My Budding Masseuse June 29, 2007

I know why we have children. I always thought my Mom was kidding when she told me that she only had children so someone could go get her a Diet Coke. I realize now that she was only partially joking. I think she had us because she wanted kiddos to love and nurture and all that but I also think it was a very, very nice side effect that we would go fetch her carbonated beverages at her whim. We would be upstairs, she would be downstairs and she would holler at one of us to go get her a Diet Coke from the fridge. Her argument was that it was her right and that was what children were for after all.

I would not subject my daughter to that sort of slavery. I can get my own Diet Coke. Well, actually it is mostly because I cannot trust her not to take a tax off it. She does however give a mean foot massage and little did I know that this is why I had a child. We have a deal Mogo and me… I let her play with the lotion if she puts it on my feet. She loves it, it gives her ample opportunity to get her hands all greasy and Mom gets a foot rub! At first her foot massage technique was lacking, she would sort of slop the lotion on and I would have to do the hard work myself. Now after much practice, she is the Foot Fucking Master (eat your heart out Samuel Jackson) and she don’t be ticklin or nuthin! Well, that is a lie – she thinks it is hysterical to tickle my feet. I can put up with that though because even getting a pedicure it tickles like crazy. At least with Mogo I don’t have to pretend that it doesn’t and she does a better job than those ladies at the nail place. It also helps that she doesn’t talk to anyone about the fact that I have not shaved my legs in another language while she does it. She rubs each individual toe and applies just the right amount of pressure. She will also do my hands and after 8 hours of typing etc… at work it is oh so nice to get your hands massaged.

I do not expect this deal to hold its novelty for long but for now, I am totally taking advantage of my budding masseuse! I wonder if I could start teaching her shiatsu? There is a quid pro quo to the foot massage though… I have to do hers too. That is a-ok with me because she has the sweetest toes.

How the hell do you loose a lake? June 26, 2007

I saw this over at Mimi’s place and that is just creepy man. I’m just sayin.

Wiggling my Nose for my Imaginary Friend June 26, 2007

I live to read blogs. I have completely changed my web surfing habits because of my introduction to blogs. I have a few comfort blogs that I check everyday like a soap opera or something. Thing is, unlike a soap these are real people going through real stuff and they have real lives – I am pretty sure of that since well, I write one too and I am pretty sure I am real (well, mostly).

So now I have all sorts of friends inside my computer that I have never met or talked to but I know them intimately. I root for these people, I cry for them, and I cuss like a sailor on their behalf. I don’t know if they eat their boogers while driving or if they had a Raggedy Ann doll when they were little but the anonymous feeling of intimacy I get from reading their blogs makes me venture a guess (no, not about the booger eating) as to who they are. It is so strange to me that I could feel this bond with folks I have not ever met.

That said (and get ready because I am going to rant now)…

I was reading one of my comfort blogs today and I am crying and cussing like a sailor. The world is just not fair. I know – I know my Mama done told me that life is not fair but damn does it have to be SO VERY UN-fair? Not only is it unfair but it is almost as if the Universe targets specific people for repeated tragedy and pain. Julia over at “Here be Hippogriffs” (and here too) has a similar problem as I do, she has no problem getting PG, it is the staying PG that alludes her. She has a basic understanding about the cause though and has been doing IVF and whatnot to try and conceive (again, it seems she has a little boy around Mogo’s age I am thinking of proposing a betrothal actually.) She is currently PG with twins and just found out that one may have a translocation. I am not sure which chromosome but I do know that I hate the word translocation and I do not know this woman from Adam (whoever Adam is) but I know PG Loss and I know about translocations of those pesky chromosomes and well, FUCK. That’s all there really is to say… Fuck, bugger, bloody hell, JC on a Pogo Stick. This particular translocation debacle is only slightly more fucked because she is PG with twins and that just makes it that much more complicated. I just want to wiggle my nose and make it better for her, for us, for all of us who deal with this sort of loss but I am just not that kind of witch.

BTW… I know that in the grand scheme of things there is more happening in the world than pregnancy loss and neo-natal death. I know I am blessed and charmed and I am so grateful for my sweet Mogo (why do I have to make that disclaimer?) I get all that. I know that children are starving in
Indonesia and about a bazillion other places (including just down the street). There is strife in the world, there is pain, and there is injustice. Yes I get it, I get it but here? In my little corner of the world, in my heart, this is the thing that I can’t get out of my head. Why? Why her? Why me? Why does this happen? I consider myself a fairly spiritual person and I can usually see the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel but I still have to ask it – What is the fucking purpose of these losses for these women, for these families?

So say a prayer, light a candle, hug a tree, send some love, what ever you do when you hear about crazy fucked up situations or don’t but that is what I am going to do for my imaginary friend Julia and her little fetbryos.

Edited 8/2/07 to add: Apparently Ms. Julie and her twins are doing well and no translocations have been found. It was premature cynicism. I am breathing a sigh of relief for her. It also makes me painfully aware of what a roller coaster pregnancy can be after such loss. I am sure if I ever conceive again, I will be a mess until the whole pregnancy is over. I can’t wait.

Me & My Boat. June 25, 2007

So I think the only thing worse than the stomach flu would have to be the stomach flu at work. Thursday morning I went to work feeling a little under the weather. As the day progressed it turned into a full blown “I am going home right now lest I blow chunks in the middle of that lovely Technical Seminar we are hosting.” I bailed by noon to head for bed. So now it is Monday and I am back at work. Granted, now I am at the tail-end (pardon the pun) of said ailment but none-the-less it sort of sucks to be dealing with this and actually working too. It was much easier to handle the nastiness happening with my body this weekend while watching a marathon of Deadwood episodes curled up on my comfy nap couch with a bottle of Pepto and a gallon of Gatorade on the end table.

Saturday, I thought I had started feeling better enough to go spend time with some really great friends who I have not seen in ages. I do believe that I may have overestimated my digestive abilities by eating a cheeseburger & fries. I certainly ended up paying for it the next day (ALL DAY LONG). I really should have stuck to the BRAT diet instead.

I do have to mention that my Old Man was an absolute doll this weekend. See, I am the type of girl who has to be in the middle of everything when I am sick – Ok I am sort of a baby. I “make a boat” on the couch and have all the stuff I need within spitting distance and I alternate between watching infomercials, sleep, yelling at Mogo to stop sticking her fingers near the fan, and moaning about how I am dying. Sometimes I call my Mom to complain in her general direction and then I try some more sleep and take a shower or 5. I am sure it is all very annoying. My Old Man on the other hand will climb into the cave that is our bedroom and resurface 2-3 days later. You know he is feeling better when he emerges from the cave and wants to smoke and eat – in that order. Until then, just leave him the hell alone or he might just disembowel you.

I like to have someone hold my hair when I am praying to the porcelain god, a cool washcloth would be nice and oh, while you are at it you really ought to rub my back a little too. Matt will lock the bathroom door and take up residence until he is finished. If you ask him if he needs anything, he will just grunt at you.

So, Sunday I was pretty sure I just might up and die and he took sweet Mogo out for the day to let me get some much needed uninterrupted rest. Now this was not just for a 2 hour jaunt. Seriously, he & our girl left at 12:00ish and did not return until bedtime. I slept from 2:00 – 7:30 p.m. and it was divine! I do have a twinge of guilt that I was so horribly unavailable to the family this weekend but it was really nice to be able to rest and work on getting better. So props to my Old Man. I will have to make him a steak.

Just in case you were wondering… June 24, 2007

I’d rather have a nail driven through my foot than have the stomach flu.

Pink Eye gets the Stink Eye June 19, 2007

I hate Pink Eye (a.k.a. conjunctivitis). I used to get it when I was a kid during the summer months because of allergies. I would get the itchy eye and mess with it just enough to have it turn into a bacterial infection and I am sure this is the same sort of deal with Mogo. I always hated it but I loved it when the Doc would finally give me something other than a scalding hot washcloth to ease my discomfort. I was not a fan of the eye drops but it was better than having the feeling of sand in your eyes. I knew it would make me feel better. Now, as a Mom, it is really the bane of my existence (well, this week anyway). I can deal with boogers, and vomit and even blood (well, sorta) but eye globbers kind of freak me out. BLECK! This morning Mogo woke up with her eyelids sealed shut from the nastiness oozing out of her eyeballs.

“Mommy, I’m blind – can’t see!”

She had Pink Eye about 2 weeks ago and was given the antibiotic drops. She put up quite the fight on taking her medicine and I kept telling her if we did not do what the Doc said, she would get it again and just in time for the summer school session to begin.

I hate being right sometimes.

So now, she is still refusing to let me put in the drops. I have tried bribery (a spoonful of sugar anyone?), natural consequence warnings (Pink Eye = no school for you), and the barter system (If you sit still and have your drops, I will read an extra story tonight) all to no avail. The only person who effectively gets this girl to open up her peepers for a drop is Gramma (she is afraid Gramma might eat her) and I can’t very well make her come over 3-4 times per day can I? So as I predicted, we had to keep her out of school for the 1^st day of summer school. She was pissed off but still would not comply. This is the same girl who when it is time for her annual shots/blood draw gives the nurse the hairy eyeball and looks like she’s gonna throw down. No tears, she just sits there looking offended – appalled even. Needles are no problemo but you drop a bit of something in her eye and she goes berserk. I was hoping that realizing that she could not go to school would convince her but she is stubborn and is just not having any of the eye drop business. So do I have to hold her down and take a pair of tongs to her eyelids or what?

—- Edited 6/20/07 to note:
Stinker finally realized if she was ever going to go to school again, resistance is futile! Well, that and thanks to ivillage I now know that I can drop em in the corner of her eye while they are closed and wait for her to open her eyes! Who new there was a sneak attack method to eye drops? She still hates it & kicks and screams but if I can hold her down long enough to get a drop in, she has no choice about it, she has to open her eyes sometime.

7 Random Things – She tagged me and apparently, I am it. June 18, 2007

Mallory in the middle tagged me so here are my 7 random things.

1. My ring fingers are freakishly crooked. Come to think of it, my pointer fingers are sort of crooked too.

2. I have a bit of a foot fetish in a completely non-sexual way. I love toes. Ok well, I don’t love ugly toes. In fact, I am partial to women’s toes. I think women and children have pretty feet. Men as a general rule do not. I am not really into the Stinky Hobbit feet – it is ok if a man has ugly feet but I try to steer clear.

3. I watch “That’s So Raven” on Saturday mornings even if Mogo is over it and playing in her room. I like “Cake TV” and “Hannah Montana” too.

4. I was once fired from TGI Fridays because I was a horrible waitress. I can still balance plates and glasses though and I do on a fairly regular basis just to hear the oohs and ahhhs.

5. 7 of my favorite books are:
   - The Mists of Avalon by: Marion Zimmer Bradley (Miss Bradley could write a menu for Denny’s and I would be utterly enthralled. Such a pity she has passed on, RIP.)
   - The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
   - Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (A good Unitarian Universalist Boy)
   - Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by  Neil Gaiman,Terry Pratchett.
   - Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins (Actually anything by Tom Robbins is good)
   - The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams (Again anything by this author but this was my fav.)
   - Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling (I’m just wild about Harry but this was the best book by far from the series – can’t wait to see what she comes up with after Harry & The Gang perish)

6. Mogo’s name is Morrigan Faye and she was named for a Celtic Battle Goddess – No wonder she is such a sassy pants. She also has a serious Left-hook.

7. I am a Libra with Libra rising – Yes, it sounds like I ought to be all harmonious and stuff but really I am one seriously un-balanced chick.

If you are reading this, you are tagged so tell us 7 random things about you!

Moving – Bleck! June 14, 2007

So we will be moving yet again. This will be move # 4 in Mogo’s short little life. I have been putting off the inevitable. Our apartments are being refurbished. Apparently they need us out if they are going to add the new crown molding and central air/heat to what is really just a dump of an apartment. For all of these new amenities, they are going to charge $1500.00 for my rinky-dink 2BR apartment. This is the same place where they used the wrong sheet rock in the bathrooms so the walls are falling apart, and random pieces of wall decide to crumble because the guy upstairs is doing Jazzercise (I won’t even talk about the Jazzercise guy, although I don’t actually know that he is rocking out with Jane Fonda, I have a sneaking suspicion). You can put a pig in Armani but it will still be a pig – you know (stinky and all)? Anyways, they can have it. Some poor shmuck will agree to pay this un-godly rent so they can have the zip code and they can deal with drywall crumbles in their carpet and refrigerator doors that fall off at will.

Meanwhile, we have to figure out where in the hell we are going to hang our hats. When Mogo was very little, it didn’t really matter. She will be starting Kindergarten in the fall though and that matters. It matters where we move. It would be platinum if I knew this meant we would never again have to live in another apartment. Unfortunately with the housing costs of
San Diego, we will be lucky if we can find anything in a neighborhood where I would feel safe to walk to my car – let alone a house.

Dream sequence…

Oh to have a house… with a yard that has a fence and actual grass. A place where Mogo could roll around, get dirty, run in sprinklers, and harvest pill bugs & snails in her little bucket much to her delight. Maybe it would be such a backyard that I could tell her to go play outside and not have to be her shadow while she does that. A house… with a Master bedroom that will fit all of our furniture (including the fabulous antique vanity that I got for my b-day from Craig’s List for $30.00) and have enough room left over so we could have sex on the floor if we were so inclined. A house with curtains instead of vertical blinds (I HATE vertical blinds). A place where there is no Jazzercise Guy upstairs. Ooh and a washer & dryer so I could do a little laundry every day instead of saving all my laundry till the end of the week (or two) where I take 5-6 loads at a time.

Ok back to reality. I am working on it. Maybe the Universe will send me a lovely, lovely house, on a lovely lovely hill and the Landlady will adore our family so very much that when she dies she wills the house to us and the mortgage is already paid off.  Ok now I really mean it, I am back to reality. I am hitting up Craig’s List as we speak to find the apartment of our dreams.

Awww June 14, 2007

I luv her. She’s mine.

Photo by Aaryn

I am sort of an asshole. June 13, 2007

Disclaimer: To those who consider themselves my friends, please know that I love you despite my rantings. I just know I have been pretty miserable to be around.

I would like to think that I am a good friend. I just don’t think that is true. I think it was true once but frankly, I have just not been that interested in friendship. Is that horrible? I love my friends. I want to hear how they are doing. I want to shoot the shit or giggle ridiculously about what ever craziness is going on in our lives. That said I have grown to hate the telephone. I don’t want to give up time with Mogo to go out and do anything on the nights that I do have a sitter (which is rare) and I don’t want to have to be nice to anyone for an extended period of time. I just don’t really want to participate in being a friend these days. I feel like I am just now coming out of a very dark place. In some ways I feel great. I have had so much energy, I have been on the ball work wise and Old Man & I have been doing famously. In other ways, I am still in that funk. Meds help. I am not sure any of this will ever completely go away though.

I would like to say that I am all better after our son died. I have certainly made great strides. I’m not better, just more functional. Hey functional is a blessing. I like functional. Functional = not loosing my job. There are those who have insinuated that I ought to be over it. That this experience should not still impact me as it does. I am here to say that I will never be over it; I will only achieve greater levels of functionality over time. This experience may not define me but it makes up who I am. In the categories of my life, “Dead Babies” is right at the top of the list right above Mother, Wife, Ex-Wife, Admin, Short, and Green Eyes etc… The Dead Baby” category has not always been at the top of the list it may have been about four down just above ex-wife until Aidan died. I fully expect as time passes that it will fall down quite a few notches on that list but for now, it is #1.

I am very different than I was before my first pregnancy loss and I am 10 xs different than who I was September of 2005. I am more cynical, I am less likely to take anyone’s shit (or perceived shit anyway) and I am more likely to tell you to take a flying leap. That is why I have been avoiding people. I don’t want to be an asshole. The fact is I am an exposed nerve. I wish it weren’t true but I am.

Occasionally on-line you will run across a list of things you shouldn’t say to someone who has lost a child or who is dealing with infertility. The list is a mile long. I can think of a bazillion things you should never say to me. However, notice that there is no list of what people should say to someone experiencing this sort of thing. There is a reason for that. It is because Nothing you could say would be right… ever. You cannot win! Julia over at Redbook’s Infertility Diaries was touching on this a bit today. There are things you could say to me now that you couldn’t say to me 3 days/weeks/months after Aidan died and there are things now that I have no sense of humor about that in 3-6 months might not bother me in the least. There is no way to tell. What I really need is psychic friends but I think that Dionne Warwick is probably busy and while the majority of my friends are fairly intuitive, I am not sure they can read my mind (If I am wrong about that I will just say I am sorry now for the things I have thought!). That is the only way that anyone would ever be able to win with me. Otherwise it is a crap shoot. The only person who can really get away with anything is my Old Man and that is because well – he loves me warts and all.

So as they say in those 12 step programs… it’s about progress, not perfection. I am working on it. In the mean time, if I don’t return your calls right away just know it is probably better that way. I love you and I will call you when I know I am not an asshole.