Monthly Archives: January 2010

Old meme

I posted this more than six years ago. Let’s do it again, shall we?

Post anything that you want, and post it anonymously. Anything. A story, a secret, a confession, a fear, a love — anything. Be sure to post anonymously and honestly. Post twice if you’d like. Then, put this in your LJ to see what your friends (and perhaps others who you don’t even realize read your LJ) have to say.

Crazy people

My sister sent my brother a horribly rude, inappropriate, awful letter. I can’t believe her. Well no, that’s not true. I totally believe that she did it. She has no sense of responsibility and she has no fucking boundaries.

But you know what? My brother sent it to me. And he talked to me about it. And he wanted comfort and community with me around how crazy she is. I really hope she will leave him alone again, but I’ll take the outreach. It’s amazing how talking to him affects me. I start to shake. I’m so terrified of doing something or saying something wrong and having him shut me out again. That’s actually a pretty terrible manifestation of the overall abusive nature of our relationship. If I feel that way while talking to him it’s not healthy at all. And the way I crave his approval is also seriously unhealthy.

God I can’t win.

Oh MY GOD!!

I am so excited. I managed to get reservations to The French Laundry. Then I managed to arrange babysitting for Shanna so we can stay overnight. Then I found an awesome B&B. This is going to be a rather expensive weekend (it blows our ‘fun’ money budget for ohhhh six months) but it will be worth it! I am so excited I can barely sit still!!!

Oh man. Now I have to figure out what to wear. I’m just pregnant enough to look really fat (and not be able to wear most of my awesomest clothes) but not pregnant enough that I have that “awww what an adorable pregnant belly” thing going on. It’ll be great! I don’t care!

Happy dance!

Reading about race

Given that I’m so white I glow in the dark I spend a noticeable amount of time thinking about what I can and should do to raise a child who has a good understanding of race issues and who isn’t a twat. That’s an important bit. Some of the good stuff I’ve been reading lately include:

http://loveisntenough.com/2009/08/05/white-noise-white-adults-raising-white-children-to-resist-white-supremacy/

http://nerdsevolving.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-black-women-were-white-women.html

There are others, of course, but I closed some tabs too quickly.

Really intense.

My spanking experiences weren’t anything like this, but this is what I think of when people tell me that spanking is right for some children: http://www.drmomma.org/2010/01/how-spanking-changed-my-life.html Anyone who believes that *they* would be a better judge of necessary spanking than this woman’s family are probably lying to themselves.

Thinking

So I’ve been taking some time off. Maybe you noticed, maybe you were grateful that I shut my mouth for once. 😛 But yeah, stuff. I’m going to try a different technique for handling some stuff and see if it works for me. I miss writing here.

I’m nine weeks now. This pregnancy seems pretty willing to stick and that is wonderful. I’m much much much less sick than I was with Shanna (thank all deities everywhere) so I’m even feeling ok. I’m not feeling ‘normal’ and I’m not feeling energetic or anything crazy like that. But I’m not overwhelmingly sick and completely incapacitated so I consider that a win. 🙂 Humble expectations are important. I manage to do an okay job of interacting with Shanna during the day. We do a lot of cuddling on the couch and I am also incredibly grateful that she is so willing and able to entertain herself for long stretches. I know it is unusual. As a result of her playing alone a lot of the day she has been pretty needy in the evenings and the bulk of that is falling to Noah. Let me take a moment to say that my husband has stepped up in a variety of ways and man do I love him. He is doing ALL of the cooking and most of the cleaning and a much larger share of kid-wrangling than usual. As a result this is probably our last kid. That’s… as mixed as that kind of thing might be.

We went to Arizona to see Sarah. That was really awesome. It was occasionally challenging to deal with Shanna, but mostly she was her awesomely obedient and friendly self so it wasn’t too bad. It was really nice to get to sit down and talk to my Sarah again. It’s hard having her so far away. I miss her. Unfortunately we cut the trip a bit short. Has anyone noticed this storm we’re having? Yeah, I had to drive home from Arizona through that and I am really glad I left before things had gotten too established. The drive home was pretty hairy at times and it would have been much worse another day or so later from what I can tell. Also: the Grand Canyon is breathtaking. So far in all of my travels I have set Alaska up as my own personal definition of Most Awe Inspiring Place but the Grand Canyon kicked Alaska’s ass. I would like to go again while not pregnant and seriously hike it.

Oh, side thing: people who bring a two year old on a 2.5 hour train ride without ANY form of amusement or toy are flippin stupid.

I’ve been hibernating a lot more than usual lately. On one hand it’s lonely. On the other hand it feels like what my body needs and I’m drained from the basics of day-to-day life without any extra stress. See, this is why I miss my Sarah so much. I could whine at her about being sad and lonely and not wanting to leave the house and she would come visit. Ok, I’m not really sad. But I am lonely. It’s interesting how sometimes those two things are tied together and sometimes they aren’t. I’m starting to move into that placid slow-moving-brain thing I had when I was pregnant with Shanna. I feel like I’m seeing most of life from under water. Things are just slower and less sharp and that’s kind of nice. I feel … honestly kinda stoned. Ha. But it’s in a very nice way. I’m just drifting through life and that feels ok and good and right. If I could have this mental feel without feeling so physically debilitated I think I would want to be pregnant forever. If I couldn’t talk Noah into being quiverfull I would surrogate over and over. 🙂 But, I don’t get to pick and choose so no permanent pregnancy for me. 🙂

I saw my brother on the drive home from Arizona. That was shocking. I knew I was going to be driving within 2 miles of his house so I called him and asked if he wanted to meet his niece. After double checking that I wasn’t going to force him to deal with our mother he said he wanted to meet her. When I told him that I am not currently speaking with our mother he seemed to feel much better. We had about two and a half hours of sitting around talking. It was a really good conversation. He admitted things out loud that I’ve always suspected. I was shocked and impressed that he has gotten to a point where he can admit those things. He’s grown up a lot. He seemed similarly impressed with my attitude about his behavior of the past few years. I told him that I understand why he has felt he needed to make the choices he made but they still make me sad. I think I managed to convey how much I would like a relationship with him without being pushy or demanding or needy. I’m proud of myself for how I handled my end of things there. I’m really grateful that he gave me a chance. I’m not sure we are going to start having a close relationship any time soon, but maybe it will be a beginning.