Kids

I am so glad I choose to have kids. I cannot imagine how life would be without them. Yes, I have tons of friends. Yes, I am busy and smart and competent and hard working. Yes I get a lot done. Yes there are things that having kids slowed down for me- like getting my BA at 50 instead of at 20. But the love from the touch of a baby at the breast, the pride in watching your second grader play a scarecrow and your third grader play Martha Washington- having given you 24 hours notice that she needs a costume. These things, I would have missed without knowing what I was even missing.
Regrets? Yes. I regret not being kinder and more patient. I regret shouting and saying unkind words. I really do. But I have not one second of regret at having become a mom. I am not "Just a mom". I am so many many things. But being a mom is the best, most joyful and painful and exhausting of all of those things.
Yes, I choose the kids.

The above are my comments and my true feelings.   The photo below is something I lifted from Facebook

Really?

Yes, really.  I have a brain tumor.  How strange is that?   I have been feeling not so great on and off for a while.  But since I tend to get exotic things like swine flu and blood clots and broken bones, I just figured I was low and needed to eat better and rest.  Or something.  My thyroid is low and I started on a new medication and a new dose recently, so I thought that might be a part of it.

Then, last week, I saw my doctor and complained about vertigo and headaches.  The second time I saw him last week, with the same symptoms, he sent me for a "stat" MRI. 

Well, low and behold, they found something that shouldn't be there.  A tumor.  I must be in the denial stage, because, while I am concerned, and getting tired of the headaches, I am not freaking out- yet.

I have a meningioma.   I have several appointments with several neurosurgeons next week.  Second and third opinions please, this is my brain we are talking about here.

The MRI place sent me off with a disc of my tumor.  Actually, of my whole brain.    I have been carrying it around, afraid to look at it.  But, this evening, I decided to have a look.    Nick and Austin have both been complaining of headaches.  So I thought, maybe I have whatever they have.  Not a tumor at all.

I loaded the disc.  There are tons of images.  Fascinating to look at really.  I was not grossed out or weirded out at all.   I scrolled through the images of my brain.  I found an image of  my profile and realized that I actually have a pretty nice profile.  Never looked at it from quite that angle before!

And then, I found *it*.  Yup, I could see the tumor.  It's a white blob where there shouldn't be any kind of blob.  I thought about trying to copy it so I could paste it here, but decided that I shouldn't.  Not everyone looks at the world the same way I do, and most people would be upset to see it.

I have decided not to name my tumor.  Some people do that.  I don't want to.  I am hoping that it is just a temporary resident, soon to be evicted.

I am noticing little things that Nick says are not new.  Maybe not, but I am only just  more aware of them.  I am having some trouble retrieving words.  And I am really goofing up at spelling.  I have never been a great speller, and will be eternally grateful to spell check.  But I can tell that I am making mistakes that are even more apparent to me than usual.

I keep finding humor in most everything.  But, after hours of pain (headache) and some vertigo, I feel pretty dragged out.

I am not going to do lactation consulting home visits for a while. I am not retiring, just working on figuring out the next step on this journey.   I am mostly not driving.  It's nice that Nick is retired and is so available.   I do plan to keep going to the gym, but not participating in the more vigorous activities, like spin class.  At least for now.

And that's where I am and what I am up to.
 

How did I get so lucky?

I love to come here and bitch and moan.  Who doesn't like a good pity party now and then.

Then I think about what I DO have.   I have a husband who drives me nuts sometimes, but who I know I can trust more than anyone else in the world.  His love is unconditional.   Swoon.  My love for him is beyond words it is so big.


And my kids.  Not really kids at all.  Amazing, interesting, bright, caring adults.   They are all similar in some ways. They share a lot of history.  But, they are each unique individuals.   In spite of all the squabbles as kids, your know, the usual "he looked at me" stuff, they are all friends and I know that they really like and love each other.  How cool is that?
 Life has dealt me some interesting challenges, and continues to do so.  But I will be alright.  

This is me at about 6 years old, on our patio, in native dress, in Kabul, Afghanistan

And then there were two children!

Morgan age 5 weeks

Morgan was born on this day, March 4th, 1981.  He is 33 years old.  Wow, that flew by in a hurry.

I am sure I have written about each of my children before.  I think about them all, all of the time.

Morgan.  So sweet at birth.  So snugly.  So sensitive.  As a newborn, I would nurse him to sleep, set him down, and in a minute or two he was searching for me.  Not crying, just making this sweet "uh uh"  where are you sound.   So I held him. A lot.  I was staying at my mom's with Courtney and Morgan when Morgan was just a few weeks old.  I held and nursed Morgan all the time.   I asked my mom if she thought I was "spoiling" him, fully expecting her to say yes.  Well, she really surprised me.  She said "you can;t spoil a good baby, and they are all good".   She did love my babies!

I will put some Morgan pictures here.  I don't know that I have a ton of them scanned into my computer at this stage- a job I need to get to.

Happy Birthday my sweet son, Morgan!

Staring to feel better

I have been feeling sick since last week.  I get crabby/ bitchy when I am sick.  Or even before I realize i am sick.  Once the sick actually sets in, I am hopefully not as bad.

Sort of like kids.  When they get all cranky and whiny you get so annoyed.  Then they throw up and you feel guilty.  Or something like that.

I started out getting out of bed on Thursday with extreme vertigo.  I felt like I was walking on a rocking boat and was about to fall down.    I've had some digestive issues too.  Just generally feeling lousy.   No energy to do anything but look at facebook, watch TV and sleep.  I think at least some of it was a sinus infection which seems to have resolved itself.

There was a change in the weather, which I am sure brings on head and ear issues.  We had snow.  Again.   Lots of snow- well about 6".  This is our third or so snow storm this winter.  I guess it makes up for the winters with little or no snow.

Everyone whines about the snow.  How they are sick of it.  Well, not everyone, but almost everyone.  I have not felt well enough to really spend any time outside enjoying the snow.  But I had a thought today that I decided not to put on facebook.   I was thinking how much I would like a winter where there was snow pretty much from December through January and into February.  Like in Norway.   I would like it to be a normal thing instead of such a big deal.

Ok, here are the pictures I took out our bedroom window today.  They are of Nick using our Norwegian snow shovel.

Insanity

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Albert Einstein

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alberteins133991.html#DhBbPiYtjKzTgsQV.

 

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Albert Einstein

I put this list, or one very much like it, on the kitchen cabinet door every year for mother's day.    My real insanity, I mean fantasy, is that at least some of these things be done just because.    I am not the only one to live here.  I am not the only one to make messes.  I am, apparently, the only one who sees them and cares about it.

I am sick right now, so I deserve and reserve the right to feel gurmpy!

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My Fantasy Wish List (a clean house)

Fantasy- An unrealistic or improbable supposition.

Kitchen completely cleaned

·        Floor swept and wiped with Swiffer then wet mopped (with ammonia)-this includes laundry room floor

·        Everything on the island and counters put away

·        All surfaces wiped clean (use 409) including the front of the dishwasher, front of the stove and refrigerator

·        Table cleaned with Murphy’s oil soap.  Place mats all cleaned with 409

·        Divider wall cleared off and dusted with Pledge

Family Room cleaned

·        Couch cushions picked up and vacuumed under

·        Couches cleaned with lint brush

·        All wooden tables cleaned and dusted with Pledge

·        Whole room vacuumed (even behind furniture)

·        Shoes and socks put away

Living Room, Dining Room & Hall

·        Dust/ polish all wooden furniture with Pledge

·        Put away Christmas things that are on the dining room table

·        Put special ed. books in my study

·        Sweep and Swiffer the front hall (including under the bench)

·        Clean off the bench

·        Vacuum hall, living room and dining room

Upstairs

·        Dust/ polish all my bedroom furniture with Pledge

·        Clean bathrooms (including scouring the bath tub with cleanser0

·        Put away card table in Courtney’s room

·        Vacuum whole upstairs

·        Sort the laundry into two baskets and take downstairs so I can wash it when I get home.

·        Boys clean their rooms (now I am really dreaming I know)

Bucket List

Now I know I am getting old.  Writing about my bucket list!  Ha!  I am quite often thinking and remembering things and events about each of the places we have lived.  Where I was pregnant.  Where the kids were born and all that went on around that.

I know I will probably either start to lose my memories as they fade away, or I will embellish them, making my life seem even more fantastic and amazing than it already has been so far.  And I am nowhere near to being done!
When we first went overseas, we were assigned to Chiang Mai, Thailand.   69 Tung Hotel Road was our address.  Near the train station.  We were only there for about 6 weeks when Nick got borrowed by the embassy in Bangkok.  After about 6 weeks in Bangkok, with each of us taking turns being one or the other place,l we got transferred to Bangkok as a permanent assignment.

I would love to see that house in Chiang Mai again.  The place we lived in Bangkok has been torn down and used in some capacity by the US embassy.

The next place we lived overseas was Poznan, Poland.  We lived at Ulitza Groditzka. in a big house that had been divided into three flats and a full basement.  We had a big, fenced yard with at least 12 apple trees, pear trees, grape vines- not many grapes, and walnut trees.    There was a gasoline pump in the back yard where the US diplomats from the consulate would get their gas.   We got our gas there.  Embassy folk on their way west to Berlin, through Poznan got their gas there.  You wrote your name and the amount of gas you took and the commissary billed you for it.  I bet I still have some receipts from then.  I would like to walk by that house, and the US Consulate- which isn't a consulate any more.  I would love to go into our house.    That's where Courtney learned to walk, and where Morgan was conceived.

We went back to Thailand after Poland.   Back to Chiang Mai, as a permanent post this time.   Our house was not the same house we lived in the first time we were in Chiang Mai.   This house was on the end of a dirt an gravel road that was bordered by jungle.  A distant neighbor had a howler monkey that we could hear.  The neighbor across the road had a chicken farm.  Bwaakkk buk buk buk.     I think our address was 9 Suthep Road.  Morgan learned to walk there.  Courtney had her fourth and fifth birthday parties and we had cake and games.  Of course, Morgan had birthdays too, but they were more family centered affairs because he was younger than Courtney.


Between Chiang Mai and Tromso, we bought and lived in our current house, here in Reston.

Tromso, Norway is next.  7 Ivar Aasund Vei was our street address.  I have found in on Google maps.  It's still there.   We had the most fantastic views, looking out the big windows at the ships and boats and wind surfers all on the fjord.  The basement opened up into the actual stone of the mountainside we lived on.   Darcy was born there and learned to walk there.  Courtney home schooled in our dining room, and also attended Norwegian public school.  We had snow.  Oh boy did we have snow.  From late September into May, we had snow.  I love snow!

Back home to Reston where Austin was born around 9 months after we got back.   I was so domestic.  I love being domestic.  I had lots of friends, mainly through La Leche League.   We were busy all the time it seems.  Getting kids to do their homework.   After school concerts and science fairs and baseball and Camp Fire.    And LLL occupied a lot of my time and energy.  And of course there was the usual stuff- doing laundry and washing diapers.  I think I only sat down to nurse -which was fairly frequent.

Taipei, Taiwan was next.  We lived in a former US military house in a neighborhood full of look alike, brick ranchers.  We got the biggest house because we had the most kids, 4 at that point.  That house had a good floor plan.  Decent sized bedrooms and a living/ family room arrangement.  Big kitchen and dining room.   I honestly don't remember our address.  I am sure I have letters from friends with that address.   Made a play group and joined a cooking group and we kept pretty busy.   The three oldest kids were in school, so I had Austin all to myself.  That was nice, and easy.   Nick and I took the kids and drove to the southern part of the island to meet another LLL person I had corresponded with.   Went to a great, hands on children's museum.   Only problem (for us) was that all of the narrations at the exhibits were in Chinese.

Next came Guangzhou, China.  We arrived there with me pregnant, Austin still nursing and the three other kids in school.  We lived in the same building that the US Consulate and offices were in.  All a part of the White Swan hotel somehow.  We had crummy furniture, but with a pack of energetic kids, it worked.  There was a pool we could see from our 5th floor apartment window that was called the "Snoopy Pool" because it looked like Snoopy's head.     The kids and my pregnant self went on road trip to some hot springs resort.  We went with about 25 others from the consulate.  Adults and kids alike.   Nick didn't go, he probably had to work.  It was a fun trip, and, we got to stop in a pretty little rice growing village and see the people and their life style.

About two months before Chance was due to be born, my water broke and Chance was born about 36 hours later.  Nick was on a business trip, and I was home alone with the four other kids.  The three oldest left to catch their school bus.  Then pandemonium, broke out.   My kids were all farmed out to the families of other consulate kids.  So they were with people they knew, and Nick was nowhere in sight. The consulate nurse and I managed to get on a train to Hong Kong where we were met by an ambulance and immigration officers.  Chance was born at the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital.    It all worked out in the end, mostly.  Chance was a sick baby and I ended up returning to the States with him and Austin.  Nick and the older kids followed a few months later.

Back to Reston and then on to Australia.   My next installation.   I must go to bed