We rang in the New Year with a stomach bug

Initially we thought it was D-boy (sniff sniff no longer D-baby) having drunk too much salinated pool water at the Y, but 48 hours later, ~N~ wiped out. After staying up until 3.30 am to help him, I had to go to sleep. An hour after P-daddy switched off with me, I started going. At least the flu itself is FAST– literally 24 hours– but I am weak and sore today. Now, we wait for ~G~ and P-daddy to fall. Hopefully they won’t, but I sure wasn’t expecting what I got, either. My brilliant daughter has followed my instructions and is hydrating herself to the nth just in case.

I will choose to celebrate this as a New year’s purge. We’re quite literally shedding the old, and opening ourselves to the new. And I got to lose all my holiday overindulgence along the way.

Impromptu Birthday Party

Where the C-family comes down with balloons and whoopee cushions while I scramble to make a cake and hors d’oeuvre and P-daddy steals the boy away for us to shout “Surprise.”

And Dougie is surprised….

And shorn….

And so happy!

Literacy is Good….and Funny

~G~ has really been feeling her oats lately with writing. She writes us notes all the time, knowing how much we love to read them. We get many of them at bedtime, asking us to sleep with her, or to let her stay up, etc etc. That’s what I thought this one was going to be.

P-daddy had installed the new shelves in the school room and ~G~ was helping em put the supplies back up. We’d gone along at a steady clip when I realized it was way past her bedtime, and I sent her on, telling her I knew how tired SHE was because I was about to drop myself. We had a solstice gathering the next day and I knew we’d all be exhausted; she needed to sleep.

About ten minutes after I sent her to bed, in comes this note, careening to the floor:

I want to be with you. You’ll never make it without me.

I burst out laughing, and told her “You know, you’re right. But we’re both still going to bed.”

What happened to Romulus?

Romulus is our 15 year old mini poodle. Last night ~G~ couldn’t go to sleep at all. I brought her back out to the living room and we watched Chronicles of Narnia and made a nest. After the movie, we left the Christmas lights on and she slept on the floor in a sleeping bag and I slept on the couch.

About 12.30, Romulus started screaming. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard a dog scream but it is not pretty. I went in there to him and though maybe his hair was caught in his grate. He likes to sleep in a little travel carry case, so I took it apart. His hair hadn’t been caught, and he was listless, unmoving at this point. He could look at me with his eyes and he was still breathing, but he could not control his body. His nose stayed cold and wet, but he had lost his bowels. I wouldn’t have heard him unless I was sleeping on the couch.

I got P-daddyl because I wasn’t sure whether he was dying or not. We cleaned him up and P-daddy went back to bed while I bundled the dog in towels and held him on the couch for an hour or so. He would intermittently shake, like he was seizing, but began to regain control one limb at a time. I kept talking to him, telling him it was okay, stroking his head. It was weird to watch. Finally, he went to sleep and I put him on the floor between me and ~G~. He woke me up twice, lapping water out of the Christmas tree stand.

By this morning he appears normal (for him anyway) but I am completely wiped. The last time I saw the clock it was 2.40am. The kids had been sleeping in until 9, but today we have the joy of all being awake at 7.40 am. I may have to carb load today.

What happened to my dog?

More Babyness….

We have a new niece!

Brynn Noell was born on the first day of Hanukkah.

This is number three for Mom and Dad, our very dear friends. Dad said to P-daddy “OK, the ball’s in your court now, and I hope you guys stop the game!” He also mentioned a trip to TN, for the 2-for-1 vasectomy deal. This is the kind of weirdness you can expect when you have that many children between you!

Three years ago today,

we became Washington State residents.

It’s hard for me to understand, but it’s true. Sometimes I can’t believe it has been that long, and sometimes I think “only three years?”

~N~ thinks he was born here and has no recollection of the “place” of SC, only the feelings and the people. ~G~ remembers, but things are fading; she told me this morning she can’t really remember what a proper sandy beach looks like. ~D~ was not yet born–barely–when we flew into SeaTac at 6.30 that evening. It is incomprehensible for someone born and raised in a wholly Southern family, as I was, to have my children not know our city like they know their mother.

Time keeps on rolling for us all, and some friends from our past stay fresh and constant while others have faded into their own lives. We still love them and miss them all. We had family-friends in Charleston. I still think this was such a horrible time of the year to move away from family, to try to sell a house. Yet, I am wholly grateful we didn’t have to deliver ~D~ unassisted, as we had planned. All blessings come with a balance, I think. We would be hard pressed to imagine our lives without our newfound friends in it, and were we to pack it all in and go back East to a culture we (adults) understand, we’d have a whole other group of people we’d sorely miss.

I do not pretend now, sitting here, that I have any idea where this family will be in another three years. I do intend for us to be as much a unit as we are now, together and thriving. Beyond that, I dare not hope for more.

Memories: http://mama-hobbit.blogspot.com/2004/12/and-fast-forward.html

First of December: Snow Falling on Cedars

Yesterday was an idyllic day to begin our winter months. We enjoyed a leisurely pancake breakfast, and then the snow began to fall. The kids pulled out their snowbibs, snowboots, hats and gloves, and went catching the gigantic, wet flakes with their tongues.

P-daddy started a fire and we set out on a short walk. It was too warm to accumulate much where we live, so close to the sound, but the snow was falling fast enough to coat the trees and houses with a beautiful white mantle. After talking to some neighbors, we decided to head over to Kitsap to see what it looks like over there. Just a few miles away from the water, everything was whiter and colder, including the roads. Even though we were driving slow, the van didn’t stop for the turn into Horseshoe lake when I tried to brake. At 32 degrees, enough had melted on the roads to make it slushy and icy, so back home we went. It was completely worth it though– the kids and the parents alike just loved driving through “winter wonderland,” as ~N~ called it. The farms especially called to the boys, with their expanses of white, while the trees are what held my eye. I love snow days for their inversion of light– the whole world seems brighter.

When we returned from that short trip, the family made a snowman and had a snowball fight while I went in to make a pot of hot chocolate. With warm tummies and hearts, we made our way down to the tree lighting in the harbor. Three years we have been here, and this is the first time we remembered it on time! Not snowing anymore, it was just a freezing rain accompanying the festivities. It didn’t dampen many people’s spirits though; they had free cider and hot chocolate, and there were elves handing out Santa hats and glow sticks to all the kids. We got to meet a live Reindeer, and strolled the docks where the boatowners had a light display of their own going on. ~G~ made sure we had front row spot when Santa finally arrived and we counted down the tree. We were right there when the lights came on, and I have to admit I think my eyes didn’t appreciate that.

By the time we arrived home at 6.30, all our snow had melted. I told P-daddy I was so glad this had been a Saturday. With the exception of our little snowman, there would be absolutely no evidence of the beautiful day we’d had, and I was glad he’d been right there with us. What an incredible first of December!

As I write this, the ground is again covered in a new dusting of snow, and it’s falling again, though somewhat slushy. A little voice woke me up this morning, “Mom, hey, it’s snowing……..”

I had a very clear dream last night

In which I delivered an unassisted footling breech on the back porch in a windstorm.

It was another precip labor, where I had only realized that “this is IT” minutes before. Frustrated that dh wasn’t listening to me about it (proof of a dream state– dh is all over any labor alarm and would never behave that way), and doubting myself too much to call the midwife, I went outside to take a breather. As the wind whipped up, I moved from the yard up to the first step on the porch, cold in a sleeveless shift. I had a nasty contraction, one of those that comes from your thighs, through your back and straight into electrifying your cervix. That’s when I felt the baby in the birth canal; out popped one foot, then another.

In the dream, I remember my rapidly cycling emotions, moving from panic to resolve to fear to determination. I remembered reading (during planning my UC-that-didn’t-happen with ~N~) about how to deliver in a footling breech situation on Laura Shanley’s site, and I tried to adopt the proper posture. I couldn’t decide whether to continue climbing the stairs to get some help from my husband, and noticed the neighbor’s gigantic bull mastiff crossing from their yard into ours. Smelling the birth situation, he was coming to investigate, and I didn’t want him anywhere near me or the helpless, dangling child.

I remember thinking even if she didn’t suffocate, she had to be FREEZING, hanging there in the cold wind. By the time the dog got to me, she was free. I reached over to smack him away, and that effort jerked me enough to push her out the rest of the way.

I scooped her up, tucked her into my bodice and rushed through the house (which was not my real house on the interior, but my Grandmother’s) to my bedroom, placenta still inside. I clawed my way under the covers and kangarood the baby, layering both of us with too many blankets. She was looking at me with a quizzical “what? what just happened?” expression when my dh came into the room for the shock of his life.

What

the heck

was that about????????

Happy Thanksgiving Day!

We had two other families over and the children all ate like racehorses. P-daddy had a bonfire in the back yard and let them look at the craters on the moon through his telescope. It definitely felt like family, and was easily one of my favorite Thanksgivings.

The gravy is the end of it

A pretty, sunny day for friends

A simple setting for a casual Thanksgiving

We didn’t plan a kids table, but we ended up with a Mommy’s table. Oh, darn.

This what happens when you interrupt feasting children to ask them to say “Happy Thanksgiving!” They had me laughing so hard the pictures are hopeless.

OMG My house smells so good

This is where Voluntary Simplicity meets CSA meets the joy of the hearth meets the warmth of friends.

My house smells like simmering chicken stock, roasted pumpkin and cooling cranberry sauce. Soon the yeast from the baking bread will waft out of the kitchen. I love times like these. I love making everything from scratch, the whole foods turning into dinner.

P-daddy is home today, so he’s on Taxi Duty while I prepare the house for our guests. Tomorrow, he will kick me out of my kitchen like he does every year, so today I have to get in what I need to do ahead of time.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!