I lose so many things that I should have my own episode of Lost. I already have St. Anthony on speed dial, but half the time I can't find my phone to call him.
Such is the case tonight. I have misplaced my cell phone, a kicky little pink number, which replaced the clunky black one that I completely lost in January. It was with me in the car on the way home from the Carter's store. I haven't seen it since.
I lose my phone so often I have a protocol that I follow to recover it.
If Ismael is home, I simply get his phone, call mine and wander around until it can be heard.
Tonight is a little trickier - he's working and I'm home with just Adam. Given the fact that I firmly believe no child under driving age needs a cell phone, I have not purchased one for my 7 month old.
I whip out the computer, pull up sprint.com, and log into my account. They have a text messaging feature. I often text my phone and ask, "Where are you?" Sometimes it answers, sometimes not. If that fails, then I text Ismael and ask him to call me and continue my search.
Tonight, when I logged in, Sprint apologized for any inconvenience due to the fact their site was down and offered me a free ringtone. For the phone I can't find. Always helpful, that Sprint.
Not to be foiled in my attempts, I logged onto Facebook. Surely someone would be online whom I could persuade to call me. My choices ranged from my high school social studies teacher to the lady from Craigslist who adopted my cat, none of whom seemed appropriate choices to share my lunacy.
I don't know where my phone is, but I know when I will find it...at 4:00 AM when the alarm goes off. My husband insisted that was the time he wanted to get up this morning, and it looks like that is when I will be getting up tomorrow. Fabulous.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
It Ain't Easy Being Green
Our art teacher is an avid, if not rabid, recycler.
At lunch, as we finish our bottles of water and containers of yogurt, she takes them from us, packs them up to take to her art classroom, washes them out, and places them in the appropriate recycling containers. She is thwarting our plot to singlehandedly wreck the earth for our forebears through wildly disposing of luncheon packaging.
I have seen the stories of men, who likely tired of their wives' nagging, and stopped taking out the trash. Just Google "kept trash for a year" and you will find a few stories, one of which made Time Magazine. It features a picture of Dave, sitting in his basement, along with six months' worth of trash.
Now, I like making a point as well as anyone, but I draw the line at living with trash. I throw so much away that my husband accuses me of manufacturing garbage. I take after my mother who when I was a teen responded, "busy hands are happy hands....oh bad, bad, bad hands" when I howled about some beloved, and undoubtedly useful, item of mine that she had thrown away.
I love that my friend recycles my lunch trash. While it's enjoyable to tease about her green tendencies, I feel like I should do something of my own. It's already like pioneer days around here: I've lost the remote control and we're out of Diet Coke. Two tragdies in their own right, but it won't save the planet. .
Given the fact that my dryer screeches a tune that alternates "I quit" with "Help me, I'm dying" to the melody of Yankee Doodle Dandy every time I run a full load, I thought that a good place to start. I have a small clothes line on our patio and a handful of clothes pins. Every day this week, I have washed and hung one load of clothes out there. I draw the line at hanging up socks and underwear. For one, I don't have that many clothes pins and for second, it's UNDERwear. It only leaves this house under something.
I'd love to come back in a month and report that my electric bill dropped thirty dollars or that my neighbors were so impressed by my outward display of conserving electricity that they all followed suit. I doubt that will happen, but I'm also glad that Skittles the clothes stealing cat doesn't live in my neighborhood.
At lunch, as we finish our bottles of water and containers of yogurt, she takes them from us, packs them up to take to her art classroom, washes them out, and places them in the appropriate recycling containers. She is thwarting our plot to singlehandedly wreck the earth for our forebears through wildly disposing of luncheon packaging.
I have seen the stories of men, who likely tired of their wives' nagging, and stopped taking out the trash. Just Google "kept trash for a year" and you will find a few stories, one of which made Time Magazine. It features a picture of Dave, sitting in his basement, along with six months' worth of trash.
Now, I like making a point as well as anyone, but I draw the line at living with trash. I throw so much away that my husband accuses me of manufacturing garbage. I take after my mother who when I was a teen responded, "busy hands are happy hands....oh bad, bad, bad hands" when I howled about some beloved, and undoubtedly useful, item of mine that she had thrown away.
I love that my friend recycles my lunch trash. While it's enjoyable to tease about her green tendencies, I feel like I should do something of my own. It's already like pioneer days around here: I've lost the remote control and we're out of Diet Coke. Two tragdies in their own right, but it won't save the planet. .
Given the fact that my dryer screeches a tune that alternates "I quit" with "Help me, I'm dying" to the melody of Yankee Doodle Dandy every time I run a full load, I thought that a good place to start. I have a small clothes line on our patio and a handful of clothes pins. Every day this week, I have washed and hung one load of clothes out there. I draw the line at hanging up socks and underwear. For one, I don't have that many clothes pins and for second, it's UNDERwear. It only leaves this house under something.
I'd love to come back in a month and report that my electric bill dropped thirty dollars or that my neighbors were so impressed by my outward display of conserving electricity that they all followed suit. I doubt that will happen, but I'm also glad that Skittles the clothes stealing cat doesn't live in my neighborhood.
Faith Matters
Before Ismael and I were married, we agreed that when and if we had children that they would be Catholic. It was an easy agreement to make then. Ismael wanted to marry me and likely would have agreed to anything to get me. Ahhh....the thrill of pursuit.
I am a great admirer of Islam, but I was born and raised Catholic. I have my own personal spiritual challenges, but overall, am happy with being Catholic and feel the duty to pass it on to my own children. I knew that in the compromises I would have to make in marrying a Muslim, such as giving up cooking my beloved garlic stuffed pork roast, this was not one I could make.
After Adam's birth, I broached the subject with Ismael gently and in time he agreed to allow Adam's baptism. I, however, had a different problem. I had to do something about choosing a church. We were registered and married in the church where I teach. After thirteen years of teaching and the formation of my own family, I have felt the need to become a little more private and separate family life from work life. After several months of interior debate, I decided to return to the parish where my mother currently attends and I was raised.
We met with Fr. Kevin to register in the parish and I knew I had made the right decision when the most complicated thing about baptizing the infant son of a Catholic Muslim couple was choosing a date. No baptismal classes, no requirements of Ismael beyond his consent. Perfect!
All of this introspection has forced me to examine my own spirituality. I know that it is far past time for me to bear down and go back to confession. it's been years since my last one. For Catholics, confession to the priest is a sacrament. For me, it is the equivalent of waterboarding. I always feel better when it is over, but the preparation and process is flat out torture for me.
It's not even that I think my sins and failings are the worst the priest will ever hear. I don't imagine him loudly saying "What??" as I recite my little list and exit the confessional to the shocked stares of others. It's just difficult to make yourself accountable to God in the presence of another human being. No one will make me go, but my inner voice is asking, "how will you teach your son to be accountable for his actions if you, yourself, are not?"
Damn Catholic guilt.
I am a great admirer of Islam, but I was born and raised Catholic. I have my own personal spiritual challenges, but overall, am happy with being Catholic and feel the duty to pass it on to my own children. I knew that in the compromises I would have to make in marrying a Muslim, such as giving up cooking my beloved garlic stuffed pork roast, this was not one I could make.
After Adam's birth, I broached the subject with Ismael gently and in time he agreed to allow Adam's baptism. I, however, had a different problem. I had to do something about choosing a church. We were registered and married in the church where I teach. After thirteen years of teaching and the formation of my own family, I have felt the need to become a little more private and separate family life from work life. After several months of interior debate, I decided to return to the parish where my mother currently attends and I was raised.
We met with Fr. Kevin to register in the parish and I knew I had made the right decision when the most complicated thing about baptizing the infant son of a Catholic Muslim couple was choosing a date. No baptismal classes, no requirements of Ismael beyond his consent. Perfect!
All of this introspection has forced me to examine my own spirituality. I know that it is far past time for me to bear down and go back to confession. it's been years since my last one. For Catholics, confession to the priest is a sacrament. For me, it is the equivalent of waterboarding. I always feel better when it is over, but the preparation and process is flat out torture for me.
It's not even that I think my sins and failings are the worst the priest will ever hear. I don't imagine him loudly saying "What??" as I recite my little list and exit the confessional to the shocked stares of others. It's just difficult to make yourself accountable to God in the presence of another human being. No one will make me go, but my inner voice is asking, "how will you teach your son to be accountable for his actions if you, yourself, are not?"
Damn Catholic guilt.
I First Felt Like a Mom...
I have been considering the question, "When did you first feel like a mom?"
Some Internet posters have these amazing, beautiful moments when it has all become real to them.
I don't have any one moment, but it was definitely a long, gradual process that in the beginning I was terrified would not evolve.
I had a cesarean birth after an 18 hour induced labor that was helped along by some magical drugs (the last 8 hours) which made everything wavy. The surgery went well enough but I was very, very under the influence of these drugs. I remember Ismael coming to the room, the anesthesiologist reminding me to breathe, and him taking our picture with Adam. As they wheeled me back to the room, I held Adam in a death grip, afraid he would slip. The nurse announced I would be giving him his first feeding and I said something emphatic like "nuh, uh" handed him off and fell into a drugged out bliss.
Every single thing about my hospital stay was horrific. I developed a "spinal headache" that required two blood patches to fix. I didn't sleep after that first night and in the last 48 hours I was there, I slept four. The idea of keeping Adam in my room over night terrified me. By the time we left the hospital, I had swollen up like a hot air balloon. I was exhausted and emotionally wrecked. I begged Ismael to take me home and bawled intermittently while I waited for the doctor to come release me. I came very close to simply walking out of the hospital without a discharge. What would they do? Arrest me? My son peed all over the cute going home outfit I had bought for him. I argued with Ismael about the car seat. There wasn't a tender moment to be found.
The first few weeks at home were not any better. I had lost enough blood in the surgery that I was extremely anemic. I can't even explain the kind of tired that was. I felt like I could sit in the corner and just cry every minute of the day from sheer exhuastion. I took my iron pills and slept every chance I got. Ismael stayed home from work for an extra week and would sleep on the couch with Adam in his bassinet so that I could sleep. Nothing helped. A hematoma (big pool of blood) formed under my incision. On Sunday morning, two weeks after the c-section, it began to weep out of the incision. By weep, I really mean pour. I got up to brush my teeth and felt/heard something dripping on the floor. Fresh, bright red blood was running down my leg. I made the phone calls and sat down on the bed to feed Adam. By the time my sister arrived, I had bled through my clothes and was sitting in a puddle of blood on my comforter. Ismael took me to the hospital and I bled through a towel I had shoved in my underwear and through those pants too. The hospital let me sit, bleeding, in the waiting room for more than 25 minutes. In the end, they did nothing, the bleeding stopped on its own, and I came home.
Later that week, on Halloween, I had a blood transfusion, and three full weeks after Adam was born, I felt like a human being again. It was only then I could turn my attention to him fully.
He didn't notice.
He continued to sleep 24 hours a day punctuated by hungry wailing. I enjoyed holding him and knew that really, he was a very good mannered baby.
Life went on. I began having what I found out were gallbladder attacks around Thanksgiving and had it removed on Christmas Eve. Adam spent his first Christmas at my sister's house with his cousins. I spent his first Christmas on narcotic pain killers.
In the days that followed, I remember having real fun with him for the first time. He smiled more and interacted with me. I would play with him in his room and realize two hours had flown by. I watched Ismael bloom more and more in his role as daddy. We became more competent parents.
If I try to isolate any one moment where I first felt like a mom, it would be a frustrating afternoon of trying to get Adam to nap. I had the realization that I couldn't control this little human being, only myself, and my frustration melted away. I was the mommy. I could put him down when it was naptime and he would either sleep or wouldn't. In the long run, it didn't matter.
But now, I am able to find joy in the way he smiles when he sees me. I love that he holds the sleeve my nightgown every morning when I change his diaper. I witness his delight when he sees something new about the world, like the way he discovered himself in the bathroom mirror tonight.
Every day, there is a small grace from God present in my son, if I still myself enough to notice it.
I love being Adam's mommy. It's the greatest blessing God has ever given me.
Some Internet posters have these amazing, beautiful moments when it has all become real to them.
I don't have any one moment, but it was definitely a long, gradual process that in the beginning I was terrified would not evolve.
I had a cesarean birth after an 18 hour induced labor that was helped along by some magical drugs (the last 8 hours) which made everything wavy. The surgery went well enough but I was very, very under the influence of these drugs. I remember Ismael coming to the room, the anesthesiologist reminding me to breathe, and him taking our picture with Adam. As they wheeled me back to the room, I held Adam in a death grip, afraid he would slip. The nurse announced I would be giving him his first feeding and I said something emphatic like "nuh, uh" handed him off and fell into a drugged out bliss.
Every single thing about my hospital stay was horrific. I developed a "spinal headache" that required two blood patches to fix. I didn't sleep after that first night and in the last 48 hours I was there, I slept four. The idea of keeping Adam in my room over night terrified me. By the time we left the hospital, I had swollen up like a hot air balloon. I was exhausted and emotionally wrecked. I begged Ismael to take me home and bawled intermittently while I waited for the doctor to come release me. I came very close to simply walking out of the hospital without a discharge. What would they do? Arrest me? My son peed all over the cute going home outfit I had bought for him. I argued with Ismael about the car seat. There wasn't a tender moment to be found.
The first few weeks at home were not any better. I had lost enough blood in the surgery that I was extremely anemic. I can't even explain the kind of tired that was. I felt like I could sit in the corner and just cry every minute of the day from sheer exhuastion. I took my iron pills and slept every chance I got. Ismael stayed home from work for an extra week and would sleep on the couch with Adam in his bassinet so that I could sleep. Nothing helped. A hematoma (big pool of blood) formed under my incision. On Sunday morning, two weeks after the c-section, it began to weep out of the incision. By weep, I really mean pour. I got up to brush my teeth and felt/heard something dripping on the floor. Fresh, bright red blood was running down my leg. I made the phone calls and sat down on the bed to feed Adam. By the time my sister arrived, I had bled through my clothes and was sitting in a puddle of blood on my comforter. Ismael took me to the hospital and I bled through a towel I had shoved in my underwear and through those pants too. The hospital let me sit, bleeding, in the waiting room for more than 25 minutes. In the end, they did nothing, the bleeding stopped on its own, and I came home.
Later that week, on Halloween, I had a blood transfusion, and three full weeks after Adam was born, I felt like a human being again. It was only then I could turn my attention to him fully.
He didn't notice.
He continued to sleep 24 hours a day punctuated by hungry wailing. I enjoyed holding him and knew that really, he was a very good mannered baby.
Life went on. I began having what I found out were gallbladder attacks around Thanksgiving and had it removed on Christmas Eve. Adam spent his first Christmas at my sister's house with his cousins. I spent his first Christmas on narcotic pain killers.
In the days that followed, I remember having real fun with him for the first time. He smiled more and interacted with me. I would play with him in his room and realize two hours had flown by. I watched Ismael bloom more and more in his role as daddy. We became more competent parents.
If I try to isolate any one moment where I first felt like a mom, it would be a frustrating afternoon of trying to get Adam to nap. I had the realization that I couldn't control this little human being, only myself, and my frustration melted away. I was the mommy. I could put him down when it was naptime and he would either sleep or wouldn't. In the long run, it didn't matter.
But now, I am able to find joy in the way he smiles when he sees me. I love that he holds the sleeve my nightgown every morning when I change his diaper. I witness his delight when he sees something new about the world, like the way he discovered himself in the bathroom mirror tonight.
Every day, there is a small grace from God present in my son, if I still myself enough to notice it.
I love being Adam's mommy. It's the greatest blessing God has ever given me.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Allergic to Mommy
Our usual babysitter is not available this week. With Ismael at CNA class all day and working all night, our back up plan is failing.
I dipped into my support pool and asked a school parent and friend if she would pitch in and help out. She happily agreed, despite the fact the amount we pay for a week of child care is better called "a token of our appreciation."
Adam's t-shirt pictured a smiling blue elephant and read, "I'm a really big deal." Instead, it should have said, "Vomits at will." I warned her, "If you return him covered in spit up, I will not consider it a reflection on your babysitting skills."
She laughed and simply said, "Oh not today. I have my good clothes on." As if he would understand and respect this rule. She has four amazingly bright and well behaved kids of her own. Maybe she knows something I don't. Maybe she's the baby whisperer.
Off she went with Adam and I went on to try to educate and meet the needs of 140 individual middle school students. She definitely got the better end of the deal.
She returned at 2:45 PM with my giggling boy and everyone's clothes were still clean. Impressive. She even announced, "He didn't throw up once today." Again, impressive. I must know her secret.
I picked him up, and yes, he promptly threw up down my leg. Laughed, and did it again. WHAT? I had on my good clothes too! Maybe he doesn't appreciate my sense of fashion, which I agree, needs some work.
After sponging us off, I took him to visit our science teacher, who adores him, and gave her the same caveat, "Take the burp rag, he's thrown up twice." She squealed as happily as he did and settled in for a visit while I finished uploading class pictures to snapfish for our parents.
When I was ready to go, I returned to her room and asked, "How is he?" And upon hearing my voice, he vomited again.
I think my son is allergic to me.
I dipped into my support pool and asked a school parent and friend if she would pitch in and help out. She happily agreed, despite the fact the amount we pay for a week of child care is better called "a token of our appreciation."
Adam's t-shirt pictured a smiling blue elephant and read, "I'm a really big deal." Instead, it should have said, "Vomits at will." I warned her, "If you return him covered in spit up, I will not consider it a reflection on your babysitting skills."
She laughed and simply said, "Oh not today. I have my good clothes on." As if he would understand and respect this rule. She has four amazingly bright and well behaved kids of her own. Maybe she knows something I don't. Maybe she's the baby whisperer.
Off she went with Adam and I went on to try to educate and meet the needs of 140 individual middle school students. She definitely got the better end of the deal.
She returned at 2:45 PM with my giggling boy and everyone's clothes were still clean. Impressive. She even announced, "He didn't throw up once today." Again, impressive. I must know her secret.
I picked him up, and yes, he promptly threw up down my leg. Laughed, and did it again. WHAT? I had on my good clothes too! Maybe he doesn't appreciate my sense of fashion, which I agree, needs some work.
After sponging us off, I took him to visit our science teacher, who adores him, and gave her the same caveat, "Take the burp rag, he's thrown up twice." She squealed as happily as he did and settled in for a visit while I finished uploading class pictures to snapfish for our parents.
When I was ready to go, I returned to her room and asked, "How is he?" And upon hearing my voice, he vomited again.
I think my son is allergic to me.
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