I am totally addicted to Tetris. I play it any time I'm stuck nursing and can't work (wrong free arm) or if I'm bored or waiting for something to download... it's terrible. Hey, but the other night I got a new high score - 242,770!
Mike is the coolest husband ever. He's now made it possible for me to add comments to this journal!! You can comment on any entry with a comments link to it. I encourage intelligent discourse, but reserve the right to delete any comments by people who're being jerks, or self-promoting (do not use my site for spamming my readers), or doing anything else I deem reprehensible. I don't care if you give your real name/email/website or not, but you do need to give at least a name for your comments to post. Now, all that out of the way, I heartily encourage comments - they're fun!! I'll gradually be adding commenting capabilities to the entries here, but it will take awhile. Please be patient. And thanks, baby! *kiss*
Update: Thanks to comment spammers, commenting has been removed from this site.
I neglected to mention one of our stops yesterday. We dropped into Barnacle Bill's, an aquarium/pet supply store. I was on the hunt for a sucker fish, but after talking to their Fish Guy I determined that such would not help us. Our problem is not excessive algae, but excessive fish poop. Instead, he recommended an aquarium vacuum. I picked one up for $9, then tried to convince Adam it was time to go. This was quite a chore, as he was very taken by all the fish, "eels", frogs, and especially turtles that he saw. He kept pointing at them and exclaiming what they were, and what they were doing ("The TURtles are EATing!"). I finally had to tell him that it was naptime for all the animals, and that they needed to go to sleep or they would get fussy. This worked.
The vacuum thing is a solution I'm not entirely convinced of, but we'll see how it goes. The concept is that you suck out 1/3 of the water in the tank (especially concentrating on the gravel), and replace it with fresh water. I'm starting this experiment with a tank full of really FILTHY water, so as yet I've not seen any marked change. I'm still willing to give it a chance, though - cleaning out the entire aquarium and replacing filters has gotten to be an expensive, tedious task. You suction the water out into a bucket which (I learned the hard way) you do not then leave sitting on the floor for a toddler to dump toys into. :-\
Had another bad back day yesterday. Bah! Did some work, but spent most of the day resting. Felt much better, so I took the kids to run some errands. Deposits at bank, lunch at McD's, needles/thread at quilt shop, ice cream from Dairy Queen, then home. So far I'm still ok; let's see if it holds!
There were two twin girls at McDonald's. They were a couple of rude little imps. They kept lying in the arcs/entryways to various areas of the structure, taunting him with, "Boy, you can't come in!" Their mother wasn't saying a word, so I stalked over, towered over the little girls, and said politely, "Would you let him in, please?" They did, of course, but their mother continued to be totally useless where discipline was concerned. Adam is a thoughtful, slow-moving thing around most other children, and these two were just little blitzing hellions. They kept whining at him to "Peez move out of the way!" which he was trying to do, but apparently not fast enough for their tastes. At one point, he apparently tried to make peace: he took a ball out of the ballpit, and tried to hand it to them as they scampered by. They were oblivious of him, but he finally tracked them down where they were bottlenecked at the mouth of a tunnel, and handed it to one of the girls. I couldn't see what happened exactly, but the ball came rolling back out, and Adam scurried to me for a reassuring hug. Once the girls were gone to potty, I tried to explain to him that the girls were being unkind to him, but that I was proud of him for trying to be nice. I also explained that their practice of throwing balls at people would not be tolerated in him. Who knows if it sunk in, but I tried. I just hope these two little brats don't turn up in his PS I Love You class.
Oh, and in the TMI department, nursing has made by nipples so pliable they retain the pattern in my bra's webbing.
Thursday, I found out a space had opened up for Adam to join the Pullman PS I Love You group, so beginning December 2nd, Adam will start attending the 2-year-old room. I'm really excited for him, and think this will be a good opportunity for him to play with other children more regularly. Our doctor's daughter goes there, too, so I'll finally get a chance to me the Mrs. Dr. :)
Yesterday I spent a lot of time cleaning up the living room and changing sheets on the bed. This including picking up toys and what-not, arranging furniture, and vacuuming. I even vacuumed the couch, and covered it with a denim slipcover loaned to us by our friend Liz. Our vacuum really doesn't function very well, but I do the best I can. Oh, and I've learned that fish really do not care for the noise of a vacuum cleaner. Frankly, who does?
Today I made sugar cookies! Adam helped decorate some of them, until he lost interest in sprinkling and became more of a squasher instead. So we now have lots of yummy sugar cookies, of all shapes/sizes/colors. They may last a day. :) I've also noticed that we have managed to misplace (read - give to toddler as toys) all of our cookie cutters except one tree. Bah!
Today was our annual family portrait day. I'm trying to make it a tradition that we do portraits every year at Christmas, and portraits of the children around their birthdays. We missed Adam's birthday this year (Kayla was days old) so it was important to me to not miss these portraits. I bought sweaters for all of us to wear, so of course it was unseasonably warm. I also forgot to prewash/shrink the sweaters for the kids, so they were too big for them, but we still had fun. Here are the results:
Adam was less "into" having his picture taken this time, but we still finally managed to coax a few smiles out of him. part of getting ready to leave this morning was haircuts for the boys in the family. Mike's is probably shorter than he'd like, and Adam's never real crazy about haircuts, but they both dealt just fine. Adam got a sucker afterward. :)
Whether we were going to get to go at all was questionable, since I woke up yesterday morning with severe back pain - to the point it was difficult to walk, and picking up children was impossible. I took a hydrocodone and stayed in bed all day, some of the time was spent on a heating pad. It seemed to have worked - I was ok today. Not great, but well enough to make the 2-hour drive to and from Lewiston, and do the grocery shopping in Colfax. A package from Mike's parents arrived, including some new movies (not Disney!). I'm looking forward to watching a couple of them, in particular.
Tuesday was my day for a haircut. I do this about every nine months or so - go from very long, impractical hair to shoulder-length (or just above). I like long hair in theory, but it doesn't work in practice when you have small children, especially one who's learning to be very grabby these days. After the haircut, I ran a few more errands. I was looking for Christmas clothes for the photo shoot, but the clothing store in Colfax was a bust - their children's selection is pretty dismal. So I drove to Pullman and shopped at the Shopko. I ended up doing a much more ambitious shopping than I'd planned - part of it while holding Kayla, the probable cause for the next day's back pain - including buying some Christmas presents for the children. Mostly for Kayla, since Adam's going to have a largely Amazon Christmas this year. The Shopko was also having clearance specials on many of their children's clothes, so I bought several outfits (girls' clothes are CUTE!!).
This has been a fairly good week for the dissociative stuff, thankfully. I did have some really unpleasant dreams about my step-father. That's nothing unusual - I have nightmares every night, and they almost always involve him, either in person or in spirit. As my therapist points out, I usually fight back or run away from him in my dreams, things I didn't do in life. Just as pointedly, though, no one ever helps me fight him, or helps me get away from him.
The children woke each other (and me!) up WAY too early this morning - about 7. It's almost 9 now, and I'm already thinking about a nap. Luckily, I don't have any concrete plans today - just going to try to do some sewing, if possible. Yesterday was a pretty lazy day, just working from home doing drudgery - culling old records from a database. It's a boring chore, but one that has to be done. Saturday, Kayla and I went into Pullman for another sewing session with my friend Dawn. She reached the point of sewing stripsets together, and will be doing lots of cutting before our next meeting, which we both agreed should be some time after the New Year.
Friday was another stay-at-home day. Worked and cleaned the bathroom, did some laundry. Nothing thrilling. Thursday I don't even remember. Wednesday Adam, Kayla and I went into Pullman and Moscow for some shopping. First stop, post office (to mail the quilt to Lyn and Steve). Next stop, bank, to make a deposit. Then McDonald's. I had intended to let Adam play in their playland, but they were doing some work on it (replacing the foam, installing new stuff, maybe). It wasn't a total bust, since he got some Duplos with his Happy Meal. After that we went over to the Moscow quilt shop to buy fabric for a quilt I'm making for Adam for Christmas. I brought toys along, and between those and a rocking boat the quilt shop had on hand, he was kept pretty well occupied most of the time I was there. I shopped with Kayla on my hip. The last stop was grocery shopping at the Dissmore's in Pullman. That just plain wore us all out, so we dragged our tired butts home.
Addendum: I got an email from our doctor's wife, who is in the playgroup PS I Love You in Pullman. Looks like the woman on the waiting list ahead of me just got in a couple weeks ago, so we're next! Keep your fingers crossed.
Went out to a guild meeting yesterday, and had a great time. Meeting was preceded by lunch with my friend Barbara at Denny's. We had a fun time talking, as usual, and everyone at guild was amazed by how much quilting she gets done (several people asked her if her husband cooks (he doesn't) and one woman asked me if she was a widow (she's not)). After the meeting, we took some pictures of quilts, until my camera died, then she went home and I went to a movie. I saw 8 Mile, and it was excellent.
Having a rough day today. Lots of dissociative feelings, and depressed and lethargic, restless, aimless. Bah.
I managed to make it to Spokane yesterday, with both kids in tow. I stopped in Cheney (not exactly "on the way", but kinda) to deliver soup to Liz. Her puppies (two very big Rottweilers) were very interested in the smell. :) After that, we stopped for lunch (pizza) then made our way to Spokane. Hit the drive-thru at Jack-in-the-Box for a chocolate cake for Adam. Oh, that reminds me - need to update the toddlerisms page. There. OK, then we went on the hunt for what I really made the trip to Spokane for - an alphabet card for my embroidery unit. Mine had gotten damaged, and I needed another one. Had to go to two different Bernina stores to find it, eventually buying it at a store I had sworn I'd never shop at. Desperation, what can I say? Even marked down 30% the card was $117. I just can't get over how these sewing machine companies gouge you on things like software and embroidery designs. It's pathetic. I would buy the embroidery software, which would let me digitize my own designs and possibly (I haven't researched it much) let me use cheaper designs from other manufacturers, but that software costs in excess of $1000. Screw. That.
On the way home, there was a hip-hop song on the radio called "What Would You Do?" The lyrics go, in part, like this:
Me and my sister ran away so my daddy couldn't rape us.
Before I was a teenager
I done been through more shit that you can't even relate to.
Now, when I was growing up, right before the abuse started happening (or before I remember it happening), my cousin lived with us. I remember walking into her room one afternoon and finding my stepfather raping her. I closed the door and didn't tell anyone about it. I guess I thought she had consented, or maybe he talked to me about it. I don't remember anything before or after that immediate moment. Anyway, she ran away that night. I didn't see her for years, until two years ago when she was at my grandfather's funeral. We talked about what had happened. She didn't know I had seen her that day, and told me she didn't want to know that. We cried together. So when that song came on the radio, I immediately thought of her at 16, and me at 10, and of what happened. I started to cry, but before any tears came I "went away". I started thinking about the streets, the dividing lines on the highway, the scenery. I stopped hearing the song (though the radio was still on). The only indication that anything had happened at all was that about five minutes later, I noticed my knuckles were white from gripping the steering wheel so hard, and when I stroked the top of Kayla's head, I couldn't feel anything. I had lost sensation in my body for a few minutes. Odd.
Had a somewhat domestic morning, finally measuring, cutting, and nailing into place the floor seaming we bought last week. Makes the edges of the floor look a lot nicer. Still need to get one more small piece of carpet-to-linoleum seaming, but then that job's done. Also need to get molding or quarter-round or something to finish around the edges, but I may let that wait, since I want to eventually rip out the wall paneling, and that would mean redoing the molding again. In a little while I have to drive into Spokane. My alphabet embroidery card got damaged (long story) and I need a new one. I'm also planning to stop at Liz's house and drop off some homemade soup I put in the crockpot this morning, as Liz is feeling ill.
It's been a very busy week. Monday I drove into Pullman with Kayla, as the Needlers were having a sewing session for the 2004 Raffle Quilt. I wasn't much help, as I had to keep tending to K, but I was there for moral support. Also, I brought 3 block packets home, and I'll make those three in my own time. I like the idea of working on a quilt with a group of other people, but in practice it's terribly inefficient.
Tuesday was Election Day, and
(courtesy of NowThis)
I also stopped at the post office to send some mail and at the Endicott Food Center to get a few snacks for the kids and I. Then we drove to Spokane. First, we visited with my friend Cresta and her two boys Alex and Jonathan. Then we went to my friend Liz's house. Adam watched some TV and Kayla alternated between crying, pooping, sleeping, and nursing. Somehow in there, I managed to teach Liz how to make a hat and scarf from fleece. It was fun, but would've been more so with less baby stress. Adam was exhausted by the time we left, and said he needed to sleep in his carseat. He did, too, and I managed to get both kids home and in bed without waking either up. Yay!
Last night was another BETA meeting. I again demonstrated the fleece hat/scarf thing, and we had our regular meeting. Pretty uneventful. Then today was our regular chore day. We started it off with a stop at the doctor's office. My ears have been bothering me off and on (with varying degrees of intensity) since Kayla was born. He took a look and didn't see anything, but prescribed a nasal spray to help with the congestion/earache/whatever this is. He says we'll monitor it, and if that doesn't fix it we'll do something else. Apparently, I'll be doing this nasal spray thing for a few months, but he wants me to check back in in a couple of weeks to see how it's going. That'll be about the time of Kayla's next appointment, so it works out well.
I've never talked about it here, but I'm a sexual abuse survivor. My stepfather molested me for at least 6 years, beginning about the time I was ten. I have been struggling with this for several years now, and went to therapy for about a year. It was helpful, but expensive, so I haven't been back. Lately, I've been having some more problems with it. Recently un-repressed memories suggest to me that I was raped instead of just molested (I now recall being forced to change bloody sheets on my mother's and stepfather's bed, and feeling shame at the blood). I'm having more episodes of what I've come to call item-association, where a certain thing evokes feeling of dread, embarrassment, shame, and fear - the feeling I associate with the abuse. Today it was a particular brand of blueberry muffins which was on sale. There was a huge display of it, and seeing the boxes was like a shot to my gut, and I started crying in the store. I'm feeling dissociated much of the time, too, where I'm not "in the moment". I've learned in therapy that this is a typical coping strategy that abuse survivors master - dissociating your mind from your body. What I call "going away". I go away a lot, sometimes at very inappropriate moments. I occasionally try to force myself to stay in the moment, but it's exhausting; I feel as if I'm literally wrestling with my brain, trying to point it in a particular direction when it wants to "ladida" off to a safer area. I can't do this often, as it is really very, very tiring, but I try.
I mention this here because I'm tired of pretending to people it didn't happen. I don't lie about it, exactly, but it's a huge part of who I am and how I approach life, and I feel it should be chronicled. I also suspect that it might prove useful for someone else who may be going through the same type of thing to read here. I will probably mention it more often in this journal, as it is such an integral part of many of the situations I encounter on a daily basis (sidenote: I've also begun to notice myself dissociating right now - language stilted, "distant"). OK, that's enough.
Kayla rolled over for the first time Wednesday, from front to back. I put her on her tummy then turned around to do some work. Next thing I know, she was screaming and on her back. She couldn't have hurt herself; I think she was just startled by rolling over. She hasn't repeated it since. I don't know why, but she seems to be having an inordinate amount of fussiness lately, too. Could be she's teething, or gassy, or growing, or something. I know some of it is gas, but that doesn't seem to account for all of it. I do recall when I was younger and having growing pains in my legs that it hurt, so maybe that's it for her, too.
We launched the Mall Crawl Halloween night. People are off and running - well, crawling - at a pretty good clip, and there've been no major hurdles. There was one pretty serious bug, but it only affected 100 or so users, and the fix was easy. Won't discuss details.
I made my first sale at Pattern Barrel Halloween, too! I sold two patterns to a customer, and have already sent them out. I also had a wholesale inquiry yesterday; we'll see if that pans out. I also had another order, but it had a bogus email address and an invalid card number, so I bet somebody's just messing with me. So it goes.