Got my back yo

It’s nice to have people who get it, even when they don’t have to live it.

One person’s food
is another’s poison
—Lucretius

Totem Owl

Last night during our pre-slumber cuddles, the entire bird population of our back woods went nutso. Primarily composed of black-capped chicadees and Robins, a chorus of bird screeching went up like I’d not heard since Bermuda when I visited the Rainbow Lory exhibit in the zoo. It went on long enough that I took N, sleepy in my arms, out to investigate.

Halfway up our tallest hemlock, a moon-faced owl sat perched, staring down into our yard. I called loudly for P-Daddy to come out too. I didn’t want him to miss it! He came out with D in arms, and we sat watching the cacophany. Every bird in the vicinity had flocked to this tree. Each branch was laden with angry, small birds intent on driving this predator away. When finally he left, shortly after G joined us, he flew directly diagonal across our backyard, giving us a beautiful view of his wingspan and coloring. It was a magnificent, large specimen of Northern Saw-whet Owl.

OH how I wish for my camera to be repaired. I tried to get pictures, but he was just too far up the tree.

What really trips me out is that Shnaygirl and I heard the flipping thing earlier that day, and couldn’t figure out what it was, this after a conversation about totems.

Lunch today: bubble and squeak, using cabbage, onions and purple new potatoes from the farm.

Monsters and Turtles

I am raising a flock of cookie monsters.

I love cookies. But only homemade cookies. Slightly sweet, lots chocolate-chippedy and somewhat tender, homemade cookies. G describes them as “crunchy outside and fluffy inside.” Dat’s what I’m talkin’ about.

Schnaygirl took the big ones to swim class (she and Schnaybaby are in class at the same time) while I stayed behind with little D to make the cookies. They all get out of the pool ravenous, so I thought it would be nice to end the weeks’ class by giving them big fat treats. Schnaygirl was in on it of course, but kept mum so the kids were all lit with glee. Much fun. I especially enjoyed having that baby to myself. It so rarely happens, and we really got to have fun with one another. It helped fill my love cup significantly!

It’s back to being perfect NW summer. We almost fell asleep in the balmy, sunny, 70-degree backyardedness.

Neighborgirl lost her turtle in our back woods when she put down his carry-basket to go pick blackberries with G. I feel real sorry for her, but I don’t hold out much hope of finding Oscar. With a compost pile right on the edge, he’s probably going to burrow in and we’ll not see him again until he’s as big as Presleydog.

After P-Daddy came home tonight, he met turtle challenge head on. After scouring the immediate surrounds with no success,

“Show me exactly where the turtle escaped!
“What time did he get loose?”

P-daddy spent a half hour building a “turtle trap.”

I haven’t seen the fruits of his labor, so I am not certain what that entails, but if it works I know two little girls who will be thrilled, and two parents who will feel relief that they’ve not just released 250.00 to the wild.

Learning to Swim

N is having a blast. G is enjoying herself despite herself. This is a smile!

G is a starfish.

Look at the smile on our Brasilian Goddess!
“But I wanna swim too!!!!!”

Baby Steps

Mom who took baby allowed to see him more

KAREN HUCKS; The News Tribune
Published: July 25th, 2006 01:00 AM

The Pierce County mother who took her 10-month-old son from a Seattle hospital to keep him from having court-ordered surgery will get to see the boy more often.

Superior Court Judge John McCarthy approved an agreement Monday that allows Riley Rogers’ mother, Tina Carlsen of Sumner, to see him as often as she wishes, as long as his dad is there.

Riley was born with deformed kidneys, and Child Protective Services took custody of him in June after Carlsen opposed his doctors’ treatment plan. He underwent surgery – an operation his mother feared would kill him – June 30 to prepare him for kidney dialysis to filter toxic by-products from his blood.

Two and a half weeks ago, McCarthy approved an agreement that let Riley go home to Bonney Lake with his father, Todd Rogers, until a trial over whether the state Department of Social and Health Services will take permanent custody of the child.

Under the agreement, Rogers has to take Riley to his medical appointments, comply with treatment and keep in contact with the court. Carlsen was allowed to visit the boy – whom she was still breast-feeding – at least twice a week, but only with supervision from the state.

Also Monday, McCarthy postponed the trial – scheduled for August – until October.

Swimming along

After a year’s break, we have the kids back in a structured outside class again. It’s more of a camp actually, since it lasts only two weeks and meets every day, but it’s swim class nonetheless. They enrolled last Friday and met the teachers, and God Bless her, their actual teacher came out and talked to G at length. She was so sweet. The instructors decided G and N are in the same level class (along with their friend EV) and they started this morning. After watching them, I would have to agree.

Poor G. Her first and former swim instructor through the Charleston county parks department really sucked. She was also the only one in the class (why they kept it open I don’t know!) and as a result got all the attention and no breaks. Making it worse, she got to see her little brother in the tots class one pool over, yukking it up with his full class and P-daddy in the pool with him. If she were a different kid, or wasn’t so afraid, that may have been a good thing. As it is, she’s still pretty scarred by it.

Fast forward to this morning, where G’s vocal anxiety provoked N into saying he wasn’t going in the pool, he was scared and he wasn’t going to have any fun, etc etc. I maintained an upbeat, positive dialogue with them but it didn’t seem to help G overcome her fears. N literally jumped right into things and had “super fun,” but G was a screamer again at the very beginning. I actually left the pool area and watched through the windows. Without me there, while the tears were plentiful, G didn’t scream. She participated pretty well actually, and only opted out of one activity. For all the buildup I am pretty pleased with how she did.

N, on the entirely other hand, was like a little fish. I am excited for him, and I hope maybe a little of that enthusiasm will wear off on G-girl. He was all smiles and can’t stop talking about it.
The teacher is awesome, and they have a lot of protocols in place for the terrified swim student. They don’t force the kids to do anything and they are all smiles. No judgments, no pressure. Perfect for G in this environment, and extreme fun for the kids like N and EV who aren’t scared.

After swim, we went to Kelly’s Diner and had ice cream and pancakes, then went on to the Beach Basket to get tomato cages for our droopy darlings. The lady behind the counter gave each of the kids a stuffed, decorative flower. So nice. It truly was a pleasant morning overall. Lots of positives to balance the scary swim class for G.

…….

I hate feeling like I am forcing any sort of lesson on her. She has to learn this, though. We live on the beach, we’re surrounded by water wherever we go and she loves it so much. I don’t feel that swimming is an optional lesson. It’s a life skill, like wearing helmets when you ride, holding hands when you cross the street, taking water when you hike or driving properly. I am emotionally invested in this beyond where I want to be, because I want her to be stronger than I was. I want her fear gone. I want it eradicated by her own empowered skill set. If she weren’t so terrified, I wouldn’t feel so strong about it.

I don’t want her to go through childhood with the secret shame of not being able to swim. Already, all of her friends swim, and do it well. I didn’t learn how to swim properly and overcome my terror of water until I was in college, when I was a camp counselor and knew I had to be responsible for other children. As a result I took a lifeguard training course. I didn’t get my certification. but the instructor pegged me for what I was really there for and I finally did learn how to swim every which way, and do it well.

You see, my family of origin literally thought “sink or swim” was a valid way to go about things. G is very much like me, and the terror I had for water just incited my parents to anger. They thought it was all drama and would toss me into the Atlantic ocean whenever they could to “get me used to it.” When the tossing didn’t work, they thought gently carrying me out into the calm, deep water past the breakers and releasing me would work. They did try in their own misguided ways ways to teach me to swim, but they mercifully gave it up. On a vacation with my grandparents (without my parents) when I was 9, my uncle impulsively decided to give it another shot. He picked me up and thew me into the deep end of a hotel pool. I still remember the terror, the sensation of spinning end over end in the water, the sting as the water entered my sinuses and I inhaled in shock. I remember hearing muffled screaming as my grandparents demanded he go in after me. They knew I wasn’t coming back up, but he waited, as he was just so sure I would. He got me right as I was blacking out.

Needless to say, G is in no danger of anyone doing that to her. However, my life experiences clearly inform how I am reacting to her own challenges.

More of the same

P-Daddy has been home to help entertain the kiddies but we have the west windows (the entire back of our house is west facing) covered in blankets for that trailer-chic look. It doesn’t cool it down any but it does block the sun. Yesterday we went into Seattle for his corporate picnic at Woodland park and then we had dinner at ChezSchnay. They have a split level so at least there was some pseudo-basement chill happening.

I am running around in the early AM getting the chores done while it’s not so hot inside, so that we can just “be” in the afternoons. Unfortunately the heat isn’t fading at sundown like we’ve grown accustomed to, so our I-don’t-want-to-move stupor continues well into the evening. I grew up in this (we didn’t get a/c until I was at least nine years old in semi-tropical SC) and I am remembering how to handle it, but the rest of my poor family is just wilting. G can’t sleep in her room because she has a loft bed and is about nine inches from the ceiling. That’s GREAT during the winter here, but imossible to withstand now.

I know if we had a/c we would most certainly abuse it and use it far more often than necessary. However, this house in particular is not built for withstandng a heat wave. It’s built, successfully and awesomely, to capture as much sun as possible in a moderate climate. It’s difficult to get a true draft going and that is frustrating me to no end. Today it was 89.6 inside the house until 9 PM.

I know this entry is rambling but hey. I’m uncomfortable.

GAWD.

I don’t mind the heat when there is a/c to provide respite. But even in the shade today, it is HAWT, and yup we don’t have a/c.

The upper readout it the temperature outside, in a shade grove. The lower temp is is registering our INSIDE temperature.

Crescent Creek

Is this a little blonde boy?

OH MY GAWD

My Aunt Barbara just sent me
FIVE POUNDS
of Starbucks coffee for my birthday.

Yay me! Yay her! Yay Yay Yay!

Thanks Barbara!!!!!!!!!!!

Now here’s how my mind works:

She just saved us coffee purchasing for about 6 weeks. Just ONE week of coffee for us is about 10-12 dollars. My espresso maker that died (ok, that was brutally murdered) has a replacement value of about 25.00. One of the bags of coffee is true espresso roast.

Oh the temptation. You lurky-loo people need to vote. Tell me to do it!!!!! Or to continue to allow natural attrition to take it’s course in our home. I don’t NEED an espresso maker after all, right?