Day 15: Nolie

Still not sure if I’ll keep blogging here, but my mom asked where the blog went so I figured I’d give it a try for a bit to see how it feels. Here’s day 15 featuring Nolan.

Absence

So most of you reading know we lost our pet budgie, Birdie this week. I know to some, this isn’t any great loss; it’s “just” a bird who costs around $20 at a pet shop. Bird brains, not cuddly like mammals, etc. I get that, I really do. But for someone like me who can’t have a mammal, having a pet bird brings a measure of joy I’ve been denied by my overachieving immune system, and my kids are able to share in that joy by growing up with pet birds.

We still aren’t exactly sure why he got sick so suddenly, but when we got him, he was sick. The national chain pet store he came from was willing to let us exchange him for another bird, but I couldn’t bear to think of what would happen to him if we did. So we knew going in that he wasn’t 100%, and earlier this year, we’d spent hundreds of dollars trying to figure out why. Turns out he had something called megabacteria, which is actually a fungus (don’t ask me; I’m not a scientist) that can be tough to diagnose and completely eradicate. I’m guessing the bacterial infection had returned after a 10 month hiatus, because even though the tests the vet ran the day we brought him in didn’t reveal its presence, there was nothing else new in his world except our 4-day trip to Orlando and megabacteria can be tough to spot, often requiring several tests till it’s spotted.

Of course, the worst part of this whole ordeal was seeing the kids’ heartbreak. There were tears–mine included–and we all talked openly about where Birdie’s spirit might be and whether there were separate heavens for people, cats, dogs, and birds (Jackson came up with that one).

Nolan took it the hardest, since Birdie arrived as a birthday gift from one of our babysitters and while we made it clear that Birdie was for our whole family, we let Nolan choose his name as a birthday gift. Turns out I’ve been misspelling his name wrong all along–to Nolan, it’s “Birdy.” He cried and yelled for a long time, then at one point quietly went into the art room to work on this:

He said he wanted to put it in the box with Birdy when we buried him, and after that there were no more tears from him. That night, we all walked outside to the pine trees outside my home office window and buried him with Nolan’s letter and a couple of his favorite toys. The wind was blowing hard that night and it broke my heart to think of him all alone out there in that wind. Jackson even thought to bury his beloved Soft Turtle with him since Turtle was sort of, well, Birdy’s “boyfriend” (birds have needs too!). But he said he couldn’t bring himself to do it. I told him it says a great deal about his spirit that he’d even consider giving up his Turtle for his pet bird. What a heart.

My mom says we shouldn’t get another bird because the boys may be learning not to take death seriously, but of course we all want another (well, except Dan, but we outnumber him). And I don’t think this is causing them to devalue either life or death, but rather the opposite.

What I hate the most is how quiet the house is now. Every morning after dropping the kids off at school, I’d come home and he’d be all excited to see me so I’d let him out of his cage and he’d hitch a ride on my shoulder while I fixed coffee and readied to work.

Every time I’d walk out of my office, he’d cheerfully say, “Hi, Birdy!” in my voice. He laughed in my laugh when I’d tell a joke; it wasn’t the language he understood but the timing and frequency of my smartassery. He learned to say “I’m a CHICKEN hawk!” “Shake your booty” “Jackson farted!” and a few other phrases. I even got him to say “I love you, Mommy” one time on Mother’s Day. He was so sweet and gentle with the boys, never biting them even when they pushed his boundaries. He even rode a toy train for Jackson once Dan suggested he use a smaller version of Soft Turtle as bait to lure him aboard. He loved fruits and veggies and stealing bites of the boys’ oatmeal and corn on the cob.

Really, he was a remarkable little being with a ton of feisty spirit. Here’s a link to many of the photos I took of him during his over two years with us. I sure miss you, bird.

Pupdate (for the grandparents)

I promised my in-laws I’d give semi-regular updates on the boys, so here goes. Feel free to skip these if you’re not one of my kids’ grandparents.

Jackson – He’s really enjoying his weekly sessions in the district’s gifted & talented program, aka “Challenge Corps.” He went to a parents’ meeting last week with his Dad and Dan came home pretty impressed. His teacher said typically, despite what the grades say, she can spend 15-20 minutes talking to a kid and she’ll know, and with Jackie, she knew right away that he was gifted. I know how braggy that sounds, but I figure, if I don’t boost my own kid’s awesomeness, who else will?

His hair is still long and he likes it that way. He’s really big into Legos and a bit into Star Wars, too but I think mostly because he loves the Lego minifigures they make to go with the Lego ships and creatures. I’m steering him toward a big, generic Lego bin for Christmas, so he can build his own stuff and not be limited to one design, and he’s going for it, woo hoo! His Challenge Corps teacher told Dan that Legos are a common tool for gifted kids and encouraged us to steer him in that direction. He still makes all sorts of things on his own, using paper, yarn, fabric, or whatever he has on hand. Here’s a top hat he made from paper, crayon, and tape one morning before school:

Nolan – Nolan is making great strides emotionally this year. I’m not sure about socially, which makes me realize that I need to get off my duff and arrange a playdate with a kid he gets on with well. His teacher says the kid’s parents are as awesome as the kid, and encouraged me to follow up on it, so that’s on my list for Nolie. Recently, he’s become super-affectionate, giving me many hugs and kisses throughout the day. Anyone who knows how reserved Nolan is will know how meaningful this is. He’s also, despite a rocky start to the school year, adjusted to his school routine. At conferences, his teacher (who is so wonderful and patient and truly likes him just the way he is) said he still keeps to himself socially, preferring to hang out in the reading nook.

Here he is reading the guided tour map on a recent hike:

When Dan took him to orientation night, he said he felt sorry for Nolan, because he can read and all of the activities were geared toward pre-readers. I told him that this is the cost we must pay right now, until his social-emotional skills catch up to his intellect. I think it’ll pay off; as my very wise mom friends have reminded me often, parents often regret not holding a child back, but seldom regret waiting a year for emotions to catch up.

He’s really into maps, too and has been for over a year now. I keep a little bin filled with local trail maps and a state and county map and he’ll sit there studying them for an hour or more. He loves reading the key to the map and finding the symbols on the map. He’s also big into I Spy books and we just learned that there’s an I Spy game for the Wii, so I think I’ll be asking Santa to bring one of those for him. He’s also into the Legos with Jackson.

Aaron – Aaron continues to be my “boy’s boy,” perfectly captured in a recent moment as I dropped him off at our sitter’s: two-year-old Annie chased him all over the main floor of the house begging him to play Barbies with her. Little man wasn’t having any of it. He’s still very much into trains, and all things Thomas, and he still needs to talk or sing himself to sleep at night, which drives all of us crazy, but is apparently just how his brain needs to wind down.

Recently, he started asking me how to spell certain words, so I’ve been working with him by having him take his Thomas books and spell his favorite (which he still pronounces “fravorite”) engines’ names.

As for the household in general, the more of a routine we have, the better we all do. Dan has really stepped up over the past year and helps out so much, for which I’m very grateful. I also instituted a weekends-only limit on video games, with great results–they play for an hour or so each weekend and are done, moving on to other things, just the balance I’d wanted.

Family life for us is really happy right now. There’s lots of laughter, we’re often busy but happy, and I try to let go of my everyday worries and savor as much of these days as I can.

Who Are You?

{Me, circa 1992}

{Me on my 41st Birthday, October 2008}

Jackson asked me tonight if I could go back in time, what would I tell myself? Wow, kiddo, you really know how to ask the deep questions. He said he’d like to go back and see himself as a baby, how he acted and looked, because he can’t remember any of those days.

I said if I could go back and tell my old self one thing, it would be this: “Be kind to yourself.”

Maybe realizations like this need to be earned, savored, appreciated. Maybe the times you fell down make you better able to stand tall today.

Audacity

Bad news first . . . if a gay marriage amendment can’t pass in California . . . that doesn’t bode well, does it?

Continue reading »

Dreams

Because I’ve been following and tweeting about the election all day, I don’t have the energy to cover that topic as I wind down from watching the very exciting election coverage. So I’ll tell this odd little story instead.

I dreamed last night that I was carving a face out of a ball of clay. I remember poking two round eyes using a pencil and then a rudimentary mouth. Suddenly, the face came to life, looking like an actual woman’s face, the eyes flew open, and the head flew at me, toward my forehead.

I woke up terrified, in a cold sweat; (it was 3:50 a.m.) and was up for about an hour and a half after that.

Later on, I called a friend for a clarity check and some hand holding about an issue that was bugging me, but I knew that it wasn’t the real issue at all. And I was right. It wasn’t until I’d hung up the phone that I realized: The dream was about me messing with my own head – it ultimately terrifies me and keeps me up nights. I need to knock that shit off.

I Don’t Care Who You Vote For

Just VOTE. (Assuming you’re American, anyway).

Don’t be a dick; be a part of history.

(I really should get around to starting that t-shirt company I keep thinking about).

I have more to say on the election, but my brain is shutting down and you probably don’t care, anyway. At least care enough to vote and to care about what’s happening in our great nation.

We’re taking the kids tomorrow when Dan comes home from work and walking there as a family. I want the boys to see how important it is to participate in our political process; they can become jaded little know-it-all dickheads who eschew it later on should they choose. But at least they’ll know we cared and we wanted them to care, too – and why. Maybe it’ll even rub off on them, who knows.

As an aside, am I the only one who gets emotional and tears up when she votes in presidential elections? Maybe because I’ve actually studied the U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court jurisprudence, or maybe it’s because I’ve visited nearly all of our 50 states. No matter the reason, I’m honored to have this right and I try to use it wisely. Also, for the first time ever, I’m casting a vote for a candidate I believe in. Not hook, line, and sinker; but I believe he’s the best man for the job right now. Hopefully this isn’t just the exhaustion talking and this post will make sense in the morning.

Shit List

{A 40th Birthday Gift From a Friend}

All morning I’ve puttered around the house cleaning up from Halloween and a weekend of kitchen neglect. It’s pretty nice outside, and I’d promised myself I’d continue riding my bike year-round unless it’s icy.

Bike riding in the Midwest in November? Absolutely. In law school in the early ’90s, I used to ride my bike, helmet-less (like an idiot), through the streets of Chicago, even in January. I remember being the only one riding past the icy blues and whites along the lakefront, protected from the frigid air by good gear and the warmth riding brings. I also remember with amusement that no matter how quick I tried to be to forewarn them, every guy I knew on the elevator couldn’t resist grabbing at my bike seat handle (removed to prevent theft) as I carried it up to my locker, resulting in them getting a well-deserved palmful of grease (insert “boys will be boys” joke here—> ).

When I was a kid, I was often admonished for being “lazy.” This used to royally piss me off, because even I was self-aware enough to know, hey, I’m a kid, why the hell do I need to be a productive citizen? Leave me to my Nancy Drew and after school M*A*S*H reruns! Now, I’m not playing the “blame the relatives” game here, but I do think I internalized some of that name-calling. I’m a hard-working, productive, self-employed writer, but those accusations of “lazy” still hang somewhere in the periphery.

Where am I going with this? I think there’s good lazy and bad lazy. I often apply “good” laziness to my work by striving to work smarter, not harder. I finally understand that my brain can only output so much coherence before it needs time off to recharge. I am a firm believer in the siesta, and have been taking 15 minute naps in between when Jackson comes home and we have to pick up the littles thirty minutes later. I believe I’m serving myself well by not giving in to my propensity for Type A perfectionism (see yesterday’s entry for an example of letting go of perfectionism).

But when it comes to health, fitness and weight loss? I’m all about the shortest distance between two points–which is usually the sugar and my mouth or my ass and the couch. I’m not trying to deride myself here, but what I do mean is that–and I know I’ve said this here before but please bear with me–I am simply unwilling to make the tough choices and do the hard work required to effect long-term change for the better. It’s simply easier to eat what I want, when I want. It’s easier to sit here typing this blog entry rather than to find something to wear, check the tires, and suit up for a ride before I get down to some Sunday afternoon work. I know this bleeds over into my career, too; there are things I want to be doing that I’m not doing.

I’m tired of feeling like the parade is passing me by in so many elements of my life that matter to me.

As with using a credit card for an on-sale impulse buy, only to pay more than full price in interest later on, I’m tired of overpaying for taking the easy path, the safe path, the painless path. But I also know that the solution lies not in berating myself, because self loathing isn’t productive; it’s exactly the sort of behavior that drives these other, non-helpful acts. I need to take myself off my own shit list and do what matters to get where I want to be. It sounds so simple, but I know it’s not. For now, all I’m going to do is pause and think before I make a decision that could impact one of my major goals. I’ll write more later on how, or whether, this helps. And right after I post this entry, I’m gonna go check that tire pressure.

I Believe

In what works. And this project isn’t working for me right now. I only have so many hours in a day and so much brain space. I don’t need to prove my follow-through in that I can take a photo a day for an entire year; that’s just the sort of clusterfuckish thinking that precludes real creative work. (Note the distinction here; I don’t think that doing a photo a day or a haiku a day or a blog entry a day is clusterfuckery; what makes it so is sticking to something when it’s not working and when you have other fish to fry).

So, to all five of you reading, the 365Alive project is no more. I know I have a lot to say about self acceptance, health, weight loss, leading a satisfying life, and aging. I just don’t want or need to do so every day. I have young kids. I have a serious amount of money to earn if I’m ever going to help us climb out of the consumer debt we’ve accumulated (yes, we are those Ugly Americans so easily and smugly derided lately; sue me. Or don’t; we can’t afford the legal fees). I have 80,000 words of a novel that I think is a halfway decent storytelling, and I want to sell that novel. I have a whole other world of people and tasks to attend to, and forcing myself to finish a project I’m not feelin’ (I’ve gained 5 pounds since starting) does not serve me. So, onward!

Day 43: Cake

My parents had us over for dinner the day after my birthday, and my mom and the boys baked this cake while I slept off Saturday night napped on the couch.

It’s hard to describe how very funny my parents are. If I wrote them into a show like Northern Exposure, they’d fit in seamlessly; I mean that as high praise, as this is my all-time favorite TV show (not even The Wire can compete) and my parents are seriously entertaining to be around. (Also: I still want to be Ruth Anne when I grow up).

This year, I wished for health, for me, for all of us. A simple thing, really. I’m kind of lost on the health front right now, hence the silence. And I know I need to keep writing when things get rough, but it’s been a crazy-hectic week (I am post-dating these entries to match the day on which the images were taken; as I write, it’s actually October 30th). I’ll write more as I throw up a few photos to get caught up. After the first, I’ll be blogging daily for NaBloPoMo. Because I am a BadAssMoFo.

Edited to add: Had to throw this in, too; not only is it on point, but it’s awesome: