tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78468791340858354382024-03-05T08:51:29.498-08:00This Side of OrdinaryA mom, a dad and two daughters. We're living ordinary lives with a twist of 5p- (Cri du Chat) for spice. But we're about so much more than our younger daughter's genetic diagnosis.Tommiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14878625151407475002noreply@blogger.comBlogger2219125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846879134085835438.post-34271652517483931142024-01-26T18:31:00.000-08:002024-01-26T18:31:49.460-08:00EnoughIEP season is upon us. I’ve received four emails from the school this week. One was from her intervention specialist to schedule a meeting to go over her IEP.
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The second one was from her art teacher, who is frustrated with O’s lack of focus in her class. Sigh.
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The third email was from the school psychologist who says Olivia is due for an eval by him but after talking to her teachers, he doesn’t think the evaluation is necessary and that we should just continue with her IEP as is. I mean, duh. It’s not like her diagnosis has changed.
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The fourth message was from the speech therapist at the school. She wanted to let me know that she wasn’t aware that O wasn’t going to have the evaluation with the psychologist and so she’d done her own testing and wanted to know if I was okay with her using those results at our IEP meeting. She was also sweet about saying how proud of how far Olivia has come since she started working with Ms. B back when O was in 1st grade. That was very kind of her.
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I was about to say that it’s weird how some of O’s teachers/therapists click with her and adore her and see how hard she works while others just see the frustrating parts of her but you know what? It’s not really that weird. We all have people with whom we click and people with whom we don’t. That’s just a symptom of being human.
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Ms. S, the art teacher, actually really does like Olivia. She just wants Olivia to try. And sometimes, most of the time, actually, she does. But then there are days, or even weeks, where Liv is just…not into it. And when that happens, it’s really hard to motivate her.
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The night I got the email from Ms. S, I had a talk with Olivia. I waited until O was in bed and knelt by her bed. I rubbed her hair and asked her, “You know you’re smart, right?”
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She kind of shrugged at me.
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I told her, “You are so smart. You really are. Sure, there are things that are hard for you but that’s okay. You keep trying. Heck, I hate math and gym too.”
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She laughed at this.
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“But even the things that are hard for us, we have to keep trying. And even when we get bored, we have to try and stay focused. That’s kind of your job at school, to focus on the class you’re in and get through it.”
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I asked her if she didn’t like the current type of art they’re working on. She said she liked it okay but it’s confusing to her and she isn’t sure how to do what Ms. S wants her to do.
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I told her that it’s okay to ask Ms. S for clarification. I gave her some words to use and reminded her that Ms. S is the teacher, that it’s her job to explain what she wants in ways that Liv understands. I offered to email Ms. S to let her know that O is confused about the current lesson. Liv asked me to wait until next week, to see if she could either figure it out or ask her teacher herself. That, my dears, is maturity if I ever saw it.
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She’s trying over here. I think she’s seeing her peers do things that are hard for her and she’s measuring herself by the same standards and feels like she’s failing. That makes me sad and makes me want to kee reminding her that she’s got her own strengths, her own struggles and she’s doing her best and in the end, that is enough.
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She is enough. She always has been and she always will be. I just need to keep saying the words until she believes them.Tommiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14878625151407475002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846879134085835438.post-53855689520000005572023-12-31T09:42:00.000-08:002023-12-31T09:47:37.810-08:002023Where to start…
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We lost our dad in 2023. That’s obviously the biggest, most impactful thing that happened. I think I’m still processing it. I feel like I haven’t even really started to grieve.
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I miss him but I’m not sure it’s really hit me that he’s truly gone.; that he died. He's dead.
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I was there when he died. My siblings, nieces and nephews and I were all with him in those last days. He entered the hospital on a Tuesday and died just after 3:30am on a cold March Saturday. We took turns spending the night with him in the hospital. My brother was amazing during those days. He stayed Tuesday and Thursday nights. My niece stayed Wednesday night.
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Dad rallied so much on Wednesday that the medical professionals were planning to move him to a nursing home on Thursday but on Thursday morning, he took another turn for the worse and he stayed in the hospital.
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My nephews, 15 and 13, wanted to stay at the hospital on Friday night. Honestly, I didn’t want them there. It was going to be just me and them and my dad and I didn’t really have the bandwidth to be responsible for them. But I also didn’t have the heart to tell them or their parents that they couldn’t stay.
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So they stayed. But I was a ‘mean’ aunt and told them they had to be off their computers (they were gaming more than anything) by 11 that night. I just said that Dad needed quiet.
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Amazingly, I didn’t even have to tell the boys to shut it all down at 11. They just did it and quietly went to sleep.
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The lights were low and I dozed in the chair near my dad’s bed. I checked on him every half hour or so because I guess that’s what one does when one is on death watch.
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Over his last days in the hospital, I was the one who went to the nurses and let them know when Dad was in pain. I so desperately wanted to be sure he wasn’t hurting. He’d spent a lot of his life in pain and I wanted the end to be as comfortable as possible. He was so frail, so thin. I just wanted to make sure he knew he was safe, that we loved him and would miss him but also that we’d be okay, that it was okay for him to let go and be at peace. He was the last of his ten siblings. Both of his parents had been gone for over 50 years. I know that while he loved us very much he was also very lonely in the last few years of his life.
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I…I wish I’d been a better daughter. I wish I’d been kinder and more generous with my time. I wish I’d been more patient and less frustrated with perceived inconveniences. I wish I’d taken the time when he was lucid to let him know how much he meant to me, how much he impacted the person I’ve become. </p>
So many wishes and now he’s gone.
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I believe in heaven. I believe our soul, our essence, the thing that makes us who we are goes on, becomes more or…something. I don’t believe that death is just the end. I’ve felt my dad around me in the months since he died. So…there’s that.
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The nurses were so kind. They responded to my requests so quickly and never acted like I was bothering them.
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I know this is their job but…I’m grateful for their patience and kindness.
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I think I planned to say more but this is all I've got on this last day of 2023.
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Happy New Year indeed.Tommiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14878625151407475002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846879134085835438.post-86376821073803448352022-04-27T17:12:00.004-07:002022-04-27T17:12:20.688-07:00Growing PainsAlyssa has one week of her freshman year of college left.
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Let's let that sink in.
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One more week.
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We moved her to College Town the first week of August and she's spent maybe three nights here at home since.
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I'm trying to feel all the feelings over here and let it simmer and not burden her with my missing of her. She's living her life. She's loviving her life and I want nothing more than that.
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She's had a great freshman year at school. Her College Town is only an hour-ish away from home. She's thriving. I'm so proud of her. She works, she does her homework, she sees her friends, she Snapchats with me.
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But I don't think she'll ever live here with us for any length of time (like more than a day or two) again.
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She will ALWAYS have a place wherever I am. I hope she knows that in her heart but I also know that she doesn't ever really want to come home again. I get that even as I grieve for myself.
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We've raised her well. She's smart, she's independent, she's resilient, she's strong. She's loyal and kind and she owes nothing to anyone other than kindness and respect for her fellow humans. She gets to live her life and I'm so happy that she's doing that.
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I'm rambling here. I think every parent of independent kids miss those kids even while they're proud of them. I WANT this for her even thought I miss having her around the house.
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I would welcome her back here in a heartbeat and yet I know that if she ended up back here at home, it would be because something happened to derail her current plans for her life and I don't want that for her. I want all her dreams to come true, even if that means I never get to tuck her into her bed under my roof again.Tommiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14878625151407475002noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846879134085835438.post-69829238149968208952022-04-11T14:19:00.002-07:002022-04-11T14:19:30.264-07:00MessyOn a recent trip with my mom to visit my aunt and grandma, it was decided that the kids (kids being individuals who wre 16, 15, 14 and 8) would dye Easter eggs.
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One of my aunts asked if we'd dyed eggs the previous year.
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I admitted that we had not. She asked me why.
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I told her that the messes my now 15 year old made were more tolerable when she was 4. I mean, four years old make messes, right? It's a learning experience.
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However, the fact that my 15 year old still makes the same kinds of messes she once made when she was four is much harder to take.
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I try. I try really hard to be patient and just ignore the messes until I can clean them up but you knwo what? It's just easier to avoid the activities that tend to be super messy.
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The activity of dyeing eggs is one that needs a little manual dexterity unless one is going to just dip their hands directly into the dye. Guess how one of my children chooses to dye eggs?
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Yes. I do believe our Easter egg dyeing days are coming to an end.
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Is it wrong that I'm not actually sad about this?Tommiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14878625151407475002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846879134085835438.post-18747125799391909692022-03-27T09:12:00.002-07:002022-03-27T09:12:08.199-07:00EdgyI always wanted to be one of those cool, edgy girls. You know, the ones with the cool ear piercings and funky hair. The ones who didn’t give a shit what anyone else thought of them.
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I was not that girl.
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I tried a few times, though. I got a fun piercing in the upper cartilage of my ear. Alas, my non-edginess mean it never healed and when I took the earring out to clean the almost-infected (is there such a thing as almost infected?) piercing, the stupid hole closed in the five minutes the earring was out.
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So that was that.
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When I was 28 I got a belly button piercing. It was so cool. I wasn’t even all that thin but I did it anyway. I was NEVER the type to wear a crop top and show off my piercing but knowing it was there made me feel a little cooler, a little edgier.
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Again, though, my lack of cool kicked in when I took it out while in the bathroom in a bar called The Corner Pocket in Fremont, Indiana. Why did I do such a thing? Oh, well, that’s something I’m very much not proud of. My (ick) boyfriend at the time said something off-hand about not really liking the piercing and so…yeah. Not my strongest moment as an independent woman.
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Eh, I’ve forgiven the 30 year old I once was. I mean, she was confused and sad and she’s come so far to be the woman I am now so…whatever. Can’t go back and tell her not to do that. Can’t go back and tell her that that dude was worthless. She had to learn those lessons and come out the other side.
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If only she’d been edgier, right?
Tommiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14878625151407475002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846879134085835438.post-2934312094598203112022-03-13T09:24:00.002-07:002022-03-13T09:24:21.803-07:00Science Homework Hell*sigh* Yet another post about the nightmare that is 8th grade science homework.
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I’m bored and I’m writing this shit.
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The most current chapter was about Newton and his idiotic laws that don’t actually affect anyone (except that they kind of affect us all, you know, what with gravity and all) other than those who go into jobs where they have to figure out momentum and acceleration and force and all that bullshit.
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You know what Olivia is not going to do with her life? She’s not going to be a crime scene investigator. She’s also probably not going to be an engineer of any kind. She’s never, NOT EVER, going to use the formula to figure out momentum. She’s just not.
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Hell, I’m 51 years old, I work outside the home(have done so since I was 16, thank you very much) and I have never, NOT EVER, needed to use the formula to figure out momentum, which, by the way, is Newton’s third law, in case you were wondering.
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I know. Who the hell cares? Not me, that’s for sure. And yet, there we were, for what felt like the 111th night in a row, doing science homework and figuring out momentum when all we knew was the force and the mass of something.
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OMG. Please, someone tell me why a child with an IEP had to do this kind of homework. She got nothing out of it except to see her mother distraught and crying. It was ridiculous.
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Each evening on my drive home, I’d tell myself that tonight it would be different. I wouldn’t internalize the difficulty of the homework. I wouldn’t let it get to me. I would just…do what we could and not let it ruin our evening.
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And yet…there we were, trying to figure out the moment of something with a ridiculous formula that didn’t even make sense.
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Let me remind you, I have a freaking bachelor’s degree from Indiana University. I am not stupid. Olivia is not stupid. But this homework…was impossible.
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Earlier in this unit of 8th grade science, I sent Alyssa a snap telling her how sorry I was for when she was in 8th grade and she was going this homework on her own. I feel like I failed her because I didn’t know how hard her homework was. I never want her to have to tell her therapist, “My parents always said they never had to worry about me because my sister needed so much more help than I did. “ I mean, damn, there’s a guilt trip for you, right?
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The night I cried, Lyss suggested I just google the answers. I replied that I TRIED to google them but each time I put in the question, the stupid sites would want me to log in to read the answers. It was as infuriating as the homework itself.
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Finally, Thursday rolled around and I pulled into the driveway. I took a deep breath and readied myself for a stressful evening.
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Olivia met me at the door to inform me that…there was no homework that night. She asked immediately if we could go to Gram’s.
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I replied cheerfully, “No! We’re going to take a nap!”
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I settled her on one end of the couch, myself at the other, our feet meeting in the middle. We each had our own blankets that also covered the other and fell asleep for an hour and a half. She read fan fiction on her phone while I snoozed.
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And when I woke up Tom was cooking dinner. I know. The stars aligned, the angels sang and all was right in our little world for a few minutes (back on the guilt trip, I feel weird and guilty for writing that sentence knowing what’s happening in the world and especially in Ukraine right now. The horrors, the insanity, the evil that people (Putin) are capable of just feels suffocating and here I am bitching, whining, moaning about 8th grade science homework. What a self-centered little bitch I am.)
Tommiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14878625151407475002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846879134085835438.post-51899715492452175962022-03-05T07:10:00.003-08:002022-03-05T07:10:43.265-08:00I Never Knew Teeth Could Be So Beautiful - Olivia OrdinaryAfter three years and four months, Olivia got her braces off on March 3. It was a big day for her. Not only were the braces that had abused her mouth for 3+ (THREE) years coming off, but she could finally chew gum and eat popcorn and Starburst and suckers. She could brush her teeth and not have to dig food out of the hardware in her mouth.
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjeI20D6yIoEajw39ETJskgl89a4pnOhbBBGgB5ql5BzvDQd4jR2Wp6Ns8cpiqZU9HX4r4Wlu0NsOTSu8GaNbuim1zVIggmZaZHINWaO3qC5NdgKJGFZ3skJkLxc952lfGMqBS3rbq5aJJorZHUZDBB0J-Tx3Yz2blP_buAZ5FUJ79QK7G4ALFM_dsj_Q=s1280" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: left; float: left;"><img alt="" border="0" height="400" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="720" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjeI20D6yIoEajw39ETJskgl89a4pnOhbBBGgB5ql5BzvDQd4jR2Wp6Ns8cpiqZU9HX4r4Wlu0NsOTSu8GaNbuim1zVIggmZaZHINWaO3qC5NdgKJGFZ3skJkLxc952lfGMqBS3rbq5aJJorZHUZDBB0J-Tx3Yz2blP_buAZ5FUJ79QK7G4ALFM_dsj_Q=s400"/></a></div>
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She could smile and see shining white teeth.
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She was, obviously, ecstatic.
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We all were.
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And the cherry on this awesome sundae? Her sister happened to be home that evening when we got home from the orthodontist. Sure, said sister didn’t actually come home specifically to celebrate the loss of brace face. But we didn’t let that stop us from celebrating with KFC and root beer. Alyssa even let Olivia think she’d come home just for the occasion of the braces coming off.
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I’m very proud of kind Lyss is to her sister.
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Olivia took a lot of selfies that afternoon. She declared that her smile was now it’s very own filter. It was so bright and white. Her teeth are so straight.
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She enjoyed the food, the attention, the selfies. She enjoyed running her tongue over her now-smooth teeth and asking everyone (me, Tom, Lyss, Gram, Pawp) to touch her teeth because they were so smooth and slimy (her word).
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It was awesome; and gross, but mostly awesome.
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I know this is a rite of passage. I know that everyone’s braces come off at some point but can I just say how glad I am that she got to have this moment? Some parents with kids with 5p- syndrome opt out of braces even though our kids tend to have some pretty serious orthodontic issues. I get why some do choose not to go the orthodontic route. It wasn’t easy.
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I had to put her bands in for her for months. I am so, SO grateful to never have to put my fingers in her mouth ever again. Braces are painful and if a child isn’t able to comprehend why they’re being tortured. But with Olivia, she understood the point of the pain and was able to handle it.
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And now that it’s over, I’m so glad we did it. She loves her new smile. She loves her teeth.
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Just before she fell asleep the first night with her braces off, she said happily, “I never knew teeth could be so beautiful.”
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That confidence, that feeling like she’s special and beautiful and perfect, you can’t put a price on that. Even though, in this case, we kind of can since this case of orthodontic treatment cost $6700. But it was worth every penny to hear her joy, her reverence as she beheld her new, perfect, braceless smile.Tommiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14878625151407475002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846879134085835438.post-63803408187057139692022-02-24T08:19:00.001-08:002022-02-24T08:19:06.854-08:00This Side of CovidWe made it thorugh almost two years of this pandemic before the virus infiltrated our house.
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I find if interesting that just a couple of weeks ago Julie and I were comparing notes about Covid, about how neither of our immediate families had had to deal with it yet. Just a week later, she let me know that her husband and daughter were both positive.
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And here I am, on day four of quarantine from work, positive.
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Thankfully, the vaccine worked in that it made my symptoms very, very mild. I thought it was just a cold until I lost my sense of smell. That's what made me test one more time and here I am.
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I am still congested and have moments of achiness but nothing that would have kept me home from work if I hadn't tested positive. I mean, we all go to work with colds all the time, right? I feel pretty much fine other than a cough (which I always get when I have a cold. I always have.) and the occasional headach, which, again, is just life for me.
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As of day 1 of my positive test, Tom and Olivia were both negative. We're testing them again on day 5 so we'll see how that turns out.
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I feel lucky and grateful to modern medicine for vaccines and boosters. I am here to say they work.
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Stay safe, stay healthy, get your shots.Tommiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14878625151407475002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846879134085835438.post-22631246116696878722022-02-19T13:29:00.001-08:002022-02-19T13:29:06.936-08:00Cooking (Parenting?) WoesI hate cooking. I hate coming up with things to cook, I hate doing the actual work of cooking, I hate begging my child to eat the food I’ve just cooked.
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I just…hate it all.
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On a recent Monday evening, after working for nine and a half hours, driving a half hour each way to and from work, helping O with her homework for over 40 minutes, I was at the kitchen sink, washing dishes after having made food for Liv and then nagging her to eat it before I had to heat is up AGAIN and I must have had a look of frustration on my face because Tom, from across the room and on the other side of Olivia, asked me what was wrong?
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I muttered, “I hate cooking for her.”
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Now wait. Let me explain that Olivia’s back was to me, I said this quietly enough that she did not hear me. But you know what? She’s 15 years old. She knows I don’t actually enjoy cooking. She can read the room and knows that I’m annoyed more often than not when I’m cooking. She doesn’t actually care that I hate cooking. She truly isn’t bothered by my pissy attitude at all. She could not possible care less about how I feel about cooking. She will continue to ask me to cook for the rest of our lives with nary a smidge of guilt over my feelings on the matter.
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Ahem. Now that that’s settled…Tom made his way across the room with disappointment in his eyes. He was SO disappointed in my attitude. I could feel the disappointment oozing out of his pores. **Can you hear my eyes rolling from all the way over here?**
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Once he was standing beside me, Tom said in a low voice, so that our darling precious snowflake wouldn’t hear, “I think most moms enjoy cooking for their kids.”
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Oh…really? Most moms enjoy cooking for their kids. If I hadn’t been in such a pissy mood, I might have laughed. Instead I glared at him and said, “No. They don’t.”
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He was astounded. He was flabbergasted. How could a mother, a loving, wonderful mother, NOT enjoy cooking for her offspring? Wasn’t it the goal in every mother’s life to cook day and day out for her children?
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I told him to google the phrase, “Why do my kids have to eat every day.” I suggested he look up articles on the drudgery of cooking every single day for ungrateful beasts who don’t want to eat what you’re cooking.
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Well, that made him run with the idea of being appreciated. He can acknowledge that O doesn’t appreciate the cooking we do for her. But he just couldn’t handle the fact that I vocalized my passionate dislike of cooking for her.
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He’ll get over it. Or not, honestly, I don’t care one way or the other.
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I did take to FB and post a question for all the moms out there. I asked if all moms enjoy cooking for their kids.
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Big surprise…not all moms enjoy cooking, for their kids or for anyone else for that matter. Of course, some moms do and that’s what I expected. All but one of the comments on that post were from women, who all mentioned what they, personally, felt.
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The one single post from a dude said something like, okay, fine, I’ll quote him: I think parents in general like cooking for their kids…I have always enjoyed cooking for the kids! *the exclamation point is his.*
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I couldn’t…I just couldn’t stand it. I had to simmer for a bit because…damn. Dudes just can’t help but be dudes, can they?
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They just have to generalize (she generalized but hey…I’m so over it all) and of all the comments, all the kind, individual comments from women who said that they, PERSONALLY, felt, this dude had to pipe up and generalize that most parents enjoy cooking.
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No.
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My reply to Dude: “Dude’s name if you read through the comments, you’ll see that maybe half, but definitely not most parents enjoy cooking for their kids. Maybe if more dads enjoy it and take over the drudgery of daily cooking some of us moms would be less annoyed ty the whole process.” It was applauded by one of the other moms because, well, it deserved to be and because, damn. Seriously, dudes?
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Update - FB dude replied again, this time implying that there's something wrong with how my husband and I communicate. Whatever. I didn't respond because, well, he's stupid and I have nothing nice to say at this point. But it comes down to him basically proving my point and so with that...Tommiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14878625151407475002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846879134085835438.post-69537016888613952862022-02-14T16:56:00.003-08:002022-02-14T16:56:59.583-08:00Streaming Depression?I'm four plus years out from my cancer diagnosis. Triple negative cancer patients hope and pray to make it to three years because the chance of recurrence becomes much lower when that milestone is reached.
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I know I'm lucky to be here. I know that I should be living my best life and doing things I've always wanted to do. I should be kinder and more loving. I should be grateful for every single moment I have with my family and friends.
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And yet...life gets in the way of living. Does that even make sense?
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I've watched some documentaries on Netflix about people who are dying. I know, super cheerful, right? I watched one about a woman who was 36 years old when her breast cancer came back in liver. She died five months after being diagnosed with the mets. She was so beautiful. She loved her husband and her step children and her parents and everyone so much. She cried when they started her first round of chemo to try and fight the liver mets. She was a beautiful crier.
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Her message was to wake up and start living before you're dying. That's a beautiful message.
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But when you're dying you don't worry about bills and cooking dinner and laundry and vacuuming carpets. You can bask in the beauty of sunlight and the sounds of your family's voices.
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Please know that I'm grateful to be able to worry about eighth grade homework and making sure Liv takes her vitamins and chill pill each night. I'm so grateful to have to think about the next orthodontist appointemnt and whether she'll have cavities once those braces come off. I'm glad to bandage her fingers when she picks them bloody.
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I know that Cristina (the woman in the above documentary) would trade places with me in a heartbeat if she could. She'd be willing to worry about the mortgage and college applications and tuition and what's for dinner (AGAIN).
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Sure, we should all live like we're dying but life gets in the way of that and I suppose we should all be grateful for that.Tommiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14878625151407475002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846879134085835438.post-78910102646623019492022-02-06T09:58:00.001-08:002022-02-06T09:58:12.852-08:00 Snow Days, A New Phone, and a Trip to College TownNot much going on except the mundane. And that's a welcome thing.
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The midwest was hit with a snow storm this past week. The projection was worse than the actual storm. I told work on Tuesday that I's see them on Friday. Honestly, I totally could have gone to work on Wednesday but since I'd alreayd put on for a vacation day, I stayed home with Tom and Liv. It was nice. I baked cookies and worked on a puzzle and put medicine on a canker sore Olivia had and did laundry. The only thing that would have made it better was if Lyss had been home with us.
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Thursday was more snow, more puzzle, more canker sore medicine (she was driving me crazy with the complaints about that canker sore). Alyssa called me over SnapChat and we video chatted for almsot two hours. I think she was lonely and bored.
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Tuesday, 2/1, Tom's phone stopped working. Let me remind everyone that Dude had a non-smart phone. He'd been getting messages for months saying that his service would no longer work on that phone on February 20. Well, the phone decided to stop working on February 1 instead.
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So he broke down and had me buy him the cheapest smart phone I could get at Walmart. I know. Once it was set up (you're welcome, Dude) he declared he hates it. He used to be able to charge his non-smart phone once every two weeks. I told him to get used to charging his new phone once a day. He was not amused. I actually kind of was amused. He's SUCH a dude.
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Friday evening, I was watching Netflix and snapping Alyssa when she suggested that Liv and I come see her the next day. She hasn't actually asked us to do that and so, obviously, I agreed. When you college freshman daughter asks you to come see her, you go see her. She just wanted company and I'm glad to be that company. We went to several stores in her area looking for unusual Squishmellows. She's got quite a collection. I, um, have two and Olivia has one. I don't even know.
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So that our mundane life for the past week. Why am I telling anyone this? I don't even know. Posterity?Tommiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14878625151407475002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846879134085835438.post-38443376446043733752022-01-30T11:29:00.000-08:002022-01-30T11:29:00.371-08:00The Three Little MasksOnce upon a time, a little girl (a teenager, really) was really into cos-playing. This little girl asked her mom if she could make her a mask like one of her favorite characters on her favorite show. The mask was supposed to look like a cat, with a star over one eye because this character is a rock star. She sings in a band call The Kitty Section. The little girl gave her mom a lot more crafting credit that her mom deserved.
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The mom, not being a very adept crafter (see above paragraph, last sentence) tried to make the mast out of construction paper.
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The first mask looked okay but when the mom and girl tried to put elastic on it so the girl could wear it on her face, well, the tape wouldn’t hold the elastic to the paper. The paper and tape didn’t stand up to the pulling and tugging that went into putting the mask on.
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So the mom gave it a little thought and tried again, this time with fabric. She sewed the elastic to the fabric and lo, it held up even tugged and pulled over the girl’s head. Alas, the construction paper the mom had glued to the fabric ears to give it color and dimension were too heavy for the flimsy fabric. It just didn’t hold it’s shape.
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Finally, the mom went to her local Hobby Lobby and bought a $.99 foam mask, elastic already attached. She took this mask home and made construction paper ears which she glued to the mask. She added purple marker to the mask’s eye holes to look like eyeliner. She glued a pink and blue star over the right eye to match the mask worn by the girl’s favorite character and voila, the mask help up to the tugging and pulling, the huffing and puffing. It held its shape, the elastic did not pull off, it did not fall in and in the eyes of the little girl, the mom was hero, even if it did take three tries.
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This is what she wanted:
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgndoN2Gf3T1_f3phK40bc3IzURw56YQzikegBuEWo5RQIQ1Mw0yDVkBc94eEs-jWKeLCyJ9RwNrGEmW0PshqHY0yMFyHxZo0L7Hhd5-VSFhhf0PGCRpr9RPuM9pNXPjB1OR9L3iwQVMPzHJq45fttBPaSTBfQoeGgpXGO3fPberxGKDrfbKDWVcWJw2w=s600" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: right; float: right;"><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgndoN2Gf3T1_f3phK40bc3IzURw56YQzikegBuEWo5RQIQ1Mw0yDVkBc94eEs-jWKeLCyJ9RwNrGEmW0PshqHY0yMFyHxZo0L7Hhd5-VSFhhf0PGCRpr9RPuM9pNXPjB1OR9L3iwQVMPzHJq45fttBPaSTBfQoeGgpXGO3fPberxGKDrfbKDWVcWJw2w=s320"/></a></div>
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This is what she got:
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhc5uFn2vBTdiW1oN7qEOMZ-ql8fYdxuxWzicUUAf0Ek67Hy81uYaolUuwgF8L0Jd9e91SRQYLJmdbPFrLz5GKSD1LJpTx3WT-yMjrzHGsrVnxs9smeqwD8anN6jhrVEQU8aMk2YzOAXZcDITXoYlqFrJUp80zTfcZCs_hOIXIgeoioCI5ruJicQ7k3Zw=s600" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: right; float: right;"><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhc5uFn2vBTdiW1oN7qEOMZ-ql8fYdxuxWzicUUAf0Ek67Hy81uYaolUuwgF8L0Jd9e91SRQYLJmdbPFrLz5GKSD1LJpTx3WT-yMjrzHGsrVnxs9smeqwD8anN6jhrVEQU8aMk2YzOAXZcDITXoYlqFrJUp80zTfcZCs_hOIXIgeoioCI5ruJicQ7k3Zw=s320"/></a></div>
Tommiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14878625151407475002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846879134085835438.post-84647291774006713972022-01-23T09:15:00.006-08:002022-01-23T09:15:31.886-08:00Week In ReviewThe second half of January is tough. I know this is true for most of us in the northern hemisphere. It's cold, Chrismtmas is over, winter will last at least two more months...it just sucks.
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Monday: fine. I stay busy at work now that I process payroll. Did I mention that at any point? My job, at which I've been for over three years, moved me into payroll (I still work the front desk too, this is an addition to my responsibilities, not an exchange of responsibilities...yes, I've been monetarily compensated for this addition.) I'm actually flattered that my boss and coworkers trust me with this job. I mean, payroll is not something to just be handed off willy nilly to anyone off the street. So there's that.
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Ohhh, I almost forgot that we had a little antibody party in the front office on Monday. The owner of our company had some spare antibody tests and so about six of us poked our fingers and tested our blood for Covid antibodies. Guess whose vaccines have given her antibodies. Yep, me!! Whee! But guess who will still wear a mask and keep others safe? Yes, still me. Because I care for my fellow man even if they don't necessarily care about me. Hmmm.
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Tuesday I was mostly bored, thought I did move some files from one one cabinet to another. That at least got me off my butt for much of the day.
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Wednesday, I was as cranky as a toddler that had missed her nap. I can usually tamp down my emotions at work but when our shipping department brought me a 35 pound package to be taken to the post office, it just kind of pushed me over the edge of cranky to pissed off. It didn't help that this stupid package wasn't packed well. I could feel the hydrolic cylinder in there rolling around. There was no way this thing was going to make to Ukraine boxed the way it was. And let's not forget to mention that it cost around $275 to mail it. Not that it was MY $275 I was spending on postage, but it was my arms and hands carrying that stupid package into the post office.
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Thankfully, I had to stuff checks that day, so I was able to go into a conference room and be alone, away from the front desk (my desk) and the phone (not that I serve as the operator for the company. A lovely older (older than me, ahem) woman does that job and she's very good at it, and get this, she enjoys it. I'm glad she does because I know I would not so there's a positive in the week.) and just be with the stuffer, sorting and organizing all the payroll checks I'd printed on Monday.
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Thursday and Friday were just regular days. It all kind of blends into a sort of innocuous monotony. Which is fine except in the middle of January it makes you start to wonder what the hell you're doing with your life. I mean, I'm 51 years old. Is this it?
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I come home each evening and we do homework, I make dinner, I clean up after dinner. Some nights Liv takes a bath and I help her wash her hair. Other nights, I just collapse into my chair at 8 and sit there like a giant lump of frustration.
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Alas, we all know January won't last forever. It can't, February has to push her ugly head into existance. But behind February is March, with all the green that is promised and finally April and the gray skies and so on and so on. The earth keeps spinning, Covid keeps spreading, and we keep waking up and doing it all again. The alternative is unacceptable.
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Stay tuned, next week I might write about how our idiotic high school is sending their choir and band to Virginia instead of D.C. because they had to make their trip 'unvaccinated friendly.' Yeah, it's as stupid as it sounds.Tommiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14878625151407475002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846879134085835438.post-72846501444590543152022-01-15T17:37:00.005-08:002022-01-15T17:37:47.616-08:0019Lyss turned 19 this week. This isn't really a birthday post, though. I mean, she's amasing and totally deserves a birthday post but this is more about me and how the older I get the more pissed off I get at the entire world at large.
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See, her birthday was on a Friday. The Wednesday night before her birthday she sent me a Snap asking if I was working all day on Friday. I was asleep when the snap cam in so I responded the next morning, Thursday.
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I casually mentioned to Tom that she'd asked and he, well, he got annoyed. Not with me, more with her for even suggesting that I take a partial day off to celebrate her birthday.
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Do I even need to mention that his annoyance annoyed me? Why would he even care if I took half a day off? I work over 40 hours a week. I have excused time off, both paid and unpaid. We pay our bills, I pull my substantial weight around here. What difference does it make to him if I take time off?
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I was so annoyed by the time I got to work that I had to take some Excederin for the headache that had formed from my irritation.
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Because that amount of frustration is hard to sustain I was fine by the end of the day. But I'd also decided that if Lyss wanted to come home that Friday and spend the afternoon with me, I'd totally take the time off to be with her.
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I don't mind bending for her but I'm so tired of bending for the rest of the world. When I was nineteen, I was just at the point where I was starting to bend for others. At 16, I was tough, I was sure of myself, I KNEW I was right in my convictions and I stood up to everyone and anyone about them. Sometime between 16 and 19, my spine softened and I started giving in to the will of others and these days, damn it, I'm as spineless as a jellyfish.
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And that pissed me off.
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And I do not want that for her or for Olivia. I want them to be strong and self-assured and to always believe in their right to have an opinion.
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When Tom was going on about how it was selfish of her to want me to take time off for her birthday I wanted to say, "So what? If you can't be selfish with your own mother, who can you be selfish with?"
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Instead, I stood there and let him rant but I also had a look that I know said, "Go ahead, have your say but I'm going to do what I want to do anyway." See, my spine is trying to reassert itself.
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I don't have any resolutions for this year but if I did, one of them would be to be stronger, to speak up more often, to maybe stop letting people walk all over me. I want to be the one to make the decisions that affect me. I WANTED to take time of to be with Lyss. She wasn't asking me to do anything I didn't want to do. That's the difference in this situation.
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I don't want Alyssa's spine to soften. I don't want her bend herself in half trying to please everyone else and put all her own desires and dreams on hold. I want he to be kind, and strong and sure of herself. Which, right now...she is and I'm so, so proud of her and the life she's living.
Tommiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14878625151407475002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846879134085835438.post-70724718582726138802021-08-04T16:50:00.000-07:002021-08-04T16:50:02.450-07:00How It WentWe moved Alyssa to College Town the last weekend in July. It took three vehicles to carry all her stuff. I mean, she might have been able to condense it had it been absolutely necessary but since we had N’s truck (mostly for the desk and chair), my car and Alyssa’s car, we made the most of the room we had.
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We started packing up the vehicles around 1:00 and were on the road by 2:00. It takes us about an hour and twenty minutes from driveway to driveway. So, yeah, not that big a deal.
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We got all her boxes, the desk, the new air fryer, and, most importantly, her backpack in which Bubby, her stuffed dog, was zipped with just his head out for show, moved into the living room of N’s sister’s house. Poor L and T (L is N’s sister, T is the sister’s husband.)
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We didn’t take it all upstairs, which is where A and N will be living (two bedrooms and a bathroom) because N wanted clean the rooms before filling them up with Lyss’s stuff. I get that but the piles of boxes in the living room made me feel bad for L and T.
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Anyway! We offered to take A and N out to eat before we headed west for home. We ended up at Denny’s.
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**Note to self: Do not order Denny’s patty melt…ever again. Remember those last twenty minutes in the car before the next gas station came into sight…just saying.**
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Ahem. Lunch/dinner was fine, we headed back to the house to get my car and go home. We hugged in the house and then again in the driveway. Tom gave an exaggerated wail and the three of us, Tom, Olivia and I, got in my car.
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We were fine even as Lyss waved from the front porch.
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As we drove away, all was well. We were maybe twenty minutes away when Tom said something about Alyssa’s room.
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For what it’s worth, we’d had this conversation before, with him insisting that it’s silly to keep it as it is because it’s SPACE and we need (read: HE needs that space.) He does not need that space. He has a barn (it’s a small barn but it’s still a BARN.), a detached garage with a loft (so, two stories) the entire basement, through which I walk a path between his rows upon rows of STUFF to the laundry room. He also has the family room and about a quarter of the living room.
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All of that space mentioned in the paragraph above? It’s dedicated to eBay storage. Yes. Let that sink in.
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So when I made some kind of noise when he mentioned taking of Lyss’s room all of three hours after she moved out for her freshman year of college, he asked defensively, “Well, what do you want to do with her room?”
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I said simply, “I want to let it be her room.”
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He wanted to know why. According to him, she’ll NEVER live in our house again.
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Dude, never say never. And wait, what the actual hell? She’s eighteen years old. She’s going to come home for holidays, he has no idea if she’ll ever be home to live again. Instead of saying all that, I started crying.
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Because why not?
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He was shocked. Why was I crying? He said, “I thought you were over it.”
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I sniffled. “I’m not crying because she’s moved away to school. I just want to let her keep her room in our house for at least this first year. We don’t know what’s going to come. She needs to be able to always come home.”
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He made some kind of noise and I sniffled some more. My nose got all stuffed up from the crying and then the patty melt from Denny’s kicked in.
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Just before we reached the gas station that brought me great relief, Tom agreed, “We can keep it her room for awhile.”
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That’s big of him, right? But honestly, it’s the right thing to do, for her and for me.
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The next morning, I woke up with a head cold. Late that day, as I walked around sniffing and coughing, Olivia asked me how I caught a cold.
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I told her that Dad made me cry the day before and that made my nose stuffy and it just never got unstuffy.
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She declared, “So it’s Dad’s fault you have a cold?”
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Sure, let’s go with that.
Tommiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14878625151407475002noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846879134085835438.post-58432388072999538142021-07-21T03:00:00.001-07:002021-07-21T03:00:00.245-07:00Just a Hair Away from OrdinaryBack when I was told I had cancer and then informed that I would lose my hair during chemo, I didn’t care. I mean, I was fighting for my life. I was willing to sacrifice my hair in order to live. It was a no-brainer, right?
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Right.
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So during treatment and my subsequent baldness, I didn’t let it bother me.
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Though, honestly, what the hell, cancer treatments? It’s bad enough to hear that you have cancer but do we have to lose our hair too? It’s just adding insult to injury, you know?
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Now, though, I’m almost four years out from when I got my diagnosis. My hair has been growing out for over three years. It’s back to the texture it was before treatment, though to be honest, it’s a little thinner/finer than it was before. At least it seems that way to me.
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But it grew. It came back and for the past few months, I’ve hated it. I wore it in a ponytail every single day. It was past my shoulders and felt limp and thin and stringy; not pretty, nothing to be proud of.
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So, one recent Wednesday (how’s that for bringing it full circle?) I took a quick shower after screaming at Olivia for making a mess during her own shower (OMG, that is a post for another day…) and after my shower, I grabbed the scissors and made that first irreversible chop. I cut a good four inches off my hair.
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Then I went to Alyssa’s room and handed her the scissors with the request, “Please make the left side look like the right side.”
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And she did. She did a great job. She snipped and cut and did that angled thing around my face and you know what? I finally, FINALLY like my air again. It falls somewhere between my chin and my shoulders. It’s pretty much all one length and it looks so much fuller and healthier. I stand in the front of my fan for maybe two minutes each morning and flip it over to get it kind of dry and then I go. I don’t use product, I don’t scrunch it, I don’t straighten it or blow it dry. I just wash it, comb it, use the fan to dry it a little and I go. And it’s so freeing.
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I haven’t felt this free about my stupid hair since the say my mom and girls shaved my head on the sixteenth day after my first chemo.
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I just realized that I no longer had to grow my hair out just because I could. I didn’t have anything to prove anymore. I don’t have to let it keep growing just because I’ve been bald. I can cut it and enjoy it and still be grateful for it. I can stop fighting with it and let it be a little shorter and a lot cuter.
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Cancer took a lot from me. It took my health, it took my freedom, it took my hair. But I’ve come so far since those days of fighting cancer…and so has my hair.
Tommiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14878625151407475002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846879134085835438.post-3210431494573018642021-07-14T17:12:00.006-07:002021-07-14T17:12:57.813-07:0014 Years of 5p-Although Olivia was two years old when finally diagnosed with 5p- syndrome, obviously, she’s been living with it her whole life.
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At the time of her diagnosis, her doctor, the lovely, wonderful Dr. S told us that when Olivia is older, she will get to decide who knows she has 5p- and who doesn’t.
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At the time, I was torn. I mean, yes, I want her to be able to pick and choose who knows what about her. But I also kind of wanted the world to be able to see her struggles so that people would be kinder and maybe more patient. Yeah, we all know how that works, right?
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I learned early on that having an ‘invisible disability’ is a double-edged sword. There are benefits and drawbacks. Isn’t that how it is with most things in life, though?
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We’ve always been open with family about O’s diagnosis. There was no reason to keep it a secret. She is who she is and she’s perfectly awesome even with her diagnosis. Yes, yes, I would STILL give her back that missing part of her chromosome, even these fourteen years later. I would take away that struggle because the world is hard enough to fit into without extra complications.
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Anyway!
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While at my aunt’s house over the 4th of July weekend, we were all sitting around a table, just doing what families do. My aunt said something about O’s syndrome as she was talking about my cousin H’s daughter and her struggles and my nephew stopped my aunt.
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“Wait,” J said. “There’s something wrong with Olivia?”
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Olivia looked at him and said casually, “I have 5p- syndrome.”
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He looked confused and asked, “What does that mean?”
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I explained about the missing chromosome and told him about how things are sometimes harder for Olivia and take her longer to figure out. Olivia is 357 days older than J (to save everyone from doing dreaded math, that’s 8 days short of being a full year older.) I told J that when he started walking when he was 13 months old, Olivia, at just over two years old, saw him doing that and figured if he could do it she could too, which is about when she started walking.
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He grinned at that and the subject was dropped.
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But it made me think. J hadn’t known that Olivia has a syndrome. To J, she’s just Olivia. A little quirky, maybe a little different but not ‘wrong.’ Sure, she has some weird habits (flapping, stimming, being immature for her age) but again, to him, that was just Olivia.
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And that warmed my heart. It reminded me of that day in the doctor’s office all those years ago. It made me thankful for ‘invisible’ disabilities, and how because of them, my daughter is just Olivia, all her idiosyncrasies just adding to what makes her special and loved by family and friends alike.
Tommiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14878625151407475002noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846879134085835438.post-76198188936258393052021-07-13T14:45:00.000-07:002021-07-13T14:45:07.233-07:00An Ordinary ReunionAs always (except in 2020, which, how many times have we all said that in the past year?) we attended the Ordinary family reunion. This year was the 95th Annual Ordinary Reunion. Last year would have been the 95th, had we had the reunion last year.
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Alas, Covid.
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Anyway! Things are getting better, people are vaccinated, and we gathered, hugged and probably passed all kinds of germs back and forth. Olivia and I both have some sort of cold, so take that for what’s it’s worth.
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The reunion is A Thing to Tom’s family. I mean, it’s fine and fun and I’m glad it’s just once a year. But the Ordinarys take it pretty seriously. They have a committee and everything. For several years (like…seven? Twelve? I don’t even know.) Tom was the president of the reunion committee. His youngest sister is the hospitality crew. Okay, she’s not the entire crew. That would be weird. No, her husband (who once ‘not all men’d me on FB and I almost unfriended him but instead just unfollowed and all is well because of that) is the rest of her crew.
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Tom’s other sister, the one with terminal cancer, is the secretary of the reunion committee. Her daughter is the treasurer.
At the reunion, L, the current secretary said we needed to vote in a new secretary because she might not be at the next reunion. Sigh. I mean, talk about sad thoughts.
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But the reunion must go on and so names were tossed around. L tried to suggest I take on the secretarial role.
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I meekly declined, saying softly that I thought that perhaps the job should go to someone who had not married into the Ordinary family. I mean, hell, I’ll use any excuse I can to get out of it.
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One of the oldest Ordinary sisters suggested another woman, and that woman declared, “I’m very unreliable.”
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And that, folks, is going to be my new go to when someone asks me to do something I don’t want to do. I will simply state, “I’m very unreliable.”
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And I will leave it at that. No further explanations necessary.
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Okay, unreliable lady did further explain that she suffers from chronic pain and so spends about 18 hours in bed. Which is sad and I’m sorry for her. But I kind of wish she’d just left it at, “I’m very unreliable.”
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The treasurer ended up taking the job of secretary, which is very big of her. I’m proud of her as she navigates the world right now. I mean, she lost her wife last August, her mom is currently considered terminal, life just kind of sucks and she’s keeping her head up and trying to find joy in the world. We should all be more like her instead of bitching about corn on the cob.
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Late that evening I asked Tom what all the secretary has to do because he was talking about how the treasurer doesn’t actually have a lot of responsibility except, you know, money, which?!?
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The secretary’s responsibilities are:
-Take notes during the reunion meeting (have I mentioned that after everyone eats, they (we) all sit around and everyone shares what’s happened in their family over the previous year. Yeah, so taking notes during that would be fun, right?
-Keep a book of addresses each year, passing around a notebook for everyone to sign in and write down if their address or phone number has changed. Sure, that’s great fun too, nagging everyone to sign the book, since people are awful about that kind of thing.
-Reserve the pavilion in which the reunion is held. You know how much I love calling people and doing shit like that? Yeah, not at all, right?
-Create the yearly letter that goes out sometime in late May or early June reminding everyone that the reunion is the second Sunday in July, like it has been for 95 years.
-Mail out said letter to everyone in the address book you keep.
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Yeah, I’m taking a hard pass at all of the above. I don’t do that for my family of origin, why would I do it for the family I married into? Just because I spawned a couple of Ordinarys doesn’t mean I want to take on the responsibility of them seeing their extended family every July. Nope. Leave that to the next generation, is what I suggested. I told Alyssa her time as president is coming.
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She deadpanned, “I’m very unreliable.”Tommiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14878625151407475002noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846879134085835438.post-10034927246154805252021-07-09T12:00:00.001-07:002021-07-09T12:00:00.247-07:00My ApologiesI apologize for everything. If the weather isn’t what you’d hoped it would, I will tell you I’m sorry. If the fan I bought shakes when put together, even if I took it apart three time and then put it back to gether and it STILL shakes due to an unbalanced blade, I will apologize.
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Obviously, none of this is my fault. Duh. But I can’t help it.
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Growing up, my dad apologized for everything. He was always sorry. I remember wondering why he was apologizing for something that wasn’t his fault.
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Yes, I see the irony of that sentence up there. I also know that I come by it naturally. But knowing that doesn’t stop me from being annoyed by it.
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And then, recently, I’ve noticed that Olivia is telling me sorry for things that are very much not her fault and it…it breaks my heart.
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I’m perpetuating the cycle and it makes me crazy. It makes me sad and mad and sick to my stomach.
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I don’t want her to apologize for the traffic or the weather or the sunburn you got yesterday because YOU forgot to put on sunscreen. Heck, to be honest, I don’t want to apologize for those things either. I want us to be able to go about our day not feeling like every little thing is our fault.
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I have to nip this in the bud. I have to stop saying I’m sorry for everything so that I can help her NOT get into the habit of doing it to the point that she can’t stop herself. I hate it and I don’t want her to get to this point to.
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So…I’m trying to figure out how to stop. I need to be more deliberate in what I’m saying and how I’m saying it and, yes, even WHY I’m saying things. That’s the only way I know to start.
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Wish me luck?Tommiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14878625151407475002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846879134085835438.post-84984384018556194342021-07-08T12:00:00.002-07:002021-07-08T12:00:00.283-07:00Anticipating the New NormalAlyssa told me recently that her last day at her current job is July 30th. She’s planning to move to her college town in the days following her last day at work.
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Yes, I have FEELINGS about this. However, I understand her reasoning for moving to College Town three-ish weeks before classes start. She wants to find a job (she plans to work about 15 hours a week) and just get settled in before school starts.
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I get it. But yes, there are those FEELINGS. Those FEELINGS though, are mine to deal with, not hers. I want her to fly free and enjoy this time. I want her to embrace her freedom and her youth and wring the joy out of it all.
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Her best friend is going to the same College Town and I’m so happy for them to be there together.
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We’re going to miss her but remember, College Town is only an hour away. And even if she doesn’t come home often, just knowing she CAN come home will be enough.
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So Olivia and I went away for the long 4th of July weekend. I took Friday, July 2nd off work and we went with my mom and my nephews to Battle Creek, Michigan for the weekend. We had great fun (though, seven year old nephew is a raging brat) and it was nice to just be for a bit.
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But Lyss wasn’t there. She had to work that Friday and then planned to spend the weekend hanging out with friends. She was missed.
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I felt like that weekend was a precursor to the coming months when she’s away at college. She will be missed.
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Life will go on. Olivia and I will continue to do things together and Alyssa will come home and seamlessly fit back into our lives while she’s home but things will never, ever be as they were even a few months ago.
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And yes, there are my FEELINGS again. They bubble up and threaten to erupt. I feel them and let them simmer and they calm down to manageable proportions.
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We’ll be fine. It may be rough here and there but life is about change and embracing the new and exciting things that come your way. We’ll miss her but we’re so happy for her and there you have the push and pull of growing up.
Tommiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14878625151407475002noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846879134085835438.post-61342872383383661992021-07-07T14:48:00.013-07:002021-07-07T14:52:14.579-07:00You Know What I Hate?Corn on the fucking cob.
I hate it so much. The only good thing about corn on the cob is eating it.
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The rest...sucks. It sucks so, so much.
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My mom called me one random Tuesday and asked if I'd been to Wal-Mart that day. I had. She asked if I'd bought any corn on the cob. I hadn't.
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She was surprised because it was on sale. 20 ears for a dollar. OMG! Really? Like wow.
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But, I surmised, it wasn't shucked was it?
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She confirmed that it was not shucked.
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Big surprise.
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Guess what? I HATE shucking corn. I hate it so much. I hate it with the passion of a thousand suns. All the unshucked corn in the entire world could disappear and I wouldn't be sad.
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I hate it.
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I also hate cooking corn on the cob.
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But it's so easy, you say.
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I know! I know how easy it is to boil the stupid stuff. But I still hate it. I hate it almost as much as I hate shucking the stupid ears.
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Guess what else I hate. I hate cutting the corn off the cob. Gues who my kids prefer to eat their corn on the cob. Yep, they prefer to eat it OFF the cob. Guess who always has to cut the fucking corn off the cob. It's not Tom who usually does the cutting, is all I'm saying.
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So after telling me about the Walmart sale of unshucked corn on the cob, my mom offered me some of the corn she'd purchased.
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I declined that day, saying it was Tom's birthday and so I already had dinner planned.
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So she suggested I go to her house the next day and get the corn.
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FINE, I'll get some stupid corn from her.
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But no, lovely woman that she is, she BROUGHT IT TO US, that very night. Because she loves my daughters and hates me.
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So the next day, today, in fact, I shucked that fucking corn (Alyssa helped because she loves me and I bitched the entire time and she thought it was funny that I was bitching about how much I HATE SHUCKING CORN.)
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Then I boiled those stupid ears.
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After boiling them, I cut the stupid corn of the fucking cobs and my girls had a feast.
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You know what? It would be hard to eat corn on the cob with no fucking teeth.Tommiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14878625151407475002noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846879134085835438.post-59414036278557741512021-07-01T04:00:00.001-07:002021-07-01T04:00:00.277-07:00It Was FineAll that worry about my family being dicks was for naught. Everything was fine.
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In fact, the graduation party was an unmitigated success. There was plenty of food, there were gifts and decorations. People showed up and stayed for hours.
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My mom’s heart even seemed to thaw a bit. Miracle never cease.
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We had scheduled the party for 1 to 4. We met the trustee (one of Lyss’s teachers) at 10. He unlocked the building for us and we got started on the set up.
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Tom thought it was ridiculous for us to start setting up that early. Ha! Showed him. We were still getting the food out when people started arriving at 12:55.
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Yes, of course someone arrived five minutes early. Why wouldn’t they? And obviously it was someone from my dad’s side of the family. Phil is just That Guy.
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But whatever. It was fine.
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Everything was fine. I think people had fun. I know they ate and talked and laughed and balloons were tossed and children sweated outside on the playground.
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Alyssa smiled and greeted her guests and sat with her friends. She ate macaroni and cheese and mingled and Olivia irritated her to no end.
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It was fine. It was great even.Tommiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14878625151407475002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846879134085835438.post-34089977154807909532021-06-30T04:00:00.001-07:002021-06-30T04:00:00.292-07:00Finally, the Post About GraduationThere was never any doubt that we’d get here but it feels like it happened in the blink of an eye.
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I so clearly remember riding in a car driven by Tom down a side street in Huntington, Indiana. I was about halfway through my pregnancy with Alyssa. I was just starting to show and you could finally see her moving.
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I’d had a miscarriage before I got pregnant with Alyssa. As we drove down that street, my breath hitched when I realized that it could still happen again. Tom gave me an odd look and asked what was wrong. I asked him, “What if I lose this baby too?”
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He tried to console me by saying if that happened, we’d try again.
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I shook my head, “But I want this baby. I don’t want any other baby, just this one.”
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That baby graduated from high school last week. The baby I cried for and wanted so desperately before she was even born is eighteen years old and heading off to college in the fall.
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There were some REALLY long days interspersed through these past eighteen years but those years? They flew.
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I am so proud of who she is. I’m so proud of how hard she works and how much she cares and how kind she is. She’s so smart and confident and funny. I am so lucky to be a part of her life, so have brought her into this world and to be able to watch her do amazing things.
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She was the baby I wanted even though I didn’t even know her as I cried over the thought of losing her. She is magical and mystical and she surprises me all the time as she continues to find herself. I hope the confidence she’s cultivated through her high school years continues and grows during her years in college. I hope she makes more amazing friends and continues to hone her strengths and talents.
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But most of all, I hope she’s happy. I hope she finds her people and her way and does the things that make her the happiest.
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<br>Fly high, sweet girl. Be the best you you can be.
Tommiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14878625151407475002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846879134085835438.post-53207948660979572582021-06-26T13:51:00.004-07:002021-06-26T13:51:39.799-07:00Your Nerd Is ShowingI work at a place that has an IT team. This is so very different from my previous job where we had an IT guy, and he worked in a different office, which was a full hour drive away from our facility.
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Here, we have six members of the IT team, two of which work at another plant, which is less than a mile away. The other four work about fifty steps from my desk.
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These guys pass my desk multiple times a day.
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One afternoon, one of the IT guys happened to stop for a minute for a quick chat. He mentioned his cats. He said he has a few that live in his garage and one that lives in his house.
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He explained that the house cat used to be his neighbor’s cat but said neighbor didn’t take care of kitty and so kitty became IT guy’s cat. Kitty lives in the house because IT guy doesn’t want neighbor to get any ideas about taking kitty back.
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I told him he was a hero for taking kitty out of a bad situation.
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Then he told me that kitty’s name is Bat Man.
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I immediately asked, “Do you sometimes call him Bruce?”
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IT guy’s eyes lit up and he smiled, as if thrilled that someone had actually asked that question. Still smiling, he answered, “Yes, yes, I do.”
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We shared a nerdy laugh and the conversation ended.
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There’s no point to this story whatsoever except to point out that sometimes you’re surprised to find fellow nerds and sometimes, you get to surprise fellow nerds with your own nerdiness.
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That day I let my nerd flag fly.Tommiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14878625151407475002noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7846879134085835438.post-2539357456959177762021-06-22T04:00:00.001-07:002021-06-26T13:52:54.087-07:00Sleep: Part 6570But seriously, when you have a 14 year old and an 18 year old, you don’t think those delightful offspring of yours will be contributing to your sleep, or lack of. Right?
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Wrong.
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So, so wrong.
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My children are beasts. I’ve said that from the start, way back when I was blogging on March of Dimes Share Your Story. My complaints about my children’s sleep habits are legendary in some circles.
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In fact, once I met some of the women from MOD SYS they ‘joked’ that I needed our yearly conferences just so I could sleep through the night with a bed all to myself.
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You know what’s not funny anymore?
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Being woken up several times a night for many nights in a row by my children.
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These children, need I remind you, are TEENAGERS.
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And still they wake me up through the night.
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Summer has wrought havoc on O’s sleep schedule.
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Tom lets her sleep until 11:30 or noon each day, which means when I’m heading to bed at 9:30 or 10 (let’s remember, I’m not on summer break, so I still get up no later than 6 each morning) she’s nowhere near ready to go to sleep.
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I don’t want to drug her (aka, give her Tylenol PM) each night to make her ‘sleepy’ when I go to bed. That’s not fair or right.
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But I also don’t want to make her go to bed when I do so that she can toss and turn for HOURS, flashing her freaking book light (she sleeps with a book light instead of a teddy bear) across the ceiling, into the hall, down the street, into the attic, everywhere that will annoy me and keep me from sleeping well.
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Have I mentioned before that I really like it to be DARK when I sleep? As in, please don’t shine your book light into my eyes and ask me if I’m awake.
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Sigh.
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So that’s the younger beast.
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The older beast, the ADULT beast, has been working four days a week since the week after her graduation party (so, like two weeks…) She works 4pm to midnight. Which sounds great, right?
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Except in the two weeks she’s worked this schedule, she has texted me no earlier than 9:45 on several nights to say she’s going to come home at midnight, shower and then go to a friend’s house. The friend is either Tessa or N. So that’s fun.
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I don’t actually care that she’s going to friends’ houses, I just wish she’d make this decision before 9:30 each night so that I’m not jolted out of my falling asleep routine and made to make decisions, replies, what have you, past the point where I can function as a decent human being.
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The most recent event, the one that broke the jumping sheep’s back, was a night when I’d declared to Olivia that I was going to bed at 9:30 and she was going to stay up with her dad until she was decently tired enough to JUST GO TO SLEEP. Ahem. Yes.
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So I went up, Olivia followed me long enough to get her teeth brushed and her orthodontic rubber bands put in and then she bolted back to her tablet. Lucky me, I settled in and fell asleep before 10:30, which is a freaking record these days.
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12:15: Alyssa came in. “Mom?” she whispered. “They let us go a half hour early. N’s home for four days. Can I go to Twyla’s house and see her?”
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I mumbled that that was fine, but was she coming home or spending the night with N?
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She said, “I don’t know yet. I’ll text you.”
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“No,” I insisted. “I either won’t get it until morning or it will wake me up (I didn’t say AGAIN, but I thought it.) Decide now and leave your dad a note so he doesn’t come up at 3am to tell me you’re not home and demand to know if I know where you are.”
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She agreed to these terms and off she went. Ten minutes later, I heard Olivia making her way upstairs.
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A half hour after that, I woke up again to Alyssa whispering to me. “Mom? They movie they were watching at Tyla’s was just finishing when I got there so I came home brought N with me.”
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I struggled to wake up AGAIN and asked, “Did you leave your dad a note about N being here?”
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She told me she did.
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At that point, I realized that bathroom light was on and asked her what the hell Olivia was doing in there.
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She said that Liv was sitting on the toilet.
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I pulled my tired ass out of bed and went to the bathroom to whine at O. She grudgingly made her way to her bed where I insisted that she either turn off that damned book light or place it somewhere (under her pillow, for example) it wouldn’t shine across the entire room.
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At that point, I think everyone went to sleep and I didn’t wake up again until my alarm went off at 5:10. So…I got about 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Must be a record.
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Honestly, it hasn’t been this bad since Olivia was 8 years old.
Tommiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14878625151407475002noreply@blogger.com1