The ghost of someone's tradgedy

The title of this post is from my favorite Indigo Girls song: Watershed.

"Twisted guardrails on the highway, broken glass on the cement. The ghost of someone's tragedy, how recklessly my time has been spent"

Two weekends ago, there was crazy weather here on the island. There was sunshine, snow, hail, sleet and freezing rain all within the span of 2 hours on Sunday afternoon. We drove in that insane weather to do some shopping and on our return to the island, was caught up in a police blockade on the highway. Traffic was diverted to side streets and the highway wasn't opened up again until around 3pm. It wasn't until the next day that I found out why.

My daughter brought home a note from the principal of her elementary school. The father of 3 children at her school was killed in a car accident on the way home. His 8 year old son was in the car with him but didn't sustain serious physical injuries.

For the past week, I've been obsessing about this accident. He was young, only 42 years old. It is a mystery how he lost control of the car. By the time we were returning home, that area on the road seemed clear of snow and ice, but maybe not.

We don't personally know the family. I'm positive I would recognize them on sight as we all had children attending the same school. My kids are exactly 1 year older than 2 of their kids so we didn't run in the same circles. We have 1 degree of separation from that family as quite a few of our friends are also friends with them.

When something like this happens, it somehow feels wrong that the world keeps spinning. Somehow, there should be a pause button. There is this guilt that I can still laugh, breathe, or kiss my kids. Things I rejoice in, just seems unfair that family doesn't have them anymore. So in that way, the world did pause in honor of that tragedy.

And then there is the desire to somehow care take for that family. That's how a family gets deluged with casseroles and macaroni salads after a loved one is lost. But you know, after coming out of the fog of losing a loved one, I don't remember who brought the doughnuts or the macaroni salad. I remember that they came. That they sat with me and bore the grief with me. That they reminded me that I could still breathe.

I don't know what I can do to help that family. My friends and I have reached out through a mutual friend. She said she'll let us know what the family will need and will put us on the schedule for cooking meals if that is what the family wants.

So I'll look up an easy to freeze casserole recipe and await my turn, hug my husband especially tight, and try to replace my guilt with gratitude.

The brown berry incident

I've been getting a lot of questions about the brown berry incident. Here it is. To the certain embarrassment of my son.

It was the summer 1999. Our small family of three had spent that lazy afternoon picking blackberries which grew wild in the empty lot near our house. While I managed to get a lot of berries in my bucket, my son mostly held his berries in his belly. It was a fun afternoon. He was only 2 years old at the time. My son was potty training but still in diapers.

We were hosting Hubby's parents who were going to attend a high school class reunion. Their best friends were also visiting. Being a good little host, I was entertaining the four seniors in the living room when That toddled in.

My first thought was, "How did he get chocolate?" There was brown stuff all over him -- his hands, his face, his legs. And the second thought was, "OMG!!! That's NOT chocolate!!!"

See, what we figured out happened was That wanted to be a big boy and go to the potty himself. He only managed to get the tab off on one side of the diaper. The other side was too hard to open, so instead of opening it, he just climbed up on the potty and went. Unfortunately, the runny poop that came out didn't really make it into the potty and instead mostly hit the diaper and smeared the toilet. It gets worse. Knowing he didn't quite do it right, he decided to elicit help from Mom or Dad. He went looking for us. He tracked brown berry down the hall into my husband's office, then he decided to look in our bedroom and also in his bedroom. Unsuccessful, he went to the living room and we all took in the HORROR.

It was a very bad day.

There was a moment of paralysis. I couldn't even think what to do first. I tossed the boy in the bathtub but what about the carpet? And the poo all over the bathroom? And how could I ever kiss that boy again? There was poo in his HAIR!!!

We did manage to clean it all up, with only a couple of freak outs in front of the in-laws. (I say that, even though we ended up moving out of that house and ripping the carpet out.)

Adventures in Babysitting

A couple of weeks ago, my husband was running late, unable to get to the house before I had to leave with Princess for our Brownie Girl Scout meeting. In the past, I had taken all three kids with me to the meeting but quickly discovered that solution leaves the kids absolutely out of control. Lil'T would disrupt the meeting at every turn. She's just too little to understand that sometimes Mommy gets busy with other things. As far as she is concerned, she's the sun. We all orbit. I'm Mercury. My husband was due to arrive within the hour so I made a tactical decision. I decided to let my son babysit Lil'T. I figured, if I let them watch a couple of Dora tapes, their father would be home and no terrible crisis could arise in that short time that a 10 year old couldn't handle.

But I was wrong. Here is the transcript of a voice mail I received. My cellphone has spotty coverage where we hold the meetings so this call went to voice mail.

"Mom, I need help. T for some reason has been peeing like crazy. When we were in the middle of the movie, she peed a whole lot! And she finally said, 'I need to go to the bathroom.' And so, I made her take a bath. She took a bath and then I'm in C's room and I finally get her all dried off and I'm about to put on the diaper and then I see water (laughing a little) streaming from her you-know-where. And I think: 'Where is she getting that water? I thought that I...' and then my brain suddenly starts moving and my head takes in the HORROR. T has made a big, big soak of urine in C's carpet. Come now. I need help. This is urgent. URGENT."

He ended the message by giving our home phone number followed by, "as if you didn't know that."

Hubby and I were amazed that he had decided to give Lil'T a bath. In giving her the bath, he showed great problem solving skills and really took care of her. A little pee on the carpet is nothing new. Shoot, when he was little, there was the notorious brown-berry incident which was far worse than pee in the carpet. (Nature's Miracle lives up to its name when cleaning up these type of accidents b.t.w.) He did a great job and for short periods of time, I'll let him sit for me. I won't let him sit Princess. That would be a terrible scene, but for Lil'T, That has shown great affection and responsibility.

I've got the message saved on my voice mail. If you want to hear it first hand, let me know and I can try to forward it to your box. Wouldn't it be nice if I could figure out how to upload audio? Hey, I'm just thrilled that I figured out how to embed video. And how cool is it that I'm finally on YouTube?

I'm so proud of my son. That's a good boy.

New smiles

Yesterday, That got his braces off. He said that his teeth felt slimy because he hasn't felt smooth teeth in over a year. It is strange to see his mouth without the braces on and we're going to be dealing with a retainer for the rest of his treatment. Oh man, I already know I'm going to be spending hundreds replacing retainers for the duration. I'm hoping it will be okay for him to just eat with the retainer in place. I'm dreading him losing it. Maybe I can send him to school with puddings and soups while he's in retainers. That might be a little obsessive.

So yesterday we went to have some corn on the cob. The only place I could think of was KFC to get some of that. I know, their corn tastes like sucking on a dishrag, but the prospects for fresh corn on the cob in April are pretty slim. So I packed up the kids and we drove to the next town for the nearest KFC. We started ordering and when we got to the sides, the counter girl said, "We're out of corn on the cob."

Seriously.

So we left and went to the nearest grocery store. I was not going to be dissuaded from this quest. I found 4 fresh ears of corn, flown in from Mexico, for a whopping $6. Yeah, that's pretty steep. But how often do you get to celebrate getting your braces off? Then we also bought long carrots, apples, gummy bears, taffy, and beef jerky. For those who aren't aware, these are all forbidden foods for braces wearers. Pizza and corn chips are also on the list but if I had gotten rid of those, the child would have whithered up and died.

We went back to KFC to get some chicken because one cannot make a dinner out of jerky, gummy bears and corn. And while we were there, I shot this little vid.

Howling Tsunami

At the beginning of the year, I had made a goal sheet with all the places we wanted to visit. But life changes. Circumstances change. But most importantly, airfare is outrageous. We looked into alternatives like going by train or driving, but all modes of transportation weren't going to work with time constraints. Especially considering that Hubby just started his job less than 3 months ago.

I'm sure that Hubby's family would be disappointed, but we'll have to do the great California visit in the summertime, when the kids are out of school and there are more open schedules.

It did feel like a killjoy though, because the kids needed amusement. Well, more like we needed amusement and the kids are a great excuse for that. So when Julia called and told me that she had just made reservations at the new waterpark/resort in Centralia, WA, I got on the net and made my reservations as well. Additionally, I talked to Sharon and she made reservations. So we all were going to get wet together.

The Great Wolf Lodge is a really fun place. There is a wave pool with innertubes, which was Lil'T's fave ride. There is a big fortress in the middle of the park with many opportunities to spray complete strangers with hoses. There is a wicked fast innertube ride and 2 regular water slides. But the one that is worth standing in a 30 minute line is the Tsunami.

The Tsunami lets you feel like you've just been spit down one of those old fashioned dentist spittoons. It is shaped like a funnel, and depending on the ballast you've got on your 4 seater innertube, you can go up either side of the funnel to the watermark. The first time I rode it, I was truly in the dark, literally and figuratively. It was the evening, and I was riding with the kids. Being the biggest person on the tube, I rode backwards. The beginning part of the ride, you don't even think it is going to be that bad. You're very leisurely riding along. Somewhere in your mind, you heard the lifeguard saying, "Hang on tight." But you start thinking that maybe he was exaggerating. And then there is the drop. And your insides are all of a sudden in your toes and your head is flung back into darkness. Oh man. That is a rush. You get about 4 dizzying slides up and down the sides of the funnel before you're let down the drain. The second time I rode, I went with David, Sharon, & my husband. We had heft in that inner tube with 4 adults. Because he was the largest, Hubby went down the tube backwards. Let me tell you, on one of those gravity defying flights up the side of the funnel, I felt my butt leave the inner tube. I white knuckled it from then on. I was sure we were going to do a full circumference of the funnel but I guess laws of physics must have kicked in. That was a heady ride. The last morning of our stay there, instead of getting breakfast first and risking losing it on the slide, we decided to go on the Tsunami one last time, this time with Princess. She had finally decided she was going to give it a whirl.

When you go in the daytime, you're able to see the drop. You can see how far up the sides of the funnel you ride. I'm not sure if that is a good thing. I think it makes the anticipation more frightening. I watched as that fall came closer and closer and the minute it came, I watched my daughter's smile disappear into a look of concern and huge saucer eyes. She would not admit it later, but I think we scared and scarred her in that one fateful ride. I hope she'll try rides like that again. Maybe with all kids next time. My son and his friends prided themselves on not screaming on the Tsunami. No problem though, I screamed plenty for the lot of them.

Hanging on by a thread

This is the coolest thing. Flapping in the wind is Princess's first loose tooth. Her smile is forever changed.

She got $2.00 in dimes. She said that she chose 17 coins to ask for because she was thinking of a big number. But when she thought about it longer, 20 is bigger than 17 so that's what she asked for. And she decided that dimes were more fair than quarters because otherwise, some kids might not get any money for their teeth. Dimes weigh less than quarters.

She made a small quilt for the Tooth Fairy out of a piece of scrap fabric. She also asked the Tooth Fairy to take the quilt instead of the tooth because she wants to collect all her baby teeth. I was surprised. The Tooth Fairy took the quilt and left the money. Pretty sweet deal.

Watch your step into the 21st century

My brother called me on the phone last night. He's got a new webcam for his computer and we thought it would be fun to have a video conference so the kids can see each other even though we live in different states.

After exchanging ooVoo usernames, we attempted to talk to each other on the computer.

You would think that all you had to do was plug that little device in and off we'd go. But no. What followed was about an hour of trying to describe things to my brother that he should see on the screen. "Click on the button that is under your picture that looks like a blue thought bubble..." "Try clicking on the hang up button and then you call me. On the computer. Not the phone." Ultimately, we did an end run on the problem of getting the audio and vid working at the same time and instead ran the video while using the speaker phone on our land lines to talk.

Every day I find myself acting a little more like how I remember my parents acting when I was a kid. I remember my dad holding the remote control over his head and aiming it at the t.v. while pressing the button. He and Mom called it the "space age controller," and my dad swore that it really did work better when he held it aloft.

I remember when we got our first microwave. I don't remember what year it was, but I think it was in the late 70's. My parents invited the son-in-law of my Godmother (Ninang Emily) to teach us how to cook with it. Morris was a certified appliance repairman, not a chef or cook. But a repairman. We all gathered around the kitchen while Morris put in a raw scrambled egg in a bowl and out came a that same bowl with a yellow rubber like film that was allegedly cooked scrambled egg. You had to scrape the egg off the bowl and then attempt to eat it. For months after that lesson, my mother would start my day with egg microwaved in the bowl. For months after that lesson, I went to school nauseated or hungry because I had puked up that poor excuse for an egg. Morris also gave me and Mom some microwave cookbooks -- the official ones from the manufacturers of the appliances themselves. You'd think they'd give you edible recipes because they'd want to promote their microwaves. But no. According to the cookbook, there was nothing you couldn't cook in the microwave. Birthday cake? In less than 3 minutes! Fish? You bet! In less than 5 minutes! Thanksgiving dinner? Absolutely! In less than 10 minutes! Mom bought all kinds of special microwave cookware for our new oven, but no matter what, the food experiments were all just assaults on our senses.

But back to last night's foray into technology. It was really fun to get to see my niece and nephew. The littlest one was asleep so I didn't get to see him. I got to see Mom too. Unfortunately, all my kids were asleep but we're going to try to video conference again.

And probably use the speaker phone on the land lines again. Ahhh... technology.