Life's been good to me so far

So, I failed my Stats class. Had a massive anxiety/depression spiral that lasted a week, and on the other side of it now I can see the good parts - in that I really do have an epic support system. The day of my final, after the test, I was sitting in my car in the parking garage at FIU feeling like death and despair, and I had a new, lengthy fb message from my friend Jenny about how wonderful it had been to see me while we were in Tampa, and how great my kids are. On the drive home, I got a random "I love you and am so glad you're my friend" text from someone else. When I unlocked my front door, Jake was standing there asking how I'd done, and when I said, "pretty horrible" he gave me a hug and pat my back.

At the time I appreciated those things in a mental way while my insides continued to churn with I HAVE RUINED MY FUTURE MY FINANCIAL AID WILL BE SCREWED GRANT WILL HAVE TO WORK FOREVER I WON'T GET A DEGREE I'LL JUST BE PAYING STUDENT LOANS OFF LIKE A JACKASS, FOR NOTHING. Now that I'm 3 days into re-taking the course*, and calm, I can reflect that I am truly privileged to be able to say those things out loud, in a muffled monotone, facedown on my sister's bed while she raises an eyebrow from the other side of the room. We laid on the floor together, ordering chinese takeout and contemplating the ways we self sabotage. It could be worse.

The peak evening of my misery, after all, featured a heavy chest and a tight throat but also involved drinking an entire bottle of wine while talking on the phone to my friend Kristin about her epic adventures, and then having lots of great drunken sex with Grant. Text received the next morning said something along the lines of, "you were snoring less than 2 minutes after the last time you came; it was adorable."

Most of it wasn't that fun, though. I had about a half dozen terrible nightmares, frequent headaches, constant stomach cramping. I felt like I was acting - woodenly - anytime I observed my kid's latest cartwheels and LEGO creations and drawings and Minecraft structures.

Hopefully, in 10 years, this will seem like the most melodramatic horseshit imagineable, on my part. I'm sure it didn't help that I also started my period. I am pretty emotional and irritable the day before I start and exhausted the first day of, every month, regardless of circumstance. Though that doesn't generally come with panic or sleep disturbances.

I did very well in my Summer A Neuropsych class, which was EXTREMELY interesting and somewhat challenging, but in a totally doable way. Now in addition to the Advanced Stats I'm taking "The Individual in Society," which is basically a random BS easy class to fill in some needed credits, with a teacher known as being lenient. There is a lot of reading, but I am ok with that, and read fast.

According to my advisor, I MAY still be able to graduate in December as planned. It depends on whether I can take the third course in my "research sequence" in the mini-session at the end of fall semester...she said they only let people do that if it's the last class they need to complete their degree, which it will be in my case.

This teacher I have for Stats now seems like such a dream, after my last one... he explains everything like we're 5, in clear english, with perfect handwriting. Previously I had a professor with a very thick accent and terrible handwriting, both of which really matter when you're learning a subject filled with new words and odd symbols. He was also a PhD level Statistician who spends most of his time doing research for the university and teaching grad level math majors, so he often needlessly overcomplicated things or neglected details he thought should be obvious. The new guy covers all the same material, often in ways I'm sure the old guy would have thought were dumbed down or repetitive, but I understand things on a much deeper level with the hand holding. This guy also cares about the social context and nuance of the problems, which REALLY helps me contextualize everything; the other guy obviously felt the words were superfluous and pulling the numbers out was "all we had to worry about."

To be sure, I had some major personal hurdles to get over regardless of my instructor - it was a blow to my pathetic ego to get to a point of realizing I'd have to work this hard daily at something academic to have a chance at it, even when that means forgoing things I'd rather be doing, or disappointing my family. I am spoiled on thinking college is something that can be squeezed in around the edges of my already-full life. That has generally been the case thus far; especially if I'm willing to settle for Bs here and there.

*That was Summer A, this is Summer B. They're 6 week back to back mini-sessions, so it's a lot of pressure but it's also over faster.

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The 100 Days of LJ Challenge seemed like such a great idea in theory. In practice, I just refuse at this point in my life to prioritize blogging if it's stressful to do so. There was a time years ago when it was very important to me to get the pictures up and record the funny anecdotes and make a note of the recipes, and sometimes I miss that a lot - but a lot of the time when my week looks like this, it just feels like another thing that's very hard to make time for.

Monday:
-Sorting out schedule shifts at FIU for Summer B given my failed course - involved waiting for an appt with my advisor and standing in a long line at enrollment, filling out forms, etc.
-Selling/buying books.
-Bill paying errands.
-Getting my debit card sorted out because something was flagged for security - which complicated bill paying errands.
-Ananda at the Orthodontist.
-Spending an hour and a half, with Isaac, searching for our Deathly Hallows DVD, then a downloaded file, then trying to find a file to download, then trying to figure out what's wrong with uTorrent, before finally going through this ridiculous process in the tv room with this new system Grant's installed - at one point I was actually googling how to get the screen to stop displaying upside down, on my phone, while Isaac stood on his head using the keyboard to do as I said. Then we finally bought it through Amazon Instant Video, only to find that even when we turned up the tv, DVD player, computer, and Amazon movie window volume...the audio wasn't working. Checked speaker wire, restarted everything, blah BLAH BLAH. Gave up when it was far too late to start a movie, which we still haven't gotten to (though Grant has fixed all our issues with an annoyingly quick and simple lot of solutions).

Tuesday:
-Isaac at the psychiatrist for his monthly appt - which went very well, I love that guy and think he really likes Isaac.
-Taking Elise to "Get Smart" to spend her leftover birthday money, as promised (involved MUCH browsing and calculation). She ended up with a Hula Hoop, a Playmobil set, and some kind of stackable multi-crayon drawing...thing.
-Of course by then the two of them are starving, and then we need gas, and his prescription needs to be dropped off.
-Surprise very interesting long distance phone call for the drive home (this was a good thing).
-Aaron, for the 10th time, needing to talk extensively about his woe and misery because his girlfriend dumped him. He's entering the anger phase of grief. It's obvious to him, now, that this text-based relationship existed mostly in his own head, which is just making him lonelier. Thank god we have cats to cuddle, because he does not want mom hugs about it. The piano songs are all very very sad. Between the two of us, this past week, I swear.
-Everything from Mon and Tues on the schedule for this Summer B Stats course, which is actually a lot. I spent about 2 hours locked up in my room with math, and felt absurdly proud of myself that I didn't veer off topic towards other parts of the internet a single time.
-CRAMMING in going to see Mad Max with Annie like she's been begging me to for weeks...it was a late night movie run, 11pm-1am. Her 3rd viewing of what she claims is her favorite movie (she'd already seen it with Grant and with friends). FWIW, it really held my attention, and was thrilling in that it was totally fearless and like nothing I'd ever seen before. It was also an awful lot of high strung tension for an entire 2 hours, which I find kind of exhausting, but I still recommend it if you can handle some gore. Be compelled by the fierce female protagonist, the bevy of gradually developed "lovely wife" characters, and the old lady biker gang kicking ass with a suitcase-full of seeds in tow.

Wednesday:
-All my Stats work for this day - about an hour of note reading and video watching, followed by 30 minutes of problems, and 10 of checking my answers, basically...but interspersed with lots and lots of kid-bickering and telling, because apparently today was the day Legos could only bring grief.
-Realizing how out of practice they are with actually accomplishing their daily chores and dealing with the awful transitional stage of beginning to truly enforce that again. Along with guiding A&A through the process of making an apple cinnamon bread pudding for tea, it all had my math time dragging out over about 4 hours.
-Taking Ananda and Aaron to better thrift stores to the north as promised, for their cosplay shopping. Isaac scored a brand new looking HP tshirt in just his size, that has Snape on it and says, "Severus Snape - Friend of Foe?" $1!
-Taking Ananda, Aaron, and Elise to derby practice.
-Tackling my filthy kitchen.

Thursday:
-All 5 kids dental cleanings and checkups. We fill the whole office, they sit in a row in every exam chair they've got, each with their own hygenist and the dentist moving from one to the next.
-Stats, either before the dentist or between these other things?
-meeting Kathy and her kids at Laura's for giant dinner that I provide and cook in Laura's kitchen, for the 13 of us

You know what I'm saying? Our last weekend was like this, it's just always kinda like this lately. Stats teacher only schedules work on weekdays so I'm hoping to get a couple of days worth in over the weekend and have more downtime next week. And I do actually have to accomplish something in my other, filler class, before it sneaks up on me.

Grant and I are so good at juggling things and being close. At cuddling and murmuring to each other when I climb in bed next to him before I black out, and texting and fb messaging each other throughout the day. We send each other links and listen to podcasts and news stories from the other on rides, and while washing dishes. I found an "I love you" note in his familar-as-my-own handwriting, in my wallet, the other day when I opened it up. So much of what I accomplish would not be possible if he weren't able to work from home some days, and cook dinner many evenings. I felt like he deserved the whole world on Father's Day, though he settled for a family trip out, a bunch of homemade cards, and an elaborate dinner I made him while spending two hours on the phone with my own dad.

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This is a video made by our friend Shaun, with a Lego cowboy of Jake's, and an arrow Jake made of Legos. Jake took pictures of both, on green construction paper, and sent them to Shaun to animate "like when you pick a character in a video game." He's THRILLED with the results, particularly the credits:


And this is Elise, showin' off her skillz. Facebook tells me that anyone who has the link can see it, so hopefully that works despite my generally locked down facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/Tina.Hernandez.Walker/videos/10153019627983262/?l=6152874696235359619

I really wanted to be this strong independent woman while Grant was gone, and do all our normal activities and lessons and meals and things, and clean the whole house spotless in a deep and organizing way that would be a big surprise when he got home. I even had grand ideas about writing and crafting in the late night hours I'd normally spend with him. There was this whole plan where each kid would cheerfully tell him about their day over the phone in the evenings and he would feel free to gallavant around knowing we were doing great.

Instead I was miserably sad and overanalyzing my sadness for the first and second day. He's been working so much that he walked out the door just as I was dying for my weekend help/break/company, and so it sucked a lot to think that rather than getting that, I'd spend a whole next week totally alone and then...he'd go back to work. This trip was my idea; my present to him; I really did/do want him to have a good time and yet I felt like I didn't know how much I could deal. I hate feeling sick of my kids, but it happens, usually around the end of the week at a time when everyone is asking me for things at once, in the evening when I'm feeling done for the day.

But then the third day, I really did it. Cleaned and taught and went places and cooked good food and felt fine. I was like, alright, a speed bump at first but now we're off. I even did some deep organizational work and sat all the kids down for an apology and talk about how I'd been depressed over the weekend and why.

It was still super crappy trying to go to sleep that night, it was the first night I had the bed to myself when laying down. Eventually Peter (Aaron's cat) came and curled up with me.

Then on day 4, as I flipped pancakes, Elise suddenly threw herself down in hysterics screaming "DADDY HOME!!! My DADDY HOME!!" over and over. We called him, which she usually loves, and she refused to talk. I apologized for making him feel bad. We had a really good breakfast around the table together.

And then Ananda said their bathtub was mysteriously filling up with green water. It began to storm, and just as I went to google info on septic tanks, the power went out.

And then my cookies came out like round rocks.

We packed up the rock cookies (seriously, ROCKS) and piled towels in the bathroom in case the tub kept backing up and headed out.

And then Jake threw up A LOT in the van while we were up in Miami and A and A were in science class. It could have been worse: I happened to have a change of clothes for him, and some bottled water and a towel to clean him up (thanks frequent trips to the beach and my own slovenliness with the van...)

While I was standing there in a church parking lot flinging excess vomit off of things into the grass, my brother called, asking if I'd seen the news. THE NEWS?! What? Terrorists, oil spills, what?! "There are like 20 or 30 cop cars here at JobCorps" he said, "Can you guys come and get me? It's kind of freaking me out" "I wish I could Bob, I'm half an hour away with puke everywhere, and Ananda and Aaron don't get out of their class for 40 minutes". (He never did figure out what was going on at JobCorps that day and came home as usual on the bus later)

Jake was very sweet and patient and seemed like he felt better as I strapped him back in. They all watched a movie as I bagged up everything disgusting and put it all in the hatch. A and A came out super excited, they loved their class. Jake was acting totally normal.

We went to a nearby picnic area with the rock cookies and some chocolate almond milk. Aaron announced he could not handle hip hop because he was feeling sick. Then Isaac said he was feeling sick. Then Jake threw up a whole lot more and I couldn't do much beyond telling him we'd be home soon.

Back at the ranch, Jake and Isaac continued throwing up all as I worked on dinner for the rest of us. My brother was doing dishes next to me, and when he turned on the garbage disposal, there was an insane racket and then water started pouring onto the floor from under the counter. Twenty minutes of frantic phone calls to Grant and my father in law and finding things to wedge in there to keep stuff from falling out and breaking pipes...the meat I had thawed for dinner turned out to be rotten.

So I had to rush out to the store for more. When I got in the van to go, THE FLAT TIRE LIGHT CAME ON. I ranted and raved about voodoo dolls and curses.

Eventually I got dinner made, baked bread with it that came out really well, FAR TOO LATE and even though only a couple of us ate anything. I was consistently soothingly talking to someone as they vomited, wiping it off the tile, scrubbing it out of carpet and couches, washing it out of bowls, putting on new movies and running for cups of water and more laundry until about 6 am. I stopped many times to think how lucky I am that both of them were handling it very well. Because there was almost no crying, or complaints, really, it was kind of amazing - Jake kept leaning way out from himself to keep his pajamas dry and things like that. *sigh*

Then at 6/6:30 I layed down to try to sleep but was immediately overwhelmed by nausea. Do you see where this is going? In and out of the bathroom and trying to sleep totally upright and reading even though I was barely able to hold my eyes open because it distracted me from the nausea.

From like noon (when my kids were waking up) until 4 I dozed when they weren't fighting, saying the movie was over, asking for something to eat, etc. Then Aaron came in and told me he just passed out and slept in his puke in the night because he didn't have the energy to get up after he threw up for the first time. Could I come help him with his bedding? And Annie told me she had forgotten to tell me she threw up THE PREVIOUS MORNING and could I please clean it off the wood of her bed? So I was getting up and down slowly, taking a lot of breaks, and finally around 7 pm broke down and wrote Grant the epoch of dramatic, woebegone emails telling him I couldn't take it anymore. And cried hysterically on the phone to my sister and tried to act like I wasn't crying hysterically on the phone with my sister when Gloria, bless her heart, called to say she had seen my lj and thought maybe I could use some help. I COULD use some help, but Gloria, if you came over you would just end up vomiting everywhere and/or I feel better about being a total mess in privacy even though that makes no sense :/ I keep meaning to write you a grateful email. I will do that in a minute.

So yeah. I made dinner eventually last night, the first food anybody had really eaten all day. We were all ravenous but ate like, a few bites and then kind of pushed our plates away. I stayed up late even through crazy exhaustion to take a long bath and get all my sheets, pillowcases and blanket through the washer and dryer because really, EWW I felt so gross. Went to sleep at like 3 am feeling grateful for cleanness with the phone by me cuz I'd been semi-conscious talking to G for awhile.

Woke up covered in the stinky sweat of "now you're not sick anymore" and feeling extremely irritated. Everyone starving, nothing in the house except things I have to cook. So not going to PATH today.

I did not want to be the fragile wilting flower, pining away and waiting for her man to return home. TOO BAD, I am.

So I'm sitting here feeling so irritable and tense with my peeling sunburn and my lack of appetite and thinking of all the cleaning I need to do as kids come to me ONE AFTER THE OTHER repeating pleas for me to hurry up and bake the muffins as though I did not just boil them eggs within the last 15 minutes. He's supposed to be back late, late tonight. And it sounds like the greatest thing in the whole world to just have him here to watch LOST (I'm 2 weeks behind now...) and The Office with and talk to and go to sleep in his arms. I told him on fb chat that he is going to pull me into him in bed and start trying to talk to me about his time and I'm gonna be like "Mmmhmmmmmzzzzzzzzzz".

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Some kid quotes from this week:

Me: You are a gimp.
Aaron: *gesture where finger snapping turns into finger gun pointed at me* I think you mean pimp *then looking down blushing and biting his lip in humilation*

Isaac: (miserable, in the dining room) I'm tired! I don't want to walk!
Me: So sit down.
Isaac: (whining) But I want to eat some raisins, and I have to walk to the raisins to do that.

*Aaron is standing on the step stool, which is near the stove*
*Elise walks up and lets out an ear-splitting high pitched scream*
*Aaron leaps off and runs out of the kitchen, fingers in her ears*
*Elise climbs up on the stool happily to see what's cooking*

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Thanks Andrea/custard_kisses

*Annie comes from her bed, wrapped in a blanket, to the office where I'm wasting time on the internet in the middle of the night*

Annie: Where's Aaron?
Me: He thinks he's snuck into the tv room and restarted a movie without me knowing. Really I just don't care or feel like arguing with him right now.
Annie: Ha.
Me: You can go sneak with him, if you want, or you can tell him "Mom says you have to come to your bed" if you can't sleep in there by yourself.
Annie: *finger on her chin, sitting on the futon looking mad with power suddenly* Hmm...well well well. On the one hand, it would be nice to have a night where I went to sleep without him jumping all over me being annoying. On the other hand, sometimes his jokes are pretty funny and I was getting bored. *wanders out with the grin of a dictator*

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So we're burning our way through HP and the Deathly Hallows, Annie and Aaron and I, and let me tell you internet...( Ok let me tell you with spoilers behind a cut just in case there is someone who reads my journal that hasn't read all the Harry Potter books )

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Lychee season is in full swing and huge part of our lives right now. It boggles my mind to imagine many people reading this who have never even heard of or seen a lychee. It is a pink or reddish fruit with hard, bumpy skin, on the outside, that is the most sweet delicious perfection of clearish-white texture inside...there is no describing it. Lychees are bigger than grapes but smaller than peaches. Honestly my friend Kristin is right on when she calls them "testicle fruit", as far as size and shape :p But I digress.

They are only available for two months out of the year. They are feverishly in demand. I know of a woman running a successful local business making the best sorbet EVER out of them, and Grant is helping the winery get their lychee grove videos up. I've propositioned two neighbors with trees covered in underripe ones, so far, asking if we can help them harvest those luscious things, but both said someone else has already paid for them in advance.

We stopped at one of a dozen roadside stands that has sprung up selling them, on the way out to pick up our co-op produce the other day. The lady there amazingly charged me only $3 per pound for them still on twigs, and the kids were INSANELY EXCITED and then, after we got our produce, we saw trees of them near the street out in the Redlands (farming area adjacent to Homestead) surrounded by police tape with signs saying, "Thieves will be shot".

We told everyone at PATH about it as we passed around our giant 5 pound bag of them and as everyone stood around with their sticky fingers there was a lot of understanding nodding - "Lychees are serious business" seemed to be the concensus ;)

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It's raining and storming almost everyday, which I am loving.

I've been cooking like mad.

Elise is driving me NUTS, going through some kind of ultra-clingy regressive phase and wanting to nurse in the night and follow me around whining all day, and climb into my lap moaning and grabbing at me everytime I sit down. Probably some kind of response to speaking in phrases and being out of diapers and feeling insecure. Blah, I hope it passes soon.

Grant and I are playing Scrabble constantly, which is a lot of fun.

Isaac and I are reading The BFG. He tells me every day about the dreams he had the night before. They are all borderline or complete nightmares, but he retells them very calmly and we laugh together about how silly they are (evil talking blueberries that want to bite his tongue if he tries to eat them? An octopus family in the bathtub?).

Jake is sweet and independant and affectionate and generally awesome. We hug and say mantra-like endearments throughout every day. "Sweet Mama!" he says and I say "Sweet Jakey!" back. Or I say, "Mama and Jakey" and he says, "Jakey and Mama!" Whenever Grant and I hug in his vicinity he comes over and asks for a sandwich, which is when we pick him up and hold him between us and he is overcome with bliss.

I stay up far too late every night and we're on a horrible schedule that I'm not terribly motivated to bother fixing.

My libido is out of control. I'm starting to think there is some kind of red alert alarm sounding in my body as my reproductive system panics that I've went so long without being pregnant. Unfortunately, mentally ok with being "done" as I am, these thoughts do nothing to stem the apparent biological emergency.

I'm in a very hermit-like state and it's kind of nice, after weeks and weeks oriented out of my house by hospitalized relatives...visiting them, phone updates, trips out of town, comparing notes with my sister on who has heard what most recently. I feel guilty because there is not really much of a change and some members of my extended family are still very preoccupied with these situations. But I also feel kind of relieved and am enjoying the break from it all. In an, "I hope I do not come to regret this period of rest in between phone calls for some horrible emotionally wraught reason" way.

We've shamelessly browsed and bought our way through antique stores; Bed, Bath and Beyond; Publix and Marshall's in the past two days. I am thrilled and probably far too satisfied by both the things we've acquired and the bargains we've found. A lot of it is very practical "we just bought a home" stuff - some is shockingly perfect advance Christmas gifting that will go into a closet for months, and then there is this - CHOCOLATE PASTA. Except we only paid $3.00 for it :D

There's a big ol' tropical storm that might have been more, so we're all in Hurricane Mode - the gas stations and hardware stores have been madhouses, we have far too many non-perishables, the plants from outside are cluttering up the place. Probably my dad will be very disgruntled that all his cab customers were evacuated out of the keys for this lot of nothing. Sitting around the house too much I've found some interesting tidbits on the computer today for the first time in awhile - like, this quote:

"... behind each face there is a hidden world that no one else can see.
Each life is a narrative that remains mostly hidden. This is why it’s
so difficult to be human: you live in two worlds - the outer world of name,
family, address and role; and the inner world which is profoundly
nameless, where no one else can enter, and which remains intimate
though unknown, largely, to you...."

~ Writer, priest and poet John O’Donoghue,
from a sermon given in 2002

And, apparently school teachers in Texas are now allowed to carry guns? Wow, that's all I can think to say. Wow. Texas, I swear.

I thought some of you might be interested in hearing that my neurology feed is reporting a link between a particular gene abnormality, and bipolar disorder. It's also implicating calcium and sodium imbalances as causing manic episodes. Now, everything that pops up on this feed is REALLY new, usually the result of a single study or even theorized, but it's all legitimate - read more here, if you like:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/118525.php

I suppose I'll go back to reading to the kids now. I was afraid of how The Goblet of Fire would be for them, and remember purposely putting it off when they were 5 and 6. But, well, it was great. We just read the graveyard scenes in the middle of the afternoon, and all at once to get them out of the way. When Dumbledore was telling Harry he needed to tell them all what happened even though it was hard, because it would just get worse if he didn't, Aaron was like, "Oh, like the sadness would stay in his body because he didn't get it out. Then he'd probably need counseling." :p Anyway, yeah, I tried to sway them back to Narnia or Rowan of Rin but they were both passionately eager for Order of the Phoenix and it really gets me, how much more they LAUGH at these books then I did/do. Like the second chapter, that we just read awhile ago, it has the Dursley's and Harry arguing in the kitchen and owls keep swooping in and interrupting and everytime they do, Uncle Vernon gets So. MAD. Well, it's amusing, but I couldn't help but laugh til I was crying because my kids were in belly-clutching hysterics everytime it happened again. Aaron was also about to pee himself everytime Vernon called dementors demembers or dementies, and "Lord Voldything" had them both going, too. I even look forward to Quidditch scenes now, which was definitely NOT the case during my own reading.

I think it says a lot about where I'm at in life that when I read Harry Potter, I most relate to Molly Weasley O_o Or perhaps it's more telling that I'm ok with that.

I don't yell as much as her, and I hope I'm at least marginally sexier. But other than that? She's a great cook and everyone gets handknitted sweaters. Her deepest fear, as revealed by the bogart, is something happening to someone in her family. She's raising all these totally different kids who are all turning out great in their own way and all love her to pieces. I can deal with it.

I do wonder what she does while everyone still living at home is at Hogwarts all school year, though. Which just goes to show how immersed in HP I actually am right now :P

Ananda and Aaron were begging me for a Harry Potter unit study. I thought about it and finally agreed. Then, it was very obvious why they had been so insistant as they simultaneously exclaimed:
Ananda: We're going to Scotland!!
Aaron: I'm going to learn how to do real magic!!

*Actually*, we're doing "concept words" that they'll read, write, use in sentences and understand in a larger context, that are related. Hers (villain, orphan, etc) are harder than his (owl, broom), and twice as many. They're also planning HP dioramas, and we're going to go into the theology of why some christians are against these stories, as well as the history of supposed witches in real life. And we're learning other stories from England (like King Arthur) and looking at pictures of Stonehenge, as well as doing really goofy math like, "If 2 more people join Voldemort every day, how many more death eaters will there be in a week?" or, for Aaron, "If Gryffindor has 11 points and Hermione answers a question correctly and earns them 5 more points, how many points do they have now?" The maps and globe will make an appearance as we learn about England and Scotland geographically. They're psyched and we started today. I think we'll spend maybe 2 weeks on it all total.

Ananda also read to me again today...she's doing so well with this "Reading me a chapter book" thing (Magic Treehouse, not HP which is way harder). And Isaac is LOVING this letter of the week stuff. I show him the "Aa" on the fridge and read him the poem next to it ("A Little Apple") and look at his "a" word cards with him, every day (alligator, astronaut, ant, etc). We read the Berenstain Bears "'A' Book" today before his nap.

And I do Elise's therapeutic stuff with her all the live long day. For those who said things to this effect, yes she does automatically qualify for EI based on her diagnosis, but no they aren't actually doing anything with her yet based on how she's still advanced, for now (hopefully not just for now, but you know). The stuff I'm doing with her is just stuff from What to do About Your Brain Injured Child, the pediatrician and the neuro. Basically I don't ever set her down in a contraption or sit still with her in my lap (unless she's eating or asleep). I sway, rock or pace with her if she's in my arms, and we do a ton of tummy time and holding things and looking at stuff and listening to music, every day. I spend 15 or so minutes at a time, a few times a day, just letting her hold my pointer fingers in her hands, and lifting my hands so she can hold on and pull herself up as I come up and then sit holding on. She's REALLY good at this now, and can basically come up over and over until *I'm* tired of it, and sit holding me indefinitely (I don't help, though I do of course catch her if she starts to fall). With her head up and looking around the whole time, even. When on her tummy, she can scoot backwards, now, and straighten out her arms such that her whole chest is off the floor. She also lowers her chest and lifts her butt and lower belly, now, and sometimes when I make silly kissy faces at her she tries to pucker her lips back at me, which makes the kids laugh like crazy. There are more syllables and volume in her cooing (though it's all still breathy and mostly vowel oriented). It's very responsive, as well...it's easy to get her excited, talking to her, and then whenever you hush for a minute she talks back. For not-even-3-months-old I think she rocks. Oh, and ha! I am still paranoid as hell about everything from autism to microcephaly eventually befalling her, but I've quit with the seizure paranoia. Grant went to California for 3 days for business, and while he was gone I had Jake sleeping up against me - usually the two of them are on the other side of the bed. Anyway, everytime Jake would twitch or jerk or shift at all in the night, I would snap wide awake, worried, and then think, Oh, it's just Jake and go back to sleep. After this happened DOZENS of times over multiple nights, it occured to me that PERHAPS IT'S OK FOR ELISE TO DO THE SAME DAMN THING AND I NEED TO CHILL OUT. Honestly, I am ridiculous.

So...yeah, I feel great about all of my kids and really productive as I let Jake splash in puddles in his rain boots for as long as he likes and examine the weird scab on Aaron's neck with him and give Isaac time to hold the baby...but it's all sort of tempered by the kids in the house that I DON'T feel all that capable of helping :/ My brother is here and he's 17, and aside from being really helpful and fairly polite, he's SO ignorant about just everything. He's slated to start 9th grade again this fall (at 17!), and has revealed since being here that he doesn't know the months of the year, or whether March has passed this year, or what month Halloween is in...I love him but I don't know what to do! It seems so late for stuff like this, I don't even know where to begin - and he's super sensitive and insecure about all the things he doesn't know. And then Robbie, poor freaking Robbie, Mindy shows up here last night at 4 am saying she's so depressed, and then stays in Grant Sr's room all day long with him running in and out doing her laundry and cooking her food and saying he can't say what's wrong with her because she doesn't want anyone to know :/ I heard her scolding him for not getting her a tray table because "he knows she doesn't feel good". Then she showed Grant wear her tongue ring got ripped out, as if it's related, when he got home from work. Blah. I do what I can for both of them, but it's really not much in either instance. I'm spent with my own stuff and have little leftover. We don't even have an extra seat in the van anymore to take Bob with us places while he's down...

Slightly off topic, but the other day Grant Sr was saying he had a dream that he had a HUGE crazy house, like 7 or so bedrooms, and there were 20 or 30 kids in it, and it was a good dream. He was happy just describing it, and I couldn't help but laugh. He's actually alluded recently to how "We need to move into a bigger place" :O

I've been thinking a lot about how blessed we are to have him in our lives, and also about how important I think it is to gradually get an advanced degree as my kids grow up. I continue to think it is the best thing for them, for us to do what we can to be with them and available as much as possible while they're young, but I also think I'd like to have resources to help, when they're all wanting to drive cars and get married and come home for holidays, at once.


I've started writing again. Not like this blog, which I consider venting or expressing or networking, but actual "writing". The kind that satisfies me as a craft. I don't know where it's coming from or why it's starting now, but it seems fueled by sleep deprivation. The more exhausted I am, the easier it seems to be. It gets to be so late it's early, and most everything is done, and all of a sudden I get short stories or poems or the next bit of the next book flowing through my numb, fuzzy brain.

I also miss Grant. He's working so hard and so constantly, it's just ridiculous. M-Th this week he's up at 4:30 am and home around 7 pm, doing all these installations at Dollar Trees up and down Southeastern Florida. Friday is Verifone, which is standard 9-5 stuff. And he'll have put in at least a dozen from home hours in the evenings, fixing things remotely and cooresponding with Peter from the winery, by the end of the week - someone has actually come here and knocked on the door and stood in our living room, about deadlines and books, with him. He keeps having to clean out his voicemail again. I told him he needs to let something go or be late somewhere or something, because just in helping me with bedtimes and trying to eat something there's no time to sleep. He almost fell asleep on the way home today :/

The man is still managing to creep his way through The Deathly Hallows, one chapter at at time. And still managing to eat better, and to laugh. And to make me smile just by walking in the door.

BUSY. I've been busy.

And tired, excited, depressed, in love, thankful, angry, defensive, relieved, proud...tired. Did I say tired? You name it. That's been this past week.

Tina, for the 10 millionth time: I just wish I could KNOW one way or the other, if she has had any seizures and if she's going to.
Grant: Listen...I know you don't trust yourself anymore, since this happened -

I'm sure he said more, but I was too overwhelmed by the avalanche of realizing he was right to hear anything else. I felt, all of a sudden, as I haven't felt since she was in the hospital. Like it hurt to breathe. And I realized that this self-doubt has colored ALL of my mothering. I ask questions like, "Do you think it's wrong to let Annie believe in fairies?" and "What do you think about Isaac being out there with the sunblock, with it the middle of the day?" CONSTANTLY. Nervously.

The other night I woke him up to ask if he thought we should put them in public school. Me. Yeah.

I think he stopped talking when he realized I was crying quietly. "I've been trying to come up with a gentle way to bring it up", he says. "I thought you knew that's what it was, Tina", Laura says. No. No, news to me. Here I thought I got off alright and was Recovering. Now I'm all like, "I think I need to talk to Mr. Nerenberg" for the first time since high school.

At some point I was ranting and raving, about how maybe my "mother's intuition" was just my imagination all along. I know, rationally, that it wasn't. Obviously Ananda did stop stuttering on her own. Obviously Aaron has improved tremendously with our home treatments. They can both read and do math and point things out on maps and it's just ridiculous, with the crap I went through drudging through the trenches with Isaac and how close Jake and I are, to even think that. I've known gender beyond any shadow of a doubt during pregnancies, I've known I was pregnant before missing a period. But - .

"I think God just didn't want you to know", he said.

.

Two days? "Holy cow, look at how wildly she's moving! What the heck is this nut doing, it looks like she's having a seizure in there."

"God just didn't want you to know."

I think he's right. And I sat on that for about 2 days of seemingly pointless misery and depression and hopelessness before we got to the real other secondary ________ point that I don't trust God anymore. Trusting God is a nice thing to fall back on. It's a way to fall asleep at night when you're having nightmares that your kids are in the oven, or visions of them snatched away by kidnappers.

"God didn't want you to know."

Yeah. Well. That made me put my tongue in my cheek and downcast my eyes. It made me clench my jaw and look through everything.

This all culminated in me praying out loud in my bathroom like a lunatic. I'm tired of you trusting me this much I can't help it that I'm human I feel guilty for being so angry but I wish you were here to slap across the face and I can't get this Baptist teaching that I'll burn in Hell for even thinking it out of the back of my mind so I need You to let me know otherwise, because I'm going through some big shit here and it pisses me off SO MUCH that you knew I could handle it, that I'd find a way, maybe I wouldn't eat and maybe I'd barely breathe and maybe I'd die a little inside but I'd come out the other side stronger and so many people could see my faith and see this miracle and I should just be grateful, I should just be so grateful like my plans don't matter, my dreams didn't matter, my gutwrenching night after night and day after day with the limp unconscious spaghetti limbs not even flinching during a diaper change I just want to sleep without jerking awake from the twitch of one hand and she's so beautiful and I love her so much that I AM mostly grateful, is the hell of it, I am so glad I had that book and You talking to me all along and crazy reassurance most people never get, You've always revealed Yourself to me in ways I think so many long for and I am grateful and just from saying this much, I feel better, but I'm going to pout about it like a proud toddler as if You were (ARE) my Father and knew what was best in the long run in ways I could never understand

And then I opened up my devotional book and found some business about how God will always forgive us and it's ok to rant to him and be mad at him and he loves us like children, and how you are not going to lose your salvation.

.

So that's part of where I've been.

---

I'm really usually too busy for deep digging like that. Last night I did something I haven't ever done before. I pumped a bottle of breastmilk and left a baby for a couple of hours. ! Can you imagine? Yes, people do this. What if I get in a car accident and can't get back to her before she's hungry again? She can't get substandard care just because she's #5...GRANT IS NOT SUBSTANDARD CARE, GET A GRIP ON YOURSELF. It was completely awesome. I took Ananda and Aaron, in full Gryffindor regalia, and we saw HP5/Order of the Phoenix. I know some people have hated it. I loved it. Really, really loved it. Perhaps this was slightly colored by my not holding or nursing any babies or toddlers or having any 3 year olds whining in the background, as I watched it. Perhaps it's because the whole movie takes place in a world very far removed from things like doing the dishes. Surely part of my joy was seeing it through the eyes of a 7 and 6 year old who were gasping, clutching my hands in fear, and laughing out loud, by turn. In any case, I thought it completely rocked for reasons too numerous (even for ME) to list.

I'm trying to get all the kids on an earlier schedule, mostly because we just need to be, but also because Ananda and Aaron are going to VBS (Vacation Bible School) all next week. Next week is going to be a lot. My brother will have arrived and be staying with us by then. Every day from 8:30-12pm A and A will be at VBS (I can take Elise with me to drop off and pick up, and my brother will stay with Jake and Isaac for that brief bit). Grant will be in California from Monday to Wednesday night. Monday afternoon Elise has a pediatrician appt. - I'm taking Isaac too because he has swollen glands on the back of his head that I want checked out. My sister and brother will stay with Ananda, Aaron and Jake. Tuesday is LLL, and I'll take them all to that. Friday night we'll all go as a family to the Midnight Madness Harry Potter book release party at Borders. And hopefully before that on Thursday Grant and I will get a (with baby) "date" in, with Jamie, the girl from PATH, babysitting the older four. She still has to check her schedule so we may make it another day.

He's working LIKE CRAZY. We do not sleep. We still laugh a lot and are eating really well. I'm pleasantly surprised at how well he's keeping up with this no sugar stuff. He's raking in serious money, as well, and soon we should be caught up on our backed up bills, as well as paying back the loans he asked for when Elise was in the ER. In the meantime, I'm happy to have had the opportunity to help another online family that could use it, via paypal, and also to donate all the diapers Elise has ALREADY OUTGROWN to Miracle Diapers, as they were mostly given to me and are still very nice.

My body is some sort of masochistic wackjob, btw. I'm ovulating already, gearing up for that 3 month postpartum period. What sort of glutton for punishment IS my uterus? Right about now I need fertility like I need a hole in the head. I feel guilty "pushing" Grant towards the vasectomy, even though by pushing I just mean mentioning it, just because I know he's going to go through this mourning period when it's done. He's sad everytime it comes up, even though he agrees it's the only thing to do at this point. It's just hard to imagine putting a lifelong stop to ever having another baby again. But I would have some sort of breakdown if I got pregnant again. Part of me wants to get a tubal IN ADDITION to the vas. Just because that's not 100%, and I know exactly who it is that is the .5, or 3-4, or any other percentage on any bc method. IT'S ME.

Three last things:

1. Ananda's tooth FINALLY came out, a few days back. She ran into my room yelling first thing in the AM, so excited. She's adorable and older looking at the same time, with the gap. The adult tooth is already poking through, I can't believe how she held out with yanking that thing as it hung by a thread of gum(s?). The next day she was waking me up uber excited because IT WORKED AND SHE HAD MONEY!!! And LOOK AT THIS STUFF ON THE BOTTOM OF HER PILLOW!!! It was definitely fairy dust, glitter is WAY bigger and comes off WAY easier, and this was clinging, and it just changed in the light in a way that was OBVIOUSLY magic, it was INSANE!!!

I had to change my clothes and take a shower to get that stuff off of me the night before.

This was coincidentally the same day babyslime posted a ditl that included pictures of fairy doors they spotted in the woods. She was stunned speechless, and then yelled for Aaron, who breathed a long, low "Whoa". Then she asked if we could go live in Canada (where the pictures were taken). Now they are running around under beds and in closets with flashlights, looking for some in our house. Aaron is begging to go in the attic to look for them. I have given Shaun his next carpenter project ;)

She was so excited that she called Aunt Laura in Jacksonville to gush about all this. Slightly back in my right mind, I am positive this is exactly what she needs right now, after the past few months we've had.

2. I keep having, of all things, long and sincere conversations with Grant Sr. It started because we were shaken by some of the things assholes were saying about us being leeches sucking the life from him. Grant approached him candidly, asking if he wants us to leave, wishes we would get our own place, or feels put upon. They talked for half an hour and Sr was very, "Those people are idiots. They don't know me. There are things that can be annoying, of course, like when I can't get to the laundry or I'm tripping on toys. But it's more than outweighed by having you guys here. I missed you guys like crazy while you were in Boston, I'd be sad as hell if you left. Everything is cost vs benefit in life, if I didn't want to deal with this I'd have sold the house a long time ago." It occured to me that people who think he's some inwardly bleeding doormat aren't giving him very much credit. This is after all the man who threw all the dishes away last year, when he thought they'd sat unwashed for too long. He can make his opinions known. And does, when he says things like he did yesterday - I was thinking of ways to turn the office into a bedroom if Grant moves it out of house again in the future, and Sr overheard and said, "We just need a bigger house."

Anyway, we talk all the time now. We talked in the backyard for about an hour the other evening while all the kids played, about neurology and Elise and what a great mother he thinks I am and how I should have no doubts because look at the kids. It's somehow very bolstering to hear from him, because we have very different general life philosophies (he's a smoker ((outside)) who eats a lot of fast food, doesn't go to church, works for the government, totally different taste in movies, no books, etc). So it's not like WELL OF COURSE *YOU* THINK THAT, as I sometimes feel when getting kid compliments from other AP'ers. We talk about what will become of Mindy's kids, and Chuck, and our mutual distrust of Robbie around Ananda (I was so reassured to hear he's talking to him about it too...he's just hanging all over her too much for being a 12 year old boy). And all kinds of stuff.

3. Elise is doing wonderfully. She laughed tonight for the first time. Yesterday she rolled back to belly, and now she's acting like she wants to do it all the time (but not quite usually managing). She's been smiling spontaneously, like when she sees me walk into the room or when she spots a ceiling fan, for a week or so now. Those "Tour of LJ" pink longies that have gotten around so much are capris on her now - they barely cover her knees. I should get a picture. I do have some other pictures, wink wink.

( +some from the past week )

And a P.S. -


That's the onesie you bought, julierocket - I LOVE IT ON HER. You can't see the embroidery all over it in the video, but in person it's just to die for. ...I also have the dress on top of her drawers just so I can look at it every day. It's still too big, but oh, one day it will not be...