Chris and I are embarking on a new “family time” strategy, because the old strategy of “we’ll just fit that in as it comes along” was, frankly, a load of unproductive hooey.
Now, the past year has been a doozy, and there have been so many days when we have been so spent it has been all we could do to hole up in front of our respective screens (my computer, his television) and hide in our little zones of interaction free safety. There have been too many evenings that felt more like throwing vittles to tiger cubs and then hiding from them as they rambunctiously tore through the house than happy, positive family interaction. And it finally drove me crazy. Thank heaven!
We have decided that between 4:30 and 8:00 (ish of course, this really means “when Chris gets home to when the kids go to bed”) there will be no television on. The internet is off limits. We will eat together, play together, do stuff together. Now, it isn’t going to be all fun and games. There are errands to run, dinner to cook, commitments to keep; life goes on. But hopefully we will be more present. We will have more time for each other and not get caught in the selfish, unhappy habit of zoning out of life, because this life we’re zoning out of? It’s pretty great. We have awesome kids. We have an awesome relationship. Let’s live it, eh?
In this focusing on each other time I really hope that the kids learn to love family time, right now when they are little so that when they are older they will still think home is a fun place to be, not a place to escape from or just a place to sleep. Of course, we have always played with our children and loved them. They know we think they are pretty cool people, but by increasing the time we spend really with them, I hope we will gain more cohesiveness. I hope that we will become closer. I hope that Jonas will get this positive interaction and that it will make him happier and more secure and less likely to act out. I hope it brings the Spirit into our home because we have turned off the world and turned on what is really important.
Yesterday was our first official night of this. We had dinner and Chris and Jonas played outside with a frisbee. Jonas had been a huge helper throughout the day (cleaned his whole room and tidied the house too!) I told him that I would let him choose a toy, so I took him to the store. When we left the BX, Jonas saw the dark sky and exclaimed, ‘Oh no! You made me miss playing with Dad!” Telling, no? We went home and played cards for awhile before bed, and then tonight Jonas and Chris got to play frisbee again. Tonight the children listened to me play my guitar and sing, I am grateful they are blissfully young enough not to be critical of my very limited skills, or lack thereof.
I have been doing a lot of reading and pondering on motherhood lately. Now, I know that I’m not doing a terrible job. My children are reasonably happy, learning, healthy, spoiled, and they absolutely know that they are loved. We spend time with them. We take them to church. We give them opportunity to develop relationships with extended family. We are an ok family, doing alright. But I don’t want to do alright. I want to do the best I can and I feel very limited and humbled by my own inadequacy.
I really feel that people who don’t take family very, very seriously in this day and age will lose them, whether through divorce, children making stupid choices, or people just being spiritually and emotionally empty. To truly have a strong family requires a mother who catches the vision of her role, who does not demean herself by being less than she is, and who does everything that she can to magnify this sacred calling and gift. It isn’t easy. Motherhood at its most basic is a tough row to hoe, but I am firm in my belief that as mothers, we are entitled to all of the blessings of Heaven that our task requires. After all, it is His children we are raising, not our own. Heavenly Father wants us to succeed, and He will always give us the strength and intelligence required to best serve our babies. He will also show us the way when we realize that we could be doing better. So we keep trying. We keep moving forward, and we do a little better each day. That’s all we really need to do.
Posted by Lou on February 29, 2008 @ 8:37 pm | 8 Comments
Today, I am going to tell you about the time I threw up a tampon.
Ok, it wasn’t really a tampon, but it looked just like one.
I was about four months pregnant with Jonas, and since I suffer from severe morning sickness that only fades a bit with lots of drugs and IVs, I was, as usual, puking. Only it wasn’t the usual reversal of the stomach lining that I had grown accustomed too. This time, something got stuck in my esophagus and I couldn’t breathe at all, so I was hunched over the toilet thinking, “Oh my gosh. This is it. This is how I’m gonna die. I’m going to croak suffocating on my own vomit. Dang, that’s gonna look stupid in the obits!” Thinking about the humiliation of dying this way I managed to pull my energy together, pop several blood vessels in my face, and heave what looked exactly like a tampon that one has accidentally dropped into the toilet, into the toilet.
For a long time I just stared at it. These things don’t usually go from down there to the stomach to be barfed into an unsuspecting toilet, and even if they did, I’m pregnant, so it’s been awhile, you know? I look around to see if just maybe a random box of tampons is out and one magically fell into the toilet at the same time that I was vomiting. There’s nothing out.
So I do what any woman who has been barfing ten times a day for three months would do. I stick my hand into the toilet bowl full of puke and retrieve the faux tampon. I cradle it in my hand for a second; it doesn’t feel like a tampon, in fact, it’s kind of squishy, a bit sort of like if you were to leave brie out too long on a warm summer day. I have the sudden jolt of realization that this is, in fact, cheese.
Now, it started out as milk, which I had drunk earlier that day to relieve some heartburn, but apparently, being in my warm body for a few hours it had curdled and started the miraculous transformation from milk to cheese. I squished in around in my hand a bit more and let it squeeze through my fingers. When you think about it, the fact that I can make cheese is actually pretty darn neat.
My grandma used to warn me against drinking milk when I was sick. I don’t remember the exact reason why, something about it curdling inside and making me sicker, but now I know, don’t I? It’s so I don’t asphyxiate on my own vomit and die and end up humiliated on my tombstone forever:
Here Lies Lou;
Choked on Her Own Vomit, Poor Idiot Drank Milk When She Was Sick.
Posted by Lou on August 9, 2005 @ 11:03 pm | 18 Comments
I just found out that our family doctor has left our base hospital. Normally it doesn’t bug me too much to have to switch doctors, since I think most of them are professional guessers anyway, but I liked this one. Although I don’t think she was any more brilliant than most of the doctors I’ve put up with in the military’s lovely medical services, she had the good sense to listen to me, and she seemed to understand that I probably know my body better than she does.
I haven’t always been this bitter about doctors, in fact I was quite trusting up until about four weeks into my seven week “vacation” at Utah Valley Hospital when I was expecting Jonas. I had gone into pre-term labor (because, you know, that’s just what I do), and had been transferred an hour and a half north of my home to this huge hospital that was supposed to have the best NICU (Neo-Natal Intensive Care unit for those of you who are lucky enough to never have had to know what that place is) in the region. According to my tests and my contractions, the kid was coming soon, even though I was only twenty-nine weeks along. To make a long story short, I enjoyed seven weeks of hospital food, no cable, six shots a day, and a whole bunch of nasty drugs that made me hallucinate, vomit up the nasty hospital food, and become more weak than I have ever been in my life. Gratefully, I delivered at thirty-six weeks.
During the course of all this hoopla I learned a thing or two. I learned that some doctors are good and some doctors are self righteous pricks who need to be kicked out of your hospital room. I learned that just because the doctors says, “do this” doesn’t mean you have to do it. In fact, unless you are unconscious you would be pretty stupid to just blithely go along with whatever they write on your chart. If you are unconscious you absolutely need to have a person there to act as your advocate, who knows your wishes. That is my big advice for the day. Never, ever, EVER leave your loved one at the mercy of an overworked medical staff who are pulling twelve hour shifts and mixing up patient files and forgetting to give medications at the right times. It’s not smart. Doctors make mistakes. You’ve got to be informed.
The next time I went into pre-term labor, I was much, much better informed. I was also not putting up with crap from anybody. I went from “The Best Patient Ever” to “You Do Realize That You Are Doing This Against Medical Advice And I’m Going To Write That In Your Chart, Young Lady.” I can honestly say that the second time around, the only doctor who liked me was my own, and probably because she wasn’t there for the worst of it. But can you blame me? The first thing the doctor did when I got there was overdose me. I even asked, “are you sure I’m supposed to be taking this much?” Medical arrogance won the battle and the last thing I remember hearing before there is an half an hour void in my memory is, “Shoot! Her blood pressure’s really low. Get some oxygen! How much of that stuff did she have? Ohhhh, that wasn’t right.” No kidding. When I came back the doctor laughed and said, “Gee, you’re a real feather weight on that stuff, har, har.” Yeah, you’d be too if I gave you a double dose. A horse would have passed out, jerkface.
The thing that amazed me is that when I wouldn’t comply with everything this idiot wanted me to do for the rest of my stay, he was shocked. “But I’m the doctor,” he seemed to be thinking, “I’m God.” At one point I asked to have my IV removed. I was stable and it wasn’t serving any purpose except hydration and the way I was sucking down jugs of water and running to the john every twenty minutes that didn’t seem to be a problem. He didn’t want me to remove it and tried to convince me that I should leave it in, because, what if, like last night, they needed to give me intravenous meds? “So you plan to screw up again?” I wanted to ask him. Instead I just took the port out myself when he left the room. (It’s not hard; you just yank.) He bitterly wrote it up with the list of other stuff I’d done AMA and I could see the nurses snickering behind his back.
Anyway, I have a hard time finding a doctor I like. I want someone who will listen to me and believe me when I say something isn’t right. My old doctor used to let me call in when there was a problem because she respected my ability to self diagnose. I’m not saying she was going to give me narcotics over the phone, but if I said the baby had a yeast rash she’d put the prescription in and not make me have to deal with six levels of military bureaucrats to try and get an appointment in their sweltering, understaffed clinic. We’ve been assigned a new doctor and I’m nervous about her. I need to schedule a well baby check for Maggie, so I guess I’ll find out soon enough. If I really hate her I guess I can change the kids to pediatrics and have myself seen at the women’s clinic, but then I’ll have to learn to like two doctors instead of one.
Posted by Lou on July 1, 2005 @ 9:38 pm | 8 Comments
This really funny thing happened to me when I was expecting Maggie. I was about six months along, sitting in my closet folding some clothing when I sneezed and simultaneously wet my pants. It was only a little bit, but still, I just knelt there in shock thinking, “did I really just do that? Did that just happen?” After changing my pants I figured it was just a random thing, perhaps from the extreme strain on my bladder from kneeling down. That theory lasted about two hours until I did it again. I learned very quickly to cross my legs and hold it with all my might every time I felt a sneeze coming. In my hopeful naivete I assumed that this was just another weird but temporary byproduct of pregnancy.
Maggie is almost six months old, and while I can usually hold it when I sneeze or laugh, (ha-ha-ha-squirt!), I do have to exercise a great deal of caution when my bladder is on the full side. My friends with multiple children tell me this is quite common after you’ve had a few kids. They recommend Kegels, which I do, but it doesn’t seem to be helping very much. I am a little concerned that I would pee every time I sneeze if I had a third child. I imagine that a fourth would cause total incontinence, and I’d be doomed to adult diapers before my kids were potty trained. Not an appealing thought. Usually the goal is to not have more than one in diapers at a time right? I think I’d include myself in that count.
I think there is a reason why you only see beautiful women of a certain age advertising adult diapers. It’s because you are not supposed to have that problem unless you are old. It’s like osteoporosis or arthritis; it happens to young people- but it’s not supposed to, and when it does, they hush it all up. It’s an old lady illness, a sign of age. I’m a month older than Britney Spears. I should have rock hard abs and designer boobs, not adult diapers.
Posted by Lou on June 11, 2005 @ 4:17 am | 4 Comments
There it is. I am going bald. My hair is falling out faster than I can grow it back in. Every time I wash my hair my fingers become entwined in about fifty fallen strands. By the time I am done showering my hands look like someone’s old hairbrush, covered in ratty, matted fur. You know how most people have to grab the nasty wad of hairs out of the drain every week or so? I can prevent my shower from draining in just one day. Seriously, I am losing that much hair. I can actually see my hairline receding.
This isn’t the first time I have gone through this. This sudden loss of hair is actually a byproduct of pregnancy. May I reiterate once again how much I loathe being pregnant? I get every weird side effect; no part of my body is spared. The scientific way to describe this is that during pregnancy the hormones created send a message to the hair follicles to not release the hairs that ought to be let go. These hairs are all accumulated until about four months after giving birth, at which point, the hormones even themselves out and the hairs begin a mass exodus from my head. It’s not pretty. There’s hair everywhere.
After I had Jonas I developed literal bald spots. They were small, but they were there. I have the photos to prove it, and no, I will not be sharing them. This time around I was taking the optimistic approach to things, hoping that just maybe, since I was having a girl, things would be different. I don’t know why I thought this. Every other aspect of my pregnancy had been the same, (except for the fact that I was carrying Maggie so high there were days that I thought they would have to pull her out of my throat) so why should this be any different?
Now, if you are a guy and you are balding, that’s just kind of a part of life. Lots of guys do this. It’s not so weird. But when you are a woman? A vain woman? Yeah, not good for the post pregnancy morale. First no abs, now no hair. But a much larger, mushier tush and thighs. Not a very good advertisement for having a baby. I have gone forth and multiplied, spread my seed as it were, to sustain life on our puny little planet, and this is the thanks I get? Chubby and balding? It’s just not right.
The really funny part is that this really isn’t the worst of it. The worst part will happen in about four months when all the little hairs grow back. At that point I will have three inch long spikes of baby hairs poking out all over my head, but predominately at my hairline. This means that every time I wear my hair up (which is frequent because I am too lazy to fix it most days) I could poke someone’s eye out. To paint a simple picture, replace my head with Sputnik. “Spherical, but quite pointy in parts.”
Last time I hit that point I slathered on gobs of every wax, pomade, gel, mousse, and hair spray known to man and tried unsuccessfully to mold the little feelers back into place. The flagella refused to be reigned in. After about two months of looking ridiculous, my new hair was about four inches long and still defiantly refusing to bend to the will of gravity. I finally broke down and chopped it all off. I liked it for about three days.
At that point the novelty wore off, and I realized that it was appallingly high maintenance. I spent the next year trying to grow it back out so it didn’t drive me crazy. I am not a short hair person. I know that now.
I am considering taking a punk approach this time and coaxing all of my hair into large spikes. I could even dye the spikes different colors just for kicks. I will, of course, maintain my usual boring, suburban housewife garb. I am sure I will be quite the sight. So next time you are strolling along in the mall and your friend exclaims, “Look at that woman in the stylish twin set and khakis with the two foot purple spikes growing out of her scalp!” That’ll be me.
Posted by Lou on April 27, 2005 @ 3:47 am | 3 Comments
Last night I was checking out a Thomas the Tank Engine website that I plan to order Jonas’ birthday present from. Jonas is very enthusiastic about these toy trains. He frequently (like every hour of the day) asks me to go to Barnes and Noble so he can play with the huge train set they have there. He also likes to look at the toy trains online. Whenever he wants to see them he tugs on my arms and asks, “Choo-Choo? Choo -Choo? Choo-choo choo choo choo chooooooooo,” until I either take him to the store or look them up online, or go crazy from the incessant choo-chooing.
Jonas has started adding new phrases to his small vocabulary, much to our amusement. As I was looking at the little engines online Jonas saw a set he liked and out of no where exclaimed,
“I WANT IT!”
Both Chris and I were like, “whoa, where did that come from?” He has said the word want before, but never very clearly. So we had some fun with it. We made a little wishlist at the site I was shopping at and put everything Jonas really wanted on the list ( umm, yeah, he won’t be getting everything on the list because my birthday budget simply isn’t that extravagant). I would have thought that being two, he would have said he wanted everything, but he is actually a very discerning train connoisseur. Not all toy trains are created equal, apparently.
I guess these three are really awesome,
but this last one, well that set just stinks, according to Jonas.
This new vocabulary was all well and good until we went to Target an hour later. I think Jonas wants the whole store delivered to our house. He yelled I want it at almost everything he saw. He has been on a no treats ban for almost a month because I was hoping he would learn to deal with the fact that he doesn’t get a treat every time we go somewhere. I can’t afford it and he doesn’t need it. He has gotten better about dealing with me saying no, so that is good. He actually did pretty well when I made him put back 98% of what he was grabbing, especially for a kid who had skipped his nap. At the checkout he hopped out of the cart and grabbed all of the hotwheels cars off of the impulse buy rack by the checkout counter and started putting them on the counter. He didn’t see me put them all back, but I think he did wonder where they were when we got home.
Posted by Lou on April 23, 2005 @ 3:42 am | 0 Comments
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