Vacation

I keep dreaming about vacation.

When Ann was in the Bahamas, I dreamed about the ocean. I don't even really like the beach much, but the idea of vacation was making me like anything that isn't right here.

My neighbor down the street told me of their plans to go to Rocky Mountain National Park. I love the mountains, and again, I dreamed of leaving. I mean literally dreamed--not just daydream wistfulness. Asleep and dreaming of going away.

My parents have decided to take the Queen Mary over to London and then fly home. Haven't dreamed about big boats yet, but that made me daydreamy wistful.

I want to get away.

Problem is, everything I want to get away from would be coming with me: night feedings, diaper changes, breastfeeding mysteries, Maeve-don't-touch-your-face, and so forth. In reality, I don't want a vacation (I do--I love traveling with my family, and Rock Eddy is coming up really soon and I can't wait, but that's not what I'm yearning for). I want a retreat.

I have a place where I retreat, but again, Leo isn't at the point where I can go away for even a day, really. And I can't take a day trip to Clyde. It has to be a 4 day weekend to make the 6 hour drive worth it (although last time with the train and seeing Rachel was wonderful, too...but she has a new baby and her life is just another flavor of mine right now...we both need a retreat).

And taking Leo on retreat at this age? There's really no point. I took Sophia at 6 months, and Maeve at a year, but 3 months is still too needy and distracting. I can retreat right here just as well. And maybe that's just what I'll do.

I'll have to think about that.

God Uses a Base-10 System and Loves Round Numbers

I remember that joke in a Dilbert cartoon, I think, back in 1999 when everyone (well, not everyone) was fearing the end of the world come 2000.

I write that because I was over at my dashboard about to write something for the South City Souvenirs blog when I realized that the last entry, about Sophia's reading, was the thousandth entry on South City Musings.

A thousand.

Yay me.

Sophia...reading..sigh

So it's the end of second grade and Sophia isn't reading.

That's not completely true. Or, really, true at all. She is reading. She's just not very fluent or confident. She needs more help and practice. She's too far along for the skills I have, but not far enough along for me to say, "oh, more practice and she'll be fine!"

She is making spelling mistakes reminiscent of my sister Bevin. It could be a long elementary school career.

So she qualified, for whatever reason, for Title One reading services at school. Now, I'm sure I've said before that I have total and complete confidence in her teacher, Anne. I have heard the rumor that next year she will be with either Anne or a new teacher who comes with just as an amazing resume and reputation. Anne "gets" her and so I'm hoping for Anne, but either way, I think we'll be ok.

And she does amazing math and soaks up content like a sponge. She just can't decode. As much as this baffles me, I don't have blinders on. I know we need to get this done immediately. There is no more time to wait and see. This summer is going to be important.

So she qualified for Title One.

The first place I taught, Henry Elementary downtown, every student in the school qualified for Title One, but in a school of 550+, we had one Title One teacher. So how they got their "services" done for the year was by commandeering your classroom for a week and a half and showing Bugs Bunny cartoons all day and yelling at your kids to shut up. I'm not kidding.

The second place I taught was a for-profit school that didn't take government money so that it didn't have to follow the rules.

The third place I taught was a Catholic school in southwest city, and Jody was the Title One teacher. She was SO GOOD. She knew her stuff and did her best for those kids and it helped. She left after two years for a posh private school.

The last place I taught, St. Pius V, had a Title One teacher who was a tad quirky, but who was focused and excellent as well. I was in the middle school at that point and none of my kids qualified for services, but I knew her by reputation.

So I figured it can't be as bad as Henry, and maybe it could be as good as one of the others. It's an after school program, on Mondays only, until 4:45. That's an hour and fifteen minutes. One title one teacher and a group of trained volunteers, the letter said. I replied that yes, Sophia could go. Hey, anything helps, right? I wrote on the form, though, that I would have to pick her up early two of the Mondays due to girl scouts. Yesterday was one of those Mondays.

I walk in at 4:15 and all the kids--lots of them--are on the rug. One woman is sitting in a chair and droning on. Volunteers are ringing the circle, looking hopeful but bored. I explain I have to take Sophia. The teacher doesn't even acknowledge me. Lovely start. I get Sophia into the car and between the school and home, I find out that in the 45 minutes since school let out, they have:

*Had a snack
*Run around
*Made nametags
*Sat in a circle and talked about what they were going to do today

If I were in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, steam would have been coming out of my ears. I looked at the papers she had--it was way more advanced than she was, and they were working on the main idea of a paragraph.

Sophia doesn't need help with main idea. You read her a paragraph and she'll design sets for the musical adaptation of the paragraph. She can listen to Tolkein and CS Lewis and Twain and follow the story without a problem. She can't decode words. We're fixing the wrong problem.

Now, it was the first meeting. Sure. Maybe something more will happen next week. But somehow I doubt it. And if nothing more happens, I'm not wasting her time. She could be playing with the girls on the block instead of wasting more time at school. Seriously. She could be WATCHING BUGS BUNNY CARTOONS in my living room for all the good this looks like it will do.

I'm thinking about what I'm going to do this summer, and I have a conference set up with Anne for Thursday. If it were math, I'd be all over this. I know how math works, how brains work with math, and how brains that don't work with math, work with math. But reading? It's a mystery to me. It's too easy for me. But I can't let this slip through my fingers.

Leo Gets Adjusted

I took Leo to a chiropractor today.

This is a big step for me. I hope in an ok direction. I was raised in a family that essentially mocked chiropractics, which is interesting because they were fond of osteopathy. I have never been to a chiropractor and never figured I'd go, although I see a DO and probably will continue to search out DOs for general/family practice physicians. I know they are different things but it does seem strange to me that I built a big wall around that idea. I have had my back readjusted by a friend who knows what she's doing (really) but never went and sought out chiropractic care.

But Cathy on the phone a week ago, I was talking to her because Leo's latch on is making me crazy with delayed bruise-like pain and blanched skin, suggested this chiropractor because she specializes in infant CST--cranial sacral therapy. Now, online, CST folks seem to suggest it can cure everything from toenail fungus to swine flu, so I wasn't so sure about it. But then I called the friend who readjusted my own back for me, and she told me it was probably worth a try. And that, no, it doesn't do everything they say it does, but what it does do, it does well.

So I called the doctor and she asked me a set of questions about him, all of which I answered in the affirmative: is it more prominent nursing on one side than the other? Has he had an ear infection yet at this young age? Does he spit up a lot? Is he stiff, standing up already?

We saw her today. She started with his hips, which weren't quite in alignment (I'm going to use a lot of words here that I'm probably using wrong, just so ya know). The lumbar vertebrae seemed fine, but then the middle of his back was way messed up. The way she adjusted him? She just laid him on the table, with her hands underneath him, and lifted him slightly. He made all sorts of sounds--little cries, coos, ahs. She worked around front and palpated his belly a bit. He has a hiatal hernia, she told me.

Now, the word "hernia" conjures up images of large men straining themselves lifting something they shouldn't and then surgery. I know, lots of people get hernias. But I hadn't heard this before. She explained it--a bit of the stomach is poking up through the diaphragm. THIS did not make me feel any better, until she explained further that babies get these all the time, they work their way out, and that it's probably the main reason for all the spitting up. I calmed down a bit and she kept moving up his chest.

His collarbones and scapulae were very tight, making him barrel chested. He couldn't hold one hand in the other, and this didn't strike me as odd for some reason. She said it's typical of c-section babies, so maybe my two girls had it like that, too. Huh. His neck was ok, but his temporal bones, jaw, and a few other head things were wonky too. And his frontal bone (forehead) was mashed a bit down on top of the bridge of his nose. She worked on his head a long time, and he was not her friend by the end of that. There was no more working with Leo, nope. She tried massaging his back, getting me to nurse him--nope. He'd made up his mind that this was enough of that game. Still, though, she got a lot done. He was a mess. She reassured me that in the grand scheme of things, he wasn't that bad off. Still though, it seemed like a lot.

We're going back next week to work more on his jaw and to keep an eye on that hernia. He came home and slept, slept, slept. Nursed well on the right side, which is the side that he keeps clamping down on, but the left was still shallow. He hasn't spit up all day. Isn't that weird? And another thing. He can hold his hands together across his chest.

It was definitely worth the try. And now I'm wondering if she can fix Maeve....

Something is coming

I'm looking forward to it arriving. It was a warm weekend, and it's hard not to give into the air conditioning sometimes. I am weak when the weather first changes in either direction. I do harden up, though. It helps that we have a few more windows we can open this spring than last; I hope to slice open the living room window soon so we can get a breeze in the living room and dining room (right now those windows are all painted shut).

The garden's going to be late this year. I kept waiting for another frost up until last week, dang it, and now it's hot. St. Louis. But I put down the paper bags over last year's dirt, and the compost, mulch, grass clippings, leaf mold, and so forth are coming soon. It's a simple garden this year--nightshade and herbs (that is, tomatoes, peppers, and herbs, not the actual plant nightshade). And I'm not doing heirloom tomatoes this year either--I didn't start any from my seeds (or anyone's seeds) this January and it's too late now. So it'll be early girls and your basic plum and whatnot this year. But tomatoes grown at home, even basic ones, are a thousand times better than anything trucked in from out of town.

The yard is cleaning up--I let it go totally to seed last summer and fall. Pregnancy. And laziness. The house is making me reasonably happy. Ah, spring.

Notes From The Weekend

From the weekend:

*Friday night, I lost Maeve in a bookstore. You look around and realize, umm, where is the other daughter? Then the store intercom: If there is a Bridgett in the store, your party is waiting for you at the information desk. And there she was, crying. I'm trying not to think about what could have happened if someone besides a store employee would have reassured her that he could help her find Mommy. Actually, she probably would have raised a fuss. And we were in a mall and it took me only a few minutes to realize she was gone. Controlled exits, a very verbal 4 year old, and Mike and Mal were in another area, eh, it still makes me crazy.

*After that (and dinner, where the next table was a group of four hipsters who drank mixed drinks and talked to/texted other people than who they were drinking with) we went with Mal and Mary to the big book fair at West County Mall. Mike and I and the girls bought a lot of used books. I found a history of Catholicism in St. Louis; Mike got two big books on the ancient world. No great amazing finds--but good stuff.

*Saturday morning, I took the girl scouts to the Arch. Only 6 girls went, but that actually makes for a nice trip. Mike went, and another dad, and it was relaxed and fun. We had a picnic afterward. Nobody got in trouble. It was good. But, like every time I get out of that tiny elevator after coming back down, I thought to myself, "Ah, I survived another trip to the top."

*Saturday afternoon, the girls rested, I cleaned, and Mike hung out with Leo awhile.

*Saturday night was the Clarkson School Extravaganza--the Irish dance big show that happens every two or three years. It's our first one, and it was really good:

*Sophia in fact is not the oldest girl still in a beginner dress. This made me feel better (she could care less, I'm pretty sure)
*Those older kids? They fly through the air. The littlest kids? Adorable. Freakin adorable. Girls in the middle seem to be the workhorses--they all sort of look the same with the wigs and dresses, nothing incredible but nothing amusingly incompetent. It's like three separate shows that way.
*After, Sophia said, "that was a lot more fun than I thought it would be." Ah.
*We got home after 11:30. It's only once every few years after all.

*Sunday, atrium and church, and then we headed over to school to do infuriating volunteer work. I hate what they're doing right now but I really can't say anything here. Bottom line? Sophia and Maeve have wonderful, intelligent, insightful teachers. As long as that keeps up, we'll keep going there. I just don't think I'm going to drink anymore koolaid, thank you very much.

*Sophia, Maeve, and I cleaned up the attic this afternoon. And now, Leo is asleep on my lap and the girls are eating dinner with Mike.

It was a good, but swift, weekend.

Photo Friday: Brown

Yeah. Brown. I didn't pick it, I'm just playing along.

These are dead leaves. Obviously. Taken at St. Mary's Park in Cairo, Illinois, this past Christmas. It was very brown that day. Weird weather--almost 70 degrees and a front moving in. I could have done other photo topics from that day: beige, gray, threatening, lethargy. And pregnant--I was 8 1/2 months along there. And this below is as close as it will get to a photo of that state:

Mostly for Sr. Mary

Ok, today, meaning yesterday at this point (sigh), I led dismissal catechesis for RCIA at church. We talked about community being such an important part of our faith, and all throughout today, I had a nagging feeling that I'd written something down about this (besides my usual quote about staying Catholic at one point because I was Peggy's friend). I found it as I was idly going through older blog entries, way back in my formation year at Clyde ("way back" meaning 2007). I had to write an essay on the call to holiness. And these were the last two paragraphs of what I wrote:

Something about making a promise, a public promise, with a framework and a Rule, helps me towards that holiness. I can tell myself I will do it, but there is no one to hold me accountable except myself. I am not hermit material. If God does know what we are, that we are weak and in need of support, then God understands that community is the most logical situation in which to find that support.

I told my five year old daughter Sophia this afternoon that thunderstorms were expected this week. I like to warn her because she is anxious about storms and tornadoes. After the initial anxiety about the news, she said, “Mom, even if there’s just one other person around, I don’t feel so scared in a storm.” I thought about community and holiness—even if there’s just one other person around to support my desire for God, for what is truly important, that other person can buoy me up and help my pursuit of holiness.

Listening

L I S T E N carefully, my child,
to your master's precepts,
and incline the ear of your heart (Prologue, Rule of Benedict)

It's the first line of the rule that I have pledged to try to live out as best I can in the life I lead. Listen with a finely tuned ear. Not as dictation and not as a slave. Incline the ear of your heart: listen, think, pray, be drawn in.

While stability is my favorite Benedictine vow (and the very easiest for me to follow with my whole heart), and conversion of heart (obviously) is the hardest and most challenging, obedience often gets short shrift in my head. Conversion of heart is something that nags me throughout the day, draws me closer, makes me be a better person on a conscious level. And stability, well, stability fits me like a glove, frankly--this is why I was drawn to the Benedictine oblates as opposed to another third order or associate program. But obedience, even in the way I understand it, I don't obey as well (ironically). Not that I defy the idea, per se, as much as I just find myself, upon reflection, having done a pretty lousy job at it.

Since I'm not a monk, I do not vow obedience to an abbot or prioress. My living out the Benedictine vows is fuzzier--obedience could fall in several places. My husband? My family? My pastor? My oblate director? None of them sounds right in exclusion of the others, really. As an oblate, I feel I am called to obedience across the board.

Remember: obedience here doesn't mean the same thing as it does in the term "obedience school for dogs" or "slavish obedience." I've discussed this before. Obedience means something more akin to an open listening and dialogue leading to a correct path or conclusion. And I do feel I am called to be an open listener to all sorts of people. It's just that I'm having a hard time hearing right now.

On a smaller scale, though, I'm finding myself doing a lot of listening, of the normal kind. As hard as this is for many of you who don't know me in real life to probably believe, I'm finding I have less and less to say out loud these days. Conversations with me are filling with more and more long pauses. Part of this is because I'm trying hard to hold my tongue when what I have to say isn't exactly what needs to be said (the old rule our mothers taught us: if you haven't anything nice to say, don't say anything at all). But part of it, I think, I hope, is realizing that I learn more and have deeper relationships with people when my mouth isn't open the entire time.

And sometimes, when you sit and listen to someone, you hear profound things. Or angry things under a veneer of politeness. Or touching things that surprise you. And I think that has something to do with inclining the ear of one's heart, indeed.

This is something I can do

Tonight was the Celebration of the Light at Atrium. I love the woman who runs the Atrium at our sister parish--she is not someone I would have sought out as a friend in another context, but within the context of the atrium, I do love spending time with her. She's the one who has made this Catechesis her life's work. It is not mine.

She has written and adapted a short little prayer service for the Easter season, which is what we did this evening. Everything in the service is meaningful and beautiful, just like good liturgy should be. She doesn't explain anything while she does it, she doesn't come across as timid or apologetic, and she doesn't add anything just because it would sound/look nice. It's a procession, three readings, a part of the exultet, and two songs (not necessarily in that order). The children carry candles, which always makes me nervous but seems to work out ok.

Halfway into the prayer service, I realized we would all be returning to the first room, where the procession started (sort of a multipurpose room outside the atrium). The lights were out, the adults would have their candles in hand still (though extinguished) and the food was still covered. I slipped out and went over there. Uncovered food, turned on lights, found the box for the candle holders and a tray for the still-warm candles. Returned and placed them on a back table just as things were finishing up. Parents placed candles and holders in their spots, folks went into the other room and everything was ready for them.

It would have been no big deal for one of the moms to simply turn on the lights when they got there, and then several people could have uncovered dishes and candles could have been left on a table or many tables and collected later. But I liked simply making it simple. Already thought of and finished.

Then I headed over to Maeve's preschool fundraiser--I was going to be late because of the prayer service, but I had signed up as clean up crew. I dropped the girls off at home with Kaylen and headed over to SLUH. I got there for the last 3 movements of the string quartet's ode to National Parks (I will brag here and say that they used a lot of my photographs in the slide show). Nursed the baby, and by the time he was done, the performance was over and snacks had begun. Mike took Leo; we talked with Sr. Jean (from the parish, not from Clyde) for a little while and then he went home. I stayed to clean up. I chatted with people as I collected cups and empty beer bottles and whatnot. I had a lemon bar or 4. But then I tidied.

I love making things nice for other people's events. Things I don't care too deeply about (this is not how I am at my own events--I don't stand in the kitchen the whole time when it's about me or my family--I'll do those dishes later!). But I love it when I can set things up or break things down and see that it makes someone's evening easier (or the morning after in the case of dishes after a party). I'm not saying this is all I can do, because it isn't. Nor is it what I am best at. It's just something I can do.

I find that when I'm in a group of people who like doing this, that the conversation is light and the work is fun. Oftentimes there is wine. I don't do this out of some sort of misplaced altruism--I enjoy it. I think about when I've helped make meals for the homebound on Thanksgiving morning or Christmas Eve morning. Or when I've helped out at funeral meals, school events, celebrations that I was only tangentially involved with-or even when I made dinner and helped clean up during the Rios trial a few years back. And I think I have learned the art of letting others help, too--I'm not my grandmother, always the one at the sink scrubbing the pots. When others start asking "What can I do?" I have learned to relinquish. Or invite, depending.

I'm not meaning for this post to be a great big pat on my back. Big whoop, you can recycle glass bottles and throw away napkins. But as I listened to the little prayer service, I thought to myself, man, I can't do what she did. I couldn't have planned it well enough and led it without being self-conscious and self-deprecating and so forth. I do not "speak with authority" in those situations. My natural talents do not lie in that sort of leadership.

I came home and talked to Mike about this. And he pointed out that the first recorded useful thing Jesus did was in the hospitality industry as well. If I could have, I so totally would have found that couple more wine. I would have run out to the package liquor store and bought two cases. Not the same as a minor miracle, but I would have given it my best shot to cover them.

Coughs, Nerves, and Saturday Night Fever

I hate it when babies have coughs. Maeve did it to me--a little bit of asthmatic bronchitis last fall put me on edge, where I guess I've been living ever since. Sophia is so healthy (knock on wood?) and Maeve has been sick every month for the last 15 months. It looks like Leo is more like Maeve. He's on cold #2 and this one has led to an ear infection. So he's got gooey eyes and a sore ear and a cough.

I know in my head that a productive cough that doesn't fatigue the baby and allows him to sleep is nothing to be worried about. But this has been my stream of consciousness, which should be unconsciousness considering that it's ten to three in the morning and I'm still awake (holding him at a 45 degree angle):

It's just a cough but does it sound musical? What is a musical cough anyway? Why couldn't the baby book use a more appropriate description? Or maybe come with a CD of cough sounds to compare to? That would sell, you know. I would buy it. Fever? Is this a fever? Why didn't I get new batteries for the thermometer when I was out this morning? Then I'd know. At least sort of. Maybe a new thermometer would be better. Or an OLD one. Like the old ones with the mercury. That's what I need. Or the red line, what, is that alcohol? How many breaths per minute is this, anyway? It seems normal, but maybe. No, it's ok. Maybe the next time he coughs I can try to retrieve mucus to examine. Because that wouldn't be crazy at all. If he's asleep and his nostrils aren't flaring and his lips are pink and his face is normal, Bridgett, it's ok. But what if I go to sleep and then it isn't ok?

And I'm just post-partum enough to go down the road too far in my head, you know? So I turn on Netflix and watch the pilot episode of Red Dwarf. Consider and then reconsider Law & Order. Realize that yes, I am hungry, and no, there's not much I can do about it here. Hope that Mike can take over the vigil in a few hours so I can get some sleep before church. And what, do I take him to church? Thing is, he's probably not that sick. And I have sundowner's syndrom by proxy and need to just go. to. sleep.

With him in the crook of my arm, of course.

Did I just hear Maeve cough upstairs?

Freecycle Ephemera

I belong to a group on yahoo that used to be called Freecycle and so I still call it that even though it's changed its name to a less catchy "ReUseItStLouis". The premise is that you post things that you want to get rid of, for free, and people email you and tell you when they can pick it up. Sometimes this works like a charm--I got rid of 4 huge boxes of crap, I mean craft, magazines in about two hours (I won't mention how fast the bratz doll disappeared from my porch, eww). Sometimes not so great--I recently freecycled our old TV and it took two weeks and 4 no-shows to move it along to Bob. When something is finally picked up, you post a "taken" message so nobody else emails you looking for it.

You can also post things that you're looking for. In the spirit of "old, used, but still usable," these posts should be things that other people have in their basements--we got a girls bike this way, for instance. Other things that seem appropriate are children's clothing, toys, basic furniture (lots of requests for twin beds and sheets) and so forth. You also could not post a wanted until you'd posted an offer, and you were limited to a couple (maybe it was three) wanted postings a month. But when the list went from being Freecycle to being this new rendition, somehow these little rules went out the window. Suddenly, folks are wanting things that everyone wants--specific book titles, new electronics, high priced baby furniture, depression era glass. Huh?

So anyway, I still stop in now and then because I do get rid of things there that fill my basement (I am turning into my grandmother rapidly). And sometimes I'll snatch something up. But it struck me today as I was looking, that there's a certain...something...sometimes to the post titles in combination. From the page as I read it this evening:

WANTED: air tank
TAKEN: angel food cake pan
OFFER: boys clothes
TAKEN: box of metal hangers
TAKEN: dog coat and anti-bark collars
OFFER: Kitchen Table (PLEASE READ!!!)
Offer: Trash bag of stretchy fabric
Wanted: toddler beds, one boy, one girl
Re-offer: variety of in-house telephone cords

After a while, they all started sounding like something dark to me. A trash bag of stretchy fabric, kitchen table, telephone cord and an air tank? AND metal hangers and a dog collar?? It's just not right.

Banned Book Year

So I'm in this book club. I joined the winter after Maeve was born when Ann invited me, and I've enjoyed my time. It's called something like "I'm in this book club so I read at least one book a month."

The first year I belonged, we read "books we should have read in school" and chose things like To Kill a Mockingbird and so forth. Since then, we didn't really have a theme. The way it works is that you pick a book and then host the following month, when the book is discussed. Now we work kind of on a two month schedule so that you can start early, I suppose. I've done three books thus far (we go in ABC order) and every night I go, there is good conversation and chocolate.

We aren't particularly studious--nobody comes with prepared papers on the books and presents things. That would be, in my mind, awful. No, we just read (or not) and come and discuss (or not) and the conversation turns as it will.

This year, we are reading banned and challenged books. So far, we've read The Handmaid's Tale, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Lady Chatterly's Lover, Song of Solomon, and Brave New World.

Can I just say it? These were excruciating. Brave New World was the only glimmer of light on this list for me. Caged Bird is beautiful but depressing; Chatterly is just plain awful. The Handmaid's Tale made me physically ill.

At one point a month or so ago, Ann said at coffee that she could see maybe why some of these books were banned...and she chose a book for her turn that wasn't necessarily on the list. But it's Pillars of the Earth for June. Julie says sometimes that a given book is "spinach" as in, eat your spinach, but frankly, I like spinach, both in real life and in this analogy.

These feel more like winter squash to me.

I'm at the end of the alphabet, so I have until September or October (we don't run on a calendar year) to pick my book. This is what I've narrowed it down to:

Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
That Was Then, This is Now by S.E. Hinton
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez

I've read Fahrenheit 451--but it would mean more dystopia, dystopia all the time. I've also read Like Water For Chocolate, but I can't recall if the book club has already read it before my time. I haven't read the other three. Anybody out there given them a try? Any thoughts? Any other suggestions? Keep in mind that I kind of want to avoid (at least in general):

Dystopian future
Toni Morrison knock-offs
Bad sex scenes written by men (ahem, DH Lawrence; I suspect Tropic of Cancer by Miller might fit that description too)

I want to follow the theme, but I just can't bear making the group read something awful yet again this year.

Knock on Wood

Or something--while on the right side, there's a bit of burning and discomfort when he latches on, over all, I'm making it ok. I don't have irrational thoughts of running from the room when he needs to eat.

Leo's happy and tylenol is taking care of anything in his ears causing him pain. The white patches are gone; we're sticking to the prescription like glue and supplementing it with all my natural medicine voodoo.

I caught this round 3 days faster than last time, so here's hoping it doesn't get like it did in March. I blame Holy Week. Not really. Last time started with Leo getting a cold, and this time started that way, too. It's just going to be acidophilus powder on his tongue and grapefruit seed extract diluted in distilled water every evening for both of us until he has teeth. I'm thinking 8 teeth will do it (how gross is this: once you have teeth, you don't tend to get thrush because your teeth have enough bacteria to take care of it).

I'm going to go pick up Maeve and go water flowers at church; tonight I get to go to an 8 year old's birthday party at a paint-your-own pottery place, which you know I love. Really--Sophia is the invited guest; I'm just going to paint my own mixing bowl or something of that sort.

Yes, the rumor is true

I have thrush again.

Again.

It didn't even dawn on me that it would come back. I had it once with Sophia, never with Maeve. What the hell is this? I barely have symptoms at this point, just a little rawness (is that a word??), but Leo has a cold, an ear infection, and white patches in his mouth. Click click click when he nurses, and now with the ear infection, he doesn't want to eat at all. Super.

And of course,in accordance with strict tradition and cliche, my doctor's office hasn't called back in the past 2 hours since I first called them.

Oh, and I left my purse at home when I went to the pediatrician, so I still haven't filled the prescriptions for him because when I got home, the HVAC guy was waiting for me and he's still here since we have a 29 year old HVAC system and he's talking in the same language as Christopher Lloyd on Back to the Future and I'm smiling and nodding and asking how much, how much, how much.

Call back, Nurse Cathy. Do it now.

How Penny Failed to Assist Me

My grandmother, my dad's mom, is turning 82 this year. Her name is Odelia but she's always gone by Penny. She is one of those women (That I am turning into, frankly) who knows everyone's story and doesn't notice that she's gone on too long in telling it. I rarely talk to her on the phone not because I don't like her (I do like her) but because it's a two hour time suck, easy, and at the end of it, I don't usually feel like I've absorbed any information.

She used to live in Overland and would drop in. One time, I came home from Easter down in Cairo, and she was planting my front garden. On a whim. Of course, when my parents were first married, she made them new curtains, or, more likely, resized second-hand ones, and let herself into the apartment to hang them while they were out of town.

Now she lives out past St. Charles and I don't see her much anymore. I think twice last year, in fact, which is shameful considering how many times I made it to Cape or Cairo or Columbia. But people fall off my radar if they aren't in my face all the time--the same is true with my Aunt Sarah, who only lives about 4 miles away. I could bike there, and yet, I don't.

Anyway, she called a couple weeks back and asked if I needed any help. I didn't, really, not at that point, but we chatted a bit about the baby, the girls, whatnot. She knows I'm working on genealogy and she had some things to add. And told me to call her if I needed help.

Well, I don't communicate that way. I didn't get that this was her way of asking to see the baby. My mom let me know about a week later that I probably needed to call Penny. Not in a guilt way, just in an understanding that Penny wanted to see Leo (her favorite uncle was a Leo--the name is a powerful draw) and that maybe I didn't catch her meaning. So I called. Told her I had this banner to make. Could she come hold the baby?

She came Monday, through the faux snow, and sat on my couch. I tanked Leo up, and, drunk on breast milk, he sat on my lap and smiled away at her. What a charmer. So cute. Cooed and grinned and batted his eyes. And she knew I had this banner, so she said to hand him over and go work.

I handed him over, and he started to cry. Not like "hey, I liked that lap better" or "but I'm not done sleeping/eating/etc." Like terrified painful shrieking. Like the little stork bite birth mark on his forehead turned purple. Angry scared bad news kind of crying. So I took him back. He instantly stopped, and turned on the charm, as if he hadn't just done that.

We tried a few more times. No luck. In the end, I didn't get much banner done, and that was probably good because I started over the next day. Penny also brought me a little statue of Mary because I'm her oldest granddaughter and she had been the oldest granddaughter and had it passed to her. It was Maria's. Maria was Alois Frick's daughter, one of the kids he abandoned in an orphanage in Cape Girardeau while he fled to Texas after the Civil War. The nuns gave her the statue.

The rest of the day, I tried a few times to give it a go upstairs--once Leo napped for about an hour and that worked ok. But the rest of the time, I was forced to hold him and visit with my grandmother. And you know, that wasn't such a bad idea.

The past few months, I feel like a wave of ancestry has been drowning me. Holding that mild-faced Mary statue and thinking about how I'm forcing roots down and filling in blanks in lives of people there's nobody left to talk about (Bridget Kidney, for instance, and Jennie Blake). I'm sucking up stories about my grandfather like they're a precious commodity. I'm stopping at cemeteries. I'm talking to my grandmother, and listening.

Leo probably won't remember her, I think as she leaves--Sophia barely remembers Mike's grandmother who died when she was almost 3. Maybe Penny will make it another 10 or 15 years, but she is already not the same person I knew in college or when I first moved here. Two days after her visit, my mom called to tell me she'd fallen and broken her wrist--the way she said it on the phone to my dad was "I fell three times today and broke my wrist," as if she had to keep trying. We laughed a bit at this--we know this woman and who she is--but it was another reminder of how the present is quickly, silently, slipping into the past.

Not what I intended to sit and write. But that's ok too.

Just Something to Get Off My Chest

I don't usually complain about Mike, and I only do so here in jest. It's all ok.

Last week Wednesday at coffee, Janet says, "Isn't the invitation from Julie so cute?"

Ann agrees. I look confused. The baptism, they explain. Leo, you see, is part of a mini baby boom at my parish--all boys, 5 of them, that I know of. Julie's baby is up first, the weekend after Easter.

"Oh, I didn't get one," I say without worrying about it, really.

"You will," Ann tells me. "She was passing them out at Mass Sunday."

Sunday already felt like a long time before. I keep knitting. We chat.

Thursday comes and goes, and nothing in the mail. Ah well, I think. Maybe she'll bring it to Holy Thursday mass. Nope.

Now, I'm not the sort of person who elbows her way into other people's events. I don't like it when I watch other people do it, and I try not to be That Person. But I started to wonder if I'd done something, you know? Did I say something? Forget something? But Julie isn't the sort of person to keep quiet, and I'd like to think that we are close enough she'd point out when I screw up. But I worried about this--not about missing the baptism, but what I might have done to hurt this relationship.

I didn't think about it all the time, but it kept creeping back into my head. Damn it, I hate when that happens. Saturday night after the vigil mass, I even dreamed about it, which means something, I think. That I value this friendship, this wonderful group of women I've found myself in at church out of the blue, and wouldn't it be JUST LIKE ME to screw that up.

This morning, I get an email from Julie, a bulk email inviting folks to the baptism and to lunch afterwards. I feel better. I don't read anything into this. I reply yes.

But wait.

I go downstairs to the phone table this afternoon. I know my last bill from St. Luke's is due and I don't remember getting a statement. I start shuffling through everything and find it. And a statement from the insurance company.

And the invitation.

Probably arrived Monday or Tuesday.

Mike got the mail. Didn't even look. I had some very specific words to say to him, but I refrained...instead, I opened the invitation, felt better about myself, realized Julie's email was because I had failed to RSVP, and concluded that, yes, it was a beautiful invitation.

Mike is now barred from getting the mail unless I am out of town.

Quilter's Block

So I think I had quilter's block the past two weeks, off and on. It must be what writer's block feels like (which I of course have never had). I had to make a banner for church. I had two weeks, but thought I had 3. Oops. Suddenly, I was stuck.

White is the color of Easter. So I went to the LQS and picked up several quarter yards of whites-on-white and golds-on-white. Went home and waited to be inspired. Sunbursty starbursty images seemed appropriate. Mike and I talked about it. I drew some ideas on paper. Looked good.

I divided the quilt top into quarters, made freezer paper patterns, and got to work. Two hours after I began, the Saturday before Palm Sunday, I had the smallest quarter done (the work was off center on purpose). I didn't like it. Mike made some suggestions. I started getting a creeping feeling of doom.

Sunday, we did other things. I did spend about a half hour fixing the first bit, giving it a little more depth, which worked, sort of. I still didn't like it, though. I thought maybe with more of it done...

See, the center of it was this beautiful little starburst. Beautiful. Done with paper piecing, tiny little pieces. The whole thing was less than 6 inches across (or, for Ann: acrost) and had 36 pieces sewn into it. I loved it. But it wasn't enough to carry a whole banner. And the rest of it was not coming together like it was supposed to in my head.

This made me consider things about my faith, actually--why is it that the Incarnation is so much easier for me to wrap my head around than the Resurrection? But maybe I'm sleep deprived and on a deadline and that's all.

My grandmother came over Monday of Holy Week (more on that later) and I finished abother quarter. Mike came home and his face said the same thing I was thinking: it wasn't good. So Monday evening I went back to my local quilt shop and tried again. I settled on a green and purple batik-ish tie-dye-ish piece of fabric. I went home and prayed that inspiration might come.

It did, sort of. On Tuesday, Ann held Leo and I got the top and back done. I liked it a hundred times better than my first try, but I was still not sure. I pinned it together Wednesday and let it sit Thursday before I quilted it--Holy Thursday was kind of busy for me. Mike was off on Friday and I knew I'd have a good chance to get most of it done (it was due Saturday evening).

I like words, and the Christmas banner I made has Numbers 24:17 as its inspiration. I flipped open to the Gospel of John, just by chance, really, instead of one of the synoptics. Found the Resurrection narrative and settled my eyes, kind of lectio style, actually, on the words "And so she ran" in John 20:2. I like the image of haste, the connection to what a blur the last few days must have been for her, the other women, the apostles. I can feel her panic. I went to a nice concordance online with the Greek words--"and so she ran and went to Simon Peter" doesn't seem to quite convey what it said originally. More of something like "And OF COURSE she ran and went to Simon Peter." I liked that.

So I quilted it in. In Greek. The translation is in smaller letters on the main vertical ray of white; other Easter words are in the other rays (Peace be with you, Alleluia, she came to the tomb early in the morning).

I like the greeny-yellowish blur on the right side, kind of like dawn before it is light, but look, the dazzling white all around you, brighter than the dawn. The quilting near the center of the rays is a tomb image (in my head, at least), with the stone rolled back. I still don't think I like it for our church. But I like it for its own merits. And I could always try again in a few years.

Three Years Ago On South City Musings

From April 12, 2006:

Sibling Revivalry

There are 8 years separating me and my next younger sister. Of course, there’s a brother in between us, but I have about as much in common with him as I do with any isolationist mortgage broker who lives in Texas. Bevin is 23, and then Colleen is 2 years younger, about to turn 21 this June. They both attend Mizzou, and this year they live together on East Campus. I’m visiting this week, just a few days, with my girls, who are just 3 years apart themselves.

Being 8 years older than Bevin, and 10 ½ more than Colleen, I was old enough to change diapers when they came along, but then I went to junior high and high school and away from them. They have grown up as acquaintances, people who lived with my parents. I didn’t really come to know them until after I was a married homeowner, when my parents moved up to St. Louis, just a block away, as if we were some long-term family with roots in the area. Which we are, except for that whole 20 years on the road thing we did.

They are much cooler than I am—than I ever was. They know how to drink hard liquor and how to dance at bars. They are smart and interesting, and I’m a mom of two kids who drives a mini-van. I look at them and I know that they wouldn’t have much tolerance for me if there wasn’t kinship. Of course, that road runs both ways; they are lucky too for the bond.

Their apartment, a full floor of a house, is filled with a hodgepodge of cast-off furniture and knickknacks, some from my house, some from my mother’s. I’m sitting in a chair I stole from the dorm; Bevin’s dresser is mine, simply painted black. The kitchen table was from my first apartment, the pots are my parents’ first cookware. There are little reminders everywhere, but jarring juxtapositions as well. The Day of the Dead statue by the computer and the lacquered mannequin in the living room are creepy and out of place next to that end table from my grandmother’s house. It’s like walking through a dreamscape—everything seems right, except for the glowing pink dog.

They’re sort of like that, too. We have similar tendencies towards obsessive-compulsive disorder, but Bevin’s is far more pronounced. The arguments sound like ones I’ve had, but they’re a little edgier. The bumper stickers on the coffee table are places I once frequented—but I don’t put bumper stickers on my coffee table anymore. Wanting to balance my visit with a friend’s birthday night and feeling guilty is very familiar to times when they visited me in college. Colleen’s boyfriend has a similar laid-back stay-in-the-background demeanor Mike once had (but no longer).

Soon, perhaps already, we will all be adults together. They will marry, or maybe not, have kids, or maybe not, and we will take pictures of the whole family on my parents’ back porch. We will argue about politics and religion and go camping and get drunk and wonder how we could possibly come from the same family. Our parents will age and we will resent each other for being there, or not being there, or not being able to be there but desperately wanting to. We will send annoying Christmas letters to each other and know in our hearts that everyone is lying.

But I hope we don’t disappear from each other’s lives. Even my brother—in the end, we know each other better than anyone can, I was there when each of them was born. We have enjoyed and survived our childhoods together and there is this common memory, or shared base, perhaps, that no one else in our lives, no matter how close we may think we are to that person, can ever have.

Bevin stands in the doorway drinking whiskey and soda, teasing my younger daughter and making her laugh.

Three Little Birds

My daughters attend a small montessori school about 10 blocks from my house. Sophia is in the charter school (=free) part, and Maeve goes to the preschool (not free, but very reasonable). It isn't a strict insane montessori--they use plastic, for instance. But it follows the philosophy really closely when it comes to teaching and materials. I was very skeptical until I saw a demonstration on place value. That was it. I was sold.

It's kind of a bare bones operation right now--the preschool and two classrooms, designated elementary and pre-elementary, since first graders are in each room and it isn't right to call one kindergarten and the other elementary, or even a K-1, since Sophia is in a 1-3 (or possibly a 1-4, but I'm unsure about that fact--she's a second grader, which is the majority of the kids in her room).

It is so relaxed that sometimes I worry that it approaches comatose. But then Sophia comes home and talks about language origin theories with me. You know? "Mom, we learned the pooh-pooh theory today, and the yo-hee-ho, and the la-la-la..." and she can tell me what they are and why they're important.

Oh, and she can multiply 56,870 by 34. That kind of stuff. She can do long division, a task I didn't learn until 4th grade. So things are ok.

There is no perfect school. Things irritate me about this one that probably would irritate me anywhere. They take the idea of in loco parentis pretty far. Notes home from the administration can be condescending to the point of infuriating. But as long as they keep hiring teachers like Miss Anne, we'll keep going.

And then last week, I was singing in the car to try to calm Leo down (futile). I was singing Three Little Birds by Bob Marley:

Woke up this morning
Smiled at the rising sun
Three little birds
Outside my window
Singing a sweet song
A melody pure and true, singing
This is my message for you

Singing, don't worry about a thing
Cause every little thing
Is gonna be all right

You know it.

When I got to "outside my window," Maeve interrupted me. "Mom, I thought it was 'outside my doorstep.' That's the way Miss Madonna sang it to us."

Miss Madonna is no relation to the pop star, but she is the music teacher. I think I'm right on the lyrics, but I was just so pleased to learn that my kids were learning Bob Marley songs in preschool.

Sophia came home yesterday asking me if I know how "Lift Every Voice and Sing" went. I didn't. She taught me.

Now, this alone doesn't make a perfect school. But a school that hires a music teacher who sings protest songs and reggae and folk and so forth with the kids, well, it can't be all bad.

Oh Sweet Canada

In April, I wake to bird song. The cheerily-cheer up of the robin, and the what chew, what chew, birdie birdie birdie? of the cardinal. Lots of other calls I don't know as well (Drink your tea?), and zillions of chirpy random calls. This is the moment when I know it is spring. The daffodils are often early; the bradford pear trees (folly) come out before I can say it is spring. It snowed this past Monday again, and I have a hard time saying it is spring when chunky wet snow is falling on my windshield.

But the bird song makes me change my mind even if the snow is falling. It is spring again.

The funny thing is that I'm in the blue zone--winter habitat--on this map. It should be time to leave, I would think. It's going to be 64 degrees today--the juncos have headed north already. So why is this white throated sparrow hanging around singing in the mornings? Oh Sweet Canada Canada Canada he sings, sounding like he's right outside my bedroom window. In quiet pauses during the day, his off-pitch piercing song comes through the brick walls. I sit outside with kids and there it is again. What makes him decide that now is the time to sing (I have never seen him at my feeders, never heard his song in wintertime), for two or three weeks, and then head back to sweet Canada?

(not my photo--public domain)

Holy Week

I have not disappeared.

I am busy.

But soon:
*My grandmother's futile attempt to assist me
*Quilter's Block
*Leo updates
*upcoming dates
*Thoughts on the oh sweet CanadaCanadaCanada bird outside my window
*Why I like my daughters' school
*Probably a Holy Week rundown/reflection

And so forth. I promise--I can't stay away too long.

Mariachi Moment

Tonight, we dropped off Sophia at Irish Dance and went to pick up Bevin. Since the CSA is on pause, I have forgotten how to shop at grocery stores. Honestly. So I shopped last Friday, but here it is, the following Thursday, and there's nothing really to eat that can be made in time (there's a whole chicken in the freezer, and all the deer meat in the world, but Mike and I just stood in the kitchen staring at the fridge wondering when life will return to normal).

So we picked up Bevin. "Where do you want to eat?" I asked her, since she's the pickiest person in the group. I expected the "I don't know, you decide" routine that drives Mike crazy, but not this time.

"How about El Burrito Loco?" she suggests. "It's on Bates."

"Sounds like a Mexican place," I joke with her, but Literal Girl answers: "Yes, it is." So I take Morganford up to Bates and head to Grand. It's raining, a cold spring night, already almost dark. I park in the lot next door and realize, oh, I know this place. I've seen it from Grand when I'm heading home from some place in the deep south.

We walk in, one behind the other; I've got Leo and Mike's carrying Maeve, who fell asleep in the van on the way. Immediately, we're hit with the jarring vision of an oversized guitar neck and a man in a black suit with a big bow tie sitting in a booth.

It's a small restaurant, two little rooms with seating for maybe 30. They show us to a table, and then I'm able to turn around and see, yes, it is a mariachi band sitting in the front room. We order dinner and about the time our food arrives, the band is off break and back in action. There is a table of Spanish speakers behind us, and they start there. Between trumpet blasts, I turn to Bevin.

"You come here a lot?" She nods. "This ever happen before?"

"Nope," she grins.

The tamales are better than the enchilada--next time I'm ordering just tamales, in fact. We eat in silence, because the music is so loud we can't hear each other anyway. Two women are dancing between the tables. Maeve wakes up halfway through the first song, frowning. It must have been disconcerting to wake up to this.

After 5 or 6 songs, they approach our table and the leader, with a small guitar marked "tips -->" pointing to the hole in the center of the guitar, greets us. Do we have a request? I tell him I don't know what we'd even ask for. So they suggest a song for the little girl (Maeve is now trying to hide behind Mike).

They play "It's a Small World After All" with Spanish lyrics. Maeve warms up a bit to this idea.

During this, or perhaps during the dancing, Bevin leans over to me and says, "the people at the next table are reading magazines." And they are. An anglo couple, sipping margaritas and acting all the world like they're waiting to see the dentist, flipping through catalogs and pointing things out to each other. As if there isn't a mariachi band 8 inches from their faces. They decline a request and I notice they do not tip.

After a couple more songs, we leave since we need to meet Sophia at home when Janine drops her off post-dance class. I thank Bevin for bringing us--now that I've been once, I can go again. I think about the last mariachi band I experienced, in San Antonio on retreat. Yes, on retreat. I think about what must make a small group of men gather in a hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant in South St. Louis and play loud music for a crowd of 12 or 13 people, most of them looking around at each other wondering if they missed a memo.

And then I consider Irish Dance and I stop musing.

Let Her Be

We saw the pediatric epileptologist today. Dr. Vashist, after an extremely long wait in the front waiting room and then even more waiting in the exam room, turned out to be a young, extremely friendly and engaging person. She had Maeve run and jump and touch her nose and all those weird neurology tests. Maeve passed.

She then turned to talk to me. We went over all the details of January 28, and at the end, she knocked on the side of the cabinets and said, "only one. That's what we want to hear."

Her EEG was normal, the MRI was normal. The high fever afterward means it's likely the seizure was febrile. Now, since there is a family history of epilepsy, we're not in the clear (actually, nobody's in the clear, ever). But Dr. Vashist told me that even if it wasn't febrile, she wouldn't do anything until/unless Maeve has another one. And even then, depending on how long it is between them, we would have to see.

"Let her be who she is going to be and don't worry," she told me. "You don't have to come back to see me and if all goes well, we'll never see her again."

It isn't until I wrote that right there that it all sort of came into perspective. How much I've been holding my breath for the past two months. How sometimes, I feel like the luckiest unlucky person I know.