My Boy

Sometimes Colin just sends me reeling...the heart on this kid...

He spent the day with my mom (again), to give me just one more day to get my stamina back before I have to face the two-kid-dynamic on my own. They had spent quite a bit of time at Target (man, I love that store) and he came in with his serious face on, and a wad of tissue in his hand. As he started to hand it to me, Mom suggested I sit down, that this was "that kind of present." Even that heads-up did not even begin to prepare me.

Nestled inside the Kleenex was a large, trendy heart necklace, hung on a cord with minimal metal (since I get massive rashes for even looking at cheap jewelry too long, let alone wearing it on my skin). It's bold, burgundy, and rather lovely, but Mom tells me turn it over. Engraved on the back is the phrase "Hold on to your dreams." Very sweet...and then I realize it's a locket. I open it up, and there's a tightly folded yellow Post-It inside--which neither Colin nor Mom will let me look at yet...clearly a slow build here! So I look at the locket, and inside is another engraved message: "Fortune favors the brave."

Mom tells me that this is what sealed the deal for Colin (the fact that it closed with a magnet helped, too), because he looked up at her--you can't even imagine the earnestness of those eyes, framed by those impossibly long eyelashes--and said, "My Mommy had surgery, that's really brave!"

Now, having been properly primed, I was allowed to open the Post-It, which I began to read out loud, and then suddenly couldn't. Oh, my boy, my boy...he dictated to Mom (the Post-It was all she could find in the car to write on), and this is what he wanted to tell me, in his own words:

You have gentle courage, Mama.
You are getting so strong.
This is my heart for you.
Love, Colin

Eavesdropping

Conversation overheard between two children: Hallie (age 3) washing her face, Colin (age 5) on the toilet (!!), transcribed by Mommy to the best of her ability.


Colin: Salt is sand. Salt is the same as sand. That's why when you're at the beach you're in the salty water and you're all sandy. And you have to get the sand out of the water. That's why God made fish.

Hallie: Ohhhhh. That's why.

Colin: You know what the first fish was? A dinosaur.

Hallie: What?? That's amAZing!!

Colin: Yes, a dinosaur. But then they all died, and then God made houses for people to live in.

Hallie: That's amAZing!! And that's why when I go to heaven, I'm going to see God!

Colin: Right. Unless he's dead.

Hallie: God's going to die? He might die??

Colin: Right. In Heaven. That's where all the spirits go.

Hallie: Yes!! That's amAZing!!

Colin: Stop saying that. (loud groan) I may have to stop telling you all this...


Later....
Hallie: Mommy, I love you. Are you going to die? Are you going to try not to? Are you going to keep your brain inside you? That's good. Night-night!

Conversations with Hallie

Yesterday Hallie hurls herself into my arms after her nap (moderately painful...gentle with Mommy, please!), and we have a little hugfest for a few moments.

Hallie: "I love you."

Me: "I love you too, sweetheart."

Hallie, pulling away to look up at me: "You love me?"

Me, surprised: "Well, yes!"

Hallie: "Do you not want me to diiieeee?" (characteristically drawing out the word)

Me: "No!!"

Hallie, very sincerely: "All right. I'll try not to."

Battle Scars

The kids like to look at my battle-scarred torso. Now, I don't know what lasting scarring this is inflicting on their little psyches, but since we're trying to be as open about it as we think they can handle without being stricken by terror, I let them, occasionally. But I like to look at it also. Not pretty at all, mind you. I look like I was shanked in some very exciting, probably gang-related prison fight, by a very inept attacker who missed all things major. But I'm sorta fascinated with it, startling and colorful as it is...and mostly wondering two things: what the hell is going on in there, and did I really ask for this, like, voluntarily? Right now, in my liquid Vicodin-aided haze (yes, it comes in liquid form, improbably termed an elixir, or at least you think so until you receive its pain-abating blessing. Elixir, indeed. 'Fess up. You're a little jealous right now.)--anyway, with Vicodin standing in for blood, this seems like an awfully drastic step I just took, and one with immediate consequences I just did not see coming.

I think I'm really glad I have no clue what I looked like right after surgery in the ICU. Only my mother, my spouse, and my nurses saw that, and they can all be silenced. I did hear small snippets of "yellow" and "puffy" that kind of put me off asking for a mirror...and then the next day, when I was moved to a room WITH a mirror, they all told me how much better I looked...and I saw what I looked like then...um, scary, no thanks, I'll destroy your cameras if anyone tried to capture the before, I mean it, I will hunt you down. I ain't playin. So that wasn't a scenario I had played out in mind ahead of time.

I really don't have a good idea about how things have been changed around in there, despite the many videos I watched, and lectures I was forced to listen to...I know this got disconnected from that, and reconnected to this thing up here. That's the sum total of my practical knowledge. But I kinda want just a sneak peek, without seeing anything that would make me lose my (very tiny) lunch.

And then, the pain, which is inseparable from the gas. See, during surgery they like to pump gas into you to help move things around in there, and then sew you up and leave it there! Apparently the theory is your body will absorb it and know what to do with it (which explains being repeatedly asked about your hi-jinks in that arena until it stops being embarrassing and just gets boring). This perhaps also explains the "puffy". Did you know you could have gas pain in your neck? Shooting up into your ear canals? "I'm sorry, I can't hear you, I have gas in my ear." What fun we can have with our innards, if only we apply ourselves! These were not facts I ever came across, or ever considered needing to have access to. For those of you who may experience this one day, at least someone told you! And that still doesn't really talk about the pain...which I really don't want to talk about. It's there, it's pain-full, don't wanna focus on it. I have my good friend Vicodin.

Then there's the fist that seems to have popped into being deep in my left side. That's what it feels like, that somebody got a handful of my soft & squishies and is using that handful to relieve stress. Good for you. I'd like my soft parts back now.

The really comforting thing is, this is all "normal". So evidently I somehow could have found out about each and every one of them, and been prepared. Failed as a fact checker! Woulda been good info to have!

Hiccups hurt. That I find childishly cruel.

And I did it all to myself, on purpose, with a goal in mind, with a doctor's blessing (several, actually), me, me, no one else but me did this.

Hence my fascination with the train wreck on my torso--no midriff baring tops in my future, that's for damn sure!

Must look for positives: I no longer drift off, or suddenly find that I'm awake but the lights are out, because my eyes have taken a coffee break, right in the middle of a conversation. This was useful if I was trying to convey to the speaker a) boredom with the topic; or b) pity for me at my obvious fragility. Not useful for actually trying to, you know, talk. Or being so bored I finally opted for an edited-for-content movie in my room that I actually wanted to see, only to find that I can listen, but not watch, at least until I truly fall asleep and dream I'm happily married to David Spade (even in the dream, my dream self was fairly puzzled by this choice, but committed to the role like a pro). And he wasn't even IN the movie! Analyze THAT! So...no longer have to deal with that.

The weird abrupt power-downs occur less often, and less imperatively--I described it to my aunt as having an off-switch that someone else was messing around with. So I only have to get horizontal--fast, mind you--for maybe 20 minutes, not 82.

I've lost twelve pounds, which is skewed and weird and I know won't last, but hey, that's sure a pretty little silver lining you've got there!

Big positive, actually got out of the house today with Mom's help, and got my toes all prettified, and my heels sanded down. So from toe to ankle, you can't even tell I'm just days out of the hospital--unless you wonder at the dragging, halting pace, and the slow, majestic paths that lead from one cushioned object to another. Hallie got hers done too, with the same color as mine, and the same white flower on the big toe. She was so excited, she was nearly catatonic. Couldn't move, speak, smile, nothing...until we told her not to move. Rookie mistake, we know better. It was all kind of hilarious, and great to get out of the house, even if I was a menace on the road afterward because I kept shaking myself awake--remember the power-down things? Awkward when you're driving.

So...summing up time...it's all getting better, and I'm sure I'll remember at some point that there was a really good reason I did this, I just have to stop hurting to find it again. I think I left it under the Vicodin.

The deed is done. I am now post-gastric bypass. Very silly of me, I now realize, but somehow the prospect of pain never factored into my thinking. And God said, Ha!

Upside, I think I lost 5 pounds today (if the scale can be trusted, the earth's gravity didn't shift, etc.). I'm just so damn glad to be out of the hospital I can't even say. I will say, however, that waking up from anesthesia is one of my top five least favorite things to do, and I can't even think what the other four would be.

Because apparently those events just weren't momentous enough on their own, my baby, my boy, my sweet little guy, got his first loose tooth today, at the tender age of 5 1/2. Also not something that had factored into my thinking, at least not till the ripe old age of 6. God's LOL-ing at me right now. Colin is ecstatic, I'm teary whenever I think of it, and Hallie is green with jealousy--and certain that she'll wake up to a loose tooth of her own. One traumatic event at a time for Mommy, sweetheart...

Epidermally speaking

So given that I'm staring down the barrel of a huge life change (gosh, that's some super-positive imagery there...I'm excited about it, really! I swear!), it has apparently sparked some impulses to improve myself in other areas. Ergo, I have rediscovered my somewhat dormant urge to do something really radical: moisturize.

I feel like I'm confessing something pretty dark and potentially humiliating here, but...my skin has not felt the sweet, humid kiss of moisturizer in a while now. I've sort of been stuck been in a fall-into-bed-any-which-way mode--too many grueling nights of retail adventures or colorful evenings with the kids, I guess, to think about adding another step between me and that mattress.

But suddenly last night, out of nowhere, I heard this little tiny voice calling out, "I'm thirsty!" I believe it was my epidermis. The voice was pretty faint, but then, I think it'd been calling for a while now, and had just about given up and accepted its fate. So I got up and started hunting around for moisturizer. I had to go digging in the scary dark places under my sink to find it, but I don't think it had gone rancid or anything--can you get botulism from bad moisturizer? Great, now I'm gonna worry about that, too...

It sounds silly, but I actually do think this is a small sign of...something. Here I am about to radically alter my physiology, change my relationship with food forever, and now that the panic is starting to subside, I think I'm experiencing some urges to take care of myself in other ways. Even something as small as moisturizing (which as I keep reading, you can't really overstate the importance of...I think Cosmo said so). So I think it's a pretty good sign, that maybe I can shift my focus--at least sometimes--from everyone else's needs, and take a closer look at some of my own. Or it's a midlife crisis. Good for the pores, either way.

Next step: to rediscover the joys of pedicures, convince my husband it's cheaper than therapy, and save money on the all bedsheets my sandpaper feet would otherwise shred to bits.

Ways to avoid cleaning one's house:

Goof around on the computer

Read a chapter in a good book

Check on your spread in Frontierville (aka, goofing around on the computer)

Write a few e-mails (see above)

Have lunch

Check to see if your e-mails have gotten a reply

Decide the dog has to go outside, right now, regardless of the actual urgency of the potty dance being performed

Update your Facebook status from your iPhone (doesn't count as computer-goofing)

Scrub a bathroom or two, just to have something to show for yourself--do it well, your pride is riding on this, and you don't wanna have to come back

Take a break, reward yourself by goofing around on the computer

The other day Eli, the kids and I were driving to a surprise anniversary party for some very dear friends. First we had to meet my parents at a mall, transfer a child to their car in the semi-vain hope that being separated would encourage each child to take a nap on the fly, and then hit the road again promptly so that we would reach our destination on time, two hours later. Yeah, it was pretty far away.

So about 20 minutes after leaving the house (having spent roughly 15 of those minutes in line for gas at Costco...yes dear, I know it's cheaper, but we're on a schedule!!!) I realize that Eli is going the wrong way. I point this out, and he says, "No, this is the way to Fashion Island."

"No!!" I say. "We're meeting at South Coast Plaza! I told you this, at least 3 times!"

As we all know, those malls are kind of in opposite directions...not good!!

Now I'm tense (well, I've been tense since the gas station, to be honest) so we bicker about this a little. To his credit, Eli apologized several times, and said (also several times), "I guess I had Fashion Island stuck in my head."

At this point, I'm not quite ready to be done with being ticked off, so the tension is still fairly thick in the car...until a clear, high little voice from the back seat rings out:

"Daddy," says Hallie reasonably, "if Fashion Island is stuck in your head, then you have to just...just...pull it right out!" (with appropriate hand gestures to illustrate)

Poof! Magic! Tension gone!

I'm really curious, though...what was her mental picture there?

Lara is so tired...

...(it's one a.m.) that the letter arrangement on the keyboard seems like a worthwhile topic of discussion. Come on, who thinks this makes sense? Try showing it to a five year old and asking him to type his name...and be prepared to stay awhile! Could it be more counterituitive? Really? Could I have picked a more germane topic to throw out to the masses?

Oh Lord, now I'm going to get dozens of replies--my husband's first among them, no doubt, about the history of, the necessity for,the beauty of, whatever, whatever, whatever. Ha, I say! If my punch drunk fingers can't find the correct characters (you have no idea the sheer amount of damage control I'm having to do), then I say, the system is flawed! Ha! So there you have it, it's new, it's radical, it's edgy, it's out there (makes me think of "When Harry Met Sally), now you gotta deal with it!

Yeah. That is so me. Rebel, malcontent, social activist. All things everyone who knows me thinks of first. Right.

Ahh. I think I can sleep now, content that I have...um...elevated awareness about...um...keyboard arrangement. I suspect I'll regret this in the morning.

3 year olds are awesome

Even though this happened about a month ago, I had to write this down, for posterity's sake. Posterity will thank me some day.

So, Hallie has a truly fabulous Cinderella dress--this is no over-glitzed, dime-a-dozen Disney frock, but a one-of-a-kind creation handmade by her very own Nana for Halloween. As an aside, because Nana made it and doesn't want to ever repeat the process, the dress has a great many tucks and seam allowances, so that we can just let it out as Hallie grows...so many, in fact, that she just might end up wearing it to prom someday. As a minidress.

Anyway. The dress is so fabulous, and so beloved, that Hallie asks to wear it every day.
Every. Single. Day.
Consequently, Cinderella sightings have increased dramatically in my neighborhood, the grocery store, the drug store...you get the idea.

So one day the dog desperately needed a walk, and I simply did not have the emotional fortitude to extract the Hallie buried inside the Cinderella, so Cinderella came, too. Things went pretty well (although my Cinderella has an inexplicable desire to stop every few feet and build "fire pits" out of pine needles...which I do not remember at all from the movie), until we ran across a gaggle of tween girls. Two of them instantly cooed over the fabulosity that walked with me, and one could not be bothered. Hallie, as is her wont, struck up a conversation with the girls, one she was quite willing to extend indefinitely, and one the gaggle quickly became bored with. As I gently chivvied her along, trying to spare the girls (and let the poor dog do his business), Hallie turned back one last time and called out, "See ya later, alligator!" Dutifully, one girl responded with the required, "After 'while, crocodile!" Things suddenly went south.

Hallie rounded on her assailant, filled with an indignant fury that threatened to burst seams and tucks, and placed her hands firmly on her hips. Glaring with righteous fervor, she shouted, "I'm not a crocodile! Can't you see the dress? I'm CINDERELLA!!!"

The bewildered girls gaped at her as I dragged Hallie away, quivering with barely-suppressed guffaws while trying to explain the socially-accepted rote exchange that had just taken place. Hallie glanced coldly over her shoulder at me, muttering, "Well, I don't like that at all," picked up her skirts, and stomped off toward home in high princess-like dudgeon.

I haven't come across those girls since.

I'm in freak out mode. Not quite full-on breathing-into-a-paper-bag-crying-hysterically-curled-up in-a-corner-babbling-incoherently freak out....but I can kind of see it coming. I have so much to do, and can't start anything, or finish anything (do those cancel each other out?), and I pretty much just want to hide. My typical stress response.

Am I entitled to feel stressed? Let's consider this past week:

VBS every morning until noon--which required me to be far more active over a sustained period of time than I am accustomed to being, so my body felt tired, sore, and generally outraged. I think it's still mad at me.

Work nearly every night--which I have oodles of resentment for anyway, given the ridiculously low wage I receive for the headaches of retail, which I swore I would never return to, and yet here I am. Not to mention that it takes me away from my family, which I loathe...yeah, yeah, I know I'm doing this to help said family, and it's the only thing that I could find that would let me work evenings and weekends...doesn't matter, I still detest the necessity. At least in my more pessimistic moments--can you tell that this is one?

Carved out time to celebrate my anniversary--okay, not a stress at all, other than finding someone to watch the kids (thank you little brother), and actually pretty enjoyable. Grown up time with my sweetheart. Can't really complain about that. So I won't. Just another event on the agenda.

Squeezed in a visit with my dearest friend and her kids, literally sandwiched between VBS and work, again, something I loved doing, so not really complaining, it just added to a jampacked week.

That same night, after working till ten, picked up my parents from the airport and welcomed them back from France--again, enjoyable, but the day simply wouldn't end.

Completed two commissioned signs for a newly-uncled friend of mine. Still have one to go.

And I have company coming over tomorrow, because I can't bear not having a 4th celebration...but it means I have to spend all of today (except for right now; can we say "avoidance"?) cleaning my house. Probably be up until after midnight working on it, because that's just how this always turns out. That's how I roll.

But the big, overriding thing that I think I haven't really been dealing with, and that I think is tipping the balance over into freak-out, is my upcoming surgery. I'm having gastric bypass--holy crap, did I just say that in a semi-public forum?? But, yeah. Three weeks until I overhaul my body and my way of life. It's kind of huge.

I think I'm more nervous than I realized, and I haven't had time to think about it--even though, I forgot to mention, this week I also had to squeeze in a couple doctor visits to get ten (!!) vials of blood drawn, have an EKG, drink barium so that they could x-ray my esophagus (I have a few choice words for the person who tried to make that horrendous crap taste better by adding "strawberry" flavor) and meet with the surgeon. You'd think those things would put this topic front and center in my cranium, but no. Instead it's been simmering in the back where I can't get a good look at it.

Sooooooooo....commence freak out!!! Maybe I'm feeling a little justified to have some moderate hysterics...but the floor isn't cleaning itself, it's lunch time for little ones, I have to get the homemade ice cream started for tomorrow...I really don't have time. Maybe Monday. I'll pencil that in.