Monthly Archives: May 2007

05.10.07
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Time for chores

My day began with Billy throwing up. And doing so rather untidily. He’s rarely sick, so I’m trying not to alarm myself with irrational fears that he caught some incurable and deadly disease at the pediatrician’s office yesterday when he crab-walked on the floor. I’m usually pretty calm about dirt and germs, but the two places where I pretty much freak-out (as much as I am capable of freaking out) about my kids touching things, especially the floor, are doctors’ offices and public restrooms.

I think the pregnancy hormones are making me a bit more panicky than normal.

Thankfully, there is absolutely nothing on my calender for today. Just school.

And my ever-growing to-do list. So, I’ll push-up my sleeves, get out the rug shampooer, and start tackling those chores before the sun’s beckoning rays drag us outside. And today, Petey will get his nap, yes, indeed.

05.09.07
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Cool, calm, collected…and clean

After getting my IV of coffee this morning, I set to work paying bills online and balancing my checkbook and other thrilling activities that are pretty mindless. Around 730 am, I realized that Pete wasn’t awake yet, even though he’s usually up and about long before 7 am.

Despite nearly 9 years of mommydom, I had a momentary wave of hysteria pass through my body as I thought that possibly something terrible had happened.

And then I instantly calmed myself by remembering that he’s been skimping on naps recently (my fault, not his), and his poor little body was just trying to make up for his missed rests.

Then I thought of Jenny throwing up in her sleep while lying on her back. That sort of a thing killed Elvis; God was looking out for her last night, I am sure. And then I remembered that Billy had thrown up before bed and how my husband’s stomach was upset and I had told him (around 3 am) that we obviously had some sort of virus in the house.

What if Pete had the virus too? What if he had thrown up in his sleep? What if he hadn’t been as lucky as Jenny? Those cold fingers of fear encircled my heart and began to slowly squeeze it.

I had not yet showered. I knew that if I went into his room and peeked in on him, he would wake up and it would be another half hour until I got in the shower. I knew that if I went into his room and he were dead, I likely would not get a shower today at all! And what could I really change about his vital signs by postponing my shower? At the very least, I wouldn’t be apologizing to the police for my appearance and smell if I took a shower first. It would be one less stressor in the tragic situation, knowing that my armpits were powder-fresh.

And so I took my shower, and when I was done, Petey was happily playing with Fritz downstairs. Fritz said he woke up one minute after I went upstairs.

It’s a good thing I didn’t debate much longer.

05.09.07
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Pregnancy Insomnia

It all started with Katie coming in just before 2:30 am and saying, “Mom, Jenny sounds like she’s throwing up.” She was. While sleeping on her back. I had to wake her up to wash her hair and change her sheets and clothes.

The next thing I knew, it was 4 am and I was still awake and trying to get to sleep, and Bill’s alarm started going off because he needed to get up. I relocated to the couch so his half hour snooze session wouldn’t prolong the onset of my much needed slumber.

I’m not yet thinking straight, and I have a jam-packed day with no time for naps. I’m “taking” my coffee now and soon hope to rejoin the land of the coherent and non-babbling.

Good morning, world.

05.08.07
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Forgive, or Forget?

In the not too distant past, I forgave a transgression against me. Or so I thought.

It was a whopper of a transgression, and yet the magnitude of the crime made it that much easier to be relatively calm and charitable about the whole event. It’s all those pesky little sins to which we hold tight because we can wrap our fingers around them: a hurtful comment, a thoughtless gesture, even an impersonal traffic violation on the part of a stranger can fire us up all day long. But if someone does some egregious thing and especially if they somehow manage to be defensive about the situation whether from embarrassment or from affected ignorance of how terribly their actions have hurt you, it is too difficult to carry that burden of anger. It is simpler to just forgive their sin and move on. Or so I thought.

Well over a decade ago, a very silly close relative of mine did a youthfully foolish and illegal thing. She used my name and social security number to obtain credit at local department stores, where she then racked up a load of debt. I was mad and didn’t want to have much to do with her for some time. I let the police handle the situation, and I trudged away with shoulders sagging from the weight of resentment and shock.

Two years later, I was getting married. This relative had repented and changed. I thought about the rest of my life, straining hard to see into the far distant future. I thought about the anger and the difficulties in dragging that baggage with me everywhere I went as I had been for two years. I decided I didn’t want to maintain a strained relationship, and so I included her in my wedding. Everyone lauded me my generous act, and the relative was very grateful. But I knew two things. One: it is not very heroic to decide to stop expending your own personal energy in a negative way. Two: choosing to forgive does not bring instantaneous healing.

In fact, the first step in choosing to forgive seemed to be choosing to forget. I could will myself to not view this person as a thief. I could will myself to focus on her positive behavior and characteristics. I could will myself to act polite and charitable and even pleasant. But our relationship was not what it had been before the whole sordid affair. Charity is one thing; actually liking someone is quite another. That part took quite some time. Naturally, the process was speeded by a willful desire on both our parts to make it so. And thank God for these miracles, since she’s now my best friend.

Fast forward to last year and this other situation and this other person who did something even worse. I knew, from experience, that the anger wasn’t worth the effort. And so I forgave her. Or so I thought.

In the last week, an email prayer chain from my old parish has included this person in the list for serious health reasons. My reaction has been less than kind, I must confess. It’s not that I wish ill upon her; it’s more that smug satisfaction that comes from thinking what goes around comes around. Perhaps if she were a bit more right with God, bad luck would not constantly darken her skies with storm clouds. Perhaps these health issues “conveniently” come at a time when she needs extra sympathy and generosity from her latest scam victim.

Awful. Plain awful.

These thoughts are so shockingly uncharitable that I have been forced to really look at myself and how I have personally handled the situation in my heart. Obviously, I have not forgiven her. Obviously, I have not even taken that first step of forgetting the transgression – of thinking of her in a charitable way. Instead, I took a step in the opposite direction and forgot the sin by putting it and her completely out of my mind. No, I haven’t been burdened with anger and resentment, because I have opted to pretend that it never happened.

Pray for your enemies. Not pray that they treat you better or that their lives improve so that your own life will improve, but rather pray for their health and their well-being for their own sake. Since she is not a close relative and wasn’t even a close friend, I don’t think that the sort of healing that I sought in my other situation is necessary. But if we are to share in the Kingdom, I will have to spend all of eternity with her, right? I hope that by praying for her health, I can take the first step toward a truer forgiveness and possibly be able to pray the Lord’s Prayer without shame.

“…forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us…”
05.07.07
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Getting old, going blind

My husband is 2 years and 7 months older than I am. As he ages, and as his body begins to show that age, I hear the warning alarms for the rapidly approaching demise of my own youth.

Recently, he was diagnosed with arthritis in his knee. I guess it’s common among athletes to suffer early onset of this in particular joints that took a significant beating. Fencing and cross-country running seemed to have done it for him. Nevertheless, hearing the term “arthritis” – an old person’s problem – applied to your husband is a bit hard. On the one hand, there are days I feel quite old with my own aches and stiffness. On the other hand, I’m in my 30’s – I’m young! He’s in his 30’s – he’s young! Young people do not have arthritis.

Also recently, he has noticed difficulty in reading printed material. He knows it’s time to get his eyes checked and that he will likely be prescribed reading glasses. Now, besides arthritis, I can’t think of another problem that screams “old person” than the inability to see small print that is right under your nose. I’ve been teasing him a lot about it. We’ve been playing the “can you read this?” game.

For years, we’ve played the “can you see that?” game. I am horribly near-sighted. Without my glasses, objects three feet away are blurry. My husband, Mr. Perfect Eyes, has found this to be amusing and fascinating. He would ask me to describe my world as I would see it without corrective lenses. To him, it was incredible that clear white letters on huge green street sign were not only not readable, but that I couldn’t even discern that there were letters there at all. Average costs for LASIK surgery are about $2000 per eye. I’ve recently been considering starting a special fund to have this done. It would be nice to be able to see the clock on the bedside table.

Yesterday, I had my own eye exam. It’s been more than 18 months, and it was time for a bit of tweaking to my prescription. The doctor, in his list of questions, mentioned I was still a little young, but…am I having any trouble reading things? I told him about my teasing my husband for just this issue, and he severely advised me to stop laughing at him. When you need reading glasses, and I don’t say “if,” I say “when,” he will be laughing at you! Yes, doctor.

For now, though, thank goodness, I am spared the bifocals. Perhaps I’ll save my pennies and have that corrective surgery done just in time to replace my near-sighted lenses with far-sighted ones. And then the laugh really will be on me.

05.04.07
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Going to the midwife

Last week, I tried to go to my first OB appointment. I called and asked for an appointment with the same midwife who cared for me with my last pregnancy. Reason for the appointment? they asked. I’m pregnant, I said. First appointment? they asked. Yes, I said. They gave me a date and time.

I went. The midwife wasn’t there. They had scheduled me for a paperwork appointment. First day of last period? How many pregnancies? How many births? Any complications? Any allergies? Planned pregnancy? How do you feel about it?

I was mad – not about the pregnancy…about the appointment. Had the appointment-person told me she was doing this I would have asked to do both the paperwork and actual exams on the same day. I do need to find childcare for five children each time I go.

Today I did see my midwife. She asked if it was okay if a nursing student did my exam. I was really pretty happy with this. My midwife happens to be my next door neighbor – ah, army living! She is very professional, but still, living next door to the woman who does your pap smear is a bit…awkward. She spoke with me long enough to ask me when I intended to go down and get my blood drawn, since the paperwork lady put in my referral to the lab, and I didn’t go. I hemmed, hawed, dodged and evaded answering as best as I could and basically put the discussion off until next time. I have no intention of having my blood drawn before I move to Kansas. I’m a difficult patient. And a big wimp. I don’t give up my blood easily. I know I need to have an antibody screen in July, so I’d rather get ALL bloodwork done at once.

The nursing student was a really nice lady. She had to ask me all those obligatory questions: I can’t get mad at her for them. There’s a test called the AFP Screen…? No, thank you, I said. Because of your…age…you could go to Bethesda for a level 2 ultrasound and have an amnio if you’d like…? No, thank you, I said. One happy moment was when she was listening to my heart and observed that I obviously exercise – do you run? she asked. As a matter of fact, I do, I said.

And then: You’re too far along to use an ultrasound for dating the pregnancy (I don’t need to have the pregnancy dated, I thought), but if you’d like to have a peek at the baby, we could do that…? No, thank you, I said. For that, I got raised eyebrows. I do want to see the baby, actually, but I had the kids with a friend, I would have to walk down the hall to another room, it would take more time…and I’m not 100% sure that ultrasounds are perfectly safe and don’t want to frivolously subject my child to them…did I mention that besides being a difficult patient, I am a firm believer in a minimalistic approach to healthcare? Sick people go to the doctor, you know. Healthy people stay away from doctors and their technologies. It’s just a theory…

But finally, finally, we listened to the very strong heartbeat, and that was enough. Yes, those flutters I feel are tiny kicks and not the gurgling of digestive juices. Yes, that hard lump I feel when I lie back and press on my stomach is a growing baby. Soon that lump will be even bigger, and I’ll be forced to dig the maternity clothes out of the bin. And soon the kicks will be stronger and my children will share in my excitement that comes from actually feeling a tiny new life develop in the womb.

And sooner than I think, I’ll be waiting, probably just as impatiently as Cris, for that tiny new life to join us here in this world.

05.04.07
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All things in moderation, but…

When Danielle Bean did her post last week about children and TV, there were some people who said that they didn’t even own a set. Some people were critical of these people and felt that children needed exposure to things like TV so that they don’t go off the deep end in TV viewing when they are older (or something like that).

My kids watch some TV, and I’m happy to have the chance to blog while they do it. But I see no problem with no-TV homes, either. I really don’t feel that TV is so important in our modern lives that the lack thereof will cause permanent developmental damage in our children, nor do I think that no-TV will result in TV OD in a newly independent adult. I have a curry-free home. I’m not overly concerned that my sons will seek wives from India to overcompensate for what I failed to provide them as children.

But one thing I know for sure is this: children who have no TV in the house would not tune into Disney and see hard-core porn instead. I would be devastated if this happened to my kids, and, whether my husband liked it or not, would never, ever subscribe to cable or satellite TV as long as I had children living at home. When one of my children “accidentally” hits another child, I sometimes detect a defensive attitude in the offender who says, “I said I was sorry.” I often say, “Sorry doesn’t take the pain away. You must be more careful and more aware of others around you.” No apology by the cable company can take away these images burned in a little child’s mind. I hope that every home affected by this had a parent right there able to turn the channel quickly. I know that I am often in the next room when my children are watching their “safe” programming. I may have to rethink how comfortable I am with that arrangement.

05.03.07
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What did you learn in school this year?

Last fall, after I tried to burn my house down, the fire department came out to check my smoke detectors. I was talking about school and kids with one of the guys and he said, “I’m in the third grade!” I said, “Me, too!” Even though I have a college degree and I feel that I have continued the learning process past my formal school days, I know that I am right there with my oldest child learning things I either never knew or forgot long ago. And since I will be repeating these lessons over and over again to a succession of children, I really can’t imagine that this “new” information, seen through adult eyes, won’t stick with me for much longer than it did the first time I was exposed to it.

Since I use the Baltimore Catechism for religion, and since I was educated in the ’70s and ’80s and that mainly through CCD classes, pretty much everything I teach from that book is stuff I didn’t know. Well…Who made you? God made me. I got that. But the concise and clear answers to much of what we believe and why we believe it were never transmitted to me. I really enjoy religion class.

In math and grammar, I’m happy to report, I haven’t learned much. I have had to check the answer book on occasion to clarify a punctuation rule or a part of speech, but not very often. The teacher’s math book is only used so I can check answers quickly and not because long division or averaging numbers is particularly difficult.

But of all the subjects, Fritz and I share an immense appreciation for history. I liked it back in my school days, too, and studied it quite a bit in high school. In college, I just didn’t have the time to take any classes given my heavy core curriculum load, except for one class, The History of the Low Countries, which I was able to take while studying abroad in Belgium (one of the Low Countries). Awesome class.

In the last three years, history for Fritz has been primarily American History and more specifically the time around the American Revolution. Each year, the curriculum gives more details about the 1700’s and expands the student’s awareness of where that era is in relationship to all of world history. When Fritz was in kindergarten, he summarized his knowledge of history like this: “First there was Adam and Eve, then there was Jesus, then there was George Washington, then there was us.” By now, I’m sure he can name a few more people between Adam and Christ, and our history lessons have exposed him to the Vikings as well as the big players from Europe who claimed the Americas and explored, settled, and fought over them: the Dutch, the Spanish, the French and, of course, the English.

These are lessons that I learned over and over again throughout my school days, but it is great to read about this period of history with a much greater awareness of the global implications of certain events, for example, France’s historical interest in aiding the Americans over the English in our revolution or the American Revolution’s influence on the French Revolution.

One of the books we recently read was If You Lived at the Time of the American Revolution. I really like the If You Lived… series. I’ve found them to be chock full of information but written clearly enough for young students to comprehend. At the end of this book, the authors state their intention of presenting a balanced view of the conflict and presenting non-Patriots in a fair manner. On Amazon, reviewers either gave it 5 stars or 1 star, depending on how they felt about the treatment of the Loyalists. Those who thought it was good, thought it was balanced. Those who thought it was bad, felt that the Patriots were portrayed as bad guys and that it only mentions the negative circumstances surrounding the lives of the Loyalists. I will admit that there is little mention of any suffering on the part of the Patriots. According to the book, about one-third of the colonists favored independence, one-third were loyalists, and the remaining third attempted to be neutral. Surely for every Loyalist’s child who wasn’t permitted to go to school, there was a Patriot’s child who had a similar experience. There were pockets of like-minded people, and human beings throughout history are not known for their kind and generous behavior toward those who think differently.

But since the winners write the history books, I don’t feel that a few kind words on behalf of real human beings who had valid reasons for choosing to support the crown will damage a young student’s budding sense of patriotism. And as for myself, this and other literature we read this year have made me ask myself where I would have placed my own loyalties in 1775.

I consider myself fiercely patriotic. I’ve lived “on the economy” in other countries for long enough to know that as bad as it might be here in some ways, it is better than any other alternative. This is home, and it doesn’t matter whether it is Ohio or Virginia or Pennsylvania or New Jersey or Florida or Kansas, it is all home. But Belgium is not Germany is not the Czech Republic is not England and none of them are the United States. I am eternally grateful for all the hard choices made by the people who lived here in the late eighteenth century who suffered, fought and died to create this country. I would really like to think that I would have been a Patriot and would have done my best to contribute to its founding.

But no matter how I look at it, I can not support actions like the Boston Tea Party which breaks both the seventh commandment which forbids the unjust taking of another’s property as well as the 4th commandment which includes obedience to lawful superiors. Perhaps if I were twenty years old in 1775, I would be cheering the heroes of that raid, but I can’t imagine that this 36 year old devout Catholic would be in favor of it. It is one thing to boycott a product and quite another to destroy it.

But in my final analysis, I look at my view of current events. I am conservative and religious and vote accordingly. But I do not always agree with the loudest voices belonging to this side. I don’t agree with every plank in every platform and certainly not with every vote by every Republican in Congress. There are times I think we make some poor choices as a country, but I still think it’s the best place on earth. I think about the polls that show “only” a 39% approval rating for the President, and think I might be in the category of the 59% who disapprove (it’s all how the question is worded…and what about being neutral as an option?). And I compare that to the one-third who supported the American Revolution, and I think the President is doing better than General George Washington would have been doing if the Rasmussen Report had been around back then. I do think I would have been a Patriot, and I have faith that our country, despite the doom and gloom predictions from all sides, will do just fine as we suffer through these difficult years of foreign war and domestic strife.

OK, I’m finishing the 3rd grade, I’ve learned a lot about the American Revolution, and I vote in favor of breaking ties with England. How about you? What grade are you in, what did you learn this year in school, and are you or are you not in favor of the American Revolution?