Archive for February, 2006

Every year our church hosts Gospel Fest. We have a well-known Gospel historian/musician come in and run a clinic, with a concert the next day. On Sunday morning we have a Gospel music service. It’s a hoot. This is a Lutheran church, people! The music is outstanding, the service is inspirational, but…we truly are the Frozen Chosen. I say this with love in my heart, but we just can’t move while singing. We look like Weeping Willow trees, just sorta swaying in the breeze. Comical. I played in the instrumental ensemble yesterday morning. Nothing like Gospel flute. I wish we’d do a Bluegrass service, but not a whole lot of Bluegrass flute either. LOL

Yesterday at dinner Tom and I determined the role of an iPod in someone’s life. It’s to give you your very own Life Soundtrack. You can change music based on what’s going on. You know, like that old Far Side comic: “Bad Guy, Ernie…Minor Key!” (Trust me on this, J is waking up and I don’t have time to search for it or scan it in…but it’s a funny panel). So we determined the soundtrack main theme for our family: pretty much ANY overture by Rossini. “The Italian Girl in Algiers” was playing while we had dinner and it mirrored what was going on at dinner. A slow beginning, very lyrical, then suddenly fast and amusing, zipping to an energetic ending. Yup, that is dinner here at Chez NADM. We start off with actual eating (with occasional good manners), then one of the boys starts with something amusing, the other imitates, the table pushing begins (never again will I buy a lightweight table from IKEA, though I love IKEA stuff), food throwing or blahblahblah at the top of one’s voice commences, and it all zips to a quick end to dinner when J tosses his sippy cup milk across the table and nails A’s open cup of soy milk, drenching the kitchen. Ahh, we’re living a Rossini overture.

The boys’ bedtime is 7 pm. Lately A has been passing out at about 7:01. Must have something to do with getting up at 5:freakin’:30. With our schedules and general exhaustion, marital intimacy keeps getting put on the back burner. So hey, let’s take advantage of the early bedtime! Which is all well and good, until you’re, um, taking advantage of the situation and hear the following from the next room:

I believe the most important thing you can teach a child is compassion. I think most things come back to having compassion for your fellow man. So we’ve really worked to teach and model empathy and compassion to A. I think it’s working. When J is sad, A will run up to J’s crib and get Buddy, J’s lovey. J instantly feels better. I didn’t realize how big of an impression this made on J. This morning A tripped coming up the basement stairs and hurt his ankles. Tears abounded. So I took A to the rocking chair and snuggled him. J disappeared upstairs and came back down with Buddy and Monkey (his very own lovies) and gave them to A to make him feel better. I have never felt such love in a room as I did this morning. I guess we’re doing something right. Must remember this.

Thirteen Things I just can’t believe 1. J does not have pink eye. Apparently it is some sort of eye goop disgusting thing that he’s enjoying smearing on my sweater. Eye drops help. So does Benedryl. 2. Both boys have fluid in their ears. Learned this yesterday at the ENT when A went in for a hearing test. He has some hearing loss, let’s hope it’s due to the aforementioned fluid. We go back in 8 weeks for a check; if there’s still fluid in their ears, I’m gonna see if I can get a 2 for 1 deal on tubes for them. A had them when he was 19 months old; he’ll then be in the “only 25% of kids need them again” club. I don’t freakin’ care. If it’ll help him hear, he’s getting ‘em. J too. I don’t think he’s hearing very well. 3. It’s almost the end of February and I haven’t wanted to divorce my husband. Glory be! Usually by now I’m looking up attorneys. Spring is next week! Yippee! 4. I actually have dinner prepped in the fridge. 5. You, that idiot driver from California I saw this morning? Yeah, while it’s all well and good that you have your baby strapped into a car seat, the other two toddlers in your car need to be belted in too. Car.Seats. Not the car’s seat belt (which you weren’t even using), which would have strangled one and not reached the other. Car. Freakin’. Seats. I’m sorry you have a little Saturn and three kids in the backseat. Tough nuts. Find a way. I’ve seen three booster seats in the back of a Saturn, so I know it can be done. I’m willing to bet you drove here from California that way. Shame on you. A nine year old boy died the other night out here because he was in the front seat, not wearing a seat belt. So when you get into an accident, and your kids go flying through the windshield…I’m not going to finish that thought. Oh, and by the way, the baby needs to be in the middle of the backseat. Find a way, idiot. 6. My kids complain about how tightly I strap them into their carseats. Tough. I had car seat techs show me how. When your lips turn blue I’ll loosen the straps. 7. The whole disaster with port security and the United Arab Emirates. The President didn’t know about it? Gimme a break! He has people to tell him this shit. Apparently they’re not doing their jobs. Is it 2008 yet? Please? 8. I have watched probably a combined 5 hours of Olympic coverage. This astonishes me. I am usually an Olympic junkie, but I just haven’t felt the Olympic love this time. I don’t get it. But I’ll watch the figure skating tonight. Gotta figure out how to scrapbook at the same time, though. Ah! Organization! That I can do in front of the tv! 9. Bode Miller. I know he’s a great athlete. You can’t be in the Olympics and NOT be a great athlete. But what was he thinking? Sprain your ankle playing in a pickup basketball game? Dude, if you’re not going to take this seriously, step out of the way for someone who will. In the meantime, ice your ankle and tape your mouth shut. 10. A will be five in April and I’m starting to get party planning catalogs. Crap. I don’t think I’m going to be able to bail on a party this year like I did last year. Chuck E. Cheese is starting to look pretty good. I hate planning kid parties. No, wait, I don’t. I hate having them. Unless there’s a keg for the grownups. 11. My next-door neighbor brought over chocolate chip cookies last week. I love cc cookies, they are my all-time favorites. These were, by far, the best cc cookies I’ve ever had. Punchline? She’s a dental hygenist. 12. We have nothing planned for this weekend. The second weekend in a row. No, wait, I’m playing in GospelFest this weekend at church. But other than that, nada. Ahhhhh… 13. And I made it to 13! And J is awake and crying! Mom-life goes on! LOL Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

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Things that should be pink:
flowers
sunrises/sunsets
a good steak

Things that should NOT be pink:
men’s dress shirts
the center of my chicken dinner
eyes

Please, oh please, let it just be a cold messing with J’s eyes.

Powerball jackpot goes to 8 meat plant workers

So I’ve decided to do something new. I’m going to start Gratitude Wednesday. Every Wednesday I’m going to post five things I’m grateful for. If you want to participate, leave your link and I’ll add it. I figure, blogs tend to be rants, especially mine, so I’m going to go the other way, just one day a week. ; ) I have so much to be grateful for and I forget that. A lot. So here’s my inaugural Gratitude Wednesday list.

1) I am healthy. In a general sense. Yeah, I’m taking enough drugs to knock over a pony for this sinus infection, but I’m done with those this week (Hallelujah!). I have no over-riding health concerns. No cancer, no debilitating disease…I’m in pretty good shape.

2) I am wealthy. Just by living in the United States, I am wealthier than, what, 95% of the rest of the world? That was really hit home about a year ago. Our church supports an orphanage in Africa. The woman who runs it wants to provide a cup of milk and an egg to each child a week. A WEEK. I can’t imagine that kind of poverty. So we support a young man there. Our church has done wonders supporting this school. They now have animals, and a small farm, and opportunities they didn’t have before. But yes, I am wealthy, although I don’t always feel that way. Affluenza is a nasty social disease and it’s everywhere.

3) I am wise. Ok, maybe not wise, but well-educated. I had the great luck to go to some wonderful schools and have some incredible opportunities. Sometimes I feel that I’m not taking advantage of those opportunities, but this is a gratitude list, so I’m grateful for what I have. I have a Masters degree in music from one of the best graduate music schools in the country. And I earned that A I got in that graduate level music theory class. I have never studied so hard in my life and I earned it.

4) I am loved. I am truly grateful for this. I have a loving family. My parents are truly top-notch. I can’t believe how lucky I am to have them. They were parents to so many of my friends, and my brother’s friends. They made my friends welcome in our house, and as a result, we hung out there a lot. They were always there for me, and still are. My parents are really good friends now, and I love them dearly. My husband is the best man I have ever known. He is a hard worker, a loving man, a dedicated daddy. (Anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a daddy). I listen to friends bitch about their spouses, and I realize how good I have it. My brother, although he and I have had our differences, is my friend. He and his wife, who is a wonderful woman and I adore her, are the listed guardians for our sons. My brother and A are so much alike that there are days when I swear I’m raising my brother and that scares the crap out of me. But my brother is a good man and I love him. And then there are my sons. I have learned more about love in the last five years than I ever thought possible. A calls me his “little toggle bolt” (thank you, Magic School Bus). J runs and gives me hugs all the time. I have never felt such love in my life, for someone and from someone. How beautiful is that?

5) I am an American. Ok, this one is a hard one for me to write. Most of the time I am not proud to be an American. We, as a society and as a government, have done very little for me to be proud of. I am especially embarrassed by the current administration for so many reasons I will not go into now. BUT, having said that, I am grateful to be an American and I have been ever since I could remember. Being an American provides me with all the opportunities I mention above. I’m healthy (although health insurance is insanely expensive), I’m wealthy (though I don’t feel it), I’m wise/well-educated, and I’m loved (ok, that one isn’t related to being an American). But I have so many opportunities I wouldn’t have otherwise. Our church’s mission statement is “Blessed to be a blessing” and that’s how I feel about being an American. I am able to do so much for others because of my situation and I’m grateful for that.

So it’s up to you. If you want to play, leave me a link and I’ll add you. There’s so much out there to be cynical about, to rant about, to be angry about. But today, and every Wednesday, I’m going to step back and look at my life and be thankful. Wanna join me?

J is getting so big. At 19 months, he knows the letter “E”, is showing interest in potty training (THANK YOU GOD!), can tell me when he needs changed, and knows the following body parts: head, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hands, toes, tushie, belly button. I tell him to get his shoes and he does. He’s getting to be more “two”, but after A, it doesn’t seem so bad this time ’round. We’ll see. He’s such a happy little boy.

I had book club tonight. The book was “Pope Joan” by Donna Woolfolk Cross. I was only about 100 pages in, of a 400+ page book. I went anyway.

I miss reading. I used to read a lot. A.LOT. From grade school through college, I’m pretty sure my parents and teachers thought they were going to have to surgically remove books from my hands. Seriously, I distinctly remember carrying my books from class to class in middle school: class folder, spiral bound notebook, textbook, book for pleasure, little planner (yeah, I was addicted to my planner at a tender age, but that’s another post). I’d hustle to class and get a few pages in before the teacher would start. For every single class. All day. I read several books a week. In grade school we had the reading olympics. I got a gold medal every year. I would check out books from the library twenty and thirty at a time. I remember a Wednesday in college. I had an early class, and then nothing the rest of the day. I read an entire book that day, did nothing else. No studying, no flute practicing, just read all day long. It obviously made an impression on me, I remember what day of the week it was.

Somewhere along the line, I stopped reading. I think it was around 1993, when I started to get really serious about my flute playing. I started practicing a whole lot and the reading fell by the wayside. It had to happen, I was in music school, something had to give. So it was the reading for pleasure. You’d think it would have returned, but then there was teaching, and grad school, and more teaching…and then kids.

I actually read a lot more while breastfeeding. Hey, I had to sit down several times a day and sit still. Might as well read while I’m at it. I got really good at nursing on one side and holding a book with the other. So when my mom’s group had a book club, I went. My first book club. I loved it. Still do, just hardly ever read the book anymore.

I have a couple of theories why I don’t read, besides the kid thing.

1) Too many books, too little time. I think I have 100+ books I want to read on my PDA. Some have been there for over 4 years. A lot of non-fiction, a bunch of fiction, very little fluff. It’s intimidating. I have a tendency to go to the library, get a half dozen of them, and have them taunt me for three weeks…or six, if I renew them for more torture. I have reading material on at least three separate horizontal surfaces in my house. More, if you count the bookcase in the living room.

2) The whole kid thing. I read “Magic School Bus” and “Magic Tree House” and “Curious George” and Dr. Seuss. They’re short, they’re to the point, they’re mindless…to me.

3) I think I have adult-onset ADD. Or, make that kid-induced ADD. I swear, I have no attention span anymore. I used to be able to practice my flute for 2-3 hours at a time, no sweat. I can barely make 20 minutes before my brain is trying to leap from my ears. Reading? Gimme a break! It’s a good book, but 30 seconds into Pope Joan and my brain is begging for something else. Why is this, you ask? It’s because I can barely contain a 3 minute train of thought before it’s derailed by screaming from the other room, an insistent demand for something rightnow, or a nagging thought that it’s wayyyy too quiet in the other room, or something. I’ve become a magazine person, God help me. Short, sweet, to the point. I love Time magazine, I’ve been a subscriber since high school, but dang, I can barely hold it together for the little side blurbs. Scrapbook magazines are about the right attention span for me.

4) Which brings me to my hobby/obsession/illness. I love to scrapbook. I love that I am saving memories for future family. I love being creative in a way that will last past the next breath. But it takes up a lot of time. I like that I don’t have to “think” or really concentrate. But it’s cutting into my reading time. Thursday nights are my scrapbook nights. I put the boys to bed and go play. I really should do that with books.

And what concerns me about all this? That it doesn’t really bother me. I feel like I’m juggling so much and worrying about so much and planning so much and thinking so much that when the time finally appears for me to read, I don’t want to do any thinking. I just want to sit. Just.Sit. And Do.Nothing. I don’t want to read about Pope Joan, I don’t want to think about sensory integration disorder anymore, I don’t want to flip through Consumer Reports to get ideas for affordable autos in case Tom’s car really is dead…I just want my mind to settle. So maybe it’s time to just get the books out of the house for awhile and not feel the guilt. I miss reading, but the books will still be there when I’m ready. The research is still there, mainly online when I need it. If the books don’t get read, their feelings won’t be hurt.

I miss that part of me, getting lost in a book, but I guess right now it’s going to have to wait. I don’t know if I’ll finish Pope Joan. It’s been on my PDA list forever, and I own it, so there’s no hurry to finish it. Who knows. But the library books are going back, and the magazines are going to the recycle bin, and we’ll see what happens. I’ll call it a “reading flush”, a literary purge, and feel better on the other side.

So Tom has finally written a post (ok, 3!) on his blog. He’s only had it since,oh, the beginning of January, but finally got something written tonight. He’s been sitting here for a couple of hours writing and I haven’t seen him this relaxed in a loong time. Go check him out; he is considerably funnier than I am.

I believe I said something about “hope I don’t forget to buy a Powerball ticket…” Guess what I did? Forgot to buy a Powerball ticket. One winner. In Nebraska! Oy. Hope it was my brother in law, buying it in Omaha, over the line from where he lives in Iowa. One winner. In Nebraska. So much for my music school…not that it really matters…’cause I forgot to buy a freakin’ ticket! Grrr…