My poor little guy has croup.

I don’t know about anyone else but I find croup to be one of the most scary ass viruses a little one can come down with . They sound like a Sea Lion doing their little bit in a show at Sea World, which is not a normal way for a 2 year old to sound. Their little voice is so hoarse they sound like Axl Rose after a concert( or maybe even during the concert). They breathe like they’re a pack-a-day smoker trying to run a 5K.

The worst part is that they’re such unhappy campers that everylittlething sets them off into tears, which makes all the breathing and coughing even worse.

I’m exhausted just from trying to keep my little guy happy all day yesterday so that he wouldn’t cry.

I’m going to cross my fingers that our day goes better today because I have half a dozen pies to bake for Dylan’s Mexico Trip fund raiser before tomorrow.

I was really hoping to participate in Amy’s Project Runway Challenge but I am doubtful that I will find the time before the Wednesday deadline at this point. Which is sad, because boy, my stash really could use a thinning by way of actually making something from it’s contents.

OH…and my continuing adventures with Pretty Little Mistakes have had me getting shot in the face, giving birth to my rapist’s baby, committing suicide,becoming rice and famous (and giving it all up for love), dying Thelma & Louise style (but not on purpose) and a myriad of other little things.

One thing I have found my lives lacking in this book is the element of motherhood. I’ve only become a mother once reading it a dozen times or so and that did not go very well.

Yesterday morning, I walked Maia to school in cold,wet rain. I trudged through wet leaves and tried to step around puddles trying to find the positives…like, at least it’s not snow.At least when you drop her off, you have a nice warm house to go back to. And hey, at least you’re alive,right?

The last thing is always a good reminder that things aren’t so bad after all.

Then, because it was only a half -day of school, a few hours later, I retraced my steps to go pick her up from school and brought her back home, in the same wet,cold rain (reminding myself of the same positives). And then,a couple of hours later, I made the trip again to attend her Parent-Teacher Conference. In between all of that,I also ran errands to the post office and library.

On the last trip, I added,“At least tomorrow there is no school and you can sleep in”

4:51 a.m……Maia woke me up with crying (interspersed with a barking,croupy cough) because she had a bad dream…which woke Dmitri up as well and long story short….
5:00 a.m is NOT my idea of sleeping in.

On the plus side of yesterday, Maia’s Parent-Teacher Conference went well. She’s doing good and all that nice stuff parents like to hear.

On the way home from picking her up from school, we walked past a storm drain. Maia says,”Mama, do you know what that sound is?” She was talking about the water rushing below in the storm drain but I asked her what she thought it was.

“That’s the sound of the clowns swimming to get you!”

(this probably only makes sense and is humorous if you’ve read Stephen King’s IT and already know that my only irrational fear is clowns)

My children exist to use my own fears against me.How sweet.

Later at home, Dmitri was wearing one roller skate and using a folded up table laying on the floor as a ramp. Before he attempted his “trick” ,he informed me,”This is NOT going to be a very good idea,Mama”.

How reassuring for a Mama to hear.

It’s only a matter of time before I turn gray,I’m sure.

Rant was due back to the library, so I returned it,unfinished. This is a rare event that I don’t finish a book and please understand,Mr. Palahniuk…even though I always mangle the spelling of your last name and didn’t devour Rant immediately (like I expected to), I still adore you.

So,on to other books…..

Remember Choose Your Own Adventure Books? I loved those books as a kid. Pretty Little Mistakes by Heather McElhatton is a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book,all grown up. With one beginning ,150 endings and countless ways to get there, it’s an adventure through life. You’re the main character and just like life, you make the choices that carry you through to death. Just like life, making the seemingly wrong choices can result in something wonderful and making the seemingly right choice can have you doing meth. Perhaps one of the most satisfying things about this book is making choices you might not ever get the chance to make in real life and the thrill of living vicariously through The Main Character, like having sex with tattooed nameless strangers in utility closets, becoming a doctor or traveling the world. Of course,just like paths you take through life there are just as many ways to die….to name just a few,a contaminated apple, shot in the back or dying a contented old woman in your sleep and passing on to a place where “heaven is a junk shop…a place where God keeps all his broken things”.

And the best part is that this is a book that keeps on giving.When you’ve lived one life, go back to the beginning and start again.

I watched a scary movie last night - Jesus Camp.
The documentary follows a few Pentecostal children being trained to be Warriors for Jesus and “take back America for Christ”. I was disturbed from the very beginning, as a scene with children dressed in war paint and camouflage do a song and dance routine with twirling wooden sticks(WTF?), praising God and promising to go on an all out recruitment campaign to conquer sin and the devil and anything that goes against God and the Almighty American way of life.

The footage shown in true documentary style is very much a “it is what it is” display of the events that take place in the lives of 3 children both in their home and at the Kids on Fire School of Ministry in North Dakota. Viewers take away what they want from the film and undoubtedly, there are some who may watch the film and think that the fervor and commitment expressed by the children is an admirable and beautiful thing and a true testament to Jesus Christ.

Then there’s people like me ,who watch in stunned disbelief and are disturbed at how blatantly brainwashed these children are and can’t help but draw comparisons to the indoctrination of German youth during The Third Reich, which of course gave rise to the Hitler Youth movement. Like Hitler, the fundamentalists portrayed recognize (and fully admit) that the time to “get to” children is when they are young and impressionable. As Becky Fisher, Children’s Pastor says: “I can go into a playground of kids that don’t know anything about Christianity, lead them to the Lord in a matter of, just no time at all, and just moments later they can be seeing visions and hearing the voice of God, because they’re so open. They are so usable in Christianity.”.

So much for that whole free-will thing.

Disturbing moments (to me,anyway,as a homeschool mom myself) include a homeschool mom telling her child that global warming is a political agenda and “there is no proof in science”, children speaking in tongues and in a trance or writhing to the point where they’re having seizures, children being used in an anti-abortion campaign…children looking absolutely terrified to the point of tears at the idea of going to hell and of course, Ted Haggard, disturbing all on his own.

Speaking of Ted Haggard, it was interesting to point out the little hidden hypocrisies throughout the film, like a copy of Lord of the Rings in the homeschool household when it’s made very clear that such things depicting the fantasy realm do not honor God (Harry Potter is referenced a couple of times. Go Harry).

One of my favorite moments (maybe favorite isn’t the right word) was when Pastor Becky Fisher uses bottle water with the Nestle label to purify the children to be in God’s Army.Nice touch - using Nestle water to “save souls” when another Nestle product (infant formula) is responsible for the deaths of thousands of infants in third world nations…which could have been prevented if the families of those babies had access to clean water (and not been sold the propaganda by the Nestle corporation in the first place but that’s besides the point here,I suppose.)

Thankfully, Mike Papantonio provides a wonderful voice of reason in commentary throughout as he offers sentiments as a Christian who opposes the Fundamentalists who have corrupted Christianity into a hateful,exploitative movement hellbent on a theocratic existence here in America.

Honestly,I have no idea why I watched it. I knew it would probably just piss me off because there’s nothing worse to me than seeing the followers of a religion mangle the intended message so horribly that there is no feleing of love and acceptance left at all.And usually I watch documentaries to learn something new. I already knew there were people like that out there and I try to avoid them so why on earth would I want them on my TV? Silly me…

While reading an article in some newspaper on his break at work today, hubby read an article about the correlation between a woman’s waist-hip ratio and her IQ…and not just her IQ, but her children’s as well.

Being that I am a curvaceous woman (or I guess in popular terminology…I have …um…ba-donka-donk. Oh,gods…I just winced typing that…), he just knew I would love,love,love to see what the study said.

According to The New Scientist, curvier women have brainier kids.Apparently,curvier women may have smart children because hip fat contains polyunsaturated fatty acids critical for the development of the fetus’s brain.
Another article here also says:

Upper-body fat has negative effects and lower-body fat has positive effects on the supply of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids that are essential for neurodevelopment. Thus, waist-hip ratio (WHR), a useful proxy for the ratio of upper-body fat to lower-body fat, should predict cognitive ability in women and their offspring. Moreover, because teenage mothers and their children compete for these resources, their cognitive development should be compromised, but less so for mothers with lower WHRs. These predictions are supported by data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Controlling for other correlates of cognitive ability, women with lower WHRs and their children have significantly higher cognitive test scores, and teenage mothers with lower WHRs and their children are protected from cognitive decrements associated with teen births. These findings support the idea that WHR reflects the availability of neurodevelopmental resources and thus offer a new explanation for men’s preference for low WHR.

Being a former teen mama, I found the bit about teenage mothers fascinating.It’s good to know that my common sense and good instincts when it came to parenting were being augmented by some genetic trait passed down to me from my Irish ancestors who bred like rabbits.

No,I’m serious. I know I sound like I’m being sarcastic but truly, the odds aren’t typically in the favor of teenage mommies so it’s nice to know we had something beyond love working in our favor.

Who would have ever thought that my Breeder Hips actually had a purpose beyond the whole birthing bit?

I also tried out this Waist to Hip Ratio Calculator and was spit out this information by the numbers I put in:

Your shape puts you at reduced risk of coronary heart disease, diabetes and stroke. Frequently referred to as pear shape, you tend to keep fat off your midsection and more on your hips. Your body does not convert this lower body fat as readily as midsection fat, which keeps cholesterol down.

Yay,go me!

Last Friday, senior pics for the year book were due. My son is a great procrastinator like myself and waited until Thursday to do it. Also like me, he’s not very fond of generic studio portraits like most of his classmates had gotten done so he wanted me to do it for him.

On deciding where to take this picture, our first inclination was to head to the cemetery but time constraints just left us heading to the woods in back of the house.

In the end, I got many nice pictures but this is the one he chose:

I like it but Bob thinks it looks like a mugshot. Maybe…but I still like it and that’s what Dylan wants for his senior pic sooo….that’s the way it is.

Also, last Thursday we went to the meeting for his trip w/ Spanish Club to Mexico in the Spring.In April, he’ll be spending 10 days in Mexico, in the Chiapas area. 2 days will be spent helping to build an adobe building on an indigenous farm and 2 days helping to do repairs at a small (and poor) elementary school. The rest of the time will be spent with more touristy type activities. They’re also taking donations of needed things to the school, which I have already begun to collect.

Too bad they don’t need chaperones. I would LOOOOOOVE to go to Mexico. Someday….
*sighs*

This is most definitely an overdue post. It’s par for the course. Expect Thansgiving related photos sometime around Christmas and so on and so forth.

This was Dylan’s pumpkin from Halloween inspired by The Smashing Pumpkins.

I love the close-up of just the star…

Today’s Meme from Monday Music Mambo

Name five of your favorite one hit wonders

1. “Melt with you” ,Modern English
2. “Turning Japanese”,The Vapors
3. “Mexican Radio”, Wall of Voodoo
4. “Der Kommisar”, After the Fire
5. “99 Luft Balloons”. Nena

I came across this letter to “Dear Margo” from a poly couple:

DEAR MARGO: I am a very happily married woman with a problem: well-intentioned friends and family. My husband and I are polyamorous and not ashamed of it. We have wonderful girlfriends who are special and a part of our family. The problem is that people assume we are on the verge of divorce, etc. Other than an indelicate “Butt out,” is there any way to get them to see that we are really happy and stable? We’ve been married for five years.

— HAPPILY POLY

(For square readers like me who might need a trip to the dictionary, I will save you some time. “Polyamorous” is the name for multiple sexual relationships within marriage — in this case involving both spouses.)

DEAR HAP: You may not be ashamed of it, but you have to know that this arrangement would strike most people as being somewhere between odd and morally wrong, it being quite far from the norm. I am not sure why you felt the need to breeze it around that you and your husband have “wonderful girlfriends.”

Because you have, however, essentially invited people to “butt in,” you are a little bit stuck in terms of asking them to butt out. I guess the only way to prove yourselves happy and stable is for you two to continue to thrive with your, uh, wonderful girlfriends.

— MARGO, BEWILDEREDLY

Dear Margo is flat out wrong right from the beginning in her reply. Polyamory is NOT having multiple sexual relationships within marriage.Polyamory is having more than one relationship,period.Break down the word,Margo. Poly=many. Amory-love. It isn’t just about having sex with multiple partners, it’s about having relationships with multiple partners. Sure, some poly people base their other relationships on sex but usually it’s a bit more involved than just that. Also, marriage doesn’t have to be in the cards for anyone involved. It can be but isn’t always.

Margo goes on to explain that most people are going to think it’s odd,morally wrong and far from the norm. She’s probably correct but she doesn’t mention that it doesn’t seem at all odd to people to lie,cheat and deceive their significant others while they have affairs with others, whether it be a random hook-up or a longtime affair. People expect those sorts of things yet when you start talking about a woman who doesn’t mind that when her boyfriend goes out of town on business that he spends the evening with another woman…and she has dinner with another boyfriend followed by a night of fantastic sex…it’s perceived as being weird and deviant. There’s no one in the dark,being deceived and they may actually even discuss how their week went,sexcapades included.It’s all done on the up and up,with openness and honesty that doesn’t exist in the “normal” realm of cheating.

It’s more “normal” for the boyfriend to go away on business, call his girlfriend from the hotel after some random girl just gave him a blow job and tell her how much he misses her,yadayada….and the girlfriend is on her way out the door to meet the guy she’s been seeing for months unbeknownst to her boyfriend. They exchange “I love yous” and *mwahs* over the phone and go on their merry way in relationships built on lies.

Whether it’s just an open relationship or polyamory, people who chose that as a basis of their relationship just don’t see monogamy as their cup of tea but they’d rather not lie to people they love. There’s nothing morally wrong about approaching non-monagamy in a responsible way where everyone’s needs,emotional and otherwise are cared for.

Really,though….Margo’s ignorance of the situation aside, if I were the one giving Happily Poly the advice, I’d tell her bravo on being lucky enough to find so many wonderful girlfriends (without the unnecessary quotation marks) that she and her husband are both compatible with.That in itself can be a feat. My husband seems to like girls who look like they belong in a Whitesnake video and usually have some raging chemical imbalance that turns them into Psycho Bitches from Hell. I’m not so attracted to that type.

When it comes to friends’ reaction to the poly way of life, you should expect that people aren’t going to just embrace it and say,”Oh,how wonderful for you!”. There are lots of people who add other partners to their lives to spice things up a bit because maybe it’s gotten old or they recognize that their relationships really are crumbling and they want someone waiting on stand-by. Poly relationships are usually very different from those scenarios and in fact, will not work unless the primary relationship is first solid,strong and built on trust. If your primary marriage is a strong one,then don’t worry about what others think. Over time ,as they see that divorce is not eminent and you’ve still successfully balanced the additions of secondary (or more) partners, they’ll get the picture.

Until then,they may think you’re delusional and strange but hey…that’s ok.

Two things have me feeling like a complete failure at the moment:
1. I suck at this Step-Mother gig
2. My Grandmother’s Alzheimer’s is progressing rapidly and most likely the only option left is a nursing home and then eventually a facility meant to deal with Alzheimer’s patients

The latter of those two has me feeling the most down and because of this ,I feel guilty about not caring just as much about the first thing.

I know my husband is very disappointed in me. Of the two of us,I am the one who tends to find the positive in everything and make the best of every situation. He knows me as being tolerant,generous,kind-hearted and all those other nice qualities….and I just cannot seem to find some of those traits when it comes to my step-son.

It isn’t as if I’m just being a bitch for the hell of it. I DO have my reasons for the negativity. There’s a whole slew of issues - misogyny,homophobia,outright lack of respect and common decency being only just a few of them but the larger that I’m taking offense with…..

I’m sorry but those are hard things for a strong,independent and intelligent woman who also happens to be bisexual to just “deal with” and tolerate.

I feel guilty that we’re having such issues because yes….when I met my husband,I was a single mother of 3 and he accepted me and all my children all in one package,without reservations or conditions….and I just cannot seem to find the love I’m supposed to and embrace his son as my own.

I need a Step-Parenting for Dummies book.

On the subject of my Grandmother, I’m being told I need to resign myself to the fact that the nursing home is the best option and leave it at that. The fact that some of the people who have given me this advice have cared for loved one’s with Alzheimer’s until the very end doesn’t make me feel any better. I honestly thought that by the time she progressed too far, I’d be in a position where I would have room for her to live with us and be her primary caregiver. It hasn’t worked out that way and although she is only a block away currently and do what I can to , I still feel inept and like I’m not doing enough.

No one in the family wants to accept the fact that she’s declining ,probably because accepting the fact means that the next step would be taking responsibility for her .God forbid,ya know.

I’m just so frustrated *sighs*

I’m sure I’ll delete all of this soon. Rant-and-delete therapy works wonders.