And now for something completely different

What's this?  A kidney infection.  Oh yes please, I'll try that out.  I didn't even know it was on the menu!  Let's see, what are the symptoms?  According to some web site about kidneys:

Common symptoms in adults include:

• Pain in the sides
• Pain in the lower back and genitals
• High temperature fever
• Shivering
• Chills
• Weakness or Tiredness
• Loss of appetite
• Repeated sickness
• Diarrhoea

Well, I have experienced  6 of the 9 symptoms.  Oh, and wetting your pants, not listed, but a fun symptom, let me tell you.  I had another one too, pain in my back above my waist.  That is where the kidneys are.  Yup.  What a wonderful summer this has been!

First, I get oral thrush.  That was a new one for me.  I had experienced thrush as a nursing mom when my baby had it, but it was not in my mouth.  I never knew it hurt so much!  I hope that it doesn't feel like that for babies!  Doctor said that mine was mainly caused by stress.  Husband is in Afghanistan.  Stress?  Who me?

Next, I break my ankle.  I was told that it was a bad sprain, not a break, so I went two days in pain and swelling before I got a correct diagnosis.   Lots of pain with this too.  At least my mouth cleared up before I broke my foot.  Pain meds help some.

Pet sit for a dog I don't know, who poops all over the house.  Yeah, that's fun with a broken ankle.  At least she's sweet.

Norwegian cousin comes to visit.  Fortunately I have a wonderful family that really comes to the rescue and helps keep him entertained.    I feel bad because I feel like it is my responsibility.  Also, I want to be able to do more.

Son leaves for China and all the preparation that entails.  Applying for visa.  Picking up visa.  Shopping.  Shopping.  Did I mention shopping?

Norwegian cousin leaves for the West Coast.  Looking forward to meeting his younger brother in a few years.  This was the third cousin we have hosted with one more to go.

Got a dental implant.   Yikes!  Face has a lump the size of a golf ball.   Yeah for pain meds. Had laughing gas for the first time in my life.  I don't remember laughing. I really don't remember anything at all!

Study for the exam I have to take to keep practicing as a lactation consultant- though I have not worked in about six week because of my broken ankle.

Prepare for a La Leche League conference that is on the weekend before my Monday morning exam.

Knitting hats to sell at the LLL conference.  Fun, but I worry about getting done what I have started.

So I am on antibiotics for my bladder.  Other medicine for the damage to my stomach from the  various pain meds.

My ankle is healing.  I don't need my boot all the time, but have to wear it when I go out because the doctor told me to, and it is still sensitive.  I am not longer wetting my pants, but my belly hurts.

My sister burned herself while cooking.  Nasty, painful burns.  I want her to get better and not hurt any more.

The dog, Buddy, has developed a new neurosis.  He won't walk on the kitchen floor.  He sits on the carpet and whines.   If there is food around, then he temporarily forgets and comes into the kitchen.  He has also decided that he doesn't want to leave the deck.  Even to poop.  Guess what?  When I take him out, I force him off the deck- I don't like a poop deck!

Pooh cat is sick.  Really sick.  Not going to get better sick.  He still has spark.  He eats.  He loves to eat.  He sits on laps and purrs.  He is wasting away though.  It is sad.

Today would have been my father's 97th birthday.  He's been gone for twelve years.

Okay, I think that's enough joy to the world for one day!  Now I need to go to bed.  Maybe I will be able to sleep.  I can dream can't I?  Well, if I sleep anyway!

Writing

Truer words have never been written!

Shalimar

Shalimar is a Persian term that means abode of love.
This is the perfume my mother wore.  The scent makes me think of her.  Actually, sometimes I feel like I am smelling Shalimar when I think about my mother.  Scent memory is a funny thing.  A scent can take you around the world, or it can ground you right where you are.  It can make you three years old, or a new mother, or in love with your mate.  I cannot wear Shalimar.   I don't know how to explain it, but I don't want to smell like my mother.  I guess people don't probably often think about smelling like one or another person.  I don't know.

Shortly after my mom died, I got on an elevator that had been empty, and there was a strong, distinctive scent of Shalimar.  It was as if I would have seen my mother if I only looked.  But I knew she was gone.

Every now and then I will notice the scent on another woman.  I want to say "you smell like my mother", but that would probably be too weird.  And, it is personal. 

Smells.   I am such a scent oriented person, other people notice it.  I don't think I have a better sense of smell than other people, I am just aware that something smells one way or another.   Babies are the best.  New, young, pre- introduction to food babies.   If you look at new moms especially, you will see them rubbing their nose against the top of their baby's head.   My sister in law doesn't have a sense of smell, but even she did this.   I have seen videos of her nuzzling her young baby's head.  It must be something primal and programed into us.   Maybe so we can identify our baby?   Maybe because it is such an intoxicating scent that it contributes to the whole experience of falling in love with our babies.

I didn't get to hold my first baby until she was three days old.  By then she had been bathed and probably lost some of that scent.  I do recall nuzzling the downy soft hair on her head.  I remember the sweet breast-milky smell of her.   My second baby I got to hold very soon after he was born.  To this day I remember his smell.  So soft.  So male, though I am not sure how to explain it.  His scent really made me think of how much he reminded me of his dad, my husband. 

Even when they get older, and smell like dirt and crayons, each child is distinctive and I loved breathing them in- most of the time.   At least as long as they were still nursing, for sure.

When my daughter got older, I could "read" her cycles.  I don't know if I could now because we live far away from each other and don't see each other often.   But there was something.  Again, the scent was from the hair and the head. 

I still love the smell of my husband's hair.  When we were first a couple, he used to splash on English Leather.  It was a real turn on for me.  Now I don't like that smell.  I suspect that I liked it then because I had not grown into him and me and us as a couple.  So I associated the English Leather with the man.

One thing I am sure of is this;  boys above the age of 14 can smell pretty bad.  They don't necessarily want to bath or wash their hair, or even brush their teeth.  Yet they change their clothes every day, never wearing the same pair of jeans more than once before they need to be washed.   I am so glad my kids did their own laundry once they became teens!

When we first got Buddy, our puppy, we would lie in bed with him between us and Nick would say how much he liked Buddy's scent.  "Even his feet smell nice"..I agree.  So nice and innocent.

I am busy with new moms a lot, and this week I have had a couple of chances to chill with a very young baby asleep on my chest.   This is the most relaxing and Zen feeling possible in my book.  The warmth between the baby and myself.  The rhythmic breathing.  The way a baby, when he trusts, can totally melt into your body is delicious.   All I want to do when holding a relaxed and happy baby is smell and breath in the scent of that precious soft baby hair.

Just think of what I would have missed if I had not had all the babies I did.  And if I had not become a mother, I would not have been in a position where I get to be with new and not so new mothers and babies.  I would have been blind to the sensuality and blissful satisfaction of it all.

Amen

Just doing the hokey pokey

That's what it's all about.  Isn't it?         


I was all set to go crawl into bed, put my head down and fall asleep.  So sleepy.  I was.  Then I decided to check email and see if there was anything from Nick.  Nope, not yet.  But there was one from Chance.  Asking me to figure out cell phone usage with his phone, in China.

I called the International Care Department of AT&T.  Got a nice man on the phone and we talked about all the choices.  I choose the things that sounded best to me.  And, the nice man said, his computer wasn't allowing him to continue processing the work.  Call back in an hour.

Do you see where this is going?  I am no longer ready to sleep.  I am not sleepy.  I am not tired.  I am wide awake.  And now I am hungry too.

I sit at my computer looking for emails and playing around on Facebook- looking at everyone's status and pictures. The hour has passed.  I call AT&T back.  I get a delightful young woman on the phone.  She is able to pull up a record of the conversation from an hour ago.  Bingo!  We're all set up.  I have even received an email from them with all the stuff written out.

Now I a really starving.  I must clump my way down the stairs in my broken ankle's black, clunky, awkward boot.  And hope I don't fall and break anything else.  At least, not before I get something to eat!

Here's my boot: