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Lesser-known Marco Polo rules

by Mir on June 28, 2010 in Haven't been hit by lightning yet!, Offspring: ecstasy and agony

1) Whoever is “It” is not allowed to wear goggles.

2) Game may be delayed for prolonged argument between children as to whether wearing goggles on your FOREHEAD qualifies as “wearing goggles.”

3) Everyone has to play or someone is going to whine. LOUDLY.

4) When playing with the “no getting out of the pool” rule, you may still get out of the pool as long as you immediately execute a spectacular cannonball to establish your whereabouts.

5) Rule number 4 is actually imaginary. Expect copious complaining from “It” after executed. (more…)

Comments { 20 }

Back

by Mir on June 26, 2010 in Offspring: ecstasy and agony

The kids came back tonight, and they were taller and bigger and I couldn’t stop marveling at how just two weeks made them different.

Monkey looked like he was gaining weight on the cruise, actually, and two more weeks of voracious eating have settled on his frame in a way that renders him less the spindly waif I’ve known for so many years, and more a sturdy boychild who could tip into adolescence at any moment. We made him hop on the Wii Fit to weigh him; it claims he gained 8 pounds in the last month.

Chickadee is now mere inches away from being my height. She will be taller than me by the time she starts high school, but she still doesn’t believe it. She is shedding the skin of childhood ever-faster, and two weeks in one fell swoop catches in my throat and seems more than I can swallow. She is so lovely and so goofy; so lovely BECAUSE she is so goofy.

They asked to swim and although it was time for dinner we said of course. (more…)

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Love fills the spaces

by Mir on June 17, 2010 in It's not a regret, it's an "experience", Offspring: ecstasy and agony

Even while blogging during the cruise itself, I found it hard to capture in words what was the most amazing during our trip. I mean, it was amazing that my father did this for all of us; it’s the kind of vacation we never would’ve experienced, otherwise. And it was wonderful to spend time with far-flung family, and watch all the kids play together, and have our dinner waiter both prance around the dining room every night with Gerber (by the third night or so, Gerber would happily lift his arms up to him for his ride) and remember that the other kids would each be needing a glass of milk.

[Sidebar: Monkey got all teary on the last day because he wanted to take the waiter home with him. I suggested the kids make him cards and Monkey---ever our darling Literal Boy---wrote something about how "I know they don't pay you very much money so I'm going to suggest the ship gives you a raise." After a brief and not altogether successful conversation about how that was perhaps not the most politically correct thing to say, he changed it to "I know you work very hard so I'm going to suggest the ship give you a raise." Phew.]

I know my father was hoping this trip would help bring the family closer together, and it did in ways I know I hadn’t really even considered. (more…)

Comments { 28 }

Love’s just right

by Mir on June 10, 2010 in Offspring: ecstasy and agony

I know I said yesterday that this cruise would be a lot more fun without the kids—and that’s true in many ways—but the other truth is that it’s not that it would be more FUN so much as it would be less COMPLEX.

Having kids makes it more complicated. (Having a kid with some special needs makes it a lot more complicated, quite frankly, but whatever.) Kids are complicated, period. My own special snowflakes are both easier and harder than other kids, in various ways, and I’m not up for a rousing game of “whose kids are the very most baffling” right at the moment.

The other truth is that if the kids weren’t here, this trip would not contain some of my very favorite moments so far. It would be a different trip, and while I may wish we were experiencing some of the perks of traveling kidless, now and then, this trip has quite a lot to recommend it exactly as it is. (more…)

Comments { 26 }

Magical! (kind of)

by Mir on June 9, 2010 in It's not a regret, it's an "experience", Offspring: ecstasy and agony

So yesterday was our adventure to “stingray city,” and it was definitely unlike anything we’ve ever done before.

I’m going to back up a minute here, though, and say something that probably makes me a lousy mother, and maybe even a lousy person, but I’m going to say it anyway because it’s true: This cruise would be a lot more fun without the kids. Now, I’m perfectly happy to be here with the kids, and I’m actually pretty fond of the kids, but this is just the true fact of the matter, that we are a little bit captive to their needs even with extended family here.

Chickadee is on steroids and that can make her behavior a little bit… interesting. Monkey is… well, I think Monkey is bearing up incredibly well considering that he doesn’t do well with 1) noise, 2) crowds, and 3) waiting, given that cruises are apparently filled with all three of these things. They pipe music into the pool areas so loud that I myself kind of want to wear earplugs (or stab the DJ with a fork; either way), so I can only imagine how irritating he finds it. Basically we are spending a lot more time in our cabin that we otherwise would, and a not inconsequential amount of time talking Monkey down from various perceived injustices and intolerable circumstances that arise from his schedule being turned upside down and shaken well with 3,000 other people and a lot of sea water. (more…)

Comments { 24 }

Bad mood, dude

by Mir on June 2, 2010 in Health is overrated, My name is Grumplestiltskin, Offspring: ecstasy and agony

Today we went back to Emory for the second time, to talk about Chickadee’s mystery skin condition. (Pretend that I linked back to the previous relevant posts on this subject. That will also require pretending I am not typing this in the car on my teeny tiny piece of crap netbook, and also that I’m a lot more organized than I actually am. And also that I’m in a better mood, which I’m not, which is also sort of the point here.) You may recall—and we’re pretending I linked to the post about—they’d put her on a new medication and I thought it was working right up until she busted out in a fantastic rash (right on schedule!) and she had to go back on Prednisone.

So today we farmed Monkey out to some friends and Otto drove us into Atlanta because I HATE driving in Atlanta and we spent a couple of hours with our friendly neighborhood pediatric dermatological specialists, and they had some really interesting things to tell us now that they’ve had some time to think it all over.

And we’re looking for some ANSWERS here, preferably, so I was READY. For ANSWERS. So it was all very exciting. (more…)

Comments { 45 }

Mother of the Year

by Mir on May 31, 2010 in Offspring: ecstasy and agony

In the following picture, I am to be commended for my excellent parenting because:
A) A storm is about to roll in and douse us all.
B) I’ve thrown my children 40 feet out of the boat, attached to us only by a fraying rope.
C) I’m sitting there watching them hold on for dear life and telling Boatguy “FASTER, THEY WANT TO GO FASTER!”
D) I smiled and waved from my position of safety as both kids were eventually (through a series of zigzags through the boat’s wake) hurled from the tube like ragdolls.
E) All of the above. The children are now referring to him as “Uncle Boatguy.”

P.S. Boatguy is forgiven, natch. Also? It’s okay, because I took my lumps as well. Turns out I’m not any better at hanging on through the turns than the kids. (Ow.)

Comments { 18 }

The family that suffers together

by Mir on May 22, 2010 in Health is overrated, Offspring: ecstasy and agony, Ottomatic For the People

So we’re just a few days into summer vacation, here, and so far it’s been a whole barrel of fun. If by “a whole barrel of fun” you mean “multiple trips to the pharmacy.”

Remember last year when Otto got poison ivy and then it got really, really bad and then he got MRSA? That was fun. Except not really. And so when he mysteriously got poison ivy again last week he was all, “Huh. I think I have poison ivy again. I wonder where that came from? Well, I guess I’ll use some of this cream I have left over from last time.”

Meanwhile I was throwing myself prostrate on the bathroom floor in front of him, going “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD I CANNOT LIVE THROUGH YOU HAVING MRSA AGAIN, GO TO THE DOCTOR!”

Otto thought I was overreacting. But it turns out that I am something of a champion nag, and after a few days of me rending my garments he did, indeed, get himself over to his doctor, who took one look at him and—probably with last year’s episode in mind—put him on a massive course of steroids to fix him up. (more…)

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No matter what

by Mir on May 17, 2010 in Offspring: ecstasy and agony

Dear Child of Mine,

I love you no matter what. No matter what you do, no matter what you say. No matter how obnoxious you are. No matter how many times you take out the injustices of the world on me because I am a handy scapegoat.

I love you even though you treat me like something slimy you found on your shoe. I love you enough to spend the better part of a day on the phone with the school, because when my baby calls me in tears to report that all of her stuff was stolen (AGAIN) and the teacher said “Oh well,” that’s not gonna fly. I love you enough to continue sending emails and making phone calls, even as I can practically HEAR the administration rolling their eyes, because as it turns out, no one pushes my kid around and gets away with it. I love you enough to send your stepfather down there to sort it all out, because the person whose head I dearly would love to see on a platter kept treating me with the “get back in the kitchen and bake a pie” vibe, and I knew Otto would get better results.

I love you even though you never say thank you for those things, either to me or to him. I love you even though it’s a constant stream of “I want” and “I need” and “You have to” out of your ungrateful mouth. (more…)

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Happy Mother’s Day!

by Mir on May 9, 2010 in Offspring: ecstasy and agony

Happy Mother’s Day to all my pals out there who:
1) are moms
2) love moms
or
3) have a mom. (I’m pretty sure that gets everyone.)

I started off my day with breakfast in bed, because somehow I ended up admitting that I’d never had breakfast in bed before and Otto made it his mission to make sure that’s what I got. So I did. It involved a lot of bacon. And this:

(more…)