Everything all of the time...
Feb. 23rd, 2008 02:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altarflameI'm so irritated with YouTube. They yanked the videos of Elise that I posted for nudity. Seriously. HUGGIES COMMERCIALS and COPPERTONE SUNSCREEN BOTTLES feature baby butts. Anne Geddes uses baby butts in posters they sell at school book fairs. People are so freaking uptight paranoid stupid - there was no genitalia in those videos. Or close-up shots. They weren't even really in focus! There are, unfortunately, actual child porn sites out there for perverts looking for them...I really doubt they're salivating as my baby crawls around laughing in the kitchen with her brother. Whatever.
Anyway, these two pictures of my baby happen to feature clothing :p
...for some reason she wanted to stand in front of the bush and we didn't realize until afterward that it, well, makes it kind of hard to see her hair
On Isaac's birthday Bobby/![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tmfi sent me a couple of short, spliced video clips he took of Isaac from a visit a couple of years back...it's pretty adorable and silly.
(That's Frank, Laura's husband talking in the first one, and Bobby in the second...)
For contrast, I interviewed him today. What a difference...
I think this last bout of croup might have mellowed him for the long term O_o It's like he just never would have stopped talking for a second, if he hadn't had to due to pain, coughing, weakness and fever...as it was he was VERY unusually quiet for over a week, though, and I think it's left him more observant in general. Here's hoping, anyway ;)
Totally random things:
-People down here routinely eat in the grocery store, particularly they feed their kids in the grocery store. This is obviously taboo (i.e., stealing) if it's weighted produce, but nobody really seems to think twice about it with packaged or per quanitity items. You just pay at the checkout as per usual. I was telling Laura tonight as she passed out pre-cut canteloupe chunks from a container while we shopped that I tried that once in Jacksonville, and got stopped by security, who called in a police officer...it was just ridiculous, they really acted like I ought to have been ashamed and they couldn't believe I was "trying to lie" and "claiming I was going to pay all along". I was like, uh, if I was going to steal I wouldn't be being completely open about it as I walk down the aisles handing out crackers, people! When I was growing up my mom would often get some bakery items for us to eat while we shopped, and then present the wrapper for payment at the cash register, along with a half empty bottle of iced tea. Nobody ever questioned us about it here in Homestead. Just sayin', I think it's regional or something.
-Every time I comb Isaac's hair out, I get boogers in the comb. *sigh*
-I'm really aware of my long-acknowledged predisposition to weird circumstances right now...I don't have a lot of background for 9-5 work every day, and it's really horrible for me to try to get used to. Grant's unpredictable, wack hours as an entrepeneur really felt like home to me. This thing where he leaves in the morning and comes back in the evening every single day is...unfamiliar and surreal. I keep waiting for it to end, like, this can't just be "how it is" from now on. I know this is how most people live, but...blah. I don't even know why, but the whole situation makes me feel desperate and hopeless in this way I can't explain. Mom, stop reading if you have to, but I'm not trying to say anything bad here I just know you're sensitive...basically growing up we moved a LOT, like every few months most of the time, and my mom and stepdad changed jobs frequently. There were times when, say, x-stepdad was on a 3 month long international drug run and mom stayed home and go-betweens paid our bills. Or mom was single and worked weird graveyard swing shifts. I never went to school if I didn't feel like it, I usually missed between 80 and 100 days a year. So for Grant to work a 15 hour day starting at noon, and then an 8 hour day starting in the morning, and then four hours in the morning followed by an afternoon at home and then a couple hours in the office before dinner, with us going out at 10pm to look at the stars in the Everglades and get a frappuccino - it seemed very normal and right to me. Going to Boston for 2 months or being on the road for two weeks felt normal. My dream life would be for me to be writing whenever I feel like it, most likely mostly late at night, and going to college part time, and him to be doing photography or freelance web design or whatever other thing where we have to schedule everything around everything else because nobody knows what tomorrow will be like until it comes. It seems safe. I feel like life can stagnate or something, like you can lose yourself in the shuffle...I wonder if it will start to seem normal over time if I just calm my ass down?
-a while back I pulled a pot of oatmeal close to me from the back burner for a final stir, and after a couple seconds Ananda was like, "MOM! Doesn't that HURT?" because I was holding the lip right against my belly. A totally numb part of my belly. I was blistered. Two weeks later there's still a mark and something kind of weird is, I can feel there now, even though I never felt the burn. Like it woke up the nerves.
-My kids are FINALLY responding to "renewed consistency"...I'm always aware of how little consistency I had growing up and how challenging it makes a lot of things for me, so even though we have very variable times to our days, we also have a lot of routine...it was like skinning myself alive to get used to, but every single day the kids have morning chores and teeth brushing after breakfast, and whenever we're home at some point a few hours later we have what we always call "Afternoon chores", and when dinner is either about to start or just ended, evening chores...and they're always the same things, each kid has different ones. Likewise we sit down to dinner as a family and start with a prayer, even if it is 11 or something. And we read and have prayers before bedtime, often with some bedroom cleanup or a big-kids-and-I only time where we're talking...most days we do some kind of sit-down schoolwork in the late afternoon. Anyway, all consistency went out the window completely for the last week or two of illness. People just fell into bed whenever and got up and lazed around watching tv all day long and one person would have some soup for their dinner an hour before 2 other people had a grilled cheese, etc etc. It was just ridiculous. They seriously all watched movies all day and half the night for over a week. And I think they are more sensitive to this sort of shift, and quicker to go with it, because it was a similar situation when I was in the hospital last Fall and recovering, for about a month, and also last Spring was pretty rough when Elise was born. So, for the first couple of days after this illness my normally motivated and agreeable children were all whining "SCHOOL?! We just had school YESTERDAY" and "Moooo-ooom I'm too TIRED to move laundry, why can't I go out to PLAY" and other such crap. They were getting upset with me that I wasn't willing to start a second movie right after a first one ended and generally acting like I was a slave driver if I wanted a dirty plate walked from the table to the sink. Jake has also turned into some kind of feral child, he got sneaky while I was off my guard and his temper is INSANE. His first healthy day, which was my first sick day, we had a lot of conversations like this:
Mom: Jakey, that's not for you. Put it back on the counter.
Jake: NO!
Mom: Jake, calm down. You cannot yell at me or tell me no.
Jake: *pointing and scowling* YOU calm down, MOM!
Mom: It's not nice to say that. I'm being nice and calm. YOU need to calm down. Now hand me that, right now!
Jake: How bout no! How bout you calm down! How bout milk!
Mom: You're asking me for milk? You won't even listen and you're yelling at me. Give me that and then we'll talk about milk.
Jake: *runs up and kicks me in the shin*
Mom: THAT'S IT BUDDY! (snatches forbidden item and drags him off to a timeout)
*sigh* Quite a few timeouts and a lot of pre-emptive one on one time later, we are mostly out of this bs. At least the worst of it. Laura and I were talking, and although I don't love Jake anymore than any of my other kids, he and I definitely had the closest bond throughout pregnancy and infancy. And I really think that is behind a lot of this NUTTY ASS way that he acts sometimes...it's like he's a little scorned lover or something, and is just so betrayed by me no longer giving him everything he asks for - not to mention loving another baby, and then expecting him to be more independant...how dare I stand by as if everything is ok while he uses the toilet and eats with a spoon. Bah.
It's just such a lot of work in general to keep up the consistency to a VERY heightened degree while everyone gets back into it. Sometimes I really, really don't want to handle ANOTHER "JAKE IS HITTING ME!!!" or "Isaac stole my toy!" But, as I started this tirade by saying, it is finally paying off as A and A and I had GREAT schooltime today and all three little ones took naps, and nobody flipped out like they were living in a concentration camp because I wanted their blanket put back on their bed. People generally got along. Hopefully we are on the right track again.
sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep now
Anyway, these two pictures of my baby happen to feature clothing :p
...for some reason she wanted to stand in front of the bush and we didn't realize until afterward that it, well, makes it kind of hard to see her hair
On Isaac's birthday Bobby/
tmfi sent me a couple of short, spliced video clips he took of Isaac from a visit a couple of years back...it's pretty adorable and silly. (That's Frank, Laura's husband talking in the first one, and Bobby in the second...)
For contrast, I interviewed him today. What a difference...
I think this last bout of croup might have mellowed him for the long term O_o It's like he just never would have stopped talking for a second, if he hadn't had to due to pain, coughing, weakness and fever...as it was he was VERY unusually quiet for over a week, though, and I think it's left him more observant in general. Here's hoping, anyway ;)
Totally random things:
-People down here routinely eat in the grocery store, particularly they feed their kids in the grocery store. This is obviously taboo (i.e., stealing) if it's weighted produce, but nobody really seems to think twice about it with packaged or per quanitity items. You just pay at the checkout as per usual. I was telling Laura tonight as she passed out pre-cut canteloupe chunks from a container while we shopped that I tried that once in Jacksonville, and got stopped by security, who called in a police officer...it was just ridiculous, they really acted like I ought to have been ashamed and they couldn't believe I was "trying to lie" and "claiming I was going to pay all along". I was like, uh, if I was going to steal I wouldn't be being completely open about it as I walk down the aisles handing out crackers, people! When I was growing up my mom would often get some bakery items for us to eat while we shopped, and then present the wrapper for payment at the cash register, along with a half empty bottle of iced tea. Nobody ever questioned us about it here in Homestead. Just sayin', I think it's regional or something.
-Every time I comb Isaac's hair out, I get boogers in the comb. *sigh*
-I'm really aware of my long-acknowledged predisposition to weird circumstances right now...I don't have a lot of background for 9-5 work every day, and it's really horrible for me to try to get used to. Grant's unpredictable, wack hours as an entrepeneur really felt like home to me. This thing where he leaves in the morning and comes back in the evening every single day is...unfamiliar and surreal. I keep waiting for it to end, like, this can't just be "how it is" from now on. I know this is how most people live, but...blah. I don't even know why, but the whole situation makes me feel desperate and hopeless in this way I can't explain. Mom, stop reading if you have to, but I'm not trying to say anything bad here I just know you're sensitive...basically growing up we moved a LOT, like every few months most of the time, and my mom and stepdad changed jobs frequently. There were times when, say, x-stepdad was on a 3 month long international drug run and mom stayed home and go-betweens paid our bills. Or mom was single and worked weird graveyard swing shifts. I never went to school if I didn't feel like it, I usually missed between 80 and 100 days a year. So for Grant to work a 15 hour day starting at noon, and then an 8 hour day starting in the morning, and then four hours in the morning followed by an afternoon at home and then a couple hours in the office before dinner, with us going out at 10pm to look at the stars in the Everglades and get a frappuccino - it seemed very normal and right to me. Going to Boston for 2 months or being on the road for two weeks felt normal. My dream life would be for me to be writing whenever I feel like it, most likely mostly late at night, and going to college part time, and him to be doing photography or freelance web design or whatever other thing where we have to schedule everything around everything else because nobody knows what tomorrow will be like until it comes. It seems safe. I feel like life can stagnate or something, like you can lose yourself in the shuffle...I wonder if it will start to seem normal over time if I just calm my ass down?
-a while back I pulled a pot of oatmeal close to me from the back burner for a final stir, and after a couple seconds Ananda was like, "MOM! Doesn't that HURT?" because I was holding the lip right against my belly. A totally numb part of my belly. I was blistered. Two weeks later there's still a mark and something kind of weird is, I can feel there now, even though I never felt the burn. Like it woke up the nerves.
-My kids are FINALLY responding to "renewed consistency"...I'm always aware of how little consistency I had growing up and how challenging it makes a lot of things for me, so even though we have very variable times to our days, we also have a lot of routine...it was like skinning myself alive to get used to, but every single day the kids have morning chores and teeth brushing after breakfast, and whenever we're home at some point a few hours later we have what we always call "Afternoon chores", and when dinner is either about to start or just ended, evening chores...and they're always the same things, each kid has different ones. Likewise we sit down to dinner as a family and start with a prayer, even if it is 11 or something. And we read and have prayers before bedtime, often with some bedroom cleanup or a big-kids-and-I only time where we're talking...most days we do some kind of sit-down schoolwork in the late afternoon. Anyway, all consistency went out the window completely for the last week or two of illness. People just fell into bed whenever and got up and lazed around watching tv all day long and one person would have some soup for their dinner an hour before 2 other people had a grilled cheese, etc etc. It was just ridiculous. They seriously all watched movies all day and half the night for over a week. And I think they are more sensitive to this sort of shift, and quicker to go with it, because it was a similar situation when I was in the hospital last Fall and recovering, for about a month, and also last Spring was pretty rough when Elise was born. So, for the first couple of days after this illness my normally motivated and agreeable children were all whining "SCHOOL?! We just had school YESTERDAY" and "Moooo-ooom I'm too TIRED to move laundry, why can't I go out to PLAY" and other such crap. They were getting upset with me that I wasn't willing to start a second movie right after a first one ended and generally acting like I was a slave driver if I wanted a dirty plate walked from the table to the sink. Jake has also turned into some kind of feral child, he got sneaky while I was off my guard and his temper is INSANE. His first healthy day, which was my first sick day, we had a lot of conversations like this:
Mom: Jakey, that's not for you. Put it back on the counter.
Jake: NO!
Mom: Jake, calm down. You cannot yell at me or tell me no.
Jake: *pointing and scowling* YOU calm down, MOM!
Mom: It's not nice to say that. I'm being nice and calm. YOU need to calm down. Now hand me that, right now!
Jake: How bout no! How bout you calm down! How bout milk!
Mom: You're asking me for milk? You won't even listen and you're yelling at me. Give me that and then we'll talk about milk.
Jake: *runs up and kicks me in the shin*
Mom: THAT'S IT BUDDY! (snatches forbidden item and drags him off to a timeout)
*sigh* Quite a few timeouts and a lot of pre-emptive one on one time later, we are mostly out of this bs. At least the worst of it. Laura and I were talking, and although I don't love Jake anymore than any of my other kids, he and I definitely had the closest bond throughout pregnancy and infancy. And I really think that is behind a lot of this NUTTY ASS way that he acts sometimes...it's like he's a little scorned lover or something, and is just so betrayed by me no longer giving him everything he asks for - not to mention loving another baby, and then expecting him to be more independant...how dare I stand by as if everything is ok while he uses the toilet and eats with a spoon. Bah.
It's just such a lot of work in general to keep up the consistency to a VERY heightened degree while everyone gets back into it. Sometimes I really, really don't want to handle ANOTHER "JAKE IS HITTING ME!!!" or "Isaac stole my toy!" But, as I started this tirade by saying, it is finally paying off as A and A and I had GREAT schooltime today and all three little ones took naps, and nobody flipped out like they were living in a concentration camp because I wanted their blanket put back on their bed. People generally got along. Hopefully we are on the right track again.
sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep now
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 09:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 09:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 09:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 09:59 am (UTC)Re: Work Schedule
Date: 2008-02-23 12:58 pm (UTC)Re: Work Schedule
Date: 2008-02-23 07:13 pm (UTC)Did you see my note this morning? I hope your day is going well...
no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 02:04 pm (UTC)I love Isaac so hard. That interview was fabulous. "Weeeell.... "
no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 02:53 pm (UTC)I sympathize with your "9-5 angst". Despite the fact that it is how I have ALWAYS lived, I still hate it and blame it for most of my feelings of being trapped and loss of identity. Of course, now I don't even get the 9-5, so I'm feeling a little more grateful for it. Being conventional sucks. Sacrificing "for my country" sucks.
Anyhoo...sorry about that whine moment. We've lost a lot of consistancy around here lately too, as this week all three of my girls got sick. Fevers, coughs, snot everywhere. Lots of fun. I'm not looking forward to next week when I enforce a schedule again.
Look at me, highjacking again! I'll just stop with the fact that I do understand, despite my totally different lifestyle and experiences.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 07:16 pm (UTC)I am beyond tired of snot, particularly my own.
Please don't worry about hijacking. What do I do in YOUR journal, after all? It's a conversation, I like it :)
no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 03:12 pm (UTC)I can vividly remember going grocery shopping with my mother and siblings after swimming lessons and Mom would get us a box of animal crackers off the shelf to share during shopping. Then, it was our responsibility to put the empy box of crackers on the checkout line so she could pay for them. This never raised eyebrows so far as I could tell, but we were shopping in a very small community in very northern NY.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 07:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 05:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 07:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 10:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 05:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 07:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 05:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 06:29 pm (UTC)"Hey Isaac, I think you're pretty cute"
"Yeeeeeeaaaaaah."
no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 10:36 pm (UTC)I find it really strange that youtube hosts full birthing videos that show absolutely everything and breastfeeding videos that show full booby, but they have a problem with baby butts.
I can related to wanting the flexibility in schedule. That's one thing I prefer about school (even grad school, which is a ridiculous amount of work all the time) compared to "real work". I hate the 8-5 type schedule I'm supposed to have on this internship, which is part of why this nausea has kept me completely off work for three weeks. If the hours were more flexible, I'd be able to work during the time when I can stand/eat/stop puking for a while. 12+ hour shifts only multiply the stress.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-23 11:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-24 01:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-24 04:24 am (UTC)I love Ananda's new hair. Butterfly clips are always so fun, but I could never get them to work the way I wanted to in my hair. I keep meaning to try them again, now that I get my hair thinned.
Um...my mom always would open boxes of cereal or crackers for my sister and I when we were kids. Or drinks, seeing how I was always choking on nothing. People need to calm the fuck down. If you were going to steal something, I'm sure you'd make it a lot less obvious.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-24 07:04 am (UTC)And also, that Isaac video is just awesome. My son turns 4 in April, and it reminded me so much of him. I really love this age!
no subject
Date: 2008-03-11 06:09 pm (UTC)