Archive | February, 2009

Love knows what you need

by Mir on February 26, 2009 in Ottomatic For the People

Otto and I had an appointment to attend this morning, and I was dragging. Badly.

I’m on a new hormone regimen. I’ve been getting migraines again. Now, I’m pretty sure the migraines started before I switched my meds, and I know I need to be patient to see if this fixes things or not—the joy of migraines is that they often beget themselves, so once I get on the migraine train it’s often a while before I can get off again—but in the meantime I’m apt to wake up with a migraine and flop around like a very grumpy beached fish while waiting for my meds to kick in and make me human again.

So we got the kids up and off to school, then I tried to get some work done, and Otto sat across from me here in the office and kept saying, “Are you okay?” like it wasn’t totally normal for me to be sitting here all slant-eyed and grumpy. Huh. (more…)

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Words failed to capture it

by Mir on February 25, 2009 in Offspring: ecstasy and agony

I love my children. I love my children I love my children I love my children Ilovemychildren.

Even if they are TRYING TO KILL ME.

Look; after the last-minute science project We Had Words. (Most of them were even not curses!) Chickadee agreed that she would no longer do her work at the last minute. She would budget her time better. She would get things done using all of the time allotted to her. Things Would Be Different.

I bet you have NO IDEA where this is going, right? (more…)

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They do not like it, Sam-I-Am

by Mir on February 24, 2009 in Health is overrated, My name is Grumplestiltskin

It’s been nearly four months since my daughter went vegetarian, and so far everyone is still alive. I would say our meat consumption as a family has gone down by about 50%, and my love of black beans has gone up about 500%.

Chickadee appears to be having no trouble sticking to her new lifestyle, and I have only found Otto hiding behind the house gnawing on a T-bone once. (I’m kidding.) (It was a package of sausage.)

Sometimes I make a “meat” entree for the rest of us and a “faux meat analog” for my daughter, of course, but a lot of the time I try to make a vegetarian meal that everyone will like. And we have several recipes in the rotation that everyone enjoys. (more…)

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Saint

by Mir on February 23, 2009 in Haven't been hit by lightning yet!, Ottomatic For the People

So, um, I guess we are getting to be People Of A Certain Age.

I realized this recently because:
1) A friend of mine told me her husband was getting a vasectomy,
2) The husband knew I knew,
3) I told MY husband,
and
4) The next time we were all together my husband mercilessly ribbed my friend’s husband about it.

There was a time when such knowledge would’ve offended Otto’s delicate sensibilities. I mean, there was probably NEVER a time when it would’ve offended ME, but we already know that I am largely without shame. Still, brazen offers of frozen peas and scotch delivery in mixed company seem a bit beyond the pale. (more…)

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Cleaning day, day of reckoning

by Mir on February 22, 2009 in Haven't been hit by lightning yet!

Yesterday I went on a cleaning tear, largely because I had one of those days last week when I looked around the house and realized that I couldn’t remember when we’d last cleaned, and also that there were tumbleweeds of carpet fuzz rolling past on the wood floor.

So I did the obvious things, like send Monkey off to dust (and then go around behind him, later, and get the spots he missed), and put Chickadee to work on the bookshelves, and donned a haz-mat suit and tackled the bathrooms. (Otto was out in the garage cleaning up our old kitchen table to ready it for sale, and HOOBOY did he get the raw end of that deal, because apparently one of the children spilled a cup of milk down into the self-storing table leaf SEVERAL YEARS AGO. Urgh.)

After much of the basic, surface stuff was done, we found ourselves really getting into the deeper stuff. (more…)

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Love draws closer

by Mir on February 19, 2009 in Offspring: ecstasy and agony, Ottomatic For the People

What I told Otto—and what I thought was the truth—was that if we replaced the kitchen table, then I could tolerate everything ELSE I want to change about the kitchen, a while longer. The truth is that the kitchen is probably the only room left that’s still in its original-to-the-house state. I suppose it’s possible that the (ugly) wallpaper isn’t original, or that the (cracking) vinyl was replaced once along the way, but the cabinets and countertops and quite possibly the stove are ooooooold.

Not that there’s anything wrong with old. But in my mind’s eye, I see fresh paint, new cabinets, a stainless steel countertop, new appliances, and a floor I won’t mind mopping because MOPPING WILL ACTUALLY IMPROVE ITS APPEARANCE.

Someday, we’ll redo the kitchen, and it will make me deliriously happy. But probably not until the kids are grown and gone. In the meantime, I wanted a shiny dinette. (more…)

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Rolling with the punches, in style

by Mir on February 18, 2009 in Offspring: ecstasy and agony

Someone asked me a few days ago if Monkey will ever outgrow his sensory issues, and I struggled to answer that coherently because yes, of course he will, and no, not really. Sensory sensitivities are the result of a somewhat differently-wired neurological system, and though it will vary from person to person and age to age, it does seem like the relative immaturity of a younger brain struggles more than an adult who’s had time to toughen up and adapt.

For example, I think it’s pretty clear to us, as his parents, NOW (though not before, because back when we were kids, this stuff was never labeled/addressed/treated), that Monkey’s dad has some similar sensitivities. Obviously, as an adult he handles things differently than a kid would. That gives me some hope in terms of eventual adaptation.

And these days, I need hope. I need lots of hope. It helps to stave off the worry. (more…)

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Back on the balance board again

by Mir on February 17, 2009 in Health is overrated

So, um, I was doing really well with my whole Wii Fit exercise regime right up until I got sick. And then I didn’t work out for a couple of weeks, because first I wasn’t well enough and then I just didn’t want to overtax myself while I was recovering. And then I wasn’t working out because I’d just been sick for two weeks and I was verrrrry far behind on work and needed all of my time to catch up.

And then I wasn’t working out because I was out of the habit and also I prefer being lazy and y’know, I’m pretty sure that Mercury was in retrograde and also that my magic 8 ball said ALL SIGNS POINT TO SLOTH.

(There is something wrong with my magic 8 ball, I’m aware.)

Anyway, somehow it had been… ummmm… maybe a month since I’d allowed the Wii Fit to mock me. But at least I was eating really well, in the meantime. (more…)

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Tough typist

by Mir on February 16, 2009 in It's not a regret, it's an "experience"

Apparently I’m a little hard on the keyboard.

I think I type with a normal amount of pressure, but then again, I thought I was writing completely normally back in school when one of my teachers commented that if I was pressing hard enough to leave indentations on several pages underneath the one I was actually writing on, I could stand to go a little bit more gently.

We could probably come up with a whole personality profile based upon my apparent need to jam the keys down as I type—perhaps it means I’m unrelenting, or maybe it’s just a sign of constipation—but I think the uninteresting truth is that my fine-motor control is a little off. I often have some difficulty coordinating my fingers; applying greater pressure seems to improve my aim.

And that’s all well and good until I destroy my computer. (more…)

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Better than chocolate

by Mir on February 14, 2009 in Offspring: ecstasy and agony, Ottomatic For the People, Woohoo!

I did get some chocolate today. In a heart-shaped box, even. And it’s very nice, and all.

But I also got my kids giving my husband a card onto which they had recorded a “WE LOVE YOU OTTOOOOOOOOOOOO!!” message that prefaced a recording of “We Are Family” by Sister Sledge.

And then I got to disco-dance with my family while it played. (P.S. We are family, and we are also extremely bad dancers.)

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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