What Life is Like at My House

Conversations with Sam

After seeing something on Colbert about how to donate money to Japan Tsunami/Earthquake victims...

Sam: Can you feed poor people with money?
Justin: Well, you could buy them food.
Sam: No! Can the mouth of the WORLD eat the money?
Justin: Pop! My mind is blown.

***

We are playing with finger puppets. Sam puts them in a house and says it can fly.

Rachael: Where are they?
Sam: They are at Disneyland.
Rachael: What is Disneyland?
Sam: It's a place where all your dreams come true.
Rachael: Oh, really? What kind of place?
Sam: A place where your dreams come true.
Rachael: What do you do there?
Sam: You solve the mysteries of your dreams.

***

Sam: Bees have butt swords!

***

Edie and Justin were talking about a (bogus) speeding ticket she got today when a kid ran across the street in a school zone. Sam told us to stop talking about it, that it was "freaking him out"... because kids shouldn't run across the street without an adult.

He then explained how an adult should have been with the kid because you never go into the road without holding hands because the cars are dangerous.

The best part is that we didn't even know he was listening to the conversation (about 10 minutes at that point, mostly over the reasons the ticket was bogus and to things like never choosing "mitigate" as your plea if you ) and all of a sudden he chimes in with his opinion on the matter, and he phrased it in a way that was concise, coherent, an correct.

Justin followed up with "That's why I love you, Sam... you rock"... That puzzled him a bit, because all he did was state the obvious. Never run into a street by yourself!

***

Sam: Everybody was babies in the wild west... and the cities... and the east too. Yeah. The east.

***

Justin: It might be a tumor
Rachael: It's not a tumuh!
Sam: It'a a three-more!

13 Things Strep Throat Taught Me This Week

It all started on Sunday morning when I woke up with a vaguely sore throat. While I was out that day, I felt out of it - my head wasn't right and I sort of felt like the world was just happening around me. By the time I got home from my book club in Seattle around 9 that night, full on chills had set in. It's been a miserable week.

13 Things Strep Throat Taught Me This Week

1. It is possible to go from being freezing and shivering under 2 blankets with slippers and a fleece shirt to sweating as if you'd just run a marathon in under 20 minutes. Without moving.

2. Every day you can wake up and think you feel better, to be reminded only 10 minutes after being upright that you still feel crappy.

3. It is hard for 2 kids to deal with a Mom who is sick and a Dad who might possibly be coming down with something.

4. My husband is awesome.

5. Even when the 101-102 fever you've had for several days goes away, you can still continue to have hot flashes.

6. If you are deciding whether to call the doctor because you might be dying and your throat has white spots, you can Google pictures of strep throat and find this guy. You will laugh even though you feel like crap.

7. If it didn't hurt so much and make you want to collapse into the fetal position, strep throat would be a great weight loss plan.

8. Sometimes, you don't care how many hours of video games get played as long as it's occupying someone and you don't have to move.

9. It is possible to throw up even if you have not eaten in 2 days.

10. If you've already taken your temperature, maybe you should not decide to experiment by taking your temperature in your armpit because when it reads 102.5 you will feel even more miserable.

11. It is possible for the screeching of a baby and a preschooler to be even more painful than normal when your entire head is full of sick.

12. Not being able to physically walk to the bottom of your (1/4 mile long, hilly) driveway with the baby to get your 4 year old to his bus will make you feel lame.

13. It is possible to become exhausted just from writing a list post. I need a nap.

Hope your week was about 2 million times healthier than mine.

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30 Days of Truth Days 13-16: Four birds, one stone

The prompt for Day 13 of 30 Days of Truth is "A letter to a band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days."

No. Just no. I'm not doing this. I really like Sarah McLachlan, and she makes me feel things, her music really means something to me. But I don't really credit her with getting me through anything. Because I am 30 and not 15, I don't think I can really answer this.

The prompt for Day 14 of 30 Days of Truth is "A letter to a hero that has let you down."

I honestly would not know what to write here. I am sure at some point I have had a hero that's let me down. Maybe. But I really don't know who, or what they did. Sorry Charlies. I'm just not that jaded.

The prompt for Day 15 of 30 Days of Truth is "Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it."

Huh. The only thing I've tried living without that I can't give up is certain types of food. Which, like I've said before, is why Weight Watchers is so great. Because I don't have to give anything up, I just have to limit myself. I can't think of anything else I've actually HAD to live without, so instead here are 13 things I wouldn't want to live without. Because, really, the only things I COULDN'T live without are like air, water and food, right?

1. My family - my husband, my kids, my sisters, my Mom etc.
2. Samoas
3. A notebook to write my lists in
4. TV
5. Books
6. My Clarks clogs
7. The Internet
8. Indoor plumbing
9. My camera
10. Yoga pants
11. My best friends
12. Cheese
13. Toenail polish in summer
    

The prompt for Day 16 of 30 Days of Truth is "Someone or something you definitely could live without."

1. Ever seeing anyone with camel toe
2. My cat's incessant meowing when he wants something, which I think is usually something imaginary, because nothing I do makes it stop
3. The stench of Danny's formula
4. Fatness
5. Commercials for sanitary products, erectile dysfunction drugs, hemorrhoid cream, and catheters
6. Black licorice
7. Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, George W. Bush, and the Governer of Wisconsin. No, I will not Google his name because he sucks.
8. Gas prices
9. People who like to think that stay at home moms are lazy/don't work
10. Clutter
11. When one of my kids starts screeching, then the other one joins in because the first one is too loud
12. The Real Housewives of ANYWHERE

For the other 29 days, click here.

For more Thursday 13 posts, click here.

30 Days of Truth Day 12: I NEVER get compliments on...

The prompt for Day 12 of 30 Days of Truth is "Something you never get compliments on."

You know, this meme is sort of fun. Except there are some days that you can tell were written by a teenager. What the hell is this? Is this where I'm supposed to fish for compliments? Or am I supposed to list things I don't get complimented on because they suck? I don't get it.

Here is a list of 20 things I never get compliments on.

1. My spleen
2. My kneecaps
3. My juggling skills (they don't exist)
4. My keen sense of distance (it's not)
5. My appendix
6. The fact that I still have my tonsils
7. The way I smell after 3 days without a shower
8. My list-making neurosis
9. My hamstrings
10. This one big mole on my back
11. My cellulite
12. These really ugly pink sweatpants I wear around the house that have two small holes in the butt from when I used them as a unicorn Halloween costume and tied a purple and white feather boa on for a tail.
13. My chapped lips
14. The bags under my eyes
15. The way I drive (it's average)
16. The money I make (um.... yeah... this doesn't pay)
17. My strict, disciplinarian skills with my children
18. My resistance to Girl Scout Cookies (hahaha)
19. My score on the SATS (it was 1280)
20. My hairy big toes (hobbit!)

See the other 29 days here.

He went to smoke and never came back

It is odd being in the emergency room. I always brace myself before I enter the room, because I never know what I'll find. Sometimes, I get some back story from a nurse or a police officer before I go in, sometimes I just get a name and room number.

Tonight, she has not decided if she wants to report her assault, so no Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner has been called in. There is usually one on, but she is sick tonight. The SANE's usually keep the door closed, but tonight it's open.

It's strange to hear the noises coming from the other open doors. Across the hall, there is a little kid, probably four or five, who can't stop barfing. It's sad. I hear whispered conversation from the person in the bed next to hers. Clips of conversations about a previous miscarriage, something about diabetes.

We always believe the assault survivors, no matter their story. I find that it's almost always easy not to doubt them. As soon as I see their faces, I find a moment in their shoes, and I want to take away their pain. I know it's impossible, so I do what I can.

The bedsheets on the wheeled gurneys in the ER never fit right. They look soft, like t-shirt fabric, but the edges always hang loose like extra skin on someone who lost a lot of weight. The white blankets always look so thin, and I wonder if she is warm enough.

I feel so secure, loved, and care for in my life and I can't imagine a life of being scared and abused always, from the moment you can remember.

Where is the call button? We've been waiting for someone, but we can't find the button. Eventually, I find it on the floor, hanging from it's cord on the wall. It must have gotten knocked down when she got her X-rays. After an hour, I leave to find someone and get information about what is next.

When I arrived, her "friend" was there with her. He told me he was going to have a cigarette and never came back.

There are children at home, and I try to imagine being raped and then having to find a babysitter.

*as always, my posts about my volunteer work are not specific to any date or situation, but composites of memories I have.

*****

I had to make a difficult decision recently to take another break from my work as a volunteer advocate for Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Services. I love it, but right now I have two small kids at home not sleeping through the night, and my one night alone with my husband most weeks just got changed to Friday, which is when I've been doing my on call shifts. With our family life and our schedules, it's just too much right now. I'm sad to give it up because I love it, but my kids and my marriage have to come first. I'm staying on the list so I can volunteer at one off events and attend trainings, and hopefully participate in some of the events for Sexual Assault Awareness Month in April. For now, I'll just have to look forward to the day when I can jump back in.

30 Days of Truth Day 11: The Write Stuff

The prompt for Day 11 of 30 Days of Truth is "Something people seem to compliment you the most on."

Doesn't it feel weird to write about something people compliment you on? We really should be allowed to toot our own horns once in a while, but humility is such a virtue, right? In any case, one thing that people have complimented me on is my writing. I LOVE to write. I have since I was young. It's evolved over time. I started writing in a journal in 5th grade, and by the time I was 20 I'd filled about 25 blank books with writing. Everything from crushes, to letters that could never be sent, to poetry, to what I was up to at that time in my life to free writing. As a teenager, I wrote a lot of poetry. I have an enormous binder full, and every once in a while I share a little bit of it here. I wrote some short stories, which I haven't shared here, but perhaps I should. I know none of them are DONE done, but they may still be good enough to entertain SOMEONE out there. I wrote for my high school newspaper for three years, and at one point wanted to become a journalist. I have started a novel I'd love to finish one day. I wrote a column for a local paper a few times when I was 17 or so.

Now, this is where my writing lives. Even if no one read it, I'd still write here. Because it's in my blood, and I love it. I also do some ghostwriting online, which is wonderful and lets me use a part of my brain that parenting and housewifery doesn't. I would write if no one was reading, but when people tell me I am a good writer? It certainly feels amazing!

Here's one of my old poems for you. I originally wrote it in London in 1999, then revised it for a poetry class I took in college a couple of years later.

South Ken

I walk, surrounded
by the sounds of buskers,
the sight of husks full of people
sleeping bag cocoons of bodies.

These sights, sounds and feelings
send me reeling with awe,
the shock of a flaw in such a magical city
overflows my mind.

Voices pull me back, flush
with the rush of normal people bustling,
by, accustomed to hustling by and ignoring
“Homeless and Hungry – Please can you help?”

Imagine living
a life dependent on the giving of strangers
facing the dangers of cold and sickness
with only a sleeping bag and cardboard sign.

Playing a flute
in a putrid underground tunnel
people funneling by with glassy, uncaring eyes
thinking ‘maybe if I had smaller change’.

I pause before wood,
tiny statues laid on blankets, and should I buy
a polished lion or butterfly just to feel better?
I don’t meet his eyes.

And we walk
surrounded by din, talk winding around us like a snake
I can’t seem to shake off this white noise
wondering why
we never stop to wonder why.

Read the other 29 Days here.