Help me find a new camera?

I need a new camera. The pictures some of you have on your websites and blogs are breathtaking. Any and all advice for any kind of digital camera under $200 or anything, really, I will take what you tell me and go scour the Earth for a bargain. Here is all I want:

Fast time from when the button is pressed to when the pic is snapped.
High quality results in most lighting.

Thats it. You all with the tiny dew drops on the frosty flowers and the fuzz on the newborn's cheeks---I can't not be a part of this anymore. My camera sucks!

Hot Pink

My silly hair has gone from blasting blue to faded purple with some blondey parts and some mousy roots. As I am growing it long, I just need to keep it healthy and am happy to pull it into little poofy buns or pigtails for a year or more. I have to keep growing it to acheive my ultimate look of long (blue?) braids and maybe some kind of cool bangs option.

I have the 1/2 bottle of Blue Mayhem left, but just have been not able to bring myself to color my hair deep dark blue right now. It seems so dark! So I have been contemplating a new spring timey-color that would be no problemo with purple (remember, I am coating it with color, not damaging it with bleaches or anything) when the idea of hot pink came to my mind. Well, tonight I popped into the naughty adult punk swear word bumper sticker drag queen shoes or whatever store in our town on my way walking to the tea house (I have to laugh at the snotty looks the little black leather teens who work there tried to give me in my hippie skirt and ratty chucks, 2 purple buns and a diaper bag/backpack with Sanrio wallet falling out alongside carrots, a pacifier, black pepper, and a GameBoy!!! Stupid teens! You'll have a purse like this someday if you apply yourselves! Now gimme my Cherry Bomb hairdye and nobody gets hurt! And for heaven's sake go wash your faces! Dirty little fools. Who would let their kid work in an S+M store? Just kidding...Kind of.)

So I am going to go hot hot pink. As soon as humanly possible--tomorrow? Pics of course to come.

Our schedule

It is week 3 of our new family schedule, and some of it is working, really really well, and some of it feels a bit forced still. I wanted to do it for a full month, and we are almost there, before we started tweeking it. Here is a rough layout of what we've got goin' on:

• Monday: Homeschool day, little lessons I have come up with alongside some of our book stuff. (Sorry to be so vague, its been a weird year). For example, today we did varying age appropriate levels of learning and discussing our new phone number, address, and played post office, and the older kids worked on their blog as well as reading two chapters in our "Health" book--a cool kids book about how our bodies work. Steve worked 7 to 5, so we did our "4 O'Clock Clean Up", and I had dinner ready when he got home. After dinner the big kids cleared up and I nursed Eska and got out of there for Mama Go To The Teahouse Again (where I am right now!) I only stay out an hour or two and hopefully return to most kids all gone to beddy bye and a quiet sane scene. You never know though. Could be 3 littles screaming and 2 bigs covered in mud digging up bugs.

• Tuesday: Field Trip, Steve works 9 to 6, has guys over for gaming in the evening. (they are heavy into Euro-Games, which are mostly head-hurty board games about ancient wars and battles and taking over countries and kingdoms and such. Super intelligent stuff that I can't enjoy no matter how much of a super hotty geek wife I would be if only I could dig it. But I cannot. So they play. This is also a night we have been apt to get DelTaco, because they have 33 cent tacos on Tuesday nights---yum--dinner for 6, way under 10 bucks!
• Wednesday: Kinda the same as Monday, except we will do a "craft" during homeschool time. I can go out if I need, I have dinner ready nice n early, etc.
• Thursday: Steve works long, 9am to 8pm, so this one can be a doozy. We are planning on housecleaning in the morning so we dont have to all weekend as much and then going to the library and possible walking around our new town's vibrant downtown right after an early supper of "kid food". I am going to rent the older kids a nice movie from the library (wholesome, free...) so that everyone an be "in bed" (even if not asleep, out of the living room) for when Steve gets home for a little Mom and Dad Date Night involving some adult food--LOL--I dont know if this makes sense to all of my readers, but when you have babies, tots, picky vegetarians, etc, there becomes a time when one set of family gets Pokemon Macaroni and apples with fruit punch and another set gets Blackened Salmon and Red Wine. 'Nuff said.
• Friday: Starting this week, we are going to be participating, if not hosting, homeschool Park Day, as advertised (by me) on our county-wide homeschooling yahoo group message board. We are hoping to spend the entire afternoon in the company of cool families under a shady tree. this is more of an event for the moms than the kids, but I hope everyone enjoys their socialization! I have made the bold move of just announcing that this is an event, and that it shall occur at the park in front of my house. I have offered to anyone who would like to, to use our bathroom, fridge, whatnot since our park has no restroom. I am deciding on my ground rules right now, and might even post them on the front door and in the bathroom--because I will not allow this to become some thing where some kids want to sit in the air conditioning playing gameboys without any adults...or what if something seemed like it was "missing" and then there was weirdness...so I will need to define the rules and have them be known from day one. The good thing about the old homeschool park day tat was at a different park was that one of my *ahem* unnamed children who is not very outdoorsy would whine about being "tired" or "hot" and I could say oh, cut it out. Now with the lure of home right there, we are gonna have to discuss. But anyhow, for the rest of summer, weather permitting, Friday will be this.
• Saturday, every other one Steve works until 2 pm. On the ones where he is home, we will all go to Farmers Market. On the ones where he works, he might take them to a cheap-show movie. I am pretty burnt out by the Saturday he works.
• Sunday open and free, except for grocery shopping and prepping for the week aka making sure there are no laundry mountains, etc.

Well, thats it! Some things we want to work on are (for 12 years now!) Me AND Steve going out TOGETHER---wacky wacky I know, and how to balance the need for sleep with the need/want to hang out late without kids and hang out. Eska has been wrecking that lately, though, and I think the 3 bedroom house is going to be somewhat trickier than we thought, but only for a while. Where we have visions of a girls' bedroom, a boys' bedroom, and Mama and Daddy bedroom, (thus the design of the majority of houses) admittedly we are more like a jumble of semi-co-sleeping, camping out on couches, taking shifts, a crib and a playpen in our room....sigh. Probably shoulda bought that king sized bed or two back in '97, but now...I'd say less than a year from now Charlie will be a going-potty boy who sleeps in a bed, not a crib, and Eska will be in a crib of her own in Greta's room...but that eliminates late night TV watching, drawing, etc for Greta....

Well it will all work out. But thats a little slice o life from our family to yours right now. Please share what works/worked for you and yours?!

Take the course, or stay the course, or depends?

Many times a week, it seems, I will get the notion that whatever it is that I do or enjoy could be done or enjoyed more---officially? Professionally? Expertly? Like, if I enjoy writing, wouldnt I like to take an online writing course? if I enjoy making little treats for the children, wouldnt I like to buy a magazine with perfectly color coordinated kitty kat face cupcakes on the cover? If I enjoy drawing and doodling, wouldnt I be so much happier if I "really learned how to draw?" If I like to cut and color my and my friends' hair, wouldnt it all be so much better if I went to beauty school? Is this capitalism at its most insidious, or opportunity knocking?

And sometimes i will follow up on these ideas, and thats when it all goes bad for me. The activity I so enjoyed, and so innocently felt great about suddenly gets replaced with doubt, worry, anxiety, stress over costs, and then the entire enjoyed activity can get so lost and trampled in the process that it can be in danger of being lost--either for a while or forever! What is this about? A big part of me LOVES the idea of being a borderline-smug DIY-er who is just happy as a little clam to paint chairs polka dots (with the wrong kind of paint, no doubt!) To make and create beautiful songs on the guitar without knowing a single name of a single chord, to be able to create fruit salads and rainbow soups without a recipe or even an ability to tell anyone else how to make it themselves, to piece together curtains and hairdos and outfits, breaking all the rules, or maybe accidentally stumbling upon some of them---

But heres the thing, and this is where I get a little confused--I am NOT trying to be eclectic for eclectics' sake. I am not trying to be funky coo-coo bird just to do so. I would love to take some of my skills to the next level, but some I dont want to, and even the thought of it makes me weary and annoyed. I am lucky (understatement) to live in the self published world of Blogger and Etsy and all of it, but what do I do about homeschool? Is it okay to really just do what we want?

Heres my example:
We will be cruising along with homeschooling, piecing together our fine and worldly and well rounded "curriculum" of workbooks and real books and trips and tales and tv and games and films and art and nature study and then someone will send out some links to some cutesy teaching website and I get totally freaked out. Should I click on 123Learn or ABCTeach or ElementaryFun or whatever? I would have thought I had died and gone to heaven if this stuff was available back when Greta was about 5 years old but now....I dunno. I dont like to be closed minded or staunch, but in my heart, I dont want to bother with that stuff. I have done it before, gotten all hyped up and printed out a gazillion little things and even paid a little money for subscriptions to little fun-n-games math type things, but....it just feels weird. but I dont want them to miss out on something that might be really cool! the internet is too big, I say.

I wonder what to make of this phenomenon, I am trying to *listen* to what it means; do I step all the way into living by my heart, or do I open my heart to new things? Or is joy's artsy stuff and the kids' education 2 different things altogether?

Of tea and tubals...

Well, it is Mama-go-out-night, and I am in a little tea-house. I was meaning to go to Starbucks, i know, i know, not very local business or whatnot, but I am hooked (line and sinker) to the "Espresso Truffle" (try one only if you enjoy bliss) and I kinds had that delicious chocolate taste in mind when i was out tonight...but i couldn't find parking to save my life and so here i am at a little tea house. It is precious in here. And the tea is lovely. They gave it to me in a fancy little double pot thing and i put honey in it. It doesn't taste anything like Lipton it tastes like plants or Earth or something. Gorgeous. I feel like I haven't ever had tea before and this was not one of the exotics, just "strong black" is what I asked for. yummmm. I am finding so many places around town that I wished I knew about when I was pregnant. I guess when you have had 5 babies in 11 years, almost everything in your mind is still about pregnancy. Do other multips feel this way, I wonder?

And all this even though we are done having babies--yep--you heard it here first/finally, I got a tubal ligation when I had my c Section 10 months ago--everything is still about being pregnant. Knowing where the bathrooms are for the constant peeing. Knowing where the fresh food is, knowing where the protein is, knowing where the peaceful places are, knowing where the close parking is. Most of this did and does translate into useful mothering skills, not only for myself and the forever transitioning from baby inside of me to baby on my breast, but for just being a person forever traveling with children. They need bathrooms and they need fresh food and they need peace and close parking and wide doorways for double strollers heavy with diaper bags--that's all still needed.
I got my tubes tied because for us, after this time, there was no more of that "maybe". Whatever a woman or a couple or a family's reasons are for doing something so permanent, we did not feel that until this last pregnancy. Some rude folks implied, implored us to do so way before 5 babies, but when we mulled it over for even one second, it was a "no". Not that we didnt get what they were saying---pregnancy is so hard on you, Joy, you guys dont have money, what about the time devoted to each child, what about the earth, arent you looking forward to no more diapers/strollers/sleep deprivation/kids hangin off yer tit....it was a "no" for me and my husband until this last time. and then, before we had any inkling that within 2 hours postpartum things would start to spiral downward for me, we knew we were done. and it was ok. I truly couldnt do it again, truly.
the last 2 months of my pregnancy were a blur of such darkness and fear, such pain and chaos, it just couldnt happen again. All those logical other reasons, all that whaddabout college tuitions, still didnt play in, it was about the sheer fact that I was DONE. I cried everyday from the pain and worry, and at that point, as insensitive, ignorant, ungrateful as it may sound now, the healthy baby to come became less and less relevant as just getting through the day, the morning, breakfast had become.
So, now you know. I am neither sad nor happy. I repeat. I am neither sad nor happy. I have meditated, contemplated, and mostly, just waited--for the feelings to come. To be honest, I mostly expected a horrifying regret to seep in, and I feared I would have exactly zero sympathetic shoulders to cry on--but it hasn't happened. I have felt tremendously private and protective of my/our decision, and I have felt the need to not talk about it to too many people until I was ready--because I did know this: I was not ready to hear "ARENT YOU GLAD??? OH GOOD! FOR GODS SAKE I WOULD HOPE SO!"....and on the same token, but the other side, i was not ready to hear or deal with "I COULD NEVER DO THAT! ARENT YOU SAD? DON'T YOU FEEL LIKE AN INFERTILE WEIRD ASEXUAL NEUTERED GENDERLESS CREATURE NOW? HOW COULD YOU MESS WITH GOD'S PLAN?..." etc.
And now? today in this fancy little tea-house? I feel peace. and I feel mending. (The word Healing has almost lost all meaning it is just so overused as to be a bit of a turn off for me at this point) but I do feel mending. I feel the tea and its strange alive texture, smell and golden hopeful color mending me. I see the weak but promising sunset poking its little face in and out of the rain clouds now (it was raining when I straggled in here) and I know it has alot of resting up to do for tomorrow-- it is supposed to be EIGHTY degrees! Today there was freezing rain!---and I feel Earth mending after a very very harsh winter. We are all mending.
For months and months after the c section, indeed well past the point where I could feel much understanding/empathetic feedback, my body was just shot. Shot shot, chewed up and poorly taped back together, bent and stiff and sting-ie and quite hobbled. When I would try to do stuff, wear a baby sling, hang decorations, lift things, I would feel the ripping and the shooting/tearing pains, and I would know that the next day would find me in my quilt, in my old green chair, strapping back on my hospital-issue abdominal binder that was now too big to serve it purpose, gulping down ibuprofens like they were altoids....smiling politely at the well meaning people's suggestions of yoga classes, core conditioning videotapes, expensive herbs, but knowing it would just take time--more time than *so-and-so* took to feel grrrrr-eat again. More time than the books said. More time than the doctor said (Ha!). More time than I would have ever, ever agreed to do an elective cesarean in hindsight than. MY time. and then, it happened. Slooooooooooooowly. So, so slowly.
What happened? I began to feel that the things I would do that were strenuous in some way, went from damaging to strengthening. Finally! Finally! Finally! (This was NOT, however, some cutesy little mind-over-matter thing. I tried all that. It landed me in the green chair, belly stinging, guts falling down and out, hobbled and defeated. again and again.) It just took many, many months. But now, when I walk far, when I carry stuff, when I adjust my posture before lifting double jogging strollers over my head and into the back of the giant van, I feel like a mom, a mighty woman, an athlete, lifting weights. Fibers lining up, not shredding. Its very cool.
I kind of know why my recovery has been so slow, and some of it is a mystery, why I had such a hard time when others just do not. I had five full term babies, three of them 9ish pounds, one 11, and one 12. With three c sections in a little under 8 years, and not one single solitary "getting back in shape" episode. Nope, not one. I also was never able to obtain that elusive babymoon or get all that help they recommend in the pamphlets, so that hurt, too.

I was kind of in shape , I suppose, when all this started, back when I was a slim newlywed of 21...and now...well I hope my fun hair and cheerful face can draw the eye upward! I love what my body has done, i am amazed by it all, but in the light of the bathroom mirror, the only thing recognizable is...well...the fun hair and the cheerful face. 36C and field hockey legs are a vague, vague, v a g u e memory. I don't worry too much about it, it slams into my feminism too hard. Sometimes I dream of buying brand new tiny boobies (or even medium and facing forward?) and seeing this bizzaro "stomach" land in the plastic surgeon's wastebasket, but the thoughts of surgery do not consume me. I have written about this before, and it is shelved for now.
Well, my tea is cold and my meter is running out. I will definitely be back here, enjoy the unseasonably hot weather, any and all of you whom this will effect in the upcoming days!
Lovingly,
HouseFairy

We actually went to a mall! Very strange, but actually turned out fun

Eska was crying but when she saw the camera she grinned!

Sitting for a moment

Mandarin Duck in the nature store

Some $1200 Log couch that was so cool even tho it was so ridiculously priced

We spent 95% of our time in a nature/outdoorsy superstore. This is Casey in front of a fish that is in an enormous aquarium! So cool!



Exhausted but in a good way, once we got home. Eska was unusually fussy at the mall...she has never been to one and didnt appreciate it. Didnt care about the fishies or the ducks or any of it. She wants to nurse and crawl around the living room, thank you very much. All other activities have become suspect, even our old haunts such as the library. she bucks in the sling like its crushing her, so I take her out and she bucks in my arms like she wants to go on the floor then if I do or can put her on the floor, she cries to be picked up. Then if I pick her up, she bucks and twists so hard to get down that i have sore aching hands and wrists....so the safety of the living room floor with the 2 baby gates and the familiar toys might be where its at right now, mostly. She also only likes the stroller if I can walk very fast, non stop. Thats ok!

We actually went to a mall! We never ever do that. We had ONE dollar and we decided to spend it on a McDonalds drink to share. More on that later...but heres a few pics!

Boys

Love her blog, loved this post, gonna go check that book out tonight, the excerpt really is in line with where I am and what I am dealing with (not very well always, but Lord Im tryin')

Perfect timing for me!
Off to the nature center, its about 50 degrees! Woohoo!

Lots o kids, sore subject, brain not ready to debate yet though

I have flat out refused to talk about OctoMom. I have flat out refused to talk about The Duggars. I just havnt had the oomph, the rhetorical skills or the strength of heart in over a year now (will my brain EVER come back? Ever?) to really pump out the great posts....but this does a great job and I yelled "YES!" aloud tonight so heres a link to a great post that is right in line with my thoughts.

(I DO have drafts about family size and stuff...but Im still too--I dunno--not ready for this subject, not strong enough to hear the real ugly stuff....there was an article in the New York Times website that had HUNDREDS of people talking about how disgusting "large families" were--and the divide was almost exclusively religious folk who "let God decide" and single professionals who think no kids or maybe one is more than enough....the whole thing, the comments, were so so so ugly and hateful and extreme and it hit me hard, I was surprised at the voracity of the comments and I felt utterly unable to come up with anything cool or bold or different to say and hat scared me, what was wrong with my brain, where did Soapbox Joy go and who is this cowering crybaby? etc....anyhow....comment or not.....g'nite)

ps I currently have someone in my life who seems to really really insist that we talk about "Octo-Mom" every time we speak and the conversation is rife with not very subtle insults about the horrible people who want more than 2 kids and I am just grrrrrrrrrrrrr tired of it all.

Coolest Comic yet!

CONGRATULATIONS to Hathor The Cow Goddess, aka Mama-Is,onhernewbaby and on this just wonderful wonderful pictorial comicbook version of her birth of her baby #4!

I love to draw, can express myself better through simple drawings better than writing, and so have always appreciated her adorable insightful mothering comics she does so well.

Girl.Boy.Boy.Boy.Girl.

My children are all QUITE different. In personality, likes and dislikes, attitudes, development, all of it. But there are still--ahem--boys and girls. Mind you, I knew it all about gender roles and all that when I was a 20 year old college student. Of course I did. Bad parents bought their girls barbie and their boys swords and if I just don't do that and hey maybe for good measure swap out some "he" for "She" in the old fairy tales, save a few Princes along with Princesses and buy primary colored clothing and bikes and bedding then voila! A perfectly modern feminist gender neutral child would be created.



Bah!



Now before you get all nervous and squirmy and start clinging defensively to your sons' wooden nesting dolls or your daughters' robo-technics building kit, please know that this is still a well intentioned idea, and that kids now more than ever need and deserve a safe sane environment to get a mental break from the extraordinarily hyper-sexualized, stereotype limited toys and movies that are in the mainstream. SO DONT GIVE UP ! .....just dont be surprised if it doesnt do as much as you may have anticipated.....
I have been hard pressed to find ANY commercials on tv that are for Slinkys, Legos, Playdoh....and the ads I have seen show boys only playing with boys and racing and aggression and girls playing only with girls and collecting and adorning pastel animals....I tried and still do try to not allow any of that yucky gimmicky commercial stuff in the house, and frequently point out to the kids why that stuff is not cool....and I really do think that alot of parents, at least in the younger years, do somehow manage to find their kid stuff like wagons and fingerpaint and bowling sets and teddy bears and nesting blocks, and then the kids really do just show a preference for stuff and if youve got a little gun kid he/she will play powpowpow with an organic banana, right in front of Grandma......and if youve got a lovey dovey nurturer, he/she will cuddle and pretend to breastfeed a can of soup, right in front of everyone in the grocery store, shirt lifted.

And this is what I really wanted to mention---Eska, at ten months old today (Happy Bday angel!) crawls and digs her way through 5 kids' lifetimes of toys collections, and scrounges until she finds anything that resembles a kitty or a baby and just coos and giggles and beams at it--even hugging it, no matter how tattered tiny or old, if she thinks she has found a kitty or a baby or anything with a face on it, she just goes into coo-ey cuddle mode! She stares at it and says "Naaaaa....Naaaaa" and even lays on top of it, smiling.



I havent seen that behavior since.....baby Greta!



Also, the difference between Eska and the boys at that age, but that Greta did, is that she stays by me. The boys seemed hell bent on mobility for the sake of going far away. I can crawl now, BYE BYE! It isnt that she is clingy fearful or shy, its that she is oriented towards people, and really does sit there and hang out with you. She wants to be by you, playing with and examining little dollys (we hardly have any dolls, per se, guess Ill have to get some, but she has found the little felt-folks from our doll house and Lego people and stuffed animals) and chewing them, and coming up to you and patting you and singing little songs "Dadada-Babababa-Mamamamama-Yayayaya" and making proclamations while showing you her little spitty doll "A-Ba!" "A-Ba!".

She does not want to disassemble the VCR, take plug covers out of the sockets, climb the baby gate, pry the door open, or do any type of destruction--ahem--curious hows-it-made stuff. My past three babies (BOYS) sure did. If Eska sees a fine tower of blocks, she doesnt instantly smash it.

And as much as I love and adore my boys, I am not a boy, and dealing with their ways has been a big challenge for me. It is so clear to me now more than ever why boys have so much trouble in elementary school, and how girl oriented the idea of sit still and produce fine-motor-creations to please the nice teacher----that just is all so contrary to everything (my/many) boys are into. When the sitting is torture, the hands arent ready for the writing, and you cant sit still for more than 5 minutes and pleasing the grown up just isnt tops on your list, where is the hope for "success"?



Greta liked nothing more than to color. She would sit with me at like age 18 months until--well, we still do it--and we'd just chat and have a nice little dish of cookies and color and talk. Contrast that with the sweating, disheveled lunatic that being the mother of a boy from age 6 months until--well we still do it---and you find a very humbled psych student who is the proud Mama of 2 girls, three boys, and for whom the real differences are a source of smiles, tears, and a grimace for the know it all that I used to be, but also learning everyday.



I do know some wild, wild, WILD little girls, ones you cant even say Hi to without them bucking out of your arms and up onto the refrigerator. I also know some gentle, people oriented little boys, who really do want to sip the tea and do Beatrix Potter coloring sheets and converse at length. But for my kids, raised by 2 parents and homeschooled with very strict access to tv and movies, there is still a big big difference in how they move, how they play with the exact same toys, and what they do with their mobility skills as they grow. As babies, the girls are quite chilled out, into cute stuff that is cuddly, and seem very oriented towards interacting with me and showing me little things and staying nearby. As babies the boys cried and cried and cried, and I have videotape to prove it,it was an angry cry not a sad plaintive cry, were very into getting far far away, climbing, and touching and breaking every and any thing in the room that was not for them and generally wild and very very difficult to take places due to destruction, running away, and complete inabilty to "get" that "we dont do that here" (Library, Grocery store, etc)


I LOVE my children, I LOVE my boys so so so so so much, please dont get me wrong. They are so hilarious and adorable and life-filled and sparkly and great, they are just so great and so free. But its physical work, and emotional work--the actual keeping of them can be outrageously exhausting, (and remember mine were BIG, big boys, all over 20 pounds by THREE months old -- the size of little rosebud Eska now) and emotionally, its alot of helping them to "get" the social cues that I completely took for granted when raising Greta, the little stuff like thinking about others, and how-do-you-think-that-makes-so-and-so-feel, its just different. I have tried to read those books about raising boys but they creep me out and upset me, seem very anti-wholistic and just seem to hyper scrutinize everything to the point where I get paranoid and fearful and thats when I throw the books down and love my child, just hold them and kiss them in the middle of the living room, in all their dissasembled electronics and their plain pasta and their it hurts when you wash my hair and their refusal to wear chapstick and their legos and their dominos and they are my dear babies, my huge dear babies and maybe none of the other stuff matters. But it is harder than raising girls. so far. for me. For us.

As theyve gotten older, its amazing to see how their babyish ways have changed into very interesting and diverse interests---I look forward to writing about this soon!

Any one out there wish to share their adventures, myths and truths about raising a boy or a girl or many of them? Did you, like me, "know it all" until you actually had one of your own?

I am 34 now!

Well, last Friday was my birthday and it was completely consumed by our trip to the doctor and specialist, etc. We ate Digiornos in exhausted silence at 8:30pm. I had been gone from noon until 6pm and then right back out to get prescriptions and the pizzas and the other otc medicines from the grocery store....

Saturday was better, even though Steve had to work, when he got home he took the less sick kids out to get me a present--and they got me great ones! A huge box of assorted dark chocolates (YUM DARK CHOCOLATE) and a cord to hook my electric guitar up to my amp. And 8 cool picks to play the guitar with. And new strings to re-string the guitar! SO COOL!

I am not really in a position to be playing guitar right now too much, but the idea that it is there for me makes me feel great. They also baked me a cake and it was really, really good. Darkest chocolate with darkest chocolate frosting. We ate in in a day. I miss it and want it to come back!

The antibiotics are helping the kids alot but they are still weak coughing and cross. It also has been SNOWY so thats normal but rather limits taking the sickies on a little sunny walk.

Soon soon.

The other kids!

Everyone!

Greta!

Mickey!

Charlie!


Thank you Kneelingwoman for this fun Crayola springtime cookie kit. It really helped the boring boring long day go by!

Updates

I guess I should blog...

I have like 6 things in "drafts"--not like me. I dont know if my hesitance is some kind of maturing thing where I think before I speak or more insecurity/feeling like my story(ie)s are going to upset or offend, blabla.

Anyhow at least a health update: I took the 3 youngest kids to the doctor last Friday and Charlie and Casey had double ear infections, and Eska had some inconclusive blood work and chest xrays and Casey had "pneumonia sounds a little bit" in his lungs and they are all on Amoxicillin. They started getting better in about a day and a half, meaning going from high pitched crying and hacking and choking all night with Steve and I camped out taking shifts and noone sleeping to just some kids with productive coughs and clear sniffles. Phew.

Where I was already saying that it was going to take alot of time for us to heal from the past years' stresses, now it is going to take even longer. Like, I am not going to bust us all out to some giant daytrip as soon as we are better. We are going to, like, go out in the back yard for 15 minutes. thats how weak and pale and tired and wiped out we are. WHEN it is really summer and we are really partying and diving into pools and covered in strawberries and barbecue sauce, it will be SUCH a victory and wonderful!

I am still in my deep thoughts mode, savoring the moments and reading and such. Letting go of past hurts, learning new ways of living, forgiving myself and my husband for parenting errors and mess ups and trying, so hard, to just look forward and not wallow in regrets and guilt. Sorry to be so shady and mysterious, basically we feel we "used to be so nice and happy and now are so mean and angry" and the time lines of all this nostalgia is vague. It doesnt matter WHEN or WHY life turned really stressful, but we are really really trying to get on top of it all.

I went and visited my old job, the Detroit Curling Club (I was bartender there last year) and even though I felt shy and weird going in there were alot of people who were like "JOY!!!! OMG HI!!!!" and that was so so so cool. I want my job back in the fall and I plan to make it happen somehow. I loved it and this time I wont be pregnant so all the nausea, exhaustion, horrifying smells and guilt about the chips and soda and heavy lifting and so forth would be gone as well! Getting out of the house, talking to adults, driving and listening to NPR, Sonic Youth, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Sports Talk radio, wearing makeup and outfits.....and yeah making money too---so awesome! They better take me back.

Stay healthy....

Baby Eskarina Poppy, 9 1/2 months

Sniff

We have been sick for over a week now. Its a bad one, a real long lasting burning harsh hacking cough, dizziness, sore throat for days and days, congestion, exhaustion. Its a lot to take care of all thses sick folks. Charlie is super cross and I am trying trying trying to keep him calm and appeased so he doesnt go into coughing fits and get croupy. He resists the medicine, the drinks, the whole thing. He coughs all night and so does Eska. I am keeping charts of who has had what meds, which helps a lot.

Steve got this first, almost three weeks ago, and I made him go to the doctor who said it was a virus. Then I made him go back about 5 days later when he was much worse and they still said it was a virus. Charlie also had such a bad croup-attack Sunday evening that he went to the afterhours clinic who did prescribe him a steroid for his lungs. My point? This doesnt seem to be an antibiotic thing. Just a miserable cold. Another step backwards in our setting up of routines and healing and getting strong, but so be it.

We are doing what we can to stay amused and calm--we have started watching the Harry Potter movies over again while the little ones are napping (too scary) and doing our best to agree on tv shows or video games. I did get out a couple of night ago to go buy stuff for the pets and it was exhausting. We made some strong chicken garlic soup over the weekend...

Well, thats where Ive been! Its just a part of life, I only wish it wasnt upsetting Charlie so much, poor sweetie. Everyone else seems to be taking it in stride, a few moans and groans and a few crabbby moments....I think its hard to be 3. All of my kids had it kind of rough when they were three years old, a lot of misunderstandings and not "tantrums", but a lot of frustrations and crying/screaming to be perfectly honest.

Be back soon!

I dont wanna go home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Poor old blog! Im still here!

Well, we have a cold going around the family, sort of a sore throat that turns into a hacky cough. The bad thing about a big family is that it can take a long long time for something to go through the whole crew---then by the time you are ALL better, a month ? Its time to get sick again! Actually, we have been quite healthy this winter, amazingly so. Quite a change from last year when I was to the point of tears at how we literally didnt get to have a winter whatsoever!

Living across the street from a big park is wonderful, when I do not feel like getting it together to go over there is when I most need it--and the wonderful little froggy rain boots we got the boys from /Target have proved to be indispensable for the omnipresent mud everywhere. I put them in the washing machine and dry them on their sides next to the furnace at night. (They get so muddy, as in, black ooze filling the tops and insides) that a little wipe-down doesnt quite cut it!

The mud is "worth it" for sure, because down in the valley of the park, where obviously, all the water is, there are mallard ducks and sticks to throw and hills to run up and down and it is so joyous to go from bickering over snacks and remotes to running in the sun and watching birds. EVERYtime I feel too tired or whatever to go over there I am always SO glad I did it....until its time to leave!

The little boys have been giving me a run for my money lately. TONS of screaming and defiance and I am trying so hard to be patient, above it all, not taking it personally, but wow. This makes leaving the park, and all the fun times sort of bad. I can warn them about how we have "five minutes left!" and in my heart I know it doesnt matter--when it is time to actually go, all the little single-serving mom and dad "friends" who chatted me up get to now witness the extreme scene. One boy hides, one runs away from me, and/or they scream bloody murder "IM NOT GOING HOME MA-MAAAAAA!!!!!" .....it totally sucks. A million things flash through my head, images of Nanny 911 (television show), trying to not worry about what people think, but grateful for the public keeping me from being "too mean"....embarrassment, worry, annoyance. Do I pull one of those cheesy and idiotic and weird things where I pretend "Im leaving without you?" .....I cant very well go pick them both up and push the stroller, too. I usually just quietly walk away and try not to cry, thinking about where I went wrong and how things didnt ever, ever used to be this way. Ive been practicing deep breathing, waiting a few moments before speaking, etc but its hard. They eventually come but crying like they are being attacked by wolves, I mean, hysterical angry screeching, not boo hoo mommy I love the parky-poo, oh no---its a wonder noone calls the cops on me for stealing little boys, for real.

So yeah, behavior issues have been pretty much all I remember from this week. When kids act that way, the days are long, unrewarding, anxious. Steve gets home today at 1pm and I am completely free to do things that I want to do! I think I will hang some homemade curtains, take pictures for the blog, and sleep. Next weekend is my birthday, April 3rd, and I do NOT want to be sick.

No more mindless!

I had dinner with Kneelingwoman last night and as always her calm and extremely loving guidance did more for me than a lifetime of "shrinks" ever could! It might amuse you to see my hesitance-verging on skepticism of the idea of a psychologist when that is what I have my degree in! Anyhow, she is a spiritual advisor and boy does the title fit! She gave me a book as a birthday present and it is incredible. Its so easy to get very lost in the sea of self help stuff that I appreciate just being given one plunked into my lap like that! The title is Change your Mind and Your life Will Follow. By Karen Casey. I am not going to say too much about it yet but it certainly is a pleasant and peaceful read, and inspirational and just "feels good".

I am going to start today by being more thoughtful. Although I had a temporary feeling of relief in writing that post about my mistreatment in hospital, I wrote it wildly and blindly and ---yes --even though folks love that side of me---wildness has caused me alot of hurt and regret in my life, too. I am planning on rewriting the post and putting it back up in its original time slot in a few days--if only not to lose all of your wonderfully supportive and heartfelt stories and comments.

I have been contemplative for a while now, like, as a full time vocation ever since fall. So much swirled and twirled in that whole chaos of the new baby and putting the kids in public school, and the settling will take time and I am happy for the reprieve of it all.

My struggles in expressing myself honestly and wholly were part of my discussion last night over dinner, and some small but significant mind set changes are going to help a great deal. I do have FAR too much of my energies set on what others think of me, what others are doing, what others are saying, do they approve? Am I loved today? Will I be loved tomorrow? Is it ok? Is what I am experiencing as happiness actually ok? Its a nightmarish way to live, and the book really gives some great tips on why that is totally not the way to be and to just live and just be and it is very freeing to even read, let alone put into practice. It will take time, and so patience will be something the extremely knee-jerk-Joy will have to learn. (Its funny, because in my mothering, I am patient and thoughtful, I put a great deal of thought into the "big decisions" for my children but also am quick to temper and shout and say "extreme" things....so I wanna get better NOW but it will take time and I think its good for me)

I am excited to follow this wonderful part of my personality "all the way" now--the thing that I used to refer to as optimism, the extremely happy and sweet and kind and innocent and precious part of me, I am going all the way with that now. Its very hard to explain or describe, but I am drawn to certain things that I am now going to persue actively. Perhaps the children will be inspired, but they dont have to be into it with me, and neither does my husband. For me, that is very radical. If they want to, then awesome, but its ok if they dont. Painting and drawing stuff like apples and pears with happy faces on them, making up homemade songs on my electric guitar with no apologies about not knowing the real names of the chords or whatnot, being outside almost every second, being very into birds and trees and no more giving my precious resting time to Comedy Central and ugly negative sitcoms. Do you know how much my worries about being "out of touch" or "a dork" have cost me in terms of sleep? Now, I really couldnt care less! Late night conversations, a great film, reading, writing, sex.....those yes I will lose sleep over. But no more mindless yucky stupid stupid tv. Its so harsh and gross. No more mindless anything!

With that I conclude...and next I will tell you about whats up with the Home School. Its going very wonderfully but nothing like we've ever done before....

9 months old baby, lovely visitors

Spent a wonderful albeit exhausting (my energy level is still SO low) last few days finally having people over to the new place, and visiting our friends' new baby, etc. My dear brave Mom who has stage 4 cancer and my steadfast Step Dad, my dear sister and her 3 little adorable little ones, and my best friend from high school and her wonderful son, all got to come and spend time in the biggest little house ever. I do not know how this tiny place seems to be so able to house so many guests comfortably, but it does, and I already know I dont want to move and would like to buy this place--yep you heard me--my wanderlust is GONE, something I wasnt sure would ever happen to me in my lifetime. Now dont get me wrong, I still am desperate for travel, but that seething itching desire to "leave my options open" and to job and house search in other states (!!! yes i do this) is just gone--poof--like that. interesting how one place can change you. I like it. Ok huge understatement. I feel an enormous peace, comfort and safety here--perhaps the finding the house was the cherry on top, perhaps it is everything. But I have been on a journey, an unforseen and to be honest, unwanted ride for a while now. I keep joking to everyone that I need to get a T-Shirt that reads "Sorry about 2008".....as if that would cover all of the memory loss, friendships not nurtured, actions not well understood, or anything, really.

So many things have come full circle for me and my family, and this time it is different than just "getting my figure back" (ha!) or "Sleeping through the night" (double ha!). We have been through some stuff. I know I will never be the same. What only a year and a half ago was a cozy surprise, another pregnancy, turned into alot.

But here we are, and the sweet baby is as precious as ever. I wanted to write some big poignant thing about her turning 9 months old a couple of days ago, but really, so many others have done such a beautiful job of that, so, yes, 9 months in the belly and 9 months out in the world, seems significant, yet I cant really bring myself to write anything monumental about that. I am not poetic or nostalgic when it comes to much of anything about my pregnancy with Eska, but believe me when i tell you that miss apricotmoonbaby Eskarina Poppy has brought me nothing but joy and none of what I have been through is her fault, she has just sort of been there with us, through it all. Too many changes, time to rest.

I kept saying that I have been "thinking" since November, and I still am. Maybe not the deep meditation that January with a nursing baby and 2 feet of snow can bring, but still in that phase. The children are d-e-c-o-m-p-r-e-s-s-i-n-g, and knowing that this is best for them is why I am a good mother. Flat out. Some of them show it on the outside, some of them seem "fine". But I know it has all been too much, three houses, a baby, a sectioned mama wildly depressed, lets try public school....wow.

So, heres to a fresh new week, it is supposed to be 70 degrees tomorrow and then get cold again, so we will be outside as much as possible, have a great day!