I wish I could remember who to give credit to on this one, but instead I'll just have to say this was inspired by a blog I saw awhile ago and hope to add the reference later.
Some time ago one of my fellow bloggers posted a quote (yes, I'm paraphrasing!) about hyperactive children. It went something like - all children climb on things. Your child might be hyperactive if he climbs on top of the refrigerator. She then posted a picture of her son in a spiderman costume climbing on the car windshield.
I laughed and thought of the story my husband had told about how his parents had taken away the cape from his superman costume so he'd stop trying to fly, but then I forgot.
I mentioned it to him awhile later and he looked at me and said - oh, I used to climb on top of the refrigerator.
I stopped what I was doing to stare. The things is - I was a climber as a kid. But this was always out of necessity. I had a very late growth spurt, so climbing was part of overcoming and adapting to the world. I climbed on the counter to get a glass for a drink. I climbed on the bathroom vanity to get a band aid. And, ok, yes, I did climb too high in our tree - but trees are meant to be climbed!
But here's the thing - he'd actually "done" the hyperbolic example!
I meant to blog about that then, but forgot.
Until this weekend... when my 16 month old daughter, who had shown *some* interest in climbing - up on the couch and chairs, going up the stairs, that sort of thing - climbed up into her high chair on her own.
I had my back turned and couldn't figure out how she'd managed to get up there. I had to wait to see her do it again. She put her knee up to the foot rest (about her chest level) with her hands on the seat. Once she got herself up that far, she moved her hands to the arm rests to get further up on the foot rest and then moved her hands to the back of the chair to pull herself into the seat.
My husband looked at me and said - on the one hand, I'm really impressed. On the other, oh crap.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Oops! My Guest Post
Forgot to mention - I'm a guest blogger over at Our Mommyhood this week. Please stop by and check it out when you have a chance - http://www.ourmommyhood.com/
The difference between men and women
Me: I know it'll be expensive, but I want to get some decent eye cream. I'm starting to get dark circles and I'm worried that I'll end up with those deep bags that really age your face.
Hubby: Hmm, do I have circles and bags too? (looking in the mirror) I kind of do. Maybe I should do something about that too (except he would never consider a moisturizer. It's too close to make-up, I think!)
Me: You know, what would probably make a real difference for you would be if you drank more water/stayed hydrated and used sunscreen.
Hubby: Yeah, but if I do that, then I won't look like a crusty old man!
Hmm...sort of the look I was trying to avoid for myself...
Hubby: Hmm, do I have circles and bags too? (looking in the mirror) I kind of do. Maybe I should do something about that too (except he would never consider a moisturizer. It's too close to make-up, I think!)
Me: You know, what would probably make a real difference for you would be if you drank more water/stayed hydrated and used sunscreen.
Hubby: Yeah, but if I do that, then I won't look like a crusty old man!
Hmm...sort of the look I was trying to avoid for myself...
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
That 4:00 o'clock feeling
For me, that 4:00 o'clock feeling is some combination of the following:
1. Check the to do list to make sure there's not something random and major that really needs to be done today before I go home.
2. Speed up on whatever I'm working on so it will be done sometime in the vicinity of 5 (5:30 is in the vicinity of 5. 6 is probably not an easy walk - you might want to drive. 8 pm? That's a plane ride, my friend.)
3. If I feel like I've done NOTHING all day (it happens), check and make sure that there wasn't a big SOMETHING I was meant to be doing.
4. Also check that internal to do list of the personal things I meant to get done that I'll be too tired to do in the evening / will never get done on the weekend (credit card payment sent yet?)
5. And if I'm really really feeling organized / optimistic, think about what we might do for dinner - possibly look up a recipe or ask the hubby about it (so I'm not running to the store and getting home to start cooking at 7. See yesterday.)
My boss's 4 o'clock feeling seems to go more like this:
Hmm - got this email from [me] this morning about a project. I should look at that. Then gets distracted. Somewhere around 4:45, he gets to looking at it and right around 4:59 calls me for the changes he'd like today.
OK, I'm exaggerating. I'm not sure there's a 45 minute process. I think it might be around 4:55 that he realizes I'm going to leave soon and needs to call me before. About something I sent him 6 hours ago. This is most popular on Wednesdays, as I'm part time and don't work Thurs or Fri (which explains why I leave somewhere in the vicinity of 5).
In the case of today, it's a meeting scheduled for 4 to discuss the status of something my coworker sent at 8:15. Maybe I better call the hubby to make sure he's shopping for dinner now (last night when I got home and asked about dinner he suggested - let's just eat tomorrow.).
1. Check the to do list to make sure there's not something random and major that really needs to be done today before I go home.
2. Speed up on whatever I'm working on so it will be done sometime in the vicinity of 5 (5:30 is in the vicinity of 5. 6 is probably not an easy walk - you might want to drive. 8 pm? That's a plane ride, my friend.)
3. If I feel like I've done NOTHING all day (it happens), check and make sure that there wasn't a big SOMETHING I was meant to be doing.
4. Also check that internal to do list of the personal things I meant to get done that I'll be too tired to do in the evening / will never get done on the weekend (credit card payment sent yet?)
5. And if I'm really really feeling organized / optimistic, think about what we might do for dinner - possibly look up a recipe or ask the hubby about it (so I'm not running to the store and getting home to start cooking at 7. See yesterday.)
My boss's 4 o'clock feeling seems to go more like this:
Hmm - got this email from [me] this morning about a project. I should look at that. Then gets distracted. Somewhere around 4:45, he gets to looking at it and right around 4:59 calls me for the changes he'd like today.
OK, I'm exaggerating. I'm not sure there's a 45 minute process. I think it might be around 4:55 that he realizes I'm going to leave soon and needs to call me before. About something I sent him 6 hours ago. This is most popular on Wednesdays, as I'm part time and don't work Thurs or Fri (which explains why I leave somewhere in the vicinity of 5).
In the case of today, it's a meeting scheduled for 4 to discuss the status of something my coworker sent at 8:15. Maybe I better call the hubby to make sure he's shopping for dinner now (last night when I got home and asked about dinner he suggested - let's just eat tomorrow.).
Monday, June 21, 2010
Monday Minute - 6/21/10
1 - Have you ever had any feelings towards one of your teachers back in the day?
Hmm… Nothing much really. I mean, most of my teacher’s were women, so there wasn’t a lot of opportunity (although I really did love my earliest teachers. I thought my kindergarten teacher was SO pretty with her long blonde hair parted in the middle and her blue eyeshadow. Did I mention it was 1980?). I sort of had a very mild crush on my HS math teacher. He was a really great teacher and his class was a lot of fun. I think my love was more of math / the class than the teacher though. “Luckily” I had the antichrist the next year and got over the crush on higher level math as well….
2 - What's the most embarrassing thing that happened while at work?
I don’t know if I have a really great one here. I mean, somewhere I told the story of my boss knocking on my office door while I was pumping / expressing milk, but I wasn’t actually all that embarrassed (he, on the other hand, has not knocked on my closed door since. I consider it a win, actually).
I’ve done tons of stupid things, but they’re not all that funny to share.
3 - When was the last time you crapped yourself sharted?
Um, I can’t think of a time I’ve done this as an adult. But I will tell you, my husband as a paramedic has definitely gotten the advice from old men – “never trust a fart.” This wisdom is right up there with the old men who say – “never waste an erection.” Words to live by, my friends.
4 - What is one thing you have always kept a secret and why have you kept this a secret for so long?
Always? Always is a long time… I keep quite a bit secret on my blog – really all personal identifiers. This is mostly so I can be more honest in my writing. If all my friends and family were reading, I’d filter the stories to suit. I do still try to abide by some rules on what I blog about (sort of pretending they are reading and not talking about people behind their backs, that sort of thing).
5 - What's your best advice for us habitual coffee drinkers as to not have to poop right after drinking it?
Um… decaf? Actually, I don’t think that works either. Tea? Drink it with iron tablets, as I think those are supposed to cause constipation….
Father’s Day - In Memory of my Dad
In honor of Father’s Day this past weekend, I thought I’d write a post about my Dad. After all, he was the English teacher who inspired me to want to write as a kid (and maybe even as an adult too!).
It’s a little hard to think where to begin. My Dad inspired a lot of my life – even in his death. I hate to define him by death but truly – he even did that really “well.” He was diagnosed with cancer in late May of 2002. He’d had a malignant sarcoma (soft tissue cancer) in his back a few years before, but the doctor had removed it and said he was good to go – no need for chemo or radiation even. Turns out, he probably should have gotten a second opinion. The cancer spread to his lungs with a large tumor nestling itself on the aorta – so that in x-rays it actually just looked like a shadow of the heart. He’d been sick for several months, but x-rays then had revealed nothing. It was only found during an exploratory surgery.
I guess when my Mom told me that they’d found it – but didn’t remove it – I should have understood more about what that meant. Some place inside, I think I did, but not a place I was willing to share with my conscious mind. So I kept trucking along – visiting and talking to them more, but that was it. Scared as hell, but pushing that down. It was in September that the oncologist confirmed this was terminal. He’d do chemo (in addition to the radiation he’d already had) as long as it was palliative, but eventually they’d stop that and we’d lose him.
I talked to my Dad one time about what the possible “options” were – he said, there were two chances in all this. The first was a miracle (when hope number one is a miracle, that’s not all that reassuring) and the second was that the chemo could keep him around long enough for a cure to be found. So, being a religious man, my Dad chose a saint to focus his prayers for intercession on (Brother Andre of Montreal). He often said – Brother Andre needs one more miracle to be canonized and I need just this one miracle – it’s a win/win! And then he said – but if I get this miracle, I can’t just take this extra time I’m given in life and use it for me. I think I’ll plan to go someplace I’m needed and volunteer for several weeks or a month each year. If God’s given me this extra time, I can’t be selfish in it and need to share that. I remember I told a friend that and she said – you know, that’s really a lesson for all of us (using the time God has given us for others). I answered abruptly (only say 85% joking…), “Nope! No lessons without the miracle!”
The months of his illness went on – there were a few small moments of hope, but there were a lot more moments of abject fear (at least for me). I’d taken him out one time in October or so to go shopping for a birthday gift for my Mom. He’d taken an anti-nausea medication and it hit him during lunch, with horrible side effects. He was starting to hallucinate a little (as a side note, this was actually not an uncommon side effect for my Dad with medications. He’d had horrible hallucinations on morphine after his appendicitis. They’d finally gone away and he was watching the news when the Falkland Islands War was being covered. He saw that Argentina had declared war on the UK and called my Mom very upset – his hallucinations were clearly back! Nope, turns out truth is stranger than fiction) and was very unsteady on his feet. I was scared. I wanted to drive him to a hospital, but I suddenly realized that hospitals couldn’t do anything for him and that scared me in a whole different way.
But in all this – while I felt scared and confused and wondered about how to maintain faith. He didn’t. It was unreal – but only once did he ever mention anything like fear to me. He said, sort of academically, that this was odd for him. He’d never really known anyone who was dying, so it all felt like a strange uncharted territory. I tried to probe a little, but that was it. I think I was the only person who really ever cried much in front of him. I tried not to, as I think it upset him – but then again… Even though I knew he didn’t want us to be sad, well maybe it wasn’t so bad to see one person get a bit overwrought every once in awhile – you’d know you were really missed!
When asked how he felt about it all. He said he was pretty much ready. He said – look, I’m asking for this miracle, but I’m not at all mad if I don’t get it. I’ve had a wonderful life – how can I be mad at God for giving me so much? Sure I’d like more, but getting mad about not getting it would just be greedy.
That was a hard spirit for me to maintain… But when I’d start to get angry, I’d find that train of thought coming towards me. A friend of mine said at the time – the only way this could hurt less is if you loved him less.
I thought about that one a lot. During this time, a lot of people said a lot of well meaning, but in the end, kind of dumb things. This was the most noteworthy exception and it’s what I always say to people now. Because, the more I pondered it, the more I thought – you know, I wouldn’t give up one good memory to have it hurt less that I can’t repeat those. I suddenly felt a little less powerless in a situation that beat at my type A, control freak personality!
He eventually lost the battle against cancer in March 2003. As it happened, he’d actually seemed to have been on a decent plateau at the time – where we would have thought that we’d have a few more months at least. Despite months of a terminal illness, it felt sudden. Sudden enough that it was the first weekend in months that I wasn’t coming home to visit. I’d been exhausted with the strain of the constant drive and, selfish as it may sound, I’d wanted a weekend off to be young and go to a friend’s birthday party. My Mom called Friday night to tell me to come home, but despite breaking every traffic law known to man, I didn’t quite make it in time. (My brother and my cousin used to joke about their “beat the clock” trips back from DC – every one a challenge to how quick you could make it. That trip – at about 2.5 hours from Northern VA to Central NJ - was probably the new standard.)
And, what can I say? It really really sucked for awhile. But after a little over a year of first avoiding dealing with anything and then falling into my negative emotions, I finally came up for air. And it turned out that he even had the power to inspire me in death. I looked at my life and said – I’m fairly young and healthy and it’s time to get out there and live my life. I finally fully freed myself from a bad relationship (well, emotionally. The relationship was over quite awhile before) and just went out to have some fun. I took belly dancing lessons (even though my stress – all this was coupled with a very stressful time at work and finishing grad school – had put me at a point where I was very underweight and missing the required belly). I played adult kickball. I did 8 minute dating. And I decided to just get out there and stop worrying so much about the future and just have fun. And when I did, my future walked in – I met my husband about 6 weeks later.
And to think, my Dad, as he tried to insure that everything was taken care of and we were on the right path, had been so worried I might not ever settle down and meet someone! We were married about two years later and though I didn’t have my father daughter dance – a thought that had hovered in my brain during his illness – we did invite everyone to dance to “My Daughter’s Eyes” in his memory because he “was there. In [his] daughter’s eyes.”
Ooh… got really schmaltzy there at the end! Sorry for the long babbled post this week. What crazy things these Hallmark holidays do to us!
It’s a little hard to think where to begin. My Dad inspired a lot of my life – even in his death. I hate to define him by death but truly – he even did that really “well.” He was diagnosed with cancer in late May of 2002. He’d had a malignant sarcoma (soft tissue cancer) in his back a few years before, but the doctor had removed it and said he was good to go – no need for chemo or radiation even. Turns out, he probably should have gotten a second opinion. The cancer spread to his lungs with a large tumor nestling itself on the aorta – so that in x-rays it actually just looked like a shadow of the heart. He’d been sick for several months, but x-rays then had revealed nothing. It was only found during an exploratory surgery.
I guess when my Mom told me that they’d found it – but didn’t remove it – I should have understood more about what that meant. Some place inside, I think I did, but not a place I was willing to share with my conscious mind. So I kept trucking along – visiting and talking to them more, but that was it. Scared as hell, but pushing that down. It was in September that the oncologist confirmed this was terminal. He’d do chemo (in addition to the radiation he’d already had) as long as it was palliative, but eventually they’d stop that and we’d lose him.
I talked to my Dad one time about what the possible “options” were – he said, there were two chances in all this. The first was a miracle (when hope number one is a miracle, that’s not all that reassuring) and the second was that the chemo could keep him around long enough for a cure to be found. So, being a religious man, my Dad chose a saint to focus his prayers for intercession on (Brother Andre of Montreal). He often said – Brother Andre needs one more miracle to be canonized and I need just this one miracle – it’s a win/win! And then he said – but if I get this miracle, I can’t just take this extra time I’m given in life and use it for me. I think I’ll plan to go someplace I’m needed and volunteer for several weeks or a month each year. If God’s given me this extra time, I can’t be selfish in it and need to share that. I remember I told a friend that and she said – you know, that’s really a lesson for all of us (using the time God has given us for others). I answered abruptly (only say 85% joking…), “Nope! No lessons without the miracle!”
The months of his illness went on – there were a few small moments of hope, but there were a lot more moments of abject fear (at least for me). I’d taken him out one time in October or so to go shopping for a birthday gift for my Mom. He’d taken an anti-nausea medication and it hit him during lunch, with horrible side effects. He was starting to hallucinate a little (as a side note, this was actually not an uncommon side effect for my Dad with medications. He’d had horrible hallucinations on morphine after his appendicitis. They’d finally gone away and he was watching the news when the Falkland Islands War was being covered. He saw that Argentina had declared war on the UK and called my Mom very upset – his hallucinations were clearly back! Nope, turns out truth is stranger than fiction) and was very unsteady on his feet. I was scared. I wanted to drive him to a hospital, but I suddenly realized that hospitals couldn’t do anything for him and that scared me in a whole different way.
But in all this – while I felt scared and confused and wondered about how to maintain faith. He didn’t. It was unreal – but only once did he ever mention anything like fear to me. He said, sort of academically, that this was odd for him. He’d never really known anyone who was dying, so it all felt like a strange uncharted territory. I tried to probe a little, but that was it. I think I was the only person who really ever cried much in front of him. I tried not to, as I think it upset him – but then again… Even though I knew he didn’t want us to be sad, well maybe it wasn’t so bad to see one person get a bit overwrought every once in awhile – you’d know you were really missed!
When asked how he felt about it all. He said he was pretty much ready. He said – look, I’m asking for this miracle, but I’m not at all mad if I don’t get it. I’ve had a wonderful life – how can I be mad at God for giving me so much? Sure I’d like more, but getting mad about not getting it would just be greedy.
That was a hard spirit for me to maintain… But when I’d start to get angry, I’d find that train of thought coming towards me. A friend of mine said at the time – the only way this could hurt less is if you loved him less.
I thought about that one a lot. During this time, a lot of people said a lot of well meaning, but in the end, kind of dumb things. This was the most noteworthy exception and it’s what I always say to people now. Because, the more I pondered it, the more I thought – you know, I wouldn’t give up one good memory to have it hurt less that I can’t repeat those. I suddenly felt a little less powerless in a situation that beat at my type A, control freak personality!
He eventually lost the battle against cancer in March 2003. As it happened, he’d actually seemed to have been on a decent plateau at the time – where we would have thought that we’d have a few more months at least. Despite months of a terminal illness, it felt sudden. Sudden enough that it was the first weekend in months that I wasn’t coming home to visit. I’d been exhausted with the strain of the constant drive and, selfish as it may sound, I’d wanted a weekend off to be young and go to a friend’s birthday party. My Mom called Friday night to tell me to come home, but despite breaking every traffic law known to man, I didn’t quite make it in time. (My brother and my cousin used to joke about their “beat the clock” trips back from DC – every one a challenge to how quick you could make it. That trip – at about 2.5 hours from Northern VA to Central NJ - was probably the new standard.)
And, what can I say? It really really sucked for awhile. But after a little over a year of first avoiding dealing with anything and then falling into my negative emotions, I finally came up for air. And it turned out that he even had the power to inspire me in death. I looked at my life and said – I’m fairly young and healthy and it’s time to get out there and live my life. I finally fully freed myself from a bad relationship (well, emotionally. The relationship was over quite awhile before) and just went out to have some fun. I took belly dancing lessons (even though my stress – all this was coupled with a very stressful time at work and finishing grad school – had put me at a point where I was very underweight and missing the required belly). I played adult kickball. I did 8 minute dating. And I decided to just get out there and stop worrying so much about the future and just have fun. And when I did, my future walked in – I met my husband about 6 weeks later.
And to think, my Dad, as he tried to insure that everything was taken care of and we were on the right path, had been so worried I might not ever settle down and meet someone! We were married about two years later and though I didn’t have my father daughter dance – a thought that had hovered in my brain during his illness – we did invite everyone to dance to “My Daughter’s Eyes” in his memory because he “was there. In [his] daughter’s eyes.”
Ooh… got really schmaltzy there at the end! Sorry for the long babbled post this week. What crazy things these Hallmark holidays do to us!
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Black and blue
As a small child I can remember wondering how I'd ever be able to wear skirts / stockings as an adult because everyone would see my black and blues / bruises. I simply didn't know how women did it! I wasn't (particularly) clumsy, but I was a kid - I was active! I climbed trees (did I ever? I'd climb so high, my Dad would have to talk me down. Hmm... active, but maybe not the smartest kid...), I played sports (badly) and I just played. It was a good day if I only had a scrape or bruise or two.
Hmm... now that I think of it, I did fall down some as well. There was one particular spot. It seemed that nearly every week walking to church one spring I fell on the SAME spot of sidewalk where a tree was pushing up the path. It was so frequent that as I'd run ahead my parents would remind me - remember the uneven spot is coming up. Don't fall! I'd yell back - I know! Afterall, I walked to school this way every day (and for some reason, never fell then - just every Sunday morning) and I'd fallen there before. And yet, a few minutes later, I'd be turning around to run back to my parents with torn tights and bloody knees. As a parent now, I imagine their sighs as I'd done it yet AGAIN. (By the way, sadly, no, this was not a phase I grew out of. It wasn't even solved by my parents choosing to drive the block and half to church as we often did anyway. It was solved by the sidewalk getting fixed. My Grandpa was a councilman and he moved that particular spot up on the priority list - cause it was clearly a safety hazzard!)
Anyway, eventually I *did* in fact grow up (well, mostly) and as I got to the age of skirts and stockings, it seemed that I magically didn't seem to have so many scrapes and bruises. I wasn't playing sports anymore (turns out people who fall down all the time on the same spot of sidewalk aren't necessarily athletic). I probably wasn't climbing so many trees. And the sidewalk had long since been fixed. So it turned out I could wear a skirt without violent bruises shouting out to the world.
Fast forward to today. I look down at my daughter's learning to walk legs and I've noticed that she seems to have a similar pattern of bruises to what I remember - faded black and blues and little scrapes adorning her chubby little legs. But you know, you might not even notice. The reason? I am covered with bruises again! I don't know what it is! There are at least 5 on my legs today - 2 or 3 reasonably faded ones on my left knee and another (also, mercifully faded) on my right and then a bunch of random (not really faded) ones higher up my legs! It's gotten to the point where, as the weather gets nicer and I'm wearing shorts, my husband seems to comment daily - dude, where did you get that one?! Man, that thing is huge! People are going to think I hit you!
Apparently he was at the park yesterday and happened to notice a few other mothers my age there with small children and said - Ok, it turns out they all have these huge bruises on their legs too. That made me feel a little better as my husband does not seem to be beat up the way I am. I thought maybe she just didn't like me... ;)
What about you? Do your kids practice their baby jujitsu on you? Do you bear "the marks" of motherhood (and here I thought it was just stretch marks and cellulite)?
Hmm... now that I think of it, I did fall down some as well. There was one particular spot. It seemed that nearly every week walking to church one spring I fell on the SAME spot of sidewalk where a tree was pushing up the path. It was so frequent that as I'd run ahead my parents would remind me - remember the uneven spot is coming up. Don't fall! I'd yell back - I know! Afterall, I walked to school this way every day (and for some reason, never fell then - just every Sunday morning) and I'd fallen there before. And yet, a few minutes later, I'd be turning around to run back to my parents with torn tights and bloody knees. As a parent now, I imagine their sighs as I'd done it yet AGAIN. (By the way, sadly, no, this was not a phase I grew out of. It wasn't even solved by my parents choosing to drive the block and half to church as we often did anyway. It was solved by the sidewalk getting fixed. My Grandpa was a councilman and he moved that particular spot up on the priority list - cause it was clearly a safety hazzard!)
Anyway, eventually I *did* in fact grow up (well, mostly) and as I got to the age of skirts and stockings, it seemed that I magically didn't seem to have so many scrapes and bruises. I wasn't playing sports anymore (turns out people who fall down all the time on the same spot of sidewalk aren't necessarily athletic). I probably wasn't climbing so many trees. And the sidewalk had long since been fixed. So it turned out I could wear a skirt without violent bruises shouting out to the world.
Fast forward to today. I look down at my daughter's learning to walk legs and I've noticed that she seems to have a similar pattern of bruises to what I remember - faded black and blues and little scrapes adorning her chubby little legs. But you know, you might not even notice. The reason? I am covered with bruises again! I don't know what it is! There are at least 5 on my legs today - 2 or 3 reasonably faded ones on my left knee and another (also, mercifully faded) on my right and then a bunch of random (not really faded) ones higher up my legs! It's gotten to the point where, as the weather gets nicer and I'm wearing shorts, my husband seems to comment daily - dude, where did you get that one?! Man, that thing is huge! People are going to think I hit you!
Apparently he was at the park yesterday and happened to notice a few other mothers my age there with small children and said - Ok, it turns out they all have these huge bruises on their legs too. That made me feel a little better as my husband does not seem to be beat up the way I am. I thought maybe she just didn't like me... ;)
What about you? Do your kids practice their baby jujitsu on you? Do you bear "the marks" of motherhood (and here I thought it was just stretch marks and cellulite)?
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