Afternoon Activity
28 Jun 2009 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: family, parenting
So, I had this GREAT IDEA for a hot summer afternoon activity for the big boys. They were kind of whiny and bored and just wanted to watch videos, and it was close to 100 degrees on the thermometer, so outside play wasn’t that great an idea. I told them that they had to either perform something or instruct about how to do something, and I would film it and put it on youtube.
O the brilliance: They kind of griped and protested, BUT they did in fact put thought into the backgrounds for their shoots, as well as what they were going to say. It took several takes to make Rockinrolla pleased with his performance, and the Fishmaster, as you can see, really got into his time in the spotlight.
ADDED BONUS: after we filmed, the Fishmaster played guitar and Rockinrolla practiced drums for a good hour or so, which makes Mama much happier than having them zone out to reruns of the Simpsons.
FYI, Rockinrolla’s drumming is certainly skilled, but, unless you are way into watching people drum in Rock Band, you may want to fast forward to the last thirty seconds or so for his post-song patter. The Fishmaster’s guitar tuning video is short but sweet.
***edited to add: The Fishmaster is not happy with his tuning instructions: Rockinrolla pointed out that they wouldn’t, um, be effective. He asked me to delete the video, which I couldn’t actually bring myself to do, but I told him I would make it private so that only I could see it. His patter is just so charming that I don’t want to erase it forever. Anyhoo, that video is no longer available for general viewing.
maturations part II
26 Jun 2009 4 Comments
in Uncategorized Tags: family, parenting
As of today, Rainbow has outgrown two beloved baby accessories.
Maturation The First:
He spent last night in his crib, in his room, as opposed to his cradle in our bedroom.
It was a tough night for Mama.
He had just gotten a wee bit too large for the crib, and kept poking his hands through the bars and needing untangling. He also turned from tummy to back a couple of days ago, and I became very concerned that he would turn energetically and flip the crib over. (Yes, he sleeps on his back, but that back-to-front turning is soon to come. He’s a big archer and bender.)
So, goodbye cradle. I bought a video monitor since his bedroom is up on the second floor. Daddy J, seeing my freaked-outedness last night, very sweetly offered to buy another crib for our bedroom so that Rainbow could sleep in there until I feel better about him being in his own room.
I think it’s okay, though. I didn’t sleep too much last night – kept watching my live Babyvision TV, complete with exciting Deep Sighs, Occasional Twitches, and Long Stretches of Sleeping Baby – but he pretty much wakes up once at the most at night nowadays, and sometimes sleeps straight through.
At naptime this morning, he was pretty fascinated with his bedroom jungle decor. It’s fairly bright in there, even with the shades down, because they are white fabric and the sun makes the windows glow white. He went down without crying though; just needed one pacifier re-insert.
Maturation the Second:
I’m pretty sure he’s outgrown his bouncy seat. He’s almost able to bounce his bum off the floor, and I don’t think it’s intended for that kind of action.
The Bumbo, fyi, went the way of the dinosaurs a few weeks ago. It was meant for… slimmer babes, I do believe. There was a thigh circumference issue.
treading carefully
25 Jun 2009 5 Comments
in Uncategorized Tags: adoption, family, parenting
I’m sending cards to F and J today. I don’t know how many I’ve sent in total: lots. I think I’m going to slowly stretch out the contact to about one card with pictures to each a month, with another note in between for F. It’s so hard to predict what would make them happiest. Maybe they want next to no contact, with just occasional reassurances, or maybe more. I’m not getting any feedback.
My strategy, therefore, is to err on the side of maybe-too-much contact, maybe-too-many pictures. They can always stow them in a box, or tell their SW to stop forwarding them and just collect them at her office for later, right?
I find myself fantasizing that F will call and want to come see us. That I can help her give Rainbow a bath, that we can stroll him together, that she can rock him in his room, and that we can agree to yearly visits from her and part with a hug. She could stay at one of the B and B’s in town so she could have personal space, and then come over after breakfast. She could be Auntie F, or even just My F, to Rainbow. It could be a special weekend once a year for them and for us.
I want to reassure her in person that we care about her, that we respect her, that we’ll teach Rainbow how giving and sweet and beautiful she is, that we won’t deny her contact with him.
I don’t know if that will ever happen, though, and maybe it would be problematic if it did. It could very well be excrutiating for her and confusing for Rainbow. Not a real concern, though; she made it pretty clear that she didn’t expect to want that kind of contact. I think she anticipated that it would be too painful for her.
I can’t really imagine how she must feel.
I’d post her picture so that you could see how pretty and fresh and sweet she is, but I don’t think that’s appropriate. I want her to keep her privacy. But trust me, she’s so lovely.
(Has my audience changed from you grown-up blog readers to Rainbow, fifteen years from now? Maybe so. Hi there, fifteen year old Rainbow. I love you, sweetheart.)
~~~~~
The big boys are still just so much fun. They are a couple of wokka-wokka comedians at the dinner table; Daddy J and I just shake our heads and remind them to eat the food in front of them. I wonder, with them, when will the awful teenagerness hit? Can we just skip that part? Because they (at ages 12 and 13) are just delightful and silly and intelligent and interesting.
Rainbow is totally adorable, still, in case you were wondering.
I kept myself up last night with some pointless fretting about SIDS and other horrors that might pounce. Gah. My mind has such a macabre slant to it sometimes; it veers me off and makes me see how awful it would be, how I would fall to the floor and vomit, then call 911 and scream.
Stupid mind.
Worried again that I was visualizing a future and making it more likely (stupid, stupid mind) I then spent some time picturing Rainbow as a funny, smart, outgoing toddler; an athletic and polite gradeschooler; a tall, muscular, all-around wonderful honor student in high school; a going-away-to-college magnificent young man.
That’s the dream I like to wrap my mind around.
Moon Pie Videos
24 Jun 2009 1 Comment
Hopefully somebody recorded the entire event, but here are a few scenes from the big day. Daddy J had instructed me to plug in the camcorder so that battery would be charged (which I did) but he didn’t remind me (and I didn’t realize) that you have to flip a switch in order to get it to charge. Anyhoo, all he had was the Flip, which is GREAT, but didn’t have that much room on it and didn’t allow for wide angle shots from his front row seat.
For your viewing entertainment:
(The Fishmaster and Rockinrolla are in the first, third, fourth, and fifth videos, and that would be me in the last one, and that’s Daddy J’s voice you hear singing on several of the songs.)
theatrical weekend
22 Jun 2009 2 Comments
RC/Moonpie day was a huge success. It was blazing hot, but loads of fun. The Fishmaster got to ride in the parade and toss Moonpies from the Titans bus with the other young castmembers, and Rockinrolla walked and helped carry a banner. I watched the parade from a friend’s house, and then Grandma MJ and John C. took Rainbow home to get him out of the heat.
First (well, after the early morning race and ongoing craft booths) were the CLOGGERS:
Then Daddy J got home from his days away in New York and surprised me backstage.
And then it was showtime.
Look!! Even Daddy J’s dad was in the play!
My big entrance. Can you guess who I am…? (No, those are NOT my actual bangs.)
And me performing a dance to Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” like a brazen woman. SO outside my box, and SO fun to do.
Rainbow’s godmother (and the writer, choreographer, director, and star of the play) looking glorious as usual:
A cameo by our state’s poet laureate as Susan Boyle. heh.
It was SO MUCH FUN. In 2007 I had a cameo as Vanna White, but I didn’t have to do lines or learn a dance, so this time around was a much bigger deal. The boys say they for sure want to do it again next year, and I for sure want to join in, too.
Kooky fun in the Buckle. Love it, love it, love it.
FYI, these pics were taken by our good friend and neighbor, TJ. See the entire set here if you are so inclined.
You tube videos are in the works…
irony at 4am
17 Jun 2009 3 Comments
in Uncategorized Tags: adoption
I’m totally snickering at myself, and also dreading how exhausted I will be tomorrow.
(Oh wait, I mean today.)
Why is it that when Rainbow wakes every four hours or so for a bottle, or at least a paci-reinsert and a mobile restart, I think that surely he’ll be sleeping through the night soon and won’t that be great?!
And then when he does sleep all night long – seriously, from about 8:30 until 5:30 – I am a wreck. I woke up about 2:30 and didn’t sleep after that. I couldn’t stop going to his cradle to make sure he was breathing, that he was comfy, that he wasn’t in distress.
(OMG! Why has he been sleeping for the past two hours with his head over to the side like that??!)
(Perhaps because it’s the ideal way to sleep, dumbass – on baby’s back, with his head to the side. GO TO SLEEP.)
All of which would be fine (HELLO, afternoon nap!) except I have a mama doctor’s checkup this morning and we are out of important grocery items (like all bread products, including tortillas and crackers) and errands tend to mess up the whole nap thing.
~~~~~
The finalization, by the way, was short and easy and, most importantly, completed.
The judge asked us various questions to make sure that we understood what we were doing, the funniest of which was:
When he takes the car out in the middle of the night when he’s sixteen and bangs it up, you understand that he’s still your child, the same as if he had been born to you?
Yup.
gulp
15 Jun 2009 2 Comments
So, tomorrow we finalize Rainbow’s adoption.
I vascillate (can I just confess nerdily that that is one of my favorite words? vaseline + oscillate = AWESOME) between wanting to hoot with joy and give Rainbow a hug, and wanting to go throw up in the corner and wash the taste away with a tequila shot.
Good Lord Amighty, it’s been a wild almost-four-years since Ward’s accident. We got on the baby train a few months after that, and now, several surgeries, three miscarried babies, one IVF cycle, and innumerable tears later, we have this amazing, beautiful, funny baby.
I found a book I had bought, probably during the first post-Ward’s-transition pregnancy.
(Sigh. It’s something that the miscarried babies’ dates blend into the background of loss, dwarfed by the immensity of Ward’s accident and its repurcussions. I don’t really remember when they happened.
The babies have names, though. Special, sweet talisman names, not names you would christen a baby born alive and kicking: angel names.
And they are buried in our backyard garden.
I have heard the theory that pregnancies that end in miscarriage are the result of an angel who, for whatever reason, is not going to be born into the world at that particular time, but who wants to visit and be close to the pregnant woman, to commune with her and lend strength and hope. This makes me smile, because it sounds like the sort of logic *I* would have in angel form: It’ll be GREAT! Let’s soothe the grieving woman by letting an angel visit in her womb for just a few days/weeks/months! The other angels would glance sideways at each other and murmur that they’re not so sure that would actually HELP the grieving woman and hopeful parent feel BETTER, but Clueless MJ Angel is emphatic: She’ll Love It!!)
It was the sequel (or prequel) to one of my favorite nursery rhyme books that the big boys and Ward had, before the house burned.
I’m sure I thought that that pregnancy would be a breeze, since I had never experienced a miscarriage and had no reason to think I would.
I love reading it to Rainbow (and he likes it well enough now, although he’s still a fan of the black-and-white image books) and I plan to buy the partner book, probably right after I post this.
I bought it used, so there are two inscriptions. One is a Happy 1st Birthday wish to Rachael from March 23, 2000.
The other is:
May 31, 2006
Given with love to new baby Anderson. We can’t wait to meet you.
Love, Mama
~~~~~
We’ve met you, and you’re all that we dreamed of, and more.
skin care product review
13 Jun 2009 3 Comments
in Uncategorized Tags: random chitchat
So, I’ve done my share of tanning, especially from age 13-21 or so. Although, now that I think about it, I don’t think I ever wore sunscreen as a kid, either. I just got really brown and that took care of that. I didn’t sunburn.
But I was a big fan of tanning beds as a teenager. (It didn’t help that I got free tanning bed usage when I worked as the juice bar girl in a health club.) I’ve been pretty careful the last ten years or so, though, and I am a big summer hat person, but if I weren’t afraid of skin cancer, dark spots, and wrinkles, I would be brown as a berry right now.
A tan makes me feel leaner, more energetic, and just prettier. People with a nice, medium-darkish tan just make me want to sidle up to them like a crackling fire and feel the stored sun warmth coming off of their skin.
Cut to my dream spot: my secluded white stucco villa on the mediterranean. I live in a macrame bikini and sarong and subsist on coffee, pain au chocolat, fresh fruit, and white wine. I lounge on the tiled deck, overhung with vines dripping with messy red flowers that stain my feet. The family of whiskered monkeys snickers down from the branches to snatch bits of fruit from me with perfect little doll hands, and my enormous pet macaw follows me with heavy wings when I go to dip my feet in the waves that roll up on round white stones.
(Hm, my dream spot is a lot like where Daddy J and I honeymooned. Go figure.)
When I get bored, interesting people come visit and we have elaborate feasts and listen to string musicians play languid, slow, intricate songs. And the people leave just before I get sick of them.
Lapping turqoise water; peaches, pears, mango, and sauvignon blanc; nuzzles from my macaw. My skin is as warm, brown, and smooth as the tiles under my feet.
I soak in the sun like a lizard.
(When I am 103 and all I do is stare out the window with a faint smile, THIS is where I will be.)
I digress.
The cosmetically ugly side of sun-worshipping, for me, anyway, is blotchy brown patches and fine wrinkles, which have been bothering me more and more over the last couple of years. (I think pregnancy hormones are to blame for the spots, too.) I had looked into getting lasering done, which kind of scared me because of the whole invasive, burned-looking, painful aspect. I talked with an aesthetician (and R.N.) about it, and she said that Yes, lasering would get rid of the brown spots, but another option that I might prefer was a skin care regimen with hydroquinone and retin A.
After talking with her and then researching on teh webs, I was sold and bought the starter pack of Obaji. I’ve never done a fancy skin care system before, just bits and pieces from this or that brand, so this is a new thing. They call the first 4-6 weeks the “hate it” period, when your skin is red and peeling and itchy and dry, as it gets rid of the old skin you don’t want. I’m in the middle of that. It was kind of kicking my booty for the first couple of weeks, but I think I’m on the upswing.
Anyhoo, right now I am resoundingly pro. I can already see reduction in brown spots, and the idea is that if you stay with the maintenance program, you won’t get any more brown spots and your skin will be much fresher and dewier. Buying it from the medspa was quite pricey, but it’s been nice to have an office to call with questions when I looked like I’d been scrubbing my face with a cheese grater and acetone. When I get on the maintenance program and feel like I don’t need a doctor/aesthetician on call to deal with me, I’ll buy the stuff online here, where it’s much cheaper.
Which brings me to the question of the day:
Are you on a skin care regimen? Are you a big fan of any certain brand of skin product, or do you try whatever sounds good at the time? Or do you have a minimalist approach (like just soap and moisturizer) because it’s not that big a deal for you?
