infected

Well, I hoped to post about our first Camp Mom field trip (I'll give you a hint... OMG! CUPCAKES!!!)

But you'll never guess what... I have ANOTHER COMPUTER VIRUS. Gah. I love my computer guy, but when he bought the 42-foot sailboat, I started to think I'm giving him a leetle too much business.

The last virus was from a very popular blog that I totally love, but I will never go to again because it was hacked multiple times and infected my computer something FIERCE. I won't link you because, seriously, I have TRAUMA from it all.

So this latest virus was from Bounce who wanted to show me what Miley Cyrus's latest tattoo looks like, so she googled it, and pretty much anytime you google those two things together, you are asking for big trouble. And we have it. My computer is in the ICU ... AGAIN. And there's no way in heck I'm hooking my camera up to it until it's been thoroughly sanitized. But I have some great cupcake porn for you. Eventually.

On top of the computer virus, I'm waging war with two GIANT raccoons who are getting into my trash can at night. Last night, they defeated my bungee cords. Tonight I'm trying Lysol and baby powder. (Google it.) I think it goes without saying that things get disgusting pretty quickly when you have critters getting into your garbage. And? Can I admit this to you, internet? I'm a city girl. I am completely skeeved out by wildlife. Squirrels are about all I can handle and I can only take those one at a time. As far as I'm concerned, everything else belongs in the zoo. *shudder*

On top of all that, remember my drastic purging from a few posts ago? Well, I recycled $150. In the form of UPC codes that I needed from my latest cell phone purchases. (In my defense, I was completely mislead by the sale rep. I won't even bother going into the details. It doesn't matter. It just plain sucks.)

And, I'm packing up an entire household for a weeks vacation. I think you all know how fun that is.

(And I'm not even discussing the hole in my dining room ceiling and the chandelier that nearly set my house on fire. Not discussing that at all.)


(New post up over at The Letter Project. Check it out.)

campy

So those lazy days of summer haven't hit our house yet.

Last week, Bounce had drama camp. Seriously, she could probably TEACH dramatic performance. (gah) But she liked it. And it enabled us to make our first Camp Mom field trip, which I'll post about tomorrow. (I hope.)

This week, Tide and Cheer are in baseball camp. (It's Cheer's first year. My little guy is growing up. I thought for sure he'd miss his mommy, but no dice.) It's like playing baseball on the face of the sun. 100 degrees today, and even hotter tomorrow.

Here's something I don't understand. 100 kids playing baseball in the blazing sun all day smell WAY LESS than 20 kids skating around on ICE for a few hours. WHY IS THAT? Hockey is the worst smelling sport I've experienced. It makes my eyes water when those locker room doors fly open.

Also? While the kids love camp, to me it's kind of a pain in the ass. It's got all the getting up on time, packing lunches, driving to and fro of school, without everyone having something to do at the same time. And? While there's no homework, I have some tired, grouchy kids at the end of the day.

But if they were here all day, they'd be driving me crazy, right? Divide and conquer... I guess that's a strategy.

Next week, we'll have lots of togetherness when we pack into a single hotel room for 5 days. Wooo! I can't wait. After a 8 10 oh hell, you KNOW it's going to be a 12-hour drive.

So! Fun!

But I do have to share with you what is quite possibly the best toy ever invented.



It's a little hard to see, but it's from the fabulous Melissa & Doug and it's a board with a tile of a tiny replica of each state's license plate strapped to it. You can flip the tiles over, but *cue the chorus of angels* THEY DO NOT COME OFF!!! There are no pieces to lose. You can play the license plate game. On the opposite side are the state capitals. So you can quiz each other on those too. And, Tide figured this out, the edges of the tiles are also red on one side and blue on the other. You can even use to keep track of the votes during a Presidential election. (Note to Melissa & Doug - if you could add the number of electoral votes for each state on the edges, that would be great!)

That should keep them busy for at least 10 minutes of the drive, right?

I'm trying to get back to regular posting. I hope to have a post, with! pictures!, tomorrow. Between all the driving and cheering up of grouchy campers. (Not to mention LAUNDRY. OMG, I can't even tell you how out of control the laundry is.)

photo from Coastal Living

overheard

Cheer: I want to go to the BAHAMAS. It looks so peaceful and relaxing there.

Shout: I want to go to TEXAS. It's so peaceful and relaxing there.

Tide: NO WAY! You don't want to go to TEXAS! You'll spend the whole time running away from killer bees.

(The dangers of unfettered access to Animal Planet.)

Also, Assignment 3 is up at The Letter Project. Check it out.

farewell DC Metro Moms

I'm trying to stay off the internet on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. At least while the kids are up. And since there is at least one kid who gets up before me and one who goes to bed after me, that is a huge challenge. I haven't perfected it, but I'm working on it.

It was hard this week though because I got some surprising news on Monday afternoon via email, which prompted lots of reaction on the internet.

The Silicon Valley Moms Group announced they are shutting down, including the 13 regional blogs, at the end of the month.

It was a huge shock, especially to the DC Metro Moms writers because we just had an event the week before, that I hadn't even had a chance to write about yet. And there were ongoing plans, like a BlogHer party in August and talk of maybe even having our own conference.

I have met most of my blogging buddies through DC Metro Moms. I treasure their friendships and am inspired by their writing. I know that those relationships will continue in some way, but it won't be the same.

I also loved the wider forum I had with DC Metro Moms. I was able to publish things over there that didn't quite fit over here. I could pimp a cause or share a life lesson. I will miss that platform greatly. It most certainly enabled me to grow as a writer.

I know these situations are complicated and decisions like this are not made without angst. I want to thank the founders and partners of the Silicon Valley Moms Group for the opportunity I had there. I know there are great things in store for all of us.

(The actual sites will stay up indefinitely, but I'll be re-publishing my posts over here, a few at a time.)

you turn me upside down

(This post should have gone up yesterday, but I never finished it. Lazy summer.)

So it's here. The first official day of summer vacation. I've never been so happy for a school year to end.

I'm spending the first day of vacation decluttering. Lame, I know. But if I set the bar low, every other day will seem ever more fun, right? (That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

My LONG-OVERDUE decluttering project started out as a hunt for a lost toy. I still haven't found the toy, but I found several missing shoes and managed to amass a huge pile of things that can be donated and another smaller pile of things to thrown away.

It feels great. I've been feeling like the walls have been closing in around me lately.

We looked at a house for sale Sunday. It has the rare combination of being large, affordable AND in our neighborhood. And two (TWO!) offices. His and hers. But for various other reasons, the layout doesn't really work for our family. Which is good because we realized later in the day (after 3 minor explosions) that we have a serious electrical problem in our dining room. Now we have no electricity in there and a large hole in the ceiling. A new house sounds great, but selling this one? Not so much.

So ANYWAY, I never really got my groove on this school year. I felt disorganized and scattered. I kept forgetting forms and lunches and checking homework. It just got worse as the year progressed with papers everywhere and no sense of planning ahead.

I need to make some changes this summer. I'm not sure exactly what, but I need to work on refining (ok, let's be honest), SCRAPPING AND RECREATING an entirely new system.

I need a different calendar. A more complex filing system. An office, even just one, would be lovely. Sigh. My "office" is the dining room. Which is also where we eat. So when it's time for dinner, everything on the table gets gathered up and thrown somewhere, never to be sorted again - because there's always a new avalanche of papers to take it's place.

A drastic purging was long overdue. And I have to say, it feels great. Like a fresh start. One of the things I have always missed about college, was getting to start over every semester. No matter how disorganized or behind you were the previous semester, once you walked out of your last exam it was all over. And you could completely re-invent yourself for the next one.

Now that our lives are ruled by the school calendar more than anything else, I have a glimmer of that hope for re-invention again.

my bloody valentine

So I mentioned I took Shout to NIH for her endocrinology check up on Tuesday. (Did I mention how DEEPLY I love NIH? Because I DO.)

I told her doctor that I was a little worried about a few random things that I had convinced myself were all related.

Exhibit A

A few months ago, she tripped and bumped her mouth on a table. It bleed a little bit around her teeth when it happened, but some cold water and a popsicle later and she was all good. So a few days after, I looked in there just to make sure no teeth were loose and it was all healed up and the inside of her mouth was BLACK on the side where she bumped it. It was the darkest bruise I have ever seen. And I have seen a lot of bruises. It looked like mouth leprosy. (I just invented that. I can't wait for my first Google hit on it. Updated: SQUEE, I'm the no. 1 hit! But not the only, surprisingly.)

Exhibit B (pay attention... we'll be coming back to this one)

A few weeks after the mouth leprosy incident, she got a papercut on her fingertip. That thing bled like a MOFO. There was blood RUNNING through the bandaid even 10 minutes after it happened.

Weird, right? It took like 20 minutes of me pinching her finger to get it to stop. (I may be exaggerating my times... it seemed like hours. I even had to put down my Diet Coke and hang up the phone because the whole operation required my full attention. (We're talking SERIOUS, people.) AND I was trying not to get blood on the furniture. There was a LOT of blood. For a papercut, you know?)

So I thought I would consult Dr. Google for some information. (I'm a trained professional. Don't attempt this at home.)

What Dr. Google comes up with are coagulation disorders. Know what some other symptoms of coagulation disorders are?

Exhibit C

Nosebleeds. Ok. That's weird.

Also?

Exhibit D


Blood in urine. I could have sworn that I blogged an update to that post, but I can't find it. Basically, after Shout had what seemed like a horrible UTI, Dr. Everything Will Be Alright told me that the lab results showed blood but no bacteria. So he concluded it was a viral UTI. (Except Dr. Google tells me that viral UTI's are mostly found in felines and people on chemotherapy. So whatsupwiddat, Dr. EWBA? MAYBE there was actually no infection, but there was just blood in her urine. Insert Twilight Zone theme song here.)

So one of the tests that was ordered the other day for the fateful blood draw was to check my theory.

As I was putting Shout to bed that night, she was STILL complaining about the blood draw and simultaneously talking about how brave she was. (Yo. She really wasn't very brave.) She demanded to know WHY she had to suffer the indignity of a blood test.

So I talked about some of the things they look at in a blood test. And then I reminded her of the bloody-papercut-finger episode and told her that she really shouldn't bleed that much for such a little cut.

So (pay attention readers... here's where it gets good...) she says:

"Weeeeeellllll... it wasn't REALLY a papercut. Do you know that red knife in the kitchen?"

GAH!

Yes, my 4-year old STABBED HERSELF IN THE FINGER BECAUSE SHE WANTED TO SEE IF THE KNIFE WAS REALLY SHARP.

(And then, she lied about it for months after.)

So I have two confessions to make, internet.

Ok, well, 3. One is obvious. Clearly, I don't watch my 4-year old closely enough.

Two. I'm never breathing a WORD of this to anyone. Not a medical professional or any other human being. (Shh... it's between you and me, internet.) We're just going to nod sagely when the bloodwork comes back normal and act relieved.

Three. Ok, I already forgot what 3 is.

Oh wait. Three. I'm going to BACK AWAY FROM THE INTERNET and stop diagnosing my child myself with my non-existent medical degree and a little help from Dr. Google. (Yeah, right.)

Seriously embarrassing, right?

So imagine my surprise when I got a call from her doctor at NIH with the results of her bloodwork.

Her abnormal bloodwork.

The bloodwork that showed her clotting time is delayed.

Whoooops. So much for not spilling it on the internet. And not diagnosing my kid with my medical degree mad internet skilz.

I'm pretty freaking good.

Not sure yet where we go from here. If she has anything it's a mild version of something. And yes, I HAVE ALREADY FORMULATED MY DIAGNOSIS... let's see how long it takes the medical professionals to catch up to me.

I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, we're moving the knives up higher and no more running with scissors.

keep swimming

I packed my last lunches of the school year this morning. Can you hear the chorus of angels?

My days continue to be INSANE and I'm just trying to keep my head above water. Yesterday, I left the house at 9:15 to take Shout to the National Institutes of Health for her regular 6-month endocrinology appointment. Everything was great. But she needed bloodwork. As we walked into the lab, I told the receptionist, "You might remember us from last year." But she just smiled and shook her head.

10 minutes later, as we were walking out, Shout screaming "I AM NEVER COMING BACK HERE AGAIN!!!" at the top of her lungs and dragging a baby doll with a matching pink bandage on her arm, the receptionist said "Oh yeah! I DO remember her!"

After that, the day was a flurry of errands, pick ups, sports drop offs, sports pick ups, and then FINALLY, a long overdue visit to the liquor store. Because HOLY COW, I spent my whole day getting in and out of the car. The only remedy for Car Malaise is a good chardonnay.

Today, I was supposed to meet Cheer's class on their field trip to the zoo. But the forecast is for thunderstorms all. day. long. You might remember, I am freakishly afraid of lightening. So I'm taking a pass and staying home to put away the MOUNTAINS of clean laundry that are sitting around my living room.

Which is good because the next two days are also insane with class parties, awards ceremony, pool party, swim team, picking things and kids up and dropping them off. And probably a few more trips to the liquor store.

I know the summer won't be much easier, but for now, I'm fooling myself with the thought that it will be. Don't anybody go reading my archives and remind me what it's really like, mkay?

And don't forget The Letter Project. Assignment number 2 is up.

lazy, linky friday

I have a post in drafts about some home projects we're working on. Or, should I say, we have STARTED but AREN'T REALLY WORKING ON THAT MUCH RIGHT NOW. (Ok, yes. That is what I should say.)

But finishing the post would involve me getting my camera and taking pictures and downloading and it just all seems so tedious. (Lazy.)

So I'll get to that, I promise, but for now, I'm sending you off around the internet to read other people who write so much better than I do.





Photo from mamapundit.com

Blogger and attachment parenting author Katie Allison Granju's son, Henry, died this week, just over a month after he suffered a drug overdose and a brutal attack. Katie has been heartbreakingly honest about their struggles parenting Henry while he was fighting for his life. I'm shattered that they lost their battle.

This post on crib chronicles expresses so eloquently all the emotions we as mothers feel when grieving with one of our own. I often feel like there is some complicated, intricate dance routine and if I learn and execute it perfectly, I can protect my kids from the horrors of this world. But there is no dance routine. There is no perfect answer to their searching questions. There is no exact right thing that you can say that will chart their safe direction in stormy seas. But on the very cusp of adolescence with my oldest, I keep searching. And gripping the parenting steering wheel with ever-whitening knuckles.






(picture from Hyperbole and a Half)

On a lighter note, I have a new favorite blog, Hyperbole and a Half. I was laughing so hard I was full on sobbing by the end of this post. This is another of my favorites. (Take a minute to visit the Little Bloggers Room if you need to first. You will be laughing HARD.)





(photo by Karen Walrond (Chookooloonks))

Jenny, the Bloggess, is another of my favorite humor bloggers. There is NO TELLING what she will be writing about when you click on her blog. But this post, The Traveling Red Dress, while funny, of course, is fabulous and something everyone should read. I mean it. Everyone. Photos by the fabulous Chookooloonks and her backstory is here. Also hilarious. (What would you do if one of your friends asked you to meet her in a cemetery and to bring bail money, just in case?) Feel free to write your own post about what YOUR red dress would be. Like Neil, who bravely went first.

i am nujood - book club

It's a jarring title: I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced.

When it was announced that the Silicon Valley Moms Group had chosen this book for the June book club, I signed right up.

When the book arrived in the mail, it sat for awhile because I was reading another book. My daughter was fascinated by it. She even brought it to school to show her teacher. I have no idea if her teacher looked through it or wondered why on earth I would let my nine-year old daughter carry around such a book.

It's the memoir of a 9-year old Yemeni girl who is married off to a 30-year old man, mostly so that her unemployed father can receive a dowry for her, as he has a large family (two actually) to support.

Nine years old.

The same age as my beautiful, innocent daughter.

She is raped, beaten and mistreated. She is moved far from her home and basically kept as a prisoner in her mother-in-law's home. And the shocking thing about it all is that no one in her socio-economic culture finds it odd. Or wrong. Or horrific.

She eventually seeks and receives a divorce from the Yemeni court system - the first case of its kind.

It's the kind of story I'd like to shelter my daughter from. She is too young. She lives a far more protected type of life. She doesn't have to worry about these things.

And yet, I am raising a citizen of the world. Not just of my own neighborhood. She DOES need to learn these things. She does need to know that OUR life, with rights for women and a childhood for children, is a rather unique in the community of the world.

Most children growing up in poverty are not able to be children at age 9. They are working or begging for their families. Or even, being married off. As much as I would like to shelter her from this knowledge, she must know it. And who better to feel the depths of that injustice than a child?

The book is heavy, but is written in language that is appropriate for teens and perhaps older preteens. I don't think I will let my 9-year old read it, but I did tell her the story. We talked about women and rights, poverty and education, marriage and equality.

My daughter's life is light years away from Nujood's. And for that, I am grateful. And yet, I believe it is important that she hear the story and let it shape her.

I have many dreams for my 9-year old. And just one of them is that she will change the world.

Come on over to the book club and join in on the discussion.

(Disclosure: I received a complementary copy of the book from the publisher. I am under no obligation to write about it and all opinions expressed are my own.)