altarflame | Entries tagged with busy busy

I've had a very full week.

Today, Grant and I took Aaron and Elise out. We dropped him at dance, and took her with us to the Apple store to look at a laptop ~~Grant dropped~~ that's having some kind of problems ~~which he made worse trying to open up and fix himself~~. The four of us had lunch at Panera and walked around the Falls (where the Apple store is) as we waited for our appointment.

Whenever I'm in the Apple store, I'm struck by how wildly aesthetically pleasing it is. So monochromatic and sleek, without being cold. So spacious, even when packed. It seems very significant that all the employees walking around are normal people. You can get a 19 year old girl, or someone middle aged, or anyone, to help you at the Apple store - the standard weird IT guy vibe is just not present. They have a whole table surrounded by bean bag chairs where kids can sit and play on iPads. The funniest part of this is that nearby, employees are patiently teaching middle aged people to use their new iPads - but nobody has to teach the toddlers or preschoolers. They just hop on and start playing games while someone explains the things to their parents. It makes me think adults should consider handing their own mystifying iPads to their four year olds at home - "Can you please show Mommy how to get on the internet?"

It's been a pretty calm day. Grant and I took a nap. He mowed the grass and fixed the library table and washed some dishes. I went through some bags of clothes someone gave us, with the kids, and cleaned up the library and reorganized the shelves, with Ananda, and made dinner - chicken with mushrooms, mac n cheese, steamed broccoli and our new favorite side dish, sliced cold cucumbers with soy sauce and sesame seeds.

Elise fell asleep in my lap a little while ago, as we talked quietly, and then Grant came and carried her off to bed.

The week, though, I don't even know where to begin.

Florence and the Machine was AMAZING Wednesday night. I mean. There just are not words. Grant and I took Ananda. Izzy babysat my other kids. She got here at around 4, and then Annie and I went and met Grant at his job, grabbed some food and headed over to the show.

It was Annie's first concert, and my first non-Tori Amos big concert (I've seen Tori 3 times, and a bunch of small shows and outdoor events and things for no-name and local acts). Grant had been to see Radiohead previously. She used saved allowance money to get a necklace before it started, and I got the Lungs record to hang on the wall because the cover is beautiful. In case you don't know, records are now widely available for this, and since nobody has a record player they all come with free downloads of the album on MP3, which is somewhere between clever and ridiculous. Like, Urban Outfitters now has a whole big vinyl section, with a freakin' display of "album frames," it's kind of silly.

Our seats were pretty good. 10th row, but down a bit from the stage (which was at one end of an oval arena that is sometimes for NHL hockey games - the central floor area was general admission). We had some cool talking and new facebook liking before the show started, because the row behind was filled with an entire roller derby team. I shared how Grant and I both got separate speeding tickets the same day last year while listening to Florence's Drumming Song, and how she really owes us over $400. The woman who runs Elise's old preschool was there, too, with her husband, and we met up a bit and were texting.

Their opening act was ok. Bass laden ambient alternative rock, I guess - The Maccabees. Overall I was impatient for them to stop because, come on, I was really excited for the main event. I drank a double rum and coke while they played in the hopes that I could manage to stand for the entirety of Florence's set, and jump around and dance like a fool, without any weird back/hip/foot pain (that worked really well, incidentally, combined with the adrenaline from being there and how much it rocked - but I was paying for it bigtime later, I couldn't let anything at all touch my foot the whole way home in the van O_o).

So yeah. Giant swish of fabric uncovering the huge golden harp, and lights off dark, and wow. The set changed in so many ways for each different song, just brilliant. HER ENERGY is infectious and astounding and seriously entertaining. She sang the first song (Only If For A Night, my latest new favorite) standing there at the mic stand, and then Drumming Song came on (I turned to the roller derby girl like THIS SONG and she laughed) and as the music went wild Florence broke away from the stand and started running jumping leaping laughing all over the stage as she wailed like she does. Lungs is right :p

She was wearing this gorgeous black and red floor length gown that had ripped up the side backstage. Between songs at one point she explained that she'd safety pinned it but one of them came out as she danced, and went in her foot, so she had to take a minute to fix it. Have I mentioned I love this woman? I may be in love with this woman.

Rabbit Heart was next, and that is a song I have some deep personal history with on several levels. She talked beforehand about raising up people you were there with who you loved - your friend, or spouse, or lover, or someone you gave birth to.

The looking glass, so shiny and new
How quickly the glamor fades
I start spinning slipping out of time
Was that the wrong pill to take?
You made a deal and now it seems you have to offer up
But will it ever be enough?
It's not enough
Raise it up, raise it up -
Here I am, a rabbit hearted girl
Frozen in the headlights
It seems I've made the final sacrifice

It sounded great live, and it was making me cry at that volume, this song was right in with my worst moments and the time that inspired me changing a lot of things in my life - and then she ran down off the stage, into the general admission crowd, right past us and was dancing barefoot and wild with her floor length ripped dress hiked up to her knees, at the other end of the floor, before racing back to the stage, somehow without getting mobbed.

This is a gift, it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife
When Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight

I must become a lion hearted girl
Ready for a fight
Before I make the final sacrifice

It was just great. Cosmic Love was after that - I could die happy.

She did Between Two Lungs, and No Light, No Light - which is my current speeding ticket endangerment song - and so many great songs. Everything I really wanted to hear. There were two slower songs everyone sat down for and they were good, but then the single organ note at the beginning of Shake it Out started and the entire place (over 10,000 people) leaped to their feet at once screaming and she drew it out, that one note as she talked to us forever about Florida and going out that night and regretting it in the morning and so on with her lovely british accent.

I don't even normally really like Shake it Out but I was there screaming the lyrics with Annie everytime she turned the mic towards the crowd, thinking YES what is this I can never leave the past behind, I can see no way, I can see no way and now everytime it comes on Pandora I tear up. I swear I'm turning into one of those Michael Jackson fangirls you'd see tearing their hair out and getting wheeled out unconscious by paramedics in the front rows in the 80s :p Not quite, but really she puts on a great show. It gave Grant this whole existential crisis just to see a human being fully realizing their potential that way - that she's unleashing all this passion and nobody can get enough of it. That she's travelling the world jumping and dancing and singing her heart out and 10,000 people at a shot pay money to come be a part of it.

It was really good stuff. They made us shriek and howl for awhile before they pranced back out for the encore, which started as What The Water Gave Me. The gates to the floor were opened and people streamed down and out into the main area in front of the stage, and Ananda and I raced down for that. Then she (Flo) did this big you guys are gonna jump up and down for me thing and started Dog Days Are Over and everyone lost their minds, we jumped laughing hysterically with our hair in each others' faces the whole song and then stumbled out arm and arm with Annie raving that it was the most awesome thing that's ever happened in all of history.

So yes, that was fabulous. I'm extremely glad I went, and happy everytime I look at the album on my wall, and enjoying the music even more than I did before. And my school kids were sleeping when I got home, and Ananda and Aaron stayed up half the night with Izzy (she slept here).

Thursday started horrifically early and was anticlimactically busy - Grant had arranged to be off, but it was just. Ugh. 7am came awfully early, getting Isaac and Elise up and ready and to school and then heading off to college and back again to get everyone for dance and PATH, and I had a mandatory dance company meeting, and we had to retrieve the car from the train station since I'd driven Grant home the evening before, and deliver Izzy to her mother, and Isaac's homework and Miralax and Elise lost a tooth and so we needed cash, just a million things nonstop. A lot of it good - I got a serendipitous extension on a lot of Spanish work I had blown off and some relieving financial news. But so much time in traffic, and my sister came to the park during PATH with her kids and I barely even got to talk to her.

Friday was mostly a huge drag. My bike was stolen right off my front porch (lock cut and thrown to the side in the grass) - which is my second bike stolen off our porch, though the first one was not secured and so I blamed myself that time. My kids were all being as tedious and moody as possible - Annie PMS'ing x100, she and Aaron needing guidance and clarification on every single possible small point with Virtual School, such that I spent three hours with Jake waiting to go to the library as I just went back and forth between the two of them beating my head against a wall. Then, when I took him, the library was closed. Just one of those days. By evening I managed to reclaim it somewhat, I pulled Annie out of her frustration to bake pumpkin bread with me after I'd retrieved everyone from school and karate, and we had tea with it out on the deck. Then I read them Shel Silverstein poems in the tv room for half an hour, and by the end of it everyone was acting decently...

And that's about all I've got time for this evening. Planning some pictures tomorrow :)

I feel like such an idiot. I don't know how I can flip flop from wanting a million kids to thinking I'm done so sincerely and so often, and I don't know how to work with where I'm at, either...I mean, I'm not ready or willing to be sterilized and I don't really believe in birth control or abortion. I would probably be using birth control anyway except that I can't take combined hormone birth control without hellacious side effects (major weight gain and debilitating leg pain that is a sign of serious blood clotting) and I've gotten pregnant on progestin-only twice already (Aaron and a miscarriage). I mean right now we're abstaining which if we can manage to do it perfectly is awesome birth control, but we'll be married really soon. And I am not at all willing to abstain indefinitely once we are. Obviously from a naturalist and a christian perspective NFP (charting your cycles) is ideal, but with tandem nursing my cycles are wack and crazily unpredictable - as far as I can tell I've ovulated twice at 10 days in and 32 days into a single cycle o_O Neither time was I anticipating it. So what am I going to do? All my talk about what's meant to be and leaving things in God's hands is not just talk; I really believe all that hoohaw. And I lost my virginity at 14. I never had a pregnancy scare - not a single one - until I was pregnant with Ananda, who I had right after graduating, at 18. We were SO not careful...I mean, Grant and I were total fools. Rhythm method (sort of), pulling out (sometimes). And we were very frequently doing it - several times a week for years. I really think God just doesn't make mistakes and I wasn't ready to be a mother yet. I went through a lot of therapy and traveled and finished high school and found Him and THEN I promptly started having babies. Like crazy.

So. Where does that leave me? What does that MEAN? The random unsolicited thought came to me the other afternoon at tea, that Ananda really does need a sister. An aunt for her children, a female friend that is unconditional, when she's older, all of that. I have fallen in love with the idea this week, even though I would be TERRIFIED of a 5th c-section or struggling like crazy to deal with preparing for another vbac attempt....then TODAY. Oh, today...

Jake took a looooooong nap on his own, and he sat in the stroller happily for a long walk, and he sat under the trampoline happily at tea time. The rest of the day he was in my arms, he was fussing, or he was in my arms fussing. Noise in my ear nonstop, and I can feel my hips getting way misaligned again. Isaac was an INSANE TYRANT. He whined and puled and yelled and cried the whole day long. I nursed him more than normal, I let him have a long bath with Annie, I jumped with him, I gave him much good food, I kept him changed, we went for a walk, but everything was a damn moaning miserable tantrum. Bedtime was TWO HOURS of Grant and I taking turns - one holding Jake, the other comforting Isaac - while Isaac screamed anytime we were switching. Screamed and screamed. And Aaron is nuts, too. Grant jumped with him, outside, for a long time while Annie and Isaac were in the bath, and I stopped to hug him often. We sat and prayed and ate together with others at lunch, tea and dinner. But other than that I think he just wandered around moaning about wanting to go to "the bird shop" and/or begged for leftover Valentine's Day candy all day long. It's like he doesn't even hear me, I can't count how many times in one day I explained why we couldn't go to the bird shop or why he couldn't get candy, but it's like he just asks again, literally loudly right over your explanation, and gets upset when that irritates you.

I guided Ananda through a page of her phonics workbook at tea time and taught her how to play Lord of the Rings Monopoly, which is rife with math, later tonight. We went through about 10 turns each in preparation for a showdown tomorrow. But that was after she waited around for an hour after we got it out for me to be able to hand off the baby.

You know, writing about the day makes me think they really aren't so horribly deprived after all. Twice today A and A were up on chairs in the kitchen with me guiding them through meal prep - both times they actually provided real help to me since I was one handed, and they felt super proud of themselves. At lunch they scrubbed and poked sweet potatoes and found two baking pans and opened a box of frozen fish and got everything arranged on the pans. And at dinner - it was crazy! They all (including Isaac) helped put away clean dishes and reload the dishwasher, and then (yes, we do have to wash dishes just to start cooking) Aaron washed and sliced mushrooms, stemmed and ripped up spinach, filled a pot with water, and retrieved the strainer. Ananda diced roma tomatoes (shockingly well), retrieved pots and pans from low cabinets, peppered things and stirred. They were thrilled with it all.

I suppose they are all getting everything they really need, but I am freaking BEAT, and this house is beyond trashed. I'm too ashamed to describe the state of things. And I didn't get nearly enough rest last night, so I'm going to bed early tonight which means not a lot of pre-bed cleaning.

Yes, there is a time after midnight that counts as early. Last night was 4:30 and it's usually 3, so if I can get to bed before 2 I'm doing well.

As far as other babies, though, really...You all might not all know this, but NORMALLY when a woman is nursing, she is not fertile. At least, while she is exclusively nursing a young baby. Other moms I've met through church, the internet and La Leche League have went anywhere from 6 months to 2 years before having their first postpartum period. This is "nature's way" of spacing out babies. Different hormones are at work in lactation than in ovulation or in pregnancy. The

boob_nazis largely rely on LAM (Lactation Awareness Method), meaning they don't worry about birth control until they get a period back, and with a very high success level. I hear people whining all the time that their kid is 18 months old or 27 months old and they have their period back now, or boo hoo they started them on solids and now at 10 months postpartum they are menstruating again. I've even heard of older women weaning their kids so that they can get pregnant again sooner.

Also, most couple have to "Try" to get pregnant for a few months before it happens.

I am in a situation, though, where I'm very young, already have several children, and could easily keep having one every year until I'm going through menopause or die in childbirth. What does this mean, from a spiritual standpoint? That I am a born mother who's meant to have a lot of children entrusted to me? That I am psycho to not have my tubes tied? Is there a point where "having faith and trusting the Lord" becomes complete insanity? That is not a very faithful thing to say. Surely I would quit having babies when there were no more out there for me the same way I didn't start until I was ready?

All I know is I have some seriously sagging abdominal muscles and some seriously scarred up abdominal skin, along with a big, newly crooked and expanded cesarian incision scar atop a uterus in who knows what condition, and that I do not ever want to have another needle put into my spine, PERIOD. I also know I have a misaligned pelvis that's making one of my legs longer than the other unless I'm having regular chiropractic adjustments and that that leads to weirdly assymetrical feet and a funky walk.

And of course I know that we are living with my father in law and 3 to a bedroom.

Which is nothing compared to most of the world or most of history; put in that context we are swimming in riches and should be counting ourselves blessed and willing to share abundantly. We are not 8 people in a mud hut - each of us has a bed, and a place to store all of our clothes, and many personal possessions.

Bah!

I need to sleep, and make a to do list for tomorrow, and clean the kitchen. In reverse order. Before I go, what do you all think of this teapot - http://cgi.ebay.com/RED-BURGUNDY-GLASS-TEAPOT-W-FILTER-BRAND-NEW-WWOWW_W0QQitemZ4437153405QQcategoryZ20634QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem I'm sort of assuming you can heat that stovetop and that it would pour easily without spillage, does anyone think I might be wrong?