitch marker and he would find it and choke on it, so he’s not used to seeing them around. To him, the little things were not supposed to be on the end table, made no noise, and had no buttons to push, so they were obviously garbage and therefore required immediate disposal.
So if you visit our house any time soon, remember to keep your belongings with you at all times. Sprout’s definition of trash is broad.

Christmas 2010 by Aunt Jess

2010-12-12T16:16:00.007-06:00

Our little Sprout sharing his holiday cuteness.

Photos by J. Parsley Photography

www.jparsley.com

Sprout and Homemade Christmas Ornaments

2010-12-12T15:44:00.006-06:00

Our little Sprout had a wonderful time rolling out homemade ornaments.

He is hard at work rolling out the dough.

He took a little time to put his fingerprints in the dough.

He really liked the flour up to his elbows just like his Mommy.

Fold and roll and fold and roll until the ornaments came out just right. He worked so hard

Thankful for Thanksgiving

2010-11-24T22:01:00.000-06:00

It seems fashionable now to talk about the “true” Thanksgiving. As always, truth is a moving target, dependant almost entirely on the lens you choose to look through. I’ll admit to approaching feelings of guilt where holidays are concerned, Thanksgiving in particular. My guilt stems both from my own. All be it diluted, Native American heritage and an affinity for turkeys, those sturdy, no frills members of the bird kingdom. I know that the Thanksgiving story we tell our children about pilgrims and Indians feasting together is a complete lie. But we tell our kids lots of lies. Santa Claus, anyone? The Easter Bunny? Tooth fairy? This trend to single out Thanksgiving baffles me. I understand that the traditional Thanksgiving story is really nothing more than a historic public relations campaign. But here again, this is no different from other holidays. Most of the holidays we celebrate were borrowed outright or cobbled together from many other, earlier traditions. Our celebration of Easter, with its emphasis on fertility symbols like bunnies and eggs comes from the early followers of earth-based religions. Halloween is of course a modern adaptation of the ancient Celtic Samhain. St. Valentine’s Day has its roots in a Roman fertility right – those Romans knew a thing or two about kink. And then there’s Christmas, which people also get touchy about – keep the “Christ” in Christmas and all that. But our modern holiday symbols have more in common with ancient Yule festivals than with anything Joseph and Mary would have found familiar. If you want to credit somebody with the way we celebrate Christmas today, with gifts and feasts and story telling, you’d do well to look to Charles Dickens. “A Christmas Carol” almost single-handedly revitalized a holiday that was quickly falling out of fashion.
So sure, the story of the benevolent pilgrims and the companionable Indians is a myth. But it’s a good myth. It’s the kind of thing we all really wish had been true. It’s the kind of thing we want our children to believe about our history. They’ll learn truths and historical accuracies soon enough. Santa never lives forever. But what we can give our kids are memories of Thanksgivings where families come together to focus on our shared gratitude for the abundance in our lives. We can give our kids a day when our nation comes together to raise our glasses, all half full, in recognition of just how good we’ve got it. If people really want to take a stand this holiday weekend, boycott Black Friday. Decide to stay home rather than feed the consumerism frenzy. Our family will be home making homemade (read “nonbreakable”) ornaments.

Full of It

2010-11-09T16:30:00.001-06:00

I get why potty training is so hard. If you think of it from the child’s point of view, they have a perfectly workable system going, and here’s Mom wanting to screw it all up. The grown up way means that you actually have to stop playing to go poop. What total nonsense. I’m sure the toddlers are thinking that if we grown-ups were smarter, we’d have just invented bigger diapers, so they aren’t real inclined to follow our lead on this one. And all that talk about the potty, it’s embarrassing. Can’t we give them a little privacy? Sheesh.
As for potty chairs, I have rarely encountered such useless inventions. I get that the toilet is too big, not to mention intimidating, for toddlers, but I’ve yet to find a potty chair that Sprout had any interest in except as a hat or an aid to climbing. I think the potty chair explains why boys are harder than girls to potty train. I mean really, who are they kidding with that wee wee guard thing? Sprout became fixated on the wee wee guard and kept taking it off the chair. I have no idea where the thing is now, so on the one occasion he did actually use the potty … You guessed it, geyser time. And of course the removable bowl can end up anywhere in the house at any given time. So the whole potty chair thing seems completely pointless.
We were making incremental progress a while back. Once, rather than hiding behind the recliner in the living room to go number two, Sprout actually went to the bathroom and hid behind the shower curtain. Baby steps, I thought, so I praised him. Then one time he actually sat on the potty chair to await the blessed event. Getting closer, but since he can’t remove his own clothes, not very beneficial in the long run. Still, high praise was given. Since then though, he has had nothing but voluble scorn for the potty chair. So much so that we have removed it from the bathroom. The war isn’t over, but after losing the battle, I’m calling a cease fire.
My sister, Jana, who worked at a daycare, said they had great results with dropping Cheerios in the toilet and encouraging the little boys to “aim their guns” and shoot the Cheerios. Sounds like a plan, so we’ll be trying that next. Note to self: Add Clorox wipes to grocery list.

Change is in the Air

2010-10-14T08:01:00.000-05:00

We’re into mid October now. Quiet moments sitting by the open window, feeling the humidity-free air, sipping a caramel apple Spice from Starbuck’s. Ah, what bliss. October, what a fine month, I smile to myself. And that’s the signal for the panic train to leave the station. It’s October. That means next month is November. And next is December. That means Christmas. And holy shit! Christmas is just around the corner! Then I do what I do best: I make lists. Gift lists, to do lists, cooking lists, grocery lists, it just goes on and on. Suddenly, my nice quiet moment has turned into an anxiety attack.
Every year, I swear that this year, I’m going to keep things low key, and every year I end up in a frenzied scramble to get things done. I’ve accepted this as the chaos of life. The holidays will never run smoothly. And “it” will never get done because “it” is a moving target. The key, I have decided, is to find enjoyment in the doing of “it.” And when you really think about it, we do, most of us, women anyway, enjoy the holiday hustle and bustle. I mean, nobody is making us search high and low for just the right gift for everybody on our list. We could totally halfass the whole thing by just doing gift cards. Nobody’s forcing us to bake that dessert that takes six hours and eighteen square feet of counter space. We do it because we enjoy doing it. Or more accurately, when it’s all over, we enjoyed that we went to the trouble. Most times, the appreciation was well worth the effort.
So that’s my motto just now – embrace the chaos. Because life is in the chaos. It’s not in the lists, or the plans, or the schedule, or the script. It’s in those frenzied times when activity is humming all around you. It’s in those times that are a counterpoint to the quiet moments sitting beside open windows, most likely remembering some earlier time of chaos, and remembering it fondly.
There’s not really a point here, not really. It’s just that last week, I had my six-month check up with my neurosurgeon. Everything is fine. The scans looked better than they’ve looked in years and years. And I let out a breath, a figurative breath, that I’d been holding for months now. When brain tumors are a regular part of your existence, you tend to hold back, to not engage fully in life. There’s just so much more to lose that way. There’s a sense of hanging back, drinking it all in, committing events to memory rather than taking part in them. But now that the all clear has sounded, I feel like I’ve been given leave to let out that breath I didn’t know I was holding. It’s okay. It will be okay. There’s no need to hold back anymore. So amidst the insanity that is the holiday season, I’m going to try to fully inhabit each moment. Possibly, this is bad timing on my part. So that means less planning, more doing. Less micromanaging and more big picture. Less coaching from the sidelines and more getting in the game. It means less planning and weighing of outcomes and more wading in, hip deep in whatever is happening at the time. This is quite a shift in strategy for me, and it’ll take some practice. Living for the moment, in the moment, it doesn’t come natural to all of us. But I think it’s worth the effort.
You should know that I’m even now fighting the urge to start a “Steps to living in the moment” list. Old habits die hard.

Lies

2010-10-09T15:12:00.000-05:00

Michael and I decided early on that we would not lie to Sprout. Oh boy, what ignorant fools we were. Two years have taught me that idealism has no place in raising kids. I hereby, for all the internet to read, admit that I willingly, constantly, joyfully and unashamedly lie to my kid. Were I to really monitor it, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that every other sentence out of my mouth is a lie. Well I suppose that depends on one’s definition of “lie.” I guess that what I really engage in falls more under the heading of “Deception.”
Mostly I lie about food. If given his druthers, Sprout would subsist on nothing but Goldfish crackers and apple juice. I am less than enthusiastic about his preferred diet. If left to his own devices, he would also spent his days unrolling toilet paper all through the house and throwing toy trains at the windows, so clearly, the wee beastie cannot be allowed to rely on his own judgment. It’s sound reasoning on my part, but convincing him of that requires an effort of will and a volume of patience that I simply do not possess. So, I lie. Thanks to my lying, Sprout will now consume, with gusto, a “Diego sandwich.” What, you ask, is a Diego sandwich? It’s your basic pb&j. It becomes a Diego sandwich by virtue of that being the only way he’ll eat it and by what I, as his mother, lack in morality I make up for in creativity. Similarly, Chez Parsley serves up a menu of SuperGrover pizza pockets, Mingming celery (broccoli),) Thomas the Train yellow coal (corn,) and Dora the Explorer noodles to name a few. My rate of success in getting Sprout to eat things just by the simple act of renaming them is astonishing. It’s that double major in public relations and government paying off at last. Good to know that my spin skills are still sharp.
In addition to the cartoon characters named above, we have a new superhero at our house by the name of Cousin Noah. Cousin Noah is actually Sprout’s cousin and Sproutie adores him. He is not in fact a superhero (though Noah might disagree), but he enjoys an elevated status at our house. These are commonly heard statements: “do you know who loves bath time? Cousin Noah.” “Do you know who loves green peas and eats them everyday? Cousin Noah.” “Do you know who never throws his toys and always picks up his room when he’s done playing? Cousin Noah.” Doubtless, these attributes would surprise Cousin Noah, not to mention his parents, but they work for us and I don’t expect Noah will rat me out for the total fraud I am any time soon.
So I admit it, I’m a liar. I’m a terrible person. But I’m a terrible person whose kid will take at least a bite or two of his dinner and no longer screams and pitches a fit when it’s bath time, so I’ll take it.

Dance Baby, Dance!

2010-09-26T14:09:00.000-05:00

Sprout loves to dance. Loves it. He’s been busting baby moves since he could first walk. He loves music, any kind. The Wiggles are gods to him. So when he turned two and I decided it was time to work on his socialization, I naturally thought of dance classes. Or maybe not so naturally since dance is typically something for girls. But Sprout loves to dance, the school offered evening classes, and he’d be surrounded by other two year olds. Ms. Martha, owner and operator of Dance Arts since 1966, took pains to introduce Sprout to a few of the older boys who take classes, and Sprout was completely in awe of them. It was a perfect fit, right?
In theory, yes. But in practice, not so much. Sprout indeed loves music and dancing, but classes … He’s not so into those. All those tutu-clad girls running around screaming in that way exclusive to little girls, well it was just too much for a timid little guy. The first class, he looked for all the world like he was being attacked by a flock of angry flamingos. He was terrified and spent the entire first class begging to be picked up or hiding behind my legs. He spent the second class like that too, except that he decided that night that Daddy offered more protection, so he hid behind Michael’s legs. That was pretty much how we passed the third class as well. By the fourth class, Michael and I changed our strategy. Okay, we reasoned, we really don’t care if he masters the turtle stretch or puts his arms up like a rainbow on cue. We’re really more interested in him becoming comfortable around other kids his age. So we stopped pushing. You want to spend five minutes playing with your toes? Sure, have at it. You want to inspect the chalk circle on the floor while lying on your tummy? Whatever dude. And when we loosened up, Sprout loosened up too. At the fourth class, he was interacting with the other kids and almost always doing what he was supposed to do. There’s a little girl in class named Abby, who happens to be distantly related to Sprout on Michael’s side, and the two have become friends. Whatever Abby does, Sprout does. It’s ridiculously cute.
Will we stick with baby ballet? We haven’t decided yet. But Sprout is more comfortable around groups of kids, is getting an opportunity to burn off some energy in a semi-structured setting, and has even made a new friend, so I consider it a success.

An Outing with the Sprout

2010-09-25T15:19:00.003-05:00

Today we had lots of fun at our local orchard. Jackson's Orchards has all kinds of good things to eat and a playground of sorts that the Sprout can play on when the walking gets boring. I think the petting zoo was a hit along with the hayride. It was a great place to get into the fall spirit. Kimberly is getting tired of the hot weather and is trying to get fall to arrive on time, but I don't think she will be happy until the temperature stays in the 60s or 70s. Sprout had a fun time at the orchard but almost went to sleep on the hayride, you know a long day of walking and having fun will do that to a 2 year old. Sprout is growing so much that he is almost getting to heavy to pack around on a hot day. I know I have been lacking in the picture department so I thought I would added a few with this post. Have a great fall everyone.

Here is one of the cutest smirk grins you have ever seen.

A nice profile picture.

Madame Tussauds

2010-08-27T16:56:00.000-05:00

Michael is always telling me that he thinks I should write a book about being blind. Since I am both a writer, and blind, this makes some amount of sense. Fortunately, my husband finds what he calls my “antics” amusing, and thinks other people might think so too. To that end, I’m going to start jotting down a few of my “antics” and posting them here under the label “The Book that I’ll Probably Never Write.” Below is the first installment. I hope you enjoy it.

I just finished waxing my chin and upper lip. We’ve got a busy weekend ahead, full of two birthday parties and their accompanying shopping, and starting to look like Adolf Hitler as I was, I thought some maintenance was in order. Michael usually does the waxing for me. Relax, it’s nothing kinky. It’s just that after seeing me burned and blistered at the hands of inept beauticians, he decided to take over the duty himself, which he does without complaint. But really, it’s not that hard. Hell, I just did it without sight or the use of three fingers, said fingers being glued together by copious globs of wax. Don’t get me wrong, I’d never try waxing my eyebrows. I cannot even imagine a scenario wherein that could turn out at all well. So I’m grateful to my husband.
You might think it’s odd for a husband to do something like wax his wife’s upper lip. And let me digress here: If you don’t understand why this is necessary and you’re in your twenties, just trust me, you will soon. If you’re in you’re thirties and you don’t know, then you’re lying. That aside, yes, it is probably weird for a man to wax his wife’s eyebrows. I’m sure it is. But it’s not weird for us. Being married to a blind woman, Michael has to do lots of things that the husbands of other women would never dream of doing. When I ask Michael the dreaded, “do I look fat in this?” He knows that I really do want an honest answer, and if that answer is yes, there will be no hissy fits or bodily injuries because of it. “Is my make-up even?” That’s another question he regularly gets. Or he used to. Back when I wore make up. He has also been known to cut my hair and paint my nails. He says he’d rather just do the job than clean up the aftermath. His resolve was firmed up early in our marriage when he came home one day to find me having just painted my toenails blood red. He said it looked like somebody had tried to chop off my toes with a garden hoe.
But back to the waxing. All in all, I think I did a pretty good job. Over the years, I’ve come to focus on results rather than process. In anything I do, getting from A to Z is a circuitous, often messy route. Mine is not the path of grace or efficiency. I consider any task that gets completed without bloodshed or property damage a victory. I’ve learned to settle for merely passable where most things in life are concerned, perfectionist impulses be damned. So sure, I had to clean the bathroom sink with an SOS pad an bleach, and there will likely still be wax decorating the vanity for some time to come; and sure I used up about half a brand new jar of wax, what with it stringing like gum on a shoe; and sure I had to use the serious body scrub to get the wax off my hands; but the end result is that my upper lip and chin are as smooth as a teenager’s. Heil Kimberly!

The Devil in the Details

2010-08-21T08:09:00.001-05:00

The thing that sucks the most about being blind, the thing that is totally in my face, relentless and nasty, is the total inconvenience of it. I mean sure, I might occasionally get bummed about not seeing a sunset or missing the beauty of a rainbow or some such, but sunsets and rainbows just don’t have a huge impact on my day-to-day life.
Since Sprout turned two, I have been sensing a need to give him opportunities to interact with other children. The driving-privileged moms among you (and let’s be clear that I hate you a little bit right now) can just hop in your cars and take your own precious little ones to any number of kid-friendly places or activities; the library, arranged outings with other moms, even the playland at McDonald’s. Whatever. I have spent the last several months looking into socialization opportunities that would be a good fit for our unique family dynamic. And let me tell you, that is no small feat. Less research has gone into the quest for the meaning of life. But finally, I found a possibility. Here is what went into arranging for Michael and me to both get to the place in the middle of the day for a visit:
First, I needed a ride there so that Michael wouldn’t have to take up more time on his lunch break driving out to get me. So as usual, I turned to Mom. She couldn’t do it Monday or Tuesday, but could manage Friday. But the class I wanted to check out doesn’t meet on Friday. So I arrange to check out the facility outside of the class time. Not ideal, but life is about compromise. So it’s all set. Oh wait. Mom has a doctor’s appointment. Can we reschedule? Nope. So Mom reschedules her appointment. She can drop me off and make her appointment, but the timing has to be perfect. Michael gets the okay from work to take a longer lunch break, which is great, but it means he’ll have to make up that time at the end of the day, which was Friday. Working late on Friday really sucks. But again, life is about compromise. So we get to the place and are immediately told that I was misinformed about the available day for Sprout to take the class. Tuesday is not available, but Monday is.
Now, I hope you will indulge me in this digression. If you have talked to me at all in the last few months, you might have sensed my mounting desperation for adult interaction. Sprout and I, we’ve got a great thing going here, but we both need a little space. Spread our wings, absence makes the heart grow fonder, yadda, yadda. So thinking a free half day once a week was coming my way, I checked into getting back into knitting classes. I began looking for transportation to get to the knitting classes. Classes that are held on Tuesdays. Not on Mondays. The effort to find available transportation made that previous “finding a childcare option” search look like, well, child’s play. First, I called Community Action of Southern Kentucky and was told that since I don’t live in the Bowling Green city limits, I’m not eligible for there paratransit service. It’ll take a whole nother post to tell you what I think about that. So then I called Disability Resource Initiatives, DRI, and was told that they only provide transportation services for disabled people to and from medical appointments. Again, that’s another post. So much for encouraging disabled Americans to live full, independent lives, huh? So in a rush born of exasperation, I told the DRI guy on the phone that I was willing to pay for transportation, but I just wasn’t comfortable with having a cab come to my house. Then the guy, this saintly, sent-from Heaven man, said that his wife does some driving for disabled people. He checked with her and called me back with the blessed news that yes indeed, for the standard mileage rate of forty-two cents a mile, his wife would transport me from my house to my knitting class. In the distance, I heard the sound of the Hallelujah chorus. There was much rejoicing. That was on Thursday.
Now we find ourselves again at Friday, when I am told that there is no spot available in the Tuesday class for Sprout. Let me reiterate, knitting classes are on Tuesdays; I have transportation lined up for Tuesdays. Crestfallen, does not come close to describing my mood at this news. All of the finagling and maneuvering was for naught.
Be advised, there is as yet no happy ending to this story. Sorry. But I’ve decided I’m not giving up, even though I am back at square one. This struggle has morphed into a cosmic battle of wills between me and the universe and frankly, the universe ought to know better by now. Let me be clear, the main priority is getting Sprout into a healthy, stimulating program. Getting me to knitting classes isn’t all that important, but I’ll admit that to knitting classes have taken on the importance of a symbol of my personal independence, which is surely giving the matter more weight than it deserves. I know that. But it’s a dog-with-a-bone scenario right now. If you can’t vent about the injustices of the world on your own blog, then where can you?
Thanks for sticking with me to the end of this rant. I’ll keep you updated on further developments. And please, if you have suggestions, pass them along.

It was pretty bad.

2010-08-13T16:50:00.002-05:00

For those of you faithful readers who wondered how last week’s outing (See previous post) went, well it was just too painful to write about until I got some distance from it. No, it maybe wasn’t that bad. Actually, it was pretty much what I expected. Mostly. As I figured, Sprout was uncomfortable with being put in a strange carseat in a strange car. He fussed pretty much the whole way to the restaurant, which was mercifully more than half empty. The main trouble began when I whipped out the white cane, you know, standard equipment for blind people. It just goes to show how little I get out these days that Sprout had never seen the cane before and was therefore completely fixated on it. We mothers will do anything to stop the screaming, so I gave him the cane. What I failed to consider was that my good cane was in our van so I was forced to take an older cane. Let me explain. A standard white cane is jointed so that it can be folded up for smaller storage when not in use. The cane in question was old, and therefore had really loose joints so that, let’s say, an industrious toddler, could assemble it to the full fifty inches without much trouble, which the toddler in question did while I was placing our order. Then, having snagged himself this incredible new toy, he starts doing what amounts to helicopter spins. I took it away from him of course, and that’s when the screaming started. So while I was ordering and paying, I was alternately taking away and giving back the white cane while my child screamed in outrage or glee, depending.
The rest of the tale is pretty standard for anybody who has ever taken a two year old to a restaurant. He screamed, threw things, and refused to eat. It was so bad that my friends daughter, also a two year old and no stranger to a good tantrum herself, said, “Whatsa matter baby? It be okay. No cry.”
Ah, if only.
So whirling cane thing aside, it probably wasn’t awful. Although it isn’t something I’m up for repeating anytime soon. As a result, I have been searching out online communities for stay at home moms. Any suggestions?
I’m also looking for indoor activities to do with Sprout since it’s approximately a gazillion degrees outside. I’m probably going to have to just accept the mess and go for Play Dough. Any other suggestions?
Sproutie has suddenly started speaking in sentences. Here are a few of them:
“Hi Mommy, What doing?” Said anytime I am not giving him 100 percent of my attention.
“Where’s it at?” I know, bad grammar, but really cute.
“1, 3, 4—Wake up Mommy!” Sprout has something against the number 2. That aside, this comes from a Wiggles movie wherein one of the Wiggles is forever falling asleep and the other Wiggles must wake him up. Sprout says this to me at the first sign that I might be wearing down or that my mind might be about to stray from its gravitational orbit around him. It’s not just me though. He says it to everybody.
“TV broken.” Not strictly speaking a sentence. We had a storm that momentarily knocked out our cable right about the time Michael got in from work. Sprout, believing that Daddy had arrived, Superman fashion, just in the knick of time to save the world from imminent disaster, ran in the kitchen saying, “TV Broken!” Yeah, so we maybe watch a little too much TV here.
I am working on learning to post video to this blog. Yes, it might well be as impossible as it sounds, but my husband is a total slacker where this blog is concerned. Maybe you’ve noticed? So if there’s to be video, it falls to me to post it. I only ask, dear readers, that you keep your expectations low. Aside from that, I intend to post at least once a week here and will try for more. Are any of you on Facebook or Twitter?

Feeding the Crazies

2010-08-05T08:23:00.000-05:00

If you need a reason for why I have been neglecting this blog, see previous post. I am at a loss to explain how a creature can be an unholy demon one minute and the most adorable being ever created the next, but that is my son for you. When I’m not spending my time trying to figure him out, I’m trying to feed him. He seems never to eat. I’m sure he does eat. If I added up all the little nibbles and “a bite here and a bite there”s that he consumes during a day, it would probably add up to about one meal, but every bite ushered successfully into his little mouth is a hard won victory. Finicky. Yes, I knew that was possible. But my child could give a seminar on hunger strikes. He can run four hours on nothing more than two Goldfish crackers. Meanwhile, I expend vast quantities of energy trying to feed him. I research recipes, I make new shopping lists, I cook new foods, I offer new snacks. I change eating times, eating places, the order of meals … You get the picture. Yesterday, he actually followed me into the kitchen and requested an “addatado.” Translation: Avocado, which he used to eat all the time, but developed an adversarial relationship with about six months ago. After deciding that I did not in fact want to revisit the 1970’s fad of avocado green kitchens, literally in this case, I stopped offering them to him. But then in a fit of desperation, I started back with them about a month ago and lo and behold, they are the new hot item. I think he does these things just to mess with me. It’s the toddler equivalent of sensory deprivation. They just want to keep us moms off balance.
In those few moments during the day that I’m not concentrating on Sprout’s nutrition or digestive health, I’ve been writing, though clearly, not in this blog. I’ve been getting up at 5 a.m. to get in an hour or so of quiet and creativity. I’m starting to feel like a grown up again. Granted, by about eight in the evenings I’m totally spent and the only conversations Michael and I have are via text message, but eventually Sprout will go off to college and I can resume normal adult relationships again. After having something of a meltdown a few weeks back, (I try to pencil one in every couple of months) I started thinking I needed some time away from my precious little one. Also, I figured, now that he’s two, he could probably use some socialization. With my sister’s help, I discovered some part-time daycare / Montessori school options in Bowling Green. Jackpot! But then school started back and I got to thinking about how Sproutie will be going to school in what will no doubt seem like the blink of an eye, and I have totally chickened out of the part-time daycare idea. I mean, once they go off to school, well that’s the first step to them growing up. Once he starts kindergarten, it’ll never be like this, just me and him, again. That brings tears to my eyes, granted for different reasons depending on the circumstances of the day. I’m thrilled to know those options are out there, and suspect I’ll grow up and make use of them soon, but not just now. Not just now when my little guy still loves to crawl up in my lap to snuggle before drifting off to nap.
Choosing the life of a stay at home mom is a lot like self-imposed isolation when you can’t drive. I knew this going in, so I try not to bellyache about it overly much, but the isolation has started to wear on me. I find myself getting nervous and anxious over even leaving the house with Sprout, and I have become increasingly unwilling to venture out with anybody but Michael. On Saturday, we took Sprout to play at Barnes and Noble. Why? Because it’s cool in there and there’s iced coffee, that’s why. And Sprout loves books and they have the train set and all. Well, so we were playing and life was good, and then Michael says he has to go to the bathroom. I felt sweat breaking out on my forehead in spite of the air conditioning. I believe I may have shrieked at him that there was no way he could even think of doing something so inconsiderate as using the bathroom and leaving me alone with our speedy and crafty toddler in a public place. “Maybe we should just leave,” I suggested. He told me that wasn’t really an option. Selfish man. He gave me a mini pep talk while he jumped up and down with his legs crossed, then moved a table to block Sprout’s primary route of escape from the kiddie section, and went to answer nature’s call.
Okay. I realize that this seems like just no big deal to you sighted people. But how ‘bout this: Why don’t you try, just for an hour or so, to blindfold yourselves, I’ll cut you a break and let it be in your own house, and tell me if you don’t get just a little bit twitchy about the whole thing. On second thought, don’t do that. It’s hard, way harder than you think and I don’t want any children injured in this experiment. Plus, I just plain don’t trust you sighted people not to cheat. O come on, admit it, you know you’d peak.
So anyway, Michael was gone for about six hours and it all turned out fine in the end. Okay, so it was maybe more like a few minutes, but it took years off my life, let me tell you. These are my fears in such situations, in no particular order:
That my child will get away from me and run screaming through the store. I’ll have to grab some innocent bystander and ask which way the knee-high redhead went, at which point the stranger will call social services, who will deem me incapable of caring for my child.
That someone will kidnap my child. Michael says that kidnappers probably do not hang out at the local Barnes and Noble, but I maintain that you just never know.
That Sprout will somehow manage to destroy or deface the property. No, he isn’t usually violent or destructive, but for heaven’s sake he’s two. Who knows what kind of insanity lurks in their little brains, just waiting for a parentally lax moment to manifest.
That other mothers, the ones who somehow manage to put on make-up, clean clothes, and matching socks, will give me the stink eye as my child darts about like a rabid bunny.
So all that aside, I have a sweet and wonderful and clearly nutso friend who wants to take me and Sproutie out to lunch tomorrow. She finds herself in possession of an SUV and an extra child safety seat, so offered to spring me from my home incarceration for a few hours. Instinctively, I said no, then shuddered convulsively at the very idea. But she’s persistent, so tomorrow, this dear insane woman will be taking two two-year-olds and a blind woman out to lunch. I’ve packed up my little-used white cane, along with some valium and a paper bag to breathe into, for the outing.
So that’s my plan for tomorrow, and I’ll probably need the entire weekend to recover from it. Actually, I think I feel a little panic attack coming on just thinking about it, so I’m off to have my nervous breakdown before Sproutie wakes up. Enjoy your day.

Welcome to Tantrumville

2010-07-08T22:29:00.002-05:00

If you were in the vicinity of the Scottsville Rd. Kroger store tonight around 7 p.m., let me apologize. That incessant wailing sound you heard and could not escape, that was my kid. What triggered the outburst? No freaking clue. It started in the cereal aisle and reached its crescendo in frozen foods. We went through the toy aisle in an effort to placate the little howler monkey, and boy howdy was that a mistake. I can’t be sure, but Sproutie’s body language indicated that nothing short of breaking open every box of crayons and scattering them on the floor would even remotely come close to satisfying him. So if you happen to be doing your weekly grocery shopping tonight, my sincerest apologies. Unless you happen to be the woman who stopped us at the check out and said, “Do you want to know what’s wrong with him?”
Yeah, no kidding. Somebody said that. Just take a guess at how much I wanted this stranger’s opinion on what was wrong with my kid, this kid that she had no knowledge of or interest in. Right.
Michael was scrambling around under the shopping cart in search of the Hot Wheels car we’d grabbed in a futile attempt to pacify Sprout. Probably, he heard this woman’s question and stayed under there to avoid the falling debris that was sure to result when I went straight through the roof.
“He’s two,” I said, “that’s what’s wrong with him.”
I had a lot more to say, most of it dealing with unwelcome advice from strangers, but I was struck speechless by the sound of … of nothing. Sprout stopped screaming. Maybe he too knew Mommy was about to lose it and thought he’d enjoy the show. Maybe kids really do have some sense about precisely how far a parent can be pushed and they pull back instinctively when that line is reached. Or maybe this rude woman had some sort of invisible Mary Poppins mojo that she sprinkled on angry babies to restore peace and good cheer, like the ghost of Christmas present. Whatever the reason, having your squalling child shut up just when you’ve drawn breath to tell off some nosey idiot for knowing nothing about your kid or the situation at hand, well it takes the wind right out of your self-righteous parenting sails, I can tell you.
So I changed my mind and was thinking of asking the stranger to come and live with us, but then the kid bagging our groceries gave Sprout a balloon, and I thought we could probably get out of the store with our smiling, adorable toddler without further incident and nobody would believe he was the same child who had mere moments before been practicing for acceptance to Banshee school.
So tantrums, yeah, we are apparently there.

Audience Requests

2010-06-23T14:10:00.000-05:00

We had the big Elmo birthday bash here on Saturday. Thanks to everyone who came to share our very special day with us. The day was much fun if a little overwhelming for Sproutie. There’s video of the meltdown that resulted from 30 people singing happy birthday to the birthday boy as he was presented with a flaming cake. Yeah, it’s classic. No doubt you’ll want to see that video, as well as other pics from the party. I get lots of requests for more pictures and as much as I want to oblige those requests … well, it’s the blind thing. I do take most of the photos in the family. Michael and I often get the camera out after big family events and play “what did Kimberly think she was taking a picture of.” Great fun, that. Nothing like a little laughter at one’s own expense. But Michael is always too busy for picture taking or is working the video camera, so sadly, picture duty falls to me. It’s one thing to take the pictures, but it’s a horse of a different color to post them. And let me just say that I have no idea what color that horse is. I could probably follow the steps to post pictures to this blog, but the end result would almost certainly not be what I intended. Likely, this blog would be full of photos of the ceiling and the backs of people’s heads.
So all of that is to say that if you want pictures (and I know that you do) just leave some harassing comments for Michael here and possibly (though I can’t make any promises) pictures and video will appear here. That said, I would not go holding one’s proverbial breath. But at least now you’ll have an appropriate outlet for your demands.

Two Years Old

2010-06-23T13:54:00.000-05:00

Dear Sprout,
You aren’t a baby anymore. I might call you my little baby (I probably always will) but you are without a doubt a little boy. This time last year, you couldn’t even walk on your own. Now you run. Everywhere. You just started speaking in complete sentences. Here are a few examples:

Where’s Mommy?
There’s Mommy!
More apple juice.
No more.
No way.
I do it.
Sorry Mommy.
Come here Daddy.
Wiggles please.
Wiggles now.
More Wiggles!
I know.
Mine.

These are just a few examples. You add to it everyday. You no longer have to be put down for bed or nap asleep. You’re a big enough boy that you go to bed awake and drift off to sleep all on your own. Fortunately for me, you still love to cuddle. And everyday begins with me and you on the couch with a sippy of milk and Sesame Street. I can’t think of a better way to start the day. Each day ends with you snuggled with Mommy or Daddy, looking at books or watching TV. You are smart and brave and independent. You’re sweet and gentle and beautiful. My love for you is bigger than I ever thought anything could be. It’s true that you have taught me about patience. But you also taught me about gratitude. I am grateful for every one of these days that go by so incredibly fast. I am grateful that you are my little boy.

My love always,
Mommy

Where does the time go?

2010-06-09T15:02:00.000-05:00

The time between when Michael leaves for work and when Sprout wakes up is my time. It is sacred time, although Sproutie does not always regard it as such. Sipping my coffee, I indulge in a book, do computer stuff, or plan the day. What to fix for breakfast, for lunch, for dinner. I make lists—grocery lists, to do lists, people-to-call lists. I have to finish knitting those baby booties before the babies come. Seems like everybody is pregnant these days, doesn’t it? And I have to remember to … Fill in the blank with any number of things there. Then I hear chatter from Sproutie’s room and know that this time, my time, is at an end and too little was accomplished. Where did the time go?
The day proceeds with the usual daily parade of meals, play, and a movie of some kind. Granny visits for lunch and I spend that visit time unloading or reloading the dishwasher. A time-saving device no doubt, but a beast that must be fed just the same. In the back of my mind no matter what I’m doing is always the nagging voice telling me that I really ought to be writing. Yeah, I’ll get right on that, just as soon as … But there isn’t time to even decide when to do it, let alone carry out the actual doing of it. Eventually, if the heavens are merciful, comes the wind down for the nap. Find the pacy, where’s the blankie, now rocking. Finally, he’s asleep. Put him in the crib. Close the bedroom door gently, very gently, behind me. Sit down with the laptop. Check Email, Facebook, now the writing. But really, those baby booties can’t wait. So switching gears. Sit down with the knitting and a reheated cup of the morning’s coffee, and an audio book. Life is good.
For a few minutes.
Crying from Sproutie’s room. Tummy trouble again. Nap is cut short. I go get him and try to cuddle, hoping he hasn’t completely left sleep behind. It’s a futile attempt, and I know it, but hope does spring eternal. Okay, well that few minutes was nice. Pour the stale coffee down the sink, rinse out the cup. Time for Sprout’s snack. I steal bites of a sandwich as I pass through the kitchen on some other errand. Then it’s five o’clock and Michael is home. Where did the time go?
Next is the mad rush to dinner, clean up, and playtime before bath time. After the bath, Sprout and I snuggle on the couch and watch a cartoon on TV. This is calming, this regular moment of peace that we’ve built into every night. Sprout sings the lullaby song. Then it’s time for bed. Sleepy as he is, he clings to me, “Mommy,” unwilling to part for the night. And this time I cling right back because I realize that in a few weeks he will be two years old and I want to remember that this is where the time went.

Boys Will be Boys

2010-06-01T10:17:00.000-05:00

Michael and I make every attempt to raise a broad-minded, well-rounded child. So when Mom called from Toys R Us to ask if she could buy Sprout a Princess castle that he had picked up and wouldn’t put down, we said sure. “It’s pink,” Mom warned, but we still said it was fine. Any reservations we might have had about the toy stemmed from it being a Disney product and its promotion of the Princess Industrial Complex. The color did not rate on our list of concerns. Actually, our criteria for toys is pretty broad: As long as he can’t get hurt on it and it isn’t a gun, toy or otherwise (you really do have to make that stipulation here), then it’s fine.
So Sprout gets the toy home, and it is most certainly pink, but it’s not a castle. It is a barn. A pink barn, but a barn nonetheless. Mom will argue this point, but it has a barrel of apples and a bale of hay in it: It’s a barn. Since it also comes with a fancy horse and a princess, I guess it would be called a stable. Either way, it is most assuredly not a castle. But thanks to Mom’s insistence and Sprout’s love of saying the word “castle,” the toy in question is now and ever shall be a castle—just one containing a stall, apples, and hay. Whatever. Given that Sprout has since made a Lego tower for it, I guess it really is a castle now.
So that’s Sprout’s first girl toy. Michael and I were patting ourselves on the backs for our own broad mindedness and liberated thinking when we noticed that Sprout had put the princess in his John Deer tractor and Sprout and princess were hauling the fancy horse around in the trailer. Oh well. As long as he’s enjoying himself, right?

The iPhone

2010-05-12T12:52:00.000-05:00

Mother’s Day was very kind to me this year. With help from grandparents, Sprout got me flowers and candy. On Sprout’s behalf, Michael got me an iPhone. I had eye surgery two days before Mother’s Day, so the iPhone is a Mother’s Day / owie present. See, when we were first married, I conned Michael into agreeing to get me presents whenever I had medical type stuff done. Boy oh boy, has that deal cost him. If you ask Michael what his biggest regret in life is, I bet he’d say agreeing to the owie present. Regardless of the reasoning, I now have an iPhone. If I have your cell number, you should expect to receive barely coherent text messages from me beginning just any day now. I’ve been hassling Michael about getting me an iPhone ever since I got him one for Valentine’s Day, so I guess mine is actually a Mother’s Day / owie / will you please shut up now, present.
Predictably, Sproutie has cottoned on to the extreme coolness and desirability of the iPhone and tries to snatch it at every opportunity. He sees it lying somewhere (always out of his reach) and says, “iPhone! iPhone!” We find this adorable just as long as he doesn’t manage to actually get his little but dangerous fingers on it. Last night, Sprout went to his room and got his own little toy phone that doubles as a calculator and a music player. I guess it’s the iPhone equivalent for the toddler set. Well, so he brings his phone into the living room, crawls up into my regular spot on the couch, and - head bent in a pose of total concentration - proceeds to entertain himself with his phone in what is doubtless a parody of me trying to text message. This was both absolutely hilarious and also startling when one realizes just how closely kids watch your behavior. Note to self: Be on best behavior at all times.

HELP!

2010-04-29T16:40:00.001-05:00

This is Sprout’s latest new trick. He yells “Help!” for absolutely everything. He dropped his pacy-- “Help!” He wants his juice sippy—“Help!” He wants in my lap—“Help!” In the beginning, my mind conjured images of my son falling off the back of the couch, or being trapped beneath a large piece of fallen furniture, or any number of gruesome accidents that could befall an active toddler. Really, it was a nerve-wracking couple of days. Until I realized that this was just his new thing, and he was going to ride it until the wheels fell off. Now when I hear “Help!”, I just ignore it and figure that he needs to brush up on his problem solving skills, so whatever situation has warranted the outburst will have to be dealt with without maternal intervention.
We finally found one of those key locator thingies, so now when we’re playing outside, I can press a button and my kid beeps. More accurately, the receiver safety pinned to the back of his shirt beeps. In case you wondered, no, he does not find this at all amusing.
In addition to “Help!”, Sprout loves the Wiggles. Me, not so much. I believe they are the modern incarnation of the Village People, only more annoying and slightly less confusing. Sprout seems to think they are gods transported here from some sparkly, happier world. The only thing more annoying than the Wiggles is Pat Robertson. Still, I find myself out in public singing or humming one of the Wiggles songs. If you see a grown woman in Panera singing a song about zucchini, it’s probably me. Either pretend not to notice or better yet, tell me to shut up.
Last weekend we were at Michael’s parents’ house with the whole family. Sprout and Cousin Lilly, who is nine months older than Sprout, were both napping—proving that miracles really do happen and sometimes come in pairs. Michael’s dad heard a noise and went to investigate. He returned with a smiling, but sleepy-eyed Sprout in his arms. He said that Sprout was in the living room where Lilly was napping, patting Lilly on the face. I, dear readers, have bachelor’s degrees in public relations and government, and can therefore spot spin when I see it. Reading between the layers of sugar coating, I deduced that Randy entered the living room to find Sprout smacking Lilly’s cheeks in a none-too-subtle attempt to wake her up to resume the rowdy play that the nap had so rudely interrupted. Since Lilly slept on and there appeared to be no harm, I let the matter lie.
It’s been a busy spring and looks to be an even busier summer as Sprout approaches the terrible 2, but he’s getting sweeter and smarter everyday too, so I’m looking forward to the upcoming months.

Summer is Sprouting

2010-04-16T14:27:00.007-05:00

Sprout with his cap pulled down low on his head. Looking way to old for 21 months.

Upward angle shot with the sun just being blocked out by the cap bill. Sprout curls acting like a halo around his head.

Sprout running through a field of dandelions in the back yard.

Sprout's cap is pulled down even lower this time around. Can't really see his dark eyes away.

Sprout is chillin in his swing with his arm resting on the side. I believe he has a smirk on his face.

A Fish Fry

2010-04-09T17:29:00.001-05:00

My charming, darling son, who has developed the rather unpleasant habit of getting up at approximately way-too-freakin’-early, lovingly presented me with his little baby-sized kitchen skillet full of goldfish crackers. Ah, isn’t that sweet? Yes, it is. Until you realize, as I did, that he was given an entire snack cup full of goldfish crackers. Where were the rest of the crackers? Because I know he didn’t eat them. My son doesn’t eat. He is currently subsisting solely on apple juice and fresh strawberries. Don’t get me wrong, I offer him food, lots of it. You can lead a toddler to the high chair, but … Well, you know the rest.
So I’m off to find the rest of those goldfish before they become a permanently imbedded part of the décor. Have a good weekend.

Mommy knitted Sprout's Easter Vest

2010-04-03T14:57:00.001-05:00

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Relief

2010-03-30T16:59:00.000-05:00

Last week—six weeks after my surgery, for anybody keeping count—I started to get some swelling behind my left ear. I approached the situation with my usual calm and aplomb. Ha, yeah right. I freaked way the hell out. In my defense, I have more than a little experience with post-op swelling, most of which resulted in doctors wanting to stick me with things—needles, tubes, or scalpels. So freaking out wasn’t maybe the best way to go, but it was justified.
As it turns out, my neurosurgeon, who I saw yesterday, is not concerned. He said that given everything that has been done to that part of my head, a little puffiness is not going to concern him. He’d probably be surprised if there weren’t something going on back there. So that’s great news, but it’s not all business as usual. I was reminded that I did just have brain surgery, and the brain, despite its resilience, is somewhat temperamental and slow to heal. It does not like being poked at, sliced into, or even exposed to air. I mean, evolution spent millions of years building defenses so that the brain would never have to encounter air. Who knew?
This being my gazillionth surgery, I don’t often consider myself all that lucky. Let’s face it, most people never have even one brain surgery. But I am lucky. All my post op symptoms—stumbling, lack of concentration, the puffiness—it’s all normal. It’s a normal part of a successful surgical procedure. During the same time I was having brain surgery, my best friend Molly was finding out that her father had terminal and inoperable cancer of the brain. She told me it’s the kind that Ted Kennedy had. She has to watch as this man who was strong and vital a short time ago becomes something else entirely. She watches as he divides his possessions among his children. She watches her mother struggle with the now, as well as with the awful future. I have a great network of family and friends who pray for me and send me happy, healing thoughts. I’d like for you all to do the same for Molly and for her father, Tom Tift.
All that is to say that I fully intend to quit freaking out and bellyaching over my little puffy spot. I intend to remember that I came through brain surgery. And sure, I’d rather not have had it, but at least it was an option. For Tom, and for many others, it isn’t.
Molly, your Kentucky family loves you and is thinking of you.

Sprout pictures

2010-03-23T07:15:00.001-05:00

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Peaks and Valleys

2010-03-19T21:54:00.000-05:00

Remember how great I told everybody I felt a few weeks ago? Remember how I bragged about how much easier this surgery was? Remember how I said it was just a matter of building up strength and I’d be good as new, maybe better? Yeah, about that…
Turns out, that was the steroids talking. It should say under side effects: “Induces false sense of euphoria.” ‘False’ is the operative word there. I had been tapering down off the steroids for a few weeks, but then I was off them altogether and the analogy of somebody bursting my bubble is an apt one. All of a sudden, poof. Wow, do I feel like crap. So for about two weeks I did a lot of crying, a lot of moping, and a lot more crying. It was pathetic. Although, cut me some slack here—I did just have brain surgery. Yes, I realize that when you tried to point that out to me, I scoffed. Brain surgery smurgery. Pish, I said. Not one of my more enlightened or self aware moments, that.
That’s been the reason for the lack of any online presence on my part for the last few weeks. I’ve been too busy crying, deep in the throws of a depression. No one would care what I have to say anyway. I’m stupid. I’m fat. I’m ugly. I’m boring. Seriously people, it was bad. And I’m not saying I’m totally out of it, but I recognize it now, and acceptance of the problem is the first step to recovery. That, and maybe pharmaceuticals. Or gin.
Last Thursday night, I told Michael that I simply could not do this another day. I was exhausted. This most recent meltdown came after the Herculean effort of … getting a shower. I couldn’t imagine having to be responsible for someone else for one more day, especially when that someone was a very active now 21-month-old boy with absolutely no regard for my fatigue or tolerance levels. As to that, my current game plan is to devote mornings entirely to Sprout. We do whatever he wants all morning long. (And don’t think I’m not praying every morning that he’ll sleep late.) If he wants to read books, we do books. If it’s sing, we sing. Play kitchen, that’s what we do. He’s usually ready for a nap around noon or so and sleeps about two hours, sometimes longer. During that time I do pretty much nothing. I noodle around on the internet, read books, or knit. And here’s my confession: When Sprout wakes up, I try to get by with doing as little as possible. Of course I feed him and change him and perform the essentials of mothering, but by the afternoon, there’s just not a lot left in the tank. It’s basically a parade of Baby Einsteins from 3:30 to 5:00. I should probably feel guiltier about that than I actually do. I figure I’m doing the best I can. It was a lot easier to go back to work a few weeks after brain surgery when I worked an office job. Anyone who thinks being a stay at home mom is easy should spend the day with my kid—or any kid for that matter. It’s hard work and the boss is relentless.. I just keep reminding myself that the rewards are worth it,
And as to the rewards: Sprout can recite his alphabet up to H, after which point he just makes vague sounds to the tune of the Alphabet song. He can count to ten and can recognize pictures (cardboard cut-outs actually) up to five. This shouldn’t surprise you though, since I’m sure I’ve mentioned that he’s a genius.
I had to go to the doctor on Wednesday to get my ears cleaned out. Apparently, my ears have the coping skills of a teenage girl, so when confronted with adversity (in this case a high tree pollen count) they behave hysterically and disproportionate to all reason. They just produce earwax like … sorry, there’s no good simile here … like earwax producing maniacs. I mean really, like I need this right now. Well, apparently my ears and my brain are not on speaking terms because the ears didn’t get the memo that the brain is to get all the attention, at least for another week or two. So anyway, I’m in the ear, nose, and throat doc’s office in the scary-looking dentist-type chair. The nurse was taking my vitals. Okay, here’s something weird since surgery: Nobody has been able to find a pulse on me except with a stethoscope to the chest. Ha, that’s interesting huh? Yes, up until I’m in a car accident and the EMTs can’t find a pulse, decide I’m dead, and send me off to the morgue, where I wake up sometime later, rise from the gurney, and cause some morgue worker to have a coronary episode. Should I wear a medical bracelet or something that says ‘has no discernable pulse but is in fact alive’? Hmmmm. But wait, I’m off track. Actually, that’s a side effect of the surgery too, this total inability to concentrate on anything for more than a second or two. It’s like being a slightly tipsy fruit fly.
ENOUGH!
Okay, back to the dentist chair. So anyway, when the nurse put the thermometer in my mouth. Oh wait, this is funny. Every time somebody at Graves Gilbert Clinic says they’re about to take my temperature I turn my head to give them access to my ear because most hospitals—at least the ones where I’ve been a patient—have the ear thermometers. It leaves the poor nurse standing there, thermometer in hand, wondering, I’m sure, how to explain the use of such a device to me. You’d think I’d learn by now.
Okay, here’s the point of all this. Mom went with me and she said that Sprout, strapped in his stroller, began looking more and more concerned as the nurse did more things to me. When she put the thermometer in my mouth (after some awkward explaining) Mom said Sprout’s eyes started to tear, his lip quivered, then he puckered up and let loose a wail to rival an Irish Banshee before a battle. Poor baby. He does love his Mommy. I think he knows something has been going on with Mommy lately, and it’s made him very sensitive and a little clingy. All this is to illustrate that my son is a compassionate genius. Someday, he’ll find the cure for cancer and all manner of diseases. Just wait and see.
So that’s it. There’s no good reason why I haven’t blogged in a while, just this bottomless pit of despair. It’ll get better. Things have a way of doing that you know.

Pictures of Sprout

2010-03-12T11:41:00.001-06:00

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Family

2010-03-05T14:29:00.000-06:00

Family means different things to different people, and I’m talking about more than the whole step- and half- lingo that I believe is now popularly referred to as a “blended” family, which makes me think of people as smoothie ingredients, but whatever. To be honest, I’m not even sure I know what “family” means to me, which will likely make it difficult to impart a meaningful idea of the term to my son. Also, since it is mostly my family who read this blog, this post is likely to piss some people off. Oh well. I have recently come to terms with the notion that being honest with and about myself will inevitably mean making others less than happy with me. You know, I think I’ll survive it. Anyone who feels slighted by this post is free to get their own blog and slander me mercilessly. Have at it.
Family has been many things to me in my life: the foundation that keeps me standing, the pillars that allow me to stand straight in the face of a storm, a mirage that shimmers enticingly in the distance but is never truly reached, a moving target that I can never get a clear shot at. I truly believe that blood is thicker than water, but here are some other things I have learned: Whiskey is thicker than them both. When you have to give something back, family expect blood while friends are content with water—maybe a Diet Coke. A cut from family is deep and bleeds for a long, long time. Friends don’t look for themselves in you, so they are therefore not disappointed when they look at you and see … well, you, rather than a mirror.
So yeah, I’ve had some trouble with family. Who hasn’t? Life and the people who live it are complicated. For the most part, I think most of us are doing the best we can. Some days, we get a little prickly, and unfortunately, those are the days someone might unwittingly rub up against us. When that happens, somebody will get hurt. It happens. It’s life. And life is busy. Sometimes people aren’t as thoughtful as we think they ought to be. Then feelings get hurt. If there’s a way to avoid that, I surely have not found it. And I want Sprout to know that—that you’ll hurt people and they’ll hurt you and most times, nobody meant for their to be tears and bloodshed. I’m not sure that’s a lesson I can teach Sprout though. I’m 34, and I’m just now learning it myself.
What I think the most important thing to teach Sprout about family is that each person has the ability to create their own family. Michael and I believe that family transcends bonds of blood and time. People come into your life and sometimes they drift out of your life. That’s fine. It’s nothing personal. It’s just people living their own lives in their own orbits. In an ever-expanding universe, orbits shift. I can think of many people who are no longer in my life for one reason or another. I miss them, sure, but I try to remember the good things and accept that it was just time for our orbits to drift apart. There are other people who I will defy the laws of physics for however. Those people (and strangely, most of them are not my blood relations) are in my life for keeps. I won’t let them go, and I don’t mean that in an insane stalker kind of way. I just mean that there are people who are important enough to who I am, that I don’t think I could be me without them. Michael, of course, tops that list. I’m pretty sure I top his list too, so it’s all good. Then there are other people in your life who, to be brutally honest, have to be jettisoned to make room for your own sanity. It’s never pretty, and I’m not sure you can ever really kick family off your island for good, but there are certainly times when walls—high ones with “Keep Out” signs—have to be erected. In the past, I’ve been on both sides of that wall. It isn’t fun, but time and emotional distance are sometimes necessary ingredients for self preservation. I am a firm believer in not using one’s head as a battering ram against a brick wall. Seriously, it’s just easier on everybody if you turn around and walk away.
So what am I really saying here? Hell if I know. What’s the point of all of this for Sprout? Unfortunately, emotional boo-boos are part of life. For whatever reason, family carries the daggers that can most wound you. But family is also what you make it. I want Sprout to surround himself with people who are important to him, people who care deeply for him, people who accept him for who and what he is. Sometimes those people will be family members. Sometimes they won’t be. It’s a great big world out there, full of lots of wonderful people. I hope that Sprout meets a whole bunch of them and makes them his family. Of course, I hope Mommy maintains the #1 spot in his heart forever.

Accentuate the Positive

2010-02-27T14:13:00.001-06:00

No, this is not a touchy feely, love fest, feel good post about looking on the bright side. Really, you people know me better than that. This post is about communicating with a toddler. Well, it’s about attempting to communicate with a toddler-- our attempts, which meet with varying degrees of success. For the record though, let me just say that Sprout has been just the best little guy ever over the past few weeks, weeks which have seen his routine completely disrupted and his sense of normality practically mangled. He took it all in stride and has actually thrived. If anything, the mixing it up of people and activities has benefited him. This morning, Michael and Sprout sat down with a relatively new book that has lots of pictures of everyday things in it, things like chair, duck, socks, house—you get the picture. When prompted, Sprout identified almost every picture in the entire book. “Dress” gave him some trouble. In his defense though, I haven’t worn a dress since he was born, so that one is completely understandable. My point here is this: My kid is a genius.
He’s having one of those verbal explosions, where he’s just comprehending and saying so many things, new things everyday. So we’re trying to be careful how we speak to him. I know that current accepted parenting theory (AKA the crap from the idiot expert of the day) is to try to frame communications with your child in a positive rather than a negative way. For example, instead of “don’t hit,” say, “be gentle.” That’s an easy one. We get that. Other situations are not so easy. “Do not throw food on the floor,” for example. Would that be: “Put the food in your mouth Sweetie Pie?” “Leave the macaroni stuck to your fingers?” I mean, I’m sort of at a loss on this one, and by the time I come up with something, it’s already too late because the entire bowl of macaroni is on the floor and the only thing left to do is clean it up. Spend too much time on wording and any opportunity for teaching has flown right past you. As for the throwing food thing, we started sitting Sprout in a booster seat at the table with us instead of in his high chair and that has yielded excellent results. Throwing food is now the exception rather than the rule. And he even uses a fork! It’s maybe not exactly the way forks were intended to be used, but hey, I name it progress.
So has anybody else had any kind of luck with the whole “positive phrasing” thing? Because I gotta tell you, though I totally get why that’s a good idea, I think it is utterly unworkable as a parenting strategy.
We have started with Crayons now. I figured that while I was recuperating and would have Michael and Mom here with me to oversee what could certainly become a disaster, it was a good time for Crayons. He likes them. Actually, he likes to count them. My 20 month old can count to eight. No kidding. As for making colorful marks with the Crayons, he appears not to see much point in that. But he does love to count them, and he loves to take them in and out of their box. Well, all righty then, I say.
Since this has turned into a kind of Sprout round-up, let me report here as well that Sprout now has all his teeth. Well, all the ones he’s supposed to have anyway. I cannot tell you how happy this makes me. None of us handled teething very well. I’m glad that’s behind us.
Except when he’s really sleepy and wants to snuggle, there’s not much left of my tiny baby. He’s all little boy now, little boy who runs everywhere, has clear ideas about what he wants, and is fearless in the face of new adventures. It’s bittersweet to be sure, but every new thing he does makes me fall more and more in love with this little boy. He steals my heart a million times a day.

Now What?

2010-02-24T13:21:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I got my stitches out. That was about as much fun as you’d guess it would be. In the past when complications have developed, they came soon after the stitches were removed, so to say it’s a little tense around here is something of an understatement. Anytime I try to do anything like, oh, bend at the waist for example, or even look like I might be considering lifting something heavier than a coffee cup, I get a warning chorus from Mom and Michael. They are doing exactly what they are supposed to do, but trust me when I say that makes it no less irritating. Given that none of us (myself topping the list) wants me to endure another cerebral spinal fluid leak, we’re all being very cautious. Michael even suggested yesterday that I maybe not move my head so much. He was serious. But here’s the thing: One’s head tends to move in the regular course of things without the mind giving it much thought. Halting that process is just about impossible. The only solution I have been able to come up with is to self medicate. As it happens, I recommend that as a solution to lots of things, involuntary head movements among the rest.
So now I’m much stronger than I was a week ago, but still not allowed to do a lot. I’m mentally ready to get back into my regularly scheduled life, but Physically, I’m still in a holding pattern. So, dear readers, are you sensing my mounting frustration?
My BFF, Molly, says that I reinvent myself after every brain surgery. I don’t think I’d call it a reinvention, but coming so up close and personal with one’s mortality has the effect of compelling you to take a good hard look at your life. Had it not been for my first brain surgery in 1996, I don’t think I would have ever allowed myself to fall in love with and marry Michael. My pre-brain tumor priorities were entirely limited to exceeding all expectations and proving to the entire world that even though I was blind, I could be the absolute 100% best at absolutely everything. Honestly, even I couldn’t stand me much back then. After that first brain surgery, which was by far the most frightening thing I have ever endured, I realized that the world didn’t much care what I did or how good I was at doing it. The world, as it happened, wasn’t paying a lot of attention to me at all. Huh. Who knew? Once I realized that my life, the life that I had come awfully close to losing, was really my life, I decided to do some different things with it. One of those things was to get to know that cute technonerd, and boy am I glad I did that. Even if he scowls every time I put a load of laundry in the wash these days, he’s been handy to have around these nearly thirteen years and turns out we make an adorable baby together.
So now it’s time for my post-craniotomy life re-evaluation. Wow, aren’t you all glad you tuned in today?
But there’s a new spin on things this time. Honestly, there is nothing in my life that I would actively seek to change. Nothing. That’s why this particular brain surgery was so scary for me. I am a woman who has everything. That’s not to say that I don’t want more—I’m human, wanting more is what we do—but I have everything of real value that I could ever want. I’ve got the guy, the baby, the home, the family, the everything. I have the luxury of making my life as full as I want it to be. Sure, I’d love more free time, to be able to bake bread, or to manage to eventually care about clothes and fashion, but those are things I’ll get to when I get to them. If I decide to get to them. I want to be a published author. I’m writing and I’m submitting. Beyond that and luck, the completion of that goal is largely out of my hands. In the meantime, I get to write things here that are important to me, and you guys are sweet enough to read what I write and are supportive and never judgemental. That means a lot. I’m privileged with the choice to stay at home with my son. I get to watch him growing up every single day. I get to knit him wool jackets that I know won’t be finished until July. I get to tell him silly stories. I get to call friends and family during the middle of the day to check in and see how their lives are going. In short, I am 100% involved in my life. It isn’t passing me by. It isn’t speeding off without me while I jog in place. I have a wonderful life that I am fully, abundantly, richly, miraculously living.
Now what? What else could there possibly be?

Brain Surgery and Body Image

2010-02-19T23:12:00.001-06:00

I had my eighth brain surgery on February 9, 2010. I was released from the hospital on February 11. My neurosurgeon left me with the instructions to listen to my body, be as active as possible without overdoing it, and don’t wash my hair for fifteen days. That man, Dr. Reed Thompson, is a saint, a miraculous healer, the most decent human being I have ever known, an epic comforter, and a totally delusional member of the male species.
Do not wash my hair for fifteen days? Are you kidding me!
The nurse left behind to answer questions and clarify instructions patted me sagely on the shoulder. “He says it’s fine to run a wet comb through your hair.” Then in a whisper, “just be careful not to get the incision wet at all. Dr. Thompson is a brilliant surgeon, but he is a man.”
Let me tell you about your head after brain surgery, because I hope that you never have occasion to get the information firsthand. The post-op head is a very dirty thing, matted with blood and medicine and God only knows what all, and shaved and bruised and just in general a fairly hideous thing. There’s not much that’ll take the hideous out of it, trust me, but a good washing can do a lot for the soul. Brilliant neurosurgeon’s instructions or no, I was going to be washing my hair.
I am not by nature a vain individual. I have never been called a raving beauty. I have always been at least a little overweight and honestly never much cared. Good cheese and freshly baked cookies are far more important to my happiness than being a size six. I long ago came to terms with that and am happy with it. For many years now, my eyes have made it clear to anyone who looks at me directly that I am blind. I find that this begins to bother me more and more lately—eyes being windows to the soul and all that-- but I deal. The thing is, where self image is concerned, I thought I had my priorities straight. I survived brain surgery for the love of God! That I’m a little dirtier and less attractive for it really shouldn’t matter. It really, really should not matter.
But we mortals, such fools are we. It does matter, doesn’t it? I’m not sure if it matters on its own merits or if it perhaps matters because it is the easiest target for our fear and self doubt, but matter it does.
I believe that I have made very clear over the course of this blog that I do in fact have the most wonderful husband in the world, so I need not reiterate that here. Suffice it to say that many has been the occasion that he has had to give me a bath when I’ve been too weak to do even that basic chore for myself. This brain surgery was no different. There I was, adding salt to the water while he scrubbed away the detritus that somehow always accompanies healing. With tender, delicate, precise hands, he washed my hair, careful not to get the incision the slightest bit wet. With all the caution involved, it really should have taken a long time. But it didn’t. There just wasn’t a lot of hair to be washed. There was a large swath that had been shaved for the incision itself, but then there were other patches that had been shorn so that special censors could be attached to my scalp during the procedure. And as with any surgery of such magnitude, anesthesia does tend to make one’s hair fall out in clumps. I was getting increasingly bald. And I cried. I cried because the most wonderful man in the world was washing the hair of the absolute ugliest woman ever to sit in a tub of water. You’re going to have to cut me some slack on the melodrama here. Later, what d’ya say let’s blame it on the painkillers?
But that’s how I felt. I felt unworthy of the kind of love and devotion that would make a man bathe his wife. I felt like I should be lying down in a pool of my own filth until I could tend to matters myself. And then I started getting really pissed off for thinking that way. First of all because that kind of thinking is total societal bullshit and I know better than to fall for it, but second of all because I was being really really unfair to my husband. And that, I simply would not abide. The pity party had to come to an end.
And end it has. I don’t mind telling you that I still somewhat resemble the product of Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory, but so what. I like hats. And I have lots of them. My mother knitted me two of them. How many people get to have moms who knit them hats that are good for the body but better for the soul?
But still this question of physical failings creeps up on me. I tug down my hat while at a restaurant for fear that some poor unsuspecting nearby diner might get a glimpse of my train track scar and promptly sick up her chicken Caesar salad. I find myself wanting to be seated in poorly lit corner booths. I harbor no illusions that the world is free of people who would stare and point at the freak girl, but I also know that the whole issue is likely much bigger inside my own head than outside it, metaphorically speaking.
Ultimately, I think that my whole notion of body image and how it relates to my healing has to do with my transformation from a person sickened by disease to someone who has survived the disease. I do not have cancer, but I believe that if you ask people who have suffered from that disease or other equally scary diseases, they’ll tell you that there’s a reason they are called “survivors.” We even refer to the healing process from such diseases as battles or struggles. In a very real sense, that is exactly what’s going on. Your mind, your soul—they are locked in constant competition with your body for domination. Is there any way that that’s not going to get a little bit ugly? Until I get most of the way beyond healing from a brain surgery, I’m usually completely unaware of just how sick I was pre-surgery. The realization is always daunting.
A few years back, I commemorated a recovery by getting a tattoo. My body was scarred in some very unattractive ways, necessary ways, but I wanted to choose to mark my body for myself. Over my heart, I got a Celtic triple moon symbol which is symbolic of the past, present, and future. After the birth of my son, the tattoo came also to symbolize the three of us in my family. Not a lot of people understood my need for the tattoo, and even fewer people in my family approved of it. But for me, getting that tattoo was about reclaiming my body for my own. The disease could not have it. It was mine. I own it. Even now, I am planning another tattoo—at least one, this time to reaffirm my survival and my commitment to living and living well and living in love.
At this point, somebody should probably push my mother’s head between her knees. She did not handle the first tattoo well. It’s okay Mom, you’re a trooper. It’ll be fine.
So I’m maybe not ready to go out without a hat, and I’m probably going to be self conscious for a while. But here’s the important thing. I’m going out. I’m going out with family and friends. I’m doing things that I love and enjoying them again. The endurance of the human spirit will always be in vogue.

Emotional Healing

2010-02-16T22:50:00.000-06:00

After one has had one’s brain literally dug around in, it should come as no surprise that in the aftermath, a certain amount of emotional dusting off is required. That is what I’ll be doing in my next few blog posts. It might get a little heavy around here, a little intense. Feel free to walk away and come back later. But here’s the thing: I need this. Meltdowns and their wiping ups are part of life, at least they’re parts of my life. I am a writer, so much of my own melting down and wiping up gets done in print for all the world to see. For better or worse, that’s how it is with me. I don’t apologize for it. Some of this could be hard to read, I get that. Don’t feel compelled to stick around. Hell, if I could get away from it I would too. But I can’t. And as a mother, someday it might be helpful for my now baby son to look back and see how his mom handled some pretty terrible shit. So for me, and for him, I leave this record.

Part I: The Inventory

Waking up from brain surgery, any surgery I would think, is a frightening experience. The anesthesia that makes the procedure possible leaves you more than a little disconnected from yourself, both body and mind. This disconnect isn’t completely bridged at the moment of waking. There’s a lag. It’s a pretty terrifying lag. I don’t know how long it lasts, but thank heavens for me, relief has always eventually filled in the gap. This is what happens to me during that period of disconnect:
:Mrs. Parsley, can you open your eyes? Mrs. Parsley, I need you to open your eyes.”
I do. At least, I think I do. That I can’t be certain of that no longer frightens me.
“Mrs. Parsley can you hear me?”
“Yes,” I hurry to answer.
There is a barely contained thrum of excitement that builds in the room. Whatever else healthcare workers are, they are people. More than any other people, they want to see success in their jobs. It means lives saved.
“Mrs. Parsley, can you move your toes for me?”
I do.
“Mrs. Parsley, can you move your hands for me?”
I do. I feel the tears come. I can move. I can move!
“Mrs. Parsley, can you tell me where you are?”
I speak. “Vanderbilt.”
“Can you tell me what day it is?”
I have to think. I am not good with numbers. But I reach, and I find it. “February 9.”
The sigh of relief in the room is audible. “Mrs. Parsley, can you smile for me?”
Can I smile? Yes, I can smile. I can smile because through the anesthesia haze I have remembered my husband and my son and my family and understand the implications of being able to move everything-- and hell yes, I can smile!
There are more questions, more tests, and because I am a truly blessed individual, more successes. The rest of that first night is just a haze. I remember Michael, I remember Mom, I remember family, but mostly I remember wanting desperately to sleep and not being aloud to, and I remember my mouth being so dry that it hurts to breathe. You wouldn’t think such a small thing like that would loom so large in the post-operative mind, but it does.
Amidst the swirl of sensation and noise around me is a low-level, but very real terror: I am completely restrained. I am too weak to move. I am hooked to things that prevent me from moving. It hurts to move. There are tubes coming from everywhere. This time, they are even in my feet, the veins in my arms and hands being insufficient to the task of surgical intravenous lines. But I have been here before. This terror is not new. That helps. A bit. The knowing that I’ve survived it before. Tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow won’t hurt so bad. Tomorrow I’ll get some ice chips for the dry mouth. Tomorrow the dry heaves will stop. But for now, the only thing that makes the terror endurable is that Michael is there. He is allowed to be with me and never leave my side. I do not know how he can bear it. He knows from too many past experiences what I am going through. He knows my terror. To feel the terror or to know that the one you love most in the world is feeling the terror. Which could possibly be worse?

These memories are still raw and hard to recall, harder still to recount. But they are my memories. They will wake me, chilling and clawing, for many nights to come. They are familiar nightmares, but they are my nightmares. They are my own version of PTSD you could say. Having failed miserably at banishing them in the past, I embrace them now. They are mine. For now, they are my demons. I will defeat them, and they know it, but we still have our drama to play out. I’ve been through brain surgery so many times that I am ashamed to say that I have at times exhibited a rather blasé attitude about the whole thing. I have the luxury of that because I survived it. What I tell you now is that I survived it for reasons that have very little to do with me. My survival has had to do with incredible doctors, the love of family, divine intervention, a smile from above, a gift of the heavens, an alignment of the stars-- any or all of these things. I honestly do not know. What I know for certain is that I am grateful. I am grateful that there is love in my life and that I have had another week of life to enjoy it.
Life should be about things like that—things like love and gratitude and living, but it is so easy for the trivial to usurp the place of virtue. I’ll tackle that topic tomorrow. Because for all that I am grateful that I have again survived brain surgery, whole and intact, I look like hell for it. I am swollen, bruised, and largely bald. And though that shouldn’t bother me, it sort of does. And that it does really pisses me off. The next topic in my emotional housekeeping is brain surgery and body image. You won’t want to miss it, but don’t worry—no pictures.

I am blessed

2010-02-08T17:23:00.000-06:00

I am blessed beyond measure to be Michael’s wife and Sprout’s mommy. Those two things are my greatest joy. I have wonderful family and friends. I know that many people will be thinking of and praying for me over the next few weeks. Please remember my family also, especially Michael. I really think he has the worst of this deal. After all, I’m asleep through the worst of it and he’s not.

All About Sprout

2010-02-02T21:23:00.000-06:00

What with the holidays and my latest medical drama, I have not posted anything recently about all the new stuff Sprout is doing. Plus, there’s just so much of it that I have trouble keeping track. For purposes of this blog as my version of a baby book of milestones, I’ll try to record some of those things here now:
Most notably, the tantrums have begun. Fortunately, he isn’t very good at them yet. When he doesn’t get his way, he throws himself down on the ground and screams, but then quickly becomes distracted by a nearby toy, the carpet, or the ceiling. It’s kind of adorable, but I’m sure that will change as the volume and duration of the tantrums increase.
He says his own name. If I call his name, he repeats it in the exact same tone that I used, which is pretty hysterical. Actually, he repeats just about anything at least once anymore. How many words does he know? That’s hard to say. He says a lot of words, but I’m not sure about his grasp on there meaning. Just tonight we thoroughly confused him with the word “catfish.” He knows “cat” and he knows “fish,” but he was confused as to why we would put those two together, and maybe he has a point. But I do come from the self-proclaimed catfish capitol of the world, so he will inevitably be much exposed to catfish.
He’s getting taller. He can now reach things on the kitchen counter if they are set near the edge. We just learned this tonight and thankfully our lesson only involved a Tupperware lid. So we’ll be using the stove’s back burners from now on.
He loves to be read to. He’ll go pick out a book, bring it to you as you sit on the floor in his room, and back up until he runs into you, at which point he plops down in your lap. This means that I spend a big chunk of everyday making up stories. They mostly go like this: “There once was a little boy whose Mommy loved him very much, but she loved him best when he took long naps, slept through the night, and never once threw food off his high chair tray.” Almost all my made-up stories are some variation of that. For longer books, I recite in a storybook voice the theme song to the “Beverly Hillbillies.” Hey, you do what you gotta do. Michael tried to read Sprout a book tonight and Sprout grabbed the book and brought it to me. Apparently, Daddy does not know how to read a good story. So what can we glean from this? That my son will have an active imagination or will grow up to lie a lot. We’ll have to wait and see.
Sprout’s favorite things are Baby Einstein movies, Elmo, macaroni and cheese, Mommy and Daddy, his own toes, trains, the Wonder Pets, knitting needles (these are toddler contraband, but he manages to get them anyway), any likeness of a cow (the “Happy cows come from California” commercials send him into hysterics), my talking alarm clock, smoothies, and taking a bath.
So that’s just a quick run-down of some of the things little Sproutie has been up to. I’ll try to do better about recording such things in the future.

I'm handling it-- really I am

2010-01-24T11:17:00.001-06:00

So last week, the other shoe dropped. And it wasn’t as though I wasn’t expecting it. I was. I had been expecting it for some time now. Still, when a giant, let’s say, size twelve cowboy boot falls from the heavens to land smack on your head, it’s going to smart a bit. And it did. All this is to say that I have scheduled brain surgery for February 9.
Yes, I’ve been here before. No, this is not a new occurrence in my life. Hell, it’s pretty much the norm. I’ve had brain surgery before. I’ve had lots of scary surgery before. But Kimberly, Sprout’s mother, has never had brain surgery before. It’s different. It’s scarier, scarier in ways too horrible to contemplate or articulate.
Still, even with that boot stomping on me every second of every day, things have to get done. I make the grocery list, do the laundry, care for Michael and Sprout. It’s still one day at a time even though every day takes me closer to February 9. During the day, I think I’m not thinking about it, but it’s there. It’s there when I’m unusually quick to tears. It’s there when I’m short of temper—shorter than usual I mean. And it’s there when I’m snappish or distracted with those I love, those who deserve my full attention. Sorry about that, by the way. But mostly, it’s there at 3:30 in the morning when I wake up. And I always wake up. In the middle of the night, the darkest, loneliest hour—the dark night of the soul, to be literary about it—it’s there.
That heavy, booted weight is there with its trusty sidekick, fear.
So I tried to think how best to handle the ever growing weight and fear. I thought of writing a letter to Sprout, you know, in case the worst happens. But the love a mother has for a child can never be conveyed by mere words on a page. Plus I just don’t think that kind of thinking is helpful. So, I’m going with hope. I’ve thrown myself into planning for February 10. For the new year, I started dieting, and the news of the pending craniotomy seemed like a perfectly acceptable reason to say a great big “oh screw it” to the diet, but I didn’t. I’m still dieting. And I’ve got some gardening books and am planning what Sprout and I will plant in the backyard this spring. Tomorrow, I’m going to make an appointment to get my teeth cleaned some time after February 9.
I believe very strongly that our thoughts have the ability to shape events. I know, how very The Secret of me. And if I teach my son nothing else, I want to teach him hope. Our lives our defined by the big things—marriages, births, milestones—but it’s the pattern of the day-to-day that gives our life its structure. And in the everyday is where you find hope. In the everyday is where you deal with the big moments, good or bad.
So brain surgery, yeah it really sucks. But it is not the end of the world.

Unresolved

2010-01-07T21:51:00.000-06:00

I decided to make a few resolutions for 2010. That I’m writing about this on January 7 should tell you that punctuality is not on that list. Since I fell well short of last year’s resolutions, you’d think I’d have better sense than to publish my goals for the upcoming year again, but alas, no. Ever consistent, I continue to share those falling-flat-on-my-face moments with the entire world. Enjoy, and may my failings bring you a sense of smug superiority in the New Year.
Last year, I resolved to finish at least five knitting projects. Well, I maybe sort of did that, but mainly because fate forced my hand. My sister and my best friend both had babies, which necessitated baby blankets. This was a joy to do though, and there’s more joy in store along those lines in 2010, as my SIL, Jessica, is pregnant with baby #3. I finished a Cashmere scarf for my mom on Christmas Eve, which was cutting it close since that was her Christmas gift. I made Michael a hat because he gave in to the inevitable and shaved his head and because I love him very much and want him to be warm and cozy. As an aside, have you noticed that bald is very in right now? Very sexy. And I finished a purse, but it’s still in its various pieces because, though I love knitting, I hate to sew, which is another thing I’ve resolved for 2010: No knitting projects that require sewing! Oh wait, I just remembered another one. I knitted a triangular shawl for myself, though technically I didn’t finish the fringing until last week, so it maybe doesn’t get to go in the “Completed in 2009” column. As for this year, my knitting goal is simple: I just want to freaking learn to make socks! Socks are hard, really hard. The thing is, I’ve already made one pair of socks, several years ago, but I think Starla, my God-send of a knitting teacher might have taken pity on me and done the picking up the stitches part for me, because that’s where I usually get frustrated and start throwing needles across the room. Yes, I wait until Sprout is asleep to start knitting. Don’t worry, nobody gets hurt. So socks, I just want to knit socks.
I made my annual weight loss resolution last year. The result? Well, it’s on my list again this year, so what does that tell you. Consequently, dear readers, if you notice increased hostility and frustration in my posts, be aware that I am on a diet. We’re doing the Flat Belly Diet, which I cannot yet recommend. Michael and I are dieting together, which is great in theory. Trust me, the theory will be blown to shit in about two weeks when he’s lost twenty pounds and I’ll have lost about six ounces. Such is my history with diets, you see. And it just makes me sick how men can skip lunch and drop down a pant size while someone can say “doughnut” to me and I gain two pounds. Life is not fair. I mean, we already bear the children for crying out loud! Can’t a girl get some love?
Last year, I started a list of all the books I read. That proved to be incredibly insightful. For example, I read six cookbooks vs. two diet books, which explains a lot, don’t you think? Not to mention that I read a history of chocolate and a few other history of food type books. Clearly, I am a dork. And a dork who is hungry a lot.
I read a total of 82 books in 2009. Of those, sixty-three were fiction, with the high points being the discovery of the “Twilight” books by Stephenie Meyer and much-anticipated releases from Dan Brown and Pat Conroy, both of which delivered exactly what I expected. I did a lot of rereading, which is typical for me because I like things that are comfortable and familiar. My biggest find for 2009 was an author named Patrick Taylor, an Ireland-born physician who writes a series, the first of which is “An Irish Country Doctor” about a young doctor beginning his career as a country G.P. in fictional Ballybucklebo Ireland in the 1960’s. Taylor tells us up front that Ballybucklebo is the kind of town we all wished we were from, the kind of place we all wished still existed, but that probably doesn’t and never did except in works of art. If you have the chance, I highly recommend Patrick Taylor’s work. I’d give more info here, but I’m not sure that’s what you folks read this blog for. I figure you get your book reviews and summaries from other places. If I’m wrong, then please tell me so, because that is certainly the kind of thing I’d love to write more of. I started this blog as a chronicle of Sprout’s life, and it is that, and to write about blind parenting, which I’ll continue to do, but in the New Year, I’d like to write other things here as well. Any requests? Wow, that makes me sound like a cheap DJ at a high school prom, but seriously, requests would be appreciated. Yeah, I know, I know—more pictures. Scream at Michael about it, Aunt Jana.
And so speaking of writing, what did I do on that front this year? Well, I submitted an article about my challenges being a new mom who happens to be blind. The article was rejected. When I couldn’t manage to be more than a teensy bit disappointed, I realized that magazine articles weren’t where my heart lay. A Positive from a negative, self awareness from adversity and all that. After spending nine years writing feature stories with little zeal, this did not come as a shock to me, but it did free me up mentally to focus whole-heartedly on my fiction writing. To that end, I polished my completed manuscript and began work on another. That’s when I wrote 50,206 words of fiction in November during NaNoWriMo. What I didn’t do is get my butt in gear and send out the letters to agents and editors. I didn’t do it because that’s just no fun and isn’t how I want to spend the four minutes of free time I have a day. Okay, so I really get more than four minutes. If I leave the laptop in the bathroom, I get six minutes. Oh, speaking of the bathroom, I have found a way to pee in private and make sure that Sprout doesn’t demolish the house or injure himself. I simply close the door. See, used to, I’d leave the door open so I could hear him and could more loudly if not more effectively scream at him to stop doing whatever it was that I could hear him doing while I tried to just pee for the love of God! I have since found that if I close the door, he comes and bangs on it relentlessly, screaming and wailing and pounding with all his little might. I don’t know if he thinks there’s something fun going on in there and he’s being left out, or if he thinks our bathrooms are secret portals to hell and he fears for his mommy. Whatever the reason, shutting the bathroom door ensures that nothing gets destroyed while I answer nature’s call.
And so now that this post has devolved into bathroom humor, I’ll end it. Happy second week of 2010.

Excuses, Excuses

2009-12-31T17:16:00.000-06:00

As a rule, I immediately leave any blog with an entry that begins: Sorry for my recent absence from my blog but … That said, sorry for my recent absence from my blog, but …
No really. I have a great excuse. Several of them in fact. They involve the usual suspects; the holidays, the kid, my short attention span, etc.-- but the real reason I haven’t blogged is .. well frankly, it’s Michael’s fault.
For one thing, he was supposed to post Christmas pictures from Sprout’s Christmas festivities, which were adorable, and he hasn’t done that yet. And I’m sure his excuse is that he contracted a flesh-eating virus two days after Christmas. Yes, that is an exaggeration, but you wouldn’t know it by listening to him tell it. Yeah, so the rash covered his entire body, and yeah, maybe his eyes were swelling shut by the time we finally got in to see the doctor at UrgentCare, but seriously, buck up, man! Let me tell you that I speak the truth when I say that I would rather have toxic mold in my house than a sick husband.
Did I have a point here? I’m sure I did. Where was it? Right, my excuses on not blogging. Right. It’s Michael’s fault.
Honestly, we had a really great holiday followed by some difficult days, but such is life. The good news is that everybody is improving, and I’m still letting them live here. I hope all the best for you, my faithful readers, in 2010.
May our family be as blessed in the next year as in the last one. I am a very fortunate woman to have a wonderful husband and a healthy, adorable son.

I Hate UPS

2009-12-15T22:06:00.000-06:00

As is well documented on this blog, I hate shopping. Michael feels much the same way, so we do a lot of online shopping, which is great and convenient and all, but can lead to some confusion. Here’s what I mean:
This afternoon at around 4:30, a package was delivered. So I went outside in the cold and hunted around on the porch for the package. In addition to Macy’s and Best Buy, UPS is high on the list of companies that I loathe with a passion that perhaps exceeds all reason. Apparently, UPS cannot be bothered to ring the doorbell and wait politely for someone to answer the door. Actually, I complain about this, but I do sort of understand it. I mean, they’re busy, especially this time of year, and I guess when they see no car in the driveway, they just assume nobody is home. That’s fine. As for their uncanny ability to arrive at Sprout’s nap time, I got no idea. But anyway, so they delivered a package this afternoon. It was wicked cold, so I didn’t tarry long out on the front porch. After some degree of searching, which involved sweeping out one leg from side to side while trying not to fall on my behind (a practiced maneuver necessitated by UPS’s disinclination to put packages in the same place two times in a row), I found the package and brought it inside. I ripped it open with the aid of a kitchen knife—kids, do not try this at home—and there was my gift to Michael, which I promptly hid. Go me! Christmas shopping for hubby, check.
Then later, Michael was outside putting our wreath on the front door and found another package. And here’s where things started to get confusing. We both ordered each other’s gifts from Amazon.com. That isn’t really giving anything away because, well, it’s Amazon.com. They have everything. Both items were sent to Michael, but our Amazon account is in his name, so that didn’t clarify anything either. He refused to let me feel of the box because I’m awfully good at guessing presents from the feel of them, and because there was a high probability that I might run off and open the gift. I really am annoying that way. I was pretty sure that the package I had opened earlier was Michael’s gift, but then, there was always the chance that something had to be shipped separately. The only solution we could come up with was for my mother to look inside the package and see whose gift it really was. But here’s the thing—I can get anything out of my mother. If I tried hard enough, I could know tomorrow what she’s getting me for Christmas. She just isn’t great at keeping secrets. So naturally, Michael was not cool with this plan. He checked online to see what time his gift to me had been delivered. No help there. It was delivered at the same time as my gift to him but I had neglected to find it in my search of the porch. Damn UPS anyway. So we were at an impasse. Finally, I convinced him to let me feel of the package to determine whether or not it could be part of my gift for him. After a long, long time of extensive feeling, I determined that no, it was not part of my gift to him. That means it’s my gift, which means I was this close to “accidentally” opening it, had I only known it was out there. A.K.A.—damn UPS!
What all of this boils down to is that in the midst of all the holiday decorating, planning, baking, etc., plus child care that I have to do tomorrow, I also have to tear this house apart in search of my present. No really, I have to. It’s just what I do.

Merry Christmas from Darth Sproutie

2009-12-14T14:31:00.001-06:00

It’s been busy here at the ranch with the usual holiday stuff, made all the more difficult by curious little hands—hands attached to a body, driven by a mind that has learned the art of stealth. Somehow, Sprout has figured out that silence is the key to investigating new things with relative impunity. While he was suffering with teething pain, we were more lenient with the pacifier. Normally, the pacifier was only for naps and bedtime, but since it was the only thing that soothed him, we let him have it even while he was playing. I found that this made Sprout harder to find. He’s something of an open mouth breather, you see, and that’s typically how I would locate a Sproutie who didn’t want to be found. The breathing gave him away. Not so with pacy firmly in mouth. So yeah, that’s a problem. Or it was until Sprout and I both came down with some icky virus thing. Now, when he has the pacy in, he sounds like Darth Vader because of his stuffy nose. The good news is that regardless of the pacifier, I can now locate my kid anywhere in the house. The bad news is that he and I are waking each other up all through the night coughing.
I get laryngitis once every year and this time, this cold/sinus thingy was the impetus for it. What follows is a conversation I had with Michael on Saturday when, despite my laryngitis and strict admonishments from the doctor not to talk, Christmas shopping had to go on:
Me: “At least we don’t have to go to Best Buy.”
Michael: “You want to go to Best Buy?”
Me: “No. I said at least we don’t have to go to Best Buy.”
Michael: “I thought you hated Best Buy, but sure, if you want to go, I’ll take you.”
Me: “I do hate Best Buy.”
Michael: “What’s that? You love Best Buy?”
Yeah, so that conversation was real great for my laryngitis. But my husband knows what lines should not be crossed, and he knows that Best Buy lies way, way on the other side of that line. So no, we did not go to Best Buy.
Tonight, we are putting up the Christmas tree. We have one of those pre-lit deals that is nearly hassle free to assemble. The most trouble will be getting it out of the building and bringing it inside. And I’m not sure how to decorate it. Some people have told me that they just put the ornaments higher up on the tree so as not to tempt little hands. I could be wrong, but I feel sure that Sprout will not rest until the Christmas tree has been completely toppled. It’ll be an irresistible challenge to him. He’s an evil genius that way. We considered putting the tree in the dining room and letting Sprout look at it longingly from this side of the baby gate. The problem lies in getting the tree over the baby gate on Christmas morning. So we might put it in the living room, but without ornaments. I have a mortal fear of those little ornament hooks being swallowed or reeking heretofore unconsidered havoc. So those of you with curious little toddlers in the house, what do you do about the tree and holiday decorations?
Since Thanksgiving, Sprout has grown both physically and intellectually. He has outgrown all of his pants, so we’re hoping that Santa (A.K.A. grandparents) will bring him some new ones. And he says all kinds of words now. As a matter of fact, he just sits around sometimes going through lists of his favorite words: “Papaw, ball, mommy, daddy, mow (meow, for cat), hee-bo.” That last one is hair bow, which refers to the clips I usually wear in my hair to keep it off my face. He pulls them out of my hair and thinks they’re huge fun to play with. He can also say dog, duck, boy, girl, apple, banana, cow, car, diaper, and lots of other words, new ones every day. But not Granny. That one has him stumped. He repeats almost everything he hears which means that yes, we have ventured into “better stop cussing” territory. Sprout hears a lot of “Hey!” which is what I say to mean quit doing whatever thing you are doing that you know you aren’t supposed to be doing. Lately, my “Hey!” is almost always followed by a “Hey!” from Sprout. “No!” I say, and he says, “No!” We get “No!” a lot from him these days. That one is his absolute favorite word. In the last two weeks, he has managed to call both Aunt Jana and Granny on the telephone. This has me puzzled, but I feel sure it involves the redial button combined with my relenting after endless whining to give him the phone.
So it’s the usual mayhem here. I’m blogging now thanks to a cold-induced long nap for Sprout. I hope everyone’s holiday season is merry and bright.

Thanks

2009-12-04T09:30:00.001-06:00

Well I’m back. I hope all that daily blogging that Michael did hasn’t got you, our faithful readers, spoiled, because let me just tell you now-- that ship has sailed. I’m all worded out. I achieved my goal: I wrote 50,206 words during the month of November. I even finished up early, Nov. 27, three days to spare.
I am incredibly proud of myself but I am also incredibly lucky. Michael made my dream his dream too and supported me at every step. When Sprout got impossible, Michael was there to deal with it. When I got a killer headache the week before Thanksgiving, Michael was there to be a calming influence and to dispense the meds. And when I was convinced that writing “blah, blah, blah” for 50,000 words would be more interesting than the crap I was churning out, Michael reassured me that though my first draft might not be perfect, it would be workable. So thanks, my wonderful husband, who just so happens to be turning … well, older today. Happy Birthday to the greatest husband ever!
I honestly believe that it does take a village to raise a child (and if you happen to know any villagers in the market for a toddler …), but it also takes a village to write a book, which I did not know until I embarked on a month of writing madness. All the grandparents pitched in several times to help babysit Sprout. Lots of other people offered encouragement that I really did need. It was really great to have so many people supporting me, even if they did think what I was doing was at best some half-baked notion and at worst, evidence of the insanity they suspected me of all along. So anyway, thanks to everybody in my life. I am blessed with wonderful family and friends. So yeah, that’s the Thanksgiving bit a little late.
Once I get my head a little more together, I’ll get back to blogging about the world of Sprout.

Day 30 – Goal Accomplished

2009-11-30T16:15:00.000-06:00

I cannot believe that I did 30 blog entries in a row; I want Kimberly to know how much I love her for all the support she has always gave to me. She even let me use her laptop to finish a few days of blogs when I was without a laptop. Sprout has been good subject material with all of his antics and teething issues. Throughout the month of November, I have wondered what it would be like to write blogs for a living, and then I decided that writing is a whole lot of work. Which makes Kimberly’s feat of 50,000-word novel in the month of November simply mind-boggling. I truly enjoy blogging for everyone to read but the main reason I blog is for my little family. Kimberly and I decided that when Sprout was born we would write a blog detailing all the things that parents go through in raising a child. I want Sprout to be able to look back at these collections of blogs, and put together a history of his infancy and toddlerhood. My writer/wife has taught me the importance of the written word and the power it holds for everyone. I hope this blog inspires others parents to explorer blogging as a way to preserve those special moments.

Thanks to everyone for the support.
Michael

Day 29 - Movie Night

2009-11-29T20:51:00.000-06:00

Kimberly and I went to the movies and saw New Moon. New Moon was a very good movie and surprisingly close to the book in content. Granny Teresa made all of this possible; she came over to baby sit Sprout while we did the movie, got a bite to eat and went to the grocery. Our little Sprout always enjoys the baby sitters but afterwards he seems a little to jazzed up to calm down for bed. I guess the change of pace and the attention of Granny makes it hard to concentrate on sleep. Sprout has done this many times before in all situations, the only problem this kid seems to have is the going to sleep kind. Sprout is unbelievably stubborn when it comes to sleep. It was all worth it to get out and see the new Twilight movie. I have to admit that the movie was better than I expected and I would suggest to everyone to go see this movie even though you did not read the books. Thanks Granny Teresa for the night out with Kimberly by ourselves.

Day 28 - Christmas Parade

2009-11-28T22:06:00.000-06:00

Today, Sprout got to attend his first Christmas parade in Edmonson County and he had so much fun. I do not know if the Edmonson County parade was better or worse than other counties because this is the first one I have attended since Kimberly and I was dating. Sprout, Kimberly and I had a great time with Papaw Randy, Granny Kay, Uncle Travis, Aunt Jessica and Cousin Lily Grace. Cousin Noah was riding on a parade float with Sprout’s Great Uncle Roger. Roger is running for office in Edmonson County. Noah was acting like the mayor of the town by the way he was waving and looking very much like a good ole boy in his cowboy hat and boots. Sprout did very well until the end of the parade when a siren from a fire truck scared him to tears, by then only Mommy could calm him down. During the parade, we pickup lots of candy, got balloons and glow sticks and had hot chocolate to keep us warm. One the things I was looking for was the marching band but no luck at this parade.

Hope everyone like the pictures.

Day 27 - Christmas Pictures

2009-11-27T20:48:00.008-06:00

Just as I promised, I have some Christmas pictures of Sprout. I hope everyone likes them, Sprout's photo shot was a short one. He did his best for as long as he could. Enjoy.

Pic 1: Sprout looking down at a book in his lap. A very serious look on his face.

Pic 2: Mommy is getting Sprout to smile big for the camera. This is right after a meltdown. Mommies are great.

Pic 3: Sprout sitting in his chair looking at The Christmas Carol.

Pic 4: Sprout is sitting in his chair backwards after the main pictures were finished. He is getting at the end of his rope.

Pic 5: Mommy and Sprout posing for the camera. This was near the beginning of the shot so Sprout was in a good mood.

Day 26 - Happy Thanksgiving Day

2009-11-26T22:38:00.000-06:00

The Christmas season has finally started and I am staying away from all the madness on Black Friday. Our family does it’s shopping before Thanksgiving and then in December, we like to skip a lot of the mayhem. We had two Thanksgiving dinners today, once at lunchtime and one at dinnertime. Unfortunately, Sprout’s teething has prevented him from partaking of much turkey and dressing, it has mostly consisted of macaroni and cheese and oranges. Sprout did have a very good time getting to see some of his family and he got into everything he could think of at each house. This has kept us running the whole day and that is why the Black Friday is our day off from everything including shopping. We will be thinking of our reader as they brave the cold and the long lines for those door buster sales items at 4:00 am. Sprout, Mommy and Daddy will be snuggled in our beds and keeping warm. Everyone have fun.

Teaser: Samples of Sprout’s Christmas pictures coming soon.

Day 25 – One Boring Day

2009-11-25T16:04:00.001-06:00

The day before Thanksgiving, sitting at work, watching the clock slowly tick by minute by minute, bored out of my ever-loving mind. There is nothing to do but wait and try to look busy, and for goodness sake’s do not start a new project. I love Thanksgiving holiday because of the smaller amounts of stress in compared to the lead up to Christmas. Speaking of Christmas, we have half of our list completed. We have many children to buy for in our family and that means a trip to ToysRUs. I feel bad because after we left ToysRUs my wife informed me that I had completely forgot to look in the little girls aisles for all the girls on our list. We had found stuff for little girls in other sections, but I did not even go near the girl aisles. Kimberly and I ran out of time at ToysRUs so it was not a big deal, but Sprout has set my mind on the boy track. What is fun about the situation is that there are more girls on our list than boys. To all the “little women” in our family, I am sorry.

Day 24 - Picture Day

2009-11-24T16:09:00.005-06:00

Pic 1: Sprout is sitting on the ground in front of a pumpkin at Jackson's Orchard.

Pic 2: Sprout sitting in the front seat of the van drinking juice. We were taking a break at Jackson's Orchard.

Pic 3: Sleepy Sprout on our way home in his carseat. He will fall asleep while reading his books on the drives home.

Pic 4: Excited dirty face little boy attacking the camera. Sprout loves cameras. One of the few times Sprout was perfectly happy with a dirty face. He likes to be clean.

Day 23 – I like Mondays

2009-11-23T16:08:00.001-06:00

I like Mondays when they do not seem like Mondays. The company I work for has a 3-day workweek heading into Thanksgiving Day weekend. Things here are eerily quiet and calm; I am hoping several people decided to take vacation this week otherwise I am just waiting for a bunch of last minute urgent requests. I am just thankful for a quiet Monday. Sprout sounds like he had a quiet Monday also. His mommy told me he had a long nap today; hopefully, this will carry over to the afternoon because Kimberly has to get her work count in for the day. The month’s end is rapidly approaching for us brave souls who signed up to dedicate ourselves to important tasks. The “blog for a month” almost feels like a New Year’s resolution, two months ahead of schedule. I am glad I am doing the blog and because it is only eight more days to go. It sounds like the realm of Sprout will be a quiet one today.

Day 22 - A Day of Preparation

2009-11-22T22:47:00.001-06:00

Today, Kimberly and I work hard to prepare the house for the upcoming holidays, by cleaning, sort, and organizing all the accumulated stuff since Sprout was born. We also put together Sprout’s Christmas present and childproofed a few more drawers. Overall, it was a very productive day. If you are wondering how a Mommy and Daddy get to be so productive with a 17 month old, the answer is a day with Papaw Randy and Granny Kay. The grandparent took Sprout on a day trip to see the relatives and in return, Mommy and Daddy got a lot of work started and finished. We also had a real dinner date and it was wonderful.

Side Note:
Did you know that there is a shortage of canned pumpkin in this country. Apparently, this years crop of pumpkin was short due to the weird weather in the country. Kroger illustrates the issue, there was no canned pumpkin on the shelf, but there was a hand written sign saying, “Limit 3 cans per customer.” My wife is in a panic now, she is down to 7 cans instead of her usual 20 or 30 can. ;-).

Day - 21 Those teeth

2009-11-21T22:09:00.001-06:00

It is 10 o’clock on a Saturday and Sprout just went to sleep. Today, Sprout got to hang out with the baby sitters and he got to see a mule. Sprout has been happy all day long with him taking a good nap at noon and he ate a good amount of breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sprout was even half way to dreamland at 7:30 pm, when out of the blue he started to scream loudly. Mommy and daddy tried to sooth, rock and cuddle, but he just could not sleep. After a diaper change, pajama change, medicine and teething tablets, not to mention the two stints in the rocking chair, he was still wanting to stay awake. He finally let us put him in the baby bed and it took another 20 minutes for him to go to sleep. Please pray for our sanity. These are a couple of hard teeth for Sprout to cut is seem. I never dream he would regress back to infancy and the cling to Mommy the way he did tonight. May he sleep long and here’s hoping he does not wake a 6 o’clock in the morning.

Day 20 – TGIF

2009-11-20T16:02:00.000-06:00

This has been another busy week for Sprout, Kimberly and I. Friday’s always make me feel good and glad I have Sprout and Kimberly to come home to at the end of the week. Thanksgiving and Christmas is rapidly approaching and this weekend is in preparation for all of the holidays. I will be cleaning out the building and the storage room to make more room for all sorts of good things. I will be playing around with my new laptop to make sure it runs the right way. I do not want to wait until after the return period runs out. Kimberly has a lot of writing to finish and she is helping me with the cleanup, but I plan to give her as much of a break as I can, knowing the tough week she has had with Sprout’s teething. Sprout needs to hurry up and get those teeth cut; he has been very busy doing the teeth-cutting thing. Here is hoping everyone has a great weekend and thank goodness, it is Friday.

Day 19 – I have a laptop now.

2009-11-19T16:15:00.000-06:00

I now have a new laptop because I have an awesome wife and she let me have my birthday/Christmas present early. I have been using my wife’s laptop to post many of my latest post but now I do not have to bother her anymore. My new laptop is an HP and it will help me to provide many great photos of Sprout in the future. Because I know, Aunt Jana will kill me if I do not post at least a few pictures every week. I cannot say that I blame her with Sprout being so cute.

Sprout is still trying to cut his teeth. Does anyone know how long the insanity will last? The poor kid is miserable; he wants to cuddle all the time. I do not blame him for his mood, but Kimberly and I need a little break once in awhile. I hope we will be able to see the new Twilight series movie, New Moon, in the next couple of weeks. Here is hoping Sprout will be over the teething by then. Bye for now.

Day 18 - Picture Time

2009-11-18T13:08:00.007-06:00

Pic 1: Standing tall in the living room

Pic 2: Laying down on the floor.

Pic 3: Walking toward the camera from ground level.

Pic 4: Playing on the floor with a crazy face.

Pic 5: Looking cute sitting on the floor.

Day 17 – New Teeth

2009-11-17T16:14:00.000-06:00

Our precious little Sprout is cutting and teething his canines into existence. It seems he is on schedule for all his teeth. I feel so sorry about all the pain it causes all of our little ones, but we use the chewable teething tablets and liquid Tylenol at night. The medicine seems to ease the pain a little bit but he still chews like a maniac. Sprout’s teeth come in pair, so we are expecting both top canines to come in at the same time. When Sprout is doing his teething he does not eat very much food, does this happen to all babies and toddlers? I wonder. We try to give him plenty of soft foods so that the gums do get too sore from the chewing, but it seems that does not help either. Let us hope he cuts those teeth quick.

Good news – Pictures tomorrow. New Haircut.

Day 16 – Half the Way

2009-11-16T16:04:00.000-06:00

The saying goes that starting is half the battle, which is until it is time to finish. We are at the half waypoint in the blog everyday contest and it is getting hard to write interesting things. It seems that I will not finish this blog contest with a blog for everyday, but I am glad that Sprout can furnish a lot of subject material. I am discovering a lot about my child, my wife, and myself. We are a resilient family and a creative one also. Kimberly and I seem to pick each other up when the other is tired or Sprout is upset about cutting another tooth. We share every chore and switch out whenever we need a break. Kimberly never complains about me not doing stuff around the house and I never throw my job in her face. We are a team. We always were a team and always will be a team. I think Sprout is very lucky to have a Mommy and Daddy who cares so much.

Day 15 – Little Fingers

2009-11-15T20:52:00.000-06:00

Today we have successfully baby proofed a few more items in the house from our curious little Sprout and his fingers. You would not believe the places Sprout will try to get into when he thinks we are not watching or listening for him. One of his favorite things to explorer is the TV and DVD player. Not any more, we mounted that sucker on the wall with a help from Papaw Randy and Granny Kay. Unless he trades in his squeaky shoes for bouncy shoes, I do not think he will reach the TV any time soon.

For the longest time, we have thought about mounting the TV on the wall, but the mounting brackets were too expensive, until now, we purchase a good set of tilting mounting brackets for 65 bucks. The TV was pretty easy to mount with two people. The brackets are Sanus mounts and they are great. If you need to buy some mounts go with these, they are a good price and they are easy to install. Sanus mounts will support every flat screen TV known to the world. No problems. Sprout was a little dejected when we put in a DVD for him to watch and he could not change the channels or turn the sound off. We are sorry for taking away your buttons, but you where driving us crazy. Love you kid, Daddy.

Day 14 – Picture Day

2009-11-14T20:32:00.000-06:00

Sprout had his Christmas pictures taken today, and what a cutie. Kimberly’s friend Sheryl took some very good pictures. Sprout just loves the camera and has a smile that lightens your heart. Mommy and I dressed up also to get our picture taken also. Everyone was in red and khaki, I was in a red plaid button up, Kimberly was in a red Christmas sweater and Sprout was in red corduroy overalls. He was doing really well for about 15 or 20 minutes then he had a meltdown, which means no more pictures. I will post the funny pictures in this blog in a couple of weeks. He was in a bad mood nearly all day long and then we discovered he is cutting more teeth. Let hope that he decides not to cut more than one tooth at a time. The last couple to times he did multiply teeth at once. Just one more reason to love little Sprout as much as humanly possible before he grows up even more. See ya tomorrow.

Day 13 – Wiggles the new Barney

2009-11-13T22:21:00.001-06:00

Have you noticed that Barney and Friends are going out of style and being replaced by the Wiggles? I do not know the appeal to children that these shows have over them. I remember watching Captain Kangaroo, Mr. Rogers Neighborhood and Seasame Street and that was all. The only show remaining from my childhood is Seasame Street, do I feel old or what. These shows and a few others were calming shows with no excitement value, they focus purely on learning and not too much entertainment. Now, our children have numerous options for learning and entertainment. Sprout’s favorite show are ones with lots of music, dancing, and laughter. I think Sprout has about 20 favorite shows that we ration out during meltdown emergencies. The strangest of these shows has to be the Wiggles. I have never seen four grown men act so crazy and luney, at least not since Monty Python and Sprout will not get to see Monty Python until he turns 18. These men dress in the OLD STAR TREK UNIFORMS and run around pointing their fingers at the cameras in hopes of entertaining the masses. I really cannot say to much because I still watch cartoons when I get the chance.

Day 12 - Not much happens

2009-11-12T19:42:00.000-06:00

Kimberly has had a day that was very busy and I on the other hand had a hum drum day. I would like to someday take over for Kimberly and give her a break but I do not see that happening anytime soon. I would be proud to be a stay at home dad and help little Sprout to grow up to become a big Sprout. I do not think stay at home mom have it easy, on the contrary I believe it is the hardest job on the face of this or any other planet. I also, believe it is the most important job. So this blog is for you honey and for all your sacrifices.

P.S. Sprout could you ease up on Mommy for at least a day or two.

Day 11 – No Laptop

2009-11-11T20:05:00.000-06:00

I have used the same laptop for 3 to 4 years and I have it just the way I like it. Unfortunately, the laptop belongs to my employer. I don’t have any personal information on the laptop but it had a bunch of my favorite programs. Today our company president decided to exclude our privileges of taking our laptops home at night and weekends. Apparently someone in Japan lost or stole information from our parent company and it ended up in China. Big problems for everyone. So, right now I am using my wife’s laptop to write this blog entry. I could have used this problem as an excuse not to post a blog, but then I realize that I made a commitment just like Kimberly did with her book. If anyone knows of a reliable laptop to buy just like me know in a comment to this blog.

Day 10 – The Poseidon Adventure

2009-11-10T21:27:00.000-06:00

Yes, I know the title is cliché and yes, there was a lot of water in the kitchen today. I found out that one should change the water filter in their refrigerator more than once every two years. Apparently, the filter will spring a leak if it is clogged and I mean a big leak. The water covered the kitchen floor and half of the utility floor. Kimberly called me at work and told me about the bad news and that our Sprout loved playing in the water. He was splashing and dancing, probably trying to splash Mommy in the process. I hurried home to find the water had encroached on the living room just a bit. I found the problem and temporarily fixed it, we will need a new filter. Kimberly’s mom, Teresa came over with a wet/dry vacuum to make short work of the water mess. The cleaning took a couple of hours to complete. All is well in our home now.

Day 9 – High School Boys

2009-11-09T21:08:00.000-06:00

Since Twilight, the vampire movie came out and I noticed that all the young guys in these movies are very skinny with big hair and very sexy to most women. I thought to myself that I once was very skinny with big unruly hair, why wasn’t I super popular. Then it hit me, I was a decade to late for this fade and six inches to short. Back then the superstar jocks where the popular ones at school and I was regulated to geekdom. I did not really mind being skinny or a geek because I had some very good friends in high school and college and I would not want to change a thing. After all, it was the skinny, geek with the big unruly hair that land my wife, Kimberly. Sprout when you read this at some point in the future, I hope you will remember that looks and popularity is not all that it is cracked up to be, after all it was my skills with a computer that first attracted your mom to myself. I am one lucky husband.

Day 8 – Very Curious Sprout

2009-11-08T16:53:00.000-06:00

I thought we had baby proofed pretty good a few months back. Wrong. Turns out my little Sprout is a very curious little boy. Anything that looks like a place an adult would store stuff, he will want. I have taken another round of baby proofing including mounting the flat screen TV to the wall, baby-proofing drawers, and keeping our tables clean of miscellaneous items. This is because Sprout has grown and is now tall enough to reach everything.

The one thing Sprout loves the most besides Mommy and Daddy is anything electronic. The list is a long one: TV, cable box, DVD player, laptops, printer, MP3 players, telephones, cell phones, radios, remote controls, and anything with a cord. Nothing is safe from the drool. He loves to press all the buttons and to see what they do. Sprout has gotten so good at the buttons he has managed to start one of his DVD’s. The odds are long on getting the right combination of buttons to play a DVD on our TV. First, the TV and DVD player must be turn on and active. Then, you switch the TV to view the DVD player instead of the cable box. Finally, you press play on the DVD player only after you have waited for the disc to load. Either our son is genius or a very patient little boy and I do not think it is the patience.

Day 7 – More Cuteness

2009-11-07T21:15:00.004-06:00

I love being a dad because I get to s how off my cute little Sprout.

Day 6 – The Joy

2009-11-06T14:04:00.002-06:00

I love playtime with my son, Sprout because I can make him laugh just by doing the little things. He went into fits of giggles when I bounced the mini soccer ball off the top of my head. So naturally, he tried to bounce the ball off my head too. Never underestimate a child’s intelligence when it comes to playtime. His newest object of playtime is a Wonder Pets play set. In case you do not know the Wonder Pets, they are three small animals (guinea pig, turtle, and a duckling) who set out to rescue other baby animal all around the world. Linny, Tuck, and Ming-Ming are the three animals who believe in teamwork, and Sprout loves it when they sing their songs. This Wonder Pets play set has Ming-Ming, her cage and a baby panda to rescue. Sprout runs around the play area with Ming-Ming in one hand and the baby panda in the other and the only time you can get him to lay them down is when there is food involved.

Our child’s laughter is so delightful to hear, that it can wipe all of our worries away and fill us with tranquility. Kimberly and I love the sounds of our child and we marvel at the leaps and bounds he has made since he has started talking. I wish everyone could laugh like Sprout.

Day 5 – Unpredictability

2009-11-05T10:12:00.003-06:00

Sprout is a very photogenic subject when it comes to taking pictures and video. He just loves the cameras just ask Aunt Jessica, but sometimes things just do not work out the way you want them to. This is what I get when I try to script a 16 month old on video. I would not change this moment for the world, even though it did not turn out the way I intended. This video was taken on Halloween 2009 at Papaw Randy’s house. Sprout decides to chase the dog instead of trick or treat.