Twas Brillig

Today when I click on my FeedJit Live thingy, which tells me who lands on my site and where they come from, including Google searches, I noticed that I had an abundance of My Super Hopeless Romance related searches.  Since I’ve mentioned that blog before, and since Google has a crush on me (seriously, they put my blog at the top of some really random searches!) I wasn’t too surprised by the actual search, but more by the QUANTITY of people searching for it.

Oh, I’m addicted to Cordy’s blog as much as anyone else, but I haven’t had the chance to read it (or anything else) in the last few days.  But I figured if the internets were returning searches such as “Super Hopeless Romance Mad” and “My Super Hopeless Romance SUCKS” then something must be going on.  So I clickity-clicked over to the blog… and… well… I learned that the whole thing had been a ruse.   It was fiction.  There IS no Cordy and Seth.  And that the world is picketing her front yard with pitch-forks because of it.

Upon learning the truth, I was SHOCKED!  STUNNED!  GASPING FOR AIR!  CURSING SUE (of Navel Gazing, the real author of My Super Hopeless Romance) FOR THE TERRIBLE RIDE SHE’D TAKEN US ON!

Ummm… okay, NO.  I was not ANY of those things.  I’d had my suspicions about the authenticity of the site, but I didn’t CARE.  The point was, it was a blast to read.  An addiction like Lays potato chips— you can’t read just one post.  It was just a fun, good, romantic tale.

It is now so much more than that.  Seriously.  It’s now LEGENDARY.  LEGENDARY, people!

Sue started a simple blog for fun, pretending to be Cordy, a single 23-year old who was in love with her best friend.  She linked it up here and there, but the wildfire caught on all by itself.  Cordy was an overnight superstar.

And I guess Sue couldn’t live with the guilt, so she finally told the truth about it.  And you won’t BELIEVE the things that people have been saying to her!  I guess she’s getting hate mail by the hundreds!

WHY?  Because she entertained us?  Because a bunch of us mommy-bloggers were living vicariously through her delicious romantic tale?  I don’t get it.  I think the girl’s brilliant.  I tip my hat to her.  She started the blog at the beginning of October and had taken over bloglandia by the end of October.  Don’t pretend like you wouldn’t love to do the same thing!  And the fact that she’s feels SO GUILTY over it just makes me adore her that much more.

So why on earth am I posting about any of this?  Well, because, people are coming to my blog in search of my opinions on My Super Hopeless Romance.  Now they have it.

What’s YOUR opinion?

When I was a toddler, I fell into the swimming pool in my backyard.  My mother found me four minutes later, floating face-down.  Blue.

To make a long story too short (because I really should tell the whole story sometime), the paramedics came and I was rushed to the emergency room where it was pronounced that I would be fine in the long run, but that I would likely develop pneumonia over the next few days.  And sure enough, that’s exactly what happened.

My mother recalls the nights that she lay by my side, listening to my tortured breath.  She talks about how she would check on me over and over again, just to make sure I was still breathing.

Bubba has been sick all week.  Scooby too.  My strong, healthy boys are brought to their knees when they get sick.  It’s… cute!  The snuggle with me, they hug me, they need me to make them all better.  I love those quiet moments, the soft kisses, their belief that my presence is all they need.  And then, they get well again.  And they jump on the couches and throw baseballs at the lamps and torture their older sister, like all robust, healthy boys do.  And the snuggles and softness are but a distant memory.

So you have to savor it while you can.

But as I was enjoying all the snuggles this week, I couldn’t help but fear for Isaac who, miraculously, had not yet gotten sick.  But I knew he would.  He always does.

It’s funny that when Bubba and Scooby were sick, it didn’t really occur to me to call a doctor about it.  It was just a fever and a cold.  Nothing more.  Nothing my big boys couldn’t handle on their own.

But tonight, Isaac is sick.  I can hear his breathing from across the house— and when, for one reason or another, I CAN’T hear him breathe, I panic and rush to him and stare at his chest, making sure it rises and falls.

Oh, sure, his funny breathing sounds just like Bubba’s sounded all week.  But when Isaac sounds like that, it’s not cute.  It’s not sweet.

It’s awful.

You may think I’m overreacting, and I probably am.  But my memory isn’t so short that I don’t remember this little phase in Isaac’s life:

(That’s how they give babies chest x-rays… They are also considering using it in Guantanamo as a torture device.)

(That’s an oxygen monitor strapped to his feet)

(His very own hospital gown— who knew they made them in “petite” sizes?)

(Breathe, baby.  Breathe.)

Of course, that was all a long time ago.  Over a year and a half ago.  He was just a tiny little baby then.  Still, just as my mother recalls sitting awake with me during the night to make sure I was still breathing 28 years ago, I will never forget sitting in the hospital, listening to the raspy little sounds of my tiny baby sucking desperately for air.

When Isaac gets sick, he does it with style.  None of this silly 24-hour stuff for him.  Oh no.  He likes to drag it on for a few weeks or more.  He likes to turn it into a very big production.

One last little trick with Isaac is that he sits alone.  Bubba and Scooby come running to their momma for loves and snuggles.  But Isaac pushes me away.  No loves, no snuggles, no kisses.  My maternal need to reach out and hold him only causes him more trauma.  He needs me to stop touching him.  He needs me to stop looking at him, talking to him.

Tonight, as I looked at his miserable little face, drained of its color, and listened to his miserable little voice, barely audible now, I didn’t hug him.  I didn’t snuggle him.  I handed him a stack of blocks.  And he stacked, and he stacked, and he stacked in perfectly straight rows, with everything lining up so that it was perfectly even.  That was the hug.  That was the snuggle.  I’m learning, slowly but surely, to speak his language.  It might not quench my yearning, my need to hold him.  But he feels loved and comforted.  And, after all, that’s my job.

He’s in bed now.  Tomorrow we will see a doctor.  Again, maybe I’m overreacting.  I didn’t seek out a doctor when Bubba and Scooby were sick.  But everything with Isaac is different.  So tomorrow we’ll get him looked at.  We’ll got those oxygen levels checked.  Tonight, though… tonight, I will listen to him breathe.

Psych! I’m not pregnant, at least not that I know of. Though you’ll be happy to know that I emailed this photo to my hubby at work, who knew that I’d be taking a pregnancy test today. I wrote, “just thought you should know…” and offered no further explanation. I was then going to email him back and tell him I was just kidding, but he called me first and, with total shock in his voice, said “congratulations…?” I felt really bad. The joke wasn’t supposed to go that far. Fortunately, he’s a really good sport (a MUCH better sport than I would have been!) and he hasn’t stopped laughing about it and telling his friends about it and so on.

So, why all the pregnancy tests?  Do I really think I could be pregnant?  (I suppose, at this point in this post, I should put in a TMI warning…)

I use the beautiful little miracle called Mirena (the popular IUD) to keep from becoming pregnant.  Mirena has served me well, in that she has mostly kept me from becoming pregnant, along with making it so that I don’t even have periods anymore.  Since the only thing in the world that I hate more than being pregnant is having my period, you could say that Mirena has been a good friend.

There was, however, that one time that I DID get pregnant with the Mirena.   About a year and a half ago, when Isaac was only about 8 months old, I discovered that I was pregnant.  Of course, I discovered it while I was in the process of miscarrying.  I wasn’t sad, I wasn’t hurt, I was furious.  I was so mad that I had gotten pregnant at all.  Not that I should have been terribly surprised.  After all, I also got pregnant on the pill once and also one time on the mini-pill while I was breastfeeding.

Hi.  My name is Fertile Mertile and I will be your baby factory this evening.

Abstinence may be my only sure-fire form of birth control.  Of course, YOU’LL have to be the one to suggest this idea to my husband, because I’m sure not going to…

Still, after that initial pregnancy/miscarriage weirdness, Mirena has, as I said, served me well.

But when you haven’t had a period in about a year and you suddenly start acting pregnant, it can really freak you out.  I mean, there’s no biological occurrence that tells you difinitively that you AREN’T pregnant.  So, what’s a girl to do?

Well, she buys a bundle of pregnancy tests.

What do I mean by “acting pregnant”?  Hmmm, well…  Let’s go through the list:

1.  I burst into tears for NO REASON AT ALL. Like, CONSTANTLY.  Seriously, I have no idea what this about because I’m just NOT a weepy person.  I’m the sort of person who has one good cry every six months or so and usually because something really devastating has happened.  But in the last week, I’ve probably bawled my brains out fifteen times.  Why?  I have NO idea.  Often, even in the midst of my crying, I think, “holy cow.  I don’t even feel sad.  Why am I crying?”

2.  To say that I’m easily irritated would be a huge understatement.  Again, this is not like me at all.  I’m very easy-going.  But not right now.  Just ask Brian, who suddenly wonders what happened to that nice lady he used to be married to.  I’m SO SNIPPY and rude and ready to FIGHT over nothing.  Not just with Brian, though he’s obviously the most likely target, but with the neighbors and the kids and the dog and even with inanimate objects, like the end table that I bonked my knee on.  Have you ever been FURIOUS at an end table?

3.  I’m SO TIRED.  Ugh.  I’m tired with that kind of debilitating tired that comes with pregnancy.  The only time in my life that I’ve felt this particular version of “tired” is when I’m pregnant.

4.  I’ve got “Placenta Brain.”  Any pregnant woman (and her partner) will tell you that pregnancy makes you stupid.  You forget words you’ve always known, you do things that are totally illogical, you forget appointments that you’d never miss otherwise.  Case in point (though this is just one in a long string of Placenta Brain moments):  On Friday, I dressed the boys in their Halloween costumes, baked cookies, picked Bubba up from Kindergarten, and RACED to my friend Amber’s house for her annual Halloween party— she lives in Arvada, which is north of Denver, and I’m in Highlands Ranch, which is the south metro area.  It’s a forty-five minute drive, Gentle Readers.   Anyway, I get to her house, carrying my cookies and herding my three boys in costumes, and I ring the doorbell.  No answer.  I ring the doorbell again.  Still no answer.  This goes on for 15 minutes.  Since we were late, we assumed that maybe they were inside playing a loud game.  So we snuck around the house, broke into her backyard, and started pounding on random windows.  Finally I decided it was time to leave, though I hated the thought of her not knowing that I’d TRIED to come to her party, and I hated the thought of driving all the way BACK to Highlands Ranch, having wasted all that time, energy, and gas!

Well, suddenly Amber pulls up to the house with her little boy.  Both are staring at me, wondering what on earth I’m doing.  By now, I’ve figured out that I’m an idiot.  She starts walking towards me, still not quite sure who I am, and I bellow, “the party’s not today, it’s next week, huh.”  And then I burst out laughing— like, Crazy Hysterical Lady laughing.  The shell-shocked, but always graceful Amber laughs right along with me and invites me in.  We end up playing at her house for a couple of hours.  It turned out to be a lovely time, but BOY did I feel like a MORON!!!  So, yeah.  I’m experiencing an onslaught of Placenta Brain.

5.  Stomach Flu.  Okay, everything else was in place, but suddenly on Friday evening, I get hit with the stomach flu in a big way.  And since Brian wasn’t puking too, it definitely wasn’t food poisoning.  Oh my gosh, thought I.  This HAS to be it.  I’m totally pregnant.

So I stayed home from church yesterday, and sat in bed, contemplating pregnancy.  It made me cry, because I’m totally overwhelmed at the possibility.  I mean, I love kids.  Like, a lot.  But let’s recap my life right now:

~I have 6 fish.  Okay, fine, it’s not that big of a deal.  Still, they’re mouths to feed and creatures that need to be cared for.

~Our puppy.  Max is like a baby, except that he’s mobile and he chews on stuff and doesn’t wear a diaper.  He needs round-the-clock attention.  Yes, even in the middle of the night.  Who knew puppies were so much work?  I definitely didn’t know!

~A husband who is still on the brink of losing his job.  Nuff said.

~One brilliant and delightful princess, practically perfect in every way, but who brings home lots of homework.  This morning, for instance, we got up at the crack of dawn to finish working on her time capsule.

~One rambuctious kindergartner with lots of energy and a very, very loud voice.  He can make such loud sound-effects that you actually begin to BELIEVE that there’s a train in your kitchen.

~One big fat stinker of a preschooler.  Oh sure, he’s as adorable as they come, but MAN is he a stinker!  The boy has a knack for destruction!

~One toddler.  That would be enough to handle anyway, but throw in that he’s a “special needs” toddler and it takes you to a whole different realm of toddlerhood.

Okay, see what I’m saying?  I CANNOT HANDLE ANYTHING MORE!  I’ve hit a wall, my breaking point.  So, as I’m currently prone to do, I just sat and bawled over the thought of being pregnant on top of all of this.

But, the little pee tests say that I’m not.  Relieved, yeah.  Bewildered, definitely.  Worried, a touch.  Sad, maybe slightly.

Wow, this post got long.  (And whiney.  Really, really whiney.)  Still, since you only hear from me about once a week lately, I guess I’m allowed to be long-winded, right?

Off I go, then.  It’s nap time.  At least, I pray that it’s nap time!  But before I go, let’s play a fun game and see just how many people only look at the picture I posted and don’t read the actual post and say, “congratulations!” in the comments.  Hahaha.  Seriously.  You know SOMEONE’S going to do it! 

I’m listening to the new song, “Human,” by The Killers for approximately the ten thousandth time today.

This is something I do.  I get obsessed with a song and I listen to it over and over again until I get so sick of it that I’d rather shoot myself than listen to it again.

Surely, a wise person would say, “then stop listening to it.”

I just can’t.

Do you have a favorite song?  I totally don’t.  I have a million favorites and what I love today might be something that I hate tomorrow.  And what just doesn’t speak to me today could be tomorrow’s obsession.

I know that there are other people who, like me, couldn’t possibly pin down their favorite song of all time.  But some people can!  Which sort of person are you?  Do you have one absolute favorite?

Perhaps if we broke it down by genre?  Nope.  Even then I couldn’t do it.  Believe me, I just tried.

So, let me ask it this way:  You can choose ONE SONG to listen to today.  What song is it?  (As in, don’t tell me what you liked yesterday or last year.  What do you want to listen to right this second?)

(For the record, this isn’t just my way of fishing for comments— though, let’s be honest, I’m ALWAYS fishing for comments— but also because I’d love to download something to keep The Killers company on my currently very short playlist…)

(Also because I think that the music that people listen to can tell you a lot about them, which I find fascinating!)

(And no, I’m not sure what it says about me that I’m obsessed with a group called “The Killers.”  I’m sure Freud would have some interesting ideas about that, though.)

1.  THOMASES DON’T KNOW HOW TO BLOG

My family, as in, my parents and siblings, have a lot in common.  They are highly intelligent, gorgeous (natch), and adventurous.  They always have great stories to tell.  However, another thing they have in common is that they’re ROTTEN at keeping in touch.  So I came up with this brilliant idea that I would start a family blog.  Everyone is assigned one day of the week to post.  My parents would take one day, and then each of us six kids and our families would take the other six days.  Hahaha.  Let the hilarity commence.  Teaching my family how to blog has been QUITE the adventure!  We got the whole thing all set up over the weekend and then I posted on my day (we’re going youngest to oldest, and since I’m the youngest, I post on Mondays).  You’ll be happy to know that it is now Wednesday and the ONLY post on the family blog in mine.

It’s not just the posting that’s complicated— it’s the setting up a gmail account (we’re using Blogger, because I figured it would be easier for novices), signing in to the blog, and even COMMENTING that have been the real drama here.  Wow.  Who knew this would be so difficult?  I thought it would be a fun, easy way for us to stay in touch and keep a conversation going.  Apparently I was wrong!  Hahaha.  Fortunately I have one sister, the oldest, who will not be letting me down.  She knows how to blog.  So I guess there will be posts every Saturday and Monday.  Anyway, this is one project that has taken immense amounts of time.

But before I leave this subject, I really HAVE to show you the photo that I turned into the banner for our new blog:

I’m the little pipsqueak in the front.  I must have been about 4 years old here, so I guess the photo is from 26 years ago.  And no, I haven’t stopped giggling about my brother Chris’s shorts…

2.  MAD MAX!

We found the puppy of our dreams!  It was almost miraculous the way it all worked out.  Max is a 7-week old purebred golden retriever. He is our pride and joy! Max isn’t just our new family member, but he has a job to do, too! He was specifically chosen to be a therapy dog for Isaac. Golden retrievers make excellent therapy dogs and are particularly tuned in to children with autism. And Isaac has already proven to us that he connects emotionally with animals in a way he is not yet capable of connecting with people.

However, once again, what I hadn’t taken into account was just how much time and energy puppies require!  I thought I was all prepared to mother a puppy.  But somehow I didn’t quite realize that I would be up all day and all night with him.  Somehow I didn’t realize that puppies pee THAT FREQUENTLY.  Somehow I didn’t realize that my younger children need to be supervised every second that they’re near him.  Wow.  This is exhausting.  But!  Don’t let my whining fool you.  I LOVE THIS DOGGY!  He’s like one of my own babies.

3.    Swimming and Ballet and Piano, oh my!

I feel overrun by my children’s extracurricular activities.  It’s funny, because I’d really wanted to get them into soccer and basketball this season too, but didn’t because all of it together would have cost too much money.  But now?  HA!  Forget the money, it’s TIME that I’ve run out of!  This is another one of those mom things that they don’t really tell you about.   You see the photos of the soccer moms with their hair all perfect and their cute little outfits, cheering their children on from the sidelines.  LIES!   We’re really a bunch of haggard, exhausted women who consider their hair “done” when it’s halfway falling out of a scrunchy left over from the 90’s and consider themselves “dressed” when their sweats sorta match.  There ain’t NOTHIN’ glamorous about it!  Because, see, WE DON’T HAVE TIME TO SHOWER!

4.  Crack(ed glass up your nose) is Whack

So, I have a beautiful bathtub.  It’s surrounded by tile, with ledges at the head and foot for me to put things like pretty candles.  I have a gorgeous, gigantic glass-and-iron candlestick on one of the ledges.

And I usually keep the door locked, because Isaac is a menace to society and completely undisciplinable.  So as much as I love to find my make-up and lotion spilled all over the place and crayon scribbled all over my shower, I try to keep it locked.

Apparently, the other day, it wasn’t locked.

He knocked the candle into the bathtub and it shattered glass everywhere.  Of COURSE, being the selfish brat that I am, the first thing I thought was, dang!  I liked that candlestick!!  Then I started to remember that I’m a MOM, so finally I wondered if Isaac had been hurt by all the shattered glass.  But I couldn’t find any evidence of cuts or anything, so I moved on.

Half an hour later, his arm is covered in blood.  I clean it up, but I can’t find a cut.  Blood is coming from SOMEWHERE, but where?

And then I find it.  His nose.  There is glass stuck up his NOSE and he’s bleeding but wiping it away, so I hadn’t seen the blood there yet.  And I can’t get him to sit still long enough for me to get the glass out of his nose.  Oh my gosh, I’m dying here.  This is just so… so…  ISAAC!  And I have to remember that just because Isaac doesn’t EXPRESS pain doesn’t mean that he doesn’t FEEL it.  I’m sure he was in a whole lot of pain.  I mean, imagine if there were glass digging into the flesh inside YOUR nostril?  Yeah… that would hurt.

But there was not a single tear coming out of his eyes.

So, we ended up at the doctor’s office.  I had Bubba and Scooby with me too, so that was fun.  It’s interesting, because looking back, I realize that Bubba and Scooby were traumatized by the whole thing too.  There we were, in a miniscule exam room, while the doctor was poking and prodding at Isaac’s nose while I held him down.  Isaac was screaming his brains out (more due to being poked and held rather than about the pain) and blood was GUSHING from his nose like a fountain, drenching me and the floor.  And because of their trauma, Scooby and Bubba were acting out WAY more than I expected them to.

But, the doctor got it all figured out and Isaac was sent home “cured” though we were told to expect lots of vomiting, due to the TONS AND TONS of blood that the kid had likely swallowed.  But, yay!  No vomiting!  How’s THAT for a silver lining?

5.   Too much cool stuff in Bloglandia!

I get these ideas of games I want to play, contests I want to enter, and posts I want to write in response to others’ posts.  It’s overwhelming!  And, of course, instead of doing ANYTHING, I just sorta hide out and do NOTHING!  Still, this week I really think I’d like to enter Discovering Dad’s Adventure of a Lifetime contest (the question is, how do I pick just one adventure?  There are so many!  Any suggestions?  Are you playing too?) so look for that tomorrow… or soon.  haha.  And I WILL be playing Soap Opera Sunday this week (hosted this month by 2 Hearts) because I remembered that I DO actually have a “long-distance relationship” SOS to share!  Still, that only scratches the surface of the games I want to play along with.  I’m pretty much hiding from the rest— and not commenting anywhere, despite the fact that I’ve read a lot of your posts…  Cuz I stink like that.  WHY are any of you people still tolerating me?!

In the meantime, think of me cleaning up poop (thanks to all the various creatures that manage to get poop on my rug) (you can call me “Anniepooperscooper” the way my family does) and hopefully I’ll see you soon!

I miss you!

1.  About a week ago, the amazing Amber Johnson, editor-in-chief of the Denver Post’s Mommy-Blogger group, Mile High Mamas, contacted me and asked me if I’d be willing to send them a post to be published there this week.  And, of course, I think I may have squealed and hyperventilated a bit and sounded way too over-eager when I said, “um, SURE!”  Anyway, it’s there now, so please go and read it— and comment, so that it looks like people like me…  Because I would feel like a big fat idiot if they published my post and then it just sat there, comment-less, with, perhaps, a big neon flashing sign above it saying, “LOSER.”

2.  Thanks so much to Heather of the EO for being such a marvelous Soap Opera Sunday host for the month of September!  We are now looking for a host for the month of October.  The theme of the month will be long-distance relationships (hey, Melissa, you asked for it)!  If anyone would be willing to be the host-of-the-month, please let me know and I’ll give you all the details.  Wheeee!  Yay for Soap Opera Sunday!

3.  When was the last time someone called you a bitch?  I suspect that people may call me that behind my back, but I don’t actually remember the last time someone called me that to my face!  And then, last night happened.  After what can only be referred to as a day from hell, I took a meal to a woman in my ward (church congregation) who had just had a baby.  I had to find a place to park where I could carry in the food and keep an eye on Isaac who was still in the car (because I couldn’t carry him AND the food).  It was an apartment complex and apparently every parking spot is assigned.  I didn’t know that.  Plus, I was just dropping something off, super quickly, so I wasn’t really paying attention to the way I parked.  Anyway, I come back out and there’s a woman and her teenage daughter standing by my car.  The woman says, “BITCH!  Don’t you know there’s guest-parking over there!?  You took my spot!”  Oh, yikes.  I apologized profusely and told her that I understood why she was so angry— I’d be mad too!  I told her I was only dropping something off and that I was new around here and didn’t know.  And then the teenage daughter says, “Hmmm, I think you were just being a BITCH.”

At first I was stunned that the daughter had talked to me that way.  Then I realized that OF COURSE the daughter talked that way, thanks to her mother’s charming example.   Still, the whole thing really shook me up (possibly because, as I say, it came at the end of what had already been the day from hell).  I got into my car before either of these two started a fist-fight with me (because I would have lost pathetically, though wouldn’t that have been a fun blog-post?) and drove away, feeling hurt and really sad for society in general— is this how we’re going to talk to each other?  Is this how we’re going to teach our kids to talk to each other?

4.  The fish is still alive, for those of you who were wondering.  And no, we haven’t bought our dog yet.  We’ll almost certainly be getting a golden retriever, and we’re looking into getting him from a local rescue.  Hoping to find a puppy…

5.  That is all.