What's Up, Buttercups?!

I know, I know; I have been seriously MIA & suck. No worries, as I am told this daily. Well, I'm pretty sure that, "You are meaner than Cinderella's Step Mother!" is at least the 6 year old's way of saying that. Yes, I know this, too: SIX? Wha?

This was taken on the morning on her birthday. This is right after she opened this dollie, who has been named Rosalinda, that I made for her. Her birthday was actually the day after the last day of school, but her teacher still let her celebrate her birthday with her class. I gave her the choice of having whatever cupcake or cookie she wanted to bring in. She chose eclairs. Oh, my young lady with the refined palette!

We had a wonderful but short summer break together. She only had eight short weeks off of school, so we didn't really go anywhere n vacation. We sent her to a wonderful summer day camp on Sanibel Island at the Sanibel Sea School. She spent the whole week on the beach, on a boat, or in the ocean. She loved it. If anyone out there vacations on Sanibel Island, know that they have a year-round program where families can come spend a day at the school.

This is her heading out to watch the dolphins swimming in the wild. This is actually the only way she has ever seen them & she is saying she doesn't really want to go to Sea World in the fall because she doesn't think it is right for them to be kept in small pools when they are "use to having the whole ocean". Again; our little activist in the making.

The second camp she went to was at Florida Repertory Theatre and at the end of the two week camp they performed Seussical the Musical. She can perform on command the entire hour & a half show. I think I can, too. I made this dress (pattern here) for her that has various Seuss characters (fabric here & here) all over it this spring, & I am in process of making one for her little sister, who prefers The Cat In the Hat & Fish.

Speaking of the little sister, she will hereforth be known as MiniHe. Yes, she is still a girl, but just the spitting image of The Huz, so a little version of him. She is every bit the large personality of MiniMe, yet even at not quite two, definitely her own person. Together, they light up my days. MiniMe is an even better big sister than I ever could have imagined. She is patient, loving, understanding, and an excellent role model. I'm so glad they have each other. I wish I had one or the other as a sibling. I am grateful I get to be at home with them.

MiniHe is a big fan of Stitch, as in Lilo & Stitch, & it is quite an appropriate object of her affection, as Stitch has a proclivity for stealing left shoes. I was almost arrested for shoplifting when Violet put some shoes in my bag without my knowledge. She is also a stitch herself, doing things like putting Stitch on the potty, & plopping a piece of brown clay in the bowl so we could pretend he is potty training just like she is. MiniHe is also fascinated with ears. The Huz likes to pretend he stuffs his iphone into her ears, which she buys hook, line & sinker. As such, she tries to put random things in my ears, like brushes. She will brush my hair for hours, which makes me feel pampered but her sweet, gentle little strokes which she takes little breaks from to peek around my shoulder & get kisses.

The reason I have been so busy isn't just because of our sweet girls, however. I am working n building a business that will help us be able to move back to Detroit, and I have just launched it this week. I have a lot of products to add, still, but please check out hoppytoddle the store, here. & by all means, tell your friends! If you have products you cannot live without, let me know about them.

I've missed you, blog friends!

I need some help

I'm sorry I suck so much & haven't been posting. I'm sure most of you know that Guppy #2 is now sucking of most of my time with her nursing. We have finally gotten to a point where I am bathing regularly, but I'm still barely keeping my head above sea level. Biggie has finally relented & is paying for someone to come clean our house a few times because he is working such insane hours he is really not home enough to be of much help. Our house isn't that bad, honestly. It's more that I am stuck in this house, sitting on the sofa nursing, trying to revel in the beauty & wonder of motherhood, & I feel so guilty that our house isn't clean & resentful that I can't clean it & have to sit in it that we're going to try this to see if it helps my nasty mood.

Yes. I'm in a nasty mood. I love Guppy #2. She is an awesomely happy, beautiful baby. I am so lucky to have this new little ray of sunshine in my life. She is all good. The problem is with MiniMe. & boy, am I heartbroken.

She isn't resentful of Guppy #2. She seriously thanks me if not daily, sometimes more than once a day, for her new sister. She loves her dearly & honestly threw her hands up in the air one morning when I was driving her to school saying, "Praise God, (for my new little sister)!" I'm not kidding. It was sweet & I had to stifle my giggles at the Jerry Faldwellness of it all.

However, MiniMe is seriously not happy. & I'd have to say it's mostly with me. She has told me nearly daily for the last 2 weeks that I am the meanest mom ever, that she doesn't love me anymore, that she wishes she could go live in another world where I am not. One night when my mom was visiting & I asked her to pick up the tea party of toys that had been going on under the dining room table for 3 days she said that she, "...wishes lighting would strike my mom & die her." I expected all this eventually, just not at age 4.

So, I'm heartbroken. I know I need to stop expecting her to understand so much. She is four, & sometimes she is so mature I forget that her maturity in most things is exceptional & shouldn't be expected at all times in all circumstances. I know I need to be patient with her & listen to her so that she feels she is important to me. I know I need to find ways to not resent that now that I have less time to spend on her she needs more because things have changed & she's doing it out of a need for security. But I'm having a hard time of things with her & I am really sad that this girl who has consumed my life for the past four years now suddenly seems to be scared of me. It hurts. A lot.

I feel like all could be righted by a return of our bedtime ritual of stories followed by ticklies in the big red chair while I sing her lullabies. I thought that the reason I was having such a hard time with the ritual before I gave birth was because of my big pregnant belly. Now I realize that in fact MiniMe has grown to a size where she no longer really fits very well in my lap. Coupled with the fact that Guppy #2 has a pattern of wanting so be really high maintenance in the hour before & the hour after MiniMe's bedtime, and I cannot remember the last time I got to read MiniMe a story & give her ticklies.

She feels so lost to me. I tell her when she sees all of the things I do for Guppy #2 I want her to know that I did all of those things for her when she was a baby. When she tells me that Guppy #2 is the sweetest & most adorable baby in the whole world I tell her that while that may be true now, I think she was cuter. I lay in bed at night after I've finally gotten Guppy #2 to sleep, trying to quiet my mind in the midst of Biggie's snoring, & tears roll down my cheeks. My heart telegraphs across the house to where MiniMe is sleeping. I get up & go in & I pick her up. I rock her on edge of her bed & sing her the song from I'll Love You Forever.

One More Year

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I'm trying to keep this from being a hard time of year for me, but it isn't working very well. My dad's birthday was August 8th, & it was two years ago today that he died. His birthday snuck up on me & I didn't even realize what it was until the evening. That was a blessing. But ever since that day, I've been eying the calendar, keeping myself busy, trying to not mark the days.

I keep going back to the last time I saw him, in April of 2007. We had made one of those vacations that's not really a vacation that those of us who have moved away from their families have. Ten days of crazy driving, literal itineraries, literally a guilt trip.

This is why my dad never wanted me to get married. He never wanted to share me. Many, many trips were made from wherever I was living to his house. I would lay in the grass in the warmer months, split wood in the winter, or sweat it out in the house. (He heated his house with wood & it was usually around 85 in there!) I got there when I got there & I left when he had to go back to work. We would work on my car, wax it, mow the lawn, go into town to rent a movie, visit with his neighbors, go fishing. Just sit at the kitchen table & talk.

That last visit was nothing like that. MiniMe was 18 months old. My dad's brother & his wife had come over because they'd never met her. Dad spent most of his time on the front porch where he could smoke. MiniMe was stir crazy from all of the driving. We decided to bundle her up & take her to the cute neighborhood park up the street, even though it was in the 40's.

My dad had booked & paid for us to stay in a hotel near his house. He knew it would make it easier for me to negotiate spending time with him. It hurt me to think that he felt like he had to weigh things in his favor, but I let him do it, mostly because he wanted to.

As we all watched MiniMe scamper around the park, we were all fairly quiet. I know my Dad & I were thinking the same thing. She was exactly the age I was when he & my mom divorced. She looked so much like me I could tell it pained him. I felt like I was breaking his heart. I ached for him. I didn't know how to make it better.

But MiniMe did. In her innocence, she was just herself. She scaled the apparatus with no fear & sufficient grace. My dad was amazed by her. Her joy healed the pain. Her giggles were contagious. He commented on how capable she was & how he could tell we didn't chase her around, waiting for her to fail, & how he thought that was the way it should be. I watched him circle the park with his camera in one hand, cigarette in the other. I wasn't happy with how he looked. He looked sick. He had gained weight. His always there cough was worse than normal. He was quiet, with a fake smile plastered on his face. I wanted desperately to drag him out to the barn & ask him what was wrong, but I was afraid. I was afraid of leaving The Huz to have to run interferance between MiniMe & my family that he didn't know very well. I was afraid of what my Dad would say, more, though.

We left early because we had to get MiniMe to bed. I said goodbye to everyone, but to Dad probably at least six times. I just wanted an excuse to hug him. But everytime I did, I pulled way feeling a littel nauesous. He reeked of cigarettes. His body felt tough, like over-cooked chicken. His arms were thin & frail. It scared me.

We intended to go back the next morning, but when I called & grandma told me Dad had already left to make a run, I didn't want to. I didn't want to go back to my Dad's house, be fawned over by m grandmother or stepmom. As I've said before, that's not something I did when I was at his house. I wanted to see him. At the same time, I was kind-of glad that he had left. Being there now was awkward & awful. It was too much of a reminder that things are different. Too stark of a difference because I had changed so much, not necessarily for the worse, mind you, but drastically, none the less. Seeing my father, physically being with him, was strange because we had been apart for so long. When we spoke on the phone every week it wasn't so obvious. We were always the same. To see each other made the changes so exaggerated it was disconcerting.

We were in Michigan for several days after we left my Dad's & his route at that time was north through the Upper Peninsula, down through Wisconsin, into Chicago, over to Cincinnati, north through Toledo, than back to Port Huron. He called me on my cell phone a few times while we were there. His mood was cheerful, better than it had been on the playground. He talked about MiniMe in a way that told me he did see her as her own person. He expressed joy at getting to be with her. He was happy that I was home; that we could talk about where I was at the time & he knew what I was talking about. He would call when he knew my phone would be shut off to leave me messages telling me things he couldn't say to me in real time. Sweet things. I remember that I saved his voicemail messages from when we were there for like three months after that trip. It made me feel like I was still there.

Thinking about this trip has brought me a sense of peace about my Dad. I realized that looking back, it wasn't physically being in my Dad's presence that I needed so much as the connection. I have decided to convince myself that the connection is still there, even if the talks, the hugs, the smiles are not. Thinking about the overwhelming smell of cigarettes, the sorrow of things lost, I am trying to convince myself that we are liberated from those trappings, now. What it is truly is reminding myself that I am still me. I do not need his validation or even celebration, no matter how much I miss it. I ams what I ams & I only need to be a little more assertive of that. It was not he who made me, it was me all along. But still, it sucks that I can't talk to him about our plans, about this new daughter, the one in my belly & the one I'm becoming, about everything. I refuse to be one of those people that sits around talking or writing letters as if he is still there. It's too morbid. I'm looking for something more uplifting. That's what I miss.

Parenting Rationalizations & Pep Talk

MiniMe started VPK (Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten) last week at the local Catholic School. She did great adjusting to the mandatory white leather shoes. She got up & put her uniform on all by herself. She thinks it's cool that I turned one smaller drawer of her dresser into a school-clothes only drawer & as long as she picks from that drawer, she can wear whichever shorts, shirt, sock combo she chooses. I wonder how long it's going to take her to figure out that there are seven sets of exactly the same shirts, shorts, & socks in there.

MiniMe 'signing in' on her first day

The way that they transition the kids is pretty good. Half of the class came on Wednesday, the other half on Thursday, then everybody comes together on Friday, then everybody gets a weekend back home with the fam before they start again. Sigh. Well, today, the Tuesday of the first full week, sucked. I forgot a few things I had learned back when I was still a working mom & MiniMe went to 'school'. They are my parenting transition rationalizations & they have proven true several times, so I'm sharing them.

1. Even if kids don't have separation anxiety, they will be difficult. When they go somewhere new, like a new school, new dance class, etc., they don't really know anybody. Because it's a new place with new people, many kids don't feel comfortable speaking up when they really want to. They don't feel secure, yet. Even in a very assertive child such as MiniMe, they don't know even who to go to when they have a problem or need help. They don't know if their needs are going to be met. It takes time, experiences, for that comfort level to be built up. The rules & expectations need to be felt out so that security can be established.

2. When kids are with their families, they know what to expect. They feel loved. They trust that they will still be loved. They feel secure enough to be themselves. They feel secure enough to work through the feelings accumulated throughout the day & unwind.

3. Because I am Mommy, I get the shit. Because I have done such a great job providing MiniMe with that sense of unconditional love, been consistent, holding fast to the rules & expectations, all while maintaining a cool, calm attitude, I am rewarded by being the dumping grounds for all the frustrations, challenges, lack of hugs. I am supposed to be comforted by reminding myself that the reason MiniMe is such a nasty little viper when she comes home is not because she thinks I deserve to be spoken to this way, but because she knows that even if she does, I am the only one (at least that's around) that will see her act this way & still love her. It's like she's trusting me with a secret; that she can be reaaalllly beastly, ugly, mean.

4. My job is to find a balance between reassuring her that she will find her way, that things will get more comfortable at school, and not letting her turn me into her own personal punching (& kicking!) bag. I have to remember that she still needs all the hugs, kisses, ticklies, snuggles that she has always gotten, but we have less time to squeeze them in. I cannot allow her to shout & bellow for me to, "(fill in the blank) RIGHT THIS SECOND!" I must make it clear that she is still expected to maintain a respectful tone & attitude, speak in her nice voice, use her words, cooperate.

Okay, now that that's out there, can I just say that it sucks & spend my time between laundry & dog-washing to have a little pity party for myself? Oh, & how long do I have to wait to teach her the Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Catholic School Girls Rule"?

Sisters

So, we have known we are having a girl for quite a while, now. & we are all pretty happy about it. Before Biggie & I were married he told me he didn't really want a son the way many men seem to, but he definitely wanted a daughter. When we found out MiniMe was a girl we were very happy. For me, I was especially relieved because I had made a promise I didn't know if I could keep. Biggie had agreed that if it were a girl she could be named after my maternal grandmother, but if it were a boy, I would have to consent to give him a true Italian name. So, in case you're wondering, God loves me & I have proof.

Naming this girl isn't proving so easy. I gave Biggie a list of ten names that most of them he has commented over the years that he found appealing in some way. Talking about names is a touchy subject & I am sincerely hoping that I don't offend anyone in discussing names in this post. If I do, because I feel like it's inevitable, just know that I have been there. When Biggie told his old secretary what we were naming MiniMe she screamed across the dealership that our daughter was, "Going to fucking hate you!" & that her name is, "...an old lady name!" It sucks that people do that. I would never be so crass, but if you feel like I am, sorry in advance.

In order for me to explain my current number one choice, I kind of have to reveal MiniMe's true name. I'm just going to tell a story & let it be out there. We'll see how that works for a while. I will ask that my readers try to refrain from using her real name in the comments for this & any future comments because I do try to make a serious effort to protect her identity. Thanks.

Gram & I on my 3rd Birthday, They had just brought in my swing set.

Growing up I always knew my grandma's name was Evelyn & I didn't think very much of it. Most people called her Lynn, which was fine, but if I could have picked, I always would have picked something more spectacular for her, because she was a spectacular woman. When we wrote each other letters over the winters when she was in Florida & I in Michigan, we developed a habit of including unique names we had heard in our post scripts. I had suggested the name "Zoe" after seeing the movie New York Stories where there is a short entitled "Life Without Zoe". In her return my grandma replied, "Ok. What about Chloe?" When I asked her where that came from, (keep in mind this was in the late 1980's where these names were pretty uncommon), she responded, "it's my perfume". I always thought that was silly & I hated to admit that liked both names.

My grandma grew up the younger daughter in a fairly well-to-do family. She & her older sister, Lucille, went to private Catholic schools their whole lives. They were two years apart, but very close. When my Great Aunt Lucy graduated from high school she had decided that she was going to move to Ypsilanti to work in the bomber plant at Willow Run. My grandma dropped out of school to go with her. Grandma was only 16. While she was living & working there, she developed nearly fatal rheumatic fever. The man who would become my Grandpa came back from Germany & found her in the barracks, sicker than sick. The story I was told by him is that they never really dated before the war, they had just been friends. But, knowing my Grandma, I'm sure that the fact that she saw him as someone that saved her life in more ways than one had a lot to do with what they would come to mean to each other.

Grandma Lynn & Grandpa Red, August 1944

While I was growing up I always noticed how close Grandma & Aunt Lucy were. They were fun to be around. They both had six kids, even in the same order, 4 boys, 2 girls. While they raised their families about 3 hours apart in Michigan, they both bought houses in Florida when they retired that were about 3 blocks apart. They both were incredibly crafty & would sew together. When I was about eight years old I heard my Aunt Lucy call my Grandma "Evie", & I thought it was one of the sweetest things I had ever heard. It fit my Grandma so much better than Lynn, & the way Aunt Lucy said it changed everything. When I heard Aunt Lucy call her baby sister that name, I heard the lifetime of experiences they had shared. I heard secrets no one would ever know or understand. I heard the love of two sisters, now wrinkled & much duller than they had been, but absolutely sparkling in their joy, gratitude, and wisdom.

When I chose to name MiniMe Evelyn, I chose to do so because I could think of no greater legacy to attempt to bestow on her. Grandma taught me so many lessons in my life that I still frequently hear her voice whispering in my ear, the final lessons in her death, when I was just 16. Holding her hand, telling her I loved her, & knowing that it would be the last time I would actually hear her say it back was undoubtedly the hardest thing I had to do in my young life.

Aunt Lucy was mad that Grandma had left my Great-Grandmother's wedding ring to me, saying that I was too young to understand the responsibility. But Grandma did it anyway, & I have worn that ring on my right hand every day since it was given to me almost twenty years ago. When my Mom's Dad, who is still alive & full of piss & vinegar, tried to called our daughter Lynn, I downright pitched a fit. I insist that she is an Evie, & he doesn't understand.

About a week ago I took MiniMe to see The Spiderwick Chronicles, & in it there is a character named Lucy. The name haunted me. I began to remember the stories I'd been told about my Grandma & her sister. I remembered that Biggie had suggested the name Luciana a few months back, & I had given it the equivalent of a raspberry. But I thought about it again. I thought that using Luciana would honor Biggie's Italian heritage, as they so expect. But, I would also have a more personal, more sacred opportunity to honor my own heritage, & the heritage of sisters in my family. I see it as an opportunity to deepen the legacy I wish for MiniMe. I always hoped that if I were to have two daughters that they would love each other the way that my Grandma & her sister did.

Well, Biggie doesn't like that name. I don't think he's trying to be mean. I just don't think it means as much to him as it does to me. I'm trying to get him to pick something, anything, that we can both agree on & I am sick of not having some resolution. Honestly, I wish we could ask the baby what name she would like, but of course I have to keep in mind that MiniMe would rename herself Princess Aurora or Scarlett Violet, because they are her favorite colors.

But when my mom told Grandpa about my idea, of naming her Luciana, she didn't even get to the part about calling her Lucy. My Grandpa roared with laughter. He was smiling from ear to ear & said he doesn't know if the world is ready for that, yet. He said they would both be honored. & he said that he completely understood why I would want to name two sisters those names, because they were the best sisters he ever knew. By the way, he's 84, & he's known a lot of sisters.

Before Biggie & I went to Michigan I asked him a favor. I asked him to not reveal our birth plan to his family. I asked this because we are planning a homebirth vbac, I don't think that they would understand, & I don't want them to be worried. I have also been trying to figure out if I wanted to put this out there on this here blog, because I was afraid of the comments I would get. I'm not scared anymore. I know what we are planning is the right thing. I thought that maybe if I put this out there I might help one more woman trust her intuition & that is worth whatever comments anyone could throw at me.

I was induced at 37 weeks with MiniMe. My OB had told me that if I had started dialating she would 'strip my membranes'. I didn't ask what that was, because I thought she knew what she was doing & if it was risky, she wouldn't be doing it. I had been in the office for a routine non-stress test when she did it. Biggie was sitting right next to me. When she pulled her arm back out of my body, with my blood dripping off her gloved hand, Biggie gave me a look that I'll never forget. The look said, "Just say the word & she'll be out cold". I couldn't speak, I felt so violated. I was reeling, thinking I couldn't trust this lady, & I didn't know what to do. The next thing I remember was Biggie telling her that I was out of breath all the time. She asked me what my pulmonologist had said at my last appointment with him, & I told her my blood oxygen was 96%. She practically leaped from the room, coming back to tell me to go immediately to the hospital. She was afraid the baby wasn't getting enough oxygen & I was going to be induced.

I remember in the car, a moment where Biggie & I questioned what we were doing. We didn't get why we were doing what we were, but we were doing it anyway. I ended up with 3 12-hour doses of cervadil, a suppository that is used to soften the cervix. I laid on my left side for the majority of 21 hours because I was terrified that our baby wasn't getting enough oxygen. I writhed in pain for most of this time, to which nurses responded with little empathy, only believing that I was legitimately in pain when they held the sides of my body when I was given an epidural.

After the epidural, which only worked on one side of my body, the next doctor on call broke my water & started me on pictocin. In my records, it says that I was given the option to stop everything, sleep, & start the pictocin in the morning. I don't remember this, but when I think about it, this seems crazy. There is no way I could have slept before the epidural. My lower back felt like someone had beat it repeatedly with baseball bats & the contractions were mind-numbing. Once the pictocin was started, I went from being dialated at 3 to 6 within an hour. I was excited; I was making progress. I remember the doctor wanted to put an internal monitor in. I didn't know why. She explained that I had been in labor for a long time & they were worried that the baby wouldn't be able to handle much more. She didn't explain that this meant they were screwing a wire into her scalp. Handy little welcome to the world, eh?

Suddenly, people were looking at the paper coming out of the monitor with concern. Shaking heads, making marks, leaving to get other people to come in & do the same. The doctor told me that that MiniMe's heart was a little too high & not coming down. She said if it didn't start coming down, we would need to consider a cesarean. It seemed like as soon as she left the room she was racing back in. Apparently MiniMe's heart rate did go back down, but so far down they were panicked. The pictocin was turned off completely. I was told that I would be getting a cesarean immediately, that it wasn't a choice, that MiniMe was dying. When they rushed me into the operating room I thought that once they got me settled they would let Biggie come in. They roughly shaved my lower belly with a cheap single blade disposable, nicking me several times. They tried to get some sort of medicine in my iv, but it wasn't working. On a good day my blood pressure is low, but after laying in a bed for a whole day, it was at a crawl. They had my arms strapped down like Christ on the cross while they poked me with needles & panic at the same time. It hurt. I cried. I asked for Biggie. They told me that there wasn't time & they were going to have to "put me out". They said if they couldn't get this one last iv to flow they would have to put in a central line. They didn't say this to me, but to each other, as if I were already "put out". A central line, in my jugular vein. So, not only would I have a scar on my belly, but on my neck, too. I pumped my fists & let myself weep. My heart rate went up & the iv flowed. I was unconscious.

MiniMe was born two days before my birthday. On my birthday I was still in the hospital, but to celebrate Biggie agreed to watch Funny Girl with me on the laptop. We ended up fighting because MiniMe was having trouble nursing & he was afraid she was starving. After he left to go home, because I asked him to, I ended up dripping little drops of clostrum into her mouth with a medicine cup, weeping because I was terrified that I wasn't doing the right thing.

While the first week that we were home was one of my favorite times in our marriage, Biggie only had one week off & after he went back to work things were not okay. I did not have post-pardom depression; I was very closely bonded to MiniMe before she even came out of me. I couldn't take my painkillers because I was alone most of the time, was afraid I would fall asleep & not wake up when she needed me. My incision became infected & Biggie had to clean it out with peroxide for me twice a day. I drove 45 minutes each way to see a lactation consultant twice a week. MiniMe couldn't go for more than 4 hours without eating for the first 3 months of her life, & this was only to be once a day. The rest of the time she had to eat every 2 hours. So for the first 3 months of her life I never got more than 4 hours of sleep at a time.

I went back to work, full time, when MiniMe was just 9 weeks old. My marriage suffered terribly. We bought a new house to be closer to our work & MiniMe's school. I think if had been thinking more clearly at the time I would have just stayed in our old house & quit working. It didn't occur to me.

It took me nearly two years to figure out that my reaction to MiniMe's birth was not normal. I sought therapy & was told I had indicators of post traumatic stress disorder. Throughout the therapy I had nightmares that were largely flashbacks. I realized that I was terrified of having another child because I didn't want to go through what I had again. My therapist recommended a new movie tht had just comeout on video, "The Business of Being Born". I watched it with Biggie & that was one of the handful of times I have seen him cry. He was furious. It was exactly what had been done to me.

So I've been investigating what our options are for the last two years. & this is what we've come to. I'm excited, not scared. I just wish we could decide on a fricken name.

This little light of mine

Dear MiniMe,

Four years ago, on June 11, 2005, at about 1:30am, I was unconscious as you took your first breaths. About an hour later, I am told that I held you for the first time, that I wept, but I don't remember it. The first thing I remember is putting my hands on your belly as you lay in that plastic bassinet & singing the Waylon Jennings song "If You Ask Me To" to you. To anyone who has heard the song a few times, they might think the morphine was still a little high, but for anyone who knows the words, I'm sure they'd understand. I mean every word, & you now know them by heart. 

As we have come to know each other, your personality has seemed to be there all along. I've always felt like I've known you for a long time. When I think back to my life before you, when I would think about what a child of mine would be like, you are just as I always knew you would be in so many ways. Yet, you are so much better. I always thought you would look more like Biggie, with darker hair & eyes. The first time your Nonna met you she held you up in the air, saying, "Oh! Look at my little Calabrese!" I scoffed inside. You look so much like me it hurts sometimes, but you do it better. Your eyes sparkle more, you've got some of your dad's curls right at the ends of your hair, you are more honest than I could ever hope to be. I am proud of how authentic you are. I do my best not to be hurt when you don't want to hug me, but thankfully it is rare. You indulge my policy that I don't get out of bed until somebody gives me a hug, & I thank you for it. 

I need you to know that I am not the kind of mother I want to be, sweetheart. I hate that we are trapped inside during this relentless heat. I am sorry that I can't take you for a walk in the woods, to try to master your new scooter, or to just lay in the grass & look at the clouds. I'm sorry that you are forced to settle, day after day, with your sometimes cranky & not-so-creative mom. I am trying to do something about it, but the guilt is a heavy burden. 

I am so grateful that you love to help me. Yes, most of the time it takes me longer to get tasks completed because you do, but the fact that you want so earnestly to make things easier for me speaks volumes about your character. In your own way, you tell me that you see all I do for you & that you think it is right. So many times you show that you understand me better than most adults do & you never question my motivations. You seem to always trust that I will not let you down, & while some may see that as a disservice in some way, I don't. Some days it is the only validation I can find. 

Although I want this to be about you, I have to tell you I am so excited for you to become a big sister. Just yesterday I asked you what am I going to call this new baby, because only you can be my Punk. You said, "Oh, Mama! You'll come up with something! You always do!" You are such a great little cheerleader, you make our whole family excited to see what is down our path. 

You are on the cusp of going out in the world to meet new people. While I worry over if you will find the balance between staying true to yourself & being gracious, I'm excited. I can't wait to hear you describe your experiences in your exuberant, colorful vocabulary. I savor every morsel, lovey. More than anything, thank you for loving me back. I don't know what I did to deserve you. I strive everyday to do so.

For Mimi...

My mom was a single parent, essentially, living 4 hours from my father. I spent a considerable amount of time in day care, with babysitters, some family, for most of my early childhood. I remember very fondly the sweet Montessori school she sent me to when I was 3 & 4, run by the Dominican Sisters & a bit of a drive for her. I remember learning how the calendar worked in 1978, when I was four, & the feeling of pride I got from understanding. I remember generally gazing over the classroom & being proud of the sense of order that there was, with everything having a place, & knowing there were still discoveries for me to make. I felt comfortable with my teachers as well as my peers; I had a sense of community. This was a primary reason in me wanting to send MiniMe to Montessori, & I know she found her experience to be as satisfying as mine.

When we moved into the City, 3 blocks from the very house my mom grew up in, I was to go to the same elementary school as she did. On the first day of kindergarten I had an awful experience I remember very vividly almost 30 years later. The teacher was going over the alphabet, probably to get a sense of where we, the students, were in our understanding. I was bored. I reached over another student to grab a Little Golden Book, opened it, & read quietly to myself. The teacher scolded me for not participating with the group. I told her, "I already know that, though. I've never read this book before." She mocked me. She ended up bringing me up to the front of the class, where she was standing & all the other students were sitting in front of her on the floor. She didn't believe that I could read, so she literally dared me to read the book aloud. I knew that she expected me to fail, which was something I hadn't really experienced before. I read, slowly, but certainly. The kids in the class didn't seem to understand that what I was doing was a positive thing. All they understood was that the teacher was mocking me. The fact that I could read was irrelevant. I was disobedient. I did not conform. I was to be punished. I was to be mocked. 

I went home that day & cried more than I had when my Brittany, Missy, had run away. I was beside myself. I didn't understand. Thankfully, my mother understood exactly. In fact, she had even endured the cruelty of the same kindergarten teacher herself as a child. She made an appointment with the principal of the school & I did not go back until after we met with Mr. Castle. 

When we met with him I remember he & my mom explained to me that I would be given some questions on paper & I was to just do as best as I could. There was no right or wrong answers, they just wanted to see how much I understood. I remember rows & columns of words that were somehow related. I had to circle some things, or underline them, or simply read them aloud. I was comfortable. I didn't feel like I had on that first day of kindergarten & was relieved.

The decision was made to just put me in first grade at 5 years old. I remember my teacher, Ms. Shirley, who used phonics before they were very popular. She used to put words on stars around the ceiling & we would take turns reading them aloud as she pointed to them with her pointer. I was not afraid to succeed or be proud. 

I remember in 2nd grade I left the rest of my regular class for a few hours a week & went to the library with other kids from other classrooms. We did special projects where we got new markers, new books, & it was there that I first heard that I was gifted. In the 4th grade, my best friend, Rachel Hernandez, & I were moved out of the same class as our other friend, Ramona Castro. Ramona's mom tried to get her moved into our class, but they wouldn't let her. I remember how mad Ramona was at us, but we didn't understand why the grown ups did what they did. Rachel & I were put into a 'split' classroom, where there were about another 8 students our age, 4th graders, but the rest of the class were 5th graders. My mom made the decision to put me in private school before I got to junior high because she was a juvenile social worker, she knew too much, & she didn't want me to be 10 years old going to school with pregnant girls.

When I was older & we moved out of the City into a more affluent suburb, I had a hard time. I was the girl from a broken home with the wrong clothes. I had a hard time adjusting socially & because of that my grades suffered initially. Eventually, I grew into high school, but while I did have a few close friends, I was behind socially. When my classmates turned 16 & got cars, my parents tried to compensate by buying me a moped. I didn't turn 16 until the summer before my senior year. I started college when I was just 17, and I wasn't very street smart. I had a hard time in college because I didn't know what to do with myself. For the first time in my life, I had to study, & I didn't know how. 

I have been thinking about this a lot because MiniMe is going to four in a few short weeks & she is eligible for the Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten program, which covers a big portion of the cost of her to be in certain pre-school settings starting in the fall. (You know, the fall, when I'm due to have another rugrat to suck up my time as well as my breastmilk) She is desperately in need of being with some sort of a peer group, as we live in a seriously unbalanced population. She was used to being in group care from 9 weeks old until just last summer, so she is incredibly social. But the choices for schools here are, well, let's just say that the state of Florida is currently ranked #49 in the country for quality of education. 

In raising MiniMe thus far, we have cultivated a love of learning in her that is nearly unquenchable. She is caught between wanting to be an astronaut, a violinist, a veterinarian, a scientist, and a dancer. The library is like a fantasy to her, where any question she has can be explored. She has asked for Gray's Anatomy (the book) for her birthday because she is fascinated with what is going on in there. I love to hear her questions, as they are already so thoughtful, it is possible to have an intelligent conversation with her. I am afraid, however. 

I feel as if there is a choice where you have to cross a boundary, & I feel I am upon its' precipice. As we have let MiniMe's desires lead her, she knows all of the planets in the solar system, but does not recognize each letter of the alphabet. She can tell you what a gardenia, bougainvillea, hibiscus, plumbago, & bromeliad are, how banyan trees grow from the top down, but she cannot grasp why twenty-ten is not a number. 

We have chosen to send her to the local Catholic school because, well, we are, & this is the first year they are participating in the VPK program. Another part of my rationale is that if we are still here (God forbid) for the following school year & cannot get her into the arts magnet elementary, at least we would have the option of keeping her at the Catholic school as it goes through 8th grade, & we would be able to provide her some sort of continuity. I am worried, however, that they will squelch our passionate girl. 

I remember, sitting in Calculus class, & being irate with the teacher. I could not grasp the concept & was trying to get him to help me visualize what the concept was. He lost patience with me & told me to just follow the directions. It was the first class I ever failed. This rutabaga cannot just follow processes very well without understanding how the process related to something tangible. I learned math in Montessori, which uses a series of manipulative beads to illustrate the concepts. I realized that while I was given a firm foundation of loving to learn, a gift of having things taught to me in a way that I fully understood them, I never learned to just memorize for the sake of memorization. What a waste, I thought, of my time & my thoughts. 

The Catholic school expects MiniMe to be able to write her name when she starts in August, & I am expected to teach her this. I'm annoyed. This is yet another fine example of where No Child Left Behind has gotten us; children must learn how to test well. We both have such better things to do with our time. When she decides she wants or needs to know this, she will, & it will take her all of a half hour at most. But to force her to sit, at not quite 4 years old, & learn this thing that someone else has decided she needs to know, I don't know if I can do it. Part of the reason I think the Catholic school would be good for her is because I don't want her to be in Calculus class one day & be in that place that I was. I want her to know how to study. But at the same time, I hear Yeats, whom I share a birthday with saying, "Education is not a filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire."

I know she is smart. I don't care if someone thinks she's gifted; in fact, I hope no one ever labels her as such. It's an awful kind of pressure. I'm more worried about squelching that little flame. It is so beautiful, it lights up my days. 

The week, a summary

I hate sippy cups. MiniMe has been able to drink out of a regular, open-topped cup since she was a year old. When we go to restaurants we always ask them to bring her a regular glass of water, just like the rest of us. Sometimes I'll get crazy descriptive & ask for a juice glass. Is that unclear? Because, a lot of the time they go ahead & bring the damned plastic cup with the lid & the straw that we know is just going in the damned landfill as soon as we leave if we don't take it home & recycle it. So, then if they bring it to the table & we send it back, we know it just goes in the damn trash. I hate these people that make our carbon footprint bigger because they are too lazy to listen. Dammit.

I am MiniMe's friend. She has been ultra affectionate with me this week. I am a great mom, she tells me. This has nothing to do with homemade chocolate chip cookies, four trips to the park this week, one spur-of-the-moment playdate with one of her favorite girlfriends, or Bubblefest '09. 

I have BIG news. BIG. I just can't tell y'all yet, because it's not ready to be unveiled yet. But please come back soon, because I NEED INPUT! 

Biggie rocks. He has sold 24 cars this month. Craziness. Some whole dealerships don't sell that many cars in a month. Not our Biggie. Oh, & he took today OFF because he sold 4 cars alone yesterday. He may not help me much around the house, may be a little too much a smart-as morning person, but hey, he sells the cars. 

Kristine coming Thursday. Much cleaning, sprucing, checklist making between now & then. Plus, MiniMe has her fricken VPK interview. I'm thinking that the interviewers better have their game faces on because she wants some answers on why, exactly, they are going to make her wear plain white leather tennis shoes. She thinks they are ugly. 

Warning: If this doesn't make you tear up you have no heart

On Easter we went to Mass, came home, I made cinnamon rolls & chicken sausages. MiniMe found her eggs & basket. She proceeded to hatch & heal the plastic eggs all day long. She completely reinforced the idea that we need to obtain a living situation where we can have a couple of chickens. She loves them.

My mom came over & we all sort of tag teamed dinner. It was rich & we all ended up splayed over our sofa. After growling over the car shows that Biggie chose to subject us to all day, I insisted on watching The Sound of Music. He groaned. It was 4 hours long, due to the fact that it was on ABC Family & had commercials. He said he has seen it before, but I don't think that was a true statement. I think a true statement would be that he has been in the room before when it was on, but I'll elaborate on this further later.

I am ever-so-glad I insisted on watching this movie. I love Rodgers & Hammerstein. My Gram was one of those women who would chirp about the kitchen, humming these old classics, & was famous for making up her own lyrics when she couldn't remember the actual words. I can't listen to Blue Indigo without tearing up, remembering how she changed the lyrics to be about how sad she was without me around. My friend Kristi & I used to play a travel game where we would sing snippets from show tunes & the others in the car had to guess the show. But in the Hierarchy of Show Tunes, anything once sung by Julie Andrews is known backwards, forwards, sideways, in reverse ala Black Sabbath. I have VIVID memories of The Sound Music viewings with my Gram. I knew that MiniMe was finally old enough to at least stop & stare a few times at the screen. She exceeded my expectations.

First of all, through the viewing of the Good Night Song, MiniMe has perfected her curtsy. She has requested a "twirly" dress every day since then, so as to have sufficient skirt to hold to the sides of her body n the event she stumbles upon what she believes is an appropriate time to curtsy. Say, to Farmer Red, the farmer we buy our greens from at the Farmer's Market. 

She chirps around the house, I am certain in her head she is flanked by matching siblings, prancing around Salzburg. She has requested a white dress with a blue sash. She has consulted with many people she thinks are smart to attempt to come to a solution on the problem of Maria.

By the last scenes of the movie, when the von Trapps are attempting to escape the Nazis, my mom had gone home, & MiniMe was snuggled in between Biggie & I on the sofa. I explained that the men in the matching suits were trying to make The Captain leave Maria & the children to fight in a war he didn't believe in. Biggie made me absolutely speechless, saying that he didn't think it was fair to the family to leave the lavish existence behind, that he would have just gone along. Apparently he didn't pay much attention in history class about the Nazi's. I explained that there was no way they would have let Maria, a Catholic, stay in that house with the children. They surely would have taken it for some senior officer. As far as The Captain, there isn't even any certainty that they would have even put him in command of anything, given his outspoken disagreement with the Third Reich; they may have just taken him away & killed him to prevent him from lending his support to The Allies. I told Biggie, in no uncertain terms, would he ever have left us to fight a war none of us supported, and that we would all be better together than separate with more material wealth. His life is priceless to us.

At this point, MiniMe looked up at him and said, "Daddy, I'd die for you."

Heart. Shattered. I couldn't speak, I just hugged her. I looked over her head at him with tears in my eyes & told him she had heard Father David during the homily talking about how few of us realise we have people in our lives that would give their lives for ours. I make no attempts to force our religious beliefs on anyone, I am just relaying the concept. But, still. She loves. 

The one thing that I've always said is the most important value for me to teach to my children, she's got it. At 3 years old. I will hold this memory up for those times when she is screaming at me to stop, even when she's a teenager telling me she hates me. 

The Rutabega & Turnip Club

I know I can't be the only one to see the ridiculousness here.

A preface:

My mom has a baby brother, the youngest in her big Catholic family, who lost his job in Michigan 2 years ago & moved down here to find work. He & his teenage daughter moved in with my mom. He found work. My mom wanted to buy a smaller house & saw that the market was going downhill. She decided to go ahead & buy a smaller house while my uncle would rent her house. She only charged him around half her payment. She saw that she wasn't going to get anywhere close to what she owed on her big house based on what was happening to us. She decided to let the house go back to the bank. Before she did, she did try to negotiate with the bank. She bought the house in 2004 for $220k & owed $173k. My uncle offered to buy it for $150k. The bank didn't take it. 

Yes, I have an affinity for rutabagas. I identify with them. I detest eating them, however. My love of the rutabaga comes from an analogy my dad made. In his Finnish culture, rutabagas are a staple, so there were many situations when I was a kid where I was sitting at the dining room table starring at a serving of them through teary eyes. A few times my dad slathered them with butter, trying to convince me they were great. Eventually, one evening he caved & they were never again put on my plate. He told me that as time went on, with us living separate lives for the most part of my childhood, rutabagas came to make him think of me. When I was in college, during one of our kitchen table talks, I launched into a diatribe on how rutabagas, turnips, cabbage & cauliflower were all in one smelly, gas-inducing, gross food category for me. My dad found this hilarious & told me that he couldn't help but think of the phrase, "You can't get blood from a turnip". He always saw it, as you're supposed to, as that the darned turnip just doesn't have it within itself. It's not being stubborn or selfish. The blood just ain't there. That's how I was about the rutabagas.  So the phrase became applicable to me, in some crazy mixed up way. When I would talk to my dad about my marriage & how Biggie was expecting something of me I just couldn't bring myself to do, my dad would say, "Well, Rutabeggie,..." We never had a talk about it. I knew what he meant. He got me.

A few weeks before my dad died, MiniMe came home with a photocopy of a definite root vegetable, colored with red & purple crayon, decorated with sequins. She was just over 2 years old at the time. When I asked her what it was she clearly replied, 

"Disco Rutabeggie". 

I LOVED it. It gave me one of those smile in my belly & heart feelings only parents & grandparents can get. I was saving it to send to my dad because it was just too priceless. I knew he would put it up in his truck & drive all over the country smiling at his girls' girls' silliness. He died before I could send it.

But, back to the banks. 

Our former home is no longer ours. If you were to go to the county tax appraiser's website & search for our last name, the same staggering list of eight properties comes up, but it's not right. (I though about using the word correct here, but I opted for right. It's more fitting.) There were a few things left in the house that we hadn't gotten out yet that I still wanted. Like the 4.25hp self-propelled mower I bought when we bought our first house, that I used up through my sixth month of pregnancy, & that my dad had taken all apart to clean, tune up & sharpen the blade when he came to visit me. I wanted to give it to my uncle as a gift. It's gone. As are our chaise lounges, planters, a floor lamp. The bank took the stance that the house was abandoned, changed the locks, & put those things in the landfill. I've got half a mind to go dig them out. It's so stupid & wasteful & lazy. & not right.

My mom's former house is up for sale for $46,500.00. 

I've thought about how it makes me feel to have been through this experience. It just doesn't make any sense. It gets worse.

I have a possible opportunity for a job. Two incorporated cities here are seeking to hire qualified people to run their Neighborhood Stability Programs, which I am very qualified to do. These programs give down payment assistance & rehabilitation money to people buying bank-owned or foreclosed properties. Ridiculousness: Currently we qualify for reduced cost preschool for MiniMe for me to go back to work & to buy a house through the program. If I took the job, we no longer qualify for either. Um. Work & never see sweet girl or stay home, send her to school on the cheap, & get a new house?

So, what was wrong with our money? If the bank had taken our buyers' $334,000 for our old home a year back, wouldn't they be in better shape now? I can't help but wonder how much the attorney charged the bank for the whole foreclosure process. Maybe they would have needed all these tax dollars to help them out if my money was good enough. Wait a minute. I pay taxes. I'm confused. My money wasn't good enough for the bank to take to pay for our house last year, but my money that went to pay taxes is good enough? 

Can't wait to see how much they list our house for. That's sure to send me to the liquor store.

I'm starting a club. When I get my sewing machine up again & some of Biggie's pants hemmed I've decided I'm making up some Disco Rutabega applique t-shirts. If you want one, you have to pay the membership dues. (cost of bourbon & root beer to drink while making said shirt)

Letter to a Home

Between the years of 1993 & 1998 I moved 14 times. Yes, three of those times were to dorm rooms, but I still count them because they did require a major analysis of my belongings, paring them down to only the bare necessities, to fit into a very small space. When I think of those moves now, one thing is very noticeable to me regarding then in comparison to now. The majority of those moves were expected, except for somewhere around number 8, where I had a literal crackhead steal most of everything I owned, which to her credit did make things pretty simple. I did not fret much then about how I was going to pack, how things would be relocated, what would get broken. I occasionally made the decision of the next place within days if not hours before the actual move. Like I've said before, I was a leaf that went where the wind blew me.

We have made a decision on the next place we will be living, signed the lease, paid our money. It was stressful for all of us. No, it doesn't meet any of the qualities that MiniMe had requested & it is far out from most of the places we like to go. Regardless, MiniMe told us she likes it. She includes, "I want to go to the new house!" in her daily list of laments. We are happy with our decision & it is truly a nice house. I'm still not okay. It's not the new houses' fault. 

It's not the loss of our current house that is bothering me. It's not the bankruptcy. The decision to file for bankruptcy is unquestionably the most right decision we have made in the past year. There are things about our current home that I will be glad to be relieved of. It is the loss of our home that I am mourning. 

A sense of place, experiences tied to the context of the environment, is a very essential part of my personality. It is why I studied architecture & became a planner. The concept of place is something that preoccupies most of my thoughts. Very many important things have happened to me, to us, in this place. This home. 

This is the place where I sat & nursed MiniMe for hour upon hour. I painted this room "Blue Collar" the second week we lived in the house, when MiniMe was just 3 months old, & we had no power because of Hurricane Wilma. Biggie put the beautiful crown molding up, using the compound mitre saw I got him our first Christmas in this house. Where I sang Audra, Nick Drake, Innocence Mission to her. The very last time, when I sang Into the Mystic, into her ear, while my father listened over the phone. Just this past Christmas she realized that as I was singing Barbara Streisand's The Best Gift, I was telling her that she is The Best Gift I've ever received, in this very spot. We still sit here to read bedtime stories together every night before bed. The majority of the most profound conversations she & I have had have been in this place. We have discovered each other, more than any other place, in this place.

This is the place where she took her very first steps, the Wednesday before Mother's Day, in 2006. She was so nonchalant about it all. I couldn't comment for what seemed like forever because it looked so strange to see this little 15 pound person actually upright & independently mobile. I was mesmerized.

This is the place that I was the very last time I spoke to my Dad. I was stripping the wallpaper off of the wall. My mom was there helping me. He was talking about things he had seen on his route the past week, driving through the Upper Peninsula. He told me he was so glad he had a daughter that understood him; that understood why he preferred driving on little State Routes where there was little traffic, simple people, simple food. When I told him my mom was there with me, he asked me to tell her that he thought of her every Monday, when he crossed over the Laughing Whitefish River, as they had made that trip when they were married, on his little Triumph. I marked the sense of nostalgia in my heart. It is the place where I was the last time I got to hear him tell me he loved me.

This is the place I was standing when my step-mother told me my father was dead. She had called, hung up after 3 rings, before I could make it to the phone, & then called back not 2 minutes later. I had sensed something was wrong when I went to answer the phone. I had dreaded that moment for years. I paced in this doorway, not crying, just nodding, listening to the flood of sorrow my step-mother poured over me. I stayed in that spot to call my husband to tell him. My mother, too. I remember thinking that maybe if I stayed in that spot I would be able to continue to not cry. 

This is the place that Biggie was sitting when we healed our marriage. He said awful things to me & I let him. I let him say them, meaning I actually listened, because I knew he didn't mean it. I knew, finally, that it wasn't about me. It was about everything before me. He saw that I let it go. He knew that I had every right to be justified, self-righteous, hurt. He saw that I let it go because We Are More Important. Whatever it is, We Are More Important. He acknowledged the sacrifice of my spirit to do this. That acknowledgement brought us back & gave us hope.

Although we lived in another house when we were married, when MiniMe was born, it is in this house that I became a mother & the mother of my husband's children. This place is inextricably tied to the history of our lives, of our family. I am sad that we have to leave it under these circumstances. It has served us well. I have been proud of it. 

I wish we could know the next occupants. There are so many places, houses, homes that are losing their stories & context. It's messing up so many families. In the telling of stories, you have the who, the what, to what extent, & the where. For so many, the where is being forcibly & traumatically changed.

post script- I could have developed the concept of place & its' meaning more fully, more eloquently, but I'm too weepy. I wanted to get this out there & done. Maybe after we are closer to the light at the end of this particular tunnel I will come back to this, but for now, it is what it is. & yeah, I might be a little busy for the next month, but I'm around. I'm sure I'll have some funnier, more uplifting stories of moving antics.

Joy & Pain

Yep. I'm singing Rob Bass. (Pump it up! Pump it up, now!) Hey, I never had Garden Weasel bangs.

So, the pain part. We have been given a court date on our house for foreclosure. You typically have 60 days after the court date to get your stuff out before it is no longer available to you. I have to find a place for us to live. During the holidays. With a 3-year old in tow. A 3-year old who REALLY wants to live in a 2-story house where her bedroom is closer to ours & has a pool. Sigh. 

Also, the dealership is raising our health insurance premium. Again.

Moving on... (both literally & figuratively)

The joy part. Christmas jumper #1 is complete. It has been worn to a birthday party for our friend Lolly (Lorelai) on Sunday & again today. It is super-cute. My favorite part is the trim on the hemline. 

She's got it bad for Tommy the Elf, who is in this print. You can't tell very clearly from the pics, but I also sewed little lightbulb charms along the pockets. 

She really does appreciate that she has a mom that does this stuff for her. 

I also am very excited for Christmas morning. We are giving MiniMe the dollhouse I was given by my parents when I was 3. Seen as how MiniMe was born 2 days before my birthday, she is basically exactly the age I was when I got it. My parents, who had been divorced for a while at the time, actually worked together to buy it for me. It was relinquished to me by my mom when she was pissed at me for something & not speaking to me. Apparently she didn't see that episode of Gilmore Girls. To her credit, she did cart the thing down here, even if her second husband actually threw away the toddler bed my dad made for me. Bygones. I asked Biggie to make a platform for it with casters so that the house can be turned around. It always annoyed me as a kid that I couldn't really access the front of the house because it was up against the wall. He rocks & made a backyard for it, too. He's asking about grass for the yard. He's giving me seriously unpleasant flashbacks of making models in architecture school. 

I also have to finagle what Santa is bringing. MiniMe told Santa she wants a space station. Seriously. Last year, when she was 2-years old, she asked for a 'pinano' & a 'gee-tar'. She's killing me. We've had talk(s) about how Santa would have a really hard time fitting a space station on the sleigh. I just don't want to stretch the whole Santa discussions too long because we haven't exactly decided how we are going to handle the day when she looks at us & point blank asks if there is a Santa.

Last Christmas she picked this super-cute pseudo vintage book, Miss Flora McFlimsey's Christmas Eve, from the library. I seriously knew it by heart in 3 days, & it ain't a short book. I didn't mind; it's a great story. Flora is an old-school doll living in the attic that comes down to peek at the Christmas tree & gets suckered into being a present since that slacker Santa lost a doll on his way. The other dolls make fun of her. I don't want to ruin it, but it all works out in the end & I love the look MiniMe gets on her face when we read the last page. 

Well, it turns out that Flora McFlimsey was an actual doll back in the '30's that the author used as a model for the series of books she wrote about Flora. Madame Alexander made a Flora McFlimsey doll last year & let's just say that I'm crossing my fingers that she is a welcome substitute for the space station. Yes, I love that my 3 year old girl wants a space station, but I highly suspect that it has more to do with the fact that Caillou asks for one for Christmas & less to do with ours trips to the MOSI museum. Cross your fingers, y'all.

Hot Glue & Ric Rac

Kristine, turn away from the post. It shows the package coming on Wednesday. I know, I suck. You are at work & desperately in need of some distraction to get you through some mind-numbingly dull review or regulation. I haven't posted all week. Well, read on, but be prepared to have your surprise ruined. 

All others, feel free to move forward without concern.

'Tis the season when my artsy-fartsy genes truly kick in. I come by it honestly. I have vivid memories of the blinking lights, wrapped with metallic garland, framing the mirror of my grandma's guest bathroom. I remember trying to make sure I washed all the food off my face between the static cling Santa figures. SO miss that lady. 

This is the wreath on our front door that I made when MiniMe was in-utero. The stereotypical holly & berry wreaths just seem so wrong here in the tropics. Considering our neighbors make fun of our house, calling it the 'Key West House' due to it's color, I think it fits. We haven't painted our house since we bought it, so apparently someone else thought it was a nice color. Whatever, windbags.  The wreath. We love it. Styrofoam balls wrapped in polyester thread, plastic bead garland with bells, hot glue. All that's missing is some foam curlers & a Virginia Slim.

These are more hot glue creations. The first was also made while MiniMe was in utero, but we stored it in the attic that first year where the heat was so hot the glue melted & I had to reconstruct it the following year. Some of the original ornaments were too far gone, so I came up with the idea of adding the admittedly random ribbon at the bottom. We like it. Our living space is largely blues & greens, so the typical Christmas themes clash too much for our tastes. 

The second I made for MiniMe's room last year, because she really liked the first one I made, & honestly, I just love gumdrops & wanted an excuse to use that garland. 

I have to take a second to whine about my kid. I told her I wasn't going to be putting the tree in her room until it was clean & it took over 3 days for her to get her shit together enough to help me get it done. She is going through a helpless phase where I have to show her 17 times how to do something over & over without ripping things from her hands & doing it myself. Lots. Of. Liquor. Thank GOD my innards have recovered from food poisoning & I can drink again. I am in no way that naturally patient & she knows it. 

I may be making another one this year from cheap bulbs I got last year, but we'll see. 

I kind-of have my hands full with sewing. This is the first of the Christmas jumpers. I realise now that I never explained the origin of the Christmas jumper. See, here it is still like 80-something-degrees in December & therefore way too hot for any kind of traditional Christmas garb. I thought about starting my own company of Christmas t-shirts, tank tops & the like when my friend Kristi moved back to The States from Sweden. She moved back to TN, where it is only slightly warmer than MI, where we grew up. She was all "!!!!!" about trying to have Christmas where it's over 40 degrees. We joked about the Christmas 'wife beater'. Well, after much searching, I decided to make my own fricken Christmas dress for MiniMe that would be just as she wanted & not, you know, velvet. 

This one is, again, Hello Kitty, for Morgan, Kristine's daughter. I had to make hers' first because it has to be mailed to AL. I wasn't happy with the way the neckline is laying because I didn't use interfacing, I sewed the ric rac between the lining & flannel. Usually I just sew the trim on after the thing is done, but Morgan is only 1 & ric rac can be itchy. Plus, you would think after making so many of the damn thing I'd have it down by now. Apparently I'm not as good as I think I am. 

I'm going to be finishing off MiniMe's Christmas jumpers (yes, two. She IS a Gemini) sometime soon, if she doesn't drive me to drink to the point I end up sewing my finger. I sound like a fricken pirate.

& no, I am not one of those sickos that tries to match the actual tree to the decor. I do have a number of blue ornaments, but we also have mostly traditional, more emphasis on the where-it-came-from type. I'm not THAT sick, people!