Winter: Shit or get off the pot.

by statia on November 15, 2011

So.

Snow in October, 70 degrees right before Thanksgiving.  The only thing that hasn’t changed about winter is LG’s inability to get a raging case of RSV every single fucking time she gets sick.  The tubes have prevented her from getting ear infections, (as in multiple, because she’s already had two colds in the span of 3 weeks), but she can’t shake getting blindsided by a chest infection. Which leads me to my next topic:

Toddlers on roids.  Let’s discuss this.  People, I would rather put up with a roided out weight lifter, than a roided out toddler any day of my life.  Now, let me be clear, it’s not for lack of a communication on her part.  LG is a talker of epic proportions.  She’s light years ahead of other kids her age in both verbalization and enunciation.  I always say, you can only understand your own toddler, but she’s very easy to converse with.  I feel that this is my karmic reward for having such a difficult time with the Mini early on.  It comes with a price, believe me.  Listening is not one of her strong suits, and mischief is.  She’s exhausting.

I decided that there was no way I was going to deal with this all winter, so we went back to the good Ayurvedic practitioner that helped the Mini when he was first showing signs of Autism.  I firmly believe that while therapy and our involvment has helped him “fall off” the spectrum, it was those early days of helping his body heal from the inside.  So it was a no brainer.

Now if the weather would just pick something and stick with it, maybe my cold would make a decision too.  Stay or go, asshole, I don’t have time for this sort of bullshit.

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A whole lot of nothing. Or something.

by statia on October 19, 2011

Yeah, I won’t scar you anymore with talk about Frankengina.  I’m six weeks post surgery, and I go for my follow-up on Friday.  I feel great, have no regrets, and I’m just happy to be back to my regular self and up and about.  I was really looking forward to the downtime, which lasted about a whole week (a record!).

So, let’s see, um, yeah.  Much to the hubs chagrin, we’ve been up to our necks in home remodeling.  We went from our family room being like this to a not quite finished bedroom, which I’m guessing you can figure out who it will belong to:??

First, I apologize for the shitty cell phone picture, but seriously, come on now.  Hello 4S, with your EIGHT megapixel camera and you still can’t take a picture doesn’t look like it doesn’t belong on some stalker website?  Anyway.

See, the problem with having that lovely two story family room, is that two of the rooms were sandwiched up there and this isn’t 1864, where the Wilder girls had to share a bed in a loft.  LG’s room was so small, and the smallness wasn’t the big issue, it was that it was an oven in there, whereas her brother had an decent sized ice box at the end of the hall.  She’s a hot sleeper. Eventually she’ll want more room, and we never wanted that open space.  All winter long we play find the shady spot on the sofa.  No longer an issue, my friend.  LG has a decent sized room that she won’t sweat herself in, we aren’t burning our retinas out.  The only one who loses is the Mini, because he can’t spy on us from the half wall, a point he made us very well aware of.   Well then, dude, here’s an idea for you then, STOP SPYING.  We need to have our swearing time.

Of course, being my daughter, she wanted the room pink AND purple (of course she did, at $65 for a can of paint, asshole) and unicorns.   I’m working on a mural some other things twirly and all that.   I think if I could have found a way to put a dress on her room, she would have made me do that.   We also chose a carbonized fiber bamboo (stronger than stranded, like holy hell, hulk smash strong) that was easy to install.  Click and lock.  We want to go hardwoods throughout, and we definitely are in love with these floors.

So now I’m painting my whole house because all of the walls connected somehow, making it so that you had to paint EVERYTHING.

Oh, and then there’s this little issue I’m dealing with:

What is up with this bitch?  Just start calling me Alfalfa.   The good thing is, I’ve had my hair back for the past six weeks, now mainly to cover that embarrassment up, oh and also, fucking painting.

And so, yeah, LG ended up with the Croup, so that’s awesome.  She’s totally digging her scratchy Phoebe smelly cat voice, because she refuses to stop talking.  Ever.

Smelly caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat smelly caaaaaaaaaaaaaaat, it’s not your fauuuuuuuult!

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Frankengina: Four weeks later

by statia on October 5, 2011

Three years ago, when I had my original consultation and post-op, I came out of the office having a major anxiety attack. I knew that it just wasn’t the time to go through it. The Mini was at the beginning of his journey, and then that fall, I found out that we were expecting LG. I have to think that this timing was cosmic. But at some point, I knew I had to go through with it, or my quality of life, well, there was no quality.

Several people have asked me exactly what the surgery entails, and sometimes, it’s hard to explain to someone that a doctor was taking a knife to my hooha. More women go through this than you can imagine.  My issues don’t define me.  I’m not embarrassed by them, especially since it’s not really my fault.  It’s just the shitty luck of the draw.   So I’m about to go into detail.  If you’re squeamish, avert the eyes.

[click to continue…]

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The Boobiethon has started

by statia on October 1, 2011

Ok everyone.  I don’t mean to be all up in your grill by bombaring you with Boobiethon posts (Oh, yes, I totally do).  But the ‘thon has officially kicked off today.  Submit your rack shots.  Help out.  Do your part.   And if I might so subtly suggest to help one of my best friends, Wendy, by donating to her directly.  She kicked cancer’s ass, and she did it with no job, while on Cobra.  She will literally be paying for cancer for the rest of her life.  I know you’re thinking, “what makes her so special?”  Well you know what?  SHE JUST IS. That’s what.  And I’m going to insert the token mom line “because I told you so!”

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Bare it all for charity

by statia on September 23, 2011

Ahh, fall is in the air (though I’m fighting it.  I’m not ready for fall yet), I see all the accouterments that go with fall: changing leaves, marigolds, pumpkins.  And you know what pumpkins remind me of?  Boobies.  And you know what boobies remind me of? The annual BOOBIETHON.   The annual Boobiethon is a cause near and dear to my heart, because, while I didn’t actually start the Boobiethon, I’m happy to be the reason it started.  If I hadn’t been alone one Thanksgiving, and if I hadn’t had such awesome friends who were so stinking stubborn about getting me to them (being newly single, I had no money at the time) so that I didn’t have to be alone, the Boobiethon wouldn’t have gone on to raise nearly $75,000 towards cancer research.   For a blogger to go on to do that year after year to raise that much, well it’s humbling to say that I was a part of that.

And this past year, I’ve had about five friends diagnosed with cancer.  Four with breast cancer.  Four.  All within weeks of each other.  I can’t tell you how sad and disheartening this is for me. My friend’s are young, healthy, vibrant women, who don’t deserve to get cancer.  No one deserves to get cancer, and this is a disease that should be eradicated.  Thanks to all of the people that have donated over the years, I’m grateful.  Even if it was a small amount.  It’s people like you that have made it possible for my friends to call themselves survivors.  Cancer didn’t beat them.  So this year, I’ll be making an extra special effort to post about the boobiethon.   Over the past few years, becoming a new mother and buying a house and well, life just got in the way. This year, I’m so happy to have my friends.  Cancer isn’t a death sentence anymore.

The annual Boobiethon runs from October 1st to October 7th.  You can donate directly to Komen, submit your “rack shot” or help my friend, Wendy, my hot internet wife, who unfortunately, got laid off right after her diagnosis. Despite her hard knocks, she barely complained and always had a positive attitude. You can also donate your time and help volunteer, or donate goods or services. Mel, a longtime friend, and organizer of the boobiethon is always looking for help in any way.

Please consider helping out, any way you can.   Thanks.

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So that I don’t bore you with my insane DIY addiction any longer

by statia on September 20, 2011

Frankengina is getting better on a daily basis.  I’m (mostly) wearing pants now.  I’m only partially happy about it.  However, it makes it less weird, since my brother and sister-in-law are here for the week, since I’m still moving slowly, and can’t lift anything heavy, or drive the kid’s to school.

I can’t even begin to show my appreciation for them being here this week (and of course my mother last week) to help out.  My kids LOVE their aunt and uncle, who don’t have kids of their own, thereby, my kids are theirs by extension and they love them to bits, and love spending time with them.  My brother and I had a rift a few years back, and given our family’s propensity for stubbornness, I’m  really glad that they’re in our lives and especially in our kid’s lives.  They do so much to help us out, and it’s obvious how much they love The Mini and Little Girl.   Today, I was just so grateful that my kid’s have them and will have these great memories of them doing all the fun “aunt and uncle” things when their older.

End sap.

Anyway,  because I’ve been on bed rest and light duty, I figured it was no time like the present to finally start a DIY/home decorating type blog to chronicle what I’ve done, and what I’ve learned.   I needed to split up the two spaces.  So if you’re interested in what I’m doing around my house, you can always visit me over at my new space, DIY Learning Curve.  It’s still a work in progress, and two of the three posts are repeat content from my two previous summer projects, but I’ve got a few pages of post ideas written down, and I’m adding every day.  Guess how many pages of ideas I have for over here?  Zilch.  But that doesn’t mean I won’t be updating here. Personal blog, I can’t quit you!!  And besides, most of the stuff I write here is on the fly.  Usually from the shitter.   Although, not from the shitter right now, because that whole surgery thing has caused major constipation and with constipation comes rhoids.  And well, you know what they say about extended periods on the toilet.

What, like you thought I’d be all sappy and NOT end this post without talking about poop?  You people will never learn.

P.S.  And yes, the website kiss of death.  The other site went down last night.  We’re working on it.  Stupid servers.

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Frankengina!

by statia on September 14, 2011

All last week, I walked around on edge.  I was flippant and short with people.  My last days being able to walk for awhile were going fast.

On Thursday night, the hubs and I drove in silence to Manhattan in order to get a decent night’s sleep in preparation for the big vagina surgery the next morning.  After years of pain and talking about this “miracle surgery” for so long, the day was finally here.

When we first went in for a consult three years ago to set this surgery up,  The Mini was in the throes of developmental delays and I remember so vividly, walking out of the doctors office and having a full blown panic attack.   “They’re going to do what WHERE?” Vulvar vestibulectomy isn’t exactly the type of surgery that women are lining up to get.  Even if it’s going to improve your life.  The recovery is long, and did I mention, they cut a chunk of FLESH out of your bits?  My bits are now a byte.  Or a bite, or just a bit?  I don’t even know.

The recovery instructions basically say: Take a lot of baths, don’t look, have an ice pack on your vagina constantly, and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON’T LOOK.   And really, I can’t even move to see, or bend in that position, but I couldn’t see even if I wanted to, it’s like someone took a bicycle pump to my undercarriage.

The surgery itself, wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.   It was done right in an OBGYN’s office, under conscious sedation, which I wasn’t exactly fond of at first, because I prefer to be unconscious during my surgeries.  But they assured me that I wouldn’t be awake, even if I did hear something, and they were going to make sure that the area was numb.  Doing the surgery in an office had a definite advantage.  There was no waiting around in a pre-op veal pen all day.  I wasn’t bugged by a bunch of nurses in a recovery room, rather a very cozy setting of two recovery chairs.  I was home by mid afternoon, and in my own bed, something that I appreciated greatly.  I hate being in a big hospital for outpatient surgery.  You spend more time waiting than anything else.

There is pain, but it’s completely not what I thought it would be.  For years, I was so used to this burning feeling, and there’s no burning.  It’s pain where the stitches are.  It’s cramping, swelling, but not burning.  I can’t really sit, and I have to walk like my legs are bound together.  The healing process is slow, and having to lay in bed all day is taking its toll on me, and also disrupting to the kids, which we knew would be the case, but hopefully in another week and a half, I’ll be able to get out of the house, at least a little bit.

For now, I’m enjoying not having to wear pants.   Because you have to celebrate the little things.

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Happy thoughts and pepto pink.

by statia on September 2, 2011

I’m trying not to make this all DIY all the time, but seriously, cancer and social awkwardness needs to be moved down a bit.  It’s depressing.

I’ve been thrifting and hitting up flea markets this summer.  I’ve always had a fondness for vintage stuff.  And not just of the home decorating variety.  Toys especially.   Vintage “stickas” (remember these bad boys?  I spent hundreds on that one page alone), Rainbow Brite, Strawberry Shortcake, all the stuff I had as a kid, and even boys toys.  I managed to find the first season of He-Man on DVD earlier this year, and both of the kids LOVE it.  LG runs around the house with a light saber in her hand screaming “I HAVE THE POWERRRRRR!”  And if that isn’t seriously cool, I don’t know what is.

We were “junking” as I call it, on Monday, and LG came across a tiny rocking chair.  She sat in it and one of the vendors said “it was made for her.”  I really didn’t want to buy it.  We have enough crap in the house.

“I was going to sell it for $35,” said the man, “but I’ll give it to you for $20.  It’s been in my neighbor’s family for years.”

I stood there for a moment, eyeing it.  He probably thought I was trying to haggle (and maybe silently I was), but I was really hoping she would just grow tired of it and move on.   She looked up at him and batted her eyes and smiled.

“Man, this is cruel.” He said, “bringing your cute kids here to do your dirty work!  I’ll tell you what, you can have it for $15.  Nice trick.”

As we were walking away with the rocking chair in hand, my daughter said “Mama, I want to paint it pink AND purple.

More unintended hours of sanding later, we have this, at the Diva’s request:

She picked out the colors all on her own.  Benjamin Moore’s “Spring Azalea,” and “Crocus Petal Purple,” respectively.   The stenciling was an afterthought.  I’m not really great at stenciling, but she’s happy, and really, that’s all that matters.

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Social Awkwardness

by statia on September 2, 2011

First things first, Gromit is getting his “toeectomy” on Tuesday.  He’ll most likely be fine.  I have my surgery four days later, so what’s cool, is that we’ll be all down for the count together.  And hopefully high as kites together too.  I can’t think of a better, squishier companion for that part.

Ok, so.

I struggle when talking about the Mini and his delays anymore.  He’s getting older now.  I try to respect his privacy.   I want to chronicle his life, and I want to help others, and find a common ground.   Hell, I can’t even talk to his therapists in front of him.  I won’t, unless he’s distracted by his girlfriend/future wife du jour, or is out of hearing range.   He’s way too perceptive.  He knows we’re discussing him, and his issues, and I’m getting to that point now, where he realizes his own awkwardness, and while he hasn’t questioned it yet, I can see it coming.

He wants so badly to have friends now.  He starts pre-K next week.  It’s nearly a full day, and he knows all of the kids.  He’ll say hi to them, and have very short brief conversations with them, but his conversational skills with kids his age are just…painful to watch.  He’s better with us, but I’m not going to lie, it’s still a bit tedious.  With kids his own age, unless he’s very very comfortable with them  (Such as my children from another mother, the BFF), he’s not there yet.  He wants to be.  He wants friends now.  He wants to be out in the neighborhood, playing with the other kids, but he can’t get past “hi.”  He’ll say hi, and then launch into some diatribe about something that makes absolutely no sense.  And when he realizes this, he’ll say he played with so and so, but what he really did was watch from afar, and make nervous conversation with himself.  Echoing rote phrases or a coping gibberish.   The kids will go off and play with each other.   I realize that boys tend to develop their interactive playing later than girls.  The girls in his class were already excited to see their friends at orientation, already cliquey and going off, leaving a trail of high pitched squeals in their wake.  The boys?  All parallel playing.  I think it’s a dude thing.  But the Mini is a little different. He’s absorbed in his own  little world of cars.   Perhaps this is because he’s so comfortable with his classmates.

At home, it’s such a different story.   There’s a family with a gaggle of kids down the street.  The kids are all kind of dicks.   I hate to say it.   They range in age from 11-ish, to the youngest being four.  The two younger kids, four and five, walk past our house a lot, to go pick the older ones up from the bus stop.   The Mini will always say hi, and ALL of the kids just stare at him.  I don’t think they’ve ever once said hi to him.  The five year old now whizzes by on his bike multiple times a day while we play out front, and I want to throw a stick in front of his bike and scream “WOULD IT FUCKING KILL YOU TO SAY HI TO THE KID, JUST ONCE?”  But I can’t do that.  The Mini hasn’t asked.  He doesn’t feel personally offended by it (yet), but I told him, if you’ve said hi to the kids repeatedly, and they ignore you, they’re just not nice kids and there are probably plenty of kids your age in the ‘hood, we just need to take more walks during the day.

I know he’s getting bored with his built in playmates.   He idolizes this dick kid now, to the point of trying really hard to learn to ride his bike, just so that he can go over there and they can ride together.  And I see that rejection coming.   It’s like watching your own childhood all over again.  And I can’t intervene, or try to dissuade him from going over there.  It would go against everything we’re trying to do to help his social skills develop.   I just don’t want to watch him come home in tears, or feel that pain.  I have to let him experience it, but I don’t want to.  He’s such a cautious kid.  It takes him forever to do anything.  He’s had his bike since Christmas, and it’s sat in the garage, largely unused, because he’s so anxiety riddled of falling or careening out of control.   But that kid, the one kid who will reject him is his incentive for practicing on his bike.

And the only thing I can do is encourage him to keep practicing.  To tell him how proud I am of him for trying so hard to ride his bike with confidence.

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This little piggy went to market…and came home with cancer.

by statia on August 31, 2011

Gromit has always had issues with his dew claws.   They get snagged on every possible surface and rip off, and then he whines and we have to baby him, and put neosporin on it, and bactine, and watch him limp around pathetically wounded. But it would always heal and life goes on.   Until a few weeks ago.   He ripped it off, and it was bad, so we took him to the vet, for the third time in a month (“he’s SUPER healthy, and we’ll take that 2 grand from your bank account now for the suggested yearly geriatric blood work, thanks.”).  They put him on antibiotics and the swelling continued, and his dew claw started to look like something you’d see in a fun house mirror.

Me: Babe, PLEASE call the vet and get that thing taken care of, he’s been on antibiotics for two weeks and that thing grosses me out.  It looks like there’s a balloon hanging off his paw.

Him: And you can’t, because…?

Me:  I pay the bills, and take care of the kids, and sort of do the laundry, and uh, yeah, I’m not good for much else.  Just call them already.

Him: Fine.

So the hubs takes him in today, while I drop toys off to goodwill and consignment.  And I wasn’t prepared for “the call”

Him:  Babe, he has cancer.

$400 in x-rays later, it’s operable.  It’s TOE CANCER.   We lob off the offending toe, and hopefully, that’s pretty much the end of it.   And of course, the vet was non-judgemental, and like, “if you can’t or don’t want to, it’s now about making him comfortable… blah blah blah.”

And how do I justify my own selfishness to not have to sweep up dog hair every day, or deal with his festering garbage breath,  by just letting the cancer spread and cause him pain?   He’s 12 years old.  He’s had a good life, but I would be a total asshole if I just said, “we’re going to just ride this one out and let him die.”  I can’t do that.    Part of me wanted that decision to be made for me today, no matter how hard it was.   I wanted it cut and dry.   It’s a hard decision to decide to put your dog down, but I feel like, it’s almost a harder decision to let your old, decrepit, and otherwise healthy dog live.

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