2:41 AM, 10th November, 2014

If you follow me on Twitter, you know that my sister-in-law passed away on November 10th.  She died peacefully - I saw her breathe her last breath, open her eyes, and then, just... never take another one, from the same exact chair I am sitting in to write this post, 12 days later.

She fought so diligently and so hard, for so long, even though she really only had a short time. Her cancer proved to be super-aggressive, and ... towards the end, there wasn't much we could do for her but keep her comfortable, and wait.

That last Sunday was horrible, with last rites, and a house full of family - hers and ours, and theirs - and her being unresponsive by dinnertime. 

That morning, early - like 4:30 in the morning, early - I smelled the sharp scent of urine, and had to feel to see if she'd wet the bed (mostly because, at this point, she was sweating through her clothes so much that she was almost always damp). It was her first bout of incontinence, and - although I knew it boded ill, I did not realize how quickly things would go downhill from there.  I had to wake my brother up to help me change the sheets, and then she took her pain meds and went back to sleep.

A few hours later, she'd woken up in extreme pain, couldn't seem to settle at all. Just kept shifting from one end of the bed to the next, every 5 minutes or so.  She took more pain meds, but was just super uncomfortable and couldn't find a spot that worked for her. She told me her pain was 10/10 and she was crying, almost incoherent.

I woke my brother up again - from the couch this time - and he called the hospice nurse. Who came and different meds were administered, and we - the nurse and I resettled her on the couch, to try to help her find a way to sit with less pain while she waited for the meds to kick in.

It was during this transition that she was last semi-lucid, at least in my presence, and as I sat her down on the couch after yet another 'I'm so uncomfortable, I just need to move' attempt on her part (wordless, though - that's just the impression I got), she leaned over and gave me a kiss on the forehead.

I don't know if she knew who I was then. I don't know if she meant that for me, and I feel guilty that I was the person who got her last kiss. I haven't told anyone in our family that she did it, I don't think (although ... things were pretty intense there for a while last week, so I may have told one of my sisters without thinking about it), but it felt like a "Thank you" and a blessing and - now, knowing it was her last, and she didn't get to give it to my brother or their kids, or even her sister who showed up moments later? Almost a torment.  I still feel gifted by it, always will, but it hurts my heart so much that she's not here to give out anymore.

Shortly after that, her sister came, a family friend who is an actual nurse and knows what the hell she is doing (as opposed to me, who just spent weeks caring for someone I loved and watching them slip away, AGAIN, but was just doing my best and making it up as I went along, and following directions) also arrived, and I moved into a much more peripheral role.

She continued to get worse and worse, becoming unresponsive to everything besides pain, relatively quickly (within a few hours). I let my brother and her sister, and the nurses, be in charge of what they could be in charge of, and I made sure the kids got fed and my parents & sisters got called, and that her sister knew she needed to call her parents and brothers as well. I learned all about the new, liquid meds from the hospice nurse, and gave doses of morphine and ativan and hyamax as the day wore on.

I called the priest, and the funeral home, and the priest again. (And we all know how much I hate making phone calls). We cried, and waited, and held hands, and helped the kids. Gave them a chance to say goodbye, then let the little one curl up into my lap and sob when she walked away. Watched her big brother comfort my big brother as they both sat in tears by my sister-in-law, SisterNc's side.

Watched as her nieces and nephews filtered in and out. Approved as my sister and her husband ordered a regiment's worth of pizzas and made sure everybody got fed. Comforted and cried, and just sat around rubbing smooth patterns into backs, and backs of hands, and anywhere I could reach, really.

Later, her parents and brothers, and my dad and sisters, all cleared out.  We were down to my mom, her sister, the family friend who is a nurse, my brother and I, and a friend who had known them both since the moment they met, some 16 years ago.  Around midnight, it seemed to get dramatically worse, and the med levels increased and the hospice nurse came out again and told us "a matter of hours."

About 2:30, my brother and her sister both decide to go upstairs to get some rest. The nurse-friend, the work-friend and I are sitting in the living room, my mom has snuck outside to get a cigarette.

A quick text from my brother asking me to bump the heat up because it's freezing upstairs, @ 2:37. As I settle back into my chair, I glance over at Nancy, see her breathing is very strange, but I check the book and it is nowhere near time for more meds. So I sit down, and the work friend says to me that she gets an inspirational text every day on her cell phone and starts to read it to me. It says something about "new pathways and being open to new challenges," And that's when I see SisterNc's eyes open, and I notice that she hasn't taken her next breath.

The nurse-friend has noticed too, and is getting up, checking on her, fussing with her. We both know - I can see she knows - that there is no reason to fuss.

It is 2:41 am, on Monday, November the 10th, 2014, and my only sister-in-law, the beloved wife of my brother and mother to two of my favorite people in the entire world, the only sister I ever made instead of came with, has died.

I send my brother a text that reads "you need to come back down, honey", and he must know. He wakes her sister up and doesn't bomb down the stairs. Takes each step, heavily, I can hear it even now. They are both crying as soon as they see us. As soon as they see her.

My mother comes in from the kitchen, seeing us, and begins crying too.

And that was her last day, her last actions, her last minutes, to the best of my recollection. I do not want that kind of thing to be forgotten, even if I am the only one who remembers it.

The past twelve days have been torturous for my brother, and difficult for his children, and so heartbreaking for all of us. I don't know how to help any more than I am, but I fear that it will not be enough.

I am - we all are - doing the best we can.

But it's hard to keep swimming with a broken heart, and hard to hold the pieces together while you wait for even the tiniest bit of it to heal.

Sacked out on the couch

listening to the oxygen machine and my niece read me William's Doll; waiting for my nephew to come in and finish his homework, too. The kids have the day off tomorrow, and they're working to make it a really free day, to finish all their work so they don't have anything required of them tomorrow.

Their parents are in bed - SisterNc had a bad pain day, and her meds are kicking her butt. She's mostly sleeping her days away, and getting her to eat anything is like UGH. And tomorrow she starts the chemo again. So, joy of joys. Big/Only Brother is in bed too, since he has to be up in four hours or so to head off to work. And the littles are being adorable, and not little at all, and I'm leaving spaces in my conversations for the words I know need to come out, but I'm also typing with my eyes closed half the time, so there's that.

Well: off to a few final hours of math and reading and not getting up early in the morning.

Don't forget to vote tomorrow, if there's voting near you: I won't get to (since home is 25 minutes away and getting someone to come down, take me home to vote for 6 minutes, then drive me back, and then drive home again? Absurd), so if you can, make sure you do!

Night all.

Our siblings push buttons that cast us in roles we felt sure we had let go of long ago - the baby, the peacekeeper, the caretaker, the avoider.... It doesn't seem to matter how much time has elapsed or how far we've traveled. ~Jane Mersky Leder

So I was just reminded that my last post was a super-angry rant, and that's not particularly OK with me, long-term.  Yes, I'm still pretty angry; but I'm working on it.  It is hard.  (Well, duh.) It is spectacularly hard, sometimes, but I'm trying not to wallow as much, at the very least. 

I am also having a spectacularly difficult time summoning my Christmas Spirit this year, which, is not unexpected and completely normal, but also kind of sucks.  Because I love Christmas, but Christmas like this - Christmas-without-Grandmother, Christmas-where-everybody-is-still-hurting, Christmas-with-uncomfortable-truths-being-faced, Christmas-with-the-righteous-anger, Christmas-with-the-wounded - is not all it's cracked up to be.  I'm very thankful that there are children in our family who I have to fake Christmas cheer for, because sometimes, if I fake it long enough, it starts to feel almost real. 

Case in point, this weekend, two such littles (who aren't that little) helped us decorate our Christmas tree.  No Longer Youngest Nephew is 12 ("and a half", he would insist) now, and can reach the top of our pretty tall tree well enough to help string the lights.  Which is both amazingly helpful, and terrifyingly wrong.  [Stupid kids and their growing up.  Grumble.] Lil Girl was very critical of the placement of certain ornaments (which habit, I fear, is something she probably comes by naturally), and the tree turned out quite lovely, after all.

My favorite part of the day, though, was the 45 minute battle the two of them had over who got to sweep up the most tree needles.  Because if your sibling is doing something, then it must be worth fighting about, is basically Lil Girl's theory, at this point.  And her big brother can't resist arguing back, even over something so insubstantial (and chore-like!) as sweeping up big piles of needles and then vacuuming them up.  It was annoyingly normal, and just what I needed to keep the smile on my face.  (And, of course, in the end, Mum and I wound up doing most of the actual cleaning.)  But here is a picture of them, working their hardest to outdo the other in the Battle For The Most Pine Needles 2012:

Take your smiles where you can get them, people.  Definitely a lesson I've learned this (horrible, terrible, no-good, very bad) year.  And I'm working on that, too.

One of these days they'll make it past midnight

Well, after all that build up, Lil Girl conked out on me just past 11:00, which, to be fair is two hours past her normal bed time.  She was totally revved until about 10:45, when we put in our third Disney movie (one thing about kids movies, is that they're generally shorter than regular movies).  She was nearly buzzing "Look how good I'm doing: I'm going to stay up till 1:00, for sure!"  She picked the movie, laid back down on the couch while I skipped over all the previews and just as Belle launched into "As long as there's Christmas"... I look over and she's snoring. 

Oh well.  I tucked her in and headed back to my bed, where I read through the night and cursed the fact that I've got Christmas songs stuck in my head already, and it's only the fourth of November. 

(And if you watch till about the three minute mark, so will you: sorry!) 

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Getting Ready

for Lil Girl to come over for a sleepover.  Very excited: I have no doubt that she'll make it past her brother's midnight mark from last weekend's Fright Fest - we didn't even make it through one scary movie: the kid wanted to watch The Hunger Games, then he zonked out on me five minutes into The Woman in Black, which - just: no.  I was too sad to watch a movie where kids kept dying.  Lil Girl is another story: I told her we could stay up "all night long", so I'm anticipating a looong night.  It'll be a nice change to have company during the wee hours, though.  (Company and Disney movies... all I need now is to make some brownies.)

Wrote my three pages for today (am a little off target, but so please with what I've written that I don't care about the numbers yet: ask me again on the 28th), getting the blog posted, trying to go into the sleepover with (what I have that passes for) energy & enthusiasim.  I miss her so much, and I'm wicked excited... but I also know somewhere around 9 o'clock, she's going to be wearing on my nerves and we're both going to need a nap.  :)  That's the fun of six year olds: all the energy of a three-year-old, with none of the naps.

See you in the morning ~ hope your Saturday night is as exciting as mine.  (I'm going to think of a name to call you all, but I'm coming up blank:  'the five of you', how's that sound?)

Well worth applauding, I'd say

Last week, I turned 32. Those numbers still don't seem real, in relation to me, but I'm working on it. I'm thinking of throwing myself a big party next year, for thirty three, but I'm pretty sure that's another one of those things that sounds better in your head then it winds up being in actuality (you know, like pretty much every big party ever?), so for now it's just a 'thinking of'. I'm trying to be honest when I say that there were a lot of times I didn't think that 32 was a year that would apply to me - I mean, sure, when I was a little kid, thirty whatever seemed like "Ok, when I'm 3X I'll be a grown-up" and I had some vague notions of where I'd be and what kind of life I'd be living (read: nowhere near the life I am actually living right now). But in the past 10 years or so, as my diseases have taken more and more of who I thought I was, and presented me with a whole new set of challenges to face, there were more times than I'd care to admit that my thirties seemed to be a goal that I might not make.

And yet, here I am, two years into them. Still facing all sorts of challenges, still not where I'd hoped to be, but Still Here. Which is the most important part, when it comes right down to it.

For my 32nd birthday, I spent the day at my niece's first dance recital, which is - for me - a huge deal. Because I was a dancer for 13 years, and an assistant instructor for three years, and this is the first recital I've ever been strictly an audience member for. (Well, that's not actually true, I'd just rather forget about my other experience as a member of the audience: the year after I got sick, the year I had to quit dancing, I went to my former school's recital and tried to watch the show. I felt heartbroken, sitting there, barely able to walk unaided anymore, watching all my former friends dance the solos I would've danced and receive awards I would never receive and between holding back my jealous tears and the loudness of the music, I wound up with a migraine that left me incapacitated for the next three days. It was not a pleasant experience.) But this time it was different: I was there to enjoy myself, to cheer for Lil Girl, to clap at all the steps I knew were hard, even if they didn't look tricky.

Lil Girl did great - she had a big smile the whole time, she and I talked about being the tent-pole (the tallest dancer, middle of the line) and how it means you have to hold your pose the longest while you're waiting for the curtain to close, and we both watched the older girls dances with glee, so I hope this will be just the first of many recitals of hers I'll be willingly sitting in the audience for.

I also got to re-choreograph numbers in my head, and move things along at a better pace, and basically pretend it was my dance school's program, and how I'd make it better. (One of those vague things I thought I'd be doing in my thirties, if you'd asked me twenty years ago was operating a dancing school with my sister(s), just another one of those dreams that got put up on a high shelf a lot of years ago). Remembering years worth of selling wrapping paper and window clings and random candy bars in order to pay our way into competitions, I bought raffle tickets from the dance company girls, and won a basket full of coffee & other things I don't drink and quickly divvied it up between family members. I took pictures that came out blurry because you can't use your flash, and I remembered just how invisible the crowd seems from the stage when the lights are blazing in your eyes. And although I missed out on the post-show Chinese food, a tradition that even my brother remembered fondly ("Remembered? It was the only part of the whole thing I had to look forward to" was his response), I still enjoyed it very much.

It was a great way to celebrate a day I wasn't sure I'd make it to, and I'm still not sure I know how to deal with (numbers don't really matter so much, sometimes. Until they do. And when you're thinking of how much you want to be a mom, those numbers are all of the sudden much more important than they ever were before). And while all my brother could talk about (on the times that his little angel wasn't on stage, that is) was how much of a rip-off it was that the tickets cost $15 a piece and the costume was $65 and all some of the kids were doing up there was "playing ring a round the Rosie", I remembered how much fun it was to be the teacher in the wings, while the three-year-olds you'd been teaching for nine months, and you were sure weren't going to anything approaching an actual dance step, finally figured out how to link hands and make a circle. And, ignoring his statement that "clapping only makes it go on longer" , I applauded as much as I felt like it.

Here's one of the less blurry shots of our tent-pole girl, in all her glory:

"Thanksgiving is a time to get together, and none of you are taking it seriously! None of you!

So, as slap bet commisioner, I institute a new law: at Thanksgiving there will be no slapping!"*


I promised a picture, and a picture you shall have. Here is the mock Thanksgiving dinner Lil Girl and I made out of Playdoh last week. I know it is totally not to scale (please note how the corn kernels are bigger than the blueberry pie), but when you're working with a four year old, things like scale aren't exactly that important matters. We worked diligently on this plate, with Lil Girl rolling all of those blueberries and corn kernels by hand, and Auntie NTE "carving" the turkey into an (not too shabby if I do say so myself) approximation of a real bird.

Clockwise, you've got cranberry sauce ("the kind in the can that goes Plop!"), the previously mentioned turkey; some carrots and baked potatoes ("because we don't have white for mashed potatoes and the gray ones look yucky"); corn (that's not Green Giant, but obviously should be) and two pies - a blueberry with no top crust (we made some, but she didn't like covering up all that hard work, so it was discarded) and an apple with a top ("because I am not making a lot of more little apples").




Our real Thanksgiving feast was pretty low key this year with just 8 of us: Mom & Dad, SisterJ and BrotherInLaw K, Me, Grandmother, UJ and SisterK. For us, that's pretty small. We had a good day, and there was very. little. drama., which, for me, is about all I'm asking for at this point. There were some laughs, and stories, and lots of food (pies, pies and more pies - five pies for eight people means pie for breakfast for the next week).

But I thought you all might get a kick out of our Fauxgiving, which we served to Mum at Lil Girl's request = "Because Grammy LOVES turkey, and because she doesn't have to cook it this day." Since tomorrow's going to be our last day for leftovers (hopefully), I hope Lil Girl is still in the mood to see the real thing.

----- Off Topic - -

Yes: I think the nicknames/code names have gotten out of hand and confusing too. When I was typing that last entry, I had to check it like three times to make sure it was even making sense. I will try to think of a better system, since I still don't want to use people's real names. I guess I should just stop adding letters (and words) to the names they already have, but poor Youngest Nephew really is No Longer Youngest Nephew (poor planning NTE!), so it would be even more confusing to keep calling him that. So I will come up with something, I promise.

Also, you might want to stay tuned this week for posts on the following topics: My hives are not really hives. Harry Potter 7 was sold out when we got there, but we didn't just turn around and come home. Christmas shopping and why I think grown ups should make wishlists. (hint: because some people are hard to shop for!). What I have been doing for the past 139 *and counting* days. And finally, how I am going to make my living space livable, so help me god.

*How I Met Your Mother

- A lot of these bullet points were supposed to get their own posts, but I am still at Grandmothers; sick as a dog; and my brain is full of a mushy type substance rather than brain cells. So, as opposed to leaving this un-updated and telling myself that I'll get around to it soon, I'm going to just stick to the bullet points. Enjoy!

- Yesterday morning, after suffering all night with a throat that got more and more sore as the hours passed, I popped out of bed because there was an alarm ringing somewhere in the house. I rolled over to the couch to ask (sleeping) Grandmother what the noise was, only to find that a) I had no voice and b) she didn't have her hearing aids in. Later, when U J got up, I found out that his hearing problems (he gets these weird ear things that sometimes make his hearing less than perfect) had gotten worse over night as well. Please tell me how you explain "a loud alarm! Was ringing! Is there a god damn bell or smoke detector or something????" to people when a)you can't imitate the noise and b) they can't hear it.

- There is no way to talk about the fact that you can't swallow without falling into an immediate "That's what she said" joke. I learned this after I got my tonsils out, but I think I must have forgotten. Now, every time I have to tell the doctor that I can't swallow, I have to bite my tongue.

- Grandmother is doing fine: Now that her only remaining therapist is the PT, whom she likes and who is trying to teach her to use the cane, she sees no real reason to continue using the walker. Even though, you know, she's supposed to be. Since her balance and strength are still off. She does her exercises, she practices with the cane, she says all the right things when the PT asks, but using the actual walker to get from, say the living room to the kitchen? Nah: it's "too short a trip" (even though it is the length of the house). The only time I can get her to agree to take it with her, at this point, is at night when she goes to bed: The PT calls those hours the "danger hours", the times when another fall is most likely to occur, and I think that's why she takes it upstairs with her.

- But still, she doesn't always use it... the den (where my sofabed of discomfort is located) is directly under her bedroom, and I can hear her moving around up there in the middle of the night, going to the bathroom without dragging her "friend" along for the ride.

- The irony in me - the girl who literally crawled from one place to another rather than 'give in' and use a wheelchair - trying to get someone else to use a mobility aid is definitely not lost on me. (Or my mom, who thinks it's pretty amusing, as she was the one having to convince me to use the chair all those years ago, even though I was literally falling down all. the. time.)

- I am very behind on my internet news, but can imagine that this isn't the only place you are going to read the following sentence: If the god damn politicians don't stop with the ridiculous campaign adds, I will not be responsible for my actions. Two additional notes - the amount of mental health ableism in those ads is unbelievable (In Massachusetts, there is one particular ad that flat out calls the opponent "insane" as well as "crazy" and a "kook.:) and, come October 2012, I am not going to watch any amount of unTivo-ed TV. I will not be able to watch what they're going to say about Obama.

- On the positive side, in the past month I've watched all three seasons of Veronica Mars, the (sadly singular) season of Firefly, and a good portion of Buffy the Vampire Slayer online. Of course, my home DVR is full up, but after I buzz through some Daily Shows and Colbert Reports, I should clear up a bunch of space.

- There's a million reasons why I'll be home/here this weekend (see above, see any link regarding health on this entire site, etc), but I still kind of wish I could go to the Rally this weekend. (And yes, I also have issues with the problematic name for the Rally: it was not necessary to call it the "Rally to Restore Sanity" - and therefore continue the stereotype that crazy = illogical and ridiculous and not what all of us "normal" people are like. I take issue with that and think it was a stupid move on their part, for sure.) I still wish I could go.

- Today, Lil Girl ran a race against two invisible girls, an invisible cat and an invisible dog, and she lost 3/5 times. If that isn't funny, I don't know what is.

Wish me some energy, please: I'll need it!

I want to thank everybody for their condolences and well wishes: I really appreciate it. And now, like I said, I'm going to try to get back to normal a little bit, and post about something totally different.

I'm working on a pretty full week of visits, starting this weekend and going right through next weekend, as SisterS is bringing her boys down, and staying for a while; and then my cousin from Maine and her family are coming in for a day; and College Roommate/Best Friend and her kiddos are finally going to make it over here again (I say finally because I have literally been moving her kids Christmas presents from one box to another for eight months). I don't like to have everything crammed in all together like that, but I wasn't the boss of other people's vacation plans (shocking!), so what can you do? Plus, it's been a while since I've seen any of them, so I don't want to beg off unless I really have to, healthwise.

(Also? Having some positive interactions at this particular moment in time is going to be hard to pass up.)

So the plan for College Roommate/Best Friend and my cousin from Maine and their families is just "hang out... eat food, maybe? Let children roam and stuff while grown ups have actual grown up conversations?" Very low key. Low pressure, with a dose of "here are your Christmas/Birthday presents: I hope you have not outgrown them, because I wrapped them so long ago, I no longer remember what they are" thrown in.

SisterS, however will be sleeping over for four or five days, with an infant and a teenager: both Creepers, just in different ways. (And also not quite as low pressure for me.) BabyB is trying his hardest to crawl, and Oldest Nephew is just one of those kids (when do you have to stop calling them kids? 14 isn't it, but I know it's getting there) who is always just... There when you turn around. Not in a spooky way, really, just more of a 'Holy Shit where did you come from?' type of way.

And when Oldest Nephew sleeps over, that means (No Longer) Youngest Nephew will want to sleepover. And when her big brother gets to sleepover, Lil Girl will definitely want to sleepover as well. But, as much as I might like to, I can't handle four kids - of four really different age and maturity levels (14,10,4,and 9 months)- for five nights and still expect to be a functioning member of reality at any point during their visit. And I want to have some fun too, so I'm putting my foot down at a one - two night Lil Girl and her big brother sleepover visit, which still gives them a chance to all hang out together (hanging out with my visiting cousins was always the highlight of my summer, and I'd love it if they had the same opportunities!) without it being too much for me to handle.

On Sunday, we're taking the whole lot - plus everybody else except SisterK who is on vacation in Montana with her boyfriend and won't be back in time - to a local old-time amusement park. There's no adult rides, although I think there used to be a Ferris wheel, and only three or four kiddy rides: The place is mostly centered around it's video games, it's arcade, and it's skee ball. (Mum is a skeeball fanatic, so we never have to searching for her when it's time for lunch.) There's also lots of great food, and it's right on the shore, so we'll be able to have a nice picnic lunch.

The overall goal for me this week is to a) try to take it easy and enjoy myself as much as possible and b)take a TON of pictures, which is something I haven't really been feeling inspired to do lately, with all the heavy stuff. But I know, with all of these fabulous people - not to mention more than a few adorable kids - around, I'll be itching to pick my camera back up.

Plus, since I'm promising to post a few of the best ones, I'd better get busy.

Yesterday I went floating in a pool

you will think that this is no big deal, until I tell you that the last time I owned a bathing suit was 1997, when I went to Disney World with my friends after I graduated from high school. I still do not own a suit, and went floating in the pool wearing a skirt, my bra, underwear and a tank top. It did not matter, because it felt heavenly.

I never really learned how to swim: When my mom signed me up for lessons at the Y (at my insistence), I was ten years old, a slightly chubby brainiac that frequently still wore my hair in pigtails, played with School with her sisters and was completely useless without my glasses. Of course, the first thing they did was tell us to change, and to stow our personal gear - "This means glasses too!" - in the lockers. My best friend was also taking the class with me, and was kind enough to lead me out of the locker room and into the shallow end of the pool. To say that my vision without my glasses is hazy is a major understatement. I can see shapes - people sized blobs of mushed together colors, fuzzy colors with no defined edges. I could see my friend's face, if she was the one bobbing in the water next to me, but I couldn't have picked her out of the line of young bodies that floated around. We had our own secret game of Marco Polo going on, even before the lessons started.

And what an illuminating and educational lesson it was: A large man - the high school swim coach - came out of the locker room and sat in a lifeguard's chair. Then he threw a bunch of plastic rings into the pool and told us to go get them. "Dive if you want to, tiptoe over if you don't, but go down there and get them." End of lesson. I spent the entire time trying to see a darker blue blob at the bottom of the moving lighter blue blob, failing over and over again to retrieve my ring because A) it was at the bottom and I was at the top not knowing how to get to the bottom without drowning and B)the blob that I thought was a ring was in fact paint on the bottom of the pool, so I just wasted all my breath to get down there for nothing. For one hour every Friday for six weeks, my friend tried to drag me around to the location of a ring, I would claw my way down to get it, bob back up and then we'd hold on to the edge of the pool for dear life, waiting for the class to be over so we could go home. Between that and my uncle throwing me into a pond and telling me I'd pick it up once I was in the water, I figured I'd never be able to swim.

Eventually though, I put together the basics on my own - arms and legs both need to be moving, try rotating your head so you can breathe every now and then - but swimming will never be my forte.

But yesterday I waited until the sun went away and the shade covered the yard, after the kids had finished all of their major splashing and the adults had had their pool time as well. Then I slipped into the middle of my sister-in-law's pool, (to the shock of my brother in particular) laid on my back and floated. It was the most peaceful I've felt in a very long time, and I was reminded that I used to like the water (initial swimming experiences excluded). It's so quiet and calming, and honestly, my body feels so different in the water.

The weightlessness is part of it, sure: it's easier to move all the stiff and sore parts of me - they feel more connected to each other and less likely to rebel: It's almost as if I've got my dancer's body back - one that responds to the moves I want it to make automatically and with little protest. I'm still in pain, but it's just like someone turned it down a notch, and if I could've stayed in that water all day - every day - I would've.

I splashed around a little with Lil Girl (who is a fish), and floated as long as I could, but even though the pain had dimmed a bit, other issues were still making themselves known. I got a rash from either the chlorine or the sun, just one big patch of it on my thigh, who knows why (it's itchy as all get out today). And my pulse was hammering away the way it does when I try to stand up - being upright, even in water makes all the lovely blood pumping away slow down and my heart tries to speed it back up, and the ultimate conclusion to all that is that I pass out, which I really didn't want to do in the pool, so my peace was short lived. And the getting out reminded me of why it's been so long since I've been in a pool. Because all of that freedom and flowing stops as soon as I put my butt on the steps and try to scootch out... I'd rather live in the water forever than try to do that again.

Add in an unexpected breathing issue that popped up - Lil Girl kept making me go all the way under so she could show me her flips and wave and whatever. I forgot that I can't hold my breath very long anymore. (Hello: Asthma!) I had to use my inhaler twice yesterday, and today my lungs are wheezing and my chest feels like I got kicked by a mule. "Call the doctor" my mom suggested. "And say what," was my reply: "I held my breath too long and now I'm hurting?" Even I can't tell them that. It'll go away eventually, but it's another harsh reminder that everything I do has a price.

So it had it's drawbacks, but I'm not sure I wouldn't do it again. It was worth seeing Lil Girl with her goggles on and a mile wide smile. To float on my back and feel dainty and delicate and like nothing in the world could be heavy. To look up at the clouds and remember that the world is going to keep turning whether I'm participating or not. It was nice to participate, and since I have all week to recuperate, I'll deal with the consequences.

In the meantime, want to see a fish?

Best shots - 2 for the price of 1

Here are two of my best shots from the last little while -

Here's Lil Girl, down at the beach. Since Auntie and sunlight are not friendly, we sat up under the bandstand and blew bubbles that floated down to the ocean. Then the kids collected shells and rocks, and we ate pizza and drank Shirley Temples. It was the very definition of a fine summer day.



And here's another recent favorite - (No Longer) Youngest Nephew, reading along with the Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets book on tape. I love this picture for so many reasons: The fact that he was voluntarily reading; The fact that he'd never used actual tapes before and I had to instruct him on how to flip it over and press play (even though it made me feel ancient); The fact that, since the spring, he's powered through three of the books, and he's as excited as I am about part one of The Deathly Hallows coming out in November. It's just an all around favorite.



So there are the two kids I'm spending most of my time with this summer; Don't forget to head over to Tracey's place to check out who she's spending her summer with, and the rest of the Best Shots.

I know the internet doesn't care

about the heat, but my body does. Other things it cares about that I would rather it didn't: the smell of food cooking in neighbor's yards; the smell of photos that have been living in a smoking house for 30 years; the smell of low tide, over a mile away; any smells, ever, in my immediate vicinity; our new summer schedule with the kids (MWF); the damn sun; every movement I have to make; about a thousand other things.


I find that I am easily, easily frustrated right now, and I hate it: I feel whiny and petulant and ungrateful. Nothing is horrifically wrong - nothing new is happening, and yet, the fact that my face isn't better, the fact that I'm too exhausted to help the kids check things off our "Stuff we want to do this summer" checklist, the fact that the incessant humming drone of the air conditioner is driving me batty - it's all making me feel cranky.

We don't have the kiddos till Friday this week, since their parents have some vacation days this week, and so I've little distraction from my crankiness, and that makes me feel even more ridiculous, because I'm depending on a 10 year old and a 4 year old to distract me. They are a great distraction, though...

You wouldn't know it by this post, but we've had to declare this the Summer of No Whining at our house, because Lil Girl is smack in the middle of a very whiny phase. (Says the woman who just whine-typed for five minutes straight. Does it count if it's on the internet?) She's catching on pretty quickly - since we can't hear whining, she doesn't get what she wants, so she changes her strategies swiftly.

Aside from the whining - and fights over who gets to sit where in the car that I remember all too well from my own childhood, and NOW I get why we all eventually had assigned seats - they've been great so far. They usually are, but now that they're getting older, we're trying to schedule more outings... having them (and us) all cooped up in the house all day everyday is just asking for trouble.

Last week I sat on the bandstand at the beach while Mum and the children wandered around looking for shells and rocks (They brought home quite the collection). We watched planes come in (Logan's right past the beach), had lunch, blew bubbles, and decided to come back for ice cream next time.


It was a pretty great day.

I was going to add a "but" to that last sentence, but I'd rather not: No more whining. Besides, it was a pretty great day, and I need to remember that part, let the rest of it all go. Let the Summer of No Whining commence, and help me to remember that it applies to grown ups and not just four-year-olds.

Where I've been

Nowhere exciting, unfortunately.

Just feeling a little bit more rundown than usual: Allergies and a spring cold - along with a birthday party, a baby shower, a double christening and a wedding shower - have left me feeling the full weight of the Fatigue part of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I'm still waiting to hear if my surgery is on or off - if it's on, it's scheduled for Next Friday, which - how the damn hell did the end of May get here so fast? I'm loving my new computer, which is quick and not-complaining and purple-ish and a little heavy but I am getting used to it. I am mostly doing mindless things, and have so many unread feeds in my Google Reader that I almost don't want to turn it on (and some days, I just don't). There is very little exciting news here - SisterCh moved in with her fiance, leaving me as the only child still at home, and that is not the most awesome feeling, let me tell you. I am weeks behind on phone calls, because every time I look at the phone I get a feeling of just "ugh" and then I roll over and read a book because I don't have to think of what to say next. I am very sorry if you are reading this and are one of those people I haven't called... I'm getting there, I promise. Poor BestFriend/College Roommate and I haven't seen each other since November, I think, and I keep seeing her - and her kids - Christmas presents in the corner and cringing, because it's mostly my fault that we haven't met up, and yet I just don't have enough umph to say "Come on over!"

And this post is very whiny, which I do not enjoy, so instead of keeping on in that vein, I'm going to say that Lil Girl told me the other day that I am "Beauteous", and I wanted to give her a pony. And that my cousin's twins (now 2 and almost a half years old) finally came over for the first time a few weeks ago, and it was amazing to see them running around (one with his feeding tube and all, the other avoiding the tube expertly), laughing, and seeing their mom laugh did me some good as well. And, finally, No Longer Youngest Nephew pitched in his first Little League game this week, and retired his side with no hits!

I'll be back soon, I hope: Just gotta think of something to say.

One of my favorite things

about Lil Girl is her singing. She's a singing fanatic. Picture an almost four year old who knows all the words to Bad Romance or Live Like We're Dying, and you've got a pretty good take on what kind of singing happens all the time around here. (We'll just pretend I don't have my own, hyper-judgemental issues about letting a four-year-old listen to Lady Gaga and move right along...)If there's anything more adorable than that little curly head bobbing back and forth, and little fingers twirling her Mr. Microphone as she belts out "You belong with MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE", with then I don't even want to know about. (Said in my best Mrs. Landingham voice.)

But there are a couple of complications - The fist being that she's infinitely more up to date in her song choices than I am... I listen to the radio with the specific goal of catching up on current songs so that I know what's coming out of her mouth half the time. (Although I also do my best to catch her up on a lot of music she wouldn't be otherwise exposed to - if you're 4 and not singing Disney songs, then I am sad for you - so there's definitely some overlap.)

And then there's the songs that I have no clue about - the ones she asks me to finish for her "Sad and on the dancefloor he left me there.... What's next, Auntie?" Um... I have no clue? I have never heard this song before. Or when there's some dance moves that she thinks I should know that go along with the song "When I say "Hope it brings you hell" you're supposed to do count like this:" she moves her fingers very slowly down from 5 to 0. O...k: why am I doing that again? "It's the way the song GOES AUNTIE!" Alrighty then, what do I know.

We've also made up our own routines: as a former dance teacher, it fills me with glee to see her hopping and toe pointing her way through a song. Although her favorite is just a Michael Buble cover of the song Hold On during which I have to try to sneak up on her and hold on to her every time he sings the words "Hold On". He sings those words a lot in that song. By the end, I am just pulling on her toe and trying to catch that, since the little bugger has a LOT more energy than her Auntie NTE.

Complicating the whole thing is the fact that she's not always clear on what the song is actually saying, but this is, by far, the best part of our singalongs.

A recent sampling of some slightly confused lyrics -

(In the interest of full disclosure, I will freely admit that, until I was a teenager, I thought the words to "Addicted to Love" ("Might as well face it... you're addicted to love.") were actually "Hyena's little faces you're addicted to love." I did not know why there would hyenas and their faces in the song, but it never occurred to me that I might be mishearing the lyrics until someone else sang the song with me and laughed their ass off when I sang the wrong words. Ah, 12 year-old girlfriends.)


From Eeeny Meeny Miney Moe, the perpetual help-me-choose song preferred by children of all ages: "Catch a tiger by the toe, if he liars" or, alternately, "if he lawyers let him go." True: If the tiger lawyers up, you've got to let him go - you aren't going to get anything out of him. Actual lyric: Hollers. Not a word in her vocabulary, I'm afraid.

From Hey, Soul Sister by Train: "Hey Soul Sister, ain't that Mister Licker on the radio, stereo, the way you move ain't fair you know." Obviously the correct lyrics of "Mister, Mister" would be a bit before her time, (as is stereo, come to think of it) so that's fine, but Mister Licker? I don't even want to know.

My current favorite is from the Lady Antebellum song, Need You Now which says that "I'm a little drunk, and I need you now". Her version: "It's a quarter after one and I'm a little trunk and I need you now." I actually giggled at this one, picturing a little suitcase siting out, abandoned, waiting for someone to pick it up. Also wonderful is her timing: the part where the sing "for me it happens all the time" has a little beat after it before the song starts up again, and she bops her head every. single. time.

Also heart tugging are the phrasings that she tangles up - adorably, IMO - so that "Romeo take me somewhere we can be alone" turns into "Romeo, take me, somewhere can we be alone."

These are like the last of her baby mispronunciations ("Yittle" has been fazed out over the course of the last 6 months or so, and that was one of my favorites), little blips in her road to growing up that I want to be able remember. The two of us, sitting on the floor in the dining room, her belting out a song about sad and lonely trunks, and me giggling along.

And then, 3:30 am rolled around

and I nearly burst into tears because the damn tape player (which is from 1993, you guys!) ate my HP tape, or something. It is playing, but silently. WTH?

And it takes me FORTY FIVE MINUTES to figure out that Lil Girl had turned the volume off after her song earlier, and that is why I can't hear anything.

Moment of accomplishment? Totally in the past.

Giving myself a sticker

It's been a long week. I don't actually know why it's been a long week (and I am getting so sick of saying "I don't know why", since it's how I feel about everything lately), but I am just plum worn down.

Some of it is physical, I'm sure... I'm sifting my way through a particularly bad cycle in my FM pain, due, in part at least, to the unending wetness and yo-yo like weather we've been experiencing here in Massachusetts (Wettest. March. Ever. Literally.).

Some of it's the exhaustion of yet another horrid and unexplainable stretch of total insomnia - as compared to the light-dosing/completely unrefreshing sleep I've been living off of for the past 10 years or so, bouts of total insomnia = days with no sleep at all. At ALL. Nights of repeatedly listening to the Harry Potter books on raggedy cassette tapes (Shut up: they were free), and getting the lovely voice of Jim Dale stuck in my head. (To the point that I sometimes imagine him doing a lilting British narration of my life, and somehow managing to make it seem interesting. "The bread was moldy, and, with a shiver and averted eyes, NTE briskly opened the cupboard and tossed it into the bin. 'No luck on sandwiches today, lovey,' she called, 'How about a nice crock of soup instead?'")

Some of it's emotional - trying to get used to the idea of my Face Surgery (that's what we're calling it here... capital letters required); still being computer-less; having a to-do list that's about 3/4 of a mile long; knowing that 5 of my closest college friends & a cousin-in-law are all pregnant right now, and I am not; failing yet another drug trial, the one that Zack was convinced was going to work; knowing we've been living here for a year (well, not me, I'm about 4 months behind because of My Summer With Grandmother {again, caps required}, but we've been out of the old house for a year anyways), and I am still about 1/5 unpacked: My clothes are in drawers and my books are on the shelves, everything else, all 30 years of my stuff, are still stored in boxes, waiting for me to shuffle through them.

Let's just say that I'm feeling a little behind the 8-ball lately, like I just can't catch up, and am barely able to do anything right.

But today, today I struck gold.

Today I had a moment so right that I wanted to sing, dance, clap, cheer, and give myself a sticker.

If you've been reading here for any length of time, you probably get the gist that Lil Girl is a wonderful, crafty, extremely bright, and terribly stubborn child. Self-willed will most likely be her major in college, and she will graduate with honors with that degree, even though the college doesn't offer "self-determination" as a legitimate option for degrees, because she will just wear down the administrators until they give it to her.

Stubborn as the day is long, that's our Lil Girl. (She also comes by it naturally, as our family tends to run a little towards the mule-side, but that's another post for another day.)

For today's post, you should also know that Lil Girl is sick. She's not a miserable kind of sick, but she's got an ear infection, and a cough, and she's been battling this off and on for at least 5 months. (I'm hoping her immune system is just reacting to her new school environment, and that she inherited her mama's genes there, because ours run to crappy.)

Anyways, to finish setting the scene: Sick, Stubborn Lil Girl. Who doesn't like to be told what to eat or drink on her best day. And now has to take a Rx medicine twice a day. To show how well this process has been going, I offer two examples:

Example A: My brother calls me two nights ago, Lil Girl is wailing in the background, and he says that after 25 minutes of fighting with her to take the medicine, (which included him trying to force her to take it physically), he is giving up. I try - completely in vain - to wave some sort of long-distance magic wand to help everybody calm down, but she winds up going to bed exhausted, crying, and medicine-less, and he very curtly tells me he's "done." I spent a good three hours fuming, post-phone call, wondering what the hell I was supposed to have been able to do from so far away.

Example B: When she arrived at our house this morning, Mum asked her if she had gel in her hair, because it was kind of crunchy (and because, if her mom is doing her hair while she gets ready for work, sometime Lil Girl insists on the full treatment as well). Her mother states that no, it's actually medicine that Lil Girl spit out this morning, but there was no time left to wash her hair.

So, if I tell you that Lil Girl took her medicine for me tonight, before she went home, with only a piece of hard candy (for post-medicine taste changing) and a one song of her choice soundtrack as encouragement, you will, perhaps understand why I wanted to commemorate the occasion with a post.

It's not such a huge thing, really, and it probably had a lot more to do with her than with me (if she had been in a different mood, I have no doubt there would have been a Very different outcome), but there was no fighting, no cajoling, & no controlling (on my part); no tears, no whining, & no feeling powerless (on hers). It was just a simple "This is what we have to do," and then it was done.

And, just for a moment, I felt as if I'd saved the world. Just because one Lil Girl swallowed two teaspoons of medicine without a fuss, I managed to feel just a second's worth of that "I can actually do this" feeling.

And I'll take every second's worth of that that I can get, wherever it comes from.

Change of subject

Because one of my favorite Shutter Sisters, Tracey is judging this week, and because I was able to find an older photo I thought fit the theme (negative points, borrowed netbook, for not having a card reader!), I'm entering this week's I ♥ Faces contest. The theme is "Bundled Up", and here's Lil Girl hiding from the wind - and auntie's camera - last winter:

Head on over to I Heart Faces to check out the rest of the (gulp: 600+) entries, to see some fantastic shots.

Well, today is Thursday (as opposed to Tuesday, when I just thought it was), but I don't get my four days off: we have Lil Girl tonight for a sleepover (her first in a very long time) because her other grandmother has to have day surgery tomorrow, and we're helping out. Of course, I'm also supposed to go out to dinner for SisterK's birthday, so we'll see how that goes. For tonight though, we've got a movie to watch, some mashed potatoes boiling, and Lil Girl is going to have her first bubble bath at the new house: sounds good to me.

(And then later, I'll have The Office to watch< so that's awesome too. )

A good way to start off the week

I know sometimes it must seem like all I take pictures of is Lil Girl, but that's just because she's here the most... On any given day, it's just me and Mum in the house for the majority of the day, and we both don't like to have our picture taken, so it's only when Lil Girl (a child who has known how to take her own picture since she was less than a year old) is around that I get the opportunity to play around with portraits.

Of course, she's also three and half, so a lot of the portraits come out looking like I was trying to take a picture of a blond and pink tornado, but I'll take what I can get. Anyway, here's my favorite shot from the batch I just finished editing (completely out of order, which is a pet peeve of mine, but I skipped ahead because of a friends wedding and forgot to go back).

I've been playing around with the sun and natural light lately (just in time for it to go away, right?), because I like the way it creates a halo through her curls... here's one of the ones that I think came out pretty good:



As always, you can catch more Best Shot Mondays over at Tracey's, where you can also hear about her exciting news! Way to go, Tracey! You can also check out some more of my newer pics by clicking on my Flickr badge in the sidebar.

Have a great week, everybody!

"I Love the World/And I Want to Lay Down"

"I love the world

it is so beautiful.

I love the world

every single day.

I love the world

when I was a little boy,

when I was a little girl,

when I was a little tiny baby.

I love the world

and I want to lay down.

I love the world

when I am a grown-up.

I love the world

and when I was a grown-up

I will be a teacher."

~ This is the song LilGirl made up for us the other day, which she then sang whilst spinning around in circles in the kitchen, waiting patiently for lunch to be served. The song includes what is probably my favorite line of lyrics ever, which I have used for this post title. Also, I have no idea where the whole teacher thing came from, except that if it were true (rather than the ramblings of a hyped up, loves to sing songs with nonsense words like "doobalala", 3 year-old), it would make her the fourth generation of teachers in our family. Which is nice and all, but I sure hope she decides to be a billionaire instead. Billionaires can teach.