Archive for December, 2009

Party like it’s 1999 2009. And let’s all lift a glass to a healthy, prosperous, and BETTER 2010!

I was going to post a lighthearted stab at online flame wars tonight, but I hate them so much I don’t even want to poke fun at them. They’re nasty and mean and people say things they’d never say to a person’s face. I’m a strong believer in “if you can’t say anything nice, then keep your damned trap shut so I don’t have to hear your vile spew.” There’s enough anger and hate in the world, no need to add to it. If you believe in the Great Pumpkin, don’t be insulted and hateful because someone else doesn’t. </rant>

Why, Jen! Having a hard day? Yes, yes I am. The blue moon can bite my rosy red ass. I’m sooo looking forward to 2010. Anyone else?

(I struggled with whether or not I should post this, and took several days to get out what I needed to say without it seeming like I was making mountains out of molehills; A does that enough for the whole state, I don’t need to contribute.)
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When I first started this little writing project here four years ago, A was almost five and J about 18 months. I was blissfully anonymous and they were young. Writing about them was easier then.

And then they got older, and A’s various issues, mainly coming back to his twice-exceptionalities, got more intense. I wrote about nearly all of them, even ones I was certain I would never cover. Almost all came out, and I found so many supporters and fellow travelers on this path we never, ever expected. You don’t expect to have a gifted kid who is also (insert various learning disability/emotional issue here). Just not covered in the baby books. So finding others in similar situations was a blessing.

“If you decide to confide in others, you’ll discover you’re not alone.”

I live by this motto. I also believe that if I confide in others, they’ll discover they’re not alone. But it also comes with an increasing lack of privacy.

A few weeks ago, I was at a “OMG, it’s winter break!” playgroup/FAC (Friday Afternoon Cocktails) and someone mentioned how much she enjoyed my Facebook postings, that they always made her laugh. I grinned and said something along the lines of her discovering my Walter Mitty fantasy, being a writer. She asked if I had a blog, and I flat-out said yes. It’s on my Facebook info page, it’s not something I’m hiding, I’ve told IRL friends about it…but it still caught me by surprise.

See, some of the things I write here could easily be misinterpreted by people who know me outside of the computer screen, who know my sons in real life. While I try to be every bit as ME online and off, I’m considerably wordier and open here. I’m not about to go up to a friend and talk about giftedness. That generally doesn’t go over well. It’s like SENG’s description: “What does she have to worry about? Her kid is gifted!” I live that, plus A’s giftedness generally doesn’t show itself unless you’re sitting and talking to him. In group settings, you see the kid trying to get others to play by his rules, or freaking out over the volume of the kids (even though he’s plenty loud himself), or upset by the unfairness of groupthink.

“If you decide to confide in others, you’ll discover you’re not alone.”

I’m not going to tone down what I write here, unless my sons ask me to. I’m going to keep the level of relative anonymity I have now, unless I see the need to change. I suspect I have some lurkers who know me IRL, and that’s ok, it doesn’t bother me. What bothers me is that what I write here could easily be used as gossip, which could then trickle down to the kids who know my sons. (This also goes for extended family members, too). If someone reads here and wants to talk (or chat with someone else to send my way) about twice-exceptionalities or asynchronous development or giftedness and how poorly it’s addressed in the schools, then I will bend over backwards to talk and help. But if what I write here becomes neighborhood gossip fodder, that worries/saddens/angers me. Yes, I know what I put here is Out There, for God and the whole world to see, but I do it to find I’m not alone, and help others not be alone on this confusing journey.

I know I’m not struggling with this alone; mommy blogs tend to be slammed for writing about their kids. Raising kids isn’t all sunshine and roses, I think the honesty of mommy blogs brings that front and center, and that makes people uncomfortable.

I guess this whole post can be summed up as such: I will talk openly and at length about anything I write about here, to anyone…but please don’t gossip. It can poison in hidden ways anyone it touches.

Are you familiar with the game “Would You Rather…?” Quick rundown for the uninitiated: you’re presented with two equally distasteful situations, and you get to pick which one you prefer. Kind of an interesting look into someone’s mind. For example, would you rather:

• Give birth with absolutely no drugs whatsoever, when you were planning for a pleasant epidural?
  OR
• Have a severely colicky baby who doesn’t sleep for five solid months?

See? Neither situation is remotely palatable. (For the record, I have endured both scenarios, and I’d go with the unplanned drug-free birth every.single.time.)

I’m living this game right now.

JEN! You’ve been selected for the next round of Would!You!Rather?! LIVE! Ok, here are your scenarios, are you ready? Would you rather…

• Homeschool your twice-exceptional son with the poor impulse control and low frustration level?
  OR
• Enter the workforce for the first time in 10 years so you can afford a private school that could help him?

The clock’s a’tickin’, Jen! You have until spring to figure it out! Choose wisely, and your son will thrive! Choose poorly, and your son will flounder even worse than he is now! Choose not at all, and you will lose him to a lifetime of underachievement and poor self-esteem!

No Grand Prize, but lots of booby prizes. Good times, good times.

So I’ve been trolling Craigslist and the local school districts, trying to get a feel for what is available for me, job-wise. Unfortunately, what I’ve discovered is that I’m too qualified for the positions I’d be hired for, and not qualified enough for the positions I could do well. And returning to the classroom is not an option. I get enough of attitude and crap from my own kids, I can’t teach anymore. That’s a decision I made 10 years ago and I’m sticking to it.

My ideal job, for me right now, is part time working in gifted advocacy/education. Does it exist? Probably not, but if it were a perfect world, A wouldn’t be having such difficulties in school and this wouldn’t be an issue. So I search, and I tinker with my resume, and I read up on homeschooling challenging children. There’s really no perfect answer, but I’ll take “good enough for now.”

‘Cause someday, I want to play a different version of this game…

JEN! You nailed your previous round of Would!You!Rather?! LIVE! and get to advance to the bonus round! Ready? Would you rather…

• Take an around-the-world cruise with your husband, all-expenses paid, with a tutor for your sons so they can come along and have a once-in-a-lifetime education, and not have to plan it or lift a finger except to sample a local delicacy?
  OR
• Have the above trip but with Jamie Bamber along simply to feed you those local delicacies?

‘Cause that is a version of this game I could totally rock.

Stupid blizzard. All last week we la-dee-dahed our way through the Christmas prep, vaguely knowing that there was wicked bad weather in the midwest. Didn’t bother us; we’d already done our holiday travel at Thanksgiving and weren’t going anywhere.

Yesterday my family called from Chicago…my brother, who has been stationed in Germany for the last 22 months, was home. Two months early. And they had planned to jump in the car early yesterday to drive out here and surprise us. The <insert strongly worded profanity here> Christmas blizzard prevented them from coming out.

I am so relieved he and his wife are home. I’ve missed them. He has some leave while he searches for a civilian job, so they’ll be out soon. They mentioned New Year’s, and boy, I hope so. Otherwise it’ll probably be late January. He and A are two of a kind, and watching them together is a joy.

So…Ma Nature? Give it up already. I wanna see my widdle bwudder and mommy and daddy.

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I also have a post up at Hopeful Parents today. C’mon by!

Recovered from Christmas yet? I haven’t. See, a certain little 8 year old boy didn’t fall asleep on Christmas Eve until nearly midnight. Excitement, worry about daddy who wasn’t home from singing a later church service… Oh, and he rigged his door open so he could hear everything. Needless to say, it was late when we got to bed. And then Christmas burst into our room at the unholy hour of 5:15. That’s a.m., folks. Yesterday morning was spent pouring Bailey’s into coffee, and yesterday afternoon was spent pouring diet Pepsi down my throat. There indeed was a nap (by me) and hyperactivity (the boys). We didn’t leave the house yesterday, didn’t leave the house today. Might want to venture out tomorrow before we all get cabin fever and try to chew each others legs off. Don’t care to start 2010 missing a limb.

Merry Christmas!

The longer we’re married, the more beautiful and quality Christmas decorations grace our home. We have a tree skirt my mom needlepointed, which is just lovely and currently covered in gifts, so no photos, sorry. A couple of years ago I begged her to needlepoint an Advent calendar. I think she may have forgiven me now; the detail work about killed her. Nothing to open, but each date is covered by a tiny (1″x1″) needlepointed decoration that hangs on a teeny tiny jingle bell.

Needlepoint Advent Calendar

We have a couple of Nativity Scenes, one unusual and one sweet.

Carved wood nativity

I think this was a wedding gift, or maybe our first Christmas together, from Tom’s parents. The pieces slide back together and store flat.

Christmas pageant

I love this set. We first saw it on our honeymoon, at a Christmas store in Victoria, British Columbia. We couldn’t justify the (not terribly high) expense, as we had just gotten married. After moving to Boulder a little more than a year later, we found it in a small store. We couldn’t pass it up a second time, and that was our gift to each other that year. Isn’t it adorable? Little kids dressed up in their dads’ shirts for their pageant.

Little baby Jesus in an apple box

Notice the four pairs of shoes under the costume?

MUR!!!! Always make me laugh.

This has been my favorite for 12 years, but was knocked off the top of the faves list last spring.

Notice a theme here with all these items? If something is going to be in my house, if I’m going to store it/dust it/care for it, I want it to have some meaning behind it. That’s why we don’t have an angel/star for the top of our tree yet; I haven’t found something meaningful. Kindly remember this is a woman who bought a christening gown in Ireland three years before having children, because she wanted something with a story.

One of our friends at church is an elderly man who is a gifted woodcarver. He can barely walk from age and a car accident several years ago, but his hands still work and produce beautiful works of art. Last spring I asked if he would carve us a creche and he made an heirloom. All handmade, handpainted, done with love.

All handcarved creche

All by hand. And there’s more…

Shepherd and sheep (one was a lost sheep until a few weeks ago)

Three wise men and their camels

Angel

The detail is just lovely.

How small is that little Baby Jesus???

This small. He's about 2/3 of the length of my pinky.

And look at that hand-painted detail!

Is it obvious that I love this creche? The attention to detail, that it was crafted by a friend, that it is heirloom quality… I’ve had a hard time this season keeping the boys from playing with it. It’s a “LOOK ONLY” set, not a “HANDS ON” set.

And it just makes me happy to look at it. The angel/star for the tree can wait for next year.

Today cabin fever drove me out of the house with the boys. To the mall. Two days before Christmas. In a snowstorm. To see Santa.

One of Tom’s coworkers asked if he forgot to up my meds for the holiday season.

I avoid the mall like the plague between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, so today was unusual. But we were meeting a friend there so the kids could play at the indoor playground and run their crazies out. J got to sit on Santa’s lap (A? Are you kidding? Last year’s photo was an anomaly, never to be repeated), I got to hit the Apple Store to fondle drool plan my next purchase and get help on syncing my iPhone with Princess’s new hard drives, the boys got lunch at MickeyD’s. A good day.

Skreeeetch!!!! Ok, huge digression here. I went searching back through my archives to find last year’s Santa photo and came across a couple posts that had me shaking my head. I easily could have written them this year. Remember, last month, when we went to Iowa and the bed nearly killed me? I wrote a post about the frakking bed and how it screwed with me last year too! I just got Princess the PMSing Laptop back this week, but she was messing with me at this time last year too! Ok, I hereby declare, in front of the Internets and the Whole World, the follow vows:

In 2010 I will not sleep on the guest room bed at my in-laws house because it does painful and dangerous things to my anatomy.
In 2010 I will purchase a MacBook Pro because Princess is on her last legs and I can’t take another year of this.

Please remind me of these as I get closer to our May Iowa trip and Back to School Apple sales (last year, didn’t Apple have a sale of “Buy a MacBook, get an iTouch? ‘Cause A could totally go for that deal! LOL).

Back to today’s trip to the mall. It wasn’t bad. Helps that we got there shortly after opening. Parking spot near the door. Only had to wait 10 minutes for Santa and 0 minutes at the Apple Store. Ohhhhh…..Apple Store. Purty, shiny, functioning computers…..ahhhhh….. Sorry…distracted by shiny things. The afternoon went downhill after we left and the boys decided to Be Brothers On Vacation. AKA “Annoy Each Other Until Mom Loses Her Shit And Orders Everyone To Separate Rooms So She Doesn’t Kill Anyone.”

Good times, good times.

Now? Back to baking and wine drinking and Chex Mix eating (that stuff won’t see Christmas Day at this rate) and wine drinking and gift wrapping and wine drinking.

(Here is irony. I finished this and tried posting it only to find that my internet was down. I tried fixing it not one, not two, but three times before saying screw it and going to bed. And because I refuse to allow my posting rally be held hostage by yet another technological SNAFU, I’m post-dating this sucker)

I wish I was kidding. In the last month, my laptop died, my iPod locked up, and the DVR in the basement shorted out the house phone line. The upstairs DVR is making disconcerting grinding noises. Lampposts pop off as I drive by. Let’s look at it as my electric personality knocking everything offline.

Still trying to set up Windows 7. Only took four hours to set up Outlook today. I suppose I could look at this as learning perseverance and patience, but screw it, I’m sick of it. I still have to import all my bookmarks…One.By.One. I’ve looked, there’s no way to import the whole freaking lot of ‘em. So it’s “go to site, click bookmark.” Crap. iTunes is all frakked up and I get to create all new playlists; at least the music transferred.

NOT how I wanted to spend the last few days before Christmas. No cards have been sent, no cookies have been made. Bailey’s Irish Cream Fudge has been prepared and is cooling in the fridge, so we have that if nothing else.

Tomorrow the boys and I are meeting some friends at the local shopping mall so they can run around in the free play area. Us and the other eleventy billion SAHMs with that same idea. And it’s snowing. Sigh…