Friday, August 17, 2012

Feeling a little retrospective...or its my blog and I can cry if I want to.

I had my wisdom teeth pulled out in college. It was relatively painless until I developed a dry socket. In case you still have all your wisdom teeth (or never got them at all) a dry socket is when the blood clot that develops after surgery falls out and exposes the freshly cut upon tissue and the raw nerve left bare to the air. In other words, it motherfucking hurts. It was an endless throbbing pain that didn’t even begin to recede until I got it packed with clove oil soaked gauze during a emergency appointment at the oral surgeon. It made me faintly nauseous, as anything with a strong clove scent tends to do since I spent days distilling cloves down to oil in organic chemistry and just got positively overloaded on the scent, but it worked. The pain died down then disappeared due to this simple piece of gauze.

My father passed away seven years ago, my aunt passed away five years ago, my grandmother passed away two years ago, one of our best friends passed away almost 18 months ago. My heart just shattered when my father died from a heart attack without warning. It was slowly squeezed to death when I lost both my aunt and my grandmother to cancer over a series of months. When my friend died in a car accident it broke all over again, along old fault lines. My poor abused heart looks like Frankenstein’s monster at this point, stitched back together, resuscitated over and over.

One of my favorite quotes is by Khalil Gibran: “The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives? When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”

I am the freaking grand canyon of sorrow- that is how deeply I have been carved. I am a throbbing dry socket waiting for gauze. Luckily my daughter; my adorable, happy, rainbow of a daughter-has the capability to fill that canyon to overflowing by just being her. A wild, raging, river of joy. I feel that the depth of the sorrow that I have felt is what allows me to know how much I love her, my husband, my family, my might as well be family friends.  It lets me know how fragile and precious this life is. They all fill me up with love and joy and laughter and bring lightness to the darkest and most damaged corners of my heart . Life is terrible, and wonderful, and odd, and funny. The worst moments can be the greatest gifts in the end.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

The Next Big Thing


The Next Big Thing…

Potty training has long loomed in the forefront of my mind as something I just didn’t want to do.  Call me lazy, I prefer to think of it as realistic.  I knew my lovely daughter will probably would not be receptive and I don’t particularly enjoy banging my head against hard surfaces, I do enough of that in my day job.  I have heard all the advice and I mean all of it- don’t push, let them pick the time, let them run around like naked heathens, push through it in three days, you shouldn’t ever had introduced diapers as a newborn (which huh?  I don’t get the whole elimination communication thing, seems like a really good way to be covered in baby poop a lot), oh my 18 month old just loves the potty I can’t imagine still using diapers, be prepared to lug around a toilet in the back of your car everywhere you go, you can use public toilets but the automatic flusher may scar them for life. The list goes on and on.  Like many parts of this parenthood gig there seems to be as many ideas and solutions as there are parents.

But there comes a time when every parent has to grit their teeth and wade into the pee soaked trenches.  So we have been easing into it.  And by easing I mean on the weeknights we go without diapers and on the weekends when we are home we go without diapers.  And that is pretty much it for right now.  And you know what?  I think it’s working…

Don’t misunderstand.  I still scrub pee out of my carpets occasionally and I have yet to see her sit down willingly to poop (it is usually a pick up and quickly transfer her to the potty as she is in the process.  But she gets very excited by the prospect of M and M’s for a reward.   I think I may introduce a sticker chart.  Hell we might even go crazy and buy her a big gift as a potty training/giving up your pacifier reward.  We are a long way from being potty “trained” and from what I understand night time training can take a very long time.  But we are on our way and that is good enough for me.

Friday, March 9, 2012

Oh Hey There!

hiatus [haɪˈeɪtəs]

n pl -tuses, -tus

1. (esp in manuscripts) a break or gap where something is missing

2. a break or interruption in continuity



Yup that is definitely what I took.  I know, I know.  Only three entries and then a HUGE honking gap.  What can I say?  I have a two year old?  A full time job?  It was the holidays?  I guess mostly  I just lost the thread, misplaced my mojo, wandered off distracted by doughnuts.  I don’t know.   But!  I am back.



I guess mostly this blog is a place where I can stretch my writing chops.   I want to see if I have a flair for the written word.  Insert sound of jaws dropping here.  I know.  A blogger with aspirations to be a writer?  Shocking right?  Most original idea ever!  Am genius!



So I guess I will continue along the track I set earlier.  Mommy blogger.  Or as less commonly described, a factual recording of the behavior of a young humanoid that will undoubtedly be the cause of much humiliation later in her life.



Take two.