Life's been good to me so far

Or maybe it's a big journey. For whoever doesn't know, like my grandparents, there's this ditl community - it stands for "Day In The Life". You take pictures all day, with captions, and then post it and everybody comments and then at the end of the week someone wins the weekly contest for their ditl being the best.

I wanted to do a ditl. I PLANNED to do a ditl. But, well...we have some long days. LONG. And I just don't have time or inclination to learn how to do fancy little imprinted text and borders and make it all pretty and neato. As you will understand after clicking this cut, if you dare. Plus I have a penchant for narrating ;)

Don't even do it if you're on dial-up.

( ditl of a family of 7, plus one semi-fostered teenager )

If anyone *hemhem* would like to make it pretty for me...well that would be fine and I'm sure I'd post it over there :p

As it is I am only just finishing it even though I've been walking over every "spare moment" and it's just getting done...because today we had a double ped appt, and the big kids had awana, and we've only just gotten the three sick little ones to sleep simultaneously for the first time at 5:49 am. And I have MORE DISHES AND LAUNDRY TO DO, and one of us is going to sleep inclined with Elise on chest because AFTER G went and got it, I found out baby decongestants aren't reccomended for infants with a history of seizures :/ And tomorrow is already booked, even though I'm not sure anyone will be up for anything, and we haven't even replaced the stupid tire (that had to be refilled again today) yet.

*Grant Sr is out of town for a couple of weeks with Robbie staying at Teresa's, as if often the case, if anyone was wondering.

I have become nearly too busy to bother with livejournal anymore. I really love reading a couple of my closest online friends' entries and I like archiving things that have happened. But it's getting to be so hard to carve out the time. I'm also disillutioned by the seemingly endless stream of busybodies that still lurk about commenting anonymously to tell me they think I suck or they think our videos suck or they think we're sucking on Grant Sr. I mean, whatever, I know you think that. I don't care. I'm not going to start caring. And if you've really been reading this since before I had Isaac just so you could keep thinking it on a daily basis, our thought processes are so different that there's no way your opinion means anything to me.

Aaaaanyway. My weekend ended up pretty awesome. I found out Friday night that my old friend Jess has had an EXTREMELY intense past few months, on the other side of the state. Hearing that someone I really love is having major drug problems at the same time we're still digesting that our friend Eric died of an overdose was enough to have me trying to reach her as soon as I found out, at 1 in the morning. I ended up driving down the keys to where she's staying Saturday night, with Elise. We hung out for a lot of hours...I got home close to sunrise. I want her to know somebody cares, and unconditionally, and I want her to know she can have fun with people without using, but I also just really love having someone smart and funny who is also hyper sensitive about certain things with very similar taste as mine, who totally understands my budding obsession with white nail polish, ballet flats and huge purses...all while being kind of broke and mostly living vicariously through Elle. Somebody who is simultaneously experimenting with Amy Winehouse and Feist, cares about psychology AND thinks motherhood is Really Important. I missed you, Jess. It's a shame you had to come back for the reasons you did, but I will milk it for all it's worth.

Kathy and I were going to drive down with Elise again today, to hang out with her all day, but the Labor Day traffic coming out of the keys would have made it a four hour trip each way :/ And if you're reading this, Kathy, today never once felt like a day I could invite you into. I thought about it but at any given moment it seemed like we were trying to get someone down for a nap or trying to get someone to calm down or trying to feed everyone or something like that. I was cleaning or sitting with someone talking or playing in the rain with a few people every. single. minute. I suppose I need to just get used to the idea that you can be like Laura or even Shaun, and just exist within our space as it happens and we don't have to "host" you.


I let Annie and Aaron fall asleep in our bed last night, after we read. It was hilarious. Annie was delirious in her half-asleepness, and giggling out of control as Jake jumped all over them both. I warned you, I said - sleeping in here means you have Jake using you for some sort of jungle gym until he's out. He was doing anything he possibly could for a reaction from a dead-to-the-world Aaron, including digging in his ribs and armpits and saying *tickletickletickletickle*. We were dying. And then Grant was dying later on, trying to hoist 68 pounds of Ananda into the top bunk O_o

He, Shaun and Bob had a "Soul Caliber Championship" last night, in the backyard with the projector. That equals 3 straight hours of video game playing from which he emerged victorious, for those who are not in the know. Grant typically plays video games A LOT for a couple of days or a week, and then packs them away for a few months, and then gets them out again, repeat. But since my brother's been here and had them set up in the office it's awfully easy for him to wander in there and play with him. He finally said it was getting ridiculous and proclaimed that there would be a Championship, followed by no gaming until 2008. It followed he and Shaun going to see The Bourne Ultimatum. I believe there are two entire genres of movies that he sees with Shaun, now, because I just will not sit through action or horror. Sometimes psych thriller type stuff, but I usually regret it.

It's nice to trade off on the weekends, and act girly or have a man night, and to be together late into the night while the kids are sleeping, and all that. The weeks are getting really crammed with things, and weekends are very definitely set apart in a way they haven't been in the past when G had 7 day, but always flexible, work weeks. We decided against preschool for Isaac in the end, due to cost (he's 3 so not covered by Florida's mandatory free preschool for 4 year olds), logistics (He's not used to waking up that early, transportation would be very difficult at least two days out of the week) and hunch (Watching him try to adapt to being left in Awana on Wednesday nights, I've seen that he's really not ready to be dropped off somewhere for hours every day yet). Instead we got him some educational computer software he LOVES, put him in Awana, and joined a couple of playgroups. I think next year, if he seems more into it and when he qualifies for a really good place for free being 4, we'll persue it. Even still, this fall, starting anytime now, THE WEEKS...it's going to be;

Sunday mornings - church for everyone
Tuesday afternoons - PATH at the park, for everyone
Tuesday evening - Aaron in karate
Wednesday evening - Ananda, Aaron and Isaac in Awana
Thursday evening - Aaron in karate
Friday afternoon - Ananda in ballet
Friday evening - Aaron in optional sparring

Then there's;

First Thursday of every month - Natural Family Meetups
Third Tuesdays of every month - La Leche League (before PATH, this is)

And I'm going to try to move Jamie's (babysitter) weekly time to Tuesday BETWEEN PATH and Aaron's karate if possible, since when we've had her coming conflicts with when Annie's ballet class is going to be.


We made a budget for the month a little while ago. It includes $1400 a month for groceries O_O It's also including a copious, ridiculous amount of out-of-pocket doctor's visits for the month (my moles and Annie's warts at a dermatologist, Elise's followups at ped and neuro, and one ped visit for Jake), as we're still going around in circles with Medicaid and have found out that neither Children's Medical Services NOR Florida KidCare are accepted by the ped we've fallen in love with and have been going to :/ And the contract that Grant got that offers insurance doesn't have open enrollment until November, at which point I will probably also see some kind of gastroentologist or surgeon or who knows what for my herniated belly button, which is getting weirdER. He's never made as much money before as he is now - usually more like half of what is currently coming in - but it's still like water through a sieve. We're trying to come up with a "kid allowance" we can work into a regular budget, to include things like shoes, clothes, school and curriculum supplies, PATH trips, extracurricular costs, etc, and maybe roll over some sometimes to also apply to birthdays. I keep thinking of new things that would have to be included, though, like wondering if doctor's visits would factor in, or if Christmas would be above and beyond. Basically I think a million dollars a month would probably do it :p Seriously though it might be a good tool for us because he would probably hand it to me to manage and then that would be a separate, mini-budget-within-the-budget that would cause me to prioritize better and also know what should come now and what can come later.

I don't know if I'll get the chance to go say this, or have the discipline to, but Becca if you read this - I've read your new lj in it's entirety, and perused your myspace. Your myspace playlist is ENTIRELY either songs I'd forgotten about and loved (massive attack, moby, that "mad world" song, carbon, revolution) or songs I hadn't ever heard (like the wonderwall remake) but needed to. Jake likes it too, and has started dancing :)

Isaac has taken to serving everyone fake food CONSTANTLY. Really elaborate fake food that he needs your lists of preferences for and takes a long time to prepare. Much "Hmm" and "Well..." ensues on his part, and then it's usually some kind of sandwhich or milkshake in the end, comprised of half a dozen pieces of various wooden stacking toys.

Unrelated: I'm starting to find peace with the idea of being "done" and our family being complete (not that I'm totally ruling out adoption one day). It's been a bumpy road with that...if I had had a smooth and easy natural homebirth I think we would have been all set to maybe even go quiverfull once we or Grant Sr moved out. But I didn't. And it just highlights all kinds of non-birth issues, like my attention span and weight loss and maybe sleeping again one day. Mainly I want to appreciate each one of these five beautiful people to the utmost and fullest, and give the most possible amount of love and time to each of them, and for the first time as a mother I feel like I'm starting to stretch that thin. There is something about being done that somehow makes me feel like I can relax and really get into hanging out with Ananda. Aaron is also happy to see me back on the trampoline and eager for me to try out the longboard again one of these days. I've spent SO MUCH of their lives debilitated to some extent by pregnancy or post(surgery)partum. Five is good.

Last: Shaun brought over an old video camera that plays the little tapes we/Grant made with this camera he had when we were 18. They've been packed away all this time. It includes long clips of 4 month old Ananda that I didn't even know still existed - unedited full changings and baths, nursing to sleep, just sitting there for 15 minutes when she started sitting. I am SO GRATEFUL for them because that seems so long gone and far away and I didn't think I'd ever see her that way again. But it's also like a gift from God in that I've been saying ever since we got Elise home from the hospital that I wish I could just spend an hour with one of my other kids at the age she's at, so I could try to wrap my head around NOT seeing her through the prism of brain injury. And it's helped. It's like one more miracle to see it on the tv, to be honest.