Day 17: Lame

So, I’m lame. I can’t even keep up with NaBloPoMo. In my defense, I have been incredibly busy since the 12th.

Let me start off by saying that, yes, I realise it’s only Novemeber, but as parents, Fil and I start thinking about Christmas 1 to 2 months in advance. So, while we haven’t even bought our seasonal tofurkey, we’re already thinking about Black Friday deals and wrapping paper.

I only get paid twice a month, the first Friday and the second Friday. It’s obvious where the first pay check goes (rent) and the second pay check is used on bills and household necessities. Due to the time of the year (Christmas), the majority of that second pay check is getting rerouted to presents for the boy and for the family. So far we’ve managed to tackle 4 presents for the boy and one family member totally knocked out, while two others remain partially done. As for my parents and grandparents, we’re at a loss. To cut down on cost, we’re doing joint presents for each pair, but we’re not sure what a good present would be. Eh.

We’ve become ridiculously skilled at managing our budget around this time of year. We’ve made money spread thinner than the last bit of butter on 3 slices of toast. Monster has always had presents under the tree. I’ll admit, it was much easier when he was a Lego freak, because we could fill in holes with Star Wars sets. But, now that he’s gone through and sold all of his Legos and grown past that stage, we’re panicked about what to get him. Thankfully, both sides of the family have promised to pitch in for a group present (Fil’s side is getting us the XBox 360 while my side is getting us the PS3) and we were able to fill in huge gaps with new games he’s been drooling over for months. He’s only getting a few games (4 total, 3 for the new systems and 1 for the old PS2 that he’s getting in his room) but they’re expensive enough to take up a good chunk of our $350 budget.

We’re smart about these things, now. Last year, if you look at the pictures (in retrospect, I didn’t actually get around to posting them), he got a good amount of kids toys. Legos, Nerf guns, plastic warriors. You get the picture. We were completely unsure about our purchases, because he was on the cusp of “too old” and rarely played with his toys that he already had, especially the Legos. We made an agreement, “this is the last year” we said. And it was. We’ve now made the same promise, about light sabers and other kinds of toys, unless he specifically asks for it. It’s a hard thing to swallow, because that means we’re parting with his childhood. Not completely, because in most ways he is still a child, but we’re still packing up the last of his boys sized clothes and getting him shoes that look enormous (and they are, he wears a size 9 in mens, and even at a half size too big, they fit my feet).

I guess what I’m getting at here is that this coming Christmas will be, in many ways, bittersweet. How tightly do I hold onto the memories we’ll make? Will this be the last year he writes a letter to Santa? What about the Candy Cane Monster? Will he still thrill at the sight of a hand written note and candy cane-turned-monster stashed away in his room? I know each memory we create with our son is more precious than gold, but how hard do you hold onto such things, when you never know how long they’ll stay a child?

Next year, we’ll have a whole new set of worries and joys (TTC) to focus on accompanying the Christmas distress. So I’d like to focus hard on my son this year, and think long and hard about what kind of cookies to make Santa this year, because he loves both snickerdoodles and chocolate-chip-peanut the best.

As for song of the day, I think I’ll go with In a Graveyard – Rufus Wainright. I first heard the song in 9th grade, after a friend posted it when the days got long and cold. Because of that, I will always connect that song with the odd cold days here in Texas, and like the past few days, today is one of those. (Also, it’s a beautiful song.)

Day 11: Veteran’s Day

Song of the Day: Hands Held High – Linkin Park

Turn my mike up louder I got to say something
Light weights step to the side when we come in

Feel it in your chest the syllables get pumping
People on the street they panic and start running

Words on loose leaf sheet complete coming
I jump in my mind and summon the rhyme, I’m dumping

Healing the blind I promise to let the sun in
Sick of the dark ways we march to the drum and

Jump when they tell us that they wanna see jumping
Fuck that I wanna see some fists pumping

Risk something, take back what’s yours
Say something that you know they might attack you for

Cause I’m sick of being treated like I have before
Like it’s stupid standing for what I’m standing for

Like this war’s really just a different brand of war
Like it doesn’t cater the rich and abandon poor

Like they understand you in the back of the jet
When you can’t put gas in your tank

These fuckers are laughing their way to the bank and cashing the cheque
Asking you to have compassion and have some respect

For a leader so nervous in an obvious way
Stuttering and mumbling for nightly news to replay

And the rest of the world watching at the end of the day
In their living room laughing like “what did he say?”

[Chorus:]
Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen

In my living room watching but I am not laughing
Cause when it gets tense I know what might happen

World is cold the bold men take action
Have to react or get blown into fractions

Ten years old it’s something to see
Another kid my age drugged under a jeep

Taken and bound and found later under a tree
I wonder if he had thought the next one could be me

Do you see the soldiers they’re out today
They brush the dust from bullet proof vests away

It’s ironic at times like this you pray
But a bomb blew the mosque up yesterday

There’s bombs in the buses, bikes, roads
Inside your market, your shops, your clothes

My dad he’s got a lot of fear I know
But enough pride inside not to let that show

My brother had a book he would hold with pride
A little red cover with a broken spine

On the back, he hand-wrote a quote inside
When the rich wage war it’s the poor who die

Meanwhile, the leader just talks away
Stuttering and mumbling for nightly news to replay

And the rest of the world watching at the end of the day
both scared and angry like “what did he say?”

[Chorus x6]

[x6]
With hands held high into the sky so blue,
As the ocean opens up to swallow you.

 

The wars we’re waging today were built by greedy, selfish men. We may have a new president – one I love and admire every day – but that does not change where we are in this war. We’re still there, fighting and dying. I don’t have any respect for our previous president, and I know I have high expectations for Obama. I really hope he follows through.

But, I know Veteran’s Day is a day for the soldiers, not to reflect on the atrocities of war. I do support the troops and hope that our president elects to bring them home, soon.

For me, Veteran’s Day is a day to remember and celebrate the men in my family who have gone to war and come home.

My uncle (paternal side), who went off to war and came bad a scarred and broken man. An injury sustained during duty led to years of addiction to pain killers. Almost 2 years ago, he over dosed on those same pain killers. His ashes rest on our family plot in Ireland, where he always wanted to be.

My great-great uncle (maternal side), who went off to fight in World War II and came home alive to play the fiddle and hunt coons and wild pigs well into his 80s. He is still the only family member besides myself who has ever taken up the violin.

My grandfather (maternal side), who went to war but ended up in a radio tower in Japan, safe from gun fire but not from sake.  For some reason, however, he rarely speaks of his time in the army. Out of all of these, he is the only one still alive.

My grandfater (paternal side), who was just a young man when he was sent to France as a medic in World War II. My grandmother waited for him in New York, where she lived with his mother even though they weren’t married. When he returned, whole and full of life, they married and went on to have seven children, move to Texas, and die in their 60s of lung cancer

Sometime this month I will write about my grandparents, but for now, I’ll leave this post as a standing memory for my veterans.

Day 7: Grocery Shopping

I’d like to think we have a great routine for grocery day, but I know that’s not the case.

Since Fil is on forced medical leave, she gets to keep her Medicaid and her Food Stamps. We get a little over $350 a month for groceries, and it’s always on the 3rd of the month. Usually we do a whole months worth of shopping on that one day, ripping the bandaid off fast I guess you could say. Normally this works alright – we huff and puff up three flights of stairs, at least four times, and for the next hour clean out the fridge and pantry and restock. It’s a pain, for sure, but we’re done and only need to fill in with bread, milk and veggies as the weeks go on.

Occasionally, it doesn’t work out so well. Like this past week when food stamps came in, it was a Tuesday. Both Fil and I knew there was no way we could accomplish a full grocery run on a weekday. We’re usually in the store for 2 – 2.5 hours on a big shopping trip. It involves two grocery carts, a calculator and a lot of patience. I don’t have a lot of patience during the work week, so we opted to grab a few things to fill in for the rest of the week and we’d get the shopping done on Saturday - er, today.

I can tell you that it sucked. I don’t know why we don’t just get it done on a weekday, when it’s not as insane and packed with loud, obnoxious UT students. Saturday, the good vegetarian selection is picked over and the vegetables have been horribly manhandled. It’s just all together frustrating and I dread dragging pounds of groceries up and down the stairs.

But, it’s all worth it, in my opinion. By the time we’ve finished and cleaned up dinner, our fridge smells nice and clean and it’s packed with yummy foods and so is our pantry. It gets very scary at the end of the month, when we’ve got some bread, milk and a bunch of Zataran’s sides… and nothing else. Be careful if you ever come to our place – our freezer is perpetually booby trapped, you might have a box of our son’s Le@n Pockets jump out at ya.

Song of the Day: Jump (for my love) – The Pointer Sisters

What’s not to love? It makes me feel happy inside, and after that shopping trip I feel triumphant enought to dance. On the inside, of course.

Day 6: OMG

Yeah, I had to do that, because this is an OMG kind of post.

Fil’s been receiving radiation for the past two weeks, every Tuesday. And yesterday? Her doctor called with her latest MRI results:

The tumor on her kidney? SHRANK. BY 1 MM YOU GUYS.

I know it’s not a lot, but her doctor is optimistic and he thinks Medicaid will now pay for full treatments and he’s got an oncologist willing to help.

Y’all…

This could mean that Fil gets better. That Fil goes to work. That.. OMG. My brain can’t handle it. I’ll just leave you with a song.

Song of the Day: Perfect Fingers – Tami Greer

In honour of my Fil, who is perfect, and amazing, and everything this old-fashioned lesbian could ever want. I love you, baby. (Also, it was in Better than Chocolate… he’s not a fucking drag queen, yo.)

Ink Me 2009/Monster’s First Day

Thanks to Calli, I am participating in the Ink Me 2009.

I have already posted my first tattoo (pictured here), but the explination didn’t accompany it. Mostly because that tattoo is fairly self-explanitory, Fil and I got the same tattoo (a triquetra blended with a heart) to symbolize our past, present and future and that our love is linked to them all. Insert “awwww” here.

My second tattoo was a bit more of a thought process, I spent a long time searching for something that I felt deeply about. Naturally, it turned out to be a Celtic knot (how can I not have my body decorated with the history I find myself so deeply connected to?) that symbolized motherhood.

Motherhood Knot

The little purple dot is Monster’s Celtic birthstone. I realise the ink looks poorly done, and it’s mostly due to my skin. Most of the ink got pushed out, and it needs to be hit again, hopefully by a different artist (perferrably female, since it’s on my chest) and such. It means a lot ot me, because there is loads of space to add more dots for more children.

I’ve noticed that in a lot of body ink renditions, the dots are placed on the outside of the heart. For me? I put him in my heart because he will always be there with me, on my skin and in my heart. (Insert louder, longer “aaaawww”)

Now, onto Monster’s first day of 6th grade.

He’s at a special school here in town, a Science Academy, that (so far) is requiring a lot from us. He needed special kinds of clothes (navy blue or khaki pants/shorts, grey shorts/shirts for gym) and loads of expensive school supplies. We’re flummoxed because said school is supposed to cater to lower economic status families like ours. Since we’re strapped for cash LMIL sent us $100 to get him school clothes and supplies, but we could only afford a few pairs of pants and the cheapest supplies we could find.

It sucks that we’re so strapped for cash, but luckily we had enough for new socks and undershirts (it’s wonderful that he has to wear a uniform polo, even if they were $18 each… THANKS DAD!) but that was about it. I’m keeping my fingers crossed hoping he doesn’t come home with loads more supply needs.

Perhaps the thing that made Fil most livid was that he was pulled aside and given a warning for wearing the wrong colour of navy blue (EVEN THOUGH I saw other kids wearing the SAME shade and another one wearing blue jeans!) even though we stood in front of the principal and he said nothin’!

But, what made me the most angry was that he didn’t get to eat breakfast, because the cafeteria was closed all morning and they were painfully late with lunch. My kid was so ravenous that he ate 8 chicken fries and rice and veggies for dinner. I plan on feeding him breakfast tomorrow and every day until I’m sure that school has their ass on right.

First day of 6th grade!!

He’s pretty cute, huh? And I know his belt is on all wrong, but I didn’t realise it until I got home and glanced over the picture. I hope he figured it out!

In other news, I still am jobless. My parents have helped a lot with bills and are going to help with rent, but if I can’t land a job soon we’re going to have to move to Michigan to live with LMIL until we can get on our feet. Fil’s mom managed to land me a job and we’d have the option of finding a cheap home up there. It’s definitely not something we want, but we may just have to resort to it. Bleh.

Attainable vs. Unattainable

The post at Creating Motherhood about the things that make us happy has sparked the interest within me to blog as well. Mostly because my response to said post would be much too long to be considered a comment, more like… a dissertation.

Since we’re at a point in our lives where things are very unstable, a lot of things that were once attainable (and made me very, very happy) are now put in the “generally unattainable but might be attainable if we have the money” category. The unattainable category remains the same.

So I’ve split it up. Into attainable, slightly-attainable-but-mostly-not and unattainable.

Attainable:

• Like Calli, watching TV brings endless joy to myself and Fil. Mostly because we do this together, usually sprawled out on the couch like zombies. I could go on and on about all the TV shows we watch together, but that’d be a post in and of itself. Suffice to say, my name is Att and I’m a TV addict.
• Playing video games. We have a Sega Genesis (from when I was wee), a Wii and a PS2 in the living room, so the opportunities for fun are endless.
• Having a nightly shower with Fil. Specifically the ones where we talk the whole time.
• Reading. It’s filled me with joy since I was little, teaching myself to read at the age of 3. I have a habit of re-reading series, like The Chronicles of Narnia (I re-read it last summer out of boredom) and now, the Tolkien series. I’m at the point in The Hobbit where they’ve finally gotten into the Mountain.
• Having a decent family dinner, involving wonderful food and a good conversation with Monster and Fil. It’s rare, but so good.
• Taco Night. We take vegetarian meat crumbles, mix it with taco seasoning and pile on the topings. It’s my favourite day and it makes for an amazing lunch the next day.
• 40 cent sodas in the break room downstairs. The Firm purchases their own sodas and fills up the machine, so they practically GIVE them away. It’s the only luxury I allow myself on a regular basis since I started working

Limbo:

• Big shocker, something that once was right on the horizon but continues to be mostly unattainable. That is, having a baby. But the thought of it, our future plans, makes me very happy. I am calm in our choices and know that it will happen, and that is okay.
• A 40-hour job. Thinking about it mostly fills me with dread, because it’s almost May 15th and I’m still without a steady future. I’m scared shitless. But some days, the idea of bringing home enough money to support my family on my own makes me giddy like a school girl.
• A new apartment. Right now, we’re stuck in the hole we moved into last year. It’s really turning into a terrible place to live and I can’t wait until our lease is up in a year and we can move on to bigger and better things.

The Unattainable:

• Again, like Calli, an iPhone. I would kill to have all those neat apps at my disposal. THEY HAVE EVERYTHING! How fun is that?
• A Nikon D90 or a Canon Rebel. I’m crazy, I know, but thinking about the beautiful pictures I can take fills me to overflowing with joy.
• For Fil’s cancer to just go away over night.

Impact: Day of Silence

Today is the National Day of Silence. Children across the nation are clamming up in support of equality on campus, keeping GLBT students safe from anti-gay harrassment.

NDoS has a special place in my heart, because for 3 out of the 4 years I was in high school, I was a participant. It’s a feat of unimaginable strength. Teenagers are talkers, they breathe loud, eat loud and move through the hallways with such racous noise it’s almost impossible to imagine those halls ever going silent. And yet, they do, almost. It is most noticable at lunch, when groups of silent kids sit together and pass notes, or flap their arms to make a point.

These are kids, I was one of them, who are fed up with adults just sitting by and not caring. The horror bullied children must feel, as they wake up every day and have to confront the tide of hate waiting for them. It isn’t in their job description to fix their circumstances. They are children and it is rare that adults give them the credit for their remarkability on these matters. More over, they are children, and it is our duty to help them.

As a mother, I want nothing more than for bullying of all kinds to be erased from school. My son constantly bumps his head against the same problem every year, where he doesn’t fit in and is picked on because of it. A part of my son, a part that is so fundamental to who he is, makes him radically different from his peers, which I suppose, is enough for cause for bullying. I never want him to walk through the halls of his high school, flinching when someone pushes too close. He deserves better than what sent Carl Walker-Hoover (who would be 12 today) to death, than the same hate that killed Matthew Shepard, than all the pain caused by homophobia. He deserves better, and so do all others.

Do not let today be just another day on the calendar. Blog about it, Twitter it, go join the local Breaking of the Silence Rally (always a moving moment when everyone meets and the rush of words is like a breath of air) or find a silent teen and applaud them. Do something other than just sit there and let them do our job for us.

(You can find LesbianDad’s take on the day here. Thanks for your wonderful post, as always, LD!)

A Lack of Voice

I have a horrible case of no-post-itis.

Mostly because I have nothing to say.

Until today, but sorry, it’s going to have to be thrown under a PW post, because it’s still highly sensitive in nature … plus, I don’t want to get any hopes about anything.. not now.

I can tell you that my son is wearing SIZE 32 WAIST JEANS (29 length, but they’re about 2 sizes too long still). Albiet, they’re about 1 size too big, when he tried on the 31s they fit him quite nice, if a bit snug at the gut, so we moved him up a size. My little man is not little any more. I can’t believe it. Every time I whip a pair of his pants out of the dryer I’m baffled at the size. He’s like a little can of corn, big through the waist and a little short. According to Fil, the men in her family grow slow. They hit puberty at the normal age (start slow at 10 and hit full force in middle school) but don’t level off in height until high school. So at least my Monster is going to be shorter than me for a little while longer. I’m going to cry when I have to ask him to bend his head down so I can kiss the very top. Oh, and when I have to use a stool to shave his head.

All of these kids are getting big. Big B is HUGE. I mean it, she’s over 50 lbs (remember, that’s how big Monster was when he was 8/9) and almost as tall as Monster is now (he’s about 4′8″). She’s going to be so tall, it’ll be ridiculous. She’ll also probably NOT look 12, meaning they’ll think she’s older than me. That will be fun.

I have some cute pictures from last weekend with Baby B, also a couple of shots from other times. I’ve been experimenting with Photo*shop and have had some decent results. I still want to get better aquainted before I start editing my photos willy nilly. Anyone have a good tutorial website?

** Oh, as a complete aside, I had total pregnancy nose without the pregnancy. Someone in our building was heating up beef taquitos in their microwave (it wasn’t our immediate wall-sharing neighbours because they weren’t home) and I could smell it like it was under my bed. It made me so nauseated I almost threw up a few times. But then Fil took me out for a midnight breakfast date and all was good.

The Long Stretch

** I will be posting a PW post after this one, so if you want the password, you know what to do. **

This weekend was wonderful… probably because it was the first one in months where we haven’t been scrambling helplessly for money to cover our expenses.

Fil got the refundon Friday. We also got Baby B from Nk’s place (we had her for Friday, Saturday and almost all of Sunday) and went to Wal*mart for all the “needs”.

We spent the majority of the weekend out of the house. Baby B is holed up inside that tiny trailer all day and rarely gets to go on adventures, so against better judgement, we took on a ton of errands. We knew it was best because if we waited we’d run out of everything and then we’d have to take Monster and there is a reason I call him Monster.

All Friday was spent running from place to place buying way too much stuff. Well, it felt like too much. We got incredible deals and had lots of coupons so, that was okay I guess. We got a lot of cleaning, grooming and cat supplies, not to mention a lot of presents for Monster’s up-coming 11th birthday. We bought Baby B a new upright car seat (it was only $40 and we considered it Nk’s present) and a booster seat for when she’s with us, we also got new pants for Monster (his belly is just too big for his old ones!). Filand I got some cool stuff, too. She got Levi’s and rock shirts, I got sunglasses and perfume and we both treated ourselves to the B!ssle Little Green. We still haven’t even broken it out of the box, but I have a feeling that Fil is doing that right now. The best part of the whole day was paying off every one of our bills, including rent. We still have to pay our cable bill, but that’s only because it came in on Saturday.

Friday night was very, very hard. It was Baby B’s adjustment period and she was too over stimulated to even think about going down for the night. I was up with her ’til midnight rocking her, bouncing her, singing to her and laying her back down in her bed so she could drink her baba and get tired already. Every time I would try to slip away she would promptly get to her feet with a flurry of limbs and grip the side of the pack n’ play (we opted not to get her a bed yet, which was a good choice because that child held onto the railing and was able to keep an eye on us without actually following us) and scream for me until I came back in. But she finally passed out from exhaustion around 12:30 a.m. and I slipped away to relax.

Saturday was much the same, although Monster wasn’t with us as Nk and Mt took him for the weekend as that’s what Big B wanted for her birthday. They went off and did their thing while we went shopping, again. This time we got the rest of Monster’s presents (all but one), some new jeans for yours truly and silly things like socks without holes in them, bras without holes in them and a new belt for Monster.

She was much easier to put down that night, with a baba and her favorite classical music (all of the stuff on my iPod is incredibly soothing) and some dark alone time, she was out like a light at 9. So Fil and I rented an on-demand movie and got caught up on laundry. We also decided to get rid of our computers (laptop and desktop) in favor of a brand new computer. So Fil spent a lot of the night (’til 3 a.m.) fixing the older desktop while I cleaned up the laptop. Somewhere during the Property Shop on HGTV I passed out.

Sunday morning was like Saturdays, I woke up with Baby B at around 9 (she did wake up at 8 but I begged her for 45 more minutes, so she flopped back into her bed and played with her toys and yelled at herself until 8:45 on the nose when she popped back up and started yelling at me.) and I fed her some breakfast (toast with bread and honey) with apple juice. We watched Phineas and Ferb on Disney and played with toys until Fil woke up. We didn’t get to sell the computer stuff, so we just bought the new computer and I’m selling the old stuff today.

The new computer is quite nice and fancy with 4 GB of memory, a 500 GB hard drive and a 19″ LCD (energy star) monitor. Filwanted that specific computer because it was a much slimmer design and came with a HUGE 500 GB external hard drive and a free printer. We’re selling the printer on Cragislist since our newestKodak refurb works really well.

The night was very long, as Nk and Mt didn’t bring Monster home ’til 9 p.m. So we were left to feed Baby B dinner, her night snack and her twothree night babas. During her night snack she spilled juice all over herself, her booster seat, the chair it was on and the floor. Girl thought it was hilarious, meanwhile Fil’s scrubbing the floor with  soap and I’m running the drippy sticky baby to the bathroom for a bath. When Monster did get home he barely had any time to do anything but shower and play his game for 20 minutes.

My god it was a busy weekend. Baby B spent most of her time on my left hip or in the stroller. After this weekend I’ve decided that Bj*orn’s are a great invention and are a worthwhile invention. Baby B got so attached to me she would stand next to me, balancing against my side with one hand, while the other one tugged on my shirt or an errant lock of hair.

It was really hard to hand her off Sunday evening, and the entire night I kept glancing at the pack n’ play, thinking that there was a baby needing my attention. I felt like she was so happy, so comfortable that she just fit in and worked like a little cog in our family clock. She and her sister (Big B is sick) are going to be over at our place today, as Nkis getting the birthcontrol thing in her arm, so I’ll get to see both of them this afternoon (Nk is going to wait until later when I get home to unload the stroller in my back seat).

Protected: Where it Gets a bit Unsticky

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password: