happy happy happy

Yesterday morning, Mia crawled into bed with me and whispered in my ear with her awe filled baby girl voice. You know, the voice that whispers mommy... it's christmas... do you think santa came?

Yesterday she whispered mommy... it's your birthday... happy birthday... you're fifty six today

?????

fifty-six???

I guess to a seven year old there's not much difference between 46 and 56. Either way it's an unimaginable amount of years. I remember when I was a kid I figured out I'd be 37 in the year 2000 and wondered if I'd make it to the millennium cause 37 was old and I might be dead by then.

My 46th year has been the year from HELL.

Hellish, hell filled, helly hell hell. It didn't just suck.

It was soul wrenching, tragic, devastating, scary as hell, hell.

When I think of all that has come to pass since my last birthday, most of the time I just can't wrap my brain around it.

But now it's better.

And I believe it's better because I believe there is a force that comes into our lives that can repair and heal us. It's the force of miracles.

Some call it God. Some call it gifts from the Universe. Some call it grace. Some call it luck. Some call it love. Some call it help from those who have passed on.

I call it all of the above.

Life is hard. That's all there is too it. Sometimes are harder than others. And in my experience, the not hard times have been fleeting. I've been extraordinarily fortunate in my life. I have never been hungry. Or homeless. Or SICK. Or alone. Or unloved. I have always had everything that I need. But life is still hard. Life is heavy. Life is a weight.

I've had really good stuff in my life. But even the really good stuff is hard. The good stuff never comes easy. Peace and contentment do not come easy. The BEST stuff never comes easy. Like babies. So NOT easy. But babies are the BEST. Or a good marriage. So NOT easy. But when marriage is GOOD, it's the BEST.

And I think it's this all of the above force that makes it possible for things to be GOOD. Or get BETTER. It makes it possible for us to keep on keepin on. It keeps us afloat and stops us from drowning. It sets us up so when the shit is hitting the fan, we know ONE person who can part the sea for us and get us to safety. It moves us to start a blog at the very moment we need to find ears and hearts that HEAR US. It provides us women friends and men friends who save our fucking asses when we need saving.

It makes it possible for love to be rekindled when we think there's no love left.

It fills our lungs and hearts.

It heals us.

It makes miracles.

In my 46th year I have witnessed MIRACLES.

I've witnessed them before, but the miracles of this past year have KICKED ASS.

So although the past year has undoubtedly been the most difficult of my 56... um... 46 years, it's also been the most amazing in many ways.

A rebirth of faith, hope, and love.

This morning Mia whispered in my ear

mommy... it's your second day of being fifty six

Time sure does fly when things are good...

Friday Fragments

Friday Fragments

courtesy of the fantabulous

Mrs 4444 at Half Past Kissin' Time

Screams of ecstasy and delight

It's winter it's winter!!!

Snow?

No

Christmas?

No

What, then...???

Clementines and raspberries

signifying WINTER in New York

no point in stressing over food miles

or eating local and seasonal

or saving the planet...

ecstatic and delighted kids

are a way better investment

total school melt downs this afternoon.

Jack's in a tizzy cause he thinks he's gonna get booted from advanced science.

Ty's in a tizzy cause his partner for the Algonquin project didn't to his share and

they're gonna get a bad grade.

Mia's in a tizzy cause she's bored and wants to learn the kind of stuff that Ty and Jack do.

They're all crying and stressed out.

Jack's eye is twitching.

seriously

So to save them from

plummeting off the academic ledge...

CAKE and ICE CREAM for dinner.

chocolate chip cake with chocolate icing

and rocky road ice cream

Three kinds of potato chips and sour cream onion dip.

seriously

and it worked

sometimes you just gotta say what the fuck

The problem with cake and ice cream for dinner?

It's cake and ice cream.

So Mia woke up at 4:30 this morning wanting a hot dog

cause she was hungry.

Oh well...

I did something I swore I'd never do. I "did" Ty's Algonquin project. Not all of it though. Not even most of it. I actually only wrote over his pencilled in words with a Sharpie marker. But in my book that's too much. I'm a sink-or-swim-do-your-homework kind of mom. I have a friend who will stay up till 3am doing her kid's project the night before it's due. No way jose that's what I say. But I broke my own rule for Ty and did some of the finishing touches for him. But it's done. And he stopped freaking out and was happy.

The best part of our day in the city was the drive home. I have a size 10 lead foot. I get a speeding ticket at least once a year but somehow, my license is clean. At least the cop who pulled me over on our way to the city thinks so. Lucky... I guess. We had dinner at Bruce's restaurant yum and he rode home with us. The kids fell asleep, and we were talking about nothing of any consequence. But I realized I wasn't speeding. I was actually under the speed limit. Cause I didn't want to get home too soon. It was so lovely to just spend easy comfy quiet time with my husband, that I wanted to make it last. It's been so long since we've enjoyed each other's company. And it's so nice to know that those years of enjoyment we had in the beginning were the real deal. And we have it again.

Happy Friday the 13!!!

Thousand Words Thursday

Thousand Words Thursday

courtesy of the Mom Jen

at

Cheaper Than Therapy

it sure is

busy busy week

kids were off yesterday

so we took a field trip

to

The American Museum of Natural History

some day I'll tell you about

the speeding ticket

the fight with the stupid Metro North ticket machine

and how I paid ninety seven dollars

for the budget family fare train tickets

harumph

I hate machines

I could also tell you about the gypsy cab driver

that kept insisting that the

Metropolitan Museum of Art

was the

DINOSAUR MUSEUM

hey, Mustapha Lo,

do you hear the 4 kids in the back of

your gypsy cab yelling

no art museum!

we want

dinosaurs!!!

but since this is supposed to be a post of few words

and tale telling pictures

let's tell the tale...

The American Museum of Natural History

79th and Central Park West

awesome dinosaur skeletons

awesome architecture

I've come with my own Extreme Mammals

thank-you-very-much

prehistoric giant tortoise

even though this is how I felt

when I woke up yesterday...

we had a great time looking at the bones

and the bugs

and the beetles

and more bugs

ever read The Spiderwick Chronicles?

and had a great time in N.Y.C.

sorry so many words came out

it's been a long time

Sundays In My City

Sundays In My City

today it's more like

Sundays In My Country

from our hostess with the mostest

Unknown Mami

she's hip

she's cool

she's incognito

neat-o

sorry for the dumb joke

our neck of the woods is great for hiking

beautiful vistas

fairy tale forests

with trails of breadcrumbs

bucolic architecture

can architecture be described as bucolic?

well, you know what I mean

family portrait

minus Ty

he's behind the camera

Friday Fragments & Freewrites

Friday Fragments

courtesy of Mrs. 4444

Just another reason to love Fridays!

***So it wasn't H1N1. It was Halloweenitis.

Too much excitement. Too much candy.

Too little sleep.

Last week it was change in the dishwasher.

Today... a mini Snickers Bar in the dryer.

I hate Halloween grumpy grumpy

***You know what part I hate most about paying bills?

The bill paying part.

***There's a lot more laundry these days.

And more but not too many more tee shirts on the floor and socks on the kitchen counter

Boys...

But if I start to feel a little persnickety I remind myself of what's really important

Sobriety is important

Sanity is important

Happy and safe is important

hearing Chica, it's ok and believing him...

really important

and don't forget the yummy weekend dinners...

yummy is important

socks on the kitchen counter? not so important

if your head explodes cause the top isn't put back on the toothpaste... maybe it's not about the toothpaste. Right?

***I put one of those Feedjit traffic things on my blog page because of something I read here. It's really cool to see where hits are coming from, but most of them came from... me. How pathetic. And it's a really ugly gadget.

So I found the ClustrMap counter, which is really neat, and more aesthetically pleasing.

And it is amazing to see where people are reading from.

***I just chopped all of Mia's hair off. By request. It's above her shoulders. I butchered it. She loves it. She's squealing with delight and exploding with

"I'm so happy"

I'm so happy too.

Happy Happy Friday

Be Bwave Fursday or Be Bwave Fwyday: X wated

Can someone please explain something to me??

Please.

I need to understand.

How is it that these days oral sex is not considered SEX???

Seriously.

Maybe a young-ish blogger can bridge the generation gap so I can understand.

Or maybe a blogger who works with adolescents understands and can explain it to me.

Cause I don't understand.

I have a patient here we go again who is about to turn 14. And she's performing oral sex on random boys who are just friends. But it doesnt count as sex. And all her friends are doing it. I've taken a poll of the pediatricians and they all say the same thing.

Yeah, kids don't think of it as sex.

Drowning Turkey Stance

I've already had conversations with my patient. I've reminded her and others that the only thing you don't get from oral sex is pregnant. Everything else you can get. Herpes, gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, HIV. I remind them that some can be treated, and some cannot.

Do they really want to take that risk?

The girls won't use condoms

cause the boys don't like it that way.

Of course they don't.

And being that they're teenagers, their brains are physiologically unable to consider that they are vulnerable. They are human. They are not invincible.

It can happen to them.

So this patient heard something about one of the boys she had serviced, and went into a typical adolescent freak out that she may have caught something from him.

She came in for testing.

And I went through my spiel again. And I saw it go in one ear and out the other.

aye aye aye

I'm not super up tight. I've had my share of pre-marital sex and multiple partners. But it was never casual. Serial monogamy. And admittedly not always safe. honestly that's really hard to achieve. But in my book, any kind of contact with a penis is...SEX... how can it be nothing? How can it mean nothing?

It's not borrowing a pencil, or sharing a Cherry Coke.

It's a PENIS.

And you know, it's not reciprocal. That's the general understanding we have from our patients. Boys and girls. Girls go down, boys do not. And boys don't call. Or acknowledge. But I'm sure they talk. They usually do.

So I have to believe that it's the same age old story. Girls putting out to feel acceptance, to feel special, or to have a boy like them.

I need to understand. Not as a health care provider. I've been dealing with this for a long time at work. But now my kids are getting older. And I have a daughter. I need to understand. As a mother.

It's kind of yucky to imagine my daughter and her friends coming up and thinking random oral sex is OK. Or no biggie. Or not sex. That it doesn't count.

Cause if it's not sex, when does No mean No?

I think that's the part that scares me the most.

I talk to my kids. Jack is 12. We've talked. He's now at the age where he feels more comfortable talking to his father. And they TALK. Bruce answers all his questions, and clarifies confusion. Explicitly. And gives him a good dose of ethics and morals and what constitutes respectful and responsible sexual behavior.

When Ty and Mia start asking the questions we'll talk with them too.

But still... peer group has such power...

Do I sound like a prude? I probably do. I probably am.

I just don't get it.

Can someone please explain?

Equal Rights For All...

When they did this

it was illegal

in more than half the states

in this country

they were brave

they were strong

they were spit on

stay brave

stay strong

there's still hope

I couldn't stay away

Signing out

Signing out for this week.

My house is a PIGSTY

My kids may have SWINE FLU

I'm the most undisciplined person I know

I'm making you all my conscience

when I'm tempted to sit at the computer

I'll hear you all whisper into my ear

Michelle, mop the floor

Michelle, fold the laundry

Michelle, clean out the refrigerator

Michelle, buy more Motrin

What are friends for?

Sundays in My City: Halloween Edition

Hosted by the great Unknown Mami

The boys hit the ground running.

So alas, no pictures of them.

Mia stayed close.

She got super spooked by the super spooky houses

Mia the Cat

Spooky House

Super Spooky House

Entirely too Spooky

Hope everyone's having an unspooky Sunday

Be Bwave Fursday or Be Bwave Fwyday

There's a new thing at work. It's called the drowning turkey stance. It's my own creation. I take this stance when something occurs which is so astounding that all I can do is stop in my tracks with my head tilted back and my mouth slack and open. Just like a turkey in the rain. It's when I'm so dumbfounded by what's occurring around me that I'm paralyzed and allowing myself to drown.

This is what birthed the drowning turkey stance:

...cocaine positive baby born to G10P9 polysubstance abusing mom who has never had custody of her kids and won NY state lottery, receiving 1000$/mo to fund her drug habit...

This baby was in our newborn nursery. As his 9 siblings had been before him. This 10th baby was born with cocaine in his urine, as were several of his siblings. Which means mom used within 72hrs of delivery. All the siblings are in foster homes. And yes, mom is addicted to or abusing more than just cocaine, which she buys with money won through lotto.

Dumbfounded.

I was struck dumb.

Which was unusual for me, as I always have something to say at work. Sometimes I'm funny, sometimes I'm crass, sometimes I'm understanding. But on this particular day for some particular reason I was...

Dumbfounded.

And I stood in the middle of the nurses station, paralyzed, with my head tipped back and my mouth hanging open, staring at the ceiling.

One of the nurses looked at me Michelle, are you OK?

I feel like a turkey caught in the rain...

So conversation ensued. I work with a lot of single moms. Some are R.N.s, some are med techs, some are M.D.s. They pretty much all had the same response.

The state should take the money away.

Someone should report it to Lotto.

What about mandatory sterilization? Or mandatory long term birth control?

Like an IUD or something?

But, alas, we live in a pretty liberal state. Which I love.

But 10 drug exposed babies? All in foster care? And she gets a lot of free money with which she presumably buys drugs?

Seems as though (and this is hearsay ie: a friend of a friend/I know someone who...) if you win the lotto, and you are on any kind of public assistance, you first have to pay back the state. But this lady is NOT on public assistance. Why?

Because all her kids are in foster care and even though the state is paying for it it doesn't count cause she's not directly getting any benefits.

hmmm....

Dumbfounded.

One of the things I love about my job is I get to work with a population that I otherwise there but for the grace of god go i would have no contact. Urban, rough, struggling families. Families from all over the planet. Bangladesh, Vietnam, Jordan, Ghana, Malawi, Ivory Coast, Ecuador, Nepal. The problem with my job is, after 12 years, some days I've lost all my liberal socialist bleeding heart tendencies. And I love that I have those tendencies. But if I'm crabby or tired or stressed, I find myself thinking and feeling some very uncharitable thoughts and feelings.

And I don't want to be judgemental.

I want to maintain my compassion.

But come on!

I had to think myself out of this one, cause I could feel my brain morphing into Glenn Limbaugh or Rush Beck or...

Ms. Moon

the antithesis

of right winged conservative compassionlessness

I remembered her post about a red headed baby.

So I tried to think about this extraordinarily fecund polysubstance abusing lotto winning mother.

How does she feel? Is she tormented? Is she in unbelievable psychic and emotional pain? Was she brutally sexually abused as a child? Has she considered suicide? Does she not care at all? Does she not love her babies? Does she hate them? Does she want them back? Does she worry that they will spend their childhoods in foster care? cause there's not a chance in hell they'll get adopted Or is she thankful that they're in foster care?

Can she care?

So, by channelling Ms. Moon, and forcing my thought process in a specific direction, I was able to cultivate a modicum of compassion for the drug addicted lotto winning mother of 10.

Which is what I wanted to do. I did not want to feel like a Beck Limbaugh groupie.

I remembered a long time ago, before I had kids of my own. I was working in a residential facility for HIV infected foster kids. This place was in Washington Heights, which at the time had the highest crime rate in all of NYC.

Best job of my life. Seriously.

So with HIV infected kids, come their HIV infected mothers. And most of the infected moms were drug addicts. And some worked really hard to get it together, and others... not so much.

There were two sisters. One was 2 and the baby was 10 weeks old. And the baby was running a fever. As was our protocol, the baby was on isolation until we could determine the cause of the fever. Which meant that when mom showed up for her weekly visit, she was unaware that her baby was sick, and the visit couldn't happen. At the time, mom didn't really have an address and only doctors and movie stars had cell phones. Mom did have drugs, though, cause when she arrived she looked a little strung out.

Being the nurse on duty, and the person in charge, I had to explain to this mom that the visit couldn't happen.

I have to say, that I felt just a smidge of superiority. Just a smidge of I'm better than you. Just a smidge of well you get what you deserve and you don't deserve this visit cause it's all your fault anyway.

Yes. I felt that way. Just a smidge.

Well, mom was not happy with this at all. Things escalated pretty quickly. I thought shit she's gonna hit me. The security guard harumph some guard thought shit michelle's gonna get hit.

Why?

She probably saw my smugness. She probably was sick of people judging her and looking down at her and saying you can't and we're taking away your babies on top of it.

And then it hit me a thought not a fist She's their mom. They're her babies. I'd seen her cuddle and croon and smile into her daughters' eyes. I'd seen the pain in her eyes when her visits were over. I'd seen that. Even though those girls were drug exposed and HIV infected I saw that their mom loved them. And her newborn was sick, and there was nothing she could do.

I said the magic words I know your scared.

Her fists unclenched, her shoulders relaxed. The fight left her eyes and was replaced by heartbreaking sadness.

I didn't get hit.

So when I think about this cocaine baby born in our neck of the woods, with 9 siblings, all in foster care, I wonder...

What's that mom thinking?