Flipping the switch

I talked to my Danny today. The second she answered the phone, I could hear it in her voice; I knew.

“You sound like …. you!” I exclaimed

Not one to beat around the bush, she replied “Yes, yes I do!!!!”

“When did it happen?” I asked.

“Sometime last week…it’s like someone flipped a switch.”

It is so good to hear her coming out of her postpartum haze. Talking with Danny and listening to her newborn ew-glahing in the background, I felt my heart swell with joy and love. It’s so strong, and even those of us dedicated to embracing that hibernation for it’s best natural intentions (babymoon!!!!) still get overwhelmed by the sheer power of it. It makes us think funny things, feel odd emotions that are so out of sync with our perceived realities. It makes us say things that make no sense and make choices we won’t understand later. I remember it in my life and I see it in the friends around me. I can’t be there to bring her cookies or make crude jokes that make her laugh in spite of herself, so it was wonderful to hear her come full circle.

I have felt that switch flip, and I am glad it happened for Danny. I see it in others and I have to admit my heart aches, waiting for that switch to flip in another I hold so dear.

It’s feelin’ hot, hot, hot!

Last year I was appalled when my indoor thermometer climbed to 89 degrees inside. Yesterday, before we left at 12.30 for the lake, it had already climbed to 85 inside. The place we were going was NW of us, but it was still 94 degrees outside when we got there. Yesterday morning I had a ladder propped on the dining room table to try to reach the skylights with a staple gun. Mackattack said one would have to be desperate to attempt that and she’s right. Definitely an inner-redneck solution to the heat problem, but since I have a fear of heights, it didn’t work out for me anyway. Imagine my surprise to return home and discover someone had stapled blue flannel up there. We’ll see today what different that makes. When we went to bed last night the house had cooled inside to a reasonable 82 degrees. Ack.

Thank God that shade still truly means something in the NW, because I still wasn’t hot enough to be enticed into swimming. I wore my suit just in case, and my children were all three at it with full abandon, but not so much me. Each of our kids bit it at one point or another, submerging themselves in the water, but they reacted wildly differently. G cried and heaved, her little heart beating like a rabbit’s until she rallied and went back to it, while N coughed and yelled, but then cheered and ran to tell me of his adventure before diving back in. I was with D-baby when he tripped on a rock and fell toward me in chest-deep-for-him water. Through the clear lake water I could see him looking up at me, hair waving, eyes big and beautiful. After a pause I realized he wasn’t coming up on his own, so I reached down and stood him up. He sputtered a bit then grinned real big and said ” I see you inna lake, Mommy!” No drama, no trauma. We need to teach that boy to swim.

This is my third meetup with a forming homeschool group on this side of the bridge. I find myself really seeing a need in G&N’s lives to be around other homeschoolers and children of their own age. Yesterday, Dougie was the baby of the group, and treated accordingly (which is to say, largely ignored but definitely tolerated and not run over.) CM was a group I joined for me. I needed the contact and the friends I made there. I love my Moms from there, really love them, but as far as the children, while they enjoyed the friendships they made there, I kept going for my own personal edification for just a while longer than I should have. Other homeschoolers left the kiddie-parts of the group before me for similar reasons– the older kids were being put in school or preschool, so it was my kids and toddlers. I can keep my friendships, and intend to, but part of the privilege of a homeschool life is that my kids enjoy being with kids of a wide variety of ages, older as well as younger.

I have long resisted the idea of needing a homeschool group, but this one might just click with me. They seem genuinely nice, and more to the point nice-like-me. They laugh loud but mostly at themselves. Further, I know them from various places as well; we have former CMs, Moms from a now-defunct homeschool co-op here in GH. It’s like a second chance in that respect, because I now get to know the women I had to pass by because I left a group or chose not to join another. New year, new thing?

Random:

Other homeschoolers: have you noticed how it feels like the new “school year” begins in the Summer?

Letting Go

I don’t expect any of my readers to get this. Not one. This is gonna be a move-on post for the lot of you, and it’s only on the blog so I can refer to the dateline.

Release is never easy for me. I am processing something now that has been a huge challenge for me. I am almost there, but facing pain, especially in the absence of external resolutions, is hard for anyone. For me, with my Achilles’ heel flaw of being hypersensitive to being abandoned or ignored, it’s an exquisite, nagging pain. Coupled with the hugely pressing anxiety attacks from the last month, I finally gave it up.

I am stubborn. I am a Christian, just a very, very liberal one. We’re ELCA Lutherans, which is about as true-to-what-I-naturally-believe as we could find, and the doctrine leaves a lot up to the individual. It does not however, ignore God and its presence and power in our lives.

We got the van back last night. The phones seem to be working again. My house arrest appears to be over. It’s all very timely, and now I have to figure out the lesson. I do listen to God, it just takes more than nudging, sometimes. The lesson may be that I don’t get to know the why. My place has been set, and that’s all there is to it.

I am grateful, as always, for what I do have.

Questions linger:

• why has the concerta changed? am I healed?
• will this marital cameraderie continue? are we finally through the baby years?
• why can’t I help with any of the new ones when, for the first time ever, I am qualified and capable?
• what about me makes me best suited to helping people when they are in need? why I am otherwise disposable?
• two months’ grounding. Two MONTHS?
• can we do it this time? make the life the way we said it should be? can that even happen here?
• am I healing?

I am trying to remain positive

But I am really hating my van right now. So I shall go on about the positive, and ignore my pounding sinus headache, in itself the just desserts for well, desserts.

On an upswing, we had a lovely weekend. We did. We got the van back Friday night* and on Saturday, drove to a friend’s birthday party at Odyssey. The kids love what Chiknman refers to as “the human habitrail,” and they did the party very efficiently. My kids havenever been to an arcade before, so when they took the children to that half of the play complex, their little heads started spinning. By the time we were ready (omg please let me out!) to leave, the children were, too. They each got puzzle boxes as party favors and the big kids actually put them together that night. (Their mom is not a fan of jigsaw puzzles, so I was pleasantly surprised by how well that went over here. )

Saturday afternoon, P-daddy got a gardening jig on and dug a new bed for our strawberries. He went NUTS, and built a rock wall around it and everything. I was really impressed with that, [pictures to come], and he was soooore the next day.

On Sunday, P-daddy went golfing and then we went to Penrose to scope out the perfect camping spot. You can reserve online, and WA State parks tries to make it as convenient as possible by including pictures , but …if you can drive to see for yourself, it’s so much easier. The tide was lower than any tide I have ever seen anywhere in my life. We walked into the inlet, out past the archipelago, for those of you who have been there. (Not the one on the left, the one on the right— the two mile nature trail. ) People were clamming everywhere, bringing in geoducks and horse clams. We asked one man how he eats his geoduck and he said “raw.” Um. yuck.

I finished two new beading projects! One for The GreenMama’s birthday and one for a mother’s day gift. GreenMama says the birds remind her of a happy childhood memory.

Valerie is so entirely suited to these happy marine colors. The jewelry is much brighter in person than is coming across in these pics.

Today we’re off to the zoo for a birthday party in P-Daddy’s car. Out! During the day! With people! And I get to give two of the bead recipients their stash! Yay!

*It is making clickety valve noises and on Sunday, when we drove back home fromPenrose, the gauges stopped working. The van would still run, start and go, but I couldn’t see how fast we were going or whether we had any gas. Not acceptable after a 5 week sacrifice and 1650.00 expenditure.