Saturday, August 28, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Visitors and overtime and miracles happening
This is where we are: swinging wildly on the pendulum of visitors (yay, visitors) and overtime (boo, overtime).
Friends of ours who are expecting their first baby had her water break at 8 weeks to go. They've been able to stabilize her, get steroids into the bambino, and are hoping to keep her stabilized for another week or so to give the kid as much in-oven time as possible.
She just posted about it on Facebook, and I was shocked by the tone of the responses. I don't know why. They were mostly in the "praying for you, much love, thoughts are with you," category. It's not like I was expecting nasty comments, but there was something about the tone that reminded me of people dealing with bad stuff, like they'd announced a cancer diagnosis or something truly awful.
Now, yes, preemies have issues and I get that. But it didn't occur to me--and this might be because they are at a relatively-safe 32 weeks and not a scary pre-28-weeks--to be anything but excited for them. When my sister was born, she had problems, serious, life-threatening problems, and people kept saying to my mother, "I'm so sorry."
And she got indignant, and said, "Nobody died; someone was born." That's how I feel when I read all those well-intentioned and laden-with-love comments. Someone's being born. Someone's being born to two people who should really be parents. They should have six or eight kids and raise them all to be hell-raisers and world-beaters because these are the kind of people they are. The world needs more people like them.
But again: Someone's being born. That's an amazing thing.
Friends of ours who are expecting their first baby had her water break at 8 weeks to go. They've been able to stabilize her, get steroids into the bambino, and are hoping to keep her stabilized for another week or so to give the kid as much in-oven time as possible.
She just posted about it on Facebook, and I was shocked by the tone of the responses. I don't know why. They were mostly in the "praying for you, much love, thoughts are with you," category. It's not like I was expecting nasty comments, but there was something about the tone that reminded me of people dealing with bad stuff, like they'd announced a cancer diagnosis or something truly awful.
Now, yes, preemies have issues and I get that. But it didn't occur to me--and this might be because they are at a relatively-safe 32 weeks and not a scary pre-28-weeks--to be anything but excited for them. When my sister was born, she had problems, serious, life-threatening problems, and people kept saying to my mother, "I'm so sorry."
And she got indignant, and said, "Nobody died; someone was born." That's how I feel when I read all those well-intentioned and laden-with-love comments. Someone's being born. Someone's being born to two people who should really be parents. They should have six or eight kids and raise them all to be hell-raisers and world-beaters because these are the kind of people they are. The world needs more people like them.
But again: Someone's being born. That's an amazing thing.
Monday, August 09, 2010
Blog? What blog?
Hi. I'm Kim. I'm sure we've met.
It's been a humdinger of a month or two here. We got a new house. We love it. The garage is stacked to the ceiling with boxes, yet we seem to be living comfortably. This means we have too much stuff (and also, I apparently can live just fine wearing the same three skirts over and over again). But the boxes loom on my mental horizon like a boogieman. Someday, I'm going to have to vanquish the box boogieman.
A's fourth (fourth!) birthday was last month. It's the first one he's ever anticipated. Grandma and Grandpa came out to visit; we got a bounce house in the backyard and everything went smoothly. Now he's bemoaning the fact that he's got a long time until he's five and can have another birthday.
It's been a rough patch here. C is working late, late, late, including the weekend, for a thirteen-day stretch, and I think it's fair to say that we are all feeling the strain. If he had not taken last weekend (you know, the one that ended yesterday) off, I'm not sure how any of us would have done. Sometimes it sucks to be all grown-up and independent.
Watching kids full-time, without a break, is really hard manual labor. Babies need fed; preschoolers need direction. And they don't take breaks, not easily. They notice as well as I do when Daddy's not around. I'm building a support structure so I can have some breaks, but it's summer and people have vacations, bike trips, and broken hips. I feel intensely time-crunched and constantly needed.
But. I try to grab breaks and focus on the good. A has started making up jokes. L has three teeth now and three more making a break for it. He's decided he loves cereal and sweet potatoes. We have breakfast and dinner on the patio in the backyard. Two mornings ago, some wild parakeets flew into our neighbor's tree during breakfast. Two nights ago, as we were eating at dusk, an owl swooped into our tree, sat for a while, circled our yard, then swooped onto another tree.
"That owl is cool," A said. "I'm going to tell Miss Rita about that owl." And I'm telling you.
It's been a humdinger of a month or two here. We got a new house. We love it. The garage is stacked to the ceiling with boxes, yet we seem to be living comfortably. This means we have too much stuff (and also, I apparently can live just fine wearing the same three skirts over and over again). But the boxes loom on my mental horizon like a boogieman. Someday, I'm going to have to vanquish the box boogieman.
A's fourth (fourth!) birthday was last month. It's the first one he's ever anticipated. Grandma and Grandpa came out to visit; we got a bounce house in the backyard and everything went smoothly. Now he's bemoaning the fact that he's got a long time until he's five and can have another birthday.
It's been a rough patch here. C is working late, late, late, including the weekend, for a thirteen-day stretch, and I think it's fair to say that we are all feeling the strain. If he had not taken last weekend (you know, the one that ended yesterday) off, I'm not sure how any of us would have done. Sometimes it sucks to be all grown-up and independent.
Watching kids full-time, without a break, is really hard manual labor. Babies need fed; preschoolers need direction. And they don't take breaks, not easily. They notice as well as I do when Daddy's not around. I'm building a support structure so I can have some breaks, but it's summer and people have vacations, bike trips, and broken hips. I feel intensely time-crunched and constantly needed.
But. I try to grab breaks and focus on the good. A has started making up jokes. L has three teeth now and three more making a break for it. He's decided he loves cereal and sweet potatoes. We have breakfast and dinner on the patio in the backyard. Two mornings ago, some wild parakeets flew into our neighbor's tree during breakfast. Two nights ago, as we were eating at dusk, an owl swooped into our tree, sat for a while, circled our yard, then swooped onto another tree.
"That owl is cool," A said. "I'm going to tell Miss Rita about that owl." And I'm telling you.
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