reservation road

This is a well written book; it's engrossing and I found it hard to put down, but that's more because I had to finish it and be done with it as soon as possible. I'd give it more plums except I have kids and it was way too close to home in terms of imagining the death of one of my children. If you are a parent and want to place your heart in a vise then turn the screw, by all means get this book. If you're a parent who has enough on your plate worrying about your kids welfare in the real world or when you read you fall into the fictional world easily, do not get this book!

little white lies

I’m starting to feel like now might be a good time to start a coke habit, or some other drug that could give me delusions of grandeur. I’ve never done cocaine and the (thankfully) few drugs I have tried have never given me any sort of lift, more paranoia (pot is an absolute torturous nightmare for me) or nothing. Maybe I could find some psycho-pharmacological drug that could give my ego a boost since it’s really in a fragile place right now. I continue to feel like less than stellar Mom material with Owen. Toby tells me it’s nonsense, that I’m a good Mom but that Owen sees me as a pushover and he’s bright so he knows how to push my buttons and make me feel guilty. Plus I’m always trying to talk, in a therapist’s couch sort of way, with Owen, let’s discuss what happened, our feelings while I look less than receptive, my brows are permanently knit in exasperation. And, once again, Toby’s (rightfully) like, he’s five you need to take something away from him and punish him for bad behavior not talk things over. I tend to be a bit of a doormat in life but I learned from the best, my Mom, who learned from the best, her Mom. The thing is my Mom doesn’t feel she’s like her Mom or me, she likes to think the neurotic, overly-sensitive gene skipped her generation.

On Tuesday I had to take my Grandma to the dentist because she needed a tooth extracted and a filing. I had marked on her calendar that I would be taking her to the dentist and talked with her repeatedly about it but her memory is declining rapidly while her anxiety increasing, so she always tends to call me a lot the day before a big event, which leaving Sunrise (her care center) to go to the dentist qualifies as. When the dentist had come to Sunrise a couple of weeks earlier to do check ups on the patients she was beside herself. Oona and I arrived to find her close to tears, hands in fists, arguing with a care manager that she wasn’t going to see any dentist when her granddaughter was visiting, her teeth were fine. She was very upset that no one told her earlier about this, which I’m sure they did but she couldn’t remember. I convinced her to go see the dentist saying it would be quick and Oona and I were fine waiting in her room. She came back relieved but still talking about how no one had told her a dentist would be visiting that day and then she started worrying that she hadn’t thanked the dentist for what I nice job he did on her bridge (her six top front teeth) over the summer. I hate to see her get so upset.

My sitter came to watch Oona on Tuesday. I dropped off Owen at school and headed over to my Grandma’s early because I knew she’d be excited. She wasn’t too nervous but was very unsure of what to wear since she stays inside all the time, and is birdlike thin now, she wasn’t sure if she’d be warm enough. We got her into a corduroy skirt and sweatshirt and put on her winter coat and I got her into the car easily enough. The whole ride over she’s asking me how far it is (8 miles) and if this is my dentist (yes I lie, he’s very good) and why does she have to go there’s nothing wrong with her bridge (he want to look at a couple of your teeth). If we sit at a red light for longer than 5 seconds she gets angry and starts muttering ‘oh come on already’ and I try to tell her not to worry that we’ll get there in time. I walk her into the office, up the elevator and into the waiting room where her anxiety spikes, ‘Look at all these other people, am I going to have to wait long?’ I tell her no praying that that’s true because last time I took her here we waited a half hour which is like a lifetime to someone with memory loss, anxiety and a prolapsed bladder, and I had Oona with me then too! But the gods are smiling on us because as soon as Grandma sits down a hygienist says Dr. B is ready for her.

Dr. B is great with Grandma and I sort of worried initially because he has a slight accent and is Middle Eastern, my grandparents have never been the most open-minded individuals, but she likes him. He’s charming, handsome with a warm smile, and very gentle with her as he asks after Oona while urging me to take samples of toothpaste from a bowl next to plastic displays of teeth. Dr. B takes an x-ray of Grandma’s tooth and it definitely needs to be extracted but he’s going to hold off on the other than that he thought might need to be filled. Now the whole time I haven’t told my Grandma that she needs a tooth removed because I knew she wouldn’t consider going to the dentist then. I feel horrible lying to her, well not outright lying but huge omitting of fact by saying Dr. B need to check a tooth, but with her memory impairment and anxiety I try to gauge what is the best way to handle things. I hold her hand when Dr. B numbs her mouth and continue to hold it while Dr. B gently rocks the tooth (#18) back and forth with a pair of metal forceps while I marvel at the nerve you’d need to first try an extraction as a dental student. The molar comes out with little blood and Dr. B wedges a piece of gauze back there for my Grandma to bite on. She still has no idea what just happened but smiles and offers a garbled thanks again for the bridge. The whole ride home I tell her she’ll need leave the gauze in for an hour and no, the dentist didn’t mess with her bridge at all.

Once back at Sunrise I sit with my Grandma in her room. After ten minutes of small talk I finally tell her that Dr. B tried to fill the tooth but there was too much decay, it broke and he had to remove it. She nods with a smile, ‘oh, really?’ A nurse comes in to see her and I hand her the sheet of post op instructions. She sweetly yells at Grandma, she’s got pretty bad hearing loss but won’t think of getting a hearing aid, that she can’t brush her teeth, no drinking with a straw and they’ll bring her a meal in a couple hours, after the numbness goes away. ‘And if you feel any pain you need to let us know.’ Grandma nods to everything she says, smiling. After she leaves we go to the bathroom to take the gauze out. It’s no longer bleeding, thank God for small miracles. I go over the instructions with her again and write when I’ll next be out to visit on her calendar. I give her a hug and a kiss, tell her I love her, and lock her door for her before going since there are men, ‘they’re not right’ she says with a point to the head, that wander in her room from time to time.

About an hour after I get home the calls start. She can’t understand that a tooth has been removed, ‘but I’m not bleeding, where was it?’ she thinks it was removed from her bridge ‘he didn’t mess with my bridge at all did he?’ and ‘what do I tell everyone that’s asking why I went to the dentist?’ My responses contradict each other, they would collapse in a heartbeat if I was being interrogated by the cops but as long as there is an answer and a familiar voice telling her not to worry she gradually tapers off with the calls ‘oh, I don’t mean to bother you.’ And I tell her it’s okay. She called me yesterday asking when she might see me next and I said that I had just been there the day before and she couldn’t remember. The visit to the dentist, the tooth, the lies, it all just fades away.

pain management

Yesterday Owen had off from school and I thought that would be a great day to take the kids for their lead test, not that there's ever a great day for needles but they could both get tested at the same time. So in the morning I took us to the pediatric wing of the hospital in the neighborhood we used to live in. I'm filling out forms and trying to police the kids simultaneously when our visit to the hospital suddenly seems to dawn on Owen. He asks, 'Do I have to get a shot?' and I pause weighing what the best thing is that I can say. How can I spin this in a positive light? Owen never had a problem with shots until this past August, when he had to get five shots before starting kindergarten. That whole experience was traumatic enough but he also got sick with a fever and vomiting afterwards, whether because of the immunizations or some ill-timed virus, who knows. Since then as soon as he hears he might need a shot he starts bawling, really loud theatrical emotionally drawn out crying. So, on cue, when I admit that yes he needs a lead test he starts screaming 'No! I don't want a shot!' I am trying to reason with him calmly and get him to quiet down
'Owen it will be a quick prick and then it's over.'
'Shhh Shh, it will be okay. '
'Take a deep breath like you do in karate.'
but the crying doesn't stop, if anything it's like a snowball of hysteria and I say, calmly but pointedly, over the bawling, 'Owen there are children in this hallway who are seriously ill can you please calm down?'
Nothing doing.

So I take Owen and Oona into the room where blood's drawn and ask if I can shut the door so his screams aren't disturbing the actual patients. There's a bed shaped like a purple dinosaur and lots of kid friendly decor and stickers, what more could a kid ask for. But Owen crouched in the corner by the door crying so hard I can't even tell if he can hear anything that the nurses and I say to try and calm him down. The nurses ask why the kids are getting tested and I run through my list: 100 plus year old house that husband does renovations on, recalled Thomas toys with son that puts everything in his mouth and the playground my children went to a lot recently where it recently came to light that there's elevated lead levels in the soil. No, I don't just get tests to stick my needlephobe son full of needles. I am sleep deprived and Owen's crying is pulling at every frayed nerve in my body. I start feeling like such an abject failure as a parent with Owen and his bawling. Like I'm an abusive mother and there must be something emotionally wrong with me, him, or both of us for him to freak out like that. The nurses didn't say anything negative, one commiserated and said her daughter acted like that when she was six, but I just feel like I'm so obviously the bad mom, the one who can't calm her kid or looks annoyed at her clearly upset child, like I'm so not helping Owen in his time of need. The one nurse said I could come back with Owen on another day but she understood when I said I'd rather push through this and take the test today than come back with him at a later time because I think it would be worse, my logic being better to get it over and done with than the whole terror be magnified even more with anticipating a later date. We were going to do Owen first be he was too upset so Oona got on the dino-bed and started crying. I don't think she would have cried had it not been for Owen. She loves him so much and was so concerned over his crying, I think that scared her. She bawled hard for about ten seconds when her finger was pricked and they started drawing blood but after the nurse said they were milking her like a cow she said, 'no piggy' and oinked for her. I don't know of any pigs that have been milked before but she was fine after that, even though they were still milking her finger for blood, filling up two tiny vials. When she was done she got a Garfield band aid and a Dora sticker (no cable for us so she doesn't get the whole Dora thing) then I put her back in the stroller and turned my attention to my son, cowering with red swollen eyes in the corner. It took some effort on my part to pick up Owen, he’s skinny but put up a good fight. After a couple false starts I got him and carried him to the dino-bad where two other nurses helped pin him down and a third one prepped him for the finger prick. I had his shoulders down and my top half pressing his torso to the bed, at one point I dropped my head to his chest so he couldn’t see me laugh. I am a nervous laugher and he was like... all I could think of was some scared straight film I saw in grade school where they talked about how people on PCP can break through handcuffs. He's screaming at the top of his lungs 'No no no shots. No shots never ever again!' he was so consumed by his screaming it didn't break or alter after the finger prick. He continued to bawl through the filling up of the two vials, after the band aid, through my profuse apologies and thank yous to the nurses for all their help, through the trip down the elevator where I tried to joke that if his finger tip still hurt maybe we should amputate (oh I grimace at the lead balloon that was but if Toby had said it I'm sure Owen would have laughed), through the walk in the park to the car. He wouldn't stop crying until he talked to Toby on the phone while we were in the car. I hear him calming down as I’m driving and it hurts me that it’s so easy for him with Toby and not with me.

Throughout the day Owen told anybody that would listen about his blood shot test looking very serious and holding up his finger covered in yet another Garfield band-aid as evidence of his ordeal. During karate he showed it to his instructor and mentioned that it was still hurting him, he had karate 8 hours after his blood shot test. I was grumbling about it to Toby after putting the kids down for the night, ‘How can it still hurt him? With my luck he’ll develop necrotizing fasciitis in that finger and it will all be my fault.’ I love Owen so much but there are times when I feel like he doesn’t like me or that I can’t comfort him when he’s sad and that is so integral to what a Mom is, it’s disheartening. Every mistake I make with my kids is like another nick in my heart, it makes me feel awful and guilty and unbearably sad.

love thy neighbor

We had my Dad down for Thanksgiving and my Grandma came out too. A little odd having my Grandma and her daughter's ex-husband over for dinner. My Grandma spent the meal trying to figure out the connection, due to her memory impairment, and then trying her hardest not to say anything 'wrong' because she's pathologically polite and even though her memory isn't great she does know my Mom lives with someone else now so she tried to tiptoe around saying anything that would hurt my Dad's feelings about that. Toby did a wonderful job, as always, cooking the big feast. I did my nominal job of making cranberry sauce, no I didn't just open a can I made it with fresh cranberries, it's real easy and tastes great. I also peeled the yams, no candied yams here we like them mashed with garlic, heavenly! I got an organic 10 pound turkey from Whole Foods that was probably 3 times what you'd pay for a frozen turkey elsewhere but it was all worth it. How could it not be worth it when Toby cooked pretty much everything?!

My Dad got here Wednesday and was raving on Thanksgiving on what a good night's sleep he had at our house. Meanwhile I was agitated because the neighbors in the rental across the street had woken me up yet again due to their late night (3 a.m.) partying. They are nice tenants and I'm sure they don't mean to cause any trouble but if you drink enough alcohol there is no way you'll be able to be quiet unless you're passed out. A month or so ago I had to walk out in my pj's at 3 in the morning to tell the three girls talking (you know, they think they're whispering and it sounds like a 4 year olds idea of a whisper) on the front porch to please go inside. I've buried my head under a pillow when I hear a heated and inebriated heart to heart on the porch at 5 in the morning on a weekday, don't these people have jobs? I know that makes me sound like a curmudgeon but I can't deal with waking up at night, excluding my children needing me, it's so hard for me to get back to sleep. So Thanksgiving Eve I hear people on the porch yet again. I go outside in my penguin pj's and knock on the door, by then they had gone inside but had the door open so you could hear everything. A guy right near the door swings around and immediately starts apologizing, he was very sincere, and telling me that he doesn't live there. I said that was fine I just needed them to please keep it down so I could sleep. I turn to go and one of the guys that lives there comes out to talk to me. He's very polite and friendly and very drunk. He introduces himself and shakes my hand and wants to have 'a discussion' about what's going on. He's like 'I see you upset with tears in your eyes.' which I was upset but my tears were more to do with the fact that I had just woken up and was outside in the wind. He's going on and on about how I should feel safe due to there partying because it's unlikely anyone would break into our house with all that activity going on across the street, I present to you the logic of a drunk person. At this point I should mention that he has on a t-shirt that says 'I (heart) hot moms' and it just seems to crystallize how pointless and aggravating this whole situation is. I asked him, very politely, to keep his door shut when they have people over and if they want to go outside and talk to do it in the backyard. He wanted to continue discussing with me but I staved off saying that what I really wanted to do was go back to sleep, which surprised him, he seemed a bit disappointed in me. But he shook my hand and wished me a happy thanksgiving. It would have been happier if I hadn't been woken up and then was so agitated I couldn't get to sleep until 5:00, total flipping nightmare! There were three guys that lived in the rental last year and we never heard them, they were perfect. But living near a rental is never perfect for long. How I wish I had the money to just raze the building or, even better, move to a quieter part of Pittsburgh.

And last night one of Oona's talking stuffies became possessed and said 'peekaboo I see you' at 2:30 in the morning and two seconds later Owen is shouting for me and by the time I got settled to go back to sleep Toby is coughing uncontrollably. So he went downstairs but I called him back up an hour later because I still wasn't asleep. I went up on the third floor to the guest room and finally passed out at 6:30 and in that hour before waking I was plagued with nightmares of staying in a hotel with the kids where there was peeling lead paint everywhere, that Oona kept trying to eat, and then there was a fire and we had to escape the building from the second floor. Restful, I know.

orange belt

Last night Owen tested for his orange belt in karate.Ugh, I'm loathe to come across as some controlling sports mom (Toby and I don't even own any Pittsburgh sports related paraphernalia) but Owen doesn't seem to be learning any self control, or for that matter karate skills, in this class. I like the instructor a lot, I think he's great with the kids. Maybe Owen just doesn't fit with karate, he's not the most athletic child so it might be awhile before we find a sport that works for him, I keep thinking swimming might be a good fit with him. During his test last night he's acting like a total space cadet, smiling at me, scratching his head and playing with his face when he's supposed to be going through his forms with the teacher. He has absolutely no form whatsoever, constantly wobbles from one position to the next, you'd have no idea that he's been taking karate for close to a year based on his performance in class. But when we ask him if he enjoys doing karate he insists that he does.I'm confused. When the teacher gave him his orange belt he told him that he needs to work harder and get a better attitude about karate. Owen's shouted 'yes, sir!' and then goes back to the line and starts goofing off again, while I'm trying to catch his eye in order to signal that he needs to be quiet. He doesn't have to do any sport if he doesn't want, Toby and I thought it might help with his clumsiness and give him more confidence in his body but if he wants to do chess (he's part of his school's chess club) or math club that's fine. I just don't know how or when to determine that we've given karate a fair shot and that he should hang up his belt.

the dinner hour

Okay, now this probably, hopefully, happens to most every family with small children, the eternal struggle to get them to eat at dinner. These days I'm starting to feel like what's the point in forcing them to eat what Toby or I make for dinner, half the time I turn up my nose at Toby's more exotic dinners because I'm a horribly picky eater so is it a great surprise that my kids are picky too? And is it really going to kill them if they eat peanut butter and jelly (actually blackberry preserves without sugar or other sweetener added) on whole wheat bread or a couple of eggs with ketchup every night instead? The dinner battle just isn't one I want to participate in every night. I've got enough on my plate dealing with the fact that Oona will go down for a nap if anyone but me puts her down. With me she strips down to her birthday suit jumps around in the crib and on Saturday pooped all over her afghan. Thank God I have a sitter come in two mornings a week so I can do things like visit a doctor without Oona zeroing in on the biohazard box or volunteer at Owen's school. Anyhoo... last night we made Arthur loops with soy meatballs for the kids because they didn't want the tortilla pie I made. Owen finished most of his meal so he got to have some doritos as a treat and Oona threw most of her meal on the floor so she did not get doritos as a treat. Let me just clairfy here that I normally don't fashion Owen in ensembles that make him look like some precocious hipster skater but... 1. he just got the hat yesterday and was very happy with his purchase so I let him wear it most of the day. 2. he loves wearing his star wars lego t-shirts, of which he has two, but they're short sleeved so I said he could wear them if he put a long sleeved shirt on underneath. I just got Oona a flame hat this morning because she likes everything Owen and I think it will be funny to see her in her leopard coat with a flame hat on.

when you have nothing nice to say

About the weekend you spent at your in-laws, show pictures. Not their fault, just a bad weekend. So I'll leave you with pictures of the land Toby grew up on, which is pretty spectacular and filled with tiny treasures.

make it work

Just purchased filters for my brita pitcher ( the pitcher has only been without a filter for a year or so) I'm thinking that might make our nasty tap water taste better and increase my water drinking, if I can keep the glasses out of cats and children's reach. Maybe being hydrated is the answer to all my troubles - new dewy skin, boundless energy, thick shiny hair, it's what those darn magazines claim all the time.

Oona has been very affected by the end of daylight savings, she's waking up at least an hour earlier and is trying to forgo naptime. All this makes for one comatose mom. She's also taking off her pants and diaper during her naptime protests. After finally succumbing to sleep on Monday I entered her room to find her bare bottom sticking up catching the quite chilly breeze in her room. Fortunately she hasn't peed during these taking off the diaper shenanigans. This is her modeling her pink tee after being struck with future fashion designer inspiration. Look out Project Runway season 25! I think the bruise on her head (from running into the sofa too quickly) and drool spots really set off the whole look.

dorian graying

Can I tell you that I've become a little bit obsessive with facial skin lately? Now it hasn't gotten to the point where I'm buying Creme de la Mer for myself and I haven't gotten botoxed, but I'm reading every darn Vogue (my go to mag to learn how the well-heeled live) article on skin care and turning back the clock when it comes to your skin. I have the Fraxel website bookmarked for Toby, under 'things I like' for gift giving inspiration. I've talked to Toby for ages about how I want Fraxel at forty (dreadfully close now) in order to rejuvenate my skin that's looking positively haggard these days. I know it's vain but I have so much skin damage (i.e. lentigos) and hyperpigmentation because I got melasma with both of my pregnancies. Getting a blistering sunburn (doubles your chances of melanoma) on my face when I was 16 in Bermuda (I put 15 SPF on, which was the highest you could get in 1985, but that wasn't enough down there) did nothing to help my facial skin. That sunburn made me resemble a weather beaten sailor and at one point, when I was wingman for my friend, her Norwegian beau's brother told me that I looked better without my tan. Yeah, no kidding!
I have learned what I've always read about, that it can take years for the damage to show. And the past year is one where my face has aged 15 years. I'm middle aged. The reality of that statement is frightening. I know the bloom's off this rose, but the one thing I always had going for me lookswise was good skin so I can't go gently into my forties with hyperpigmentation, collagen loss, wrinkles and sagging. The other day I saw a commercial for Oil of Olay dermapods for the eye area and they mentioned how it helps fight crepeing and I was thinking to myself 'what's that?' then I looked closely in the mirror that night and realized 'Damn! my upper lids look like dark tan crepe paper. I've got crepeing!' There are days when I sadly resemble the Greek night manager of the diner I used to work at and I have no all-nighter to blame for those dark circles. So if anyone knows of a miracle creme in a bottle please let me know.
Oh, and this is incredibly obvious and foolish on my part but I know I don't drink enough water. There are so many, pretty lame, reasons for this... I can't watch my kids and pee every fifteen minutes, and unless I put the water in a sippy cup it's going to be all over the floor between my cats and the kids and I don't feel right buying bottled water what with all the flak about the plastic bottles, yet my tap water tastes horrible unless it's masked in coffee or tea. So if someone can convince me, aside from celebrities in magazines, that water is the miracle I need I'll try it, otherwise I'll maintain my stay at home mom, camel ways.

happy halloween

Oona: 'My, what a large sword you have!'

Owen: 'I'll kill you and your precious kitty trick or treat bag too.'

Mom: 'Just silence the mewing kitty bag, it's all I ask! Well, that and go pee and wash your hands before we start trick or treating.'

Yes, as a Mom I feel like I'm constantly trampling on the good fun of holidays with my admonishments to wash your hands after you pee, watch out for cars, hold my hand crossing the street and say thank you after getting a treat.

Owen in his full costume, he could barely see out of the mask. He finally relented to taking off the mask once, after some heated protests, as dusk approached. We went trick or treating with his friend, Dahlia, the vampire, and her parents. They take karate together, Dahlia lands some solid kicks, I would not mess with her if I was Owen. They get along together really well, her parents are great, and it's a lot more fruitful gathering candy in our tightly packed neighborhood than in the sprawling suburbs, where Dahlia lives. Owen has already informed me that next year he wants to dress up as a witch's cat, like Oona's trick or treat bag.


Oona is spooked by our neighbor who was dressed up as a werewolf, complete with claw paw hands & feet. Me? I'm spooked by how yellow my teeth are, thanks to a dead front tooth. I have no explanation for the molars and canines, they're inexcusably yellow. Yikes! I'll have to talk to my dentist about effective over the counter bleach products next time I see him.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Halloween. The weather could not be beat here, such a nice change from the freezing rain of Halloween '06. Cheers all!