You are my sunshine...

To my daughter, on her birthday....

I found your sonogram pictures the other day---five or six of them, stored in an envelope with your birth certificate and the name chart and growth chart from your stint in the NICU. The sonogram pictures were our first pictures of you---the earliest of them was when you were a whopping 4mm long. I was five or six weeks pregnant and terrified that I was having another miscarriage; my OB took pity on me and my fears and squeezed me in, somehow, for an ultrasound.

And that was when I saw you for the first time. I realize, if you read this later, that you might think that you looked like a really small baby, but you didn't, not then. You did look like the seed that gave you your first nickname (Sprout) before we knew if you were a boy or girl...but then, that early, you were just this tiny life who'd arrived in our lives against tall odds. I fell in love with you then---which you probably won't truly understand until you have a child of your own, but it's true. I saw you on that screen and I knew I'd fight for you, struggle with you, love you, no matter what.

It's four years later, four years since your birth and I don't quite have the words to describe how you've changed both of our lives---the terror and joy and hope and awe that we've felt as we watched you be born and grow. We're seeing more and more of you now, parts of me, parts of your dad, and parts that are most definitely just you, the unique presence that I first saw on that ultrasound all those years ago.

Happy 4th birthday, Róisín. :-) We love you, so very, very much.

Nope, definitely what we didn't need, thanks.

Well, yesterday it was time for auto maintenance---oil change, brake check, tire rotation, that sort of thing. We took it to our local mechanic---two guys who run a hole in the wall place about a mile away. I've been going to them for my repair needs since I drove my VW bug regularly (which was, if memory serves, before I met my husband.) They don't take appointments, so you have to get there roughly at the crack o'dawn, but they're reasonably priced and honest.

Anyway, our Honda is not even three years old yet (it'll be three in February) but we're going to have to replace the tires on it soon. Not real soon (else they'd have told us yesterday...they're that honest) but soon. And with Rob hoping to start school in January, we'll have to have it done before then. I'm just glad that we don't have long commuting trips planned or snow and ice to deal with.

It's just...gah, annoying. I had a suspicion we'd need to buy them soon; the tires on our last new car, a Toyota, needed to be replaced when it was roughly three years old. I don't get it, though...when you buy a new car, I think you should more or less be able to expect that the tires wouldn't need to be replaced before the 36K mile mark (we don't even have 30K on our Honda.) We're not lead-foots or dangerous drivers...but it seems that junk tires are the rule, these days.

*Facepalm*

This day, we give thanks....

Today is Thanksgiving. It's not our first as a married couple, but our seventh. It's not our first with our daughter, but our fourth. It is, however, the first time we cooked The Bird by ourselves---with a series of completely random events, we not only ended up cooking a full dinner, but cooking one for less people than we planned. (I fully expect to be heartily sick of turkey by next weekend :-P)

This was the first Thanksgiving that my daughter was old enough to begin to understand how the holiday originated (and, frankly, this is the one occasion where being a history geek really isn't a good thing.) I told her a simplified version, how those first colonists---all alone and starving---needed the help of others to survive. The larger moral, I've thought as I've gotten older, is that we're all interconnected to each other by our actions and our choices, that none of us should be too high or too mighty to realize we might need help come morning.

Which brings me to the grocery store. We ended up shopping at the last minute, not today, but yesterday...and because of the job which occasionally drives me insane, we had the money to buy the ingredients for the meal. Our local store has a food donation drive---basically, you buy a grocery bag with the dry ingredients for three meals inside (the prices vary,) and the grocery store donates it to a local food pantry. I didn't even blink when I picked up ours---it wasn't even a choice for me not to help, even a little bit---and there was a time when I would have, when I would have ignored the display and been too focused on what I was doing or where I needed to be.

But I have been in need---not that desperate kind of need where I couldn't feed my family (thank deities,) but need nonetheless, when I received help from people who could have chosen not to help...but didn't.

So today I give thanks, not only for my friends and my family, but for those experiences...because they taught me and bent me and shaped me.

No, No, and No. I don't think that's unclear.

Tonight after work, I made my weekly pilgrimage to Chez Target for, well, everything. (Yeah. This was one of those weeks where we ran out of everything all on the same day. Sigh.) So anyway, I saw a little old lady who'd borrowed a Target shopping cart and was handing out religious leaflets with the headline "Does God Love You?" She tried to hand one to me and I said, "No, thank you."

When I came out, she tried to give me the same pamphlet twice within about five minutes. The third time, I'm afraid I wasn't as polite as I maybe should have been. I said, "This is the third time you've tried to give me this and the third time I've said no." She said, "Well, I forgot." Um, okay. Silly me for thinking once should have been enough.

I don't know if that was the proper response---certainly it didn't work either of the three times I tried it. I don't like being preached at, or being on the receiving end of someone's conversion attempt---and make no mistake, she wasn't trying to, say, convince me that Zeus or Buddha or Shiva loved me. ;-) (I wouldn't have liked it if she had, but at least it would have had the virtue of newness---we don't get a lot of proselytizing Hellenists, Buddhists, or Hindus in our area of San Diego :-P) And I don't think I should have taken her pamphlet and then tossed it away (which seemed to be the majority choice, to judge by the trash in the parking lot.)

I don't come from a tradition that does a lot of witnessing, or whatever the term for it is nowadays. I wasn't raised Wiccan, but my mom and dad never went in for that type of religious practice. But I also couldn't have said to the old woman what I wanted to say, which was---to paraphrase another blogger---I believe in my gods the way you believe in your god.

Or put simply...I just want to shop and go home to my family. I don't want to be rude, but no means...no.

Le sigh.

From the mom of a preemie

Today, November 17th, is Fight for Preemies Day. Sponsored by the March of Dimes, it's a collaborative blog effort to promote and bring attention to the worldwide issue of premature birth.

In 2006, my daughter was one of nearly half a million babies born too soon in the US. I had excellent prenatal care, I didn't smoke or drink or use drugs. What I did have, though, (unknown to me) was a condition called incontinent cervix (IC) in which the cervix, for some reason, does not stay fully closed during pregnancy. Tragically, in many cases this condition is diagnosed only after late term pregnancy loss. I was one of the lucky ones; my cervix was seen dilating on an ultrasound when I was 22 weeks pregnant, and I had surgery just a few hours later to sew my cervix shut. I then went on bedrest for the next nine weeks.

When I was a little over 30 weeks pregnant, my water broke and I delivered my daughter at one day shy of 31 weeks' gestation. She was 3 1/2 pounds at birth and 16. 5 inches long. She went immediately into the NICU, where she stayed for the next five weeks.

In some ways, looking back, I think my husband and I were lucky. Róisín was our first child; we didn't have another child to compare this to, so this became our version of normal. And she--and I--had the best medical care we could have asked for. But all of this is not to understate the real risks my daughter---and others born too early---faced. Cerebral palsy, brain bleeding, intestinal and heart problems, blindness, developmental delays...these are all risks of premature birth. These babies are not just "smaller than normal"; they face a whole host of medical issues that full-term babies almost never deal with.

Today, my daughter is healthy and thriving and for all intents and purposes, perfectly normal. We were lucky, but many other babies born at her gestation or even earlier, are not. If you are reading this, if you are pregnant, are thinking about being pregnant, or know someone who is, please go to the March of Dimes website and educate yourself about the warning signs of premature birth.

Momento Mori

Today is the start of Samhain, the day when the walls between the worlds grow thin and our deceased ancestors and friends may yet come to visit us.

Today is also Halloween and we're taking Róisín, in her guise as Cowgirl Jessie, out for her first time Trick or Treating. I'm making Irish stew for dinner and we have an apple pie for dessert...and then we'll go out and join the hundreds of other parents taking their kids out.

Samhain and Halloween are where the two worlds join in my house. I will leave an empty plate for the ancestors and explain to my daughter (though she may not get it yet) who we are remembering, and I will light a candle (in this case, an LED light inside a votive holder) for loved ones to find their way home. My husband, whose beliefs are and always have been his own, may not understand my need to do these things, but he accepts them.

So today, I remember....

Sochi, my cat and my friend, who died in November of last year at the old age of 17. I miss you, my friend.

Chan, who brought (and continues to bring) such joy to my life through her art. She died in March this year....much too soon for all who loved and knew her.

My grandmother, who died eight years ago this October. We never really connected enough to know each other while she was alive; too many years and too much gulf of personality divided us, but still, I remember you.

My cats Tasha and Tess, who died within months of each other, twenty years ago. I've never forgotten you two.

And finally, I remember the men, women, and children---living and dead---who were or who are being persecuted as witches. The Burning Times didn't just happen in Europe and America, centuries ago; they're happening now, in Africa and the Middle East.


May your Samhain, or Halloween, be a peaceful one. Blessed be.

These are a few of my favorite things....

My daughter turns four in December (four!!!) and this is the first year she's really gotten into the Halloween idea of dressing up. However, as anyone who's ever been around a preschooler can tell you, time and patience aren't really their strong points (well, patience still isn't one of mine...:-P) so for the last two weeks, her dad and I have been doing the "No, Halloween is x amount of days away" thing.

In the meantime, she's dressed up as other things around the house. She's put on her kitty mask, thrown a blanket over her head like a hood and asked me, "Where's Catherine?" (Yeah, like that guy LOLOLOL.) She's also put her candy bucket on top of her head and announced she's Buzz Lightyear (though her dad made an Ichabod Crane quip that totally went over her head.)

I've been tired and frazzled and a little frustrated by life in general recently, and the holiday season is bound to make things worse, not better. So it was nice to have the reminder of the joys of being a parent---to see the world anew in the eyes of a child, to see her turn blankets and legos and boxes and ordinary objects into things of magic. :)

Sometimes, Life is Like That.

...sometimes, you're talking to a co-worker and she makes a comment that she's missing a toe and you remember, because she told you once, that she and her sister fled the Khmer Rouge as children.

...sometimes, you're talking to another co-worker, all happy and nervous because she and her husband have decided to have a family and she's talking to you because you're the voice of experience...and you remember, four years ago, that you knew nothing. Experience doesn't make you an expert...but you tell her what you know and what you'd wanted someone to tell you four years ago.

...sometimes, you're having That Kind of day, and then your email goes off with emails from insanely funny friends all over the country and you start laughing because in all the inside jokes and mangled words are people who truly Get It, linked by something we can't explain. And things seem...lighter, somehow.

Sometimes, in the course of one day, life is like that. :)

Turn, Turn, Turn...:-)

(And yes, if that puts you in mind of a song from the 1960s, that's the point. :-D)

Things are changing at our house---in a good way---that's making me blink at just how fast things are happening. My daughter is about to finish her third month of preschool, and aside from one minor melt-down when she abruptly realized her daddy wasn't right there with her, she's really enjoying it. She's growing and changing and just, well....becoming more and more of a person each day. Which isn't to say she was a walking asparagus or something before...but I look at her and I recognize bits of myself or my husband in the way she reacts or behaves. I don't know who she's going to grow into, but I bet the ride is going to be interesting, to say the least. :-P

And my husband is trying to reenter the workforce after having been a full time stay at home dad for the last four years. With the economy being what it is, I don't really expect things to happen fast, but for the last four years, it's been me leaving and going to work and coming home. It'll be a switch to see my husband doing the same.

Not much has changed with me lately, but the changes are all around me. As we head towards Samhain and the end of the year, I suppose that's only natural. :)

Bite Me :-)

Just some assorted rants from the week (taken seriously, or not, as you choose)

1) Bite me: to plus size clothing designers. I have curves. I have thighs and hips and arms that shouldn't be as flabby as they are, but that's life and I'm dealing with it. What I can't deal with is plus size clothing. Note to designers: it is NOT enough to redesign clothing for skinny folks and make it larger. What looks good on a size 4 does not, often, look good on a size 18. (Trust me on this one.) I want actual sleeves, not cap sleeves, not flared sleeves, not sleeves that are ruched in weird places (hello, the only place ruching belongs is on a leine.) I want pants that fit with the inseam clearly marked on the tag. I don't need "skinny jeans." I want jeans that fit. (Such an astonishing idea, but really, is it too much to ask?)

2) Bite me: to bra manufacturers. Standardize your sizes, will ya? And boning on the side of the bra---who thought that up? It's painful and it doesn't really hold its form long. Remove it, please.

3) Bite me: to the grey hairs that show up more and more each month. I'm not even 40 yet. Couldn't you have waited a few years?

4) Bite me: to my daughter's early morning whine. Keep it up and I'll give you cheese with that :-D

And finally...

5) Bite me to the people in this country, on both sides of the political divide, who are more interested in tearing down than building up. Who knows why you do it---maybe because it's easier than the hard work of creation? I'm tired of the labels, the name-calling, the insinuation that because our president is not a "whiter shade of pale" he must be some sort of "sekrit muslim" or somehow isn't one of us. Where was your all-fired concern for the state of this country while Dubya was using the Constitution for toilet paper, eh? I don't always agree with Obama but in this country, I don't have to. And you don't either...but, um, can you take it down a notch or two or three? (Or 12?) Then we can have a civilized discussion instead of foaming at the mouth like a bunch of rabid raccoons.

/end rant. :-D

Today I Choose Not to Remember

Every year, I've remembered (or been forced to remember) where I was, who I was, and what I was doing on September 11th. I'll never forget (I don't think that's possible, any more than it's possible for the folks who were alive to remember Kennedy's assassination) but today, I'm choosing not to remember.

I'm going to out and celebrate life instead. My family and I are going to San Diego Pagan Pride---a local festival celebrating both the coming of Mabon (the fall harvest) and religious tolerance. We're going to go out, amid the trees and flowers of Balboa Park and remember that doing simple, ordinary things is the best antidote to the horrors of the world. I'm going to celebrate the fall harvest, the time when the earth gives of Her bounty, and I'm going to remember that this country is one of the few places I could practice my religion (or no religion at all) without fear of the religious police arresting me in the middle of the night.

I am going to remember that my almost-four year old daughter doesn't know about 9/11. And I'm going to treasure and preserve her innocence as long as I can.

Today I choose not to remember. Today I choose to live.

Blessed be.

And the Aunt Resurfaces...

I have an aunt. Actually, I have several, but only three of them are on Facebook and only one of them actually talks to me. I used to have two aunts on Facebook, but almost a year ago, one of my aunts decided to "unfriend" both myself and one of my liberal cousins before closing her FB account. Yes, the aunt of this posting. (That her reasons for doing so were political rather than religious is because, well, my cousin isn't Wiccan--so far as I know--but I am, yet she defriended both of us, the "liberal wing" of the family. *eyeroll*)

Leaving aside how juvenile that all is and was (what? People can't disagree without knickers being twisted?) my aunt has now resurfaced. I'm not going to try and "friend" her on Facebook--I didn't know her all that well (except as a perpetual thorn in my mom's side while they were growing up) and her more recent behavior doesn't make me say, "Ooh, auntie, I want to know you better." It's just so...weird. I don't know if she decided Facebook was Teh Ebil (an opinion with which I sometimes concur, especially when they monkey around with our privacy settings again...grrrr) and that was why she closed her account that first time, or what.

But I find myself hoping I don't get a friend request from her. Unless they install a button that says "Fool me once, shame on you..." :-D

Things That Make You Go, "WTH"?

Sigh. It's been one of Those Days. A full moon, Mercury in retrograde (which is supposed to really mess up communication) for the next month or so and...yeah.

But today's WTH moment is courtesy of a police officer (who shall remain nameless, to protect what I suspect is the perpetually stupid.) In a nutshell, the police officer was supposed to do something for one of my attorneys in preparation for her trial (which started today--and yeah, of the three most dangerous life-forms on the planet, two of them are attorneys in trial.) So he came in today, after much prodding and threats of a court order ordering him to show up...and brought his three young kids with him.

Now, I like kids. I like my kid. I like my friends' kids. But when he brought the kids in, one of my male co-workers asked me and the law clerk (also female) if we would watch the police officer's kids. Um, no. I was swamped, as was the law clerk. And secondly, just because we have two X chromosomes does not, automatically, make us babysitters.

It all ended well in the end (cop did his job while one of my male co-workers kept the kids entertained,) and I'm not actually insulted, just bemused. I'm a mom, and a happy one, but it's not all I am. It's just funny how sometimes that label, or the label of being female, can drown out everything else.

The Only Constant

I know I've not been posting here recently (well, not since *gulp* June LOL) and that's mainly because things have done a fair amount of changing since I last posted.

The major change involves my daughter. On Tuesday, she started preschool. No tears, no sniffling, she just waved bye and was off like a shot. I guess I could have been offended LOL...but the reality is, I'm not. I'm proud of her, for being the kind of kid---even at almost four---who isn't afraid to try something new. It's the start of a new journey for her, and for us...and if we're a bit more nervous about it than she is, I guess that's normal too.

(And for those of you who are wondering...no, no sign of another child yet. If it's in the cards, it'll happen. :)

The other change is that I finally got to meet the members of the writer's group I'd been collaborating with for the last year or so. (If you've been following my BatB fanfiction blog, yes, I'm referring to the ladies of "Everything...") We met in July, at a very small con (aka, "family reunion," the main difference being that no one's cheeks got pinched. LOL) and it was like we'd known each other all our lives. I confess I was surprised by that; many years ago, in another fandom, I'd met an author I'd been chatting with and when we finally got together, we had virtually nothing to talk about.

I can still say, nearly a month after the con, that that wasn't the case this time. And I can't tell you how happy that makes me feel. We all come from different backgrounds, but we never ran out of things to say, or laugh, or cry about. And you can never have too many friends.

So that's the update, such as it is. I'll try to post more often :)

Dear Spammers....

Yes. That means you. The people who keep leaving responses to my posts in Chinese with embedded links to porn sites, or bootleg video sites. Whatever.

Maybe you haven't noticed, but this blog is on moderation, which means I have to approve each and every comment you make. And you know what? I'm not going to approve anything you say. Ever.

So, here's a thought. Since you apparently have so much time on your hands (well, time enough to keep spamming my blog, which doesn't get a lot of traffic) go find some other blog. Someone who wants your links to porn sites or who wants to buy bootleg DVDs. Or both. There must be someone.

It's just not me. Or my reader(s). kthxbai

Some thoughts on Mother's Day....

Okay, yes, I know, it's not Mother's Day yet...but since I plan to be out with my family tomorrow, I'm writing this now.

Tomorrow is Mother's Day and like I do every time this year comes around, I wonder about it. I remember being infertile and knowing that the odds of us ever conceiving a child were highly unlikely. Then, it was a day of what felt like endless cruelty, a reminder of the thing we wanted and couldn't have. And the holiday was everywhere---on the radio, in the stores, on TV. You couldn't escape it, even if you wanted to. And during those years, we desperately did.

Now that Ms. "Highly Unlikely" is three and a half, I think about it more. So much of Mother's Day--the ads, the cards, the flowers--seemed based on a massive guilt trip. "Buy these flowers for your mother, be her favorite kid." (Yes, I heard that one yesterday. I'm an only child but...gaaack.) I don't want guilt from my child--she doesn't "owe" me anything. I chose to get pregnant, I chose to become a mother. I try my damndest to be the best mother I can..but my daughter doesn't owe me flowers, or a card, just for being her mom.

I confess I bought into the hype---my mom (who is home and recovering from her hospital stay) loves her Mother's Day cards and would be hurt if she didn't get one, so I sent her one. But the more I think about it, the more I'm not sure I like the guilt of Mother's Day. I'm going to go out tomorrow with my husband and daughter and enjoy the time we have as a family. And when my daughter is old enough---I'll tell her that the only thing she owes me is really what she owes herself, to be the best person she can. The cards, Hallmark can keep. :-)

My mom is in the hospital

I'm posting this sort of late (as in, a few days after she went in) but it's taken me a bit to process this whole thing. In a nutshell, the spring bronchitis/pneumonia she always gets has changed into not only pneumonia, but reduced lung function and heart trouble. The upside---and there is one---is that her doctors seem to be good at putting the puzzle pieces together, figuring out what's wrong and working on a treatment. So I don't have any concerns there.

The bad side of it is...it's not over yet. She's still in the hospital and probably will be until next week at the earliest.

I worry a lot about her now, probably more than I would have, say, a year ago---not because I wouldn't have cared, but because losing Chan...Chan, who was exactly my mom's age when she died, put in focus that no matter how much I don't agree with her on matters political, no matter how tired I get of her endless grumbling....the reality is that one day, my mom won't be there. My mom, one of two people who remembers what I was like as a child, who did her best for me no matter what...one day, she won't be there.

I just hope that day...isn't soon.

What Was Worth the Saying

We had an earthquake on Easter (yes, I know, Easter was a couple of weeks back but I'm the busy mom of a three year old and if I get ten minutes that I'm not hearing, "Hey mommy," I'm writing on my fanfiction blog LOL.) We live in SoCal, the San Diego area more precisely, and we don't tend to get a lot of earthquakes in our area. Usually.

So we'd just finished Easter dinner and my dad and my daughter were racked out on the couch snoozing, when I heard the dishes in the china cabinet rattle. And keep rattling. I looked through our kitchen window to see our neighbor's satellite dish rotating and then I knew---this wasn't the earth having a small fit. This was a huge nasty quake. So I grabbed my daughter and my mom and my dad and my husband and great grandfather and I all dove under the mahogany table* and waited the quake out.

We suffered no damage, aside from some goddess statues on my upstairs altar who were really not amused by the shaking, and some shredded nerves. It was a 6.9, later upgraded to a 7.2, but the point was, we were all alive.

There is something about huddling under a kitchen table while the earth throws a tantrum that tends to put things in focus. I'm not always a big fan of holidays, for the most part--I don't like the pressure to be the perfect family when none of us are, or the inevitable ick feeling that comes when some relative you know has been an asshat is also at the same gathering. I wasn't particularly looking forward to the Easter lunch---for one, it's a hassle to clean the house and get everything dusted and in its proper place for visitors, and for another...sometimes it's hard being around my great-grandfather (lots of water under that particular bridge.)

But, we survived, probably due in no small part to the earthquake. A lot of the tension was just gone...I didn't care about the dust I'd forgotten about on the coffee table, or worry about what was going to come out of my mom's mouth. I just didn't care.

So, we survived the earthquake. And maybe what I thought was important, wasn't.

*I am reliably informed now that diving under the table in an earthquake is a Very Bad Thing unless said table is uber sturdy. Our table is nearly 65 years old and, so far as I know, has lived in southern California its entire life. So, I think it could handle being an earthquake shelter in a pinch. Though next time, I think I'll just run out into the parking lot or something.

Planting seeds

Today, I planted the first seeds of spring--chamomile, for the teas I hope to make, and rosemary, for the cooking herbs I hope to grow. I also transplanted a rather stubborn lavender plant into a larger container (which will have to be transplanted again before summer's heat hits, but hey, you do with what you've got when you've got it.) The only thing we have left to plant is the assortment of heirloom tomatoes and the sunflower seed mix and the container herb garden---those, I'll need help from my husband because of the amount of dirt involved and the size of the containers we'll need.

I had lots of help this morning too...my daughter. Give her a shovel and she's more than capable of putting a few shovelfuls of dirt on top of those tiny seeds. Of course, she's also more than capable of running around and jumping into the mud puddles on our patio too but hey, she'll clean up quickly. ;-)

I also poured some milk into the corners of our patio and asked the help of the Old Ones for what we were trying to do. I'm not sure if my daughter understood that part of things, but that's okay. That's another seed I'm planting---and like the others, if it's meant to be, it'll grow too. :-)

Happy is the Return of Spring

Today is Ostara, the pagan holiday marking the return of Spring (it coincides with the Vernal Equinox and if you're noticing the similarity to the name of the Easter holiday, that isn't coincidental either.)

I find myself needing spring badly this year. I can't complain about the Winter weather (hello, San Diego, anyone?) but it's been a hard one nonetheless. We've moved, dealt with any number of unforeseen maintenance issues in our "ready to move in" apartment, put up with several ugly work messes that seemed destined to drive me nuts, and gone through several minor (but annoying) illnesses that come and go and come again. We're no closer to having a second child than we were when we started trying (though all of the situations above might have something to do with that :-P) We're all just sick and tired of being sick and tired, and we need the spring and the flowers that grow to remind us that life isn't all sick days and doctors visits.

Next week, we're going to start planting our garden---all we need is some soil, and some help from the resident green thumb (my husband LOL) and maybe soon, we can start some life growing, within and without. :)

Blessed is the return of spring. :)

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Yesterday, I found out that a good person had died. I can't claim her as a good friend---we only talked once, in a chat room online, but she was beloved by all who knew her and in my own interaction with her, I noticed that she was wise and funny and unfailingly generous.

Chan (I'm using her screen name because that was how I knew her) was a long-time member of the Beauty and the Beast fandom community (the TV show, not the Disney movie.) She was a fantastic artist, but more than that, she was a good friend to many people. She leaves behind a husband, daughters and the children she taught in real life.

What I remember about Chan---besides her art, which was sensitive and beautiful and touching---is how generous she was. I remember reading a comment thread on one of the boards; younger artists were talking about how they drew this character or that character and because Chan was on the board they asked her for advice. And she gave it, without a hint of ego or condescension. She tried to encourage other artists because (as she said at Winterfest Online this year) she wanted to encourage them to take her place after she was gone.

That was in February. I don't think she thought that she'd be gone so soon. None of us did.

I can't claim to have known her well...that category goes to other friends of mine. But from what I did know, we've lost something special in her passing.

Goodbye, Chan. We'll miss you.

UPDATE 3/22/2010: Chan is gone. I'm choosing to picture she and Michelangelo battling for colored pencils or debating drawing techniques. We have all lost someone truly special.

Can I Take the 5th?

I have become convinced that somehow, I have given birth to the world's smallest defense attorney. Or prosecutor. Whatever. Today has been an endless round of questions, answers, more questions, more answers...and this, from the time she woke up at 6am until, um, now. I think she stopped when she took a nap, but I can't be sure.

All of which, I am told, is normal for a three year old. She's trying to start a conversation, and more power to her. But my ears are pretty much worn out and her dad is hiding under his desk upstairs (just kidding; he's upstairs playing a computer game) so I think it's a safe bet his ears are getting worn out too. The conversations have gone like this:

R: Whatcha doing, Mommy?

Me: Putting the dishes in the dishwasher.

R: What's a dishwasher?

Me: (looking at her over the tops of my glasses): What do you think a dishwasher is?

R: A dishwasher washes dishes!

Me: Very good. (Turning on the dishwasher.)

R: Mommy, what's that noise?

Me: *bangs head on counter*

It's not the first time she's heard a dishwasher, mind. And we seem to have the conversation about dishwashers and what they do at least once or twice per day, depending on how often we have to do the dishes. All of which taps into one of my pet peeves: having to repeat myself to someone who knows the answer.

I'm trying to be patient. I don't want my daughter to complain that her mom never listened to her, because that's not it. I know she knows what a dishwasher is, or whatever else the topic is, and is just asking because she's trying to figure out how conversations work, the give and take of things. And we're trying to teach her the rules of polite conversation too---not interrupting, not talking through or over the adults who are talking at the same time. I know it's all normal, and necessary and all that, but I think I'm about ready to plead the 5th and hush up now. Maybe then my little attorney will stop questioning me for a bit. :-P

Itchy Green Thumbs

A number of years ago, when my husband and I were first married, we had a garden on the back patio of our apartment. I remember looking out our back patio window and loving the slice of life he created back there and even though--as we discovered---corn doesn't really like being grown in containers, the leaves, the smell of earth and the colors of the vegetables made everything more alive.

But we moved when word came out that the apartments were going to be converted to condos (*eyeroll*) and for a few years, there wasn't space to garden (and once the neighborhood cats started using what land we did have as their litter box...ick. Why would you even try to garden then?) Since we've moved again and---once again---we have a patio with enough sun to get some plants growing, we're going to try a garden going, on a small scale. No corn, no eggplant (a plant we grew until we both realized we hate eggplant,) no zucchini or squash (for now.) Just some herbs, sunflowers, and tomatoes. Enough to give us some greenery and life in the middle of apartment central. They're all in seeds for now, but eventually...yeah. It'll be green again on our back patio.

I can tell spring is coming (no points for observation to me there LOL---Ostara, which falls on the vernal equinox--is just a couple of weeks away.) I'm getting that itchy need to go dig in the dirt and smell potting soil and see something we've planted grow. And I want to show my daughter how miraculous and beautiful things can come from the smallest of origins.

Spring is almost here. Whew. :-)

Random Acts of Randomness :-)

As I sit here writing this tonight, there is just the (very slight) chance that I'm pregnant. It's too early to test yet and my cycles are irregular anyways...so another week should prove or disprove the point. If I am...I'm happy about it but also nervous. My pregnancy with the wee one took a left turn at Albuquerque (to quote Bugs Bunny) about 22 weeks into it and was high risk the rest of the way through. Now that the docs know what the problem was, they can treat it earlier, but I'm never going to be one of those women who has a boring pregnancy where they go overdue; the best we're all hoping for is that I make it to term with a healthy baby. And if I have to go on bed rest again...well, nine weeks was a pretty good trade-off for the rest of the wee one's life, and it'll be the same with this baby too.

I spent a fair amount of time after she was born being upset---with my body, that I couldn't carry her to term (though there was nothing I could have done differently); with the universe, with fate or what have you. Distance and time and healing have led me to a different reality: life is...random. And you can't predict or control random events, you just can't. The wee one spent five weeks in the NICU through no fault of anyone's...and although I'd have not chosen to have her that prematurely, she's now a healthy, happy child, so it worked out okay in the end.

So if I am pregnant, I'll do my best, again. And the docs will do theirs. And maybe the outcome will be different, a healthy child that goes to term, or close to it. Maybe the random will work more in our favor this time. :-)

Teach Us to Be Still

I've been thinking Deep and Weighty Thoughts recently, now that we're moved in and the only water in our apartment is located where it's supposed to be. We're in the middle of a spell of abnormally wet weather and there's something atavistic, maybe, that makes me want to go into the back of a cave, light a fire, and do nothing but think while the rain falls all around me. Or sleep. (I'm easy to please. :-)

One of the things I promised myself when we moved was that I would carve out a sacred space, somehow, in the middle of our busy and hectic lives, and I've started doing that. There's a shelf in our bedroom that has my small collection of goddess statues, a couple of small white and black taper candles, and a plaque of the goddess Brighid. It's small and spare as altars go, but I'm a very young witch still as far as this path goes, and I like what I've managed to create. It feels peaceful, somehow.

I have hopes of being able to meditate in front of it one day, but that whole sitting still thing? It's a lot harder than it looks. I can sometimes find my mental "OFF" switch in the middle of writing, say, or just before I go to bed at night, but trying to relax when every other nerve is telling me that there are a million and one things to do, that I could be doing...is hard. And I'm not there yet. And with a toddler...maybe I shouldn't be surprised LOL.

So I'm trying to learn to be still, to find some inner peace in the middle of our crazy lives, to carve out some place that is calm and quiet and restful. Maybe I just need the rain. Or maybe we're not all that far from the cavemen after all. :-)

Those Were the Days...:-)

We've finally begun unpacking in earnest and one of the joys has been finding family photos. I found a small book of wedding photos that didn't make it into our wedding album...and I opened it up and for a second, I couldn't believe we were ever so young. It was only six years ago (seven years in April) but I looked at the picture of my husband and I under the shady trees at Heritage Park, or the huge grin my husband had on his face as I walked down the aisle, and I thought about all the things that Rob and Krista hadn't gone through yet.

We hadn't learned to depend on each other. We hadn't yet gone through 2006 (the year that will forever remain in my memory as both the best and the utter worst of times.) We hadn't moved into (and out of) three apartments. We hadn't been parents yet. We hadn't gone through the roller coaster of a high risk pregnancy and a child in the NICU. We hadn't set up one night playing "pass the baby" as we dealt with an inconsolable preemie newborn who wanted to do anything but sleep.

As much as we loved each other then---enough to get married and make all sorts of very scary promises about life and love and fidelity and friendship in front of family and friends---I can honestly say that no matter what we thought love was then, we didn't know the half of it. Love isn't all flowers and poetry--most of the time, it's just about being there for the other person, no matter how bad it gets, or what life throws at you, and rising in the morning to do it all over again because you promised your partner you would.

So, nearly seven years out and after a whole range of ups and downs and everything in between...I wouldn't change a thing. We were younger then, but we're wiser and happier now. :-)

Surfacing and Growing :-)

Well, after a week where we were all sick (again) and our water heater leaked (but was replaced,) I feel like it's been ages since I posted though it's only been two weeks. Whew. The next time I say I want to move---unless it's to a house---someone please slap me. Or send me away to a nice padded room somewhere....:-P

Tonight my hubby and the wee one and I went out to a local Italian restaurant whereupon our daughter---who is a whopping three years old and three feet tall---informed us that she was too short. I don't know where she's getting this (though it might be just her noticing comparisons; her dad is 6'2 and I'm not precisely short either), but I wonder if she's starting to make the connection between the things the "big kids" can do and the things that she can't yet.

The thing is, she is growing (and how) into someone who's neither her dad nor I, but herself. I looked at her tonight and was reminded of a poem Khalil Gibran wrote years ago about children in The Prophet:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

Moved In and Worn Out

Well, as of about 2pm yesterday afternoon, we are FINALLY moved into our new place. (The shower no longer leaks, by the way, though the jury is still out as to whether we actually have a leaking pipe somewhere, at least we can't see it. Yet.) There are boxes everywhere and we're both about as tired as you'd expect. But we got through it with no broken bones and minimum of aggravation, so that's something.

Gaaaahh, the boxes. I knew we had a lot of stuff (a fair amount of which is baby stuff that we can't get rid of since we want to have another child) but the sheer amount of Stuff is mind-boggling. And of course, what does the resident toddler want to do but climb in the boxes and pull things out of them? Yeah. We've managed to distract her since Rob is removing bricks from our back patio (long story--the short version is that they definitely are a hazard, so our former landlord is taking them) and she's discovered the joy of earthworms and salamanders and dirt. Which provided an opportunity to talk about what these littlest creatures do for the earth and how we need to leave them alone and let them do it....but if she's like every other little kid, I'm sure she'll be bringing them inside soon enough. LOL.

So that's our life, for now. New beginnings in a new place. :)

Here Comes the Rain Again....

...no, not the rain outside (though we've had plenty of that in the last week and we'll probably have more next week.) The rain I'm referring to is the type that fell from our ceiling late last night, as my husband was taking a shower in our upstairs bathroom.

Yeah. Our first night in the new apartment and we have not one, but four leaks. The management has been paged (and paged again...I'm nothing if not persistent) but we've still heard nothing back. It's not so much of a problem today--it's Sunday and given the amount of dust Rob inhaled yesterday while packing, his allergies have pretty much gone nuclear, so today was going to be a slow day anyway.

But tomorrow, I have to go back to work. Which means I'll have to get up even earlier, go over to our old apartment, take a shower and leave from there. And Rob will have to do the same, if he wants to get a shower before resuming our moving tomorrow. Can we say "massive inconvenience," boys and girls?

And I know that...manure...happens. Along with lots of other things. But we paid good money to move into this place, an apartment that was "move-in ready." Somehow, I doubt "move-in ready" means the waterfall from the leaking shower.

Le Sigh.

Packing, and other exercises in frustration

So, I've had a three day weekend and although I've gotten some packing done, it's mainly been in the tossing of things no longer needed that I've really been excelling. However, I did discover one thing that I really should have known:

Tossing old baby bottles in front of the toddler who used to use them...is just asking for trouble. Because no matter how much you tell said toddler that she's a big girl now and doesn't use those any more...she won't believe you. No matter what. (And sometimes...yeah, I don't believe she used those either, though I know perfectly well that she did. They're so small.)

Then there are the boxes. As I joked to one of my friends, our boxes apparently came with a toddler inside. Because our daughter just wants to play and play and play with those boxes...which is great for her imagination, but not so great if you're trying to pack with those same boxes.

So, yeah. Looks like we'll be packing after she goes to bed tonight. :-)

Four days and counting until we can start moving....and 17 days until we have to be out of here for good. Whew. :)

And Our New Word for the Day is....

..."No." Or, "NO!!!!" Thus sayith the toddler.

Yeah. Everything we ask the toddler these days is met with a "No." (Or, if she's particularly in a snit---stomped feet, folded arms, lower lip out and the inevitable, "It's not FAIRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!" Yes, someone discovered the joys of Time Out after that episode, how did you know? :-D)

And yes, I know this is all normal for her age and stage, that she's acting like she's supposed to and it's our job as parents to make sure she knows what behaviors we will (and won't) allow. And I'm okay with that---the best piece of parenting advice I ever got was, "Don't become a parent if you're afraid of being the bad guy." (Personally, I think that advice should be handed out with birth control, but that's just me :-P)

But I'm getting awfully tired of "No." And don't get me started on "fair" :-)