Category: FAMILY

keeping the wolfowitz from the door

keeping the wolfowitz from the door

Posted on by wrekehavoc

apparently, paul wolfowitz is now negotiating the terms under which he’ll resign. must be nice. admittedly, no one has ever tried to oust me from a job (at least, not that i know of) since i’m not a morally-bankrupt ass-hat; but usually, people are permitted to create terms when they’ve decided to leave on positive terms. i don’t think there’s much that’s positive about what paul wolfowitz did; and if he didn’t have ties to the Administration (motto: Wolfowitz, Gonzalez, and Wartime Instability, too!), he’d not only be out on his ass, but he’d probably be prosecuted.

now, since i usually talk about parenthood — you know, those amusing anecdotes that help me understand my world and my role — you might wonder just what the hell paul wolfowitz has to do with my children (or me, for that matter), beyond helping to make the world incredibly unstable due to his earlier foreign policy dilettantism. the world has never been a perfect place — not when i was a child, not when my parents were children, etc. but at the risk of sounding like a nutball, right-wing moral majority member (and i won’t even start on my feelings for jerry falwell other than to say that tinky-winky would be better suited as a leader of a major movement, in my book — but what do i know, since the reverend last month pointed out that i, a jew, am damned to never enter heaven), it really, really pisses me off when public figures are rewarded for their morally-suspect actions. it results in a nation of kids who think that there shouldn’t be consequences for their actions — after all, if the people in charge aren’t held accountable, then why should they be, either? look at paris hilton. they’re cutting HER sentence down because she’s such a paragon of virtue. and all the while, she was indignantly pleading that she shouldn’t have to serve. boo fucking hoo.

so we seem to have a culture that permits famous people to act with relative impunity, as long as they have the money, fame, or connections. i was hoping that with a more transparent society, this would happen less and less. boy, i clearly don’t know shit.

as for you, paul wolfowitz, don’t let the door smack you on the ass as you go.

mothers of intervention

mothers of intervention

Posted on by wrekehavoc

i really had a lovely mother’s day. i got cards, a lovely bouquet of tulips and irises, a beaded hairband BC picked out for me from her annual “pick out a mother’s day present at the taylor fair” experience (i’ve gotten all sorts of things in previous, years, including a doll from mexico), a certificate showing i’ve adopted a prairie dog at the national zoo, and a trip to six flags (complete with a $42 lunch at chez papajohns which was truly vile. next time, we’re bringing our own food to the park.) we were going to go out to dinner saturday night, but i didn’t feel up to it. another day, perhaps. (hell, anytime we go out to dinner and i don’t have to cook is mother’s day in my book.)

we had to run home from six flags so that we could sign BC up for the swim team at our local swim club, which costs about a college fund each year to join. they gave us the wrong time, sadly, so we had to return to the swarm about an hour later for the privilege of forking over cash and paper. “have you ever seen so many blonde people?” i asked BC.

and it’s true. i think our pool club is not terribly diverse. it does, however, possess parents who are single-mindedly attempting to ensure that their children have the best of the best of the best. i’ve avoided this environment for years. i am really, really hoping this year changes my mind. see, i’ve been a member of this swim club now for about 7 years. other than another family we know from before, we have never, ever made one friend there. it’s not like we’re unfriendly. but between the very-working-mother-unfriendly schedules (that kept BC off the swim team up until this year) coupled with the very family-unfriendly schedule (sat mornings the pool is usually closed for a swim meet; every sunday morning is adult-only breakfast and swim until 1 pm), we almost never get an opportunity to actually swim in the pool much. i guess the optimal swim family consists of kids over 11 who have a nanny to take them to the pool.

anyway, this experience led to another one of my favorite things to do, which i was able to do for a short while, on mother’s day. work on my second novel 🙂

chills and thrills

chills and thrills

Posted on by wrekehavoc

i’m ba-ack (along with Broooce, who is softly crooning New York City Serenade, one of my favorites.)

there’s something wildly off-putting about taking a medication that will help save your life but will make you so ill. i thought i had made it through okay, but about two hours after finishing my infusion, i started coming down with a fever, chills, nausea, and a feeling that my head was in a vise. i think i scared my kids, too — i was solo-parenting that night, as BS had to go to a class, and i really, really got chills when i was trying to get the kids to bed. i didn’t make anyone take a bath, and i think i barked at the kids a bit, which probably was The Big Clue that Mommy Doesn’t Feel Well. (i’m not usually the biggest barker in this house.) my kids are pretty good at picking up on such things. thankfully.

jools let me crawl under the covers with him and read stories. his one cover wasn’t working for me — i felt like i needed thousands of blankets to keep me warm. i convulsed into shakes and shivers, something i am sure was frightening to a little boy. but he was tough. he patted me and told me he loved me. i was a bit frightened myself at that point, so i really appreciated that in ways a little nearly-four-year-old will never comprehend.

then, i crawled into BC’s bed to read her stories. i was shaking so much that i couldn’t hold the book up. it was a pretty humbling moment as BC grabbed everything she could and piled it on top of me — her heavy blanket from grandma, her quilt (from me and BS), her towel, her robe — anything to keep me warm. and it worked for a time. the girl is a born empath and caregiver. she didn’t make me read any stories — we just sat and talked. i don’t even remember what we talked about, as she told me i didn’t have to talk, that i could just listen and she would talk about something. i really regret that i have no recollection of the conversation; i felt that ill.

and the only thermometer i could find was the little Dora the Explorer thermometer. (i found others, but let’s just say that i wasn’t putting them in my mouth.) my thermometer, MIA since my surgery, was gone just as i really needed it. Dora would have to do.

mercifully, BS came home from his class early. [G-d is good.] i called the doctor on call, as mi amiga Dora informed me that i was currently pushing 102F, which isn’t earthshattering in and of itself, but for someone who has a tough time battling infection, i can’t risk a whole lot. the doctor on call told me to dose myself with lots of benadryl. if my temp continued to climb, i would need to get steroids at the ER. joy.

lucky for me, the benadryl knocked me out, so i never did discover what my temp was in the middle of the night. but in the a.m., i was still at the 101.something mark. BS stayed home, along with jools. it’s half-day at all elementary schools here, so basically, BS had both kids from 1:30 on. they went to the mulch pile and put mulch on our playground; they played on BC’s playground at school with two friends; and apparently everyone survived. my fever finally broke in the evening, though my head still hurt and my nausea continued.

and so, here i am, today. my temp is relatively normal. i still have a headache. i had to force myself to eat lunch. yes. me. force. food. hard to believe, huh. and the thing i have to come to grips with is that i get to do this all over again, every six weeks, for the rest of my life. i hope it gets easier as time goes on.

Walk tall or baby don’t walk at all – Bruce Springsteen

mmmmm. chocolate and coconut

mmmmm. chocolate and coconut

Posted on by wrekehavoc

ok. no one has to tell me that coconut is horrible for you. and no one also has to tell me that sweetened, condensed milk is like a heart-attack in a can with a side order of a diabetic coma.  but this week is teacher appreciation week, and since one of the days requires a baked good of sorts, well, let’s just say i cannot resist a baking opportunity. (and what better way to say thank you to BC’s teachers than with something that might hasten their demise?

well, we pretty much *heart* BC’s teachers around here, yes indeedy do. so i looked for a recipe on cookinglight.com that at least masqueraded as health food (to soothe my besieged maternal conscience); and lo and behold, a recipe beckoned that would be easy to accomplish with BC and jools in tow: chewy chocolate-coconut macaroons. we talked about how yucky unsweetened chocolate was (no one believed me) and how equally yucky unsweetened cocoa was (once again, no one bought it). BC loves coconut; jools says, and i quote, “it’s dis-GUSTING!”) but they were easy to make, bake, and get off the paper.

of course, i find an easy recipe that 50% of my house will never eat. (BS loathes coconut, too.) so much for that.

feeling generous? care about heart health?

feeling generous? care about heart health?

Posted on by wrekehavoc

BC is jumping rope in the american heart association’s jump rope for heart fundraiser. donate online if you are so inclined (and thank you very much if you do!) — it’s tax deductible! [contact me if you want to donate online – the link they have goes away after a certain time, and unless you know BC’s name, which i’m not publishing here, you won’t know how to search for her.]

we feel particularly inclined to donate on this one because heart disease is something that is quite prevalent in my family. hopefully, it isn’t in your’s. but in short, here’s my mini-lecture:

get your blood pressure checked.

eat a decent diet.

if you are having chest pains, for G-d’s sake don’t ignore them.

there. lecture over 🙂

…worse than blue acid. apparently.

…worse than blue acid. apparently.

Posted on by wrekehavoc

BC has a cough. she’s had this cough now for about three years. it gets worse during allergy season (which, in the washington metro area, may as well be three seasons long) and when she’s sitting in lots of dust (such as in her room, which is a convention center for dust bunnies.) part of it has to do with some asthmatic fun, for which she takes singulair and, upon occasion, a puffer of Q-Var (a med i love to say since it sounds like something from Mork and Mindy: i come from the planet Q-Var. Nanoo nanoo.) but the allergies really aggravate things. and, judging from our time at the pediatrician’s last week, everyone and their dog is having allergy symptoms this week. even BS and jools are sneezing, and neither one of them has any allergy issues.

it’s the most wonderful time of the year.

so yesterday, BC came home from school bewildered. i pressed her for some info, and she told me that while she was not directly mentioned, her teacher was looking right at her when she noted that not everyone in the class had a real cough. and those without a real cough (and she named two boys who apparently have get-out-of-cough-trouble-free passes) are now in her book, down as people making trouble. “but mama,” BC protested to me, “i really do have a cough!”

so i wrote a note to the teacher, informing her that BC, in fact, has a real, honest-to-G-d, annoying-as-hell cough; and that i’m very sorry if it disrupts class. she is on medication, and i also send her in with cough drops so that she doesn’t make a ruckus in case a coughing fit ensues. i just wanted her to know that BC doesn’t cough for fun (even if another child was, which BC felt was the case. see, everyone was laughing because one child was making hilarious coughing sounds, apparently spoiling it for the real coughers (and no, i couldn’t make this stuff up if i tried.) and getting people like her in trouble.

so today, BC came home from school. how was school today, dear? well, apparently, she felt a cough coming on. she asked her teacher if she could get a cough drop. the teacher called the nurse’s office. then, the teacher sent her to the nurses’ office so that she could have her cough drop there. and there she sat. and sucked. and then she returned to class. (and no, i couldn’t make this stuff up if i tried, either.)

i’m so glad she missed important classroom time simply because she was wielding an apparently deadly cough drop. lord knows that asthma is contagious. and you really gotta watch out for that mentholyptus.

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